This orange chair is a time travel device. Ten minutes ago I sat down in it at seven o'clock, and suddenly now it's eleven.

TIME TRAVEL. I HAS IT.

And it only goes one direction, which is so unfair.

BossBoss just came up to my desk....

"Today is a terrible day! No, not work, work is fine, if I could focus on work...but I can't!"

I said he should maybe make a list, and he said, "No, the list would take me all day, I can't...I just can't focus! Wait, I know what I was in the middle of. Okay, I'm going to go finish it. Thanks! I'm glad we had this talk!"

I LOL.

I love my job and it's not that I want a different job, but I still monitor certain job websites out of habit, and because I could theoretically freelance in the theatre if I wanted to. This morning a job titled "Coordinator For Instructional Fabrication" came up, which sounds like a job making fake IDs for spies. It's almost as good (but not quite) as the one I found a few years ago, PROFESSOR OF MASS DESTRUCTION. Best job title ever. It was on a government/military job website and clearly they hadn't quite thought the title through; about two days after I linked to it, the ad was gone, replaced with something that had a much more mundane title that I can't even remember.

I also stumbled over Payscale.com, which requires you to register but which also tells you, once you register, how much you're making compared to others in your field in your geographical location. One reason I happily put up with Coworker Fail most of the time: I make twice the average hourly wage other people in my job do in Chicago.

I found Payscale via a top fifty list of best employers for Gen Y, though the top fifty list is....okay, I don't know about most of the companies on there, but there's no way that Abercrombie & Fitch is the 11th best employer in the nation, given its history of employment racism, sales racism, and employment ableism.

Brazen Careerist defined standards for the top fifty list pretty specifically, which is nice to see, as most places don't. The criteria were, at least in part: Salary, Social Responsibility, Flexible Workplace. The problem is how these things were measured: "good social policy" seems pretty limited to "do they have a strong green initiative". And on the one hand that's probably a pretty good gauge -- but on the other hand even I knew Abercrombie & Fitch is a terrible place to work, and I actively avoid the evening news.

That being said, Brazen Careerist has a lot of really important stuff to say on women in the workplace, especially women with kids, so it's not like I'm going to ditch the blog over it. There's also the free admission that top-fifty lists contain an inherent level of bullshit about them.

So really my point is, Abercrombie & Fitch: the suck. (I'm looking at you as I say this, Tennant and Barrowman.)

R has left the building; while he was here we watched three dudes EPIC FAIL on Wheel of Fortune and I gave him the presents Mum brought for him, which turned out to be a bag of jerky and a box of jellybeans (she knows his loves). He ate all the jerky -- AN ENTIRE BAG OF JERKY -- and put the jellybeans in his pocket. Loose, in his pocket. For ease of nomming, I suppose.

Meanwhile, I tried to demonstrate "Cooking Mama" for him -- Mum gave it to me for Christmas, for the Wii, it's a cooking simulator. He was very perplexed as to why anyone would go to all the trouble of cooking, say, a flan, and then not being able to eat it. All night, "Where's the flan? You made a flan, but you can't eat it. I don't understand!"

I think Cooking Mama gave him some kind of existential crisis. "There's food...but there's no food! WHAT DOES IT ALL MEAN?"

Also he left me half a bottle of wine. Om nom nom.

R has a new theory of television, so he calls it: he asserts that you can reduce all of TV programming to one of three themes -- "or motives", he said darkly -- that encompass the whole of TV, advertising in particular.

He says TV makes you one of three things:

Hungry
Horny
Want to buy window blinds.

I think it's a theory with merit!

R argues that Wheel of Fortune is a beautiful melding of all three, but that's only because he's frighteningly into Vanna White.

My work world, in three acts.

ACT ONE: Mystery.

Person: I'm not sure who I'm here to see.
Sam: Did you make an appointment with anyone?
Person: I work here, apparently.
Sam: It's such a Monday, isn't it?

ACT TWO: Disbelief.

Sam: Coworker X said, and I quote, "Can we please have someone come up and look at the toilets? I'm not sure if they need plumbing." Can you do that, and let me know if they need an actual service call or just need to be cleaned?
Coworker Fail: A PLUMBER MAKES THREE TIMES WHAT I DO. WHEN THEY PAY ME THAT I WILL GO AND LOOK AT THEM. *splurt of rage all over email*
Sam: *quietly makes a service call*

INTERMISSION: They totally had mac and cheese at the cafeteria for lunch. Why yes, I am in the seventh grade, thank you for noticing.

ACT THREE: Gratification.

