Mundanevania

Silence is golden; duct tape is silver

2007-11-21T10:23:00.000-08:00

Okay, I admit I haven't been updating this blog as often as I should have. When my site got busy and the responsibility heaped on, I felt crushed for time and started putting it off. I adapted to the pace and increased work, but putting off updating became habit. Not a good habit, mind you, but a habit nonetheless.

And the longer something gets put off, the harder it is to begin.

However, since a friend of mine has generously given me a year and one day to post something or else be deleted, I've got to throw a frikkin' bone here. So below, revealed openly for the first time, are the questions I ask everybody I meet in order to decide if I can really love them. If you've gone out with me, or know somebody who's gone out with me... they've been asked these in some form or another.

1. Let us assume you met a rudimentary magician. Let us assume he can do five simple tricks - he can pull a rabbit out of his hat, he can make a coin disappear, he can turn the ace of spades into the Joker card, and two others in a similar vein. These are his only tricks and he can't learn any more; he can only do these five. HOWEVER, it turns out he's doing these five tricks with real magic. It's not an illusion; he can actually conjure the bunny out of the ether and he can move the coin through space. He's legitimately magical, but extremely limited in scope and influence.

Would this person be more impressive than Albert Einstein?

2. Let us assume a fully grown, completely healthy Clydesdale horse has his hooves shackled to the ground while his head is held in place with thick rope. He is conscious and standing upright, but completely immobile. And let us assume that, for some reason, every political prisoner on earth (as cited by Amnesty International) will be released from captivity if you can kick this horse to death in less than twenty minutes. You are allowed to wear steel-toed boots.

Would you attempt to do this?

3. Let us assume there are two boxes on a table. In one box, there is a relatively normal turtle; in the other, Adolf Hitler's skull. You have to select one of these itmes for your home. If you select the turtle, you can't give it away and you have to keep it alive for two years; if either of these parameters are not met, you will be fined $999 by the state. If you select Hitler's skull, you are required to display it in the semi-prominent location in your living room for the same amount of time, although you will be paid a stipend of $120 per month for doing so. Display of the skull must be apolitical.

Which option do you select?

4. Genetic engineers at Johns Hopkins University announce that they have developed a so-called "super gorilla." Though the animal cannot speak, it has a sign language lexicon of over twelve thousand words, and IQ of almost 85, and, most notably, a vague sense of self-awareness. Oddly, the creature (who weighs over three hundred kilograms/700 pounds) becomes fascinated by football. The gorilla aspires to play the game at its highest level and quickly develops the rudimentary skills of a defensive end. ESPN analyst Tom Jackson speculates that this gorilla would be "borderline unblockable" and would likely average six sacks a game (although Jackson concedes the beast might be susceptible to counters and misdirection plays). Meanwhile, the gorilla has made it clear he would never intentionally injure any opponent.

You are the commissioner of the NFL: would you allow this gorilla to sign with the Oakland Raiders?

5. You meet your soul mate. However, there is a catch: every three years, someone will break both of your soul mate's collarbones with a crescent wrench, and there is only one way you can stop this from happening: you must swallow a pill that will make every song you hear, for the rest of your life, sound as if it's being performed by the band Alice in Chains. When you hear Creedence Clearwater Revival on the radio, it will sound (to your ears) like it's being played by Alice in Chains. If you see Radiohead live, every one of their tunes will sound like it's being covered by Alice in Chains. When you hear a commercial jungle on TV, it will sound like Alice in Chains; if you sing to yourself in the shower, your voice will sound like deceased Alice vocalist Layne Staley performing a capella (but it will only sound this way to you).

Would you swallow the pill?

6. At long last, someone invents "the dream VCR." This machine allows you to tape an entire evening's worth of your own dreams, which you can then watch at your leisure. However, the inventor of the dream VCR will only allow you to use this device if you agree to a strange caveat: when you watch your dreams, you must do so with your family and your closest friends in the same room. They get to watch your dreams along with you. And if you don't agree to this, you can't use the dream VCR.

Would you still do this?

7. Defying all expectation, a group of Scottish marine biologists capture a live Loch Ness monster. In an almost unbelievable coincidence, a bear hunter in the Pacific Northwest shoots a sasquatch in the thigh, thereby allowing zoologists to take the furry monster into captivity. These events happen on the same afternoon. That evening, the US president announces he may have thyroid cancer and will undergo a biopsy later that week.

You are the front page editor of The New York Times: what do you play as the biggest story?

8. You meet the perfect person. Romantically, this person is ideal: you find them physically attractive, intellectually stimulating, consistently funny, and deeply compassionate. However, they have one quirk: this individual is obsessed with Jim Henson's gothic puppet fantasy The Dark Crystal. Beyond watching it on dvd at least once a month, he/she peppers casual conversaion with Dark Crystal references, uses Dark Crystal analogies to explain everyday events, and occasionally likes to talk intensely about the film's "deeper philosophy".

Would this be enough to stop you from marrying this individual?

9. A novel titled Interior Mirror is released to mammoth commercial success (despite middling reviews). However, a curious social trend emerges: though no one can prove a direct scientific link, it appears that almost thirty percent of the people who read this book immediately become homosexual. Many of these newfound homosexuals credit the book for helping them reach this conclusion about their orientation, despite the fact that Interior Mirror is ostensibly a crime novel with no homoerotic content (and was written by a straight man).

Would this phenomenon increase (or decrease) the likelihood of you reading this book?

10. This is the opening line of Jay McInerney's Bright Lights, Big City: "You are not the kind of guy who would be in a place like this at this time of the morning." Think about that line in the context of the novel (assuming you`ve read it, or seen the movie). Now go to your mp3 collection, go to the Heart folder and listen to the opening riff to "Barracuda."

Which of these two introductions is a higher form of art?

11. You are watching a movie in a crowded theatre. Though the plot is mediocre, you find yourself dazzled by the special effects. But with twenty minutes left in the film, you are struck with an undeniable feeling of doom: you are suddenly certain your mother has just died. There is no logical reason for this to be true, but you are certain of it. You are overtaken with the irrational metaphysical sense that, somewhere, your mom has just perished. But this is only an intuitive, amorphous feeling; these is no evidence for this, and your mother has not been ill.

Would you immediately exit the theatre, or would you finish watching the movie?

12. You meet a wizard in downtown Chicago. The wizard tells you he can make you more attractive if you pay him money. When you ask how this process works, the wizard points to a random person on the street. You look at this random stranger. The wizard says, "I will now make them a dollar more attractive." He waves his magic wand. Ostensibly, this person does not change at all. As far as you can see, nothing is different. But, somehow, this person is suddenly a little more appealing. The tangible difference is invisible to the naked eye, but you can't deny that this person is vaguely sexier. This wizard has a weird rule though - you can only pay him once. You can't keep giving him money until you're satisfied. You can only pay him one lump sum up front.

How much cash do you give the wizard?

13. Every person you have ever slept with is invited to a banquet where you are the guest of honour. No one will be in attendance except you, the collection of your former lovers, and the catering service. After the meal, you are asked to give a fifteen minute speech to the assembly.

What do you talk about?

14. For reasons that cannot be explained, cats can suddenly read at a twelfth grade level. They can't talk and they can't write, but they can read silently and understand the text. Many cats love this new skill, because they now have something to do all day while they lay around the house. However, a few cats become depressed because reading forces them to realize the limitations of their existence (not to mention the utter frustration of being unable to express themselves).

This being the case, do you think the average cat would enjoy Garfield, or would cats find this cartoon to be an insulting caricature?

15. You have a brain tumour. Though there is no discomfort at the moment, this tumour would unquestionably kill you in six months. However, your life can (and will) be saved by an operation. The only downside is that there will be a brutal incision to your frontal lobe. After the surgery, you will be significantly less intelligent. You will still be a fully functioning adult, but you will be less logical, you will have a terrible memory, and you will have little ability to understand complex concepts or difficult ideas. The surgery is in two weeks.

How do you spend the next fourteen days?

16. Someone builds an optical portal that allows you to see a vision of your own life in the future (it's essentially a crystal ball that shows a randomly selected image of what your life will be like in twenty years). You can only see into this portal for thirty seconds. When you finally peer into the crystal, you see yourself in a living room, two decades older that you are today. You are watching a Canadian football game, and you are extremely happy. You are wearing a CFL jersey. Your chair is surrounded by books and magazines that promote the Canadian Football League, and there are CFL pennants covering your walls. You are alone in the room, but you are gleefully muttering about historical moments in Canadian football history. It becomes clear that, for some unknown reason, you have become obsessed with Canadian football.. And this future is static and absolute; no matter what you do, this future will happen. The optical portal is never wrong. This destiny cannot be changed.

The next day you are flipping through television channels and randomly come across a pre-season CFL game between the Toronto Argonauts and the Saskatchewan Roughriders. Knowing your inevitable future, do you now watch it?

17. You are sitting in an empty bar (in a town you've never before visited) drinking Bacardi with a soft-spoken acquaintance you barely know. After an hour, a third individual walks into the tavern and sits by himself, and you ask your acquaintance who the new man is. "Be careful of that guy," you are told. "He is a man with a past." A few minutes later, a fourth person enters the bar - he also sits alone. You ask your acquaintance who this new individual is. "Be careful of that guy too," he says. "He is a man with no past."

Which of these two people do you trust less?

18. You have won a prize. The prize has two options, and you can choose either (but not both). The first option is a year in Europe with a monthly stipend of $2000. The second option is ten minutes on the moon.

Which option do you select?

19. Your best friend is taking a nap on the floor of your living room. Suddenly, you are faced with a bizarre existential problem: this friend is going to die unless you kick them (as hard as you can) in the rib cage. If you don't kick them while they slumber, they will never wake up. However, you can never explain this to your friend. If you later inform them that you did this to save their life, they will also die from that. So you have to kick a sleeping friend in the ribs, and you can't tell them why.

Since you cannot tell your friend the truth, what excuse will you fabricate to explain this (seemingly inexplicable) attack?

20. For whatever reason, two unauthorized movies are made about your life. The first is an independently released documentary, primarily composed of interviews with people who know you and bootleg footage from your actual life. Critics are describing the documentary as "brutally honest and relentlessly fair." Meanwhile, Columbia Tri-Star has produced a big-budget biopic of your life, casting major Hollywood stars as you and all your acquaintances; though the movie is based on actual events, screenwriters have taken some liberties with the facts. Critics are split on the artistic merits of this fictionalized account, but audiences love it.

Which film would you be most interested in seeing?

21. Imagine you could go back to the age of five and relive the rest of your life, knowing everything that you know now. You will re-experience your entire adolescence with both the cognitive ability of an adult and the memories of everything you've learned from having lived your life previously.

Would you lose your virginity earlier or later than you did the first time around (and by how many years)?

22. You work in an office. Generally, you are popular with your coworkers. However, you discover that there are currently two rumours circulating in the office gossip mill, and both involve you. The first rumour is that you got drunk at the office holiday party and had sex with one of your married coworkers. This rumour is completely true, but most people don't believe it. The second rumour is that you have been stealing hundreds of dollars of office supplies (and then selling them to cover a gambling debt). This rumour is completely false, but virtually everyone assumes it is factual.

Which of these rumours is most troubling to you?

23. Consider this possibility:

a. Think about deceased TV star John Ritter.
b. Now, pretend Ritter had never become famous. Pretend he was never affected by the trappings of fame, and try to imagine what his personality would have been like.
c. Now, imagine that this person - the unfamous John Ritter - is a character in a situation comedy.
d. Now, you are also a character in this sitcom, and the unfamous John Ritter character is your sitcom father.
e. However, this sitcom is actually your real life. In other words, you are living inside a sitcom: everything about your life is a construction, featuring the unfamous John Ritter playing himself (in the role of your TV father). But this is not a sitcom. This is your real life.

How would you feel about this?

Ah, are some of these situations sounding a bit familiar? Does the style of questioning ring a bell?

No, I'm not going to tell you the "right" answers. I do, however, own a copy of The Dark Crystal.

Big pimpin'

2006-11-20T12:44:00.000-08:00

Two weeks now since my sleepy little site has gone crazy, security-wise. The guy who's calling for extra security contradicts himself for what he wants frequently, sometimes in the same breath.

I now have, assuming they don't glue any more people in, just under twenty people under me. Some are okay, some aren't. Some are just uncertain, some are lazy.

We did the bulk of the move at the site on Friday and Saturday. Today (Monday) will be the first day the employees will have been in the new area. Unfortunately, one of the two people I have on site is an idiot.

Here's the thing about a sitter shift - you don't move. Usually sitter shifts refer to watching a hospital patient, someone at risk, or a vulnerable point. You don't get a break, you don't get to go to the bathroom, you don't get to leave.

Sound harsh? Maybe.

I've done a couple of suicide watches. You're there to make sure they either don't try, or in case they do manage it to call for help and keep them alive as long as possible.

Think it's appropriate to pop outside for a five minute smoke during something like that?

If your two year old was playing in the backyard near the pool, would you just go inside and start watching tv for a half hour "lunch break"? If so, you're a fool.

While not all sitter shifts are as important, that's the idea behind them. If you really need to leave (bathroom, smoke, gaping wound...) you get someone to cover for you.

But I've got a guy there during working hours (0800-1600) who not only leaves to go get tea, or to stretch his legs (pace, you idiot!), he won't even use the bathroom that's about two meters away from his post. He wanders 100 meters away, through a big chunk of the building, to go to another one.

He feels it's unreasonable to make him stay in one place, and although I was patient the first few times explaining that this is how it works, that this is what the client wants, and that I don't want to keep getting phonecalls at home telling me he's wandering around, I've lost my patience.

He agrees to do what I want every time we speak, but keeps on doing it and then says I'm being unreasonable when I call him on it.

Also, he spends at least a quarter of every hour in the bathroom. He says it's okay because he has some gastro-intestinal issues. I tell him that if he's medically unfit to do the job, he'll have to go elsewhere (i.e. another site) because I need someone who can do the job. This problem isn't in his file, incidentally. It should be.

He claims that nobody could do it, and don't I just love it when a guy who's done security for all of two months to tell me what can and can't be done, I mention myself at the site when the glass fell in. Lots of others manage it, so just because he can't (or won't) doesn't mean it can't be done, or that it doesn't need to be done.

I've got a low priority request in for him to be pulled off. About the only thing he's got going for him is that he speaks fairly good english. Special guards are often from the bottom of the heap, so that's why it's low priority. Although one more complaint and I'll just start pulling doubles and do his shift myself.

There are lots of little stories to relate, but I'm cramping for time at the moment so I'll just give you one that surprised me:

On Friday, I had even more guards than usual (client request for move). One of them was a young woman from Hong Kong. I planted her and another guy at doors we'd propped open, and checked back on them frequently.

As is usual for me, I checked their security licenses and noted down the proper spelling of their names, their phone numbers, and their license numbers (so I can make sure they're paid). Towards the end of the night, one of the relief guards came in nearly seventy five minutes early. I told the on-site special guards that one of them could go home early with eight hours pay (ah, the joys of controlling my own budget, recently swelled as it is) but that they'd have to decided between them which it would be.

The female went for it, because her shift would have ended at 0000 and she had to work another site at 0800. She asked if I could get her a cab, so I did. When it showed, I took her out to it and she told me how much she liked the site, although she'd have preferred if she could have walked around and seen more of it.

I told her that she could always tell Operations that, and they could ask me if I wanted her if a regular position opened up. She seemed to like that.

After seeing her off, I installed the relief guard into his position and started rolling around the site as usual when I received a phone call. It was the female guard, she'd forgotten her umbrella and could I let her in to get it?

Sure. So I did and took her back out to her cab. As she was getting in, she said "You have my number, right?"

I told her I did, assuming that she meant she'd want me to call if there was an opening. But that's not what she said.

"Good. Then maybe we can go out sometime."

And then she got in the cab and left me standing in the rain thinking "What the fuck?!"

Must be my soap. ;)

Two fists, beyotch!

2006-11-16T13:07:00.000-08:00

Hee! Some twenty-two months ago, I had my first real altercation with Crazy Cougar Receptionist.

But last night, I got a bit of petty vindication. w00t!

See, last time she called Evil Property Manager up and tried to get him to pressure the client to get rid of me. But this time all the details were observed, and she got served. It went something like this:

Ring. (honestly, morel ike deedeeDOOdoo, but meh)

Rimmy: "Security, Rimmy speaking."

Other Guy: "Hi Rimmy, it's (guy from the bike patrol security company, employed by Evil Property Manager)."

Rimmy: "What can I do for you?"

Other Guy: "Do you have any employees on site? Because there's a car parked in the fire lane out front and if it's one of yours I won't have it towed. It's a (describes car)."

Whee! It's CCR's!

Rimmy: "Yes, it's one of my employees. Tell you what, since it's in your area, why don't I let you in to talk to her. You can ask her to move it, and feel free to be as rude as you like."

Other Guy: "Well, I don't know that I'll need to be rude..."

Rimmy: "Wait until you meet her. I'll come get you at the front."

Other Guy: "Okay then."

So I go and retrieve him and take him to where CCR has come back to do some of her personal Christmas nonsense. I crack the door open, and then announce "Here you go."

Normally she'd ignore me, but she looked up to see who it was and saw someone she didn't know, dressed as security.

CCR: "Hello."

Other Guy: "Hi there. I was wondering if that was your car parked out in front there?"

Her eyes tighten a bit. She remembers too. She darts a quick glance to me. I look as innocuous as possible.

CCR: "Yes?"

Other Guy: "Well, you're parked in a fire lane. Could I get you to move it out of there please?"

CCR: "You're (my company's name). You can't do anything about my car."

Bike patrol guy visibly stiffens. Her attitude and body language are openly hostile, and he wasn't expecting that. He's now realizing why I said he could be as rude as he wants.

Other Guy: "No, actually I'm the landlord's security," jerking a thumb at the patch on his shoulder, "and I have every right to ask you to move your car."

CCR looks straight ahead at her computer, visibly pissed off at being, to her, outmaneuvered. She ignores him for several seconds, while he's getting irritated at the delay. Finally she mutters "(Evil Property Management Company) is going to hear about this tomorrow."

As she starts to get up, I say "Okay" and bring the bike patrol guy outside with me. She doesn't follow very quickly, so we have a bit of time to talk outside.

Other Guy: "What a fucking bitch! Is this the one you told me about that you didn't like?"

Rimmy: "Yup. Any ideas of why?"

Other Guy: "It was all I could do not to make her cry."

Rimmy: "That would have been messy - she wears a lot of foundation and eyeliner."

At this point she comes out and gets into her car. We're about at the rear bumper and the drive is a curve. She starts to back up and manages to chuck the curb rather abruptly. We both turn to look, and her windshield is even with us. She looks pissed and mortified that she's shown such a lack of skill right in front of her two tormentors, so she switches into drive and tried to drive forward at high speed.

Unfortunately, her car is a bit lacking in acceleration so while it makes a lot of noise, she doesn't really move that fast. Nice work, loser!

I have to tell you, I was high on that for the rest of the night. Petty, but so perfect because she can't do bugger all about it! Insert much glee.

Remembrance Day ...

2006-11-11T18:11:00.000-08:00

... is a bit stupid. I realized I wasn't the only one who thought that the other day. Canada is the only place that makes a big deal about wearing the poppies, and you definitely get some comments (or at least some looks) if you're not wearing one.

I never wear one.

Not because I'm against the idea of remembering people who killed or aided in the killing of other people (sorry, I mean "people who fought for our freedom"), but because it's ostentatious. It's like the people who apparently would tie a yellow ribbon 'round the old oak tree.

Also, I'm pretty sure I had (long time ago, they're dead) relatives who were the ones shooting back at Canadians, so who am I remembering, anyway?

But people get so uppity about it, especially those who've never been shot at or had their "freedoms threatened". I even have one person in mind who would get choked up with emotion thinking of her grandfather who was briefly captured by Nazis back in the day. Not for long, mind you, but he was a prisoner for a little while. He seemed to be pretty okay with it, but she'd get all upset on his behalf. That's the kind of misplaced emotion I'm talking about.

Not that I think it wasn't genuine, that she was getting upset. Just that it seemed an inappropriate response. People often think symbols and the things they symbolize are interchangable, and they're just not.

I'll leave the symbols to the symbol-minded.

Plus, my midnight special guard didn't show up last night so I pulled a double. I may be a bit cranky. That said, here's the obigatory moment to ponder this November eleven:

The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner

by Randall Jarrell

From my mother's sleep I fell into the State,
And I hunched in its belly till my wet fur froze.
Six miles from earth, loosed from it's dream of life,
I woke to black flak and the nightmare fighters.
When I died they washed me out of the turret with a hose.

"A ball turret was a Plexiglas sphere set into the bell of a B-17 or B-24, and inhabited by two .50 caliber machine-guns and one man, a short small man. When this gunner tracked with his machine guns a fighter attacking his bomber from below, he revolved with the turret; hunched upside-down in his little sphere, he looked like the foetus in the womb. The fighters which attacked him were armed with cannon firing explosive shells. The hose was a steam hose." -- Jarrell's note.

Here's an idear...

2006-11-07T09:17:00.000-08:00

If you're going to pursue a life of crime... try to remember that some of the things you've done voluntarily can lead to you being identified slightly easier...

Twits.

God is an atheist - He doesn't believe in me.

2006-11-03T10:22:00.000-08:00

Had a meeting last night with Cookie Monster, who if you'll recall is the guy I answer to at my security company who doesn't generally give a shit about anything at my site. I was pretty sure that the meeting would simply be that we're putting an additional shift on, so I wasn't really expecting much of import from the meeting.

However, it would appear that we're more than doubling my complement of guards, going up to twelve. Overnight I've just become a site of note, simply from the shift count. My budget is probably going to swell to something on the order of a quarter million dollars annually, although I doubt we'll keep this level for that long. And dangled in front of me was taking over the entire complex (we don't have that yet - that's the bike patrol guys of which so many of my blogs have concerned) and putting that underneath me.

I was so surprised at the turn of events, that in the mix of logistics I was trying to compose I completely forgot to get myself a raise out of the deal. Ah well, there's time for that I suppose.

I'm going to be heartily amused if we're still out of there when I expected us to be - in about four months. ULTIMATE COSMIC POWER... itty bitty job duration.

Seacrest out.

If only I could do the little boy voice that this needs:

2006-10-31T10:31:00.000-08:00

The Best Spaceship EVER!
Would fly out in space.
It would have fins like a shark,
And a clown for a face.

Its wings have propellers,
Its sails catch the breeze.
It runs on marshmellows,
And its wheels are skis.

The pilot is brave,
He drinks, like my dad.
He rarely takes showers,
And he yells when he's mad.

"Rimmy! What the hell's wrong with this damn thing? The steering wheel's a frikkin PRETZEL, damn it! Whoa, shit!"

Then it plunges straight into the sun,
And that bastard was never heard from again.

"What?! Rimmy! Rimmy, I'm breaking up! Oh my God, it's a sauna in here! What smells like burnt marshmellows? Dear God! I'm sorry for everything I've ever (hiss crackle)"

And that's the best spaceship EVER!

The crows on site are crazy. As you may remember from previous posts, there are an estimated one hundred thousand of them in the area. But now they spend a good chunk of the night swirling around the buildings, looking very intimidating with their numbers and erratic behavior.

Mind you, they did this last year too. And the year before. They just started doing it a little later.

Now instead of going to roost they cover, and I mean cover the yards and sidewalks in front of all the buildings. And by cover, I mean "completely obscure with copious quantity of bird". It's fun walking home through that, I'll tell you. No suspicious white splotches on my pants so far (ha!), but it's just a matter of time.

On Friday, coming home on the train, there was a bit of a fight. A couple of big drunk young guys hopped on the train about half a dozen stops from mine. No problem.

Next stop, another couple of guys hopped on the train. Also no problem.

Halfway to the next stop, there was some yelling, so I looked up from my book. The two pairs were wrestling with each other. I assumed they knew each other, right up until I saw the fist-to-mouth punching that was going on.

One guy was down on the ground, and was being kicked repeatedly in the head. So much so that he was kicked halfway across the train until his head was under my seat. Sigh.

The kicker came up looking to deliver more, and our eyes met. "Don't make me get involved." was all I said. He could have creamed me, for the record.

He turned and went to devote his attentions to the other guy. I hit the yellow silent alarm, and the guy under my seat rolls out and, still cradling his head, wanders back into the fray to be hit a bunch more. Idiot.

Next stop, they're all thrown off and I ride home in relative peace. Whoo.

Speaking of the weekend, everybody went out to their Halloween events. I thought this year women were going for a sort of fairy/cirque de solei look. So what's with all the crackwhore costumes? I'll never follow shifting fashions.

I didn't spend the weekend doing Halloween stuff, though. I played the hell out of my new game, Guild Wars Nightfall. And I probably had a better time than you did. Free imaginary hats, for the win!

Now if you'll excuse me, I've got to go float a Milky Way.

2006-10-22T23:24:00.000-07:00

So I was playing a little Guild Wars with winamp randomly running through my extensive playlist, when a great little tune came on. But for some reason, I couldn't immediately identify it. That's because it doesn't have a name, but I know one of the guys that whipped it up. Click here if you want to hear it. It fit tres bon with what I was doing. :)

Speaking of what else I was doing in Guild Wars this weekend, I blew ninety thousand to raise the level of one of my titles (and didn't succeed). I'm an idiot. Good thing it's only pretend. :P

I worked on Saturday, because one of my guards took it off and nobody else wanted the shift. No biggie.

But on the way, looking down from the SkyTrain on the highway, I saw a hand-painted sign: "Giant Prawns $10!"

A kilometer or two later, there was "Shrimp $12", followed by "Crab $12" and various other signs. I was expecting to see a low-end seafood place that had just opened up, but instead I saw a beat-up van with a hand-painted sign on the side parked beside the road, with the driver throwing a look out the window periodically to see if any customers had pulled up.

So my question is... who in the hell would buy fish out of the back of a van, when we live in a port city that's awash in seafood?!

Got a marked bill back in change from my chai. Had a website saying "Track this bill!". The bill has had a boring life. What a silly concept.

Saw The Departed on Sunday, and it was good. I also discovered that I can't drink a litre of soup immediately before a movie, and then drink a liter of Sprite during the movie without some discomfort.

I didn't leave, but I did make sure that I was the first out of the gate when the movie was done. ;)

Incidentally, when I was getting the aforementioned Sprite, there was a girl in line in front of me that was so skinny, her shoulderblades made some sort of reverse cleavage in her shirt. It was... eye-catching.

She also had eyes that were partly on the outward curve of her face. I noticed this from directly behind her. Use your imagination.

On the way home, right before our station, the train jolted and then bounced and skidded with the brakes activating appropriately. I've got fairly good balance, but all I could think of was "What's this train trying to do, a fucking wheelie?"

It wasn't, but they took it out of service anyway. At our station. Nice.

Random

2006-10-15T09:49:00.000-07:00

Recently, to give myself more floorspace, I removed the three-quarters semicircle of Perrier bottles around my command chair. Two hundred and four of them, to be precise.

At 750 ml per, that's a quick 153 litres of lemon Perrier I downed. Not all in one sitting, of course. I'm hardly Bullet Tooth Tony, after all.

Heading to the local Safeway to restock, I picked up eight bottles and some Ribena. At the counter, the checker picked up the Ribena and asked me "Is this for you?"

Wondering who she thought it was for, I said "Yes."

"And do you mix it with this Perrier?"

A bit nosy, isn't it? "Yes."

"That's very European" says she, and doesn't speak for the rest of the transaction, including not telling me what my total is. Weirdo.

Filipina Colada is her usual self, touching me more than she actually has to. Got me to rub her shoulders and neck the other day by dint of subtly putting my hands there and saying "I'm SO sore!" Sneaky.

Somehow contraception came up, and she didn't know that you could avoid having a period at all by only using the three weeks worth of birth control pills, and then going to the next ring. She also, as it turns out, thought that the earlier you being menstrating the sooner you need to have kids, since you run out of eggs sooner. She claims they taught her that in nurse school. Interesting.

Last week, as part of the preparations for installing a new elevator, a crew came in to image the area before doing some coring. I was told that nobody should come within fifty feet of the emitter. Fair enough.

Of course, nobody had told the cleaners, so I went around and told them that they wouldn't be able to get back into their room for the rest of the night. Most of them were okay with that, since I gave them another room to use.

But the couple (married) that do the bathrooms were another matter. I caught them on the third floor, and explained it to them. Since none of the cleaners has english as a first language, and "radiation" isn't the easiest thing to explain with hand gestures, I finally hit upon the idea of describing it like when a dentist takes pictures of your teeth, only strong enough to penetrate concrete.

The husband was okay with it, but the wife got a frightened look on her face. I started to reassure her, but she was backing away saying "Please, I can't. I'm a mother. It might be okay for my husband, but I have two children. Please." and she threw down her mop and ran away out of the building. Clearly I need to work on my speaking mannerisms.

Q-tip has heard from DiceGimp!

DiceGimp, if you'll remember, was "promoted" (removed) from the site for (various accumulated offenses) eating garbage in his uniform. But he called up Q-tip nearly in tears, because he's so frustrated.

It seems that on his new site, there's a supervisor. This guy has the nerve to tell DiceGimp what to do!

The supervisor also reviews what his guards actually do. They have to use a pipe system (they electronically tag where they've been and when), so DiceGimp can't just say he's patrolled - the record demonstrates it. And it's reviewed by said supervisor. DiceGimp is used to sleeping and doing nothing, but can't do that now.

And the supervisor rides him for being a useless guard (which is true), especially since the day after his training, his first shift alone, he was doing nothing and the place got broken into for the first time in two years.

DiceGimp wants to come back to the old site, but Q-tip has gleefully informed him that there's no room at the inn. ;)

Another trip to Safeway and they were out of the icecream I dig, so I picked up some Haagen Dazs as a substitute. When I got to the counter, the checker started in with "Haagen Dazs! Clearly you're a man of distiction!"

I laughed and said it was a substitute, but she went on about ice cream for a bit. A bit flirty, but that's okay.

The flirting kept on, and as I was starting to go she said "So I guess you're off work and heading home to eat that ice cream, eh?"

"Yup."

"What a coincidence, I'm off work too and ready to go." (significant look my way)

Oh. Oh...

Nah. "Have fun!"

She was cute enough, but I think she only wanted my icecream.

Or maybe she smelled the soap I'm using. Sure, I pay something like seven bucks per hundred milligrams and it's mildly explosive, but it's pretty nice soap. Pure frikkin girlbait!

Enjoy:

Star Trek Cribs:

Sins and virtues

2006-09-29T10:28:00.000-07:00

Format inspired by this entry by Fictional Correspondant.

Luxuria - Filipina Colada continues to flirt with increased amounts of touching, whenever she happens to show up at the site with her parents. When you're bored and in a job you're not overly fond of, that can be a welcome diversion/distraction. Plus, how can you not dig somebody who says, upon hearing of someone younger than her who got pregnant, "That's like a punch to my endomitrium"? That's worth breaking Commandment #7 right there! Possible example: perhaps I can arrange a swap with Fictional Correspondant, trading Filipina Colada for Gypsy, because if I don't I might end up covering her in black pepper and sneezing all over her.

Virtus - Of course, I'm doing nothing about it. Partly because I'm not too interested, but it's possible I'd give her a whirl if her parents hadn't initiated the whole thing. Plus, I suspect she's just being friendly with what's around. Possible example: even when I look like Shiva from the extra pair of arms draped around me, I don't go for the obvious return move.

Gula - I spend too much time online, but more in line with the classical idea of gula, I've discovered the joys of Ben & Jerry's Cherry Garcia ice cream. I used to be dubious about paying triple for less volume, but I have to admit that's a goddamn tasty ice cream. Possible example: hand-packed ice cream. Who knew?

Frenum - Of course, I usually only buy a 500ml container on the Friday or Saturday, and that does me for the week. 1040 calories for the whole shebang (I like that word), for those of you that count such things. Possible example: just because I want something doesn't mean I'll go and get it, even if it's well within my means. I tend to think there's some value in experiencing the difference between wanting something and reaching for it.

Avaritia - Other than keeping my time all to myself, I can't self-identify anything for this at the moment. I'm sure others would disagree. There's a hard drive and cpu I wouldn't mind picking up, but I can wait. Not because I can't afford it, but mostly because I don't particularly need either of them. Possible example: having only myself in my life, it's hard not to do things than don't have me as the focus. Shrug.

Liberalitas - What can I say? If someone needs something and I have it, that's that. It doesn't come up very often really. Possible example: I gave a bag of about eight bagels to a beggar the other week.

Acedia - This one has me - I'm a lazy bugger. Haven't delivered a slim IDE cable that should have been handed off months ago, I don't call people, I don't exercise as frequently as I should, I don't spend as much time learning as I used to. Possible example: I haven't done a single physics calculation in just under two years. TWO YEARS! I used to love that shit! And I'll get rusty if I don't. And I need to be more diligent about skipping rope.

Industria - Even though I know the job is ending, and that my own company doesn't really care about the site, I keep plugging away at it as diligently as I can. This is probably a misplaced loyalty, but I prefer to think of it as giving the client what they're paying us all those thousands of dollars each month for. Possible example: you don't take a day off work unless you physically can't make it in. Did I say "you"? I meant "I".

Ira - Yeah, I get mad. I get mad at people doing the things that people do out of pure selfishness, or for short term (apparent) gain at the sacrifice of the long term benefit. I get mad that my guards won't do what I think is an incredibly simple list of things to do, at possibly the softest site since Pillow Patrol at the Cotton Batten warehouse. Not to mention the sort of person who says "We need such-and-such", when it's completely clear that they simply want it. Possible example: whenever I hear the latest thing that one of my guards has done, I call somebody local (not connected to the site) and bitch about it. This blows off some steam, but I doubt anybody besides me gives a whoopity whoop. Like the guy I just removed from the site, who at his worst managed to get three hits during his entire shift, as opposed to the 50+ (non elevator) that I require. How lazy can you get? Oh, by sleeping? Yeah, he does that too.

Patientia - When I get reamed for the actions of my guards, I more or less take it stolidly. Usually with nothing more than "I'll talk to him about it" coming from me. If they ask me questions, I usually agree with what they're saying (not being a yes-man, they're just right) but I don't rip on my guards or company to the client. And when I deal with them later, I've usually played all the "making them cry" scenes in my head to get them out of the way, so I'm reasonable (but firm) when I do finally deal with them. There are excuses, there are denials, there is hostility. But I'm well seasoned to it at this point, so I can simply take it and move on.

