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wThe Whine Column |
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I'll try to keep the actual whining to a minimum, I promise. But this is where I'll rant about work, stupid people and the like, plus make mention of the random interesting things in my life. Email me at quizbabe at yahoo dot com if you want to whine back.
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wFriday, August 30, 2002 |
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Hey, Remember the 80s?
Knowing that my reading audience is predominantly guys who grew up in the "video music era," here's a show for you. VH1 is now showing (as I type) an episode of "Where Are They Now? about video vixens. Yup, the hot teacher from Van Halen's "Hot for Teacher," Warrant's "Cherry Pie" girl, the girl who rocked Billy Idol's "Cradle of Love," the list goes on. Enjoy re-living your adolescent fantasies, boys.
Sadly, for us womenfolk, there really weren't a lot of hot men in videos. Well, not that I thought were hot anyway. I was never into the big-hair groups that were all the rage, or New Kids on the Block, for that matter. Then again, I had baseball players to adore. (Go ahead, make the joke to yourself. But beware the consequences if that phrase is ever said in my presence. Seriously.)
I do miss the old days of MTV, though, when music videos were almost all they showed and they were made for less than I make in a year. Now it's all overly-produced crap with music to match. As you might imagine, I didn't watch the VMAs and won't really make a point to catch it any of the 8 zillion times it's re-run in the next week. I'm too old-school.
posted by
Allyson at 1:42 PM
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wThursday, August 29, 2002 |
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Random Musings
Lots of stuff in my head lately, none of which is worth a whole blog entry in and of itself ...
~~~I think I would like Vanessa Carlton's music a whole lot more if she didn't have that whiny, wailing Britney-esque quality to her voice. She seems to be a talented pianist and songwriter, and she's trying hard not to be the new Britney/Shakira, but until her voice grows up I just can't listen to "A Thousand Miles" without wanting to throw up.
~~~Does the world really need a dance version of Bryan Adams' "Heaven"? Someone seems to think so. That person was wrong. I've got no great attachment to the song, I just think setting it to a synthesized dance beat and letting some girl sing it is bad. I know someone who thinks it's an absolute travesty that Nikki French did the same thing about 8 years ago to "Total Eclipse of the Heart." He has a point with that one, too.
~~~I hate talk radio. I hate morning talk radio, shock-jock-schlock, afternoon drive yak, sports call-in shows featuring Sully from Southie bitching about the Sawks, etc. I put on the radio to hear music. If I ever have a morning commute, and that commute is longer than about 10 minutes I'm going to have to invest in a whole lotta tapes for the car.
~~~If Lance Bass goes to space, can we leave him up there to annoy the Russians for the rest of his life and spare those of us here on Earth from having to hear another song from whichever lame boy band he's in? Can we put the teen pop queens up there too?
~~~If my tax dollars ever go to pay for someone's sex change, I just might pull a civic disobedience move and refuse to pay taxes. I'm so sick of people in prison for things like murder thinking that the world owes them something. Like female hormones or tummy tucks or conjugal visits. You're in prison, for cryin' out loud! Clearly you did something wrong to get there. Deal with the consequences and stop your bitching.
~~~I heard "Yellow Submarine" by the Beatles last night and again tonight on my way home from work. My favorite memory of that song is singing it with my friends Martin and Jarrod at about 6 a.m. in a corner room of B tower at Warren Towers while watching the sun rise over the psychology building. We'd been out to dinner with a big group of friends to celebrate our friend Marina's birthday, and all piled into Martin's room while she opened her presents (because Martin's room was big and his roommate was gone for the weekend). We jumped on his roommate's bed, too, which would have made him cringe because he was really anal. Everyone else eventually filtered back down the hall to their rooms, but the guys and I stayed up all night, listening to music and just hanging out. And trust me, if you've never stayed up all night and then listened to "Yellow Submarine," well, you've never really heard that song the way it was meant to be heard.
