Weird Star Alignment

Ok, so I've had times in my past where stars weirdly aligned and I ran into people I knew. Like the time I went and got my hair cut at the same place someone I went to college with at the same time... and we went to college like 1200 miles from here.

Or the time I went to the UPS Store to mail myself something and dude said "Your name sounds familiar" and came to find out we gamed online together several years prior.

Or even the time that I found out someone I went to school in SC and I happened to cross paths about the time I moved back south and she moved up north, and we had our own mini-class-reunion.

But today, Internets, SO MANY stars had to align for this to happen.

Two companies ago, I worked with this awesome person in HR. Let's call her Sunflower. No, she doesn't have a hippy mom [at least I don't think], but she does like the sun. We worked on a couple projects together to make her life easier at work.

So, I'm in traffic in Buckhead today and there's someone honking at me two lanes over in a convertible. I look and see a female waving at me, so I'm like "Obviously she has me confused for someone else, because I'm GAY."

I keep staring and think "She's almost familiar, but I can't recognize her.. maybe she has one of those familiar faces... I mean, I have a lot of people think they know me when they don't."

Then a minute later my phone rings.

"Hello?"
"Smply?"
"Um.. yes..?"
"It's Sunflower."
"Sunflower...? SUNFLOWER!"
"I'm stuck in traffic here in Buckhead, and saw a green truck with a rainbow sticker on it and the only person I know with that combination is Smply Unprdctble. And I managed to remember your phone number spells HOT-STUF, so that's how I was able to remember it and I tried it." [Note: my number does NOT spell HOT-STUF. Please don't try to call it.]

Now, I haven't seen her in like six or so years. But, let's sit and take an investigation of all the things that actually had to happen for this to occur.

1. First, Sunflower had to be living in Buckhead, as she was on her way home.
2. Second, my Hot Massage Therapist had to be in Buckhead, as I was leaving her office.
3. Third, my Hot Massage Therapist had to move me from my regular day of Wednesday to Friday since she got sick this week.
4. Next, my Hot Massage Therapist had to invite me to Doc Chey's for dinner.
5. Then I had to accept and follow her there, which is opposite my direction home.
   
6. Add into that all the exact times that had to happen for Sunflower to see me.
7. Factor in the fact she had to see me two lanes away

Now, if that isn't star-aligned enough, she had told me she was JUST thinking about me. You see, one of the things I helped make her work-life easier with was something called "Common Review". It's some HR process that they help make sure people's ratings get averaged appropriately. She's working on that in her new job, and pulled out old spreadsheets with code and everything I wrote for her. She was trying to make her new computer-geek person she works with help her update them for her new company and she told him how awesome I was in developing them. PLUS, she had to remember my number was HOT-STUF. That completely came out of the blue for her.

So, we have a TON of items that had to fall together for our happenstance meeting in traffic and for her to be able to call me. It's all amazingly incredible!

So, we're going to find a way to grab dinner or something in order to finally catch up!

Who the Internets thinks I am

So, on my facebook page, I started the discussion about the 2010 Census and something came out on Internet searches in "public databases."

The site brought up is Spokeo.

The example link provided against someone looked a little uncanny, so I decided to search for myself.

This is what it thinks I am:
Ok, early 30's, check.
Caucasian, check.
Single, check
Reading? Seriously?
Gemini? Um... NO!
Children? Ok, they get that one as a TECHNICALITY
And I like to think my neighborhood is Above Average!

But, that's not all that's on the page:
Again, loves reading? Seriously? Do they think I'm my sister?
Healthy Living? They obvi don't go through my trash!
Subscribes to magazines? No I don't. The one magazine I get, I don't know how I'm getting it and how to stop it!
Donates to causes? Ok, only aminals!
And, really, I'm not interested in politics.

But wait, there's more!
There's that technicality of children again.
It thinks I don't have central air or heat? In this state? HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
And seriously? Home value? I WISH! Can a home be valued that much without central? In this state, that is -- obvi Massachusetts would be different.

I went further. I searched my sister under her maiden and married names. Her married name has next to nothing, but her maiden name has a bit more. And her husband looked pretty uncanny with all his interests.

Alas, it didn't have my grandmother, and she's been in that house for like 85 years.

Guess we can't truly trust everything on the Internets!

Who will I piss off first?

Today has been a fun day for me. I have no idea why, but I'm in an especially silly mood.

It started early this morning. One of our IT peeps called me and I wasn't particularly thrilled to talk to anyone. So I answered in my "blah, I'm not awake yet and haven't had my Jesus Chicken Sweet Tea" voice. She said "I wasn't expecting that.." so I did my "OMG, I'm way too hyper and excited to see you so much I might just pee on the carpet" voice.

