What's going on with me?

9-26-06 - So at midnight on Saturday morning, Carol Linn and I went to go see the new Jackass movie. If you enjoyed the show and the first movie, you�ll enjoy this movie. Word of caution: if you haven�t seen the first one, see it before you see this one, or you may not fully grasp the plot.

Of course it�s vulgar and has gross-out and cringe-inducing moments, but I laughed through the entire thing. Believe it or not, being an R-rated movie that�s got, among other things, feces and male nudity, there is one thing that�s censored for probably less than a second. I mentioned that fact to someone at the lunch table yesterday and he responded with a laugh saying, �Oh, god! Does it involve an animal?� I�ll leave question unanswered.

I had a great weekend. Besides seeing Carol Linn, who I hadn�t seen in four or five months, I saw several friends I hadn�t seen in a couple weeks, which was great. I could tell they missed my absurdity. I don�t know what�s wrong with them, but they missed me. Frisbee got rained out on Sunday, which sucked, but Tony, Pete, and I got in some good Scrubs and Guitar Hero action on Saturday. I guess I made up for it in advance.

I�ve been feeling the urge to get back into working out once or twice a week. I play frisbee and racquetball each once a week, which usually amounts to 3 or 3.5 hours of good cardio exercise between them, but it�s mostly lower body exercise. I need to get back into working, even if just a bit, my upper body. It�s kinda nappy.

(Below is something I wrote a couple days after my last entry and forgot to post.)
Well, Rashaun called Susan and all went well. The only bad thing about the situation was the timing, as she was having a civil conversation with an ex-boyfriend at the time. She was a little pissed at the time, but in retrospect she�s come to appreciate it. I watched the video, though, and she knew it was a ruse, she just couldn�t pin it down where it came from.

I got the parts for my new computer on Thursday. I went to assemble it Thursday night and I never got any display on the monitors. I was originally thinking it was the fault of the video card, but now I believe that it�s the motherboard�s fault. I need to determine this for sure so I can send it back. Yay for troubleshooting.

Frisbee on Sunday was so much fun. I�m getting better and better at playing defense, but it�s taking its toll on my right hand. I stopped a couple throws immediately after they were thrown (like within a foot or two of leaving the hand of the thrower), but when those people throw it (especially Dave, whose throw I stopped once), they throw hard. Later, someone threw it to me and I didn�t catch it. It somehow just bounced off my middle finger, popping a blood vessel. No pain, no gain. We had a couple people taking pictures out there, too. They got some great ones!

I don�t care what anyone says, I�m excited about the Wii, and that�ll be the only next gen system I end up getting.

Hmmm...I was thinking about this entry last night or the day before and I really expected it to be longer than this. Oh, well.

9-5-06 - My 24th birthday was especially good since, on that day, Kiefer Sutherland and �24� both finally won Emmys!

So last July, I was asked by my supervisor if I wanted to become a BEST (Building Everyone Safe Tomorrows) observer. I agreed, being new and somewhat afraid to say no. What I got myself into was fairly annoying. I had to do eight safety observations (just watch people for about five minutes to make sure they�re not performing any unsafe activities, from cradling the phone with the head and shoulder to walking off a cliff) a month. This went until a couple months ago when it got knocked down to six per month and then last Wednesday when I received an e-mail saying I�d been rotated out, but still had to do one per month so that my �skills are maintained.�

So I went around, bragging about not having to do it any more, as it�s not something that people enjoy doing. I told my supervisor and he congratulated me on making it through the program.

Last on Wednesday, I called this guy Fred to play a little joke on him. We go back and forth picking on each other, so I figured I�d get him thinking I was moving up to his building. I called him and left him a message. He called me back Wednesday morning during a break in his BEST training (which he was quite unhappy to be a part of). Not knowing how much he knew about what I was doing, I preceded the mention of it with a little bit of truth. I told him that a project I�d been working on was put on hold and that I�d be moving to his building to help with stuff around there. I even gave him the room number of Jeremiah (mentioned on two previous posts, to be linked later [remind me if I forget]) and asked him if that was anywhere near him (which it is). I knew there was a vacancy there because a co-op was sitting there and had just left a couple weeks prior.

He said he�d have to wait until he got back to his office to check and see if it was near him, as he didn�t even know his own room number. So we chatted a few minutes and that was that.

The next morning, my supervisor came into my office and asked if I was in BEST observer training the day before. I told him I wasn�t and then reminded him that I had been rotated out. He said that he got a call from another supervisor saying that someone talked to me at BEST training the day before and heard I was gonna be moving to that building. I just laughed and said, �Oh, no!� I explained to him that it was a joke I was playing on Fred. He kinda chuckled and said, �Well, he thought you were serious and so did some other people. Just be careful what you say around here.� Ah, crap.

So I called Fred and told him about that conversation and he just died laughing. He said he walked over to that office, where a couple other people sit as well, and said, �So this is where Tony�s gonna be sitting.� Then, like a prairie dog, he said, someone popped his head over the cubicle wall and said, �What?!� Apparently, that spot had been all picked out for someone else when she�s ready to move into that building, so this started a wave of anger and confusion that went up to Fred�s supervisor, then HIS supervisor, then to mine, and then back down to me. Apparently, it went kinda high up.