~~~I actually called myself "old-school" not too long ago and it sort of bothered me for a moment. I was watching the Patriots/Eagles game while Matt was making dinner, and when they showed the Eagles quarterback I shouted "McNabb!" in an appropriately geeky way. Got a rather odd response from my husband. Then I remembered that he never met Science Boy Ron McNabb because by the time he joined the BU quiz team Ron had been gone for at least a year, maybe two. Sure, I'm not quite old-school like Coen and Sorenson and DeVeau, but I was there when Reverend Jim was both stolen and then crucified upon his return to his owners. Sometimes I miss the old quiz days.
~~~Five weeks 'til vacation. It can't come soon enough.
That should hold you kids for now.
posted by
Allyson at 1:34 AM
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wMonday, August 26, 2002 |
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Gigantic (A Tale of Two Johns)
Sounds like it could be porn ... but it's not. It's a documentary about They Might Be Giants, and it's really good and fun. Even Matt liked it and he's not really a fan of the band. It's playing right now at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, which is the film's first engagement (being shown more than once at the same theater) after a number of successful screenings at film festivals. If you're in the Boston area, go see it! There are a few more screenings between now and mid-September. Look for it in a city near you sometime after that -- visit www.giganticfilm.com for more info.
No, I'm not getting some sort of kickback from TMBG or the movie's producers. This is definitely a "word of mouth" kind of movie and it's worth seeing, particularly if you are a fan of the band or of "geek rock" (in which case you should be a fan of TMBG). The intro by Paul Simon (no not that one, the former politician) and the scene of the high school debaters discussing "Particle Man" are not to be missed. Trust me.
Also, meerkats are almost as cool as lemurs. Check the September issue of National Geographic if you don't believe me.
posted by
Allyson at 1:12 AM
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wFriday, August 23, 2002 |
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Lemur Day
I love having Fridays off from work, and today is no exception -- because it's Lemur Day on Zoboomafoo. Lemurs rock!
In addition to Zoboo, who is himself a sifaka lemur (a puppet, of course, for interaction with the human hosts), today there are also ringtail lemurs leaping around Animal Junction. And you know what's even better than ringtail lemurs? Baby ringtail lemurs!
I know, I'm a giant dork. I actually stayed up until about 4 a.m. one time (after intending to go to bed at 3 a.m.) because there was a show on PBS about lemurs. It followed a group of ringtails in which five babies had been born. One of the babies was practically albino, with white fur (except for the ringed tail) and blue eyes. It was beautiful, which made it even sadder when it died. One of the other babies died, too, after it fell out of a tree. But the other babies did pretty well for themselves for as long as the cameras followed them.
I feel lemurish, how 'bout you?
posted by
Allyson at 2:54 PM
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wThursday, August 22, 2002 |
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Finally ... Some Good News
Heard back from my friend in Cyprus today. She is getting married on Oct. 6 after all. Whew! That takes a huge load off my mind. Of course, now Matt and I have to kick the planning into high gear but we're ready for it, I think. Maybe I'll even start the Greek language tapes today.
In case you are wondering what happened, my friend panicked about planning a big wedding when she had just returned to the country and had no job and wasn't yet settled in, plus was getting all kinds of phone calls and questions from both families. So she scaled back the wedding and the reception, but is still getting married as planned.
I'm so relieved.
Thanks for reading. :)
posted by
Allyson at 1:04 PM
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Warning: Serious Whining Ahead
Today was one of the worst days I've had at work in a long time, compounded by a lingering problem with my upcoming vacation. I should start with the vacation issue here.
Our two-week trip to Greece and Cyprus is in limbo at the moment because my friend whose wedding we are planning the whole trip around has returned to Cyprus from New York and, in emailing our group of friends to let us know that she returned safely, said that if we hadn't booked our trips yet we might want to hold off because she might be postponing the wedding. Needless to say, we bought our tickets to Athens two weeks ago and are just about to book the rest of the travel (hotels, car, etc.), because this wedding is supposed to be Oct. 6. She said last year that she was figuring on getting married in October, so my husband and I decided to scale back our honeymoon to Florida instead of the Carribbean so we could go to the wedding in Cyprus. So I've been looking forward to this for well over a year.