Invidia - Not so much, really. I have to admit though, that I sometimes wish when I see certain people that I'd rolled out of the cart before I ended up where I am; job-wise, education-wise, travel-wise, hair-wise. Incidentally, you now know where the makers of the GeForce got their name from. ;)

Humanitas - I feel for those who have been thoughtlessly trod over by people who don't even realize it, and wouldn't care if they did. The countless small (and sometimes not so small) slights and denials and such that make life harder than it needs to be for many. This doesn't include you not getting the colour of the SUV you wanted slitch, when you already had more than you needed. Possible example: a guard physically near me (site-wise) called up Operations on the radio the other day with (paraphrased) "Operations, call the police!" They assented, but then asked what they were calling the police for. The answer (and the only one they got) came back as "Bad guys are doing bad stuff!" Even though it's funny (or maybe you had to be there, I don't know) I feel for the guy. Obviously he was stressed and his composure had cracked, and he wanted help in a big way. I never found out what it was exactly, but I heard the mobile unit that went to assist him radio in that it was all clear awfully fast for such a dire situation.

Superbia - I'm full of myself. And I say things in the definitive, even when they should be in the subjective. Also, I'm better than you. Really though, I think I may possibly milk my relationship with the client (i.e. they like me) for credibility when I'm dealing with an errant guard. Possible example: I don't let my guards rewrite their own orders - they have to do it my (better) way, despite their reasoning. I find the reasoning flawed, but that doesn't mean that they do.

Humilitas - I don't let you know how much better I am than you. ;) And if I can do something good without anybody knowing about it, that's the good stuff right there. Too many people have tooted my horn (kinky!) for me to need to do it too often myself. Possible example: in the forums I ghost around, I often PM information to people engaged in disputes so they can present it themselves in defense of what they're saying, rather than posting it myself with a smarmy comment.

Hmmm, this didn't turn out to be as interesting/amusing as I'd hoped. Ah well, it's all I've got. Let me shift the balance by telling you about Powerclown - the Vancouver-based middle aged, whiskey drinking, cigarette smoking, foul mouthed jerks who cover Iron Maiden songs in full clown regalia. Follow the link to see a picture of Pisstank and Sketchy, or check out this semi-mockumentary below:

I only know about these guys because Valium Wailer was at their concert at the Cobalt, and tried to tell me a story about what he was getting up to there, but I got stuck at the concept of of the band. Here's a clip:

Hide and seek

2006-09-24T21:06:00.000-07:00

Nope, never had this as my computer's startup sound.

And definitely nobody had to listen to it when I set up for lan parties. No sir!

And, as my friend Fictional Correspondant reminded me when he saw this, I also used to use this as my startup sound:

Tres frais, non?

On Friday, at about 1830, I got radioed from from the office advising me that my trainee was at the front door.

"I have a trainee?" I asked.

"You do." was the reply. Huh.

And so I did - and it was the old bugger than Cookie Monster and company have been mentioning to me over the past several weeks. Of course, they didn't

Trained new guy for site
Met Buffalo Kisser at Future Shoptell me that I was training ahead of time, but it worked out okay. Sort of.

I never actually asked his age, but he remembers having a blackout room during the second world war, so I'm guessing he's in his late sixties. He's not used to as much walking as my site requires either.

But he will be available a week sooner than I thought he would. That's a plus.

He also told me that the office was jiggering my schedule so he can work Sunday to Thursday, rather than the current Monday to Friday. That's a minus.

That's nice that he's spent the last five years on that particular schedule, but that skews my weekend lineup to the point where Valium Wailer won't be able to work there.

And in fact, that will effectively mean I can't get normal weekend workers again. No students, no part-timers, just people who want to work full time but can't get a regular site, so they're jammed in.

In other words, people worse than I tend to already get.

I'm not sure how this new guy is going to do, but starting in a week we're going to find out.

Today (Sunday), I found Buffalo Kisser working as a security tard at a Future Shop.

I'd gone there to see about getting some better listening apparatus for my mp3 player than the stupid earbuds that came with it (seriously, earbuds are a good idea that just couldn't be implemented properly) and there he was.

Since there was no way to physically just blow past him, we said hi and he kept me pinned there while he told me all about how he worked as a longshoreman. It was mostly as fascinating as you can guess (i.e. not at all), and he said that he did security to fill in the gaps in his weekly schedule. It's for a different company than he used to work for - this is one that seems to be primarily composed of immigrants from India. They get a strange mix of sites, and he bounces around.

He still smells funny - I think it's the ginger aftershave that I don't like. :P

In finding that He-Man clip, I really wish I'd had this at the time:

or, Gord help me, this:

If God intended me to be with one woman, why did he make me so damn fine?

2006-09-22T12:08:00.000-07:00

Got in to work yesterday and Eyes & Ears, sitting with three others at a table doing coffee, asked (sharply, for him) "So did your guard even show up last night?"

"He did, lucky for me" I replied.

"Did he show up groaning and holding his sore tummy?"

I laughed. "No, he was coping."

"Not coping very well - I thought to myself 'I wonder how Rimmy's new guard is doing?' so I ran off his access record." Uh oh, I thought.

"And?" I asked.

"He only moved three times all night." Aw shit.

So after enduring (and admittedly, composing) the jokes and taunts of the people sitting at the table, including the observation that with all the guards I go through I'm the one who trains them, I go off and check his records for the rest of the week, with Eyes & Ears standing over me.

The day before - five hits.

The day before that... was me covering because he hadn't shown up at all. Sixty-some hits.

The day before that, his first shift of the week, coming on right after the server room had been going through heating fits and needed emergency ventilation requiring constant monitoring... nine hits. And only three of those were at the server room, and he stopped going there after the first ninety minutes. Sigh.

That sent Eyes & Ears through the roof. "Get rid of him."

So I've got a new guard coming in two weeks - he's the guy that Cookie Monster, my field manager, and a guy from Operations all made a point of asking me if it was okay if he came to my site. But he's on vacation, so Cookie Monster wanted me to hold on to this guy for the two weeks.

So I marshalled my arguments, polished a few choice phrases... and as the guy showed up for his shift so did my field manager, and he proceeded to address it instead and he did it far too lightly.

I added a few things, and clarified (since I knew what I was talking about, and the F/M only sort of did), but that was that.

The guy said that he had no excuse, and it won't happen again.

Eyes & Ears called me this morning - we'd been robbed. So much for me claiming that due to my brilliant leadership since I took over we hadn't been hit even once.

However, it wasn't laptops. There was no broken glass. Nothing sexy.

Lawn furniture.

That's right, you read it correctly.

Granted, it was pricey lawn furniture. Heavy heavy metal furniture that was chained down - out on the back veranda-esque area for the smokers.

And some of it vanished last night. I assume it was scrap metal thieves.

I haven't been in to read the guy's report, but I'll bet there's no mention of it. This makes us look even more (if that's possible) like chumps than we did before. My only hope is that when I'm called on the carpet over it, is that I can point out that we aren't allowed to go outside, and that the bike patrol goons didn't notice it either.

Although Q-tip did - he phoned me while I was talking to Eyes & Ears. He's a good egg, and he said that none of the night guards noticed either.

My horoscope for this week stated Your incredible reflexes, hand-eye coordination, and taciturn nature will cause you to become known throughout the West as The Man Who Handcuffed Lightning But Was Afraid To Talk About His True Feelings. It was less than helpful.

Remind me why I'm still doing this. Anybody?

P.S. My friend Scoob who first dubbed me Rimplestiltstalker some ten or eleven years ago wanted me to let you know about soup options for your child in New York. He recommends Mad Dog 20/20 or Ripple, but advises that Champale just won't cut it.

The fifth coming of Jesus Christ this week shows that I haven't been paying as much attention as I'd thought.

2006-09-21T13:08:00.000-07:00

Because I keep forgetting to tell you things. Not interesting thing, mind you. Just things.

Monday night I got a radio call to phone in to the office. This was at about 2230. I was informed that my relief's mommy had called in to say that he had a tummy ache, and wouldn't be coming in tonight.

Ah, joy. It's always fun trying to get someone to come in to work graveyard on little notice.

And I failed.

So I did it myself. Wasn't killer, and luckily one of the cleaners had brought me some chicken from Swiss Chalet (he works there) so I didn't have to chew off my own arm for nourishment.

I got to say hi to a lot of people I don't often get to see, and that was all good. Got to see Cafeteria Lady looking like a spooked cat when she caught sight of me, which was also amusing. You know how when a cat sees something moving way off in the distance, and they snake upwards with huge eyes, going rigid?

Yeah, that's what Cafeteria Lady was doing. Slightly gape-mouthed too. If I moved slightly out of sight (which I did several times to see her do this), she'd move so she could see me. What a weirdo.

Crazy Cougar Receptionist came in on time! Including the four times she did when I did my year of graveyard, that makes five times! I was sitting at my desk, reading (had four minutes to go on the shift - it's not like I was going to crack off a patrol) when she came in. She had a big (fake of course) smile on her face and her mouth open to greet me, then she realized I wasn't the usual guy and her mouth clamped shut with an audible clomp. She then turned and pretended to fuss with her bag while she dealt with her confusion, since she's not exactly quick on her feet.

Also, in the HR manager's office on his bookshelf I noticed what I thought was a board game. It had a few people in heroic poses on the box, and I could make out the word "Super". So I flicked on the lights to see what game it was.

Super Visors can keep your company union-free

That's what it was. A box set of videos. Displayed openly like that. Hardcore!

Oh, and because I keep trying (and failing) to find a video of Science Ninja Big Ten doing their thing for Fictional Correspondant, here's a video of their keyboardist, Ghastly, playing on his hubjo. Enjoy

Sadly, I'm sure I had more things in mind that I'd forgotten to blog, but they seem to have escaped my mind, closed as it is. Sorry. :P

EDIT: turns out that I can find something from Science Ninja Big Ten, although it's a cover and not something of their own. But... and thank you YouTube, here it is:

New evils require new remedies... new sanctions to defend and vindicate the eternal principle of right and wrong

2006-09-17T22:18:00.000-07:00

Dicegimp's gone from the site - did I forget to blog that?

Well, he is. Oh, happy day! :D

Mind you, he tells everybody he got a promotion and is making an extra four bucks an hour, but when they ask about the site he says "I'm not allowed to say."

Which of course is another way of saying "I don't want to tell you anything that will let you verify I'm lying." Hee!

Note that this "promotion" came suspiciously close to the date he was caught stealing garbage by his supervisor, as I mentioned before. Surely it's a coincidence.

Another fun thing that happened at the site happened a couple of Mondays ago. A panic button had previously been pressed in one of the tenant's suites (not mine). They're moving out, and the thing got bumped. So a police cruiser shows up, and all is well.

Then it happened again, and this is the fun one.

Rather than bothering to go inside and confirm, they set up outside. They ignored the site guard (Q-tip) and called for backup. There was in excess of twenty cars, at least two dog teams, police setting up with long guns across the road and at sites at a distance but essentially surrounding the building. A helicopter was diverted to the area.

After about three quarters of an hour of this nonsense, someone thinks to go inside. "We're all clear, we can disperse." Morons.

I went and saw The Illusionist last weekend. It was ace.

Good mood, good camera angles, and once again I realize I think that Edward Norton is a great actor, whatever he does. For some reason I always forget that inbetween movies, but once again it's confirmed.

Plus, the movie inspired me for a roleplaying game I'm semi-inserting myself in. That's good stuff.

And this weekend I finally dragged myself to see A Scanner Darkly, which I've meant to see for some time. And it was a reasonably good adaptation of the book, which I enjoyed.

Even better, I came out introspective AND slightly dialed out of reality, which I definitely enjoy. And as I came out of the theatre on Granville, and looked from the ramparts of the mighty scratching the sky down to the filth and the downtrodden on the streets below, I felt my own head shuddering slightly as the hemispheres of my brain sang their competing songs.

And all I wanted was to get those albino shapshifting lizard bitches for only selling me nine gears on the eighteen speed bike.

I used to think it was awful that life was so unfair. Then I thought, would it be much worse if life were fair, and all the terrible things that happen to us come because we actually deserve them? So now I take great comfort in the general hostility and unfairness of the universe.

Okay, I'm done. :P

The face of dumbfuck

2006-09-14T11:08:00.000-07:00

Kimveer Gill

In case you hadn't already seen the pic, this is the guy that shot some twenty people at Dawson College on Wednesday.

I'm not going to go on about how shooting people is wrong, because you either already know that or you're not bright enough to read. I'm not going to go on about how immigrants come to Canada and don't respect our laws, because that's a pointless argument. Mostly because even though his name is foreign (Punjabi name), it doesn't mean his family hasn't been here for generations.

I won't go on about him having a mohawk. No word yet if he wore copious amounts of gold and drove a black van with a red stripe.

I'm not going to compare him to Marc Lepine, since at this point the only thing they have in common is shooting, Montreal, and a school.

Lord knows I'm not going to mention Columbine. School + shooting does not automatically equal Columbine.

I'm not going to go on about the only video clip I could find online about the news last night (streamed from a late-night worker's machine while I was at work) was on CNN, even though it clearly said Global up on the top right. Global didn't have the clip, nor did CBC or anybody else.

I also won't bandy about how in the clip (there were a couple of them, actually) the reporters would stick their microphone into someone's face and ask "How did it make you feel when you saw people being shot?" or "Were you scared when the shooter pointed his gun at you?". Why even ask that? What are people supposed to say, "Naw man. When I finish school I'm hoping to get work as a pencil, so I was just thinking 'Hey, free lead!'" Idiots.

No need for me to go on about how the guy lived with his parents and yet still had a few guns.

Ditto with him posting on http://www.vampirefreaks.com/ using the handle `Trench'. Nor the tossup from that site over which will be the most overused soundbite in the days to come - that he wrote "You will come to know him as the Angel of Death" or "Work sucks ... School sucks ... Life sucks ... What else can I say? Metal and Goth kick ass. Life is like a video game, you gotta die sometime."

Also, Goth doesn't equal "dangerous weirdo".

No, out of all this, specifically the video clips (of which there are now more, including one taken on a cell phone from inside as the police advance) what seems to be sticking out is that everybody is mentioning the trenchcoat the guy is wearing.

I've heard it (once) compared that the assailants at Columbine wore trenchcoats. I've heard insinuations that it's somehow part of the madness that the guy was wearing one. Here's a theory for you:

THE GUY WAS CARRYING THREE GUNS - WHAT THE FUCK DO YOU EXPECT HIM TO WEAR? SPANDEX?!

One watt fuckwits.Sorry, but the reporters and commentators seem to have got on my pecs. And it's not like you expected to get insightful opinions on my blog, did you?

One final thought: Kimveer shot twenty people, and one of them died. Not to make light of Anastasia De Sousa's death, but that's a pathetic ratio. And I'm glad it was so pathetic, don't get me wrong.

But he could have got the same result if, instead of choosing death by cop, he'd just gone out into the woods and shot himself.

Floor 106, you ARE the weakest link. Goodbye!

2006-09-11T09:11:00.000-07:00

Okay, so I'm insensitive. It must be because I'm jealous of the US way of life or something. Let's get this out of the way:

THE MONEY SHOT

cue ridiculous music

Where were you, when the towers came down?

I was sleeping. I'd stayed up late playing Red Alert 2 online, and I wasn't working. I also didn't have a tv or radio - by choice. When I woke up, I went to the computer as usual and popped up my browser to do my usual morning surfing routine. Back then I had yahoo.com as my homepage, and in place of the usual various news stories were a bunch of near-identical headlines about a plane or two hitting the World Trade Center towers. I refreshed a couple of times, and then went on to read my usual web comics and forums.

After all of that, I went back to the active news headlines on Yahoo. And they were still talking about planes hitting the WTC. So I called up my brother to tell him that some hacker had switched all the headlines on Yahoo and (whatever other headline site I used to go to back then - I can't remember which). I was amused.

My brother had a tv. He informed me that it was real, that he'd seen it on the tube. Cleverly calculating that it would indeed be quite a hacking feat to hack the tv (Captain Midnight, where are you?), I concluded that it must be true.

So, inbetween games of RA2 I trolled the newsfeeds to figure out what the hell was actually going on. And I learned lots of interesting stuff.

That it was an accident, that it was a hijacking. That there were as many as a dozen planes over the continental US that were currently on course for collisions, that the US Air Force had shot down at least one jetliner.

I heard the death toll was over 10000 at one point. That's ten thousand.

The names and pictures of the hijackers appeared suspiciously quickly, especially considering that they'd used false names. The name Osama or Usama bin Laden got bandied around, along with a series of pictures of bearded men.

A bunch of firefighters died. Police too. A cloud of asbestos and other garbage rolled over New York City.

Unlucky.

Flights were grounded, everywhere. People scurried about like ants. I know people in Calgary who were security guards that got assigned to gatehouses at fuel processing plants because "the terrorists could hit here".

"Anthrax" starting going through the mail. Or rather, a whole lot of white powder was being mailed in envelopes. Not exactly the best delivery method for anthrax, especially when it turns out to be corn starch, dishwashing soap, and other harmless semi-inert material.

People became afraid to open envelopes.

The news (mostly US news, really) kept this going, telling people that the WTC impacts were just the beginning, that it was going to happen everywhere. That terrorists were going to hit population centres with dirty bombs (which are explosive bombs containing radioactive material as their payload - the bomb explodes and scatters the radiologicals so that people get sick over time. It's not a nuclear weapon with a highly explosive yield) and biological (usually anthrax) agents.

People began to duct tape polyurethane sheets over their windows. Some even laid in supplies of paper dust masks.

A whole lot of people changed the way they lived day to day, even if it was just being nervous when they heard a plane overhead. Or avoiding public places like city centres or shopping malls.

The US federal goverment uses the WTC incident as a pretext to crack down on civil liberties in the form of the PATRIOT Act, along with other policies which continue to this day.

A few things I want to comment on at this point:

The US had done nothing to deserve being attacked!

This is a stretch for anybody, even a diehard "patriot" with an IQ not to exceed the current outdoor temperature.

The US keeps active military all over the world. There are armed warplanes flying over countries that never agreed to allow them, there are carrier groups that consider anything withing their range to be essentially US territory, and there are US troops telling citizens where they can and can't go in their own countries.

US business interests, especially in resource exportation, is horrific. Usually a country, or at least the people in the immediate area, end up in a worse state when an outside country (not just the US, but the US is everywhere) starts pumping oil, or finds some element or compound worth taking. Environmental concerns and human rights fall by the wayside. Pick a country that you would consider to be third world (although since the fall of the Soviet Union, who uses that term anymore?) and google it with an eye for "foreign business". You'll get the gist.

Even down to the world's perception of US tourists, the stereotype of which is "dumb, fat, and disrespectful of local customs".

There's a lot of hatred amongst the victims of US hubris. And a lot of it is perfectly understandable.

And if you live in a place where a US warplane had dropped munitions, you have some fairly reasonable justification to be pissed off. If Argentina flew over your town and blew up the supermarket on double coupon day, you might nurse a bit of a grudge yourself.

Fine, but hijacking planes and flying them into the World Trade Center towers wasn't revenge against the military - it was the murder of innocent civilians!

I'll give you that, it was murder. But... the US calls itself a democracy, or rather a federal republic, but still a democracy. Which means that the government is "of the people, for the people". Which means that citizens are responsible for their government, and its actions.

Using this view, there aren't any "innocent civilians", especially from the outlook of someone not from such a society.

And beyond that, it's the US money-making machine (economy) that drives all this nonsense foreign policy, and in many ways that centered on... the WTC. It was stuffed with government organizations and groups you'd associate mentally with Wall Street.

And they were big towers. If you've only got one non-comprehensive attack planned, going for a symbolic target makes sense. And hitting the church of the US's god, money, is fitting.

Not that I agree with all of that, just that it makes a certain amount of sense.

Things I find interesting:

There were apparently a whole lot of stock transfers (unusual ones, and great volumes) just before the towers were hit. Does this imply that large stockholders had some foreknowledge?

By all accounts, actively flying a large passenger jet is difficult, especially doing high speed maneuvers. And yet apparently all of the people alleged to have piloted those planes into their targets were non-flyers before taking a few months-long course.

The calls from people on the planes. I remember this bothered me right from the start. Because cell phones lock on to microwave towers and each cell phone has a short range, usually what happens when you're driving along is that you get passed from tower to tower.

But in a fast-moving low-flying aircraft, you'd be switching towers really fast. Like, too fast for the system to keep up. With some altitude, I could see it. But at less than 2000 feet? Unlikely.

How in the hell did a plane, even one filled to the brim with fuel, take down one of those buildings? By all accounts, it shouldn't have worked, impact and subsequent fire be damned.

And not to be a conspiracy nut, although I do tend to think that there are always motives and influences we don't see, but with good quality video you can see floor-wide flashes in the buildings, at various spaced levels, both after and before the planes impact. Preset explosives?

Where's the debris from the Pentagon impact? There was a perfectly round hole, in an area that was under renovation, and had no critical offices in it, with no sign of wings or tail. The damage and lack of debris is consistant with a missile strike, people other than myself have noted, and I agree. Where's the video showing the damned plane? There's a three frame clip that was released a year or two after the event showing a scene, followed by a blurred shadow (too small for a jetliner), and then an explosion. Bah.

Why was all the video footage from everything around the area confiscated by the government? Why were radio and radar logs taken?

Sigh. Beats the piss out of me.

Meanwhile, CIA-trained and armed Osama bin Laden was the pretext for going to war in Afghanistan. A supposed link between him and Saddam Hussein (also US-trained and armed) was the justification for going to war in Iraq, along with (disputed by those whose job it was to know) "proof" of weapons of mass destruction.

So, the death count for the US military during these operations has exceeded the death count of people in the WTC. The death count of people in those named countries is far higher, possibly because of the "blow up the fruit market to kill one guy, who we think might be in there" tactics of the US.

The world is an even more unstable place, with new grievances created to fuel the next several generations of violence. Civil liberties in the US and abroad are stripped.

I wouldn't compare the US to Nazi Germany, but there's definitely more than a whiff of totalitarianism wafting from the direction. And as a nextdoor neighbour, that's bad news for me.

So in conclusion, if you want to remember the people that died on 2001-09-11, more power to you. If you use it as a rallying point or justification for anything, you're a twit.

I didn't want to make this an analysis of all the events and people involved, mostly because I'm incredibly lazy, but I will leave you with this article, which I'll reproduce in full in case you are afraid that if you click, the terrorists will get you. Don't worry, it has absolutely nothing to do with what happened in the US on September 11, 2001.

U.S. Military Wanted to Provoke War With Cuba

Book: U.S. Military Drafted Plans to Terrorize U.S. Cities to Provoke War With Cuba

By David Ruppe
abc News

N E W Y O R K, May 1, 2001 In the early 1960s, America's top military leaders reportedly drafted plans to kill innocent people and commit acts of terrorism in U.S. cities to create public support for a war against Cuba.

Code named Operation Northwoods, the plans reportedly included the possible assassination of Cuban émigrés, sinking boats of Cuban refugees on the high seas, hijacking planes, blowing up a U.S. ship, and even orchestrating violent terrorism in U.S. cities.

The plans were developed as ways to trick the American public and the international community into supporting a war to oust Cuba's then new leader, communist Fidel Castro.
America's top military brass even contemplated causing U.S. military casualties, writing: "We could blow up a U.S. ship in Guantanamo Bay and blame Cuba," and, "casualty lists in U.S. newspapers would cause a helpful wave of national indignation."

Details of the plans are described in Body of Secrets (Doubleday), a new book by investigative reporter James Bamford about the history of America's largest spy agency, the National Security Agency. However, the plans were not connected to the agency, he notes.

The plans had the written approval of all of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and were presented to President Kennedy's defense secretary, Robert McNamara, in March 1962. But they apparently were rejected by the civilian leadership and have gone undisclosed for nearly 40 years.

"These were Joint Chiefs of Staff documents. The reason these were held secret for so long is the Joint Chiefs never wanted to give these up because they were so embarrassing," Bamford told ABCNEWS.com.

"The whole point of a democracy is to have leaders responding to the public will, and here this is the complete reverse, the military trying to trick the American people into a war that they want but that nobody else wants."

Gunning for War

The documents show "the Joint Chiefs of Staff drew up and approved plans for what may be the most corrupt plan ever created by the U.S. government," writes Bamford.

The Joint Chiefs even proposed using the potential death of astronaut John Glenn during the first attempt to put an American into orbit as a false pretext for war with Cuba, the documents show.

Should the rocket explode and kill Glenn, they wrote, "the objective is to provide irrevocable proof … that the fault lies with the Communists et all Cuba [sic]."

The plans were motivated by an intense desire among senior military leaders to depose Castro, who seized power in 1959 to become the first communist leader in the Western Hemisphere — only 90 miles from U.S. shores.

The earlier CIA-backed Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba by Cuban exiles had been a disastrous failure, in which the military was not allowed to provide firepower.The military leaders now wanted a shot at it.

"The whole thing was so bizarre," says Bamford, noting public and international support would be needed for an invasion, but apparently neither the American public, nor the Cuban public, wanted to see U.S. troops deployed to drive out Castro.

Reflecting this, the U.S. plan called for establishing prolonged military — not democratic — control over the island nation after the invasion.

"That's what we're supposed to be freeing them from," Bamford says. "The only way we would have succeeded is by doing exactly what the Russians were doing all over the world, by imposing a government by tyranny, basically what we were accusing Castro himself of doing."

'Over the Edge'

The Joint Chiefs at the time were headed by Eisenhower appointee Army Gen. Lyman L. Lemnitzer, who, with the signed plans in hand made a pitch to McNamara on March 13, 1962, recommending Operation Northwoods be run by the military.

Whether the Joint Chiefs' plans were rejected by McNamara in the meeting is not clear. But three days later, President Kennedy told Lemnitzer directly there was virtually no possibility of ever using overt force to take Cuba, Bamford reports. Within months, Lemnitzer would be denied another term as chairman and transferred to another job.

The secret plans came at a time when there was distrust in the military leadership about their civilian leadership, with leaders in the Kennedy administration viewed as too liberal, insufficiently experienced and soft on communism. At the same time, however, there real were concerns in American society about their military overstepping its bounds.

There were reports U.S. military leaders had encouraged their subordinates to vote conservative during the election.

And at least two popular books were published focusing on a right-wing military leadership pushing the limits against government policy of the day.

The Senate Foreign Relations Committee published its own report on right-wing extremism in the military, warning a "considerable danger" in the "education and propaganda activities of military personnel" had been uncovered. The committee even called for an examination of any ties between Lemnitzer and right-wing groups. But Congress didn't get wind of Northwoods, says Bamford.

"Although no one in Congress could have known at the time," he writes, "Lemnitzer and the Joint Chiefs had quietly slipped over the edge."

Even after Lemnitzer was gone, he writes, the Joint Chiefs continued to plan "pretext" operations at least through 1963.

One idea was to create a war between Cuba and another Latin American country so that the United States could intervene. Another was to pay someone in the Castro government to attack U.S. forces at the Guantanamo naval base — an act, which Bamford notes, would have amounted to treason. And another was to fly low level U-2 flights over Cuba, with the intention of having one shot down as a pretext for a war.

"There really was a worry at the time about the military going off crazy and they did, but they never succeeded, but it wasn't for lack of trying," he says.

After 40 Years

Ironically, the documents came to light, says Bamford, in part because of the 1992 Oliver Stone film JFK, which examined the possibility of a conspiracy behind the assassination of President Kennedy.

As public interest in the assassination swelled after JFK's release, Congress passed a law designed to increase the public's access to government records related to the assassination.

The author says a friend on the board tipped him off to the documents.

Afraid of a congressional investigation, Lemnitzer had ordered all Joint Chiefs documents related to the Bay of Pigs destroyed, says Bamford. But somehow, these remained.

"The scary thing is none of this stuff comes out until 40 years after," says Bamford.

See? I didn't miss a post in August! No sir/ma'am!

2006-08-30T12:45:00.000-07:00

This may not be rich in detail, but I did keep a list of things that happened during this incredibly short period of non-blogging. ;)

Renovations are in full swing at the site. Or rather, the demolitions have been. The actual renovations will be starting soon. But before we could start smashing the place up, we emptied one half of the building, and squished all the people into the other half.

After they were safely moved, we had people come in to salvage the furnishings and equipment. So during that week, Cafeteria Lady complained that someone had taken her filing cabinets. She'd had them in a semi-public area - one that was slated for renovation. So... since she hadn't bothered to clear out her stuff, the cabinets were taken.

The client got her email/call, passed it on to Eyes & Ears, and he told Cafeteria Lady that he'd "get right on it". Of course, as he gleefully told me, he didn't get right on it. It went on his list, and she's a loooooooow priority on that list.

Apparently Cafeteria Lady sensed that because she went to Crazy Cougar Receptionist, sussed out the number for the furniture company, and called them up. She told them, and this is a more-or-less direct quote, "I don't care about the filing cabinets, I just want what's in them."

So there I was in the cafeteria, about half an hour after Cafeteria Lady had left, when a man wheeled in a large (almost the size of a stove) cardboard box on a furniture dolly. It was the contents of four full-sized filing cabinets. "Where do you want these?"
Eyes & Ears and myself were laughing so hard we almost couldn't see. We took possession and then tried to figure out how to get the most mileage out of this. After all, she did say that she didn't care about the actual cabinets... ;)

Needless to say she was unthrilled and has tried to ignore the contents of the box. But the client is having none of that, and assigned her a couple of new filing cabinets and instructed her to fill them. ;) It won't happen though, the cafeteria staff is done there sometime in September.

Moving along, Q-tip told me that Dicegimp has a girlfriend! Of course, it's someone who works the closing shift at the McDonalds located at the end of the block where the site is. He goes in there several times during his shift to get food, and that's how they met.

It should be noted that they have no interaction other than at the restaurant. She gives him food that they'd normally throw out.

Q-tip finds this disgusting. "He's taking their garbage!" But it goes a step further than that: at the end of his four-day work period, Dicegimp heads over to McDonalds and climbs into the dumpster and scavenges as many of the bags of tossed out food as he can, throws them into a black garbage bag, and hauls them back to the site so he doesn't have to grocery shop during his four days off.

His supervisor caught him doing that one night - hunched over like a weird Santa Claus under his bulging sack (ewww) he looked like a "suspicious person" and the supervisor moved to intercept. Then Dicegimp straightened up and the supervisor realized it was his guard. So sad. ;)

The daughter of the cleaners at work, the one whose parents have been pushing me towards her... I need a name for her. I'm going to call her Filipina Colada, as in the song "Do You Like Filipina Coladas?"

Anyway, her birthday was coming up (this is about three or four weeks ago), and she bounced up behind me, threw an arm around me, and told her dad that "Rimmy is taking me out for my birthday, aren't you Rimmy?"

"Of course I am!" I craftily replied.

"How can that be," her father asked, "you have to work!"

Rimmy: "I'm the supervisor. If I want to leave, I'm going to leave."

FC's Dad: "Well, for just one night, that's not so bad."

Rimmy: "One night? We were thinking of a couple of weeks. To Cuba!"

A rapid series of expressions flickered across his face, and finally he said "Okay, but I'd better never see you again."

I love parents. ;)

On the August statutory holiday, late into my shift, I was talking to Fictional Correspondant on the phone. We were going on about whatever we felt like, including the basic insanity of women we've known. We went on a bit about relationships, and were contrasting various incidents with various femmes.

In the midst of me recounting an adventure with a choice bit of a line, my phone beeped. I looked, and someone had called and left me a voicemail. Ah well, we continued our conversation for another hour and a half or so (yeah, we're yappy. Big whoop, wanna fight about it?), my guard relieved me, and I headed on my way.

Walking to the SkyTrain, I remembered the voicemail and listened to it. It was from an ex I hadn't heard from in several years, and even more interestingly she'd left the message while I was telling a story about her.

It's these kinds of coincidences that make people believe in supernatural occurences. But not me.

Anyway, it was great to hear from her but neither of the two numbers she left me were hers, so I couldn't call her back. No email either. Gobsmack!

Oh! Also for that long weekend a couple of the cleaners (sisters) were going camping. I asked them to bring me a momento of their trip, like a pinecone or a rock or something.

They brought me seven ears of corn. Nice, but strange.

Getting back to Filipina Colada, she bent my ear for a while one night. It seems that she's very frustrated. You see, to get her immigration status she has to work for the same employer for two years. To manage that, she's "employed" by her uncle, or her great-uncle or some such, although there's no actual job. Which means that she has no income, beyond her parents slipping her a bit of money now and then.

She was a nurse, back home. Lived on her own, away from the bulk of her family, doing what she wanted, when she wanted, and with whom. But now she's stuck in a foreign country, living with her family (and wouldn't that get old after while?), and broke. AND unable to get a job that doesn't pay under the table, since that would look suspicious to immigration.

She and her parents argue about this a lot, because she thinks there are plenty of places to get money from that won't interfere with the immigration process, but her parents are being very protective of her. Calling her every half hour to see where she is and who she's with, and asking "Why do you need money?" when she floats the idea of getting some work.

So... I thought I'd help.

Later on, when they were all together, I went up to the dad and said "I need to talk to you."

FC's Dad: "Oh, is something wrong?"

Rimmy: "I want to marry this woman (pointing at Filipina Colada), but there's a problem."

FC's Mom: "So soon!"

FC's Dad: "What is the problem?"

Rimmy: "I'm a very lazy guy. I'm looking for a woman that makes enough money to let me sit on my ass at home doing nothing. So she has to have good work."

FC's Dad: "Ohhhhh. I have a car I can offer as dowry..."

Rimmy: "No no, but she needs to make more money or the deal's off."

At first, Filipina Colada was smiling during this, but towards the end she had her mouth covered in shock. I noticed that neither of the parents were taking it as a joke. I exited as gracefully as I could, but I did hear later that week that she would be working part-time with some caterers they knew. I'm sure it had nothing to do with me. :)

Also, the parents planned to have a surprise party for Filipina Colada's birthday, and wanted to make sure I'd attend. I agreed, and after some dickering about a present (your presence there will be enough), I got them to get me something that she'd said she wanted (clothing, and it was better to have them get the actual thing than for me to guess), and I paid them back. They appeared to be impressed that I got a gift, and indicated that Filipinos don't give birthday presents. Which is a damn lie, by the way.

Switching gears somewhat, when I got my schedule for the site (as I do every two weeks), I belatedly noticed that my shift for the second week was... gone. Not empty, not replaced, just... gone.

