New season of Leverage starts tonight. Yus.

ahahaha!  Rob Thomas has a concert in Cary, NC on Sept 28!  /dies And I totally don't have the fundage for a ticket right now.  /sigh  I has tickets.  Thank you AmEx cardmember benefits.  w00t

Maybe I can con the brother into going with so I don't have to go alone.

Also, the best SPAM I've gotten in a while:

Thanks and remain bless,
Maravella.
 
            worthygod100@yahoo.co.uk
 
Please, ditance dose not matter in this afair and i shall be very greatfull if i see your mail ok.

It actually does link to an LJ comm.  o_O

**
Proud dragon/honorable knight story is currently in the lead.  If you don't like teh sound of that, then by all means go fix it.  ^_^

All right, so Dreamwidth has issued me yet another invite code. Any takers?

I need food, the question is: who can I con/bribe into going out and getting me some? hmhm

In unrelated news, would you rather have:

Poll #1428545
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All

Choose one (1)

I'm way behind on this one, but I'm sure we can work that out. ^_^ Stolen from just about everyone on my f-list at this point.

List 10 of your favorite characters from different fandoms, and ask people to spot patterns in your choices and--if they're so inclined--to draw conclusions about you based on the patterns they've spotted.

Cid Highwind – Final Fantasy VII
Ellen Ripley – Alien; Aliens
Dean Winchester – Supernatural
Jack Bauer – 24
Spike Spiegel – Cowboy Bebop
Eliot Spencer – Leverage
Dieter von Adolwulf – Prisoner
Michael Weston – Burn Notice
Asami Ryuichi – Finder Series
Milo Talon – The Man from the Broken Hills; Milo Talon

All right, so. Sitting back in my parents room, watching some NCIS with my father. We hear a helicopter buzzing around overhead outside. Not exactly part of the daily routine, but it's not unheard. After about 10 minutes, though, we can still hear the helicopter, and after a couple more minutes my father turns to me and asks, "Does it sound like it's 'circling the landing pad' to you?" ('Cause, y'know, I totally have his expertise in this field.)

Anyway, a couple more minutes go by, and we hear another helicopter. So finally, my father gets up and goes to check it out, 'cause really, seriously?

Two news choppers. So he flips to the local channel for one of the them. Yeah, so apparently there was a shooting maybe half a mile down from us sometime within the last hour. I know. Thrilling.

UPDATE
Three people are dead. ATM they're calling it a murder-suicide. So uh... yeah, I don't know where to take it from here.

Co-workers from Front End day shift keep asking me if (and in some cases when) I'm coming back to the Front End/Money Center. Yeah, that would be no. And my abrupt response always makes them look askance at me and ask why, and then they call me a traitor for leaving them to go to the third. To which I just shrug and say the $.80 pay raise helps me cope. ^_^

Meanwhile, a number of the stockers and sales associates have come up and asked if I'm the reason there's a position open in the Money Center and then say grats on the promotion. Honestly, I didn't realize that even half of them knew my name.

Now to decide which of the three bunnies hopping around in my head to cage and tame first. Decisions, decisions.

oh also, I need to go to bed. Sleep would definitely be a plus. Yeah. Maybe I'll do that first.

mm... Rob Thomas is sexy musician love.

So, my father took my mother to Baltimore this weekend to see Distant Worlds: Music from Final Fantasy. It was a surprise trip the whole way around. She didn't even know about it until they were actually in the car and on the road.

Which is kinda funny, because my father packed all their shit in their room right in front of her. She's so adorably oblivious. ^_^

She bought me a CD with all the music that they do. Except it doesn't have the victory music, which they apparently did play at the concert. /sad

ETA 1953
From my adorable and quotable mother:
M: Oh, and I got to pull a Britney Spears!
Sam: Huh?
M: I was standing by your father while he was at the ATM, and this huge breeze came up and blew my skirt up. I flashed my junk was all over the place.
Sam: /facepalm That's... awesome, M.

