16 shells from a thirty-ought six

For reals?  i smell a heightened terror watch, but maybe that's just my dead neighbor.

As for a personal update, i sleep through the nights but i can't seem to get enough.  In less than a week, the music part of SXSW will be in full swing and i'll be entertaining guests, running around to catch Collective shows, dealing with heightened traffic at work, and very happy but very, very sleepy.  i'm trapped in the purgatory of sleeping, i guess - while i'm not restless and waking up every half hour, i must not be sleeping heavily.

The scenario:  There are four of us in my department and we have a lot on our plate right now - lots of deadlines that need to be met and seemingly not enough time to accomplish them.  Furthermore, we can't just systematically do each task one by one.  We have to work on one for a little bit to make progress and then do another one to get it out of the way then get back to the first one again and so on.  Very stressful, but our superiors are being very patient.

Early last week, one of my coworkers ended up going home early because she wasn't feeling well.  She had the following day off anyway, but then she called out on Friday. The two of us on the job were so busy that we couldn't accomplish anything, so there's a lost day.  On Saturday, all four of us were present and we got some stuff done despite how hectic work was.  The sick coworker plowed through, high on medication, because she's a champ and after all, she had Sunday off.  So did i, and i was grateful because Friday turned out to be a 9am-8pm day and our days have been so stressful.  i even had Monday off, too, two days in a row!

So on Monday i get a phone call asking me to come in because not only could the sick one not handle it, but another of us wasn't feeling well and feared her symptoms were similar to our other sick coworker.  No big deal, i thought, because as much as i didn't want to go in, it was only for five hours or so and my attempt at gardening could wait until Thursday, my next day off.  Plus, i was going to go in anyway should they need me to work on a few projects.

With me covering that shift on Monday, there came a concern of overtime, so the plan was the coworker i relieved, the second to fall ill, would come in on one of her days off (Tuesday or Wednesday) and i would leave early.  Except come Tuesday, she wasn't feeling any better.  By Tuesday, we also received a phone call from the first ill coworker and she had been diagnosed with Type A Influenza.

Well shit.

While i'm covering one person's shifts, the other well coworker is covering the other person's shifts and we agree that i'll take Thursday off as planned and she'll take Friday off as scheduled so we'll each get at least one day off this week.  We're trying to juggle our daily stuff with these big projects, but work on those have slowed to a crawl.  However, we're both in high spirits because we're not sick.  And then yesterday i got called in because the third coworker finally caved to the illness and was puking in the bathroom all morning.

i feel fine.  By this weekend, i'll probably feel pretty tired.  But right now i'm the last man standing and i might have the flu lurking in my body, waiting to show symptoms, so i'm trying to be as careful as possible not to transmit that to anyone else.  As of right now, i have Tuesday and Wednesday off next week, and the first sick coworker was told by her doctor that she could return to work no earlier than Monday.  I cannot get sick, and i doubt i'll have Tuesday and Wednesday off, but i've never seen work running without someone from our department there.  The situation has grown comical, but i doubt i'll be able to manage even a meek laugh if i catch what's infiltrated and destroyed my coworkers.

published May 13th 1991:

Posthumous weddings, an ancient custom virtually wiped out after the communists took over in 1949, are being revived in the Chinese countryside, the official Farmers Daily said Monday.

The practice is supposed to ensure that people who die unmarried will have a partner in the afterlife.A reporter said he watched a "spirit wedding" on a recent visit to his hometown in Shanxi province northwest of Beijing. "Under this practice, a 70-year-old man can marry a 7-month old baby, or a young man can marry an old woman," he said.

One 65-year-old man was praised by fellow villagers for his foresight in setting aside his life savings of $567 to buy a female corpse. When he dies, the two will be "married" with a full ceremony and be buried together.

In a neighboring village, the parents of a 10-year-old girl refused to auction off her corpse to the family of a prospective posthumous groom. Her body was stolen three days after burial, the newspaper said.

"This posthumous marriage custom is one of the Six Evils which the government is trying to stamp out," the article said. "But it is reviving."

It falls under the heading of feudal superstition, one of the so-called Six Evils along with prostitution, gambling, drugs, pornography and the selling of women and children.

link

Should i shave my head?  For serious.

Even if i don't shave it, persay, i could at least cut it short.

