Tag: Humor

Books, Humor, Movies, Writing

The Merry Month of May (or, Geeks Unite!)

“Any man who can hitch the length and breadth of the galaxy, rough it, slum it, struggle against terrible odds, win through, and still know where his towel is, is clearly a man to be reckoned with.”
– Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

This is clearly the month for geeks, nerds, Avatards, etc.  Earlier in the month we were able to enjoy Star Wars Day, otherwise known as “May the Fourth, be with you.”  Now personally I’m a fan of the first three episodes (by which I mean IV-VI) and not so much the second trilogy (by which I mean I-III).

And this mind-warping chronology brings me nicely to today, which is Towel Day, in honor of Douglas Adams’ trilogy-in-five-volumes – The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.

This is a fan-holiday I can get behind, owning, as I do, the entire “trilogy” as well as (my preferred) Dirk Gently books, and The Salmon of Doubt, a collection of Adams’ speeches, essays, quips, and short stories.  Apart from a wonderful absurdist, he was a fantastically intelligent and clever man who despite his love for technology, was not limited to science fiction.  My personal favorite is the story of Genghis Khan who storms into Europe “so fast he almost forgot to burn down Asia before he left.”  Oh!  And God’s final message to his creation: “We apologize for the inconvenience.”

My parents are also fans.  They own the original radio series on cassette tape (which I may or may not have purloined when I went to university – sorry Mum and Dad!) which I listened to from a young age.  I’ve got them on MP3 now and they still make me laugh.

So yes, I know where my towel is.  Which reminds me.  J. and I need to do laundry rather badly.  So long and thanks for all the fish!

Fabulous, Friends, Humor, Life

Weekend Soundoff

 “A man’s growth is seen in the successive choirs of his friends.”
– Ralph Waldo Emerson

And if ever this becomes necessary, I've got a crack team on speedial.

I have one friend going to study in Korea for the next few months.  His wife is staying here, working, and currently performing in The King and I.  Another friend is officially back from her world travels and has found a lovely house to move into in the city.  Yet another friend is recovering from morphine withdrawals.*  And finally yet another dear friend received and turned down the offer to be a man’s mistress. 

I know SUCH fabulous people! 

* Post surgery, which doesn’t sound nearly as intriguing.

Angst, Friends, History, Humor, Office, University, Work

Making a Cake of Myself

“If you wait a few minutes you can have a piece of cake.  Baked it chock-full of love, actually chock-full of unrelenting, all-consuming rage and hostility.  But still tasty.”
-Grey’s Anatomy

I made light of it but yesterday’s brush off (you know, when I delivered fifty years of an otherwise undocumented perspective on the growth of the university, state, and country through some of the most turbulent social decades of the previous century…nothing big) was a crushing blow.  I’ve been coasting along blissfully at work ever since my rage stroke without caring too much about the administrative snafus that I seem to see everywhere.

But then this happened and my entire academic life flashed before my eyes.  I wondered if all my education even mattered, if I’d ever be able to use it again, what would become of me, blah blah blah.  It was rough.  To make it worse it was compounded with hormones and J. wanting to talk about our future (grad school, loans, working now, internships).  The overwhelming sense of uncertainty blended nicely into the tempest already brewing in my teapot.

Cue minor meltdown.  I started baking immediately.  I hate cooking of all forms so for me it’s the ultimate cathartic experience: I can take out my emotions by beating eggs, shredding carrots, and pummeling dough into submission, and come out with something sugary at the end.  Perfect.  Luckily Venice and I met somewhere in the middle – she needed butter, I needed Midol – and I got a nice heaping dose of perspective, as she’d had a pretty wretched day too.

She’s been suffering at work for years now.  And unlike me, she doesn’t have lots of really great co-workers and supervisors to make the stupidity and drudgery less irksome.  (Don’t go, Venice!  Er…ahem…)  Twenty minutes complaining about work, mutual resolve to learn to cope better, and I was ready to talk grad school with J.

Summary: Friends and muffins make everything, even the occasional crisis of faith, better.
History, Humor, Life, Office, University, Work

Top. Men.

“We have top men working on it right now.”
“Who?”
“Top men.”
– Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark

Pictured: a villain immediately preceeding his revalation of exactly how badly he has been behaving for the last hour and a half.