Acquired via koneikaa66 and skylark97.

When you see this, take a minute and share five good things of your day with the world, uncut.

1. Today was my last day on the front end and in the Money Center.
2. I have one more Barq's rootbeer left.
3. The kittens are snuggly and cuddly and cute.
4. We are having meatloaf for dinner.
5. I do not work again until 2200 Monday, and so have the whole of the rest of the day to play Sims and/or WoW.

^_^

Fellow Money Center workers keep asking me about all these little things that I know how to do--things that I just took for granted that everyone already knew because it's all right there on the screen. There's just a lot of little nit-picking things that I always did or accommodated for when working with certain customers, and I guess I just assumed the others did the same shit. But apparently, not, and so when I'm not there to do it, everyone gets frustrated, and now they want to know all my secrets. eh, they'll all learn eventually, and then one of them will fill in my old shoes of more-or-less-department-manager of the Money Center.

Training I think will begin Sunday now, as they really desperately needed an opener in the MC tomorrow. After that, though, they is on their own. heh, my CSMs are very, "Sam, I'm happy you're getting a promotion, but why do you have to leave?!" This because they have to completely rehaul the schedule for the next two-three weeks to cover the shifts I'm no longer working. Not really sure how long I'll be training. Probably a week or two; that will be during the day. And I guess once the chick who's training me clears me I'll switch to third.

It probably doesn't seem so, but I'm very, very excited.

In other--maybe related news? So, obviously < Giant Retail Corporation > offers various and multiple payment options. And you can use more than one or two of those on any one transaction. Even with our MoneyGrams and money orders, a customer can pay half-cash, half-debit if they so need/desire. That's all well and good. What I don't get, though, is why a customer will pay $200 in cash, pay the rest debit and select to get cash back from debit. Fucking duh?

I got the accounting position!! I'll finish out this week in the Money Center, and then come Saturday, I'll start training. /giddy

ahaha! My Sims are all hooked up and married. It is awesome sause. ^_^ I put the one guy are the career path of Master Thief; I can totally go into people's homes and swipe shit. I've stolen porch lights and picnic tables. Not to mention all the little pictures and statues that he brings home when he strikes out on his own at work. The other guy is on the Scientist career path. He comes home singed a lot.

There is weird glichiness wherein Sims you are not playing will continue to progress and get promotions and make families and shit even if you have the "story progression" option turned off. Which wouldn't necessarily be bad except this also includes having/adopting babies, and I serious just do not want that for my couple. But, I found a fixture to the issue on the forums. Didn't help me get rid of the baby Science-dude had already adopted, but at least it won't be happening anymore while I play around with other characters.

That is all.

Now, do I want to flesh out Werewolf story or Kyle/Erik before I go to bed? decision, decisions...

Apparently one of my drivers had not updated properly. The Brothers fussed with it while I was at work yesterday, and so when I got off the game was operational and playable. Yay! (I know, we all give a damn. Allow me my glee, please.) Alas, I must go to work before I may play again. But tomorrow and Monday off, so plenty of time to catch up. Yay!again. ^__^

01. Anyone who looks at this entry has to post this meme and their current wallpaper at their livejournal.
02. Explain in five sentences why you're using that wallpaper!
03. Don't change your wallpaper before doing this! The point is to see what you had on!

I am ever a Penny Arcade fangirl. Plus, I love the varying expressions, especially the unicorn's doofy what-the-fuck ever. It is awesome.

In the first part: Congratulations, abmca8605! ^_^

In the II part: Happy belated birthday, mechante_fille. Was too busy whining to pay attention to important things. Request a drabble, and it shall be yours.

Part the third: Yes, I so totally and definitely could relocate for this.