So I called Operations to ask them about it, and I got someone I didn't really know. He was less than helpful, saying he didn't know anything about it.

I patiently walked him through pulling up the details for my site, which he already knew how to do, but he wouldn't tell me if it was a deliberate change, or what. Evasive, it seemed.

So I called my Field Manager. He's a good guy. I laid it out for him, and asked if it was deliberate, or an oversight, or what. I told him "Look, I'm really just trying to find out if I should show up, or arrange to train a replacement for myself, or what."

He said "You are the absolute last person that will be removed from that site. All I ever hear about is how you've saved the site and how you're the best thing to ever happen to it. Oh no, all I hear is good and great things about you being there. So I'm sure it's just a scheduling error."

"Hold on," I said, "other than me, who would have said all those things?"

"Cookie Monster," he replied. "In meetings, he speaks of you as the savior of the site."

"That's strange," I told him, "because I can't get the time of day out of him, and certainly can't get anything for my site from him."

"Don't get me wrong," said my F/M, "he probably doesn't give a shit about your site. But he does recognise what you're doing there."

Well. Spank my ass and call me Charlie. Now I kind of wish I hadn't been so candid when I sent in the report card detailing his total lack of ability. Ah well.

Eventually, after about a week of trying to get someone to give me a straight answer about this scheduling thing, I got a hold of Cookie Monster, and it took him about thirty seconds of putting me on hold to get an answer (just an error) and get it fixed. Sigh.

Then... Samuel L. Jackson called me. It was really him! And, he knew my name!

I assumed that it was a gag, or at best a radio station doing something, but it wasn't. Turns out it was Fictional Correspondant using this website to remind me that we got motherfucking SNAKES!

It was fun, though. I'm glad he wasn't angry at me for wasting time on my hair-don't, though.

A day after that, the bike patrol guys didn't bother to show up for work at 1800. So what happened between 1830 and 1930? Two cars got broken into on the outside of my building. That should totally be laid at their door, but they're still working there. Do you think I'd be able to get away with that?

One of my guards phoned me on a Sunday.

Random Guard: "Hey Rimmy."

Rimmy: "Hi dude."

Random Guard: "How's everything going?"

Rimmy: "Cut the foreplay sailor - what's on your mind?"

Random Guard: "I'm just calling to tell you that a car flipped over in front of our building."

Now that's something that hasn't happened there before.

Rimmy: "How did that happen? It's a fairly staight stretch in front of our building."

Random Guard: "I'm not sure how it flipped, but a tree fell on it too!"

At this point I took the phone away from my ear and looked at it.

Rimmy: "What tree could have possibly fallen on a car on the road there?"

Random Guard: "I don't know. Maybe he was hauling the tree?"

Rimmy: "Is anybody hurt? You'll need to call emergency services."

Random Guard: "They're already here, all over the place."

Rimmy: "Okay then, note it on your report. Thanks for calling."

On Monday, I found that a guy had for some reason swerved up on the lawn of the next building over and across the street, clipped one of the small trees (on our side we have large ones, which is why I couldn't see how one would fall), and it tagged him as it fell. Good times.

For that entire week, nothing of note happened except that my weekday graveyard guard invited me to his child's... well, it's not a christening because he's Muslim, but the same basic thing. I had to turn him down because I had plans that would probably interfere, but it probably would have been interesting to go.

I later found out that in his culture they don't christen a child by breaking a bottle of champagne over their head like we do in my family. Different strokes for different folks, eh?

BUM! Bumbumbumbum BUM! Went to Phantom of the Opera. And let me tell you, Sarah Lawrence (as Christine) has a set of pipes on her. Note that I went on the night that the SkyTrain was having issues, and it looked like the doors were going to be closed at the QE Theatre before I got there, causing me to have to wait until intermission to get in. But luckily someone saw fit to cast Shifting the Odds (Fate 2) for me, and I made it with minutes to spare.

And it was good. It was Phantom.

Could have used more legroom, though. Goddamn midget interior decorators.

Remember Filipina Colada's surprised birthday party that I mentioned? Didn't happen. The relative who was going to host the place (she has a big enough house, I guess) was going to be out of town that weekend. She said the party could still be held there, but I guess family is important enough to these people that they decided to put off the party for a week. Since her actual birthday would fall on the Wednesday between the two dates, and since it seemed (by the reaction of her parents) that I'd be the only one giving her a present, I decided to give it to her (huh huh, I said I'd "give it to her") for her birthday rather than at the party.

So that's what I did. When she opened it, she exclaimed "I wanted something just like it! How did you know?" I wittily replied "Oh, I have good advisors." I of course assumed she was just kidding. Until...

"Mom! Look at what Rimmy got me! It's just like the one I wanted from Winners!"

Her mom eyes her for a moment, then procedes to investigate the thing she herself bought on my behalf.

Maybe this chick isn't as bright as I initially thought. Meh.

On Friday, Valium Wailer commented on the "blunt chisels" I seem to end up with at my site. Henceforth, my guards collectively are to be know as The Blunt Chisels, may Gord have mercy on their (boot) soles.

The day of the party arrives. I've been reminded of it every day for several weeks now. Not just from her family, but by their fellow workers as well. "Are you coming?" "Don't forget to come." "Only x days to go!" et cetera. Not to mention all the offers of rides and delivery services. Sigh.

At least I can spend a Saturday not wondering what my blunt chisels back at the site are doing.

Nobody would answer the door. I could hear them in there, but it appears that knocking and ringing the doorbell doesn't trigger the Filipino response to open the damn door. So I went around back and climbed up the stairs to the deck, and ran into Filipina Colada's dad.

For a touch of class, he was wearing a "No Stinky Beavers" t-shirt. Incredible.

All in all, it was a fun enough time. I spent somewhat less than five minutes with Filipina Colada herself, because when she showed up she was the centre of attention for the hundred or so people packed into the house, so I left her to those who wanted to bask in her presence. I mostly hung out on the deck with the few people there that I actually knew. Thank God I remembered a bit of spanish - between that and the english words they occasionally used, I was able to nail about one word in a hundred and using that along with the hand gestures, I could semi-follow the conversations around me.

Everybody seemed interested at various times in teaching me words, but since there are lots of different dialects, I came away with very little that was usable. Meh.

Also, they thought I would freak out at the various foods that were made. Roast pig, goat, "camel hump". Please - I have an indestructable stomach and it's not like they even decently spice their food. ;)

Towards the end of the evening lots of people had left or drifted away, and I was left with the dad. He'd been drinking bottle after bottle of beer, and a fair thwack of Hennesey. Drunk people are funny.

For example, the dad fixed me with that concentrated gaze that intoxicated people get, and accused me of having lied to him. Several times. So I asked him when I'd lied to him, and he responded that I'd never told him I was so white.

He'd never seen me out of uniform before - so just head and hands. That day I was wearing a t-shirt, and the underside of my arms is white. That's what he was on about.

A while later, he wanted me to get mad at him. He went on about it for a bit, wanting me to get mad at him. I asked him why, and he said "Because I've never seen you get angry before."

Of course, I pointed out that I have no reason to get angry at him. He replied with "Do I have to slap you, or box you to get you angry with me?" Fun times. lol

The best was when he had twisted in his chair to face me. It was an outdoor chair, one without arms, and he was sitting ninety degrees from normal. At one point he leaned back and in slow motion slid to the floor. Myself and another (possibly one of his brothers) helped him up and into his chair. He exclaimed loudly "You pushed me!"

I said "How could I have pushed you from over here?" (I was three or four meters away)

He said, and I quote, "You pushed me with your eyes!"

A fair number of people from inside the house had gone silent and were watching this unfold. I wondered if they thought that the stranger (me) had actually pushed this guy over. But nobody said anything, and his wife came out and said "You're drunk" and told him he should go to sleep.

I left not too long after that (it was eleven or so) and Filipina Colada walked with me down the block to the bus stop. We talked for a bit, then she licked the inside of my mouth goodbye.

Must be a Filipino thing. ;)

Come Monday, the dad was fairly apologetic. He sent me an sms, which I'll reproduce here:

08/28/06 16:25
+31415926535

So sorry for whatever things i have said or done last saturday. They told me i was rude on you and i really really apologize for all the bad things happened. So you now saw the real me. I hope you are still my friend. Filipina Colada's dad

Then about ninety minutes later he called me. He seemed so ashamed of himself, but I told him there was nothing to feel bad about. When I saw him, he said that he couldn't have faced me again if he hadn't apologised.

It turns out that he didn't really remember anything about it, but his entire family (literally dozens of people) told him the following morning that he was really rude to me. I told him that it was actually really funny, and I wasn't insulted at all. He said I was a good and forgiving guy. I tried not to laugh out loud.

And ever since, Filipina Colada has been a little more touchie-feely. She's more inclined to throw an arm around me, or trail a hand along my arm if we're in the same vicinity. Strange.

Also, she and her mother are of the opinion that I was so patient with her dad. "Nobody else wants to talk to him when he's had too much to drink, but you just stayed with him and didn't lose your temper." Unga?

And on Tuesday, August 29 we celebrated one year without Barney. We had a couple of cakes and all the Coke I could coax out of the vending machine. It was basically me and all of the cleaners (who couldn't stand Barney), but one of them invited their supervisor (who none of them really like). She tried to take over the proceedings, trying to make it into my one year anniversary of being a supervisor. She tried to get everybody to sing "For He's a Jolly Good Fellow", but nobody bit. She tried to say a few (insincere) words, and then tried to get me to say a speech.

He's a little tip for you when you're with a bunch of people that don't know english idiom very well - don't try to work in, as I did, that you don't have an appendix, and instead have a gland that secretes pure awesome. Because they won't get it.

Indeed, and when you're working at a foreign business, it's important to learn the customs and body language of your new associates. Here are some of the most commonly misinterpreted gestures in other cultures, and what they mean:

Nigeria: Eye contact in restroom legally transfers bicycle ownership.
Ukraine: Smiling means you successfully fixed a national election.
Thailand: Closed fist moving up-and-down in a "wanking" motion can be misinterpreted as "You are a good little boy and are working very hard to make the sailors happy around the 'house'".
Sudan: Twiddling your thumbs means you are bragging that the warlords have yet to cut off your thumbs.
Germany: Shaking your head communicates "I was unimpressed by your avantgarde one-man show last night".
Dominican Republic: Scratching your forearm and adjusting your shirt-sleeve can be misinterpreted as the hit-and-run sign.
Angola: International sign for choking equals "Hello".
International: While both fists thrust forward with the index and pinkie fingers extended means "Metallica!" in North America, it means "Sepultura!" in Central/South America and "Turbonegro!" in Europe.

Hope that helps!

Mmmm, I forgot to mention that with all the jokes I was getting at work from the employees that if I actually went to the barbeque, I'd come back married to Filipina Colada, I decided to wear a ring (on my finger, not through my nose) on the Monday afterwards. Two people noticed it and gave me a quick look and demanded an explanation. One was cool about it, the other insistant. Mission accomplished.

It's worth noting though if I ever do get married, the wedding ceremony won't end with the bridge and groom kissing. Instead, it will end with us smalling our Power Force rings together and shouting, "Our powers combined, we are THE MARRIAGE FORCE!" Then we'll blast a hole in the ceiling with our ring lasers and fly off into the sunset. Ah, romance.

Down on the drag

2006-07-23T03:37:00.000-07:00

I fumbled and lost the original post, but I managed to read it before it got flushed.

I woke up last night and wrote down a dream I had. In the morning, I had only a fuzzy recollection of it, and I probably only had that much because I'd bothered to write it down. Insight into my psyche follows:

Jenna Jameson and Maya Rudolph, and a couple of guys, came over to my apartment (not this one). After the obligatory orgy, we had some tapas and drinks and sat around attempting to interact in a sociable manner. It also seemed from context that we were all workmates, and that I was interested in Jenna. It's possible I had only worked "at the office" for a short time, as we didn't seem to know each other too well.

Anyway, the conversation was stilted and regardless of what I said, it seemed to be the wrong thing. I was getting hurt/puzzled expressions from Jenna, and sympathetically amused irritation (try saying that when you're drunk) looks from the rest of them. An example:

Jenna: "So, how did you get into selling real estate up in Alaska?"

Rimmy: (nodding sagely) "I have no idea what you're talking about. I don't sell Alaskan real estate."

Jenna turns to look at the short line of real estate-ish pictures I have on one area of my wall. I hadn't noticed them before, and that's only fun in a detective sort of dream. But upon seeing those, they were immediately slotted into the events thusly:

Rimmy: "Oh, those aren't mine, those are my ex's. (notes hurt expression on Jenna, pained winces on everybody else) I suppose I really should take those down, we broke up one... no, two years ago and she never even lived here!" (sits back triumphantly, having saved the situation)

Of course, the situation wasn't saved, and it just got more and more awkward. Eventually, everybody got up to leave and I caught Jenna before she got into the elevator.

Rimmy: "I'm sorry, nothing seemed to quite work out tonight and I'm not sure why. I really like you, and if you want to give it another go, call me. I won't bother you otherwise."

She smiled a hurt smile and the elevator doors closed. Maya and the two guys were waiting in the hall.

Unknown (but possible "the funny guy") Guy #1: "Boy partner, you sure know how to say the wrong thing. You may have an IQ of 130, but tonight you just proved that's only the brilliance of 260 gym teachers."

Maya: "You really need to remember what you're doing. You did say that you sold Alaskan real estate, to your secretary this morning. But who'd believe that stupid bitch?"

Rimmy: "I did?"

Maya: "Everything will fall into place once you start selling it. (puts arm around me) I mean, the startup costs are nothing, and you can use your home. Well, not use your home for selling, but as an office. Then everything will be all right."

They all head into the elevator and the doors close. I have no sense of what I do at the office, and what's with the constant real estate references?

And, more importantly, in real life I'd take Maya Rudolph over Jenna Jameson any day.

That's Jenna above, and my Maya below. Go on, tell me I'm wrong.

Since last I posted (Tuesday, I think), I dropped my pants for the client.

Normally this would be a stupid thing to do, but... I was in one of the conference rooms on the third floor about twenty minutes before my shift. None of them were in use, and I needed a place to change into my costume for work. I had all the stuff in my bag out, including all the things I load my pockets with while on duty, when there was a sound at the door, and the client let herself in.

"Oh, hi." she said.

"Hi," I replied. "Just getting changed for work here."

"Oh yeah." she said, continuing into the room and starting to move chairs around.

Screw it I thought, and kept on getting ready. My shirt goes on over my t-shirt, but when it came time for the pants, I said "Please don't sue me for sexual harrassment here." and dropped trou to pull on the work pants as quick as possible. She laughed, but didn't stare. Meh.

On Friday, it was the day for a bunch of people at the site to move. They'd packed their stuff, and had to vacate by 1500. We had movers coming.

The client (Eyes and Ear's boss), and her boss were both on site. The company had flown in movers from Montreal, but only the two brothers who were the owners/operators. They used a bunch of daylabourers for the grunt work.

And what a motley group they were! A few showed up drunk or under various chemical influences - they were sent off. The rest looked like they'd spent time in orange jumpsuits.

That said, they worked like dogs. There were complaints of course, and some confusion (client's boss was a bit of a dick, demanding that things be done to the workers, contrary to the mover's orders). And they were all pretty nice guys. We had bottled water and pizza for them. Somehow I became Mr. Elevator, since we weren't going to give them access cards and I was the only one with a key to lock off the cargo elevator. Yay. Hot enough in a plastic jacket, in a building that shuts the air conditioning down at 1700, but to then be trapped in a metal box? Sigh.

According to Eyes and Ears on the phone today, I apparently managed to frustrate the client's boss on Friday. Which is interesting, because we had very little interaction, he and I.

While he was expounding on this frustration to some of the on-site managers, they apparently jumped to my defense. That's kind of nice, although I still don't know when I would have had a chance to irritate him. Maybe I'll make up for that if he's still around next week. I mean, what have I got to lose? ;)

-----

Mona woke as they were landing.

Prior was listening to Eddy and nodding and flashing his rectangular smile. It was like the smile was always there, behind his beard. He'd changed his clothes, though, so he must've had some on the plane. Now he wore a plain grey business suit and a tie with diagonal stripes. Sort of like the tricks Eddy'd set her up with in Cleveland, except the suit fit in a different way.

She'd seen a trick fitted for a suit once, a guy who took her to a Holiday Inn. The suit place was off the hotel lobby, and he stood in there in his underwear, crosshatched with lines of blue light, and watched himself on three big screens. On the screens, you couldn't see the blue lines, because he was wearing a different suit in each image.. And Mona had to bite her tongue to keep from laughing, because the system had a cosmetic program that made him look different on the screens, stretched his face a little and made his chin stronger, and he didn't seem to notice. Then he picked a suit, got back into the one he'd been wearing, and that was it.

Eddy was explaining something to Prior, some crucial point in the architecture of one of his scams. She knew how to tune the content out, but the tone still got to her, like he knew people wouldn't be able to grasp the gimmick he was so proud of, so he was taking it slow and easy, like he was talking to a little kid, and he'd keep his voice low to sound patient. It didn't seem to bother Prior, but then it seemed to Mona that Prior didn't much give a shit what Eddy said.

She yawned, stretched, and the plane bumped twice on runway concrete, roared, began to slow. Eddy hadn't even stopped talking.

"We have a car waiting," Prior said, interrupting him.

"So where's it taking us?" Mona asked, ignoring Eddy's frown.

Prior showed her the smile. "To our hotel." He unfastened his seatbelt. "We'll be there for a few days. Afraid you'll have to spend most of them in your room."

"That's the deal," Eddy said, like it was his idea she'd have to stay in the room.

"You like stims, Mona?" Prior asked, still smiling.

"Sure," she said, "who doesn't?"

"Have a favourite, Mona, a favourite star?"

"Angie," she said, vaguely irritated. "Who else?"

The smile got a little bigger. "Good. We'll get you all of her latest tapes."

Mona's universe consisted in large part of things and places she knew but had never physically seen or visited. The hub of the northern Sprawl didn't smell, in stims. They edited it out, she guessed, the way Angie never had a headache or a bad period. But it did smell. Like Cleveland, but even worse. She'd thought it was just the way the airport smelled, when they left the plane, but it had been even stronger when they'd gotten out of their car to go into the hotel. And it was cold as hell in the street, too, with a wind that bit at her bare ankles.

The hotel was bigger than that Holiday Inn, but older, too, she thought. The lobby was more crowded than lobbies were in stimes, but there was a lot of clean blue carpet. Prior made her wait by an ad for an orbital spa while he and Eddy went over to a long black counter and he talked to a woman with a brass nametag. She'd felt stupid waiting there, in this white plastic raincoat Prior had made her wear, like he didn't think her outfit was good enough. About a third of the crowd in the lobby were Japs she figured for tourists. They all seemed to have recording gear of some kind - video, holo, a few with simstim units on their belts - but otherwise they didn't look like they had a whole lot of money. She thought they were all supposed to have a lot. Maybe they're smart, don't want to show it, she decided.

She saw Prior slide a credit chip across the counter to the woman with the nametag, who took it and zipped it along a metal slot.

Prior put her bag down on the bed, a wide slab of beige temperfoam, and touched a panel that caused a wall of drapes to open. "It's not the Ritz," he said, "but we'll try to make you comfortable."

Mona made a noncommittal sound. The Ritz was a burger place in Cleveland and she couldn't see what that had to do with anything.

"Look," he said, "your favourite." He was standing beside the bed's upholstered headboard. There was a stim unit there, built in, and a little shelf with a set of trodes in a plastic wrapper and about five cassettes. "All of Angie's new stims."

She wondered who'd put those cassettes there, and if they'd done it after Prior had asked her what stims she liked. She showed him a smile of her own and went to the window. The Sprawl looked like it did in stims, the window was like a hologram postcard, famous buildings she didn't know the names of but she knew they were famous.

Grey of the domes, geodesics picked out white with snow, behind that the grey of the sky.

"Happy, baby?" Eddy asked, coming up behind her and putting his hands on her shoulders.

"They got showers here?"

Prior laughed. She shrugged out of Eddy's loose grip and took her bag into the bathroom. Closed and locked the door. She heard Prior's laugh again, and Eddy starting up with his scam talk. She sat on the toilet, opened her bag, and dug out the cosmetic kit where she kept her wiz. She had four crystals left. That seemed like enough; three was enough, but when she got down to two she usually started looking to score. She didn't do jumpers much, not every day anyway, except recently she had, but that was because Florida had started to drive her crazy.

Now she could start tapering off, she decided, as she tapped a crystal out of the vial. I looked like hard yellow candy; you had to crush it, then grind it up between a pair of nylon screens. When you did that, it gave off a kind of hospital smell.

They were both gone, by the time she finished her shower. She'd stayed in until she got bored with it, which took a long time. In Florida she'd mostly used showers at public pools or bus stations, the kind you worked with tokens. She guessed there was something hooked up to this one that measured the liters and put it on your bill, that was how it worked at the Holiday Inn. There was a big white filter above the plastic showerhead, and a sticker on the tile wall with an eye and a tear meant it was okay to shower but don't get it in your eyes, like swimming pool water. There was a row of chrome spouts set into the tile, and when you punched a button under each one you got shampoo, shower gel, liquid soap, bath oil. When you did that, a little red dot lit up beside the button, because it went on your bill. On Prior's bill. She was glad they were gone because she liked being alone and high and clean. She didn't get to be alone much, except on the street, and that wasn't the same. She left damp footprints in the beige carpet when she walked to the window. She was wrapped in a big towel that matched the bed and the carpet and had a word shaved into the fuzzy part, probably the name of the hotel.

There was an old-fashioned building a block away, and the corners of its stepped peak had been carved down to make a kind of mountain, with rocks and grass and a waterfall that fell and hit rocks and then fell again. It made her smile, why anybody had gone to that trouble. Drifts of steam came off the water, where it hit. It couldn't just fall down into the street, though, she thought, because it would cost too much. She guessed they pumped it back up and used it over, around in a circle.

Something grey moved its head there, swung its big curly horns up like it was looking at her. She took a step back on the carpet and blinked. Kind of a sheep, but it had to be a remote, a hologram or something. It tossed its head and started eating grass. Mona laughed.

She could feel the wiz down the backs of her ankles and across her shoulderblades, a cold tight tingle, and the hospital smell at the back of her throat.

She's been scared before but she wasn't scared now.

Prior had a bad smile, but he was just a player, just a bent suit. If he had money, it was somebody else's. And she wasn't scared of Eddy anymore; it was almost like she was scared for him, because she could see what other people took him for.

Well, she thought, it didn't matter; she wasn't growing catfish in Cleveland anymore, and no way andbody'd get her back to Florida again.

She remembered the alcohol stove, cold winder mornings, the old man hunched in his big, grey coat. Winters he'd put a second layer of plastic over the windows. The stove was enough to heat the place, then, because the walls were covered with sheets of hard foam, and chipboard over that. Places where the foam showed, you could pick at it with your finger, make holes, if he caught doing it, he'd yell. Keeping the fish warm in cold weather was more work; you had to pump water up to the roof where the sun mirrors were, into these clear plastic tubes. But the vegetable stuff rotting on the tank ledges helped, too; steam rose off when you went to net a fish. He traded the fish for other kinds of food, for things people grew, stove alcohol and the drinking kind, coffee beans, garbage the fish ate.

He wasn't her father and he'd said it often enough, when he'd talked at all. ometimes she still wondered if maybe he had been. When she'd first asked him how old she was, he'd said six, so she counted from that.

She heard the door open behind her and turned; Prior was there, the gold plastic key tab in his hand, beard open to show the smile. "Mona," he said, stepping in, "this is Gerald." Tall, Chinese, grey suit, greying hair. Gerald smiled gently, edged in past Prior, and went straight for the drawer thing opposite the foot of the bed. Put a black case down and clicked it open. "Gerald's a friend. He's medical, Gerald. Needs to have a look at you."

"Mona," Gerald said, removing something from the case, "how old are you?"

"She's sixteen," Prior said. "Right, Mona?"

"Sixteen," Gerald said. The thing in his hands was like a pair of black goggles, sunglasses with bumps and wires. "That's stretching it a little, isn't it?" He looked at Prior.

Prior smiled.

"You're short what, ten years?"

"Not quite," Prior said. "We aren't asking for perfection."

Gerald looked at her. "You aren't going to get it." He hooked the goggles over his ears and tapped something; a light came on below the right lens. "But there are degrees of appoximation." The light swung toward her.

"We're talking cosmetic, Gerald."

"Where's Eddy?" she asked, as Gerald came closer.

"In the bar. Shall I call him?" Prior picked up the phone, but put it back down without using it.

"What is this?" Backing away from Gerald.

"A medical examination," Gerald said. "Nothing painful." He had her against the window; above the towel, her shoulderblades pressed against cool glass. "Someone's about to employ you, and pay you very well; they need to be certain you're in good health." The light stabbed into her left eye. "She's on stimulants of some kind," he said to Prior, in a different tone of voice.

"Try not to blink, Mona." The light swung to her right eye. "What is it, Mona? How much did you do?"

"Wiz." Wincing away from the light.

He caught her chin in his cool fingers and realigned her head. "How much?"

"A crystal..."

The light was gone. His smooth face was very close, the goggles studded with lenses, slots, little dishes of black metal mesh. "No way of judging the purity," he said.

"It's real pure," she said, and giggled.

He let her chin go and smiled. "It shouldn't be a problem," he said. "Could you open your mouth, please?"

"Mouth?"

"I want to look at your teeth."

She looked at Prior.

"You're in luck, here," Gerald said to Prior, when he'd used the little light to look in her mouth. "Fairly good condition and close to target configuration. Caps, inlays."

"We knew we could count on you, Gerald."

Gerald took the goggles off and looked at Prior. He returned to the black case and put the goggles away. "Lucky with the eyes, too. Very close. A tint job." He took a foil envelope from the case and tore it open, rolled the pale surgical glove down over his right hand. Take off the towel, Mona. Make yourself comfortable."

She looked at Prior, at Gerald. "You want to see my papers, the bloodwork and stuff?"

"No," Gerald said, "that's fine."

She looked out the window, hoping to see the bighorn, but it was gone, and the sky seemed a lot darker.

She undid the towel, let it fall to the floor, then lay down on her back on the beige temperfoam.

It wasn't all that different from what she got paid for; it didn't even take as long.

Sitting in the bathroom with the cosmetic kit open on her knees, grinding another crystal, she decided she had a right to be pissed off.

First Eddy takes off without her, then Prior shows up with this creep medic, then he tells her Eddy's sleeping in a different room. Back in Florida she could've used some time off from Eddy, but up here was different. She didn't want to be in here by herself, and she'd been scared to ask Prior for a key. He fucking well had one, though, so he could walk in any time with his creep-ass friends. What kind of deal was that?

And the business with the plastic raincoat, that burned her ass too. A disposable fucking plastic raincoat.

She fluffed the powdered wiz between the nylon screens, carefully tapped it into the hitter, exhaled hard, put the mouthpiece to her lips, and hit. The cloud of yellow dust coated the membranes of her throat; some of it probably even made it to her lungs. She'd heard that was bad for you.

She hadn't had any plan when she'd gone in the bathroom to take her hit, but as the back of her neck started tingling, she found herself thinking about the streets around the hotel, what she'd seen of them on their way in. There were clubs, bars, shops with clothes in the window. Music. Music would be okay, now, and a crowd. The way you could lose it in a crowd, forget yourself, just be there. The door wasn't locked, she knew that, she'd already tried it. It would lock behind her, though, and she didn't have a key. But she was staying here, so Prior must have registered her at the desk. She thought about going down and asking the woman behind the counter for a key, but the idea made her uncomfortable. She knew suits behind counters and how they looked at you. No, she decided, the best idea was to stay in and stim those new Angie's.

Ten minutes later she was on her way out a side entrance off the main lobby, the wiz singing in her head.

It was drizzling outside, maybe dome condensation. She'd worn the white raincoat for the lobby, figuring Prior knew what he was doing after all, but now she was glad she had it. She grabbed a fold of fax out of an overflowing bin and held it over her head to keep her hair dry. It wasn't as cold as before, which was another good thing. None of her new clothes were what you'd call warm.

Looking up and down the avenue, deciding which way to go, she took in half-a-dozen nearly identical hotel fronts, a rank of pedicabs, the rainslick glitter of a row of small shows. And people, lots of them, like the Cleveland core but everybody dressed so sharp, and all moving like they were on top of it, everybody with someplace to go. Just go with it, she thought, the wiz giving her a sweet second boot that tripped her into the river of pretty people without even having to think about it. Clicking along in her new shoes, holding the fax over her head until she noticed - more luck - the rain had stopped.

She wouldn't've minded a chance to check out the shop windows, when the crowd swept her past, but the flow was pleasure and nobody else was pausing. She contented herself with sidelong flashes of each display. The clothes were like clothes in a stim, some of them, styles she'd never seen anywhere.

I should've been here, she thought, I should've been here all along. Not on a catfish farm, not in Cleveland, not in Florida. It's a place, a real place, anybody can come here, you don't have to get it through a stim. Thing was, she'd never seen this part of it in a stim, the regular people part. A star like Angie, this part wasn't her part. Angie'd be off in high castles with the other stim stars, not down here. But God it was pretty, the night so bright, the crowd surging around her, past all the good things you could have if you just got lucky.

Eddy, he didn't like it. Anyway, he'd always said how it was shitty here, too crowded, rent too high, too many police, too much competition. Not that he'd waited two seconds when Prior'd made an offer, she reminded herself. And anyway, she had her own ideas why Eddy was so down on it. He'd blown it here, she figured, pulled some kind of serious wilson. Either he didn't want to be reminded or else there were people here who'd remind him for sure if he came back. It was there in the pissed-off way he talked about the place, same way he'd talk about anybody who told him he scams wouldn't work. The new buddy so goddamn smart the first night was just a stone wilson the next, dead stupid, no vision.

Past a big store with ace-looking stim gear in the wondiw, all of it matte black and skinny, presided over by this gorgeous holo of Angie, who watched them all slide by with her half-sad smile. Queen of the night, yeah.

The crowd-river flowed out into a kind of circle, a place where four streets met and swung around a fountain. And because Mona really wasn't headed anywhere, she wound up there, because the people around her peeled off in their different diections without stopping. Well, there were people in the circle too, some of them sitting on the cracked concrete that edged the fountain. There was a statue in the center, marble, all worn-out and soft-edged. Kind of a baby riding a big fish, a dolphin. It looked like the dolphin's mouth would spray water if the fountain was working, but it wasn't. Past the heads of the seated people she could see crumbled, sodden fax and white foam cups in the water.

Then it seemed like the crowd had melded behind her, a curved, sliding wall of bodies, and the three who faced her on the fountain rim jumped out like a picture. Fat girl with black-dyed hair, mouth half-open like it stayed that way, tits spilling out of a red rubber halter; blonde with a long face and a thin blue slash of lipstick, hand like a bird's claw sprouting a cigarette; man with his oiled arms bare to the cold, graft-job muscle knotted like rock under synthetic tan and bad jail tattoos...

"Hey, bitch," cried the fat girl, with a kind of glee, "hope y'don't think y'gonna turn any 'roun' here!"

The blonde looked at Mona with her tired eyes and gave her a wan grin, an it's-not-my-fault grin, and then lookedaway.

The pimp came up off the fountain like something driven by springs, but Mona was already moving, cued by the blonde's expression. He had her arm, but the raincoat's plastic seam gave way and she elbowed her way back into the crowd. The wiz took over and the next thing she knew she was at least a block away, sagging against a steel pole, coughing and hyperventilating.

But now the wiz was all turned around, the way it went sometimes, and everything was ugly. The faces in the crowd were driven and hungry-looking, like they all had their own private desperate errands to run, and the light from the shop windows was cold and mean, and all the things behind the glass were just there to tell her she couldn't have them. There was a voice somewhere, an angry child's voice stringing obscenities together in an endless meaningless chain; when she realized who it was, she stopped doing it.

Her left arm was cold. She looked down and saw that the sleeve was gone, the seam down her side torn open to the waist. She took off the coat and draped it over her shoulders like a cape; maybe that made it a little harder to notice.

She braced her back against the pole as the wiz rolled over her on a wave of delayed adrenaline; her knees started to buckle and she thought she was going to faint, but then the wiz pulled one of its tricks and she was crouching in summer sunset light in the old man's dirt yard, the flaky grey earth scribed with the game she'd been playing, but now she was just hunched there, vacant, staring off past the bulks of the tanks to where fireflies pulsed in the blackberry tangle above a twisted old chassis. There was light behind her from the house and she could smell the cornbread baking and the coffee he boiled and reboiled there, till a spoon stood up in it, he said, and he'd be in there now reading one of his books, crumbly brown leaves, never a page with a corner on it, he got 'em in frayed plastic baggies and sometimes they just fell to dust in his hands, but if he found something he wanted to keep he'd get a little pocket copier out of the drawer, fit the batteries in it, run it down the page. She liked to watch the copies spool out all fresh, with their special smell that faded away, but he'd never let her work it. Sometimes he'd read out loud, a kind of hesitation in his voice, like a man trying to play an instrument he hasn't picked up in a long time. They weren't stories he read, not like they had endings or told a joke. They were like windows into something so strange; he never tried to explain any of it, probably didn't understand it himself, maybe nobody did...

Then the street snapped back hard and bright.

She rubbed her eyes and coughed.

Texas Radio

2006-07-18T08:29:00.000-07:00

When I went in to work yesterday, Eyes & Ears was sitting at a table in the atrium with a couple of other guys. After getting my radio and gear, I went over to join them. Eyes & Ears fixed me with a bit of a gaze (which I later figured was meant to convey something important) and writes something on a napkin for me. As he slides it across the table, he says "This is all I can tell you, man."

Go On 2 Next Exercise

He looked at me expectantly.

I said, "Well, it could be there's something on the second floor you want me to see, or down in the fitness centre..."

"Man, how can I spell it out for you any more than that?"

"Here, let me try," said one of the others at the table, as he frowned at it.

Turns out that if you take the first letter of each of the words, it spells g o n e. He finally heard today from an "official" source. So we are out of there.

Of course, I already knew that. It was the when part I was more interested in, but he doesn't know that yet. I assume after the rennovations are done. That's in a few months.

-----

Mona could see the sun through a couple of rips in the black plastic they kept taped over the window. She hated the squat too much to stay there when she was awake or straight, and now she was both.

