i feel pretty
Hey LJ,
It seems to me like my friends use LJ less and less these days. It also seems like everyone is slightly busier than they used to be. While these two things are probably related, and while Facebook is much better for small micro-thoughts, there are only certain things that I feel comfortable broadcasting to my LJ friends, and this post contains some of those.
First off, how are you?
Work
My job search ended about a month ago when Time Warner Cable offered me work as a tech support/customer service phone guy. Of all of the various techy jobs that I applied for, Time Warner Cable were the only ones to call me back with the offer of an interview. As odd as it was, the entire process from interview to offer to drug test took only about five days. I had a job before I knew it. It's not a job that utilizes my technical skills very much, but it seems like something that I can be good at, especially considering that I have such good people skills. I know, you don't have to say it, I am too modest, aren't I?
Right now I'm in training, and it will last for another four weeks. It seems like a long time to spend learning how to do my job, but evidently I'll be wearing quite a few hats once they throw me onto the field of battle. So far, it seems like I'm at or near the top of my class. It gets boring sitting around for 20 minutes waiting for the others to finish our assignments. I guess all my programming/ drumline training was good for something, after all.
I had my complimentary cable installed last week, and I've been playing with it for a while. There are so many damn channels with digital cable; I really can't decide what to watch. I've used my DVR to record some eps of Mythbusters and a few things from Comedy Central. What do people with cable actually watch? What shows might I be interested in? Help me, LJ-wan-Kenobi, you're my only hope.
So far, I feel fairly good about this job. Some of the things that I'm being trained to do seem strange and unnecessary, but the instructors have been doing a great job of explaining the rationale behind the things I'm learning. We'll see how I feel once I actually get onto the floor. It's only been two weeks, after all.
Training Class
My class is fairly large, and a few evident personalities have emerged after two weeks time. First, we have the overzealous goody-two-shoes type. This guy loves to reminisce about the places he's worked in the past, and he loves to ask irrelevant or complicated questions. Every other comments out of his mouth seems to be "Well, when I was at _____, we did it this way." "When I was at _____ we fought dragons for our customers. Does Time Warner Cable have a dragon fighting division, too?" "What happens if there's ever a terrorist attack near one of our pieces of equipment? Can they subpoena our wallets?" etc, etc.
He's getting on everyone's nerves, including mine. I guess he must be eager to prove himself or look good, but I think it's backfiring. Some of us took a tally one day in class, and this guy succeeded in naming his previous employers over 20 times and asking between 118 and 125 questions (depending on whose count you believe), which averages to approximately one question every 4 minutes, not counting the time spent listening to our instructors, doing assignments, etc. He seems to have toned it down recently; I think our instructors started giving him the stink eye.
After him, we have the gamer mom whose long distance boyfriend moved to Austin recently from a state far, far away. She's nice enough, although it took a long time before she was willing to even talk with me. I can certainly understand not wanting to mix one's personal and work life (more on that in a bit), but it was a little while before there was anything more than a "hi" between us. She's a huge nerd, and has an MMO app on her iPhone. Reading Texts From Last Night on that thing has gotten a few of us through more boring spells than I can count.
Lastly, we have the two people who I have jokingly dubbed "the couple". Being in class with them makes me feel like I'm back in middle school because they literally had the note passing thing happening. I guess they want to keep their illicit affair secret, but they aren't doing too good a job of it. They aren't officially dating yet, but it surprised me how quickly they sort of got together.
In addition, they both seem to think I'm really funny, and I think the girl is flirting with me. It's one thing when my friends flirt with me. It's something that I'm used to. I'm not used to someone that I don't really know very well showing interest in me. It's rarely ever happened; usually people only seem interested in me the more I get to know them. Or maybe I'm oblivious. Either way, I'm not entirely sure how to handle myself. The subject of polyamory hasn't come up (and is not likely to, at least for a while; more below), but even if it did come up, I still don't think I would feel comfortable dating someone who I would see every day at work. It seems like a very, very bad idea to me.
Also, something odd happened a few days ago with her. We were chatting about our weekend plans, and among my prattling on, I uttered, "I'm going to dinner with a social group this Thursday," to which she replied, "Oh, really? Which social group?" I didn't know how to respond and basically said, "Just a group of friends." My instincts tell me that she's pretty socially open minded, and that the idea of polyamory wouldn't outright offend her, but I certainly don't trust her enough at this point to broach that topic. What would you do if someone at you work who seemed pretty cool probed about the poly group?
