Asma, being addicted to free stuff, often comes across little animals that need a new home. She's only responded to three or four (that I know of), but only one played out, as of last Thursday.
It is here that I introduce Papaya Jane:
Yes, Shirin has company now. Except that Shirin barks at her if she gets near and looks inside Papaya's cage. So we cover the cage when Shirin is out.
Papaya is probably a year old. We kept her name from the previous owner; Asma added ‘Jane’. She is slowly getting used to us. She is chubby. She reminds me of a puppy and baby seal.
After countless years of waiting to buy The Chronicles of Narnia, I finally made the plunge a few weeks ago, though I missed out on getting the boxed set with white books which I'd been eyeing all these years (seems that they've stopped selling it at the big book stores). Instead, I have a single volume. It took a few weeks before I had any momentum in reading, but it's been two weeks or less since I started and I've got two stories left.
It's like my Lord of the Rings addiction a couple of years back, wanting to skip class and stay up late just to read.
The end of The Voyage of the ‘Dawn Treader’ saddens me a bit.
DMVs can be utterly stupid and annoying.
(It's 11:33 AM on Tuesday and I just realized that this post was still saved as a draft.)
A couple of nights ago, the area received its first snowfall. It was disastrous, as sheets of tiny, non-sticking snowflakes continuously fell and melted on the roadways.
In a pre-emptive strike, Montgomery county mobilized its snow plow unit onto the highway, and the plow drivers sat and waited anxiously while nothing happened.
Yes, snow plows were deployed for non-sticking snow. The area is notorious for school closings and delays with an inch or two on the ground (and a lack of drivers that know how to maneuver light snow fall).
It's something this Midwesterner might never comprehend.
For you folks waiting on holiday cards, Asma and I apologize for the delay. I have wasted over 20 sheets of nice double-sided matte photo paper because Canon PiXMAs (the iP4000 and iP6000 models) are retarded.
Initially, with the iP4000, I tried printing through Windows networking, but everytime I did, the right margin was cut off a quarter of an inch. I thought the printer was defective (or just had some stupid quirk) to it, so I exchanged it for an iP6000. That ended up doing the same thing.
Asma suggested I try printing from her computer and, for whatever reason, the printer was no longer cutting off the right margin. So I thought we were set. But then the crop marks wouldn't line up correctly, and I thought I was careful enough in InDesign to align things properly, but things were always off, and that was pissing me off.
It turned out that Acrobat on Asma's computer was set to scale the print down, which threw everything off. After disabling that option, I found out that the printable area of the page was a bit smaller than I realized.
A little more adjustment to the layout and I thought, finally, everything is good. Except that the crop marks were a bit off for the bottom of the page.
In the end, the printer's two major flaws are that it doesn't feed the paper in evenly, and it pushes the print a few fractions of an inch to the right.
So, this particular card is being scrapped for a post-December 25/New Year card. Because we're fed up with the fuck-ups.
I sorely miss my Canon i550. Who would've thought an older model could be so much better? I hope my brother is taking good care of it, as it's now part of a discontinued line.
Hmm… There have been some goings-on regarding human pests and my family. I won't talk about it here, but it's safe to say that people are ridiculous. We see it in Bush, and now in these two individuals.
AARP is good; I have my own little bubble despite not having a permanent home. Antharia, I think, has fired me; my account to their intranet, along with my email, have been disabled or deleted. It's really nice of them to not give me a heads-up. If this is truly the case, fuck them. They still owe me money.
I think I'll be going to Springfield again on January 12. Yay. Frequent flyer tickets are so inflexible. Boo.
We almost bought an adorable guinea pig I named Guss (who is probably a girl, but I'll refer to it as a boy). Guss looked so clueless, like he could run into a wall and forget that he was hurt a minute later. I wish pets weren't so adorable.
There's more I've left out, but it's impossible and impractical to chronicle everything. Happy Yalda!
Actually, there is some big news I'm holding off on. You'll know in about three weeks. I ain't a press secretary, and there will be no leaks.
It all started yesterday, when I was on Asma's computer moving some files into a shared directory on the network. To make things convenient, I also enabled printer sharing, since it made no sense to drag the laptop over and switch USBports or to transfer files if I wanted to print.
Unbeknown to Asma, of course.
About 20 minutes ago I thought it would be funny to startle her by printing a page (while she was working on an 11 page final paper due in less than three hours). As I was getting ready, a mutual friend called her, so I waited patiently until she got off the phone. I then sent the following, in Rotis Sans Serif:
success!
—page generated by RouterHack v4.3a—
followed by many, many blank lines and the last line
—lol, jk—
Three things happened.
One. Asma looked at the printer and muttered something like, ‘Huh?’
Two. She got up and looked at the page, saying ‘Oh no…’ with such a grave look on her face.
Three. I sat and stared until she turned and looked at me, at which point I couldn't hold back the laughter.
I joke-oh-yoo one time.
I should've specified that I want your snail mail address. Pony Express. An address that you'll be at around the 18th.
This doesn't apply to future a5 employees or blood relatives.
My cellphone has been h4x0r3d finally, in that yesterday I received my first telemarketer call. This spells the beginning of the end? I hope it was just a fluke.
Poop.
Shirin escaped again four nights ago, but we only had to search for 10–15 minutes. We now solved the mystery of how she got trapped behind the wall; details [and visuals] to follow in the coming days.
Last night I had what could be the longest stretch of uninterrupted sleep in many years – 6.5 hours. I feel so drained though, after waking up at 4:30 yesterday and not being able to make a full recovery. The Metro makes me want to pass out.
I think I found the opposite of a Dirty Sanchez. I came across this five years ago, but it took until now for me to make a link, after having stared at a Fresh Samantha water bottle each time I work in the ‘other’ office. (Before, I was trying to somehow pervertize on that name, with no success.)
Did I mention that the ‘other’ office is cold as unhell and that I literally need to buy fingerless gloves just so I can function and use a mouse?
I talked to Leslie – the agent at Aquent who helped me get this job – after several weeks yesterday. She wanted to touch base with me and see how things have been going. She also mentioned that my supervisor wants to keep me at AARP, though I don't know if it's for a permanent hire. Which is cool, regardless. Laura had a lot of nice things to say about me. But, I told Leslie that I would prefer to do some real development work and less tedious data entry related things. So people are looking into that, seeing if the web services division has any need for me at the moment.
Clutch just added a show at the 9:30 Club [as their first show of 2005, apparently]. No need to drive to Philly on New Year's Eve to see them. They're finally playing in the area while I'm around! Squeee!
I have dental insurance again. My teeth need some attention after 18 months.
If you want a holiday card, please fill out the contact form with your name and address.
I don't think I've pointed out yet that I am absolutely in love.
Yes, The West Wing is a great show. I couldn't go into any detail and do the show justice, but it's definitely something that'll make you wish all presidents and administrations took note of and emulated. And, it's funny.
Asma and I finished season 1 this morning. It was such a cliffhanger, but she me made wait some 9 hours, after going out for stuff, before we could start season 2.
And we're gonna do that now. So bye.
(I love the girl too.)
There's word that work I was meant to do starting a month ago will now be underway. Awesome? Perhaps. Today might be the last day of any real data entry.
The office I took shelter in is no longer available at all times, since the normal occupant is making her transition back to work after recovering from some sort of surgery. So I will be moving between two offices for the time being. Maybe even three? Whatever's available. I don't want to end up working in the library.
I just totally made myself feel stupid. That is immoral.
