Niff.Dot

One of the most overwhelming things in my life is looking around my apartment and realizing that I don’t have one bloody finished piece of art.  Other than those I generated in college, and that’s only because they were virtually completed at gunpoint.  And they look like it.  Which is most likely why I don’t have one bloody finished piece of art in my apartment.

“Art is never finished, only abandoned.”  – Leonardo da Vinci

(Not sure where this compulsion to prattle off quotes is coming from.)

“Real smarts come when you stop quoting other people.”  – Chuck Palahniuk

I don’t know if this is the bane of artists everywhere, but I find that I am much more productive when I am in a state of stress, worry or angst.  When I am sublimely happy and perpetually elated I don’t feel the least bit creative.  I’m assuming it’s because I’m feeling more sociable and don’t spend a lot of time at home in order to pursue such endeavors, but it is entirely frustrating.  I suppose it’s a testament to the quality of my life, that there are so many incomplete works in my home.  If they were finished, it might suggest a miserable and depressive nature which is definitely not a good prize.

I’m not miserable and depressed at the moment, I just have a lot of flux in my life, and whereas I don’t find it upsetting, it does cause a bit of tension, as that has been somewhat of a leitmotif in my life.  It used to be *much* worse, any slight change in my life would be cause for a Chernobyl-esque reaction.  But I have become far more adaptable in my old age.

Ha!  “Old”.  Egads.

Bloody hell, am I actually writing a reflective blog?  I’d best watch out for that fissure in the space-time continuum that’s going to engulf the world and negate all existence.  That might piss some people off.  Especially considering the fact that December 2012 is a good ways off and they might feel slighted if I denied them a year and a half of shenanigans and taxes.

Voulez-voulez-vous “All the effort in the world won’t matter if you’re not inspired.” – Chuck Palahniuk

One thing I’ve noticed about WordPress is that it gives you the option to both categorize and add keywords to your posts; which I suppose is an altogether brilliant idea, as it provides somewhat of a filing system for your blog entries. Want to see everything you’ve ever written about turnips? BAM! There ya go. Need all your posts regarding the migratory patterns of African swallows? SHA-ZAM!!! The mere click of your mouse and it’s sheer magic. *Wipes a tear*

However comma…

I downloaded the WordPress iPhone app last night and was struck by two very real and very difficult-to-digest truths.

The app does not include the following features:
– autocomplete
– spell check
– auto-capitalization
– the “double-space enters a period” phenomenon.

The other harsh truth:

My iPhone has made me mentally retarded.

I originally began this post in the aforementioned app, prattling along as usual, assuming that the necessary “I”‘s and punctuation and “teh’s” were being handled for me as always, that my prose and brilliance and “stream of consciousness” method were going to be tended to with minimal effort on my behalf, because my phone loves me.

“Et tu, Brute?”

The paragraphs that resulted were an abomination that would incite the mockery of second-graders.

To remedy the situation would have taken four times longer than defaulting to my BlogPress app that provides such a babysitting feature, thus here I am. Tended to. Safe. Warm. Still feeling mentally retarded, to be un-P.C. (sorry about that…)

Mind you, when I’m at a computer I make no such assumptions regarding “Im” -> “I’m” etc, I am able to compose as I once did before such technologies existed. It is only in this environment where everything goes to hell. Perhaps it’s because my thumbs are not accustomed to operating solo, and they need a sort of grammatical “wingman”. All I know is that it will take time, patience, and a build-up of self-esteem before I can wander into *that* territory again. For now, I’m just not ready.

Voulez-voulez-vous i do not like green eggs and ham i do not like them sam i am

Actually I lied. This past Tuesday was (allegedly) International Monty Python Day. Facebook status updates were abound with spam (the mishmashed pork product), Ni, father-hamsters, and Spanish Inquisitions. My page certainly wasn’t immune. The “Castle Anthrax Spanking” quote was by far my favorite. In fact, as of 6:30 am this morning the comments are still going strong. Perhaps I’ll post a screenshot later. On the bus at the moment.

Speaking of which, forgot my headphones on my desk at work yesterday. Which sucks because now I’m forced to listen to the sound of the wind and the chick behind me yelling at her boyfriend for thirty-five solid minutes. Time and place. Srsly.

For the longest time I would hear a dog crying in my building, or at least somewhere very near to it. The sort of tortured wails belonging to a creature bemoaning his abandonment while his parents left for work/friends/merriment/etc.
It was somewhat heartbreaking the pain expressed in the cries and yelps from this poor canine soul.

However…

As I leave my apartment this morning I hear these selfsame tortured sounds intensify in volume and think, “oh, good heavens, he’s gotten outside…”,

I walk down Cherry and I notice a rather animated fellow, in shabby attire, hair wild and unkempt, face tilted toward the heavens, howling and yelping to any and all within earshot. The realization of the whole mad scene and my misplaced worry and concern sets in.