I suppose I shouldn't complain too much, since we have to use the tickets within a year and will be going to Greece no matter what, but I'm seriously disappointed that it might not be as soon as I thought. I'm really hoping she decides soon whether she's getting married in six weeks or not.
So back to the work issues. As mentioned previously, it's bus route time. The section is running in the paper Friday, so the editor was laying out the pages tonight to go to press tomorrow. I got in to work this afternoon and discovered that two of the bus routes that someone else said they had taken care of had not been done. She's new (as in started on Monday new), and I asked her several times if she wanted me to take care of these two routes. She said no, she'd do them, so I was totally surprised today to find out that they weren't done. Especially when the person who's training her told me that she asked if the bus routes were done and the new girl said they were.
Luckily, my paper has a weekly "sister" paper that already had the routes ready and emailed them over to us. All that needed to be done was a slight reformatting and they'd be all set. Just as I was two lines from finishing one of the routes, though, the school bus company called and said that due to a problem with their computer, the routes were wrong and there was no way to pinpoint the errors and just fix them; they had to re-send all the routes. Add this to 12 obituaries (an average night might be five obits) and I was totally swamped and pissed and stressed.
My other work gripe at the moment is that I have a coworker who makes the same salary I do but who does about 1/20th the work I do. She talks on the phone to her friends, her parents and her kids all the time (not that occasional personal calls are a bad thing, but constant calls are a problem); she spends lots of time talking to people in other departments (on other floors) or walking along the street where our office is; and has one particular friend up to see her in the office on an almost-daily basis. And for some reason, a copy of TV Guide comes to the office each week in the name of a former managing editor; this co-worker takes the magazine each week and does the crossword puzzle. Left it open to the half-completed puzzle on her desk one day when she left.
This pisses me off to no end. This woman slacks off all damn day and never gets punished in any way for it. She's protected by the union contract (as am I -- I'm fourth generation in my family to be in a union so this is certainly not an anti-union whine) so she's not going to get fired unless she ... well, I can't say comes in to work drunk because she's done that before. I'm not sure what she could do to get fired or even if she could get fired. I'm just angry that no one in any position of authority seems to care that this woman ignores her work day after day -- leaving stuff to be filed or mailed untouched, not returning phone messages, etc.
Sent out my resume today for what looks like a promising job. I'm trying not to get my hopes up too much, but I really need a change (and a vacation!) right about now.
Don't say I didn't warn you about all the whining. Thanks for reading, though. I hope to be more upbeat next time.
posted by
Allyson at 1:09 AM
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wMonday, August 19, 2002 |
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Up late again ...
I should go to bed, seeing as how it's closing in on 3 a.m., but I'm relatively awake.
So my job sucks lately. It's nearing back-to-school time, which means bus routes. I shouldn't complain too much, because the first year or two I worked at this job our "computers" were nothing more than word processing terminals and every stop of every route had to be entered by hand. I made pretty good use of my search-and-replace function to change OLP to Old Louisquisset Pike and VH to Victory Highway, but with lists running anywhere from 50 to 150 inches of copy even those shortcuts couldn't cut out that much time from how long they took to input. With our actual PCs we can at least get routes on disk and by email and not have to type them at all, just format them. Still tedious work, though, as is the process of hunting down school transportation officials to find out when the routes will be ready and how we're going to get them (thankfully, not my job).
Plus, one of my coworkers is on vacation for two weeks; this normally wouldn't affect me a whole lot, but it's our lifestyle editor and I do a fair amount of inputting for her pages. I've taken it upon myself (because in my office, who else is going to do it?) to go through her mail, opening anything that looks local to see if it needs to run in the next week or so; then taking anything that does and eventually typing it in so that whoever is tackling the pages will have the stuff they need.
