Astronaut? kidnap? there’s a link to a story about beans!
Off to be the library serf.
Ain’t it though! Beauty shops nationwide will be all atwitter today. 
Let this be a lesson cool kids. Work-based relationships frequently turn ugly. Plus, I foresee a Lifetime movie in the near future.
I especially liked the part about wearing the diaper so she could drive hundreds of miles without stopping. She must have been downright fragrant when the poleece picked her up. :rolleyes:
gt, the family are all doing pretty well, thanks. Mom wasn’t up to the funeral because of arthritic pain keeping her up all night before, but the bereavement minister taped the ceremony which she will, hopefully, be able to hear with the volume turned up.
Good vibes headed your way, rosie. Hope it all goes well.
For all you folks living beyond where it’s fit for human habitation…you have my sympathy. I am currently researching Panama as a possible retirement site.
Tupug
I changed my area of concentration from MIS to International Business before fall '06 semester began. If you can’t beat 'em, join 'em, I always say. 
Morning, all. I was awakened by the dogs going insane – the FedEx man was knocking on my door because although FedEx delivery to homes these days is routinely signature-less, some idiot at the office decided it would be a nice idea to make the poor guy stand on my doorstep in the 13° weather (translation: -10) to get a signature while we figured out he was even there over the dogs barking like insane fools. For no reason whatsoever that I could discern even in my insufficiently caffeinated state.
Alas, the tale of Papa Tigs’ talk with HR is rather disappointing. His new regular HR rep is nicknamed the Black Hole because of the way things vanish in her direction, never to reappear; but strangely enough, after a courteous visit with the HR chief, he received a phone call an hour later from the Black Hole who actually tried to assist him! The good news is we’re covered even though the insurance company doesn’t know we exist yet; the bad news is that I have to buy another prescription out of pocket in the meantime (which I’ll get reimbursed for, theoretically – anyone care to make a wager on how quickly Blue Cross will actually be forthcoming with a reimbursement? I’m guessing 2013, myself).
And of course this is all happening when they failed to pay Papa Tigs his first payroll last Friday. They claim they’ll send a certified check in 7 to 10 business days. Two coworkers of his scoffed at hearing he’s only going to end up waiting 4 weeks to get paid, however – they hired on the same day and had a bet going who would get paid when. One it took 5 weeks, the other 6. The Army, in its infinite wisdom, has gone to a centralized payroll system that is apparently a SNAFU in the original meaning of the acronym (Situation Normal: All F***ed Up), so we’re reaping the alleged benefits.
Sigh.
It’s too much to worry about this morning. It’s clear and cold, the dogs went out and had a lovely romp in the yard, and I’m sitting here all snuggly at my desk caffeinating. And I’m listening to the astronaut kidnap gossipfest all over the news. One story I read this morning says that astronauts routinely wear diapers on launch and reentry. Oogy! But isn’t her mug shot a beauty? Almost as nice as Nick Nolte’s.
Stay warm, everyone!
I’m up, caffeinated and working. Still bloody cold out there – not just in temperature but in wind chill, since it’s still also quite blustery out there, as it has been since Saturday night. And it dumped a good pile of snow yesterday, too. The wind blew most of it off of the high traffic areas though, but it did mean drifts in rarely-trod areas that reached a good 8-10 inches. It’s still better than some years where 8-10 inches were just the passable areas, though, so I guess all things considered it’s still not that bad in my neck of the woods.
Yeah, that astronaut story is chart-toppingly bizarre as stories about astronauts go. I suppose it was only a matter of time before the “nutjobs in every profession” infiltrated the formerly staid and sane world of space travel. Let’s just hope there are no more such controversies among the NASA elite. The last thing we want is for the space program to get a bad rep because a few emotionally unstable constituents decided to “go spacey.” Or maybe that should be “go NASAL.”
BooFae - That cheese is really cheddar-based? I am officially grossed out and will finally join Swampy in agreement that this most certainly fulfills the week’s “ewwwww!” quotient. Possibly the month’s.
Mint chocolate cheddar indeed. :**pukeysmiley:
Heff - [URL=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hominy]Hominy!** It sounds a bit weird, what with being soaked in lye water and all, but it’s probably not all that bad as long as you like corn. Vick’s, however, probably is all that bad no matter how you might like to suck on things menthol. But I had to share. Misery loves company. 
Ellen - Well, before I responded to your very generous offer, I wanted to check my locals. I’ve never deliberately looked for grits and wouldn’t have known their relation to hominy, so if I’ve ever seen it, it probably wouldn’t have stuck out. My home-local didn’t have anything, which was expected, since they seem only to have Asian or Indian stuff. My work-local is much larger though, of the “if they don’t have it nobody does” kind, so I checked their Mexican/South American section. It took some looking, but there on the shelf sho nuff was a can of hominy, sitting next to a rather bizarre can of purple corn-flavoured pudding. (**) It (the hominy) looked just like … well, white corn. I don’t know what I was expecting exactly, but I don’t think I was expecting what looked like a can of whole-kernel corn. Or maybe that was just the illustration made to give you the understanding that what’s inside comes from corn. Still, there it is. I forgot to check for the presence of black-eyed peas, though. I’ll have to check that on my way home. I’d like to give this recipe a try, possibly this weekend. It sounds kinda like Salsa but with a bunch of other cool stuff added. Plus, I love Hint o’ Lime Tostitos.
