Sunday afternoon, I happened to notice Foster suddenly lifting his right hind leg trying to lick his paw while he was walking around in the backyard. I started towards him to take a look, but then seeing me coming, he ran right up to me and gave ma a paw with a big smile on his face. So I concluded that he might have stepped on a rock or something and didn’t think much about it.
But by Monday evening, I decided something was definitely wrong with his rear right paw and possibly also the left paw because he kept lifting his paws off the ground, mostly the right one but sometimes the left one as well. I tried to take a look, but he almost ripped my face off when I touched his paw. So without a second set of hands to hold him, all I could see was a little bit of his paw getting a little raw from him licking. I decided to take him to the vet on Wednesday if he didn’t get better.
Yesterday I dropped Foster off at the vet in the morning, and let me not digress and talk about the receptionist again this time cause it will just frustrate the shit out of me even more. Foster’s paws had been getting worse, not being able to play with Georgia and having trouble pooping since he has a hard time getting into the position to push since he keeps trying to lift his rear right paw off the ground. But I wasn’t worried too much because I thought it was some superficial wound like a little cut on his paw pad made worse by him licking.
The vet found out not only his rear paws, but all four of his paws have skin legions or ulcers that look as if he scraped them on a rough concrete surface. The rear left paw was in the worst condition. The vet thinks Foster has Lupus because not only there was no such occasion for Foster to have hurt his paws like that but it’s very uncommon for a dog to hurt ALL of his paws like that. He’s pretty sure it is lupus since he has seen enough cases like this even though the only way to make sure is to do a biopsy.
I am angry. I am tired. I am frustrated. I am afraid I’m about to crack.
For now, I came home with antibiotics and anti-inflammatory for the wounds. If his paws don’t get better after this round of antibiotics and anti-inflammatory, then we’ll go from there and treat it with steroids. In the mean time, I’m looking into natural remedies that would help with canine lupus, but it looks even the most holistically minded people seem to say the steroid is the way to go (from what I’ve found out in a very short period of time). If you have dealt with canine lupus or know anybody who has, please let me know. I would like to hear about the experience.
With schools back in session in full swing this week, the volume of traffic is also back to its usual horrendous level from a slight lull last couple of months. And with this traffic, the type of drivers who frustrate the living hell out of me are out and about in full swing as well. I’m talking about this one type of drivers who drive me absolutely batty with their inconsiderateness or obliviousness or callousness or spitefulness or simply just viciousness by blocking the flow of traffic – Those who drive in the leftmost lane leaving a mile of empty space in front and with a stretch of cars trailing behind them in utter frustration. When I’ve been driving 10mph slower than the speed limit on the leftmost lane for a few minutes because traffic is moving slow then look up to see all the way over there a mile ahead there is absolutely empty space spread across the highway, the access to which is blocked by a car in each lane driving leisurely at the exact same speed? Oh the things I want to do to those who create the slow-moving wall of cars on the highway!
I don’t know if you heard about the Montana No Speed Limit Safety Paradox:
The desired safety effect from posting speed limits was achieved by removing them.
This paradox came from the results of the study done by Montana DOT, which revealed some very interesting facts such as:
- The fatality rate in highway accidents decreased during the time there was no speed limit.
- More people used seat belts.
- Posted speed limits had either zero or negative effect on traffic safety.
Well, not so paradoxical to me. I think it’s because of those drivers I mentioned above. We all know fast moving vehicles on the left and slow moving vehicles on the right. With a speed limit, people drive as slow as they like on the leftmost lane, and think it’s their right, no matter how other people want to go past them. And I can just hear them say, hey, I’m driving already at a legal speed, you go around if YOU want, but I’m not fucking budging from my RIGHTFUL place. I have the right to drive in this lane! But withOUT a speed limit, these selfish people have to get out of the way since they don’t have the right to drive spitefully in the left lane. So with these these people out of the way and not blocking the flow of the traffic, less people try stupid reckless things with mounting frustration, tailgating, maneuvering to get in and out of lanes literally pushing cars off the lanes, trying to drive as fast as possible to close that gap and squeeze in, towards that promised wide open space a mile ahead of that moving wall. And then if and when they finally clear that wall, they take off dangerously fast to make up the lost time and to shake that frustration off and behind with that spiteful fuck. No wonder the fatality rate decreases and people drive at more leisurely paces that suit them under no speed limit.
