Quiz: How Boyish or Girlish Are You?

You Are 60% Boyish and 40% Girlish

You are pretty evenly split down the middle - a total eunuch. Okay, kidding about the eunuch part. But you do get along with both sexes. You reject traditional gender roles. However, you don't actively fight them. You're just you. You don't try to be what people expect you to be.

How Boyish or Girlish Are You?

Okay, I've got to stop taking quizzes and go to bed. I think most my friends would agree that while they don't usually see me in a dress, they wouldn't think hell froze over if I did wear one. (ok, I've really got to go to bed, too many typos and correcting needed) On the other hand, I play a lot better w/ boys than girls. And identify more w/ male protagonists than female protagonists although I like to see strong female characters who don't think about relationships all the time.

Quiz: What name is best for you?

Meirta.


What name is best for you? MORE NAMES ADDED!!
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What the heck does Meirta mean? Hmm, well no exact match found, but the closest on the Name DB is Meira(Hebrew) meaning Light, bright one w/ variations of Meiri, Meirit, Meora, Meorah. Huh, well, it certainly doesn't seem to match the picture.

Quiz: What kind of eyes do you have?

Your eyes are Fantasy. Dream Angel eyes. You hate
reality.


What kind of eyes do you have?
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Egads, that's true! Fictional characters are on my thoughts as often as real people. Or more. I can spend all day and night in bed daydreaming. Mmmmm, Iori Yagami.

Well I always did wonder...

So today I reveal that I am falliable.

No, I didn't split my pants, drop my food on the floor or told a customer to go f*ck off. I misread my schedule and came to work when I wasn't supposed to. Yup, didn't know about it until Grace told me I had training today, so I go to my schedule to write it in and ... why is there so little space? Wait *look over to date on sheet, look on phone, back to sheet.* It's not Wednesday? No it's Tuesday.... So I don't have Wednesday off?... Crap! This can't be right! .... *run to find supervisor* Crap, I need to see my schedule.... Nick's on the phone *jogging in place* Judy? No, Abdullahi's not busy! Crap!...*run back to Grace* I'm not supposed to be here! No, I don't know why the schedule you looked at said I was. *head over to tell T, T pats me on the head, then I spot Kyle* Oh uh Hi Kyle, I messed up my schedule... But anyways, I don't know why HFX didn't RTA me, but whatever. Whenever I called reps to ask them if they're supposed to be here, and it turned out they're not, I always wondered how you could misread the schedule. But I ended up w/ 1hr of training and b/c I'm taking tomorrow off, I got to go to supervisor training today for 2 hrs. To go over how to handle escalations. Wow, that was extremely interesting. As in a load of malarkey. For some reason my handout had a lot of doodles of # and piles of poo.

So my fish, which I still haven't named -- unless its name is Stupid, Bastard, Shithead(although J claims it for his cat), DumbAss, Moron, Retard, or just Fish -- will only eat freeze dried bloodworms. I've given it 2 types of pellets, bloodworms flakes, but that's all it'll eat. Basically if it's anything other than bloodworms, it'll come close enough to look at it, and then swim underneath. And the other day it made a huge poop, and I mean huge, the fish is only about ... *goes to measure* 4 cm long and... "hey Shithead, quit eating your poop!", anyways the poop is about 5mm big. Not 5 mmlong, but 5x5x5mm. So I was trying to get it to eat pellets b/c it'd just been eating bloodworms, maybe there's fibre in pellets? but nope. It's basically toss 1 in, wait about 10 min, fish it out, toss in a new one... ad infinitum. So basically in the morning I feed it about 3 bloodworm (cause I don't time to fight w/ it) and when I get home, the battle begins. Then after a while, the blue on it starts to fade b/c it's stressed and hungry, and then I get worried, and feed him some worms. Argh!

There's being possessive, and being a total b*tch

So my sister-in-law had a son on Wednesday Sept 21, which I guess makes my brother happy since he won't have to move to another house w/ more bathrooms. But I had today off, so I called my brother to see if I could see the baby at the hospital(apparently Krystal is still holding a grudge that we didn't see her at the hospital when she had Melissa) and if she was coming home from the hospital already to basically pick her up. Well, she was being released today (so if it wasn't for the fact that I had today off, there would technically be no way in hell that I could see her in the hospital since the stay is so short. Does this woman not understand that people work during hospital visiting hours?), so it was that I was going to go w/ my brother to pick her up. Then it was that I was going to babysit the 3 girls while he went to pick up his car from the shop. Then it was he was going to pick up Krystal from the hospital and bring her over so we could see the baby. Well what really happened was that I hiked around for about 2 hours to the different stores looking for a congratulations present for her and a baby present for the nephew. And when I say hike, I mean it, I don't have a car and didn't feel like taking the bus(b/c I'd been sick/stressed lately that I haven't done any exercise so need to use up calories).

Just a rant here, but all the gift books that I saw related to motherhood featured Caucasian women in there and maybe the token African/Latin. And there'll be a mention of god. And will be related to American lifestyle. I don't mind the latter too much, although god should go, but why Caucasian. Some may say it's b/c those are the type of people who buy things like that, but on the same point, maybe it's b/c other people don't buy them b/c they're not represented. It's kinda circular logic.

