Light The Fuse

We could still wait to see what happens
But judging by the state of things
Nowhere is peace in surplus, God knows.
“I don’t think that I can watch the news.”
Honey wait ‘Cops’ is on.
“This isn’t the world we ordered.”
I know, well Honey wait – I think that that’s our street.

CHORUS
If things have gotta change, well that’s cool with me
We’ll just light the fuse and then get away.
If things have gotta change, its cool with me.
Its cool with me.

She then extends a despondent hand
I fumble for the remote
I don’t really think it’s that bad.
“We’ll never know. It’s surprising murder’s
not a team sport.”
I think it’s on channel 9, but its not like they’ve made
A game show out of sex crimes.
“This is America, baby just give it time!”

REPEAT CHORUS

“Dear I’m feelin’ down. We gotta get out now.”
Bill won’t let us down. He’s gonna save us…
Somehow.

If things have gotta change, well that’s cool with me
We’ll just light the fuse and then get away.
If things have gotta change, its cool with me.
Its cool with me.

Just set it off.

-Deep Blue Something

Well, it took long enough, but I am finally in the possession of-er-illegal contraband weaponry again.

That is to say, I've finally replaced my confiscated Leatherman.

I now have a blue Juice SC2. Which is not actually the one I thought I was buying- which was a Cs4. This one is a retired model which apparently only had a limited production run and is harder to find. My mistake, I wasn't paying attention. But. It's got all the stuff I want and I got it pretty inexpensively, so I can't complain.

I can now wire-cut and corkscrew you to death again. And pick out splinters, and put stuff together and take stuff apart and cut stuff and....

So we get a lovely email today informing us that a Big Important Client is coming to visit tomorrow and everyone is supposed to clean their desks. They do that occasionally around here.

Once upon a time that meant "make sure things were nice and orderly and for gods sakes, throw away that science experiment that looks like it might once have been your lunch."

At some point a year or two ago, someone got the idea that it should mean that one should have no items that are not work-related on your desk. No pictures, no doo-dads, none of that. Honestly, I don't get it. All over the country, people put personal stuff on their desks. Yeah, it shouldn't be insane, but an item or two? Come on. I keep a tube of lip balm on my keyboard, a box or two of tea, a bottle of water and usually a packet of ibuprofin, a couple of alcohol wipes, and a couple of food delivery menus on my desk. Lately, I've had an unread copy of various plays of Euripides kicking around, some a packet or two of ketchup and a few pieces of paper with some work-related notes plus copious scribbles and doodles.

Add that to a couple of pens, a notepad or two, some training manuals and product-related documents, a few electronic devices issued to me by the company for my work, and a few other work things like some insurance papers (nothing personal, just a few information sheets).

My desk is relatively neat and clean for all that's on it- it's a decent-sized desk, there's room to spare.

No, this is too much. And it's not just me, it's everyone. We've been informed today that we are to remove everything from our desk except for a notepad and a pen. One pen. not two. One. Oh, and computer towers must be located to the right of computer monitors.

Seriously people. We don't want these Big Important Clients to come in and get the idea that we're the sort of company that lets people have such extravagances as a second pen on their desk, now do we. And towers to the left of your monitors? Now you're stepping into dangerous territory. If you give them that, they'll be putting all sorts of crazy things out for the world to see. Like Paper clips. And a stapler. And you know what paper clips and staplers lead to. Drunkenness in the parking lot! Debauchery on the board room table! And then look out, people will start wearing sneakers to work. And dying their hair blue. That'll lead to spiky neon orange mohawks and flip flops. Next thing you know, they'll think it's okay to call their bosses by their first name. Mayhem! Anarchy! What about the children? Oh please won't somebody think of the children?

I'm so tempted to put a second pen here, and maybe even throw in a pencil from the supply closet. And move my tower to the left side. Bet no one ever notices.

Seriously people, this is insane. Beyond ridiculous. I'm sure these people coming to visit understand just fine about having a second pen on your desk and a couple of paper clips. Maybe even a family photo or two. I understand telling the guy with the tower of Mountain Dew cans to throw them away- that's ridiculous, but to tell people to move EVERYTHING off their desks but a notepad and a single pen? Come on. People don't function like that and you can't tell me that you think for a second that these people buy it that our desks always look like this.

This was over on the tech support community. I laughed my ass off.

http://social.answers.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/vistahardware/thread/720108ee-0a9c-4090-b62d-bbd5cb1a7605

(The answers are really good too.)

Okay...I've seen this article all over my friends list today with all kinds of outrage and whatnot.

I started to read it, first decided that I was too incredulous to get pissed off, then I started reading the comments on the site and did a bit more searching.

Apparently, the website http://www.thediscust.com is largely a parody site. From their about page:

The “news” on this site is not entirely real. If there is, in fact, actual news on this site, then it is likely marked as such, just so you can tell the difference. This site is news parody, but if you had to actually come to this page to figure that out then you might not catch that particular nuance even as it’s being explained to you so maybe you should just move along.

Actual people parodied/mocked on theDiscust are public figures (or dead) and therefore eligible for such treatment. Any resemblance in name or otherwise to any non-public/non-dead figure within the editorial content of this site is purely coincidental, unintentional, or you told us it would be ok. No public servants were harmed in the writing of this publication — that happened long before we came along.

theDiscust is for entertainment purposes only. Please do not source theDiscust in your news reports or thesis papers as you will likely regret it — though if you do, please send us a copy.

If you have any suggestions, comments, or large bags of money, please drop us a line at editor@theDiscust.com

Everyone can breathe now.

So...I went to Colorado back in November to take a class for CVE certification (Certified Videoconferencing Engineer) for work. I posted about it.

I took the test in February. I failed. I posted about it.

I took it again in April. I failed. I posted abput it.

I took it again last Monday. I failed. I'm posting about it now.

It goes without saying that I'm feeling beyond stupid for not passing the test by the third try. I would happily pay to take the test one last time if I knew what my problem was, but when I can pass stuff that I failed before and now fail stuff that I did really well on before...none of it makes sense, and I don't know what would happen next time, so I'm not willing to eat the $250 testing fee for such uncertainty.

Had to pass it by the third try or else. No one was entirely sure what "else" would be, but we were pretty sure it would be getting kicked off the contract, if not fired. Well, last week, Rich was on vacation, and Chuck went to Vegas to get married, so I had to wait til this week to find out what would happen to me.

This morning on my way out, I ran into Dave who apparently had the say on what to do with me. I am off the contract (as well as two others who didn't pass on three tries). I don't know if the others will get the same offer as me, but Dave sat me down in his office, told me flat out that the company has no plans to fire me and flat out told me I could go anywhere in the company (within technical support) that I wanted. Really, that's quite an offer. He started listing upcoming training classes for other departments, including one that I used to work for and got out of in six months (soul-sucking, that.) and one that I'd done some work for (gen pop, a whole conglomeration of clients either too small to have their own dedicated team, or not willing to pay or one.) and a few others.

