…but I’ll say this much. I got up this morning at 7am to be at work at 8.
Anyone care to guess what time I went to bed?
Archive for January, 2006
I am definitely allergic to SOMETHING I was recently exposed to…
I wonder what it was? Maybe it was all the -itos.
(I have itchy red splotchies/hives around my chin/neck area.)
It may come as a surprise to you, but I don’t have much of a sweet tooth.
It may sound blasphemous, but chocolate doesn’t do it for me. I like the occasional fruity hard candy and I enjoy most Japanese candies (it’s a different kind of sweetness), but basically I can pass up a candy aisle, no problem.
This is why it was ok for the candy bowl to sit at my desk. I can look at it and not want to eat anything in there… unless someone starts putting the snack-sized bags of Frito-Lay chips inside!
Yes, I admit it… I have a thing for SALTY, CRUNCHY snacks!
Bossguy had purchased a variety pack of 50 bags of chips… Lays, Ruffles, Cheetos, Fritos, Doritos (Cool Ranch and regular)… and he brought them to the office to stock my Big Bowl of Goodies™.
Let’s just say that in the last week, my diet has exceeded its quota of stuff from the “-itos” food group.
Blarrgh.
Well, I’m definitely tired.
The amazing this is that I’m not as tired as I THOUGHT I would be.
This sucks.
I think the winner is Paris Las Vegas.
Now, I understand that occasionally you have to stay on hold to get customer service. I also understand that you might have to listen to some muzak, or worse, some ads for whatever you are holding for.
I personally hate ads that “talk” to you. It forces you to actively listen while holding. I also hate the ones that play music for 30 seconds and a recording of a person interrupts saying “Please continue to hold. A representative will be with you shortly.” I always end up going, “Hello? Hello? Oh… never mind…”
That said, I think Paris Las Vegas wins the most annoying hold music/ad. The music is actually not so bad, but they repeat these ads about all these wonderful things to do at their hotel… and the ads are done by an annoying woman with an annoying fake French accent. Arrrgh.
Don’t believe me? Dial their Reservation line: 877-796-2096 (toll free) and route yourself into the part where you need help with an existing reservation (funny, the hold time to BOOK a hotel room is always less than when you have to CHANGE/CANCEL a hotel room).
Boo that the USPS has to raise their postage rates. (It’s understandable, gas prices have skyrocketed since 2002… did you know that for every penny per gallon gas prices go up, it costs the USPS $8 million annually?) I have a WHOLE BUNCH of unused stamps from my crazy insomniac postage buying spree™. Unfortunately, I’m probably going to have to buy a whole bunch MORE stamps in all kinds of small denominations to make up for the rate increase that is effective January 8.
The USPS has not yet updated their online rate calculator, which I use pretty often to double check that I put enough stamps on the things I sell online. They do have a new PDF with all the rates though and here are a sampling of the increases that affect me:
First Class Mail - letters under 1 oz: 39˘ (2˘ inc. from 37˘)
First Class Mail - postcard: 24˘ (1˘ inc. from 23˘)
Priority Mail - up to 1 lb: $4.05 (20˘ inc. from $3.85)
Media Mail - up to 1 lb: $1.59 (17˘ inc. from $1.42)
Media Mail - between 1-2 lb: $2.07 (23˘ inc. from $1.84)
Return Receipt - at mailing, via mail: $1.85 (10˘ inc. from $1.75)
Oh yeah, I once promised someone I would post a picture up of what $200 of postage looks like… here it is…
(Actually this is $199.80 of postage… the USPS adds a $1.00 shipping fee for stamps by mail, though… no mattter how many stamps you order in one shipment!)
Two things that happened yesterday:
1) My payroll people told me that I got overpaid 40 hours of overtime in October (I worked 46.5 hours one week and supposedly they paid me for 46.5 hours at my OT rate). And they want to deduct it from future paychecks. Which is bullshit. I told them “No, let’s discuss it later. Like when you address some other stuff* that has been unresolved since August.” [I talked to the head of HR before I left the office on Friday; he promises that both these issues will be taken care in the next week or two. I have everything documented, so any funny business means I call my lawyer; I just don’t want to have to do that.]
2) I got a phone call from a place I got a facial at a few of months ago; I paid with a credit card. Evidently the charge never made it through to the credit card company, so they called me to say they were charging me now (January) for a facial I got in September, more than 3 months ago. I was like “You couldn’t have told me about this sooner? Like before the holidays when I went crazy spending money?” They apologized and assured me that I would not be double-billed, but that’s bullshit. I told them to take me out of their database.