She got quietly out of bed, wincing when her bare heel brushed the floor, and fumbled for her plastic thongs. The place was dirty; you could probably get tetanus from leaning up against the wall. Made her skin crawl to think about it. Stuff like that didn't seem to bother Eddy; he was too far gone in his schemes to notice his surroundings much. And he always managed to keep clean, somehow, like a cat. He was cat-clean, never a fleck of dirt under his polished nails. She figured he probably spent most of what she earned on his wardrobe, although it wouldn't have occurred to her to question the fact. She was sixteen and SINless, Mona, and this older trick had told her once that that was a song, "Sixteen and SINless." Meant she hadn't been assigned a SIN when she was born, a Single Identification Number, so she'd grown up on the outside of most official systems. She knew that it was supposed to be possible to get a SIN, if you didn't have one, but it stood to reason you'd have to go into a building somewhere and talk to a suit, and that was a long way from Mona's idea of a good time or even normal behavior.

She had a drill for getting dressed in the swuat, and she could do it in the dark. You got your thongs on, after giving them a quick knock together to dislodge possible crawlies, and then you walked over to where you knew there was a roll of old fax on a Styrofoam crate beside the window. You peeled off about a meter of fax, maybe a day and a half of Asahi Shimbun, folded and creased it, put it down on the floor. Then you could stand on it, get the plastic bag from beside the crate, undo the twist of wire that held it shut, and find the clothes you wanted. When you stepped out of the thongs to put your pants on, you knew you'd be stepping on fresh fax. It was an article of faith with Mona that nothing was going to wander across the fax in the time it took her to step into a pair of jeans and get the thongs back on.

You could put on a shirt or whatever, carefully reseal the bag, and get out of there. Makeup, when required, went on in the corridor outside; there was some mirror left, beside the derelict elevator, a Fuji biofluorescent strip glued above it.

There was a strong piss smell beside the elevator this morning, so she decided to skip the makeup.

You never saw anybody in the building, but you heard them sometimes; music through a closed door, or footsteps just gone around a corner at the far end of a corridor. Well, that made sense; Mona had no desire to meet her neighbours either.

She took the stairs down three flights and into the gaping dark of the underground garage. She had her flashlight in her hand, found her way with six quick little blinks that steered her around stagnant puddles and dangling strands of dead optic cable, up the concrete steps and out into the alley. You could smell the beach, sometimes, in the alley, if the wind was right, but today it just smelled of garbage. The side of the squat towered away above her, so she moved fast, before some asshole decided to drop a bottle or worse. Once she was out on the Avenue, she slowed, but not too much; she was conscious of the cash in her pocket, and full of plans for spending it. Wouldn't do to get taken off, not when it looked like Eddy had wrangled them some kind of ticket out. She alternated between telling herself it was a sure thing, that they were practically gone, and warning herself not to get her hopes up. She knew Eddy's sure things: hadn't Florida been one of them? How it was warm in Florida and the beaches were beautiful and it was full of cute guys with money, just the spot for a little working vacation that had already stretched into the longest month Mona could remember. Well, it was fucking hot in Florida, like a sauna. The only beaches that weren't private were polluted, dead fish rolling belly-up in the shallows. Maybe the private stretches were the same, but you couldn't see them, just the chainlink and the guards in shorts and cop shirts standing around. Eddy'd get excited by the weapons the guards carried and describe each one to her in numbing detail. He didn't have a gun himself, though, not as far as she knew, and Mona figured that was a good thing. Sometimes you couldn't even smell the dead fish, because there was another smell, a chlorine smell that burned the roof of your mouth, something from the factories up the coast. If there were cute guys, they were still tricks, and the ones down here weren't exactly offering to pay double.

About the only thing to like about Florida was drugs, which were easy to come by and cheap and mostly industrial strength. Sometimes she imagined the bleach smell was the smell of a million dope labs cooking some unthinkable cocktail, all those molecules thrashing their kinky little tails, hot for destiny and the street.

She turned off the Avenue and walked down a line of unlicensed food stalls. Her stomach started growling at the smell, but she didn't trust street food, not if she didn't have to, and there were licensed placed in the mall that would take cash. Somebody was playing a trumpetin the asphalt square that had been the parking lot, a rambling Cuban solo that bounced and distorted off the concrete walls, dying notes lost in the morning clatter of the market. A soapbox evangelist spread his arms high, a pale fuzzy Jesus copying the gesture in the air above him. The projection rig was in the box he stood on, but he wore a battered nylon pack with two speakers sticking over each shoulder like blank chrome heads. The evangelist frowned up at Jesus and adjusted something on the belt at his waist. Jesus strobed, turned green, and vanished. Mona laughed. The man's eyes flashed God's wrath, a muscle working in his seamed cheek. Mona turned left, between rows of fruit vendors stacking oranges and grapefruit in pyramids on their battered metal carts.

She entered a low, cavernous building that housed aisles of more permanent businesses: sellers of fish and packaged foods, cheap household goods, counters serving a dozen kinds of hot food. It was cooler here in the shade, and a little quieter. She found a wonton place with six empty stools and took one. The Chinese cook spoke to her in Spanish; she ordered by pointing. He brought her soup in a plastic bowl; she paid him with the smallest of her bills, and he made change with eight greasy cardboard tokens. If Eddy meant it, about leaving, she wouldn't be able to use them; if they stayed in Florida, she could always get some wonton. She shook her head. Gotta go, gotta. She shoved the worn yellow disks back across the painted plyboard counter. "You keep 'em." The cook swept them out of sight, bland and expressionless, a blue plastic toothpick fixed at the corner of his mouth.

She took chopsticks from the glass on the counter and fished a folded noodle from the bowl. There was a suit watching her from the aisle behind the cook's pots and burners. A suit who was trying to look like something else, white sportshirt and sunglasses. More the way they stand than anything, she thought. But he had the teeth, too, and the haircut, except he had a beard. He was pretending to look around, like he was shopping, hands in his pockets, his mouth set in what he might have thought was an absent smile. He was pretty, the suit, what you could see of him behind the beard and glasses. The smile wasn't pretty, though; it was kind of rectangular, so you could see most of his teeth. She shifted a little on the stool, uneasy. Hooking was legal, but only if you did it right, got the tax chip and everything. She was suddenly aware of the cash in her pocket. She pretended to study the laminated foodhandling license taped to the counter; when she looked up again, he was gone.

She spent fifty on the clothes. She worked her way through eighteen racks in four shops, everything the mall had, before she made up her mind. The vendors didn't like her trying on so many things, but it ws the most she'd ever had to spend. It was noon before she'd finished, and the Florida sune was cooking the pavement as she crossed the parking lot with her two plastic bags. The bags, like the clothes, were secondhand: one was printed with the logo of a Ginza shoe store, the other advertised Argentinian seafood briquettes molded from reconstituted krill. She was mentally mixing and matching the things she'd bought, figuring out different outfits.

From the other side of the square, the evangelist opened up at full volume, in mid-rant, like he'd warmed up to a spit-spraying fury before he'd cut the amp in, the hologram Jesus shaking it's white-robed arms and gesturing angrily to the sky, the mall, the sky again. Rapture, he said. Rapture's coming.

Mona turned a corner at random, automatic reflex avoiding a crazy, and found herslef walking past sunfaded card tables spread with cheap Indo simstim sets, used cassettes, coloured spikes of microsoft stuck in blocks of pale blue styrofoam. There was a picture of Angie Mitchell taped up behind one of the tables, a poster Mona hadn't seen before. She stopped and studied it hungrily, taking in the star's clothes and makeup first, then trying to figure out the background, where it had been shot. Unconsciously, she adjusted her expression to approximate Angie's in the poster. Not a grin, exactly. A sort of half-grin, maybe a little sad. Mona felt a special way about Angie. Because - and tricks said it, sometimes - she looked like her. Like she was Angie's sister. Except her nose, Mona's, had more of a tilt and she, Angie, didn't have that smear of freckles out to her cheekbones. Mona's Anglie half-grin widened as she stared, washed in the beauty of the poster, the luxury of the pictured room. She guessed it was a kind of castle, probably it was where Angie lived, sure, with lots of people to take care of her, do her hair and hang up her clothes, because you could see the walls were made of big rocks, and those mirrors had frames on them that were solid gold, carved with leaves and angels. The writing across the bottom would say where it was, maybe, but Mona couldn't read. Anyway, there weren't any fucking roaches there, she was sure of that, and no Eddy either. She looked down at the stim sets and briefly considered using the rest of her money. But then she wouldn't have enough for a stim, and anyway these were old, some of them older than she was. There was whatsit, that Tally, she'd been big when Mona was maybe nine...

When she got back, Eddy was waiting for her, with the tape off the window and the flies buzzing. Eddy was sprawled out on the bed, smoking a cigarete, and the suit with the beard, who'd been watching her, was sitting in the broken chair, still wearing his sunglasses.

Prior, he said that was his name, like he didn't have a first one. Or like Eddy didn't have a last one. Well, she didn't have a last name herself, unless you counted Lisa, and that was more like having two first ones.

She couldn't get much sense of him, in the squat. She thought maybe that was because he was English. He wasn't really a suit, though, not like she'd thought when she'd seen him at the mall; he was onto some game, it just wasn't clear which one He kept his eyes on her a lot, watched her pack her things in the blue Lufehansa bag he'd brought, but she couldn't feel any heat there, not like he wanted her. He just watched her, watched Eddy smoke, tapped his sunglasses on his knee, listened to Eddy's line of bullshit, and said as little as he needed to. When he did say something, it was usually funny, but the way he talked made it hard to tell when he was joking.

Packing, she felt light-headed, like she'd done a jumper but it hadn't quite come on. The flies were fucking against the window, bumping on the dust-streaked glass, but she didn't care. Gone, she was already gone.

Zipping up the bag.

It was raining when they got to the airport, Florida rain, pissing down warm out of a nowhere sky. She'd never been to an airport before, but she knew them from the stims.

Prior's car was a white Datsun rental that drove itself and played elevator music through quad speakers. It left them beside their luggage in a bare concrete bay and drove away in the rain. If Prior had a bag, it wasn't with him; Mona had her Lufthansa bag and Eddy had two black gator-clone suitcases. She tugged her new skirt down over her hips and wondered if she'd bought the right shoes. Eddy was enjoying himself, had his hands in his pockets and his shoulders tilted to show he was doing something important.

She remembered him in Cleveland, the first time, how he'd come out to the place to look at a scoot the old man had for sale, a three-wheel Skoda that was mostly rust. The old man grew catfish in concrete tanks that fenced the dirt yard. She was in the house when Eddy came, long high-walled space of a truck trailer up on blocks. There were windows cut down one side, square holes sealed over with scratched plastic. She was standing by the stove, smell of onions in sacks and tomatoes hung up to dry, when she felt him there, down the length of the room, sensed the muscle and shoulder of him, his white teeth, the black nylon cap held shyly in his hand. Sun was coming in the windows, the place lit up bare and plain, the floor swept the way the old man had her keep it, but it was like a shadow came, blood-shadow where she heard the pumping of her heart, and him coming closer, tossing the cap on the bare chipboard table as he passed it, not shy now but like he lived there, right up to her, running a hand with a bright ring back through the oiled weight of his hair. The old man came in then and Mona turned away, pretended to do something with the stove. Coffee, the old man said, and Mona went to get some water, filling the enamel pot from the roof-tank line, the water gurgling down through the charcoal filter. Eddy and the old man sitting at the table, drinking black coffee, Eddy's legs spread straight out under the table, thighs hard through threadbare denim. Smiling, jiving the old man, dealing for the Skoda. How it seemed to run okay, how he'd buy it if the old man had the title. Old man getting up to dig in a drawer. Eddy's eyes on her again. She followed them out into the yard and watched him straddle the cracked vinyl saddle. Backfire set the old man's black dogs yelping, high sweet smell of cheap alcohol exhause and the frame trembling between his legs.

Now she watched him pose beside his suitcases, and it was hard to connect that up, why she'd left with him next day on the Skoda, headed into Cleveland. The Skoda'd had a busted little radio you couldn't hear over the engine, just play it soft at night in a field by the road. Tuner part was cracked so it only picked up one station, ghost music up from some lonesome tower in Texas, steel guitar fading in and out all night, feeling how she was wet against his leg and the stiff dry grass prickling the back of her neck.

Prior put her blue bag into a white cart with a striped top and she climbed in after it, hearing tiny Spanish voices from the Cuban driver's headset. Then Eddy stowed the gator cases and he and Prior got in. Rolling out to the runway through walls of rain.

The plane wasn't what she knew from the stims, not like a long rich bus inside, with lots of seats. It was a little black thing, with sharp, skinny wings and windows that made it look like it was squinting. She went up some metal stairs and there was a space with four seats and the same grey carpet all over, on the walls and ceiling too, everything clean and cool and grey. Eddy came in after her and took a seat like it was something he did every day, loosening his tie and stretching his legs. Prior was pushing buttons beside the door. It made a sighing sound when it closed.

She looked out the narrow, streaming windows at runway lights reflected on wet concrete.

Came down here on the train, she thought, New York to Atlanta and then you change.

The plane shivered. She heard the airframe creak as it came to life.

She woke briefly, two hours later, in the darkened cabin, cradled by the long hum of the jet. Eddy was asleep, his mouth half-open. Maybe Priot was sleeping too, or maybe he just had his eyes closed, she couldn't tell. Halfway back into a dream she wouldn't remember in the morning, she heard the sounds of that Texas radio, fading steel chords drawn out like an ache.

Squat

2006-07-15T22:36:00.000-07:00

I got a company report card to fill out in my mail this week. None of my guards at the site got one, and the field manager knew nothing about them when I mentioned it. I'm going to be pissed if I bother to fill this thing out and I'm the only one that got one. That said, I'll be entirely unsurprised if anything I write can and will be used against me in a kangaroo court of dumbassery. I'll throw the card on here later, maybe. I'm too lazy to do it now.

One of my guards called me last week and said that he'd found a pile of crap on the second floor during his first patrol. It seems that the previous guard didn't note down who was on site, didn't kick them out for having a dog, and took the dog on patrol with him when the coil was sprung. Twit.

-----

Mona dreamed she was dancing the cage back in some Cleveland juke, naked in a column of hot blue light, where the faces thrusting up for her through the veil of smoke had blue light snagged in the whites of their eyes. They wore the expression men always wore when they watched you dance, staring real hard but locked up inside themselves at the same time, so their eyes told you nothing at all and their faces, in spite of the sweat, might have been carved from something that only looked like flesh.

Not that she cared how they looked, when she was in the cage, high and hot and on the beat, three songs into the set and the wiz just starting to peak, new strength in her legs sending her up on the balls of her feet ...

One of them grabbed her ankle.

She tried to scream, only it wouldn't come, not at first, and when it did it was like something ripped down inside her, hurt her, and the blue light shredded, but the hand, the hand was still there, around her ankle. She came up off the bed like a pop-up toy, fighting the dark, clawing hair away from her eyes.

"Whatsa matter, babe?"

He put his other hand against her forehead and shoved her back, down into the pillow's hot depression.

"Dream ..." The hand was still there and it made her want to scream. "You got a cigarette, Eddy?" The hand went away, click and flare of the lighter, the planes of his face jumping out at her as he lit one, handed it to her. She sat up quickly, drew her knees up under her chin with the army blanket over them like a tent, because she didn't feel like anybody touching her then at all.

The scavenged plastic chair's broken leg made a warning sound as he leaned back and lit his own cigarette. Break, she thought, pitch him on his ass so he gets to hit me a few times. At least it was dark, so she didn't have to look at the squat. Worst thing was waking up with a bad head, too sick to move, when she'd come in crashing and forgotten to retape the black plastic, hard sun to show her all the little details and heat the air so the flies could get going.

Nobody ever grabbed her, back in Cleveland; anybody numb enough to reach through that field was already too drunk to move, maybe to breathe. The tricks never grabbed her either, not unless they'd squared it with Eddy, paid extra, and that was just pretend.

Whichever way they wanted it, it got to be a kind of ritual, so it seemed to happen in a place outside your life. And she'd gotten into watching them, when they lost it. That was the interesting part, because they really did lose it, they were totally helpless, maybe just for a splite second, but it was like they weren't even there.

"Eddy, I'm gonna go crazy, I gotta sleep here anymore."

He'd hit her before, for less, so she put her face down, against her knees and the blanket, and waited.

"Sure," he said, "you wanna go back to the catfish farm? Wanna go back to Cleveland?"

"I just can't take this anymore ..."

"Tomorrow."

"Tomorrow what?"

"That soon enough for you? Tomorrow night, private fucking jet? Straight up to New York? Then you gonna quit giving me this shit?"

"Please baby," and she reached out for him, "we can take the train ..."

He slapped her hand away. "You got shit for brains."

If she complained any more, anything about the squat, anything that implied he wasn't making it, that all his big deals added up to nothing, he'd start, she knew he'd start. Like the time she'd screamed about the bugs, the roaches they called palmetto bugs, but it was because the goddamn things were mutants, half of them; someone had tried to wipe them out with something that fucked with their DNA, so you'd see these screwed-up roaches dying with too many legs or heads, or not enough, and once she'd seen one that looked like it had swallowed a crucifix or something, its back or shell or whatever it was distorted in a way that made her want to puke.

"Baby," she said, trying to soften her voice, "I can't help it, this place it just getting to me ..."

"Hooky Green's," he said, like he hadn't heard her, "I was up in Hooky Green's and I met a mover. He picked me out, you know? Man's got an eye for talent." She could almost feel his grin through the dark. "Outa London, England. Talent scout. Come into Hooky's and it was just `You, my man!'"

"A trick?" Hooky Green's was where Eddy had most recently decided the action was, thirty-third floor of a glass highstack with most of the inside walls knocked down, had about a block of dancefloor, but he'd gone off the place when nobody there was willing to pay him much attention. Mona hadn't ever seen Hooky himself, "lean mean Hooky Green," the retired ballplayer who owned the place, but it was great for dancing.

"Will you fucking listen? Trick? Shit. He's the man, he's a connection, he's on the ladder and he's gonna pull me up. And you know what? I'm gonna take you with me."

"But what's he want?"

"An actress. Sort of an actress. And a smart boy to get her in place and keep her there."

"Actress? Place? What place?"

She heard him unzip his jacket. Something landed on the bed, near her feet. "Two thou."

Jesus. Maybe it wasn't a joke. But if it wasn't, what the hell was it?"

"How much you pull tonight, Mona?"

"Ninety." It had really been one-twnety, but she'd figured the last one for overtime. She was too scared to hold out on him, usually, but she'd needed wiz money.

"Keep it. Get some clothes. Not like work stuff. Nobody wants your little ass hanging out, not this trip."

"When?"

"Tomorrow, I said. You can kiss this place goodbye."

When he said that, it made her want to hold her breath.

The chair creaked again. "Ninety, huh?"

"Yeah."

"Tell me."

"Eddy, I'm so tired ..."

"No," he said.

But what he wanted wasn't the truth or anything like that. He wanted a story, the story that he'd taught her to tell him. He didn't want to hear what they talked about (and most of them had some one thing they wanted real bad to tell you, and usually they did), or how they got around to asking to see your bloodwork tickets, or how every other one made that same joke about how what they couldn't cure they could put in remission, or even what they wanted in bed.

Eddy wanted to hear about this big guy who treated her like she didn't matter. Except she had to be careful, when she told it, not to make the trick too rough, because that was supposed to cost more than she'd actually been paid. The main thing was that this imaginary trick had treated her like she was a piece of equipment he'd rented for half an hour. Not that there weren't plenty like that, but they mostly spent their money at puppet parlors or got it on stim. Mona tended to get the ones who wanted to talk, who tried to buy you a sandwich after, which could be bad in its own way but not the kind of bad Eddy needed. And the other thing Eddy needed was for her to tell him how that wasn't what she liked but she'd found herself wanting it anyway, wanting it bad.

She reached down in the dark and touched the envelope full of money.

The chair creaked again.

So she told him how she was coming out of a BuyLow and he'd hit on her, this big guy, just asked how much, which had embarrassed her but she told him anyway and she'd said okay. So they went in his car, which was old and big and kind of damp-smelling (cribbing detail from her Cleveland days), and he'd sort of flipped her over the seat-

"In front of the BuyLow?"

"In back."

Eddy never accused her of making any of it up, even though she knew he must have taught her the general outline somehow and it was always basically the same story. By the time the big guy had her skirt up (the black one, she said, and I had on my white boots) and his pants down, she could hear Eddy's beltbuckle jingling as he peeled off his jeans. Part of her was wondering, when he slid into bed beside her, whether the position she was describing was physically possible, but she kept on going, and anyway it was working on Eddy. She remembered to put in how it hurt, when the guy was getting it in, even though she'd been really wet. She put in how he held her wrists, though by now she was pretty confused about what was where, except that her ass was supposed to be up in the air. Eddy had started to touch her, stroking her breasts and stomach, so she switched from the offhand brutality of the trick's moves to how it was supposed to have made her feel.

How it was supposed to have made her feel was a way she hadn't ever felt. She knew you could get to a place where doing it hurt a little but still felt good, but she knew that wasn't it. What Eddy wanted to hear was that it hurt a lot and made her feel bad, but she liked it anyway. Which made no sense at all to Mona, but she'd learned to tell it the way he wanted her to.

Because anyway it worked, and now Eddy rolled over with the blanket bunched up across his back and got in between her legs. She figured he must be seeing it in his head, like a cartoon, what she was telling him, and at the same time he got to be that faceless pumping big guy. He had her wrists now, pinned above her head, the way he liked.

And when he was done, curled on his side asleep, Mona lay awake in the stale dark, turning the dream of leaving around and around, bright and wonderful.

And please let it be true.

I was halfway to work before I realized I'd forgotten my car... I was just running down the freeway.

2006-07-10T10:39:00.000-07:00

But that isn't a problem anymore. I got a motorcycle.

And not any motorcycle either - I now am the proud owner of a 2005 black Ninja! Vroom vroom, bisnitch!

And the best part is, I didn't pay a cent for it. It was given to me by the client's Eyes and Ears. w00t!

Of course, it's only on paper. Evil Property Manager's company changed the parking system, and now everybody has to haul around a separate access card if they want to get in and out of the underground. And you can only get one if you have a vehicle registered with them.

So Eyes and Ears invented my motorcycle. I'm thinking of trading it in for a Ducati, but we'll see how this one works out.

Knock knock.

Jesus, it's seven in the morning on my day off!

(opens door) Yes?

"Good morning sir! Would you like these eggs and bacon? There's waffles too, with strawberry syrup."

Er... what?

"Here are your eggs, sir. Have a glorious day."

(closes door, breakfast in hand)

Fucking Jehova's waitresses.

Work continues to be what it always is. My guards seem to have a learning curve best described as "level", or possibly "in slight decline" as they seem to actually forget things I've taught them as they get set into their routines.

Just once, for one guard, I'd like to describe their learning curve as a hyperbola.

2x^2 + 5xy + 3y^2 + 4x + 16y +9 = 0 is a hyperbola. Why isn't this easy for my guards?

A few weeks ago, I was trying to explain emo to both Valium Wailer and Fictional Correspondant, so I hit wikipedia to find something to clarify my explanation. And when I regurgitated that emo came from punk, it occured to me that comparing punk to emo is like comparing chocolate to shit, based solely on the fact that both are brown in colour.

Because I'm in that kind of mood, lately. ;)

Do you like Ali G? Do you know the Borat character? Here's a trailer for you that you might enjoy.

I used to think this was really funny, until Doonesbury did it better. I love the hypocrites over at Intelligent Design Corporation.

So go check it out, since Doonesbury wisely keeps me from stealing it directly.

And, since you're so keen to click on my links, apparently there's a Transformers movie coming out. Live action. o_O

And finally, this article on parents pushing for simplified spelling bears a read. Everybody is stupid if they go for this, final answer:

Puush for simpler speling perzists

WASHINGTON (AP) -- When "say," "they" and "weigh" rhyme, but "bomb," "comb" and "tomb" don't, wuudn't it maek more sens to spel wurdz the wae thae sound?

I already hate aol and sms speak. It's a no brainer where I am on this.

Let's see, do we have everything? Toucans, two cans, directions to Cannes...

2006-06-26T01:09:00.000-07:00

It becomes more an effort to go to work each week. I'm tired of the routine, I'm tired of training person after person and having them seem to be unable to grasp what it is that they're supposed to do (walk everywhere, check all doors), I'm tired of fighting my own company when they should be less combative when I ask for something, such as more report sheets.

And there's the undeniable fact that we're out of there soon. Despite all of the above, it's a mixed blessing at best.

A little over a year ago my site (indeed, all of the company's sites) got bought out by another company, and the parent company has been bringing the various locations into line with its own procedures.

And now... it's finally time to do my site.

It'll get a bit smaller, meaning they're going to get rid of one of the floors. They're going to gut the cafeteria and get rid of the company that administers it (bye bye, Cafeteria Lady!). It'll be a smaller affair, one with lower operating costs and probably less of a money sink.

Rooms will be demolished. Others will be build. Cubicle styles will change. There'll be new carpets in the company colours.

And security will be ditched.

Mine is the only site of all of them that actually has its own security. The rest rely on the security provided by the landlord. Of course in this case that would be Evil Property Manager's highly elite bike patrol guys, who have featured such elite members as DiceGimp, Buffalo Kisser, the Romanian, Polish Guy, Indian Guy, Old Hippie, Wet Shirt French Guy, I Know We're From Different Companies Rimmy, But Just Give Me My Orders Man, Door Pounder, Captain Complainer, and other guest stars too brief or too sad to mention now.

Note that in Vancouver, we're all about property crime. If you don't nail it down, it'll be swiped. If you do nail it down, the nails will be taken for scrap, and it'll still be swiped.

Of course, the landlord will tell you that they have excellent security, and that during the night they have two guards - one dedicated to roaming around the exteriors, and the other doing both exteriors and interiors.

That's got to sound good, right?

I know the cafeteria will be gone in September. When we go, I'm sure Cookie Monster (who's chafed ever since the client told him to ditch Barney and replace him with yours truly if he wants to keep the contract) has something special in mind for me. The Molten-Sulphur-and-Hot-Gravel-Mines, perhaps?

I ate a fortune cookie the other week (remembering only slightly afterward to cough out the slip of paper inside) that told me I'd be coming into money and traveling. Could it be that I win the lottery and roam the world? Or is it more likely that I get an unexpected stipend from the company I work for in compensation for not giving me a full retroactive pay raise, and I cave in to the repeated pleas from my friends to move to Calgary?

Even the fortune tasted good.

Several months back, I mentioned that the couple that cleans the second floor at work were getting excited that their daughter would be moving to Canada from the Philippines soon. I eventually realized that they (the father in particular) had been feeling me out to see if I'd be interested in her.

Now, I'm used to being disliked by the parents of whichever femme I'm with. This is the natural order of things, as far as I'm concerned. So it's a little off-putting that her parents seem to like me and that they're pimping the merits of their daughter.

But she arrived on Tuesday, and they brought her by on Thursday. And Friday. And will in perpetuity, I suspect.

She's cute, I'll give her that. And interesting to talk to. But I'm far too creeped out at the apparently approval of her parents to go anywhere with it. Assuming that she'd even want to, of course.

Only slightly related, her dad told me that the only time a Filipino is honest is at the cock fight - because if he's not, they won't let him back in!

He kills me, he does.

I'm going to get something to eat.

Anansi and the Liar's Contest

2006-06-24T17:25:00.000-07:00

I've got a friend who's quite taken with Anansi stories. So... this one's for you:

Anansi the Spider lived in Africa.

One fine day, he was walking along a path through the jungle in Africa, just minding his own business, when suddenly, out of the bushes there jumped...

a mosquito

a fly

and a moth!

They jumped on top of Anansi and wrestled him to the ground. Around and around they rolled. First Anansi was on top, and then they were on top.

Around and around they went until they were all exhausted and out of breath, sitting there beside the path.

"Why are you wrestling me like this?" Anansi panted.

"Because we are hungry," said Moth. "We are going to wrestle you down and kill you and then we are going to eat you..."

"No, no..." said Anansi. "I have a better idea. How about I eat you instead!"

"That is a very bad idea," said Fly. "One of you can't wrestle down the three of us. And if you can't wrestle us down, you can't eat us..."

"Well," said Anansi, "you aren't doing a very good job of wrestling me down either. I think we will have to have a contest to see who gets to eat who around here... This is what I propose:"

"We will each tell a story. And we will make our story the most outrageous lie that we can think of.

Now, if any one of you tells a lie that is so good that I am forced to call that story a lie, you win the contest and you may eat me. But if I tell my story and any of you say that it is a lie, I win and I get to eat you. Agreed?"

Mosquito, Fly, and Moth were all well-known liars, so this sounded like a very easy game. Mosquito said that he would tell his story first. This is Mosquito's story:

"Before I was born, my father bought himself a piece of land."

"One day, he went out onto his land with his bush knife to clear away brush and weeds."

"Well, he had just gotten started, when the knife slipped and my father cut himself very badly on the foot. After that, he couldn't work, so... even though I wasn't yet born... I had to plow the fields."

"I had to plant the corn."

"And I had to water and weed the corn until it grew tall and ripe in my father's field."

"When the corn was ripe, I was the one who picked it. I picked the corn and filled my father's grainery right to the top. So, by the time I was born, my father had all that corn and he was quite a wealthy man. Thanks to me! And that's my story!"

Mosquito sat back with a hungry smile on his face. Anansi would have to acknowledge that that story was a lie - you can't plow and plant a fied when you haven't even been born yet - and they would win the contest and have a very nice Anansi lunch.

But Anansi just nodded and said, "A good story, Mosquito! And how true! How true!"

So Fly jumped up and said that he would tell his story. This is the story that Fly told:

"This story happened when I was about four years old. I was eating this elephant that I had just killed, when I heard someone moving through the grass. I looked up..."

"... and there was Leopard coming toward me through the long grass. He hadn't seen me, though, and I thought I would have some fun."

"So I snuck around behind Leopard and made a loud noise... AAAARGGH! Well, Leopard was frightened! He spun around and bared his great white teeth at me! He thought he was going to eat me, but I fooled that leopard."

"I flew into his mouth, I flew right down inside him to the very tip of his tail, I grabbed him by the tip of his tail, and I turned him inside out! As it happened, that leopard had just finished eating a sheep and now the sheep was on the outside and the leopard was on the inside. The sheep was very happy. She thanked me very graciously and went off eating grass."

"And that's my story."

Fly licked his lips as he thought how delicious Anansi was going to taste.

But Anansi disappointed poor Fly. He smiled and said, "Very interesting story, Fly. And how true! How true!"

So Moth was their last chance and they all hoped that Moth had a very good lie to tell. This is the story that Moth told:

"I was out hunting one day, when I spotted an antelope."

"I raised up my gun and I shot at the antelope. BANG! Then I went running as fast as I could. I caught up with the antelope, wrestled it to the ground, and killed it with my bare hands."

I took out my hunting knife and started skinning and cleaning the antelope, and was about half finished when my bullet finally came along. I grabbed the bullet out of the air and put it back in my gun... no point in wasting bullets... and went back to work. In a few minutes, I had the antelope all cut into pieces and piled neatly by the path."

"But I decide that if I sat down to eat it there, someone was going to come along and want a bite. So I took that whole pile of antelope meat up into the highest branches of a tree."

"High up in the tree I lit a fire, and over that fire I roasted the antelope meat. I took a bite - it was delicious! I took another bite... mmmmm! And another bite! well, before I knew it, I had eaten that whole antelope all by myself there in the top of the tree!"

"And then I found, when I went to climb down out of the tree, that I had gotten so fat from eating all that meat, that I couldn't climb. This was a problem, but I thought about it for a few minutes and I came up with a plan. This is what I did..."

"I went back to my village, got a piece of rope, tied that rope around my middle and lowered myself out of the tree!"

"And that's my story!"

The three friends got ready to pounce on nansi. But he said, "Another very good story. Well told, Moth. I will have to remember your trick if I am ever caught up in a tree. Yes, a fine story... and how true! How true!"

"Well," he said, "you guys didn't get to eat me today. Let me tell you my story, and we'll see if I get to eat you..." And this is the story that Anansi told:

"One day I was walking along, and I found a coconut on the ground. I called out and asked if there was anyone around who owned the coconut, and when no one answered I picked up the coconut and took it home."

"I planted the coconut in my garden and out of that coconut grew a beautiful coconut tree."

"On that tree grew... one...two... three... delicious looking coconuts."

"I was hungry, so I took my knife and opened the first coconut. And I couldn't believe my eyes!"

"Out from inside that coconut came flying... a mosquito!"

"I opened the second coconut and, this was very strange, a fly came flying out of this one!"

"I opened the third one and I bet you can guess what came flying out this time... that's right - a plump juicy moth!"

"Well, I said to myself, that was my coconut so whatever grew out of that coconut would belong to me. That means that this is my mosquito... and my fly... and my moth. And if they are mine, I can eat them if I want to. I was just about to do that..."

"... when those three characters went flying off, buzz buzz buzz into the forest. You know, I've been looking for them ever since that day, and it looks like today is my lucky day at last, because here you are!"

"My mosquito! My fly! My moth!"

"And that's my story. And what do you say to that?"

Well, what were they going to say? If they said, "How true, how true!" like Anansi has been saying, that would mean that they belonged to Anansi and he could eat them. But if they called him a liar, he would win the contest and he could eat them anyway.

So what they did was... buzz buzz buzz off into the forest.

Anansi picked himself up and brushed himself off and went on walking down the path. He hadn't gotten any lunch, but he was feeling pretty proud of himself for having won that contest.

And you know, to this very day, if Anansi sees a mosquito or a fly or a moth... he eats them!

THE END

Where's Chet and his jalopy?

2006-06-21T08:16:00.000-07:00

I was going to write some work stuff here, but I'm not really that interested. And, I suspect, neither are you. So I'll make it short:

Grumpy Old Lady (who's been at the site for a few weeks but only on weekends) is gone. This will have minimal impact since I haven't given you any stories about her, but I'll remedy that in a paragraph's time. I worked all weekend due to a planned power shutdown in the building, and let me say that when the air movers are shut off, half an hour later yours truly is dripping wet from the stagnant warm air. Yeesh.