Parties and the Like
kulilinei and knighthorse's Alien Rodeo Halloween party was a few weeks ago. It was sexy, fun, and laid back, and I saw a lot of creative costumes. fractallia was dressed as a sexy green and purple alien using a sparkly top that we found at a thrift store, and I was a mad scientist covered in blue and green alien blood. There was a badass jello alien baby that actually had two layers of organs: Its skin, and below that, the internals, including a bright red brain. I also got to see oracle_tx's new look, and I love it.
There was also a gentleman there who had a bitchin' tattoo. It covered his entire back, as well as his butt, and he exposed it all for us. Oddly enough, he was the only person who got somewhat naked at the party, and I don't even think he is part of our sex-positive social group. The tattoo was an amazing "angels in heaven" scene that spanned his entire backside, and looked magnificent despite being unfinished. After all, I think tattoos of that size and scope can sometimes take years to complete.
triplemare's J-Horror Halloween party came next. It was pretty awesome, and just seemed like porch time with costumes. I spent most of my time wandering around talking to various drunk people. I'm not really sure why, but I was rather tired that night, so eventually I just slumped down and chilled out in the living room with a bunch of sexy people.
I had a great time this Halloween. Earlier in the day, I went to wesbante and feetwilltravel's place to hang out while they handed out candy. It got boring after a while, so they eventually raided their pantry and started giving out things they had just sitting around, like cans of tuna and Indian food spice mixes. After that lost its charm, they started offering to buy good candy from trick-or-treaters for a quarter. I thought it was damn funny, especially considering wesbante's incredibly laid back voice.
I guess if you do something two times in a row it's close to becoming a tradition. After hanging out with wesbante, feetwilltravel and little_bird27, I met fractallia, interactiveleaf and throm downtown for the costume promenade and munchies at Casino El Camino, or whatever the restaurant is called. It was about what I expected, although at one point, the crowds were so thick that I wasn't able to move through them. Otherwise, it was a great night. fractallia and I went as kitty samurai in our red and blue kimonos, and we both looked as sexy as last year :)
The first two poly dinners this month were awesome. Period. I love you guys.
shadow_nite2 and spottedvasa Are Leaving!
fractallia and I met a small group of people at Buca di Beppo for dinner this past Wednesday. They put us in the Pope Room, which is filled with photographs of the man himself, as well as a pope chair and some cool little Vatican wall hangings. The food was great, but in the middle of the table's lazy susan, they had a bust of one of the popes with this stern look on his face. It was sort of disturbing to look at.
Later that weekend, we finally had shadow_nite2 and spottedvasa's going away bash. There isn't terribly much to say about it. I got to play with some sexy people, and I got to cuddle with more sexy people and generally feel sexy. It was more downtempo compared to some of rainking1's other bashes, but that is okay; it felt very appropriate. At more than one point, I had a sexy woman laying on me, and that is alright :)
I helped them load their truck this past Sunday. It was pretty cool; as the morning went on, more and more people started arriving until eventually, we had way too many hands for the tasks to be done. degreeabsolute showed us some pretty badass British gameshows called Crystal Maze (hosted by Riff Raff from Rocky Horror), and Interceptor, which has a concept that I absolutely love. Anyway, the packing went well and I was home by 3. I'm going to miss you guys.
Random Thoughts
Things bother me sometimes, but I don't often talk about them until after I feel somewhat better about them. A while ago, I was actually feeling kind of lonely. It seemed like the poly group was becoming splintered; either from lack of interest or just busier lives, it seemed like we weren't hanging out as much. The party this past weekend made me feel much, much better about that.
Sometimes I get headaches, but when I get them they aren't usually sharp headaches. I got a sharp headache a few days ago, and caffeine seems to help with it. Noted.
Finish this set of colors: RED BLUE _____ _____.
Random Videos
I thought these were awesome, funny, etc.
Billy Mays Auto-Tune Ballad ft. Scatman John
Maybe I'm late to the party with these. I particularly like this one.
This and this are awesome. Probably.
