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I feel like the cosmic balance is finally shifting in my favour Yesterday I got fired from the job I never wanted in the first place; today I got hired for the job I wanted all along.
I got a form in the mail today from Crazy Marketing Company, essentially informing me that I'm fired. The exact words in the box on the form say: M: ne repond pas aux exigences du poste (horaire). Which, roughly translated, means M: is not complying with the requirements of the position (schedule). I don't know what the M stands for. I think it is some kind of code for reason of firing. Damn right I haven't been complying with my schedule. The last time I went in to work was over a month ago. I never formally resigned, but I did call them up and say that something had come up and I wouldn't be able to work. The thing that had come up was that I hated my job and wanted to quit. But I had never quit anything before and wasn't sure how to proceed. If I had written a letter of resignation it would have gone something like this:
I hereby resign my position, effective immediately. I can no longer work for a company whose practices I find to be in certain cases dubiously ethical, and, in general, just plain retarded. This company is a blight upon the world, and your continued existence diminishes the quality of life of all who come into contact with you. Working for you has destroyed my soul and my feeling of self-worth, and I must leave before you also take my will to live. In conclusion, fuck you. Goodbye forever, L. Unexpectedly, along with the firing form, I also received a cheque for free money in the form of vacation pay. Woo! Hoo! Being fired totally rocks! I was a little depressed today, but this has cheered me right up.
Standard Time sucks. I miss my Daylight.
This man selling his ex-wife's beanie baby collection at auction is hilarious. I like how he keeps repeating that he will spend the money he makes on "tools and other cool stuff [...] and BEER!" I also love the "Final Notice and Disclaimer: I know nothing about these stuffed Beanie Babies. I offer no proof of anything. It is a stuffed animal, get over it! I don't think my ex-wife was in the Black Market Beanie Trade..but then again, I didn't know she was having an affair either!" [via lyd]
Shut up, I am totally qualificated. During a conversation about my job as an evaluator of the language ability of speakers of ESL: Phil: Are you excited? Me: What, about doing the job? Phil: Yeah. Me: Meh. I'm really excited about the recordering device, though.
Overheard on Prince-Arthur corner Jeanne-Mance: Girl #1: Well, when you travel, you'll like cheese. Girl #2: No, I still won't.
zaphod
For no apparent reason at all, while I was brushing my teeth today I suddenly had a flash of that underground lake in Switzerland. I had totally forgotten I had ever been there. In fact, it took me a minute to place the visual. Of course my immediate next step was to come and look it up on the internet. Seeing the pictures brought it back so vividly. How many years has it been since I've thought about that time and place? Isn't it strange how it all just popped into my head out of nowhere? I feel like my subconscious might be trying to tell me something, but I can't figure out what.
I just heard my father being interviewed on the radio. I wasn't expecting it, so it was kind of trippy.
FISHIE the Gecko's LiveJournal: "IM BEGINNING TO THINK THAT NOTHING WILL EVER CHANGE I HAVE BEEN IN THIS TANK FOR ALMOST TWO YEARS AND THE ONLY THING THAT IS DIFFERENT IS THE COLOR OF SAND WELL ALSO THERE ARE THOSE TWO OTHER GECKOS OUT THERE BUT THEY ARE IN THE SAME FUCKIN METAPHORICAL BOAT THAT I AM SO THEY DONT COUNT"
The "5-Second Rule" Rules: "Researchers at the University of Illinois say the so-called '5-Second Rule' isn't a myth. They say when you drop food on the floor, it's still safe to eat if you pick it up within five seconds." There you have it, scientific proof.
Heather emailed me an excerpt from a 1997 Newsweek article she read. My favourite part was this: "Californian Chris Freund, 25, shaved his head and moved into a Buddhist monastery in northern Thailand. Meditating there, he had an epiphany that revealed to him what he wants from life: "Success and lots of money." Now he's in Saigon (formally known as Ho Chi Minh City) doing investment analysis."
Things that happened today: 1. I got two packages in the mail. Two! I love getting mail. 2. I saw a woman buy twelve identical bottles of shampoo. 3. I bought a bottle opener. I can now drink classy beer. I am moving up in the world! 4. I think I saw snow falling, for about five minutes, but I didn't go outside to check, so I can't prove it. 5. I signed a contract full of confidentiality clauses. 6. Something I can't talk about.
Quote of the day: "I don't necessarily agree with everything I say." -- Marshall McLuhan
You don't look like me, so you must not talk like me Research finds that a speaker's ethnicity causes listeners to perceive them as speaking with a foreign accent, even if they don't. I love the expression "the hallucination of foreign accents on native speakers." It makes me think of some drug whose side effect would be that you suddenly hear everyone speaking in funny accents. Wouldn't that be cool? Unfortunately, in this case, the hallucination is probably just racism-induced. Stupid humans.
