LOL!

Seen today in alt.atheism:

> What the *heck* is Vegemite, anyway?

Australia's answer to oil spills.

A good day.

Kirsten and I enjoyed a rare good day out and about today, since I wasn't scheduled to work until 1830. We had one errand to run (picking up a great Sharks jacket I got off Freecycle) and a party at Grand Central Starport to attend.

But first we had to pick up my paycheck. CPWM Weirdness strikes again. When I went in to get my check, The AM said that he was about to call me to ask if I could come in at 1330. Despite needing the money, I wanted a day with my wife, damn it! So I smiled, and told him that I had plans.

We have great pizza in Willow Glen, go get my jacket (which has the Sharks logo on the back and SHARKS in big letters down the right sleeve) and I'm pleasantly surprised. The jacket is good winter-weight one, something that's been missing in my wardrobe. Now we just need to get the team back on the ice...

After that, over to Starport for the party. Nice, but Kiri and I both peopled out quickly, and she had a thing in Berkeley and I had to work, so home we go.

Where I get a call from work. Can I come in at 1730 instead of 1830? That's not a problem. When I get in, I see the break schedule. The AM had written up the break schedule this morning on the assumption that I'd agree to work a full shift, and never changed it when I said no! Ever since he's taken over scheduling things have been quite a mess. For example, tonight we had effectively two people to close. On a Saturday. At least we had our part-time bookkeeper to do that, or I would have been cleaning the floor alone. As it was, we got go-backs done and cleared up the worst of the mess. Since my supervisor is also opening tomorrow, we cut out half an hour early so she wouldn't violate the "ten hours between shifts" rule.

*sigh*

My current plan, if I get the job as a driver/care aide, is to keep working at CP for a time, with some radical alterations to my schedule. No weekends! I'd like to be able to use my employee discount on some nicer furniture for the place, and saving up for a second mode of transportation would be nice. If the Humane Society hires me (I got a letter today acknowledging receipt of my resume) that would change due to the distance involved in getting to work and the requirement for odd hours and days. In that scenario, it's bye-bye Cost Plus!

Damn Giants lost again. The good news is Bonds is starting to work out on his surgically rebuilt knees. Come back, Barry! We need you!

Now I'm debating making something to eat before bed.

Enjoyment meme

Ganked from benkenobigal

Things you enjoy, not because you have to but because you WANT to, even when no one around you wants to go out and play. What lowers your stress/blood pressure/anxiety level? Make a list, post it to your journal... and then tag 5 friends and ask them to post it to theirs*

1. Reading - This has been my escape my entire life. Fiction of fact, I don't care. As an extension to this, you can learning in general to this entry.

2. Playing video games - Nethack and Madden 2003 mainly. A little escapism, and a little triumph here and there.

3. Designing worlds for Traveller. I find doing the number crunching relaxing, and discovering plots in the cold equations to be quite satisfying. As an extension of this, the greatest pleasure comes in fixing the Classic Traveller worlds, which have some very odd things (planets the size of the Moon with Earth-like atmospheres, large agricultural paradises orbiting M8 V embers, etc.) Find ways to preserve the feel of the original write-up while making at least a nod to science is a challenge I relish.

4. Listening to Music - Ever now and then I put on the headphones and crank it. Close my eyes and let the music be the total experience for a while. I'll admit to flights of Walter Mittyism while doing this; while listening to Metallica's S&M, I'll often imagine myself as Lars Ulrich, or picturing being Billie Joe Armstrong while listening to American Idiot.

5. Gaming - Something I've not been able to do in far, far too long.

6. Writing - When it works, this is something that really relaxes me. When it doesn't work? Oy.

7. Usenet - Yes, it's a vast virtual schoolyard, but I enjoy the flames and lunatics. The alt. hierarchy is the last, great frontier of the internet.

8. Showering - When I'm bored, I take showers. Long, hot showers. Do some of my best thinking soaking wet.

*I'm not going to "tag" people. If they want to do the meme, fine.

The dog got the wrong person.

OK, we had another death-by-pit bull in the Bay Area this week - a 12-year-old was mauled to death by the "family pet." I was ready to write it off as another case of people keeping a dog that was wound to tight until I read this story in the Chronicle.

Sorry if this offends people, but this woman is too stupid to live. some excerpts:

Hours before being mauled to death by the family pit bull, 12-year-old Nicholas Faibish had been told to stay in the basement separated from the dogs, said his distraught mother, Maureen Faibish, who called The Chronicle on Saturday, trying to make sense of what she called a "freak accident.''

"I put him down there, with a shovel on the door,'' said Faibish, who had left the boy alone with the dogs on June 3 to run some errands. "He had a bunch of food. And I told him, 'Stay down there until I come back.' Typical Nicky, he wouldn't listen to me.''

You lock your son in the basement because of your dogs? Then when he actually enters his own home and gets killed, you blame him? Holy Fuck, woman, you kept a pair of vicious dogs in the house, so terrible that your son had to hide from them!

"They made it sound like we put our kids in a war zone,'' Faibish said in a phone conversation. "That's not true. My kids got along great with (the dogs). We were never seeing any kind of violent tendencies.''

Then explain the locking in the basement thing. Why not lock the freaking dogs in the basement? Or put them outside on a chain?

"It's Nicky's time to go," she said. "When you're born you're destined to go and this was his time."'

Screw you. He was 12 fucking years old. His time wasn't for another 64 years, you stupid bitch.

Maureen Faibish said she put Nicholas rather than the dogs in the basement because the room, which also served as a playroom for the children, was filled with plastic bags in preparation of their move. She figured the dogs would have destroyed the bags filled with clothes.

Again, these are the dogs that she claims were perfect pets.

Faibish declined to say what triggered such concern that she insisted her son stay in the basement, away from the dogs.

"I don't want to go into any of that detail," she said. "That's between me and the detectives."

Notice that she called the Chronicle, but when asked for specifics clams up. Great Ghu, this woman is stupid. Then she gets a bit contradictiorary...

"Even after the whole thing,'' she said, "I'm not mad at my dogs. I just love them to death.''

From that to this a few paragraphs later.

She would never want Rex back in their house.

"Absolutely not,'' Faibish said. "I told them I wanted him put down. I think of Rex as someone who molested my child, murdered my child.''

I can't go on. This piece of offal cares more about her dogs than her child, and is quite frankly wasting my air.