A pleasant change from the usual microwaved crap I smell around here.

Someone has just microwaved something that smells like Fetticutine Alfredo and it smells soooooo good. Now i'm craving it but the soonest I can have it is dinner. And that's if I can convince Josh to go to Basil's tonight. It's going to be a long seven or eight hours.

Bright lights, Bad controller.

So last night I finally began playing Animal Crossing: City Folk.

The game came in on Sunday but we were out of town so it didn't get picked up until Tuesday. Then I had to wait for Josh to explain the complicated system of switches used to hook up the Wii in the living room and stand around to make sure I didn't some how break the Wii while trying to make my town. (What? I never said I was a video game geek.)

Now I love Animal Crossing. It's my game. I play it the way some people play World of Warcraft. But I didn't really enjoy City Folk right off because of the controller.

I realize i'm risking my Geek License here but I don't care. I don't like the nunchuck controller, I don't think it works well in the situations that come up in Animal Crossing, and i'm honestly kind of pissed at Nintendo for forcing their gimmicky controller on me.

I'm also still a bit pissed at the forced use of the touch screen in Wild World. The fact that the only efficient way to sell multiple items to Nook was by dragging them with the stylus really bugged the shit out of me. And did anyone really use the stylus to make their person walk around town? I couldn't get myself to move without either running or digging in random places. And of course there was the little fiasco of needing a second person in town to get any Spotlight Items but not being told this, and the cock up with the feather rewards for donating to Boondox that is so screwed up i'll never get my feathers and thus never have all the accessories. So Nintendo is a little on the outs with me already for their various gimmicks that don't really add to the game, but the nunchuck really pissed me off.

The nunchuck doesn't do anything that couldn't be done with the control stick and the A button. When you are forced to use the thing it's in the worst possible way. For instance to bring up my "pockets" where all my stuff is I have to move the Wimote so that the little hand is on the screen. Then I have to chose my pockets from the bottom of the screen. The problem is that my pockets are in the far left so it's very easy to move too far take the hand off the screen and the whole damn thing disappears. When i'm selling to Nook rather than use the control stick to move over my items I have to use the Wimote. Again the Wimote moves so erratically that it's a real pain in the ass to select an item. I dread how i'm going to have to fish with this thing.

Other than my burning hot hatred for the controller I was pretty pleased by the game so far. I like the feel of the big town that I didn't get with Wild World. I liked the return of different levels to the town. Shopping at Nook's Cranny gives me a nice sense of nostalgia for when things were simple and when I didn't have to deal with Tommy and Timmy at Nookingtons. I caught a cricket and donated it to the musuem, my first donation in this town. And of course there is a whole new world of terrible puns for me to read over and over again as I catch all the fish and bugs over the next year.

I haven't been into the city yet. Josh forgot to buy the strategy guide with the game so i'm waiting for it to come from Amazon before I venture beyond my town. I'm curious how the city will be. I know that Crazy Redd and Gracie have stores in the city, but i'm not sure how Wendell and Sahara will work. I am excited over this new aspect to the game, but i'm also a little sad that it's not about just living in your small town and making your way there anymore.

That said i'm sure i'll enjoy this game as much as i've enjoyed the last two. That is if the stupid controller doesn't annoy me enough to keep me from playing.

Oh Boy does this deserve a Facepalm...

Dear Prudence: My Family Thinks That an Exorcism Will Cure my Mental Illness

I would say that monkeys are delivering mail around here...

...but that would be an insult to some of God's most interesting and intelligent creatures. I'm fairly certain that a monkey could learn which mailbox in the mail room belongs to my department.

As for the people who somehow continue to address my mail to the English department despite the fact that I do not now, nor have I ever worked there, they have to be a special kind of stupid.

So...stupid animal. Hmmm. Sadly I think humans are the best fit here.

There is a flag on the field.

Insert whistle here. Team Put Up Our Chirstmas Decorations Two Weeks Before Thanksgiving has fouled. False start. You are penalized five yards and must repeat first down.

Everyone needs to step off!

And I mean that shit!

This Open Salon article about it's anti-feminist that Michelle Obama will "just be a mom" once the move into the White House is made has my blood pressure up.

The writer makes excellent points that I won't repeat here, but what I mostly got out of this article is that everyone needs to Shut The Fuck Up about parenting decisions that don't involve their child.

Sasha and Malia Obama are not your kids. Timmy down the road who is never seen without a Fun Dip is not your kid. You neice Becky who likes to play Xbox is not your kid. The three year old on that leash at Wal-Mart? Yeah, he's not your kid. The infant at the Red Lobster with a bottle? Not. Your. Kid.

