Movie Recommendation

I just finished watching The Savages, and it was one of the most brilliantly written, directed, and acted films I have ever seen. There isn't too much I can say about it since it was more of a character-driven movie than a plot-driven one, but I highly recommend it and it received a rarely-awarded 5-star rating by me in Netflix.

Grass and Weed

Today is a day of great rejoicing!! My landlord, who had not mowed (mown?) our lawn for 5 weeks, finally mowed today!!!!!! The grass was up to my knees and the weeds were past my hip. Plus, I found a tick on my head while I was on the phone with Rusty last Saturday. Nasty!!

I'm leaving you with a joke I heard on the radio:

A man met a little girl and asked her what she wanted to be when she grew up. She replied that she wanted to be the first female president. He asked her what party she was going to belong to and she replied that she was going to belong to the Democratic party. The man asked her why she wanted to be a Democratic president and she replied that she wanted to help the homeless. The man told her that she didn't have to be the president to help the homeless; in fact, he was going to pay her $5 to clean up dog poo in his yard. He told her she could then go give the $5 to the homeless people to put toward a house. The little girl thought about this proposition for a little while and then asked, "Why don't you just have the homeless people pick up the poo and give them the money directly?" The man replied, "Welcome to the Republican party, my dear."

Woot!

These are for Rusty to hopefully make up for cheating on our man (I never truly left him, I was just getting a little sumtin' sumtin' on the side):

Theft! from TWoP:

Idol Thoughts

Tuesday night:

Enough with the boxing metaphors!

I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For: Wow. I am so in love with David Cook.
Don't Let the Sun Go Down on Me: Fantastic. Round 1 was awesome.

Dreck #1: Eh. Not bad for one of the coronation songs. It could be worse.
Dreck #2: And it is worse...

The World I Know: I hate this song, but I liked it when David did it. Same deal with Don't Want to Miss a Thing from last week. That's one of my least favorite songs in the history of songs, but I liked David doing it. Maybe I will buy his CD after all...
Imagine: Whatever.

Wednesday night:

I love things that are cheesy as well as things that are bombastic, and tonight proved to be both. Woot!

David, please no more wallet chain. This isn't 1995.

Mike Myers annoys the bejesus out of me in everything except Wayne's World, but I chuckled a few times during the guru bit. And it was worth it to see David C. cracking up, David A. catching the shaving cream, and Ryan riding around on the carpet.

Jason's Hallelujah Part Deux: Awesome! I love this kid!!

Ummm...holy shit...David in his underwear.

Bo Bice!!

So those are the Jonas Brothers. Eh.

Way to backpedal, Simon.

David Cook FTMFW!!!!!!!!!

Awww...Loved the "That's my brother" at the end.

No one I've liked has ever won before. I don't know if this will be good or bad.

Well, I finally have my life back till January. It's been fun.

Where Have I Been?

March was wondering this the other day; I can only assume it's because he's secretly hankering for more Idol Thoughts. May is usually my busiest month because that's when I come out of hibernation and there are always a lot of birthday dinners for myself and a couple of my friends who share May birthdays. This May has been no exception. As you all know, I've been having nervous breakdowns over cataloging since January. I handed in my final paper in the end of April, then headed off to Mooresville to see Rusty. Two weeks after that, Chris and I went for a long weekend in Washington, D.C. and then right after that, my first summer class started. My second summer class starts June 3; yes, they overlap. And the birthday dinners haven't even started yet! The first one is today, I'm still waiting to hear back from L. (If you're reading this, thanks for ignoring me!! :)) and another friend, there is a breakfast pending with some old co-workers, and an outing to see Sex in the City with a current co-worker coming up. That's a lot for someone who is as adept at sitting on her ass as I am.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. D.C. pics are forthcoming; I don't have too many because the weather was horrible. Steady rains and temperatures 25 degrees below normal sort of marred my big plans, but I had a good time nonetheless. I ended up getting an 88% in Cataloging. I'm usually not happy with a B in a class for which I did so much work, but that was hell and I had D at one point, so I can't complain about a B. Especially since he ripped my paper apart... It's also a little annoying that he considers an 89% an A, so I just missed it. But, as one of my co-workers told me (remember what I said about working with therapists?), I need to let go of the negativity and move on.

I had my first session of my first summer class this past weekend and it was the best class I've had so far. I adore the professor (and I think she really likes me) and only looked at my watch about 3 times, compared to 3,000 times in my other weekend classes. I'm actually considering switching the class I chose in the fall to have her again. On a side note, I just found out that someone else will be teaching cataloging next time it's offered. Arghh!!!!!!! If I had waited, perhaps I could have had a professor who doesn't have such an arbitrary grading system. Sorry; letting go of the negativity... I'm dreading having these two summer classes overlapping (the first one is three weekends and the second is online) because we have to do as much in 5 weeks as we would normally do in 4 months, but by July 3 I'll be 6 credits closer to graduating. By Christmas I'll have 7 out of 12 classes and all I'll have left to take is electives, so I can take things that actually interest me.

