Happy holidays! I hope everyone out there in the electronic world had a great time over the past few days and that Santa Claus brought you everything your little hearts could desire!*
Me? I cleaned up. A four-day weekend, a new DS game, new books, and other assorted whatsits to play with and/or eat. What's not to love?
I'm not big on official "resolutions" (why wait until the end of the year to make changes if you think they need to be made?) but I've been contemplating the Best Of--or, rather, a Best Discovery Of sort of thing.
The Best Discovery Of 2007 was a show called Clean House. During the First Great 21st Century Sabbatical, it provided much-needed impetus for me to get off my butt and clean out some of the accumulated debris of fifty years of living. (Because I live on the event horizon of a black hole or near the epicenter of a time warp or something, the flotsam and jetsam turned out to be limitless, but it gives me something to do when the weather is bad, right?)
The Best Discovery Of 2008 came last October when I discovered a show called What Not To Wear. Aside from the fun of mocking the show's victims, I found there was much to be learned. Practically nothing that was in my wardrobe in October of 2008 is in my wardrobe today.
The Best Discovery(ies) of 2009 are less life-improving but just as much, or more, fun.
There were three or four versions of Harvest Moon (The Game That Ate 2009) (I received yet another variation for Christmas!), there's a recently discovered show called Glee. and the year-long favorite Corner Gas, a little Canadian sitcom ("Time well-wasted.") that has me enchanted. (I got S6!)
Thanks to a friend of the R.C.'s, we discovered Hungry Girl. We have both tried and enjoyed recipes from the cookbook already (and the R.C. never cooks!) with at least two dozen more marked for trial. Since I have another five--or maybe ten--pounds I want to take off, a "diet" cookbook with recipes this delicious definitely comes in as a Discovery. I mean, cooking! I'm not good at it, but I do love to mess around in the kitchen. What fun to be able to mess around without packing on the pounds!
It's fun to contemplate the new things that have entered my life in the last few months. Probably more fun for me than for you, but that's okay. The internets are currently telling me that my blog site is down anyhow, so you aren't actually having this inflicted on you....
Two hours later - It's back! I'm inflicting!
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* I did intend to log on and wish y'all the best of the season before it was all in the past, but my head got befuddled on Wednesday by a very nasty virus attack on my work computer.
Seriously. What is the point? And what's with the redirects to pr0n sites? (So very Twentieth Century.) Are you seriously telling me there are still people out there who find some kind of satisfaction in that kind of thing?
Anyhow. After that, I got frustrated on Thursday, trying to fix the sound on my home laptop before I got distracted by some freelance work, and so on and so on and so on.
Minor thoughts I'm bored enough to share....
#1 - The R.C. introduced me to a new restaurant last week. Andre's is, from what I'm told, one of those long-time institutions, and one of the R.C.'s favorite-ever dining places. (Her excuse for not having introduced me to in any time in the last twenty years or so was that she thought it had closed.) (Right.) It's a fabulous little prix fixe patisserie tucked away just off of a major thoroughfare. It has atmosphere. I love a non-chain restaurant, don't you?
#2 - Those of us toiling away at the Argonut Café are getting a four-day weekend at New Year's as well. While I love the idea of having such lovely, long weekends, the (teeny-tiny) mature part of me knows that the remaining winter months, with no holidays at all, are going to be long and gray.
#3 - The first season of Glee is due to be released on DVD at the end of this month. The R.C. has it on pre-order, so I'll be able to get caught up before the new season starts (in April, I think). In the meantime, the network is showing two episodes this Wednesday evening and two next Wednesday, so I can get started watching ever before I get started getting caught up.
#4 - I did not practice Frugality around Christmas this year. Considering that I only really exchange gifts with the R.C. (and send small gifts to the L-i-K-S, Rapunzel, and Pippi), there are an astonishing number of packages under our little Christmas tree. While many of them are of the very small "stocking stuffer" variety, another heaping helping are not. So far I have refrained from poking, prodding, or shaking any of the interestingly shaped boxes. I'm very trustworthy that way.
#5- One of the aforementioned parcels, embarrassingly enough, is from NewBoss Anais, someone for whom I not only didn't buy a gift, but didn't send a card.
#6 - Another friend surprised me with a bag of very good coffee. I like knowing someone thought of me and do try to accept gifts in that spirit, but I'm always flustered when gifted from someone with whom I have not previously made gift exchange plans and, yes, I'm aware that this sentence could have been more graceful but I don't care that much.
