I can't get enough of jobs!

I just learned from a fellow in HR that I am to assume the responsibility of putting on a large benefit event, a task that falls under the "other duties as assigned when your co-worker quits and administration wastes no time to implement a hiring freeze" section of my job description. Although I have some reservations about my long term ability to deal with people--that is, people and their insatiable need to have personalities--I'd like the company to know that I am a team player and will leverage my limited skills to put on this little wingding. In the meantime I shall continue to appreciate my current job, where other people's personalities are evinced only by the modifiers they like to dangle and misplace within my copy. Who knew wingdings could give me such job security?

Palin's Resignation Speech

http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2009/07/palin-speech-edit-200907

That's News to Me!

What happens when you write a 24-page annual report and the people responsible for approving it take months and months to do it, therefore rendering the financial statistics obsolete? You call it a newsletter! You use all your power to ignore the professional stock photos, booklet format, comprehensive information, and the total absence of news articles, and you call it a newsletter, damn it! You call it a newsletter and then you shoot yourself.

Faceblock

Let me tell you about this hip new thing I discovered on the Information Superhighway: Facebook. I finally put two and two together and realized that this was the thing everyone was talking about: keeping in touch with family members so you can spend even MORE time tolerating people you don't want to know that much about; gossiping about co-workers who've befriended you not at work, not in your personal life, but ONLINE so that you have to censor everything you say, for fear of a trip to the HR office on Monday; and getting back in touch with people who liked high school way more than you ever did. With my new public Facebook account, I can tell people what I'm up to, that I dislike doing laundry, which bands I like, what line of work I'm in, how whine about gas prices but in actuality just want to talk about what I drive and how cool it makes me, whom I tried to poison at work, and how I can sense the desperation in some of those profile photos. I like it. It's like a community of loud people with no self-control and a lot of stupid things on their minds.

Prize

In one month and one day, I could say, "Five years ago today, I started this blog, and have I confused you with all of those time references one month and one day ago when I mentioned the then yet-to-have-occurred five-year anniversary?"

And you will hang on now, reading for the prize at the end of the post: a statement of wit, wisdom, weirdness, and, you know, alliteration.

Delayed Blog Post

I've been on and off the softball field for about 14 years now. My greatest and only fear to this day is getting hit in the face by a savage ground ball, whose sudden rejection of course leaves my surprise a much delayed reaction.

Oh cra-!

(Hello again. I can't get into the Twitter thing.)

I "give" you this:

http://quotation-marks.blogspot.com/

Vote Today

What should I be?

I was thinking for Halloween I’d just be myself. What do you think? Too boring? At least I won’t look like a cheap costume for Halloween. At least I won’t be screaming, “Hey, I shopped at the makeshift Halloween Costume Depot with the rest of the loser adults who want to look either clever or theatrically slutty on Friday!” I’m going to be myself for Halloween. I’m going to be a candy-pitching bitch who will walk around in her normal corner-whore clothes and tell the cops, “Hey, you can’t arrest me! This is my theatrically slutty costume for Halloween!”

Friends > 20

After several years of dismissing Internet-based social networking sites like Facebook and MySpace, calling them petri dishes for the social bacteria of high school and college cultures, Sylvia signed up for an account on Facebook, inspired only by her younger brother's tasteless, yet hilarious urinal photograph. In just days, Sylvia accepted 20 "friendships" from people she stopped talking to for one reason or another.

One Reason: She is related to them.
Another: She is no longer in high school with them.

What she learned from this isn't that it was a bad idea to sign up for an open-to-anyone social networking site. What she learned was what breeders her classmates turned out to be!

Please note that I have wised up and changed my privacy settings on Facebook, so don't bother trying to become my friend. I already have over 20.

Looking to the Future

Earlier this week I flew to Seattle in search of "Gayway" (see pictured). A place that promised gayness and bold use of lighting couldn't have been more welcomed after a tumultuous week at work. I walked around all afternoon, asking if Gayway was anywhere near the Space Needle. Finally, someone was nice enough to inform me that Gayway was a thing of the past, specifically of the 1962 Seattle's World Fair. I said, "No, it's not a thing of the past, as you say. It's a thing of the future--always was--and the future is where I want to go. I've had a rough week at work, and I want to get beyond it--and soon!" The jeans-wearing guy rolled his eyes and said cynically, "It was just an amusement park, lady." That I was in fact not amused, emphasized further my need to be in Gayway.

On the Rebound

Disappointed about the dog adoption thing, I turned my attention to ponies. I found this guy on the web, much the way I found Harley. In fact, his butterscotch and cream fur reminds me a bit of Harley. Ponies aren't therapeutic after all.

P.S. I think that little girl is too big for the pony.

ADOPTED (but not by me)

Harley was not in his kennel today. A family with three kids took him home with them this morning to have a Harley-happy life.

Hmph! Did I mention they also adopted a puppy? Dog hoarders.

Rock You Like a Hurricane and/or Earthquake!

What, me? Panic? I continued to leave my voice message, continued to sound professional, despite the earthquake's steadfast attempt to rattle me. A magnitude 5.4 quake hit the Los Angeles area just before noon today. Though I recognized the natural hazard immediately, my reaction was a delayed and nonchalant one--one that would bring shame to those who spent so much time ensuring my earthquake safety inculcation. Stop, drop, and roll!

