news article...

There is a website called "The Daily WTF" which is basically like an online news site, except its for people to report on stupidity.

This one was posted by a user named "Snoofle."

This morning, I had to deal with one of our HR secretaries, and it was déjà vu.

When I first started to work for this place I was in HR. I had passed my interviews and was doing paperwork as part of the hiring process. The HR secretary and I had the following conversation:

Her: Can I have the phone number of the consulting company where you worked for the past 6 years?
Me: I was self employed. I am the owner and sole employee of the consulting company and I would be happy to answer any questions you have.
Her: No, I need to call to verify!
Me: ...But you'll just be calling me.
Her: I have to call — what's the number?
Me: The number of the office is [my cell number].
(note: I'm standing 2 feet directly in front of her. She dials the phone and I answer.)
Her: Hello — this is Paula from Initrode Global, calling in reference to Snoofle's employment.
Me (both into the cell phone and to her): I know, I'm standing right in front of you.
Her (into the phone): Could you please verify the dates of Snoofle's employment at VirtuDyne, Intelligenuity and Initech?
Me (reading from my résumé that is laying on her desk in front of her): VirtuDyne: a₁ to b₁, Intelligenuity: a₂ to b₂, and Initech: a₃ to b₃.
Her: Great, thank you! *click*
Me (directly to her): ...Did you not notice that you were talking to me right here in front of you?
Her: I know, but I have to call to check these things.

At this point I walked away, wondering if the rest of the company would be just as WTF-y.

Forgiveness

I am half-ashamed to admit this but I have recently discovered that I, the one whose faith revolves around God's forgiveness of sin, had no idea what forgiveness actually meant. Until yesterday.

I was asked to forgive someone for something that hurt me a lot. Other than knowing that somewhere in the Bible, I am told to forgive even a recurring offense, I felt at a loss as to what that actually meant. What did they want me to do?

Jesus, dying on the cross, said "Father, forgive them." People say "oh, I forgive you." However important words are, they are just words. There has to be an action or an attitude that goes along with it. Luckily, I work in a bookstore. I have a wealth of books in arm's reach, and luckily, some were all about forgiveness. Here is what I discovered:

One author used an analogy of scales. When one person commits a sin against another person, the scales of justice are tipped. The offender now owes something to that person in order for the scales to come back into balance. By forgiving the offender, the other person is basically canceling the debt that is owed, or saying "I forfeit my right to see retribution."

As I sat there, figuring all this out for myself, I was amazed at the depth of it, that I had never grasped before. In case you were wondering, I did forgive. But forgiveness doesn't mean no consequences. A little kid can disobey his mother and walk into a street, and she can forgive him for the disobedience but he's still going to have consequences if he gets hit by a car. Please pray for me and the other person. Consequences suck.

change

Hmm. I don't feel any different.

Is that bad?

song

I've probably posted this before, but I wanted to do it again.

http://bodowartke.de/liebesliedgenerator/llg_flash_2008.php?absename=ShadoWink&empename=Pigeon&select=29,55,23,53,50,45,2,48,32&language=english


Click there, then click your internet connection and it will start playing automatically.

bread

I have discovered the wonderfulness that is German Dark Wheat Bread. It is second only to pumpernickel. Third on my list is some weird wheat-less bread made with pecan and rice flour.

Jack's adventure

So, after getting back from the graduation, I came home and immediately packed to go to Stanhope and house-sit for some friends of mine. She's in Germany, he had a retreat in Los Angeles to go to, and their dogs needed caring for. It was fun, and I was even ok with the extra driving because in that part of NJ there's actually a country station that comes in and everyone knows if you are listening to a song about combine drivers chug-a-lug-a-luggin' five miles an hour, then your drive gets so much easier.

On Wednesday, however, 287 was closed and I got to work late because a tanker turned over and spilled all over the highway. I guess it is the week for big rig accidents (see the blog post "Traffic").

