Weekend!

As a friend, I suck. Ruth was arranging a get-together in Boulder with another friend for the weekend and I spent all weekend waiting for a call or email saying a date and time had been arranged--only remembering at 11:00 last night that Ruth doesn't have email access over the weekend and that she might not have my phone number. I'm such a moron.

But! I grocery shopped and cooked. I decorated for the holidays.

The R.C. and I went to storage and got out the holiday decorations. I sorted through them, getting rid of a box or two full that we didn't really use or need, and put the rest of them up. So, I get Cleaning Out points as well as Decorating Points!

Making money!

I finished Bernie's project this weekend and emailed him to that effect, giving him an idea of how many hours it took. I haven't heard back, which could be good or bad.

Based on how long he told me it took him to do the fraction of the project he tried doing for himself, I saved him a ton of time, but that doesn't necessarily mean he'll be reasonable about the amount of time it took me, you know.

I may/may not need to drive back to Boulder on Friday to help the programmer out with the client introduction to the new system. Bernie asked me to keep the date free but hasn’t yet decided who should attend.

She is in a huff because She believes She should be the one to meet with clients but I can understand Bernie's hesitation. When duties were assigned, She proved capable of doing nothing more complex than proofreading type.

They've also had to stop using, the last time I checked, at least three software programs that used to be central to the business, because She couldn't learn how to use them. All of which doesn't suggest She's the ideal candidate to train new users, you know? Still, it's wiser to have an actual on-staff employee as your primary contact for clients, not a temporary free-lancer, so from that perspective, She could be right.

Me, I don't have a lot of opinion about it. I'm willing to work with Bernie and this client until I find a real job, and I'm willing to do whatever he needs to have done during that time.

Sale!

Eventful days, no? Consider this LJ announcement of the sale to Russia's SUP and this and this article.

Fandom is already contemplating a move to another provider. They've contemplated such things before without taking any actual mass action (Six-Apart wasn't universally beloved, largely in consequence of their frenzied but short-lived tendency to delete journals permanently and without warning, based on anonymous complaints about content), but it might happen this time.

No one is saying right out (such bigotry would not be PC, would it?) that they don't trust the new owners because they're Russian but there's a certain amount of hysteria around a Russian blogger's comment that the new owners are "about as friendly as the KGB." Some LJ users, in typical over-reaction, are posting that the company is "KGB-friendly" in consequence.

I'll bet that at least half of LJ's users don't even know why the initials "KGB" create such a panic in some people, but they're willing to pile on the bandwagon anyhow.

It's very interesting to read.

Interview!

At 8:25 this morning, my phone rang.

Last week's recruiter call in response to a resume I submitted actually resulted in an interview on Thursday afternoon. I don't know what the company is yet, but I'm keeping an eye on my email for the promised information. The clues I gathered from the ad and from the recruiter suggest it's not anything I can be passionate about, but I'm months past the point where I can be that picky. (Although I still refuse to even answer certain ads.)

Two potential ads today, one for an "author's assistant." It actually involves calling businesses to convince them to let the author come in and do a talk and pitch the book (as near as I can tell from the ad), which isn't all that fascinating, but is well within my capabilities.

The other I'm still brooding over. A standard sort of office manager thing in a one-person office. If I want to apply, I'll have to find a fax machine, which is annoying but probably wise for an employer advertising online. I'd imagine it cuts down on the spam and unqualified applicants by about 70%. But it's real estate development, which is an enormous yawner.

This weeks' schedule also includes a haircut tomorrow, after which, when my stylist can't see me, I'll substitute a box of $15 "color touch-up" product from the drugstore for the $70 color job I would normally have him do. Very sad.

Opinions!

I finished Slings and Arrows and wow what an amazing show. If any of you get the chance to see it, I can recommend it highly.

Although, as the R.C. and I were discussing just yesterday, the experience of watching a show changes considerably depending on where and how you watch it. A movie watched in the theater feels different from the same moved watched at home on your television screen.

And a show watched on your television screen feels very different than a show watched on your laptop/portable DVD player, when you're wearing headphones. Headphones make it a much more personal, more intimate experience. I think that the weirdly quirky little shows that I like and can't understand the cancellation of are probably very much enhanced by my habit of watching them via headphones/small screen. It's a much more immediate, more personal experience. If everyone could experience them the way I do, more people would love them, you know?

That's probably not saying much about various producers' success in developing shows for the television/shared viewing experience, but it makes me feel less like a lover of loser shows and more like an exceptionally discriminating consumer.

Or maybe it's just me and my invariable habit of reading, knitting, eating, and/or playing computer games while "watching television" interferes with actually seeing and hearing the shows I choose to watch? Because, to be honest, and as I've said many times before, it's a very rare thing for me to sit in a chair and look constantly at a television screen, focusing on what is happening and being said. I always multi-task when watching television.

Maybe it's because the headphones force my brain to stay with the show at each moment that I find using them such a superior experience? I can still knit, since that doesn't require me to watch my hands, but there's no denying that headphones do keep most of my attention on the show and not contemplating my next snack or what that noise in the parking lot is or whether or not some potential employer is going to call me or the laundry that needs to be done of any of the other thousand and one things that constantly run through my mind.

I think it's interesting to contemplate these things.