bitterdiva

Happy Halloween

This year my coworkers and I dressed up as the 7 deadly sins. We were the only ones to dress up in the office due to a note that said we should wear jeans instead of costumes, but as long as they weren't over the top and controversial.

I said this morning that if one person says that I look good as a blond I'll deck 'em. Unfortunately, my role as lust made me flighty and forgot to give out several sets of black eyes. Perhaps next year.

I feel like I belong in a Sandman book.

3 prayers | 11:51 AM

I'll take asinine web development for $1000 Alex

As of Monday, I am my organization’s web manager and I will definitely have my work cut out for me. I’m excited because I got a good raise some where along the lines where I should be getting paid which makes this job significantly less irritating. And it’s something that I enjoy doing.

Last evening in class, I left early since I began to be annoyed by the high-schooler who feels they are god’s gift to web design. Having received word of my promotion to web manager, I tuned them out knowing full well that in the class, it is I who is god’s gift. The most important rule, you design webpages with an editor or Dreamweaver, or any other inferior piece of software – you do not design webpages using Adobe Photoshop. I did not mean GoLive, I meant Photoshop. This person creates webpages using Photoshop’s little slice tool. I will give them credit, know that the little slice tool could do that is intriguing and they are by far superior in Photoshop skills than me, but I know (or attempt to know) a little something about code, computers, and the intarweb.

Our current project is a how to guide in the format of a zine. There are nine of us in the class compiling a page on a topic. The supposed web guru only has to come up with the front page because of their dislike of Dreamweaver’s complexity – or their feeling of the ass backwardness of the software. The other way this person does webpages is through Angelfire, which I still believe really isn’t web programming. It’s nice to be on the other end of the spectrum sitting there saying, that’s not how you do it and knowing the person’s full of excrement.

Right now, I just want to be in bed sleeping. Two nights in a row of getting up at 3 in the morning and switching over into my room is no way to spend a night. I enjoy sleeping with Kris, it makes me feel safe inside, but waking up to the abdominally wrenching crampage wondering if I should go to the hospital because of the severity really annoys me – annoys me after the 800mg of advil kicks in and the pain becomes a mere memory.

I’m skipping out of class this evening for a number of reasons: primarily Angel, secondary to escape torture, tertiary to prepare cream cookie dough for baking tomorrow night. I love Halloweek!!!! I also need to begin decoration preparation.

5 prayers | 10:23 AM

The pumpkin king

Linearly placed in rows, resembling robust, dwarfish soldiers, the patch of pumpkins greeted me as their orange flesh contrasted against the brittle, green grass. Aflame by the warm, coruscating rays of the October sun, the vibrancy of these stout squash excited the dormant child within me. With a sheepish grin and gleam in my eyes, I bee-lined directly for my favorite fall decoration, determined to find the perfect jack-o-lantern. The acquirement of a pumpkin should only occur at a well-respected orchard or farm and not at an establishment known for their American-made, mass-produced cut-rate wares.

The patch was surrounded by a grove of trees ablaze with incandescent hues of reds, oranges, and yellows. The ground was still soft underneath my feet despite the past week of frost that beset the land. I knelt down beside a contender; my hand ran along the short span of the stem, prickled by the jaggedness of the dried-out lifeline to the vine that curled around in a “Q”. Orchard workers are quite similar to obstetricians, I remarked; the workers know the proper position of severing these beautiful fruit from their umbilical cords in a fashion that replicates a pig’s curly tail. My hand tingled, I turned over my palm to reveal a series of small indents and cuts around the fleshy part, the vine was too rough and I moved on.

Having been left outside, these hearty soldiers were cool to the touch, and despite the ridges, their flesh was smooth with the occasional imperfect bump. Some of these soldiers were not as fortunate as others; there were some with cuts, bruises, and dents. The cuts scabbed over with a thick light-brown crust and rot sank in with the more atrocious indentations. However ghastly their appearance might have been, the un-chosen would not become victims of pumpkincide as their flesh is brutally butchered, carved, and their innards ripped out and thrown in a trashcan.

Peering off in the distance, amidst the orange expanse, I discovered their general, the great pumpkin king. He was flanked by subordinate gourds, inclined in admiration of their majesty. His stem, unlike the others, was still vigorous as it was predominantly green. Enduring the occasional loss of men to the cause of seasonal celebration, the king remained gallantly poised, watchful of his brave soldiers.

In an attempt to disband this army, I crouched down in preparation of displacing the proud king away from his soldiers. The frigid, mucky soil enveloped my hands as I squeezed them underneath his mass, properly positioned for lifting. As I began to separate the king from his earthly throne, my arms spasmed from his immense girth. I relinquished my hold, straightened his positioning, and stood up from the ground. At that moment, the wind gusted across the patch rustling the fallen leaves surrounding me, and it was there, in that brief moment, I heard the chortle of pumpkins rejoicing in their king’s freedom.

