My Life is A Drama Free Zone

And, of course, to do my laundry I have to make regular trips back and forth from the basement. Keep in mind I live on the third floor, but that's a whole other issue. So every time I have to make a trip down there, to bring clothes down or take the clean ones up, I get a nice healthy dose of weed smell. I've never smoked it, but I've been around enough people to have… I can tell what's going on. Now, personally, I could care less one way or the other, I mean, I can't control what these other fools do in their apartments, but Christ almighty. Not what I want to smell when I leave the laundry room, thankyaverymuch. Ah well, they just let anyone rent apartments here it looks like.

January 27, 2007

Easiest evening I've had in ages.

In 2 minutes, I will be off, unless my phone goes off. I haven't had a call in 10 or so. I think I'm gonna be safe for getting off at 11 tonight… sweet, freakin, jesus. Saturday night means pizza, garlic bread, and hopefully not staying at work 'til 1 in the morning. Not that I don't want to, but… this is my weekend, dammit. I wanna go home. And now, I can.

January 26, 2007

They heard me think about giving up coffee.

So in an attempt to stop that obvious plot in its tracks, the bastards have gone and developed ways to put caffeine in baked goods. Go for a doughnut and coffee, and only need the doughnut. Hey, and it'll probably be cheaper for you, too. I promise, whether I give up coffee or not, I will never give up caffeine.

January 25, 2007

Someone's the paranoid sort, me thinks.

Just another example of a backwards country. A Jordanian father decided his daughter's word and the word of a medical exam weren't good enough, apparently, and shot her for supposedly not being a virgin. Now, granted I'm on the wrong side of the world to really care, but… around here, that's perfectly and totally normal. I wouldn't be surprised if people at 17 weren't shot for still *being* virgins, really. Ah, well. If we can have nutty dictators, we can have off the wall social norms. Thank the gods I don't live there.

I'd be insulted too, but for a different reason.

A fast food group is up in arms about Kevin Federline's participating in an ad campaign for an insurance company, playing the part of a fast food worker day dreaming about starring in a music video. Now, I can understand how it is they could perhaps see that as being a tiny bit insulting, I mean, it's implying that everyone who works there would rather be doing anything but that, right? But… honestly? I think I'd be more insulted by the fact it's Kevin Federline doing the acting. The guy can't act… that's such a truth. The guy can't sing… that's a more obvious truth. Even the insurance company says if anyone's being made fun of here, it's Federline. At which point I silently snicker and move on to the next article, and try to keep a straight face while taking this call. That's the hardest part…

January 23, 2007

I officially need more blogs to read.

It's damn near 1 in the morning, I technically don't *have* to be in bed for another hour, and I'm bored as hell. Not to mention I need something to read during down time at work… and hardly anyone on my current llist of blogs actually blogs regularly anymore! … Not that I really have all that much room to talk lately but we're not touching that with a 50-foot pole. Besides nothing exciting happens around here anymore.

Speaking of work, though, for the first time since my first day I actually managed to be considered off as of 11:00, as opposed to the typical 11:30, 12, or 12:30 that's been the norm. I'd actually forgotten what it felt like to be off when I'm supposed to be.. pretty sad considering it'd only been, like, 3 or 4 days. It was nice, though, to just get home before midnight (like I'm busing in -27 degrees C temperatures) and actually relax for a bit, rather than get through the door, get crap ready for the next day, then head for bed. Hm… I get paid this week. Rent comes out next week. Crap. Well, I tried. And I've run out of things to say. Dammit people gimme something to read!

January 20, 2007

I'm so glad I'm working on a Saturday.

My Leafs, my poor, poor Leafs, are getting their rear ends handed to them. And I'm missing it. Not that I'm complaining about missing it. I love the team, but… um… 6 1 when last I checked, and it's gotta be in the third period by now? Oh lordy lordy if sucking were a crime that game would warrant a life sentence. And All I have to say on this is I still refuse to cheer for Ottawa. Now if I could just have a reason to cheer for Toronto…

January 19, 2007

Do you get enough sleep?

January 17, 2007

Are you addicted to the internet?

Oh my freaking cold...

-21 degrees out there right now, according to the weather network. I tend not to question the weather network all that much when it gets to be that extreme. Even if they're off by a couple degrees… freaking cold is still freaking cold. And I have to walk in that! Fortunately I get to spend an hour or so on the bus… but I have to walk in that! It's cold! It's inhuman! I want my mommy! Okay I'm over it now. Now to finish getting ready for work.

