My Life is A Drama Free Zone

• 08:17 Heading out for the interview. Mom's being herself. Enough said. #
• 08:24 And now we play a dangerous game of find the address. And she doesn't follow directions. #
• 10:07 Made it there and through it no problem. Will know if I'm hired within a week. Now going out for breakfast. #
• 10:39 Sufficiently breakfasted, going home. #
• 10:40 @pawpower Gold star for you! Or something. #
• 11:31 Been home for a while. The mother unit had to go on a second cleaning rampage. That has been stopped and she has left. Anybody want a mommy? #
• 17:47 Apparently I needed some serious sleepifying. Damn, I never crash that hard. #
• 03:32 Thinking about bed, and it's still early by my standards. I'm impressed. #

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`So I ended up going in for the interview this morning as threatened, and it actually went remarkably well for an interview I had very little time to prepare for. They didn't play 20 questions with me like a lot of them will do, which is nice. Mostly the HR dood and I went over my resume, he gave some general info about the job like sallary and whatnot, and then I got to play 20 questions with him. Which was awesome in the extreme. Then he brought in the department manager I'd be working for if I'm hired, and there was more specific info gave about the job, like call volumes (they do email, too! Yay!), and generally how they run their break/lunch schedules. Which, I do have to say, I love their approach. That is to say they don't *schedule* breaks/lunches, but rather trust their staff, all of like 30 people in that particular department, to take them when they feel they need to. Which means no going like 5 hours between a craptasticly scheduled first break and my lunch. Which, okay, I liked that at Dell my lunch was rather conveniently scheduled around the same time as a certain person's break, but damn. That's a god aweful long time to wait before stuffing your face when you leave home at 6:30.

It sounds like they make things about 3 times easier than I'm used to, which I love. I mean really, really love. I got to play 20 questions with him, too, which really helped to get a handle on exactly what I'd be doing if they decided to hire me. One thing that did sort of catch my attention though was he basicly asked me why I'd trade one job doing the exact same thing for another. Which kinda makes sense, in most cases. But what he probably doesn't have a clue about is if Dell hadn't decided to close up shop, I'd probably still be working there. Now granted I'd be working there making $36k/year, which is a far cry from the $28k they'd be starting me at with this job, but I'd still be there. And since I'm not really dealing with a whole lot of joe users who have absolutely no clue what the hell the difference is between a keyboard and a base guitar, it *should*, God willing anyway, be a whole lot less stressful in certain areas than my last job. Not that that was overly stressful to begin with; there was, after all, a reason I stuck with it for a year and a half. But, you know, not having to tell someone where the start button on their freakin' machine is 20 times in a row and 20 different ways is probably gonna give me less of a headache. combine that with the fact the 3-hour call, at least so far as I can see, no longer exists and good lord why didn't I apply to this company sooner?

I should know, according to both the HR person and the departmental manager, by late this week or early next whether or not I have a job. And they seem to be pretty flexible for start dates though they haven't given me any solid indications yet either way. I did tell them I had prior commitments though, and from initial impressions they do seem to be willing to work with me on that. Which is always, always, always a good thing to keep in mind. In the meantime though, because I fail at the whole optimism thing, I'll do my usual hope it works and fire out 6 more applications in 6 more directions, all at the same time. On the bright side, I've still got a few months so it's not like I need, need, need a job like yesterday. But hey, if I'm getting offers, then I'm not about to be stupid with them.

The interview itself took all of maybe an hour and 10 minutes, after that mom and I went out for breakfast. I got my coffee fix, mom did her usual cleaning rampage of the apartment when we got back (she did one before we left, too, but I guess she was bored?), and we shot the shit for a few minutes. Then she headed up back to her place, and I crashed serious hardcore. I ended up getting up about 5:30 or so, and have been pretty much catching up on email and processing things since then. At some point I may actually find something with which to stuff my face, though that probably won't be until much later; breakfast's still sitting there like so many tons of bricks. But for the time being, I go ingest additional caffeine, find methods to prevent the sticky, and enjoy my evening. Damn it feels good to be a geeksta.

