HorizonPurple.com

I wore my striped socks to work today so everyone called me Pippi Longstocking, mentioned Dr Seuss a lot and Rebecca asked if Wally was hiding in my socks (for American readers, for some obscure reason we refer to the constantly missing Waldo as Wally). My mother, upon my arrival home, was horrified. She says I look like I was put together at an opshop (opshop - oxfam shop). In a sense I was, since the skirt is second hand (and I’ve not been able to fit into it since high school, whoot!). Why should you care about my socks? I don’t know, why shoulnd’t you?

Just found that my name is a dot com, for a German plate glass insurance company. I fail to see the link, but there you have it. Very slightly surreal. I mean my real name, obviously, I know horizonpurple is a dot com since I paid for it.

I think you’ve caught me out here since i’ve not a lot to say today. I could whinge about working Sunday with two utter DRIPS but I won’t coz if I do it now I won’t have anything to post on Sunday, will I?

In the meantime, I strongly suggest you check out SparkleJs 26 things entry because she’s been very clever with it indeed - plus Elsie is in one and since her web presence has been sadly diminished due to my utter laziness this might be the only time you see her for a while :)

here goes… “Damn the youth of today”. There, I said it. I am officially old. Someone fetch me a Horlicks and a blanket. OK, reason for this comment is: Yesterday there was a group of teenagers hanging around at Allwood House. Two girls (dressed like slags, so I hear) and three boys. At one stage they were pulling things out of the garden, so Rod (caretaker for the house) wandered over and told them to stop. This got him a mouthful of abuse which didn’t really bother him. Today Mum arrived at allwood to find broken glass all over the seats in the conversation pit (it’s like a sunken gazebo) and a broken window in the kitchen. They’d taken the tea and coffee money (about 40cents, bit of a wasted effort for them). What gets me, what really gets me is the mindlessness of this. “I can do what I want, fuck you”. It’s so incredibly depressing. This kind of teenager has no interest in anything around them unless it gives them something. I noticed it when I repeated year 12. The year before, when I was with the people I’d been with right through school, I’d see the PM on the news making some inane comment and the next day I’d say to Deb or Elvie “Oh god, did you see the PM talking about greenhouse gas emissions?” and they’d say “Oh hell, yes” and we’d have a bit of a rant. The following year I’d go to school and say “Oh god, did you see the PM talking about healthcare?” and they’d say “you watch the news??”.

This, I suspect, is part of the problem. There’s no world view, no looking to the bigger picture, no thinking of other people or the results of actions. Never mind teenagers, it seems to me that there’s an increasing number of people thinking “Me Me Me”. Of course, not every teenager is like this. I like to think the majority are well balanced (ok, as well balanced as you can be at 15 anyway) and interested people that will go on to be good adults. But it’s hard to maintain that when there’s broken glass on the seat. I’m finding it difficult to have faith in human nature at the moment, but perhaps being in customer service is also having an impact. Every time someone gets abusive over an 80cent fine I think “You know what? There really is no fucking hope”.

For those wondering, my Grandmother is as OK as she can be. They decided against the CAT scan on the sound basis that even if they did find something wrong, she is too frail to take treatment. The main cause was exceptionally low blood pressure, but she’s now home and healthyish.

Something has gone horribly wrong with the library database, but as I have a sneaking suspicion it’s all my fault, I’ll say no more.

There are two kinds of personality, as far as I can see, in any workplace. The first kind keeps their coffee mug safe on their desk to ensure no one uses it. In extreme cases, tucked away in a draw. At tea break, these people will go to their desk, get their cup or mug, take it to the tea room, make coffee, drink coffee, wash and dry the mug (or cup) and place it back in the drawer. The other kind - of which I am one - leave their mug in the tearoom cupboard, usually wash and dry it (OK, i generally wash it only and leave it on the draining board). The Cupboard people can then be split into two subsections: those who mind if someone else uses their mug and those who don’t. I don’t.

If anyone would like to fund me to study this further and possibly draw conclusions on life and personality, please do.

I’ve been sat here all day rebuilding the Allwood House site, but it’s been worth it since it now looks 100% less crap and more like something I’m actually happy to put my name to.