I somehow survived my first night on the phones.

Don't ask me how, because I have absolutely no idea. A couple calls I took ended up making me feel somewhere between awkward and stupid, and… I was… more than a little nervous taking them, but I managed. Somehow. Through some twisted maneuver of fate… or something. It was definitely a different experience, but I think a good one. I ended up improvizing my way through a couple calls, just because the guide they have that I have access to… well… didn't cover the problems I was handling. At least, not directly. Except for one or two, but I couldn't help them out anyway. All in all it wasn't quite such a bad experience. Now, hopefully I can keep doing it and get a little less nervous about it. Gawd, if I coulda made myself think I'd screw up, I would have. And then it would have probably happened. *twitch*

January 15, 2007

Things I didn't have time to blog about, a list by me.

I can blame being surprisingly busy in spite of having 3 days off for this. That said, this post will not have any particular point… except perhaps that I finally got around to doing it.

That's about as much of a summary as I can give you, 'cuz… well… absolutely nothing else happened worth noting. Welcome to my boring life as a Dell employee. By boring, I mean you don't wanna hear about what we learned in training. I didn't wanna hear about some of it.

January 13, 2007

Oh for Christ's fucking sake.

Last week I made vague mention to a girl who's been pretty much made to stay child-sized for both her own benefit, and the benefit of her parents. And today (yesterday, I guess?) a rights activist group has apparently decided to focus on the for her parents benefit part of that statement, saying they've pretty much violated her rights and all that crapola. Okay, so everyone's entitled to their own opinions on the matter. But let's look at the facts for a minute. The kid's 9 years old, in the physical sense only. There is no *real* higher brain function there. She can breathe, and generally do all manner of flaling. That's as close to independant as she's gonna get, so says every single medical professional who was involved in her case. Now, I'm not about to go on a disability rights kick, here. I'm the first person who flat out says disabled people in general receive too much pity, sympathy and whatnot already, none of it all that helpful–try patronizing. But Christ almighty, do these people not read the stories they go ape shit all over? I mean, beyond the headlines?

Um. State and federal officials had plenty of opportunity to raise a red flag or 6 while it was going on. Or does an ethics panel of that magnitude somehow escape their attention? So not everyone will agree it was such a good idea. Not everyone has to take care of a 9-year-old infant, either. I, personally, am not sure if I agree with *all* of the treatments they've done or not, a fairly complete account of which can be found here. But ya know what? I'm not in that position, and not to sound like more of an asshole than usual, but I hope I never am. Not all of their reasons entirely make sense to me, but hey, disabled or not, an infant mentally or not, completely incapable of taking care of herself or not, she's still their daughter, and if she can't communicate what she needs, then like any other infant who's actually an infant, it's up to the parents to do the communicating *for* them.

Okay, so maybe she doesn't *have* to be 4 foot 5–clearly being taller won't kill her. But I'll say this much. My x-girlfriend weighed about 130 pounds, and I had some fun throwing her over my shoulder. And, for the record, I'm not what most people would consider weak–I'm no body builder, but I can hold my own. It'd be hard on Ashley, *and* whoever ends up taking care of her, lifting that much dead weight. And it's not like she can help, either. Not exactly a fair comparison, but even someone in a wheelchair, most of the time, can at least put some of their weight on their arms with the help of support bars and such while they're being helped to the bathroom. She ain't that coordinated, sorry. She ain't gonna be that coordinated, sorry. So like I said in my last entry, if it helps her parents to be able to take care of her, *and* there's no objections from the people who'd actually be performing the operations, never mind the people who actually enforce their regulations, then… more power to them, plain and simple. And you people who wanna cry it's not what God would have wanted, or bring up some crap about how they're not doing a damn thing in her best interest, you can just pull your heads out of your asses. She has a right to a healthy, long and complication free life. A whole shitload of people obviously agree what they're doing to her will give her that, so this isn't just her whackjob parents using her as the experimental girl.

Besides, let's just go out on a limb here and say some clueless idiot decides to overturn the decision that was already reached regarding her treatments. What in the 7 levels of hell are they gonna do about it? Reverse them? News flash, folks. People had their chance to scream unfair when it was going on. Now, what you think, what I think, hell, what good old president fucktard thinks really doesn't matter. It's done, it's over with, she's a kid for life. Which suits her just fine. Hell, so long as she can be comfortable, fed and played with, anything suits her just fine. You people who're still up in arms over it need a hobby. Preferably one that involves an education in minding your own bloody business.

