I had Memorial Day off, so I spent it shopping (with Carol) for jeans that fit (I bought two pairs) and then I went over to Chris and Kerry's for dinner. Chris grilled corn, and though I hadn't managed to make the barbecued tofu I planned on, I lucked out and they had vegetarian corndogs on hand. I made a cucumber/feta/tomato salad with a simple vinaigrette. That and a margarita and some Sunshine Wheat beer made for a great night.
I applied for another Tier 2 job at work, wish me luck. (Update: I'm getting an interview this Friday!)
It looks like I've been to scheduled to work 8-5 this coming round of new schedules. I don't know how that happened, and it sucks. I hope I don't get fired for being late every day. My schedule preferences clearly indicate that this is a mistake. (Update: My manager swapped my schedule with a coworker's, so I'll be 11-8, I think Monday-Friday.)
I reformatted my PC in order to avoid troubleshooting (I do it all day at work, why do it at home when I can just back my shit up and reformat?) so if I should have your phone number and/or address info, send it to me again, please.
One more customer gripe: Please don't hum or whistle on the phone. I've even had other tech support agents do this to me and it's horrible. Make it stop.
I got my new Librarians CD last week. Laura suggested them and they rock.
I'm moving to another apartment. Probably not until October-ish, but we'll see. Anyone know anything about the Cobblestone Apartments on Clayton? There's not much visible from the road.
societal angst
Well, it's more like fussing. It's so hard to work up enough energy for true angst. I'm so tired, and I'm not the only one. It seems like everyone I know is on some form of antidepressant or antianxiety medication of some sort. I know that a lot of it is that there's less social stigma attached to admitting you're depressed or seeking therapy, but I think that also is related to the fact that so many people seem SO unhappy these days.
Why? I think it has something to do with the fact that we were told that we could be anything we wanted when we grew up. And now we're not all famous athletes, or actors, or rockstars, or best-selling authors. Life turned out to be hard work and we weren't expecting that the way that previous generations were. So now we have shit jobs we never wanted, with no real way to get out of them (it takes money to make money, etc.) and we're working longer hours and we're "lucky" to be employed (at least once a week someone reminds me of this, either intentionally or unintentionally). There's this idea that you must have a degree to succeed (I need a degree to troubleshoot computers? I don't think so). Then there are the folks who have degrees and they can't do anything with them, now that they're thousands of dollars in debt. Something needs to change.
I'm tired. You are too. We want something better. How do we get it?
5.5.2002
just a couple quick things
I made a quiz at stumpyourfriends.com and you can take it. It'll only be there for about a month. I apologize for the pop-up ads, but hey, it's free.
Kerry sent me this URL a while ago and I keep meaning to post it just because it's weird: final meals of Texas death row prisoners. It's a little morbid, but strangely fascinating.
5.3.2002
paypal sucks
This is the email I wanted to send to them:
Hi.
I'm just trying to buy a t-shirt. Unfortunately the seller has chosen to use PayPal to handle this transaction. Upon entering my credit card number and email address, I was told "oops, you have an account, please go add another email address." Fine, I went and did so. The email address you had on file has been inactive for over a year because when I first tried to sign up for PayPal, I was unwilling to let you charge my checking account unreasonable amounts of money, and promptly forgot all about you.
Upon entering this new email address, I was then told I'd have to confirm it before proceeding. Okay, I did that. Then I tried to continue the checkout process. Oh, I have to enter my credit card info again, along with the security code from the back. Fine. At least I'm feeling pretty secure now. Then I got to wrestle with the billing address for 5 minutes because apparently my bank formats my address very strangely and your verification system didn't like the way I format it.
After all of this, I'm told that you need to charge my credit card $1.95 for the privilege of using it to spend my own money. Terrific. I suck it up and say "OK." Then you have the nerve to make me wait until I get another bank statement, or at least about 5 days before it shows up on my online statement so I can get a member number! I want this t-shirt, so I'm going to put up with this just once. But I want you to know that I'll be letting the seller know what wankers you are, and I'll be posting about this experience on my website, and informing everyone how I feel about your "service" at the least opportunity.
Love, Jen
Unfortunately, their comments box told me that I could use a maximum of 700 characters. This was just under twice that amount. So I tried to send them a condensed version, and then my session timed out and I had to login again. Amazingly, the condensed version got sent after that, instead of just disappearing into the ether. I wonder how they'll respond.