My mission was not a complete failure; for although I went home that evening sans pumpkin, I gained a new respect for the brightly-colored gourd. Perhaps it would be the first time that I carved one of the new Styrofoam pumpkins instead of butchering innocent ones purely for my own amusement. I am not certain that the pumpkin king remained safe on his earthly throne that day, but I am certain that I gained the respect of a hundred vibrant soldiers.

No prayers | 07:28 PM

Mood how foulest thy be

For the entirety of Halloweek, I plan, gather, buy, clean and decorate. I spent the entirety of the weekend cleaning the apartment except for the kitchen – Saint Kristian worked on that. I am exhausted – thanks to the extra hour of weekend I got in an extra hour of cleaning. The Halloween party is going to be fantastic and I’m really excited about it, if I can make it through the week that is. I’m PMSing, I’m sick of listening to the phone ring and having to answer it, I can’t get any work done and I’ve been in the foulest mood all day.

I don’t enjoy listening to people bitch about their jobs and I understand that people don’t like to listen/read me bitching about mine. I don’t think I can handle this anymore – I just need a week off to do nothing. I need the workload to come off me and focus it somewhere else. I need a raise. I need psychopharmaceuticals. I need valium.

Tonight I have a quiz in my Eng. Comp II class and I have to finish the final draft of an essay that we had to write last week in class. I had wanted to work on that over the weekend so I didn’t have to sit in an uncomfortable chair in class and attempt to write an essay with the focus on description. I love to write but I’ve become disheartened with my professor because of the barrage of D’s on assignments handed back. Granted there were only two, one was the first quiz on the three stories we read – which I did – but the professor chose minute details out of the stories and crafted a subjective quiz. The other D was a group in class assignment focusing primarily on grammar – the three morons I worked with did not have their books and it took us an hour and half to work on problems. I should have done this by myself – at least if I received a D I would have deserved it.

I need to go home, take a nap, and watch Army of Darkness.

No prayers | 02:46 PM

The Watchtower

This morning as I was getting into my car at the Mobil station by work, an attractive women, proabably around mid-thirties, very politely handed me some pamphlets. It was a Jehovah's Witness giving me a copy of both The Watchtower and Awake!. The quote above comes from TW in which the entirety of the zine was devoted to self-control.

This picture was from a section that was about Joseph resisting temptation. Most religions are misogynist and this one is just another example of how women are presented in an evil, seducing manner. "Today, Witness youths need to heed the Bible-based warnings against improper associations, immoral entertainment, pornography, and debasing music."

Speaking of immoral entertainment, Wednesday night was excellent television night. We started off the evening with Angel, that was a booboojeebies episode that even included a hoopajoob. They hit the standard that I have come to expect out of Angel, throw in some evil villan with dark arts background, place him in a parallel plane of existence and figure out how to get a character there and back in one episode.

After Angel, I watched the season premiere of South Park. ~Crab people, crab people, tastes like crab, talks like people~ They did a Queer Eye parody that turned the entire male population of South Park into metrosexuals. Eventually we find out that the Fab Five are really crab people living in a subterrean complex that is planning to turn the world population into weaklings so they can rule the world. It was highly entertaining and just when I don't think they can go any further into the realms of the absurd, they do.

I also watched Kid Notorious right after SP and if it wasn't for Puss Puss, the pot smoking, pistol whipping kitty the show would be a bomb. Seriously. But that cute little kitty always getting into the cheeba and physically torturing English, the butler, seems a little on the Tom and Jerry side of life. I can only hope this behaviour continues throughout the episodes.

5 prayers | 11:44 AM

In the cusp

Being a sports fan in Connecticut is extremely difficult, especially when it’s often like being a schizophrenic. No matter what sport it is there are always several teams converging onto one point. If you travel a couple of towns to the west you rid yourself of Boston; if you travel over to the east you can kiss NYC sayonara. As a note, all stores carried both cities' teams merchandise, which is why I was confused when I came to NY and would only see Yankees, Giants or Jets teams.

Growing up I didn’t know for whom I should be rooting – Whalers (back in the day), Bruins, Rangers, or Islanders; Red Sox, Yankees, or Mets; Patriots, Jets, or Giants; Celtics or Knicks. The battle lines are easily drawn within a household and depending on that season, relatives could be strangers for a season or two or three or four depending up on the variables and rivalries among the parties.