• 15:14 Awake for an hour, and already am I made of awesome. This is gonna be a decent week. #
• 15:15 @pawpower You are officially the second person to toss out a Black Dagger Brotherhood praise. Don't make me break down and read something. #
• 15:47 @pawpower I don't believe you. #
• 05:31 Ready for the interview several hours early. Although somebody may kill me for not having been to bed yet, but oh well. #

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• 15:14 Awake for an hour, and already am I made of awesome. This is gonna be a decent week. #
• 15:15 @pawpower You are officially the second person to toss out a Black Dagger Brotherhood praise. Don't make me break down and read something. #
• 15:47 @pawpower I don't believe you. #

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So as I might have mentioned on here about half a dozen times, I'm firing off job applications hardcore trying to land myself somewhere productive and with an income. One of those applications got back to me early this afternoon, wanting me to come in for an interview. So after the requisit call to the mother thing (sadly, I still need to borrow her wheels), it was confirmed that I can do so tomorrow. At 9:00. In the morning. Have I lost my bloody mind? Er, wait, never mind. Lost implies it was once had. So tomorrow I haull my ass outa bed at mumble thirty, make myself look relatively presentable, then drag myself off to an interview. Which means I could have a job again by the beginning of August. If they want me to start any sooner than that, well, they're just gonna have to work with me a little bit. That other job I was looking at decided apparently they didn't want to hire me, so that'll be their loss. I'll go for the interview tomorrow, and if I like what they're offering me, I'll go from there. It's a mad awesome skillz bidding war out there, and my mad awesome skillz are for sale.

• 07:06 Internets are working. Not that I care at the moment. More TV shows are downloading. I go pass out now. #
• 07:07 PS: The all night conversation is made of awesome. #
• 14:22 Mmmm, awakeness. Kinda makes that whole sleep thing worth something. #
• 04:24 There's probably something to be said about posting from in bed that you're going to bed, but I'll do it anyway. #

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• 14:52 Finally dragged my ass out of bed. *And* applied for another job. I are productive! #
• 16:23 All caught up on family affairs. Actually wanted to be, for a change; news of a new kid to spoil will do that. #
• 20:51 How slow are my internets? I can post this via text faster. #

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Happy birthday, french_creek! Hopefully your next trip around the sun's equally as good as or better than the last one. And, random fact for your contemplation or ignoring. You now share a birthday with my cousin's baby, who I was just informed was born at 3:00 this morning and came in at 8 lbs, 6 az. So I guess, that makes it a double birthday, even though one of them will probably never see it. So happy birthday also to Haily Victoria!

• 11:59 Am awake. Dad and brother dropped by for a couple minutes. I expected one, but not the other. ... And I still have no phone line. #
• 12:46 Still don't think I should be up yet. Bell guy, show up already. #
• 13:06 Bell dood's here. Still no idea where the problem is. #
• 13:11 Don't have net access. Call me if it's important. #
• 13:23 He can't find the phone line apparently. This could be a while. #
• 13:32 And he's a newbie to boot. I should have just done this myself. #
• 13:49 Phone line's fixed. And I have net access again. Now I go eat something. #
• 15:29 @samari76 Good news, I hope. #

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Mister Bell technician finally showed up. Took him all of half an hour to 40 minutes to do his thing. And 2/3 of that was him trying to find where my phone line connects downstairs. I swear this guy'd been doing his job for maybe a week. And now, the phone line works, and I have net access again (I was without it while he was tinkering). Now I just have to make a certain phone call to a certain someone at a certain time so she's not thinking I'm abandoning/ignoring her. Or something. Or just because we didn't get to talk much yesterday. And now, I go do that.

• 10:51 Giving fixing the cousin's laptop another go round. Thinking it may be faster and easier to tell her to reinstall the damn thing. #
• 11:18 Laptop's pretty done. I can fix the software problems, but she's got motherboard or fan failure issues. That's gonna be $expensive. #
• 13:22 No, "Ken" does not live here. But you can accidentally call my number any time you want. #
• 13:23 PS: Twitter was displaying some funky 500 error before it went down for "maintenance". Probably why my text didn't go through. #
• 13:24 @chellenator Never let it be said that the two of you don't look very domestic together. :) #
• 13:31 @chellenator Obviously someone's not doing something right! #
• 13:49 @samari76 Truer words were never spoken. And all the stupid ends up calling you. #
• 14:51 @valdemaximus You have just killed the doughnut. Killed. It's dead. #
• 15:14 Why is Jango on a Blondie kick this afternoon...? #
• 01:52 Have no landline, call the cell if I'm needed. Bell Canada, die in a fire. #
• 02:03 Fought with Bell's automated system, a tech should be out here sometime tomorrow. Between 8 and 5, they say. Thank God I'm not working. #

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Is this going to be a quarterly affair now? For the third (fourth, maybe?) time this year, I'm landline-less. I didn't even bother with Bell's tech support this time; they'd just make me do the same damn thing I did 6 times before calling in. Instead, I decided to pull my hair out trying to navigate their automated system. Eh, it's still so much easier than speaking to some dood from India. So after jumping through the requisit computerized hoops (you'd think, having worked for a computer company, I'd be used to that), a technician will be out here tomorrow. between... the hours of 8:00 AM and 5:00 PM. Well damn. Good thing I'm unemployed. They sure aren't being all that work schedule friendly. And of all the reasons I can think of where I'd love to just call in sick, waiting for a Bell Canada technician to show up is so not one of them.