I won't get into the prior conversations that led to this point, but let me just mention now that when someone makes a deductive leap that's less than impressive ("She probably put the juice in the fridge to make it cooler!" ), I often reply with "Good work there, Nancy Drew." I say that a lot at work. Here's a note that was left for me on Grumpy Old Lady's last work day, taped to a whiteboard full of more of the same (spelling, grammar, and capitals preserved):

Nancy Notes:
Sun 11, June 2006

Re: The second Floor Ghost:

While the name of the spookey specter is still unknown I have labled him as Karl or Carlos. Contact was made with the elusive spirit last week and the spook was advised to move on. The usual haunt for Carlos is by the cubical of (employee named removed - sorry) though not restricted to that area. The spook has not been "seen" or scencd since the Sunday prior to this.

Re: The missing Key:

The small silver drawer key noted missing on Sat. 10 of June (by night security) has not been found and the location of it remains under investigation by the very capable Frank and Joe Hardy. (Which is what I called myself on the whiteboard when I first started replying to her messages)

Nancy Comments:

Nancy pushes onward to get another destination filled with intrigue.
It is her wish that should she meet up with her Co-Conspirtor that they may have the fun of unravelling another mystrey.

Regards.

Nancy Drew.
alias
Grumpy Old Lady

I found her a bit irritating myself, but the rest of my staff absolutely hated her. So did the bike patrol guys, the carpet cleaners, the window washers, my Field Manager, a couple of people in Ops, some people on the site, etc...

Still, she at least did the bulk of the patrols. Meh.

Check out this bird!

Fucking census police!

2006-06-04T18:31:00.000-07:00

I'm sitting down to a game, sans pants, and there's an unlikely knock on my door. Since I'm in an apartment and don't really know any of my neighbours, I figured it was the landlady and, after acquiring and installing a pants upgrade, answered the door.

Instead was a guy with a clipboard, clearly from the building, asking if I'd sent in my census material and if not, had I planned to do so?

I wish I could tell you that I didn't participate in the national census for a reason, like the one sent to me by Kibilz showing how the software that allows you to complete the census online was written and is processed in the US, meaning all of that information is available to the US government under the Patriot Act. But not.

I just forgot. Although I'm pretty sure I didn't throw the thing out. Pretty sure.

Ah well, it prompted me to blog, and that's a good thing.

I had, at last count, five blog windows open. I have this habit of starting blogs, and then thinking "I'll get back to this", but never do. Which is all fine and dandy, since I will eventually get back to them. Unfortunately, you install one teensy little update that requires a reboot, and unthinkingly (look, a bunch of browser windows open! I'm sure it's nothing important) proceed, and that ends your droning and slightly hostile prose. Meh.

For the entry that should have been May 4, the Filipin-Pho did a piss poor job (even for him) the night that I told him he couldn't go home early even if he showed up for work earlier than scheduled. So I confronted him about it, and he did the usual evasions that I've become so used to from the rest of the motley crew of "guards" that have sieved through my site.

"I patrolled fully!"

"No you didn't."

"I went into all of those rooms!"

"No you didn't. I have an electronic record of everywhere you went. If you got access, and you're not a ninja, it's recorded."

"I went in all those places, I don't know why it's not on the record. The record must be wrong."

"The record recorded the full staff complement that day and the day before, got all of my entries right, seemed to pretty much nail everybody accurately... except for you. Would you care to hazard a guess as to why? Not to mention your apparent invisibility to cameras."

This went on for a bit, as tediously as the bit recounted above, until the light finally dawns in his eyes, just like it does for all of the other people I've had this discussion with: the results are all timestamped. Some diehards will continue to argue once they realize this, remembering how their parents must surely be too stupid to understand what's really going, but not the Filipin-Pho. He switched to a different approach:

"I know that nobody came in the building, so it's okay that I didn't patrol as much as you wanted."

"If you don't patrol, how can you know that nobody came in? Your lack of patrolling doesn't indicate any particular awareness of the status of the site."

"Nothing ever happens unexpected here."

"Yes, and we'd prefer it stays that way. But because something didn't happen yesterday, or the day before, or for the previous ten years, doesn't have any bearing on tonight. The client has requested, and is paying for, patrols in the manner and frequency which I trained you for. Bottom line."

He softened briefy at this point, and then tried (with what I assume was some sort of "you know how it is" attitude) this gambit: "I get tired of unlocking and locking doors."

Jesus, Jethro, and Homer Christ.

Of course this went on for a bit, and he got sullen. Every excuse he made was exactly that - an excuse. I've got a site to attend to that has requirements by the client and our own company, and that's that. Any attempt to alter that by him is met with what it deserves: a swiftly delivered and detailed "Nuh uh!".

He accused me of trying to be a Cookie Monster, that I was being hard on him because I was trying to get promoted to senior management. He told me that I was doing it exactly right for that.

As though it's some sort of slap to administer, or even be promoted for that matter. Clearly he was running out of material.

The previous night, during the Can't-Go-Home-Gate scandal, he mentioned that he'd finish out the month and then leave. I brought this up during this conversation and told him that if he was unwilling or unable to abide by the site orders, I'd be happy to mention it to Scheduling so he could get a site more to his liking, since I could probably get through to them faster than he himself could.

That remark came back to haunt me later, as he started telling me that I wanted to get rid of him because I mentioned talking to Scheduling. Bah.

Upon mentioning the site orders, he said that he noticed the "official" site orders and the working site orders were markedly different. He said that I had written them (I did) and that it was just want I wanted the guards to do, not the client. He said that it was his discretion what he did and didn't do while he was on site, and that it was none of my business.

He was grasping. The official site orders (I told him, as I had told him previously) were obsolete before I started there, and that the client and our company both had approved everything in my revised version (true).

After that, he stopped talking to me. For the rest of his stay on my site.

Ah well, it seemed that he actually improved markedly. Both electronic records and the employees who saw him seem to agree on this point. Good for him for giving in to the inevitable. Some stubborn fools would argue with a tidal wave.

-----

For one of the weekends in May, I was informed (by dint of a guy showing up on my site for training) that Moroccan Girl wasn't going to be available, so Scheduling had moved Hospital Guy's shift from afternoons to mornings, and I was training a new guy to do the afternoon shifts, but just for this weekend. Meh, whatever.

So a little after eight in the morning on Saturday, I got calls from both Valium Wailer and Operations. Hospital Guy didn't show up for his new shift.

Even though I had just worked eight hour before, and had maybe got three or four hours of sleep, I bit the bullet and went in to relieve Valium Wailer. He was tired and hungry and not willing to stay for even an additional half shift. I don't blame him.

En route, I found that nobody had bothered to tell Hospital Guy about the change in his shift, and he couldn't show up for it. But he said that he could definitely do the new shift for the following day. Fine, a brief snafu but it's fixed.

Ha. That's right, ha.

The morning passes, and I get relieved in the afternoon. I head home, kind of zonked from the lack of sleep and lack of stimulation both, but I stay up so that I can sleep during the night. Until... the call.

It was Operations, telling me that Hospital Guy had just called them and said that he couldn't and wouldn't come in tomorrow (Sunday) morning, due to "religious obligations".

Now, the day that I trained Mr. Hospital, he went on and on about how he was Moslem and why it was so great (also great was that he'd seen everything - things I couldn't handle if I was there, things like the fifteen grand he'd spent on the interior of his car, etc). Now, spank my ass and call me Charlie if I'm wrong, but Sunday holds no particular obligation on a Moslem. Not to mention that he'd already said he could do it.

I told Operations to hold on while I made some calls. Ops is already pissed at him.

So I called up the new guy I'd trained and asked if he'd be willing to slide from the afternoon shift to morning. He was. In fact, that worked out better for him. He wished he'd had the morning shift on Saturday as well, leaving me to wonder why in the hell Scheduling had shifted everything around instead of just filling the hole in the first place.

Then I called up Hospital Guy. He went off for a while about how his shifts had been moved, and "They can't just do that, can they?". Finally I told him that I'd moved things around and his normally scheduled shift was back to being available, the one he went to every other weekend, could he be there for it?

"Sorry man, I have terrible stomach flu. I've got diarrhea and I haven't eaten all day."

"I... see."

"Well, I'm sure that [our company] can provide someone to fill the shift."

"It's a trained position. It'll be me that has to fill in for you on my day off."

Pause.

"Sorry man, if there was any way I could do it I would. Tell you what, any day you want to take off - I'll cover your shift."

"You're not trained for my shift, you're only trained for weekends."

"Oh. Well, I'm sorry for this. I'll make it up to you."

"If you're not coming in, you're not coming in. Bye."

And I called back Operations. Neither of us was surprised to learn that Hospital Guy mentioned nothing about his religious obligations to me, and nothing about his terrible stomach flu to Ops. I guess he hasn't learned that the trick about lying is consistancy. Removed from the site.

Ops asked for suggestions on how to fill the site, and I told them to try to get hold of Filipin-Pho (yeah, he was a dick but I'm still supposed to try to use the lower-paid people before I use myself) to start his shift four hours early, and stretch out the morning guy's shift by four hours. Two twelve hour shifts and the day is covered.

Ops said (and I should have known better) that they'd do it, and to assume it's already done.

Of course, it wasn't and I ended up with ticket in hand for a movie being called to go in. Sigh.

I ended up giving the new guy the afternoon shifts on weekends (his request), and I trained a really grumpy and strange lady for the weekend mornings (as our pregnant Moroccan left). Problem solved!

Until the long weekend, that is.

The new guy, I'm going to call him Heap of Flowers for some reason, pulled my personal number out of the contact list in the site cell phone, and called me for the week and a half leading up to the long weekend. He wanted it off.

I told him that it was way too short notice for me to do anything about it, so he'd have to work it out with Scheduling. I had no problem with him taking it off if there was someone to fill his shift.

Even though he seemed to understand that (every time), he still kept calling me to ask if he could have it off, and that Scheduling wasn't calling him back. Same answer every time.

Finally he talked to Scheduling, and got told that the schedule was full and he couldn't have it off. So he asked what would happen if he just didn't show up (warning sign number one). I told him he'd be off the site and probably suspended, depending on the trouble it caused (long weekends don't leave us with a lot of spare bodies). He then asked if his friend could cover his shift for him. No, his friend isn't a guard, isn't licensed, and doesn't work for us. He couldn't understand why I nixed this idea, saying "Nobody would know!" (warning sign number two). Dumbass.

He outlined that he had a church outting to Kamloops that he'll have to pay for even if he doesn't go, and that he'll make less money during the long weekend than the cost of the outting. I told him that he should have scheduled the time off in advance, that lots of people want to take long weekends off, and that vacation time is scheduled three months in advance.

Of course, he didn't show up for his shifts. Subsequent calls indicated that he'd gone to Kamloops. I'd anticipated this, and decided I didn't want to go into work for a change.

So I lied.

I told Ops that I was already in the Okanagan, several hundred kilometers away, and couldn't possibly return in time to help anything. ;)

Grumpy old woman's shift we stretched out a few hours, and my Field Manager came and babysat the site for the remainder of the empty shift. He didn't patrol though, so that sucks. The following day the grumpy old woman trained (trained?! This was her first or second weekend there - she's not qualified to train! Arrrrrgh!) some dude and he did the missing shift.

I tried calling him in the middle of his shift, and he didn't respond. After a few tries, I had Ops radio him and he didn't respond. They told me they'd get him to call me when they got him. His excuse for not responding when he finally called me? "I must have been in the elevator."

For twenty minutes? Nice try.

He'd been sleeping - I found the hole in the records. I even found the record of my missed calls in the cell phone's log.

The bed in the first aid room had been disturbed.

Ah well, the weekend passed.

-----

In other news, I finally delivered the Christmas present that my folks had been waiting for for quite some time. I know, I'm a jerk for taking five months to do something that would have taken up a weekend at the outside, but that's what I did.

They have a new computer. I've had the parts for a long time, but I just didn't get around to throwing Winblows on and doing the updates. It's an easy thing to put off, but I really shouldn't have. Still, they've got it now and, since their old one had died the week previously, it was fortuitous timing.

Oddly, the biggest hit was the card reader that came with the dvd bundle. They have a digital camera, but had never pulled the 200+ pics off before. Even though I front mounted the USB ports, the card reader is even easier to use. Yay for random fate!

Kibilz and Kami, and their little elf came to town. We saw X-Men 3. I think we all wish we hadn't. We thought it blew some significant chunks. The mutant-power-using scenes were short and/or not that good for the most part, the story was edited badly, and it just didn't give a viscerally satisfied feeling afterwards. The review from Mr. Cranky (four bombs!) tells more:

X-Men: The Last Stand

If you want to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Hollywood is a cesspool of whoredom and back-door deal-making, just look at the credits of the writers responsible for this monstrous piece of crap.

Between them, Simon Kinberg and Zak Penn have written "XXX: State of the Union," "Elektra" and "Inspector Gadget." Now admittedly, screenwriting is a profession where one has very little control over the final product, but just how much talent does it take to write lines like "hell hath no fury like a woman scorned" (unless you're William Congreve) and "take cover!" There are also two uses of the word "bitch" that I found offensive, but more than that, I found them lazy. They're unnecessary and pointless, and that in itself is profane.

Maybe there was simply a hack reunion going on while the movie was being made because the producers also brought in director Brett ("Rush Hour 2") Ratner, who has about as much talent as an avocado pit. He's replacing Bryan Singer and it's obvious that any personal connection to the material is now completely gone. "X-Men 3" is utterly witless, soulless and utilizes the kind of music that, were it played in an elevator, would inspire riders to shatter their skulls against the walls to seek relief. Seriously, I could easily do my whole review about the music. Imagine Barbie from the sorority down the street jamming her iPod buds into your ears and blasting the entire "American Idol" repertoire at a volume of "11" until the battery runs out and you get some idea of the kind of torture I'm talking about.

Ratner and the writers churn through their character development like starving squirrels discovering a secret stash of nuts. This edition begins with the government announcing that scientists have developed a cure for the mutant X gene. This sends Magneto (Ian McKellen) into a paranoid fit and Professor Xavier (Patrick Stewart) into defensive mode. Meanwhile, all the mutants, including Wolverine (Hugh Jackman), are trying to figure out what to make of Jean Grey (Famke Janssen), who's come back from the dead and has incredible new superpowers, including one that allows her to stand around and stare off into space while doing absolutely nothing for seemingly hours on end. Seriously, Janssen has this look on her face throughout the entire movie that screams "Help me. I'm in a really bad movie and I know it."

Internet chatter about the film has been dominated by curiosity about Angel (Ben Foster), a winged mutant whose ability to fly seems to stem from the fact that he'd easily get his ass kicked if he landed in one place for too long. Sadly, you could cut out every scene the character is in and the film would lose nothing, except maybe some audible groaning.

Hopefully, I made my last stand during an X-Men movie when I got up to leave the theater.

-----

To be fair, some of my friends say they enjoyed it. It probably didn't hurt that Vinnie Jones was cast as Juggernaut. ;) Although I honestly thought that Angel was played by Dawson from Dawson's Creek. Ah well, since I watched that show less than a handful of times, I was more familiar with the actor when he was in Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back.

I got me a haircut the following week by this cute young Australian girl. She was really into caressing me, even when she wasn't cutting. I couldn't decide if she was flirting with me or if it was just what she did. Reminded me of when I would molest this other femme that used to cut my hair.

Shut me down in conversation, though. I let her lead (I normally hate talking to someone cutting my hair, as I like it done as fast as possible), and she mentioned Chernobyl. She'd got into reading about it a few months back and we talked about it for a while. I mentioned that the year or so after the sunsets here were notably coloured, due to the volume of dust that had been kicked straight up and trapped in the northern hemisphere. I suppose we're almost due for a plague of cancer related to that. Anyway, I asked if the sunsets in Australia had been coloured differently as a result.

She said "Well, I don't remember. I was three."

Sure, rub in my age. :P Still, it was an okay haircut, so I can't complain.

Riding the SkyTrain home one night, I got to talking to an attendant that I've seen for a couple of years. He asked if I was coming home from work, and asked what I did. Upon hearing I did security, he asked if I'd ever considered working for SkyTrain. Since the Canada line will be done before too long (that's the arm that's going to run from Vancouver Community College up Cambie), they'll need more attendants.

But for infant CPR, I have the qualifications apparently, and if you're working full time it's four ten-hour days per week. Starting pay is $50000/year.

Granted, you need four days per week for that and at the start they only guarantee you two, but if you can get that third day you're styling, and there's always lots of "can you fill in?" work apparently.

When the site is running stable (laugh if you will, I just mean that I have some trained monkeys there) I think I'll hit St. John's and pick up that course, and toss my name in the hat.

It's not exactly awesome work, but it's roughly the same as what I'm doing now but with more pay.

That same week, on Friday, I trained the guy who was to replace Filipin-Pho. He showed up after having already worked that morning, and he was somewhat tired. I noticed that as the shift dragged on he was lagging more and more, and was finally just shuffling behind me, not even looking around.

He's diabetic, and hadn't eaten the entire shift. Silly bugger!

I gave him some candy, but I found out the following week that he'd forgotten everything I'd showed him and only did what was on the site orders I'd written, which are a guide, not a walk-through. I'm going to have to break down and write a massively complete set of orders, I suppose, and get new guards to sign them. Ah well, later.

That weekend (yay, my blog is catching up!) I again caught up with Kibilz, Kami, and micro-elf to go to the Natural History Museum up at UBC. We got there after the guided tour had already set off, but that was probably just as well since the squirt probably enjoyed the unstructured time more than she would have a slowly-moving group of people trying to listen to a guide.

There is some good stuff there, and I may very well go back and take the tour to get more background on the pieces than the plaques (when there are plaques) can provide. I was greatly amused, however, when we went through some heavy doors into a nicely climate-controlled visiting gallery of ceramic pieces from around the world. Everything was behind heavy glass, there were mini-spotlights highlighting things, and classical music being piped in for background ambience. Micro-elf was very quiet in there at first, being very well behaved normally anyway, and clearly feeling the weighty atmosphere. As she slowly crept around a corner, she turned back to us and said "Look, a bench!" and proceeded to climb aboard. That, to her, was more interesting than a bunch of old steins. ;)

For that matter, I remember her at the aquarium a couple of years back, also entranced by the attactions a bench had to offer her. It's certainly a unique fetish in my experience, and it will be interesting to see if she still loves benches as an adult. Take THAT, Dr. Freud!

Did I mention that the guy who bailed during the long weekend is back at my site? Apparently since there were no complaints about his work, he was deemed fit to return to duty. Yay. His first day back (same day we were at the museum) he managed to lock the keys in a bathroom. I love my crew.

I've rambled enough. Have some links:

The Oozinator Delights Children

Will Wright talking at the GDC about the upcoming Maxis game "Spore". I'm almost certainly going to pick this up.

And finally, if you haven't already seen it: Stephen Colbert at the White House Correspondents Dinner.

Days like this make me appreciate high capacity magazines on semi-automatic rifles.

2006-05-03T13:05:00.000-07:00

Last night I had a little talk with Filipin-Pho.

This is nothing new. Even though I've shown many times that I can tell what he's been doing (or not doing, more specifically), he still slacks off when he thinks nobody can see him and I've got to reprimand him for it every time.

Last night though, I had to talk to him about missing an alarm that came two minutes before his shift was done. He didn't answer the alarm, and as a result didn't respond to it.

And why?

Because he was already gone. Here's why:

Standard policy is to show up fifteen minutes before your shift starts. The idea being that the person you're relieving can brief you on what's been happening, and to advise you of any ongoing situations you may need to know about. It also gives you time to get your uniform on, go to the bathroom, and all that other good stuff so that you're actually ready to do your job when the cuckoo comes out of the clock.

Note that you don't get paid for that fifteen minutes. That irritates a lot of people. But if you flip it around, then you're not really ready to do your job if you show up right at the last second, are you? If you're not in uniform and you act as security, you're in violation of your license. If you can't assume your duties because the guy you're relieving hasn't explained the situation yet, then there's a gap. There are lots of little reasons.

Filipin-Pho figures that he has to spend eight hours "working", and that's it. And since he takes transit and often ends up at the site half an hour before he's scheduled to work... yeah. He figures he can abandon ship half an hour before he's supposed to.

Nobody relieves him in the morning. He's got to stay right until the bitter end, and then let himself out. We have a contract and the site is paying us to be there until then. I told him as much.

He went very cold and sullen, and would only say "That's bullshit." He stopped answering me too, and just kept staring at nothing with a set jaw. Oh, and once he said that he'll finish out the month and he's gone. Then back to the silent treatment.

It kind of made me want to stick a Milk Bone down his throat and a hungry dog up his ass, but I refrained. Where was I going to get a Milk Bone?

I feel his pain. When I was doing the graveyard I used to end up there half an hour before shift too, and since there was usually very little to be briefed on, Barney would make good his escape. Now that I do afternoons, I still get there half an hour (usually) or so before shift, but one Filipin-Pho is on site and briefed I leave. It's pretty standard practice.

If he came later, I'd stay until then with nary a complaint. But if he shows up, he's on duty and that's that.

On the walk home, I called up Operations and asked if I needed to fill out an incident report when I have a pissy guard. The guy asked me to elaborate, which I did, and he said that I didn't, but I should write up a note to Cookie Monster just so that if something further happens and this is the catalyst, we can point back to it.

Then he asked for the guy's name, which I gave.

Ops: "Oh, that guy."

Rimmy: "You recognise the name? Something I should know about?"

Ops: "I can't quite remember, let me pull up his file... ah yes. He abandoned post when he was working at Vancouver General Hospital."

Rimmy: "You're kidding me!"

Ops: "Nope. Left the triage centre without warning, and in the middle of a phone call from us asking about it shut off his phone."

Rimmy: "Damn!"

Ops: "You know what? Fuck this guy, write up an incident report and I'll have mobile pick it up from you tomorrow."

Rimmy: "Works for me."

Ops: "Night dude."

Now... why exactly do they send me these duds? Especially with a documented history like this?

He better not have ducked the fog during that shift. I'll have his balls on a plate if he did.

If we're all God's children, why is Jesus so special?

2006-04-28T08:54:00.000-07:00

Therefore, since there is no proof of its absence, Christianity must be true. As must Buddhism, Sikhism, Islam, and the religions of ancient Greece, Rome and Egypt. There are lots of old Norse gods bumming around my neighbourhood too.

Oops, sorry. Wrote that in the wrong window. I was distracted when the six-armed lady living two apartments down asked if she could borrow a dove.

Anyway.

I had just got to work on Thursday and was sitting in the atrium with the client's Eyes and Ears and another guy, when someone came by and offered us cake.

Because she's a very nice person (and because I knew the cake was left over from someone's retirement bash earlier that day) I set aside my usual paranoia about accepting unsolicited food and we all took a piece.

We needed forks and plates. The plates were nearby, but there were no forks out. So I went to get some.

I do tell some fascinating stories, don't I?

At one end of the atrium is the kitchen, which has a folding gate pulled across it. I was outside of that, opening a cupboard that has all of the boxes of plastic utensils.

"Excuse me!" My back was to her, but it was obvious that Cafeteria Lady was about a metre and a half behind me, looking through the gate. It's hard to mistake the voice of the dark Edith Bunker.

"You're not allowed to get things out of there!"

My back still towards her, I glanced up at my cake-sharing companions. One's face was bland, the woman with the cake look horrified, and Eyes and Ears seemed irritated (and expectant).

"Really, is that so? How fascinating." I said, taking a couple of extra forks and heading back to the cake. Cafeteria Lady spent a fair amount of time glaring through the bars of her cage, but that's okay. I really don't mind.

"Did you get in trouble from her?" the lady with the cake asked, seriously.

"Nah. What can she do?"

"She's so..."

"Batshit crazy? Tell me about it."

Eyes and Ears: "You nailed it there, Rimmy."

The cake was totally worth it.

And except for the fork incident, I've noticed an inordinate amount of attention on me this week, and not the bad kind.

When the weather starts turning kind of summery, the womenfolk get into a good mood and forget about my sub-par rating (which takes a lot, since my jacket is loud and extremely unappealing) and seek me out, halt me to make small talk, and come to me in clusters to ask me to help them carry something ridiculous, like a two kilogram box. It's highly entertaining, enough so that I wish I didn't work evenings. But I do, so I'll just have to content myself with the fleeting attention.

I bet they'd be less interested if they knew that the other day when I was brushing my teeth I spat in the sink and it careened back out, arced over my shoulder, and sailed clear out of the bathroom and into the hall behind me.

Perhaps I'm spitting too hard?

I was laughing too hard on Tuesday, though. On the SkyTrain, on my way to work, there was this girl.

That isn't the funny part.

She was quite attractive, and Japanese. I mention that only because it will help you visualize the skirt she was wearing, which I've only seen Asian people wearing. It's rather short, and sort of puffs out.

Anyway, she was standing at one of the doors, and a lady came in with one of those little dogs that I hate. She sat down, but let her dog run around free on the train. This little thing made a beeline for the Japanese girl, and started doing figure-eights around her ankles, yipping the whole time.

When the girl put her feet together to preven it, the dog would sit at her feet, staring up her legs and under her skirt. Sometimes he'd rear up with his paws on her knees, staring upwards.

The girl was clearly very embarassed, and it probably didn't help that by this time the entire car was trying not to laugh aloud (most of us - some just went ahead and did it). The dog's owner did absolutely nothing to control her dog, and I don't even know if she knew what was going on. Fortunately for the girl, the lady and her dog got off after a couple of stops. Good start to the day. ;)

Now, I'm going to finish this off with a link that you really shouldn't click on. I include it because I looked at it, and it bothered me.

Normally when there's a beheading or a bus explosion or something that everybody is decrying in the news, I look out the video so I can see what it is that I'm supposed to be upset about.

On that note, it looks like being beheaded isn't any worse than being shot, from a pain and suffering point of view. But that may just be me.

That said, this video really bugged me. Be aware that it is graphic animal cruelty, so I again recommend that you don't watch it. Oh, and there are porn banners on the page too, if that sort of thing bothers you.

Ennui is not a french dessert.

2006-04-25T13:00:00.000-07:00

Slow and boring week. The Filipin-Pho sucks. The other new guy is annoying. Meh.

I saw Silent Hill over the weekend. The sounds and lots of the visuals really captured the game, in my opinion, but I missed seeing the big pipe swung at the twisted nurses.

And even with the implied passage of time in the movie, the heroine got through things way faster than I did. Probably she read a walk-through online when she was researching Silent Hill.

As for yesterday...

Stuck in close with Vanna White!
Night after night after night after night
All right!

Remember that song by Weird Al? Well, I was stuck in one at work for an hour last night, and the reality bore no similarity to the song.

It's not the first time I've been stuck in an elevator there, but usually the elevator makes it to the nearest floor and I can easily pry open the doors. This time it got stuck a little short of the second floor and, despite the rest of the building seemingly made of crusted tissue paper and discarded styrofoam, the elevators appear to have been designed with the philosophy of "No escapees!".

And, looking over at the client's Eyes and Ears, I realized he was no Vanna White. Not even if I squinted. To be fair, I'm hardly Pat Sajak myself.

Ah well. I used the phone in the elevator to call the monitoring company, who called the bike patrol guys, who sent up one of their new guys, who doesn't have access to the second floor (my doing), where the cleaners let him in, where he determined that there was in fact a stuck elevator. He then called the elevator company, who responded in less time than it took the bike patrol guy to show up, despite being on the site.

The guy flipped some switches in the machine room, and out we popped. The first thing he asked was "Where you guys jumping in there, before it stopped?"

That's exactly what we had been doing. I do that all the time, and so does he. Our synchronised efforts, however, were more than a match for any mere machine. Score one for the meatsacks!

Rimmy: "No, we weren't. Were we?"

Eyes and Ears: "Nope."

Technician: "Yeah, well the overspeed indicator is what stopped the elevator, and that usually happens when people jump."

Rimmy: "We'll keep that in mind, won't we?"

Eyes and Ears: "Yup."

Ah well, c'est la vie.

On the weekend I talked to the useless braggart that replaced Zoroastrian, and told him to actually patrol, and to not just write down that he is.

He said that he was, and I told him that all electronic records indicate that he's not.

He suggested that something was wrong with the electronics, and I pointed out that it would be an unusual malfunction indeed, since it seems to accurately show everybody else doing what they're doing.

He then said "Well, I'm doing everything I was shown to do."

Dumbass. "I'm the one that trained you, and I certainly didn't tell you to take long breaks between doing halfassed patrols where you don't go everwhere and check everything."

He then wanted to come by during my shift on Monday to see these records for himself. I asked him what he hoped to accomplish by that.

"So that I know what I'm missing." Yeah right, so you can see what data points I'm using so you can figure out how to fool them.

"I've already told you what you're missing. This is the same information that the client uses. Do your duty."

And, when I checked his records after that, they were better. ;)

Laid down the same basic thing to the Filipin-Pho last night too. Same deal, he said he goes everywhere and does everything, but unless he's greasing up with oil of etherealness, he ain't doing squat. I told him the deal was that if things are done, the client gets mad, calls the company, and you get removed from site. "So do the whole thing, okay?"

"Uh... okay."

We'll see. ;)

The sort of people I'm sure I've played with in Guild Wars.

If I had known it was harmless, I would have killed it myself.

2006-04-18T13:15:00.000-07:00

The sound of Arctor reading obscurely had awakened Luckman. Luckman sat up groggily and listened. He then heard the noise of Arctor dropping a coat hanger while hanging up his coat. Luckman slid his long muscular legs under him and in one motion picked up a hand axe which he kept on the table by his bed; he stood erect and moved animal-smoothly toward the door of his bedroom.

In the living room, Arctor picked up the mail from the coffee table and started through it. He tossed a large junkmail piece toward the wastebasket. It missed.

In his bedroom Luckman heard that. He stiffened and raised his head as if to sniff the air.

Arctor, reading the mail, suddenly scowled and said, "I'll be dipped."

In his bedroom Luckman relaxed, set the axe down with a clank, smoothed his hair, opened the door, and stepped out. "Hi. What's happening?"

Arctor said, "I drove by the Maylar Microdot Corporation Building."

"You're shitting me."

"And," Arctor said, "they were taking an inventory. But one of the employees evidently had tracked the inventory outdoors on the heel of his shoe. So they were all outside there in the Maylar Microdot Corporation parking lot with a pair of tweezers and lots and lots of little magnifying glasses. And a little paper bag."

"Any reward?" Luckman said, yawning and beating with his palms on his flat, hard gut.

"They had a reward they were offering," Arctor said. "But they lost that, too. It was a little tiny penny."

Luckman said, "You see very many events of this nature as you're driving along?"

"Only in Orange County," Arctor said.

"How large is the Maylar Microdot Corporation building?"

"About an inch high," Arctor said.

"How much would you estimate it weighs?"

"Including the employees?"

"Yeah."

"About ten pounds."

"Well, how can you tell, then, when you pass by it, if it's only an inch high and only weighs ten pounds?"

Arctor, now sitting on the ouch with his feet up, said, "They have a big sign."

"What's the sign look like?" Luckman asked. He sat on the floor, cleaning a boxful of grass. "Neon and like that? Colours? I wonder if I've seen it. Is it conspicuous?"

"Here, I'll show it to you," Arctor said, reaching into his shirt pocket. "I brought it home with me."

Luckman said, "You know how you could smuggle microdots into a country without them knowing?"

"Just about any way you wanted," Arctor said, leaning back smoking a joint. The air was cloudy.

"No, I mean a way they'd never flash on," Luckman said. "It was Barris who suggested this to me one day, confidentially; I wasn't supposed to tell anyone, because he's putting it in his book."

"What book? Common Household Dope and -"

"No. Simple Ways to Smuggle Objects into the U.S. and out, Depending on Which Way You're Going. You smuggle it in with a shipment of dope. Like with heroin. The microdots are down inside the packets. Nobody'd notice, they're so small. They won't-"

"But then some junkie'd shoot up a hit of half smack and half microdots."

"Well then, he'd be the fuckingest educated junkie you ever did see."

"Depending on what was on the microdots."

"Barris had his other way to smuggle dope across the border. You know how the customs guys, they ask you to declare what you have? And you can't say dope because-"

"Okay, how?"

"Well, see, you take a huge block of hash and carve it in the shape of a man. Then you hollow out a section and put a wind-up motor like a clockworks in it, and a little cassette tape, and you stand in line with it, and then just before it goes through customs you wind up the key and it walks up to the customs man, who says to it, `Do you have anything to declare?' and the block of hash says, "No, I don't,' and keeps on walking. Until it runs down on the other side of the border."

"You could put a solar-type batter in it instead of a spring and it could keep walking for years. Forever."

"What's the use of that? It'd finally reach either the Pacific or the Atlantic. In fact, it'd walk off the edge of the Earth, like-"

"Imagine an Eskimo village, and a six-foot-high block of hash worth about - how much would that be worth?"

"About a billion dollars."

"More. Two billion."

"These Eskimos are chewing hides and carving bone spears, and this block of hash worth two billion dollars comes walking through the snow saying over and over, `No, I don't.'".

"They'd wonder what it meant by that."

"They'd be puzzled forever. There'd be legends."

"Can you imagine telling your grandkids, `I saw with my own eyes the six-foot-high block of hash appear out of the blinding fog and walk past, that way, worth two billion dollars, saying, "No, I don't."' His grandchildren would have him committed."

"No, see, legends build. After a few centuries they'd be saying, `In my forefathers' time one day a ninety-foot-high block of extremely good quality Afghanistan hash worth eight trillion dollars came at us dripping fire and screaming, "Die, Eskimo dogs!" and we fought and fought with it, using our spears, and finally killed it."

"The kids wouldn't believe that either."

"Kids never believe anything any more."

"It's a downer to tell anything to a kid. I once had a kid ask me, `What was it like to see the first automobile?' Shit, man, I was born in 1962."

"Christ," Arctor said, "I once had a guy I knew burned out on acid ask me that. He was twenty-seven years old. I was only three years older than him. He didn't know anything any more. Later on he dropped some more hits of acid - or what he was sold as acid - and after that he peed on the floor and crapped on the floor, and when you said something to him, like `How are you, Don?', he just repeated it after you, like a bird. `How are you, Don?'"

Silence, then. Between the two joint-smoking men in the cloudy living room. A long, somber silence.

"Bob, you know something..." Luckman said at last. "I used to be the same age as everyone else."

"I think so was I," Arctor said.

"I don't know what did it."

"Sure, Luckman," Arctor said, "you know what did it to all of us."

"Well, let's not talk about it." He continued inhaling noisily, his long face sallow in the dim midday light.

The slide into stupidity

2006-04-17T09:53:00.000-07:00

The aforementioned slide was brought home to me at a personal level last night when I went to see Lucky Number Slevin and decided to take a leak before finding a seat. Standing in the midst of a row of men staring at the cyclopean occupancy sensor on the urinal, I found that I couldn't unlimber my dingus.

