fractured reality

In the past 24 hours I have entered my workplace three times. Despite the 35 degree weather, each time I have arrived on my scooter, all bundled up, and each time, I have received a crazy big smile from whichever security guard is working out front. One remarked on how brisk it was; I responded with a suggestion he try it at 45 miles per hour, which naturally invoked another chuckle.

This is just one of those side benefits of being mildly crazy and eccentric, I occasionally get to bring a smile to the face of someone who has the thankless job of standing outside in the cold, watching for people that shouldn’t be here.

Seriously though, I’m already prepared for Spring to come around again.

E

This weekend past, for most people I know, extended back to Thursday, which was Thanksgiving for the U.S. I had to work Friday, but I did celebrate the day before with plenty of tofurkey, dumplings, stuffing and other tasties, and videogames. Friday was an utterly boring day at work, and Saturday was a fairly lazy day (although I did bake a chocolate pecan pie in the morning).

Sunday, however, the sun was out and we took it upon ourselves to rake all the remaining leaves from our trees. It took us three hours of pretty much constant raking and tarp-hauling, but we did it. Crazy crazy. We celebrated by eating pie and tasting the wines our friends left us for taking care of their cats.

And even though I slept in both Saturday and Sunday, I didn’t go to bed early enough the previous nights, and so the net effect was that I’m still tired this morning. Bleh.

Onward!
E

I have an excellent and spotty memory. I can recall with great accuracy the names of the pilots of the Voltron lions, and where invisible 1-up mushrooms are hiding in videogames I haven’t played for a decade. I cannot, however, reliably remember things that I need to pick up from the store, or when my mother’s birthday is (it’s July 17th, actually, but I had to look it up to type it here).

Like many people in this age, I have taken to supplementing my memory with technology. When I suddenly have a flash in my head (Hey! I need to pick up broccoli for that stir fry tonight!) I no longer write it on the back of my hand. I throw a reminder in Outlook for the end of the day. This never fails to make me laugh later, because I will be in the middle of adjusting a spreadsheet when a pop up window appears, boldly declaring “BROCCOLI!!!” or “BLOOD!” or “If you smell peaches right now, it’s because you had to use the emergency antiperspirant… Stop by the store.”

Now if they could just, you know, put that jack in my head, I’d be all set.

E

Yesterday was the release of Super Mario Galaxy and the 2.3 patch for World of Warcraft, so it was a busy gaming evening.

SMG is really neat, for the little bit we played. I can tell that the second player-as-copilot feature is going to work really well, as Becca quite enjoyed grabbing enemies and star bits and such while I nagivated the world, trying not to die. It is very pretty and solid as a Mario game, thus far.

I also imagine it would give some people utter vertigo. This game is to Mario 64 what Mario 64 was to Super Mario World. The additional degree of craziness provided by multiple floating “little prince worlds” in a single level promises to be confusing and lovely.

Also, the fellow taking my blood yesterday was very good, and I was done in record time, without bruising that I have noticed, although my arm is a bit sore today. And I shoudl’ve slept longer last night, but c’mon. Seriously. Mario! Orcs!

E

Recently, we employees were asked to fill out a survey on holiday related topics such as whether or not we should continue giving turkeys to the employees. I naturally voted against it, but the majority wanted to keep the turkeys, so there we are. I’ll donate mine to a freind or food kitchen.

However! On the same survey, we were asked whether we would like to keep the standard Holiday Gift (some random crap bought for us by HR) or if we would like something else. The specific alternatives given were gift cards, or Sam’s Club Memberships and the like. Given the following results, they decided to keep the Holiday Gift as is:

Keep it the same: 37%
Sam’s Club: 29%
Gift Card: 28%

Do you see the problem there? They gave three answers to a yes/no question! The OVERWHELMING majority of people wanted something Other than the same gift. The question Should have been worded “Should we keep the gift the same?” and then, if not, there should be another vote on the alternatives. Instead, they split the No vote and decided that somehow meant the winner was Keep it the Same.

They are either absolutely retarded and don’t understand basic math, or they are brilliantly conniving in that they wanted the gift to remain the same and they stacked the deck to such an amazing extent that no one has even bothered to officially call them out on their bad math.

E