I'm not all that crazy about Blondie. In fact, I think I might only like maybe one of her songs and that one's completely by accident. But for some strange reason or another, it's made the play list a couple times already. Did Jango decide to have an 80's music day or something and not tell anyone?

Well, or something. Okay, 4 days late. Sue me. The mother thing and one of my aunts ended up coming up for the afternoon/evening, and mostly because we had no damn clue where the hell else to go for foodstuffs, we ended up at East Side Mario's. As usual, the food there was pretty close to damn good. Even mom, who's usually the first to find something wrong with her meal, couldn't really criticize. The mother decided to get a little snap happy, but didn't have her camera on her. She bought supper, so I was sort of obliged to let her use the one on my phone... that, folks, is why the word "oops" was invented. In an attempt to embarrass the hell out of me (she's my own mother, and she still doesn't know how hard that is), she had the restaurant's waiting staff do their usual little birthday thing. I kinda just stood there wondering what kinda crack they were smoking.

The snap happy that is my mother didn't really stop with me, though. My aunt was sitting to my right, and wasn't exactly safe from the camera either. This girl so doesn't like her picture taken. And, y'know, because she was apparently obliged to take her poor sister's picture, I just have to post it.

Mom gave me a new watch, and a bottle of whine for my birthday. My aunt gave me a bottle of rie. So after we got back from supper, mom and I killed about 3/4 of the first bottle between the two of us (well, okay, mostly it was me). Then we hit up the casino, where I promptly donated 25 bucks when it was all said and done. Mom walked outa there $60 poorer, and I think so too did my aunt. All in all though, I suspect there were some good times to be had. Now, all I have to worry about is whether or not these here pictures will cooperate.

• 13:13 Awake, finally, and too lazy to move to the computer. May call Trish and see what she's up to. #
• 14:01 Actually made it to the computer. Turns out she wasn't home after all. Ah well. Lazy afternoon sounds good anyway. #

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• 12:21 Awake, and inventing foodstuffs for the lunching. #
• 13:39 Ooh, rain for the third day in a row. If it helped the humidity factor I'd say hells yeah. #

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• 14:38 Was semi-awake, now thanks to certain things, am *really* awake. #
• 16:43 Ooh, smells like rain outside. Okay, that confirms it. Road does indeed sound rained on. Awesomeness. #

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Yeah I promised birthday related posts. That's coming eventually. So I wake up to an email waiting for me that basicly says a close friend of mine has escentially been told not to talk to me anymore by her, well, let's just say overenthusiastic husband. Now, her husband didn't particularly care too much for me anyway for other reasons, but the way this came about only succeeded in amusing me more than anything else. Apparently, we can chat over MSN, but god forbid she work up the nerve to add me to Twitter. I probably shouldn't find this whole situation all that funny; quite frankly, if it were anyone else I'd probably be wondering why it's not bothering me more than it is. But really, I kind of expected it. Hmm. I should probably friends lock this entry. But then I've got nothing here that needs hiding, and that just wouldn't be me. So instead, I shall go make lunch/supper/whatever, and be amused at how this little situation came up in the first place.

• 13:43 Awake, and even mobile! Now pretending to fix my cousin's laptop. #
• 15:20 Finally out for lunch/supper, after the requisit cleaning by the mother thing. #
• 15:36 It's the little things that count. Like when a restaurant serves Crown Royal rather than bar rie. #
• 16:08 Mmmmm, pasta. I may be skipping breakfast. #
• 16:56 Ok. Stuffed, sufficiently alcoholized, and can now survive the rest of mom's visit. Now it's home for her turn with the booze. #
• 18:00 I can has no internets. Fail. #
• 18:17 Yay! Internets is back! ... Leaving for casino now. #
• 18:28 @samari76 They didn't plan it untill about 5 minutes ago. #
• 18:34 @samari76 I always do. #
• 18:46 I do believe I'm possialy the most sober person in the car at the moment... #
• 19:53 We're already 1/3 through our gambling dollars. Oh. My. God. #
• 21:20 Only ended up losing 15 bucks. Not bad for a night out. #
• 22:11 Okay, so 15 was a bad number. So I went and donated 10 more. #
• 22:17 We have live entertainment. I wish we didn't. Oh my, this guy can't sing to save his life. #
• 22:22 Ooh, wish granted. If only certain others were so easy. #
• 22:50 I hope this singer's just a guy that sounds like a girl. Otherwise I have to ask. Why are you singing a Ricky Martgn song? #
• 23:08 And now it's go time. Next stop home, then goodbye familial units. #
• 23:46 Am officially home. Will LJ post specifics of tonight later. Including pictures! #