Then he asked if I had any training experience but moved on when I said I didn't. I was curious so I asked about it, he said he asked because there was a need for an additional person to work on developing training materials for various clients. I said I would be interested in that, if there was any chance despite lack of experience, so we talked about it a bit more and hey, it looks like it is quite the possibility.

It's going to be at least a week or two before I move over, but it'll probably be starting out with about 60-70% technical support in gen pop while I start working on training stuff, and he said I'll probably be starting out with soft skills (in other words, basically how to talk to people who call into tech support- yes, it's a skill. And something that I'm good at. Disturbingly so at times. Many stupid myspace game customers excepted.) And it will go from there....until I don't live in Baltimore anymore at least.

I will have to go back to a regular Monday-Friday schedule, he asked what hours I wanted to work, I said 10-6 or 11-7, which is fine. I'll probably lose the extra dollar per hour that I get for working overnight.

Yes, for those of you who read Gavin's LJ, you've seen her mention this while not really going into the details of my stuff. We're speeding up our move to Oregon to...well, pretty much as quickly as we can get out of here. For this and various other reasons, things just aren't right here anymore and it's time to leave.

On top of all that, I ended up taking a night off work tonight...on the way home today, at the train stop I was walking and somehow managed to take a mis-step and tripped and fell onto the train track. I've got a bit of a knot on my left calf, and my right ankle twisted a bit...and I landed with my left ribs on the edge of the train platform...I probably bruised them, it hurts a good bit. On top of all that, I woke up this afternoon with a migraine starting, so it seemed like a good idea. The headache was mostly gone when I woke up again later this evening, but I am still largely rather sore.

On a slightly happier note, replacement of the confiscated Leatherman will take place this weekend. I found a site that pretty much only sells Leathermans (Leathermen?) and is having a huge sale right now. I could buy the model I had for about twenty dollars less than I expected I would have to pay. Or I could buy the next model up for still about ten dollars less than I expected to pay for the other one. Which I think I'm going to do. Hell, I could get the top one in the line for only a few dollars more than I expected to pay for the lower model that I used to have.

I think I'm going to go with the next one up from mine. I had the Leatherman Juice S2, I think I'm going to grab the CS4. It includes all the same stuff as I had...but it also has a saw, an awl and a corkscrew- it's the addition of the corkscrew that really made me decide on that one. The C2 also has a corkscrew, and costs the same as the S2, but it doesn't have the scissors.

Gaaaah I've been practically lost without the Leatherman. I use it for everything. I had to hunt down pliers the other night to try to re-bend my original nose ring because it's practically impossible for me to put it in once removed. And cutting an apple with a plastic knife like I end up having to do at work is such an unbelievable bitch.

Also, I think I finally need to replace my phone- said this how many times now? Yeeeeah. Now the sound is going bad. I think I'm going to go with the same phone I had...there's nothing better and it's a good phone, aside from having gotten stuck in the rain with it- and really, it's lasted a lot longer than I expected it would after it started to go downhill.

Beating my head against the wall for so many reasons right now...

*sigh* Time for sleep.

http://www.lansingstatejournal.com/article/20090515/NEWS01/905150322/1002/NEWS01

Mount Hope Church has filed a federal lawsuit against a group of protesters who disrupted a Sunday morning service Nov. 9 with shouts, same-sex kissing, fliers and a banner that proclaimed: "It's okay to be gay."
Advertisement

The lawsuit was filed Wednesday morning and assigned to Judge Robert Holmes Bell in U.S. District Court in Grand Rapids.

Church staff directed questions to the Alliance Defense Fund, an Arizona-based nonprofit that filed the suit on the Delta Township church's behalf.

"They don't have the right to come in and terrorize the congregation," said Kevin Theriot, senior counsel for the Alliance Defense Fund. "This case would have never been filed if these folks had just stayed on the public sidewalk, held up their signs and didn't disrupt the service."

A militant gay rights group called Bash Back!, which has a Lansing chapter, claimed responsibility for the protest. Members of Bash Back! did not respond to phone calls and e-mails regarding the suit.

However, in a statement on its national news Web site, Bash Back! said the group would not be intimidated and that it will set up a defense fund to fight the lawsuit.

The Nov. 9 protest drew national media attention. and generated plenty of talk in the blogosphere.

Mount Hope Church, on Creyts Road, is affiliated with the Assemblies of God, and teaches that homosexuality is a sin.

The Nov. 9 protest took place during a Sunday morning service with about 700 people in attendance.

According to the lawsuit, about 10 protesters outside of the church were dressed in black with their faces covered by bandannas. They conducted a loud and "wildly offensive" demonstration and waved an upside-down cross and signs with satanic symbols and messages while shouting through a bullhorn.

When the church's security guards went to deal with the outside protesters, another set of protesters inside the church - dressed in their Sunday best to blend in with the crowd of about 700 worshippers - went into action. They threw about 1,000 fliers around the church, unfurled the banner, kissed, and pulled fire alarms on their way out of the building.

According to the suit, protesters blocked the driveway, prohibiting some church members access to the church and the service.

No criminal charges were filed against the protesters. Bash Back! has claimed responsibility for church protests in the Boston area and in the Seattle area as well.

Theriot said the Alliance Defense Fund, which offers training, funding and legal assistance in an effort to preserve religious freedom, got involved because its attorneys believe the protesters went a step too far by disrupting the service.

"There's a federal law that says you can't disrupt, by force or threat of force, a church service," he said. The lawsuit asks for an injunction to prevent future protests as well as nominal damages and costs related to bringing the suit.

Theriot said he expected it would be at least a year before the suit goes to court.

Fucking assholes. (Um, pun not intended.)

It's not right when Christians pull shit at GLBT functions, it;s not more right when the GLBTs do it to Christians.

I don't really feel sorry for the church, as it were. I don't blame them for suing, but I think it would have been a lot better if they had pressed charges for vandalism, trespassing and whatever else may have been applicable in their jurisdiction.

So glad that I don't associate with any of these groups. I think people tend to accept you- or at least leave you alone- when you're not out doing obnoxious things to disturb people.

I think my newest fear has become that of reading philosophy.

I'm afraid it'll turn me into a self-superior ass.

I want to say happy birthday to my girlfriend, chironcentaur! I love you so much!

I FINALLY decided that I'm going to go back and start working on ADF's initiate's program. Going to start with the trance segment...Gavin's got a copy here of one of the books on the list (Diana Paxson's Trance-Portation) and a group of folks over on The Cauldron forum are starting a discussion thread to work through it and discuss it, so it seems like a good place to start. I'll probably also start with some of the Bardic stuff since some of things I've written in the last year fall under that, as well as bits of mythology and divination.

I haven't posted much of substance lately- most of my LJ time is at work, and the site is partially-blocked by the firewall...it takes a billion years to load, and sometimes needs to be reloaded several time to be of any use...needless to say, I have reduced my LJ time at work. So if I'm not posting or commenting as much as I usually do...that's why.

