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Every single day I’ve thought to myself “Yes, I’ll ramble on about that” without every actually getting around to posting. Partly, I think, because I’m not a little ray of sunshine at the moment when I gets to thinking, so thinking is something I have tried to avoid as much as possible. I’m talking about the kind of thinking I do here, not the basic functional type thinking. As lazy as I am at work, I think they might have a few words to say to me if I just stand in a corner with my eyes closed, although one day I’ll try it and see if they notice.

I’m trying now to avoid cluttering this with loads of TSO stuff as I can see how it would baffle, bore and annoy those who don’t play. I may in fact register my sim name as a domain name and use that for my TSO “news”. Speaking of domain names, I have no clue what is going on with sothereyago.com and will eventually, I suppose, have to submit a helpdesk ticket. Can you sense the urgency? Thought so.

That damn John Allison has released another SGR T-Shirt which I will now have to buy. I have all of them except the Jimmy Carter one. When I wear them, I feel like I am a fun fun person.

We Have Bowie Concert Date! Yay.

The Melbourne Cup (billed as “the race that stops a nation” - and it actually does stop a nation) is on next Tuesday and I’m thinking perhaps Irish entry Holy Orders will be a loooong shot if he runs at all because at this stage, he’s not running. In fact, it’s only today they’ve managed to get anything more than a canter from him. He is physically fine and good, so it’s been concluded that he misses his stable mate. I am so tempted to back him, I really am. He needs a cuddle.
Saw Holly on Monday which was strange as the last i knew she was in America. Now she is back (obviously) and awaiting her visa patiently (if, by patiently, I mean impatiently). What I liked best about seeing Holly was that after 3 years or whatever it’s been, she still feels she has the right to scab my smokes. :P

Whoooo hooooo! Leaving aside the fact that it’s just not fair my bear has more fun than I do, check it out! Elsie met Eddie Izzard! There’s Sparkle J her very self hanging on to Elsie, with Melissa at the back with Eddie, Alex on the left and Missy on the right. You are all my brand new idols. Doesn’t take much to earn my love, i don’t even gotta meet you. Massive thanks due to Sparkle J for doing this :)

Basically, not a bad day at all. Got a phone call from the HR manager to tell me that I’ve been paid at the wrong rate since October 2001 so there’s a shitload of backpay coming my way (less tax, o’course) and I’m to be paid a band higher. This is good, and also bad as that’s the tech pay rate and I’m not a tech. I’m an officer. I haven’t done the work to be a tech and I’m a bit worried this is going to piss off the techs a bit. Also, I’m not sure the staffing budget for the branch is being increased accordingly, so it might be more of a pain than a blessing, but it’s all cash so I shouldnt’ complain. Second good thing was I got an early knock off and so left work 2 hours early which was good even if I have to make up the hours later - and I do. Third good thing (nay, great thing) was that I got home in time to hear Dash on Fueled. So, I got all this and my bear met Eddie Izzard. I can sleep well. (This is a post midnight post, so all this goodness and joy is froma Thursday. Friday’s goodness and joy is that it’s a Friday).

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JP mentioned on TSO last night that Sooty and Sweep are up for auction, which is fine and dandy, but apparently they are to be seperated for sale! And there’s no news of Soo the Panda who was the only one of the three who could talk. She was a newer addition, i think, for the sophisticated under 5 audience of the early 80s. I’m sorry, but splitting up Sooty and Sweep is like splitting up, well it’s very much like splitting up Sooty and Sweep now I think of it. Wrong. Very very wrong.

We are getting to fisticuffs stage with the interior painting at work. I am being so very good and having only the one opinion - “Anything but beige”. After the ranting over the colour of the new circ desk last year or whenever it was I am not prepared to wade into another debate! Tracey picked out some colours and sent them to the designer who ignored the colours totally. He’s gone for warm colours (which suits me fine, I’m a warm colours kinda girl - except when it comes to webjournals, o’course) which has Jackie stressing (OK, the orange might be a little much). Funniest bit was the request that we remove one of our notice boards because it “Really hits you in the eye when you walk in”. Well DUH, kinda the point. We have to make promotions and what not as obvious as hell because otherwise people just don’t see them. The look on Di’s face was worth a million dollars.