I'd put my underwear on backwards.

Now, I can't say that I normally put a whole lot of thought into my boxer alignment, because some things just become automatic. Not unlike the whole "pants first, then shoes" dressing hierarchy. But there it was - shorts undeniably on backwards, and me fumbling at my crotch for an unlikely period of time. People were starting to notice - even the guy who banged his bishop on the side of the drinking fountain to dry it.

I managed my business, and went to my movie. Here's what's happened in the past two weeks:

If you were to scroll down to my last entry on March 30, you'd know that I'd just trained a new guy to replace Yumpin' Yiminy, and that the next day I had to do a five hour stint at the Justice Institute.

Well, it didn't work out like that.

At the end of my shift on the same day I wrote that, my relief didn't show up. I gave a generous amount of time for him to show up or call, but finally I called Operations and let them know. So they put me on the list of things to do and I waited.

At 0115, they called me back, and they were pissed.

Ops: "Rimmy, we finally got hold of your guy. He's not coming in."

Me: "Say whaaaaaaaat?"

Ops: "We finally managed to wake him up, and he said that he didn't know he was supposed to work. We brushed that aside and asked if he'd come in now to relieve you, and he said that he had a headache."

Me: "Not as much of a headache as he's going to have when I club him like a baby seal."

Ops: "I hear you. So I hate to ask, but can you cover the rest of the shift?"

Me: "So... you know I have a special to do in the morning, right? At the JI from 0900 to 1400? Couple that with the sixteen hours I have to work here now and my shift here tomorrow leaves me working 29 out of 32 hours."

Ops: "Oh shit!"

Me: "Welcome to my world."

Ops: "Well, how about if we take you off that special?"

Me: "Up to you, but was having trouble finding people to do it in the first place. If you think you can find an HP flagged person to do it in time, go for it. I'd be happy for the sleep."

Ops: "I'm pissed off at this guy. It's his responsibility to know his schedule."

Me: "Especially since I told him he was working tonight."

Ops: "You did? For sure?"

Me: "Twice that I can recall."

Ops: "Can you do me up an IR (incident report) stating that, and get it out to me tonight? We'll take care of this for you right away."

Me: "Sure thing."

Ops: "Thanks for working the extra. Don't worry about the JI, no way are we going to make you work for that long."

Me: "I appreciate that."

Sigh. Work work work, all day long. Work work work while I sing this song...

Late Saturday night (or more properly, early Sunday morning), I got a call from Valium Wailer. He was calling to inform me that he had a trainee on site. Say whaaaaaat? They replaced my new guy (which I'm glad of), but the new guy isn't training with me. Ah well, I'll tighten up his training when I see him on Monday night.

That weekend, my mom was operating solo and so we went to a movie. She chose, and so we saw Inside Man. It wasn't bad, and it was nice to hit a movie again. And I hadn't done anything with my mom in a while that didn't involve an unshowered breakfast going, so that was good too.

There was a line to get into the theatre, so mom sat down and I rode the line. As I got to my spot, there was a woman in front of me talking to some other guy. She turned to me and asked on behalf of the guy if this line was for all the movies, or just Inside Man. I told her it was just for the one movie, and the guy went on his merry way.

She: "That's a great shirt!"

I was wearing my red Transformers shirt. I periodically get attention for it, exclusively from women. I have no idea why, but it's a pretty sweet shirt.

Rimmy: "Thanks."

She: "So do you think this movie is going to be any good?"

Rimmy: "Beats me. I'd rather have gone to V for Vendetta, but my mom gets to choose today."

She: "You're here with your mom? That's cool."

Rimmy: "Yup. All these years and the apron strings are still attached."

She: "So have you seen V for Vendetta yet?"

Rimmy: "No, but I'm going to for sure."

She: "It was really good."

Rimmy: "Did you read the comic? My bad, I mean illustrated novel?"

She: "Oh yes, I'm rather an intellectual and a neo-avant garde in regards to fringe literature."

No shit? Well, aren't you just the cat's ass?

Fortunately, she was being somewhat self-lampooning here, so I didn't think she was too full of herself. She was kind of cute, too.

We chat a bit more, but before I could ask her if she wanted to play Auto-Eroticbots versus the Contracepticons (that's where she gets to see part of me transform into a gun), some big forty-something dude with a long (to the small of his back) ponytail shows up and says:

Ponytail Dude: "What, I can't leave you alone for five minutes and you're picking up some guy?"

Rimmy: "Nah, she wasn't strong enough to get me off the ground."

She: "Five minutes is a long time. Besides, he's here with his mother."

Ponytail Dude: "You're here with your mother? This replaces the traditional Sunday dinner?"

Me: "The traditional Sunday dinner was in the food court downstairs. She had A&W, I had won ton."

She: "It's okay he's here with his mother, since I'm here with my father." (as she links arms with the guy who is clearly not her father.

Oddly enough, as the line started moving, my mom cut in line in front of them. What a bully. ;)

The movie was very watchable. It would have been nice if any of the characters had more than two facial expressions though. Jodie Foster has legs, by the way.

Monday arrives. The roof falls in.

That's a nice metaphor that people use when lots of chaotic bad stuff happens, or when the worst possible scenario happens. In my case, the roof actually fell in.

It was raining, as it's been known to occasionally do in Vancouver, and I was doing my rounds. As I walked through the atrium, I heard a little splatter of water start hitting the floor just behind me.

No big deal, it's a glass ceiling (driving that lesson home for all the aspiring employees with dreams of promotion) that often leaks when it rains. It's never very much.

A few steps further on and the sound of the water increased as though someone had opened up a faucet, which was what the stream of water now appeared to resemble, when I investigated it. From about four stories up.

"Hmmmm," I thought to myself. "That's odd."

Then an undescribable sound, best described as a horrid version of "scrrrrrriiiiiiIIIIIIIITTTCH!", and the water volume increased again.

"I think I'm going to get someone," I thought valiantly to myself. And that's what I did.

Because if there's one thing a guy wants to know when he's facing a mini-Niagra cascading down from a decomposing (scrrrrrriiiiiiIIIIIIIITTTCH!) glass roof in heavy rain late at night is that he's not alone.

So I called the client, and I called Evil Property Manager's company. I went in to the nearby sales unit and started putting papers and boxes up on desks, as the water was definitely leaking in.

I mused briefly that I used to do flood restoration, and how I'd been glad that I no longer worked at a job where my feet were perpetually wet. Oh, sweet irony. At least my boots are waterproof.

The glass ceiling continued to slowly give way, and the piece of glass itself was now bowing under the weight of the water that had run over from the rest of the roof into the new depression. The glass guys, when they came, said that the water depth was two and a half feet, the glass was so bent.

Finally, the decision was made to chop the glass down rather than have it fall during the day when people are around. So that's what they did.

I was on the other side of the room, behind an upright, and I still got showered with bits of glass. Luckily, tempered glass breaks like your windshield - very few sharp pieces.

Oddly enough, as soon as the glass was down, the rain stopped. Fucking Murphy anyway!

Wood and tarps across the hole, and that was it for the night. My new relief showed up. Nice way to meet, really. "Hi, I'm your boss, don't let anybody go near the area with the new skylight we spontaneously installed tonight. Suspend normal patrols and watch the area once people start to arrive. Yadda yadda yadda.

Incidentally, the new guard looks and sounds just like Napolean Dynamite. He's a little more on the ball, and his hair is slightly different, but the resemblance is striking.

No, I didn't ask him about his nunchuk skills, bow hunting skills, or computer hacking skills, but he did mention that the conditioned air in the building made his lips hurt real bad.

Then the client asks me to arrange for a guard for the day (0800-1600) to keep the area safe. I phone it in, and Operations is dubious they can get anybody, as they're already overextended. So they ask me to call in at 0630 to see if it's covered, otherwise I get to do it.

I got to do it.

Now, here's an interesting thing: I didn't sit down or take a break for that entire eight hour shift. Nine hour, if you want to be picky, since business hours were until 1700 and there were still lots of people around.

That wasn't the interesting bit, by the way. This is: people went absolutely out of their way to try to get me to take a break, to eat something, to go to the bathroom. They offered to take my place, they offered to go and buy me food, they offered rationales about how "nobody is going to report you if you just sit down". It seemed to absolutely offend them that I paced back and forth in the same area for all that time.

Why do you suppose that is? Company policy (my company, not theirs) says that we don't get breaks unless someone relieves us. That's a guard relieving us, not neighbour Joe. Company policy also says that we're not supposed to be seen eating or smoking while on duty and in uniform.

I don't smoke, but I do eat on occassion. When I do, I go into my office and have a quick nosh between patrols. But out in the public eye, it looks less than professional if the "alert security guard" is dipping fries in catsup and trying not to drip on his shirt.

Trying to explain this to someone who was trying to get me to eat, they disgustedly said "Why, because it would make you look human?" Well yeah, kind of. More because nobody's paying us to eat.

Oh, and word came down that we're not supposed to talk about the glass, and we can't actually say that the glass came down. Of course, everybody who went by wanted to talk about it, and ask what had happened. I gave various responses, but I kept coming back to "You know how you throw pencils at a drop ceiling sometimes? That shit can get out of hand."

Ah well, I survive that particular sixteen hours.

Wednesday I spent recovering from that, and I got a phone call from Cookie Monster. He called to tell me that Yumpin Yiminy had been replaced (fucking DUH, man!) and that Zoroastrian was also being replaced (which I knew, since I'd seen that on the schedule). Then...

Cookie Monster: "I gave myself until Wednesday to call you, and today's the day. I sensed some frustration in your last few status reports, so I wanted to explain to you why it took so long to deal with those two guards."

Frustration? It took four weeks from the time the client asked me to remove Yumpin' Yiminy. I sent constant written reports to CM (at his request) detailing anything involving YY since then. Often these reports would begin something like "It's been x weeks since the client requested YY's removal. Since then, I have received y complaints regarding (various things employees have been annoyed about), and heard z derogatory comments about YY and our company in general.

I think it was the counting of weeks during which CM had done bugger all that was the subtle indication to him that I thought he was a ponce. And I was pretty sure it was one of the derogatory comments about our company that got him moving. He doesn't like bad publicity, although you can see he does very little to prevent it.

He went on saying nothing of substance for a while, then

Cookie Monster: "Anyway, I wanted you to know that I've been on your side during this whole thing. We think you're doing a good job running that site. Talk to you later." Click.

Well, click to you too.

Where in the hell did that comment come from? A little bit of talking to people that get things done yielded the answer.

You see, we have a fairly new director of operations. That would make him CM's boss, and he's only been with us for a few months. He used to be a cop, and he wants things to work, apparently.

My site problems came up during a manager's meeting being chaired by him, and when he noticed the reports from me, followed by the request from the client, and the continuing reports from me, he was less than impressed by CM's response time of zip. That's where CM's change of attitude came from.

I've also since been told that this new director's door is always open to supervisors, and that he wants to know when there are problems. I should also start going to the S/S meetings, and really ought to wear my epaulettes (rank insignia), which I don't have. And apparently the way to take advantage of CM's boss is to nag the hell out of CM when there's a problem.

I probably won't go to that extreme, but it would be nice if things were addressed on occasion...

Friday I trained my replacement for the Zoroastrian. He's a twenty two year old who doesn't pay rent, his mom does his laundry for him, parents pay for school, and he's spent $15000 tricking out the inside of his car (it's got three tv's). He also used to work for us at Vancouver General Hospital, so he knows everything there is about security. He also knows everything about everything.

Him: "Let me tell you something man, this is the way things work."

Rimmy: "Let me tell you sumptin', mon. Dees ees the way tings work here!"

For someone who's so capable, he sure calls me a lot. Reminds me of Palooka in that way.

On the weekend, I finally saw V for Vendetta. And what can I say? More thumbs up than a Chernobyl pianist. Go see it.

"There are people who are going to hate this movie; people who don't like to think, the brain dead, the fools. Referencing the still unseen film, one member of a politically minded film forum was quick to declare: "You can't make a movie about a terrorist now without endorsing bin Laden". It's that mindset, which has become so ingrained in all of us since 9/11, that makes V for Vendetta so unsettling. At times it almost feels like you're watching something forbidden, like you're seeing something you shouldn't be allowed to see. It's shocking that a movie like this, especially in these times, ever actually got made. It's even more unbelievable that it was made by a major Hollywood studio. It's fun to accuse Hollywood of liberal activism, but you don't expect this kind of real filmmaking bravery from corporate America or a company like Warner Bros. It's a purposefully uncomfortable film, one that will affect different people differently depending on what you bring in with you."

--Joshua Tyler, CINEMA BLEND

On Monday, I sat down with the guard reports from the previous week and the keyscan transaction logs and did my usual check. And Napolean was blowing through his patrols suspiciously quickly. So I asked him about it when he came in. Or rather, I told him what he had to do.

Rimmy: "So you have to check all of these areas every time you patrol."

Napolean: "It's already taking me half an hour to do what I'm doing. It'll take way longer if I do all of that."

Rimmy: "Well, this is what the client wants so... it's taking you half an hour to just walk around the building?"

Napolean: "Yeah."

That's odd. If I were to just walk around the building without stopping to do everything I usually do, I could crack it off in less than ten minutes. And that's at a normal walking pace.

Rimmy: "You probably just haven't found the flow for the building yet. I do everything in twentyfive minutes or so."

Napolean: "You do all of that in twentyfive minutes? No way!"

Rimmy: "I do. Give it a shot and see how it goes."

Napolean: "Well, if that's what I've got to do."

I also found out from the client's eyes and ears that the window washer and the glass guys who came to improve the plywood and poly patch on the glass roof had argued with each other to the point that they'd grabbed each others collars and were shaking them. This because the patch leaked on the weekend (so my guards called me, and I called the client and Evil Property Manager's company) to get someone in to deal with it. The window washer was there and wanted to rig up some sort of tarp chute to catch and channel the water, and was starting to set up his rigging. The glass guy didn't like being told what to do with by a pixie with his name tatooed on his arm (Scuzzy), and that was that. Weird.

The next day, it was my mom's birthday. We went out for lunch and I had what very possibly might be the best halibut and chips I've ever had. I'm still not sure what "hand crafted" means when it's applied to fries, but it totally worked. And the fish... I'm glad I'm not a glutton. That was some primo flavour.

I even used the tartar sauce, and I don't even like tartar. Best eighteen dollar cheap food I ever had!

At work, I looked over Napolean's report and transaction record. He patrolled properly, but it took him over an hour to do each.

When he showed up to relieve me, we talked about that and he said that he understood it was what the client wanted, but he was told by scheduling that this site was "ten minutes of patrolling, then he can spend the rest of the hour studying".

Which was good, since he was looking for a stationary quiet site where he could, in fact, study. Since he'd discovered that this was not the case at my site, he put in for a transfer. Which is too bad, because the guy does what he's told and isn't a total dumbass, despite the resemblance to Mr. Dynamite.

On Wednesday, something utterly unexpected happened that was so heinous that I'm not going to relate it here. That, and I can't remember what happened on Wednesday. I certainly did not indulge in my own crapulence, I can tell you that!

On Thursday, I found Crazy Cougar Receptionist to be adoorable. Literally, as I clocked her with a door and none too gently.

To be fair, I honestly didn't know she was there. It was after the time she usually leaves, and I'd noticed the guy who does the last hour in reception in his place, so when I threw the door open and it impacted her (elbow, shoulder, and hip) I was as surprised as she was.

She looked at me like a poleaxed cow, in shock and pain. I said "Sorry", but I didn't add that I was sorry I didn't know she was there, or else I would have got a better run up before I hit the door. Maybe next time. ;)

I also trained the replacement for Napolean. It turns out he's a buddy of the guy that I trained the previous week who then stood me up and made me work all of those extra hours.

Bad way to start.

He's a Filipino ex-cop who's been in the country for six months or so. I mention the Filipino part because while I was training him, the all-Filipino cleaning crew was doing their thing. And every time he met one of the Filipino cleaners, he told them he was from Vietnam. And some of them believed him.

I can't figure out why this is funny, although clearly he was amused. He is henceforth going to be called Filipin-Pho for as long as he stays on site.

He also managed to break one of my two master override keys off in somebody's office door that night while I was training him. Since this was the start of a long weekend, with extra coverage and no employees, no way was I going to leave my one remaining override with Charles Atlas over here.

So I called Operations and asked if somebody could come by, pick up my key, and make a quick copy.

They told me that only Cookie Monster could make that decision for my site. So I called him. He didn't think it could be done (he was at home with his girlfriend), but she told him that Home Depot was open until 2200 that night and they cut keys. And for some reason mine doesn't have the "Do Not Duplicate" stamp on it. So he actually showed up and got it cut, and we swallowed the cost.

Operations couldn't believe it. "Monster came out and took care of it? Cookie Monster? Well shit in a bag and punch it!"

Okay, that last part was mine. But the sentiment was clearly expressed.

Statutory holidays are boring at my site. There's nothing to do, and nobody to talk to. Ah well.

I'd been waiting all week to see if I was accepted for an in-house course being held on Saturday. It was to get my CPI certificate, which is Non-Violent Crisis Intervention. But when I tried to confirm, I just kept bouncing to voicemail.

Having heard nothing from them, I just went and showed up. And it turns out that it was being held the following Saturday. I joined in the class they were holding, and got my OFA 1 instead. Meh.

Which brings us back to me trying to hose the porcelain with my knickers in a twist at Lucky Number Slevin.

I managed to sort that out, and watched the movie. I couldn't decide at first if I liked it, but I now think I'm glad I went. It was entertaining, that scores big points with me.

Incidently, when I got home I discovered that not only were my shorts backwards, they were inside out as well. To unbutton the fly, the quickest route would have been to swallow my arm and let my fingers do the walking out my colon.

On the plus side, this means they're technically okay to wear again, forwards and rightside out.

Damn that slide. Oh well.

Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

You take the venom out of a cobra, and what have you got? A belt, that's what.

2006-03-30T12:47:00.000-08:00

When I got in to work on Wednesday, I saw that I'd finally got the schedule for the next two weeks. And in the slot for the Sunday after next, I saw that the Zoroastrian had been stood down, and a name I've never heard of before substitued in his place. Interesting.

At 1630 the phone rings.

Me: "Security, Rimmy speaking."

Scheduler: "Hi Rimmy, this is Scheduling."

Me: "What can I do for you?"

Scheduler: "I was hoping you could stay until 0400 today."

Me: "You want me to get off shift at 0400?"

Scheduler: "Yes. We have someone coming to your site for training today, and I told him to show up at 2000."

Oh for Christ's sake.

Me: "Well, can I get a ride home arranged with mobile for 0400 then?"

Scheduler: "Sure, no problem."

Yeah right. Mobile is easily arranged when you need to be at a site, but the priority to get you home seems to be a little lower down the list. Somewhere on par with getting a high colonic.

Me: "Wait, is this new guy going to cover the graveyard starting tonight?"

Scheduler: "Yes, Yumpin' Yiminy has been stood down and this is his replacement."

Me: "Well, then four hours of training is probably sufficient if he's going to be continuing on directly."

Scheduler: "Well, it's up to you. Is four hours going to be enough?"

My opinion on sufficient training is well known enough to have been entered in my personal file with them. I know, I've seen it in there.

Me: "Four hours with me and then continuing on should be fine unless he's a retard. Sorry if that's a bit harsh, but it's true."

Scheduler: "Well, you be the judge. If you're comfortable with him after four hours of training, that's fine. I'll leave word in Operations that you may call to adjust your hours to stay until 0400 and need a ride from mobile if you feel he needs more training."

Me: "That'll be fine."

Click.

As I paused to consider this, the phone rang again.

Ring.

Me: "Security, Rimmy speaking."

Cookie Monster: "Hi Rimmy, this is Cookie."

Me: "Yes? What can I do for you?"

CM: "I just got your report on Yumpin' Yiminy and have stood him down from the site. Sounds like he's a real loser."

Me: "He's not a loser, he's a very nice guy. I just think he's got some sort of early stage dementia, and can't be left to do things consistantly without supervision. And I can't give him that on this site, of course."

CM: "Well that business with not opening the doors, that's just pathetic."

Me: "He's not doing it out of malice or sloth, he just honestly doesn't remember to do it, and yet he thinks that he has. He's definitely not a bad guy."

CM: "Well he's not there anymore, and I just wanted to tell you that."

Me: "Okay, thanks."

CM: "I also wanted to tell you that he doesn't know that yet, and I haven't been able to get hold of him. So if he shows up there tonight, don't let him in and tell him to call me in the morning."

Me: "Wait, he doesn't know he's not here anymore?"

CM: "No. I got your report late in the day and so I haven't been able to reach him. But if he does show up there, don't leave if he's still hanging around."

You jackass.

Me: "Okay, I'll take care of it. And what about Zoroastrian?"

CM: "He's being stood down as well. As you've probably guessed, we've been pretty tight for available people, so I've just bandaged your site and we'll look into a solution when we can."

I repeat: you jackass.

Me: "Alright then."

CM: "If Yumpin' Yiminy does show up there, give him my name and cell phone number and tell him to call me during business hours tomorrow."

Me: "No problem."

CM: "Thanks for taking care of this Rimmy."

Me: "Bye."

God, I hate my company. Here's some speculation from me based on my internal persona of Cookie Monster and some information that he doesn't know that I know:

I've sent him more than one multipage report on Yumpin' Yiminy. At his request, I might add. This one that he "just received today" wasn't the first.

The client (at my request) emailed Cookie Monster telling him to remove Yumping Yiminy and Zoroastrian from the site and giving some of the reasons why. I requested it because there was no indication that my company gave a shit when I told them that the client had requested it. People who sign the cheques have more clout. I also happen to know that included in that email (not at my request) was the observation that the client has me to speak on their behalf, and if I tell my company something, it has the same force as coming from the client herself. That email went out last week.

Cookie Monster doesn't know that I know about the email.

The sloppy and immediate action that was taken upon receipt of my latest report made me look at it again to figure out what may have prompted the speedy response. It's hard to say, since I worded it factually, but with a certain amount of (hopefully) subtle rebukes about CM's lack of response, but I think the phrase that people at the site were badmouthing our company (i.e. "You hire 'em dumb, eh?") was what got things moving.

Cookie Monster may be a useless tit, and be full of excuses to anybody that complains, but random people spreading things via word of mouth are beyond his ability to stem.

Such is my theory, anyway.

The new guy showed up, and seemed to be okay. He remembered things faster than most of the other people I've trained, and he's fairly new to security which I've found I tend to prefer. I've had exactly two temporary guards at the site (filling in) that were old timers in the industry that were fairly good, but the rest of the people with experience have been awful and mostly professional at doing sweet bugger all.

I'm a bad boss, though. I asked him if he was confident enough to do the site and he said yes, so I asked him if he needed me to train him for another four hours (this was just before midnight), and asked if I please would.

We talked a bit more, I fielded his questions, and steered him towards saying he was okay on his own, and then left. He had my number if he needed anything, and I stressed that it doesn't matter what time it is or what the problem is, he should never feel hesitation in calling.

And then I left him there. Even though he'd asked me to stay. That makes me bad.

I mean, I did think he had it nailed, but he was clearly a bit nervous. That's a crutch I didn't want to be though. I can't coddle someone for too long, or they become useless for what I need them to do. Plus, I didn't want to stay until 0400. I think that was a major consideration as well.

Anyway, I didn't get any calls from him all night. I'll see how he did when I go in and review the multudinous data sources I have. Including gossip. ;)

Oh, and how much does it suck that I have the HP in my work profile?

I got a call from the director of operations this morning asking if I'd help them out with a five hour shift tomorrow morning before I head on to my regular site. There's some big thing going on at the Justice Institute and he asked me to be there. I think I'll be patrolling one one other person around a specific area, but I'm not sure offhand what the area is.

Anyway, there are lots of police and whatnot that frequent the halls of the JI, so they don't just send anybody. Hence all the people with HP in the file being pulled, and my name popping out.

HP is High Profile, in case it wasn't obvious. I've got that (i suspect) by dint of speaking english and being a total mook.

I haven't decided if I'll do it yet. But I probably will.

I'm a frikkin' pushover sometimes.

Polly want a crackwhore?

2006-03-27T07:42:00.000-08:00

"My name's Kim Jong! The US is wrong! Continue foreign aid or taste my Dong!

I gots mad flow when I eat my pho. Capitalist pigs I overthrow!

We're an axis of evil, like Evel Knievel! No chance of Japanese civilian retrieval!

IAEA criticise us, I say that's insanium! DPRK right to enrich uranium!

I don't mean to boast but you guys are toast - Taepodong-2 can reach the west coast!"

Anyhoo...

I woke up at 0530 again this morning. When this happened last Monday, I ended up pulling a double shift. If I was at all superstitious, I'd be worried about the same happening again today. Fortunately, I'm merely fatalistic, so I'm sure that it's going to happen, without all of that bad luck nonsense.

I spoke to Zoroastrian on the phone when he started his shift on Saturday, and had him run me through what he did the previous weekend (as mentioned in my previous blog entry). He was less than forthcoming, and basically said that he did his duty and it's none of my business what happened.

Clearly he's less enthused about me than he was when he was busy offering up his niece. That's good.

He was even less enthused when I told him he has to actually do full patrols. He said that he did, but I told him that I can see where he's been, and where he's not been.

He tried to brazen it out, and once again I'm simply baffled by people that know they have to swipe to enter an electronically locked door, but don't and then can't figure out why the log doesn't say they were in there. Do they think that the fiction they write on their reports is all I read?

Seacrest out.

Mr. Colgate and his halitosis death ray

2006-03-22T10:45:00.000-08:00

I'll admit it, I'm a bit tired. Clearly I'm getting old.

On Tuesday, I woke up at 0530. This is unusual for me, as I normally manage to sleep until at least seven, but whatever. I can never get back to sleep once I wake up. No biggie, I do some cleaning, as well as get groceries and do the laundry. Eventually, it's time for work.

I'll admit to a certain amount of trepidation when I go in to work after a weekend. I keep on top of what my guards do, both electronically and by just talking to people. During the week it's a fairly responsive system, since I'm doing it daily. But over a weekend, there are seven shifts in which my whackos can screw up.

And there was an incident report sitting on the pile when I got in. Oh dear Bob NO!

Now, a couple of weeks ago I printed out this article and left it where my guards could see it. Yes, the guard should have been fired, or at least removed from the site. He broke the contract by abandoning his site, and he kicked someone but not in self-defense. That violates the conditions under which we're licensed in British Columbia.

Anyway, the Zoroastrian had seen someone outside (not our area), and exited our building to follow the guy around without calling in to advise Operations of what he was doing. He found the guy around the corner. He demanded to know what the guy was doing, and the guy said he was looking for cigarette butts.

This is perfectly reasonable. We do, in fact, get lots of people doing that. And I'm inclined to let them. If you don't hastle people that aren't doing anything wrong, they don't come back and throw rocks at your windows. Plus, it cleans the place up a bit. ;)

My guard say there is no such thing, and the guy ran. So the Zoroastrian chased him, way off of the site and up an embankment that leads over the highway.

The guy hadn't commited a crime, and my guard abandoned the site he was assigned to. Not to mention the reprecussions of my guard going into the bike patrol guys' area. What do you think I'm going to ask for, concerning the Zoroastrian? :P

An hour or so into the shift, I get a call from scheduling.

Them: "Would you be able to do a double shift tonight?"

Me: "Why, is something wrong with Yumpin' Yiminy?"

Them: "We have several slots open that we need filled, and I was hoping to put him into one of them."

Yeah, and you just found that out now.

Me: "Is this permanent, or just for tonight?"

Them: "Just for tonight. Although I'm trying to have him moved off of your site permanently."

Hmph. Nice of Cookie Monster to keep me in the loops, that bastard. It looks like me getting my naggy F/M on the case was a good move after all.

Me: "I suppose I can do it."

Them: "Actually, I can get The Sleeper to come and fill in for Yumpin' Yiminy."

Me: (flabberghasted) "The... Sleeper?! I don't think so."

Them: "Oh that's right, there was something about you removing him from the site, wasn't there? I forgot."

This is a woman who appears to have our entire employee roster in her head. I know, I've watched her rattle off names and schedules and such for people she's never actually met before, based only on their name. She did it to me when I had only been there for a month. I'm sure this wasn't an innocent slip of the brain.

Sure, you can call me paranoid, but I find people who call me paranoid are inevitably in on the plot.

Them: "I'll call up Yumpin' Yiminy and see what he's up for and let you know."

It was only after the call ended that I thought to wonder why they didn't send The Sleeper off to fill one of these empty slots, rather that suggesting the musical chair thing.

An hour and a half later over the radio I got the confirmation that I was doing the double shift. I ordered a pizza. Good times.

The best part about working the graveyard shift was that I got to see lots of people I hadn't seen in a while. Mostly even people I wanted to see.

Invariably they would spot me and be astonished. "You! Are you back to working mornings?", "We've missed you!", and my personal favourite "Long time no see - are you here to make sure the door gets unlocked for a change?"

And then, there were the others. I got to see Cafeteria Lady in a setting where she didn't get to hide. So she decided to brazen it out, in her weird way.

Cafeteria Lady has been fairly active in recent months trying to slam me. She slams, but it doesn't work out well for her. Mostly because she's nuts.

She's called up and sat down with the client (at the western Canada level, she and I share the same person as a client) and told them with Edith Bunker intensity that it's because of me that the cafeteria is losing money.

In fact, she regularly tells that to anybody who goes through the cafeteria, if I'm to believe all the various people who tip me off about it. ;)

Her credibility is kind of shot though, because in that same conversation with the client she was asked to order a few flats of Coke and Pepsi products for a town hall type meeting that the CEO was going to have on the site. She said that she probably couldn't do it, because Coke and Pepsi products are hard to get and they don't like to deal with small customers.

Now, I happen to think that this was a gambit by her to make it look as though she had to go through heroic actions to "save the day" by miraculously getting the pop in the nick of time despite overwhelming odds. However, she manages to order those same products to keep her fridges stocked, so it's a bit much to imagine that they are rare products. Plus, I can go to Costco right now and pick up a dozen flats of pop with minimal effort. The client, with what was later described as a "bitch, are you for real?" look on her face, told her that if she couldn't handle a simple task perhaps the cafeteria was too much for her as well. KAPOW!

The pop got ordered, toot sweet. Oh sorry, that's how you spell it when you make cocaine. My bad. ;)

Anyway, the client isn't buying into her crap stories about me. And it seems that the bulk of the employees she trashes me to aren't either. They've all got stories of her weirdisms, and I've managed to both avoid stepping on too many toes and been more likably by comparison to the guy I replaced, Barney.

So on spotting me in the cafeteria, Cafeteria Lady came up to within a couple of meters of me and opened her mouth in an expression that was apparently meant to convey incredulous surprise, but looked more like she was waiting for the airplane to zoom in and deliver a spoonful of Gerber strained peas.

I ignored her. I was talking with somebody, so it was an easy cover. Plus, she doesn't know that the client tells me when CL rips me up. I've let her going on thinking I'm oblivious. It's advantageous with your "enemies" think you're dumb.

She stood there, waiting for me to notice her. I failed. ;)

Finally, she said something along the lines of "Well! What are you doing here?"

I looked her square in the eyes and said in a dead monotone "What do you think?"

Undaunted, her insanity took over: "Do you know anything about a chair?"

Interesting tack. We're standing in a cafeteria with about three hundred of the buggers. But before I could do more than draw in a breath for my reply, she turned around and said "Oh there it is!" and dragged the chair around the corner and into the kitchen.

The person I was talking to, normally the sweetest of people, said in her Quebec accent "What was that all about? Is she crazy or something?"

See? I don't even have to say anything to get my point across. Yay me!

Bah, reading the above story shows me what a horribly disjoined writer I am. Ah well, we can't all be Jay.

I finished up the shift at 0800, took my usual hour and a half to get home, slept for 3.45 hours, then got up and went back to work.

Although I seemed okay to myself, I wonder just how incomprehensible I was to those around me. Hopefully I've got a ways to go before I get ranked against Cafeteria Lady, though.

And finally, I was thinking of going to see V for Vendetta this weekend. I'm pretty sure I won't be disappointed but... what the hell happened to Natalie Portman?!

Cockroft and Walton may have been the first to split the atom, but if all goes according to plan this week, I'LL be the last.

2006-03-20T07:23:00.000-08:00

Some people, when they get frustrated with things, say "I wish I could just die." But they've got it backwards.

You wish that the other person would just die. Same effect on the problem, but you're still there. I'm at a bit of a loss as to how people could misunderstand the application process.

Stuff from the last several weeks:

Yumpin' Yiminy appears to have some sort of dementia, possibly Alzheimers. One day in three or four he forgets to unlock a major door for employees at the site. He remembers to take the chain off of it, but not to take off the deadbolt. He claims he does, but I wouldn't be getting all the complaints about it if that was the case, would I? The log also shows the people on the outside of the door swiping their cards over and over and unable to get in.

In addition, he asks me the same questions over and over on successive days, without any indication that we've had a carbon copy of the conversation previously. Here's one: "Question. I hear on the radio that people say 10-0. What does it mean?" "It means they're asking for a radio check. A response of 10-1 from Operations means they have a poor signal, and a response of 10-2 means it's clear." Follow-up: "Ah. Because I don't have that code in my list." "That's because the list (printed in the back of our notebooks) is a generic North American police list of ten codes. We only use a few of those. Our actual list is printed in the newsletter you get with your pay statement." I get this, on average, every three days. Down to the exact wording.

In a similar vein, he once found some of our daily reports in an office. But he's also found them in the HR department. Note that I said once. So the repeating question is "Question. I found our reports in two place. Over there (waves arm in vaguely the right direction) and over there (waves arm to indicate what seems to be straight up, which is wrong. I might add that these arm wavings happen every time too). Why is that?" "That's because our reports are filed in HR, but the guy who actually reads them has an office elsewhere. So he probably just had a few over there that he hadn't put back yet. I get this question at roughly the same frequency I get the other one, but usually on different nights. It's a sure sign that he's going to do something odd during his shift when I get both questions on the same night.

Despite the nagging feeling that I require medical attention, I continued to leave the symptoms of schizophrenia untreated after the management of Pixar awarded me with yet another raise for the facility and inventiveness with which I anthropomorphize inanimate objects.

