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OMG UNBROKEN NIGHT OF SLEEP I FEEL HUMAN AGAIN.

*ahem*

Hey, is gmail moving incredibly slow for anyone else, or is it just me? I just sent a two-sentence email and it took, I timed it, ninety seconds to send.

Anyway, I have two White Collar music videos for you this morning. One of them is mine, and you guys, I'm not claiming to be a good vidder, or even a mediocre vidder. I watched my video and then I watched the other video and was like, WELL SHIT, I guess I'm not good at everything. (Kidding. The list of things I'm not good at would fill several chapters in a book I will never write.) So I give you my video, and I give you talitha78's video, with the understanding that hers is compensation for the fact that mine is not actually that good. Because hers is AMAZING.

PS: Do not watch these videos at work. Both of them contain repeated droppings of the f-bomb.

"Who Gives A Fuck About An Oxford Comma" by copperbadge. Sorry about the freeze-frame right at the start of the song, Windows MovieMaker is an asshole. This is as good as it gets.

"Tonight I'm Fucking You" by talitha78. I had no idea Tim DeKay licked his lips that often. Also if you ever wanted a definition of the term "eyefucking", well, now you have one.

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Okay it's too difficult to summarise this, but earlier this week I made a post that read like this:

Sam: So, when I get assigned a ticket in the helpdesk database, is there any way to set it up so that the database program emails me to let me know I've been assigned a ticket?
BossBoss: Wow. Well. If you want to get existential about it --
Sam: Yay!
BossBoss: You should email the helpdesk database and ask if the database admin will set that up for you.
Sam: So I'm emailing the helpdesk to ask if, when someone emails the helpdesk, it will email me?
BossBoss: Yes.
Sam: It's beautiful. It's like a divide by zero error.
BossBoss: Don't ever say I didn't bring joy into your life.

BossBoss told me that they would probably balk at doing it, but to persevere. So I emailed the help desk and said, in a very firm email tone of voice, "Is it possible to set up the database so that when a ticket is assigned to a staff member, they receive an email?"

I JUST GOT AN EMAIL

TO TELL ME

THAT THE EMAIL FUNCTION

IS NOW FUNCTIONING.

After I finished dying of lol, I forwarded the email to BossBoss, who responded "Take pride in knowing that you're one of the very few people I know who have successfully divided by zero."

IT'S BECAUSE I'M AWESOME.

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I've been reading a lot lately about What We Think About Cellphones. I wasn't trying to, it's just been all over the sites I normally read. And while I think most of the articles are kind of stupid and boring, there are little gems of wisdom to be found that are actually relevant to our existence. I'm posting them here not so much because I have an opinion or want to educate you guys about it, since I suspect this post itself may be stupid and/or boring, but I want to save these little gems and don't know how else to go about it. HAVE FUN.

( We don't love our phones, we love the dimension beyond. )

Related to the whole idea of Reading Stuff Online, paragraphs linked me to an amazing article that compares cost/benefits to writers of traditional versus self publishing, with a visible attempt not to write on a bias. What struck me, aside from the discussion of what it takes to make a writer (I would agree with the "one million words" criteria, and I published my first novel about 11 years after I started writing) was the salary breakdown for the "traditional" publishing-house-signed writer.

JESUS CHRIST. I haven't read his books, but Jim Hines is one of the nicest genre writers I know of, and in his best year he made a third of what I make sitting on my ass and writing indulgent blog posts like this between phone-answerings. I feel like I should send him a dollar or buy him a Coke or something.

ETA: Jim Hines has a rebuttal and clarification here, which does NOTHING to dissuade me that I should buy him a Coke. Unless he likes Pepsi or something.

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Speaking of bad phone manners, I cannot be silent about this any longer.

If you ever do the thing where you put your phone on speaker, call someone, and then pick up the phone when they answer? STOP IT. OH MY GOD STOP IT. YOU ARE PART OF THE PROBLEM.

Because what happens when I answer the phone, about one time in five, is the very first thing I hear is a loud burst of static as someone picks up their phone. Not just a little crackle. It's like a tiny bomb going off in my ear. And it immediately makes me:

a) 90% less willing to be helpful and polite
b) Want to bite the other person until they bleed.

I get that people may not be aware how annoying this is, or they may not even be aware picking up the phone sets off a bomb in the other person's ear. BUT NOW YOU KNOW. No more excuses. Commit to speakerphone (please don't do this unless you cannot physically hold a receiver; speakerphone is a tool of Satan on innumerable levels) or pick up the phone, hold the receiver in one hand, and dial with the other. It's just not that fucking hard. And it means one less person in the world will desire nothing but ill for you.

This post is dedicated to the asshat who just called me three times and every single time dialled me on speakerphone.

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I did two origami (origamis? Origame?) to make up for not doing any yesterday. And also because this afternoon was really long and quiet and I didn't know what to do with myself.

So I made a dinosaur! (Yes, I'm aware it looks like a depressed kangaroo.) This is another one of those folds where you have to do magic.

I also made a bird box, which is a narrow box with a crane on the front. Origami craftspersons seem intent on plastering cranes on anything with a corner to spare.

I think he looks very alert, and totally ready to peck you to death should you impugne the quality of his box.

Reading over today's entries, I have pretty much been all the cranky without even noticing it. So I am off to have a granola bar and meditate on the immutable nature of the human soul, or something, until I am at one with the universe again.