(a)musing 90 - Holy Cow, I violated a policy!!! December 28, 2001

First of all... I thought I was sad when the Mad Monk stopped writing his journal. Now, Crazy Tracy the Lesbian Psychiatric Nurse in Florida has taken her site down, and I know true sadness deep in my bloggy heart... I loved her journal. She wrote from her past, telling stories of patients she's dealt with, anecdotes about adventures in the Psych Ward. She also wrote wonderfully about how deeply in love she is with her partner, and with her son from her marriage which ended years ago. She had a great style and super sense of humor, and I am crestfallen and wounded that Time For Your Meds will not be on my daily rounds.

I enjoy reading blogs and journals from people that aren't like me. And then I find out they are a lot more like me than I initially thought. So Tracy, I doubt you'll be reading this -- happy trails, you rocked my world. You made me cringe and laugh and cry. I'll miss that.

I am happy to report, on the other hand, that Scott Anderson and his family made it back across the world from Berlin to Canada to start yet another chapter in their lives. I have been enjoying Scott's journals for almost a year now, and really like his writing, even if (as I said before) he isn't anything like me. I wish them the best in their new home once they get settled in, and nothing but joy in the future.

I received an email from a friend who lives far away and he complained about his 4pm to 12:30am job and how they have his desk next to some loud machinery so when customers call for support and help he can't hear them, sounded like Milton Waddums in "Office Space," and it totally killed me. He invited me to call him any time.

So in my return email message I told him "i will call you some night and harass your happy ass and you can yell at me if the machinery is too loud!" [emphasis mine, by the way].

Well, I guess the word "harass" or "ass" must have set off all kinds of alarms at his company because I got this scary email back immediately from said company's email server...

"Warning! This message requires immediate attention! It's been determined the e-mail you sent (including any previous responses or forwarded messages attached to your e-mail) may be in violation of the XXXXX Information Protection Policy, and may also violate other XXXXX policies. We do not allow transmission of words or images that are threatening, obscene, or racial or sexual in nature. Nor do we allow transmissions that are in violation of corporate policies on e-mail, sexual harassment, affirmative action, equal opportunity, or data security. Your message is being returned undelivered. Please do not e-mail messages of this type to XXXXX again. Thank you for your cooperation."

I love this kinda crap. I mean, I said nothing in its context that could be considered "threatening, obscene, or racial or sexual in nature." They have some sort of email sniffer that caught the word harass, so obviously I was sending an harassing email. What the hell? I could have used other terms, and been far more evil, threatening, racial or sexually insulting. This is so funny. Me. HA! the least threatening or insulting (well, not THE least but...) person around. Whatever.

This is what happens when humans are taken out of the mix. Assholes.

I think that if I had written him in ubbi-dubbi or pig latin or veiled and strange languages that I was going to... say, commit all sorts of devious deeds to his posterior and personal dangly bits with a metal rod, that the system wouldn't catch any of it. Euphemisms. Well constructed sentences that belie a truth in meaning that can't be filtered by crappy system software. If I were more clever and if I didn't think they'd flag my mail a second time and this time have a human read it, I would try it out. As is, I enjoy being not in trouble with anyone's mail server.

Freaky Tiki New Year's Eve Update

We are getting our place ready for the freaky tiki weekend. We'll be doing some shopping this weekend for coconut bras and grass skirts and scary tiki face cups. I am so looking forward to behaving like an idiot for a few hours. After all, staying home and being safe and acting stupid and doing limbo... who could ask for anything more.

We'll have the kids at the house, so it won't be a total drunkfest barf-o-rama or anything. Don't want to set a bad example. Doug has an alcohol free punch called "Bora Bora Punch" for the kiddies, so they'll get to tiki cup slurp and have fun with us. Only we'll be drinking from the adult punch.

We've got it all planned out for a night of silly fun. I love staying home for New Years. It is SO much safer, and so much more cozy and warm! Screw First Night celebrations! Damn! Uh, um. Oh! If you are fond of those kinds of things, however, you simply MUST go to to see Amy, Adeel, Shah and Taunia in their All About Buford First Night Providence Holiday Rocking Out Like Friggin Madmen Extravaganzafest! Yahoo! Yay for First Night! Wooo Hooo! Go out and enjoy yourself!!!!

On another note... Two New Year's Eves ago, when we were motoring from 1999 to the Aughts, Doug and I were home alone with the kids. Geoff went to bed early and Jessie insisted she was going to stay up until Midnight to see the 99s melt into the 00s and watch all the millennial celebrations that were being broadcast across the big blue marble.

She fell asleep at 11:45. We couldn't wake her up no matter how hard we tried. Oh well. But the funny part was to come.

We had not been drinking very heavily, seeing as we don't usually, ever, [well... when Aaron is around we do]. But when it is just us we have a couple drinks and it's all mellow. No drinking to get pukey shitfaced or anything. But at 11pm Doug said "Ya know, we oughta pound a couple down so we can be good and goofy once midnight hits, why the hell not!"

I laughed at him and he made me a lynchburg lemonade with some lime coloring in it... the lime coloring sank to the bottom so it looked like something right out of a sci fi movie... some wicked scary alien drink! It was funny, and we each had two. I didn't realize how much vodka he put in there, because the lemonade was super sweet, the lime stuff was wacky sour, and the vodka was almost invisible. We were trashed after two of them.

So we're watching the big light ball creep slowly down its post from its apex in Time Square, laughing our asses off, having a great time, and there is this billboard in Times Square that they keep panning past. It has a phone number on it.

And they keep panning around, and there's this billboard... and the phone number. And we can't resist.

Doug picks up the phone and dials the number. It's an advertising agency in Manhattan that specializes in ... billboards.

So he of course gets the voicemail for the company, it being midnight almost and all. So he leaves this message. He's all drunk, and he says something like: "Wooooooooo hhoooooooooo!!!!!!!! Hey, hey there advertising guys. Happy New Year !!! Woooooo! I'm watching TV and getting my ASS kicked by some SKYY Vodka, and your number is on this billboard, and I'm all about wishing everyone a happy new year, and they keep showing me your number, so I figgered, what the hell, right! Hey! Hey man, have a happy new year. There's no need to call me back or anything. I'm in Massachusetts and I wish you the best year ever! Woooooooo!"

And I'm laughing my ass off to the point of peeing my pants almost.

We are so juvenile.

Anyway, I'm sure as hell that we aren't the only people who called this poor company. I'm sure that other drunken assholes did the same thing. I just hope ours put a smile on their faces. It was friggin funny. It was at the time, and I'm smiling just thinking about how funny it still is to me.

I got email from a reader who had this to say about my Troll Family pictures in yesterday's edition:

"Not to be gross or anything, but, being a mom of a 4 yr. old with an itchy but [sic], I couldn't help but notice the kid on the left in the underwear picture. Someone needs to bleach those things!!!!"

I hadn't noticed, but yeah. Those skivvies could use a visit from Mr. Clorox. Thanks for making me feel grossed out, not just for putting a picture up of some mystery kid in his underoos but that they aren't exactly pristine. I might just have to put one of those "censored" bars across their fannies. But then, people might think they're nekkid under the bar, and then I'll look really bad!

Oh what to do.

Well. I've got to work. I'll be in Monday and I'm sure I'll have a nice little something to write about the weekend, new pictures (with that digicam!) and new year's well wishes for all of you, my ten readers!