Mickey One – Best movie I’ve ever seen Warren Beatty in (Including Bonnie and Clyde). Great Soundtrack, too. Lots of fun symbolism, and I really like the junk man.

Why didn’t I know about this movie until today? Most excellent! On the local cable access channel. If I had half a brain, I’d have taped it, but who knew it’d be so good? the VHS is out of print at the moment. It could certainly stand to be dropped onto DVD. It looks like AMC shows it now and then. I’ll sic my spiders on it, and make a point of taping it next go-’round.

Holy cow… it’s after midnight! This day has just gone by like a blink. A little Zucker on the tube while I read before bed will end the day nicely.

Until later, dear journal.

I never noticed before, but each major chattie has it’s own color. Yellow aim, green icq, blue msn, red yahoo. The new version of trillian has little colored circles rather than logos for each active. Pretty neat to me, for some reason. My connection to all of them comes on like a little drag-racer pole position light up… “Prepare to qualify”.

Jerry Falwell — yes, he’s flapping his yap again — has concluded from “reading Muslim and non-Muslim writers” that Muhammad was a terrorist. Which is kind of interesting, because from reading interviews with Jerry Falwell a lot of people have concluded that Jesus was a redneck, right-wing bigot. Holy men: Great ideas, bad PR representation. Why do the dumbasses seem to often get the loudest voices?

Slow day for the homepage…

PSA

Those of you who own Internet domain names, or are just computer geeks, have undoubtedly heard the VeriSign horror stories. Deceptive business practices, locking out domains, and the subsequent investigation into their operations.

You can transfer to get far cheaper, more reputable and reliable service at GoDaddy or Dotster. ~$8 a year, as opposed to Verisign’s ~$23 yearly fee.. And they’re not bastards.

1/3 the price, and not the creeps that verisign seem to be, in my opinion…(as far as I know, anyhow)

Now, back to the party.

Ah, back, and ready for the weekend.

Groceries, including lots of goodies for Newt and comfort food for me.

New mask, more comfortable than the old mask.. price was reasonable, $84. I’ll submit the bill to my insurance company (har-dee-har- har) and see if I can get any compensation for it. Even if I don’t, it’s well worth it.

Playing paper wad fetch with the birthday boy… he loves his presents. Paper wads galore, and two fresh cardboard crates for him to play in, and gnaw on. He likes the stinky tuna treats, too. a happy boy indeed… he’s also quite digging the Publix bags. Where does he get all of his energy?

My CPAP mask finally broke for good last night, right as I put it on to go to bed. There wasn’t anything I could do about it, so I tucked in and went without. This morning, I have the good ol’ swollen uvula, but it’s not as bad as it might be, because I made a point of sleeping mostly on my side.

I need to see if Sur-Med is open today, and swing by to pick up a replacement…not in the mood to aggravate the situation any more.

In better news-

*Happy 3rd Birthday, Newt!*

The Birthday Boy!!

I love my little orange boy!

my MSN piccies are back! Only took a week or two… I wonder what the die-lemma was?

Well, off to get my mask, and a spare in case it happens again. Then to return and play Newtie-party games. Until later, dear journal!

Class 5 free-floating vapor.. a real nasty one too…

why does this auction for hair dye have a picture of a lonesome waffle in winter?

wOoooooOOOOoooFriday 5 –

1. What size shoe do you wear? 15… Don’t call me yeti fer nothin’.

2. How many pairs of shoes do you own? 3, four if you count my Godzilla slippers

3. What type of shoes do you prefer? off, and in my closet. If I must, sandals. Hiking boots if doing anything challenging.

4. Describe your favorite pair of shoes. My brown birks. Worn to death, and I’ve cherished every step in ’em.

5. What’s the most you have ever spent on a pair of shoes? $250ish… Custom Shoes for giant-feet can be a pain when getting dressy stuff.

Random Scotto factoid… I like the old cartoon cliché of capturing mischievous ghosts with vacuum cleaners.

