Writing Wrongs

Lazy morning, I got out of bed at 9 to email work that I'd be in at 11. Got there at 10:30.

At 6, Kaan wanted to play fetch, and when I did not, he decided to play fetch with himself all over the bed. So I threw his toy out the bedroom door. He dropped it against my back 3 seconds later. He is one fast kitten. Runs like a greyhound, fetches like a lab or retriever. Disguised as a sealpoint Siamese.

At 8:30 he tried again, this time he got tired of it after maybe 10 throws.

Work was mostly wrap-up stuff. Except for one project which another department asked me to do 2 days ago, but then the person who was supposed to do that side of the work never got back to me. Person did when I copied both our bosses, but person is on travel all next week so if person's boss doesn't help, they won't get this project done. Any other department at work which asks me to do a project (or really asks my boss, who assigns one of the testers) will work together with me quickly and keep on top of my progress.

The good news is it is probable that when the company sale is final Any Month Now™, that department will go away. Or be absorbed into the new corporate bureaucracy.

I think I spent more brain cells on my weekly report than I did on actual work today. It was a busy week.

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International Women's Day. I have a hard enough time with Pride Day and Black History Month, so a day for the majority of the world's population is not a big whoop for me.

( And some history )
So I guess you would say my female role models match up against pretty much any male role models out there. Which is why I don't think International Women's Day is any biggie. For every Hilary Clinton and Elizabeth Warren there is a Sarah Palin and Michelle Bachman.

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Brigadoon is shaping into a pretty good, fun show. Which is why I was all WTF over the beautiful publicity postcards they came up with:

Lovely picture with enough info on the front.

But the back:



So. Where do I put an address label and a stamp? And where is the USPS required 1/4 inch blank space at the bottom for their barcode?

FAIL.

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Sold an item on eBay which left here with a pristine screen and one small scuff mark on the back. It arrived in Anapolis, the buyer said everything was fine, it was in her office charging. It was sent to her residence, which is not her office. Next day she says there is a small crack in the corner of the screen. I tell her the item was insured for what she paid for it, she should take the packaging and the phone to her PO and file a claim. Phones can get broken just by the package being dropped, something about garvity, acceleration and instant deceleration. But she says no, she will just buy a protective sheet for it. Yes, it might cost more than what she paid to replace the screen, but isn't $250 in your pocket better than $0? So I'm convinced she broke it herself and was either trying to scamme, or just too embarassed to admit it.

Another similar phone didn't sell, and someone sent a message asking if it sold or not. I replied that no, it did not sell, and I was re-listing it as soon as I took pictures of it. Unfortunately, eBay's phone app sent the reply to the first buyer, whose name is Crista. Second buyer's name is Chris. Crista went ballistic, thnking I was going to try to re-list her phone (how? Idiot). As soon as I got to a real computer at home I sent her an "OMG, oops, sorry" message and sent Chris the message which should have been sent in the first place.

Then I took photos of the phone front and back so there is evidence that the phone was fine when I shipped it. It is now re-listed and set to start on Sunday at noon, ending Thursday noon, when most Americans who have jobs are on their work computers playing on eBay.

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A fairly famous and incredibly talented woman I am acquainted with (have known her from both sci-fi and opera for 20+ years) has posted on FB that she has finally kicked her abusive husband out, filed a restraining order and divorce papers. She almost did this a few tims before, but never got up the courage. I am heartbroken to hear what she has been going through, until last week I had no idea. I stopped wondering long ago why women who appear to be strong and independant allow themselves to be regularly battered by the people they love. In this case it is especially shocking because she has a HUGE number of people around her who would not hesitate to help her.

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That's quite enough for not having anything to write about.

Except this: if smallship1 hasn't heard, at Consonance there was an announcement, and a note in the program encouraging folks to visit your online store and buy stuff. It was very well received and I hope there have been/will be some positive results.