January 12, 2007

One more reason to love my job.

I'd originally planned to skip breakfast. But with free coffee and doughnuts floating around, ya think that'll last long? Hell no. These people with whom I work are awesome. And… hey, I even get paid today. Suhweet.

January 11, 2007

I get way too much email.

I'm not even home yet and I have over 200 to go through when I get there. And that's still… about 3 hours away. Oh le cruddles.

January 10, 2007

One more reason ya gotta love the ladies.

It's all about the olympics in Canada in 3 years. So it probably shouldn't surprise anyone that one of the best Canadian rock bands is donating 50 cents from every concert ticket sold (by the way, they'll sell a boatload of tickets) to a program for Canada's athletes. In a way, this just makes me wanna go take in a concert just to toss my money into the pot. Getting to hear them live doesn't hurt either. I did that last in 2004, when they were touring to promote their then newest album. So I'm overdue. Anyone wanna come?

January 9, 2007

Another Trudeau in politics? Could happen.

The rumor mill is even going so far to say it will happen. I wasn't around for the first Trudeau instance–well, okay, that isn't true, but being a year old when he was done doesn't count, but if Justin's anything like his father, it could be interesting, if nothing else. Hey, can he be much worse than Harpar?

People amuse me.

I sat here and listened to a recording of a phone call wherein the guy that called in was just plain trying to bate the tech agent into an argument, and all I could think is "I know at least one person who does that for fun". Fortunately she doesn't own a Dell computer. Unfortunately, I still pity whoever she gets a hold of when her laptop goes caput. Those people amuse me, and I can deal with them way too well… but someone's gonna end up in tears. Maybe that's the amusing part.

January 8, 2007

Are you spoiled?

Apparently I have a house guest.

It would seem, for the next 6 weeks or so starting tonight, my apartment will again become a crash pad. This time, though, at least it's for a decent reason–my uncle's taking a course and, to be nice about it, there's no way in hell he's driving 1.5 hours here and back for it on a daily basis. Hopefully he can get used to a sofa… 'cuz the place definitely isn't geared for more than one person, unless said more than one person is a significant other. Ah well, he knew it was coming and wants to do it anyway. The poor fool…

January 7, 2007

Weekends are for... cleaning?

If you're me, and you live in this apartment, then at least Sunday is. That's exactly what I spent the last 2 hours or so doing (I'm being nice, it felt longer). But, it was still nice to actually have the weekend to myself, and get some time to just shut down for a bit. Friday night was dinner and a movie at my cousin's place, and yesterday was pretty much the same with the exception that yesterday I also borrowed her washing machine. Hey, it beat the fuck out of paying a buck and a half per machine per load, thankyaverymuch. When you take into account that, since I moved up here, this is the first weekend I actually had where I was off, and not busier than I would be at work, all told I'd say it wasn't bad in the slightest. Of course, any weekend wherein an afternoon can be killed shooting the shit over coffee can't be any less than awesome. Anyone who disagrees can move on to the next blog.

The place still probably isn't entirely as clean as I'd like it to be, but… it's definitely clean. So says the stack of dishes sitting on my kitchen counter right now. I love that no matter how busy a week I end up having, I'm always guaranteed at the least two days off with which to play catchup with everything that falls behind while I'm running my ass off. Two days may not always be enough, but for the moment, I sure as hell won't complain. Except, maybe, that they don't pay me to catch up on things around here. But, can't have it all.

January 4, 2007

Gives a whole new meaning to 'kid at heart', don't it just?

Okay, before they shuffle me off to listen to calls, I just wanna point out that this is perhaps one of the most unusual stories I've seen in, well, ages. A 9-year-old girl with the mentality of a 3-month-old is being medically limited in her height and weight. Reading the article, I can definitely agree with what her parents are thinking, really–sure, so she'll live until she's 70, 80 or whatever. But it's not gonna make any difference to her–she'll still probably keep the 3-month-old mentality. They say the treatments they're putting her through are mostly for her benefit, but truth be told, it's probably just as much for theirs–I wouldn't wanna be carrying a 20-year-old girl around because she definitely can't be walking on her own. Can't really sympathise/feel sorry for her because, well, like she knows, cares, or even realizes what's going on. I dunno. There's a whole ethics discussion behind this that I don't wanna get into. The way I see it, they're doing what they think is best for her, and it's probably just as good for them, so I say more power to them. The kid has a right to a healthy, long life, sure, and if this is what her doctors believe will give her that, then… that's really all that matters, no?

