beancounters

The trick is knowing when to turn off the porch light

Whew. That was fun! Girl makes an awesome witch Spellmaker. Tonight BB was away, singing in his choir, so Bunny and I closed up the house and cruised the block for about an hour. We impressed Neighbor Bill, and frightened his dogs. N. Karen was dressed as Raggedy Ann! I wore a witch's hat of my own, which was brilliant because it kept me pretty warm on the sidewalks this year.

One house on our block does an imaginative haunted front yard. There are cobwebs all over the shrubs, very weird music playing, and lots of half-dead, disreputable-looking characters lying about. Well, actually, that describes this neighborhood every day. ::rimshot::

Oh, I slay me!

Here, sorry: you deserve some real news after that. I'm here to say, Halloween around here is getting more and more surreal. This is the first year I've experienced adults overtly trick-or-treating. Not the adults leading becostumed toddlers. You know - the ones who carry an extra bag and explain, apologetically and perhaps insincerely (come to think of it), that they'd appreciate an extra treat for a kid who's home with malaria or something, please.

I'm talking regular adults, no costume, no kids in sight, grinning and carrying pillow cases for their candy!

What can you say to them? It's Halloween! Undoubtedly people their age know some effective tricks to play if they don't get their treats. And in their own way, they're quite a bit more polite than the gaggle of high school students who walked up to the porch, dressed sort of lazy-goth (random laundry items, eye makeup, black lipstick), and smoking.

The siren call of chocolate

We waited until nearly the last minute to buy all our Halloween candy ... but it wasn't ... late ... enough ...

Dang, I reeeeeeally want another mini Mounds bar. Oh, man. This is bad. The coconut, it calls to me. Is Bunny asleep yet? I have to at least wait until she's asleep. If she hears me open the laundry room door, she'll know exactly what I'm up to. And she'll climb out of bed to berate me/get some candy herself.

While we're waiting, here are my top five Halloween candies:

5) SweeTarts, in those maddening little two-candy packets. Did you ever just pick up three or four paper packets and tear them down the middle at one time, and empty the candy into a bowl or something, for efficiency's sake? No? Just me? How embarrassing.

4)Charms Blow Pops.  Particularly cherry. No, make that green apple. The green apple is so tart, it makes your back teeth hurt.

3) Milk Duds. Yeah, yeah. Even though they're not really the better chocolate. And you have to chew them what seems like forevah. And while you're chewing, your parents can nab the better chocolate out of your Trick or Treat bag, under the pretense that you're already enjoying something.  Who might try that logic? Hmm, let me think ... ::cough:: MOM!

2) Everything that's real chocolate.

And the best candy:

1) Everything that's real chocolate with coconut!

She's sure to be asleep now. I'm goin' in.

Look out! Anamatronic hippos!

What Disney Ride Are You? Jungle Cruise You're boring, cheesy, and tame. You're the jungle cruise!!

Click Here to Take This Quiz Brought to you by YouThink.com quizzes and personality tests.

Boring AND cheesy. AND tame. Yes! It's rare that a quiz gets to the real me. This quiz gets high marks. [Via Cmdr Sue]

Your tax rubles at work!

It's Saturday, so you have plenty of time to enjoy this article, listing the seven oddest, most expensive government projects in history.

How the man narrowed the list down to seven, I'll never know. (Just had to say that.)

I was going to give you a quote from #6, "Bimbo School". But since my brother used to live in Idaho, he'll be glad that a place in his former home made the list.

Teton Dam

The Great Idea: Dam the Snake River in Idaho. Sounds easy enough.
The Great Big Problem: Holding back the river’s 80 billion gallons of water proved more difficult than engineers thought.
Cost to Taxpayers: $100 million in construction fees and another $2 billion in damage.

The planning and design phase of the Teton Dam in southeastern Idaho took nearly three decades; the construction took a little more than four years. The dam’s total collapse, however, took exactly one afternoon. Realizing you just wasted some serious tax dollars? Priceless.