There’s more to Florida tourist traps other than Walt Disney World, Busch Gardens, and Sea World… there’s a boatload of lost and little known second-string tourist attractions. Man… I’m about thirty years too late for pirates world., right around the corner from me… along with Pioneer City.

The locations of the shootings yesterday in Montgomery County. Yikes.

On that note, I think it’s time for a refreshing shower, some nag champa, and a nice book…. Fuzzy Newt-nuzzles, and my sweetheart in my heart as I read to her.

Nighters, if I don’t see you beforehand, dear journal.

p.s. – New Semagic. – (thanks for the clue-in, annalytical!)

I dreamt that I fought off two dogs chasing me on my bike to work. I did this by getting off of my bike, and using it lion-tamer style to keep them at bay while I tied ropes around them. I have no idea where the ropes came from.

From Matrix-

So a gasoline tanker falls off an elevated ramp in Miami and lands by the women’s jail, bursting into very big flames, but the weirder part is that firefighters have to dodge bullets while they fight the fire because it engulfed a bunch of jail guards’ cars that contained ammunition. Eeek.

Straight dope about Asian BO (or lack thereof) and Spicy food making you sweat.

Long day at work.

Long day at work.

Strike that… long week.

I welcome tomorrow with open arms. Payday, Gateway to the weekend… possibly some good quality time with my sweetheart. I’ve been in a mild funk this mid-week…everyone’s been stressed and tech’s been poopy. I think we’re over the bulk of it, though. worked late tonight, and got some things lined up properly, and minimal work for me tomorrow…so I can get back to my regularly scheduled programming. Newton turns 3 on Saturday. He’s still a kitten… a doofus, and playful.

Going to have a little spot of supper, and then hit the sack. Nighters, dear journal.

Well, it looks like the talk had at least the minor effect of her timely arrival at work this morning. The alternating demeanor of plastic and frosty still remains, though. I suspect that those are the only styles of behavior that she has ingrained into a daily routine… so it may take a little while longer to rework those into something a little more tolerable.

Quote of the day: “I’ve never had so many people conspire to get me fired!” – The Finn

If I worked someplace, and knew that the majority of the staff (from the forklift driver to fellow directors,) couldn’t stand me and wanted me out to the point that there was a letter writing campaign against me, I’d be seeking employment elsewhere. Heck, who wants to work where they’re not wanted?

Just got the flipside of the meeting from Kev. According to him, the entire board caught a ration of turd for allowing the maturity level to drop from high school level to that of about fifth grade. Specific problems mention rumormongering, cliquishness, and jumping the regular chain of command. The incident of Sappho’s ankle apparently never came up, though many complaints came in to Jim’s office via inappropriate venues instead of via the HR department. It seems that Jim was upset because he shouldn’t be hearing these things… that’s a job for his underlings to handle… not to be landing in his personal email, or his personal assistant’s.

A general meeting is being held today, to inform us all as a group to reset our “action track” and restart movement up the chain of command again. If a problem is had with a coworker, then begin again at the immediate supervisor, and work your way up from there.

It sounds as if Jim’s so annoyed right now that he’s willing to replace the board with a single general manager. That’s a good idea, but I suspect Jim would pick an unacceptable person for the job. (He’s notorious bringing family members to the table, whether they have valuable skills or not.

I don’t see the employees ceasing complaint about the Finn… and I don’t see the Finn quitting anytime soon of her own volition. I suspect that she’d rather take the whole board down with her.

This is the last I’m going to write about her and work drama, dear journal, unless something really amazing or unsettling turns up. I’m tired of the subject.

Home connection to the Internet is sporadic… it’s odd, watching my chat-connections pop up and then fall down on trillian for aim, icq, msn, and yahoo. Must be something wacky going on with my service.

I can get to some websites, but not others. (Google is sometimes allowing me to search, sometimes it’s forbidden.)

Update – it seeps to have become stable, but looking at this morning’s connection logs shows that it took quite a while to do so.

The name game

Storing on my alternate host account. I’ll probably relocate ’em when msn is repaired. Scribbles form the last couple of days. Definite themes appear.

Tiny, So I didn’t bother with an lj-cut. If it’s too much, feel free to tell me.

