Category: Work

Vera Johnson and Philip Pullman and coworkers….

I had never heard of Vera Johnson before, but I’m currently listening to her thanks to the magic of the Internet and the CBC and the tipoff of a gent whose non-ad I responded to on craigslist. I think if I ever get fired…. I wanna run away and turn into Vera Johnson. Dr. Filk, in particular, I refer you to this link.

Listen to the end… there’s a Unitarian hymn….

Especially listen to the first bit if you want to hear the Minx from Pinsk. And a lovely song about censorship. And a funny song about the 1968 vagrancy laws in Vancouver.

Patricia, whose new hairstyle rises above, in all beautiful ways, the norms of sophistication of a company where the dress code regulations include the words, “Clothes…. please!” has announced that she will never deign to view the Golden Compass (which I intend to view with my son this evening at Metrotown). I would caution her that books and movies are actually two separate disciplines. Yes, the Pullman novels are masterpieces which will stand for the ages. Yes, it’s impossible to jam the sophistication and beautiful language into a two hour movie. Yes, they’ve drained the movie of any nasty references to the horrors of religion. But any fricking movie that has armoured bears in it I have to see!

Speaking of the dress code at the company which may not be named, it is entertaining in the extreme to think that it took six months for us to get Scary Clown to quit wearing tshirts with holes in them. I think my habit of sneaking up on him preparatory to giving him a neck rub and poking one of my fingers through the hole might have assisted in this regard.

I am very happy to report that I dined with Daughter Katie last night, who showed up with a pineapple in tow. The symbol of hospitality…

Deep Fried Mars Bar followup

This Friday at 3PM at the deleted Cafeteria a team building exercise of colossal proportions will occur.  We will challenge our digestions, our pancreatic capacities, and our ability to keep a straight face when our coworkers are covered in smears of grease and chocolate. 

Mmmm.  Chocolately grease. 

Will you eat yours with dignity, will you wolf it down, will you pause between bites?  Will you allow yourself to be filmed eating the world famed comestible?

Chris, our esteemed chef, has agreed to do it but he has not calculated costs yet.  Fifteen people confirmed their willingness to pony up…. Will you join the contingent?

From this day to the ending of the world, But we in it shall be remember’d; We few, we happy few, we band of brothers; For he to-day that eats his deep fried Mars Bar with me Shall be my brother; be he ne’er so vile, This day shall gentle his condition: And folks in Kitsilano now a-bed Shall think themselves accursed they were not here, And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks That ate with us upon Saint Crispin’s day!

With apologies to Will Shakespeare.  St Crispin’s day is actually October 25th, but who’s counting. 

Allegra

PS there’s only one deep fryer so no side of fries.

Deep Fried Mars Bar email

Into each life, a little saturated fat must fall.  You have been carefully selected as possibly being the kind of wild and crazy (redacted company name) employee who might want to eat a deep fried Mars bar.  Our talented chef Chris has agreed — with some misgivings — to deep fry Mars bars for us, but only if at least ten people sign up.   As this is a rare culinary delight, I urge you to vote Yes, Please!    Please be advised that they are almost impossible to finish, so consider sharing it with somebody.  Please be further advised that in the tradition of Scottish cuisine (almost a contradiction in terms), you order it with a side of fries.  Your best bet is to plan on eating nothing else that day, and possibly not for 24 hours on either side.  I’m going to draw the line at requesting a doctor’s note, though.  Please be further, further advised that costs will be announced when we have enough people signed up.  Please be further, further, further advised that my distribution list may have missed people who have been dying (possibly literally) to eat a deep fried Mars bar, and that no ill-will is intended if you were forwarded this by someone other than Allegra.

Sundry images

yvonnes-quilt.jpg

This is a quilt one of my coworkers, Yvonne, made.  All the women in CS got one.  I am an extremely sentimental person, in a gruff, cheesy kind of way, and it makes me sniff when I think about how wonderful my coworkers are.

the-house-where-i-grew-up.jpg

This is a picture of the house where I grew up in Ottawa.  There is now a coster blue spruce out front that’s four stories tall…

moon-over-kitsilano.jpg

The moon from the second last time I was at Jericho.  I think I posted something similar earlier, but I just love the feel of it.  And I wish the city wasn’t always lit with sodium vapour lights….

my-desk.jpg

My desk, with my Jayne hat (wot nautilus3 knitted for me).

