captain cranky is quite cranky

And with no good reason. Just a lot of little annoyances. LIke:

I could not print this morning. I didn’t even get print options when I tried, and then the entire program would lock up. So if I tried to print an email, my email would, instead of printing, lock up. If I tried to print a Word document, Word would lock up. I rebooted, I tried every program, I swore, I finally filled out a support request which annoys me too since the tech guys are like fifteen steps down the hall. Who knows what the problem was?? Aggravation Receptionist was having the same issues, and hers magically fixed itself. For me, it took ages and Tech Guy experimenting and my getting an email from Tech Support saying my "incident was resolved" when it was not at all resolved (a vision into the fixing itself future??)  and more experimenting from Tech Guy before mine suddenly fixed itself too. Half the day later.  

It is BEAUTIFUL outside, sunny and SEVENTY DEGREES… and I am stuck inside. Tonight, naturally, it is going to drop into the 30’s, we’ll have blizzardy winds, and snow. Oh, and thunderstorms! Our usual lovely bi-polar weather. It was also beautiful yesterday, although not quite this balmy, and is going to be nice again later in the week. But hey, I want to complain about something that’s not even happened yet instead of enjoying what IS happening. OKAY???

But of course it’s hard to enjoy what is happening, since I’ve got my window open (it’s always either absolutely freezing or it’s broiling in here– today it is broiling) and instead of enjoying the balmy breeze I’m having to listen to VERY LOUD DUMPTRUCKS incessantly going past my office, because they are redoing the surface of the football field. No money for raises or academics and the budget is IN CRISIS!!! and they may CUT JOBS!!!! but we certainly can’t cut anything having to do with SPORTS. Because the football team won three national championships in a row years ago! And everyone lost their minds and now we have a insanely expensive new field house with gold and marble fixtures and a fancy stadium and fancy field, and I resent the football program sucking up all the money while academics are being slashed. Supposedly the three national championships boosted enrollment, and maybe they did, but the last one was in 2007 and by now all the students who came here for the football team have experienced winter here, and transferred to somewhere less depressing.

 I hate my outfit. I am wearing baggy maroon old lady stretch waist pants (I STILL am uncomfortable in most of my pants/jeans) and a brown sweater that I ordinarily like very much, but with these stupid old lady pants it is creating the illusion of a roll of fat around my waist that’s way bigger than the roll of fat that’s actually there. Which is big ENOUGH thanks VERY much and certainly does not need emphasizing. I’m also broiling because I am also wearing a teeshirt under the sweater. I am not taking off the sweater because the teeshirt is very short and combined with the baggy pants everyone will be seeing more than just the illusion of fat around my waist. The real thing will be on display. Also my stupid socks won’t stay up and this would have been a great day for open-toed shoes. Although of course my feet are far from open-toed shoe friendly at the moment. 

 Apparently this is Megaphone Mouth Day and there are Megaphone Mouths EVERYWHERE (including right below my window at this moment, one of the rare moments a dump truck isn’t going by) and they are all on their cells talking AS LOUDLY AS THEY CAN POSSIBLY TALK. 

 My father has to have yet another operation Thursday, that he just told me about last night. He has had some weird lump thing on his stomach since having his hernia operated on last year, and although they have (EWWWW) drained fluid from it twice, now there’s nothing to drain and they want to remove it. He does not seem too concerned but he is never one to ask exactly WHY something needs to be done and exactly WHAT the doctor thinks it is, and could it be something SERIOUS, like, oh, a TUMOR. I was already about to lose my mind trying to figure out when to take him to Delaware to visit his only remaining sibling (Cousin E’s mom) who is not doing well at all and has been moved from her apartment into a higher-care room (it’s a retirement home-assisted living kind of complex). I think I’d pinned down a good weekend, but now that’s on hold again. It’s complicated since he wants to fly (and so do I) so making reservations far enough in advance to get a good rate plus not knowing how my aunt will be feeling that far in advance makes planning difficult. Now who knows how long it will take him to feel like traveling after this, so I’m glad I didn’t get tickets yet. 

Okay, I think that’s enough whining. How about something fun??!!?? Baker B and I got hooked on the amazing Torchwood a few months ago, and watched all three seasons. They’re great — it’s about a little group of alien hunters working out of Cardiff, where there’s a major time rift out in the bay letting aliens through (right where I was gazing happily from our amazing hotel while staying in Clevedon last fall! SIGH.) Anyhow, Torchwood is a spin-off of Doctor Who, which neither Baker B or I had ever gotten interested in – I think I’d seen a few episodes of the old Doctor Whos from back in the 70s but just wasn’t hooked. But these are NEW Doctor Whos! There is considerable overlap between Doctor Who and Torchwood, mainly with Captain Jack who is the center of Torchwood and the reason for the whole spin-off. And thanks to Noko and Catwoman, who got hooked on Doctor Who after seeing Torchwood, we watched all the Doctor Who episodes that featured Captain Jack. And of course, just like Noko and Catwoman both said, we’ve ended up hooked too and are now watching ALL the Doctor Who episodes. The new ones, I mean, the 2005 and beyond ones. And LOVE them. Although amusingly we still are watching them all out of order – we went back intending to watch the first episode in the first season, and of course the Netflix disc was cracked in two. We also had the second disc, so started watching that instead. SO. Now we’ve seen the last two discs of the first season (since that was when Captain Jack appears), then the third disc of the first season, and last night we started the FIRST disc of season one. Fortunately, they all hold up well on their own, although you do understand things much more when seeing them in, oh, ORDER.  Anyhow, I think it’s safe to say we’re now Dr. Who addicts. 

Although I have to say, I do not get the Daleks. I know the Daleks are beloved British icons, and are the Doctor’s oldest adversaries,  and according to Wikipedia they put the show on the map. And I’m sure I’d be MUCH more frightened and awed by them if I, oh, grew up watching them from the time I was born. But, duuuude, seriously. They look just exactly like my favorite cheesegrater. And it’s a little hard to work up much fear for something that looks like my favorite cheesegrater. I even created an example:

The really funny thing is I was trying to turn my cheese grater into a Dalek a couple of nights ago and Baker B was so immersed in Second Life that not only did he not hear all the rummaging around I was doing while experimenting with Dalek parts, he also did not even SEE the transformed Dalek/Grater the first time he went into the kitchen for something. Despite it sitting on an empty counter pointing its ray gun at him and saying "EX TER MIN ATE!!!!" He saw it AGES later, which was even funnier than the creation itself.