Part D: The Sims3 still hates me. Oh, and their customer service closes at 1700 Easter Time, so shall have to wait 'til a non-working day. /sigh

V part 3: Second day back from vacation and already work is returned to annoying. blerg

Fucking Tech Support decided the best way to help me resolve the issue was to c/p a decidely unhelpful link about how to "fix" the first issue, and then they just completed ignored the second part wherein I can't even fucking launch the goddamn game to fucking play. Seriously? Seriously. Do you not want people to play this fucking game?

I have uninstalled and reinstalled and rebooted and restarted. My drivers are up to date. I have cleared my cache, I have reset my cookies. The required rating to play on any computer is 3.5; the recommend rating is 4.5; my computer's rating is 5.2.

There is no goddamn reason why I should not be able to play this fucking game. So why the hell can't I?

ETA 1932
Yeah, trolling the forums definitely isn't working, either. Fuck it. I'm sicking of dealing with it for tonight. Chalk another victory to technology today because I quit.

argh! I hate this fucking game. Why the hell can't the Brother be here to tell me what the fuck I'm doing wrong.

ETA
What makes this even more fun is that, to access tech support, I have to login, but it keeps telling me that my username and/or password is incorrect--which I know isn't true because I can log in to the rest of EA and the Sims3 comm just fine. /tears hair out

So much for enjoying my last day of vacation.

ETA
Finally got in to email Tech Support. Now I get to wait for their response. Yay...

Am returned from Cincinnati. mm, I think, were I not possessed of a conscience, I would have simply thrown in the towel and said, "fuck it; I'm not returning home." Alas, guilt (over work; crazy, I know) won out, and I returned like the responsible adult I occasionally pretend to be. /sigh Very tempting, though.

Vacation was good. Am rested and refreshed and ready to take on work again. Was good, too, to have an entire week wherein I was not trying to give myself whiplash every five seconds. Stress is very obviously a factor in my myoclonus, because I did not tic or spasm or whatever you want to call it except for Saturday and today. Which I think says a lot.

So tomorrow is off--w00t!--and then Sunday it is back to the salt mines. But it's cool, 'cause not only do I have an awesome werewolf story to write out (before it eats my brain 'cause seriously, it won't shut up), I also have The Sims3. And the Brother bought me the collectors edition, so I also get a cool sports car to drive my Sim around in. huzzah!

All right, finish installing Sims, eat, then bed. Yes. That will be good.

ETA 0249
It appears I will be spending tomorrow fighting with EA and Sims. Will not install content, and more importantly, will not let me play. /headdesk

There is something I want to write, I'm just not quite sure what it is.  Everything I try to start just seems blah, and I can't seem to get any farther than the first page.  /sigh

Argh, is frustrating when I cannot get my numbers to balance. My online banking is telling me I have one balance, meanwhile the spreadsheet upon which I keep track of all my spending (in a thus-far-failed attempt at budgeting) is telling me I have another, and I cannot locate a discrepancy! /fail

I'm going to bed now. Will fight with numbers more on the morrow before I leave. Meg, will try to have something edited for you before I head out to the airport. I'm very sorry for my absentmindedness; if you wanted to fire me as your editor, now would be the time, and I would totally understand. For realz.

Answers to questions asked will come in a post sooner or later. Maybe during a layover or something. We shall see.

My nine days are now officially over. I have tomorrow off, work Thursday, off Friday and do not have to return until Saturday June 6. Vacation time ftw, yessir. And I will be far away in Cincinnati visiting my business partners so they cannot call and beg me to come in anyway. huzzah.

In other news, stolen from andra_sashner who posted it days ago, but I've been too busy to want to bother 'til now.

The problem with LiveJournal:

We all think we are so close, but really, we know nothing about each other.

So, I want you to ask me something you think you should know about me. Something that should be obvious (or just anything at all you wanted to know!), but you have no idea about. *

Ask away. Then if you want, post this in your LJ and find out what people don't know about you!

* I retain the write to refuse to answer any question I deem "too personal". Just sayin'.

