goblinbox
goblinbox
n., slang. Any kind of device (computer, PDA, cell phone, GameBoy, iPod, or television) that relentlessly sucks up all of your time and attention. If you’re reading this, you’re utilizing a goblinbox right now. You might even have a S.O. who wishes you weren’t pasted to the goblinbox who’s hollering, “Turn off that blasted goblinbox and come to bed this very instant!”
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Aug 27, 20083 I hate my employer. Srsly. In which I’m in a Very. Bad. Mood.We were all told to be at work at 8 AM this morning for some kind of special training meeting with MMPI-like aspects. (Like I need to take another fucking MMPI.) Since I normally don’t start work until 11 AM, 8 AM feels like 5 AM to me. It hurts.I clocked in this morning at 7:56. I’m scheduled to work until 8 PM. That’s twelve hours, people.Now management tells us the training doesn’t actually start until 9, and they got us in early just to make sure we were all here before the meeting.I want to KILL SOMETHING! Or go back to bed. Or something.~+~+~Update: It was a profiling seminar, but it wasn’t Myers-Briggs, nor MMPI. It was DiSC. Four hours later, we learn I’m i/D (inspirational/Dominant) and that the following words describe me: D: egocentric, direct, daring, domineering, demanding, forceful, risk-taker…i: enthusiastic, gregarious, persuasive, impulsive, emotional…S: restless, change-oriented, fault-finding, spontaneous, frustrated by status quo, active…C: persistent, independent, rigid, firm, stubborn, arbitrary, and rebellious.S and C stand for Steady and Competent. (The different qualities more or less correspond, according to the descriptive sheets, to pitta, vata, kapha, and a passive/aggressive vata-kapha mixture.)While it was kind of fun to scratch things off with the side of a nickel (the assessment pamphlet was metal-reactive in certain fields), I didn’t particularly learn much about myself or about my co-workers. (Kaje was also i/D. Go figure.) Of course, I’ve been doing this soul-searching trendy New Age shit for a looooong time, so that’s probably part of why I wasn’t all that impressed with my personality assessment. I mean, if you want to know what my learning and work styles are or how to effectively manage me? All you gotta do is ask and I’ll tell you. I know exactly what motivates and alienates me - because I know what I ‘am’ in the jargon of dozens of various cults, disciplines, and approaches - and it would take a helluva seminar to show me some part of myself I ain’t never seen before.I’m pitta-kapha, extroverted, Violet, and only mildly deviate. That knowledge thanks to The Movement, Al-anon, and lots of self-directed reading! Ahem. I may be being vaguely silly.My over-all assessment of the experience was that it was okay, but would have been MUCH MORE FUN at four in the afternoon.~+~+~Update update: Scratch what I said earlier. I did learn something I hadn’t known before, which is that apparently medical science now believes brain cells do regenerate! Aug 24, 20081 I don’t post much ’cause I’m too busy doin’ stuff In which I tell you somethin’ really gross!My brother rolled into town last weekend so Kaje and I have been busy dragging him ’round with us, getting him acclimated and introducing him to everyone. We took him out for drinks on Monday, and again on Wednesday, and again on Friday.My employer had me switch desks again - this is my fourth desk in ten months - and work felt all new and different last week. Now I’m directly across from Kaje so I can throw things at him. We’re thinking of buying Nerf guns so we can shoot each other, or maybe an R/C Dahlek so we can use it to pass notes. Hell, maybe both! We’re at opposite ends of a hallway, in niches that weren’t really designed to be workspaces but into which desks fit. And since Kaje has the highest close rate in his department and I have the highest call numbers in mine, we can probably have the occasional brief Nerf war without getting into too much trouble.Last night we had a super fun night: I fed Kaje his First Sushi Ever (from here, which is an okay but not brilliant sushi bar), and then we all went to a big party out in the country. Dogs, kids, bonfires, roasted corn, and live music! In the country! My brother and I played with RB and two other guys I didn’t know as soon as we arrived at the party around nine. A