#7 - The R.C. was insufficiently inventive when it came to providing a wish list for gifts this year. I had to take some chances and I'm a bit concerned about one or two of them.
#8 - Gidget and I don't gift, but I did manage to convince her not to pay me for The Gidget Co work this month. She's short of money at the moment, so that amount really will be useful to her. Anyhow, I finally remembered to bill Bernie for the work I did this fall so I'm flush, and as I told her repeatedly, I haven't had that much time to spend on her accounts the last three weeks and I'd be ashamed to take money at this point.
#9 - When I lunched with Gidget and Vela last week, one of them mentioned the rumor that CEOJason had gotten canned. I can vouch for the fact that he's still showing up here every day, but the rumor (they have a pipeline into the Shadow Board that rules us all) does have me wondering....
#10 - I don't think I mentioned the Argonut Café Holiday get-together, did I? It was the evening of the 11th, at ChaosManager Daenna's home. Each member of the 10-person staff here at the Café was warned that there would be two dozen attendees and asked to bring enough of their dish (it was a pot-luck) to feed twenty. I suspect I'm the only person who thought about it and realized that if ten people each bring food for twenty, you have enough food to feed two hundred people--especially taking into account the American hostess's ever-present fear that there Won't Be Enough* which she inevitably insures against by providing a ham, two pies, home-made cookies, and six kinds of dinner rolls. We ate, they played pool or foosball or air hockey and then, endless hours later, we played a gift game--a variation of the dreidel game--and I wound up with two free movie tickets, big thrill, then everyone was getting tipsy and it was 11:00 p.m., so I went home. The end.
#11 - The last week or so, work has been a peculiar mixture of urgent tasks and "nothing to do." Because of the holidays, people who might ordinarily be searching for our services are now searching for things almost but not quite what we do. It would be a mistake, as I keep telling myself, to interpret any of the stats for the latter half of December as representative. So, basically I'm either doing four things at once, or sneaking over to read H. Rider Haggard novels online. I don't normally (aside from the occasional blog entry) goof off on company time. I'm not sure I really enjoy it, either. I think the days pass much more quickly when I'm working.
#12 - Am I lame if my favorite-ever Christmas movie is A Muppet Christmas Carol?
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* Culturally, Americans seem to have some kind of weird issue around enoughness. Our entire society sometimes seems fixated on getting what's there to be gotten before there's not enough left to go around.
Without getting excessively political, I still want to say that I'm amused that the major oil contracts in Iraq are not being awarded to Chump & Cheney's Corporate Cohorts or, indeed, any US-based oil companies.
Right now, Dick and George are probably sitting there, stewing--thinking that killing a hundred thousand or so Iraqis should have done the trick and wondering what a guy's gotta do these days to get a guaranteed payoff.
So, yesterday's joys included the 'NutNews--which was supposed to go out on Friday but then they're supposed to give me 24 hours for coding and proofreading and I didn't even get the files until 3:00 Friday afternoon. This edition may and/or may not have gone out error-free--I just didn't have time to care.
Yesterday's joys also included an appointment with HairMan originally scheduled for 4:00 but then moved to 11:00 am to accommodate his schedule. Carving 1-1/2 hour out of the middle of my day is stressful for me. While I generally do eat lunch, I couldn't be said to stop working while I chew. (My brain was so out of kilter that I stiffed HairMan on the tip. I left him a message this morning apologizing and promising to make it up to him next time. So embarrassing.)
Since yesterday's joys also included a request from NewBoss Anais to create and activate a campaign to cover the Southernest DIY 'Nut's location (he just closed his doors)--a campaign intended to run for one or two weeks while she waits for 3Dorks to get their highly automated process up and running--well, it was Monday all day long yesterday.
Seriously. How stupid is that? I can barely start getting real traction in a normal 7-14 day period, much less a time when two major holidays are distracting the entire country from getting any work done. I kept wondering if it was really worth eight hours of my time to create a campaign that might generate one phone call in the next two weeks?
And! Then she comes to my desk, at noon today, and tells me that 3Dorks might actually be able to get their act together in a timely fashion (for a change) and that their campaign should be active today or tomorrow. So, yes, the campaign I finally got activated at 10:00 this morning might get shut off at 5:00 this afternoon.
I don't normally mind having a busy day--not even if there are conflicting projects to be done.