Tehe. 1:43 is the best.
It seems to me like my friends use LJ less and less these days. It also seems like everyone is slightly busier than they used to be. While these two things are probably related, and while Facebook is much better for small micro-thoughts, there are only certain things that I feel comfortable broadcasting to my LJ friends, and this post contains some of those.
First off, how are you?
Work
My job search ended about a month ago when Time Warner Cable offered me work as a tech support/customer service phone guy. Of all of the various techy jobs that I applied for, Time Warner Cable were the only ones to call me back with the offer of an interview. As odd as it was, the entire process from interview to offer to drug test took only about five days. I had a job before I knew it. It's not a job that utilizes my technical skills very much, but it seems like something that I can be good at, especially considering that I have such good people skills. I know, you don't have to say it, I am too modest, aren't I?
Right now I'm in training, and it will last for another four weeks. It seems like a long time to spend learning how to do my job, but evidently I'll be wearing quite a few hats once they throw me onto the field of battle. So far, it seems like I'm at or near the top of my class. It gets boring sitting around for 20 minutes waiting for the others to finish our assignments. I guess all my programming/ drumline training was good for something, after all.
I had my complimentary cable installed last week, and I've been playing with it for a while. There are so many damn channels with digital cable; I really can't decide what to watch. I've used my DVR to record some eps of Mythbusters and a few things from Comedy Central. What do people with cable actually watch? What shows might I be interested in? Help me, LJ-wan-Kenobi, you're my only hope.
So far, I feel fairly good about this job. Some of the things that I'm being trained to do seem strange and unnecessary, but the instructors have been doing a great job of explaining the rationale behind the things I'm learning. We'll see how I feel once I actually get onto the floor. It's only been two weeks, after all.
Training Class
My class is fairly large, and a few evident personalities have emerged after two weeks time. First, we have the overzealous goody-two-shoes type. This guy loves to reminisce about the places he's worked in the past, and he loves to ask irrelevant or complicated questions. Every other comments out of his mouth seems to be "Well, when I was at _____, we did it this way." "When I was at _____ we fought dragons for our customers. Does Time Warner Cable have a dragon fighting division, too?" "What happens if there's ever a terrorist attack near one of our pieces of equipment? Can they subpoena our wallets?" etc, etc.
He's getting on everyone's nerves, including mine. I guess he must be eager to prove himself or look good, but I think it's backfiring. Some of us took a tally one day in class, and this guy succeeded in naming his previous employers over 20 times and asking between 118 and 125 questions (depending on whose count you believe), which averages to approximately one question every 4 minutes, not counting the time spent listening to our instructors, doing assignments, etc. He seems to have toned it down recently; I think our instructors started giving him the stink eye.
After him, we have the gamer mom whose long distance boyfriend moved to Austin recently from a state far, far away. She's nice enough, although it took a long time before she was willing to even talk with me. I can certainly understand not wanting to mix one's personal and work life (more on that in a bit), but it was a little while before there was anything more than a "hi" between us. She's a huge nerd, and has an MMO app on her iPhone. Reading Texts From Last Night on that thing has gotten a few of us through more boring spells than I can count.
Lastly, we have the two people who I have jokingly dubbed "the couple". Being in class with them makes me feel like I'm back in middle school because they literally had the note passing thing happening. I guess they want to keep their illicit affair secret, but they aren't doing too good a job of it. They aren't officially dating yet, but it surprised me how quickly they sort of got together.
In addition, they both seem to think I'm really funny, and I think the girl is flirting with me. It's one thing when my friends flirt with me. It's something that I'm used to. I'm not used to someone that I don't really know very well showing interest in me. It's rarely ever happened; usually people only seem interested in me the more I get to know them. Or maybe I'm oblivious. Either way, I'm not entirely sure how to handle myself. The subject of polyamory hasn't come up (and is not likely to, at least for a while; more below), but even if it did come up, I still don't think I would feel comfortable dating someone who I would see every day at work. It seems like a very, very bad idea to me.
Also, something odd happened a few days ago with her. We were chatting about our weekend plans, and among my prattling on, I uttered, "I'm going to dinner with a social group this Thursday," to which she replied, "Oh, really? Which social group?" I didn't know how to respond and basically said, "Just a group of friends." My instincts tell me that she's pretty socially open minded, and that the idea of polyamory wouldn't outright offend her, but I certainly don't trust her enough at this point to broach that topic. What would you do if someone at you work who seemed pretty cool probed about the poly group?