So after I talked to Fred, I went to the cubicle next to mine and asked if he heard any of that, which he didn�t, so I told him all about it. He just giggled. Afterwards, I went to make my daily cup of tea. While at the microwave, this guy Steve walked up next to me. Now I�ve only talked to Steve a couple of times. In those short conversations, I assumed (wrongly) that he learned that I like to joke around with people. When I saw him standing there, I said, very jokingly mind you, �I thought I smelled a rat!� Some small talk ensued and I went to talk to someone while my water was heating up. It finished, I got it out of the microwave, and headed back to my cubicle.

Maybe 10 or 15 minutes later, Steve poked his head in my cubicle and asked about the rat comment and wanted to know if he�d done anything to offend me. I felt terrible and told him that I was completely joking. He didn�t sound completely convinced, so I sent him an e-mail telling him I don�t joke around with people I don�t like, I just ignore them. We sent a couple short e-mails back and forth and all was good.

Well, immediately after he left, Josh came over laughing and asked, �Was that Jeff?� referring to Fred�s supervisor, who got pissed about my saying I was gonna move into the cubicle he had reserved. I said, �No, that was Steve,� and then told him what happened. He laughed even harder. I said, �You know, I haven�t been here an hour and look at all the damage I�ve done!�

Maybe half an hour later, I was walking back from the bathroom and I passed Josh in the hall who just looked at me and laughed. I said, �I�ve managed to make it to the bathroom and back without pissing anyone off!� I think he was proud of me.

Sunday night was Boomsday. To those who don�t know, it�s the biggest fireworks show of the year in Knoxville. This year was nothing special, as it was the same show as last year. It was the trip there and back that was fun. So in our car, we had me, Allison, Adam H., Todd, and Matt C. Adam drove and had his iPod in there and I got to choose the soundtrack there and back. I think I picked some good songs, and we were all hoarse afterwards from singing all of the stupid songs.

There were probably two dozen of us that went. I wasn�t afraid to make a fool of myself in front of all of them, as well as some people I didn�t know. As we were walking back to our cars, we passed plenty of people stuck in traffic. Every once in a while, I�d see someone looking at me from inside their car, so I�d give them a nice little heel click. One car had five college guys in it and they just stared at me, so I gave them four heel clicks, while smiling like an idiot and staring right back at them. My friends were laughing so hard at how dumb I was/am. It was a good night :-D

Ok, last story of the day. Yesterday, Andrew was going to come over and we were gonna go to the Guitar Center sale. He brought Susan along with him. We went. She got a set of strings. He got a keyboard for $100 (which was on sale quite a bit off), as well as a keyboard stand for $5. I bought a stand for $10, a strap for $20, and some picks for $4. Those were all normal price. The deals I got made me happy: I got a $140 amp for $80, a 10' amp cable for $.01, a box of 10 sets of D�Addario medium acoustic strings for $5 each, and a box of 10 sets of D�Addario medium electric strings for $3 each. �Twas nice.

So afterwards, Andrew and I were planning on watching �Cannibal! The Musical.� The three of us watched it and had a shpadoinkle time. Well, on Sunday, Susan lost her cell phone, assuming she just left it at work, which she�s been known to do. She had been checking her voicemail messages through other people�s phones. After we finished watching the movie, she grabbed Andrew�s cell to call hers. She got this confused look on her face and closed the phone. She told Andrew, �Um, listen to this. Hold on, let me make sure I dialed my number right...yup, I did.� So she redialed her number and her name popped up on the screen. Andrew listened and his jaw dropped. I asked what happened and she said, �I think someone stole my phone! The voicemail message said [in a blaccent, �Hey, this is Tara. Leave a message.�� I asked how she could�ve gotten Susan�s password, but she responded that she had no idea. So Susan freaked out and asked if she should leave a message. Andrew replied with, �I would.�

So Susan calls back and, once again, it goes straight to voicemail. �Hi, this is Susan T___. Um, I lost my phone and...actually, THIS is my phone. I was wondering if I could have it back. I�ll pay you if you need the money that badly, but I mostly just want the numbers from it.� At this point she left her roommate�s number and said she could call that to get in contact with her. Being that it was going straight to voicemail, I decided to call and listen to the voicemail message for myself. I went through my directory to her number and hit send. �Hey, this is Susan...� I was confused. Right as she hung up, I said, �Uh, Susan, I just got your voicemail.�

At this point, Andrew�s jaw drops and he said, �Oh, crap!� �What?� �I got my phone in Murfreesboro, so it defaults to the 615 area code! You just called some random girl in Nashville!�

Andrew and I died laughing and Susan frantically called Tara back and left her a message saying, �Hi, this is Susan again. So I was using my friend�s phone to check my voicemail and I didn�t know that I had to dial an area code on it, so I am SO sorry for leaving that message earlier...� At the end of the message, before she hung up, I was yelling, �Save this! Save this message!� and then I told Susan that this would probably show up online tomorrow.

So we had a good laugh about that, and I told some people at work about it. Well, after lunch, I had a great idea. I went up to my friend Rashaun and asked him if he�d call Susan and pretend to be Tara�s boyfriend and he sounded quite enthusiastic about it. So that�s where we are now. We�ll see shortly how this will end up. I�ll write about the resulting phone call next time.