I don’t care how fast you are driving. If you’re driving in the leftmost lane at the same exact speed or slower than the other lane(s), you not only create traffic behind you, but also increase fatality rate. People need to change lanes. People need to get on the highway or get off the highway. People need to merge. So a half of mile behind you, people have to drive 40mph on a highway because you are so fucking callous. Get the fuck out of the left lane if you are blocking the traffic flow for fuck’s sake.
One night I happened to look up and saw something under the eaves. Since it was dark, I couldn’t quite tell what it was, and I thought some disgusting looking nasty “creature” had taken up residence there. When I say “a nasty creature,” I don’t mean any extraterrestrial being or some creature from a science fiction movie or any such thing. I mean any creature that can be seen in nature that you would rarely see in a city like, say NYC. And I mean it in the nicest possible way.
So the next morning I tried to investigate, but the eaves being about 20 ft above ground, and the “creature” being not huge, I still couldn’t see what it was. A few days later, I zoomed in with my camera, and it revealed it wasn’t just a creature, it was a nest full of creatures with a big fat “S” at the end!
I tell you, I hate nature. I don’t get along with nature. I don’t know why nature wouldn’t just leave me alone. What have I ever done to it except, you know, a lot of things like using dish washing liquid, detergents, cleaning products, driving a car emitting harmful gas, using heating oil, etc… such small things… Negligible really… Sigh…
Anyway, I asked on plurk what to do about it. Some people told me they were yellow jackets, and some others told me they were wasps. I wiki’ed them, and yellow jacket is the common name for a type of wasp. Who knew? I thought yellow jackets were bees… or does it mean wasps are bees? Oh, who the fuck cares, I hate them. I want them gone!
The thing is this. I wanted a way to get rid of those creatures and the nest without using harmful chemical. (You see how considerate I am about nature and environment and shit? But does nature have any consideration for me? Why does nature has to do this to me, huh? I hate nature.) But to do that, I need to get a 20 ft stick, swat at it and haul ass. I know. Where the fuck am I gonna get a 20 ft stick? And if I have a 20 ft stick, where the fuck am I gonna haul ass to, assuming I CAN haul my big fat ass? Ugh. I hate nature.
Oh, and yeah, have I told you I hate nature?
For a couple of weeks or so, I’ve been experiencing <sarcasm> the pleasure </sarcasm> of acquainting myself with a new system monitoring software called Foglight. Being familiar with Patrol, a much more superior product than Foglight from a system administrator’s point a view, it’s depressing to play with Foglight. Hence, the following greetings between me and my boss the last time I met him:
Me: Hi.
Boss: Hey, how are you doing?
Me: Getting depressed.
Boss: Playing with Foglight?
Anyways. I was told I’m going into it with a wrong attitude because I was already completely turned off by Foglight the instant I saw the term “cartridge” being used as one of its architectural components. For all intents and purposes, their cartridges are equivalent to software modules. The term “module” is not good enough for them so they had to create a whole another definition for another word?
You know, that’s exactly the reason I didn’t like Starbucks when I walked in to Starbucks for the first time to get a coffee long long time ago. I asked for a medium coffee. And this guy who was taking my order had the audacity to say in a derisive tone, “We don’t have medium. It’s called, tall, grande and venti.” I stood there speechless, dumbfounded. Finally I answered, glaring at him, “I don’t give a shit what YOU call it. I want a MEDIUM coffee. In case you don’t know, it’s the size in the middle, between the smallest cup and largest cup you have.”
Believe it or not, I had to go through this again and again when Starbucks first came to NYC (after the third time I just stopped going there), and my friends used to complain about the same thing. What? Small, medium and large not good enough for them? Why do I have to learn a whole new vocabulary to order a fucking coffee? Arrogant fucking asses. Fortunately, I was told this practice of correcting the customers stopped pretty quickly.
I don’t know why using unconventional words for conventional things is supposed to appeal to the decision makers on things like this. I wonder if it appeals to majority of consumers. Am I in the minority? Do people really like this bullshit? Is it supposed to be cute?
And see if I give a rat’s teeny fucking little ass.
