No one likes Hamlet.

I know, I know, this is kind of cheating... but the man is so talented! Those of you living in the US, see if you can recognize the man playing "Bill". Whoever gives me the right answer first wins an honorary mention on a piece of paper in the middle of a notebook.

A Warm Welcome

No matter how bad your workday was, there's always someone somewhere who has it worse...

I hunt, therefor I am?

My cat hunted and killed yesterday. She killed a bird. It's the first she's ever killed that I know about, and she was very proud of it. She was so proud of it she brought it inside and showed it off.

There were small feathers spread on it here and there, and she didn't care... she was batting at the dead bird, nipping at it, and she looked (and probably felt) very ferocious. It was a matter of time before she turned that bird into a royal mess that would never wash out of the carpet.

Now, I understand that cats hunt on instinct. They just have to go after the small squeaking creatures, they can't stop themselves, and they don't understand why humans reward them when they hunt mice and get upset when they hunt birds, because they don't understand the difference.

However, I had no desire to have dead bird smeared into my carpet. I decided that since I was cooking at the time, and handling a dead bird is unsanitary, Froli would have the honor of removing the little feather ball. So I went and found him, told him about that cat and the dead bird, and after he had expressed proper admiration for the glorious cat's amazing hunting skills, he took the bird from her and disposed of it.

More than 24 hours later, I think she is finally starting to forgive him.

The stolen blog post

During the very last hour at work today, I had this great idea for a blog post. It would be work related venting, of course, based on some of the more inane things that customers say and do, and it was going to be sharp, sarcastic, and fueled by the fact that work has been increasingly frustrating and stressful lately. I was all over this idea, and I was even composing the post in my head as I drove home from work.

And then I came home, opened the front door and walked in, and something was smelling very nice... a little bit like sandal wood, and it probably came from the scented candle on the kitchen table. The table itself was the oak one that we were going to bring in from the garage together, tonight, along with the matching chairs. Yet here it is, chairs and all, with a scented candle and plates and glasses out and there is a pink envelope on there as well.

Pink is not exactly my color, but the words "for my girlfriend" were written on it, so I took it and opened it anyway. Inside was a card, also pink in various shades, with a lot of classic "empowering" statements on it: I am strong. I am full of potential. I am not perfect. I am loved. I am fascinating. I am flawed. I am open minded. I am gifted. I am woman.

Inside the card was written, in very familiar hand writing, and beyond all of that, you are my woman, and I love you very much.

I realized a little later that the other smell, that mingled very nicely with the sandal wood, was chicken, sizzling in butter and thyme. It was delicious, and the bottle of chianti that somehow became involved, only improved the evening even more.

I had this great idea for a blog post during my last hour at work today, but I can't for the life of me remember it now. And for some reason, I'm not the least bit stressed out anymore.

Entertaining moment of the weekend:

Now I know how to make employees in a video game store look at me as if I am a freak from another planet. (Aside from walking into certain stores and talk about games as if I know about them. Sometimes I wonder if it's really 2007, the way some of these guys react...)

Walk in and ask them if they can look up what I have on preorder. When they say yes, wait for them to tell me the list of games, and then ask if I can move my preorder of Mass Effect to another game.

Then I giggled at the stunned and "did she just say that?" expressions, and then spent a few moments explaining that no, I hadn't heard anything negative about it at all. Since I make a point of being nice to gaming store employees, I also explained that the reason I wanted to move it was that I was already all set up to get a copy on the release day, and have no need of duplicate reservations.

I then went on to restore order in the universe by simply moving said preorder over to Bioshock.

Look, I have a blog! I'd almost forgotten.

I told you I'll be losing interest in this new toy in a week or so.

Kidding aside, things have been busy lately. One has to prioritize and sometimes blogging needs to be put on the back burner, and attention, time, and energy must be spent on more important things. Scheduling a honeymoon, while planning a wedding, while applying for a Greencard renewal, while looking for a house to buy and move to, tends to keep a person busy and, no offense meant to my two faithful readers, seemed more important at the time, than my blog.

Two of the above have been taken care of, which hopefully will give me just a bit more time to get back on track with the blog.

I have discovered that Blogger does not work in Ubuntu (the Linux distribution that is installed on my laptop). This is a serious drawback, and I am currently looking for solutions to this problem. When I find one, hopefully soon, blogging will become a bit more regular and frequent again.

Små kontraster...

Smart people who know what they're doing don't to call either Customer Support or Tech Support, so we never get to hear from those customers. The ones we talk to are not a representative sample of the average computer user out there, or the average among our customers for that matter. So when I do hear from one of them, it's a very interesting contrast. The quotes below are from those rare, rare diamonds found in the mud of ignorance and misinformation.

"Hello. I want to make a purchase here in the US, with my American credit card and ship it to an address in Germany, and I need to know what to tell my credit card company, to make sure there aren't any delays or problems."

"I just placed an order for over-night morning delivery, and since it's five minutes before your shipping cut-off I just wanted to make sure that the order went through and that it will get out today. Oh, and if it can't get to me by tomorrow morning I need the order canceled, because this really can't wait."

"I called yesterday about an order that never got to me, although the online tracking says it was delivered. I just wanted to let you know I found it."

"I apologize for being rude earlier." (This one is almost unheard of.)

"Why won't you ship to my son in college?"
*explanation of our credit card policies*
"Oh. Okay, I'll call my credit card company, and call you back and let you know when I straightened it out with them."

They're rare, but occasionally we get to talk to them. It's a nice change of pace.

The simple things in life...

I went back to my favorite lunch place again today. I come in almost every day, at roughly the same time every day, and I always try to be nice and polite to the people who work there. Today they had a new girl there working the midday shift, and I realized how spoiled I've become.

Some of my coworkers tease me about the fact that I eat at the same place every single day, but I have a good reason for it. Apart from really liking the food they serve, I like the unspoken perks that come with being recognized and not despised by the ones serving the food.

This new girl didn't recognise me at all, so she put the standard amounts of vegetables on my sub, and I had to ask her for a cup for my drink.

It irritated me. What's the point of coming back every day if I don't get something extra for it?

EB Games, you tease!

From Gamespot's Rumor Control, we find out that Mass Effect once more has been delayed. We also find out that EB Games may have been too quick to make assumptions...

The bottom line:

The official story: Mass Effect publisher Microsoft Games Studios' response was swift...and not particularly helpful. "We have not made any official announcements regarding release timing for Mass Effect," a rep said. "At this time, any information about the game's release date is purely rumor and speculation."

Bogus or not bogus?: Bogus that it's been delayed, since it technically never had an official release date. However, the EBgames.com listing indicates a September release is now likely.

I try to console myself by watching in-game footage on the game's official site, and curse EB Games for getting my hopes up.