Recently, I've been given some new work at the office- it's really simple, dumb stuff...I'm testing games! Woohoo! (Basically clicking a couple of links on a couple of text games on sites like Myspace...it's a grand total of an extra hour or two a week of work.) One of the good things is that, in order to get access to those sites, which are otherwise some of the few completely blocked sites in the office, they had to set up a computer outside the firewall. As long as I'm doing what I'm supposed to do, I'm allowed to use the computer for other sites too, and of course LJ loads with no issues...so I'll probably be a bit more active on LJ from work- at least while this project lasts- 3 more weeks so far, but they're talking about throwing more at us after this one ends.

Things have been pretty good lately, if uneventful. Went to the grove's Beltane ritual last week and it went pretty well...am now in the process of planning for the Summer Solstice, which I'm going to lead- looking at doing the ritual surrounding the story of Hermes stealing Apollo's cattle. Should be good.

Aside from that, I'm slowly working on formulating the story I was posting about earlier in the week, and will start posting to that filter when I have something of substance.

Beyond that, umm...well, I haven't bitten my nails in a few weeks again.

Ummm...I'm boring?

"Well, my in-laws are coming to town this summer from the west coast and I wanted to take them to New York City but they don't really like big cities very much and they want to visit small towns so I thought maybe Philadelphia or DC would be nice, they're not as big as New York."

*boggles*

Uh...yeah. And Saturn isn't as big as Jupiter so it's a small planet?

sannion is looking for submissions for Neos Alexandria's upcoming Hekate devotional- the deadline has just been extended to July 30th...here are the details- contact Sannion (info below) if you have any questions!

Em Hotep,

Although we’ve received some great contributions for the Hekate
devotional, we currently do not have enough for a full book. So we are
going to extend the deadline until July 30, 2009.

We can use essays, poetry, accounts of personal experiences, and other
forms of devotional writing. We would like this anthology to reflect
the diversity of ways that the goddess has been understood and
experienced both in antiquity and in contemporary times, so the more
contributions we receive the better!

As with all of our devotional anthologies we cannot provide payment or
contributor copies, since the proceeds will be used for charitable
donations and to help bring out further volumes in the Bibliotheca
Alexandrina line. For more information on our Guidelines and Policies,
please visit this page:

http://neosalexandria.org/BAguidelines.pdf

If you have any further questions, you may contact the editor at
sannion@gmail.com. This is also the address where submissions should
be sent.

Please feel free to distribute this announcement to other lists,
forums, and curious individuals. The more people who know about this
the better chance we’ll have of producing a truly awesome book worthy
of Hekate.

For anyone who's interested in reading a little bit of what will be on the filter I mentioned in the previous post...( here's the first page )

Please note, this is very rough. Comments welcome but not looking for real, serious criticism just yet. And really, I'm just posting it here right now for anyone who wants a peek before getting themselves on my filter.

...having nothing to do with religion.

Basically, for anyone who remembers (and it doesn't reflect badly on you if you don't) I've been threatening for a while now to start writing some fiction, most specifically a novella that I posted a few paragraphs of a beginning to maybe a year or so ago.

I created the filter for anyone who's interested in reading along as I write it and whatever other fiction comes after it so as not to inflict it upon anyone uninterested, and also because, if it works out as I'd like it to, I will probably try to publish it.

The general idea is that it's going to be about a remote town that's essentially cut off from the rest of the world. In this town, when people die, their ghosts continue to live and interact with the town- basically, their lives continue, just without physical bodies. The problem is that the ghosts of these people are disappearing inexplicably when they've never disappeared before (except under very specific, pre-planned circumstances)

It's not going to be particularly exciting or action-packed...for anyone who's read any Gabriel Garcia Marquez, that sort of tone is what I'm after- the interest coming from odd little supernatural/magical details in an otherwise mostly realistic story.

I'm pretty sure that I have the ending worked out, and I'll warn you, it's not going to be some big, exciting "surprise" ending...I wouldn't at all be surprised if many people figured out what happened before the end (and honestly, it's probably not super-duper original), the point isn't so much getting to the ending but the telling of the story itself.

So...if you're interested, comment here and I'll add you to the filter.

It's been a year now, that Gavin and I are together (officially anyway. We've been together since we first met, it just took a while to realize it.)

It's been crazy. A lot has been so unexpected and surprising. And scary sometimes. I never wanted to be this close to anyone- and here I am. I never thought I could want to have someone with me so constantly.

I just never saw myself as being able to fall in love like this.

Happy anniversary, love!

On Tuesday evening, I was walking to the train to go to work. From where I was to the nearest train stop was about a twenty-minute walk. When I had last glanced out a window before leaving where I was, the sky was clear with jsut a few clouds. In the twenty minutes or so from that point until I got outside, the sky had suddenly become heavy with very dark, ominous clouds- large patches of a very green tint to many of them suggested strong tornado potential- though that didn't bother me too much, since it is a fairly rare thing for tornadoes to touch down within large cities. The clouds though were pretty impressive. I tried to take some pictures with my cell phone camera but they didn't come out very well. There was this one large swirl of clouds that curved across the sky like an immense, sweeping arm- that and another cloud formation that I can't really easily describe also looked like strong indicators of tornado potential.

But beyond that...well, I've never really gotten a sense of Zeus before, and I had this sudden "knowing" that he was behind all this- it didn't feel anything like what I feel in the presence of the gods that are more familar to me, like Apollo, Hermes or Dionysus- I can only really describe it as feeling as if there was a distant, over-arching sentience to the sky, and one of the thoughts I had was that the long, sweeping arm of clouds that I saw was one of Zeus's arms.

The last stretch of my walk to the train stop took me down a long, winding hill which was rather busy with traffic at the time, and rain was starting to fall and I didn't have an umbrella on me, and REALLY didn't want to be stuck out in the sort of rain that was on the way. So I did the best thing I could think of- I had a drink in my backpack side pocket, pulled that out, and poured a bit out, asking him to let me get to the train stop- or at the very least to the bridge before it (the walk to that train stop takes me under a raised section of Interstate 83 and over a stream it's pretty cool, so that's either six or eight lanes of highway there, can't remember exactly- provides considerable shelter. I was about a hundred feet from there when the rain started to get heavier and just made it as it really started pouring. Thankfully, l I only had to wait a few minutes before it let up and I could continue to the train stop, another fifty yards away or so. Thunder, lightning and the occasional splatter of rain continued and trains going in my direction were rather heavily delayed for reasons unknown to me, but only for a brief few minutes did I have to duck under an overhang again, and for a decent chunk of the time, I was able to talk to Gavin on the phone. Unfortunately, while I was sitting at the train stop, most of this had left my head on all but a very basic intellectual level and in the midst of training a new guy at work and being ridiculously tired for a few days, I forgot about all this until I was on my way back to work this gorgeous, sunny afternoon, and I wrote this:


Hail Zeus, Labrandeus, whose furious storms race across the sky!
Hail Zeus, Skotitos, whose swirling clouds gather and darken the sky!
Hail Zeus, Keraunios whose crashing thunder echoes through the sky!
Hail Zeus, Astrapaios whose flash of lightning tears the sky!
Hail Zeus, Ombrios whose falling rain pours down from the sky!
Hail Zeus, Euenemos whose fair winds come again to clear the sky!

