Flickr

Slowly, I'm starting to put a few more photos up at Flickr. I'm attempting to put up highlights from my foreign study in Turkey, Greece, and Italy, as well as photos from when I was in Mexico over the past summer. My photos can be found here, for anyone who's curious.

Good news, everyone! And bad news. Mostly bad.

So if you check out this surprisingly well-informed and well-written article in Rolling Stone about the world's oil production and the coming crisis, you'll be extremely depressed. This is the bad news.

The good news is, when I took an ice cream break in the UC, a little piece of the chocolate shell fell onto the floor as I was walking up the stairs. Looking down I mumbled, mouth full, "Oh dammit." But that's not how it came out. Shovel ice cream into your face and say "Oh dammit" for the only accurate representation I can think of. I can't write one, that's for sure. Anyhow this girl was walking down the stairs beside me. When I stopped, mumbled, and looked at my feet, she gave me this look full of sympathy and pity. Well, I just looked up at her and smiled, probably in a goofy manner, because I had ice cream. She shook her head and kept walking.

I think she believes I'm retarded.

The Return....

...of CUP GUY, as he's being called at work by my colleagues, who have all heard just how much he pissed me off. If you haven't read the previous post from February 14th, then take a look right now. Then come right back.

All right, introductions done, now onward with the story. The Cup Guy showed up at work today, signed in (we have all our clients sign in). Here's the transcript.

Genie: Can I help you with anything?
Cup Guy(formerly, "Asshole"): I was just going to sign in, then get a cup of coffee. And stay in here. (hesitation) If that's all right (slight sarcasm in the voice, perhaps--it's hard to tell).
Genie: Sure, so long as the coffee stays here.

He walks to the back of the office to get a cup of coffee. I head back to my desk. A few minutes later, he leaves.

Oops. I guess I forgot to make coffee today.

What is a word close to the meaning of "serendipitous," except, a random coincidence that you don't really care about?

Djinn offers this response: "Serendipitous like a John Cusack movie... a strange coincidence, but still pretty boring."

6:40 AM The alarm goes off. Snooze.

7:30 AM Having snoozed for almost an hour, it's now or never. Wake up and rush to get ready for work, or sleep in and be half an hour late. It's Friday. I usually get in at 8:30 AM. We don't open until 9:00 AM. Snooze.

8:30 AM Leave for work, having accepted that I'll be late.

Once at work, I decide to stay after work for half an hour as a way to make up for being half an hour late. We close early on Fridays anyways at 2:00 PM. On a normal Friday, I'd be gone at two.

2:20 PM I hear the door to the department I work in jiggle. Someone's trying to get in. Not too odd, I'm leaving early and there are still people who have offices here who come in and out. I look up, and see through the glass around the door.... my ex-boyfriend.

Note: I'll say it before Ghani can say it--my gay ex-boyfriend. Although to my knowledge, he's never come out, the evidence has piled up. We wonder.

As I walk to the door, I contemplate what I should say in greeting. I don't really want to see him, but too late now. What should I say?

"Holy shit."

Have a glimpse into the situation here: we dated almost two years ago, and we were completely incompatible. He was a senior and graduating, and I was a junior who still had a year. We ignored how incompatible we were, and hung out anyways. He's conservative, Republican, concerned with appearances and what other people think. I could generally give a shit. Oh, and my friends all hated him. That's always a hint, one I didn't take, but I was aware of it. Hated him.

After he leaves, a co-worker of mine, who had walked past while he was there and knows the history, pops his head inside the door. "Did you ask if he has a boyfriend yet?" Damn. No, I didn't.

Had I woken up thirty minutes earlier... I'd probably be blogging about Grand Theft Auto: Vice City. Or Tetris. That's a good game. I'm gonna go play Tetris.

And so I've found a victim for my previously unfocused wrath about this day

I sent an e-mail at work today that went a little something like this (*names have been changed to protect the stupid):


Subject: student direct deposit

To: Idiot of the Day*

Idiot,

A couple of our student workers signed up for direct deposit, and have never had a check directly deposited into their accounts. Instead they continue to receive physical checks in their mailboxes. If you could let me know who to contact to get this taken care of, I'd appreciate it. They'd both prefer to have the convenience of direct deposit.

Thanks,
Genie


The response I received looked like this:


Subject: Re: student direct deposit

To: Genie

Hi, Genie!

The student need to come to Our Office to fill out the direct deposit form. They will need to bring with the a blank check from their checking accounts. Please have them write the word "VOID" across the front of the check. Thanks.

Idiot
Our Office
Place Where Genie Works
555.555.5555


Now, tell me something, and just take your best guess here.... did the idiot even read my initial e-mail??

The great thing about the rejection letter...

...is that, while you know you're inadequate simply because of the letter's existence, its presence in your hands, the fact that you can see it before your disbelieving eyes, you don't know just how inadequate or why. Just that you are.

But, I'm glad someone got an acceptance letter somewhere. Hopefully, Palila's applications will go better than mine. Fifty percent of the places I've applied have rejected me (so I've only sent in two applications--not the point). That third application, though... let's just say, my eagerness to apply is not exactly on a high right now.

