phosfate

We had a two-day office retreat, which wasn't really a retreat since we did it in the basement. The ringmaster was a nice lady from Pigeon Forge who couldn't find much to hate about us, but I feel uncomfortable when a Southerner tells me, "You are SO FUNNY!" because I can't tell if it's passive-aggressive or not. Like when we were cleaning up and I put our spaghetti stick and marshmallow tower in the bin, saying, "Part of the beauty of art is its impermanence." "You are SO FUNNY!"

Anyway, my phone was supposed to show up at 8 pm on Friday, which it did not. Then it was supposed to show up between 11 and 1 on Saturday. It did not. The truck did. The driver, a nice fella called Alex, sat on the stoop with me after rooting through his truck for ten minutes and saying he was SUPPOSED to have it, and yet it was not there. I woke up Sunday to an email saying they attempted delivery at 10 am and left a hang tag on the door. There was no hang tag on the door. Then I got an email saying they had attempted delivery on Friday and left a hang tag on the door, which BUDDY WE'VE BEEN THROUGH THIS. So I got online to Fedex customer support, which was a deeply stupid AI with very thin skin. So I phoned Fedex and got an actual human. "Okay, would you like me to send the package to one of our stores so you can go in when you like and sign for it there?" "DEAR GOD YES PLEASE THANK YOU." So it went to the store across from the mall. I took a Lyft there, leaving my cane in the back of the car, got my phone, and negotiated entering the mall on foot without a cane. This was extremely dangerous -- American malls are not designed for foot traffic entrance -- and really quite painful, but I got to the bus shelter there and messaged the Lyft driver about my cane. I have heard nothing from him. I took the bus to work and limped to our building, setting up the new phone with a human on chat in between phone calls. I managed to get it mostly set up without swallowing the stupid paper chip, but couldn't figure out why its charge was so half-assed because (all together now) Bluetooth is automatically set to Suck me dry. I found my shitty backup cane. Assuming driver ever contacts me, getting my cane back will cost me $20, or the exact cost of a replacement cane.

Took the bus home and played Pokemon Go in the parking lot across from my house until Movie Pals time (We watched Creature from the Black Lagoon). Someone took a pot-metal figurine of a frog sitting on top of a book called GAME OF FROGS), painted it in bright green and red, and cemented it to the base of one of the lamp poles. Make your own public art, friends, and don't get caught.

Still waiting for a refund from the vendor of my original phone.

Today a Team Rocket guy on Pokemon Go is running a team of three Magikarp. Magikarp are large goldfish who don't really do anything except flop around until, under certain circumstances, they evolve into a badass sea serpent called Gyarados. So I've got a 2000 XP Hitmonlee just beating the shit out of these poor things. I have so many questions about why this guy has this team.

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Hi! I came in this morning to a dead baby mouse on my cube floor. Nancy Jo wrapped it up in a napkin and it has a little sign that says MOUSE✝️ on it, and it is just outside my door. We didn't want to just throw him away because trash pickup isn't until tomorrow night and we don't know if you need to do some kind of mouse autopsy, though that last part seems unlikely. Also we didn't want to go through his pockets to see if there is family contact information. If he has pockets. Or a family. ANYWAY my cube number is H1-12. Could you please come get him?

NEXT


Deb: Maybe a bat got him.
Me: Maybe bats are mouse angels.

It took two hours to get my phone's soul migrated, including them telling me twice that new phone isn't compatible because they couldn't get the triangle part to work. Still better than the time I had to go from a Virgin candy bar phone to a Google Pixel at Best Buy. It not only took forever, but it was like 90F in there and they kept repeating the same trailer for Game of Thrones over and over. Anyway, new phone doesn't have a name yet, but it has SO MUCH BATTERY, and the memory actually works so I can have all the apps back that I had to delete from old phone just to keep it running. Unfortunately it's like an inch wider than old phone, which means it is just big enough that my microhand can't do all the buttons on its own, so I had to send for a stupid phone knob that will allow me to read on the bus. Also the magnet thing for a wrist strap, so it doesn't go under a bus seat because I am too old to be crawling around on those horrible floors. And someone thought that putting the headphone jack on the bottom was a good idea, but finding a phone that even has a headphone jack was a task.

I swear to God the last time we bought a car it took all of 20 minutes.

My phone has whatever Ali McGraw had in Love Story, so I needed to make an appointment at my phone store to get my new phone set up. The online appointment function leads to a blank white screen. (Old phone will become a music player and possible dollhouse television via wifi.)

The phone number listed for the local store is the national service line. I was on hold for 15 minutes before I got a human person, named Kurt (I blame his parents). "Yeah, our stores aren't really made to accept incoming calls."

The phone store. Is not made. To accept incoming calls.

Anyway, I'm getting set up tomorrow night.

We watched Johnny Mnemonic, which was not in any way a good movie, though absolutely not the worst SF I've ever seen (that honor still goes to Altman's Quintet, which is only good as knitting porn). Robert Longo is a fine artist and great at shorts but hiring him for this was not a particularly good idea.

BUT it had Henry Rollins, Ice-T, and Beat Takeshi, which made it fucking awesome. T has that James Garner thing where he works really hard to look like he's just showing up, and the audience is all, Ice-T is here, we'll be okay.

https://linktr.ee/annlairms

And started a Patreon, which is free. Come visit the deeply stupid TOS stickers.

So we had a massive blizzard yesterday, with 60 mph winds sending chunks of tree snow into the windows like bullets. Then the power and the wifi went out, so I hid in bed and listened to Ridiculous Crime on my phone, since I never come remotely close to using up my monthly data. Woke up two hours later when everything in the house turned back on simultaneously, scaring the hell out of me.

I love when the wifi goes out, because the wifi company sends me emails to tell me the wifi is out. "Um, you guys know that I can't...yeah, never mind."

Anyway, the Ridiculous Crime episodes about Studio 54 and Miss Cleo are pretty great.

The 7 inches of snow we got should vanish by tomorrow, because it's fucking April.

Long story short: Bought large/heavy stuff, Uber from the grocery was $45 (there was a concert), sent for Lyft that never arrived but by then Uber was back to $10, but got a free trial of Paramount+ out of it.

I finally remembered I had it last night and started watching Star Trek: Lower Decks. I like it very much, though so far it's not as good as the comic, but the comic's written by Ryan North so it's a high bar. The opening credit sequence is charming and the design is excellent. The Cerritos has that real-place feeling that is hard to get in TV animation, and is the reason they spent big bucks planning New New York for Futurama.

It's the version of Paramount+ with ads, and JESUS H. CHRIST DO I EVER HATE ADS. It's a half-hour show and there are 3-4 ad breaks per episode.

Also, if you don't care for Star Trek, there is very little to watch on Paramount+. If you do like Star Trek, your money is better spent on discs.

Sudden upturn in mentally ill screaming people Downtown. (Not to be confused with the actually abusive screaming people who emerged with Trumpism and the pandemic, most of whom wouldn't be caught dead Downtown.) I don't know if it's just the nice weather, or what their deal is. They aren't really hurting anybody. Nothing to do really except be nice to them.

I rammed a rotary cutter into the side of my left pointy finger last night.

Do not recommend.