Tag: housekeeping

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Is It Spring Yet? – Unfounded Fears Edition

I’m afraid. Very afraid. Here’s why…

  • Global Warming Crier People: My house is apparently going to go up in flames this year. It’s a La Niña weather pattern, people. The lowest amount of rainfall since the Twenties? The bark beetles will prey on the desiccated trees, the fiery fires will pop up and we’re all doomed. Why? La Niña of course, which means that the equatorial Pacific Ocean temperatures are too cold. Take that, polar bears! (naturally the temps are too cold, what with the glaciers dumping the ice bucket into the ocean. – ed And the perfect doomsday ice cubes stopped melting until they got to the equator? That’s cute. – bob)
  • Germs: People I work with have become ill. Not deathly ill, since they still have the brain-dead notion that they’re indispensable and insist on continuing to clock in. They are sick enough to come into work, touch the keyboards of the computers that they would ask me to touch, and complain about how they can’t keep anything down (or up). Just wonderful. As far as I know, Mr. Boss still frowns on my wearing latex gloves while working on machines in front of the staff. He can’t keep me from slathering on the Purell though. It’s the small victories…
  • Traffic: Has everybody gone insane? Have the snowbirds in the desert finally decided to spring up (as septuagenarians might spring) and take to the wheel today? They’re fast enough to be a menace, yet slow enough to serve as rolling roadblocks. I’m looking at you, British Columbia, Montana, and Idaho. BTW, economic stimulus, my ass. The only stimulus I can see they’re providing is to the auto body shops. Go f-ing home.
  • Rants: As I’ve become more bitter, I fear that I’ve become more bitter. I rail against a couple things now and then with no real point and no real purpose. Sure it’s nice to vent, but in the end who really cares? You? I suppose not, and I’m afraid of that too.
  • Winning The Lottery: I’m afraid that once I win, all of those millions will go straight to my head. I’m going to continue working though… (oh crap, who am I kidding?)

Your pal,

bob

UPDATE: Y2K7.191780821918: Yeah, sure, we’ve updated the clocks on all the computers to see the time change this weekend, but what about the toasters? All of the watches? My GPS-enabled electric socks! Eeek!

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Are You Down?

Well, I am, apparently. The server that serves the service of serving the pictures and ephemera here has been down all day. bobtherieau.com is down too. Either we’re working on it or my host hasn’t received my check. I guess it’s time for a phone call.

sigh.

– bob

UPDATE! Hackers! They’re attacking the server, the good guys fix it, they attack again. It’s a real live situation! More later…

ANOTHER UPDATE: We’re back up! Now let’s see how long that lasts.

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Zzzzzzz

Friends,

There’s a lot of stuff to cover since the last big post, so let’s get to it:

  • Down at San Diego’s Omnipresent Charitable Organization’s Far Eastern Outpost, they finally dedicated this little pup tent they put up. It’s nine months late, way over budget, and is set up to sleep 100 people. The clergy, bosses, politicians, people with fat checkbooks, and the rest of us were there. It’s been occupying too much of my time and it’s still not ready.
  • My trip to Chicago a couple weeks ago was cold, but still pretty fun. I have a bunch of pictures of the Chicago Auto Show and of those cute nieces of mine. I should post them!
  • I also don’t have pictures of Senator Obama announcing his presidential candidacy that weekend. Drive three hours each way to hear any politician say anything for half a minute? Pass. Please. Now if it was Tom Vilsack…
  • I have to think that the Idyllwild Chamber of Commerce must’ve been thrilled with the weather last weekend. Saturday was warm and sunny. Sunday, less warm but still very nice. Monday brought a half inch of pretty, fluffy snow that melted by noon to allow the tourists safe passage off the hill. The perfect winter display?

Will I adhere to a more regular posting schedule now that the big projects at work are (mostly) complete? Sure!

Your pal,

bob

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Question Answered

Pals,

My vivacious writing partner and I craft a question for your edification nearly every day (I’ve missed a couple lately due to work shenanigans, see the next post for a Genius! moment). She sends our product out to her custom mailing list and expects response. I post the thing here and am less expectant of an answer. It’d be neat if you did (I’m looking at you, cloaked New Zealander) in the comments, but what can you do. We used to think that the Intertubes would be participatory. A two-way conversation across the broad divide. Turns out it’s more like the tube. You look, you change the channel.

This is a minor gripe of mine, but at least one person has gone to great lengths to participate. In fact, this may be the most extraordinary response to any single post here. You remember the question from a couple days ago:

Would you rather…
move your morning radio show more upscale,
or
more lowbrow?

a) The Ante Meridiem Managerie with Mister Corpulent and His Associates
b) The Poop Show.

And this response during an anti-war rally that astoundingly occurred before this question was even posted.

We write, you decide.

In the future!

– bob

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The Editorial Meeting

Friends,

I spent the weekend in America’s Finest Just Okay Merely Adequate Barely Passible City for work-type meetings and have had a surprisingly good time. Surprising, after Friday’s meeting called by the higher-ups about how we suck. That wasn’t exactly name of the event. Something about data collection and reports and the dullness and dryness that middle management functionaries wallow in, but I’m mostly not allowed to talk about it. I guess they’re very sensitive. You know, about their crabbiness.