Now don't get me wrong. I have some strong opinions about childrearing that i've formed from reading various websites, books, magazines, seeing the behavior of parents and their kids in public, and being the awesome but still flawed result of my own parents.

But you know what? I keep it to myself. I talk about these things with Josh since he'll be dad of any kids we have. I talk about it with my Mom and Dad since they're the most level headed people I know. I turn it all over in my head sometimes, going over the reasoning with myself again and again. But do I bring it up to strangers I encounter? No. Do I go bitching on the internet about how this person is doing it wrong, wrong, wrong? No. Do I even spout it here on my blog, where my pointless thoughts come to die? No, not so far. But that may change.

My point is that unless you have legal custody over a child (i.e. you created them somehow, adopted them or were granted gaurdianship by a court of law) you need to clam up.

And most likely you need to calm down.

Many of these little conniptions revolve around the possible harm that is coming to either the kids or the world at large over the decisions the parents in question have made.

Will feminism survive with Michelle Obama at home? Yeah, sure, why not? She's first lady at least for the next four years. Who knows what will happen in that time and what she may decide to do. But right now she, the woman who carried these two girls and knew them intimately before they were even here in many ways, thinks she needs to focus on her kids and making this HUGE transition easier on them. It makes perfect sense to me. But even if it didn't, it doesn't matter because (say it with me now!) they aren't my kids.

Will Timmy get cavities from his Fun Dip addiction? Maybe. Maybe not. Truth is a slice of bread will give you cavities if you let it sit on your teeth. Step off and trust Timmy's mom to make sure his teeth are brushed and he goes to a dentist. Does Becky play too much Xbox? Maybe. Maybe she gets plenty of exercise at school. You don't know. Her parents do.

Unless the kid is wrestling with the pet tiger, or Mom and Dad are making meth in the rumpus room, or there is some evidence of the kid being in immediate danger, calm down. Step off. Not your kid.

I know that the article is really more about a feminist hand-wringing, but it's just evidence of bigger problem of us making other people's lives all about us. And that problem gets soooooo much bigger when a kid is involved. It's all life and death then even when it's not. From breastfeeding vs. formula to what kids are being fed and what ever would happen if he was allowed to ride a bike down the street without his knee pads people think that it's dire enough to butt in and it's not. If kids were this delicate the human race would have died out by now.

We all need to adopt Not My Kid as a mantra and start trusting the people around us to raise the kids they have well their way.

And we can all stop worrying about feminism and Michelle Obama. She's a great lady, classy and smart. She'll do us feminists proud. And I think she'll do mothers proud too. But the only thing that really matters is that she do her kids proud, and I have no worries about that.

Yea! Wall-E!

My pre-ordered copy of Wall-E shipped Friday meaning that with my two-day shipping it will be here today. I'm so excited! I can't wait to watch it and see that sweet little guy with his Hello Dolly tape, his pet cockroach and his little whistles and chirps!

I really can't believe how much I loved this movie and this charecter. I swear I think I was captured by Pixar and studied so they would know how to make Wall-E capture my heart and my wallet. It's almost scary how deep my connection is to this charecter. Of course when you look at other people with a deep connection to a fictional charecter mine isn't so bad. I'm not dressing up as Wall-E to go clubbing and getting a job in the waste management industry to be more like him. (Vampire people i'm looking in your direction.)

Anyway, I don't care if Pixar did kidnap me. Fuck it. We only live once and Wall-E makes me happy and teary and want to squeeze something (like my Wall-E plush) so i'll be on the couch tonight watching my movie, crying, laughing, wishing Wall-E was real so he could come live with me and compress my trash and be adorable. (Of course EVE could come along too. She's Wall-E's soulmate. I couldn't separate them. Oh, there I go again tearing up.)

Comedien Ralphie May talks about being 'tard happy. Wall-E makes me 'tard happy.

And with exception of the use of the term "tard" is that so wrong? No. No it isn't. Maybe the world would be a better place if we could all get 'tard happy so easily.

It's the little things...

So my doctor yesterday (not my regular doctor, but I was there and in a mood to take my pants off so what the hell) didn't notice my somewhat hairy legs or my freshly shaven underarms. He did however complement my exceptionally clean belly button.

Yes, my belly button.

Apparently he has seen patients with a thick wool sweater in there and was moved to complement me on my vacant one.

