In which I’m not looking forward to the upcoming Even Greater Depression.
1. Fox News lies regularly, and this behavior isn’t even illegal.
The country is fractured, and it’s partialy because news reportage is terribly damaged. The people who watch one station honestly believe the people who watch another station are insane because they can’t agree on “the facts.”
Well, it turns out that the news isn’t required to tell the truth, nor to give equal time to opposing views. In fact, it’s actually okay to knowingly lie on a news program:
This means that Fox, for example, can say anything it wants, without restraint, regardless of its truthfulness or accuracy, and sell this product as “news”:
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In which I am baffled by many of the people I speak with.
As you may be aware, I’m back in tech support. If you read my tweets you may occasionally get the idea that I don’t like it, but I do!
I’ve been doing it off and on for a dozen years, and I actually do enjoy solving people’s connectivity problems. I enjoy the process of figuring out what customers are trying to say, and helping them get their problems fixed. I love the Internet, and I love helping people get online.
However.
The majority of the people I talk to absolutely baffle me. I have no idea what the fuck they’re talking about (they literally expect me to understand phrases like, “it won’t do that thing it used to,” whatever the fuck that’s supposed to mean in English), and I have no idea why individuals who can’t do even the most basic computing tasks–like copy and paste, shut their machines down properly, or even read–want to get online in the first place.
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In which I get to play with tools.
My awesome job not only came complete with a window office, a title, and a space heater, it also came with TOOLS.
I have custody of the freakin’ tool bag. It lives in my office. I do not have to ask to borrow a Phillips head. This makes me happy. Here are many of its components unceremoniously dumped on the floor:
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In which I basically just link to a bunch of research.
At the Peony the other day, I was discussing my weight loss with a couple of women who were asking me how I’d done it. I gave them my blood sugar/insulin/refined carbs spiel, during which I said, “Honestly, dietary fat needn’t be avoided. You can eat brie all you want, you just can’t eat the baguette.”
One of the women I was talking to said, “Oh, we can’t eat fat at my house. My husband has been diagnosed with heart disease, so we’ve seen a nutritionist and aren’t allowed to eat any fat.”
And I thought, That can’t be right. They can’t possibly still be telling people that, with all the research to the contrary. But they are. Every day. I have an uncle with high cholesterol who eats very little fat.
Here’s just some of the research:
Effects of a Plant-Based High-Carbohydrate/High-Fiber Diet Versus High–Monounsaturated Fat/Low-Carbohydrate Diet on Postprandial Lipids in Type 2 Diabetic Patients
A diet rich in carbohydrate and fiber, essentially based on legumes, vegetables, fruits, and whole cereals, may be particularly useful for treating diabetic patients because of its multiple effects on different cardiovascular risk factors, including postprandial lipids abnormalities.
Randomized comparison of reduced fat and reduced carbohydrate hypocaloric diets on intrahepatic fat in overweight and obese human subjects.
A prolonged hypocaloric diet low in carbohydrates and high in fat has the same beneficial effects on intrahepatic lipid accumulation as the traditional low-fat hypocaloric diet.
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In which it still fucking hurts and I sorta feel like I should be over it, but I’m not.
I had Bindu put down a year ago today.
She’d had about a dozen painful heart attacks. She had advanced heart, liver, and Cushing’s diseases. She was going deaf and didn’t seem to see very well. She was maybe 13 or 14 years old.
Deciding to have a creature killed broke both my heart and my brain. I will probably never own another pet, just so I can avoid having to do it again. I still miss that blue dog more than I can express.
I still miss her. Every. Single. Day.
RIP, Bindu, my sweet girl.
In which I tell you a secret.
Every time I enter a restroom — public, private, whatever — I tidy it up. I pick up the paper from the floor, dry off the counters, wipe up the soap, flush the toilets in need of flushing, and tamp down the trash so it’s not overflowing.
I’ve been doing this for years now.
It started as a way to break myself of the habit of thinking, “It’s not my job.” I was constantly irritated at work because I kept having to do things that I wasn’t supposed to have to do, and I was constantly irritated at being constantly irritated. I felt helpless and enraged. I didn’t like it. I finally realized that the work itself wasn’t really the problem: the problem was my attitude toward the work. So what if your title is Office Manager but you’re running a vacuum cleaner and doing the filing? What difference does it make?
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In which there’s a picture.
This is where I work now. Dual monitors!
In which I rejoin the workforce!
Last night I took myself out for dinner and drank a lot of wine (because that’s what you do when you’re damn near broke and the check you’ve been expecting for weeks still hasn’t shown up, right? RIGHT?), which means I was still in bed at 10:30 this morning when G’ma called up the stairs, “Shelly! There’s a man from BMI here to see you!”
A what from what? Did she say BMI? “Um, okay. I’m not dressed! Tell him I’ll be down in a minute!”
I grabbed some clothes from the floor and put them on, found my glasses, put my messy hair up in a pony tail and stumbled downstairs.
The man turned out to be RB, my old boss from BMI… with a job offer! Their network engineer has taken a position elsewhere, and since they really weren’t excited at the prospect of running ads and doing interviews and background checks and calling references and finding someone with the right personality for their small office, they thought of me! (I left because I wanted more responsibility and there was, at the time, no room for growth.) Then they checked my blog and saw the job hunting post, realized I was still available, and started trying to hunt me down. Since I hadn’t answered my phone, RB decided to jump in his car and come find me.
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In which I apply for jobs.
So I’ve been more-unemployed-than-less now since December 2009. That’s nearly two years, if you do the math. Sure, I spent nine months of that time in school taking CCNA classes, but I didn’t really enjoy it because I perpetually felt like I was way far behind and I got a shit grade I may never get over in one of my courses the last trimester.
Today I applied for a retail job at a Halloween store. (Yes, I just wrote both RETAIL JOB and AT A HALLOWEEN STORE. I will only stab myself in the eye socket with a broken chopstick if they call me for an interview.) Tomorrow I’m going to apply for a clerk’s position at the liquor store next to the Hasting’s over on 9th.
I’ve gotten one callback from all the applications I’ve submitted, at a rate of no less than three per week, since I got out of school in June. It was for a part-time, minimum-wage, first tier tech support position in a suburb of Portland. I accidentally deleted the number.
If it weren’t for gigs and the few hours I get from that remote QA testing job, I wouldn’t have been able to buy a four dollar bottle of wine today. (YES, I AM DRINKING FOUR DOLLAR WINE. THAT’S FOUR DOLLARS I DIDN’T SPEND ON CRACK.)
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Instagram has become unusable crap, so please click the icon below to see my latest pics.
4 random books from my Library!