Also on Wednesday night, mom called me to say that Jack hadn't come home and she was going to bed, he would have to spend the night in the garage. Sister was also missing so I thought maybe the two of them had gone off somewhere. I didn't think much of it, because our other cat Fluffy used to take extended vacations when we would let her out, but she always came back when she was hungry or bored with whatever camping trip she went off on. On Thursday night, I stopped in at home and Jack still wasn't back. I started whistling for him and thought I heard something. Sister also reappeared, but without Jack. So I listened again, and sure enough, I can hear him crying somewhere. At that point mom came home so we started walking towards the noise, until we found ourselves at the base of the neighbor's tree. Jack was about 40 feet up, and crying miserably.

Wondering where we could get a ladder that big (no firetruck would fit into this area where we were, without cutting down some trees) I called the non-emergency number for the police/fire department and was told by Sergeant Bitch that "I've never seen a dead cat in a tree." (Really, is that helpful? Thanks for reminding me my baby could DIE. I could tell you I've never seen a dead human in a tree but if I went up after him and got stuck, you'd consider it more of an emergency wouldn't you?)

Knowing that I had to get up insanely early in the morning, I told Jack that if he didn't come down on his own, he was going to have to wait till morning because I could not stay awake any longer at that hour of the night. As we walked away, he started wailing again ("Don't leave meeeeeeeee!!").

The next morning it was raining and I had to go to Stanhope to let the dogs pee and then back to this area to go to work. 18 hours of rain apparently was not enough torture for Jack to drive him to figure out what to do. My neighbor tied some broom handles together to knock him out of the tree so we could catch him in a tarp and even that didn't work.

Saturday afternoon, I finally had some time to go over to the tree and just sit there helplessly staring at him. It had been 63 hours since he got stuck up there, and since the animal hospital, animal shelter, animal control, and tree-cutting service were all useless, I was on the verge of calling someone with a paintball gun to shoot him out of the tree. I climbed a nearby tree and scooted down it to show him what to do. After talking to him for an hour, he stopped crying a bit and watched me climb trees. Mom was there too and had a can of tuna open so he could smell it. I don't know if the aroma reached 40 feet up, but it certainly was strong where we were standing. Finally he decided to swing his butt around instead of going head first like he'd been trying to do for the past few days. Finally some progress! We started cheering him on.

At about 10 feet up he found another branch, and stopped for a breather. This time he continued to try to go head-first, and ended up falling the last few feet. Now, he won't leave our sides. He is the most needy cat, and if he were human, I'd take him to a psychologist. While he was stuck in the tree, the girls got adopted finally, so he came home to an empty house. I think that adds to his neediness, because now he doesn't have anyone to tease or pounce on.

So that ends the saga. 63 hours in the tree, 18 hours of rainy, 50-degree weather, and 23 people involved in rescue attempts/ideas, the little nutball is out of the tree.

emails

This is the email I wish I had written...

"I just want to thank all of you for your educational emails over the past year.

Thanks to you, I have trouble shaking hands with someone who has been driving because the number one pass-time while driving alone is picking your nose (Although cell phone usage may be taking the number one spot)

I no longer have any savings because I gave it to a sick girl (Penny Brown) who is about to die in the hospital for the 1,387,258th time.

I no longer have any money at all, but that will change once I receive the $15,000 that Bill Gates/Microsoft and AOL are sending me for participating in their special e-mail program.

I no longer worry about my soul because I have 363,214 angels looking out for me, and St. Theresa's novena has granted my every wish.

I no longer eat KFC because their chickens are actually horrible mutant freaks with no eyes or feathers.

Thanks to you, I have learned that my prayers only get answered if I forward an email to seven of my friends and make a wish within five minutes.

I no longer can buy gasoline without taking someone along to watch the car so a serial killer won't crawl in my back seat when I'm pumping gas.

I no longer drink Pepsi or Dr Pepper since the people who make these products are atheists who refuse to put 'Under God' on their cans.

And thanks for letting me know I can't boil a cup of water in the microwave anymore because it will blow up in my face...disfiguring me for life.

I no longer check the coin return on pay phones because I could be pricked with a needle infected with AIDS.

I no longer go to shopping malls because someone will drug me with a perfume sample and rob me.