AND AS A BONUS:
Back in April (or maybe as far as as March), I ordered a bunch (10,000) of specially imprinted 10 x 13 envelopes at work (on behalf of someone else) from our company-preferred printer. The turnaround is supposed to be a few weeks for a special order that size.
A few months went by and the guy who needed the envelopes reminded me they never came in. After few days of harrassing customer service, the vendor started the print job. (”Oops, we didn’t do it yet,” they had told me.) Grrr. Eventually we got all the envelopes, and all was hunky-dory… until this past Thursday when I got a phone call from their billing department complaining that the company corporate card had expired in 12/05 and they needed my authorization to charge a new card.
This was an invoice for a few thousand dollars FROM JUNE 2005!
The problem is that my finance department closed the books for 2005 on December 15. It is this kind of nonsense that I didn’t want hitting the books in 2006.
I forwarded the issue on to the business head whose budget it impacts so we’re now dealing with finance to clear this up.
In other words, more BS work I need to deal with for someone else’s incompetence.
*other stuff = Can’t talk about it on my blog. Don’t wanna get dooced for it.
My real blog (updated daily) is at www.jozjozjoz.com
Please make a note of it!
*ring ring*
Me: Yes?
BG: Is it the year of the horse or something?
Me: Huh?
BG: Is it the year of the horse?
Me: Uh no, it’s the year of the dog.
BG: Are you sure it’s not the year of the horse?
Me: Yeah, it’s definitely not the year of horse.
BG: Hmm. I wonder why they’re doing all this horse stuff here. Ok, bye.
*click*
First of all, I know pandas aren’t bears*… but did you hear about this?
China is offering a pair of pandas to Taiwan as part of efforts to boost public support for uniting with the communist mainland. China has been known to present gifts in exchange for monetary or diplomatic gain; this has been called “panda diplomacy.” The sticking point here is that China is offering the pandas to Taiwan as a province; not a separate nation. Unlike China’s gift of pandas to the US in the 1970s (a state-to-state gift), this “gift” to Taiwan is intended as a state-to-province gift… a very disingenuous “gift” since, if Taiwan accepts the pandas, Taiwan would essentially be “acknowledging” their status as a province of China… which Taiwan is not.
The pandas represent China’s claim to sovereignty over Taiwan because Beijing no longer gives the animals to foreign countries.
The pandas, which are currently referred to as #16 and #19 will be named via a “Name the Panda” contest. The top names in contention? Tuan-Tuan and Yuan-Yuan… which mean UNIFICATION.
My vote for panda names? WHAT - EVER.
What this boils down to is a giant PR/propaganda effort to make Taiwan give up its claims to independence if they accept the panda, or make Taiwan look bad if they do not accept the pandas. Who would turn down such a “nice” gift? Taiwan should.
Not all gifts are gestures in “kindness” and “peace,” not even pandas.
Remember, the Trojan Horse was gift, too… and we all know how that turned out.
Taiwan cool to China panda-plomacy
Friday, January 6, 2006; Posted: 12:21 p.m. EST (17:21 GMT)
BEIJING, China (AP) — China announced Friday it has picked a pair of pandas to offer to rival Taiwan as part of efforts boost public support for uniting the self-ruled island with the communist mainland and sidelining its president.
The Taiwanese government, which has not decided whether to accept the animals, accused Beijing of acting rudely by announcing the gift without consulting the island, which China claims as part of its territory and has threatened to invade. [full story]
More articles:
China steps up panda diplomacy towards Taiwan (FT.com)
China gift of pandas ‘an insult’ to Taiwan (FT.com)
Taiwan standing up to China on panda imports (Taipei Times)
Key events in panda offer to Taiwan since 1987 (People’s Daily Online - a brief history of other “panda diplomacy” attempts by China in the past)
::notprada’s idea of using pandas to fix relationships::
I’m thinking pandas should become the personal relationship rescue of choice. If China can use it with Taiwan*, why can’t I?
Sorry I was late for our date. I have a panda in the car for you.
Ooops, I didn’t mean to total your car and I don’t have insurance, but I have a panda for you!
Here’s a panda. It’s because I burned your house down.
We don’t have it in the budget to give you a raise, but we do have an extra panda.*Please note, there is a difference between giving the panda and loaning the pandas. Only when you are very, very serious about things do you give the panda. Otherwise it’s just a loan - like Mao and Nixon.