Once upon a time I was a dial-up gal all the time, which was fine. Sure, people on TSO would point and laugh, but otherwise, no drama. Then DSL happened and I could stream music while I played TSO for example (that’s what i was just doing, so the example is recent in my mind). Today my modem fried thanks to a lightning strike - it’s the second one I’ve lost that way. Anyway, here I am on dial-up and even though it’s the fastest dial-up I’ve ever had IT SUCKS. I’m trying to listen to Dash’s show on Fueled and I’ve got so much buffer I could open a buffer shop and sell buffer to the masses and still have buffer to spare. TSO is lagging like a bitch so I hope another roomie can take over the house soon.

Took the day off work today due to this cold, which I think I’ve finally knocked on the head. Well, OK, so I’ve done nothing to try and fix it myself apart from take some cold and flu stuff last night but I’m taking full credit for kicking the cold since it’s MY immune system doing the work. More power to me, yay.

I’m ailing again, but I’m certain that after two days of lingering threat, whatever this is will vanish by the time I wake up. This is because I could really use a day off - even a day off of hacking cold infection will do. On the other hand, we are horribly short staffed this week, so on a cosmic balance it’s going to be annoying either way.

OK, I read about The Wizard of New Zealand in a trash mag the other day and personally I think NZ is just rocking on by appointing an official Wizard. It’s the best idea ever and more governments should be spending their money in this way. OK, so it’s kind of pointless but seriously, how expensive can it be? Take a little bit from something that makes people smile less. Governments need to make us smile more. Really they do. I don’t mean laugh out loud in total disbelief either, less of that.

Not a lot else to say really. i was half updating this on desk while doing the evening shift tonight (which I pretty much just got home from) but it turned out to be less of a boring shift than I expected, so you were spared the ramblings of the 6pm lull. I think we can all be thankful for that :)

It is said that you should learn something new every day, but no one has suggested that what is learned should be valid or useful. Today I learned that if I say hello to the white pony down the road it will flick it’s ears. This has no practical application. I’m not even sure it can be counted as learning. You know what I’ve noticed though? I don’t know enough about anything. I was thinking about it the other day. There is no one thing I am really knowledgable about. I can’t claim to be an expert in anything at all. This can’t be right. There’s so much I want to learn too. i want to know how to make a doll out of wheat, speak Swahili and dance the tango. I think what I’d like to do is take a slow drive across Australia and learn something really new every day. That would be cool. Someone, send money.

Posted Elise off for her next adventure this morning - with many thanks to Sparkle J for babysitting the bear :) Go look at Sparkle J’s site. It’s fabaroo :)

Whoo hoo to Simon on the Express Lane at the supermarket tonight! He is my hero of the day. The queue was a billion miles long what with it being peak hour and the woman in front of me had some tomatos that wouldn’t go though the register properly so he said “Bugger it, it’s not like I care” and put them through for 1 cent. Then when he was serving me the batteries I was buying wouldn’t scan so he called for a price check which took too long (hey, I used to be a check out chick, I know how long these things should take!) so he muttered-in-a-quite-loud-way “Oh where the fuck are those fuckers?”. I said “I don’t know the product code, but they are $9.99″ so he said “I don’t know the code either…(pause) and I just realised I don’t care. I’ll put them through as bread. That price sounds right”. Whoo Hoo Simon! He is the perfect example of what most checkout staff would be if they could get away with it. It made my day.

Seriously not much to report today. I am just basking in the new keyboardyness of the new keyboard and did you know it is getting tricky to buy a plain, no frills keyboard? Even this one has a row of purple buttons along the top which I am sure I will never use anyway. It has a windows key tho, which I’m pleased about. The only no frills board I could find had half sized function keys and that simply will not do (it’s hard enough hitting the right key when they are full sized, I can’t be aiming at a tiny target like that). All the others were cordless, or ergonomic or otherwise horribly expensive. OK, this is quite a long bit about keyboards isn’t it? I’ll move on.

