Thursday, January 11, 2007

Open In Silence

This is a mish-mash post today...don't expect segues!!!

If you like Mexican food, don't eat at On the Border. What crap food that is. I've been wanting Mexican food, so when we were trying to figure out where to go for lunch yesterday, I mentioned that and they said, Okay, On the Border. I asked if it was good and they all swore by it. Yeah, not so much. I think it sucks worse than Chi-Chi's ever did.

I started working on playlists last night for downloading to my iPod. I know I could just download a bunch of songs, but I need really upbeat songs for exercising, and I think I can name and add playlists. You can tell I've done a ton of research on this, can't you? So far, I have two exercise playlists in process. One is an 80s New Wave mix and the other will be my Goth/Industrial/Hard Core mix. We'll see how it goes.

The Libertarian has been gone for a month for work and last night he got an e-mail saying they wanted to keep him for yet another week. I wasn't happy and I knew it had pissed him off. While he's been gone, he's been working 7:00 p.m. to 7:00 a.m. starting Sunday nights, but they also wanted him to work Friday nights as well. Hey kids, ever heard of work/life balance? He's exhausted and just wants to come home. He says he's not staying and that he's leaving there tomorrow, but I have no faith that they won't find some way to keep him.

I told you about my department's move to a new building last year. You might remember because I was bitching about having to drive to work and the tediousness of scraping frost from my car's windows (for the record, no frost the past two days). The general consensus of my dept who moved from my old building (some of my dept. was already in this building while still others got moved from yet another building) is that building is simply disgusting. Yesterday one of my co-workers (who has made me nuts whenever we've had to move in the past four years) gave me a card that read: "Thanks again for making this ridiculous move (to this filthy building) a bit more bearable." He included a Target gift card as he knew that he really pissed me off one day. He didn't like the desk I had chosen for him because it was too close to his boss (understandable as his boss is pretty bad), but he whined and generally made me want to slap the shit out of him this one day. Now I go to lunch not even once a month, but one day when he had come over to the new building to decide what desk he did want was one of the few. He called about 9 times (my phone tells me these things) and left a message or two, but when I got back and I called him back he made a comment about how long my lunch hour was (which had included a stop at the new building so everybody could find their new desks and decided they hated the whole idea of the move even more than they already did), and I snapped at him. He tried to apologise later, but he wisely stayed out of my way for awhile.

There is only one coffee room in this entire three floored building and it's on the 3rd floor. I don't drink coffee, but I need hot water for my tea and those damn stairs kill my knees. There are escalators but that's just too lazy for me, even though by the time I get to the top of the staircase I'm limping from the pain in my knees. And it's just so vile I feel dirty constantly. After a trip to the coffee room, I feel like I need to wash my hands because I don't think the handrail has been cleaned/washed since the 1960s. And yes, back in the day I never would have used the handrail but these days, I half need to pull myself up that many steps, so I use it and try not to think about how incredibly nasty it is. One of the supervisors has an industrial size pump jar of hand sanitizer at her desk, thankfully, so I'm over there a couple of times a day to sanitise my hands. I need to get one for myself.

Oh! And that's what started this diatribe against the new building – the state of the restrooms. Since I was semi in charge of the move I have a blueprint (copied and shrunk down) of the floor. One of the men's rooms has eight stalls, five urinals and seven sinks. The women's room near that one has three stalls and three sinks. The other men's room has eight stalls, six urinals and seven sinks. The corresponding ladies' room? TWO stalls and three sinks. And one of those two is a handicapped stall with an automatic flush toilet which I hate with a passion. Ever since hearing that toilets spray infinitesimally small particles of water (and whatnot) up to six feet in all directions I don't flush without putting down the toilet seat and since most public toilets don’t have seats, I don't flush until I'm a millisecond from going through the doorway and pulling it behind me, and automatic toilets like to flush the second I stand up and it grosses me the heck out. For this reason I hate peeing in airports and will actually wait to pee on the plane. At least I know I can control the flushing action.

Another thing to hate about this filthy disgusting building is that the guy on the other side of the wall in front of me (my old building we had three to four foot walls, so it was more friendly-like, here they're a good five feet which seems to give some people a feeling of invisibility) likes to snort up through his sinuses instead of using a tissue like a polite human being. The other day he did it every 2-3 minutes and I had to turn up my music or I was going to be puking. Today he (or perhaps his cubemate) did it very loudly and one of my department mates to my side said, "Kathleen, was that you? Do you need a tissue?" I said, "What do you think?" Now you would have thought that was enough to get the jackass to stop but nope, he did it again and even louder, which had my co-worker walking to my cube to make more comments. I'm tempted to put a box of tissues over there. It'd be worth the few bucks not to be grossed out regularly. Really, people, don't snort, blow your damn nose.