::pixeljuice: What if? China vs. Taiwan: Panda Grudge Match::
:: Lukas: China is offering pandas to Taiwan, but why? (fictional) ::
:: taiwansotherside: an alternate view of the situation ::
:: Cupid finds no easy role in matching giant pandas (lots of cute pictures of pandas) ::
* Well, I guess I never got the new research showing that pandas are bears. I previously learned that pandas were related to raccoons and therefore that pandas are not bears.
Thanks to Will Campbell: Answer Man™ for always giving me the facts.
Here is a bit from the Bearden regarding “The Great Panda Puzzle”
The giant panda, Ailuropida melanoleuca, has given scientists the hardest job of proper classification. When the giant panda was first seen outside of China, scientists thought it should be placed with the red panda, somewhere in the raccoon family. Both pandas feed on bamboo and have long wrist bones that work like human thumbs to grip the plant. The bones and teeth of the giant panda resemble those of red pandas far more closely than any bear relative. Today’s methods of examining and comparing gene sequences between species place the giant panda firmly in the bear family, but certainly the earliest species to evolve from Ursavus elementus, the first true bear ancestor.
If you were like me and incorrectly believed that pandas aren’t bears, don’t worry… there are a lot of other people who also don’t know that PANDAS ARE BEARS, check out “A Bear of a Research Challenge” by Richard Geiger, San Francisco Chronicle Library Director. I defer to them for the final word.
I still can’t buy my book via Amazon!
(Is there someone I can call?)
Why the hell are you so craptastic at 1:45am when I am trying to get my very tired butt to bed?
I am trying to spend an Amazon gift certificate Chris & Ponzi so generously sent me for my birthday on a book I need right away… and Amazon keeps “encountering problems.” It’s an expensive book, at that!
UPDATE: It’s 1:51am. I have been trying to buy this book for over 40 minutes. I give up. Grrrr….
So I guess the whole world is in/on their way to Vegas today for CES (or if you’ll admit it, the AVN - Adult Entertainment Expo) through this weekend.
Flights, rooms, and meal reservations are all hard to come by (at least at the high end places I’ve tried to book), but worst of all is ground transportation. The cab line at the airport is over an hour and a half wait. I called every single car/chauffeur service in town (I was hoping for a cancellation)… they’ve all been booked since August. In fact, I was told by one company that they’ve been bringing in cars from out of state for the last couple of weeks to accomodate the demand for vehicles, but that it still wasn’t enough.
The only thing I was offered was a Hummer with a driver at $137/hr with a six hour minimum ($822) + tax & gratuity. Yowch.
I can only imagine traffic on the Strip this weekend. I think I’ll stay in town and try not to complaint about LA traffic for the rest of the week.
I’m hoping that an extra strength Tylenol will do the trick.
UPDATE: I am supplementing the medication with a dosage of chocolate, too.
I’m tired.
Surprise, surprise.
It is 4am.
I have not yet gone to bed.
I still have a crapload to do.
Ugh.
(And no, I did not mess with any xmas cards tonight.)
So I screwed up and ran out of time to send my holiday cards out in a timely manner.
I made a whole bunch of cards (dated 2005) and just have to finish updating my list so I can generate labels.
I know it’s tacky, but is it too late to send them out?
I’d like to pop them in the mail before the postage rate goes up to 39 cents from 37…
We finally made it!
Thanks to Yoshi for driving.
We’ve been on the road since I don’t know what time. Yay to Yoshi for driving, because I don’t think I’d have been able to take this.
They shut down the 5 southbound at Hwy 41 but by the time that happened, we were already stuck on the 5 and past the last offramp before the 41.
We spent over two and half hours to go the final 5 miles or so to Kettleman City.
Thank god we made it to Jack in the Crack before closing so we could use the restroom and order food (we were the last customers of the night before they shut down the register).
update from yoshi: wanna know what happened?
Continue reading ‘Stuck at Kettleman City’
Well, it’s another new year… another New Year’s Eve spent in San Francisco with Yoshi in the company of the wonderful stkyrice (Efi) & aiyahh (Howie)!
After a day of shopping and then dinner, dessert (at Max’s Opera Cafe), & hanging out with Efi & Howie (walking around the Castro and videogames at Fisherman’s Wharf), we headed back to San Jose to our hotel room.
I was tired after the day’s events so I took a shower, took off the makeup that the saleslady at The Body Shop at the Castro insisted on putting on me, put on a comfy robe and poured myself a glass of wine to ring in the new year with Yoshi while watching the ball drop on Dick Clark’s Rockin’ New Year’s Eve.
So from SJ, here’s jozjozjoz raising the glass to you for a wonderful 2006! Happy New Year! (I’m going to sleep soon!)
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