I won't comment too much on my frustrations upon seeing the Sunday paper, but suffice it to say that any item that reads "This is an example of ..." really needs the photo submitted with the release to actually run in the paper to make the point of the item hit home.
I did get to eat yummy pierogis tonight though, and for that I am thankful. And I am also thankful that this year when I make a promise to myself that I will not do bus routes again ever, it might actually be true (thanks for the tip, Mark!).
posted by
Allyson at 3:02 AM
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wMonday, August 12, 2002 |
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Happy Victory Day to you all.
"Victory Day?" you may be asking yourself. "What the heck is that?"
It's the observance of the end of World War II, conveniently turned into the second Monday in August to score a three-day weekend for workers all across Rhode Island -- the only state in the nation to celebrate this holiday.
We call it Victory Day because V-J Day (Victory over Japan, as it was known when it first happened so as not to be confused with V-E Day, or Victory over Europe) doesn't go over well with Japanese people. A few years back the state government tried to change it altogether to get rid of the war element and call it Governor's Bay Day, offering free admission to all state parks and beaches. But we no longer call it that because that doesn't go over well with the large contingent of veterans in Rhode Island (Rhode Island having, I believe, the second-largest number of old people per capita, just behind Florida). So now Governor's Bay Day happens sometime earlier in the summer, but is not a state holiday. I think it's observed on a Saturday so everyone who is too cheap to pay the $10 weekend parking fee at the beach can get in for free.
At any rate, it's sort of like Patriots Day here in Massachusetts -- no one else knows what it is and most people don't care why it's a holiday as long as they get a day off from work. But it's far better than Patriots Day because who really wants a lousy, cold, windy day off in April when they could have a sunny, hot, humid one in August?
So here's to paid holidays (in fact, I'm getting paid right now as I type this), and the veterans who made this one possible. I'll be celebrating later in typical American fashion: eating hamburgers, corn on the cob and Jell-O, and watching "The Love Boat."
posted by
Allyson at 6:22 PM
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wFriday, August 09, 2002 |
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Greetings to those of you linking over from Jon's page. I won't write nearly as regularly as he does, and probably not more entertainingly, but at least I can type better than he can.
I want Andy Rooney's job. Not his 60 Minutes gig, but his syndicated column.
The paper I work for runs the old coot's column pretty much every Friday on the editorial (opinion) page. Now it looks like the next column in the queue is actually an opinion on news events. But the one running today is about ...
Breakfast. Yes, I said breakfast. Andy laments the fact that people just don't seem to eat breakfast like they used to -- you know, back in the good ol' days when people ate three eggs, bacon, sausage and toast slathered with butter. That, he says, is the breakfast of farmers, lumberjacks and ranchers. Well of course people in those jobs are going to eat big breakfasts -- they need the energy to do their hard work all day. Your average computer-using, ass-sitting-in-an-office-chair-all-day desk worker today doesn't need that much fuel.
Don't get me wrong, I love a good big breakfast on occasion -- as Andy points out, people nowadays eat breakfasts like that only on a Saturday or Sunday. But for most people, a muffin or bagel in the morning will provide enough energy to sustain them until their mid-morning coffee break.
I won't bore you with the rest of his "points" in this particular column. What I will draw your attention to, however, is that the previous column my paper ran was about how hard it is for Andy to come up with a name for his new book, complete with a list of classic book titles that just wouldn't work for his book (such as Slaughterhouse Five, Catcher in the Rye and the like) as well as more recent titles that he wouldn't want for his book (such as The Best-Loved Poems of Jacqueline Onassis).
The week before that? How making piles is an effective way to organize things. How using folders is OK, but using elastic bands (which Andy points out also are known as rubber bands) is not really OK for organizing newspaper clips and the like. The page editor titled that column "A great pile of piles." I think we all know that replacing the word "great" with "steaming" and the word "piles" with the word "shit" would have been inappropriate for a family newspaper, but don't think we didn't consider it.