What really fried my brain cells and created chaos in what passes for my mind these days was the discovery, as I walked into the office yesterday morning, that I'd donned black shoes, a gray shirt, a black jacket, and a pair of very distinctly blue pants.
Even as late as 5:00 yesterday afternoon I was sitting here thinking that I'd be willing to do the entire day over again if I could get a do over to dress myself properly, remember to tip the guy who worked me into his holiday schedule on a couple of days' notice, etc. Sigh. I suck.
At the moment, I'm ignoring about 30 emails in my (work) in-box. Whatever those people want, they can wait for tomorrow or even next week. I can't deal with it today.
But!
Holidays!
With a four-day weekend coming up, I'm prepared to really relax and enjoy the holidays this year. This is the first time I haven't been unemployed or on a Major Frugality Plan during the holidays in--I'm not sure--maybe four or five years? And a four-day weekend! It was nice of the Argonut Café to give us Christmas Eve off, since they couldn't afford bonuses or even reinstating our original pay levels.
I'm still working my way toward the quasi-completion of two Harvest Moon games, the R.C. got the new Zelda game earlier this month and we're both working on it, I treated myself to a new book last week and I want to get time to read it, etc. I have big plans for the long weekend.
Most of which don't involve spending money--at some point in the next 30-60 days I need to get some major work done on my car, which needs both struts and a new clutch. I'm guessing, two or three thousand for all of it. Wincing. Even reminding myself that I'll probably be able to keep driving this car for another five or six years doesn't really ease the pain.
In the "free, but annoying" category, I have to take the laptop back to the repair shop again. The sound on the CD/DVD player doesn't work any more--it was fine until I took it in for them to fix a busted power switch, but hasn't worked since. (I'm getting my money's worth out of that extended warranty I bought.)
We're supposed to get weather tonight and tomorrow. Not as frigid as the last round--eighteen above instead of below for the low, but an unknown amount of snow. It always worries me when the weather forecasters won't guess at how much snow is coming. Sometimes we wind up with a foot or more.
On a final, happy note, I should point out that after having ignored the PC speakers Gidget left behind when she was laid off--ignored them for the last year--I thought to move them to my desk last Friday.
I have sound! I brought in some CDs. This morning I had the Brandenburg Concertos and this afternoon I'm having Strauss waltzes.
More sensibly, it also means I can finally view some of those training and education videos that Webstrainer shares so freely.
After a leisurely two-hour lunch with Gidget and (former boss) Vela, I went to get back into my car and I got a leg cramp! I had to stand up to make it go away!
Yes, that's what passes for drama in my life these days.
What can I say? I'm done with my holiday shopping, I mailed my cards, I've even finished my wrapping, all but one small gift. I survived the office party (so boring), made the long-overdue appointment to get my gray roots banished, got (mostly) caught up on my free-lance work, and even remembered to invoice Bernie for the last three months' work I've done for him.
I fell in love with a new television show (Glee) and have found online episodes I can watch. I'm working my way toward the "end" (as much as these have an "ending") of both Harvest Moon Island of Happiness and Cute. (Harvest Moon: The Game That Ate 2009!)
I finished fringing four more scarves for my ongoing personal Warm Necks For the Needy program. (I'm getting better at it - there are a couple of these I wouldn't be embarrassed to be seen in myself). I have two more scarves underway--both with self-invented (or at least "discovered") patterns and an idea for another one (pattern, I mean, not scarf) (although I suppose it's much the same thing). I bought a circular needle and am dabbling with the notion of hats--I have a lot of yarn to use up from a 2007 buying spree.
This year, I seem to be receiving the gift of peace for the holidays. My life is largely uneventful. I'm so pleased.
I finally finished month-end reporting for November. I was grouching around, moaning about how bad 'my' numbers look when it occurred to me to lay them out beside the October numbers. And, lo! The November numbers are bad, but they're about 20% less horrible than the October numbers were!
Of course, me being me, I'm not satisfied that I've regained three months' lost ground in the last month. I expected more out of me than that.
Still.
Next up? A real challenge.
Two bits of background:
#1 - If we all cast our minds back two years, we'll all remember that I was originally hired because the Argonuts Afield, whose campaigns were under management by Doodledorks, didn't like the results they were getting.
#2 - For the last year or more, I've been grouching around and moaning about needing landing pages--website pages specifically designed to service search engine advertising traffic.