Bad things happen around holidays. Valentine's Day was a bad day at work, and Saint Patrick's Day just isn't shaping up to be any better.

Luck o' the Irish, my larger-than-I-wish-it-were ass.

Hmmm....

Well, there seem to be a few bugs in the new design. Looks a little weird in Safari on a Mac. Strange how that got past me, since I use an iBook and Safari is my primary browser. I also use Firefox, and I think that's how it got past me--I checked in Firefox and not Safari, I guess. Anyhoo, I'll just have to work on that later. The text is a little harsh in IE. Is it bad that I just now checked it in IE for the first time since I started redesigning??

Good news, everyone...

...especially for Ghani, because I'm scanning more pictures from Photo I to post into Spirits of Leonard. Plus I'll post here about some stuff, and you know, maybe tell you about the new blog I'm working on. Maybe. You never know.

The Producers

Last Friday, Djinn and I went to see The Producers (warning--the link there takes you to a Flash webpage with much sound and singing--I couldn't find a link to an HTML version of the page), the musical by Mel Brooks based on his own movie from 1968 named, oddly enough, The Producers.

Our thoughts--it was incredible. So funny. If you like any of Mel Brooks' films and don't mind musicals, you'll love this show. What's also exciting is that a new movie based on the musical which is based on the movie is in the works--again, titled, oddly enough, The Producers. I can't wait.

Oh, yeah, by the way, I changed the design of the blog a bit. Comments and criticism are welcome.

Redesign

Now that the photo hosting thing is working out for me (it was all actually quite painless, really), I'm ready to reveal what the new Mountains of Kaf is looking like thus far. My question is--do we need a listing of "Previous Posts" such as we have now? I don't really see the point of it, but maybe someone can enlighten me. Navigation and all, but it still seems redundant. Anyways, here it is:

Mountains of Kaf explained (sort of)

Ever wondered what the mountains of Kaf are?

Want to know where jinn live?

Testing something out

I just recently started using Flickr, and I want to see if it will be easy or difficult to use Flickr's services for placing an image in the new design as the title and description, instead of using Blogger's tags. So that's what this post is about--trying something out. Should work, I would think.

Iznik Tiles

Iznik Tiles,
originally uploaded by WildGingerCat.

This is the image I described previously upon which I am basing the new design for Mountains of Kaf. The tile on the right, with a light blue tint to what would otherwise be a white background, is the authentic Iznik tile from the Ottoman empire in Turkey. The tile on the left is a modern reconstruction of an Iznik tile.

Item three--the last

Moutnains of Kaf hopefully will be undergoing a redesign soon--I've been working on the design, but it's not quite ready for implementation yet. The idea for the colors are based on those of Iznik tiles from Turkey, where I spent a month on foreign study as an undergrad. The particular picture of tiles I am using for the design is one that I took while visiting Topkapi Palace in Istanbul. The picture, which I'll post as soon as I get a chance to, shows an authenitc historic tile next (with a slight bluish tint to the porcelain) next to a modern imitation (which lacks the blue tint, but otherwise, is equally as beautiful). Once I get a change to post the pics, you'll understand. Also, I'll explain the name "Mountains of Kaf" around the time I make the changes, probably. Maybe. You'll just have to wait and see.

Item two--observation

My alma mater has recently added emergency phones around campus for security--a good idea, for sure, even if there aren't that many incidents on this particular campus. However, for the past two weeks or so, the phones have been lit up, but disconnected because they weren't hooked up properly yet.

Nothing like a bright blue light in the near distance, a shining cerulean beacon of false hope to the hopeless.

First things first--the orange juice

I have a few things of random amusement to mention, each in their own post just for the sake of keeping things organized, the first of which regards orange juice. You know, the kind you get out of the vending machine for a dollar. The kind that says, "Shake well before drinking." I, personally, happen to be in a slightly neurotic habit of shaking my juice before taking a sip. I don't do this with water or any other drink. Just orange juice.

So, the other day, I'm at work and I'm sitting in the staff lounge eating lunch (thankfully) alone. I'm reading a book (about the Byzantine Empire--don't judge me, it's a riveting book), eating, and drinking my OJ. And I think to myself, "I should put the lid on my juice.... nah, I'll just be taking a sip in another minute anyways." Well, next time I went to take that fateful sip..... let's just say that with the first splash of orange juice right in my face I knew something had gone horribly wrong. And of course, since shaking something is just the right kind of relfexive, repetitive action, I had shaken the bottle twice before the message of "STOP! went from brain to hand. By that time, I was covered in orange juice on my face, the hair, some had gone over my head to the back of my hair, down my left breast, and onto the crotch of my pants.

Ahh, then...the Walk of Shame back to my office. And since I had to go back to the staff room for something I forgot, at that point, there were 10 people in there and no, I hadn't changed out of the OJ covered shirt into a sweatshirt I happened to have with me in case I got cold.

That was Monday afternoon.