Lament for Dylan

The sea mourns the beloved child,
endless tides rise and fall, whispering
and screaming a perpetual lament.
The surf on the sand pounding its grief
for the child:

tragically caught by his uncle's spear,
he sank into the waves, consumed
but apart.

The tide lashes and hisses,
the sea vows to avenge the child's death.

The tide turns away in sorrow then slowly
creeps back;
retreating and returning,
it will go on forever
for the loss of the one who
loved the sea so dearly.

The tide swells and recedes in sadness
unending, unthinking.
Memory of the dark child starts to fade
as years slip past.
Vows of vengeance long forgotten,
the sea never ceases to mourn;
Though his face has faded,
the sea remembers the child.

The tide rises and falls
rocking in rhythm unending;
no rest, no tiring as the ages have moved on.
The sea has long forgotten the child
it has mourned for nearly eternity.

Forgotten except for a rare moment
on a foggy grey morning
or a stormy black night-
a whisper of mist
or a splash of rain
will stir the memory
and a face will flicker,
laughing and playing
in the waves
lifetimes ago.
And for a minute, the sea
will recall the beloved child.


(Meandering a bit off of my usual subject matter of Greek gods and myth into Welsh myth, this one was inspired by the death of Dylan Ail Don, speared accidentally by his uncle, Govannon.)

So earlier this evening, I was clicking around to random articles in Wikipedia. Barn owls was one of them. I found this picture...which may very well be enough to give me nightmares:



( But wait...let me give you a close-up of that face....the eye is fucking scary. It looks like a human eye, no? Put that on the shape of that face and... *shudder* This picture is kinda large. )

Dying the hair again-bright red-auburn this time.

I had decided to go ahead and try doing a turquoise coloring like I wanted to for years, but decided to give it another cut or two (which will be a few months) before I do any more bleaching on it. So...auburn it is. I haven't had hair this color in almost two years.

I made this bracelet earlier today, based on the ritual that I wrote about in this blog post. I had been feeling a bit of an itch to swing by my Beadazzled and possibly put something together for several days now, but I didn’t really know what until I got there. I remembered the green oval-shaped beads which sorta remind me of leaves, and several different pink beads which had flowery designs to them. Roses are an item that I frequently offer to Apollo, and I thought it would be a great idea if I could make a bracelet based on the bay leaf devotional- seven leaf beads with rose beads spacing them.

Well, the simple fourteen-bead bracelet that I had in mind didn’t work out. The green beads are rather large, and to string only seven of those together would create a bracelet far too large for my wrist, nevermind the flower beads to space them. Also, to buy fourteen beads of teh sort I wanted- seven of the green beads, seven of the flower beads like the large one pictured above would have been extremely expensive. so I had to look at other options. There were n other green beads to my linking for this project, they had to be the one pictured. There were smaller rose-like beads. So I decided on one large rose bead and two leaf beads, and for the actual counter beads, seven smaller rose beads. There are twenty-eight smaller spacer beads, their arrangement is merely my aesthetic preference.

(Apologies for the low picture quality- the only digital camera I have at the moment is the sorry VGA camera on my cell phone.)

Just realized...I had this LJ for eight years on Saturday.

Damn.

Retook the CVE again. Failed. Again. I don't know what the fuck I'm doing wrong. The last time, I just blanked. On everything. This time, there were questions on material I don't remember ever learning. Oh- I actually got a lower score this time too. But I only missed it by four damned questions this time- three last time. I don't get why I can't get those couple of questions. I'm okay on audio and video technologies, but certain network things and standards and protocols....the very things I made sure to spend extra time studying- I even made myself extra flashcards on them and broke the information down from the other flashcards I had before so that it was one piece of information at a time instead of several. I studied the practice test so many times too. Hell, last time, I swear almost a quarter of my questions were on the practice test (pretty impressive when you consider that the test is 83 out of a pool of over eight hundred. This time, I probably had six or seven from the practice test.

I just don't understand what I'm doing wrong here and this whole thing reminds me so much of being back in high school, and my mother and stepfather lecturing me on and on and on about how I'm "smart" and the fact that I could blast right through French and Spanish classes with practically zero effort was a clear indicator that I should be able to do the same thing with algebra and biology.

Because I'm "smart"

don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that I'm stupid...I'm not, though the lectures always made me feel like being "smart" (that was always the word, smart.) meant there was some sort of established checklist of items that you could tick off- you were good at French and Spanish and government and English and history and the non-math part of chemistry, but you also had to be good at algebra and trig and biology and economics and the math part of chemistry. Oh, and you had to take physics. Because smart people take physics. (I never took physics. I did take digital electronics and environmental biology for science classes in my senior year instead. Those didn't count though. They weren't physics. I was really good at soldering, for whatever that's worth. A good, practical skill. Right up there with spackling- which I'm also very good at (not that it takes much to be good at spackling) would that I had cause to use those skills though. I'd kick the rest of the world's ass at both.) Oh, and art classes don't mean anything. Even the ones that end up having you go to school on Saturdays or stay after a tennis practice for several hours to work on huge projects and learning lots of art history. They don't count.)

So yeah, right now I'm feeling like there's another box on the "smart" checklist that I can't tick off. Smart people can pass the CVE. (Assuming they've taken the class, done the studying...oh and been working in the freakin' field for two years.) But i didn't pass it. Twice now.

Ah well, at least I have my girlfriend here. She's been wonderful about this. Even agreed to go somewhere that she really didn't want to for a sandwich afterward (ended up liking the sandwich though and is willing to go back again sometime, despite the fact that both of our sandwiches needed to be remade on account of the chicken being cold (it wasn't supposed to be cold) and looking quite undercooked- once remade though, they were great...hehehe.)

A statue of Apollo I've never seen before!

Is it sad that I kinda envy his sandals?

http://www.ancientsculpturegallery.com/S032.html

Only $12,000

Why on earth does no one make smaller replicas out of something other than marble or concrete of the statues that I want? A nice shrine-sized cast-resin version would be wonderful. Seriously. I don't need something that is literally the same height as me. Apollo himself is tall enough.

Gavin comes home today. It's been a strange week and a half, with the apartment to myself and her not here. It will be good to have her home again.

So I'm at work...Matt called in sick, so they asked if I wanted to take his shift for overtime. I did but had to go back home and feed/water the cats- I left them with enough food/water that they'd be okay til I got home around midnight, so when they asked if I wanted to stay another nine hours, I said I'd have to go home and feed the cats, since Gavin's not home and thee's no one else who can do it.

So I'm here, and just wanting to throttle yet another coworker who does nothing but sleep- and snore, loudly. Oh my god, why don't they fire this guy? So he comes in, pulls up a filing cabinet near his chair, takes his shoes off and drapes his legs over the cabinet as if the whole setup was his living room recliner at home...what's next, bath robes and boxer shorts?

If this guy's still sleeping at eight AM, I will be SO tempted to go find chuck and let him know.

But...anyway...overtime. More money for me. Yay!

