Slices

To Anonymous *6, who really isn't, and anybody who tries to whip up opinion against others to make themselves seem better than they really are:

A tiger can smile
A snake can say she loves you;
Lies make us evil

And that's that.

-------------------->8 snip!

It's five minutes past 0700, and I can't take the smell anymore. So I fish a loonie out of my pocket and head into the cafeteria to buy a muffin. I nod and say "Morning" to the cafeteria lady as I pass her. Then to the head cook as I pick up my muffin, and to another couple of cafeteria employees as I pass them. Then up to the till where Cafeteria Lady is to pay.

Rimmy: "Morning."

Cafeteria Lady: "Good morrrrrrning!"

Rimmy: "How are you?"

Cafeteria Lady: "I'm fine, how are you? How's your work? How's your life? What time do you get home?"

Rimmy: Huh? "I'm fine, work's fine, life's fine, about quarter after nine, give or take."

Cafeteria Lady: "How do you like it when someone is nosy to you?"

Rimmy: Ah, so we're going to play that again are we? "No problem, I could always just not answer if I didn't want you to know. Is that what you call nosy?"

Cafeteria Lady: "Well, just so you that people don't like it."

Rimmy: "Ah, I see. Since you brought it up, are you aware that the last time you spoke to me like this, two separate people inquired about complaining that I was harrassing you to the point where you had to berate me for being too nosy to you?"

Cafeteria Lady: "What? Who did that?"

Rimmy: "Of course I'm not going to tell you who, I just thought that since you bring it up now you'd be interested to hear what people thought you were doing."

Cafeteria Lady: "It was never my intention to get you in trouble, I just wanted you to let you know quietly that you were bothering people and let you know that they're talking about you behind your back. Because you really are pretty nosy."

Rimmy: "I'm not sure it counts as quiet when you call over to someone else in the cafeteria and introduce me as the nosiest man in the building. If people are bothered by me, they have proper channels to deal with it through if it's a problem. If they just want to mutter amongst themselves about it rather than deal with it, that's okay too. Consider your sources too (sidenote: a little sniffing around has led me to believe that this nosy thing goes no further than her good work-buddy Crazy Cougar Receptionist). But we really shouldn't talk about this now when you've got a line of people waiting at the till."

Cafeteria Lady: "Well, we won't talk of it ever again."

Rimmy: "That's up to you. About all I'd be interested in is what prompted your timing on it."

And I went to go eat my muffin. The smell overhyped it, as it was rather mediocre. Bah.

DiceGimp is as annoying as ever. He finally got his computer a week or two ago. He's endlessly bringing it up so that anybody around will ooh and ah over how awesome it is, and presumably by extension, how awesome he is.

It's an Athlon 2800. That's fine, but it ain't fast, it ain't new, and you're not awesome because you bought it. Romanian Guy brought in a copy of the Hub, a free paper you find at the SkyTrain terminals that showed you could buy the same machine for half the price ($359 as opposed to the $700 DiceGimp paid), or two for one.

On the payday before this last one, DiceGimp moved his account from wherever to TD Canada Trust. He did this because the bank was offering a free iPod Shuffle to people that moved an existing account to them. He got his iPod in the middle of last week.

DiceGimp: "Yup, got me a new toy today."

Rimmy: "Didn't you already buy an mp3 player a month ago?"

DiceGimp: "Yeah, but it's not working anymore."

Rimmy: "Are you surprised? I spend more money on cereal in a month than you spent on that thing."

DiceGimp: "So I picked up this little toy today. It's pretty cool."

Rimmy: "If I remember the promotion properly, they mail them to you. How did you pick it up?"

DiceGimp: "How did you know I got it from the bank? How do you know that I didn't buy it in the store?"

Rimmy: Sigh. "Two reasons. One, it's more than two days after payday so you're broke. And two, you told everybody that you moved your account specifically so you could get the very iPod you're holding in your hand right now."

DiceGimp: "It's pretty cool. It's got sixty gigabytes of song storage."

Rimmy: "No it doesn't. It's an iPod Shuffle."

