grrgoyl

I've got a whole bunch of little nothings I feel like writing about, so here they are in handy bullet form:

Firstly, for anyone who tried to watch my Heelys video from my last post, don't bother. I was forced to take it down when one of Tery's employees found it and spitefully showed it to the chief medical director, who then ripped yours truly a new one. Yes, these fat lazy people who see nothing wrong with spending their day sitting on their fat asses, stuffing their fat faces and dishing about Twilight (trust me, more later), apparently begrudge me my pathetic little extreme sports practice that took up all of fifteen minutes, the length of the average smoke break. We know this is how they spend their days because they don't have the decency to pretend to be doing anything else when Tery comes downstairs.

There also might have been a safety issue, except how stupid would I have to be to try to sue the hospital if I Heely hurt myself? I don't think anyone would believe it was a work-related injury. So fuck you all, you useless fat asses. And believe me, this has done nothing to endear the suspicious party to Tery either.

DISCLAIMER: I have nothing against fat people in general, despite flinging the word about insultingly here. It's just these people in particular, who happen to be fat. And very lazy. And cause Tery huge amounts of stress and grief daily.

Speaking of bad attitudes, I've gone and developed one over my work situation. Tery has had to cut everyone's hours in a desperate attempt to get back under budget -- it's that or lay someone off, not that any of her crybaby employees are offering a smidgen of understanding even after being told that those were her only options. I personally gave up three hours out of my weekend shift, almost 19%. I didn't mind it at the time, but boy did I feel it in my paycheck. But it helped Tery, and it's only temporary, so fine.

Then I got the news they're similarly trying to cut back at the transcription job, and we would be paid 10% less for speech recognition jobs, which comprise 50% or more of my workload. Need to stay competitive in the market, blah blah blah. I'll bet Carol Siemen's head popped right off her shoulders when she read it.

Still, this too I could have dealt with until I discovered the rumor a few months ago about paying a differential for difficult ESL (English as second language) doctors remains an idea they're just toying with. My head popped right off my shoulders when I read that. So. I'm not wasting 15 minutes trying to decipher just one word. I'm not agonizing over a report slurred and mumbled through by a careless doctor. No, from now on I'll send them on to Quality Assurance riddled with blanks with a smile on my face, so I can pump out as many lines as possible and not worry so much about doing QA's job for them (hey, job security for QA, right?)

My sister thinks with this decision I'm finally reaching the attitude that most of my fellow MTs already share - certainly I'm sure Carol Siemen does. Fine. Here I am. Fuck you, transcription company. Of course, I probably won't get that 3-cents-an-hour raise I was hoping for next year.

Oh yeah, Twilight. I've only heard bad about the books, from very reliable sources. Barely a step above awful fanfiction, was the description I'd heard from several people. I took their word for it, but couldn't resist finding out for myself. I found the first book on Amazon with the "look inside" feature. Started out simple enough, teenage girl moving from Arizona to Washington with her mother. I read until the line, "I had said my goodbyes to the sun," which is paraphrased directly from the movie (and for all I remember the book) Interview with the Vampire. Really, Stephanie Meyers? As if the vampire genre wasn't already derivative enough.

Worse and worse, I apparently came this close to receiving a deluxe boxed set of the books for Christmas. Tery's f-boom (short for "fatty boombalatty") employees raved to her about how much I'd love it as a gift. Thank god she casually dropped a hint to test the waters first. Fuck you, f-booms. Fuck you, Twilight, and everyone forgetting that Robert Pattinson was Cedric in the previous hottest film franchise to come from a literary series.

Evidently Robert's first act as superstar was to fire his hair stylist.

WTF??

So what else am I into these days? For starters, I finally got to see Dr. Horrible's Sing-along Blog -- a bit late, I know, but I had to give it a chance to find a second life beyond iTunes, who wants six bucks for all three acts. Ummm, no.

I love Joss Whedon. Sure, he's a self-absorbed prick convinced of his own genius, but he's also occasionally a genius. And Dr. Horrible is no exception. It flounders in parts and the ending seems rather...abrupt. But the songs are irrepressibly catchy, Neil Patrick Harris is surprisingly talented (and sympathetic), and for such a brief production, Joss manages to incorporate his trademark zero tolerance of all characters sweet and lovable. The DVD is due out any second now, and is shooting straight to the top of my wishlist.

Facebook. I thought maybe it was cooler than I had first surmised. But now, after receiving an error message or a busy signal on my last five log-in attempts, I'm back to thinking it's pretty lame. Also the fact that there are hundreds of users claiming to be Alan Rickman, and what's the point of having a profile that no one can see until AFTER you've begged them to be your friend?

Lastly, through the magic of my f-list, I discovered this photo trickery site. If you click on the "Lomo" setting, you'll see an easy way to simulate my new favorite genre of photography, Lomo. Lomography was, as I understand it, inspired by Russian cameras that took blurry, over-saturated pictures. Originally rejected by photographers, the style gained a following and is now a recognized form of art. I fell in love with it and have been busy converting as many photos as I can, all for the better in my opinion. Would you agree?

Some vanity shots

I like this result, though they look more like a Russian couple on a farm than Mrs. Lovett and Mr. Todd

Tery's shot of an arch in Central Park looks like it belongs in a coffee table book

My favorite. Devil Boy Duncan looks even more unsettling with the added shadows. And the pie looks like an illustration from a 50's cookbook.