There aren't any Idol Thoughts for last week because I worked Tuesday night and my Ti-faux is still out of commission, so I taped it and only watched David Cook's performances. No surprises Wednesday night; Syesha should have gone weeks ago. The Office season finale was Thursday and it was great. Pathetically, I'm glad that I'll have my life back after Wednesday. I rarely watch TV in the summer, and I won't have time to until July anyway. I even bumped my Netflix subscription down to 2 at a time.

Work is still insanely busy, compounded by the fact that I've been off so many days in the past month. I'm off again on Monday, so next week will be crazy again, but I'm hoping that things will calm down after that. Obviously we're closed on Memorial Day, but there's a huge difference in the amount of work required when I'm off on a vacation day compared to a day we're closed. It hasn't helped that they were switching the servers, so our MIS has been down a lot and 95% of what I do requires the ability to use it. The only other thing on the work front is that we got new computers (our old ones were castoffs from the state, so they were probably about 10 years old).
Now it takes less than 2 minutes to open a new window and I have a flat-screen monitor so I have free space on my desk! Woot!

So, with everything that's going on, I'll be posting D. C. pics and Idol Thoughts next week and then probably won't be around too much till July unless something awesome or stupid happens. I expect it'll be the latter. I hope everyone has a good beginning of the summer!

Every Time That I Plant a Seed...

...they say kill it before it grows.

Good bye, sweet Jason. I fully expected not to watch this season after the crapfests that were seasons 5 and 6. That all changed during the top 20 when I saw the most awesome pre-performance package ever:



By the end of that performance, I was smitten. I became something much more than smitten after Hallelujah, one of the absolute best Idol performances ever. I'm talking chills, people. I actually voted for an hour; before then (and I've been watching since the middle of the first season), I had cast exactly two votes.



I started looking into Jason's pre-Idol performances and found Crazy, which was unable to be shown on the show due to Dangermouse not giving permission:



The finals were really a mixed bag for Jason. Even Memory, which I consider to be his worst performance, was earnest and moving. Every week Jason came out and gave it his all, changing songs up, playing an instrument almost every week, putting a huge smile on my face during the goofy group medleys, and never once forgetting his lyrics until Tuesday (*cough* David Archuleta *cough*).



All that from a contestant who got no screen time before the top 24, had limited stage experience, and was consistently thrown under the bus.

Of course we all knew it was Jason's time to go last night. He handled it with grace and humor and his singout was the best. singout. ever. Thanks for cutting if off, FOX.



Now, I'm watching for David Cook, but would I buy his album? Probably not. I couldn't possibly care any less about Jon Benet Gaspuleta or ShyMEEEEEsha. Knock 'em dead, Jason, and keep that huge smile on your face. I look forward to your album.

Idol Thoughts

I sat down to watch Idol tonight, and I even planned to take notes so I could do a better analysis, but my Ti-faux decided to crash right after Jason got his first scathing review, so here's what I saw:

David C, "Hungry Like the Wolf" - That was a very sexy performance; I'd say it was average for David, but miles ahead of many of the other performances we've ever seen on Idol. What the hell was Paula talking about with the Boys' Club reference?

Syesha, "Proud Mary" (of course) - This is what I wrote, and hand to God I wrote it before the judges' critique: Tina Turner impersonation, too rehearsed, screamy but I wasn't bored.

Jason, "I Shot the Sheriff" - Cute interview; adorable performance. I liked how he changed things up and thought it was authentic.

David A. - ? Thanks Ti-faux. I'm sure he got a tongue bath though.

David C. - "Baba O'Reilly" - Caught this on VCR. I thought it was a very good performance, although I'm not crazy about this song.

Syesha - Good technically. She's not going home tomorrow night, unfortunately.

Jason - Oh no. Well, he looked good and sounded awesome, but forgetting your lyrics is the kiss of death unless you're David Arculeta.

David A. - Fast forwarded. Watching this kid makes me feel like I'm exploiting him; like I'm watching Jon Benet Ramsey or something.

I was really excited going into tonight because no matter what, one of my favorites will be in the top 3. I predict Jason will go home, which is unfortunate because although I'm ok with him being in the top 4, I really didn't want Syesha to last longer than he did. Does she even have fans? At TWoP she has about 40 pages while the Davids and Jason have about 200. David C. is in first, followed by Jason and then David A. I just don't get it. If I could only buy one album from one of these crew it would definitely be Jason, and I know he'll put one out eventually. Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go try to figure out why the hell my Ti-faux hates me.

I just found this on TWoP and it sums my feelings up quite nicely "If I lose my beloved Jason tomorrow, I just hope Cook kicks everyone else's asses."

Have You Ever Been Jealous of a Dolphin?

I have...