One of the CDs that I bought the week of Christmas kicks so much ass it's not even funny. I can't even begin to tell you how much I LOVE The Arbitrary Width of Shadows. My friend DJ Davo recommended it to me because it was put out by Projekt which is a goth label. Who knew? While there isn't a single song on it that makes me race for the "pass this damn song over" button and I like them all, there is one that I love more than life itself. The song is called "The Vampire Club" by the artist Voltaire from his album Boo Hoo. It's absolutely hilarious lyrically, and upbeat musically. You can listen to it a snippet of it at the Boo Hoo amazon.com page.

Here are the lyrics (which sound better when he's singing them):

The Vampire Club
Oh, the moon was full
And the color of blood
The night the Pirates came
To the Vampire club
Their leader was tall and snide and slim.
He looked like a gay Captain Morgan
Well, he recognized a Vampire
From his school
And he did something that was
Most uncool, he said,
“Hey everybody, see the fool in the cape?
His name is Bernie Weinstein
And he's in the 8th grade!”

Fangs were flying, capes were torn
Hell hath no fury like a Vampire scorned
The number one rule in this game:
Never call one by his real name
Wigs were pulled, top hats were crushed
By pointy boots in a rush
And Boris at the bar orders a Bud and says,
“It’s just another night at the Vampire Club.”

Missi lost a fang in the ladies room
And we all laughed and called her “Snaggletooth!”
And Dee was mad cause he broke his cane
And he flushed his contacts down the drain
There was so much angst after the fight
Vlad and Akasha broke up that night
While some rivet-heads danced in a puddle of goo
That use to be “Father” you-know-who!

Well, it’s hard to believe but we’re still around
And when we hang out it’s always upside down
Dressed in black from toe to head singing,
“Bela Lugosi’s still undead!”
A gaggle of Goths is a peaceful site
We’d do anything to avoid a fight
But if you really want to see some gore and blood
Wait ‘til the Ravers come to the Vampire club!

8 Comments:

At Thursday, 11 January, 2007, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Are you stuck with your new work location indefinitely, or are there some plans to actually get a place that doesn't suck some day? And what's with the M/F stall imbalance? Was the workplace designed for a company in a male-dominated field? We have unisex bathrooms here, which presents other problems (apparently, some of my co-workers have trouble with their aim and pee all over the seat and floor, and fail to clean it up afterwards).

Yes, get your own hand sanitizer. I work in healthcare and have a bottle of it at both of my locations. Apply frequently.

 
At Friday, 12 January, 2007, Blogger Dave said...

More stalls for the men? When did that happen? Most of the men's rooms I've seen (and I don't do it often - the ick factor.) have two. Three at the absolute most.
Just out of curiosity, how many urinals in the women's rooms? You didn't say. ;o)

 
At Saturday, 13 January, 2007, Anonymous Anonymous said...

This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

 
At Saturday, 13 January, 2007, Blogger Kathleen said...

Fermicat - Yes, it was a male-dominated industry, but still, how about a little bit of updating?

Dave - As Fermi pointed out, it's a male dominated profession, but I think the numbers a little skewed even with that in mind.

YouNameIt - You got deleted because you named my company.

 
At Sunday, 14 January, 2007, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Come work with me, Kats. We have a very clean workplace (information technology industry in essence) yet we have these big hand sanitizer dispensaries (the size of toasters) mounted to the walls all over the place. You can't go anywhere without running into one. I've never seen anyone using one yet. Somehow all our bubbliest little go-getters ended up on the Health and Safety Committee so we're getting the royal treatment. I'm afraid they'll make us wear helmets and elbow pads next.

Here's how to start enjoying Chi-chi's and On the Border: Assuming their product at least resembles real food - go have a taste of Taco Bell. Their stuff is made out of playdough, wood filler paste and some kind of gelatinous slime of unearthly origin. It could never be confused with food. One bite of that and you will relish CC and OTB by comparison. Trust me.

 
At Sunday, 14 January, 2007, Anonymous Anonymous said...

The way the new location sounds, I don't think a bottle of hand sanitizer would do the trick.

Can you use an electric tea kettle at your desk to save you from having to climb the stairs?

 
At Sunday, 14 January, 2007, Blogger Beth said...

I'm stuck on the lyrics. I love vampire stuff, but have no idea why.

 
At Monday, 15 January, 2007, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Oops! I didn't know that you have never mentioned the name before. Sorry!!!!

Boy, is my face red.

At least you didn't say you deleted it due to the rest of the content. That's what had me worried for the first few seconds.

 

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