BossBoss: You've been falling down on the job, Sam. You've been here, what, two years? I have yet to receive a single call notifying me of my million-dollar sweepstakes win.
Sam: Well, I've been impersonating you and collecting the winnings for myself.

OMG RECC: I beta'd Zihuatenejo for Foxy for a fest, and it is Awesome. Shawshank Redemption fanfic! You don't see that very often.

In other news: my flat was chilly when I woke up this morning, and there's only one solution for a chilly radiator-heated flat:

COOKING.

So far today I have made rice in the rice cooker (so fluffy! So beautiful!), olive oil salt bread (a trifle bland; I might add garlic and parmesan next time), and maple cookies OH SO FLUFFY HOW SO FLUFFY, MAPLE COOKIES?

I have to make one quick statement because otherwise nobody will believe it: for Christmas I got a "Ninja Master Prep" blender, which Mum bought off an infomercial. I was immediately suspicious, but online consumer reviews were good, so I gave it a fair try. AND LO IT WAS AWESOME. It's reasonably quiet, powerful enough to make the dough for the olive oil bread, and everything seems fairly durable. So, good show Ninja Master Prep. (Though if you just want one you're out of luck; it's two-for-$60 or nuffin.)

RECIPES.

( Olive Oil Salt Bread; Glazed Maple Cookies )

I am also making baked beans as we speak, for filling in steamed buns. I HAVE NEVER OWNED A STEAMER. I'm very excited about steaming things.

Aaand a quick question for the cafe at large --

I have a friend who is going to San Francisco in about a week and a half to have surgery done for his transition. He's super-cool but a tiny bit broke and looking for 1) a place to stay and 2) someone who can go with him -- the hospital won't check him in or out unless he's accompanied by someone. And honestly, nobody wants to have surgery and then have to navigate public transit or something to get home.

Is there anyone in the SF area who can lend a hand, or knows someone who could? Drop a comment, he'll be watching the post. :) Thanks guys!

I HAVE ACHIEVED MICROWAVE.

It works and everything! I can heat things at super speeds! It's like living in THE FUTURE.

When I told Dove this, she replied "Or like living in the 1980s."

Speaking of how I am ninety years old, have a shit-ton of Sherlock Holmes icons!



( Or, as Holmes would put it, A Squared Arseload. )

All are free for use; blanks may be modified however you like. Credit is nice but not required.

It's a little heavy on the Watson. Everyone act surprised.

ARE YOU READY FOR THIS

Sam's Three Things About Doctor Who: ( The End Of Time Part Two )

I can't think of a single nonspoilery thing to say, once again. Argh. But I will give you the result of my bet with Jean about TEAM HILARITY versus TEAM TRAGEDY:

( Who won? )

So, the year is coming to a close.

I spent the evening cleaning my flat -- mostly my kitchen, because I have a new microwave cart (for the microwave I'm picking up from storage on Saturday) and because the kitchen closet is being redesignated for long-term storage once I get actual storage cleared out.

As I was cleaning I thought about the things I kept this year: my home, and my job. And I think those two things have gone miles towards the fact that I didn't have any major depressive episodes this year, which I give many thanks for. I know that many of you don't have jobs right now, and believe me, I sympathise; I am grateful every day when I sit down at my desk and clock into the incredibly stupid timecard program, and I hope in the coming year all of you will be doing the same. I love my job, and I can't believe sometimes that it's mine. I love my flat, too, hardwood floors and silver radiators and lack of counter space and iffy plumbing. I love my bed, I love my gas stove, I love my big windows and the curtains Mum made for them.

I love my hideous, hideous orange chair. I'm sitting in it right now, and it is like doing mild drugs. I love this chair.



IT MATCHES NOTHING I OWN.

This year I did a lot. I broke my leg, I learned to steampunk, I pickled eggs, I got a cast-iron dutch oven and I made bread in it every Saturday. Okay, almost every Saturday. I found a good sushi place. I got a sunburn. I bought an air-conditioner. I won $250 in a photo-book contest.

I published Nameless, finished The Dead Isle, and started Valet of Anize. I raised $1200 for orphans in Uganda and LGBTQ rights around the world.

I don't normally do New Year's resolutions, but this year I have a few: I want to keep from breaking any limbs. I want to order less take-away. I want to be even more awesome at my job. I want to set up my workbench and make masks again.

I want to publish a second book. I set this aside because this isn't really a goal; the ball is already in motion. By June it will be up on Lulu; probably by the end of April. More news on this in a week or two.

For you my cafe, I wish only the best: jobs, love, warm sanctuary, good books, and comfortable chairs.