---

Then, I went to the food court mid morning to get my Jesus Chicken Sweet Tea refill (One's not enough, but I don't drink a full two usually) and the person behind the counter (we'll call her "Kenya") said "With a splash of regular or diet lemonade?"

I looked at her funny and said "absolutely NO lemon!"

She said "I thought you..." and another Jesus Chicken worker said "You have him confused with someone else."

That's when I piped in with "Are you trying to say all white people look alike?"

Needless to say I made another black person blush! :)

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Finally, where I work, they give tours. Tour guides take groups around and show them a few of the cool sites to see here. One of the stops they make is on the way to the food court for me, and they congregate in the predetermined area and the guide starts talking about division that's on the other side of a wall (with said division's name implanted in giant letters on said wall). Anyways, as I walked by, I heard him say those magical words, so I stopped and did my best Barker's Beauty impression to show off the sign. A couple tourists (I wanted to say tourees until I axed someone else what the term should be) started laughing as the guide happened to turn around and see me doing my impression. He laughed.

---

So, I'm having like WAY too much fun today. I feel almost cabin feverish, but I've been getting out the past few days that it's been beautiful out. Maybe my window view is starting to get to me knowing how beautiful it is outside and I can't be out there.

On another note, it's taking WAY too long for these sacrificial fishies to poop and die!

Now they're just making things up!

I was listening to the radio this morning on my way to get Jesus Chicken for breakfast.

A Kaiser-Permanente commercial came on the air. And, I swear they're making things up!

Now, let's rewind a large number of years. When I lived in MA, there was a HMO company called Harvard Pilgrim Healthcare (It's still there, but the "was" references back when I lived there). They had some pretty cool ad campaigns where they listed various medical professions. My favoritest was when a little tiny girl says "otolaryngologist."

Back to the present, Kaiser is doing similar commercials. Except they're making up things! They're trying to basically say that their doctors have "explicit specialties" that are supposed to give more specialized care to some of your ailments.

Now, I'm not an expert on medical professions in ANY way shape or form (with the exception that I've heard of a few of the specialties, and know approximately what they deal with), but I really think they're making things up!

Case in point, the commercial mentions a "dermatopulmunohematologist." Breaking it down, "dermato" is skin-related ("dermatologist"), pulmuno is lung related ("pulmunologist), and hemato is associated with blood. Exactly what disorder combines those three? (Where's Dr. House when you need him?)

Huzzah for Google Voice!

So, we've all heard that Hawaii has been under a Tsunami Watch because of an earthquake in Chile. As devastating as the whole idea of everything is, I'm not going to continue to feed into that. My blog isn't a news feed. And being in Georgia, I don't have any of the details.

But, I DO know someone who lives in Hawaii. My wife*. Except, we learned we can't live together, and it's a good thing we're not attracted to the same men.

Anyways, she lives in Honolulu, and works for an oceanfront hotel. When the Tsunami Warning officially started, I hadn't heard from her after sending a text message in the morning. So, I tried to call.

I used my cell phone (provider not mentioned because I don't think it matters), and was either getting the fast busy signal, or an automated message saying "Your call did not go through."

CNN was showing interviews via cell phones, so I figured coverage was still going on. Especially since nothing officially hit at this time, so I imagined it was just a lot of network congestion going on.

I also have a Google Voice account. So, I attempted to call her with my Google Voice account. Amazingly enough, it went through!

I don't know if it was pure luck in timing, or whether it's the fact Google Voice is VOIP and ends somehow directly in Hawaii, but the couple times I called using Google Voice, I got through, but using my cell provider**, I didn't.

So, not only am I singing the praises of Google Voice for the fact people can call me with one number and connect to a bunch of numbers I'm on, and I can text people using a website, but now Google Voice was the only network I have access to in order to call a network-congested area! :)

Also, nobody is leaving me calling me from my link to the right. Seriously people, you should! I understand I have like 6 readers, but that's not the point! I should have at least six calls!

* No, I'm not really married. She's my bestest friend and we share everything a married couple should.

** Technically, I'm still using my cell provider as I still have to connect to Google Voice. I'm just not using my cell provider to get to the call to the endpoint.

I am so deliciously evil!

As you may or may not have heard (I'm told it made national news, so it HAD to be a slow news day), a zebra escaped from the circus last week.

That's not the awesome part about it. Before I start to read the massive tweets of a runaway zebra, I get a call from a coworker. She said "You're the only one I can tell this to who'll believe me... but a zebra escaped from the circus, and I was stopped over by the Mac-Donalds over by Five Points and it comes running at me and almost hits me!"