For Megan, Two Things: 1. "In order to solicit an honest, undiluted opinion about Radiohead, you'd have to find the proverbial People Living Under Rocks. As People Living Under Rocks are unavailable, let's use fifth graders." My favourite is the last drawing. "Mommy, please come help." Fifth graders do not like Radiohead. 2. My other favourite thing Beth said was, "St-Hubert? I don't think that would go over well in the United States. Now, Chicken of God, or something like that would be good. God's Chicken. That would go over well, especially in the Bible Belt."
Happy Laura Day, Everybody Today is the feast day of Saint Laura (among others). She must be a pretty minor saint because the only interesting information I can find about her is the way she died. The Moors threw her into a vat of molten lead. Woo-hoo! She isn't even the patron saint of anything. Yet. I am trying to think up something. She can be my patron saint. I'm not Catholic, so I'm not at all sure what that means, or what is supposed to be done on a feast day, but I have decided that it calls for a celebration of Laura-ness. Gifts are always appreciated, but unnecessary.
Dear Me Today I sent an email to my future self. I wasn't sure what to say because I wasn't sure what the future me would want to hear. I wanted to put on a brave face for my future self and make my current self seem cooler than I am, but in the end, I was mostly honest. Since my future is so uncertain, the idea of my future self reading this email in one year's time feels vague and menacing and pretty much freaks my shit out. You can scare yourself too, it's kind of cool.
Quote of the weekend: "Everyone should have aphasia!" -- Beth After we told Beth that aphasia is a kind of brain damage that affects language abilities, she explained that "Ian said that George W. Bush had aphasia, and I thought he meant that he made up words, like you know, exemplarary? But I guess he just meant that Bush is brain damaged. Which also makes sense."
Today someone told me that she thought I would get along with someone else else because we had similar senses of humour. When we weren't sure what that meant, she further elaborated that we were both assholes. In a good way. Happy John Lennon's Birthday!
A bald man wearing a red sweater accosted me outside the unemployment office and asked me who my hairstylist was. My hair at the time, because I'm sure you are wondering, was definitely not styled. It was dirty and in need of cutting and tied up in a messy bun. I frowned at the man and told him I did not have one. He gave me a hurt look and whined, "Why are you getting mad?" I walked away. In semi-related news, today I got my hair cut.
If you are a student or you have ever been a student or you have ever written a research paper that required complicated annotation or you have ever used Microsoft Word, then you should read this article in the New Yorker. Maybe you do not feel you have time to read this article because you are in the middle of writing some complicated research paper and this article is a bit long and not related to the topic of your research, but trust me. It will make you feel better. "Yes!" you will shout, relieved, "That happens to me all the time! Oh! I'm not alone! The problem is not me! The problem is Microsoft Fucking Word!" It's important to let out all of that pent up aggression. I mean, who cannot relate to this: "In the end, you stop the random clicking and dragging and pulling-down and have recourse to the solution of every computer moron: with a sob of relief, you press Ctrl/Alt/Del. (What do Control and Alt mean, by the way? Does anyone still know?) A message appears: "You will lose any unsaved information in all programs that are running." O.K.? Cancel? End task? End life? The whole reason for rebooting was that you didn't have access to your information, so how can you save it? You can always pull the plug out of the wall. That usually ends your "session" (a term borrowed -- no accident -- from psychoanalysis)."
I should(n't) play: 
The stock market drinking game! In my first year at university, I was sitting around with some new friends who decided we should play the What-I'm-gonna-be-when-I-grow-up-game. One friend was going to be a social worker in Nova Scotia and the other a diplomat in Spain. I, for reasons I still cannot explain (was I joking? was I serious? where did this answer come from?), divined that I would be an alcoholic, divorced mother of four living off child-support and welfare. Sometimes I remember this (or someone brings it up in order to make fun of me) and it scares me.
Recently, in Moby's journal:
just trying to keep things credible here, what with me being a quasi-public figure musician and whatnot. can't just prattle on about scrabble and soy milk and tacos and expect to be deemed credible by the cultural gatekeepers. i've never done cocaine. i fear that if i did it once i would have to do it every day for the rest of my life. and it would make my chest hair grow and it would give me an irresistible desire to date models and hang out in cigar bars. so no blow for mo."
A five-year-old Australian girl showed her class how to make a bong out of a coke bottle during show-and-tell at school.
Overheard from a teenaged girl arguing with a teenaged boy outside the Villa-Maria metro station: "So I should call you back when you're 24? It's gonna take you 6 years, no 5 years, to get your shit together?"
Don't think I'll get the job: Interviewer: Can you please name five French scientific journals? Me: Uh, hmmm. Good question. Er, well, I guess... I'm trying to think here. Um. Uh. Hmmm. I don't... I'm not... No. I guess I can't. Sorry.
Happy World Vegetarian Day!
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"The mind of the thoroughly well informed [person] is a dreadful thing. It is like a bric-a-brac shop, all monsters and dust, and everything priced above its proper value."
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