The funny thing is this. I called it a week ago. I accused them of holding a grand “finger-pointing exercise” and wanted no part of it. Tempers flared, accusations were leveled, and my presence became mandatory. Speaking of inappropriate, I probably shouldn’t have told Mr. Boss “I told you so,” but that’s how it went. Cripes, what a nightmare.

But wait! What about the mailbag? We don’t have a mailbag. Okay, we do, but nobody sends anything to it. That’s not to say the we don’t receive criticism. Let’s chat with the editor:

  • yeah, apparently you’re a right wing jerk. – ed
  • Um, what? Me? Mister peace and love?
  • well fruitcake, you supported the war, and you’ve got this free market, anti-immigrant thing going on.
  • Wait a minute, anti-illegal immigrant, thank you very much.
  • well, ain’t that cute. you’re against people fleeing their corrupt, third-world existence to the promise of a better life. nice.
  • Only when we’re paying for it.
  • small-l libertarianism. isn’t that the current vogue?
  • Not anymore, I guess. It’s a post-partisan world now. Or didn’t you see the State of the State speech.
  • and the war?
  • I’m going with the moderates on this one. Right war, wrong time.
  • are you kidding me? you’re supporting that brain-dead idiot?
  • Can you hear yourself? He’s a knucklehead and he’s botched the middle and the end part. Maybe Obama can fix it!
  • jeebus, i’m depressed.
  • Me too.

There was a little more in that meeting with the editor, but it was mostly gentle sobbing, and we held hands for a little while. In a totally manly way, though.

Your pal,

bob

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BREAKING: Google Used, Searches Performed

Dear Calendar Aficionados,
I think you can file this in the Psst, What Time Is It? drawer. I just received a comment to a post from 2000-and-freakin’-three, people. Not just any post either. It was a post republishing a poem that was meant to call me out on my pro Iraq War stance. As I recall, the poem in Arts Thursday was meant to be a scathing indictment of my naivete. It holds up fairly well though, if you go in for that kind of thing.

Apparently somebody does, because here’s David Kowalczyk to clue us in on the great (if late) news…

Just to let everyone know that
“Going to Gitmo” was published in hard copy in Volume 1, Issue 1 of Gentle Strength Quarterly, a journal of fine arts out of Los Angeles.

Hawley-meigs (now just Hawley) had two other poems in that inaugural issue, as well as being a featured poet, with four (4!) poems in Issue 2.

Issues can be obtained by sending a check or money order for $8 for each copy ordered, payable to DO Designs, to the following address:

Gentle Strength Quarterly
16161 Ventura Bolevard, #406
Encino, CA 91436.

So! As far as brazen, callous PR stunts go, this is pretty low on the list. What’s next? A YouTube video of a kitten? A pinewood derby car sponsorship? A press junket to Peet’s Coffee & Tea? The mind reels.

Well, good luck with all the people with the words and stuff. And books. And Encino.

Your pal,

bob

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It Crunches Under Foot

Dear Heavy Sock Wearers,

You may have noticed a severe lack of posts over the last few days, maybe even a week. It wasn’t for lack of trying, or even lack of things to report on—there are bits of new posts sitting on no fewer than four computers—but they were missing a vital ingredient, pictures. In what is turning into an annual event, I’m going to need to purchase a new set of rechargeable batteries for my middle-aged Canon PowerShot. As it stands now, I get five shots, then no power. The end. (you could rehabilitate those batteries like this guy did. – ed Oh, that sounds like a great idea, except for the explosion part.)

The other lame-ass excuse involves weather (when doesn’t it? – ed) and the coldness therein. 20° this morning, five inches of snow, ice on the mountain roads, AND 50 MPH winds! I’m finding it harder and harder to keep up with the wood demand in the fireplace. Mr. and Mrs. Pup are happy to encourage my stoking the fire, but it doesn’t leave too much time for anything else, like writing (it didn’t seem to bother jack london. -ed Except he died at 40.).

I actually have a few pictures on the camera that I’ll present in a nearly context-free post later today. If you’re lucky, I may actually post them in chronological order this time. Wouldn’t that be a surprise!

Your pal,

bob

P.S. My vivacious writing partner has come down with something relatively brutal, so The Question is out of the question for a while. Both of our readers will be happy to know that we’ll be back up and running some time in 2007.

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Rearranging The Deck Chairs

Something seems to have changed around here, but I can’t put my finger on it. I can feel it. What could it be? Maybe memory aids will help:

  • Idiot postings about nothing in particular. Check
  • Whining. Check.
  • Photographs of buildings. Check.
  • Disturbing lack of posts on new Cat Stevens record. Check.
  • Archives went away, but came back. Check.
  • Heavy reliance on The Question to deliver arcane references to important world events. Check.

Nope. I still have no idea.

Ah. It’s the new article tags. That’s it. Pesky taggers.

Your pal,

bob