For what it's worth, so far the new job is going well. I'm not as busy as I'd like to be but the whole learning process means I'm busier than I have been for the past several months, which is nice.
Before I leave today, I'm informing TPTB that on Monday, I am going to be ready to have something to do for a change.
. . . long interval where nothing happens . . .
Okay, I caught Buehler as he was leaving. Turns out that he won't be back in the office until next Thursday, so I laid down the law about finding something to do and he promised it would be taken care of.
In the meantime, I'm amusing myself by going through the software the new company has designed and compiling a whiney list of "why does it do this" and "why doesn't it do that" and "what does that mean" comments for them. Heh.
I am, quite inexplicably, in a much better mood. Well, maybe it's not inexplicable. I have things to do at work. That seems to be the root cause.
It's a sickness, I know. Don't hate me because I'm a recovering workaholic. Hate me because I'm paid a quite astonishing amount of money to sit here and dink around for 8 or 9 hours a day, although with some luck that's going to be changing.
I'm surprised that no one jumped on the bandwagon to add any suggestions to the "holiday movies" list, although one commenter did say I should watch the BB gun movies, but maybe I what I should be is surprised that anyone's actually reading this nearly moribund blog at all.
Humty-dumty-pumty-pom I'm going shopping tonight. That, too, is making me cheerful.
It's all good today. I dunno why. Maybe I'm just moving into a manic cycle, but it's all good. My only immediate concern is that there's a rumor the new company is doing a major product launch on February 20. If so, my plans to attend Escapade may be in danger.
(Note to the person who mocked my zippy leg pants via private e-mail: I know where you live, kiddo.)
Posted by AnneZook at 04:29 PM
That's Entertainment?
Okay, this one was inspired, if that's the word, by a discussion of what a friend thinks of as the defining Christmas movie.
A Christmas Story -
It's set in the forties, and it concerns a little boy who wants an air rifle for Christmas, his brother who refuses to eat unless he can eat like a pig, their father, a foul-mouthed tyrant who does battle with the furnace and wins a leg lamp through a crossword puzzle contest, and his long-suffering wife.O-kay, then. I assume the little boy gets an air rifle, plays with it in the house, and someone loses an eye? And they all live happily ever after, especially Mom, who scores a lifetime prescription for Valium?
This is not my idea of a Christmas movie, okay?
We were granted the opportunity to see the "new" (made-for-TV in 2002) Muppet Christmas movie a week or so ago. It was . . . mean-spirited to a surprising degree. Very surprising for a Muppet movie. About the time Kermit bit Miss Piggy's head off for speaking to him, I knew we were in trouble. Ten minutes later, we turned it off.
Again, not my idea of perfect holiday entertainment.
(From whence comes this insertion of meanness into the holidays? Must be an offshoot of "compassionate conservatism" or something. Certainly has all the earmarks of "say one thing and do another" that marks most compassionate conservative actions.)
(Well, obviously I was going to blame George Bush who let the terrorists win by sticking to his extremist buddies with their selfish and egotistical agendas instead of doing what the country actually needed in order to recover economically and spiritually, but this post isn't about that.)
What's my idea of a proper Christmas movie?
White Christmas - But of course. A simple, sweet movie with pretty songs and talented enough actors to give me performances I enjoy watching over and over. Crosby, Kaye, and Clooney offered all of this and more. Plus which, I think a few moments where we wallow in sentimentalism go down nicely in a holiday film. Possibly my #1 favorite Christmas movie ever.
A Christmas Carol - The Muppet version, okay? In the first place, I have a major passion for Michael Caine. In the second place, I have a major passion for Dickens. In the third place, this was the first Muppet movie I ever saw. (Well, I saw them filming part of a Muppet television special or something at the Maroon Bells (Aspen, Colorado) one day, but I'd never seen Muppets before at that time and, other than being amused by watching the one shaped like a pig riding a horse, it didn't make much of an impact on me.) Anyhow. I love this movie. Wouldn't be Christmas without it any more. (I watched it last night.)
The Santa Clause - A recent production and probably the first Tim Allen performance I ever saw, I was actually very surprised by how much I enjoyed this one.
