beancounters

Gazing into the future

I estimate that, if Typepad features one blog per day in order of excellence, they ought to get to my blog sometime in late 2048. And then with my luck, I'll have switched to WordPress the week before. Oh well.

Don't. Stop. Puttin' off tomorrow

If you haven't seen yesterday's episode of The Show, I recommend it. Ze explained the the ins and outs of learning to start procrastinating.  How did he know?? How did he know?? I need to start me some procrastinatin', PRONTO! Because I have picked two thesis advisors now, and they're starting to talk. They're starting to talk to me about how crappy my prospectus is, and worse: they're starting to talk to each other about me and my crappy prospectus. Quick, Pam, it's time to spring into action and ... download some new fonts or something.

No, really, I can't even begin to write a proper prospectus without a day-planner. I'd better take some quality time to shop for one. Or two. Or a hundred. And I'll use my agency's Cal-Card to buy them. [Kidding, just kidding.] 

Fun with state $$$

Yikes. Here's something you don't see every day - a civil servant going credit card happy right under her employers' noses.

A Natomas woman stands accused of bilking the state of more than $250,000, turning her procurement job into a means of buying a Lexus, hot tub and big-screen television, among other things. [...]

Aceves had direct buying power with a credit card, which she used to buy furniture and services for an office move during her 17 months with the agency. DSS officials said Aceves falsified invoices to make it appear she was making legitimate purchases. Meanwhile, she was buying iPods, speakers and stereos, and selling some items on the Internet auction E-Bay to save money for the Lexus, authorities said.

I myself have made purchases on those state credit cards. It's not that easy for us regular public servants. Once I was responsible for buying half-dozen Covey day-planners for my department. (Yeah, I know. He was a fad for a while with CA's time-management trainers.) They made me justify every cent I paid with e-mails from my boss, signatures, requisition forms, receipts, more signatures from each recipient, etc.

But at some point up the food chain, a state agency can sometimes neglect to watch the watcher.

$250K $320K! Check out her garage. It's stuffed full of boxes of karaoke machines and printers and little dresses. And she appeared relieved when the police finally showed up? She must have been a compulsive buyer. I don't know how else you embezzle so much and then hang around town, driving your new Lexus like everything's on the level.

Widget-swapping

Quick show of hands. If I used Blidget to turn my own blog into a widget, how many of you would agree to take up valuable sidebar space with my blog's headlines?

Anybody? Anybody? Bueller?

Holy frejoles, the blogworld is already incestuous self-referential enough, but now comes a whole new level. I don't get it.

I've been patient

but this is getting downright disappointing. On Sunday, I'm happy to say this post was included in the newspaper, in the weekly Blog Watch column. But not one person has written me this week to complain that I mocked the Rapture.

What is wrong with this town? I gave it more credit for intrusive prosthelytizing than this. Now I'm just not sure of anything anymore.

American public service announcement

If you skipped the Super Bowl yesterday (like we did) but you're ad-curious, or you want to see a replay of the infamous (but surprisingly inoffensive) K-Fed/fast food commercial, there's a place for you: iFilm is carrying all the good Super Bowl ads today.

We now return you to our regularly-scheduled blog, already in progress.

Historical ghost

It's Saturday, so you have plenty of time to marvel at my famous ghost photo. Yes, I finally found it, in the third and last basket of photos.

This photo was taken at Monticello, Jefferson's home in Virginia, in May of 1996. The day was very cloudy and misty. When we got to the cemetery, I took several photos, and then, because I wanted a shot without the iron fence in the foreground, I reached inside the fence with the camera and took this last shot.

I don't honestly know what this is. I just know that I've taken over 5,000 photos in the last ten years (as evidenced by the number of new photo boxes I own), in all kinds of weather and lighting. This is the first and only time I've captured this sort of misty nimbus in a picture ... and it happens to be in a cemetery.  On the more rational side, none of the photos in this roll were what you could call high-quality.  Here they are on Flickr.

What say you?

Friday pet-blogging

I've never personally owned a cat, though the propensity for this brand of madness seems to run in my family. My mother was adopted by a stray cat some years after I moved out, and my dad and brother have both lived with cats and survived.

But having watched cat-ownership from the outside, I have to say this extrordinary video on how to wash a cat is exactly - exactly - what I have always believed it must be like.

Fight the power on Feb 2!

A message to the groundhog from radical author Punxsutawney X:

Wake up, fool.  Ain't never gonna happen.  The Man is using you.  Like a fool tool.  And when he's done using you, you going into the frying pan.   Just like all your proud groundhog brothers out waging the good fight against the oppression and tyranny you do your little play-act to prop up.

Just say no, Phil.  Tomorrow, bite somebody.

Assignment: Read pp. 25-1,000,000 - ROFLMAO!

Some of us were wondering if Fahrenheit 451 is still taught in schools. Well, here's proof that it is.

P.S. How cool to see schoolteachers use the blogging medium to post assignments and reminders for their students. Wouldn't you agree this is a little more accessible than those mimeographed pages they used to post inside the window? That was teacher-blogging, analog style. Heh.