I don’t know if I’ve blogged about it before, but since IT moved from the headquarters to this building occupying just one floor, we don’t have cubicles. The desks are placed right next to each other, and there is no barrier between my space and the next guy’s space. Herein lies the problem.
There is this auditor who has been coming in and sitting at the empty desk next to mine for the last several weeks to audit our SOX compliance. Ever since I came back to work from my staycation, I’ve noticed that this guy has been expanding his space, which means he’s been encroaching upon my space.
I come to work in the morning, and his laptop case, not a portion of it but the WHOLE of it, is comfortably standing on the floor casually leaning against MY file cabinet of MY desk. His files are arranged on his desk and on about a foot of my desk. I don’t really care about the desk space because it’s the space I don’t get much use of, except that I don’t like him nonchalantly just claiming the space.
I have been just pushing his laptop case over to HIS side so that it leans on the file cabinet of HIS desk. Every single morning. And during the course of a day, it gradually crawls towards my side again. The thing is this. He doesn’t have to open his cabinet cause there is nothing in there! And I DO use my file cabinet. Why the fuck is he doing this?
Today, I came in and I just opened my cabinet without moving his laptop case because I knew he could see me. It fell over. He tried to catch it, but he couldn’t. It was lying on MY side right next to my chair. He turned back and kept on doing what he had been doing before WITHOUT picking it up and moving it. I guess he thought since I knocked it over, so I’d pick it up? Maybe?
Uh… like I give a fuck? So I went around doing my thing, pushing my chair out when I had to get up, which, incidentally, might have trampled on his laptop case more than once, and I “accidentally” kicked the laptop case numerous times, and strangely enough, I “somehow” had to get up and go away from my desk quite frequently this morning. Finally when I came back from the lunch, he had moved his laptop case completely under his desk, out of reach of my chair and my oh so pretty little feet.
Oh, I’m SOOOOO giddy with anticipation for tomorrow morning. I SOOOO wanna see where his laptop case would be when I come in. People in the office will have something to talk about for a few days if I see that case grace my cabinet again tomorrow morning.
After spending the better part of Tuesday in tears grieving the loss of 10%, the initial shock and indignation eventually wore off a bit. I calmed down at the end of the day and tried to come up with a plan to get through this and not lose the house. I decided that first, I had to talk to my boss at the client company to see if there is anything he or I could do even though I didn’t think he could do anything much, but that should be the first thing I should do anyway. Second, I would call my mortgage company to work out new terms for the loan. And last but not least I would have to figure out a way to reduce my expenses by several hundred dollars a month.
Since the only thing I could do at that time was to crunch numbers to save my monthly expenses, my brain got some unprecedented hard workout all evening while driving back home, taking the dogs out, holding Brandy, etc. At the end of the night, I came up with ways to reduce my expenses by $300 a month by 1) bringing lunch to work, 2) canceling internet connection at home, 3) limiting the dogs’ food variety to only fowls. I would have to come up with ways to reduce another $300 a month to remain at my current financial state of barely making it.
Having made some plans, I felt a little better and was even able to make some jokes when I talked with a couple of concerned friends over the phone. But sleep didn’t come easily at night. I woke up the next morning with an excruciating headache and feeling I had not slept at all. But I had hopes of some good results from talking to Countrywide, my mortgage company. But after very stressful and frustrating day I came home dejected and distraught.
My boss, as I thought, couldn’t do much understandably. Countrywide, on the other hand, can burn in hell. The stupid idiots that ever walked the earth seem to work at loan modification department, and they seem only to read from “guidelines” of some program after just glancing at my account. I don’t have patience enough, as some of you know, when talking to idiots. This is why my profession deals with computers, not people. I absolutely cannot deal with “talking to” to idiots and you can forget about “negotiating with” idiots.
Today I’ve been busy trying to see if I can find an agency who would negotiate this on my behalf, and at the same time, I’m talking to a mortgage broker to see if I can refinance. The reason I didn’t want to go with refinancing route was that I have piled up a lot of credit card debt resulting from last year’s multitudinous crises with my pets and I thought that it would be much harder. But no harm in looking into this. If anybody knows any reputable agency who can deal with Countrywide idiots on my behalf, please let me know.
The good news is I cried only once today. I’m tired. So very very tired.