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• 07:47 @chellenator You have yourself a deal. #
• 08:23 Gonna be another short day, methinks. I'll be to the office and back easily by noon or half past it. All that for like 15 minutes. #
• 08:41 Urgh. Cooler out this morning than yesterday, but still sticky. Ooh, and there just went an emergency vehicle. #
• 08:44 Yay, bus! Improved from yesterday for sure. #
• 09:22 Another overly helpful local. At least she knew what "I'm fine" meant. #
• 10:03 Walking to the office has a whole different feel to it now. #
• 10:11 Damn. Is this shoot out of here like a bat out of hell day? #
• 10:28 Less than 10 minutes altogether. And they're paying my way home. Damn. #
• 10:47 Am outside my building now. For the record, I'm not technically supposed to have been there yet. #
• 10:56 2 hours, or a little over that. Includes getting there, turning in crap, and leaving. Not bad, not bad at all. #
• 13:26 @valdemaximus Twitter has this nasty little habbit of just dying at random. #
• 19:09 @samari76 Just kick it. Works with anything and everything technological. #
• 23:40 @chellenator Damn. Where's mine? ;) #
• 00:06 @chellenator I was mostly teasing, but I'm not gonna say no. #

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• 08:45 I forgot why I like taking the 118 earlier in the morning. Oh my busy. #
• 12:04 I have officially taken my last call. Next is free food, and home! #
• 12:14 Staying for lunch is apparently optional. Um, bye. #
• 12:58 Taking the long way home just because. And because it's the only way to ride when it's not rush hour. #
• 13:22 Next person to grab a hold of my cane to show me where something is will accidentally be hit with said cane. #
• 13:45 Finally on the last bus home. #
• 13:48 And home I walk. #
• 14:03 Am home, am appropriately caffinated, am happy. #
• 14:05 @samari76 The answer to that age old question is apparently yes. People suck. #
• 02:32 Chelle: You can has way to get twitter via text. That is, if you want to. #

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Welp, that's it. I went in at 10:30 for my last day of work. I walked outa there at noon. Of course, the actual shift was supposed to start at 8:30, but that's what having 2 free hours of vacation gets you. So I hoofed it there and back and officially spent more time getting to and from than actually working. And now it's all over but the getting paid and signing paperwork that says I officially don't work there anymore and am therefore not allowed to go telling HP all Dell's secrets. Breaks my heart, too. But only in the sense that I'll never know if they actually believe me or not. Got home at about 10 minutes past 2, and have been pretty much being lazy ever since. I was, though, reminded exactly how long it takes getting home when it's not rush hour. And good lord I'm glad I didn't have to do *that* very often.

And as if my usual work week wasn't eventful enough in its own right, on the way home the interesting happened. One very polite, but very irritating gentleman decided, for reasons still unknown to me, that in order to show me where the bus stop is for my soon to be missed ride (I was catching it at a stop I don't usually catch it at; goes back to that whole not being rush hour thing), he'd take the end of my cane I *wasn't* holding on to. So after eventually getting that sorted out and trying very hard to resist the urge to break it over his head (I succeeded, by the way), we actually managed to find my stop. And then it was home sweet home, where I promptly ran screaming (not really) inside and out of the heat, cracked open a coke, and um, am here. Where I don't have to leave again until tomorrow. Shweet.

The next couple days are gonna be easy-ish. Spend 3 hours or so getting to and from the office, spend 15 minutes handing over my badge and headset (why they want my headset, too, is beyond me but they can have it), and then do nothing until saturday. At which point the mother thing's threatening to drop by, so god only knows where that day's gonna go. Hmm, maybe I can borrow her vehicle and smack some Canadian Tire lacky upside the head with the little air conditioner that couldn't. Or maybe I'll just take full advantage of day 1 of the very long weekend. Yeah, that sounds better.

I've been up for like half an hour. I don't leave for another 2 hours or so. How the hell? On the bright side, I don't need to take 5 minutes to throw me together. On the not so bright side, if this was yesterday, as evidenced by the fact I did exact thing yesterday, I'd of ended up oversleeping. My sleep patern eludes me.

I take calls for a grand total of an hour and a half this morning. That's it. As in, that's it, permanently. And then it's James is unemployed and officially on vacation. Except for 15 minutes wherein I'm at the office tomorrow, I do absolutely nothing related in any way, shape or form to my no longer job. And I'm probably not gonna get all that used to that. Ah well. I don't have to get used to it; I just have to enjoy the sleeping in. And I fully intend to. Just as soon as I get through today's organized chaos.