It's a Wonderful Life - No surprises here, right? A classic. (Yes, I understand that new Muppet Christmas movie is a take-off on this concept, but the remake lacked the sweetness and charm of the original. As so often happens with remakes. Anyhow, everyone and their pet fish has done a take-off on the concept of this movie, so it was tired before they even started.) Jimmy Stewart's performance is what makes this movie work. If ever there was a case of perfect casting, this was it.
Christmas in Connecticut - The Barbara Stanwyck version, of course. Another "classic" and one I always look forward to seeing. It's funny and sentimental and a good example of the best kind of movie-making from the era.
And let's not forget the world of animation. How the Grinch Stole Christmas and A Charlie Brown Christmas and Rudolph and Frosty all qualify. Babes in Toyland (early 60s) is one I haven't seen in a while, but I remember loving it when I was young.
What's most emphatically not a Christmas movie?
Well, I saw previews for something called, "Bad Santa" the other day. Everything about the concept was guaranteed to make me stay home from the theatre, from the title to the clips of the "bad" Santa.
Ditto for "Elf" which, in spite of a friend telling me it really was a good children's movie, looked both stupid and mean-spirited. I don't have any kids, so I'll be spared the ordeal of sitting through it.
Nothing involving anyone named, "Butthead" or featuring one of those flash-in-the-pan cartoon characters who revolve in and out of popularity so quickly these days.
I like the same things I like in a regular movie, splashed with a little tear-inducing sentimentality. I tend to like holiday movies from the 40s, 50s, and 60s because they were about the best of people, whereas many of today's offerings seem determined to explore the dumbest, or worst sides of people.
Today's movies aren't content with merely illustrating the vices that we all accept we possess. No, they can't just refer to these things, they seem determined to wallow in them. Most of a really good holiday movie should be about making you happy, not just the last three minutes of screen time. Today's holiday movies, like most of today's movies, think they can balance two hours of disaster with a few seconds of redemption. Good storytelling just doesn't work that way.
Posted by AnneZook at 02:03 PM
Zippy-leg Pants!
I'm wearing my zippy-leg pants today. For those of you not in the know, which includes, I'd assume, pretty much everyone, they're my new cargo pants I bought during a fabbo sale at, of all places, J C Penney. Made of pre-washed, silky-soft cotton, they feature "cargo" pockets on each leg. Pockets with zippers.
There's no telling why this makes me so happy, but it does. I have an endless capacity to be amused by little things. I walk around zipping and unzipping my pockets.
Because they are, in fact, quite silky-soft, I also catch myself walking along rubbing my legs, which is probably going to get me talked about if I don't knock it off.
And they're size 10, which is also pleasing.
The diet may have pissed me off while I was on it, but there's no denying that going down two or three sizes in clothing in three months is good for the old ego.
One day soon, although maybe not until after the holidays, I'm going back on the diet to lose that last ten pounds. I'll try to remember to warn you that I'll be in permanent Bad Mood Bear mode before that time.
For those of you not in the know about my personal life, well, things are a bit weird there. The stress of the last few months has come to a head and Alvin has confessed that the money to cover payroll is just not flowing in each month.
Consequently, he and Buehler have hatched a plan whereby I'll move over to work for the parent company, the one Buehler heads, for 6-8 months, while Alvin gets this company off the ground.
I don't know. It's not that I'm not flattered that Buehler wants to hire me, or that Alvin wants to keep me around for the day when he can actually afford my salary, it's just that I have a lifetime record of getting and keeping jobs and for the past three or four years, I haven't managed to stay in one position for more than about a year.
It's not my fault, I don't think. I mean, I don't get fired or anything. The companies just don't last. After a lifetime of working for small and start-up companies, I'm starting to eye the stability of big corporations with a wistful eye. Except that, of course, big companies aren't what they were when I was young.
(Alvin knows that I have nothing, actually, to work on at this moment except sales calls and he keeps giving me squirrelly looks as I'm sitting here typing madly. What kind of insanity does it take to be on the verge of unemployment and to sit here noticeably goofing off anyhow?)
