Everything and nothing

So, as is often the case when I haven’t posted in a while, I’ve got a lot of little things to say:

First, the most recent thing on my mind is the Narbonic loves Girl Genius love Narbonic association. It turns out that Shaenon Garrity and the Foglios both are mutual fans of each other’s work and are collaborating on work as extras in the backs of their respective comic collections that are forthcoming. As I commented in the thread, I think it’s great when I find that two of my favorite writer/artists happen to appreciate each others’ work like that.

Secondly, yesterday I had a little observation at work. It was the quarterly results day, and also Oktoberfest. (I now have eight of the Yahoo! Oktoberfest mugs. That’s a scary thing.) Every one of these, there’s more and more people there. The first one I went to was only a few days after I started, and everyone fit on the lawn outside the building. A year or two ago, and everyone totally filled up the cafeteria arranged in theater seating. Yesterday, it was that, and an overflow crowd of almost equal size outside in the plaza.

But what really gets me is what happened outside (since I didn’t get there in time to get a seat inside, nor do I really care anyway about their corporate propaganda and patting each other on the back). There was food before the event and after, but during, they closed everything down. But some morons decided that they wanted pretzels even though they weren’t handing them out. (The big kind, not the little ones.) So, they raided the cart, reaching in with their bare hands and grabbed a bunch for themselves.

One of the people I was standing with, another long time employee, was almost as shocked at this as I was, and commented “maybe we need to up our hiring standards.” I mean, it’s not sanitary, they’re not supposed to, people were waiting in line for 15 mintues to get theirs before what makes them think they’re better than us… an one of a number of reasons. To me, it was just one of many different times I’ve been at work and wanted to stand on a table and shout, “Hey morons! Cut it out!” A group of people is only as smart as their dumbest member, and at this company, it’s starting to show.

I guess I should talk a little about my trip to Indiana. I was gone for a good week, after all. I lost Wednesday to travel, despite waking up at 6:30 in the morning (which was a feat in and of itself). Leon was kind enough to wake up and take me to the airport. The flights themselves were okay, I got some DVD watching done (I had purchased Stargate SG-1 season 8 the previous day), and a little bit of sleep. I also had a two hour layover in Dallas again, so I spent my six bucks and got online via wireless.

Met up with my mom and stepdad on the plane, we had the same connecting flight, but theirs was severely delayed and they ended up being one the last ones on. Managed to sleep most of the way on that one, because my laptop battery died. As it was Wednesday, and we got to Indianapolis around 8 p.m., my immediate concern was simple. One of the first things I asked my mom, standing in the baggage claim was, “Do you watch Lost?” To which she gave me an incredulous look and said “of course.” So, we needed to make sure that we could watch it when we got to my aunt’s, so when we called to say we were in town, my mom asked. Yes, of course my aunt watches it, in fact it’s scheduled to be DVRed.

There are times where it’s no surprise I’m related to these people. 🙂

The next morning we went to a sort of party for my cousin. It was more of a thing put on by the owner of a cafe where she is a regular. The whole thing had a very “Cheers” type vibe to it, like everyone who goes to that restaurant knows each other. I also got to see Eli, my newest cousin, who was there with his other grandparents. Afterwards, we headed to visit my grandmother, and on the way my mom had to stop at Trader Joe’s. And, lo and behold, right next door is an EB Games! Hey, maybe they have Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow! Nope, only preorders, no extras. Dang.

Visited briefly with my grandmother, and drove her to the Jewish center for lunch, then started the drive down to Evansville (the long way, as it turns out.) Because it was my mom driving, there was country music on the radio, and horror of horrors, my iPod battery died a third of the way down! My mom was also upset that the trees hadn’t turned yet, so it wasn’t as picturesque as it could have been.

I suppose I should finish this off later. Will Andy make it to Evansville without going insane from the country music? Will he find a copy of Castlevania? Tune in next time to find out!

(No, there will be no FFXI in this post. That will be separate and later.)