Sigh. Seattle.

Voulez-voulez-vous it’s people!!!

Location:Cherry St,Seattle,United States

I love how this iPhone blogging app has a built-in stalking feature that inserts my location after I’ve typed in the title, so people know where I am when I’m writing. Unbeknownst to the app, I’m usually composing these en route to work, so their intentions are alas thwarted. Muahaha. I pass through two entire counties while composing these, you nosy bastards.

Pleased though I may be at the sudden increase in temperature, particularly because I spend a good chunk of time outside as I make use of mass transit for my commute, I do not appreciate the havoc it is wreaking on my autoimmune system. (aaaand thank you autocomplete for keeping me from having to spell out autoimmune. See what I mean? Sheesh.). I haven’t dealt with allergies in years, however for some reason beyond my comprehension, this season, whenever I step into the great outdoors, my face simultaneously closes up and begins to leak in strange places, and itch in highly inconvenient and inaccessible ones. And so unaccustomed to this phenomenon am I that I neglect to take antihistamines before leaving the house in the mornings. Fail.

I don’t really feel like writing anymore. Just felt like whining.

Voulez-voulez-vous was it as good for you as it was for me?

Location:5th Ave,Seattle,United States

I’m sure most everyone by now is familiar with the infamous iPhone Autocorrect Phenomenon. I’m relatively new to the iPhone, after waiting patiently for two years to escape Verizon Blackberry Storm2 Hell. I had disabled the spellcheck feature on my Blackberry because, as most people of my generation, I went to school before the digital age. So we were forced to learn proper grammar, punctuation and spelling.
Needless to say I found it frustrating that a small piece of metal and circuitry had the audacity to presume that it knew what I was going to say before I said it.
We considered couples counseling for a while.

However, when I finally acquired my iPhone, so fascinated was I by the autocorrect phenomenon I was determined to see what alternatives this sleek and sexy device came up with to words that fell victim to my fat and clumsy thumbs.

I must say, 60% of the time, it is more than mostly awesome.
I’ve included screenshots to better illustrate. I’ve been collecting them over time. (You can tell who I text the most). There are some particularly hilarious ones, but they tend to be somewhat racy, one even involving a gerbil, so alas they will have to remain in my photo album.

I have family that read this thing.

I have noticed the autocorrect feature does enjoy defaulting to “Hebrews” and “Jews” quite a bit. I’m not altogether certain what that’s all about. I’ve never once seen “Jesus” or “Allah” or “The Flying Spaghetti Monster” being offered as an alternative. I’m hoping I’m not an anti-Semite at heart, or something, since I’ve never deliberately meant to type about God’s chosen people.

And although profanity is not contained in it’s vast lexicon (“shit” becomes “shot”, “fuck” becomes “fick”, even “hell” becomes “he’ll”), I have noticed “Oobleck” and “Vulcan” pass it’s filters. Which is quite sexy-cool, albeit illogical.
(*snicker*)

I have noticed the damnyouautocorrect.com site, however funny, has become somewhat of a staged endeavor. When male and female body parts are used in excess as well as profanity, I wave the bullshit flag on that one. You see more dad’s bringing hookers home, moms and dildos, eating penises for lunch, grandmothers asking for condoms…I mean, honestly now. Don’t be so obvious and it might actually pass for funny. I mean, Hehee to Hebrew? That’s comedy, man! So yeah, maybe I’m biased, And yeah, maybe I *am* my own best form of entertainment. Which is why my blog has no subscribers. But I’ve been carrying on at this blog nonsense for six years, so I am obviously undaunted. But at least my texting flubs are authentic. I’m fucking hilarious, man.

I *have* been able to whip my phone into submission enough to where it no longer defaults to “Buff” instead of “Niff”. “Niff” is definitely not “Buff”. It’s a nice thought, though. There’s never been a problem with Doppler, for obvious reasons. Although it does like to convert pi to Pi, so perhaps I’ve been de-propering pi all this time and not giving it the mad pi-props it’s deserved. Don’t I just pi-suck.

The problem with all of this auto-correcting is, no one needs to spell anything anymore. Even the words that are intended, by the time I’m three or four letters in, iPhone says, “here, let me get that for you…”, as if I can’t be bothered with typing out the whole thing. We’re all becoming verbally handicapped. People honestly don’t see the issue with using “your” instead of “you’re”. They sound the same…why do we need to spell them differently? (PLEASE see The Oatmeal’s Retarded Emails for documented evidence of this phenomenon; it’s hilarious and worth the time.)