Anyways, I got a bouquet of flowers, a balloon on a stick and a soft plush ball w/ a bell inside. They came over, and I got to see Melissa for the 2nd time. I'm not kidding. She's about 19 months old, and I'm not really sure if she looks like Krystal b/c I don't even remember what she looks like b/c we don't see her. Melissa doesn't really make any sounds, maybe a short "Uhn" and pointing at something, and crying but that's it. But she's really smart and understands quite a bit. She likes to type on the computer and even figured out to press the backspace key to delete stuff. Anyways, I thought that my brother was only going to hang around for a while to make sure the kids were settled and then head off to pick up Krystal, but he stayed for about 2 1/2 hours, and we had pizza. I'm not sure if it's universal for kids, but the twins love Hawaiian. I gave them their presents. I was really disappointed that Sabby said that she doesn't read. They had fun w/ the Dino Links but I did't think the pieces would be sooooo small. Even I would end up losing some. At first the twins weren't interested in the bubbles, but then we went out to the deck(which I guess might not collapse after all) and made lots of bubbles and tried to get them to fly to outer space. Some even went past our neigbours house, so that's about at least 25 m away, And I showed them my fish, and we played Leprechaun which consisted of hiding chocolate coins and having everyone else find them. At about 8:30, we get a call, and it's Krystal on the phone, telling them that it's time to leave. She's got a really loud piercing voice(like her mother) and told them to get home. So we were going to walk them over, since their house is 2 blocks away, not that I've ever been there. Apparently my dad and middle brother have. But then Sabby said that they were coming to pick them up in 10 min, and it's like why? that's the same amt of time it'll take to walk them over. So I had Sabby call her back, and I couldn't hear what she said, but we just sat there at our house waiting. I ended up reading a Pokemon story to them, but only Jada seemed interested. Then when they came, the baby and Melissa were in the mini-van, Krystal told them to get in, didn't say a single word to us, my brother came out to say bye and to grab the presents, then they drove off. And the twins weren't waving bye. Even my Dad was pretty annoyed, it's like if it was too cold, we could always bundle them up in some clothes, and if she was too tired for a visit, we could just come in to see the baby for a min. We keep extending the olive branch, and she just takes it and tosses into the fire. So while it was fun to see the kids, their mother is a real hag.

Great, YTV just killed the feed for GITS: SAC. Thanks, so now I won't know why the Jeri unit betrayed her owner.

Victor needs to learn how to read again

Watching Reviews on the Run, and they reviewed Inu-yasha:Feudal Combat. Aside from calling them androgynous characters (were they upset that they got a chubby when they saw Sesshomaru?), Victor Lucas only said the title correct once and twice called it "Inyu yusha". Please Victor, if you need glasses, just wear them. It's "Inu Yasha". Sheesh! But I was quite surprised w/ the review that they gave it, b/c the reviews on GameFAQs meant that I didn't buy it right away and am waiting for it to go down in price. I'm not that interested in paying $49.99 for it. I'm thinking $29-35 for it. I was really shocked that Tommy gave it 8.5. So I got Growlanser Generations... wait I wrote about that. F*ck I'm getting tired.

Don't know why they call it Friday Night Smackdown when I see it on Thursday. Sylvan's right about Christy and Stacy. And that dress on Stacy made her look fat.

Anyways, the other day they had to evacuate the building b/c of smoke and the rumour is that there was an electrical explosion down in the basement w/ one of the air conditioning units. It was great b/c T and I were out on our break, and we first watched the pedway fill w/ smoke and then the security guards told us to move, so we went to his apartment to pick up the fish food that his fish wouldn't eat. T suggested some tea, but we didn't think we'd have enough time b/c it didn't seem bad enough that the centre would get evacuated. So we hung outside w/ the rest of the people for about an hour, but I really needed to pee, so I ducked into a restaurant. Then T and I were talking about having lunch there and that we didn't come back right away b/c we broke something so had to wash dishes. But we were good, and went back. But it was still a nice break.

Orlando, it's only good to celebrate when you win, not b/c you lasted over 30 sec w/ the Crippler. Well I guess in a few more matches, you might be able to beat the 2 min mark. *snigger* Boy, if they get paid a set amount per appearance, these have got to be the best matches for them.

So if you had your name legally changed for gender reassignment, how long do you think it would take for your job to change the info in their system? All the govt paperwork is done, company insurance issues you a new card, everyone under the sun knows you have a new name. A month? 6 months? It's been over a year and it's still not done. That, combined w/ false promises about promotions, a full page ad in the newspaper looking for new hires but the company treating tenured reps like ...not quite like the stuff you scrape off your shoes but like sinuses: source of trouble, and only tolerated b/c somewhat useful sometimes, ignored until overrun with problems, and when control methods don't work, move to burning the sinus tissue away instead of understanding why it was reacting. For some reason, resumes everywhere are being updated.

I think my fish is defective. It'd rather eat its poo and food that I couldn't get out of the jar instead of bloodworm flakes floating on the surface.

Light on the wallet at a bar

You Are a Bloody Mary

You're a fairly serious drinker, who's experimented a lot with different drinks. You're a drunk, but a stable drunk. You don't ever let your drinking get out of control.

What Mixed Drink Are You?

Well, I usually nurse my drinks, b/c all it takes is really 1 bottle to get me happy. And a shooter. Never gone beyond that. And I'm cheap. Lee keeps telling me that he has to take me to the bar to see how drunk I can get, and what I'll do. I've had margaritas, martinis, but my fav is Mike's Hard Lemonade. Mostly b/c you can't really taste the alcohol.

BiPolar Day

So it was back to work today. Whatta drag, and I forgot to bring my mug so I had to buy a drink. But this morning (cause I don't sleep until it's am), I had a dream that I went to my supervisor to request a leave of absence, but for some reason when I requested to speak w/ him, my call went to another supervisor whose team I usually sit with. So, 1)if you have a work dream, it probably means you're stressed out about work 2) if in your dream, you're asking to take time off, it probably means you need it. So aside from not answering calls until I've pulled all my systems up, instead of waiting for them to load and answering general questions, I think I basically answered all my calls w/ a growl in my voice. Although oddly enough a older guy said that he would take me to dinner if I lived closer to him. Then I found out that I was supposed to be on Duty Desk an hour after I'm supposed to start, and the person(Deb) who was working at the time, didn't check to make sure I knew and neither did the person filling in until I went for my break. So I spent an unnecessary hour listening to people. But actually that wasn't the part that pissed me off, it was that Deb as usual took off and let other people do her work.