And this is one of the reasons I could never be a doctor.

I'm a big medical geek. I read the Merck Manual for fun. I watch a lot of Discovery Health. I drove to Charlotte in January to see Body Worlds. I love to read about odd diseases and deformities. You think I would be perfect to be a doctor.

No. First, I hate needles. I don't think I could ever draw blood from someone. Besides that, do you know how doctors learn to draw blood? They practice on each other. No thanks. You don't get near my veins without being a phlebotomist with ten years experience and a Flintstones Chewable Valium for me. So no way in Hell would I be a blood letting dummy.

Second, I'm too emotional. I couldn't tell someone they were dying or had lost a pregnancy or was paralyzed. I cried through half of Wall-E. There are movies I haven't seen and don't intend to ever see because they're too sad. The bad part of medicine would break me.

Even if I did move past these little road blocks to become an actual doctor I couldn't deal with the nasty people I would end up seeing. The fact that it is not a common practice to wiggle a soapy finger around in your belly button every night is scary to me. I couldn't deal with doing a pap on a woman who hasn't changed her underwear in days, or examining the scalp of someone who doesn't wash their hair more often than once a month, or looking at an ingrown toenail of someone who doesn't wear socks. I know humans are gross, but that's why we have soap and water. I know that Americans are considered nuerotic by the rest of the world because we bathe everyday but i'm ok with that.

I just don't see why people with running water and a dollar in their pocket can't get clean. If you're homeless, I get it. Otherwise, come on. Soap is cheap. Water is less cheap, but take a bird bath. Wash your hair everyother day. There is no excuse.

And that is what I would end up telling the dirty people I would see as a doctor. And they would get all offended and I would end up paying off my medical school loans by working in a Jiffy Lube.

So anyway, body hair isn't an issue for my doctor. Belly button lint is.

Another interesting thing he told me is that when diabetics loose circulation in their feet the first thing they loose is their toe hair. (He told me this after noticing the few hairs on my toe I didn't even think about shaving, but ususally do.) So toe hair is good.

As a final note i'll warn you not to do a Google Image Search for belly button. You will find many, many pictures of people who have had tattoos done on their stomach with the belly button to be various bodily openings. It's gross. A bit clever I admit. I never would have thought of that, but maybe that's a good thing. But yeah, gross.

It's about love.

As a happily married Christian I implore you to read the text or watch the video of Keith Olberman's Final Thought on the passing of Prop 8, which bans gay marriage in California.

He echos my thoughts on the matter, that more love in the world is a good thing and that gay marriage doesn't detract from the sanctity of heterosexual marriage. He brings up the marriages that do, those that are gone into foolishly, without love, without trust, with one or both people involved knowing it's a sham.

He mentions the collateral damage of these marriages, damage that could have been avoided if only we allowed people to live their honestly and marry those they really care about.

So check it out. And think if you weren't allowed to marry the person you loved.

It begins...A new project. And other projects.

Look upon Scarlet Wizard. My next major project. The things I do for Josh. But he has been told that if we ever split it comes with me.

Now I know what you are thinking. "Surely a Blue Ribbon Cross Stitcher like yourself can handle this. It'll be done in no time."

But this is the thing. Scarlet Wizard here is stitched on 18 count black aida. That means that there are 18 little squares per inch. So the holes between the squares are very tiny and since the fabric is black it's hard to tell where the holes actually are.

To aid my poor eyes I have a clip on light and pulled out my 1.25 magnifying glasses. I was sure these had saved my life until last night when they gave me an eye strain headache like you wouldn't believe. I had to put the thing away and work on some needlepoint to give my eyes a break.

I'm also keeping track of the time I spend on this project. At the end I plan to calculate what the cost would be if someone had paid me to stitch this. I garuntee only the ten richest kings of persia will be able to afford it.

Along those lines of thinking I told josh last night that once I was done I would deserve a nice piece of jewelry. He agreed. Excellent...

I do wish that I could work longer on this piece. I'm really enjoying it so far. The colors are great and much of the detail is half-cross stitch so it's going quickly right now. Oh well, it will be done soon enough. And i'll be able to work on other projects without guilt. I really need to pick it up on the needlepoint. Hell, i'm not even half done with Josh's needlepoint stocking and mine is still in the package. Of course I told him that it could take a few years for me to get it done.