Yes, that's right -- a runaway zebra almost hit my coworker as she was leaving the office. Apparently there was like 20 police cars chasing after it and one officer on foot.

She became a pseudo-celebrity on Friday at work. Everyone wanted to hear the story of how she came face to snout almost literally with a zebra. The only thing I could imagine is the conversation had it hit her car: "Hello, State Farm? Yes, I need to file a claim. A zebra hit my car...... Yes, I live in Atlanta..... Yes, the incident happened downtown Atlanta..... No, I'm not on drugs...."

Of course, I enjoy finding the humor around me everyday. Not that what already happened wasn't funny, but I like making things better.

So, I went out Saturday and found a zebra.

The thing is zebras are apparently very difficult to find.

I couldn't find one at WalsMart. I couldn't find one at Target. I finally went to Toys R Us. I asked the poor guy and inquired, "do you have any zebras?" (pronounced "zeh-bras") -- dude looked at me and said "any what?" -- "Any zebras? Z-E-B-R-A" (pronouncing Z as Zed like every other english-speaking country does) -- he was all confused, but it was worth it.

Finally, we went to the stuffie area and found the following:

Granted, it's not the bestest zebra in the world, but it was gonna hafta do. (And for $5, it wasn't a bad deal)

This morning, I came into work and went up to her and said "Does this look familiar?" and tossed it at her. She jumped until she realized what it was and began laughing.

It's now on display in her cube (she's the one who took the pic), and she's having way too much fun with it!

Short people got no reason to live...

Maybe it's the same "sir-cuss" that was at Princess Sparklepant's employment place, maybe not.

But, anyways, there's a circus here in the general vicinity of where I work. So close that I can see the tents where the aminals are (will be?) in this freezing weather on my way to the Pigeon Pit where I park.

But, that concept is only a small factor in this blog posting.

A coworker and I took a field trip earlier today. On the way back from the Pigeon Pit, we shared an elevator with a couple of circus folk.

The guy was a little shorter than average with GIANT Elvis hair. I mean, it had to be at least six inches tall. But he didn't use grease to make it stay in place, it was probably a lot of White Rain. I REALLY wish I had asked if I could take his picture because I've never seen hair that high on a man. Not even in 70's movies!

The girl looked like she had just came out of Little Five Points (Or, if you're in Boston, Newbury Comics).

Anyways, she turns to him and asked, "If you discriminate based on race, it's racism and you're called a racist. What's it if you discriminate against a midget?"

Elvis-dude looked a little perplexed and said "Midgetism?"

I had to put my two cents in and say "Heightism?"

We departed and I came back to my desk and had to Google it. There was no definitive answer when I searched for "What's it called when you discriminate against a midget?"

Then I decided "If anyone should know, it'd be HR!" So, I emailed a friend of mine's wife who works in HR here at The Company (I haven't officially met her yet because she was busy giving birth at my last Partay).

Then I decided "Yahoo Answers has a bunch of silly things asked, let's see what they say!"

I posted this question and eventually came up with some answers. (I love the response "Snow White")

It seems I was right!

So, there you have it. Apparently Randy Newman is a heightist!

And I just got a response from HR -- she says:

The word for someone who discriminates against “little persons” that comes to my mind would be bigot. Thoughts? Maybe not strong enough?

I'm gonna wet myself laughing so hard!

Way too quiet!!

So, as the year winds down, fewer and fewer people are in the office.

Today, on our half of the floor we have four people here. FOUR! Two of us are the Systems Team, so that means there's two financial analysts here. And they're really not doing anything*. I'm the point person for support on the Schedules until the first of the year. There's been a couple little things going on, but nothing major. I'm ready to fall asleep.

I did show everyone this year's picture with Santa!


Awesome, eh? Yeah, I had to de-red-eye both of us, but still... not bad for one of those regular digital photos. I do miss the Atlanta Humane Society doing their Pictures with Santa event. Hopefully when we get out of this "Economic Recession" it will resume.

Anyways, it's been quiet, so that is all the update you'll get now.

*Note: I do not know if they're REALLY not doing anything. They could be working their little hineys off. But there doesn't seem to be much going on.

Cashflow

So, a few friends invited me over last night for game night.

Expecting something like Chutes and Ladders, Life, or Fluxx. Instead, we got Cashflow. (Apparently it was their homework to play it a few times as part of some investing thing they're wanting to do).