They're letting me listen in today.

Meaning in a few minutes I'll be getting paid to let someone else take a phone call or few. Awesomeness galore.

I've caught up to my schedule!

Proof that I can be ready and out the door in an hour or less. I ended up getting mobile by about 4:30, and after discovering I actually won't be able to take what I'd originally planned for lunch (those little soup thermases are awesome, but small), I was surprisingly ready and gone by about 5:30. Meant I missed the bus I usually catch to get myself to my transfer stop, but the stop I get picked up from has 'em going by every couple minutes so that wasn't too much of a stretch… for once. My day, which usually starts at 3:30, is no longer getting ahead of me. Thank the gods–that would have been embarrassing if I cared. And now, I go blog browsing for the last, like, 5 minutes of break.

January 3, 2007

What does your birth date mean for your love life?

I was officially born on the wrong day… this is so not me. Although, I hope it doesn't just mean the 21st of that particular month… *whistles*

January 2, 2007

Different year, same routine.

I've said it before, and probably on here, but it deserves being said again. It's a *really* good thing it's just me living here–I couldn't come up with the time to clean up after anyone else. I got home again today at about quarter to 6, or there about, which is pretty much the usual for me now. That gives me just over 3 hours to go through a to do list of varying lengths depending on the day and what I didn't get done the day before, and then it's time for bed, and we do it all over again the next day. Don't get me wrong, I like what I'm doing–at least I'm never bored, but if I had roommates, knowing my luck they'd be lazier than I ever used to be, and well, like I said I just don't have time for that. My day starts between 3:30 and 4 usually, except for this morning but we'll just ignore that because well, I was dead tired coming on noon. And unless it's a weekend, my day ends at about 9. I dunno when it'll end on the weekend, because I haven't actually had a weekend to myself since I moved up here, what with Christmas related things having gone on.

Ottawa's bus system's apparently running some kind of new schedule, so I'm left to figure out a whole new set of drivers. And I was just getting used to the newbie with the accent, too. Ah well, these ones at least give the appearance of being fairly decent, so we'll see. I'm usually an extreme critic of people in general, so I give it maybe 24 hours and I'll have an entry brewing about how brainless at least one of them is. But for now, they seem fairly decent. One even borders on cool… impressive for a bus driver in this city. He will never actually *be* cool, though, until he can magicly remove the need to wake up insanely early to get to a less insanely early but still insanely early shift.

I probably shouldn't complain too much about the shift I've been stuck with for training–I mean, yeah it's early, okay… fucking early, but then again, I get home between 5 and 6 too. If I had a typical 8-5 shift, I wouldn't get through the door 'til about 7-ish, give or take… maybe closer to 8. Suddenly, a quarter to 7 shift isn't so horrible. But I still don't wanna wake up at 3:30 to get there. As I've said often, I love the job, I hate the shift. But I should probably clarify… I like the shift, I hate needing to take a bus to that shift. But, I bus, so I shall now move my lazy self to bed, so the wake-up call doesn't kill me. And… hey, I actually managed not to jump all over the spectrum of thought in this entry, as opposed to the one at dark o'clock this morning. Go me.

Happy after New Year!

No, this isn't going to be one of those regular occurances wherein I blog about things 2 or more days after they happen, or at quarter after 2 in the morning. Okay, scratch the second one. That one's already a regular occurance. The new years party was awesome. A little dancing, a little alcohol, a lot of good food… all that was missing was a very special person, but unfortunately you just can't drive from BC to here and expect to make any kind of short-term appointments. I did have plenty of fun, though, even if for all the alcohol that was consumed I still felt sober. I dunno what they were serving, but oh my god if it got any more watered down it wouldn't be alcoholic. Aside from that, though, the week I spent in Pembroke, some of which got blogged about already, was… eh… so-so. It was nice spending Christmas and new years with my parents, but I coulda done without the sister-in-law. And probably so could they, to be honest, but eh, 'tis life, no? Only having to work for a day last week and getting paid for the whole week was rockin. And I'll get some nifty little $$$ for not working yesterday either. You can tell I've never actually been employed before… the idea of getting paid to not work amuses me. And… hm. I'm a lot more all over the place with this entry than I'd thought I'd be this early. That's not good. I go wake myself up now.

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My Life is A Drama Free Zone: January 2007

January 30, 2007

What do your dreams mean?

January 28, 2007

This building's basement smells decidedly like pot.