Category: truth is stranger than…

The terrorists stole my plot line!

Was sitting at my desk at work, drumming my fingers on the faux wood surface wondering, “What on earth can I post about in my blog today”…and not finding many answers.

That’s when nature (and two cups of hot tea) called and I was forced to rise from my desk and use the facilities. I walked along thinking, “I need a topic, I need a topic, I need a topic”.

I went over to the other half of the building since the loo near me was being serviced by the faboo janitorial team.

When I went into the “other side” I noticed that the door to what I thought was a janitorial closet (and is always tightly closed) was slightly open. It’s NEVER open. Being the nosy Nellie that I am, I peeked in there.

Little did I know that there’s a shower and a small set of lockers in this building! I looked over the lockers and noticed that all you gotta do is slap a lock on the locker of your choice.

Nice.

So *immediately* my fiction writer brain thought “god…what a great place to stash something…”

Remember when airports and bus stations used to have lockers where, for the fee of one quarter, you could stash your suitcase or whatever for a bit while you did something else?

Whatever happened to those? They made for GREAT plot points in MANY a mystery story.

How the bad guy would stash the murder weapon there and thought he got away with it but no, he couldn’t resist going BACK to the locker and by now the police were tailing him and he gets flat *busted* there in the Greyhound station, red handed, red faced, red wristed when the cuffs get slapped on.

It was fun. It was convenient! It was a great hiding place.

Why don’t we have them anymore? 9-freaking-eleven, that’s why.

Ok, so no more in bus station and airports, but now THIS find. I bet they don’t check these lockers here at work all that often. I could put damning evidence like receipts from surreptitious wire transfers and plots to take over the world with my fleet of robot drones!

Ah hahahahahahahahahahaha!!!!

Oh, @#$%…..I guess I can’t do it now. I just published my idea on the interwebs.

*sigh*

Back to work.

My lunch pal

I have a friend at work who, most days, I go to lunch with. Now, when I say “go to lunch” I should probably clarify.

She and I go together to the cafeteria onsite to grab some food that we take back to our respective desks. There at the desks, we eat and work, thus maximizing our time. You’d be surprised how busy noontime can be, seeing as we have main offices two time zones ahead…two o’clock there seems like a nice time for a meeting. Ugh.

My pal has worked here for a while, like me, and she and I are at the same level, reporting to the same manager.

We use the time on our walks to seek advice from each other. We talk over management problems. Or just to complain, because our employer inspires that in most of its employees.

She was raised in Ohio by a Steel Magnolia-of-a-mom straight out of the deep South. So that’s given her a certain, uh, colorfulness that is often amusing.

Lunch Pal is having some problems on her team, which means she gets pulled into last minute meetings and closed-door discussions in the office of our boss.

So I end up *waiting* on her until she finishes.

I tried going off for food without her a couple times.

It didn’t go over well.

No, I’m expected to WAIT on her to finish so we can walk over together. Who cares how hungry I am? It’s all about her.

Let’s face it, my friend is really kind of a pain in the ass.

So why am I wasting both bandwidth and pixels on her?

Because she’s on vacation this week!

HOW DARE she not be here?

She may be a pain in the ass, but she’s my pain in the ass.

Never thought I’d miss her…

I’m kind of having a day like this, too.

“A Milwaukee man was accused of shooting his lawn mower because it wouldn’t start.“

“He told police quote, ‘I can do that, it’s my lawn mower and my yard so I can shoot it if I want.'”

Darn tootin’, you can! Except for those pesky police!

Thankfully for my coworkers, I posses neither a lawnmower nor a shotgun.

But I might whing a mighty ballpoint pen at my computer screen.

I’ll do it too!

Thar she blows!

Yup. There you go. The Good Man and me are legally licensed to run off like two crazy kids and hitch our lives together, willy-nilly without regard for consequences!

YIPE!

juuuuuust kidding!

The good news is that the county produces this handy illustrated booklet to help us get through “the rough patches”.

Last evening, we solemnly flipped through the pages.

Who knew that keys to a happy marriage included regular exercise and washing your vegetables before consuming?

Ah well…: plugs nose and jumps in :

____________________

PS: ok, that’s not the *actual* license above, rather a pretty souvenir the State of California provides…the real one is quite ugly…form-like, in triplicate and all that governmental schtuff.

The iTunes Phenomenon

One of the really cool features of iTunes is Sharing. So the deal is, when there are other people on your same network, if they turn sharing on, you can listen to their iTunes library. Not copy, but listen.

Cool, no? Working in an office like I do, there is a whole long list of other people’s music I can check out. I’ve found some good stuff this way. For example, it’s how I got turned on to the Gypsy Kings.

I’ve also been on the sharing side. I say without shame I’m the proud owner of “Ultimate Daryl Hall & John Oates”, a two disc best of compilation. And I’ve discovered LOTS of people are really into Hall & Oates, because they stop me in the halls and comment on listening to my iTunes Library.

But here’s what gets my OCD up…

When I look at other’s iTunes collections, they are SO neat and quite tidy. Full albums. All band names and titles in their proper place. Neatly arranged and ordered for maximum findability.

My library on the other hand is a mish-mash. One song from an artist here. Six full albums from another artist (*coff*FleetwoodMac*coff*) over there. Chock a block full of “iTunes Artist of the Day” downloads from Starbucks.

And then there are the oddball Christmas downloads leftover from the Napster free-for-all days. No, the RCIAA didn’t come after me for payment on that copy of Billy Squier‘s “Christmas is a Time to Say I Love You”. I’m sure they snickered when my download log came across their desk.

Comparatively, my iTunes library looks like a twister came through and jumbled all the pieces.

Ah well, I hit “shuffle” and it all seems to work out.

The other fun thing about Sharing on iTunes is that you learn a LOT about people based on what music they have in their collection.

The most startling so far is an older gentleman I work with. A quiet gent, hails from Ireland and speaks with a soft brogue. Been married over forty years, kids long raised, he’s a quiet respectful guy.

His iTunes library contains, and I’m not making this up:

Pussycat Dolls
Jessica Simpson
Ashlee Simpson
Britney Spears
Rhianna

Just to name a few. TOTALLY unexpected. He claims he enjoys these artists for the music……

Then again, what does MY iTunes library say about me? Hmm……I think I’ll go uncheck “Sharing” now…