Anyways, since I'd been gone for 4 days, T thought I'd been fired b/c so many people have been canned. I told T that they couldn't fire me for anything, but T's right, they'll find something if they want you gone. Anyways, did some work at Duty and then hunted down my supervisor to talk about LOA. Basically his advice is to brush up on my resume cause compared to how I was over a year ago, I'm not as bubbly or perky as before, and if I want LOA, it's better to go for a medical one instead of a personal one, unless it's something like I need to care for a family member. Of course if I wanted it right away, I could always freak out at work in a bizarre manner. Angry wouldn't be noticeable b/c everyone's always pissed b/c of the customers. And of course today I was wearing a T-shirt that said "Compulsive, Neurotic, Antisocial, Manic Depressive, Paranoid, Psychopathic, Schizophrenic... But Basically Happy" So I'm just trying to look up the frigging policies on their stupid HRDirect, and it's taking 5 years to load. And b/c I use Firefox, it's not displaying correctly.

Anyways, b/c I completed this PAR quiz, they give 1:5 quizzes a $10 gift certificate, and a balloon. The money is always appreciated, although Abudi who was helping hand them out, made some smart ass remark about my ACW b/c my supervisor and hence his reps, are part of the team of supervisors that he supervises. Ya gotta love hierarchy. So yippee a balloon, which I nearly forgot to take home. And then I was trying to see if T wanted it b/c he had just finished with some dumbass customer who escalated on him, and he was pretty pissed. Not to mention that I had to walk home after taking the bus and train, and it would be a bit of a bother to transport it that long. But T, being the rascal that he is, wrote on it "I hate my life -- and I want to DIE" and put smiley faces and hearts over it. And I told him that I should've asked him to write on my balloon earlier, b/c coupled w/ my T-shirt, that'll probably get me a LOA, but T said that he can only think of something witty when he's in a foul mood. So we were both in a better mood, and I got a lot of wierd looks when I was going home. Tee hee!

So I had a dumbass customer too. Quite frankly with some customers, empathy is just something you do so that if anyone's listening, they can mark that you displayed it. Says that they'd called in earlier to cancel the svc. Yep, it's notated but last time they called was 3 months ago, and it wasn't done b/c she hung up when waiting for the supervisor. Of course she denies it, but you couldn't call back in?! We're just open 24-7-365. Account holder had throat cancer so couldn't use phone anymore, but they also had 3 other lines on the account, and wouldn't transfer the account to anyone else. Needed a new phone but wasn't willing to upgrade to a new plan. And for some reason thought that they shouldn't have to pay an Early Termination Fee. I offered to CR back for the months after she'd called in to cancel b/c there hadn't been usage, but there was no way in hell I'm waiving the ETF on 4 lines. And she calls me unreasonable. So I tell her, after she f*cking tells me to shut up and listen to her, that just b/c her dad had a medical problem doesn't free him from legal obligations. So she asks me how she can get out of the ETF, and I was so tempted to tell her that if she kills her father, we'll waive it. No really, if the account holder is dead, we can waive the ETF.

The fish is not eating the pellets I bought it. It's very annoying and frustrating and worrisome at the same time. It hasn't really eaten since last night which makes it about 24 hrs ago. T is going to bring me some fish flakes that his fish won't eat to see if mine will. Damn picky eaters, maybe if it's hungry enough it'll eat that stuff that sank to the bottom. Yes, I know I'm supposed to fish it out if he doesn't eat it in a couple min, but they fell back in after I moved them up the side of the jar.

4 days, 14 hrs of sleep

So I had a 4 day weekend. Well, actually it was that work had me scheduled to have Thurs off, work Fri, and weekend off. Which is bullshit, so I put one of my vacation days on the Friday. And on Monday, I left 3 hrs early, called in sick on Tuesday, so I really only worked 2 1/2 days this week. Sweet. I hate that fucking workplace. Job: it's the same bitching and complaining so my skin's kinda think enough to take it, although my dentist doesn't think so. But office politics suck.

Anyways, enough of that shit. So on Friday, I was supposed to see "The Exorcism of Emily Rose." But I knew that my DVD player was set to come, b/c I was tracking it on the website. So I ended up going to sleep at about 4 am on Friday morning, thinking that my dad was going to be home to get the door when the delivery guy comes. Nope, he actually goes out that day. So I was awake from 9-2 until my dad came back. Waiting. Breakfast. Waiting. Playing Star Ocean. Waiting. Lunch. Waiting. Dad comes home, I pass out until 3. Come out of my room, and it turns out the stupid mailperson didn't even bother to try the door, they just dropped the delivery card in our mailbox b/c they only have 3 min window to deliver packages. Or at least that's what TT says b/c he knows a few people that work for Canadapost. Gawd, was I pissed!! Then I had to get ready to go out to the movie, and I'd made reservations for dinner beforehand. And then my dad tells me that he and my middle brother is going out to dinner w/ my older brother and his kids in a couple hours. Well, thanks a frigging lot! I'd already made plans w/ my friends a week ago, and there's no way I can cancel them. So I look like a jerk, and my dad gets to say that he asked me, and my dad tells me to quit my "hee hee haw haw". So I go to dinner and get there at 5:30 sharp, sit for 15 min waiting for people to show, called TT and he said that A was just coming to pick him up. And then Lee says that he came in at 5:15 but I wasn't there, and I'm like, I made reservations for 5:30, why would I come earlier when Robert and Jamie don't get off until 5:30? So anyways, people were late, we had to constantly flag the waitress down, food took forever to come, and we ended up missing the movie. And I think I got sick from the food too, b/c my stomach felt like crap. The first time I ate at L'azia's, they had ginger in the pineapple sauce w/ my burger, and I hate ginger! So I don't think I'm going to eat there again. But speaking of better service, went to Eastbound for the 1/2 price sushi. The waiter was cute, and apologized profusely for only having 1 menu, and then forgetting some of our order. So since I usually decided tip when I go out w/ J, I said we should give him extra tip b/c he was nice, but it was actually b/c he was cute. Tee hee!