I met a woman on the SkyTrain (and on the bus after that) one night that started up a conversation concerning the pseudomagical (my choice of word) properties of certain fruit-based drinks. She had some sort of concoction made from blueberries and, I think, asparagus that she said saved her life. She was depressed, unable to even get out of bed following some sort of injury she said. She did the physio, had the operations, and took the prescribed drugs. Nothing helped. Until someone turned her on to "alternative" medicine. (I should hasten to point out that I'm totally uninterested in hearing someone tell me about alternative medicine. It's less about the hearing of some unlikely miraculous results that bugs me, and more about people raving about the results of anything that hasn't been verified in clinical trials.) A week of drinking this stuff and she was out of bed and getting her life back together. That's wonderful. The conversation, except for the magical fruit juice was relatively normal. Then she told me about the medical imaging and treatment system than some guy had invented back in the 1930's that was more precise than anything they have even today (according to her, it could see smaller particles than even physicists admitted exist) and would cure people of cancer. The inventor, she went on to say, we killed by the American Medical Association. Even today, the fragments of his notes that still exist seem to promise technology that could cure practically any medical condition. She wrote down a website (from memory!) that I'm trying to find, but I'm defeated by the sheer volume of paper laying around my desk. I'm guessing that I put it aside so I wouldn't lose it and could post it in the blog, but I have no idea where that place of safety would be. So screw it. And no, before you ask, she didn't grope me in the elevator.

I've trained a guy to do weekend afternoon shifts at the site. He's crazy. He doesn't understand the concept of a magnetic card (although we use a fob). Watching him hold it against various surfaces (rarely the right ones) was enough to make me despair.
He's Zoroastrian. He hates all things Islamic. This came out during the training shift, where he would refer to, I think, mullahs as "diaper-wearing devil-beared evil murderers". All without pausing in his narrative of whatever he was talking about. The guard he relieves is Muslim. So far, I've heard of no problems in that area.
On his first shift alone, he brought a camera to work and took pictures of the inside of the site. That includes of employees and having employees take pictures of him against various backgrounds. That was fun to explain to the client, since they're currently frantically paranoid about employees leaving and taking confidential and proprietary information to the competition. There are lawsuits out against employees for doing just that, and now they hear about someone taking pictures?
He refuses to wear his uniform. He'll wear the shirt and pants, but not the jacket. He won't carry a notebook. He wears a blue derby from the 1950's, and plans to sew a company patch on it. I've instructed him otherwise, but I know from sureptitious investigation that he just keeps on doing it.
He doesn't like to touch things, so he wears a pair of white cotton gloves. This, combined with the loose grey vest he affects to wear, kind of makes him look like the shifty older bellhop in some sweaty country in an Indiana Jones movie.
He doesn't patrol, but says he does. I thought at first that maybe he'd forgotten his training, but when I showed up during his shift and asked him to convey me around, he knew the place well enough. He's just not doing it.
He called me up at 2200 one Saturday (the same one I had him tour me around the site) to describe his sister's daughter to me. He told me about her education, what she does, that she's intelligent and very good, et cetera. This went on for a considerable length of time. He finally said "If you like what you've heard, I can buy you a five or ten dollar phone card from 7-11 and you could give her a call in Tehran." Yeah, let me jump all over that action.

Speaking of which, the Philippino couple that clean the second floor of my site have been talking about their daughter coming to Canada. They're nice people, and have invited me out to various parties over the months they've known me. Usually ones when I'm working, but it's the thought that counts. Anyway, the mother especially has been mentioning this daughter with increasing frequency, promising that once she's here I'll meet here. I started to get an uneasy feeling about this when they started bringing in pictures of her, professionally done pictures of a woman that could be a professional model. I'm all for immigration, but I don't think I want to be involved as an anchor point.

My NationStates country managed to be #1 for "Most out of control youth" out of some 119, 503 nations. A dubious honour, but once again I was flooded by fan mail. This happens on occasion, sometimes from people asking how to get a particular rating in a category, or telling me how awesome I am, or inviting me to their region. That last type is mostly generic, but I often get them personally addressed with particulars about my description in them, often mispelled, so they seem to be individually written. I think I've got some street cred because I've been playing so long, my population is easily within the top 100, and possibly much closer to #1 than that. Check out my nation.

The client has asked me to remove Yumpin' Yiminy from the site. Far too many complaints about that door, and a few about him being "kind of creepy". I passed that on to Cookie Monster, and he said the client has to talk to him directly about it (which the client won't, since they consider him to be an ineffectual idiot) or else we could be hit with a discrimination suit. "Why" I asked, "because he's from Czechoslovakia?" There was a pause, then "Yeah, maybe because of that." Say WHAT?! That was weeks ago, and there's been no response from Cookie Monster, or any indication he's looked into the matter. I hate him.

You know, this point format just isn't doing it for me. So I'm going to knock it off.

This past Friday, I saw a fair number of police cars around my site. Not actually at my building, but at the ones across the street. They were doing fairly worrying things like zooming around with the lights flashing but not running the siren. Shortly thereafter I got a call from South Park Goth Kid.

"Hey, have you seen any police around the site?"

"Yes, as a matter of fact. What's going on?"

"I don't know, I was walking around and suddenly I was told to FREEZE. I looked and there was a cop with a big dog. He told me not to move because of the dog, then when he went past he told me to leave the area. So I'm coming back to your building."

"Did you ask him what was going on?"

"No, he kept going and went around a corner."

And that, my friends, was the end of it as far as that guard was concerned. Want to know what happened?

Some guy with a gun was being chased by the police. He eventually came to our little area and apparently smashed open a door on one of the buildings (not mine) in a bid for a place to hide, but doesn't appear to have actually entered. The police never caught the guy, but apparently flushed him out and away from our area.

The broken door wasn't spotted by South Park Goth Kid for the rest of his shift, which was about ten more hours. Way to do your job!

Well, at least nobody was hurt. Although in retrospect I kind of wish I'd met up with the guy. Not to be a hero or anything, but just so he could have threatened me a bit with his weapon before running away. Not that he would have actually hurt me. This is Canada, after all. And here's why I'd want that:

Now, my experience of near-death situations - that experience being, as most of you know, more than copious - is that once your adrenaline settles, and you realize you've actually lived through it, you undergo the most incredible high. You're in love with the world, with life itself. All malice flies from your spirit. You want to write, personally, to everyone who was ever slightly mean to you and forgive them. You want to swim with dolphins. You want to run naked on beaches. You want to frolic naked in heather. You want to throw back your head and laugh for forty minutes out of every hour. You want to make love through the night, every night, and you don't care who or what with. You want to be reckless. You want to parachute in blizzards, naked. Fly unpowered gliders, blindfolded and naked. You want to ski down sheer glaciers, blindfolded and naked and without skis. You want to ride untamed horses, possibly blindfolded though probably not naked, and definitely without skis. You're high, but you're not insane. You want to get together all the world leaders, possibly naked, and bang their silly old heads together until they agree that war is a stupid thing and they're definitely going to stop doing it. You're so giddy, you actually think you might pull it off, too.

I'm guessing everyone's experience is reasonably similar, although I'll accept maybe my reaction is overly focused on excessive nakedness. I've no idea why that is.

And I could have used a moment like that. Trying to balance the wants and needs of the client against the hostile apathy of my superior's (bad word that, have to find an alternative) ostrich style of management is wearing me down. I haven't even smiled in far too long. I think I'm going to print up some business cards and hand them to whoever causes me grief.

THIS MAN HAS NO SHORT TERM MEMORY.

PLEASE TRY NOT TO CONFUSE HIM.

Creamy Goodness, M.D.

(Canadian Medical Association)

I thought I liked teaching people, but I find training dim people very very irritating

2006-02-20T11:45:00.000-08:00

"And let me tell you, God is not so infinite as the Catholics assert. He is about six hundred meters in diameter, and even then is weak towards the edges."

Wow, three weeks since I last posted. I wish I had lots of interesting stuff that I could report, but sadly that's just not the case. Just been busy.

After training my weekday graveyard guy, Yumpin' Yiminy, I got to train my weekend day shift person. And Yumpin' Yiminy again.

He still didn't get it even after the second training day, and frankly I'm not certain that he even remembers where he's been, nevermind where he has to go.

Weekend day shift guard was pretty good. She's been here three months from Morocco and seems to be quite the quiet keener, although I'm going to lose her towards the summer at the latest, as she's pregnant. Ah well.

That weekend, I was still short one person so I split the extra shifts between the two new people. A little extra scratch never hurts, and they were agreeable.

The logs of what they did and where they went were... disheartening. Although I found it amusing that the Moroccan guard, with her three-month-old english, wrote my name down as the colour with which it rhymes. I've been called worse.

The following week my Moroccan guard called in sick for the weekend (on a Monday!) and Valium Wailer was starting his two week vacation. So despite having just trained two people, I had nobody to do the weekend!

So on Tuesday I trained a guy to do Valium Wailer's shifts. He showed up smelling like he'd been drinking during an explosion at a tobacco farm, but I saw him swigging from a cough syrup bottle so I let it pass. He wasn't staggering, at least.

It turns out that he was a supervisor for the guards keeping the Grey Cup block party stuff safe, and that he had met Yumpin' Yiminy there. And he told me what two others and my own observations had already determined: he's a good guy but needs supervision.

Isn't it great that the office sends me such a person for a graveyard shift where he can't be supervised? Best guy in the world may be exactly that, but you don't want him performing meatball surgery. :P

I still needed someone to cover the Moroccan guard's shifts, so the office sent me someone on Thursday. They guy seemed okay, and I pegged him as in his mid forties. I was wrong.

While taking him through the server room, I was explaining what various things do (so he'd understand what the various alarms and alerts were that he might have to respond to), and he seemed to be ahead of me somewhat. I asked him about it, and he said he had a computer background.

We talked computers for a bit, and it came out that he used to work for IBM. I mentioned that my dad also used to work for them, and he named my dad on the spot.

It seems that when the office gave him my name as his contact, it was bothering him because it sounded familiar. This guy is 63 and remembers getting piss drunk with my dad on lots of occasions. He went on talking about that for a bit, then finally asked how my dad was doing.

Of course, he drank himself into irreparable damage and finally succumbed to cancer years later. Party behavior catches up with you.

This guy has quit all that. His three daughters are lucky.

Anyway, I had everybody trained. All was good.

The next day, Friday, about half an hour before I was going to head to work, I got a call from the office.

Office: "I have bad news for you."

Me: "Are you sure it's bad news? It might be good news. You should double check."

Office: "Oh, it's bad news. Bad bad bad bad bad news. Baaaad news."

Me: "Ah, now you've overhyped the badness of the news. I just plain don't believe you now."

Office: "Well, it's news. You can decide if it's bad or good."

Me: "Fair enough. What have you got for me?"

Office: "I've got your name all over the schedule for this weekend."

Me: "What?! I just trained two people for that this week!"

Office: "Yeah, the one you trained yesterday we moved to a different site that had a particular profile that he fit. So you're working two twelves."

Me: "You suck!"

Office: "I told you it was bad news! But look at it this way, I'm working all weekend too."

Me: "Oh, well that changes everything."

So I worked the weekend. It was dull. Meh.

Since then I've trained another guard who will relieve the Moroccan on weekend afternoons, but it transpires that he's a Zoroastrian that hates all things Islamic. Morrocan is Muslim. Happy happy joy joy.

I saw Capote. It neatly reinforced pretty much everything I'd thought about Truman Capote, although I didn't expect the voice, since I'd never actually heard the guy speak before. Not a bad film, but I'm not recommending you rush out and see it.

That same night, I found out my mom had creationist leanings. I didn't know that before, but I'm going to get her a copy of the complete biblical apocrypha so she can read some things she may not have known about. Eve is Adam's third wife, after all. No to mention all of the divine beings that came down to dally with the hot daughters of Mankind and teach them magic, herbology, and cosmetics. I probably won't throw in the reinterpretation of some of the Psalms. Talk about erotic poetry! Pant pant pant

Two clips, for anybody who hasn't seem them yet:

One is the Leroy Jenkins one. Leroy has transcended into gaming parlance now with surprising speed. Calling someone a Leroy, or describing someone as going Leroy both are immediately understandable and accepted phrases. See where it all started here.

The other one is something I may have been guilty of on occasion. One of my many ex's once told me (about ten years ago) that the guy she went out with next (and ultimately married) was forbidden to play games at all, all because of me. See if you're mirrored in here, when you watch it.

All I want to do is steal a frikkin' cartoon!

2006-02-03T12:40:00.000-08:00

Just a quick comment, then back to regular-style Rimmy posts. I went to my usual p2p program to get the latest episode of Family Guy. Here were the results:

Find: family guy patriot games

Results:

Family Guy - Season 5 Episode 7 - Patriot games.avi
Family Guy -510 - Patriot Games.avi
sisters in shower.asx
woman has sex with the milkman.asx
seductive catholic girl nails black dude.asx
sister lesbian love.asx
family action CRAZY.asx
TAG TEAM ACTION.asx
sister sex.wmv
sister and daughter playfight.wmv
sisters go to public swim at local pool.wmv
mormon sex - is this even legal.asx
Twister game gets frisky!.wmv
daughter sex.wmv
*naked* family guy patriot games.zip

At least this was nowhere as bad as when I was composing a cd for Valium Wailer and tried to get Teenage Barnacle by The Enigmas. You take your life into your own hands when you deliberately drop the word "teenage" into the mix.

Yumping Yiminy!

2006-02-01T11:50:00.000-08:00

Let's rehearse what we know about who we are. We are primates, very closely related to chimps and other great apes. Our ancestors speciated from the other apes about five million years ago, and evolved in parallel lines and overlapping subspecies, emerging more clearly as hominids about two million years ago.

East Africa in this period was getting drier and drier. The forest was giving way to grassland savannahs dotted with scattered groves of trees. We evolved to adapt to that landscape: the hairlessness, the upright posture, the sweat glands, and other physical features. They all made us capable of running long distances in the open sun near the equator. We ran for a living and covered broad areas. We used to run game down by following it until it tired out, sometimes days later.

In that basically stable mode of living the generations passed, and during the many millennia that followed, the size of the hominid brains evolved from about three hundred cubic millimeters to about nine hundred cubic millimeters. This is a strange fact, because everything else remained relatively stable. The implication is that the way we lived then was tremendously stimulating to the growth of the brain. Almost every aspect of hominid life has been proposed as the main driver of this growth, everything from the calculation of accurate rock throwing to the ability to dream, but certainly among the most important must have been language and social life. We talked, we got along; it's a difficult process, requiring lots of though. Because reprodution is curcial to any definition of evolutionary success, getting along with the group and with the opposite sex is fundamentally adaptive, and so it must be a big driver of increasing brain size. We grew so fast we can hardly fit through the birth canal these days. All that growth from trying to understand other people, the other sex, and look where we are.

In checking the logs from the weekend, the client was initially astonished at the length of the generated report when it was printed. Going through it, we had the usual okay (Valium Wailer) to piss-poor (The Sleeper) performance, until we got to Sunday. It took about a second for the client to detect my standard frequency, and he quickly wrote "This is YOU, Mr. Rimmy!" on it.

Clearly I have to become more erratic. Next thing you know, people will start depending on me. I'll have to discourage that. :P

I got to train my new weekly graveyard guy yesterday. Of course, the office didn't tell me that ahead of time, and when I got to work the guy had been waiting there already for an hour.

He's okay, he's a fifty-two year old Czech who's worked for us for some seven months, and never done an indoor job. And it shows, because he sometimes walks right past doors without checking them or looking inside. I'm wondering if the sheer volume of things inside the site is throwing him. He's used to walking around parking lots or building exteriors rather than having a globular awareness.

Ah well, I trained him for eight hours. We managed three patrols. Barely.

I'm also a bit alarmed that his wife called him three times, when she knew it was his first day at a new site and he was being trained.

I should probably mention that I'm not a big fan of guards even carrying personal phones when they're on duty, as if you're talking on a phone you're not paying attention to what's going on around you (no you're not, even if you think you are) and that's not a safe thing to be doing when you're the one responsible for security.

Towards the end of the shift, I had to do a more-or-less final full patrol and lock down the place after the cleaners (they were late - usually I do that much sooner), and since the new guy would have slowed me down, I gave him the checklist I'd written up and told him to wander the site and get a feel for it without me. And off I went on my patrol.

As I went around, I looked through the various windows into the atrium from different levels and directions, but never saw him. Finally when I hit the main floor, I saw him. All he'd done was wander around the cafeteria looking at the pictures on the walls. His entry on his report for that hour? "Reading post orders"

Uh, it's one page. It's a checklist. I know, I wrote it.

I hope this guy doesn't suck ass.

And, waiting for me when I got home, The Ultimate Showdown. Thanks, Fictional. ;)

I should keep the shift - even less of a life but more than double the pay!

2006-01-30T02:05:00.000-08:00

The Earth's atmosphere now contains a percentage of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gasses that is higher than it has been since the end of the Cretaceous. This means more heat from the sun is being trapped in our air, and the high-pressure cells we saw this year are bigger, warmer, and loft higher in the tropical atmosphere. Many common jet-stream patterns have been disrupted, and the storms spiraling out of the Tropics have gained in both frequency and intensity. The hurricane season in the Atlantic ran from April to November, and there were eight hurricanes and six tropical storms. Typhoons in the East Pacific happened all year, twenty-two all told. Mass flooding resulted, but it should be noted that in other regions droughts have been breaking records.

So the effects have been various, but the changes are general and pervasive, and the damage for the year was recently estimated at six hundred billion dollars, with deaths in the tens of thousands. So far the United States has escaped major catastrophe (New Orleans notwithstanding), and attention to the problem has not been one of the administration's central concerns. "In a healthy economy the weather isn't important," the President remarked. But the possibility is there that the added energy in the atmosphere could trigger what climatologists call abrupt climate change. How that might begin, no one can be sure.

That was an easy shift. I knocked off more patrols than I usually do, mostly to stave off the boredom. You'd think a boring place would be incentive to do something, but apparently I'm not really blessed with guards who work like that.

And my folks brought me wonton and potstickers. Yay!

But my useless weekly graveyard guy was extra late relieving me. On the one day of the week that transit shuts down earlier. Yup, cab ride. I should really beat the twenty bucks out of him, but I only have to hold out for another week and then he's gone. My teeth are going to be ground down to nubs by then.

The cab driver couldn't believe that I'd just worked that long. "You look so fresh!" he exclaimed.

Those who know me know that I've never looked fresh in my life. I look fresh in the way that a shirt at the bottom of a hamper is fresh by dint of having been in there the longest.

I tipped him anyway. ;)

Nobody listened when I said I'd smelled it on him before. But NOW they're listening!

2006-01-29T03:14:00.000-08:00

Robot submarines cruise the depths, doing oceanography. Slocum gliders and other AUVs (autonomous underwater vehicles), like torpedoes with wings, dock in underwater observatories to recharge their batteries and download their data. Finally oceanographers have almost as much data as the meteorologists. Among other things they monitor a deep layer of relatively warm water that flows from the Atlantic into the Arctic. (ALTEX, the Atlantic Layer Tracking EXperiment)

But they are not as good at it as the whales. White beluga whales, living their lives in the open ocean, have been fitted with sensors for recording temperature, salinity and nitrate content, matched with a GPS record and a depth meter. Up and down in the blue world they sport, diving deep into the black realm below, coming back up for air, recording data all the while. Casper the Friendly Ghost, Whitey Ford, The Woman in White, Moby Dick, all the rest: they swim to their own desires, up and down undlessly within their immense territories, fast and supple, continuous and thorough, capable of great depths, pale flickers in the blackest blue, the bluest black. Then back up for air. Our cousins. White whales help us to know this world. The warm layer is attenuating.

It was late Saturday night. Or rather, it had just tipped over into Sunday morning. I was hip-deep in dwarves and mountain trolls, raining pain and hailing hurt in all directions, hoping to unlock more of the map in Guild Wars, when my phone rang. It was the site.

Hmmm, right on a shift change. Valium Wailer never calls me, and neither does The Sleeper. I'll bet whichever it is, they don't have anything good to tell me.

It was Valium Wailer. Follow the bouncing ball:

When Valium Wailer got to the site, instead of finding The Sleeper out of his uniform standing outside ready to thrust the keys, radio and phone into his hands so he can leave, there was nobody.

Peering through the glass of the foyer and into reception, he could see The Sleeper apparently walking in a tight (maybe a meter in diameter) circle. After knocking on the glass and waving for about five minutes, The Sleeper finally noticed him and came to let him in. He gave him the keys and headed off.

Valium Wailer says "The Sleeper, what about the radio and phone? Where are they?"

The Sleeper replies "Oh, they're in there somewhere."

"The Sleeper, are you okay?" asks Valium Wailer.

The Sleeper gives a strange laugh and says "I'm great!" and heads off. But his straight line is marred by an oblique shuffle to the side, and a bit of a stumble down the three steps outside.

Valium Wailer thought the whole episode was weird, but you get used to that with The Sleeper. So in he goes and quickly finds the phone and radio. A minute or so later the phone rings. It's the bike patrol guys, saying they've found The Sleeper in the middle of the road outside practically in front of the building. He's stone drunk and unable to walk. He's currently crawling towards the sidewalk.

That's when Valium Wailer calls me. I call my company as soon as he's done. The bike patrol guys have already called them. Round and round go the calls.

Over the course of twentysix minutes or so, The Sleeper manages to get half a block. He falls down, crawls, holds himself up with trees, loses his glasses. My field manager heads over to check it out and ultimately takes him home.

Quote from him: "I've worked as an F/M for years, and I've never seen a guard that drunk. The only thing I ever saw close to that was on New Year's when a guard had been to a party before his shift, but even he wasn't this bad."

He suspended The Sleeper on the spot, pending him meeting with our operations manager on Monday. And I got to work the sixteen hour shift on Sunday. With about five hours notice. Subtract the hour or so it takes to get to work, and I wasn't going to end up with much sleep. Ah well, a small price to pay for finally getting rid of The Sleeper.

"Oh yeah, you were just getting changed for prom. Yeah, I'll buy that."

2006-01-28T01:37:00.000-08:00

What's new from the Department of Unfortunate Statistics?

Extinction rate in oceans now faster than on Land. Coral reef collapses leading to mass extinctions; Thirty percent of warm-water species estimated gone. Fishing stocks depleted, UN declares scaleback necessary or commercial species will crash.

Topsoil loss nears a million acres a year. Deforestation now faster in temperate than tropical forests. Only 35% of tropical forests left.

The average Indian consumes 200 kilograms of grain a year; the average American, 800 kilograms; the average Italian, 400 kilograms. The Italian diet was rated best in the world for heart disease.

300 tons of weapons-grade uranium and plutonium unaccounted for. High mutation rate of microorganisms near radioactive waste-treatment sites. Antibiotics in animal feed reduce medical effectiveness of antibiotics for humans. Environmental estrogens suspected in lowest-ever human sperm counts.

Two billion tones of carbon added to the atmostphere this year. One of the five hottest years on record. The fed hopes U.S. economy will grow by four percent in the final quarter.

Finally, a day where nothing happened. When Valium Wailer came in to relieve me I told him about the elevator grope from yesterday, and that spun us into recounting the various episodes of coitus interruptus we've had working security.

And he wins. Way more lesbians in his stories than in mine. :P

Although I noted that he often feels like he's uncertain of what to do when he encounters people having sex on a site where they're not supposed to, whereas I either make some obvious noise (if I know who they are) so they have a chance to pull themselves together (not like that, pervert) before I appear around the corner, or else I appear as close as possible (usually this is when they're in a car) and tap on the glass. People doing Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon moves as they attempt to spinning whirl off of each other and into their pants keeps me laughing all night.

It's possible I'm a bit of a jerk. Hmmmm

The Humpty Dance, is your chance, to do the hump!

2006-01-27T02:18:00.000-08:00

Water flows through the oceans in steady recycling patterns, determined by the Coriolis force and the particular positions of the continents in our time. Surface currents can move in the opposite direction to bottom currents below them, and often do, forming systems like giant conveyor belts of water. The largest one is already famour, at least in part; the Gulf Stream is a segment of a warm surface current that flows north up the entire length of the Atlantic, all the way to Norway and Greenland. There the water cools and sinks, and begins a long journey south on the Atlantic Ocean floor, to the Cape of Good Hope and then east toward Australia, and even into the Pacific, where the water upwells and rejoins the surface flow, west to the Atlantic for the long haul north again. The round trip for any given water molecule takes about a thousand years.

Cooling salty water sinks more easily than cooling fresh water. Trade winds sweep clouds generated in the Gulf of Mexico west over Central America to dump their rain in the Pacific, leaving the remaining water in the Atlantic that much salties. So the cooling water in the North Atlantic sinks well, aiding the power of the Gulf Stream. If the surface of the North Atlantic were to become rapidly fresher, it would not sink so well when it cooled, and that could stall the conveyor belt. The Gulf Stream would have nowhere to go, and would slow down, and sink farther south. Weather everywhere would change, becoming windier and drier in the Northern Hemisphere, and colder in places, especially in Europe.

The sudden desalination of the North Atlantic might seem an unlikely occurrence, but it has happened before. At the end of the last Ice Age, for instance, vast shallow lakes were created by the melting of the polar ice cap. Eventually these lakes broke through their ice damns and poured off into the oceans. The Canadian shield still sports the scars from three or four of these cataclysmic floods; one flowed down the Mississippi, one the Hundson, one the St. Lawrence.

These flows apparently stalled the world ocean conveyor belt current, and the climate of the whole world changed as a result, sometimes in as little as three years.

Now, would the Arctic sea ice, breaking into bergs and flowing south past Greenland, dump enough fresh water into the North Atlantic to stall the Gulf Stream again?

I got off the Skytrain at the usual stop at about 0130. I walked the length of the platform to The World's Slowest Elevator (tm) past a host of transit cops, some of which were talking to the only other passenger on the train with me. She was laughing and chatting, so all was well.

I pushed the button and composed myself to wait. The woman came over to wait too. She wanted to talk.

"This elevator is probably the grossest one on the entire line," she says. I agreed, and noted that I hoped the usual pool of late-night urine in it didn't cover the entire floor.

"So," she says looking up at me, "are you just getting off work?"

"I am," I reply wittily.

Her: "What do you do?"

Me: "Security."

Her: "Ah. So do you think you could restrain me?"

Interesting.

Me: "Do you want me to put you up against the wall with your arm twisted behind your back?"

Her: "Absolutely!"

Me: "But not in this elevator."

Her: "No, definitely not."

At that moment, the elevator arrived and the doors slowly opened. There were a few whistles from across the tracks on the far side of the platform. We both turned and there was a guy whistling. She said "Oh" and laughed a bit.

I said, "Friend of yours?"

Her: "No, I think he was just checking out my ass."

Me: "How do you know it was your ass and not mine that he was checking out?"

The doors on the elevator closed. Two minute ride ensues.

Her: "You've got a point, but I can't see what you're packing under that jacket there."

At which point she investigates, sliding a hand up the side of my leg and firmly groping my ass.

"Yup, you've got a little something something there." she slurps in my ear.

For a change, I'm at a bit of a loss for a reply. Which is okay, because she continues the conversation.

Her: "I'm going out for a bit of fun tonight. Only for an hour or so though."

Me: "You can have fun and be home in an hour?"

Her: "Oh sure!"

Me: "Going out for a drink?"

"No, I've already had a few drinks." Then she nods her head in a way meant to indicate herself and says "Nympho."

The doors open, and with a final squeeze she headed out into the rain. I followed, but not her. I was heading to my bus stop.

I saw her heading off to a hotel/bar/lounge a block away, and looking back a few times. Was she inviting me, or just making sure I wasn't following her?

She was attractive enough, although not exactly pretty, but it was almost two in the morning and all I wanted to do was crash for a few hours. Either I'm getting old, or I'm recognising that my judgement isn't awesome late at night and shouldn't be acted on.

And I need all the love I can get!

2006-01-26T02:04:00.000-08:00

Mathematics sometimes seems like a universe of its own. But it comes to us as part of the brain's engagement with the world, and appears to be part of the world, its structure or recipe.

Over historical time humanity has explored farther and farther into the various realms of mathematics, in a cumulative and collective process, an ongoing conversation between the species and reality. The discovery of the calculus. The invention of formal arithmetic and symbolic logic, both mathematicizing the instinctive strategies of human reason, making them as distinct and solid as geometric proofs. The attempt to make the entire system contained and self-consistent. The invention of set theory, and the finessing of the various paradoxes engendered by considering sets as members of themselves. The discovery of the incompletability of all systems. The step-by-step mechanics of programming new calculating machines. All this resulted in an amalgam of math and logic, the symbols and methods drawn from both realms, combining in the often long and complicated operations that we call algorithms.

In the time of the development of the algorithm, we also made discoveries in the real world: the double helix within our cells. DNA. Within half a century the whole genome was read, base pair by base pair. Three billion base pairs, parts of which are called genes, and serve as instruction packets for protein creation.

But despite the fully explicated genome, the details of its expression and growth are still very mysterious. Spiraling pairs of cytosine, guanine, adenine, and thymine: we know these are instructions for growth, for the development of life, all coded in sequences of paired elements. We know the elements; we see the organisms. The code between them remains to be learned.

Mathematics contunes to develop under the momentum of its own internal logic, seemingly independent of everything else. But several times in the past, purely mathematical developments have later proved to be powerfully descriptive of operations in nature that were either unknown or unexplainable at the time the math was being developed. This is a strange fact, calling into question all that we think we know about the relationship between math and reality, the mind and the cosmos.

Perhaps no explanation of this mysterious adherence of nature to mathematics of great subtlety will ever be forthcoming. Meanwhile, the operations called algorithms become ever more convoluted and interesting to those devising. Are they making portraits, recipes, magic spells? Does reality use algorithms, do genes use algorithms? The mathematicians can't say, and many of them don't seem to care. They like the work, whatever it is.

Stupid useless new temporary guy was late, really late. I hope I can hold my temper until the end of next week since he's leaving them. If I can't hold my temper, I'm going to instuct him on the uses of the garbage compactor out back. From the inside.

Fictional Correspondant called me when he thought I'd be off work (but I wasn't, as I had just let the aforementioned moron in and was briefing him), and said that he and his fire-chucking comet were coming to town in March, wanted a place to stay, and invited me to see the Sisters of Mercy with them.

Which is hip and dope and popping fresh.

People fighting over you, even if they don't exist, is kind of fun

2006-01-25T02:43:00.000-08:00

The Earth is bathed in a flood of sunlight. A fierce inundation of photons - on average, 342 joules per second per square meter. 4185 joules (one Calorie) will raise the temperature of one kilogram of water by one degree CElsuis. If all this energy were captured by the Earth's atmosphere, its temperature would rise by ten degrees Celsuis in one day.

Luckily much of it radiates back into space. How much depends on albedo and the chemical composition of the atmosphere, both of which vary over time.

A good portion of the Earth's albedo, or reflectivity, is created by its polar ice caps. If polar ice and snow were to shrink significantly, more solar energy would stay on Earth. Sunlight would penetrate oceans previously covered by ice, and warm the water. This would add heat and melt more ice, in a positive feedback loop.

The Arctic Ocean ice pack reflects back out into space a few percent of the total annual solar energy budget. When the Arctic ice pack was first measured by nuclear submarines in the 1950s, it averaged thirty feet thick in midwinter. By the end of the century it was down to fifteen. Then one August the ice broke up into large tabular bergs, drifting on the currents, colliding and separating, leaving broad lanes of water open to the continuous polar summer sunlight. The next year the breakup started in July, and at times more than half the surface of the Arctic Ocean was open water. The third year, the breakup began in May.

That was last year.

Cafeteria Lady has been going off again. She's been trying to work Eyes and Ears and put me down. So... he's dicking with her.

She asked after Palooka, and he told her that he got a way better job with more money. She said that was good, and then said "That poor Rimmy guy, he probably can't get any other job than this one."

Seizing the opportunity (and not bothering to tell her that my annual has gone up thousands of dollars in just the past few months), he told her "Oh no, Rimmy's almost out of here. He got an offer for another site that pays (he quoted an hourly, but the effect was +$10000) more. We're trying to keep him, but I don't think we'll be able to budget that high.

"Oh. That's good then." Cafeteria Lady says. Then she turns to go, but Eyes and Ears gleefully noticed the smile that was playing on her lips, presumably because I was finally leaving the site. He's dying to see how far and fast she spreads this nonsensical story. ;)

At least I didn't gloat and stomp his coughdignitycough.

2006-01-17T14:00:00.000-08:00

(ring)

Hmmm, work calling.

Me: "Hello?"

Cookie Monster: "Hi Rimmy, this is Cookie Monster. How are you doing?"

Me: "Fine, you?"

CM: "Same."

Me: "That's good."

(pause)

CM: "The reason I'm calling is that I've got this report from (useless new guy replacing Palooka) in my inbox with 'not done' on it. What's this about?"

Me: "Yeah, he's not doing squat. And I've followed him with the access system. He's just lying."

CM: "Okay, when you get in today check what he did this morning and call me back. I think I'll pull him in to the office and have a talk with him."

Me: "No problem."

CM: "The other reason I'm calling is that I've decided to bump your rate by (about four grand annually). We're also going to make you site supervisor there."

Me: "What's prompted this?" (knowing full well)

CM: "You're doing the job anyway, and you're in constant contact with the client and keeping good relations."

Me: "Okay."

CM: "So get back to me on what that guy did on his report this morning."

Me: "Will do."

About damn time. Now I just need the other six grand or so the client is paying for Barney's old salary, and I'm set.

exemplary Gays like lol1tas nutritious so they beauty and young

2006-01-12T13:00:00.000-08:00

For the past few days, the client and I have been following the progress of the new guy. But it's awfully hard, because he doesn't do much.

For Wednesday morning's shift, he was sort of copying my style of notation for his report, and saying he'd done all sorts of things. Which is great!

Except that he didn't do them. Unless this guy is a safecracker, he's not getting into some of these places that he says he did.

The one the client was amused by the least was the "full patrol" he did at 0500. Except that according to the system, he didn't budge. From about 0315 to 0600.

So when he came in last night, I asked him how it was going with his patrols. "Good" he said.

"Do you go in here?" "Yes." "In there?" "Yes."

I did that for several areas, none of which he'd gone in. After I'd given him enough rope to hang him with, I mentioned how he didn't in fact go into any of those areas. He got upset and asked what was with the interrogation, and if it was going to be like this maybe this isn't the site for him.

Ah, it's wonderful when you get your desire across and let them think it's their idea, isn't it?

My field manager had been in earlier that night asking about the union stuf, and I asked if he new this new guy. When I gave him the name, his expression was priceless. "We can't keep that guy at a site for more than a few days because the supervisors end up screaming for him to be removed. He's probably the laziest guy we've got."