woman walked up to me between songs and offered to be my stalker. (I agreed, natch.) Kaje used to work at this particular farm, so he dragged me around all the outbuildings and told me stories. We ended up having s’mores and wine with the property owners, and when we got back to the party proper Jayrob was playing with Feedback. I sang a little more. We hung out with all kinds of musicians. Jayrob found a bass player he really grooves with. I kissed on Les S. and Mikey because those boys are adorable. There was lots of stumbling around in the dark and laughing.Ironically, both Feedback and quite possibly my own band suddenly find themselves looking for a drummer the self same week my brother rolls into town. Jayrob might be stuck here in Wallyworld if he doesn’t watch hisself.After the party, we - Kaje, myself, Jayrob - went to Shari’s for breakfast with Becca and D. Here’s the gross part I promised you: after we’d all finished eating and were just sitting around making small talk, I built a ‘sandwich‘ of leftover food. In order: slice of marbled rye, a leftover piece of vegetable omelet, Tabasco sauce, grape jelly, a slice of onion, a slice of tomato, lettuce, yellow mustard, an entire packet of Sweet’n'low, another slice of rye, and a serving of half & half creamer. We stuck a frilled toothpick in the thing, and then I sliced it in half. D, for no apparent reason whatsoever, decided to pick one of the halves up and bite into it. We were all totally freaked out; there was no dare, no money on the table! He just did it all on his own!And he swallowed. Boys are crazy. Srsly.Kaje and I crawled into The Taco around three in the morning, and slept until noon.Today’s Sunday drive involved buying two dozen ears of corn from a farm in Milton-Freewater, and then heading south to a nice little park. I got stung by a bee, which sucked; but I didn’t go into shock, which means I’m still not allergic to them. After the drive I bought a floor lamp at Walmart to put next to my desk at work next week. The fluorescents over my desk may ‘mysteriously’ quit working sometime after everyone else goes home for the night.Tomorrow, three new employees start at my place of work. I expect management to be so preoccupied with them that all hell will break loose, and I will probably be overworked and mildly aggravated. Doubly so for Kaje, since he has to do some of their training because they’re all in his department. It’s been hella busy around there lately, and taking people off the phones to deal with the new recruits probably means I’ll be buried.Good thing I prefer being busy to being bored!Right now I’m eating chocolate peanut butter ice cream.Next weekend my aunt Peggy is coming to visit, and my band will be playing the Pepsi stage at the county fair on Sunday. Oh, and I bought myself a new (well, refurbished) PPC last week, so it should be waiting for me when I get home from work on Tuesday. Yay! Aug 19, 20083 Sci-Fi Whore In which there’s reading.I just finished Jay Lake’s Mainspring, a fun piece of steampunk with a lovely spiritual element. I want the follow-up, Escapement, but it just came out in June and I don’t like reading hard-backed books ’cause they’re too heavy. It doesn’t appear to be available in ebook format, which sucks.Over at Tor, they’ve got free shorts posted! Cory’s The Things that Make Me Weak and Strange Get Engineered Away is a great read, and I’m knee-deep in Down on the Farm by Charles Stross now.Baen’s posted a YA list with links; a lot of the books are in the Free Library which means you can read ‘em right now!I *heart* sci-fi. Aug 15, 20081 Company Party = Bluetooth Pour Moi In which there’s a party! And swimming! And prizes!My employer throws two company parties a year. One’s at Xmas, and the other is a pool party in the summer. At Xmas, we sat at table fully dressed, and waitresses brought us food and drinks - which is how it should be. But last night was different: it was a pool party, which means mostly-naked people I work with. Does anybody really need to see - or be seen by - one’s coworkers in swimming attire? I got off work an hour early (paid!) and Kaje and I went to his house for cocktails (one doesn’t just go to a company party without some social lubricant) and to collect beach towels. Then we drove to Milton-Freewater (talking non-stop, of course) for the party.The party was catered - badly - which means I ate a lot of raw broccoli and Ranch, some cheese and crackers, and a cookie. (Apparently the meatballs and ribs were good, though.) Then we went swimming for awhile. Having the whole pool to ourselves was pretty cool, but only about half the office actually swam. Most of the people in the pool were guests, people’s kids mostly, but K and C and a few others hit the water slide a half dozen times each. Eventually there was a little water relay game - we were split into three teams and had to relay water from cup to cup to fill up a 5-gallon bottle. Afterwards, numbered tickets were disbursed and everyone got to choose a gift from a table full of them.Kaje really wanted the rolly suitcase or the camera, but I hadn’t even really looked at the loot. When my number was called, I grabbed a Bluetooth headset for my phone because I didn’t really want an HD DVD player or a football and didn’t see anything else I could use.K got his suitcase and was much pleased.After the party, we stopped at Kelly’s in our swimsuits for another round and dripped all over their furniture. Then we drove back to W2 and crawled into The Taco, where we crashed out smelling of chlorine and vodka.In other news, I remodeled my dad’s blog this week, and my baby brother is coming to W2 this weekend. Yay! Aug 12, 20084 Tuesdays: they’re so exciting. In which there are a few topics.HomeWoke up this morning all cuddled up with teh BF in his bed, which we affectionately call “The Taco” because it’s 30 years old and has a ditch in the middle. The fan was going, Bindu was spread out on her pile of blankets and pillows in the corner, I was warm and comfortable and I couldn’t figure out if it was a work day or a weekend because the alarm wasn’t going off.It turned out to be a work day, damn it.After awhile, I got motivated enough to get vertical and take the dog out to pee. Kaje made me a cup of tea and we sat on the steps. Then there was eggs and toast, and I got dressed, and we all piled into the Buick to go drop off the dog before work.They were driving an entire house down Alder street! Two storey, no roof, and power crews moving lines! It was pretty cool.After changing clothes and getting my teeth brushed at home, we came to work with literally one minute to spare before our shifts began.WorkMy employer deployed home-made office dividers yesterday, so I’m now back in a corner with a little wall next to me. The dividers are dark gray, and my desk is black… it’s pretty gloomy. Add the wretched overhead florescent lighting and it’s just like a real cubicle farm! I need a lamp in here, something with mellow incandescent lighting. The glare of the overhead’s killing me, now that all the furniture is black, but I do kinda like my little cubie.GreedI’m going to buy myself something electronic and cute for Xmas this year. (Like that’s a surprising announcement, eh?) To that end, I’ve been surfing the Apple store with a vengeance and I’ve updated my ThinkGeek wishlist too.On the want list so far is a new iPod (my 30Gb is full), a new laptop or mini (because mine’s falling apart in its old age and therefore isn’t very portable, plus the sound output is hashed), or a Kindle (because while the eBook is cute, it ain’t wireless).Also being considered are a new digital camera or a new cell phone, but those babies are pretty low on the list because I’d probably never carry a real camera - I use my phone - and phone replacement just happens when it happens and there’s no point in planning for it.TravelI can’t wait to go to Vegas. I can’t wait to go to Vegas. I can’t wait to go to Vegas! For my birthday!In other news, I upgraded to Firefox 3 and my computer didn’t explode. Aug 9, 20081 Saturn’s Day In which I wish I had a hair appointment, but I never got around to making one.I found a new theme! I *heart* it. The CSS, however, is causing me anguish. Why won’t the H3 titles of the unordered list items in the sidebars justify left in Internet Exploder?! And why won’t the Twitter widget render in Exploder at all, when it renders fine in two other browswers? WHY?!My aunt and uncle are here. I *heart* them. It’s so awesome having family up in the house.I have a gig tonight at Sapolil. I thought it was next weekend, but it’s not. It’s tonight. I’m glad, because I need the money. My hair won’t look that cool, though, because I have terrible roots.My