Jan (my aunt) took Grandma out for a drive today to try and keep her awake (Grandma is very elderly and quite senile) and ended up dropping in at our place for a cuppa and a chat. Eventually, after trying to go to the toilet in one of the bedrooms, Grandma dozed off at the kitchen table - but then wouldn’t wake up. She was still breathing thankfully so Dad phoned an ambulance. By the time the ambulance men arrived she was slightly awake but still very dazed and I’m afraid I got the giggles at one point when the Ambo was asking her “Do you know where you are? What day is it today?” because Grandma is well beyond knowing what day of the week it is even in the best of health. She’s even losing the ability to speak. If you ask her where she’s going or what she wants she’ll point. Anyway, it was all very fuss free only the stretcher was massive and I was certain it wouldn’t get through the door (rough ride for Grandma as we’re not paved). Jan phoned later to say she’d been admitted to hospital, her blood pressure so low it barely registered and was being booked for a CAT scan. Not sure why, but as she has had many “mini” strokes, I dare say it’s Just In Case. Jan took it like a person who is used to this sort of thing (and recently, she’s had to be used to it, Grandma’s health is very much failing) and lamented that she didn’t have a book this time to read while waiting. Amazing what you can get used to, I guess.

In an effort to be organized on the new PC (which is tricky since XP puts folders all over the joint) I decided to move my yahoo contacts into groups. I made a group called TSO and moved… everyone into it. D’oh! One lonely contact sat alone, poor Tasha. This is the only thing I’m posting. trouble is I’m in the habit now of being up till 5am on a Saturday, so I’m kinda killing time here as it’s 1:12am….

Hurrah for Australia Day is all I can say. Finished my 26 Things thing, so please peruse and try to enjoy. all compliments can be directed to me. All honesties can kept to yourself please.

Not much else to report, really, that’s about all Idid all day…

Well. There are big things going on in the world. Rain forests coming down, governments being overthrown (take our PM… please), people starving to death, war. So, in the grand scheme of things one would imagine a cruddy plastic box full of magazines from the early 1990s would not rate very high on anyone’s rage-o-meter. One would imagine incorrectly. We knew, when the new CEO wandered through and made some interesting changes, that some people would be irate but none of us were prepared for the levels of rage about this damned box. OK, the basic idea of the box is this: you have old magazines you no longer want. You bring them in, put them in the box and maybe find something you do want which you take. Hence the name “magazine swap box”. Anyway, the CEO deemed this to be “clutter” and removed it. Public outcry has been massive - from the former staffer who comes to annoy everyone of a Saturday to… well everyone else really. The Saturday annoying person was livid, and abused Diane at length.

It’s interesting that this box provokes such loyalty and anger. In other parts of the branch, the teenage collection has been decimated, the incredibly popular parenting section is under threat, the booksale may be a thing of the past (although the collection manager person was in today and may be able to allow us to keep the booksale), posters are coming down and there’s a risk of the collection floating - I dread a floating collection. At the moment, if someone borrows a book from Branch A and returns it to Branch B it is sent back to be shelved at Branch A. With a floating collection, if you borrow at Branch A and return to Branch B the book stays at Branch B. This would result in a shift in the collection numbers with most items at two branches (mine included, we think) and we’d run the risk of losing titles to branches that have a slash and burn weeding policy (we tend to think if a book is still useful and all in one piece we should keep it. Other branches are less forgiving and will throw out with the smallest reason). We’re hoping this whim will pass.

On another note, seems Jigsaw Pig was right (omg, can it be so?) with his comment on Isaacs. Today another Isaac was in, aged under 4. This particular Isaac was on a leash. Child leashes are pretty rare these days, but Isaac’s mother seemed to feel it was needed. Isaac’s older sister was allowed to run free. I don’t know her name ‘coz I got the giggles when Isaac’s mother mentioned his name, thinking how right JP was.

I understand Alex is reading this piffle too. It comes to something when you can name your hits, but I think that something is good.

More library blather coming now, sorry. The other day a boy of about 4 came up to me and said “Excuse me, is this a good book?” I flicked through and said “I think it might be, yes”. He looked at me very seriously for a minute then said “Yes, I think you’re right” and wandered off. A few minutes later he was back. “Are you sure this is a good book? It might be too hard for me to read” I said “Well, you can ask your Dad to read it to you” “Oh yes,” he said, “I can do that”. “Or,” I said, “you can have a look at other books before you take them, to see if you’ll like them”. “Oh yes,” he said, “I’ll do that”. At this point his father called him to come back over to the children’s area. The boy turned around, put his hands on his hips and said “Dad, I can’t, I’m busy. I’m talking to this lady about books!”. Then he turned back to me and gave me a “Fathers don’t understand” look which was priceless.