Thanks for sending him to me, big guy.

I showed him the guy's reports and the system log of what he actually did, and he took photocopies off to give to Cookie Monster.

Although in truth I suspect I'm stuck with the guy for the few weeks before he goes back to school.

After all of this, the new guy told me that he even fell asleep in the cafeteria for half an hour or so. That's just wonderful.

Oh, and did I mention that he called me at 0500 this morning? "There's a striker pad that isn't letting me open the door."

"You'll need to be a little more specific."

So he eventually gave me enough clues as to where he was, and he was trying to get through a deadbolted door without unlocked said deadbolt.

Then he asked where the server room was, that I told him he had to check every hour on the hour, three days ago.

[sarcasm]Oh yeah, I'm coming down too hard on him.[/sarcasm]

marblish Eighteen Gays gemotes hardcore

2006-01-10T08:55:00.000-08:00

That was the subject line in the email from "Lane Camacho", a name I'm going to use if I ever need an alternate handle in a message forum. Ah, junk mail. Binned!

I was calm and unruffled going in to work yesterday. I'll admit I was curious about who'd done Palooka's graveyard shift, but that was about it.

So when I got there, I saw what had to be the worst report ever by some new guy. And by worst report, I mean that by his own written record he'd done absolutely nothing.

Well, except for bringing in the newspapers and "breadbaskets". That was duly noted next to the time.

When the client's Eyes and Ears saw me, he began chortling. "You'd better not take a bath for a week or so, man!" he said.

That was a bit obscure.

"She [the client] had your boss in here first thing in the morning and reamed the hell out of him! She said, in no uncertain terms, that he'd better take care of you because you're the only person from your company worth having and we'd hate to see you leave. She gave him two weeks to comply."

Ah, he thought my boss would have to kiss my ass. That explains the suggested bath boycott.

Sweet Jesus, "take care of me"?! He's gonna send me to sleep wit da fishes!

Unfortunately, she met with Cookie Monster before Eyes and Ears could give her the extensive records and analysis of The Sleeper and his utter lack of performance. She was apparently furious that she didn't have that to hammer Cookie Monster with, and I hope that she doesn't let it slide. How often can an affirmative thrust like this happen?

About half an hour into the shift I got a call from... Cookie Monster. He asked me if I was on site, then said "Of course you must be. It's 1630." Good save, assmonkey. You called me on the site phone too. He then asked if I could meet him out front.

When I got out there, he didn't offer to shake hands or anything, but he did look at me searchingly for an extended beat. After that, he asked if I'd spoken to The Client. I told him that I hadn't. He asked me if I knew what was going on, to which I responded with all of the stupidity I could feign "No, what?"

He said that the client was concerned about union organizers being on the site, taking advantage of all the managers being away (that was last week, and they're all back now). He said that he had a long talk with The Client (emphasis his - I don't know if he was trying to express to me that he talks to people above my head and thus has secret knowledge or what) and she wants us to escort people off the site if they're not employees (standard) and if we see anybody in the common areas (outside basically, or the lobby) or if we see any union materials on a desk or anything, we're to contact the director of HR.

He'd already told this to The Sleeper, he said, and he also had a pair of plainclothes in the cafeteria for some of the day trying to eavesdrop on conversations.

Wow.

Pardon my urdu, but isn't it highly dubious to be reporting on union activity in a publicly traded company in this manner? In fact, scratch "highly dubious" and replace it with "illegal".

Anybody out there have a legal opinion on this?

Interestingly enough, after I met the new guy and straightened him out about a few things, he mentioned that a couple of our managers (one in charge of mobile, oddly enough, and of the same rank as Cookie Monster) came by at the end of his shift and took his keys away.

They were back where I usually have them locked by the time I got on, but I'm wondering now just what the hell was going on. I don't particularly trust my company, although I suspect they were using them for the plainclothes to move around.

Still, for them to know that I lock them in a drawer from which only myself and the client can remove them smacks of The Sleeper talking to Cookie Monster (since I instituted that after we got rid of Barney).

Wheels within wheels.

Seriously, my company sucks.

2006-01-09T08:33:00.000-08:00

Various minor dumbassery at work, then Thursday night comes around. The Sleeper shows up.

He'd been phoned that very morning to come in, but nobody at the office bothered to tell me that Palooka had got his new site (a good one - he's at a clinic with a raise, his OFA 2, and a four day/four day schedule of twelve hour shifts).

The Sleeper is not allowed to work graveyards at the site. Even Barney recognised that. But there he was.

Sooooooooooo...

That was the squaw that stroked the camel's sack for the client. She'll be in today (Monday) from Calgary, and apparently (from the hints that her Eyes and Ears dropped to me) she's prepared to write us all off.

Yay.

I guess I'll find out shortly.

What would you call it if you cooked Jewish cuisine with your mind? Tele-knishes!

2006-01-03T11:35:00.000-08:00

Fido. What a bunch of morons.

I got a highly suspicious letter sent to me in the name of the person that I got my cell phone from, so I opened it.

Oh, get over yourselves. I opened it because there's no valid mail after 1.5 years that would be sent care of me, since anybody important would have had their records for her address adjusted by now.

So anyway, I opened it. Collections letter for unpaid cell phone stuff from many moons ago.

Now before I explain about dealing with them, read this old post about previous fun with Fido.

Now, when I took over the phone all of the balance was to come over to me. And it did. Sometimes twice. I've got the bills to prove it.

But apparently Fido is unable to do basic math, and they decided that something that was paid was not, in fact, paid, and they've decided to ding the previous owner.

So I called them up. They listened (odd that every time I call them up I get someone in Quebec. Is it really that much cheaper to have a call centre there?) told me my balance was x, and what was the problem?

Not my balance, twits, this collections letter.

They said they couldn't do anything about it and I'd have to talk to the collection agency.

So I did. Big surprise, they can't do anything about it either, unless I pay it.

Fuckers.

Except that there's nothing owing - this is a screwup like the deposit thing found in the above referenced post. What a waste of skin these guys are.

Now, on to site stuff!

Thusday the bike patrol guys had a guard on from 1600-0000. He was from Punjab, and we talked about nothing except for which gurus we like best.

I'm into the first three, and maybe the fourth, but the rest are right out. And number eleven? Please - too susceptable to flame.

On Friday, they had a different guy still. And this guy was... worth having.

It was pouring rain and he didn't have an umbrella. So he went out in the rain. And I saw him from the upper floors when I looked out the window. He was checking every door of every building.

Even better, in a shocking twist, he caught somebody breaking in!

Yes, the guy was trying to pull out the lock cylinder with a pair of what sounded like channel locks. This guard backed off a few paces, told him to stop, and basically escorted the guy back to his car.

Which was great, because he didn't get his ass beat down by a guy with a tool and by escorting the guy to his car, he got the license and description, not to mention the description of the guy himself.

He came back to the lobby to write up his report (all calls were made too, locksmith, company, property manager), then since his jacket was soaking wet from the pouring rain, he draped it over a chair to dry and went back out in the rain!

For being a one day guard, this guy did pretty damn fine.

Yesterday there was another one-shot guard on. I said hi to him, and was regailed with his CV. On and on, and every third sentence he laughs and wants to shake hands.

A really nice guy, but he seems awfully desperate to talk about himself.

When DiceGimp showed up at 1800, he made the one-shot guy keep the phone that receives alarms and promptly vanished. Every alarm that came in he made the guy go and do (over the phone - he was nowhere to be found). One of them, however, he said he'd check. Half an hour goes by then he calls back the new guy and says that he doesn't have the number for the alarm company (untrue - I'm actually the one that programmed them into both of their phones months ago because they couldn't figure out how). Clearly this twit hadn't done shit.

Apparently one of their managers is coming to the site today to talk to Q-tip, who's fed up with his co-workers... well, there's no diminutive adjective I can use other than uselessness, so that's what I'm going with.

Hopefully DiceGimp will be gone.

And Palooka applied for a couple of different sites. If he gets one of them and moves on, does anybody want to lay odds on whether he keeps on calling me every damn night?

Cattle Punching on a Jack Rabbit

2005-12-30T09:10:00.000-08:00

And to reiterate - I hate talking on the phone. Cell phone in particular.

2005-12-27T13:48:00.000-08:00

Christmas was a series of fourteen phonecalls, all work-related.

The first was at 0330. Valium Wailer got an alarm from the UPS that it was overheating and wanted to know what to do. He also noted that as he was calling me, he noticed on The Sleeper's report that the same thing had happened the day before (which I also got called on) but that The Sleeper hadn't bothered to inform Valium Wailer about it.

I ran VW through the usual drill, and told him to call me in the morning if it was still an issue, or became an issue again.

It did.

So I started the series of calls to the client and the service people to get this dealt with.

Then came a whole series of calls about a pipe blowing out the ceiling of a washroom and flooding all over the place. Happily, it was in Evil Property Manager's domain, although it did affect our area somewhat. Call call call, more or less dealt with. One brief trip in to the site. Last call, 2300 or so. Well, that was only twenty hours of Christmas bliss.

Then, at 0430 Palooka called me to tell me about the leak downstairs. You know, the one I'd spent all that time dealing with.

The ceiling was still leaking, but only in drips. It was all the wet material slowly shedding the water that had been soaked up. Palooka was disturbed because, and I quote here: "Where before it was like drip, now it's like drip-drip."

I told him that was fine, and to just keep an eye on it. Then he said "Hey, you weren't sleeping or anything were you?"

No, not me. Perish the thought of me sleeping at 0430. Truly I only sleep once a week, and it's in a chair for about an hour.

I then got a twenty minute monologue from him about his step-by-step journey downstairs and exactly what he was thinking about, and how that changed when he saw the drips. Sigh.

DiceGimp is still working, although I can't figure out why. Here's how he did his Sunday night shift:

1) Shows up at 1800. Needs to change.
2) Changed and back up at 1815. Tells his partner (Q-tip) that he's starving, and McDonald's is closed. So he's going to bike a few kilometers off to a mall and find something to eat.
3) Partner (pretty serious about the realities of the job) pages and pages DiceGimp, and finally at 1930 or so gets a response: "I've got my food, and now I'm on my way back."
4) Page page page and finally a response at 2015: "I'm back and now I have to eat."
5) Page page page until 2115 or so: "Okay, I'm done eating so as soon as I've gone to the bathroom I'll start my first patrol."

The one-shot guard they had come in on Monday from 1600-0000 (for the bike patrol guys) was from Pakistan and after the now-familiar questions about marriage status, children, and where am I from? Canada. No no, where is your family from? Sigh, Germany and Europe.

... he talked about nothing except for herbalism and sex. Often in conjunction. Although I was greatly amused (as will Tursi, possibly) that he knew an herbalist that cured someone's leukemia with a single dosage. I guess someone we know who got hers from shaving her legs with a leukemiac's razor must have used that, since she's been clear ever since. :P

I've been playing Guild Wars for the past few days, has anybody else played this? I'm a party of one. :P

Leaving the ladder, one may fall upward!

2005-12-24T22:48:00.000-08:00

Tursi's been and gone. And doesn't it just suck that I don't have evenings free to do anything? We ate breakfast/lunch together like a couple of old men, but didn't get to do anything.

Still, I'm glad he came to visit.

Although I get to curse him for two things:

1) in jest, I suggested he become a guard. He replied that he'd get too bored.

Now, I know the job is boring but damn, didn't the shift that followed that comment go super slow!

2) he mentioned getting a four core chip, and now that's all I can think of getting. What the hell, I'll get two!

He also installed Google Earth on my machine, and I've been amusing myself watching the geography bounce in a tour of every place I've ever lived that I can remember. Next I'm going to mark places I've slept and see how that goes.

Due to some majorly provocative irritation from my company, the clients at the site are going to (so it seems) attempt to have The Sleeper removed in the new year. We'll see.

And DiceGimp. Ah DiceGimp, you really aren't very good for much, are you? You got an alarm call at 2000-2030, and said you'd check it out. And then didn't.

An hour or two later, you went wandering around on your bike and found an open door. A door that had been popped with a tool. Oddly, it was the door you'd got the alarm on.

So what do you do, call the police? Nope. Radio for backup? Nah. You go in. Once through the popped door, you find another door that's been subjected to tool-augmented entry. You go through that too.

And find somebody.

You say "Who are you?" and the person says "It's okay, I work here. Here's my ID." and they reach for their wallet.

You wave aside the offer of ID, apparently feeling that if they look like they're going to tell you who they are, that's close enough. In the dark, with a guy holding a tool, behind two doors that have been forced.

You then proceed to chat with the guy for a good five minutes, as faithfully recorded by the cameras that you didn't know where in there, and then left the building to go on a bike patrol.

Altogether four doors were forced, although nothing seems to have been taken. The guy left in a black BMW.

So from what I hear, the mix of eight and twelve hour shifts that don't really make much sense are being stopped and three eight hour shifts will replace them. Q-tip will be training the evening guy, and there doesn't seem to be a place for DiceGimp.

I wonder if he knows that yet, since the morning after that happened Tursi and I saw him in IHOP.

I've got to admit, I'm a little lonely right now. I've finished my sushi, I don't have the next Doctor Who episode downloaded yet (but I've got the three after that one sitting on the drive - thanks for addicting me, Tursi!), and there's nobody around to play a game with.

Ah well, such is life.

I know I've posted more than once on the "intelligent design" thingy that stupid people want taught in public schools in the US, but something I'd never heard of before is the religious-based argument against daylight savings time. Enjoy, if you've never heard it:

Kansas rescinds Daylight Savings Time
Sunflower State reverts to "God's Time"

TOPEKA, Kan..-- The state legislature here has voted to return to standard time on a year-round basis. Following a 63 to 21 vote, legislators passed a law repealing the adoption of Daylight Savings Time in favor of keeping the state's clocks set on Central Standard Time all year.

Burnett "Bud" Jameson (R - Monroe County), speaking in favor of the measure said, "When God created man, He took exactly seven days - not five days, not seven days, exactly six days. That's exactly 132 hours* - not 131, not 133, exactly 132. So we've got no business monkeying around the intelligent design of the 24-hour clock that God set in motion when He started time here in the U.S. around 6000 years ago."

Jameson, a supporter of the Kansas Board of Education in its fight to introduce teaching of alternatives to evolution in the state's schools, also said, "Turning back the clock in the Fall is like ripping pages from the Bible."

While the effects of this change are likely to be minimal to most Jayhawkers, transportation to, from and through Kansas is expected to be disrupted and travelers are expected to be totally confused, with the most confusion among travelers who make airline connections through the state's airports.

The Kansas move comes only months after Indiana's governor signed a law that will at last put the entire state on Daylight Savings Time starting next year. Whether Indiana will adopt the Central or the Eastern time zone is still in question.

Editor's note: When contacted by Shari Wrightwood, the Travel Fox facts checker for this story, Mr. Jameson said that he miscalculated the number of hours in six days saying, "I should have said that there are really 144 hours in six days," then he added, "and that's true for all of the other 47 states in the U.S. as well."

Stolen from here.

-----

Absolutely hilarious!

And now for a little music: you can listen to someone ripping it up on a nine string bass, or some rap. Or both!

Don't blame the dominatrix for your welts if you're paying for the whipping.

2005-12-21T10:30:00.000-08:00

A couple of drunk guys got on the SkyTrain and sat behind me, each one slumped in a bench sort of passed out. One of them got a call on their cell phone and stomped around while talking, then threw himself back into the bench while his cell phone clattered to the floor and skittered to the far wall.

They got off a couple of stops before I did.

Looking up from my book, I saw the cell phone. That's got to suck.

So I picked it up and checked through the call log, just in case it was a stolen phone and left on purpose.

Nope - all the calls made and all the calls received were tied to names in the phonebook. Cute picture of a girl for the background too. Good enough for me.

Turned it in to the platform attendants at my stop. Easy like Weezie.

I was talking to Palooka the other day, and seeing the papers get delivered to the site got us talking about our respective paper routes.

And that reminded me of the time I was walking home at the end of mine, up a hill in the dark, skateboard in hand (a giant yellow one with KAMAKAZE! written on it)... and I'd chewed all the cinnamon out of my Big Red gum.

Curious to see if I could throw it all the way across the semi-busy four lane road, I gave it a heave. TONK!

I couldn't. Brake lights went on, and a car went by me and hung a left. Ah well, I kept walking up the hill.

A minute or so later, a big guy looking and walking like a bodybuilder came striding down the sidewalk ahead of me. "Hey asshole!" he said.

If I was a different sort of kid (i.e. smarter) I'd have hopped on that board and rolled my ass back down the hill.

"Yes?" I replied wittily.

"What the fuck did you throw at my car?!" he said as he grabbed my shirt where my lapels would be, if I'd had lapels.

"Nothingpleasedon'thurtmeitwasjustgum!"

Clearly disgusted (both that I'd done it and that I was too little a kid for him to get any satisfaction out of), he threw me down into somebody's recessed yard. It was about a meter lower than the sidewalk. I luckily missed the ornamental thornbushes.

"If I ever see you again I'll fucking KILL you!" he yelled and off he went.

And as I lay there in the dark, under the bushes, in a stranger's yard, my glasses vanished into the dark, worried he was going to come back and finish me, I realized that I really didn't like Big Red that much.

And so I stopped buying it. Hello Juicy Fruit!

Jesus died for someone's sins but not mine, meltin' in a pot of thieves, wild card up my sleeve, thick heart of stone, my sins my own

2005-12-18T22:45:00.000-08:00

They belong to me. Me.

I was sitting here minding my own business. Well, I was watching The Muppet Show with John Cleese in it, if you must know, and my phone rings. Looking at the screen, I see it's my site cell phone. The Sleeper is on. Oh shit, is he going to rant?

Pause.

During the week I reminded the client that since they're closed for a few days over Christmas and New Years, they need extra coverage (during times we're not normally there). They asked if I'd do it, and I said of course I would. They wrote it up and faxed it in. And got no reply. Not that day, not the next.

So I had them call my office. They got the head scheduler and she said she'd received the request. The client reiterated that they wanted me on those shifts, but the scheduler said they couldn't do that, and that they'd put The Sleeper on instead.

The client demured, asking if Palooka or the other guy could do it.

I need a name for the other guy if I'm going to be refering to him, so I'm going to call him Valium Wailer, since he's the most laid back guy you'll ever meet but sings and plays keyboard for a speed metal band.

Anyway, the scheduler said no to both of those since Palooka would be working eight hours already that day (that's her problem with putting me on as well), and Valium Wailer isn't available except on weekends. She said "Are you sure you don't want The Sleeper?"

The client put her on hold for a moment and got me. "It sounds like there's nobody else available and they want to put The Sleeper on." they said.

"You don't need to have anybody you don't want to, since you're paying extra for this anyway. If they won't put me on, or one of the others you're okay with, ask for a random person that hasn't been here before. It'll be a cheaper rate and how badly can they screw up three shifts?"

I was interested in seeing the new schedule, which I should have got on Friday, but my field manager didn't show up.

More's the pity, since I was going to bounce this whole Cafeteria Lady thing off of him. Ah well.

I always ask Palooka and Valium Wailer how their encounters with The Sleeper go, since at first they were creeped out by how he acts and wondered if it was just them. For the past couple of weeks, they've said he's been extremely pleasant (because of the raise that he got that he and my CSM, Cookie Monster, don't know I know about) and has been showing a lot of teeth in a grimace that I assume is his attempt to smile.

But on Friday, when Valium Wailer relieved me, he said that the pleasant times were over and The Sleeper was back to his odd behavior.

Now, this will sound innocuous to the uninitiated, but try to remember that The Sleeper hates (based on pooled observations from several people, many of which I wouldn't trust to give their opinion on what their own names are) everybody who isn't from India and/or isn't able to get him something. If you don't fall into one or both of those categories, he's basically a bubbling cauldron of rage and loathing held in by a thin veneer of surliness.

Valium Wailer goes in to our office to relieve The Sleeper, and says hello. This is about the only safe thing you can ever say, and it's not always a certainty. The Sleeper says "The radio, phone and keys are over there on the desk."

Valium Wailer says "Great." - more as something to say than anything else. Just a response to the statement.

The Sleeper flicks into agitated mode and says "Yeah, it's really great that a phone and some keys are on the desk. Have a good shift (standard line for him)." and he left.

Valium Wailer was kicking himself for letting it get to that point. His usual strategy for dealing with The Sleeper is to say "Hello", nod at whatever he says, and be moving away from him as fast as possible so that if The Sleeper does try to start a conversation (it's a trap - RUN!) it can always be plausibly assumed that it wasn't heard, due to the increasing distance from him.

I know it sounds like nothing, but you have to know the guy.

Also, the batteries were scheduled to be replaced in one of the big (maybe the size of three standard refridgerators) UPS' and the client was insistant that security be at the beck and call of the guys doing it, as they would charge them a buttload if there were any hitches getting access or having to come back on another date.

So I left the email from the client on the desk where The Sleeper could see it with a post-it saying "The Sleeper - be conspicuously available for this."

Unpause.

I answered the phone.

"Is this Rimmy?"

"Yes, what can I do for you The Sleeper?"

"Nothing. But I'm going to do something for you."

Oh please, don't do anything for me. I can't think of anything good that you could do for me.

He passes the phone on to one of the outside contractors that works at the site, whom I rather like. I've been out to see her horses, and we seem to enjoy each other's company. She finished her latest assignment in late November and won't be back until January. But she'd stopped by to give me a Christmas present and didn't know my number.

Oddly, she also rather likes The Sleeper. Note that a few good words from someone of her standing can do wonders for him within our company. So she doesn't get the rage/loathing thing.

She has a farm up near Armstrong, and raises lambs. A half lamb goes for about a hundred bucks, and she feeds them primarily on hay and alfalfa which she also grows herself. If you want some fresh meat, I can hook you up. ;)

Anyway, she brought me some chops and left them in a freezer at the site for me. That was sweet of her. But she couldn't talk, since she had to boot out to Tsawwassen to pick somebody up from the ferry, so she said goodbye and while I listened she asked The Sleeper how to turn the phone off.

I guess he might have been irked that she was speaking to me, as a comment that I might have received was her reply: "All cell phones work the same way."

Anyway, that wasn't as bad a call as it might have been.

Also, the cleaners at the site bugged me all week to come to their Christmas party. I couldn't of course, since I was working (Friday night - lame), but it sure shows the difference between me and Barney. They still can't get over that I don't ride them like I'm a tinpot dictator.

I saw King Kong with the folks on Saturday night, and I liked it. Duh.

Although as I was leaving and thinking that I enjoyed it, I remembered an old Andy Capp strip where Andy and Florrie are leaving the cinema and Florrie is irritatedly commenting to Andy "You're the only man I know that cheers for the monster."

Now, I haven't seen the original in a while (but it was in the nineties), but something carried across from it into this picture loud and clear - people react way differently than me in unusual situations.

For instance - there's a dinosaur stampede of large herbivores down a narrow canyon, with velociraptors or small allosauri weaving through the legs. The Venture's crew are racing along underneath these things as they bounce and smash and ricochet off the walls.

Perhaps there's a reason I wasn't invited along on the cruise to Skull Island, but I've got to think that if I were in such a situation, I'd find the first semi-crack in the canyon walls and get myself out of the frickin' stampede. And not just because I probably couldn't run as far or as fast as they ran, even with adrenaline. I certainly wouldn't be punching out the carnivores that were running along with us - moving any part of my body towards the part of theirs with the teeth would just seem to be as good an idea as dumping Worcestershire sauce on my head and arranging myself on a bed of rice.

Also, while my fieldcraft skills aren't as good as they used to be - how exactly do various groups meet up on an uncharted island with no maps, no radios, and no rendevous points? Tracking is one option, but after rockfalls, vertical falls down sheer chasm faces, and generally not leaving footprints, not to mention the aforementioned saurian stampede, what is left to follow?

Even better, how do timely reunions happen when it's obvious that they've come from another direction entirely? Such things bother me when I can't resolve them.

I'd like you to note that when the people are actually on Skull Island, nobody sleeps. And yet, they're alert and fresh and have way more energy than seems reasonable.

And am I the only person to wonder why Kong appears to be a silverback gorilla with spidermonkey agility and a chimpanzee sense of humour?

My mom adds that she liked the film, but thought it dragged at the start. You don't see Kong for the first half of the film. "We came here to see an ape, so where's the ape?" said my mom.

All of that aside, I dug the flick. I'd go see it again even, although I probably won't. I didn't find it dragged out, and even knowing how it's going to end (does anybody not know the Kong story?) doesn't make you bored as the flick unwinds.

Although I sure would like to get to smash stuff like he does. You know, with impunity.

FWOOOOOOOOOOOSH, bisnitch! I used to clean up after stuff like this. And I bet that despite that, my lungs are still cleaner than yours!

I'm outtie

Thanks, President Clark

2005-12-16T01:30:00.000-08:00

THE ASCENSION OF THE ORDINARY MAN.
THE ASCENSION OF THE ORDINARY MAN.
THE ASCENSION OF THE ORDINARY MAN.
THE ASCENSION OF THE ORDINARY MAN.
THE ASCENSION OF THE ORDINARY MAN.
THE ASCENSION OF THE ORDINARY MAN.
THE ASCENSION OF THE ORDINARY MAN.
THE ASCENSION OF THE ORDINARY MAN.
THE ASCENSION OF THE ORDINARY MAN.
THE ASCENSION OF THE ORDINARY MAN.
THE ASCENSION OF THE ORDINARY MAN.
THE ASCENSION OF THE ORDINARY MAN.
THE ASCENSION OF THE ORDINARY MAN.

I'll shoot him, but YOU clean him.

2005-12-15T13:14:00.000-08:00

Heh.

DiceGimp thinks that if there's ever going to be a supervisor for their site, he's going to be the guy. Which is why he gets so upset when other people get things done and not him.

After a couple of instances of guards going home with the master keys and being unreachable for the day, Q-tip suggested that they institute a system where the guards have to sign when they surrender or receive the keys. He got this suggestion approved by both his own company, and Evil Property Manager's office. Simple enough.

But DiceGimp balked. He says it's "demeaning" to do so, and that he likes the way they did it before.

Demeaning? This coming from a guy who thinks it's demeaning that other people use soap in contrast to his anti-hygiene stance.

Anyway, while he was sulking about it, the female guard said she doesn't like having to haul all their stuff down to the storeroom after her shift, and would he please take his chair down when his shift ends two hours before her.

Basically she's got a folding table, chair, bike, and whatever papers they were using. Plus her personal stuff. It doesn't seem out of line to have him take down a single chair with him when he goes.

But he said that this is the way they've always done it on this site (he's been on the site since May and I assure you, it's not the way it's always been done nor is it cast in stone that they do it like that) and so that's how they'll keep doing it.

She gave him a bit of static about it, saying it wasn't unreasonable for him to take something down with him when he goes. So....

Yesterday there was no sign of him that I could see. I don't spy on them, but when I'm on duty I'm fairly aware of my surroundings and the surrounding buildings, and I didn't see him at all. Ah well, not my problem.

Palooka and the female guard show up, and they ask me where he is (along with the table and chair that usually sits so prominently in the foyer). I give the female guard my site phone so she can call her partner, and guess what?

Stung because someone else (Q-tip) managed to make a change in the routine, and irritated at female guard because she dared challenge him, DiceGimp has decided that he'll just sit outside on the concrete steps and write in his notebook, and towards the end of his shift he'll go down to their storeroom and write up his report.

Quote: "I thought I'd try something new for the site, since everybody else is doing it."

Well, I guess he'll show them. :P

And now people at my site, through no influence of mine, are referring to him as "that guy who kind of looks like a badger". Ha!

I told you he was ridiculous!

"You wanna go to the aquarium?" "Dey got squid."

2005-12-14T12:10:00.000-08:00

Cafeteria Lady continues to elude me. Although I'm getting closer - I saw her driving out of the underground yesterday. I'll catch up to her yet.

She does seem to think that Eyes and Ears is on my side though, since when one of her employees had a problem with their access card, she went to someone else rather than him. (He's the only one that could do it - she was looking for an intermediary)

A couple of hours into my shift, a manager told me that another manager had just called her and said there was a suspicious person loitering in the underground. So I blasted off and tore down there, but didn't see anybody.

The client's eyes and ears, having seen me blast past his office, followed me down and bade me to jump into the company van. We then tore around the parking levels at semi-high speed looking for for whoever it was, but mostly just having fun.

If Rockafeller Skank was playing on the radio, it couldn't have been any more ridiculously funny.

Didn't find the guy, but when I tracked down the manager who'd actually seen him, the description was awfully close to DiceGimp, who did turn up late for his shift, not too long after this happened.

What an idiot.

No, not because of this. Just... generally. :P

I can't believe I'm going to buy a can of Brasso

2005-12-13T11:14:00.000-08:00

Cafeteria Lady is still avoiding me. She also went running in to meet with the client and complain about what happened with Palooka.

But interestingly enough, she screwed up. When she was ranting at Palooka, saying she "had permission from so-and-so", this client was the so-and-so. And this client didn't give her permission for sweet bugger all. Oops.

I guess when she and Crazy Cougar Receptionist were making their little agreement (free food in exchange for letting anybody in who wants it) and their excuse in case anybody asked (so-and-so gave me the nod), somewhere along the line it was forgotten that it wasn't true.

The only thing better than making a jackass feel like a jackass is when they do it to themselves. :D

This kid looks like a misbehaving refugee from some 70's tv series, but you've got to admit he's got skills.

A woman got bit by a lion at Melbourne Zoo when she climbed over the safety barrier and stuck her hand inside the enclosure to, and I quote, "to pick a flower".

At least nobody can blame that particular bit of stupidity on video games.

Batmobile car kits, eh?

First they come after you for mp3s, then movies. Now... lyrics?

I'm so glad that the RIAA and its Canadian counterpart can't do squat to people in Canada. You can't be fined or taken to court for downloading, making, or sharing music or movies. Unless you make a profit.

Whiners.

Did you hear about the guy who had his car stolen, and when he got it back it was better? He got his ride pimped, and didn't even have to appear on the show!

And to end, is everybody as tired as I am of hearing people saying "Give - it's Christmas time!" about donating?

Go ahead and do it, but you're kind of messed up if you think that there's something special about tossing some food in the bin or a toy in the collection box for the holidays, but you do bugger all the rest of the year.

I usually eat once a day, sometimes even twice. Do you suppose that poor folk might be into that too? Or do they just have to stretch out that box of Weetabix until next year?

If you've got more cans of beans than you can fit in your bindle, any time is a good time to pass that on. Or a couple of bucks, whatever you like.

And, in my experience, the people who self-righteously whine the most about giving around the holidays are the ones least likely to give. There's nothing better than hypocrisy from someone who wants you to do something, or wants you to gush all over them when they do something.

And for the dimmer hypocrites who thought I said something hypnotism above, let me elaborate:

hy-poc-ri-sy n. pl. hy-poc-ri-sies

1. The practice of professing beliefs, feelings, or virtues that one does not hold or possess; falseness.

2. A act or instance of such falseness.

3. An expression of agreement that is not supported by real conviction [syn: lip service]

4. Insincerity by virtue of pretending to have qualities or beliefs that you do not really have.

Alright, bobbins?

What the hell did I EAT?!

2005-12-11T23:30:00.000-08:00

The female guard at the site delivered a long soliloquy about how she, as a mother, has a right to use the company cell phone to call home whenever she wants.

Myself and Buffalo Kisser's replacement disagreed, and I added that while she might have a desire to do so, she has no particular right. An employer isn't required to provide a means of communication for non-work related matters.

She asked something along the lines of "Don't you think it's important that if something happens, my kid can contact me?", and a few other questions of that ilk.

Of course I answered that I did, but that doesn't confer any particular right to have something, just because you want it. Want communication with your kid? Get a cell phone.

Friday night, I was telling our weekend graveyard guy about Alicia, and he had a story of his own.

When he's not doing weekends with my company, he works for a different security company at Metrotown, which is a big-ass mall for those not in the know. And he said that last February he and a partner found a group of people huddled in a stairwell in the underground parking area, and they had to be rousted.

While they were doing that, he noticed that one of them didn't belong. He stuck out because he was younger than the others, so this guard talked to him a bit.

It seems that the kid was twelve, just a hair away from being thirteen. He has a one year old son with a thirteen year old girl. He's sleeping in the stairwell instead of staying with his own mom because she's a crackhead, and she's not thirty yet. The age I sort of remember is twenty-six.

That's three generations of fucked right there.

I went out for dinner with the folks last night. But clearly my mind is rusting out fast because by the time I got out of the restaurant, I couldn't remember what I'd eaten. Neither could anybody else.

I mean, I remember having some nice meaty mahi mahi, and a piece of incredibly tender tuna, but I'll be damned to Montana if I can remember what the other thing was.

Some sort of fish, anyway. And it was good. But utterly unmemorable apparently.

Scored some clothes and a cake to eat the way I like it - in solitude. Huzzah!

Oh, and Cafeteria Lady avoided me on Friday again. Rumour (from the client's eyes and ears) has it that she's specifically avoiding me. Which is odd, because while I'm likely to make her feel fairly insignificant, she can't possibly know that ahead of time because I've not done that at work before.

And now I probably won't get the chance, since the client herself is in town today and will likely deal with it herself, instead of me getting to chain my Jun combos and see if I can get two rounds of victory...

Sorry, drifted into Tekken 2 there. My bad.

And before I go to work tomorrow and wander the cube maze, an old joke:

In prison, you spend the majority of your time in an 8' x 10' cell. At work you spend most of your time in a 6' x 8' cubicle.

In prison, you get three meals a day. At work, you only get a break for one meal and you have to pay for that one.

In prison you get time off for good behavior. At work, you get rewarded for good behavior with more work.

In prison a guard locks and unlocks all the doors for you. At work you must carry around a security card and unlock and open all the doors yourself.

In prison you can watch TV and play games. At work you get fired for watching TV and playing games.

In prison they ball and chain you when you go somewhere. At work you are just ball and chained.

In prison you get your own loot. At work, you have to share.

In prison they allow your family and friends to visit. At work, you cannot even speak to your family and friends.

In prison all expenses are paid by taxpayers, with no work required. At work you get to pay for all the expenses to go to work, and then they deduct taxes from your salary to pay for the prisoners.

In prison you spend most of your life looking through bars from the inside wanting to get out. At work you spend most of your time wanting to get out and inside bars.

In prison you can join many programs which you can leave at any time. At work there are some programs you can never get out of.

In prison there are wardens who are often sadistic. At work you have managers.