My job is really weird sometimes...

[The Queen]

Technically I'm still on vacation, but we're putting out three new software releases for three different products simultaneously, one of which got shipped out to all my freelance training agents while I was still in Boston, so I kind of needed to make sure that the online course and certification test got posted so that they don't bug me with questions while I'm busy writing and reprogramming the basic skills CBT that has to be ready before I go back to Chicago at the end of the month...

So no, technically they didn't "make" me work today, but I put in about five hours.

And I'll probably be putting in 12-14 a day for the next several weeks, but it really should lighten up considerably after that. I've got 7 weeks of vacation coming, so as soon as these products are out the door, I'm taking advantage of that! Maybe 3 or 4-day work week the rest of the year???

[scapino]

It will be interesting to check with you at the end of 2008 to see if you were actually able to capitalize on the 7 weeks and engineer a 4 day work week. While good in theory, I hope it doesn't result in a series of vacation days like the one that you had today.
DM - Still have the ninja suit (though it fits tighter and I move slower than when last used) and am ready to throw in. By the way, I too am suffering from an end of the year cold. I hope that you are not being cursed with such agression that bits of the evil eye aren't splattering the rest of us?!

[cranefly]

Dear DM.

Did you happen to see me in a barrel go over the waterfall issuing from your forehead?
This cold just went to the next level. What a New Year's welcome. Never been this achy and miserable before from just a cold.
Anyway, my one hope is that I'm channeling some of the hurt away from you.

Whatever, happy new year to all. May your health bloom like a cactus in a desert full of chocolate cakes.

[King Bob]

Well I have another new job, but this time I am actually qualified for it. I am the new Visual Resources Curator at the university that I think most of you attended. Once upon a time, this job was called Slide Librarian, but now it involves cataloging and managing a digital image database, owning and maintaining art history department and their course websites, and maintaining (and digitizing) the slide collection. So now all my varied work history and MA in Art History have come together. I feel like Odysseus. I even have a budget and student assistants. It's so weird. But I am happy to be back in academia, and to get good benefits.

[Greg_phpbb3_import1]

Does this mean we now have access to all the historic San Jose slides? It makes the mind ponder.

[thatguy]

That is awesome! Congratulations KB!

--tg

[King Bob]

I also have a large uncataloged collection of lantern slides (precursors to more modern slides, film in glass mounts approx. 3x4in) and I imagine some of them are unusual - I grabbed one at random and it was a temple in Thailand. I even have the projector to show them.

FYI, slides are becoming unusable; Kodak has stopped making the projectors, so consider digitizing your slide collections. I have a graveyard of dead projectors for parts to fix the working ones.

[Drunk Monk]

That sounds like an environment where you can truly thrive. I'm so happy for you.

[Drunk Monk]

As those of you know who have bothered to visit me at work, we have an adjacent space that separates our office from the warehouse. It's sort of our green room. GM Tu uses it as a classroom sometimes. He's doing that now. He's doing a special week-long workshop. It's all in Mandarin. There are many students milling about, using up our toilet paper and leaving spills in our bathroom. Right now, there's about half a dozen guys wearing skirts, preparing to spank it like a monkey in a mango tree, then do some weight lifting. These are very common looking Chinese guys, the kind who you might stand next to at a bus stop. Oh lordy, I can hear them grunting and spanking. The room smells really funky, a sour potpourri of gym odors, dry herbs and evacuated stale qi. And I'm supposed to write while this is going on? Where are the female iron crotch practitioners?

[Drunk Monk]

There they go again. Now they're donning their little skirts and going at it. Don't they know it's a sin?

grunt! whack! grunt! grunt! whack! whack! whack!

I just replaced the toilet paper *again* and the paper towels *again*.

[Drunk Monk]

glynch on IM to DM:

Oh that. The queen says that's the beauty of telecommuting. Not a lot of crotch hitting in the next room

I don't believe that. I don't believe that at all. I've been to Lynch Manor. The Queen's next room hearing must be muffled with cat fur.

[Greg_phpbb3_import1]

I don't think there's a lot of members of the same sex despoiling the bathroom, playing with their junk, and leaving sticky tissues, either.

[Drunk Monk]

there's iron crotching hitting and then there's glynch crotch hitting. one happens at dm's work, another at tq's work. that's all i'm sayin'

ok, i'm saying one more thing: don't hate me because my fantasy land is beautiful.

[Greg_phpbb3_import1]

DM's fantasyland is not beautiful. It's full of men Iron crotching themselves. At MeatFest 2008, we told Derek about your predicament. He asked if the Iron Crotchers couldn't find better things to do than get kicked in the nads.

More Tissue is on the way.

[Drunk Monk]

a weekend bout of posts! dm vs. glynch, and glynch runs for reinforcement fencers! to answer the ever-wise mr. cotton, no, they don't have anything better to do. and that's not my fantasy land. that's my reality. my fantasy land is beautiful. my reality is skirt-wearing guys smacking themselves, grunting a lot, and lifting weights. my reality = not beautiful.