dragonyphoenix

The backup folding machine (puts letters into envelopes) at work is more than five years past its last-use date. That's the machine I get to use. It's OK on one-page letters but today ate (crumpled) half (49.6%) of the two-page letters. Folding, which should have taken about 45 minutes, took 3 hours and 15 minutes. I wasn't bothered that much because I'm used to it although this is the first time it's eaten half the letters.

I told my manager and she said 1) I'm doing it wrong. That I need to straighten out the letters and envelopes and 2) she just had a repairman in to look at it. Now that was frustrating. Managers at work are susceptible to magical thinking; she wants it to work so she just claims it does work.

Another place for magical thinking is in how much they think we can get done. We have what I'll call calculated quotas. They've calculated how much we can get done and there's a spreadsheet where we can put in how much we've done and see how well we're doing. We have 7 1/2 hour days and with folding, even when I do another task for an hour or two, I generally get 8 hours worth of work done. However, we also have daily quotas which is what we're expected to get done on a given day. These have nothing to do with our calculated quotas. They're based on how much there is to get done for that day. So I can be well over 7 1/2 hours on my calculated quota but nowhere near what I'm supposed to get done that day. It's so frustrating.

My boss today was saying that at her first job she was taught to always say yes to more work. Even if she doesn't have enough people to get the work done, she'll accept more work. It's up to us to just get it done.

Yes! The Fandom Snowflake Challenge is starting us off right, asking for us to list our three favorite fanworks, at least three, that we ourselves created.

1. In a Corner of My Soul - BtVS: Giles as the Big Bad of Season 1, still being written (the rest of my recs are complete)


2. The Letters (the 84, Charing Cross Road remix) - BtVS: Anya / Snape - a relationship in letters, e-mails, and wedding inviations


3. Oh, but You're a Pretty Thing - BtVS: Angelus / Darla - he'd follow her anywhere


4. On This Side of Goodbye - BtVS: Giles and Faith friendship - if you're reading the comics you know Giles was resurrected as a 12 year old. This is my take on that and what happened after


5. Sailing Toward the Dawn - Babylon 5: During his hitchhiking days, Stephen realizes he isn't just running way. He's running to something, even if he doesn't know what it is yet.

Dad and I saw this over Thanksgiving break

I was 10 weeks shy of posting a story or scene (500 words minimum) to Taming the Muse each week for 3 years when I

So today I realized that I hadn't posted the last two Taming the Muse prompts which means I posted every week for 10 weeks shy of 3 years before I missed a week. Damn it! I really wanted to make the 4 year mark.

Dad and I went to see the Annual Christmas Tree and Neapolitan Baroque Crèche at the Met in NYC. Basically it's an extended Nativity that includes not only the Magi and others arriving to see the birth but people just going about their daily lives. It's a lovely tradition and I was glad to get a chance to see it again.

This is one of the angels. Some were down by the Nativity but most were in the Christmas tree.

CDC advice on cleaning up after rodents.

I stopped in a used bookstore today and picked up Harlan Ellison's Strange Wine for $1.05. Yay! It's my favorite Ellison collection and I'd lost my copy in the dire mess that was the flooding and moldy basement.

Going through old photos, I found a baby pic of my aunt Millie's girl. We've never met. She never heard much about us. From her name on the back of the photo, I found her on Facebook. We've been chatting and I posted family photos and, at her request, a couple of myself which she shared.

Her friends have come out of the woodwork to say how thrilled they are she's found her family. She has some awesome friends.

She and aunt Millie, who has since passed away, were in Vegas 13 years back. I'm not certain but I think Mom had retired and moved to Vegas by then. Sad to think they were so close and didn't realize it.

snogged just posted that she's, for the first time, watching Star Trek ToS. I'm amused because I'm also in the middle of a ToS watch. Leslie and I have watched through The Gamesters of Triskelion and, okay, that wasn't the best episode but I, who have never been a Star Trek fan, am enjoying the series more than I'd expected to. I guess I'll have to rethink that not a fan thing.

Leslie got me interested in Star Trek through the reboot movies and through Star Trek Continues, which is creating epidoses to finish up the five year arc of the original series. These gave me the idea to hunt up ToS DVDs at the library so we could watch them together.

I personally enjoyed the reboot movies although, yes, the lack of focus on social issues did disappoint. I also can't help comparing reboot Uhura to the women of Babyon 5 or, now that I'm watching it, to ToS Uhura. For example, in the reboot, when Kirk's flying a ship through a tight space, Uhura screams. Aargh! I hate it when the woman is the one, the only one, who screams. In ToS, when Sulu, under the influence of something and not in his right mind, grabs her saying "I'll protect you, fair maiden.", Uhura gets him off of her with a fighting move and replies "Sorry, neither." Eee! Loved that!

One of the thing that suprised me about ToS is that we don't always see the core characters. Spock, Kirk, McCoy, and Scotty, yes, they're constants, but Uhura, Sulu, and Chekov aren't. I believe we didn't see Chekov until the second season and we have yet to see him and Sulu in the same episode. I think Uhura is mostly there but there were a couple of episodes with a blonde in her place.

And, yes, I do with they'd kept Number One. She seemed to have a tight hold on her emotions. I'm wondering if Spock might have been less coldly logical if she'd been kept on as a character.