Friday dog-blogging: Nyah, nyah, nyah

I'm so relieved it's Friday.

For me,"Friday", the celebratory state of mind, that is, starts on Thursday nights. Specifically, the precise second I leave my lame, frustrating Land Use class. Isn't that nice? Twice the celebration in the same week.  Suuuure.

But you didn't come here to listen to me talk. You came here to watch Sammy tease Daisy because he has a chew bone and she doesn't. (In more ways than one! Oh, that was rude of me to say. Bad dog.)

Believe me, both dogs start out with treats. But Daisy inevitably loses track of hers in her insane jealousy over Sammy having one. Then the chase begins.

The POPE's bridge

HUNTINGTON, W.Va. - His intentions may have been good, but 26-year-old Jason Sansom probably should have asked for permission before painting a Huntington bridge pink. Sansom says he was walking by the bridge over Fourpole Creek in Ritter Park last weekend when he noticed it needed a paint job.

He decided then and there that he wanted to do something to help clean up the city, so he bought $50 worth of paint and went to work painting it pink in honor of Breast Cancer Awareness Month.

Breast cancer awareness? Riiiight. Wink-wink.

It's so obvious. A guy who just pulls an idea out of thin air, and goes to all the trouble to slap paint on a public work without permission - pink paint! Not even matching paint! - is a full-tilt ==POPE==, with all rights and privileges pertaining thereto.

One thing puzzles me. Why didn't he explain to the authorities his Infallable Nature at the Scene of the Revelation? Maybe he doesn't know he's an instrument of the Goddess. Maybe he's what Kerry Thornley called an avatar - someone who successfully rearranges society's furniture a little, but doesn't know he's actually part of a larger picture of chaos.

Blogfolk, our mission is clear. We need to make sure that kid gets hip to the Goddess before She manifests again and gets his ass thrown in jail. Quick - which of you lives closest to Huntington? I will email you some literature to take to him.

Battle of the rock widows

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Rock 'n' roll legend Elvis Presley ceded his crown to Nirvana lead singer Kurt Cobain on Forbes.com's list as the top-earning dead celebrity.

Cobain's coup was due to his widow, actress and singer Courtney Love, who sold a 25-percent stake in the Seattle grunge group's song catalog to New York music publishing company PrimeWave.

Rounding out the top five [was] Beatle John Lennon at $24 million ...

Good lord, Yoko and Priscilla. Get crackin'! Home-girl Courtney's beating you by a mile.

And what's up with these blaaghs?

Holy. Freakin. Frejoles. Andy Rooney has discovered blogging.

It's time to find another hobby, quick. Something. Anything. 

Endurance test

I am trying to see how many hours in a row I can sit without getting up once. My current record is four hours; but now that I've started seriously training, you may expect even greater feats of endurance. 

Snaaape! He's so dreamy!

The entire internets is acting really wonky this morning.  It would not accept my blog posts - and then later, when I wasn't looking, it posted them multiple times.

Are all the tubes overfilled or something? Whatever it is, I blame you.

So anyway, Halloween is coming. I'm supposed to have class on Tuesday night but I'm thinking about playing hookey so I can go trick-or-treating with my kid. It's my favorite holiday - I can't miss it.

Bunny wanted to dress up like a witch again. But she was a little bored with the prospect, as this would have been her third straight year. Luckily, the costume store had a girl's costume called a "Spellmaker". It's a black dress with a raggedy hem and with silver doodads all over it, plus a tall pointy black hat. See? Not a witch at all. Totally different.

I'm disappointed that she never wants to be a Hogwarts character for Halloween. Every year, I try and persuade her. I'm all like, look! Cool cape! School tie! Pointy black hat (a proven fashion fave)! But the only girl character in HP that's worth being is Hermione Granger - and Bunny doesn't like Emma Watson's hair. So that's that.