There was an advert in the local paper today for dance classes which I am very tempted to do. A local studio offers ballroom, rock’n'roll and Latin American among others, all of which sound like fun. I’m a bit worried that I’ll end up with a class who takes it all very seriously tho. Yes, I’m thinking about ringing up about the classes but rest assured I’ll have talked myself out of it by tomorrow.

Also, I need to be brave enough to go to the nearest photography shop and buy some infra-red film without being flummoxed and flustered by the million question man who always talks me into buying something other than what I want to try.

The title for this wandering kind of post comes from a conversation I heard when I worked at the supermarket. One of the more letchy male customers said to one of the checkout girls (he said this with a snigger by the way - is there anything less attractive?) “You girls should do Topless Tuesdays, get more customers in”. The girl in question looked at him with a blank, bored face and said “The Air Conditioning isn’t reliable enough”.

People do tend to think that if you are in a customer service type role they can get personal. Not everyone, obviously, but there’s a few nutters at work who think they know you, or you’re their friend or something equally hideous. the borrower who has gone down in history for trying to kiss Kirsty is especially prone to this. She will make comments like “That top is very slimming on you” or “aw, you look tired out”. Sorry, but it’s not for her or any patron to say that kind of thing. Ew. Anyway, we didn’t do topless tuesday today, sorry to disappoint. Apart from the number of creepy men around, I imagine trapping a nipple in the World Book Encyclopedia isn’t fun.

I am disappointed with Steve Martin at the minute. I have now read two of his novels and he writes blissfully well, but after a lingering plot that may span a year over the first 90% of the book, he then seems to cram 5 years into the last 10%, as though the deadline was too close to bother writing it properly. It’s frustrating, and I’m not sure I’ll try anything else he writes. It’s annoying to be drawn in to the characters only to have the rest of the story told almost like a PS.

I’m now reading Lullaby by (runs to bedroom) Chuck Palahniuk (he wrote “Fight Club” which I’ve not read). I picked it up on the recomendation of a staff member at the bookshop. She didn’t personally recommend it to me, it was written on a card stuck to the shelf under the books. We were going to do the same kind of thing at the Library - it’s just a card with “Staff Recommedation” and some lines for a staff member to waffle on about an author or book they particularly like. We had a bunch of cards sent out, but they are now recommending well known, popular authors which seems to kind of defeat the purpose. Also, it’s not a staff recommendation, it’s just… well known popular authors.

A while ago we did “Books that changed my life” which was a pain in the arse because no book has changed my life in any major way. I probably blogged this at the time, but I was a bit worried that everyone else went with profound, moving stories of triumph over tragedy etc etc while I went with lots of Douglas Adams and - all time fave book ever - “The Year of the Cornflake”. I am obviously either a)as deep as a puddle or b) not worried about appearing more profound than I actually am. Who would I try to impress?

Cadman asked when the low perspective photos will be shown. Soon. It’s a long weekend this weekend and in theory (oh I love theory) I’ll be able to rebuild the Allwood website and get stuck in to horizonpurple.com. Also, via Sparkle J I found 26 Things which is a photographic scavenger hunt. Oh the fun!

Oh, and welcome back Cad. :)

System upgrade attempt #2 today. The company who designed the software did it this time, so in theory it was all quite smooth but once the upgrade was done at HQ, the PCs in branch needed to be updated. Yvette phoned at 12:40pm to say “go ahead and load the software”. At 4:40pm the first download finished and we were able to get one PC up. Limping, but up. Most of the other PCs kept crashing and it was all very messy with 8 branches trying to download huge files at the same time. We left the night shift with boxes of returns and a full branch run so good luck to them.

Human cloning. You may have seen the report, so here’s my 2 cents. OMG that’s scary! If you missed it, some scientist claims he has implanted an embryo into a woman that contains only the father’s DNA. He cleared the cell or something (science not my strong point). While this claim has been met with lack of belief from the scientific community, the idea is still horrible. Apart from the dodgy ethics, the age thing bothers me. With Dolly the sheep, she was genetically the same age as the sheep she was cloned from. This is why she died at such a young age and suffered from arthritis etc so young. To clone a human while this “hurdle” still exists is akin to deliberatly changing an embryo that will eventually be a child with, for example, cystic fibrosis. It’s creating a person destined to die young.

Medical research is one thing. I’m not opposed to the idea of using unwanted embryos from IVF for research because it will save lives. Creating a human, making a person for scientfic study is one of the coldest things I have ever heard. And we claim to be civilised. Terrifying.