• 07:56 Oversleeping is apparently the new thing to do. #
• 09:05 Been here for about half an hour. Didn't show up late this time. I so wanna go home already though. #
• 13:34 Last full day of work, and if I keep just running diagnostics it's gonna be a short one. Made. of. win. #
• 14:56 @momallrat I'm always up for that. *You* are just never around. And I'll keep stickin to that story, too. ;) #
• 15:13 tinyurl.com/5a8mlq - Dear Montreal management: die in a goddamn fire. #
• 06:20 @momallrat You have rooting options, too. You just have to get creative with your spectating. Like I do on most game nights. #
• 06:22 I don't have to leave here until about 8:30. I'm awake now. Yet, yesterday, I slept way in. Um, what? #

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This wasn't the kind of report I wanted to see coming out of Leaf Nation this afternoon. Couple that with the possibility of Sundin going to Montreal? I think I've been suckerpunched. Twice. Will breathe later. Now, will resist the urge to switch to being a Senators fan. Okay, urge resisted. Breathing now.

• 07:41 Awake. Somewhat. #
• 09:02 Poured myself in a cab, got here half an hour late. But I only have to do that once more. #
• 10:29 I just got told Canada and the US being one country is coming. Um, do folks in the US even read the news/pay attention to politics? #
• 10:29 @samari76 Ah, so that's all it takes. *grins* #
• 13:34 @samari76 Nokia 6682 is win! #
• 13:35 So lemme get this straight. You want to run Windows. Off an external drive. Via USB? ... What? #
• 15:03 Lurnch! Finally! Yay sub! #
• 17:53 Oh. Oh dear god. Trafic is fail. Epic fail. #
• 18:15 Home, incredibly lazy, and incredibly indifferent. Sounds like the perfect TV watching mindset. #
• 04:23 I should so not be having that much fun. It apparently keeps me awake. #

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Useless Spane trivia ftw.

It's official. Somebody's been smiling on us up and over here. I'm on lunch for another 10 minutes or so, and thanks largely to the call that just wouldn't end, I also have a break coming to me about half an hour after I get off said lunch. I ended up ordering a couple subs last night; that whole being too lazy to microwave anything, and all that. One became lunch today, and damn. Even refridgerated it's awesome. I'll say this for local eats. Georgie's Pizza may kinda suck at the whole pizza making thing, someone over there can put together a good sub. They officially rival Subway. Yay for rivaling subway!

... I had a point when I started this entry. It ran away from me. I think it had something or another to do with it being quieter than usual again today, and tomorrow being my last full day here. Yeah, that's gotta be it. Or something.

I just got an education from this guy who's computer I'm suspecting isn't broken but he wants it looked at anyway. Apparently there's a highway being built from Mexico city, up through Texas, and all the way to Canada. And apparently it's all gonna be one country. It's coming, don't ya know. Because, you know, the US requires passports and blacklists on principle anyone they wanna get all chummy chummy with and make up the world's second continental country. What happened to some of these people? Can somebody please just sort of do that thing where they give me a clue?

So I ended up crawling out of bed at about 7:30. No big thing. Threw lunch together and got here in plenty of time to be half an hour late. I will, undoubtedly, make it up at some point this week. I did learn what time I have to be here though for the returning of things that belong not to me and the picking up of a severence package that does belong to me. Fortunately it's not 'til 11:00 on friday. Unfortunately, it means I'm not doing a whole lot of sleeping in if the plan is to bus there and back. Sigh. Well, on the positive-ish side, I can do a little tiny bit of sleeping in. I may be inclined, though, to just cab it there and back. Or something. And then promptly go back to bed. For now, though, I pay me some attention to this here call. Anyone want a computer illiterate person who has no clue how to tell me if he's in Windows or not?