Speaking of Hogwarts, look what I saw at Chaos Theory: page after page of Snape-jones. It seems that thousands of grown women really have a thing for Severus Snape. They create webrings and all these virtual shrines in their obsession.

Not that I blame them. I've written a little Snape fan fic myself, you know - and it's pretty salacious, so be warned. This is how it goes: I am an attractive young teacher who has just taken a job at Hogwarts. Snape is assigned to give me a thorough school orientation. We walk the entire length of the castle, talking ... alone together ... until ...

Snape: And finally, we come to the dungeons. Er - mind the swamp.

Pam: It’s so spooky! Hold me!

Snape: Miss, kindly remove your hands from inside my robes.

Pam: Say, is that a bottle of verataserum, or are you just happy to …

::POOF:: [Snape turns Pam into a ferret.]

Halloween music

I just downloaded the Bride of Monster Mash (legally) (for a change) [via BoingBoing] - it's fantastic. If you get a chance, I recommend it. Starts with Prokofiev and moves into the Ghostbusters theme song and later, 'The Devil Went Down on Betty'. BB says he might have it playing when trick or treaters come to the door. Mwheh-heh.

Suffering from Crustaceambivalence?

TPTB are keeping me unusually busy today. But I'm still on the job as your humble meme-maker. Your job this week is to use one of these new words in a sentence this week.

Examples:

Improbinvisibility cloak: The new now-you-see-me, now-you-don’t device that’s in development but (we’re guessing) may never actually exist.

‘Nautiquette: A new series of policies developed by NASA.

Gourdectomy: Surgery to remove the innards and viscera of a pumpkin.

Friday dog-blogging: straight from the dog's mouth

"What do you mean, my face will soon be seen by the whole world? Oh, on your blog? Ha! More like 20 people. But since you're making the effort, I myself have got a few things to say to the whole world. Take this down, She. ::ahem::

"HUMANS OF THE INTERNET. You have all got to quit anthropomorphizing your dogs!

"Quit writing blogs that are allegedly from your dog's point of view.

"Quit putting your dogs in little Halloween costumes. It's wrong to make dogs into bugs and flowers. Except that one dog that looks like Donald Trump. Remember? That was some funny shit. That was funny across human-animal borders, believe me. We still bark about that one. Where was I?

"Oh, yes. Dogs don't think like humans. They are more like strange aliens who happen to live in your home and get along with you, insofar as they don't kill you and eat you while you sleep. So don't buy us silly dog beds like this one here - we prefer to lie around on your old clothes; they smell better. Don't bring us peculiarly-shaped 'Scooby snacks', whatever those are. News flash! We like red meat! Film at eleven!

"And for the love of Dog, do not put words in our mouths.

"That is all. Now where the hell is my squeaky toy?"

Do not disturb

This new cubicle is configured so that people practically have to walk into it to see if I'm here. This nets me lots of privacy. Lots and lots of privacy. So much so, I sometimes forget other people work here. If it weren't for the phones ringing, I'd feel completely alone here.

I love this cubicle.

Our supervisor's boss came by  this afternoon to bolster the troops - and in the process, he clued me that there are new assignments coming down the pike for the projects I'm working on. For instance, the carpel tunnel syndrome spreadsheet from earlier this week? OK, not a word of appreciation. Whatever. But I'll have to pull stats from the big matrix and make guesses of unusual size as to what the respondents meant when they gave the answers they did. Grandboss says my supervisor will explain more fully.

Tomorrow. Please don't let my supervisor come back until tomorrow. Instructions like this should only be faced with a full night's sleep behind you.

I've been studying for a quiz being given in tonight's land use policy class. Our professor gives a quiz every single week, did I tell you? As if this were 10th grade, and the teacher has to set all kinds of grade bombs to trick us into studying. Facing a weekly quiz changes the way you read. Instead of reading holistically, to get the jist of the policy issue and be ready to discuss the concepts in class, you have to read word for word and memorize things like dates and stats and agency names. Takes longer. Much longer. And guess when all this reading must take place? At night, after work and after parenting.