I’ll whack the disclaimer here that I really don’t know what I’m on about and these opinions are formed with the slightest knowledge of the subject. As per usual :D

Pffft! OK, so I get home and there’s the Dell boxes and it’s all good so I pack up my old PC which is now my mother’s and set up the Dell (after cleaning the desk, I had no idea dust could clump like that…). All unwrapped, all marvy all plugged in and… insert lots of swearing here coz the monitor wouldn’t monit. In other words, no picture. I like to be able to see what’s on the screen, I have a whole thing about it. So, read all the documents again, tried to install the help file CD on the old PC but the install system shut down coz the old one isn’t a Dell (snobby) and was about to head to work to look stuff up on the internet when Dad suggested we borrow a Dell laptop from the IT Centre. So we go down there, get a lap top, come home, install the files and find no help at all. By this stage I’m pretty much over it. Anyway, eventually the cause becomes clear. I had plugged the monitor into the wrong monitor connection (hey, at least I wasn’t trying to plug it into the wrong kind of connection!). Well, if they WILL put 2 on the thing… anyway, all is good, this screen is very nice indeed and the keyboard is just about silent. This is a very good thing indeed. Now I have to brace myself for a major patch on TSO.

As far as days go, today was kinda sucky. Turns out that yesterday when the branch was empty the new CEO, the customer service manager and the Promotions Lass all came in and had a fine old time rearranging and playing with our signs etc. They took away things like the opening hours bookmarks, the magazine swapbox, booksale signs… Tracey was livid. So were we all. Stupid things they did like move the magazine rack into the middle of the floor (I guess not enough people were walking into it) and the junior fiction trolley was way away from the circ desk, so practical for unloading the JFIC. Now they want the Italian collection moved to a more open area (although our 4 italian borrowers know where it is anyway). If the new CEO is trying to win friends and influence people, she’s doing a crap job of it.

OK, comments are working again. I’ve CHMODed and all that, rebuilt couple of dozen times and finally found that my archives link was pointing to totally the wrong place. D’oh! Oh well, all is now good :)

Wandered off to the shops today with only two real goals in mind: Vinyl look CD-Rs (just for fun) and the stuff needed for a craft project I found in a book. Got the CDs (perfect for beatles…) but as for the craft supplies… all I need is a chunky repeating pattern rubber stamp. That’s all. Considering the scrapbooking craze/rubber stamping craze at the moment, it’s amazingly hard to find stamps. I tried three craft stores and a stationary place which at least had some stamps (none of the craft stores did) but they were too fine and not patterns (and also, very ugly). So it’s back to the net for rubber stamps. Also embossing foil. I might actually wander into Melbourne next weekend and have a look there, I don’t want to have to buy stuff from the US unless I have to (exchange rates).

Despite this frustrating wandering about, I did pick up a tiara on sale. Now, i don’t wish to give you the impression that I now own a $2000 diamond encrusted headpiece. It’s a cheap one. Very cheap. Let’s say less than $50 and move on. I’m going to wear it to work tomorrow.

Now I must go away and back up all my junk to transfer to the new PC which arrives tomorrow. *happy dance*

Spent today wearing the birthday tiara. this is a plastic tiara of some tackiness in gold with big plastic gems on it. It’s strange serving people in an ugly plastic tiara. You can sort of see people Not Commenting. Some people did make remarks like “hiya Queenie”, others looked then looked away. It was fun. At one stage I also donned the pink feather boa and carried the purple fluffy fairy wand. The tiara was the real winner though.

Last night our library software was upgraded from the 2002 version to the 2003 version (up to the minute). Today we were on our standalone back up system because the upgrade went very badly wrong. People seem to think that because we aren’t actually writing numbers down (which we do when the system will be down for an hour or so only) the computers were fine and we were just teasing. One woman said to me “Can you look up a book for me because the other lady won’t.” I said “Well, it’s not that we won’t it’s that we can’t” which ended up with her having a whinge about all that. Very annoying indeed, again it’s the idea that these things only happen to annoy the person we are serving. Yes, we brought down the entire system region wide to make sure Mr Bloggs couldn’t pay his fine today.

At least Kate has agreed to wear wings and have her photo taken. I offered to pay, but we’ve settled on lunch at the Hard Rock Cafe instead. Good deal :)

June

Which month are you?
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OK, so that’s June and therefore early summer Northern. Since I’m Southern (hemisphere, obviously) this translates probably to November or December. I think I’d rather be March.