Most of my spelling errors are due to typos because I can’t type for shit. I never took an official typing class. I’ve developed an accelerated and masterful “hunt and peck” method over the years. I should patent it. However, this does mean I still have to look at the keyboard when I type. Once in a while I get spunky and try to type while looking at the screen. Then all goes to hell. Like rtight now. This is goirnf to be gantastic. whaddia think? I mean, it’s not roo bad. It;s vbetter than it used to be, bt I wouldn;t sent a peofessonal correspondenxw this way. I look like a reyarded fourth gheader. I look like a defectine autocorrect progra, hasd taken over my clog/ jow unfortunale for mu feet apparently.

Fuck that. I’ve got the best penmanship of anyone I know and do amazing calligraphy, and have perfect spelling when I write. So nyah.

Voulez-voulez-vous my gerbil gets in the wau.
(from one of the censored autocorrects.)

Having my blog so easily accessible is going to be potentially annoying. I can tell already.
I arrive at the bus stop at 6:45 am and my office 7:45 am, so as you can see I have some idle time. However, as my poor blog has suffered some neglect as of late (as evidenced by the numbers over there –> ) it could stand some rapid-fire attention.

Once upon a time, I used to blog daily, or near it. Granted I was married and living in Snoqualmie, so I didn’t exactly have what you’d call a raging social life, but needless to say I had quite a bit more time for such things. The subject matter wasn’t altogether as fascinating as it is now, where I have downtown Seattle and Cap Hill as fodder. Snoqualmie + married life + no friends to speak of = the following topics:

– I really hate leaf blowers
– it’s really busy at work on thanksgiving
– I painted the livingroom walls
– my dogs and my husband are all sleeping at 3 in the afternoon
– hey! It’s raining…

Now I get to write about Peep massacres and stalking panhandlers, so it all worked out.

This was also before the advent of Facebook.

Where once I would notice something quirky, noteworthy, amusing, or what I considered to be a blog-qualifier, became pathetically truncated into a “status update”. What’s worse, is once this nugget of (what I consider to be) cleverness is dumped into facebook’s massive database of grammatically incorrect banality (yes, I am an elitist like that), it’s pretty much lost, unless you have an hour or so to search back through all of your old posts.
I did once. I found that even though I opened my account in 2007, it only goes back to 2008. Thieving bastards, they are.
That’ll teach me to take the easy way out, I suppose.

Perhaps now that I have more opportunity to write I should go back and use some of those updates as potential blog topics. Although I may find it disturbing how often I’ve quoted “Monty Python and The Holy Grail” and “The Big Lebowski”.

Voulez-voulez-vous “Help! Help! I’m being repressed-”
– “Shutup, Donnie.”

Location:Cherry St,Seattle,United States

Well…finally found a decent blogging app for my pi-phone. Let’s see how badly autocorrect can manage to fuck it up. Actually, I think I’m going to institute a new policy that for any blogs written via mobile, if mis-autocorrected, must remain in their horribly altered state. Reader beware.
On my way back from the drugstore during lunch today, while strolling jovially through the rare Seattle sunshine, it struck me that I shouldn’t be required to work in such brilliant weather. Days such as today are so few and far between that we (can I just interject that I have an unusually *hot* bus driver? It’s weird…) should be permitted the fair-weather equivalent of a Snow Day. Just sayin’.
I may even bring you a shrubbery on a day such as today if you ask nicely.
Made a painful discovery today, which I’m not going to whine about on my blog because, well, it’s not Livejournal, but let’s just say I had a mini-epiphany as a result where I realized that changing who I am to make others more comfortable not only gives them control over me, but causes irreparable damage. And no human being, *no one*, is worth that. Which is really challenging when you spend most of your life trying to live up to other people’s expectations.
Why do people hang out in the shade when it’s sunny? Odd.
Ah, there’s another Mariner’s game today. They (fans, not baseball players) like to crowd the bus to Seattle on game day. Better a lot of people on one bus than a lot of people in a lot of cars, I say.
Ooh…awesome. Man in a top hat. At the transit station. I gotta say, men look mighty fine in top hats. And those news boy hats too. Hats are highly underrated. I’d wear hats more often but I have a fat head. Most women’s hats are too small for my huge noggin. And my Dumbo ears. I’m-a gonna go cry myself to sleep on my huge pillah.

Boulez-Boulez-voussoirs phone blogging…jury’s out on that one.

(I was looking forward to seeing how autocorrect butchered “voulez-voulez-vous”. Win.)

The following irritated the service industry employees I polled before writing this. It surprised me, actually.

Here goes.

I have a cynical view of tipping.
But before I launch into this full-force, you should know that I worked in the food service industry for quite some time. I worked my ass off. Sacrificing weekends, holidays, a social life (ok, maybe the now nonexistent marriage killed the social life, but I digress…), but before I launch into my diatribe here, you needed to know…I paid my dues.