While at the shopping centre I was pleased to see Cookie Monster wandering the food court. It is actually slightly surreal to see a giant muppet walking around and part of my brain didn’t process it very well. Of course I have seen people in character suits before, but only in the places you would expect (Movieworld, for example). To see a huge blue fluffy muppet walking towards you in an unexpected place you is a little bit discombobulating. I do so hope no one ever walks into the library in a furry suit, I’d probably pass out. Of course, if it’s the Austin Powers bloke from Movieworld, I’d pass out anyway, but for different reasons :P

I spent too much money today. Things needed buying and that was that. I am too weak to resist. I very nearly bought a scanner but managed to see sense at the last minute. I have a scanner anyway. OK, so it’s not a very good one and the driver stuffs up a lot, but still. Then I nearly bought a digital camera, but in an amazing show of will power, turned and walked away. Walked Away!. I’m so proud of me. To celebrate, i bought DVDs. Shiny :D

It’s been a computery kind of day, which isn’t bad at all if you ask me (and by coming here, you kinda did ask me). BITS meeting this morning turned into the usual “Oh my god if one more person asks me to reset a PC while I’m on lunch I’m going to firebomb something” mass whinge. It’s not a bad way to spend a morning, really, and it’s nice the support is there. LOL. At one point talk turned to one of the patrons we all love to loathe and one who I happened to swear at a couple of weeks ago. This didn’t get entered here at all, but I asked her the question I have longed to ask so many people - the question being “You seriously think I give a fuck?”. As we were discussing this patron, Crystal started to laugh then said to me “I’ve heard about you!”. Uh oh! Although I’ve had good reactions from people (and Tracey was not cranky at all about it, which is good) I’m kinda worried that the Customer Services manager will be less good in the reaction sense. Still, I’m a mini hero to everyone who hates her (the patron, not the CS manager) - I think maybe i should feel less good about it tho!

When I got home this evening there was a big cardboard box in the laundry with Dell written on it. I was therefore able to entertain the bizarre notion of a secret admirer sending me computers (they say it so much better than roses) even though I knew what it was before I had even closed the door. It was the hardware for the IT Centre. Ladies and gentlemen, for but a brief time there was 6 laptops and a desktop PC plus other bits and pieces sitting around in this house and I wasn’t allowed to play with them! I do so hope you appreciate the torment this caused. Windows XP people! And my grubby hands very much off. *sigh*

Wow. It’s Wednesday and already this week has had at least two weeks of weirdness crammed into it. We’ve had crazies (one woman complaining about the rubbish around the front of the library - complaining bitterly - Sure, it’s ugly, but if it bothers you pick it up and shut up). We’ve had our regular nutters (one of whom needed computer help as she was wanting to “download a soundcard”). We’ve had staff drama (part timer taking sick leave on a Sunday while not actually ill and doing it in a very sneaky underhanded way). It’s been a bizarre time indeed, but at least the school holidays are nearly over so we should soon have less frazzled and desperate parents begging “Have any junior videos been returned recently - please!“.

It’s also suddenly October. I should really have seen the signs when September was drawing to a close, but it’s still a surprise to write 1/10/03 on the timesheet.

This is funny ‘coz it’s true. It may be a comic set in a library, but I hear non-library people also find amusement. That one pretty much sums up my job. It’s one of the many I have taped to my desk.

Today there was much shaking of faith when I read in a book (I know, a book! Where did I find that?) that Daddy Long Legs are not spiders - it said “Many people consider Daddy Long Legs to be spiders. In fact, they are not”. This lead to some panicked research and I am pleased to inform you that yes, Daddy Long Legs are spiders, but there is also a non-spider with the same name. This managed to fill in a good half hour while I searched the building for spiders and checked the internet for information. It’s amazing how stunned I was at this tiny bit of mis-information. It’s also amazing how little work I got done today. It was the kind of day where getting sidetracked was easy (other days I really have to work at it).