Anyone else noticed the DNS is taking a long time to update? Hands up who thinks I broke something! Yeah… me too. :/

Just realised that a Bowie quote Rose used on one of my sims comes from the song “Queen Bitch”. I shall have to take issue with her on that (or be flattered, haven’t decided yet).

I need to make angel wings. Also a tiara, but the wings are more important at this stage. Also, i need someone who is willing to wander around Melbourne in a sheet and set of wings. Alicia was pretty much EN OH on that, so I’ll have a try at Kate and/or Debbie. Debbie is now post-thesis so should have time for these things. This is for a photography thing, not some weird desire to see good looking people looking stupid in public (although…)

Despite the feeling of blah that is taking over my world at the minute, I am enjoying making my own fun. Don’t really feel like qualifying that at the minute.

Do i want to buy the world’s smallest digital camera for $80? Probably not. I have three as it is, including but not limited to the one that runs it’s own batteries down in about three seconds if you look at it sideways. I think also my mother would explode if I bring another camera into the house.

Have been looking around Cafepress.com to see what kind of photographs other people are selling and for what kind of price, but since they all look a billion times better than mine I’m none the wiser on which ones would be OK sellers and at what price.

Now, here we have the interesting bit. Dash is quite taken with this news item, and I spent most of the time listening to his show this morning trying not to laugh too loudly and wake the house. A team of Cambridge Scientists have discovered that female penguins building a nest will prostitute themselves for rocks. Not only that, but one lady penguin was so good at flirting she was able to get 60+ rocks before having to do the deed. The Fueled Radio phrase that pays (”Fueled radio rocks!”) took on a whole new meaning when we were offering to exchange rocks…

Today I wore my Ryan from SGR T-shirt. It is a good shirt and i enjoy wearing it places. It is less stressful to wear than the one that says “Not a Doctor” because no one wants an explaination as to what the hell I’m on about. I get tired of explaining, I really do.

Asked Alicia if she would model for me should I need human type subjects. She is reluctant, but I have promised to give her real cash money and not ask that she take her clothes off. I would like Kate to also model, but haven’t seen her to ask her. I have a few people I can ask, I guess, but time is the big factor. I know a lot of people and all of them are very busy.

Did you know that if you take the gold foil off chocolate coins and rub them with the back of a spoon, you still can’t get rid of the impression on the foil and will end up throwing the foil out in torment? Now you do.

It probably comes as no surprise that I’m procrastinating. horizonpurple.com might well be a “coming soon” for all time the way I’m going at the minute, this is purely because I really don’t have any content apart from some scrappy photos. OK, lack of content never stopped me before, but anyway.

Work is very strange at the minute. After some days of utter deadness (I worked last Saturday and with three staff on we outnumbered patrons for a good hour. At one point I thought it was 3 all, but the other “patron” turned out to be Kate, one of the shelvers) we are having days of total frenzy. I think we’re in the weird zone where people who went away over Christmas are back, and people who are going away for the January part of the holidays are about to leave. Anyway, it’s annoying as we never know how many staff will be needed on desk. This is not actually my problem, so I don’t know why it’s annoying to me.

Have confirmation of the new PC, the order has gone in and I’ve paid for it now I just have to allow 10-14 days for delivery. Since I have had the nerve to ask for a floppy disk drive it will quite probably be longer than that anyway. Yes yes, I know, we have CD burners now blah blah but if I want to bring home something from work (where we don’t have burners) or take a file to work or whatever, I don’t want to have to use a CD, I want to use a floppy, dammit! I guess real technology types e-mail things to themself. I could do that. Anyway, I should have put in the “special instructions” box that I’d be quite happy if they just threw the drive in and I’d install it myself. I fear no voided warranty!

They say you should start the new year as you mean to go on, which basically means I’ll be spending my year face down in the dirt clutching a camera. At least I enjoyed it. I’m alarmingly out of shape though as I’m currently aching all over from all that getting up (ooh, these old bones!). Got some great shots, one of which I have sent to Retrospectiv.com, so everyone send happy thoughts about it so they’ll post it. I’d post some of today’s efforts here, but I’ve been staring at photoshop all day as it is (also I’m quite lazy). They’ll end up on horizonpurple.com which I actually did some work on today! But not very much.

Moved this mess over to the new account which was way easy for once and I think everything is CHMODed properly and all that, but knowing my luck I’ll try and post this entry and get some bizarre error message.

Am yet to find anyone who wants to come see David Bowie in Adelaide with me, so I may have to go alone. Hey, I said I wanted to post more often, not that I wanted to be more interesting!