(BB, that's not a bag on you, I promise. More on my scheduling ability.)

Words that end in -gry

This is great - the only appropriate response when somebody pulls that inane riddle.

Dude, where's my rolodex?

Another day, another cubicle. My coworkers and I were moved to another section of the building today. Neighboring departments had recently hired lots of staff. They requested our space so they can stay in proximity to each other for the sake of fantasy football leagues workplace continuity.

Plus, those neighboring departments are way more attractive than we are; Admin was getting complaints that the four of us were bringing down the office aesthetics. Talk about depressing.

Interesting Beancounters trivia: we have returned almost exactly to the cubicle I started in when I first came aboard last November. Remember those days when I would rant about my mistake in transferring? Remember me crying in my car? And keeping my personal box under my desk at all times, in case I got brave enough to jam outta here?

I still keep that box, but not for paranoid reasons. Now it holds a rotating selection of holiday-themed childrens artwork. Yes, really. I've finally mellowed. I've settled down. It's a relief, for the most part, though there's a tiny part of me that's disgusted I fell victim to cognitive dissonance. It seems I couldn't stay mad at myself and the world for nearly a year. Eight months seems to be the Stick It To The Man threshold.

Mistress of the spreadsheets

Ready to finish a huge spreadsheet project my boss committed us* to have done by mid-Wednesday. The outlook is grim, time-wise, but I'll do my best.

Mistress of the Spreadsheets supply list

- Mentos - mint and cinnamon

- Peppermints

- diet Coke

- water

- Mix CDs

- Headphones

- Copy of Entertainment Weekly for occasional peeks at what Kate Winslet is up to

- Koosh ball to stave off carpel tunnel syndrome

Excelsior!

* As you probably guessed, by "us", she means "Pam". Oh, well. 

How many of me?

How many people in the U.S. have your name? Find out here. [via]

According to this, about 1,700 people share my name - that's way less than I thought. I already know one of them. We keep getting each other's work email. But she's cool about forwarding the crap that occasionally routes to her, so I try to act the same.

Only 8 people have my daughter's name. Mission accomplished! But BB: over 13,000. Crikey.

The Departed

In other news, the kid was invited to a sleepover Saturday night, so BB and I did what any two normal, healthy adults in a committed relationship would do ... ran out and saw an R-rated movie. Namely, The Departed.

I must say, if you have the stomach for three hours of gunshots to the head, I recommend this movie. It's some excellent film work. Suspenseful. Well paced. Very well acted - I didn't know Leo was even in this league. Pretty heavy on the music, though. Scorcese telegraphs upcoming violence by turning up the volume on whatever Rolling Stones tune happens to be playing throughout.

Blinking owls under fluorescent lights

Monday morning meetings, particularly those scheduled for 9 a.m., are The Devil. Because anything you found heart-burningly urgent on Friday has vacated your skull during the weekend's veg-out, leaving nothing but puzzlement.

Luckily, we've all worked together long enough to be honest about this temporary amnesia. Much owlish blinking in the conference room. Much rifling through notes and collections of printed-out emails.

The only thing getting my blood moving at all this morning is this memory: two departments are working on exactly the same project. Actually, one department was productively working on it - then another department seems to have shanghai'd it for reasons unknown.

Now the second department is trying to push their version of the project through, by being the first ones to show it to Administration. Bizarre ... or is it? Is there more to the story? Did my boss's boss's boss put them onto it, perhaps not knowing his own people were in production with the first department? Days like these I feel keenly my lowly level on the totem pole.

At first, I thought I was the only one puzzled by this (at best) serious lack of communication in our agency, or (at worst) act of piracy. But this morning, my fellow blinking owls assured me that last Friday, they'd felt this was a confusing problem. According to their notes, that is. Mwheh-heh.

Later: The issue was the latter: my grandboss got with the second department, but we who were working with the first department were the last to know.

Somehow, I'd hoped the problem really was pirates.