ETA 1552
So a couple months back, we were adopted by a random stray kitty. She's very pretty, grey-stiped with hints of white and orange. We call her Queen Sheba (Sheba for short, because we don't want Princess IDK** to think she's been ursurped ^_^). Anyway, an even shorter while ago, we realized Sheba had gotten herself knocked up, and as of Sunday we now have four kitties. They're so cute! I shall have to borrow the Brother or jolena's camera to take pictures for to share. It's a shame we cannot keep them all. /sigh Anyone want a kitty?

Also, nikerymis wrote me sorta!Zombie!fic. You should read.

** For those not already in the know: we call her Princess, but her actual name is I Don't Know (no, really). Her sister's name was Not Me. Poor little scapegoats saved the Derr kids from many a punishment.

Article from my father's June '09 edition of Playboy:
The Best Damn Website, Period

PMSbuddy.com is the world's first online PMS reminder. When your girlfriend is approaching that time of the month, the stie will email you a reminder so you'll know to buy her flowers or shut up when you're being spoken to. More than 150,000 people have already signed up. it's free, and here's a bonus: The service allows you to track the monthly cycles fo more than one woman. Creepy? Just a little.

Why is it every time I really want a fucking orange, they always turn out to be rotten? Last time, it was black with a dead worm inside. This morning it was squishy and moldy, and I can't tell if the ones in the bag wit it are growing mold as well or are simply the result of brushing against the moldy one. /sigh

In other news, today's just going to be a fucking great day. I'm just so excited for it to begin.

Like, two weeks ago:

• Edit Bound
• Finish edits that I still have floating around for other people
• Write/finish something of my own
• Write that essay thing maderr and I were discussing this weekend (I have notes, but nothing cohesive... /sigh)
• Lt3 stuff
  • Draft a contract
  • Submissions notes (to give to maderr)
  • Make Quickbooks and National City Bank form a happy working union
• Do... something else I'm forgetting. Shit, what was it? God I have no idea. /headdesk

I'm never posting porn again. It seems to attract the bad people. By which I mean, I came home yesterday to find I'd been friended by eight (8) Russian bots. x_X

Seriously. No more porn. I don't even know what possessed me to write that one.

***
In other news, the money order machine from a different < Giant Retail Corporation > store was stolen. Like, the whole damn thing, money orders included. Fortunately the serial numbers for those are recorded and logged with frequency, so they were able to contact Money Gram (who issues us our money orders) and put a stop payment on all the serial numbers remaining in that machine. We just have to be extra mindful now to call the "save to cash" number and get the confirmation number (which we do anyway, but everyone loves repeating SOP when something Big happens). blah

ETA 1649
Oh yeah, I got your package, mechante_fille! Thank you very much. The card was wonderful, and the shot glass puts my collection one glass closer to still never being complete. ^_^ /hug

And I wouldn't be posting this now, except jolena made very overt threats about telling maderr just to go ahead and do it for me. So here, 5 pages of random, pure unadulterated (and dare I add atrocious--'cause it is) smut. Completely random and original (eg no one you know).

( Untouchable )

I'd lock it, like I usually try to do for these sorts of things, but one of them would inevitably bust into my account to unlock it, so I'll just save them the trouble.

( The birthday cake he made me )

Plus jolena got me The Sex and the City movie soundtrack. And the Brother got me a pre-order of the collectors edition of The Sims 3. So, now I'll have even more to distract me from my work. ^_^

Also, among the four of us, we got enough b00ze to make tonight a very fun one. huzzah!

I'm trying to get a cold and succeeding admirably.

Third shift accounting position has finally been posted. Co-manager had arranged to interview me for it on Saturday, but it was Mother's Day weekend, and we were busy and thus unable, and I could never find her before I clocked out to ask her. Then we both were off Sunday, she was off today, I'm off tomorrow, so I'm hoping like Hell we'll both be present and accounted for on Wednesday.