What do y'all think?

a blog entry about Obama portrayals on the page and concerns about racist depictions

i can certainly understand why this would be an issue for people to consider, but i don't think it's racist nor a throwback to racism for political cartoonists to do what they always do and grossly exaggerate features for effect.

The way women are portrayed in comic books is an entirely different story.  Can we talk about that instead, please?

This is the last night i will sleep in this apartment.

i will not miss the glass in the parking lot or the raucous neighbors with late night calls to the police. There will be no sighs of fondness for the abuse of recycling bins nor the look of disgust mingled with concern when i tell people where i live. i am excited at the prospect of not being shouted at (simply because i am female) from moving vehicles when i decide to walk anywhere, nor cautioned by the police not to walk about at all. i will not regret losing the unintentional pets.

i may not be leaving all of these scenarios behind, but oh, will i feel a twinge of sadness when i must travel to reach the waterfront and the Austin skyline at dusk.

i received my camera on Friday, just in time to take it on a test run at a Transmo show.  The settings are familiar, but the camera is considerably lighter than my last, a credit to the fact that it only takes two AA batteries instead of four.  The design is nice, but it's hard to change settings in a camera with a different layout in the dark.  Add to the mix that we were late to the show - simply because it took place in an annex to the bar where we thought it was supposed to take place. 

Randlord and i showed up right on time, having secured a prime parking spot without a shakedown (thanks to Ali showing me a free lot that the bums (i'm making assumptions here, perhaps i should just call them jerkfaces) don't frequent).  We enter the bar, surprised that they didn't try to charge us a door price before we would have told them that we were on the guest list, buy two tallboys of Lonestar and wander out to the back patio only to find a DJ.  i'm convinced Randlord misread the flyer, and we're about to call someone with an internet connection, but i hear the sweet sounds of one of their songs in the distance.  We move towards it, discovering the annex and unfortunately, a guy at the door wanting to see our stamped hands to prove that we had paid for the show.  He told us we had to exit the bar, hang a left, and enter there to get in, so we chugged our beers outside, listening to the set.  Finally we headed out, the back in again one door down, to officially gain admittance to the show, free of charge.  It's too bad that we got there late, otherwise i would've taken the time to white-balance properly.
( A590 Test Run. )</div></div>

It's snowing.

The mystery rodent[s] have become more destructive - this time, to the apartment.  When i was entertaining guests, i had the door to my bedroom closed since some people were asleep in the living room.  Evidently, around 6am last Thursday, this horrible gnawing sound could be heard coming from my bedroom, my guests told me.  They even walked right up against the door to make sure it was coming from there - still the gnawing continued.

i was passed out, so i didn't hear anything.  But upon inspection, the door had been gnawed at from the inside, sprinkling the carpet with little flecks of white painted confetti.  Worse, since that didn't work, the rodent then went to the corner of the door and gnawed through the carpet to create a path to the hallway.  There are ripped up carpet shreds all over the entrance to my bedroom.  The night after my guests left, i baited a trap and put it along the wall near the door; as before with these mouse traps, i found it set off but with no sign of any animal (or a piece of one).

So we've upgraded.  We bought a rat killing trap that is about the size of my foot, although not quite as long.  We also bought a live mouse trap, that allows the rodents to come in and get stuck until you release them.  There's a translucent window on the top of the thing and it's going to be eerie as hell if the trap works.  The plan is to make a special delivery to the apartment complex office so that they can see what's been roaming about inside our walls.  It would be more effective to hand them live rodents instead of dead ones.  However, the live mouse trap cost less than $5, so i'm not holding my breath.

Too bad my camera's broken, or else i'd photograph the results.  i think that the rodent's a rat; i have since i briefly saw it the first night back in August.  Randlord disagrees.  But it's probably a fairly small one and rather harmless looking, perhaps even capable of great philosophical training - the Splinter to my Donatello.  Maybe if i cage him, like in the first Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie, he'll start doing karate moves.  Then we'll all eat some pizza and be merry, and i'll forgive him for the panty-chewing.

Last night, i finally hit up Chain Drive for a show - two out of three acts were part of the Collective - and i looove the space.  It's a nice little dive, complete with pool tables, dark corners, and patios, not too far away from where i live.  i just don't know how welcome they are to the ladies in a leather daddy bear bar every night of the week.  At least the bartenders were nice!  And MC cursed every three words or so, so i instantly liked him.  Definitely a place to visit more frequently.