Caught up? Okay.
TeamChaos has been testing the landing page concept with 3Dorks (the third incarnation of Doodledorks) for the last three months. It's been proven (I think) that a "landing page" does, in fact, produce the major increase in leads that I told them it would produce.
However, in spite of the impressive results, CEOJason remains unconvinced. He's uncertain of whether it's the landing page idea/design, or if 3Dorks is just better at it than I am.*
His idea is to get 3Dorks to set us up with landing pages just like the ones they've been using, and for me to manually manage campaigns toward them. This, in CEOJason's mind, will prove once and for all if the Argonut Café needs to find the dough for landing page design and implementation (not a small or inexpensive undertaking), or if they can just replace me with this same automated system.**
Yes! It means that they're considering going back to what didn't work two years ago--because going backwards will be cheaper than doing what it takes to move ahead.
If you're ever wondering why 'small' businesses in the US tend to fail? Remember that this is not the first place I've worked where the owners put the company in reverse because going forward was too scary.
I've also been grouching around and moaning about the weather for the past three days. All I want, I thought to myself repeatedly, is temps in double digits. Is that too much to ask? I just want to wake up in a place where it's not two below zero. And, lo! When I got up this morning? Negative thirteen! Double digits.
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* As I told NewBoss Anais, to a certain extent, yes, they're better at it than I am. It's software, okay? It's all automated for them--micromanaged 24/7. In-house, it's just me and a keyboard, forty hours a week.) (They provide more results, but I provide better quality results. Agencies toss up a lot of chaff with the wheat because automated systems aren't designed for nuances.
** No, of course they didn't say it that way. But it seems pretty obvious, don't you think?
Sadness #1 - It's the slow season at the Argonut Café. That means we're drinking that ghastly five-pound jug of F*lg*rs so-called coffee that someone bought when they were in a rush one day, instead of the marginally better C0stc0 blend. Because people are stupid, they keep the F*lg*rs in the freezer when it's not in use. (Never, never, never freeze coffee!) (Not that I suppose it makes much difference if it's F*lg*rs.)
Plans to switch to Starbucks (under the theory that with only half the number of employees, the cost wouldn't be prohibitive) stalled on November's low sales revenue.
Sadness #2 - I thought it was bad when it was two Thursday morning, but then it was minus two this morning, so, perspective. It's 33 degrees right now. People around the city are pausing to note our brief return to unfrozen temperatures. The next mercury nosedive comes tonight and temperatures will stay below freezing until the middle of next week.
Sadness #3 - The streets are largely clean and dry, with occasional patches of ridiculously slick ice where you least expect them. This will change on Sunday, as the next storm system moves in and hangs around through Tuesday.
In other news, I took yesterday off to do some free-lance work and finish up my holiday shopping. I got no work done, but about 75% of the shopping taken care of, so that's one for the plus column.
Today is both Friday and payday. Another positive note.
If I make it to the grocery store tomorrow, I'll have not one, but two new recipes to experiment with on Cooking Sunday! The R.C.'s all-time favorite food is chicken pot pie. She found one or two lower-calorie recipes for it that I'm looking forward to messing with.
My all time favorite foods are probably fois gras and truffles. I can't afford truffles and I have moral and ethical qualms about fois gras, so I can't have it.*
I mention these things because the R.C. brought home a catalogue yesterday that offered fois gras, truffles (both black and white), a selection of caviars, and some truly impressive patés.
There was a moment when my fate trembled in the balance--when I was poised between having ethics and having an entire plateful of fois gras, all to myself. (I almost convinced myself than an entire lifetime of boycotting veal was enough morality for one person.) (Almost.) (*sulk*)
I don't even like geese. They're loud and dirty and mean. (Not, you know, that cows are any more likeable, but veal is baby cows. That's just wrong.)
Plans for the weekend include the usual frivolities (laundry, house cleaning, and cooking) along with seasonal pleasures (holiday cards and some gift wrapping).
Well, SSB**, but that's how it is sometimes. Have a good weekend!
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* More accurately, I don't go out of my way to have it. I mean, I don't let myself buy it. I wouldn't order it in a restaurant, in the unlikely event of my going to a restaurant swanky enough to offer it.
Obviously if I were at a friend's home and they served it up, common decency and good manners would compel me to scarf it up, beg for seconds, and still be talking about it a year later.
** Sorry So Boring