For a moment, I almost forgot about the Whalers. Most of the population in Connecticut was a fan of the Whale. From what I remember they sucked, but at least Connecticut was unique, we had our own sports team and that alone made us content. Then they went away and now people with jerseys or hats like my ex-boyfriend and that dude at Brewstock will be among the elite but I digress.

The top two sports in the family were of course, baseball and football, both of these sports being played at family events. I have several reasons why I was a bigger fan of the pigskin than baseball – I’m a child of traumatic events and those are the ones that morphed me into who I am today. One memory sticks out about baseball, my uncle’s Memorial Day picnic where all the able-bodied kids and adults would gather upon the field behind the woods to battle it out. During this period, life was simpler and there weren’t the infamous cliques that plague the family today. The infamous incident (the starting point of my intolerance for my uncle) begins with this one memory of him being his typical self and yelling at me for standing on the plate - regardless of the fact that it was my first time trying to play baseball. I don't have many memories of my youth but that's one of them and it's horrible that it's a downer.

2 prayers | 04:30 PM

C'thulhu and Ernie in 2004

Campaign poster for C'thulhu and Ernie's run for presidency is finished. I might have to change around the text a bit for class, the dude might not get it.

It's late and I'm tired and I have the 'This is Halloween' song from The Nightmare before Christmas running through my head. It's rather annoying that the only part I know is the chorus but hey, it could be worse - I could have Sailing Away in there.

5 prayers | 12:19 AM

Teh suck continues

I check my e-mail and there lies a ticketmaster one saying, don't miss Barenaked Ladies. And I say, I just checked their site the other day (either Thurs or Wed) and it said boston, hartford, or nyc was the closest venue. I click on the link and there it is, The Palace Theatre.

So, tickets for one of my favorite bands goes on sale tomorrow and here I am with a 700 bill coming up for car repairs. Tickets are $33 before the ticketmasochism charge. I said to myself if they ever come to Albany I am so going and I so want to go. The other problem that therein lies with them coming to Albany is it's on a Tuesday night in November and I would have to miss class. I hate missing class but it's BNL. So I can spend the $40 it will end up costing me for a single ticket and skip class or be the good bitch that I am and decline on both accounts.

But it's Steve and I love Steve. What I need is to win the lotto that I played so I can fix the car and go see the concert. I saved a spider today, does that win me bonus karma points?

2 prayers | 12:27 PM

Starting your celebration off the wrong way

I had issues attempting to sleep last night and it wasn't the best evenings to start off one's birthday, but a very inauspicious start to the day at midnight doesn't bode well for the rest of the day.

Car issues: well it seems that bringing one's car in on one's birthday is not the wisest of ideas. I thought that perhaps it was a small leak from the valve covers. Turns out a small leak brings forth a sieve of an engine. The intake gasket, the valve cover gasket, some other thing that I can't remember, and the distributor o-ring are all shot. The work and parts are estimated to cost about $700. My mother calls the mechanic to find out if it's worth all the trouble. She gets a report back, once the distibutor o-ring is replaced, the car only has 10K left on it.

Which all sums up to: a. I can't really drive anywhere this weekend, b. I don't have any expendible cash for a while, c. I'm going to need a new car soon. So, it appears as though Kris and I are going to be collaborating on sending a check to some place every month in return of having a new car.

This weekend's mission: a. buy lots of oil to keep engine going, b. don't excessively drive the car, c. look for a new car.

Welcome to Planet Mofo, Happy Birthday!

7 prayers | 11:07 AM

Funny fonts

This font is pretty awesome but the picture is even better:

3 prayers | 07:40 PM

Friday attitude on a Tuesday

This week I’ll be commencing a world series in my office: I’ll be bringing a bat and the losers will be beaten, literally. Then there’s futility, when one says F utility and makes me feel as if I’m in purgatory with the anxiousness of anticipating winning an eternal holiday in hell. I am seriously contemplating a lobotomy for myself so people will know how it feels on the opposite end of unintelligence.

Several odd thoughts today for which I need to hunt down answers or express:
1. In olden days, I’m talking pre-1920’s did hookers only turn tricks 26-27 days out of the month or were men adamant enough to not care?
2. Do Siamese twins each have their own social security number? And if they were capable of functioning on their own, do employers have to accommodate their physical disability, and do they get paid as one person or two?
3. Listerine Pocketpaks™ are made by Pfizer and so are Zoloft, Sudafed, and Viagra – wouldn’t it be great if Pfizer put them out in pocket packs for instantaneous happiness and relief. LSD Pocketpaks could really enhance a Phish show and think of the hilarity that would ensue if your friends mistakenly took a strip in attempt of freshening up their funk.