But at least after missing the movie, we went to EBgames, and I found used Growlanser Generations for $49.99 - 10% b/c TT had a membership. It's a tatical RPG but it's much faster pace than FF Tactics, and they have very beautifully drawn bishounen. Yes, I was making very many innuendoes thru the game. Although there is no Japanese track on it,(I am a mite obsessed about that too) I think they got a lot of VAs that do animation work b/c some of them sound familiar. So I'll probably end up spending about 200 hrs play time btwn the 2 of them b/c it's supposed to be about 80 hrs playtime. I already have over a 100 hrs on Star Ocean, and I'm probably only about halfway thru. Arc the Lad almost has 100 hrs, and I'm kinda close to the end.

After my brother and dad get home from their dinner, my brother tells me that the twins are coming over the next day, but not when or why. So whatever, it's not like we see them that often (maybe every other month even though they literally live 2 streets over). Well I was in the middle of cleaning my bathroom when my brother and one of the twins show up. The other twin was taken by their mom, to who knows where. But it was like we'll just make the best of it, so we played Pokemon Sorry for while until pizza came. And then my brother's says we'll have cake afterwards. And I still hadn't clued in that Sabby wasn't over just for fun. (having only 5 hrs of sleep does that) Well, it's a b-day party for my dad and the twins. The twins' b-day is end of the month, and I didn't have any presents wrapped. I had presents b/c I like to stock up when I see something good, but still. I guess I'll finally get to see their house when I drop off their presents when it's closer to their b-day. But anyways, that was yesterday.

This morning, I went to bed at about 6 am b/c I'd fallen asleep in front of my TV after I finished cleaning my bathroom at 1 am. Then my brother starts vacuuming at 10:30 am, and our house has 0 sound proofing. And I'm a light sleeper, so I figure, I'll play a bit of Growlanser 2 until he finishes and go back to bed. And he'll vacuum for like 1/2 hr, stop for 1/2 hr, and start again. So I never went back to sleep. And J and I went shopping for reading material at our usual haunt, picked up my DVD player from the post office, I bought some 2000 flushes packs and sponges. Finally replaced my bathtub cleaning sponge, which was starting to wear thru the scouring side. Literally. Cellulose sponges are much better than those other artificial sponges. Had sushi as previously mentioned. And picked up a betta fish from Wal-mart. I hate Wal-mart but I don't feel like spending $6 for a fish that may not last a week. B/c I've never taken care of fish before. Except when I fish-sat my friend's. But it's got red fins and blue scales. So I paid $3 for the fish, got food, water conditioner, and a jar from IKEA for $4. I was thinking of a vase, but none of them were quite the right size or shape for it. So far I haven't named it. If it makes it thru the week, I'll probably give it something. Probably something Japanese. Course my friends know it takes me forever to think of names b/c I think about what they mean and if it sounds good, etc. For our RPG campaigns, I usually end up changing names, although my quick picks for our Catholic church campaign, I think I'll keep. My char has a dog and a bird, which I take to the different orphanages to entertain and teach the kids. And they're called...Genghis and Saladin. Bwahahahaha! Thank you Terry Jones' The Crusades!

The Yaoi Selector: Which Seme are You?

*humming* Adorable ukes, so sweet and innocent...La laa la...a little ropework never hurt as long as you let them out when they ask... do do doo... *presses submit* Holy crap! Jeez, Muraki, that evil bastard?!... Who's so hot, and I'd love to see go all the way with Tzuzuki, and who wouldn't want to do naughty things w/ Hisoka, although killing him was waayy too much. Uh, yeah, Muraki.


The Yaoi Selector: Which Seme are You?
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I'm a very special person...

So I went to the dentist today, and my usual dentist is on vacation, so I saw his associate. Which is ok, it was just a checkup and maintenance. So she checked my jaw and tongue, which my other dentist never did. And ask if I do a lot of jaw clenching, and first I'm like maybe, then I think upon those escalations, and it's like Oh, Yeah I definitely do at work.

I really hate it when the caller tells me to shut up and listen or some variation of it. Like seriously, especially when I've already let them yammer about their problem, but they wanna tell their whine story. The other day a guy did that to me, so I just put him on mute, and had the headset next to my ear so I could hear when he shut up, and read my email and worked on a puzzle. So he finally starts asking if I'm still there, and then I take the mute off, and repeat the same thing I told him 5 min ago. I don't even go "I'm still here" or threw in any empathy statement, I just start saying the same thing I said before. I'm not sure if he even noticed.

It's so sad, Booker T has been around for a long time, and still all he can say is that he's the "5 time! 5 time! 5 time World champion!" I know he's gotten some serious push before, but he's never gotten to win the WWE championship. At least not that I remember. I know they're writing Charmelle so she's totally useless, and I wonder if that's just what they're trying to push all the women to be. From the height of Chyna and the Trish-Victoria street fight, to these stupid diva searches. Yuck! At least Trish is back, but she's really doesn't have any competition except for Victoria. Lita's just Edge's bump bunny and even when she was active in the ring, she sucked.

But back to the dentist, she told me that I'm missing both my mandibular lateral incisors. It's not like they were pulled out like my wisdom teeth or both my maxillary premolar 1 for my braces either. It's actually a congenital abnormality. But the rare thing is that both of my incisors are missing so you can't tell unless you're a dentist. Or an forensic anthropologist. So that combined w/ my small blood cells, makes me a mutant. Tee hee, I'm a mutant! Hmm, my special power? Um, I can break thru almost all the crab shell w/ my teeth except for the claw tips and the body. Well, actually I never tried using my teeth on those parts cause there's no real meat in the tips, and the body is already opened up to take out the innards. But the body of the claw, I've split open. Mmmmm, crab...*drool*

Must think Lemonade...but there's no sugar or water!