Agh my thesis proposal is seriously stressing me out - I don’t even know what I’m trying to say anymore. Agggggggghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!
I would like nothing better than to crawl back into bed and sleep until April.
ETA: We got a Snow Advisory Alert. Yay! Snow makes me feel better. Where’s rigs? Shall we rejoice together?
Well now it’s frickin’ freezin’ AND snowing here. Just a barrel of laughs.
It makes me really glad that I live close to work. It took one of my coworkers ~2 hours to get here (instead of a normal ~40 minutes). Ugh.
That cheese didn’t sound so bad when I thought maybe it was like cheesecake minus the cake part. But cheddar… eeeew.
It really is amazing that the guy has a job here. He’s from China, and has a very thick accent. When he asked me a question last week I had to ask him to repeat it twice and still didn’t understand it. There’s been a lot of grumbling in the class about this. At least he tests from the book and not on the lecture.
Mindfield, we’re going to turn you into a good ol’ boy yet! Before you know it, you’ll be eating biscuits and gravy, hog jowels, turnip greens and sweet potato cassarole. With marshmallows on top.
I’m taking Statistics and Int’l Management this semester - both taught by Chinese men with less-than-perfect english. Although to give credit where credit is due, they speak English better than I speak Chinese.
I’ve found that reading ahead helps me put things in context.
:smack: :smack: :smack: :smack: :smack: :smack:
I just locked my dang keys in my car…grrrrr… I was putting my lunch carrier thingy in the car, which I always do after lunch so I won’t forget to take it home. I dropped the keys but didn’t realize it. Just as the door closed (locked, of course) I saw the keys right there on the front seat.
:smack: :smack: :smack: :smack: :smack: :smack:
Somebody get a magic marker and write DUMBASS!!! on my forehead.
:smack: :smack: :smack: :smack: :smack: :smack:
ACBG is coming to the rescue in about an hour. Fortunately I don’t have to go anywhere right now. Still…
:smack: :smack: :smack: :smack: :smack: :smack:
<snerk> I haven’t locked my keys in a car since, well, never. <snerk>
So I take it ACBG has a big tire iron?
Puggie, how are you and BarbeeDoll doing?
The wind-down can be pretty rough, too. I speak from experience…
:: runs in, stumbles, falls ::
:: lies still for a moment ::
:: gets up slowly ::
Ugh. Hey everyone. Yesterday was killer - I was up until 4 am working on Quantum Mechanics. But, it’s done. Just in time for the test tomorrow, and the E&M assignment due Friday. Oh yeah, and the E&M test next Tuesday, by which point there will undoubtedly be another Quantum assignment. The fun just never stops.
The weekend was okay. Hockey game Friday night, homework Saturday, grading & Superbowl on Sunday. Apparently Dartmouth’s annual Winter Carnival is coming up soon. They’ve been building a snow sculpture on the Green, and I have been trying for weeks to figure out what it could be. Will post updates as I get them.
And of course, the pun.
I’ve never locked my keys inside my car either. But then, it’s really, really tough to lock keys inside a nonexistent car. Speaking of which, my grandfather has offered me his car for next year. I’m considering it, although I need to talk with my dad. What it comes down to is that the rent of the apartment the car would allow me to live in plus the car insurance would have to be less than my current rent, unless Dartmouth decides to pay me more money.
Whose job was it to remind me not to take Mondays off?
::stern glare::
ACBG has a spare key. We decided to keep spare keys at each other’s place just in case… that was a smart move. Cause I is a DUMBASS!!! :smack:
He was my knight in…ummm… blue scrubs cause that’s what he’s wearing.
Puggy, Bobbio asked a good question. How are y’all doin’? (In the non flirty way) It is the wind-down afterwards that can be so rough. Here’s hoping everybody is coping.
Oh yeah, MBG you should never take Monday’s off. 
Wow, I just learned that an internet friend’s wife just died from breast cancer. I only met her once, but she was such a lovely person. And she was only 39. 
Sometimes life really sucks, y’know?
I’ve locked my keys in my car a couple times over the years. More embarrassing, however, was the time I ran out of gas. Driving down the highway with Papa Tigs sitting next to me mocking me as we coasted to a stop. As did the AAA guy who came out and gave us gas. Talk about feeling like an idiot.
Okay, I just finished a job that was estimated at 200 pages that ended up to be 342. Yeah, someone kinda screwed that one up, don’t you think? Now I’m off to bundle up and go run a couple of errands. Wish me luck. If I don’t return in a couple of hours, send a dogsled.
I ran out of gas once but my defense is that it was a new car (for me) and I didn’t believe I was that low. I’ve never locked my keys in my car sober though. The one time I did was at my wedding, and the cop only agreed to help me get them out if he’d get to hand them to my wife.
It’s fricking SNOWING here. And it’s cold.
Sheesh.
I duck out of here for a couple of months and then come back to discover that you people have set a pace for this thing that I’ll never be able to keep up with.
I’ma gonna go play with the slow kids.