Oh shit also, I need to get a haircut. :D

I taught Microsoft Word to swear this morning. Aww, they grow up so fast.

I don't use Word very often, in terms of writing -- I use it for typesetting and for various work functions but when I write I prefer to use Notepad, because it's quick to open, small to stash, doesn't fuck up the formatting when transferring to another program, and doesn't lose a fifth of its window size to a menu ribbon. Thus I very rarely spellcheck -- my spelling is usually pretty good and my betas tend to catch what I miss.

Anyway, I wanted to purge the Brit spelling out of this particular project, so I ran it through Word spellcheck, and realised that Word is as an innocent babe, untouched by worldly things. This is a partial list of the words I added to its dictionary this morning:



Oddly enough, words it did know included Boudicca and rigmarole, which I always thought was spelled rigamarole.

Truly, when we teach, we are also taught.

OH LOL

I'm catching up with Bones, and watching the episode with Booth's grandfather in it.

Booth's grandfather is the same actor who plays Dad Gibbs on NCIS.

OH THE FANFIC I WISH TO WRITE.

Of course Gibbs has a messed-up older half-brother, who got run off by their father for being a bad parent. Gibbs took his mother's surname because he has issues, and that explains why he's Gibbs. And naturally when his nephew Seeley Ceidleigh came of age, Jethro got the kid into the military, and naturally Shrimp Booth wanted to be a sniper like his cool uncle Jethro.

Man, the Booth-Gibbs family reunion paintball tourney must be epic. (Jared gets slaughtered every time.)

See, this is exactly the kind of thing I mean.

I got to work this morning and found that the lowest pocket of my messenger bag had split its seam (it's an old bag, and it was free, so whatever). The problem is, the lowest pocket of my messenger bag is where I keep my wallet.

Half the seam was ripped, and my wallet? Was tucked up in the other half of the pocket.

DEAR DIVINE BEINGS AND/OR SPIRITS OF FATE: My wallet did not fall out of my messenger bag today, and I am grateful.

Sam: Good afternoon, [My Company], this is Sam.
Dude on the Telephone: Hello?
Sam: Yes, this is [My Company], how can I help you?
Dude: You're [My Company]?
Sam: Yes we are.
Dude: Oh. I thought you were a restaurant.
Sam: No, sir, you have a wrong number.
Dude: Do you know the restaurant?
Sam: Like...a specific restaurant?
Dude: The restaurant I want to call.
Sam: I...don't know...what restaurant you want to call.
Dude: But is it like, close to you?
Sam: I don't know what restaurant you want to find. What kind is it?
Dude: Do you have any close to you?
Sam: We're located in downtown Chicago. We have many nearby restaurants.

AND THEN, I CAN'T BELIEVE I SAID THIS:

Sam: Would you like me to recommend one to you?
Dude: No, I need the certain restaurant.
Sam: And you don't know the name?
Dude: No, that was why I was asking you.
Sam: I'm afraid I can't help.
Dude: *huffy* Apparently not! *hangs up*

FOR REAL, DUDE ON THE TELEPHONE?

A foie gras replacement for New Year's.

Every single person in France just shuddered in horror, and none of them know why.

FYI: peanut butter is not the same as foie gras, even pate de foie gras, in texture or flavour. Wine is not the same in texture or flavour as grape jam. You cannot pair either as if the other were a substitute. Also, wine is acidic and will give you peanut butter burps all night.

Something that will not make you shudder in horror OR give you peanut butter burps all night is misswinterhill's Gift Drabbles, Ficlets, And Scenes. She wrote me one and I love it to tiny pieces; I was going to link to this earlier but it got lost in the holiday shuffle till now. THANK YOU, JENNY!

I should be in bed, but I finished work on a project this evening (well, "finished" -- lots of work left to do, but the thing hangs together well enough) and I finally got the energy up to sort through some music and pick out a new title for my journal. I settled on a song I think I've used before, but it's just such a damn good song.

So, new title, new name, new lyrics in the header; all three come from Leave The Light On, by Chris Smither, who you can see performing it here:



He's a hell of a songsmith and musician, and you should check out his website if you're into the music.

Sometimes I think about changing my journal design or my default icon, but I've had them for six years and I'm a little set in my ways. Clearly the Octogenarian Lawyer colour scheme is working for me.

So, I found a list of the 50 Worst Songs Of The 00s. The article, about why the Counting Crows cover of Big Yellow Taxi is the worst song in the last ten years, is just the kind of curmudgeonly reading I like. Though in one or two places I went "whoa there, dial it back a little". And then I decided...yes. A MEME.