BF took me parking last night. We parked near a pump in a wheat field and looked up at the moon and down at the valley and the wind blew and it smelled like the summers I spent in Pendleton as a kid and I really enjoyed simply being here again, in this part of the country, after all those years.Now I have to trot over to Loney’s for a can of diced tomatoes so I can make some veggie chili. Ciao! Aug 6, 20088 Wednesday is Right in the Middle In which I keep you all up-to-date on all that I’m not doing!I want a shiny new theme for this site that is both excellent and gorgeous, but I can’t find it. My graphics software is on my home machine and due to my exciting work and love life I never have time to do art, and I don’t like any theme out of the box and it all sucks and I’m sick of this theme.On the subject of work, it’s freezing in the office and I generally wear a sweater and socks and slippers in order to not to get pneumonia. Outside, it’s August. The contrast is killing me. The work itself is, well, the work: I listen to people describe their problems, try to figure out what the hell they’re talking about, and fix it. Most of them are nice; some are rude; some are astonishingly, heart-breakingly stupid. But some of them love me, and send in emails telling management to give me perqs like - well, read it for yourself. Company cars and trips to Paris! They really, really love me!I kinda like them too, truth be told. The only thing that would make this job better (besides moar munny) would be some chance for growth, but there’s really nowhere to go here. This isn’t an ISP as much as a connectivity reseller, so there’s no engineering department to transfer into or even a proper management echelon to claw through: the place is too small for that. In other words, I’m a first-tier support technician until I get bored and quit.Normally I stave off boredom by carving myself niches (read: creating new departments); here, the best I can do is take on special projects that I only work on in between calls. Not really a career path, exactly, but I’ve been here nine months and I still like it. So, we’ll see. There’s always that flight attendant thing.My love life is rockin’. We’re out of the hostage-taking phase and I sleep at home a few nights a week now, just like a real girl. We adore each other, are both complete card-carrying dorks, and it’s damn groovy. We’re going to Kelly’s tonight to bitch about work and possibly eat some fried foodz! Yay!In other news, I tried to install Linux on the ThinkPad today, and it was an epic fail. Aug 3, 20083 Stella  Stella was hit by a car Saturday and suffered multiple hip fractures. After a day and a half on antibiotics and painkillers in the animal hospital, The Ex had to have her put down last night.Farewell, sweet Stella-bean. Jul 29, 20084 Open Tabs In which I copy her.I’m at work. It’s a quarter after five on a Tuesday and I’m the only technician on the clock. My phone could ring at any minute! and these are the tabs I have open in my browser:eBay > ThinkPad A30 A list of laptop-related items for sale.DUN 678 Work-related troubleshooting stuff.eMusic.com Surfing for music to download.drhorrible.com Because I’m in love with this fuckin’ show.BMI Phonebook For looking up local access numbers for customers.cnn.com Perusing headlines, and wondering what the holy hell is wrong with the world.screenshots.modemhelp.net Screenshots for most common operating systems. I mean, I totally forget the differences between WinME and Win2k when I’m doing tech support.ping.fm For posting Twitters.Recording Liars An article about Todd (who is Godd).Your turn!I received a new battery for my laptop today! I ran it down to 3%, and then plugged it in and now it’s charging. Soon, I will be able to sit more than 5 feet from an outlet AND BE ON THE INTERNET AT THE SAME TIME. Such heady stuff, my babies!I’m eating chocolate because The Curse™ is descending upon me. (Actually, I’m eating a fudge pop-tart. (Yeah, yeah, it’s gross, but I wanted chocolate - damn neuroreceptors, anyway - and that’s all there was.)) [Note: the following link may contain TMI. YHBW.] I recently started charting again, not because I’m concerned with fertility - I’m SO not, I had my uterine lining scoured out, hoorah! - but because I’m tracking my PMS symptoms to see if they’re really that much of a pain in the arse or if I’m just