DiceGimp: "How do you figure? It says it's got sixty gigabytes of storage right on the box!"

Rimmy: "Then you'd better go to the press with the news that there are fake iPod boxes being printed up, because last I checked there were no Shuffles with more than one gig. Although I think some come with less as well."

note: DiceGimp doesn't know what a gigabyte is. He's fuzzily remembering The Romanian and I talking computer specs and trying to trump us by having something with "bigger numbers". Later in the week he'll mention that his computer has a 400 gig hard drive.

DiceGimp: "Well, that's what it says on the box."

Rimmy: "Lucky you, getting a lab prototype."

I won't even go into DiceGimp getting an old Fido phone off of a friend and activating it. You'd think he was one of the brave pioneers of his age, going for one of these new-fangled phones that don't even need wires. He made a big production out of charging it up at work, and phoning both myself and Buffalo Kisser up to call his "new phone" to "see if it was working properly".

Rimmy: "You have the work phone you're calling me on. Call your phone on that if you want to test it."

DiceGimp: "I already did, I just want to see if it can get calls from other phones."

Jesus Tapdancing Christ.

Rimmy: "If it works with one incoming call, it'll work with them all."

No way do I want this guy's phone number. None of these jokers have mine, or even my email address. How did that Fremen saying from Dune go? "Never be in the company of anybody you wouldn't want to die with"?

God, I hope I don't die at work.

The Romanian is going to Romania in October for four to seven weeks for a visit. The as-yet undecided length of stay is due to him constantly revamping his budget.

However, he also wants to pick up a digital camera for his trip, as well as replace his current monitor with something newer. By pure fluke, he's looking at a monitor that I've been considering for myself. He can't afford to buy the monitor unless he sells his existing one, however. On that happy day he'll take the cash and go get the new one. So for a couple of months he's been half-assedly trying to sell it, especially to DiceGimp as the computer that he was going to buy/has bought (depending on which time we're talking) didn't come with one. DiceGimp always says he's going to buy it, but then blows his cash the moment he gets paid. And then promises next time.

So a week ago, on The Romanian's last shift for the week and after he left (at 0600, rather than the 0800 DiceGimp and I are done at) I idly mentioned that I was thinking of buying The Romanian's monitor.

DiceGimp: "What? Why would you do that?"

Rimmy: "Well, he's dropped the price pretty low and it's a good monitor for the price. A little small and slow for me to really use, but I could put it on my drive farm. I have a little fifteen inch tube on that one that I wouldn't mind replacing."

note: the monitor in question is a seventeen inch 12 ms 700:1 Samsung. If I really bought it, I'd just put it as my second monitor on the machine I'm typing on now. The drive farm is fine with the one it has now, since I almost never have to use it. I'm really just putting a bit of pressure on DiceGimp to buy the damn thing already and be done with it.

DiceGimp: "That would really screw me, man. I'm stuck using this really old monitor on my fancy new machine, and I wouldn't mind upgrading to something bigger."

Rimmy: "That's fine, the stores are full of monitors. The Romanian has stuff to do before he leaves on his trip, and I'd hate to see him screwed on this."

DiceGimp: "I'm not going to screw him, I told him on what paycheque I'd be able to take it off his hands."

Rimmy: "Yeah, about three different times now? Or has it been four?"

DiceGimp: "I have expenses man. Rent, food, bills. It's expensive."

Rimmy: "Spare me. We all have the same expenses. If you'd put fifty dollars aside each paycheque since The Romanian's been offering this thing to you, you'd have it now. I've got the cash now, and I don't mind helping The Romanian out."

We left it at that. Half a week passes, and The Romanian comes back on shift. Since I get there before DiceGimp, I inform The Romanian of what I said to DiceGimp to put the pressure on him. The Romanian is delighted.

We chew the fat about various things for a bit, and then he gets a call from... DiceGimp. It seems that DiceGimp is going to be late, but he is coming. That's fine. I head off to do one of my full patrols.

About halfway through, The Romanian calls me up to tell me that DiceGimp has arrived, and he's brought a box of Timbits, and that I should get my ass down there before they're all eaten. Laughing to myself at how obvious DiceGimp is, I tell The Romanian to knock himself out and eat them all, and that I'll be down when I'm done my patrol.