2-1/2 weeks before Christmas is no time to be unemployed, okay? I'm just not cut out for working a seasonal job in retail. I have a zero-tolerance policy for idiots in large numbers.
For instance, I believe that women who try on clothes and then throw them in the floor in the dressing room should be sentenced to 30 days of cleaning public toilets. I think that people who stand in check-out lines and then pick long, drawn-out fights with cashiers over the price of goods should be put on street-cleaning patrol for sixty days. People who block store aisles with their shopping carts and just assume that the world is willing to wait with breathless anticipation while they choose between the 4-pack and the 6-pack of toilet paper rolls should be made to drive around the city collecting abandoned shopping carts and returning them to their stores. (Ditto for people who unload their shopping carts at their cars and then shove them out of the way instead of "corralling" them or returning them to the store.) Women who use their baby strollers as battering rams to shove past other shoppers in malls should have said strollers confiscated and be made to actually carry their children for a month to teach them not to abuse modern conveniences.
Over the weekend, I . . . I can't remember. I did laundry, moved some boxes of 'papers' into storage, dragged three boxes of books out and found space for them on various shelves, cleaned parts of the bathroom, went to the grocery store, and generally did nothing of major interest to the world at large.
It was peaceful, but not very blogable. I'm not done with my Christmas shopping, no, but I'm suffering from a dearth of creativity this year. I can't think what to buy or where to look. I don't buy for many people and with my job situation so uneven, I'll probably cut the list down substantially this year. Since I actually do enjoy shopping for gifts, that's a little depressing, but the small part of me that's Mature and Responsible tells me that I should get a little money saved up. Just in case.
The truth is that while the world around me seems to be determined to indulge in a cornucopia of holiday glee this year (as witnessed by the appearance of Christmas lights and decorations in October), I'm having a bit of trouble getting into the spirit. I want to be full of holiday joy, really I do.
I'm happy that my aunt's cancer is in remission but now we're all dealing with my uncle's recent diagnosis of cancer. They're trying some treatments but the prognosis isn't good.
I just returned (as we all know) from a Familial Visit and I'm worried about my mother. She's getting on and while part of me knows, absolutely knows that what I should be doing is packing up and moving to Missouri to keep an eye on her, the rest of me, the selfish, self-indulgent part, simply can't face the prospect. I have a nice, comfy, nearly responsibility-free lifestyle and I don't want to lose it.
The job situation has been making it Holiday Joy tough, of course.
Let's be honest, here. Even before this last problem, I wasn't thrilled about this job. Healthcare, even just an "associated" field, is just never where I wanted to work. I have zero interest and find most of the details of the kinds of things that can go wrong with the human body pretty icky. I'd prefer a more . . . well, a more cheerful field, okay?
No one is offering, though.
And, as much as anything else, I find myself discontented because I don't have enough work to do. I'm accustomed to working for a living. I'm accustomed to doing as much work as two or even three other people. While there's been some amusement value in spending 2-3 hours a day blogging over the past year, it's no real substitute for job satisfaction. I like to feel that I'm earning my salary.
Maybe the new position will take care of that.
I dunno. I'm just down recently. There's no real reason for it.
I mean, the Mature and Responsible part of me that worries about my mother is, in fact, a very small part of me. I've practically lost my work ethic, so sitting here blogging for half the does doesn't make me feel as guilty as it did for the first six months.
Maybe I've just internalized it all and I'm feeling guiltier than I consciously acknowledge.
Maybe it's SAD, Seasonal Affective Disorder. People get depressed when the days get shorter and there's not as much sunlight. Considering that we had a warm and wonderfully sunny weekend, that doesn't seem likely. (I'm such a hypochondriac. I really need to get a job where I'm not required to research diseases.)
Maybe it's actually the job. I wasn't in a bad mood (I don't think) this weekend, in spite of my roommate's pointed remark about me being on the ragged edge of a tear.
Okay, maybe I was.
Really, I'm sorry I bored you with all of this. I was going to write something cheerful to cheer myself up, but it doesn't seem to have worked.
Posted by AnneZook at 11:01 AM