I should have taken a picture

I considered taking my camera to work to capture the state of my desk. Well, the state of my desk and my drafting table. Seeing those photos would have explained why I haven't blogged in a week.

I've been flippin' busy! How busy you may ask? Let's just say I know what time the AC in the office switches to "unoccupied" mode (aka doesn't keep the air as cooled since, in theory, there are no people in the building). That magical time would be 7:30pm.

You heard me. I worked till 7:30 the other night. Why, oh why, you say. Well, it would be because my rep was out of the office all day so I was flooded with phone calls and couldn't get to much of my real work...which included a bid for work at a hospital and a bid for work at an Armory. Both jobs bid on the same day. Oh, and I had stuff for the other rep because he was out of the office too and his main sales assistant wasn't coming in till almost 11am so I was getting some of his calls too.

It was a long, long, long freakin' week.

Speaking of work, I have a "None shall pass" update. Our receiving guy was dropping off something by the front offices and he passes by the open door of this particular assistant. He notices the table blocking the door and says, "I think that is a fire hazard. What if Sue couldn't get out the front door, she'd have to go through that door to get to the closest exit?"

Sales Ass. answers something along the lines of, "Are you sure? I don't think that's quite right."

"Why is the table blocking the door anyway?"

"I needed to move it so I could reach my dry erase board." (LIAR!)

(Editor's note: the board does hang on the wall the table used to be in front of, but if you slid the table down a little, you can reach the board...or you could use the spare chair to reach better)

"Besides," she adds, "someone put a little table in front of the other side of the door."

HER PANTS ARE ON FIRE! (too bad we can't get to the emergency exit) She was the one who put the little table in front of the door and added the sign.

In other news, I went and saw Inglorious Basterds and I was disappointed. I think Tarantino has fallen too in love with his dialogue because people would not stop talking in this movie! The ideas are cool, the European actors are great (esp. the main Nazi guy), and if it would have been trimmed down to about 2 hours, I think I would have really enjoyed it. Instead, I was checking my watch. The opening sequence had the tension sucked out of it because the two characters just kept talking and talking and talking. I wanted to yell out "the Jewish farming family is hiding under the floor boards...look down already!"

Most of the moments involving the American actors sucked. I thought Brad Pitt was doing a really bad George Bush impersonation. I have no idea why anyone thinks Eli Roth can act (not saying I can act either, but I know Tarantino has acting friends...he coule have used one of them instead of one of his directing buddies). Most of the rest of the "basterds" didn't even have lines. I kept looking at B.J. Novak thinking, why is Ryan from The Office in this movie? Shouldn't he be off making copies or something?

Finally, in two weeks, the new Muse cd is coming out. Since I decided to pre-order it through their website, I get some groovy, free downloads. In fact, watching those downloads held back my blogging by about 30 min. One of the videos was of a live performance of one of my favorite songs, "Stockholm Syndrome." The clip below isn't the live performance I got, but it's a damn good clip of the same song anyway. It's loud and a bit "guitar masterbation-y" at the end, but I love it. Enjoy.

Quick bit

Last week, I sent an email to a contractor to let him know when he could expect his equipment to arrive. I told him the ESD was 8/28 with a delivery window of 8/31-9/3.

He called me a few hours later after he read the email. As soon as he started talking, I could tell he was one of the older contractor guys. This was how the conversation went.

"How can I help you?"

"I just read your email. I don't know anything about this twitter stuff...what does E-S-D mean?"

(Pause as I try not to chuckle) "It stands for estimated ship date."

"Oh. All right."

I would have sworn ESD was used long before "this twitter stuff." Maybe I was wrong.

Best. Movie. Of. The. Summer.

I have just seen the best frakkin' movie of the summer! (Now, I do realize that Inglorious Bastards hasn't come out yet, but sometimes you just don't know with Tarantino)

District 9 was amazing. Not only sporting a first time director in Neill Blomkamp, but a first time actor in the lead role, Sharlto Copley, District 9 is a rare creature, a science fiction movie that has an original vision, a deep and emotional story line, subtext to get you talking and a sweet, bad ass action sequence.