End of this year is upon us and as a result, I’m extremely busy. Not because I have to build or upgrade servers or migrate or do an OS or software install or upgrade or anything of that sort because there has been a freeze in such activities since the end of last month. The upper management puts this kind of freeze at the end of each year because they don’t want any kind of hiccups resulting from such activities so that the year end business closing goes as smooth as possible.
Then why am I extremely busy, you might ask? Well, because people procrastinate and put off work as long as possible. For some reason, people in this company seem to only work at the end of each month. And then more people only work at the end of each year. But even so, I wouldn’t be busy if people would REMEMBER their passwords, which they need to their work! I’m busy because people request their passwords to be reset. The requests come in droves at the end of each month, quarter and year.
What I don’t understand is this. We are not talking about some password for some internet social networking site or private email or googles or yahoos or game or gambling site or any other PERSONAL sites. What we are talking about are the passwords they have to use TO DO THEIR WORK! How can you keep forgetting this password? I’m telling you, out of several thousand users on this particular system, and some people forget their passwords so often, I even remember their names. And what does it say about how much work they do throughout the month or quarter or year?
Another thing that cooks my grits? They all want it as soon as possible. It’s very urgent. It’s high priority. It’s an emergency even. YOU forgetting the password that you need for you to do your work that you get paid to do is NEVER an emergency or high priority or urgent. WE (we as in IT people at work) don’t really care if one person –YOU– doesn’t get high performance marks because the said person –again YOU– has forgotten the password to do the work. A request for the password reset is automatically assigned the lowest priority by the system. There is no use crying or keep sending emails or calling or yelling because you haven’t received the new password in shockingly long 15 minutes of you requesting it – I might not even see the request within a few hours because if it’s some real emergency or high priority or an urgent matter, the ticketing system would have automatically paged us, and believe me, a password reset request never gets that privilege.
I don’t care how many passwords you have to remember because most people don’t have to remember more passwords than a system administrator of about 100 servers, the root passwords of which need to be changed every few months. The password is needed to do you job. Remembering it is part of your job. Please make an effort.
I had to go to the supermarket on my way home from work yesterday. I came home indignant. I have to say, whenever I go to the supermarket, I come home outraged, full of hatred for inconsiderate, selfish, lazy, uncaring, irresponsible, stupid and downright hostile people. It’s amazing how people can be so callous for no reason at all. Yesterday, these people I saw there were worse than ever! The following are 13 things I muttered to myself or wanted to scream at the people at the supermarket yesterday ALONE.
- Why can’t you just close those damn doors so that the poor old couple can park next to your car instead of staring at them and making them back out and go to another spot, you inconsiderate selfish fuck?
- It doesn’t occur to you that other people might want to pass while you examine the label of each can with your cart blocking the entire aisle?
- When people say “Excuse me,” while you talk on the phone blocking other people from the items they want access to, you are supposed to move your fat ass swiftly out of that area, NOT glare at them moving just half a step.
- We all want to get through this aisle. It would work much better if you ALSO moved your cart to your right while we pass each other instead of you standing firm in the middle of the aisle waiting for me to somehow let you pass cause I ain’t backing out of the aisle or climbing over the shelves. That’s right. See how that works?
- If you don’t move your cart and unblock me and let me get out of here, you are never gonna get to the chicken legs AT ALL. I might get all the remaining chicken legs while I’m blocked in here.
- Is it really necessary to make others wait while you two argue about which frozen food to get?
- Sorry, I got here first. Glaring at me for taking the last carton of milk ain’t gonna make me give it up, bitch.
- Didn’t you just see your kid run his hand through chicken and turkey section with sticky blood everywhere and put his fingers to his mouth?
- I understand you could have missed the find prints on the circular that clearly states only regular Cheerios are on sale. I don’t understand you wasting everybody’s time fighting with the cashier and the manager about it even AFTER you found out.
- I seriously think the time you wasted staring into space while waiting for the person in front of you could have been spent much better on looking for your purse AND your changes at the bottom of your humongous bag.
- Standing so close to me trying to push me forward isn’t going to make the cashier scan my things any faster.
- If you choose to idle your engine right at the curb despite the signs not to, at least get away from the fucking exit so that people with carts can get off the curb!
- The parking spot for the handicapped is NOT where you return your cart, you lazy ass.