On that front I finished Butterflies in Blue on Sunday and last night I started Butterfly Drama which features a Monarch. (You have to say it like The Monarch! on Venture Brothers.) These are going into the kitchen which has a bit of a butterfly theme. I've had them forever and just finished Butterfly Surprise last December. You can see how quickly I get distracted/little free time I have/really prefer cross stitch/just plain forget about things, take your pick. I do have two frames coming from Ebay so that will motivate me to finish up the third butterfly for the kitchen.

On that note, I finally found some fabric I think i'm going to try and make a valance out of for the Kitchen. It's the same fabric as Abigail's bedding that I bought on Ebay. The fabric was from Wal-mart on only $2.88 a yard. I think i'll also get some to make a purse from a pattern included with a dress pattern. And i've found a free pattern online for a wrap skirt for an American Girl doll. Maybe i'll learn to sew yet.

But anyway, that's the craft update I suppose. As always I have big plans. We'll see what happens with them.

What does this say about me?

Today I have my yearly tune up. Now for those of you not familiar with what this entails for a woman, i'll basically be propped open and swabbed.

Considering that the doctor has their head right close to your legs during this task most women won't go to this particular appointment without shaving their legs.

Not me. Not only will shaving mess up my waxing, but I really didn't feel like it last night.

But you know what I did shave?

My underarms.

This appointment also includes a feeling of the boobs and I would be mortified if my pits were hairy. And as a doctor I would probably be grossed out by armpit hair on a patient. So I shaved that. But not my legs.

I rationalize this by saying that my leg hair is very light and fine, and it is. But what does it say about me that leg hair gets a pass but underarm hair doesn't? Maybe it just means I should never go to France.

So about that election.

I went to vote on election day because I was too lazy to do it early. It worked out in my favor though, I had no line at the church where I vote. I tripped on the stairs going up into the fellowship hall, but the election volunteers were talking to each other and didn't notice. Once you've spent your formative years getting teased, picked on and having food thrown at you the expectation of that behavior doesn't leave you. It was only after I righted myself and went inside to get my ballot from the very nice ladies inside that I realized that had they seen me fall, they would have asked if I was ok, helped me up and probably complained about that first step needing some yellow paint.

I marked my ballot, made my oval for Obama extra dark, fed it into the ballot eating moe-sheen and went home for a nap.

I expected nothing that night. The last two elections i've voted in have gone on into the wee hours of the morning so I resolved that this was like an early Chirstmas. I would wake up in the morning and get a brand new president or the same old crap from the last eight years. I guess McCain would have been like getting socks and underwear and Obama was like a shiny new wagon or American Girl doll.

I honestly thought that Obama would win. On our way home from our anniversary dinner Josh and I had a discussion about our surprise at McCain being picked for the Republican nominee. I mean really. Really? This is your best choice? The guy plenty of Republicans don't really like and only became an official Republican a few years ago to add President to his list of accomplishments? (But I can't really complain too much. Fuckabee might have run and he might have won and my uterus would no longer be my own.) But although I was pretty sure of Obama's victory I was scared to say it out loud. As much as I value science and proof in all things I also believe in things beyond our knowledge and really didn't want to jinx the outcome. (Yes I know this makes no sense. I'm a human. Humans are complicated. Deal.)

ANYWAY...

Eleven o'clock rolled around and went in the back to kiss Josh goodnight. He looked at me and said "It's over."

"What's over?"

"The election. Obama won. It's mathmatically impossible for McCain to win at this point."

"Oh. Awesome. Good night."

Again, I had basically counted on Obama winning so it wasn't much of a surprise for me. I put in my earplugs and went to bed.

Now this is where things get weird.

Around two o'clock I woke up to Josh in the bedroom asking me if I had heard anything. Well now. I was asleep with ear plugs. I rolled over and tried to go back to sleep. Josh came in again and told me that he was chalking it up to the cats knocking something over.

Dude, don't care. Sleeping.

Then Josh went to go smoke.

He came back in the bedroom and asked if there were any real pumpkins outside.

Uh, no. If I had a real pumpkin it would have been carved in front of Josh as we watched various Halloween specials. But Josh somehow didn't remember that and was confused by the sudden appearance of pumpkins and just had to ask.

At this point I just took my ear plugs out, and put some clothes on. After all Josh was wide awake so why should I be asleep?

Turns out the noise was the glass in our screen door falling out of the actual door frame. What could cause this to happen? Try a pumpkin. A pumpkin that was, I can only guess, thrown at our door, knocking the glass out, then busted against the edge of our porch below the kitchen window. There was a second pumpkin in my flower bed/weed garden that had not been busted up for some reason. Laziness? Fear of being found out? Being really, really stoned? Who knows.

