Diversions of the Day

I was drawn to this article by..well, basically due to the inclusion of the word "Cheese" in the headline there.  I am automatically down with any & all things fromage-related.

NO, sorry, I did not screen cap the entire thing. Here be the gist: the FDA discovered the sometimes-inclusion of CHEESE MITES in the rind of this cheese, and they be all grossed out

That article had a link (to refer you to more facts on mimolette) to the website of Murray's Cheese Shop.  I was all- now *where* have I heard of this establishment before???  And it wasn't through any hardcore cheese shopping, because for a self-professed fromage fiend, I have little-to-nil dealings with specialty cheesemongers. I know--deplorable.  I'd actually heard of 'em in a Beastie Boys song.  The web site (go scope it out HERE ) inordinately fascinated me.  Much more to learn there then in the skimpy mimolette article.  I haven't been this thrilled by a comestibles database since I discovered the TERRIFIC  Orange Pippin Website. 

Later, during a surreptitious (surreptitious-ish) check of Facebook on my phone, I saw a posting by Moe's Southwest Grill proclaiming that today is National Haiku Day.  Facebook being a fairly dubious source for that intel (for any intel), I set out to verify that.  And, oui, according to the Haiku Foundation (there's a foundation...for reals!!)  April 17 is indeed National Haiku Poetry Day.  I was perusing award winning haikus on the Foundation's website, and I was like .."what the hell? These haikus are busted!!These hacks! YOU'RE DOING IT WRONG!!"  Yep, I was sitting there rereading
the poems and counting syllables on my fingers.
  Well, come to find out, I am ignorant about haikus.  They've subdivided Haiku into "Traditional Haiku" (which is haiku as I know it: a 5 syllable first line, 7 syllables in the second & then a third and last line of 5 syllables)  and then they have "Contemporary Haiku"  which is 3 brief-ish lines that have NO SYLLABIC REQUIREMENTS WHATSOEV!  So you're just kinda making sparse, haiku-esque free verse and that counts, does it?? I'm sorry but ...BULLFECKINGSHIT. Why do you have to call that Haiku, when it is totally eschewing the framework that defines Haiku??

5-7-5 format

makes it a fucking haiku

don't go renegade!!

Late in the afternoon, our office got to talking about the best TV theme songs (it was an attack of Early Onset Friday Afternoon Punchiness) and Sue said how she always liked the instrumental theme for Sanford & Son.  This led to a myriad of sub-convos, the first being how I heartily agreed with her.

And then, poor, deprived Brian chimed in how he'd never even HEARD of Sanford & Son (quelle tragédie!!!) After I provided him with a synopsis, I shared how I had been trying to get the Sanford & Son theme as a ringtone on my cell and it was much more difficult than one would imagine. (all the legit ones proferred for sale on iTunes are crappish new-stereo-recording sounding copies)   I don't know that the Sanford theme is my #1 fave TV theme song (it's high up on the list though, fer sure!) that's not why I was compelled to get it on my phone. It was more of a statement...  Along with other clerical odd jobs, I've always worked closely with our agency's Director of Facilities & Materials.  That is, until he left at the end of January to start his own biz.  It seems to absolutely be our M.O. these past few years, to not replace the administrative staff we lose.  Shit, just save some $$ and redistribute their duties!!  So, while a lot of Larry's jobs weren't *officially* assigned to me, they've fallen to me kinda by default.   I've become the lord of the supply room, which is part salvage yard (like medical salvage).  Hence me thinking of myself as Fred Sanford.  My presiding over the office junkyard. My near-constant urge to bellow "YOU BIG DUMMY"  at people.  I just need me a LaMont.  And some ripple.  I mentioned this afternoon that I was going to take to drinking ripple. Brian didn't know what ripple was either (and I suppose, if I'd never watched S&S I wouldn't have known about it either)  I emailed him this excerpt from Wikipedia's nifty write-up on bum wines--

Then the crew got to wondering--could we actually buy us some ripple anywhere nowadays?? And OF COURSE, I'm the only ne'r-do-well to commence to Googling this.  Now this quest lands me on a website that gives me a pop-up warning of POTENTIAL MALWARE.  And I spy the word "Trojan" in the pop-up and am savvy enough to know to NOT click a damn thing on that screen, only Alt+F4 pronto & on the double, repeatedly, if needed. I seem to have avoided any PC pox crisis.  I have several work pals who have contracted a computer virus...but this was in the course of looking up phone numbers or doing some other work-related search.  If that  was my sitch, I wouldn't really sweat it, but if I had to beg help of IT because I crashed my computer searching "Where can I buy ripple??"  Oy vey...another black mark in the personnel file for me!!!