Power shop

patriciaandallegra2007.jpg

Pic is of me and Patricia at the party. Hey nautilus3, recognize that jacket??? (honk, tweet, snicker).
So, between 12 and 2 today, I:

Booked the car and ran downstairs and threw a bag of to-be-recycled clothing in it; drove to Planet Bachelor (having phoned and ascertained that Paul wasn’t there and Keith was) and hung with Keith for about 20 minutes, also unloading two books of Paul’s that ended up over here, taking back Katie’s bag and cleaned clothes and Harry Potter VI and VII AND her volume 2 Strangers in Paradise and a couple of free movie tix for Keith AND Paul’s mickey of Ron Superior which I picked up for him in Santo Domingo; then went over to Highgate to the Liquor Store and picked up Saint Ambroise Apricot (I had no idea it was still available), Stella Artois and Lion Winter; dropped off the clothes at the Value Village on Edmonds and picked up a 20% off coupon; went into the store and picked out 4 dresses and bought 3 (all very frou frou, and one is Allegra brand, so that was a giggle – I had wanted to buy it in Costco 4 years ago and here it was for 6 bucks….), then drove like the hammers for the Bay where I ran up the escalator, located a coffee maker to replace the one I broke (set it on a stove burner and turned the wrong burner dial on, quelle morone), paid for it (and some unscented laundry detergent as an impulse buy at the checkout) and drove home.  I really don’t think all that in two hours is too shabby.

Last night’s party continues to resonate.  They said “eat first” but there were boatloads of food, all really nice substantial appies.  Katie K and I wandered around the Georgia O’Keefe exhibit – the party was at the Vancouver Art Gallery.  She was a remarkable artist, and a remarkable woman, and I think I’m going to look around for a decent bio of her.  I think of all the stuff I saw last night that it was her cityscapes which I found most compelling. I have been trying to think of a word for her style, but I’ll have to use two words instead of one:  recklessly beautiful.

Snide note.  That fecking DJ couldn’t sync a beat worth beans.

The weather today is simply glorious.  I was thinking of continuing cleaning, but I think I’ll go for a walk instead.

Tonight, orchestral music at the Orpheum.  Katie K keeps exposing me to Kultur, and I trot meekly behind, trying like hell to look intelligent or keep up.  Here she is at the party looking glamourous.
glamourgirl.jpg

Great party

Katie K and I had a lovely time at the party, and while we were not technically the last revellers out the door, we did just about close it.  Thanks to the company providing taxi chits (!!??) we got home in decent time, too; I cleared the door at 12:21 this morning.  I danced in high heels and now feel much as expected.
Last night I dreamed that I was a human motorboat, and I could zoom around these amazing crumbling islands full of nesting seabirds at about warp factor five while dolphins and other human motorboats tried to keep up with me.  The worst part was not being able to see where I was going (I could only see where I’d been) but I managed not to hit anything. I suspect this has something to do with my trip to Saona Island.  Happy sigh.

Ain’t it the truth

Nerd party.

Been to parties like that.

Had a very pleasant conversation with a former coworker today.  Man, if there is anything funnier than taking a return authorization for a refurbished product when the person you’re giving the return authorization to DESIGNED the product, it doesn’t exist in the tech world.  AND we’re getting together for beers next week.  I love the guy, but as much as he likes me, it isn’t THAT way.  And I wish it was.  He’s the nicest, funniest, smartest, classiest, techiest, artiest and bestest cookingest guy evar.  Cute too, at least by my standards.  One time, he made country style French apple pie when he had me and Paul over for dinner, and Paul and I were still making “Wasn’t that a pie!?” comments six months later.  And he cooked us Pad Thai once, too.  Mmmmmm.

My kind of crazy.  From Fark.

It’s the strangest thing.  I could not get my new TV to play DVDs back in colour no matter how hard I tried.  It’s amazing what happens when you actually put the connectors in the right jacks.  All is good now.  You know what did it?  I couldn’t STAND the idea of watching House without seeing Hugh Laurie’s blue eyes.  He’s so incredibly yummy….

I now have the complete Asterix and Tin Tin comics.  Long live digital media.  I heart Obelix. I remember when the kids were little, and somebody said something supremely obvious, we’d all yell, “Does TinTin have a COWLICK??? Does Captain Haddock have a DRINKING PROBLEM???” and then we’d fall about laughing.

nautilus3’s radiation treatments have started.  She’s about a quarter of the way through.  Her continuing good humour is a great comfort to me.  Life is still good!

Cats in an exercise wheel.  I love Bengals.

Work work work

I used to have a picture of Kung Fu Mike, figleafed by a laptop but otherwise starkers, which had that title.  I suspect it’s on the old computer back at Planet Bachelor; I must recover it at some point.

I had a very productive day yesterday, having drawn some of my bile during my long conversation with Patricia, and then I had a very pleasant evening with one half of the Minions of Loki, since we ate at the Penny, which is more or less halfway between her place and mine on Hastings.  The Penny is the very model of a Chinese greasy spoon.  I had sufficiency of leftovers for another two meals, yay.

I need help from a Mac geek to figure out why I am having problems with making my RAR or avi files run.  I suspect a compression issue.