Parties and the Like
kulilinei and knighthorse's Alien Rodeo Halloween party was a few weeks ago. It was sexy, fun, and laid back, and I saw a lot of creative costumes. fractallia was dressed as a sexy green and purple alien using a sparkly top that we found at a thrift store, and I was a mad scientist covered in blue and green alien blood. There was a badass jello alien baby that actually had two layers of organs: Its skin, and below that, the internals, including a bright red brain. I also got to see oracle_tx's new look, and I love it.
There was also a gentleman there who had a bitchin' tattoo. It covered his entire back, as well as his butt, and he exposed it all for us. Oddly enough, he was the only person who got somewhat naked at the party, and I don't even think he is part of our sex-positive social group. The tattoo was an amazing "angels in heaven" scene that spanned his entire backside, and looked magnificent despite being unfinished. After all, I think tattoos of that size and scope can sometimes take years to complete.
triplemare's J-Horror Halloween party came next. It was pretty awesome, and just seemed like porch time with costumes. I spent most of my time wandering around talking to various drunk people. I'm not really sure why, but I was rather tired that night, so eventually I just slumped down and chilled out in the living room with a bunch of sexy people.
I had a great time this Halloween. Earlier in the day, I went to wesbante and feetwilltravel's place to hang out while they handed out candy. It got boring after a while, so they eventually raided their pantry and started giving out things they had just sitting around, like cans of tuna and Indian food spice mixes. After that lost its charm, they started offering to buy good candy from trick-or-treaters for a quarter. I thought it was damn funny, especially considering wesbante's incredibly laid back voice.
I guess if you do something two times in a row it's close to becoming a tradition. After hanging out with wesbante, feetwilltravel and little_bird27, I met fractallia, interactiveleaf and throm downtown for the costume promenade and munchies at Casino El Camino, or whatever the restaurant is called. It was about what I expected, although at one point, the crowds were so thick that I wasn't able to move through them. Otherwise, it was a great night. fractallia and I went as kitty samurai in our red and blue kimonos, and we both looked as sexy as last year :)
The first two poly dinners this month were awesome. Period. I love you guys.
shadow_nite2 and spottedvasa Are Leaving!
fractallia and I met a small group of people at Buca di Beppo for dinner this past Wednesday. They put us in the Pope Room, which is filled with photographs of the man himself, as well as a pope chair and some cool little Vatican wall hangings. The food was great, but in the middle of the table's lazy susan, they had a bust of one of the popes with this stern look on his face. It was sort of disturbing to look at.
Later that weekend, we finally had shadow_nite2 and spottedvasa's going away bash. There isn't terribly much to say about it. I got to play with some sexy people, and I got to cuddle with more sexy people and generally feel sexy. It was more downtempo compared to some of rainking1's other bashes, but that is okay; it felt very appropriate. At more than one point, I had a sexy woman laying on me, and that is alright :)
I helped them load their truck this past Sunday. It was pretty cool; as the morning went on, more and more people started arriving until eventually, we had way too many hands for the tasks to be done. degreeabsolute showed us some pretty badass British gameshows called Crystal Maze (hosted by Riff Raff from Rocky Horror), and Interceptor, which has a concept that I absolutely love. Anyway, the packing went well and I was home by 3. I'm going to miss you guys.
Random Thoughts
Things bother me sometimes, but I don't often talk about them until after I feel somewhat better about them. A while ago, I was actually feeling kind of lonely. It seemed like the poly group was becoming splintered; either from lack of interest or just busier lives, it seemed like we weren't hanging out as much. The party this past weekend made me feel much, much better about that.
Sometimes I get headaches, but when I get them they aren't usually sharp headaches. I got a sharp headache a few days ago, and caffeine seems to help with it. Noted.
Finish this set of colors: RED BLUE _____ _____.
Random Videos
I thought these were awesome, funny, etc.
Billy Mays Auto-Tune Ballad ft. Scatman John
Maybe I'm late to the party with these. I particularly like this one.
This and this are awesome. Probably.
Tehe. 1:43 is the best.