BAD Behavior

I was a naughty little imp at the office today.

We got this fax from "The Heritage Registry of Who's Who"  proclaiming "YOU HAVE BEEN CONSIDERED FOR INCLUSION IN THE HERITAGE REGISTRY OF WHO'S WHO EXECUTIVES AND PROFESSIONALS 2013 EDITION ."

Such bollocks, that.  They address a definite "you", but the fax isn't even put to anyone's attention. At least the shyster life insurance sales people stipulate "All Employees" when they pretend that the HR department is faxing us about "tremendous savings on life insurance!!"  (They have this ad that is a faux fax cover sheet and it's from "HR Dept"  How utterly ridic it would be if anyone on the planet fell for that !! HA)

Anyway these pesky solicitous faxes  litter up the table by the fax machine and kinda piss me off. I'm not  enraged or anything like that, just irked.  It's a douchey way to advertise...they're sucking up MY
resources (toner, paper) and tying up my fax line...how fecking obnoxious!!
Well because I was feeling...like I said, impish today, I didn't  instantly  toss this into the recycle bin, as usually I do.  My first reflex was to fabricate the professional profile and accomplishments of Mr Hugh Janus (Esquire)or Mr Seymour Buttz. But then I thought...What tha shit...am I Bart Simpson?? How sophomoric!!
So I used the name "Trevor Harrison"  to fill out the form.  "Trevor Harrison" is not some arbitrary handle plucked from the ether, he is (ostensibly) the membership director over there at The Heritage Reg offices. Y'all can see just what I wrote, because after faxing it back,  I scanned the thing to myself (so amused was I by my own impistry)



Now here's the dumbass part...after the scan and the fax I was very careful to BE ABSOLUTELY SURE to dispose of this application of Trevor's.  I went directly to the secure padlocked shred bin and deposited it therein.  Ummm, but I forgot about the fax transmission report.  This prints your fax outcome ("Transmitted" or "Failed") over a slightly shrunken image of the first page of your fax.  We used to have a copier that printed this page only if your fax failed to transmit (I personally think that a more sensible S.O.P.) but this new printer prints this page everytime. 

I have no idea who took that thing off the printer...or who left it--face up --on the table . Nor do I have any idea who might have looked it over while it sat there for hours. Am fervently hoping that none of those people know what my handwriting looks like!! Well , no, on second thought it matters naught if my handwriting was or wasn't recognizable. Pretty much everyone in the office KNOWS I'm the only nutter apt to do such a thing. Though they may be surprised that I bandy about the word cocksucker so freely (none of them that have ridden in a vehicle I was driving would be surprised..but only a few of 'em have had that thrill).
 I just have to bank on mass apathy hope that nobody bothered to read it. 
This *does*make me grateful that my boss is a lazy oaf that would never deign to touch a fax machine( if ever she had a fax needing faxing ,yours truly would be the sender of it)

The Last 3 Things I Bought on iTunes

Yeeeeeeeeeeeah, more about music. I swear, next post, it'll be about something real pithy- business ethics, or quantum physics, or my favorite internet celebrity cats.

It's just that my tunes library is sorted by date of acquistion (newest songs on top)  and looking at the top few songs, it struck me that it was a sampling that illustrated how  loco all-over-the-map my taste is.  

This first one I've been using to kick off nearly every single car trip nowadays...

I feel like I should be offended by really misogynistic rap lyrics such as these, but truthfully they don't bother me in the slightest.

And we go from that to the  very lovely guitar in--

The Rumours album has been kicking around the planet for longer than I have, and somehow, incredibly, I just heard that song for the first time last week.  I had already written off Fleetwood Mac as "Ok, but not really a particular fave of mine"  "Landslide" notwithstanding.  Everytime I hear "Landslide" I tear up, yet I still LOVE it.  I guess that's technically a F-Mac song, but in my mind it's more of a Stevie Nicks thing. But anywho...not particularly into the group, but I heard "Never Going Back Again" on the radio the other night and was smitten with that guitar.  The vocals are more-or-less ignorable, but the guitar is like an extract of all that was sweet about the seventies..it's floppy sun hats and daisies, and riding tandem bikes.