a whiner. I suspect it’s probably a little of both, but one needs must gather empirical data to see if she is, in fact, truly bloated three-quarters of the time or if it just seems that way ’cause she’s pudgy fat and it’s summertime. Snort! Jul 27, 20085 Breezy Sunday. In which I’ve had a mellow, gig-free weekend.Friday was review day at work. Teh BF and I totally own that bitch and we both had great reviews. W00t! (Although I was a talkative dork in my review, and barely let management get a word in edgewise. I’ll have to continue to do really well at my actual job to make up for my lack of social skills. Jeez. You’d think by now I’d've learned to shut up already.) We went out after work and got drunk - on purpose - to celebrate. It was hella fun.Kaje got scheduled to work both of my days off this weekend, so I’ve been home catching up on my life. Data organized, sleep caught up on, relationship with dog and G’ma rediscovered, laundry tackled: not being home for a few months really gets a girl behind on her chores. (I’d probably be home more if G’ma hadn’t made it clear that the boy ain’t sleepin’ over. I mean, she let me get away with it before. Oh, well.)Saturday morning I went to the farmer’s market for a couple of hours. I bought bread, veggies, and some Mexican food I ate while listening to the string quartet that was the day’s entertainment. I bought lemonade. I walked home. It was pretty lovely, even though I was still drunk from the night before.Saturday night KJ came over after work and we ate the rest of the lentil soup.I’m almost caught up with my laundry. I have to say that I might not be all that enthralled with hand-dyed sundresses; I purchased two this summer and washing them kinda sucks. They bleed like stuck pigs, they streak no matter how carefully I wring them out, and they try to stain the sink. Bah.My music library has been reconstructed and lives on my laptop, where it should live! Hurrah! I’m updating album art right now, and tonight I’ll sync my 5g iPod for the first time in over half a year. It’ll be awesome. This whole project has pretty much sucked arse.Today, the weather is stunning. Warm, dry, and breezy, it’s perfect laundry-line weather… Speaking of which, I’d better go deal with my sundresses. Jul 22, 20083 Stuff In which there’s another unrelated list.Friday, I played a tasting room with the boys. Got drunk on wine.Saturday, I did this.Sunday, I napped. A lot.Monday, I worked.Today, I upgraded my WP installation to the latest version, and downloaded some jazz from here.How the hell have YOU been? Jul 18, 20083 Surprize Drugz In which there was an unexpected overnight package.Since I have a gig tonight immediately after work, I had Kaje drive me home on our lunch hour so I could do my hair and face and change clothes. (I straightened my hair, but blew off the clothes-changing and merely packed my makeup into my purse. Lazy girl.) Waiting on the kitchen table when I got home was an overnight envelope, containing: Pills! (Homeopathic muscle relaxants! From him and her!) And a love letter! W00t!I *heart* you guys. Srsly. Thank you. Next,
     
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World heading towards cooler 2008This year appears set to be the coolest globally this century. From BBC NEWS | Science/Nature.dinosaur comics (July 28 2008)"I've had FIVE girlfriends, Utahraptor!"Bulwer-Lytton Fiction ContestBehold! The 2008 results! (This shit is funneh, srsly. Best worst sentences evar.)Knights Templar heirs in legal battle with the PopeWow. Just... wow. Srsly.The Things that Make Me Weak and Strange Get Engineered AwayA lovely (free!) short by Cory Doctorow from Tor.Kinship ChartDemystifying "twiced removed" from geneology.Arena - September 30, 2008The first new Todd Rundgren album in four years, Arena, is scheduled to be released September 30th. WANT.  J-List Webwide Wishlist iTunes for WindowsPanic SurvivorRants 9RavelryTRx BOINC StatsClaimIDFrapprlast.fmLibraryThingSETITCOYFWincustomize Free RiceONE AmmaAmritapuriDaily OMDiscordianismHindu Universe Ben FoldsChef IrvineCorey DoctorowGame Over or Continue…Joss WhedonLasse GjertsenMagnetMickey AvalonMikaPie ‘oh’ PahRandall MunroeTyler FlorenceWilliam Barton Cute OverloadDinosaur ComicsI Can Has Cheezburger?Overheard in New YorkUserfriendlyxkcd Holed up in Rawlins
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