Additionally...

On Monday, I came into work to find an email in my box informing me that the former administrators of our health savings accounts had tried to mail me a check but it was returned, saying that they had the wrong address. They asked me to look at the address and verify or correct- oddly enough, they had the address correct. So they said they'd send it out again.

See, thing is, I was really confused. I hadn't filed any reimbursements in almost a month, and I'd received all the reimbursements that I've filed. So I try to find out. Over the course of the next two days, I talk to the account administrators and there's nothing in the system about an outstanding check...but in the meantime, I recieve an email back saying that they've resent the check.

So yesterday morning, I finally grabbed the HR person to try to ask her what was up with that. Apparently, this was a $40 check from early March, not just a week or so ago as the email had said.

So when they opened, I tried to call in, asked them to check farther back and sure enough there was a check on its way for $40.

See, here's the thing, I know what that $40 was from, and I also know that I have received that reimbursement, and an extra $40 has not been taken out of my balance. I mention this, and am promptly given a "Well isn't that lucky for you? We're not your administrators anymore so we can't do anyhting about it and when this happens, the money is yours."

Huh. Okay. $40.

So this afternoon on my way back to work, I checked the mail and sure enough, there was an envelope in the box from them.

I opened it. The check wasn't for $40 but for $72.49.

I remember filing that reimbursement. I also remember depositing that check into my bank account. But I got another one.

But anyway...between that and the overtime that will be on my next paycheck, a nice unexpected chunk of change.

Hail Hermes!

But on the other hand...our HSA is now being administered directly by the bank that owns the accounts. supposedly this was going to make our fees and whatnot go down.

I'm having some trouble seeing where this is the case. The former administrator offered a debit card, direct deposit, and didn't charge to issue a check. Oh, and there was no monthly fee.

The bank now charges us $2.75/month. They also offer a debit card. They also offer checks (you have to pay for them) you can get reimbursement by writing yourself one of their checks (but you have to pay for the checks), at an ATM with the debit card (there's a $2 fee) by requesting a check (there's a $10 fee) or scheduling an electronic bank transfer or going to the bank with the debit card and requesting a cash advance (I'm sure that costs something but there's no fee given in the brochure). As far as I can see, they don't offer direct deposit.

Now...explain to me how our fees were supposed to go down?

Great. So I can't get reimbursement for the last couple of appointments with the therapist until I at the very least get the debit card- though I should have that soon but still...what to do with receipts? are you telling me I have to hold onto them *just in case* they're asked for? Great, more clutter to hang onto instead of just faxing the receipts in where they're verified and kept digitally.

Where the fuck is the logic?

I am so happy that Gavin's coming home today. It's just not the same without her here to agree with me as to how everyone sucks.

http://forum.hellenistai.com

newdance recently decided to put together a Hellenic web forum because there are so few of them. The Cauldron and Mystic Wicks have Hellenic Sub-forums. The Cauldron's is pretty good, though it's not very big and the one on Mystic Wicks, despite being an extremely active forum overall (I think it's actually the largest pagan forum that I know of- it has over 26,000 members) is extremely slow and for a while there, discussions were getting largely dominated by a few people. Other than that, there's one forum that's mostly Greek-language and one English-language forum that sends most people running- either of their own accord or because they've been banned- very quickly.

And he made me moderator. (Be afraid, be very afraid.)

So for anyone who is interested in Hellenic religion (strict reconstruction, Hellenic neopaganism, syncretism, etc, there are several different sub-forums as well as a whole list of sub-forums for specific deities) come on and check it out. Religion is the main focus, but there are also sub-forums for philosophy, culture, language and history. Come check it out.

From one of my hometown newspapers (Lancaster has three, though come June there will only be two as the morning and afternoon paper combine):

Editor, New Era:

I believe felicitations and best wishes are in order for all the atheists who are reading this paper today.

I understand that atheists are feeling left out because Christians and Jews have all their special holidays. But atheists don't realize that they also have a day set aside for them.

King David said the fool has said in his heart there is no God. So, here is your day, atheists. Most of the world is celebrating the day with you.

Happy April Fools' Day!

Anna Mae Ressler
Ephrata

*sigh* Who writes stuff like this? Seriously. (Apparently Anna Mae Ressler of Ephrata does.) I hope you're happy with your smug, superior self. But what would you say to Jesus if he asked you about it? Unless they were getting it completely wrong in Sunday school, the Jesus I was taught about, I think he'd be frowning at this.

To the Christians out there who don't feel the need to be such jerks, thank you. some of your co-religionists could learn a thing or two from you.

She's driving me nuts.

If anyone knows of a reason for this, or of a good deterrent, PLEASE do tell.

Every time Ferarri uses the litterbox, she then proceeds to scratch all round- in the box, on the box, the walls and floor around the box. She does this and just doesn't stop until I literally go over there and chase her away- I've watched her do this for ten minutes or more before, figuring she'd get tired of it, but no! and sometimes after being chased away, she'll wait a minute or so and go back to continue scratching.

She'll even get up and balance on the sides of the box to scratch in different places, one after the other, in the litter, on the side of the box, on the floor, on the wall, on the other wall, back to the floor, back to the litter.

Oh my god, I can't take it.

She's done this with a couple of different litter boxes- low sides, high sides, with different types of litter, it doesn't matter if the box has been scrubbed and has brand new litter, or if it hasn't been scooped in a day. I've seen her go to the box just to scratch around the area without actually using it.

There's not problem with her actually *using* the box. She doesn't have any health problems. She just scratches incessantly.

I mentioned having started on a novella or longer short story maybe a year ago or so. Never got very far, I think I might have had a page or two written before I put it on hold.

My main problem has been figuring out a cause for the main conflict in the story, and I've had a few ideas, some of which were downright dumb, one of which I'd have no idea how to write about it, and the best idea...well, I couldn't figure out how to make it happen without it becoming dumb. So I put it on hold and have been pondering it since then.

This weekend I wanted to try to get back to it, try to figure out a cause for the problem. Yesterday, I had a phone appointment with the therapist, and this came up briefly towards the end and he mentioned that it was interesting that I couldn't come up with a cause for the problem in the story, and the various issues that I've been talking about in most of my appointments also seem to just come and go from nowhere, also without a cause that I can figure out. (He also noted that that was likely reading too much into things, but that it made for an interesting comment.)

I decided that if I didn't think of something soon, I would just start writing again and see what happened, maybe an idea would present itself.

Well I hadn't started writing, but this morning on the bus, I was studying CVE stuff, when an epilogue for the story popped into my head...and from the epilogue, came a cause that I don't think is at all dumb or too complicated to write. I think it will make the story a bit more "supernatural" than I had planned...but I like it and I think I can do it without it being cheesy.

This makes me happy, I've been wanting to write this for a while now.

So amongst all the other brilliant ideas that I've had for stuff I need/want to do this weekend, whilst browsing some stuff on Da Webz earlier today, I was suddenly reminded of my old interest in the Welsh tale of Dylan ail Don...and got it into my mind that I should write a poem based on that.