Jump to present day…the catalyst for this whole affair.

A friend of mine and I had decided to stagger into Cupcake Royale after many rounds at the nearby dive bar. For some reason pastel-colored overly-decorated delicacies sounded like a fine idea. So, we went.

We made our selections (after a brief cringe at the “Bacon whiskey something-or-other” cupcake – I kid you not), the clerk places them gingerly in the box, then hands them to the girl at the register. To whom I hand my debit card, at which point I notice a tip jar. A tip jar. Curious. Now…just what was gratuity-worthy? Following me home and asking me how everything was?
She hands me the receipt to sign, and as I do, I notice the presumptuous little “Tip line” below the total.

Are you fucking kidding me?

What the hell am I supposed to be tipping them for? Putting them in the box? Ringing up my order? And it’s not even like there was one person handling this laborious task, there were two of them. It was a bloody cupcake-packing assembly line.

I ignored the arrogance of the tip line and left, clutching my box (which I’m I’m assuming they printed by hand until their fingers bled, hence the tip jar…) and walked to the car in the rain. Maybe if they’d escorted me with an umbrella, I’d have slipped them a twenty.

This incident got me thinking. How many places now have these annoying little vessels of “alms” at the register? Aside from cafes, we have them at the deli, pizza shops, Dunkin Donuts, Ice Cream parlors. Now, these employees get an hourly wage. Usually higher than the national average. Which is another reason why this “tip jar” phenomenon confuses me. I remember a time when servers in restaurants made below minimum wage so the rest of their income was could be supplemented by the gratuities they received from their tables.

When I was a server, the sum of the tips I accrued at the end of the day I did not get to keep. I was required to tip out the bartender, my server assistant, the busboy, the hostess ($0.50 per person she sat; I’m still bitter about that; if she sat 300 people, I had to give her $150 of my tips.) I was left with about 40%. I did not completely resent this, they were providing continued service to guests in our restaurant and helped me make money. That’s the magic word. Continued service. We just didn’t drop food off and leave. We checked on the quality of the meal, refilled beverages, replaced napkins, cleared plates.

When you order a chicken sandwich at McDonald’s, you don’t tip the people who make them. You don’t tip the people at the drive-thru. What puzzles me is, what makes baristas so entitled? And now we have cupcakes and ice cream and Subway sandwiches? It’s getting out of hand. Are we going to be tipping bus drivers and teachers and the receptionist at the doctor’s office?

It could be entirely possible that it’s not tipping per se that I have issue with; maybe I just don’t appreciate how I am personally regarded when I don’t tip. People think that I’m cheap, an asshole, insensitive, from France. I’m not cheap, nor an asshole. Maybe I could pull off being French. I tip, and I tip well. I just tip appropriately. I don’t tip people who put cupcakes in a box so that I have the cash to tip the server at 13 Coins 40%. And why? Because she went the extra mile, brought extra lemons when I didn’t even ask because she remembered me from the last time, and has a genuine smile, a great laugh and loves showing pictures of her family.

There’s also Duncan, at my favorite bar who usually gets 50%, but he gets his own blog entry. After I ask his permission first. =)

Voulez-voulez-vous

Editor’s Note: This was actually written some time ago. Forgot to hit the “Publish Post” button.

Eh, details.

Enjoy.

Oddity for the day:

Walking toward Broadway. Hear the unmistakable sounds of seagulls. Many seagulls.

I look up.

Many, many seagulls.

Um…this was downtown, not Elliott Bay.

Maybe one or two errant birds, okay. But these things had lined themselves up like a chorus line on the rooftops of several buildings for over a block.

Ever see that scene in “The Day After Tomorrow” where the birds, knowing what’s up, flee en masse from the seas inland in order to avoid impending meteorological disaster? I did.

I wondered if the plague of locusts was far behind.

Pedestrians and bus stop denizens were just as rapt and puzzled as I. As we observed they would rapidly perch then flee in perfect sync. When nature behaves in such a bizarre way it tends to make me edgy.

Then I saw the massive horde congealing as a single avian unit in one very specific place.

Dick’s Drive-In burger joint.

Venture to say tomorrow morning there is a 42-foot radius of seagull excrement icing the structures and pavement around and including the illustrious Dick’s Drive-In. Hope that panhandling artist guy brought a sturdy umbrella.

Barman: Did you say the end of the world is coming? Shouldn’t we all lay down on the floor or put paper bags over our heads?

Ford Prefect: If you wish.

Barman: Will it help?

Ford Prefect: Not at all.

Voulez-voulez-vous mieux vaut tard que jamais.