Bold the ones you're heard or heard of.

I'm not sure if I should be proud or dismayed at how few I know.

( The Fifty Worst Songs Of The 00s )

I have for you, this morning...a foodie story.

For reasons I can't go into just yet, but will in January, I had to invent a kosher bagel shop in downtown Chicago, with assistance by the inestimably knowledgable spiderine. I think the idea is actually pretty brilliant: the shop is run like any corner-sandwich-shop chain, so there's no need to worry about kosher flatware and cutlery, because it's all paper-wrapped, plastic forks, et cetera. The breakout concept is that there's one kosher kitchen where the bagels and kosher dishes are made, and anything requiring further non-kosher prep is passed through to a second, smaller kitchen, where sandwich fixings or whatnot are kept. So you could concievably get a bagel with your favourite kosher fixins, and your friend could get a ham-and-swiss bagelwich, from the same place.

As an aside, I think this is a workable setup and would do well in downtown Chicago, where there's basically nothing between fast food and four-star and the options for Jews who keep kosher are extremely limited (by which I mean "nonexistent"). If I knew anything about the restaurant biz and more about kosher law, I would be working on a grant proposal right now.

Anyway, as a joke I said that Samek's Kosher Bagelry would serve a dish called the Blasphemy Special, which would be a crabcake topped with crumbled pork sausage, smothered in cheddar cheese and served on a bagel.

juniper200, who is wise in these things, pointed out that a sausage crabcake is a seizure of deliciousness waiting to happen.

The problems, as we worked out, are manifold, however -- do you cook the sausage and then mix it into the crab-cake before frying? It would probably bind better if you didn't, but sausage doesn't cook as fast as crab, and the balance would have to be precarious or one flavour would overwhelm the other. I decided to do some Research On The Internet to see if there was already a recipe out there (hint: there's not, or if there is Google knows it not). Instead of that, however, I stumbled across the following Google entry:

SASSAFRAS CREOLE & SEAFOOD RESTAURANT APPETIZERS
FILE' GUMBO Our famous seafood and sausage gumbo lightly battered & deep fried. Served with our jazze' sauce.

I was very excited by this, but I opened it to discover that it was actually two recipes, conflated by a fortuitous formatting error -- File Gumbo, a seafood and sausage gumbo, and Fried Crab Cakes, lightly battered and deep fried.

Undeterred, Junie and I came up with duelling proposals for fried gumbo, both of which I think would be equally delicious.

Junie is of the opinion that it ought to be a fritter, rather like Fried Coke is -- chunks of gumbo meat and veg, suspended in a savoury batter and fried. She thinks she could rule the Louisiana State Fair with this, and I pretty much agree.

I, on the other hand, am aiming for something a little more deconstructed, a little more Minnesota State Fair if you will: a kebab stick of gumbo meat, battered and fried, served with a dipping sauce of spicy roux gravy.

This is the kind of thing that happens when I don't eat breakfast.

In continuing news of the HILARIOUS TRUCK BREAK-IN...we found out that there was a camera in the suitcase of dirty laundry, namely my camera.

My parents had my camera, sans batteries and memory card, because when I tripped and fell in the snow last Tuesday (uhhh, yeah, so btw that happened) my laptop smacked my camera in my ill-packed messenger bag, and that broke the camera's LCD screen.

So basically, the people who broke into my family's truck got a suitcase (with a broken zip) full of my parents' dirty underwear and socks, several bottles of OTC vitamins, and a broken digital camera that will probably cost more to fix than it did to buy.

Which I kind of feel is revenge enough, but I'm just waiting to hear that they got caught. That will be the icing on their cake of robber fail.

It's the kind of day where that could happen, too. I woke up on time, the train pulled up right as I hit the platform, I got to work early, and everything since then has been going almost suspiciously smoothly. I decided some time ago that all this "don't tempt the gods with good fortune" stuff was crap, and instead decided to show gratitude for my blessings by announcing them, so there you have it:

TODAY HAS BEEN AWESOME SO FAR, AND I AM GRATEFUL FOR THAT.

OMG LOL THEY STOLE MY BROKEN-ASS CAMERA AND A BUNCH OF SMELLY PANTS.

THE MAGIC IT GUY FIXED MY COMPUTER. I have my flashdrive back!

Also, my parents thought their cameras -- a flip film camera and two digital still cameras -- had been stolen along with the bag. So I fretted all morning and they were Very Sad.

Then Mum found all three in her purse.

This just went from a Terrible Monday to an Only Marginally Awful Monday!