So for the last couple of days I've been having headaches throughout the whole day, from when I wake up until I go to bed. Yesterday morning I was tempted to call in sick b/c every part of my body was either aching or had gone numb during the night. But I had 4 hrs of duty, so I toughed it out. And then I...oh I wrote about that already. Ok, I forgot. Anyways, today at the meeting there's this group of SLRs for the Attendence Wellness Management program, who were just lying their ass off in the Duty Desk meeting, saying that they didn't know about certain processes, or trying to pass the workload to Duty Desk. But I managed to get my shot in about their stupid statistics that they've been keeping on all the reps, like avg call time, amt of transfers. Basically management was wondering why reps kept missing training even though they've been reminded many times, and I basically pointed out that w/ the huge focus over the past months on these stats, reps are more concerned about improving their stats by taking more calls instead of listening to some person drone on about some new rate plan or policy.

After the meeting I took about 3 1/2 hrs worth of calls. About 45 min of it was just a guy who kept asking me the same stupid question about whether he should go to prepaid or lower his plan based on his usage, and whether he should unlock his phone to go to prepaid. And he kept asking the same thing about the plan and how many min he used. I repeated myself over and over again, and kept telling him it's his choice to make, it's his finances, I can just supply him with information. And he wouldn't shut up. So I just started working on my wordsearch, talked w/ my friend and didn't hear a thing he said for 2 min, and then when he asked if I was there, I just repeated my info again, and i swear he didn't notice b/c I'm sure that he just asked the same question he asked me 30 min ago. Near the end I was seriously replying in monosyllabicwords, just Yes, No. I know we're not supposed to release the call, and he was hanging up, but I couldn't wait the 2 sec for the call to disconnect, I was so sick of him. The rep next to me was just watching me, b/c I would be slouching, having my head on the desk, pretending to pull my hair out, rubbing my temples, the guy was such a moron. After that I had lunch, worked another 1/2 to make it an even 5 hrs and went home sick.

Anyways, the Inu Yasha 3rd movie was released, and Future Shop said they were offering a free keychain, but at one store it was like, the keychain was packaged on the DVD so if it's not there, we don't have any. And then another store said that they never recieved any. But I think what it may be is that the bonus item is a lenticular pencil board. We managed to find one unopened copy w/o the shitajiki, so we figured that might be it. And I don't remember at the other Future Shops, getting a headache while looking over the DVDs. The bonus thing was that the sticker was 23.99 which is the price for the DVD w/ the keychain, at least that's what we think so b/c the other stores w/o the gift had them at 22.99 and online it's 22.99, but I was like it's only an extra buck, and shitajiki's are usually $8, but it rang in for 22.99! Anyways, also at FS, I checked out the DVD I'm ordering, the LG LDA 531, and during the sale, none of the stores had them, but at this FS they had them and at the sale price, even though online it went back up to $199.99. But I had ordered it online, and it still hadn't shipped last night, so I was thinking of buying it there, and then cancelling the online order. So I used the FS computer to check my order, and it'd just been shipped. DAMMIT!!! But the tracking number isn't working. ARGH!

I'm debating whether to call in sick tomorrow, it's only 1 occurrence, and I'm really sensitive to sound now. I have to turn my volume down on my games from my standard 15 to 13. I wonder how I get a leave of absence?

Halos of light from around a star known as V838, taken with Hubble's new Advanced Instruments Camera.

Apathy & Adversary

So for the last 2 days, my supervisor had been talking to me about getting the SLRs organized to go to one of the OM's w/ our grievences. No, really forming an SLR union. Of sorts. It's not like we'd go on strike if our "demands" weren't meant, but basically trying to get the upper management to notice that a lot of us are unhappy about the favouritism and poor treatment we've been getting. I wonder if it's b/c he's overheard me telling reps that my two lanyards aka nooses/collars/yokes don't mean anything anymore, even though I'd gotten one when I became Floor Support/Redhat/Resolution Specialist, and the other when I became SLR. Although it is entirely the truth, I don't get pulled off to provide extra support when they're shorthanded, even though I know 2 out of the 3 systems we use, and the only SLR duties we have nowadays is Duty Desk. Which is only a few hours a week. If we're lucky. While there are other SLRs who get to be permanently off the phones and spend their time IMing their buddies while waiting for someone to call in sick or surfing the Net. So anyways, it's not like there haven't been SLRs who've quit out of the program or just plain quit b/c of all the bullshit. But it just keeps going. So I did chat it up w/ some of my peers, and basically no one thinks that management will listen or do anything about it. And come to think of it, I think my brain'd hurt too much to try and think of any examples when managment has responded to reps' concerns. Except maybe for hiring new janitorial staff. Or moving the TLs to sit w/ their team. Getting more cleaning supplies. Adding toasters to the lunchroom. Giving board games to play on breaks. But none of those would ruffle any feathers like responding to charges of favouritism. Nope, don't think much will happen, and they love to tar us all w/ the same brush. Good lip service to Diversity.

Anyways, got a call from this guy, after it was passed to me from another rep b/c the rep was too stupid to change the profile on the phone. So the customer says he was told that after a year on the 2 yr contract that he would get new phones w/o signing for a new contract or paying for it. And on top of that, he says that he didn't know that he owns the phones. So I ask him straight out, "Then what did you think you were doing w/ the phones, renting them?" Yes, he actually thought that. Well buddy, there's this bridge in Brooklyn that's just come onto the market...