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Oh, and this: looking at the photos Boskone returned, the ones which sold were of a crescent moon against a black night sky, a very colorful Chinese temple dragon, and lemmozine in his guitar sunglasses.

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Plans for tomorrow:
10 am appointment to have the car's remote trunk release fixed and the broken backup camera replaced.
That will take 3-4 hours, which will probably be spent at the mall. I shoud bring my cane.
Maybe I will start organizing those aerogrammes I sent home from Peace Corps 


 

Slept in, except for getting up in time to take drugs. Stayed in bed watching the DVD player update its firmware. Then watched a DVD. And checked out some Amazon Prime free video, to make sure the update didn't break anything. Read some more, with Domino curled in a little ball behind me. Which reminded me to change her litterbox.

Went out to the pool at about 3, found a spot in the shade, and read. Lots of bikinis out there, about 5 of them on bodies which are bikini-worthy. One of them was speaking Russian with a big guy who was wearing a Gold's Gym T-shirt. When he took it off to go swimming, it was clear he had not been in the gym lately. Looks like a former body builder, though. After an hour or so, the sun had hit where I was sitting, so I moved to the other side of the pool. This gave me a nice view of a couple who came in a few minutes later, with five kids. Mom & Dad were both tattooed over every inch of what was not covered by swim suit. Dad had portraits of three of the kids on his torso. Soon the place was filled with kids, time to leave.

I'm reading Orson Scott Card's Pathfinder. Except for him getting wrapped up occasionally in convoluted faux-time-travel logic, it's pretty good.  

Did the laundry yesterday, forgot to take the shirts out of the dryer. So I ran the dryer for a bit and forgot again till about 7 pm. I had one less load to do because my Walmart order arrived, a month's supply of new socks and undies. Threw out the old ones, which were starting to fall apart.

Parked myself in the recliner and read some more, then made a late lunch - fried 3 eggs and slapped them onto two pieces of whole wheat bread. Chocolate ice cream for dessert.

Watched what was on ESPN-U, a series of Grudin interviewing quarterbacks, one at a time. Half an hour per. His organization is called the FFCA - Fired Football Coaches Assn. Gotta love it. One of the QBs, a 6'7" [young] Elvis look-alike Brock Osweiler from Arizona State, was praised by the coach for his tattoos. One says "Live Life to it's Fullest". Coach did not notice the mis-used apostrophe.
 
A permanent reminder of a jock's education. Crap tattoo job, too.

While I was watching that, I was also seeing all the piled up boxes in the corner, from my online purchases. Finally got out the box cutters, broke those down and hauled them out to the dumpster. Much prettier livingroom that way.

Next up was the NC State spring football game, which I expect happened yesterday, but was definitely not live since the sun was out there, at 10 pm NC time. Early in the game the smoke alarm in my livingroom went off. I got out the ladder and pushed the reset button, but it kept chirping every minute or so. Called the emergency maintenance line, and got a callback in half an hour, the another half hour for him to get here. He had given me instructions on how to pull the battery and drain the capacitor which stores the chirp juice, but I didn't want to go all night without a working alarm. He put in a new battery, but it kept chirping. Apparently it works better if you don't put it in backwards. Not his fault, the +/- is almost impossible to see.

The Moto cell phone which sold on eBay last time for $160 but a-hole buyer did not pay, went for $200 this morning. It is boxed up and ready to ship.

In other news, there are three or four friends on FB who get all emo from time to time, and post a dozen or so in a row, allegedly inspirational quotes, pictures, poems, etc. Most of them tell me they are depressed and lonely. One of them also posts invitations to join her for dinner, but the place she picks is a total sleaze dump, and she wonders why she rarely gets company there. And then there's the one hard core unemployed person who posts every 3 minutes anything which catches his eye on the 6,284 web sites he regularly scans. Maybe once a day it's something interesting.

Plans for tomorrow:
Work, team meeting at 9
BASFA, maybe. I have an auction item which ought to fetch at least a quarter.