Saturday is the company Christmas party…. Katie K and I are going.  She is planning on wearing a dress and getting an updo, which is a lot like saying Eddie Izzard has given up on high heels.  I am trying to figure out how I’m supposed to acquire a second hand tux between now and then; I think it’s more likely I’ll just wear what I wore last year.  It makes me look immensely fat and I have to take the whole thing off to take a whiz, but it’s comfy and dressier than what I normally sport… as Catherine once remarked, “Oh, Allegra, you dress like a grad student” which, considering I was raised by grad students, seems no stretch.  As for the tux, I can picture the William Hamilton cartoon with a woman sporting a tux with no difficulty, which is probably why, besides the expense, I am resisting.  There are apparently going to be Engineers in Tuxes at the Christmas (oh hell, the Company Holiday Cheer) party.  The following Saturday we’ll be going to Katie K’s company holiday buntoss, the biggest difference being there are TWO free drink tokens, and people will be bringing dogs.  I am OBVIOUSLY working for the wrong company.

Daughter Katie’s 19th passed without incident; Dax gave her a handmade plaque with her name on it, so it sounds like he was doing something to improve the shining hour while she was gone.

It’s been quite frosty up here in the mornings; walking to work has been an adventure.

By copy to Chipper, on the subject of Christmas songs, have you ever heard Dominic the Donkey? I think you have to be Italian to be familiar with it; Gianna at work exposed me to it and now I can’t get the little beggar out of my head.  It’s all about how Santa has to deliver prezzies with a donkey because reindeer cannot climb ‘the hills of I-ta-ly!’.  It was a new one on me.

Saturday will be a busy busy day for me, because the Dunnettfolk will be Spitting over at Jan’s that day.  And Spits, as I must explain, are the names those events where Dunnett fans gather and eat and talk and drink and show slides of their trips to Dunnett places (like Iceland and the Orkneys and the west coast of Africa and Cairo and the Crimea and Russia and Bruges).  My father’s eyes glazed over at gather.

Tattoo you

My mother has a tattoo. Don’t worry, she didn’t have a Raging Granny fit and have Fred Astaire in a top hat engraved on her bosom; it’s the merest few dots for the siting of the radiation. My father has now had occasion to ask an uncaring universe why it is that he is now sleeping with a tattooed grandmother. Age spares us no indignity, as a great man once remarked. Continue reading Tattoo you

Zombie dream

As I am being chased (with no partic’lar sense of urgency) up and down a corridor, which is always like a corridor in an apartment I used to live in, being crooked and with doors coming off at odd angles, I’m thinking, “and just the other night I commented to Katie K that I haven’t had a nightmare in years”.  Moments later I’m awake thinking, “My God, those were the SLOWest moving zombies I’ve ever seen!”

Happy Halloween!

I’m wearing a black widow outfit (self-assembled) to the office.  Let’s see if I can survive the boot madness.  I hate those boots, but they are the only vaguely fetish-y ones that I have.

Sundry and various

Squirrel Spider Hybrid.  Very creepy photoshop – don’t look if you don’t dig spiders.

A buddy said, “I used to do scaffolding.  One of my customers paid his stucco workers half in cash and half in cocaine.  They worked like demons, man!”  Welcome to the Vancouver construction industry.

Deadwood has stolen my heart and p*ssed on it.  Keith Carradine interviews David Milch and it’s one of the most interesting and entertaining special features bits I’ve seen since Keira Knightley screamed “Oh, the horr-id filth-ay mon-kay!” in the Pirates of the Caribbean cast commentary.  Repeatedly.  Like, every time the mon-kay showed his ugly mug.

Work quote of the day.  “I know I suck; I just wish I was better at it.”

 

 

Yet more awesome linkypoos

Finn Family Moominaddams
Cheese off your colleagues
Well, they have to live SOMEwhere.
Toenails and Forensics
Bigfoot video is 40…. I still think it’s a guy in a two part suit.  Why no feet?  Doesn’t the ‘rippling’ look like a costume folding?  Why the line right along the midsection?
If animals could blog….
These mushrooms are probably fake, but great for Halloween.
A GREAT language blog, hours of fun here.
Honest to God, I thought the kid would make an exit there and then.

Hm.

The things we’re not allowed to say

Fill the room with poison

The things we’re not allowed to say

Fill the air with fi-ire

The things we’re not allowed to say

Beg your heart for pardon

The things we’re not allowed to say

Tending Satan’s garden

(fades into long, bendy, twirly, bluesayyyy guitar solo)

o and the long conversation on the phone.

Happy sigh.  Tonight I spent 2 hours on the phone with somebody, practiced and sang for an hour, worked on the homily an hour, and, and, prior, a happy couple of hours feasting the 50th birthday of a co-worker.

Prior, last day at work for a week, and pissing and pleasing the engineering department by serenading Peter A.  The hate / love split perfectly along race lines, it was amazing to see. Next time I’ll ask for permission.  But I think the Friday afternoon serenade before a long holiday weekend is a lovely tradition.

Today’s performance – not my best, but I’ll do better next time – was made infinitely sweeter by my being completely done by the time the tour of the Chinese joint venture folks went through.

Other stuff happened that makes me happy, so I’ll just be off in this corner smiling, because my evening was both productive and sociable, and now I’m bound for bed (after I check comments, facebook, brush my teeth and take some vitamins).