I no longer shop at Target since they are French and don't support our American troops or the Salvation Army.

I no longer answer the phone because someone will ask me to dial a number for which I will get a phone bill with calls to Jamaica, Uganda, Singapore and Uzbekistan .

Thanks to you, I can't use anyone's toilet but mine because a big brown African spider is lurking under the seat to cause me instant death when it bites my butt.

And thanks to your great advice, I can't ever pick up $5.00 dropped in the parking lot because it probably was placed there by a sex molester waiting underneath my car to grab my leg.

If you don't send this e-mail to at least 144,000 people in the next 70 minutes, a large dove with diarrhea will land on your head at 5:00 PM this afternoon and the fleas from 12 camels will infest your back, causing you to grow a big hairy hump. I know this will occur because it actually happened to a friend of my next door neighbor's ex-mother-in-law's second husband's cousin's beautician.

Have a wonderful day.

Oh, and by the way.....

A German scientist from Argentina, after a lengthy study, has discovered that people with insufficient brain activity read their e-mail with their hand on the mouse.

Don't bother taking it off now, it's too late."

traffic.

http://www.mcall.com/news/local/all-i80-may05-cn,0,6137281.column

I thought I was never going to escape from Pennsylvania last night. But I managed.

jaci velasquez

Funny how you're still my sweet fairytale, funny how you're still my dream...

Don't waste time cause we don't have forever.

~Jaci Velasquez

sigh

Rent is closing on Broadway on June 1st. I don't know if I will have the time to go see it. This adds more rain to my rainy day.

Enchanted

Steve borrowed the movie Enchanted from his brother. It was hilarious. I think it was the best Disney movie yet, mostly because it incorporated scenes from other Disney movies. Let's see...

1. Alice in Wonderland falling through the portal to another world
2. Snow White calling the animals to help clean the messy house
3. The poisoned apples from Snow White
4. The Little Mermaid's Caribbean-influenced song and the two of them in a rowboat
5. An entire musical production through the streets like Ali Babua's parade to meet Jasmine
6. The "Magic Mirror" (a tv)
7. A date in a pizza parlor with the full moon overhead, though I'm not sure who was the lady and who was the tramp because they were both pretty good looking
8. The ball, references to midnight and a fairy godmother (a credit card), leaving a shoe behind...
9. The costuming of Beauty and the Beast (also the Mad Hatter- it was a ball in New York City so obviously every extra in the cast probably had some Disney character's clothing on, of course.)
10. Sleeping Beauty's dragon
11. And my favorite... King Kong on the Empire State Building with a damsel in distress... wait... what? Was that made by Disney??

Anyway... it was a very clever movie in my opinion, despite the fact that a little over halfway through, I told Steve how it would end. Maybe I have watched too many Disney movies. Either that or my Rutgers prof David Letwin taught me how to recognize plots by studying those that have gone before. That was an amazing class. And THAT was a bunny trail. Anyway, Enchanted is my new favorite Disney movie. Everyone should go see it.

Online article: "What are you doing for Earth Day?"

Well. I'm gonna go with "The same thing I do everyday, Pinkie." Why can't we care about the earth all year round?

i love to drink!

I am in love with chocolate soy milk after dinner and orange juice all the time. Usually my cravings fade but the orange juice has been a phase that has lasted about 2 weeks now.

True Freedom

Constitutionally, legally, we have the freedom and right to speak freely, to gather freely, to print whatever we want, to follow whatever religion we want, and to petition our government about anything we don't want.

But socially, if I come out and say a certain race drives me crazy or that women are better nurturers than men, or that I believe the 1611 King James Version of the Bible is the only way to hear God's word, or if I declare my support for evolution or creation, or something in between, someone somewhere is going to have a problem with it and ridicule me, or at the very least respond with blind emotion rather than reason.

America isn't really free. I don't know that there is any place that is truly free, because humans are social creatures. We want other people to like us and being alone is torture.