Update: I was mistaken on the length of the Friday night Smackdown. It's actually 2 hrs, it's just on the digital cable, it said it was 1 1/2 hrs. So I was a bit surprised when it when so much longer. And how is it Friday night, when I'm watching it on Thursday?

I've been feeling under the weather, migraine, insomniac, aches, muscle cramps, hearing wierd sounds and being overly sensitive to sound/smell. Last night, the opening for .hack//SIGN was hurting my head, little stabs of pain on certain notes. So I changed to my Hiro Yuuki CD and it didn't hurt, but usually w/ his voice, it's like a lullaby, but I still couldn't get to sleep. It's really f*cking annoying being awake thinking whether or not I should call in sick. And I didn't b/c I had 4 hrs on Duty Desk, which meant I only had to listen to customer's yammering for 3 hrs. Tomorrow, I'm thinking of calling in sick, b/c I'm starting to get a headache from the computer fan and listening to my mp3s and deciding which ones I want to burn. But I have a frigging acct I have to cancel tomorrow. And some stupid meeting about Duty Desk. As long as it's not about surfing while you're sitting there bored out of your skull looking to see if anyone's in aftercall, I don't care. Anyways all I look at is Pokemon, Discovery Channel, and Wikipedia. And I have a picture from the Hubble Telescope as my background for my SLR acct at work. Which I've posted. Cool, huh?

Stupid Transunion

I just called Transunion b/c I'd sent a request for a credit report a while ago, in my usual humble "Excuse me, but I think there may be an error/ could you please help me?" tone. First the rep starts going that it's going to take over 30 days for me to recieve it, and I tell her that I'd sent it a month or 2 ago, She repeats the same thing. I again say that I sent the request over a month ago. Meanwhile I'm trying to see if there's a date on the report I recieved from Equifax. She repeats the same thing. I'm getting pretty steamed now, and again tell her it's been over a month and she's like when, and I'm like I don't remember the exact date. Then I remember that there's a post office stamp on the envelope from Equifax, so I tell her June. And she's like ok, and then after a long pause asks for my credit card number or SSN ....ack! I mean SIN! Damn Americans. I did the same thing when I was working for C&L at Animethon and they needed it to send me a cheque. Anyways, I start reading out my credit card number and before I finished, she tells me to repeat it again. So I'm like did you want my credit card number or my SSN?! (Yes I said SSN to her, it's a bad habit) And she's like either will do, fine I read her my SIN. After another long pause, she asks for my last name, first name, another long pause, my address, and then when I started rattling it off, she's like I have to put it into the computer. *sigh* So very slowly and only giving her info when she requested it, I give her my current address. And she's like, how long have you been living there? And I say "over a year" She asks again. I'm starting to get a vein popping. "A year and a half" And she asks for my old address. Finally she tells me that she can't find it and wants me to mail in another copy of the request form plus 2 pieces of ID. I tell her that I could be a victim of identity theft and she wants me to mail in another copy of my information, when there's already a copy floating around?! Considering I was already using my "Look you useless rep..." voice before I even gave her any of my information, my voice was changing to "I want to talk to your supervisor..."voice, but I decided to rein it in, and plodded along trying to get her to do something. Then she tells me that I can order it online, so I'm like fine, what's the address? And she's like what? Finally I get it and then I ask her which link I'm supposed to click. So she opens up her browser and then has the gall to tell me to pick either English or French, which was the page before the main page. *pop POP POP* goes the veins. She's obviously not listening to me, and have to basically tell her I'm already on the page for whereever she tells me to go. Oh, and guess what, $15 to apply online! Oh, sorry $14.99. So I asked her if there was a way of her just sending me the info since she had all my info already, and she's like no, and I said well, Equifax allows you to apply over the phone, which is a totally useless statement, but I was so ticked off, and if I were to mail in the application, it'd have to be by courier which is gonna cost me $7 at least. And then she starts repeating herself so I just hung up. Yes, I was a lousy customer but I guess this is why empathy helps. Argh, I hate it when stupid monitors are right! Anyways, now I'm all paranoid that she might do some shit w/ all the info I gave her.

So later I call up to check if my CCWIPP had moved the funds over to my RRSP. And incidentally it was b/c of a leak at the CCWIPP that I even have to go thru the hassle w/ credit reports. The lady asked if I'd checked w/ my bank yet so I tell her that I can't check recent transactions w/ my online bank account, so she just looks it up for me. No fuss, no pushback.

So I just finished sorting my empty boxes. Yes, empty boxes. I keep the blister packs and packaging the come with my figures, so it's easier when I have to pack them up. And it's not just the box for my Beast statute 1363 of 3000, but also my newest acquisition: Yamato Story Image Figure Legato Bluesummers of Trigun. He looks sooo sweet, and of course is played by Seki Toshihiko. Oh, it was so funny, at least for me, I think it was just puzzling for my supervisor, but there's this website we use to reset our passwords and the login password wasn't working so I had to use the secret questions. One of the Q was fav artist, which I have Seki Toshihiko. But when you're trying to type it, and you can't tell which letter you've just typed in, it's pretty hard. So I'm like sounding it out and giggling at the same time.

Anyways TT is coming over to borrow more discs. I'm recommending Outlaw Star, which is great. I can't wait for my DVD player to come. Although I'll have to get a HDMI cable now. So expensive!

Isn't Democracy great?!

Wow, I've missed Jon Stewart and the Daily Show. And kudos to the media for getting on Bush's buddies for their complete lack of responsibility for the state of the refugees from Hurricane Katrina. Sure it's a natural disaster, but it's not like it suddenly appeared out of nowhere. A lot of people predicted the worst, and I think it's Bush's ego that made them think it wouldn't happen. Not to America, the Great US of A. Of course I don't literally mean Bush, but the way his govt acts is patterned after him. Very arrogant with ingratiating politeness. And the people were severely let down by their govt, and the slack is being picked up by private citizens across the world or foreign countries. How pathetic for a 1st world nation to be reduced to this. When the tsunami hit the SE Asian coasts, the govt acted w/ better response and more concern and they were 2nd - 3rd world countries. So why can't the US do better when they had all the time, technology and funds to prepare for the disaster and aftermath? I'd say ask the voters, b/c they're the ones who elected the govt and didn't ask for accountability.