A couple of coworkers and I ordered Chinese food to be delivered for lunch today at work. When the delivery guy called me at my desk asking me to come downstairs, I immediately grabbed my wallet and ran 2 flights down to the second floor where there is a security guard station. The guy wasn’t there. I asked the guard. No, he has not seen any Chinese delivery guy. Since the building is on a hill, there is a lobby on the first floor, and I ran down another flight. There was nobody there. I ran up to the second floor again, muttering curse words to myself. Still nobody. I ran down the hall and went outside the building. Still no Chinese delivery guy. Cursing out loud, I ran downstairs again and outside the building. Nobody there. Cursing really loud now, I ran upstairs to the second floor again and this Chinese guy started yelling at me “I saw you go upstairs! I saw you go upstairs! I double-parked outside and I saw you go upstairs!!!”
Uhh… what the fuck?
I proceeded to tell him I did NOT go upstairs, I went downstairs to look for him because he wasn’t there. He kept yelling “I saw you go upstairs! I saw you go upstairs!! I double-parked outside!” I was losing patience, which I don’t really have much in the first place, and started yelling back at him, “You were NOT here, so I went downstairs to see if you were downstairs!” And he proceeded to tell me, “I told you second floor! I told you second floor! I saw you go upstairs!”, to which I yelled back “No, you didn’t tell me you were on the second floor, you were not even in the fucking building!”, to which he STILL yelled at me, “I saw you go upstairs! I double-parked outside! I saw you go upstairs!”
Well, so I had a shouting match with a stupid idiot with temper for a few minutes. Some people are just too fucking stupid to be walking around and mixing with other people because his tip? 80 cents. Not that I WANTED to give him 80 cents, but I didn’t have the exact change. I did think about calling the place and raising hell and secured witnesses – the guard and two other delivery guys waiting at the time. Lucky for the idiot, my coworkers entreated me to let it go, he might lose his job (which I couldn’t care less about), it’s holiday season, have a heart, they will go downstairs to meet the delivery people from now on. So there goes another Chinese take-out place. I have to say, I’m running out of Chinese take-out places to order from.
The moral of the story? Always make OTHER people to do the ordering and picking up the food for you.
Serious Stuff. Seriously
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.NaNoWriMo
Yeah, I'm gonna try this time. I must be crazy... not surprisingly.
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Just So You Know
August 17, 2009>
Mania, Righteous Rants, Thursday Thirteen
22 comments
Do you remember my last Thursday 13 post? The title of the post was Food Is My Daddy, and it was a list of signs that I love food a little too much. As is the case with any such subject, it was to laugh at myself and let the readers laugh at my expense with me.
I got a comment that I had to approve because this person had never commented on my blog before. So I read the comment, and it was something like “Excellent strategies and explanations!” Naturally, I was about to mark it as SPAM, but then something caught my eyes. Commentluv had a URL pointing to the commenter’s most recent blog post, which had to do with Thursday 13. So I went to Thursday 13 site to search for the same URL among those who participated. And what do you know, she was one of the participants. Clearly, she was going through each of the participants’ blogs and leaving comments without reading the post, without a cursory glance, not even the title, because would YOU leave a comment like that when the title of the post is Food Is My Daddy? Well, assuming she’s not extremely fucking stupid.
Basically, she was just putting comments to get people to come to her blog and leave comments. Not only that, I noticed that on Thursday 13 site, there is a list of participants’ blogs on the sidebar according to the number of comments left, under the heading of “Most Commented.” And her blog was up there (I’m not going to put her blog link here because I don’t want to increase traffic to her site by doing so). So I marked her comment as SPAM and deleted it. I regret deleting it though since I could have used it in this post.
I know this wasn’t the first time it happened – believe it or not I’m not THAT stupid, and I appreciate it if you left comments without reading my post because you felt I’d be disappointed. But I tell you now, so you know. If you don’t want to read my post, you don’t have to read it. But if you haven’t read it, please don’t comment. Don’t get me wrong. I like people leaving comments on my blog. I love comments. Who doesn’t? I feel loved when somebody leaves a comment. But I don’t want people commenting without reading it just to get comments back and increase traffic to their own blogs. Think about it. That’s the definition of SPAM comments.
So what I’m saying is this. Don’t spam my blog.
22 comments