• 06:40 Now waiting for a bus. It's trying desperately to rain at the moment. ooh, yay! Bus! #
• 06:47 I thought it was a bus. I was mistaken. It can diaf. Ooh, but that one is! Yay! Again! #
• 06:56 I forgot, buses went on their summer schedule this week. God, I hope I don't have to teach another driver the route... #
• 07:11 Dead standstill. Craptastic. #
• 07:31 At Terry Fox station. It's definitely raining. Didn't miss my second bus though, which is bloody amazing. #
• 07:41 If there's a long red light anywhere on this bus route, I think I'm destined to hit it. #
• 08:11 In Kanada proper now. Between bus stop and work. This rain can die in a fire. #
• 08:24 Officially at work, and soaked. Good morning. #
• 09:06 Ooh, I can twitter from work! I may not go insane! #
• 10:11 @chellenator This not sleeping until you should be awake thing's catching, y/n? #
• 10:20 @chellenator You'll note at no point did I say it was a bad thing, though. :D #
• 10:37 Why is it those who know nothing about computers are the first to play with task manager? #
• 11:36 ... so I'll just sit here all day, reinstalling windows. #
• 15:31 I has road trippin' informations! Now I just need to convince someone to do the road trippin'. #
• 15:40 We apparently has some serious thunders outside. I left the bedroom window open. Oops. Moving on. #
• 16:30 Why is it people feel the need to call me and not leave a goddamn message? Anyone? Give me a clue? #
• 17:47 Ha. Thunderstorm watch, and I pick now to walk home. That's me for you. #
• 18:00 At the bus stop, and the sun's still out. Already an improvement. #
• 18:14 Bus is officially late. #
• 18:21 Bus is here. Finally. I'm so ordering supper tonight. Too lazy to microwave. #
• 18:46 Well that was boring. Storm watch is over. #
• 18:55 One down, one to go. And it's taking its sweet time. #
• 19:16 Finally getting somewhere. And it's still awesome walking home weather. #
• 19:34 Am now aproaching and entering the apartment. I was right. Awesome walking home weather. #
• 20:04 Kids + baseball + awesomely nice evening = best after work medication ever. #
• 03:04 I fail at staying up late. Bed time. #

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From about mid-October or early November to mid to late March, the neighbourhood where I live is pretty much a dead zone. I mean, understandably; no one in their right mind would willingly risk prolonged exposure to -20 degree temperatures. But it's just such a huge freaking difference between that and, for instance, what I walked past coming home today. I almost wished for maybe 3 seconds I could see well enough to take a picture or two. Which, would require that I first be able to see at all, but that's only a minor technicality. I must have walked past at least 3 different baseball games on the way home. All pretty well on the same street, too. Kinda gave the city a little of the small town feel in a way. Which is kinda nice, considering that's sort of the environment I spent most of my life in (millitary bases were pretty much just small towns with actual purpose for the most part). And that particular street's usually quiet enough if you're lucky, you could walk down it towards my place and maybe count on one hand the cars that pass by you. If it wasn't for the fact I'm fucking starving and didn't really feel much like standing around, I'd of just kinda hung around and listened for a few minutes. Because really, it's the often not noticed crap like that that only confirms moving here when I did for the reasons I did turned out to be a damn good thing. Not that I need the confirmation, but it's always nice just the same.

Very rarely lately are there above 10 people waiting for calls over the lunch hour. There are now 30. Not complaining in the slightest, just... it's kind of odd. It's kinda like even the people calling in are backing off a little for our last week here while we get things ready to close the doors on this department for good technically on thursday, and officially on friday. I don't think I've had a day this quiet in a while. Certainly not a monday. Mind you, next monday's gonna be quieter... yay for the sleeping in 'til noonish. Or something.

On the bright side, I didn't end up oversleeping this morning. On the not so bright side, I was damn near late anyway. On more than one occasion I think the lights were stuck in you don't go anywhere mode. We ended up sitting at a few of them for upwards of 5 minutes or so. Which, okay, once or twice wouldn't be too much hell on my schedule. But it was enough of a problem that if the bus I had to transfer to wasn't also late, I'd of been waiting for the next one. And subsequently significantly on the late side. It decided it was gonna piss out there this morning on top of that, so by the time I got to work I was a little dripping. I think somebody out there's try'na tell me I should have just called in sick today, but, y'know. They're looking for excuses not to pay out severence packages, and I'm 3 days shy of getting mine. I can manage. Or something. Besides, it was easily made up for last night. Very good, and very long conversation will tend to do that. I actually think, for a monday, this isn't gonna turn out all that badly. So long as it doesn't get insane over here in the next couple hours.

Okay, so it wasn't really doing all that much before it uncerimoniously decided to kick the bucket. Oh well. murlynns_view, her husband, and I spent a couple hours when we got back from Pembroke last week setting it up. We had it running for a bit on Tuesday, after we finished getting it in place and discovered that the lid to the internal water tank needed to be positioned just so (and, for the record, exactly not the way the instructions say to position it) for the AC to even turn on. If positioned *properly*, it slides in uber extremely easily. And out the same way. Except the AC behaves like it's not there. So we fought with it for a bit on tuesday, we got it to run supervised (I had to practically babysit it for the evening so it didn't turn my kitchen floor into a small lake) that night by positioning the lid in a way that it had no choice but to actually keep the AC unit turned on. Of course, this meant that supposed beneficial feature of the AC unit being able to turn off automaticly to prevent flooding was pretty much negated. It also meant that the tank was a uberbitch to get in, and out again to empty it (fortunately it wasn't full when I turned it off that night). And of course, putting it in the exact same way afterwards did absolutely nothing to get the thing to come back on. Royal pain in my ass, that is. So we again fought with it for an hour or so yesterday, and between the 3 of us decided the thing was designed to be a piece of crap. So when next I meet up with someone with a set of wheels, the thing's going back to the nearest Canadian Tire, and I'm force feeding the first person to tell me there's nothing wrong with it my extended warranty. So Now I'm back in pre-AC mode. Which means those stupid little restrictor things my oh so caring landlord put in the windows so they don't open more than maybe 5-6 inches are coming out, and those things are open as wide as they go. As for my landlord? He can either put an AC in these apartments or stand in one spot for a couple minutes while I take those restrictor plates and break them over his head. Since he probably won't be too inclined to do that, I look forward to getting a letter saying he'll put AC in these apartments. Though he may not be quite so inclined to do that, either. Cheap bastard.

