On This Day

I have an iGoogle homepage with one of those "On this day in history..." windows

It has all the normal stuff, like today is:
Michael Jackson's birthday (1958)
the last public concert performed by the Beatles (1966)
Ingrid Bergman's birthday (1915)
the 3rd anniversary of Hurricane Katrina hitting New Orleans
Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr's birthday (1809)
the day that a star in Cygnus went nova? (1975)

But the ones that I truly, truly love are:
Saruman enters the Shire
Skynet becomes self-aware (1997)

Anxiety dreams... again!!

School is approaching way, way too fast. I didn't even get any proper summertime in here, people. I had two weeks between graduation and starting work, and that mostly consisted of unpacking, then repacking, and seeing extended family and then whoosh, off we go! It was definitely good to get some money saved up, though, not gonna lie. Because... my bills right now are outrageous.
One payment for school: $1355.80
One payment for rent: $700ish
1/3 of the pressurized wall: $333.00
1/2 of the couch: $325
a bit of the tv stand: anywhere between $25 and $75-100
not to mention textbook: $80

ahh! Kind of ridiculous. Definitely do not wait to get a job or whatever it is that is going to bring in money... because you will absolutely need it later to even think about supporting yourself for even a little bit. Guh.

Couches, couches everywhere and not a spot to sit.

We STILL do not have a couch -- or anywhere to sit, for that matter. The only chairs in our apartment are Adam's and Jared's computer chairs. I sit on this little ottoman thingie to eat dinner. It's pretty primitive.
After a looong time (read: since before the move) of looking through craigslist and macy's and all these different places for couches, we've finally found one that we've decided to buy. Well, I found it. And called the girl. And arranged the meeting. Whatever.
It's a big red L-shaped couch made of "micro-fiber faux suede" or however she called it. I thought it was going to be gross bc I hate that soft furry feeling, but it was actually pretty nice. The red isn't glaringly bad either. Pretty comfy, blah blah blah. Only funny thing was (well, funny? Eh. More like "umm...") when we walked into her place, this dude was sitting on the couch. With no shirt. Big and sweaty and hairy. That's not really a good sales pitch.
"Annnnnndddddd heeeeere's your new couch!" *presents with gross hairy man rubbing his body all over it* "It's really easy to clean!"
Oh yeah? And how often do you need to clean it? Every five minutes?

I think we're going to have it professionally cleaned once we get it into our place. Makes sense. No one wants to lay down on the couch and get that guy's chest hair stuck in their mouth.

Ew.

Anyway, once the couch comes (this Saturday), there will be 100% more incentive to buy the tv, which we're also excited about. Adam is the designated tv-getter (Jared and I being the designated couch-getters/splitters, even though I did the getting and splitting and Jared only did the splitting... grrr) and he is going to go all out. 52" LCD flatscreen anti action-blur glossy craziness.

Football season is going to rock it.

Hypocrisy, but in a good way

There was that time I was angry that I basically got yelled at (okok not yelled, but none-too-gently chastised) about "doing work" aka being polite and helping other people at work. Now, it's come full circle and I'm reveling in it.

Here are the characters:
Christine played by Herself
M. played by M.
C. played by C.

(.... ok I realize that was completely not helpful, but... who cares.)

Character Descriptions:
Christine: struggling yet tear-jerkingly sweet and independent lab tech
M.: horror staff manager
C.: Christine's boss

Setup: After C. telling Christine to NEVER do ANY work for ANYONE OTHER THAN HIM ("this will not be tolerated!!" i quote.), some packages arrive this morning down at the receptionist's desk. Christine knows that she isn't expecting anything and goes to check it out. The attention line says: "ATTN: M." but M. has written "C." on it. Christine look sat the packing slip on the outside and doesn't recognize any of the contents, herself doing all of the ordering for the lab and knowing exactly what is expected to come. She leaves them down there, because only in a crazed world of anarchy does one lab tech take and open packages destined for another lab. She gets called about it, and says as such. The poor receptionist calls all the other labs, and no one claims it. At lunch, M. arrives in the lunchroom and begins her reign of terror.
M.: "Oh, Christine, your packages are at the desk, take them upstairs."
Christine: "Yeah, about that... they're not ours. I did not order them."
sidenote: this is where the tone of voice deteriorates into one of utter condescension and bullying
M.: "They're yours. I don't care, take them up."
Christine: "They don't have my name, C.'s name, or even our room number or lab name on it. I'm not taking them up until I talk to C. about it."
M.: "You're taking them up to the lab. Do it now."
Christine: "No, I'm not. I'm going to call C."

M. stalks off to inflict pain and agony on another coworker.

Christine calls C. and he sounds real disappointed, because apparently he gave a list of items to M. to look over and specifically said NOT TO ORDER THEM. M. orders them anyway, with who knows whose money. M. does not tell anyone and expects Christine to just read her mind.

However, the important part of this is the point at which Christine stood up to M. Christine is officially NOT staff, and M. is officially in charge of ONLY staff.

Who loves it? Christine.

More oddities

A yellow schoolbus full of adult male Hasidic Jews.

Oddities

I keep seeing weird things around on the street, in the subway, etc.

A few weeks ago, I saw officially the ugliest woman I've ever seen, without counting those with actual facial defects. This woman had the epitome of the witch-nose stereotype. I saw her profile, and the tip of it actually curved down BELOW her top lip. Yes. I didn't even know that was possible.

There was a man with a longbow on the subway on Sunday. It was unstrung and wrapped up in cloth, but there's no mistaking a 6-ft long stick with tapered, slightly curving ends. He thought he was being all sneaky. I know what that is, mister...

A little girl was waiting with her mother(?) on the subway platform yesterday. She had tanned skin, not black or white, but just kind of a dark-ish caucasian color. Her hair was all nappy, definitely with African American texture, and done up in the typical little black girl fashion with sections of it tied up into little buns. But - it was blonde. She was blonde! And it definitely wasn't dyed, because her eyebrows and eyelashes were blonde, too. A naturally blonde black girl! What! Just! Happened!