Misc drawings from today…
Catfish... I don't know why he popped into my head. I started doodling, and there he was.

Scotto-pics
Me and Newt...I'm going back to the idea of hand drawn icons for one of my home page layoutsAnd then, I started thinking about my sweetheart... Me waiting for the train on Sunday 9/30... before I got to talk with my sweetie, I was getting impatient.

Travel
The train arrived about five minutes late... not bad, all toldThe bus ride to work this morning was droning... white noise started to lull me to dream.

Halloween!
Halloween mood returns.... it's a dreaded were-yuppie!It's a guh-guh-guh-ghoooost!

Sakes… Newtie is talkative tonight… I wonder what’s got him going?

Fragmentary, trying to get all info out

Though Kev told me that Jim (big boss) just brought some projects by for implementation, deeper scuttlebutt is that the owner came by this morning to address the ongoing political issue of Finn vs. *Everyone Else* (Sans Kev and possibly Santie.) When he came by today, he had a large stack of letters and e-mails in his possession, all citing the following problems (and more) with her behavior:

Socially unacceptable outbursts and generally hostile / childish attitude

Ex.- Needlessly delaying folks by stalling appointments made well in advance, ignoring or rerouting phone messages so that she doesn’t have to deal with the employee / vendor / etc.

Ex. – Spreading false rumors about Ken’s drinking in order to boost herself and to put him in a bad light

Ex. – Being the direct reason for Erica’s departure, after five years of excellent service

Ex. – Playing other directors against one another, including, but not limited to outright lies claiming that her hands were tied waiting for a response to messages (that were never sent).

Ex. – Refusal to perform her duties for employees that she’s not friendly with

Ex. – Expressing outrage that someone would move past her on the chain of command when they are dissatisfied with her “solutions” to problems. (Her solutions are generally from the school of “ignore it, and it’ll go away eventually”)

Ex. – An unwillingness to sit in the same room with someone she dislikes in order to learn how accounting and timesheets work. Instead, she prefers to waste four hours of the teacher’s time by making the teacher school the same subject matter twice.

Inflammatory and derogatory remarks made about coworkers in front of other coworkers, clients, and vendors

Slow (if any) response to the needs of her department

Constantly unavailable to provide services and fulfill duties of her job (Very poor attendance / Closed Door Policy / Long Lunch / etc)

Forging her timesheet to hide said poor attendance

Ex. – Asked multiple times to adjust information about insurance , w-2 forms, HRS, garnished wages, vacation and sick pay. Her lack of speed resulted in accounting write checks to people needlessly having monies withheld. (Many of these employees can’t spare a day’s pay per paycheck, living hand to mouth.)

There were interviews with many employees that didn’t send mail, and Jim’s information was confirmed.

Island boy told him that he feels Finn doesn’t know quite what she’s doing, and is incapable of giving even as much as a phone number for our insurance company to follow up on information he asked for weeks ago and never got from her.

Many mail shop employees confirmed the temper tantrums and lack of availability when they needed to discuss HR-related problems.

Over a dozen letters and e-mails were referred to. some we have no idea about the origin

Jim had her in the conference room alone for the better part of an hour, informing her that her performance wasn’t up to snuff.

I came in at noon, and missed being interviewed. I do have what I plan on saying ready, when the second wave hits. (I’m guessing that today was a verbal warning, next time will be written, and then firing, if things don’t change.) I feel that the only possible reason that she survived even the first round is that possibly Kevin went to bat for her. If it comes down to the board having to decide her survival, I see one vote for her to stay (Kev), two votes go (Ken and Chupa), and one undecided/ don’t care (Santie)

Apparently the whole board got a talking to for letting things get this far out of control.

We’ll see where this takes us.

Off to work!

Wish me network luck, dear journal. I hope that folks can leave at a reasonable hour tonight, and that the big cheese offers some good advice & solutions on his visit today.

I’ve got my sweetie in my heart, Newt-fur on my shirt, and a spring in my step. Hope the day keeps so cheery. 🙂

Welcome to my wall scrawls.