In almost every movie there is that incredibly silly moment when the villain is confronted with the fruits of his or her destruction and, looking over the rivers of lava/ looming black hole/ annihilation of an entire civilization/ etc., murmurs in despair, “My god, what have I done?!”

I had one of those moments today.  After getting all the archives into chronological order (which you’d think they’d already be in, right?  Hah!), tagging them by date, pulling original photos and making notes on when/where they originally occurred in print, and hauling it one massive armload at a time to the library, I asked for the archivist.  Student employees helped me carry the stacks of papers and binders and asked what I was doing.  I couldn’t very well shout, “Saving history!” in the library, so I quietly whispered the tale of the iniquitous order to dispose of fifty years of information.
“He told you to shred it!” one girl squeaked in horror.
“I know,” I squeaked back.

We were all awash with the enthusiasm of the young until the archivist appeared.  He looked like Eeyore the donkey in human form: droopy, awkward, exhausted, and less than thrilled to see me with my arms full of documents.
“Hi, I’m C. from the police department.  We talked on the phone and–”
“Oh, right,” he sighed, “Follow me.”

The whole cavalcade meandered down some halls and through secured doors…to a lonely room, lined with shelves and piled with papers.
“Here’s a project for you,” he mumbled to what appeared to be a heinously overworked student employee, and ordered us to drop the whole pile on her (already covered) desk.

My project is somewhere alongside the Ark, I'm sure.

Which is when I had my cinema-villain-is-confronted-by-what-she’s-done moment.  I’d committed the most rookie of cardinal sins: I’d just turned over fifty years of history to a bureaucracy!

I’ve gained all sorts of skills and experiences at this job, but law enforcement is not my calling, to say the least.  But history!  Oh, yes.  And this project is the first thing in over a year and a half that’s come close to the things I’ve studied and feel passionate about.   Certainly it’s the only thing that’s got me excited enough to annoy my co-workers with my near constant cries of, “Read this!”  And now, I’ve an awful premonition that my precious bundles are only going to slowly decompose in the bowels of the library.  There is no justice in the world.

History, Humor, Office, University, Work

It Was a Simpler Time

“All the ancient histories, as one of our wits say, are just fables that have been agreed upon.”
-Voltaire

Yesterday Lt. Citrus called me into his office and waved his hand at a pile of binders.  It was the media files archives of our department, newspaper clippings mostly, and it went back to 1960.
“We don’t need these anymore,” he said.  “Can you get rid of them and save the binders?”

?!?!?!?!

I stretched out my hands dumbly and let him plop a stack in my hands and then tottered back to my desk where I opened them up.

The Civil Rights movement, the Vietnam War, the first female officer to graduate from the state’s police academy…the earliest documented complaints about parking (an as yet unresolved problem!) when we had a fraction of the student number we do now…a completely unique perspective on the history of the campus was sitting on my desk and I was supposed to just shred it?!  Clearly they forgot I majored in history!

I begged off my other chores and began putting things in order.  I’ve spent the last day and a half scanning articles and photos that document the history of the department (beginning back when we had an ex-LA cop fish a bunch of wallets out of the campus pond and search for the owners, all the way to the 40+ full time, state-certified officers we have now along with nearly 200 student employees).  And come across some real gems!

Throw this stuff away.  Pfft!  I’m already in contact with the university archivist.

Showing off items abandoned in the Lost and Found. The one on the right kind of looks like Peggy Olson from Mad Men.
Contrary to popular belief, we neither live in Mayberry, nor whistle frequently.
Friends, Fun, Humor, Office, Work

Coming and Going

“Oh dear.  Hennessy and Vodka?  What sort of operation are we running here?”
“Clearly a P.A.R.T.Y.”
– C. and Sav

Vodka
From "The Capital L" - see Read Me for more details. She's cute, nyet?

The ever fabulous Savvy alerted me to the fact that I too have neglected to mention Daae’s replacement!  (Click link to meet our new friend)  Sav christened her Vodka, which is perfectly appropriate.  Although how so many liquor nicknames are sneaking into our lives is a bit beyond me…ahem…

In happier news, it would seem my Lord and Lady Stompington may have moved out!  Building gossip suggests it, and the unnatural quiet we’ve been enjoying seconds the idea, but it has not been positively confirmed yet.  Fingers crossed, all.  Good fortune and goodbye!

Also, Sav and her husband CK may be moving into our building.  Which would be lovely!  When Venice basely abandons me, it would be nice to have someone I know and like in easy cup-of-sugar borrowing distance.