The concept behind Cashflow is to "get out of the rat race." -- it's part Monopoly, part Life, and part work. Yes, work. You have to keep a Financial Statement about yourself... And get it audited! (Do I have E&Y written on my forehead?)

I started out semi-over-analyzing things -- like why my debt wasn't going down when I made my "monthly payments" as spent my expenses on Pay Day. But, once I got to the point where I ignored my standard financial logic, I got into the game.

We played for a few hours and then we all were getting tired. I was declared the winner because I was the closest to getting out of the Rat Race (where your passive income is greater than your monthly expenses).

Of course questions of my background came up to see my "personality type" to help me get where I got in the game. Apparently some of my business background from my alma mater helped. And a lot that I learned on my own as I was buying my house (there's a lot of real estate transactions in the game).

Then I started to think -- that's not my personality in everyday life. I don't think. It would be great if I could find a way to incorporate that person into my persona, but I'd need to figure out how. Then who knows what could happen!

Numbers Numbers Everywhere!

Saturday, I truly learned how different this great city I live in is compared to most other places I've lived (and apparently a lot of other places in the country). And, not so much that, but how acclimated I've become to this place that it's difficult to think any other way.

I was selling a bunch of stuff on Craigslist that I have been trying to rid of for a while now. I figured it's college time, so students may be interested if they're going to be living off campus or something maybe. Yes, I know May is a betterer time, but still. I was busy in May. I'll continue until I get it sold, but that's not the story.

The person who wanted my entertainment tower set (ya know, the things that hold your TV and all it's components) was a very friendly Indian guy. He had just moved to the Atlanta area from Minnesota (I'm sure he's thankful he doesn't have to deal with THAT winter). Apparently his line of work what he does is moves to a new place, buys what he can to furnish an apartment cheap (hence Craigslist), and sell what he can at the end of his stay before moving on.

He came to my place (after getting lost, which brings to light more of the fact I can't get pizza delivered to my house) to take a look at the tower set and said he wanted it. The problem was he came in a sedan and couldn't fit it. He was going to have mover people transport it for him and he wanted to negotiate. I didn't want to drop my price, so I increased it a bit and said I would deliver it for him since I have a truck and he was only in Dunwoody. Yay, he agreed.

Then came the complicated part. I asked whereabouts in Dunwoody he lived. He started out with something that sounded like "take 285 to exit 24..." and my eyes glazed over. I had to stop him and say "Ok, don't do exit numbers, I don't know them. Only street names."

Unfortunately, he partially misunderstood me because he started to explain that 285 was an interstate.

I chuckled at our minor language barrier.

When we got on the same page, I learned where he lived and said I would deliver it the next morning.

Then I got to thinking what exactly changed?

Everywhere else I lived, I went by exit numbers. Easthampton, MA is exit 17B on I-91. The exit I lived on out of college was exit 20 off 95/128. The exit that was commonly taken by people to get to my college (until you knew the shorter ways) was 28A. These were numbers I lived by.

Until Atlanta.

I couldn't even TELL you the exit number I live off of (ok, there would be a number of exits to take depending on which direction you're coming, but that's another story). I know the names of the roads, but not the numbers.

People who are new to the area want exit numbers. They get mad when I tell them I don't know the numbers, but can give them the names of several exits before the one I want them to take.

I think the difference is the sheer size of the city. In any other place I've lived, an exit takes you in the general direction of a town or city. Here, the exit takes you to a specific road name (until you get a distance outside the city, then it's a combination of the two).

Another theory I have is the people. I think it was up until the '96 Olympics here, there were different exit numbers depending on which direction you were traveling that would get to the same location. One direction the exit for North Druid Hills would be Exit 89. The opposite direction it could be Exit 84 (There were some exits that only existed on one side of the Interstate, so the numbers got off). Based on this, I think people decided to give road names instead of numbers because it got complicated.

Whatever the reason is, I hope that traveling to other parts of the country again doesn't get me confused as I'm looking for friends places. Of course, the great thing is I now have a GPS which will reduce the chances of me getting lost.

....Now, if only pizza deliveries can start using GPS to deliver to me!

Cameltoe

Admit it. You've all seen it. Those "fashionists" who insist on wearing on wearing women's jeans even though they're male. There's a couple guys on my floor here at The Company that do that.

I have several problems with this, though.

First of all, it looks really wrong. If you're a male and have a woman's thighs and legs, there's too much estrogen in your system.

Secondly, men's hips are positioned differently than women's, and it looks like your pants are about to fall off.

Finally, my biggest issue with it is the lack of cameltoe. You'd think if you had ANYTHING there with the crotch being that tight something would show. But, generally there's NOTHING. Where the hell does it go? I'd DIE if I had my junk tucked away that tight.