Fast forward many hours later, I came home and laid down on the bed with a book, intending to just finish a chapter I had started reading earlier today (One of the things I decided to make a point to do this weekend was read at least one piece of fiction, and the first one that I grabbed that I could reasonably read in the weekend...hell, if I wanted to, I could read it in an hour and a half or so...was Memories of my Melancholy Whores by Gabriel Garcia Marquez.)

Well, in that time, I quickly fell asleep, and I vaguely remember the poem beginning to write itself in my brain as I did. I should have gotten up and written it down. Maybe I would have stayed awake...and maybe chironcentaur wouldn't have had to call me at two a.m. because I was supposed to call her three hours ago and never did...)

Damn, I'm probably awake for a while now, though I need sleep (Sleep wasn't the best last night, the wind kept rattling something around outside that would wake me every time I got to a state of actual sleep.) I don't really feel tired, but I know I need it.

I should go get some CVE studying in, maybe that will put me to sleep for a bit :-P

So I've been looking for a decent travel mug for a while, one tha tI can throw coffee or something into and take with me. I've ended up with a couple of rejects, but this last one....wow.

I tested out the heat-retaining capabilities shortly after buying it with hot coffee...I think I stopped tasting the coffee after about six hours when it started to get nastily bitter. It wasn't burning hot at that point, but just a tad cooler than what I consider my perfect drinking temperature.

So it claims to keep cold stuff cold for up to twelve hours. I haven't tested it for twelve hours but tonight, I poured the remained of a glass of iced coffee into it and took it with me when I left Barnes and Noble...

Roughly five hour later, not only was it still cold, but holy Toledo, the ice was still...well, ICE! Yay for cold drinks that don't get watered down by melting ice!

Not bad for a fifteen dollar investment.

Yummy, seaweed salad, how I love you...but dammit, why isn't there a way to eat you without getting the strands stuck in my teeth?

And why is this batch so salty?

Arright, so...

If you were afraid of the idea of gun bans and wanted to retain your freedom to own firearms, what do you think is the logical way to proceed?

A. Be a model law-abiding, gun-owning citizen and find a way to work peacefully for the right to own guns.

-or-

B. Create a domestic disturbance and then kill and severely injure a bunch of cops in the most fatal day for law enforcement workers since September 11th 2001.

Call me crazy, but logic says to me that shooting 'em up isn't really a good way to ensure that you're gonna get to keep your guns.

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5gxAP_ul1xtDvN-3H8XQ5EaI6_7cAD97BR6T00

My prayers to those who were killed or injured and their loved ones and colleagues. May people learn to be more intelligent about their freedoms...

Gavin is in Massachusetts with her family on account of her aunt. I wish I could have gone along too, but I didn't have sufficient vacation to take the time off work so I had to stay here.

That means I am entertaining myself for the weekend.

(Interjection: I just discovered a tiny bruise on my right arm. It's a disturbingly pretty shade of blue-violet. It kinda looks like I've got an iolite embedded in my arm. But it's not shiny. Ah...now that I think about it, I know how I got it- last night, whilst attempting to open my bedroom window, I banged my arm right along the radial nerve. My bedroom window is stupidly hard to open in humid weather- hell, it's next to impossible to open even in dry weather) and it was raining.)

I was thinking of dragging a notebook down to the harbor and setting up camp on the balcony at Barnes and Noble, but it's raining pretty hard so probably not. And it's supposed to be really windy tmorrow. Hmm...Maybe Sunday. Planning to wander up to the grove, so maybe after that. Or maybe not. Who knows? I've got a couple of partially-written hymns, the first few lines of a poem, a questionnaire to work on for a book that someone's writing, a call-for-submissions to write, and some other things to work on. Not to mention wanting to do a bit of housework and needing to study to retake the CVE. In between all this, there will be talking to Gavin, whom I am missing very much.

Maybe at some point, I'll eat too. It's probably a good thing that I have a variety of things that I need to work on, or I'd probably be tempted to amass a stack of books from the zillions that I have here but never read and shut myself up in the apartment all weekend.

Also need to go to the post office and grocery store, and somewhere that I can get one of those Totes double-layer umbrellas (though since Gavin's is here, I'll probably put that off yet again.)

Oh, and I need to actually buy a notebook that isn't one of those tiny little memo books. Though, I do love my little Five-Star notebook. It's so convenient. Just...the pages aren't very big. Maybe I'll get a regular-sized Five-Star notebook :-)

In other news...I saw a toad leaving the office last night (I love toads and frogs, they're so cute!) Walking down the sidewalk towards the other end of the building, I saw a blob ahead of me on the pavement, almost the exact same color as the concrete. As I got closer, I realized it was a toad. Expected it to hop away before I got too close, but he just sat there and let me take several pictures until I got one that was somewhat decent. Never moved. Then I realized I'd left my phone charger on my desk, so I had to retrieve it When I cam back out, the toad was still there, hadn't moved an inch.

So on the way back to the office this afternoon, I was sitting there in the car minding my own business when a woman went up to the intercom and started trying to get ahold of the driver.

After a minute or so, she finally asked all and sundry if the intercoms work because there was a guy up in the front of the car masturbating.

How nice. She was getting off the train at that stop, and there were no MTA cops in sight, so I meandered up towards the front of the car, keeping my eyes as straight ahead as I could and still figure out who it was- sure enough, there he was with it hanging out for the world to see- made a note of his description as best as I could while avoiding looking directly at the guy and hopped off at the next stop and onto the front car to tell the driver.

When I got off the car, he was sitting there in the seat, not looking like he was interested in going anywhere- I would almost describe his posture as lounging, from what I could see out of the corner of my eye. From the time that I got off the one car and onto the other, and the driver closed the doors, only a few seconds had passed, so I figured he would still be on the train.

Let the driver know, she radioed someone who told her to not go anywhere and to keep the doors closed and that the police would be on the way.

Took the police forever to get there- almost twenty minutes, but they eventually showed up, asked me to come back to the car and identify the guy.

He wasn't sitting in the seat where I had seen him. Walked to the end of the car...the guy must have made a quick exit, because he wasn't there. There were only a few people there and the one detail I had made sure to make a note of because I could see it from the back and without having to get a direct view of his er, activities, was his shirt- it had a fairly distinctively-colored plaid pattern. There had only been a very few other people on the car before -maybe five of them, and I recognized all of them, he was gone, so the police left for the train to continue.

A man and woman sitting in the car asked what it was about, I told them. The woman initially freaked out and started yelling about how gross it was and asked if the guy was still on th car- I informed her that he was gone, which was why the police left. The man asked me if that was all it was about, some guy whacking off on the train. I said that was what it was about, and this guy had a fit and started yelling at me about making him late for work and how I sholdn't be such a prude and I should just turn my head and not watch and let the guy have his fun.

Uhhh...excuse me???? I yelled right back at him that I was going to work too, and that I was late so don't bitch at me about being late for work, and no I wasn't just going to turn my head because what if the guy decided to do more than just sit there and play with his dick? The guy just kept going on about how I made him late for work and I'm such a prude bitch who should just mind her own business and he wasn't hurting anyone so what do I have to complain about?