"What the hell are you doing?," shouted a nearby co-worker from under her desk.

"C'mon, Marilyn, I know the drill! I was born and raised in California!," I shouted back.

"You're supposed to take cover under your desk and cover your neck!," she exclaimed.

"That's old school! Too many spinal injuries. Stop, drop, and roll is where it's at these days!," I yelled back.

"You're crazy! That's for fires!," she said.

"Fire extinguishers are for fires. I'm rolling to avoid falling objects in an earthquake!," I explained.

The conversation lasted long after the earthquake stopped. Ol' Marilyn later huddled around the water cooler with some other office workers and laughed about my earthquake preparedness. Whatever. I know what I'm doing.

And all I got was a lousy candy cane...

When I was a kid, I knew another kid who peeled dried glue off his fingers and kept the scraps in a stolen interoffice envelope that said "Property of Robert Elementary School".

I also knew a girl who didn't know what Single File Line meant.

I knew a kid who stole caterpillars from the classroom science station and tried to grow 'em in his own room. When they died, he returned them to the classroom and none of us kids were ever able to believe that butterflies could emerge miraculously from a pile of dead worms.

I knew a bunch of undeserving brats who got a boatload of cool shit during the holidays, and it sucked. All I ever got from Santa was a boot in the face and a ride down a red slide at the mall. Oh, and a freakin' candy cane if my parents bought 5" x 7"s from the pimply elves!

Doing Stuff on my Birthday

Happy Birthday to me. This year, no cake--only a freshly ironed shirt. I had to do the ironing myself last night when I could have been baking a celebratory cake. Goddamn, do I have to do everything around here?

SAVE the historic South Pasadena Rialto Theater

The South Pasadena Downtown Revitalization Project website still features a fine black & white photo of the historic Rialto Theater, but the restoration of the endangered building, which closed last summer after nearly 82 years of business, has been eliminated from the final redevelopment plan. Where have the funds been redirected? What has happened to the preservation ethic this town is known for?

As a preservationist, I wanted to bring to your attention the unfortunate situation with the National Register listed Rialto theater in South Pasadena. The theater is located in a redevelopment zone on Fair Oaks in downtown.

The restoration of the now closed Rialto theater was included as the centerpiece of the initial project proposed for revitalization of the redevelopment zone. It has been eliminated from the final plan which is before the South Pasadena Planning Commission tonight, April 16, 6:30 PM at 1414 Mission Street in South Pasadena, CA.

I am asking for your help to communicate support, by attending the meeting and speaking or emailing the South Pasadena City Clerk at skilby@ci.south-pasadena.ca.us, that the cherished landmark Rialto MUST be included in any plans for revitalization of the downtown redevelopment area. Thank you so much for your interest.

Joanne Nuckols

Founding member and former Chairman of the Board of the South Pasadena Preservation Foundation

April is National Poetry Month

The new campaign for poetry awareness, "Woo or Woe on the Go", must be one of the most admirable initiatives I've seen in years (screw you, helpless pandas and illiterate children). Mobile poetry addresses the serious, but nonexistent problem of poetry's loss of popularity through the decades due to its tragic inaccessibility and inconvenience in modern life. "Woo or Woe on the Go" makes the irrrefutable statement that poetry is not simply a foolish catalogue of blather featuring whiny wooers and woeful wimps. Doesn't the title make that clear to you, dull prose readers, damn it?

Pansy Rock Station Replaces Cool R&B Station in Los Angeles

Read this embarrassingly sycophantic message, stinking of corporate weenie fake-cool, which I extracted from the website of new Los Angeles radio station The Sound:

The Sound Mission

First off, welcome to The Sound. We're glad you found us and that you're interested enough to find and read this page; it shows you're like us and music is important to you. While you've probably already heard us and know what you've heard, thanks for giving us this opportunity to elaborate on what we've set out to do.

The Sound is about simply one thing, it's about the best "rock" music made to date. Notice the quotes around the word rock, because our definition of rock is a lot broader than most and it knows virtually no time frame. On The Sound you'll hear everything from the geniuses that gave birth to the seminal rock of the '60s and '70s to the ever evolving offspring of that music, including great stuff that came out last year...or even last week.

If we do it right, you'll find us surprising you every once in a while; sometimes with a great song that you haven't heard in a long time, or a new song you haven't heard elsewhere, maybe even sometimes with a song you didn't think of as "rock". Our goal is to provide music that's comfortably hip. To be familiar without being stale, new without being obscure.

And, whatever we do, everything we do will be with respect for the music. You know, just like we know, others might think we're a little silly to feel this strongly about music...after all, it's only music. While rock and roll isn't the only important thing in the world, it's still important nonetheless and it makes everything else a little more enjoyable. And along the way, we'll help you stay informed and give you opportunities to get involved in making things better in your community. After all, that's what music is best at, bringing people together and standing for something.
We invite you to join us in our mission of ongoing musical discovery and hope you'll invite your own friends into our Sound village.

Bruce

Bonneville International

Memoir

I've got a

1. Joy
2. Joy
3. Joy
4. Joy

down in my heart, because that's what they told me to sing at church.