Now if this had been Halloween night I would have shaken my fist at the young whippersnappers that did this and gone back to bed. But it wasn't. And just to be safe we called the sheriff's department.

A very nice deputy came out and took a report. He checked the back yard and made sure our tires hadn't been slashed. He seemed as confused as we were. I mean, it's not like you have to go far in this town to find someone with an Obama sticker on their car, if that was their motivation. I was the only one left with Halloween decorations up, but why would they complain about that by making my place look more Halloweenish with pumpkins?

I just don't know. We've not had any other problems and I still feel quite safe. The biggest complaint was not having the glass in the door so we went in and out of the empty frame for a few days. That was a pain in the ass.

But I know when I get to heaven my fist question to the Lord will be "What was up with the pumpkins that night in 2008?"

And they Lord will reply "They were stoned teenagers."

Excellent. Awesome. Very Good Indeed.

The Wizard's Quilt

I finally finished The Wizard's Quilt, the companion peice to Dragon's Quilt, both designs by Dragon Dreams. Once I frame them the Dragons will be over my night stand and the Wizard will be over Josh's. Just in case our bedroom wasn't geeky enough with the stacks of Adult Swim DVDs on the tv, the Wall-E comforter on the bed and the DS Lites on each night stand.

And you wait and you wait and you wait and you wait.....

A few things that were scaring me this Halloween weekend

How awesome all my dolls looked dressed up for trick or treat! Abigail's mermaid costume was $26 very well spent. She could have been going as a clothed Venus di Milo.

The fact that McCain may still win this election. Shudder.

The number of children who stuck their hands into my candy bowl and tried to get more candy AFTER I had already given them their allotment! Greedy little bastards.

The fact that I woke up Sunday morning, went to Wal-mart and found a large Christmas tree up at the entrance and "Angels we have heard on high" already playing.

The fact that my immediate reaction to this celebration of the birth of my Lord and Savior was "Oh jeez, not already."

The fact that I then purchased a pair of Christmas earrings, a small star to go on my doll's tree and spend a good amount of time perusing the outdoor decorations wondering what I could add to the display this year to zazz it up. You know, since it was already out and all.

The fact that 5% of voters in NC were undecided as late as yesterday. Make up your damn minds people!

Most scary of all though was the amount of money I mailed off Friday to pay bills. It was so much i'm surprised that I didn't wake up Saturday to the sound of my own screams. Of course it could have been scarier. I could have had no money to pay bills at all.

So, about that tire...

I left work last week with my nearly flat tire, drove very carefully to the car place down the road from our house and pulled in. I explained my problem and the nice man looked over my tire as I backed up slowly and declared that it didn't have a nail or other object in it so all he could do was put air in it. Fine. After getting some FREE air I went home and took a nap.

A few days later (Sunday to be exact) I noticed the tire was low again. I planned to leave work Monday and go to the place that Only Does Tires (and rims, and inspections and oil changes, but they have Tire in their name, so that's like their specialty) and have them look at it. Josh's theory of tire leakage was that the stem needed replacing and that is where the leak was coming from.

I tried on Monday to get to the Only Does Tires place and failed due to a terrible traffice jam that frustrated me so bad that I gave up and returned to my office to wait for Josh. (Our work schedules are weird. Three days a week he's here but works later than me, the other two days he's at the community college and also works later than me, but is home for a short period during the day. He also teaches two night classes. So yeah. Effed up schedules.)

Tuesday I tried again taking a different route to avoid any traffic and actually made it to the tire place. I dropped off my keys and sat down in the waiting area with the only decent magazine in the place, a Time from mid-September. And as lame as this was I was just happy that the waiting room TV wasn't tuned in to Fox News. (Really, what is up with that? I can't go in a waiting room these days without a fucking TV blaring and it's always, always set to Fox News. How about something neutral like Animal Planet, or The Weather Channel? I know i'm in NC but fuck, we aren't all right wing maniacs. And some people are annoyed and depressed by the news and don't appreciate having to hear/watch it while waiting to find out the results of your colonoscopy. Or here's an idea, how about no TV in the waiting room? How about we all just look through old magazines or read the book we brought or play Tetris like we all used to do before someone decided to start sticking flat screens every damn where! Jeez! Can I please wait to see a doctor/dentist/vet/mechanic/or shop at Wal-Mart without some flickering box hanging around? )

ANYWAY...