The instrumentals in this Yardbirds song are amaaaazeballs, It makes me want to go-go dance in hyper turbo-speed. (Ain't nobody wanna see that shit, so I just go-go dance in my mind)

It seems to me very.. I dunno... complicated for 1965.  There's lotsa cool shit going on there, particularly when you contrast it with some o' the stuff  from that same period...a basic little ditty like "Mrs Brown You've Got a Lovely Daughter" for instance...

HEEEEY YOOOOOUUU GUUUUUUUYS!!!

We're gonna turn it oooon, we're gonna bring you the powerrr...

Oh, no, yooou guuuuuys, I WISH I was about to rant about that Electric Company, but I actually want to bitch about Green Mountain Power Corporation. And  I do realize,  'tis a dull and trite rant topic...something your classic J Arthur Crank
would be apt to grumble about ...therefore I'll try to be brief.

I set up my GMP account so that it's "paperless".    I'm sorta lax about attending to my actual, USPS snail mail, (whereas I'm more or less fused to a computer for the majority of every day) and that's why I've set up my account this way.  It cuts down somewhat on all the mailings, though they still send you a sort of abridged bill once a month.  You can,at any time, view your account online in full detail. This whole set up would be perfect if I could also pay my bill online.  Well, it's not entirely true that I can't .  The case is that I won't...because there's a $4.95 CONVENIENCE FEE that I cannot stomach.

Every crafty hippy peddling paper bead garlands on their bush league Etsy shop has set up a way for me to easily pay online but a corporate giant power corporation can't manage it?? They turf off the processing work to Western Union and that's why there is this infernal convenience fee.  I'm trying to PAY THEM (on time, if I can swing it)  and they  want to charge me more so that I can do so conveniently.  Does this seem whack to anyone else???

I know, I know...it's a power company.  They don't have to bother with that competing for business foolishness that entails all that striving for customer satisfaction bushwa. They will charge a convenience fee and I will DEAL. "ThankyousirmayIhaveanother!"

Well, conversely (just so's you don't think I'm a dissatisfied consumer 100% of the time) there is a corporation I am actually pleased with ...and that is Mysteriously Anonymous Pad Vendors of America Association Corp LLC.  No, no, I actually don't have any idea who I'm pleased with (that was a made-up corporation name.as perhaps you surmised) but here is my thought...

these vending machines were the best ever. I remember them being at Ames and I think one  Ames store had a modified one w/ a Fred Flinstone inside rather than the standard FunChicken.  He yelled "Yabba Dabba Doo" before vending....in my hazy recollections of the thing.

I remember when gumball machines at the front of grocery stores used to have goodies priced at 5 CENTS. It was utter rubbish, of course, but NOW the cheapest rubbish in the bank of gumball machines is a quarter.  And I think the quarter machines are becoming rare!  Vending machine soda prices have shot up also.  It's still pretty cheap to get Sam's Choice soda in the vending machines outside of Walmart, but I, like most discerning adults, would rather drink alpaca piss.  I don't know who this "Sam" is, but I seriously question his judgement.  Anyway the main point here is :blah blah blah INFLATION (with a sub-point about me being old).
However, in a public restroom the other day, I had an ephiphany. Epiphanies always find me in the can--it's uncanny (HA!)  The generic Kotex-esque pads in ladies' room vending machines have been priced at 25 cents since the dawn of time.  Ok, well, for as long as I can remember, they have been.  And, hey, it's been established that I'm olllld, therefore "as long as I can remember" = BEACOUP decades.   I was inordinately charmed by this realization (I've decided that "epiphany" is too grandiloquent  a term for this case...though let the record show I have had a fair amount of bonafide epiphanies on the toilet).  It meant to me that this company....or perhaps companies...(probably they're unionized?) ..realizes that if you have to resort to using one of those almost completely nonadhesive, ginormous, cotton monsters then you are for certain in a bad way.  And it would simply be wrong to ratchet up the price on someone who is need like that, inflation be damned.  I took it as one of those rare instances of ethics trumping greed, and I was moved. (compose your own bowels wisecrack here)