Watching Smackdown. It's much tighter now that it's been pared down to 1 1/2 hrs. Steel cage mage btwn Eddie and Rey? Instant classic from 2 great workers.

But as for the actual people who were affected by this, they don't deserve to be spat on by the people who are supposed to take care of them, but I don't think sending teddy bears will help that much. That's the initiative that my work site is taking. While soft toys are cuddly, have great insulation value (it's true, I've piled all my plushies on top of me when I was cold, and it was a bit lumpy but warm), they're not edible, can't provide shelter, aren't usually traded for other necessities. Since I love teddies bears and their cousins, I'm not going to imagine what else they can be used for, b/c it'll be vulgar. It only really benefits the children and maybe a few adults. I do second Samuel Jackson, Tommy Lee Jones and the other celebrities who try to do something tangible for the people. And Oprah should buy them all homes. Bush pretends to be folksy, but we know he couldn't be bothered to cut his vacation short or miss a "town hall meeting" for people who are in need. And considering helping the victims would've netted him better good publicity than all the staged town hall meetings ever, his publicist should be fired.

That was sooo cool to see Benoit beat Orlando Jordan so fast at Summerslam. But was it a slip up from the script? or planned? And then when Benoit beat him again the rematch in less time?! Hilarious! And oh, here the 2nd rematch... 22.5 seconds! Benoit wins again! Man, what can you do in 22 seconds? If it goes any shorter, Benoit might get in trouble for short matchs. Tee hee, inside work joke. But it's still not the shortest match on record, I believe the Bob Backlund-Diesel match lasted less than 10 sec b/c Diesel just jackknifed Backlund. I just remember it was super quick.

Had some crab at dinner. Had 2 legs and then I couldn't resist the siren call. The seductress of the sea. I grabbed a claw. It's soooo sweet, I like it better than lobster, though scallop is super tasty too. I'm not supposed to have shellfish b/c of high cholestrol but it's *drool* And it's so good when it's done the Chinese way -- stir fried in the wok w/ green onions and ginger. Yes, ginger. One of the few times when I don't mind the ginger taste. I never really liked ginger before, but after I had to scrape the skin off 2 lbs of ginger for my sister-in-law's pregnancy, I've really hated it. If there is even a 1x5x5mm piece of ginger in my food, I can smell it and I have to root it out. Get it, root?! Ok, bad pun.

Hmm, bull rope match btwn Batista and JBL. Haven't seen many of those. No one's used the cowbell as a weapon yet. I'm disappointed. Moooooooo! Oh there he goes, JBL used the bell! Ma-ma Moo cows! Ma-ma make milk! Oh! Nice use of the rope! Crotched Batista with it. Oddly the milk commercial ditty worked very well. :)

From Far Away....

That's actually the title of a manga I'm reading right now. It's published by Viz, but they don't have a link for it yet. It's an excellent story, and the art is quite nice. Bishounens are quite tasty, and the girls are cute. Story centers around Noriko, a student who somehow gets transported to another world and meets a young man, Izark, who saves her. She's prophesied to be the trigger that can destroy the world, and Izark also has special abilities that has some dark origins. Sounds pretty typical right? The difference in this manga, versus something like Fushigi Yuugi, is that Noriko actually thinks about what she does. Noriko can't magically understand their language, so she has to actively work to learn it which leads to some funny moments but is also very natural. Additionally she knows that if there's a dangerous situation, she should hide or run away, not rush into it or stand there screaming like a ninny waiting for some guy to rescue her. Izark also isn't instantly smitten w/ her, and actually ponders killing her even after they've been together for several months b/c of what she could be. Noriko does develop a special ability later on, but the key word is "developing". Nothing worse than characters that seems to gain a skill or something after 1 panel. I only have up to Vol 4 right now, but it's been really good.

Crap, I just realized I vacuumed up one of Wolfwood's pistols. I have a Nicholas Wolfwood figure, and he fell over, and the back of the hand that allows him hold onto his cross-machinegun/missile launcher/pistol armory (I don't know else to call it) fell off, so I was going to try and reattach it, again, and totally forgot that he was holding a pistol in his other hand for the pose I put him in. DAMMIT!!

My throat's completely shot. I have to breathe really shallow or else I go into a coughing fit. And then I taste blood and something else. I went to J's house yesterday to RPG w/ our friend's C and M. J has a cat called Harvey, who's really cute and fluffy. Unfortunately a little too hairy, and I'm allergic to cats. So for the first hour I was just blowing my noise, then after about 3 hours, I start coughing. But the end of the night, I was wheezing. I could barely sleep last night my throat hurt so much, and I had to put a heavy cream on my nose b/c it was so rough from all the blowing. I think I finished a box of tissue. They really need to develop something for us pet lovers w/ allergies. Some kinda shot or something.

Anyways, I got the presents to C and M. They didn't seem too miffed that I missed their party the other weekend. Of course it's hard to miss something when you were't told it existed. Although when M brought his PS2 and found out the PS1 controllers don't work w/ the game and I told him, "you shoulda told me you were going to bring it so I could bring my controllers", he was like "Meh". I don't think I like the YuYu Hakusho fighting game. It just doesn't seem responsive to commands.