My schedule for this upcoming week got screwed up. They gave me the vacation days I asked for for my birthday, but then they also scheduled me to work 5 days, which was putting me at some 54 hours. My front end manager gave me a choice of reverting my vacation days to regular non-payed days off or keeping the vacation days and taking another two days off. Against better (and sound) judgment, I chose the former. It'll cause me to have to work 9 nine days straight, but we're rather short-staffed at CS and MC right now, and I'd feel guilty making it even worse by taking two of my scheduled days off.

Plus, my actual vacation will start at the end of those nine days, so somehow it'll all work out in the wash. I can deal. Maybe. And anyway, I can just use those two vacation days sometime later in the summer.

Dude... I really don't think have the energy to do Tournament* dailies today...

* WoW--Jousting really isn't as fun as the patch notes made it sound. /pout

ETA 2047
Also, I don't think my prescription is working so much in helping my myoclonus. Like, at all. Especially during the day. I have to take it at night because it makes me super sleepy, so during the day I'm not sure it's really doing me much good. I'm still pulling all kinds of muscles in my neck, and swear one day I really am going to give myself whiplash. Good news is, I've a follow-up appointment with my neurologist coming up in June so we can discuss it then. Maybe I can manage to find a video camera somewhere in the in between to show him wtf I'm going through.

(And also because I'd been wanting to for no discernible reason) Decided I would go see the Star Trek movie. jolena, moonkitsune, and the Brother obligingly went with me. OMG yes, and I'll have thirds, too please. For that movie, I could definitely be a Trek-y. That's all I'm saying.

Also, epic!trailer for GI Joe: Rise of Cobra. ZOMG! GI Joe movie has ninjas!!!! /win

If you want to play Captain Obvious Sex Ed teacher with your story. Great. That's your prerogative. If you feel it's necessary to take three paragraphs to describe the obtaining, opening, and putting on of a condom, then by all means do so. If you want your characters to have the significant, meaningful, 2-3 page conversation about six-month-old papers and testing and "I just love you so much, I don't want anything to happen to you" before they decide to fuck bareback, power to you.

But do not beat me over the head with the condom stick only to turn around two scenes later and completely contradict yourself by having CharA give CharB and mind-blowing blow job wherein he "swallows every last drop". It makes me disinclined to believe you actually give a damn. It makes me think you don't really know what you're talking about. And quite frankly, it's just stupid.

It's not often I'm in the mood for straight up pr0n. So the question now is: do I write it myself or encourage/bribe others to write it for me?

In all the unpacking and repacking that occurred I came across one of my many random books of literary-ness (<--I've started adding "ness" to the ends of words again; I thought I'd broken myself of that habit >_<) called Riddle Me This. I now want to write a story in which undercover!Character uses riddles to convey his intentions/plans/otherwise communicate with accomplice!Character B. I think it might even fit into my King's Knights Arc. Maybe.

For S&G (<--shits & giggles):
I part the fur, I thrust in [something] warm. (And no, the answer is not what it so obviously sounds like it should be. ^_~)

What is that which has never been felt,
Never been seen, never been heard,
Never existed,
And still has a name?

YYUR
YYUB
ICUR
YY4me (<--this is one of the ones I want to use. I just like the cleverness of its simplicity)

What is it--
That we love more than life,
Fear more than death,
The rich want it,
The poor have it,
The miser spends it,
And the spend'rift saves it?

***

blah work. They fired one of the girls who works Customer Service/Money Center--no idea why and everyone has a different theory. Long story short, I'm the lead bitch to cover all her MC shifts. So, instead of having tomorrow off, I must now go in at 0700. They changed my Monday shift from mid to close, they gave me Tuesday off as recompense, but that was only nice when I still had Wednesday off. Now I must work 1200 - 2100 on Wednesday, yay! I get to keep my regular hours on Thursday ( more closing 1330 - 2130), and then Friday off--which I guess isn't technically a bad thing. When do I ever get a Friday off?