I dub thee "Dooky Head"

When you move into a previously-lived-in location, you're bound to get mail for strangers.

Previously, my house was owned by a church. So, I'll get lots of religious things in the mail. And occasionally a letter for a previous person saying their car loan is in default or their student loans are in default (I guess God really doesn't care about them enough to make sure their credit stays good).

Anyways, yesterday I received the strangest piece of mail:
Yes -- that's right -- it says "Dooky Head" -- and the address is mine. I'm debating calling Progressive and saying "Excuse me sir or madam, but I think you misspelled "Dookey". If I do call, I'll keep all three of my readers updated!

Swine Flu

So, I've started up my coughing again.

That "I feel like there's something in the back of my throat when I try to breathe, so I end up doing a pretty big cough" kinda cough.

It's a throat cough, not a chest cough. But it's a cough.

But, I'm doing the coughing. The coworker of mine who sits in the next cube over (I swear I need to get nicknames for these peeps) keeps saying "Bless You."

So, I finally responded -- "Thanks. I think I have Swine Flu -- and I've had Swine Flu since before it was cool to have Swine Flu!"

How to glue your ass together

So, back in October, I read this article. It intrigued me. Made me wonder "Hrmm.. is it really that awesome?"

Then, of course, sometime in the past, I read that Wax is NOT your friend. Honestly, I almost peed my pants reading that. I know it's not an everyday occurrence, but still.

But, the article still made me want to try it. At least once.

I had even asked my salon friend if she knew of anyone who did it for guys (since not every waxing place wants to see my ding-a-ling). She suggested Waxing by Andreia. I called and found it was $55 for guys. I seriously pondered, but never saved the cash.

My really awesome boyfriend has been known to partake in this waxing ordeal in the past. He looks HAWT all smooth. So he bought some wax and we tried it on me.

After dinner, we got home and started the wax melting in the pot. Good heavens that took a long time! Anyways, when it got close, I hopped in the shower to make sure I was all clean.

Then he asked me to hop on all fours. Not particularly the most comfortable position on the floor. My poor knees. Anyways, I did and he sprayed something on my hind region. Then he powdered up my bum. Finally, he got a gob of wax and spread it on an area.

It was warm. I'll let you know that. But not painful warm. Kinda like you first sitting in a steaming hot bath. But I got used to it. The wax hardened... Then he told me to breathe and brace myself.

*RIP*

It wasn't THAT bad. Kinda like a bandage being pulled off. I felt behind me and it was quite smooth. I saw the wax piece (which was about the size of a Chick-Fil-A Nugget Sauce Container) and it had hairs in it pulled out by the roots!

"This isn't going to be horrible", I thought to myself. So we went for a few more areas.

Not too bad.

Then a piece of wax didn't quite stay in one piece as it was ripped off. That hurt. It took a couple more grips before he was able to pull it off. I ended up leaning forward to the point where my bum relaxed back together.

Except I had forgotten that there was another bit of wax there. That was still soft.

So, it glued my buttcheeks together. Not exactly a pleasant feeling. Not one I could describe, either. But, my buttcheeks were worse than superglued together. I start laughing harder because I'm remembering the wax is NOT your friend story (see above). I couldn't help it.

So, here I am with my buttcheeks glued together and I need to reassume the position so I can get it removed. After a couple tugs, it came out. I now had freedom to poop again!

Things weren't really bad until we got to my ball sack. Now, my balls can't decide if they want to hang low or high. But last night, they decided to be high. Probably because they knew what was coming. High balls meant the skin was shriveled some. Imagine that with wax and the pulling.... Yeah... it smarted!

Midnight comes and we got my butt crack to my left nut completed. Too tired to continue, we called it a night and vowed to finish the rest later. And, since it's not as bad as I thought it would be (and I'm ENJOYING the new smoothness), I'm looking forward to the finishing! :)

Weird Conversation

So, I just had the weirdest phone conversations. My office phone rang and it said "Conference Room". I answered it.

"Good Morning, this is Smply." (it's like 1:30pm)
"Uh... it's afternoon."
"Yes, but it's morning somewhere."
"Yeah. This is a group of us from SOX, and you were randomly selected to answer this question for us. What would you do if you suspected someone of fraud?"
"Um... tell your manager?"
"What if that person you suspected was your manager?"
"Uh.. HR?"
"What if you wanted to do it anonymously?"
"Uh.. I don't know -- maybe an HR Service Center Line or something?"
"Can you find that number for us?"
"I don't know it -- can't find it on the intranet."

Weirdness.