My point here is that I could write better columns than that. Heck, most literate people could write better columns than that. I cannot understand how this gets passed off as anything remotely close to commentary. The editorial page should be reserved for people with actual opinions on something. Columns about breakfast belong on the food page, and columns about piles belong in a landfill.
Of course, since one of the main subscriber groups to our paper is the elderly (of which there are many in the Blackstone Valley), I'm sure there would be even more outrage if we dropped Andy Rooney's column than there was when we changed the crossword puzzle to one that was harder.
And I don't want to field phone calls like that again.
posted by
Allyson at 3:00 PM
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wTuesday, August 06, 2002 |
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Welcome to those of you linking here from Matt Bruce's blog (which would be pretty much all of you). I've only been at this about a week and I don't know HTML, so don't expect any bells and whistles.
Here's what's new with me. On Friday my sister and I went to the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston and saw a new exhibit on contemporary art. Neither of us is a big fan of contemporary stuff, but some of it was pretty cool. A giant blue balloon dog made of stainless steel -- not sure of the exact size but it's huge -- was in the lobby to greet visitors. There were several works that look like a 4-year-old or a bored junior high schooler in class did them, and that to me is not art. I'm really more of an Impressionist girl. Conveniently, so is my sister, so as we finished looking through the special exhibit gift shop and walked into the room with the Impressionist art, we were both happy.
Had dinner out that night and Saturday as well with my husband. Friday was German food at the Jacob Wirth Co. in Boston, then Saturday at Vinny Testa's for Italian food. Yum on both counts, though truth be told what I ate Friday was not specifically German but still tasty.
Other than that, lately Matt (my husband, as opposed to Messrs. Boggie and Bruce) and I have been planning a trip to Greece and Cyprus for the fall. A friend of mine from college is getting married (in her native Cyprus), so we've decided to make a whole big 2-week trip out of it. We're pretty excited about it, as it will be Matt's first time in the Mediterranean and my first time anywhere outside North America.
That's the news from here. As soon as I figure out how, I'll add my email address to the sidebar if anyone wants to write. I bet that most of you reading this already know how to reach me, though.
posted by
Allyson at 5:42 PM
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wThursday, August 01, 2002 |
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Save the Felines, Not the Family
I don't smoke -- never have, don't plan to start. My dad does, though, and has since he was about 14. He's tried to quit but can't seem to stick with it. My sister, mom and I all thought that after he had pneumonia and was in the hospital for two weeks, during which time the doctors "sliced him open like a pig" (to use my dad's own words) to get out the accumulated crap around his lungs, that he would quit for good. Reportedly he smokes less than he used to, but the problem is that he still smokes.
Perhaps if we had a cat he'd quit.
A new study coming out of Tufts University ties second-hand smoke exposure in cats to feline lymphoma, and one of the doctors who worked on the study thinks this might help smokers to quit. "I think there's a lot of people who might not quit smoking for themselves or their family," said Dr. Antony Moore, a veterinarian at Tufts University. "But they might for their cats." A woman in Boston actually said she goes outside her house to smoke because she's heard the smoke affects her cats' breathing.
So people don't care about their own health, or that of their family members and friends, but god forbid their cats should get sick because they smoke in the house!
Don't get me wrong, I'm not some sort of animal hater. I like animals and I don't think they should be exposed to second-hand smoke any more than people should be. But please. Shouldn't people be more important than pets? Shouldn't parents care more about exposing their kids to the smoke? Lord knows how much smoke I was exposed to over the years, between my dad and his parents, who took care of me in lieu of day care when I was a tyke, not to mention other relatives, restaurants, bars, etc.
Anyway, I don't think this study will influence my dad. He hates cats.
posted by
Allyson at 1:37 AM
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