The end world dreams were on hiatus last evening. I had some weird ones, but thankfully I didn’t wake up from them drenched in my own perspiration sucking wind faster than a jet engine. The three ones I did have over the weekend were: annihilation of Manhattan through explosions and ricin gas; release of genetically engineered virus to the level of e-bola via insects, and the collapse of civilization via enslavement by people’s respective governments.

3 prayers | 04:32 PM

Saturday Night Lifeless

Saturday’s SNL was the season premiere with guest Jack Black and John Mayer. The only funny skit other than the animated feature was the Queer Eye for the Straight Gal. The show stinks and it’s due to lack of brilliant writers, washed up cast members, or members not hitting the mark.

Some of the things that I (or Pat) noticed:
Tina Fey: Still funny and hot as ever with those sexy glasses.
Jimmy Fallon: Looks like he stepped on stage after a 24-hour drinking and drug binge and still is annoying.
Horatio Sanz: Sans Horatio SNL would be much less entertaining and he’s still being given the same character: the less than intelligent character with varying clothing and some disability or ethnicity – but judging by Saturday’s show he can sing or something.
Darrel Hammond: This is his 8th season and I think it’s time for him to move on to making stupid movies like everyone else.
Rachel Dratch: I don’t think her breasts are as prominent this season but her eyes still freak me out.
Maya Rudolph: SNL has a gold mine with Maya; she can play almost every ethnic character they need and in the business that’s a key for keeping one employed. Of course that also means you get to be the token ethnic character but she has more skills than any cast member and gets to show off her extremely toned body.
Jeff Richards: He’s back and that means more Drunk Girl but I continually get him confused with Seth Meyers so who cares.
Seth Meyers: Didn’t notice him or Jeff Richards much this episode. However, with him returning along with Sanz and Fallon that means more DJ Jonathan Feinstein.
Chris Parnell: He is my favorite repertory player (as they’re so called on SNL’s site) and he returned this season as well, though the opener didn’t feature much of him or he was in make-up and I didn’t notice.

As for the newbies joining this year, it's too early to tell, but I think I'm going to keep an eye on one guy, Finesse Mitchell. Sure he's a featured player but during his brief solitary moment on WU he was quite amusing.

This episode was not at all humorous or entertaining or worth watching. In fact, I think I laughed more at all the funny mid-coitus-esque faces John Mayer made whilst singing than the entirety of the skits. The opening sketch was someone, could have been Parnell and I hope not, doing an impression of Arnold giving a “what I’m going to do for California” speech. The accent was off, the hair color was too and the speech itself was funny but without the other elements playing backup it was lost. Let me just go on about this pathetic display of attempting an accent: if a person can’t hold an accent for more than two words, find someone else who can. The guy had it for a brief moment and then would lose it into one that was more Latino than Austrian. Pat and I knew then that we probably wouldn’t make it past the Weekend Update and well we didn’t.

The highlight of the show was Black almost exposing his junk amidst donkey kicks during a white trash soul train skit. Yep, that was the only moment in the skits that was amusing. The commercial for Huggies Thongs was also pretty good, if only all that writing and time could go into live action rather than commercials then the show would be significantly better.

So, next week’s host and musical guest is Justin Timberlake. For his music alone I will watch it, and it can’t be much worse than this episode, at least I’ll enjoy the musical guest. One of my guilty pleasures is Timberlake’s music – it’s surprisingly good without the rest of that boy band crap. I would have taken Timberlake alone without having to deal with all that annoying shit that accompanied him in the earlier years.

1 prayer | 12:10 PM

Pumpkin season

It's been pumpkin season for a while, but October is notorious for Jack o Laterns and now Pumpkin Ale. Mer tells me that Troy Pub will soon be putting up a Pumpkin ale and I need to put money aside for bringing home a growler or two of my nectar of the gods.

Pat gave me a link to Wil Wheaton's site about why he loves October with the exception of the Halloween Haunt and the Autumn in LA (who the fuck cares about LA anyway... crazy bling loving weirdos) I agree with him on all of those.

Up until this year I haven't fully acknowledge the glorious wonder that is Pumpkin - sure there is the carving the pumpkin, the pumpkin seeds, and pumpkin pie but there's more. There's pumpkin butter, pumpkin ice cream, pumpkin ale, pumpkin cheesecake, pumpkin cookies, and pumpkin pancakes. If anyone else can give me recipes or thoughts of what else to do with edible pumpkins e-mail me.

I'm currently spending my friday afternoon at work, queen of both departments. Through various projects, events, calamities, I'm here with the purpose of sitting by the phone peeling stickers off 50 used 3.5" floppies - which explains the amount of time I have thinking about pumpkins.

Adventurous me tried a new lunch, Lean Cuisine's Roasted Vegetable Pizza and I highly recommend it if you want pizza but don't want to feel guilty about it.

2 prayers | 01:58 PM