It just sucks. I really liked that girl; she shared my sense of irony and WTF-ery about the customers and internal goings-on. Also, she was just a really cool person. No reason I've heard yet really explains why they'd've fired her. More and more I get the sense they wanted her gone one way or the other and latched on to the first available opportunity. Office politics FTW. /sigh

For those who care, since Dreamwidth was so generous, I decided to play the hypocrite and use the access code they gave me to create an account. Knock yourselves out. I'll probably just post stories and story-related shit there. Rewrites of stuff, previews of current projects, things like that. Hence the use of my (future) writing name as opposed to the handle we've all come to know and love.

But in any case...

Happy Birthday, alixkat!

I logged into Dreamwidth once with OpenID to view WendyNever and Goblin's pages. That's it. So now, to thank more for expressing my interest, Dreamwidth has sent me an invite code. Really? Really? blah

You know you must be the ultimate in failz0r (or maybe just suXXor) when you can't even get an invite to a PUG. Or you do get an invite to a PUG, and then are promptly kicked 2 minutes before the raid starts. /sigh

Alright, so standard international rates for Money Gram are $9.46 up to $500 and $14.16 from $501 - 1000. And from there it scales differently, and that's not really the point of this story. For whatever reason, {Giant Retail Corporation} decided to do a rollback on the international send fee. So until June 20, a person can send up to $200 for only $8.00. Fair enough; sounds good. However, when I have down time, I like to play around with some of the functions on the touch screens (like "fee quote"). Wow, this intro is getting long.

Anyway, so for $8, you can send up to $200 anywhere in the world. That's kind where the deal ends, though. Because from $201 - 500, the fee scales to $10, and from $501 - 1000, it scales again to $15.50. And most of my customers--especially the ones who send to Yemen and Jordan--tend to send upwards of $500, so there's not really a whole lot of savings going on in the end.

***
Had this customer today who came up to pay her car payment with Money Gram Express. She handed me a money envelope and the filled out form and said there was $450 total, and she wanted to take the send fee out of that and send the remainder to Green Tree (so $440.50 for the actual payment + $9.50 to send). I said ok and started keying stuff in, and she answered her phone and started discussing business. Now, before I ever leave the MG screen and go to the actual "total" screen, I like to verify the amount and count out the money because once we put it through the total screen, we can't back out to change any info or even just cancel it, and some days it can be 15 or 20 minutes before CSM comes to abort the whole damn thing so we can start over. So I open the envelope to count the money and check it against the total.

I counted $550. So, I waited for the customer to get off the phone and verified that the amount she wanted to pay was $450. When she gave me an impatient look, I explained about having the extra $100. I gave her back the envelope of money so she could count it for herself.

So she thanked me for being so honest, and the friend who was with expounded upon how lucky she was to have had such an honest cashier (especially since she was on the phone and not paying attention).

What surprises me about this whole thing is how surprised they were that I would give it back or that I would mention it at all. And they're not the first ones to respond that way. Most of the customers I've ever returned extra money have displayed first shock/fear, followed by gratitude, and then a relieved, "because you didn't have to be so honest." All I can think is, "yes, I did."

It's not really something that ever occurs to me not to do. It's not even something that occurs to me as an honest vs dishonest thing. You hand me $10 more than I need, then I'm gonna hand it back. What kind of circles do people run in that such a thing is not only an anomaly, but one which must be lauded with that much praise? Seriously, one lady a while back went so far as to suggest it was God's blessing I was her cashier that day because he knew how tight her money was, and he was watching out for her.

I don't know how to explain it. I guess it just seems sad to me that people have such lowered expectations.

why god invented the iPod. ^_^

() I love these new {Giant Retail Corp} "aren't we great and wonderful /pat on the back" they're making us watch in the breakroom." This would be