Eventually I make it down, and the Romanian is trailing his fingers through the empty box hoping to pick up some powdered sugar to lick. DiceGimp is presumably out on his bike or watching tv somewhere.

The Romanian: "Hey man, you should have had some of these things! They were mmm mmm magnifique!"

Rimmy: "That's okay dude, I suspect they were for you anyway."

The Romanian: "I'm glad you tipped me off about what you told DiceGimp - as soon as he came in the door he said 'Here you go, some nice fresh Timbits for you.' Then he dropped to a more conspiratorial tone and said 'So... we still have that deal between us for that monitor, right?' and, remembering what you'd said to him, I said 'Well, I'd like to help you out but if someone offered me cash I'd have to sell it to them.'"

We both laugh.

Rimmy: "Tell you what, when do we all work together next? Thursday night? I'll bring the cash then, and we'll see what he does."

The Romanian: "What, you're going to buy the monitor? I thought it was all just a joke!"

Rimmy: "It is, but if worse comes to worse I can buy it and then sell it to DiceGimp so the pressure's not on you anymore. I know you've got only a short time before your trip."

The Romanian: "He's going to be so mad!"

Rimmy: "Even madder when I raise the price by fifty bucks..."

We laugh again. Good times. ;)

I know I'm an ass to DiceGimp, no need to point it out. What you're spared, however, is the sheer bloodyminded volume of his irritatingness (not a word, but I like it). I can expect no less than two phone calls an hour from him, and sometimes more. It's a rare shift I don't have twenty calls logged from him.

"The moon looks weird tonight." "I saw some crows, but they were going the wrong way." "What do we do if we see a guy sleeping on the lawn of a building that's not part of our site?" "How high does the elevator in your tower go to?" "How do you cook a lobster?" "I saw a skunk tonight and scared it away from some Telus protestors." (as he further described that scene, it turns out that it was better than fifty meters from the protestors, and heading away from them. Nonetheless, he felt he was instrumental in preventing a skunk-related stinking) "It's raining out, and I got wet." "It's windy out and I can feel it pushing me." "It's hot/cold/wet/dry/light/dark outside." "The sun came up." "The brake lever for my front wheel is wiggly." "I'm hungry." "I'm going to go shopping for a bunch of stuff this weekend." (no you're not, you don't get paid this weekend and you already told us you're broke and tried to bum money for McDonald's) "I was thinking of this time when I did ." (like when he said he helped grade biology papers for a 'college teacher buddy'. Upon questioning, it turns out that DiceGimp is barely capable of spelling biology, nevermind grading a paper and not a multiple choice test. Just like we used to do for Polish guy, I advised DiceGimp to keep his lies to believable things)

This is just off the top of my head. All of this might be from a single night. Someday I'll record a night's worth of this nonsense and put the audio files up on the blog for all of you nonbelievers. :P

My S/S, Barney, is skirting the edge of being removed. So my sources inform me. It's a crapshoot right now on whether he's going to take the rest of us with him. Apparently I'm in the good books with The Powers That Be, but one out of four may not be enough to convince them that our company is worth keeping on. I'll maybe know more in a couple of weeks.

Phrase that most amused one of my friends this past week:

Why does my zipper always sound louder when I'm hiding in someone's closet?

Phrase that most amused my mother, though she thought it was horrible as well:

Abstinence makes the church grow fondlers!

Most disturbing song I've heard in a while: Voltaire singing The Chosen. I've heard some of his other stuff before, courtesy of Fictional Correspondant, and it was funny and sarcastic. So I wasn't prepared for the difference in this song. And indeed, the entire album it's from is uncomfortably dark. Download the song and experience schitzophrenia. =8^O

And finally, the worst pickup line I've heard in a while, overheard from the patio of the pub "Scruffy McGuire's" that's right next to the stairs up to the SkyTrain terminal I take every night:

"So I said to her, 'How do you like your eggs in the morning - scrambled or fertilized?'"

Yeesh.