Work Drama

I don't usually post about work here because two of my co-workers are also MySpace friends and I link to my blog on my MySpace, but they already know about this and if anyone else finds it, they can go screw. Our company is being bought out by another, much richer company. It has been described by myself and other equally cynical co-workers as a sugar daddy situation where we're spreading our legs and taking it.

Last Friday, before I went to Rusty's, I received an e-mail that said, "Please note attached memo regarding weekly time sheets and the attached time study form that you are to utilize starting on Monday, April 28th. Thanks for you assistance in this matter."

At first I ignored it because I thought it had to do with people who submit time sheets to get paid. Then I read it more closely and read the attachments. One was this (partly paraphrased): "We totally fucked up in our last merger; therefore, we find it necessary to continue to assess various administrative needs within the agency along with the skill set of specifically identified staff members. This is being done in an effort to ensure smooth and affective [sic] operations in each program area. With this in mind, we have identified a number of staff who will be expected to complete a weekly time sheet of daily activities starting on April 28, 2008 until further notice.

Since you personally received this email, please assume that you have been selected to complete the attached time sheet. The time sheet must be thoroughly completed every week and submitted to X by 12:00 every Monday. The sheets will be reviewed by management on a weekly basis to get a better sense of what functions are occurring effectively and efficiently and what areas of concern have surfaced that need to be appropriately addressed. Questions that might arise through the weekly reviews will be addressed with you personally. If you have any specific questions/concerns, please feel free to direct them to our attention. [this will be important later] We want to thank you in advance for helping us complete this assessment which we feel will serve to strengthen our ongoing operations."

By the way, my supervisor didn't even know about this till I forwarded it to her with a WTF?! message attached.

Also attached was an Excel spreadsheet with days of the week across the top and half-hour increments on the side; the squares are approximately 2 square inches each.

This e-mail came from one of our VPs who is not directly over me and who, when I left the York office to go to Harrisburg, called me into her office and said, "Don't start slacking because you're leaving York." You all don't know me, but I am extremely diligent, precise, and hard-working. I've never gotten bad grades or bad performance reviews at work. I did have some shortcomings at my position in the York office; however, many of them were beyond my control.

On several occasions I have brought my concerns to management and my co-workers have made it known to them that I'm extremely underutilized. Apparently management felt the need to treat us like children instead of giving us the opportunity to assess the "various administrative needs" of our position ourselves or discussing with management what we believe to be our "skill set." Here's another great idea. Maybe if we actually got the performance reviews that we're supposed to receive, those could be assessed to determine our fucking skill sets.

One of the other mental health agencies in our area recently closed, so now we're pretty much it, which means not only are we getting all of their clients, we're getting all the clients who would have gone to the other agency. In the first 9 days of April I had done 80 intakes; before this agency closed I usually averaged about 2-3 a day. So, since my workload is so high right now and since I was off for three days last week and since our computer system will be down from noon Monday until possibly Wednesday and since I do a job that was previously done by myself and another full-time employees and since this is the beginning of the month, which is when I have to do the billing, I e-mailed this VP and asked if I could hand my time study in late due to the fact that I felt it was a more effective use of my time to do work that requires use of the MIS while it's working rather than to fill our a time study.

No dice. But she doesn't respond to me directly, she tells the director of the program for which I work, who is also not directly above me, that I can hand it in on Friday (this past Friday) if I can't do it by Monday. WTF?!?!?!?! If I don't have time to fill out the time study by noon Monday, how is it helpful to allow me to hand it in three days earlier!? Apparently logic isn't in this woman's "skill set." God, I hate that phrase. The poor director got an earful and I had a meltdown. Luckily, the upside is that those are more accepted in a counseling agency than they would be in say, a law office (the downside is that everything you do or say is over-analyzed and you're given a diagnosis).

So, being the slacking employee that I am, I spend 4 hours this weekend doing work to play catch-up. And you better believe I made it known on my time study sheet (I made up my own instead of the shitty one they supplied, thank you very much.)

File this one under it's time to look for a new job. At least my resume is updated.

Idol Thoughts

Well, I don't have too many Idol Thoughts this week, so here's a quickie version. I flew into Baltimore Tuesday evening; my parents picked me up, we stopped for dinner, got to their house right at 8, I watched until David Cook's second performance, and then I went home. I went to the bathroom during most of David A's performance and went into the kitchen to smoke during Syesha's, so all I really saw was part of David A.'s and Brooke's first performances and both of Jason's and David C.'s. I thought the best of the night was David C. who, much to Rusty's dismay, is now my second AI boyfriend (and yes, I did once call him pasty, greasy, doughy, and disgusting), followed closely by Jason.

I'd be ok if Jason went home next week if Syesha weren't still there. I know he's not going to win, nor do I want him to, but he can't go before her.

I loved Paula's gaffe. This show is such bullshit.

On Wednesday night I got to see Ace but my view was tainted by Constantine.

I fast forwarded through Natasha Beddingfield (sp?) and really liked Neil Diamond's song. Brooke's sing-out was touching.