Humor, Office, Work

Zapped

“Electricity is really just organized lightening.”
– George Carlin

Small Dog is positively charged.

We have card swipes on the doors to the secure areas of the department.  Today while sliding my card through the reader, I got a jolt of power through my arm. Much like the time I unscrewed the bulb from a night light when I was seven (old enough to know better) and stuck my finger in the gap to see what it felt like.  Don’t recommend it.

Later in the room where I take peoples’ fingerprints, the light wasn’t turning on.  I flipped it a couple of times with no result until suddenly the lights buzzed into life…while the switch was in the “Off” position.

I’ve also been on the receiving end of two static shocks today.

What on earth is going on?!

Friends, Life, Sad

Not Just a River in Egypt

“No one loves the messenger who brings bad news.”
– Sophocles

If I do not acknowledge the inevitable...

I’ve been in denial about an upcoming Tragic Event.  This year as America celebrates its independence with exploding things and overeating, I’ll be not-celebrating my forced independence…from Venice.  Val is done with his degree and they are moving to Kentucky on July 4th.  This has been a long time coming, but of course I’ve stuck my metaphoric fingers in my ears and ignored the impending catastrophe.

Last weekend they flew out to Kentucky to scope out the area for his potential job, their potential home, and potential lives.  Last night, coming home from work I saw him at their flat door and asked how the trip went.  Really well, apparently, because he’s got the job and plans are now in motion.
“I am honestly thrilled for you guys, but you do realize I’m never going to forgive you for taking her away,” I said despondently.
“If it wasn’t for me you’d never have even met!” he reasoned.

Which is true.  We used to live in the same apartment complex a few years ago and I got to be friends with him and his flatmates.  One day he said, “I think you should meet my girlfriend.  You two would get along really well.”  The rest is well documented history.

The Val giveth and the Val taketh away.

Peregrine is in D.C., Scarlett is in New York, Angel is in the city, Margot (who just got back from New Zealand) is probably going to head north at some point in the near future.  And I’m feeling supremely stuck and left behind.  I’m trying really hard to keep perspective.  J. and I will be moving back East in a couple of years and Venice (and most of others listed) are already on speed-dial…but I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t devastated.

History, Humor, Office, Work

Prometheus. Bound.

“Hear now a sorry tale of mortal man…”
– Aeschylus

The story of Prometheus is well known, but to recap…  He was a titan who apparently sided with the Olympians when they wandered into Greece, looked around, and said, “We’ll take it.”  Even though Zeus declares himself supreme-overlord-of-all-and-if-you-challenge-me-you-will-get-struck-by-bloody-lightning-I-am-not-kidding!, Prometheus demonstrates over and over again that he is far more clever than the majority of the pantheon.  While Zeus is sneaking around behind his wife’s back, preening in a mirror, and trying (unsuccessfully) to keep his growing horde of illegitimate children quiet, Prometheus decides that he feels like creating humans and developing agriculture, writing, and the other civilizing arts.

"That'll learn you, thinking you're smarter than me..." "Wow. You're a huge jerk. Ow ow OW!"

But when he decided to steal fire (usually symbolizing technology in general) for mankind and smuggled it off Mount Olympus, Zeus finally lost it.  Fed up with his tricks, overwhelming cleverness, and making him (Zeus) look bad, he chained Prometheus to a mountain and sent an eagle to eat his liver everyday, which miraculously regrew each night so he could be tortured in the same way daily, ad infinitum.  One of the pesky downsides to being immortal.

The modern retelling of this myth is currently taking place on our front counter.

In an effort to help transition patrons to the new parking system, an unnamed officer bought two tiny laptops that our employees could use to walk individuals through the online process of registering their cars.  Trouble was that for months the system was hovering in a state of semi-productivity limbo, even on a good day the internet connection on the laptops is shoddy at best, and the computers are almost never used.  Not money well spent, in my opinion.

Not aesthetically pleasing, I feel.

However, one of the more obvious problems with this idea has been the method devised for keeping them in place (as it would be embarrassing for computers to get stolen from a police department); to wit, a tangled mass of wires, power strips, and chains wrapped around one another, the computers themselves, and drawer handles.  Looking both ghetto and ridiculous.

Moral of the story: trying to bring enlightenment and ease to the populace will probably make you an object of aggravation, fit only to be tied up and left to rot.