Seriously, the guy was probably just getting his jollies on being seen in public, but you never know. A few years ago, I remember an incident on a bus where a guy suddenly started doing much the same thing- except he kept it in his pants, but he was clearly handling himself by way of his pockets- and then he stood up and started rubbing up against people who were standing. The guy ran before police could be called.

Yeah, I'm not going to wait for something like that- or worse- to happen.

So the poem from my last post? Who knew it would generate such entertaining reactions?

Posted this poem to a couple of email lists, including one that is devoted to Apollo. Preceding the poem, I explained that it was my interpretation of part of a little-known myth, and I provided a link to the text of that myth, as written in an ode by Pindar. As I said, preceding.

Came home from work this morning and hopped online to find this, er, emotional response (yes, he's serious.):

I wish I had not read this so early in the morning because I am unable to control how upset your poetry has made me. If you were to ever leave a demigod alone in a field I should hope that Hera and Apollo would strike you down as you so deserve by these thoughts. You say you dont know that a demigod would even survive when you leave it in a field. I'm sorry, but you have made me quite ill with that. This would be like Mary leaving Jesus to fend for himself in the stables or something. When in the mythos do any demigods get left to die? Selfish wench. This poem is all selfish undeserving of the gods wench filled horridities! thumbs down.


Following that was yet another response:

i'd like to add, that in Hellenism, the general idea is that the Gods cannot reveal their true selves to us in physical form, as is detailed in the story of Dionysos birth, when his mother was killed when Hera convinced her that she had to see Zeus true form to believe he was who he said he was. She instantly was burned to nothingness. Further, how can you say that you would not love him?

"How could I not have loved the beautiful god"

???

"A son I would have loved, but for shame cannot keep."

I agree with Syd, how could you feel shame for giving birth to a demi-god, what could be more joyous, especially for a Hellenist.

"In this field of violets, surrounded by honeybees, I'll lay him down."

Isn't Pan the God of bees? Isn't that kinda bizarre to leave a child in a swarm of bees? Especially when its a demi god? Sounds like a good way to piss off the Gods if you ask me.

Okay....clearly someone missed the part about it being from a myth and the link to the original story (which, by the way, I didn't stray far from, only wrote from a first person perspective and took the liberties of giving this nymph a few thoughts of her own) and jumped to the conclusion that Apollo walked bodily into my room, had his way with me and got me knocked up. Additionally, I bore the child and then took him to a nice patch of wilderness and plunked him down in a field and let bees eat him, and walked away.

Later, when I posted to "clarify" that I was simply retelling part of a myth, and cited the entire ode containing the story- pertinent bits highlighted, I got a response from the second guy admitting his mistake...

But the first guy? Flat out said that he completely skipped the part where I said t was a myth and provided the link to the myth,"apologized slightly" for the critique, but still basically said that I deserved it for such "horrific horridities" that have spewed forth from my fingertips.

I asked him if he's now insulting Pindar's ghost thusly for telling the story in the first place.

Dude, I don't really give a rip if you don't like my poetry, but I think we've taken this one a wee bit far.

Of course, I think it's hilarious that these two guys think I'm so special as to have gotten knocked up by Apollo and killed his kid.

This is a departure from my usual writings of ridiculously personal, intense sort of things or the various Homeric-style hymns that I've been writing for a while. I first tried to write this poem probably about a year ago, but in a different form...and it just wouldn't write.

Well, today, it did. This is from the myth of Evadne, a nymph who loved Apollo. As you can probably guess from the title, this isn't the complete story (I posted the story, from Pindar's 6th Olympic Ode on my blog http://painandlight.wordpress.com/2009/03/31/in-reference-to-my-previous-post/

Evadne, Unknowing of Alpheios's Consultation of the Delphic Oracle

How could I not have loved the beautiful god
whose hair and skin are like gold
and whose eyes burn a cool fire?

He spoke to me in a voice so sweet,
words flowed from his tongue like silk.
And the songs he sang, so lovely, surely the Muses
must weep at their beauty.

(And I few, I think, would elicit a blush
even from Erato herself, though this is never mentioned
in the stories they tell of a god such as He.
It wouldn't be proper.)

And when he desired for me to come with him to his bed,
he promised me no great gifts of unerring prophecy or any
dazzling trinkets that gods may offer in the moment of seduction,
but I had no care for these anyway;
He but asked and I went willing, for a song,
for one night that has burned itself on my soul.

In time I found that one night had left its mark
upon more than my soul, and soon I was to have a child.
A son I would have loved, but for shame cannot keep.
If I told, none would believe that he was
begotten by a god.

Four days past, in a hidden thicket I lay,
pangs of the birth like no pain I've ever felt before.
He sent to my side help, the birth-goddess and the Fates.
When it ended, I cried in relief, and I cried in joy, short-lived
and love for the child, so small, now in my arms.

It is with great anguish I chose to do this thing.
I don't know how I will live with it, I'll worry about that later.
If I think twice now, I'll turn back.

In this field of violets, surrounded by honeybees, I'll lay him down.
I'll walk away, and I won't look back.
No doubt he will perish, but I will pray for a miracle and try to forget
this child of mine and of the god of light.

One night that has burned itself upon my soul
Now has torn my heart in two.

I can't even begin to properly describe my deep, unending loathing for all things "reality show".

I don't get it. Clearly, TV producers have absolutely no creativity anymore. they should all be fired and replaced by...you know, I don't really care, it doesn't really matter. Drunken wombats could do a better job of coming up with original programming than the fucktards that are in place now.

Who in the fucking hell watches things like a TV show to determine the country's greatest dog-groomer? This isn't "reality". These shows are all just a bunch of rivalries forged by petty bickering and provocation by the producers pandering to the lowest common denominator in order to garner ratings- which, unfortunately, it seems they get as evidenced by the fact that these shows continue for multiple seasons, and every network is flooded with them.

And don't even get me started on American Idol. Why won't that show go the hell away? Why on earth should anyone win their musical contract on a game show that amounts to a an overly-glorified, seemingly-unending round of karaoke? They all sounds just like every other act on top 40 radio. Why do we need more cookie-cutter "music"? Why do we need the endless merchandising...all of the branded products that have spawned from this show, and all the obsession it creates- two years ago, I wanted to kill most of my department at work because they were all obsessed with who won every week and wouldn't stop talking about the really girly Indian guy whose sister was also on the show and whose name I can't remember and can't be bothered to google. It was all they talked about.

This is just one of the reasons that I've all but given up on watching TV (and really, the only thing I'm waching these days is Lost, videotaped by Gavin...I haven't even caught House in a couple of months. Other than that, whatever she has on is largely background noise for me, every now and then an episode of one of the various Law & Orders or Psych- which is really pretty amusing- will catch my attention, but that's it.) The fact that I can't even see the commercials for upcoming shows without my stomach being turned by the utter stupidity- on just about every network that ever comes up- is pathetic. I'm not expecting to like everything on TV, or even a lot of it, but really, happening to be in the same room when commercials are on...it shouldn't be a punishment for horrific crimes I never committed.