The TV in the waiting area was small and was running a looping DVD about car maintenace so it was easily ignored and kinda quaint and charming given the other waiting rooms i've been in recently (see above rant). So I settled in to read about the financial crisis and the election as it was a month ago.

And then this college girl came in. And of course she was on her cell phone.

Now I like my cell phone. It's convient and the long distance is cheap as hell. But I also like not being an asshole. So as a general rule I don't have conversations on my phone in public. And conversations I do have in public I keep short, quiet and discreet. I don't answer my phone when i'm with someone else unless it's probably an emergency and then I excuse myself first. I basically try not to act like a boar. Or like the girl who joined me in the waiting area of the tire place on Tuesday.

First of all she called everyone she knew and told them about how she failed her inspection at Jiffy Lube then had to come here to get stuff fixed that Jiffy Lube couldn't fix and planned to go back to Jiffy Lube to have them re-inspect her car. She also asked everyone she talked to about their plans for Halloween and if they wanted to tailgate with them on Saturday. (Two constants in a college town: tailgating and a big Halloween celebration.)

Now this was annoying enough, but then she called someone else and after the Jiffy Lube Inspection Drama Story and the Halloween/Tailgating plan making she apprently learned that the person she was talking to had a convesation with Mary mother of Jesus because the rest of the conversation went like this:

"What did she say?

"Tell me!"

"Tell me!"

"Come on, tell me!"

"Tell me!"

"Tell me!"

And it went on like that! Over and over she begged this person to share the secret of the fucking universe with her. At least it had better have been the secret of the universe as annoying as she was about hearing it.

Just as I was about to snap and stuff her head first into the soda machine I saw a man come back in with my keys.

I jumped up and half-ran to the counter anxious to get the fuck away from this idiot and her cell phone.

As I was paying the man I asked what was wrong with my tire. (Remember the tire? The whole thing that started this?)

"It had a nail in it."


And that's when my brain turned to toothpaste and leaked out of my ears.

The end.

Victory is Mine!

I win! I win! I win!

I don't loose, I win!

First place at the fair!

Victory screach!

WHHHHHOOOOOOOOOOO!

Mini Manners 101: Can you say Thank you? Apparently not!

Ok people. This is first grade stuff. I don't know how your Mama raised you, but MY Mom raised me to say Thank You!

Let me back up.

I work in a renovated building on campus. I don't know what this building was like before the renovation, but I know that now it's a labrynith of halls, elevators that only go to two out of three floors and no helpful sinage AT ALL. Seriously. We have signs for what offices are down what hall, but no idea what department or organization those offices belong to.

So at least once a day someone stops by my office and asks how to get to so and so's office, the financial aid office, the advising center, etc. I tell them how to get where they're going and I resist the urge to charge a dollar for my services. (If I did this I would be well on my way to paying off a credit card right now.) And often the lost person will say thank you. Even if they aren't quite sure about my directions they say thanks.

But not the girl who came by today. She was lost, and I told her how to get where she was going. She seemed confused. I repeated my directions in my happy cheerful helpful secretary voice which I always use with strangers I encounter at work. She continued to look confused and just walked off.

Uh, you're welcome?

Now i'm not trying to be an asshole. But i'm not paid to give directions. It's something I do because i'm nice enough to help out if asked or if I see someone wandering around looking lost. I don't like reciting my How To Get To Financial Aid speech five times a day. Especially when I have to do it because the dumb fucks who renovated this place stopped caring when it came time to order signs. But I still do it. I do my best, and to my knowledge the people I direct get where they're going so is a Thanks too much to ask before you walk off? After all, you did interupt my work day, and sometimes i've been interupted while doing actual work, but with a smile I still told you how to find your advisor's office so squeak out a Thanks you miserable clod!

Thanks. Thank you. Not hard. Not hard at all people.

I won't even start on the topic of thank you notes. I will say that I went to two weddings last fall and over a year later have not seen a note from either couple and this makes me kinda pissed. Especially since one of those gifts was one that was hand made by me. But i'll stop.

So keep in mind as you go through life that you are owed very little. And when someone does do you a favor, no matter how small, you owe them a thanks. And if you skip this little courtesy then I hope that someday you end up in a glorified cube with a person talking to themselves on one side, a person using their speaker phone on the other and a rude git in your doorway wanting to know how to get somewhere just as you were about to leave for that off site three martini lunch you need really, really badly.

Not that i'm holding a grudge or anything.

Population Tire

The tire was checked out and didn't have a nail in it (this time). So the nice man filled it up with air and sent me on my way. So problem solved I guess. Unless it deflates again.