I don't want to give too much away because that is part of the ride that is the movie. You can get the gist of the film from the trailer--aliens come to Earth, get stranded, are marginalized and kept in what becomes a slum, District 9. We come in 28 years after their arrival when they are about to be relocated.

The film comes from a short that the director did. He co-wrote the script and the lead character was developed with the help of a fellow director and buddy, Sharlto Copley, who ended up being offered the lead at the suggestion of the director (and the approval of producer Peter Jackson). After watching his performance, you would never guess that he had never acted professionally before. You also wouldn't guess this is the first feature done by the director. He has a very clear vision and thanks to great acting and some seriously fabulous SFX by WETA, he has been able to bring this vision to us to enjoy.

I'm already checking my schedule to figure out when I can go see this again.

None shall pass!

You too can be passive aggressive through interior design.



The view from the other side.



At least the note says "please."

Where I work the building is separated into two parts. One side is the sales side and the other is the accounting side. There are two ways to get from one side to the other. You can use the hall way near my office or you can use the door that connects the two sides. The problem is the door is in a sales assistant's office.

I can appreciate that it could get a little annoying to have people walking through your office, but it doesn't happen that often. Now, I suppose it would cause concern if you were afraid people would see you on your cell phone, or the internet, or paying your bills, or doing anything but your job...'course this is just speculation on my part.

My friend, who left and recommended me for the job I have, is back working two days a week while Disney is out on maternity leave. She was used to the office's prior occupant not having a problem with her using that door. So, she went ahead and used it several times in one day.

The next morning (I should note here that this is a morning my friend would not be in to work) the offended assistant took the time to move a long, folding table away from the side wall to now block the door. She also went to the other side, used a smaller table to block that door, and put up her note.

I will freely admit that I have written plenty of notes in my day, but it was usually after repeatedly speaking to people, whether they were booksellers or management. I will also admit that I am not above passive aggressive behavior, but I'm working on getting better.

Still, it seemed the perfect, high school-ish reaction by this person. And the bonus bit is, the person cutting through her office is her cousin! She couldn't even just ask her cousin to stop going through the door. Instead she has to use the table, etc. Sigh. It would be so much cooler if she would just ask us about our quest, our favorite color, and the velocity of a swallow.

Yes, I'm still here...

It has been pointed out that I currently suck as a blogger. I'll admit it; I've been very lax as of late. My excuse for this weekend was it was too flippin' hot in the computer room for me to attempt to type something funny or interesting or even correctly spelled for that matter.

I'm over at a friend's house right now feeding her cats and using her computer because of the guilt that Jackie has inflicted upon me.

So what's up, you may ask? Not a whole lot, I answer.

I can strongly recommend seeing The Hurt Locker. Kathyrn Bigelow (probably mis-spelled that) is one of the few female action directors out there who, thankfully, kicks ass. The Hurt Locker lets us spend about a fictional month with three members of a squad of soldiers in 2004 Iraq who are responsible for locating and taking care of any number of explosive devices.

The movie is very well done. While the idea of a bomb going off at any moment has an inherent level of suspense to it, Bigelow amps it up through camera angles, editing and often, just sitting with the characters as time keeps ticking away. Jeremy Renner plays Sgt. James, who is THE bomb guy. Renner walks a fine line as he is both full of swagger and compassion. I appreciated that the movie was pro in any direction. It's not over the top pro-military, but it isn't really pro-war either. It's a very specific story about a very interesting group of people. There is plenty to talk about afterwards, but for the most part, politics stays out of the story.

Renner and Bigelow's direction really made the movie for me, plus it's fun to see all the cameos in the film. I won't give any away because there are a couple of enjoyable "holy crap that's..." moments. Just go see the damn movie already.

Not much else going on. Boots and Buttons are gadding about and sometimes stop by as I'm typing to nudge me for some lovin'. Guess I should start petting them.