Also from far away, actually Korea, my friend H has gotten access to the Internet, so now all of us can read what she's been up to. I know she's been in Los Angeles, but she sounds more overwhelmed by the sheer scale of Seoul. The language barrier doesn't help either. She was mentioning how a lot of the Koreans thought their English sucked so they won't use it, even though it's very good. I know that was how I felt w/ my Chinese when I went back to HK and visited my relatives. But when I spoke to strangers, they didn't notice anything. But I've basically more or less actively tried to delete my Chinese from my vocabulary b/c I usually only get lectured or screamed at in Chinese by my Dad, and when I was w/ my relatives they basically pointed out how poor my comprehension was, so it's like fine, whatever.

God's People,God's Will

Well, well, well, guess what this post's about.

However first thing first, what is with the other customer service centres who just see that it's a divested customer and immediately transfer to us? This rep couldn't answer a simple question for why the alpha tag read roaming and whether the customer would be charged w/ roaming or not. Hello, the alpha tag works the same no matter which customer you are. Gawd, whatta moron.

Anyways, I've been answering the phone as Customer Service instead of Customer Care, because really I don't care most of the time. There was a time, a long time ago, when the satisfaction of knowing that I did a good job was enough to get me thru the day and weather all the crap that happens in the workplace, whether it was lousy schedules, inter-office politics, or obnoxious customers. Now, since our team has the best quality in the centre, I'm thinking why the hell aren't we being recognized for that? If the focus is on quality and that's what supposed to be the main focus all the time, and not PAR, contract renewals, answering quizzes about P&P or those other contests they like to have, why don't they have an established incentive program for it? All we're asking for is a pizza party for 15 people. You're looking at about 7-8 pizzas. But nope, our OM won't do it. Then what's the point? Wow, we get an extra $0.15 on our raise because of a better performance appraisal. Maybe.

And I think that if we've repeated our explanation 3 times, we should be able to tell the customer to write down the explanation so that they can look at it in their own time and quit making me lose my voice. Of course that would be assuming that they could read and write. For a 1st world nation, the US has a low literacy rate. I swear I told this guy 6 times why we couldn't send out a copy of his bill, twice in my "I don't care, this is what it is, and if you want to go to collections, that's your prob." voice, twice in my nice "I understand you want to see your invoice before you pay your bill, and I feel the same way, but..."voice, and twice in my "Look, you stupid f*ckwad..." voice. He still didn't get it.

Which leads me to the title. Got a call from a rep who spoke to someone who lived in New Orleans. First the rep just starts talking about what the customer told him, and went on about 2 min about that, and I'm thinking, "yeah so, it's on the news". Finally he gets to the point, which is the customer wants to be credited for all the charges that they're incurring right now w/ txt msg since the voice network is overloaded. Well we can't see their bill so we can't CR for what we can't see, and the company hasn't said anything about reimbursing charges that might be incurred b/c of everyone trying to find each other, so we can't guarantee anything for CR. Well that rep didn't like it and tried to elicit sympathy by saying the customer was crying. Am I bitch for sticking w/ the issue and telling them the txt msg pkg they pick will be prorated? Yeah, probably, but guess what? This brings me to this point-- People's true nature is revealed in times of crisis. So if the Americans response to a hurricane is to loot stores, rape, shoot rescue workers, murder people, steal from destroyed homes, sneak in for relief aid when they don't need it...well guess we know it's not God's country anymore and God's just taking care of business.

Step into my parlour....

So someone finally got to see my room. Not J or T (not H, b/c she's in Korea) or someone I'd known a long time. It was actually TT, who was dropping off one of my DVDs and wanted to pick up a few to watch since he was unemployed for the while. I got to show off my $200 Beast statue, and all my geekiness. I'm not sure if he was scared or not. :D

Anyways, when I was waiting for him to pick me up at the station, I saw a guy literally drag another guy into the bus. White-shirt was completely unconscious and red-shirt had to put him on the bus floor to drag his carcass in. It was... interesting. I really feel sorry for the bus drivers when they have stuff like that. On one hand, you don't want to have to clean up, or break up a fight if they get rowdy. On the other hand, you don't want to leave them on the street either.

Had an escalation at work. I like seriously lost it, I wasn't swearing really loud, but I was mangling the headset. The guy just whined and bitched about coverage problems, and then when I told him what he needed to do to troubleshoot, he acted all put out by what he needed to do and bitched some more. For over half an hour he just would not shut up. So when it went to Rob, Rob was on that call for another half an hour, and I got a nice break. But my friends were quite shocked by how much I was spitting venom, and even Rob who used to work w/ me on RSD basically just took the call over, I was soooo mad. And considering I was feeling a bit up b/c our team had 94% quality and I'd gotten 3 100% the other day, Grrrrrrr!!!

Then I got to talk to a woman for over an hour about how she was seriously screwed by Customer Care. And the thing was, I agreed with her. For over 2 months, she'd requested to have the bill rerated for roaming charges, and it was never done. Things were submitted supposedly, but no one took responsibility. Basically I apologized for the situation, told her that she had my reassurance that something would happen, but if she didn't feel like believing me, I didn't blame her b/c of all the probs she had. A couple of times the woman was nearly crying b/c she was so frustrated but I think I calmed her down. Even though she's a biz customer, I hope we can help her. She asked me if everyone got training, and I told her that everyone gets basic training, but it's the rep's initiative to expand on that training. I think she sensed that I was totally honest with her, and was being polite when I mentioned what the other reps did.

Anyways, time to play DDR. I played FF Tactics the other day, picking it up after a long hiatus. Now I remember why I put it down. Imagine having to redo a battle 3 times b/c my character who could revive was petrified, or having a dead character when the boss died(which means I permanently lose the charcter), and then b/c the button arrangment is Japanese-style which mean X is cancel and O is select, not saving in between. And then in the next battle when there was tons of stuff to steal, giving one of the enemies, ONE, a good whack that knocked her to her knees and then having all the enemies take off before I could steal a thing. Argh!