I just got off the phone with one of those internet usage survey things. They had questions about Bell/Sympatico. My answers were, quite understandably, less than glowing. I'm a very bad person to be taking a survey for statistics purposes, methinks.

And am thussly now on Twitter. Anyone who wants my username, tap me on the shoulder. Or something. Anyone not on Twitter, it'll be cross-posted to LJ. Assuming I actually use the thing. And with me, registered does not always equate to using.

It's sunday. I've been up for a grand total of half an hour. I should be awake. I'm not. I blame weekend mode. I was surprisingly active, though, for weekend mode the last couple days. Friday not a whole hell of a lot went on, except I got confirmation that the next week at work's gonna be hella short. And I do mean hella short. I go in to take calls for monday, tuesday, wednesday, and... an hour and a half on thursday. Yay for extra vacation time I've not used up yet. They pay me for the whole day on thursday, and I'm done with the actual work part of the day at noon. Then I stick around for some "thankd for coming out" lunch or something, and call it a day. I go in for all of like 15 minutes on friday (anyone local wanna drive me, so I'm not spending 3 hours with OC Transpo for the sake of 15 minutes?) to turn in my badge and headset, and then that's it for me and work. Then I start beating on some of the doors I've already knocked on for applications. I've thought about tossing in an application for Algonquin College and their IT department. Mostly because I could probably walk it in like 5-10 minutes. Still considering, and may end up actually doing at some not to distant point. So that's my mind in a nutshell this weekend. I thought I could make it look a bit more interesting, but I got nothin'. So I go wake up.

PS: sheyrena, want a $300 laptop that should be well over $1000? They're selling shit off on thursday.

PS : As per protocol this communication has not gone to
      agents. Team Managers are requested to create agent
      awareness.

Um. Oops.

I think I mentioned yesterday, though maybe it was just to someone on the phone, I got a call from someone at about quarter after 4 last night while I was in a meeting here that might have something to do with the current prospecting situation. The number was similar to one of the ones that have called me in the past for the opportunity I had to turn down because it was just too damn early. I called them back last night once, and just this afternoon twice. I learned 2 things.

• Even during business hours, employment people are apparently not working.


• Even when employment people aren't working, in a day in age where everyone and their dog has voicemail, this one doesn't.

The moral of the story? I want a HR person's hours. They don't get to do a whole hell of a lot of actual work.

This guy I'm talking to just made some crack about how at least I've got some job security what with all these people calling in. Guess he hasn't been reading the news lately.

So since shortly after I finally got home and settled, it started to rain here. And it didn't really let up a whole hell of a lot between then and this morning. So I got to walk to work (yes, I actually got up in time to take the bus; I'm proud of me!) in what amounted to the constant drip. I'd leave at 6:30, bus shows up at 6:42, and between former and latter, I wind up not really needing to have taken a shower. Loverly. But I managed to make it here in one piece and on time, even. And now I sort of drip dry while waiting for somebody to call me with a busted up computer. Or something. On the bright side, at least I'm not running late for a goddamn change.

PS: samari76, you called it again. The closer I got to work, the closer it got to stopping. Just thought you'd be interested to know.

Of course, if ever I have to repeat such a feat of multitasking amazingness again, someone's gonna have to visit the responsible idiot in the ICU. Once again, our beloved documentation database has decided to take a rather fantastic crap. This one for like 2-3 hours. Not bad if I've only taken one call, but in that time I took like 8 or 9. And now, on top of taking my *current* calls, I had to go back in and manually input all that crapola into our oh so wonderful database. Said it before, say it again. I love my job. I love the company I work for. I don't, however, love its relationship with any and all things Microsoft. Or, as a customer referred to them earlier today, Microslush.