'Scuse me, I need to go re-order my multiple Netflix queues....

She hasn't called, I just called her. She's in the middle of a show. Awesome. I told her forget it. If she doesn't know now, I won't have time tomorrow to hang on the phone and hammer out details, I have a ritual to run. And I'm not willing to wait til Sunday and waste half the day sitting around waiting to find out what plans are. So...screw it, I'm just going to find something fun to do- without them- with my girlfriend.

I see my family at this point roughly once a year- when I go to visit them at Christmas. That's it. Sure there have been a few exceptions- memorial day weekend last year, Chelle's wedding, the one time that Mike and Anthony decided to bring Samantha and Ashlyn down to the aquarium a few years ago, but not much beyond that. Oh, and my parents have never been here, unless you count the one time they came down to my office in Hunt Valley to pick me up to go and get my dress fitted for Chelle's wedding.

There have, so far in nearly six years, been precisely two times that my parents have even started to make plans to come down to visit. This Sunday was one of them. Anthony came into town from Oregon, and they were all going to come down here for dinner on Sunday night.

Of course, no one could really commit to a time, so nothing was ever definite. They would know Thursday. Then late Thursday night, they had no idea but would have to see, this because of the weather forecast. They wanted to come down and walk around the Harbor. But storms are forecasted, so hey...why come visit Renee and go out to dinner? We can't see the harbor so it's not worth it. But she was going to know for certain by today. Oh, and suddenly mom has a funeral to go to on Saturday in Philadelphia...but that's not going to prevent her from coming to Baltimore.

Then suddenly today my stepfather gets sick and can't do anything. but mom is going to see if Chelle or Mike will drive. Chelle won't drive- she hates driving in the vaguest drizzle. Mike might agree to but he'll be an ass about it. She'll call me this evening. I'm annoyed, aggravated and upset. Okay, so Mike's sick. Great, what about everyone else who would otherwise drive?

So then I express my general irritation with only seeing people when I bother to make the trip up there, and how this is only the second time in almost six years that vague gestures at plans have even been made. I get a lecture about how they can't just take off because of the business...my response is "Yes, the business! You own it!" You know, even if you can't just take off at will, you CAN pick a day in the future and say that you're not going to schedule anything for that day and come the hell down here. You don't need to stay the night, it's a perfectly reasonable round trip in one day. Between the business and every time I mention it, it's also always a question of whether Mike "feels like it". For two people that claim to love me, and been so sad when I moved away from Lancaster, well...out of sight, out of mind I guess? That's the only explanation I can think of.

But no, it's just not that easy, they *can't* do that. Why not? It's a fucking karaoke business. You know what days of the week you have regular events, and you know which days you don't. Just pick one and don't schedule events for 24 hours.

But anyway, still haven't heard from Mumsie. Called at 9 and got voice mail. Left a message telling her that I would probably be going to bed in an hour or so and if I haven't heard from her by then, well then I guess plans are just going to have to be canceled because I'm not waiting around for Sunday afternoon for them to decide that they actually want to bother to make the trip down here for once and I guess I'll see her when I see her.

Whatever. Gavin and I will find something more interesting to do on Sunday.

Yesterday blew goats. Really.

More later...especially on the incident that really killed everything. Right now, I have to go to bank and grocery store.

Thanks to penguinicity for pointing this out....Much as I love XKCD, I never noticed it.

Go here and check out comic #404.. http://www.xkcd.com/archive/

*hides*

So I'm working on a ritual that we're going to be holding at the grove at the end of the month for a festival invented by erl_queen, Theoxenia Delphinia, which is in honor of all of the deities historically associated with Delphi.

So at the moment, I'm trying to learn more about the deities that I'm not as familiar with...Pan, the Korykian Nymphs, Trophonios, Athena, Poseidon, Gaia, and Zeus. For the moment at least, I'm reading about Zeus.

I will never have the same sort of relationships with these deities that I do with Apollo, and probably never even so much as I do with Dionysus and Hermes, but branching out and learning more is good, eh?

I am excited to be doing a group Hellenic ritual again. It has been too long.

I need to make quiche more often.

The most recent one: chicken, garlic, green onions, pecans, pepperjack and swiss cheese. *Looks longingly after the last slice left for chironcentaur*

In other news...I'm so not awake, but have to get ready for work...

I don't know of any celebrity that looks even vaguely like me. At all.

I was once told that I look like Michelle Branch. One celebrity face-match photo analysis website listed Liv Tyler as the closest to me in their database.

Unless your only criteria is having dark hair and light skin...I don't look a thing like either of them. Wouldn't be complaining if I did, but I don't.

Work-safe. Even if you're not a tech geek, you will likely be amused. Just go read it for a good laugh.

http://community.livejournal.com/techsupport/1943953.html

I've had several brief brushes with famous people...

Gary Anderson- former kicker for the Philadelphia Eagles- when I was a senior in high school, I worked in a Reebok store. One day, He and his wife came in to do some shopping. I was unoccupied at the time, so my boss grabbed me and asked me to help them with whatever they needed. They were really nice.

(In the same store, I also met a player from the 49ers whose name I don't remember as well as- well, not celebrities, but I'll put them here anyway, the wives of Cal Ripken jr and Billy Ripken)

Dan Quayle- well, he was famous at the time, he was the republican party VP candidate when I was in fourth grade. Bush (daddy) and Quayle meandered on through Lancaster county one day. Quayle went to the high school, of the school distract that I attended at the time, Bush went to the high school from which I would eventually graduate. My elementary school was just down the street from the high school and some of the teachers took their classes out to watch as the motorcade passed by. I was in the front of the little gathered crowd, and Quayle and a bunch of campaign assistants or whoever they were got out and handed out a bunch of stickers and little signs and stuff, and shook the hands of the kids nearest him. I was one of them. Gee wasn't I lucky.

Joe Paterno- came to my high school in tenth grade. One of our football players was heavily courted by a bunch of different universities wanting him n their team, and he ended up going to Penn state. Paterno came and did a big assembly for the school. I don't remember much, except that he was really funny and afterwards, he was signing autographs...I stuck around to get one as a gift for my grandfather, who was semi-obsessed with Penn State football.

The drummer from Letters to Cleo- I was at a concert one night in Dallas, Letters to Eleo, Our Lady Peace and Everclear at Deep Ellum Live. After they left the stage, the members of Letters to Cleo were wandering around the crowd, just saying hi to people. The drummer was actually camcording the people that he talked to...I got to say hello, and a brief moment on camcorder.

I've also talked to Breckin Meyer and Chris Noth on the phone in one of my previous tech support jobs. Breckin Meyer seemed to be reasonably intelligent. Chris Noth....did not.

When I was in college, I had a bunch of missed chances working for the school radio and doing various other things. If it weren't for having to do something else, I would have had the chance to meet the band Bowling for Soup, Prince Rainier of Monaco, Lisa Loeb, Billy Bob Thornton and a few others who are escaping mind right now.