A Little Knowledge...

can really make you look like a jackass.

Today I corrected an alphabetized list of cities, putting "Newark" before "New York". The project manager took my changes to the client and got a fairly condescending reply about how New York should be listed first "because 'New' is a whole word," and she was "surprised that your copywriter [sic] didn't know that."

Well, she would be right (though ambiguously justified) if we were using word-by-word alphabetizing, but we're using letter-by-letter, which discounts spaces. Just like most dictionaries, atlases, and (oh by the way) this client's own website.

Don't get snippy with me on a professional level unless you damn well know whereof you speak, or I will snark about you on the all-powerful blog. That'll show you. ;-)

Maybe I just need to be angrier

Yesterday we had a belated holiday party at work. It was belated because they laid off half the department during the actual holiday season, and a party at the time may have seemed in poor taste. Our non-holiday party? Bowling. With teams. Teams that had names. And matching outfits. And that's all I'll say about that since as the Sexy Blonde has pointed out, a little circumspection is a good thing to have in a blog and I've already crossed that line. :-)

So anyway, I did what I could to enjoy myself. I gave myself a little pep talk, and when that failed, tried to at least keep myself entertained by beaming at everyone while mentally singing "Take the s---heads bowling, take them bowling (bowling)!" That worked for a while, partly because that last little echo "bowling" invariably cheers me up, but only for a while.

(Keep in mind that I'm still going dry. I consider the fact that I didn't cave and order a Boddington's on tap — or straight whiskey, whatever — to be a major triumph of willpower.)

I arrived home cranky and irritated and stressed out by the crowd (pity poor Puck) shortly before 8:00. On a normal night, I would have decided it was too late to exercise. But I hadn't been on the elliptical since Sunday, and since today is Thursday dinner, that would make it an entire work week without exercising, and I didn't want to deal with that much guilt on top of the cranky foulness. So I went down and exercised.

And it was great!

Those of you who know my opinion on exercise in general may now commence with the fainting and/or smartass comments.

It felt good, I could've gone longer except I thought dinner was probably getting cold (it wasn't, because Puck is fabulous and had tucked it back into the oven), and by the end of it, my bad mood was gone.

So the conclusion I've drawn from this is that maybe if I were generally less happy, if I were angrier and more irritated more of the time, I'd be better about exercising! Anybody buying?

No? Oh well. Me neither. Still, I think maybe I'll start thinking about the Bush administration before I go work out....

I warned you all I'd never have anything to say

After mostly failing to cut off my finger with a cheese knife Friday night I'm enjoying the relative freedom of just Band-aids instead of the very bulky bandage from the nice lady at Urgent Care.

I spent all day Saturday watching cheesy movies with good friends.

The Bears are in the Super Bowl, which makes for a very happy Puck.

Heroes starts up again tonight.

So yeah, life is good.

Mark your calendars

Inspired by my jealousy over The Sexy Blonde's amazing yard-to-be, with its vast south-facing, full-sun expanse, I toddled over to the Arboretum site. This year's plant sale is May 12-13, and the Plant List will be available in April. I plan on going first thing Saturday a.m. again. Who's with me?

I also plan on buying only eight tomato plants this year, but we all know how that will turn out.

Now that I have a full sun front yard and am no longer trapped by the paralysis of "will the tree stay or go?", I may need to invest in a plastic sled of my very own to drag my purchases around on!

What's wrong with this picture?

Warning: Politics ahoy!

From an AP news article headlined Bush Takes Blame in Iraq, Adds Troops

President Bush said Wednesday he will send 21,500 additional U.S. troops to Iraq to quell its near-anarchy and for the first time acknowledged he had erred by failing to order a military buildup last year.

...because yes. That's where you erred, asswipe. Aargh.

Lights Out, Uh-huh, Flash Flash Flash

What the hell does that mean, anyway?

Power outage here at work. We have backup, obviously, since here I am writing this blog entry, but the main lights are out, the ventilation system is down, it's blissfully dark and quiet here. Except for the announcements every ten minutes informing us that the power is out lest we all panic, think we're going blind and deaf, and rush the windows in a mad stampede. Or something.

Measurable Objectives

Why does my brain just completely shut down when confronted by corporatese? Doesn't it have any idea how damned inconvenient this is considering I work in marketing? Stupid brain.

(Why yes, it is time for me to be filling out my annual review, and yes I am utterly stumped as to how, exactly, I can show that in the past year I "Maintain[ed] customer focus while driving continuous improvement and innovation and adhere[d] to high standards of process discipline to achieve exemplary productivity and quality." Ow. And that's just one section of twelve.)