Except for when you are 87 and senile. Then you can say whatever you want. Like the person who came into the bookstore today and gave me a tip (honestly... this is the third tip I've gotten since I worked there... who tips retail salespeople??). He told me about how God healed his hemorrhoids and that was somehow relevant to his story about Sid Roth. He gave me $8.33 and told me to either donate it to Sid Roth or split it with my coworker Kristen, depending on what God told me to do. God told me to split it with Kristen first and then decide how to use it. Then God told her to use it on ice cream.

I hope that someday BEFORE I'm senile I will be able to be free enough to give money away and talk to people about hemorrhoids and the 1611 King James Bible without causing anyone to react vehemently.

Freedom like that is true freedom.

new blogsite!

I have a new blog.

Never fear, this one is not going anywhere.

But check it out.

http://megcanread.blogspot.com/

two blurbs

1. I have always hated yogurt. I discovered that its not actually yogurt that I hate. I have discovered that I LOVE yogurt made with whole milk.

2. After explaining that there is a Bible verse stating that a divorced person who remarries is living in adultery and that the concept of annulment exists to allow divorced people to remarry, the reply was, "well who needs annulment when you can just kill your ex?"

growl

Gossip is the single-most annoying cause of idiocy in the United States. Best-case scenario, it will just hurt an individual. At worst, the media will publish gossip as truth when they could easily find the truth of the matter if they would get off their lazy bums and search for it. Truth really is out there, but no one is going to hand it to you on a silver platter. If you are too lazy to get up and search for the truth then you deserve to be lied to.

Americans are idiots. They will believe it if it is printed, or if a person with an authoritative voice says it is true. If Brad Pitt says in a movie that oxygen masks are useless on a plane that is no reason not to wear one when it drops from the compartment over your head. Barack Obama is not a Muslim, he DOES recite the Pledge of Allegiance, and he is NOT endorsed by the KKK (Do you even know what the KKK is? Why the HELL would you think that a white supremacist group would endorse him? Have you even seen a picture of Barack Obama?). Do not boycott one dollar coins; they DO contain the words "In God We Trust." Glade Plug-ins will not burn down your house unless you are using one from 1994. The list goes on. Why do I even have to have this rant?

Its stupid, we're all stupid, and if we stay stupid and uninformed, we will cease to live in a country that leads other nations in economy, power, and technology. Someone is going to invade, and we will be ok with it (as long as that country sends out a mass email saying that the founding fathers of our constitution wrote a clause allowing for a foreign take-over after a certain number of years). Personally, I'd suspect Canada. They're nearby, and its always the quiet ones that give you the most trouble.

EDIT: The United Kingdom's public schools STILL TEACH THAT THE HOLOCAUST HAPPENED!!!!!! Stop believing everything that hits your inbox!!!

Friends from years ago...

S just posted baby pictures on facebook, announcing she was giving him his first bath. Last week I found photos of MI with her TWO kids. S and MS are engaged. C is married with kids and a successful landscaping business. E and J and R and A have all found the One, and R is pregnant. Tonight I found MW's pictures of her ultrasound. I did not know she was pregnant. I feel like a slacker for wanting to go back to school.

Angels

Years ago, I became fascinated with angels. I wanted to see one, I wanted to know everything I could about them.

It was amazing to me that every incidence in the Bible of an angel appearing to a human started off with the words "Do not be afraid," and yet despite their seemingly fearsome nature, there is a verse in the Psalms that says "He will command his angels concerning you, to guard you in all your ways," perpetuating the belief in guardian angels.

I used to be fascinated by stories of people meeting angels and of different types of angels, some that seemed more passive and some that seemed like great warriors. For anyone who is interested, This Present Darkness is a great book about warrior angels.

Anyway... my fascination died down a little but it has just been renewed. You see, I have spent the past 8 years looking for some sort of angel figurine that depicted an angel holding a sword. In all the gift shops I went into, the angels held musical instruments, babies, or were empty-handed. I have finally found an angel with a sword. So, I'm alerting you all. My birthday is in 5 months and 12 days. You have plenty of time.

Here is the image:


The company that makes it is Roman, Inc.

One Two Three Go.