I even tried going to bed relatively early last night. And I still ended up waking up at quarter to 8 this morning. Granted I still got here on time, but y'know, it'd be nice to go back to being able to do that and still have more than 30 seconds to get to work. Bright side: I wasn't late. Not so bright side: I probably should have been. Ah well, I'm here, it's um, trying hard to be dead as a fucking doornail, and it's wednesday. Can't complain over here. Two more days to teh weekendz! And, and, and, 9 more days 'til teh vacationz! Okay, this oversleeping nonsense isn't such a problem now. I get to be lazy in 2 weeks. Back to waiting for a call or 2... dammit, why can't I IM from work?

What the House Test Says About You

You consider yourself important, but no more important than anyone else. You love attention, but you don't feel like you deserve more of it than anyone else. You aren't against being community oriented, but it's not really your thing. You tend to prefer to focus on your family and not the neighborhood around you. You are a social, friendly, and giving person. You like to bring people together and make them feel happy. You look good in a low maintenance sort of way. You do the minimum required to be attractive. You find it hard to be enthusiastic about much. You are a picky person.

The House Test

This stupid thing went and broke itself.

So I got in touch with miss HR lady from $employment_prospect. She played 20 questions with me for a bit, then said she'd forward my resume to their customer service departmental recruiters. So we'll know inside of a few weeks then if I go in for an interview or not. In the meantime, I tossed off another application this morning to Momentous, who deals primarily in crap like web/domain hosting/registering/whatever. Not quite what I'm dealing in right now, but y'know. Maybe. Damn, I'm not even done working here yet and I've already bombarded people's mailboxes with applications. How badly do I not want a vacation? Sheesh...

I've actually been here a grand total of twice. Once in highschool/college, on an account I hadn't touched since 2003 until it was earlier this year deleted in favour of this one. I think, though I'll be damned if I can remember, I was introduced to it back then by a couple people I used to regularly RP with. I lost interest in it halfway through college though, and went almost 3 years before picking up another bout of the blogging habbit (the end result of that is here. A little over 2 years later, clefurgey and I were conversating about why I don't bother posting on LJ anymore. I had my reasons, and she was kind of all meh about them, so I contemplated making the switch. I'd started following masterofmusings's LJ about that time, and through him, was introduced to kittytech. And to this day I swear she wonders why the hell that was inflicted on her. After a couple conversations with both of them, during one of which kittytech and I got into a discussion of LJ versus what I was previously using. I decided to poke around a little, see what'd changed in the 4-5 years I'd been ignoring it, and the next thing I knew I had me an account. Well, now I had 2 accounts so the one that hadn't been updated since a weekend I'd spent at my now x-girlfriend's place had to go. And it did. And the drama free zone's been over here ever since. A couple weeks later the ads irritated me so I upgraded to a paid account and haven't looked back. I can see me maybe starting another blog elsewhere at some point, quite probably using the same platform I was using pre-LJ. Just not in the immediate future, and not for a personal one.

Confusing subject line? My work here is done. I fired off a couple emails to the previously mentioned employment prospect (you know the one, they wanted me to start like 20 minutes after the conversation was over if it was humanly possible). Dialogue with that company has been successfully reopened, methinks. I've also fired off an application for Rogers. I know, I bitch about their cable packages to some of you, but I'll work for them. A paycheck's a paycheck's a paycheck. If you think that's ironic, I've contemplated applying at Bell Canada. If half of you knew how much I've jumped on them about multiple service related things of both an interwebs and telephone nature, you'd probably suggest I may want to have my head examined. And you'd probably be right, but eh. Hell, if I had my way there'd be no Microsoft in my house, and yet I get paid to support their products. Well, for, um, 2 more weeks. I guess I'm just one loveable package of employment irony. gotta love me.

So it turns out I now know better than to question the wisdom of samari76. They did, in fact, get around to telling me today instead of Friday whether or not I ended up making the list of those on the extended employment term. However... all it did was confirm what I already figured by 5:00 on Friday. That of course being I now have 13 actual days left before I take that lovely little vacation in the wicked hot sun. Or something. So, I shall accept a simple compromize. I am always right. Except when samari76 is.

PS: It has officially taken me way too damn long to write this entry (I started at half past 10).

We got in at about, oh, dark o'clock or somewhere thereabouts. I never really bothered to check the time. Puttered around with setting up the AC for about half an hour or so, realized it wasn't going to get done last night, so we just kinda left it where we sat it until we get around to picking it back up eventually. I stayed up for a bit, thought about going to bed, and decided at some point to just go there. And promptly overslept. Didn't end up getting up until about quarter to 9 this morning. Oops. A taxi cab later, I get to start my day at about 9:35 this morning. Fun stuff. Hello abreviated daytime schedule! Paying attention to this here phone call, now.

PS: Dear headache: die in a fire.