Leader of the Pack
Hello World,
Happy March! Although in many ways, it will be sad to leave the eventful February behind us, it can't be denied that we have now entered a special month full of special days for special people, and which February could only dream about. Earlier this week was our anniversary, and if celebrating 27 years of wedded bliss isn't enough, there's always presents, and no one has to ask me twice to show up for that, I can tell you. The anniversary elves did not disappoint, coming across with gifts of apparel, gadgets, jewelry and entertainment, with some practical items tossed in that will come in handy long after the excitement of the occasion has died down to a dull roar. Next week is my birthday, and I admit that it would probably bother me to realize how old I am, except for the fortuitous fact that I never can exactly remember my age, and my math skills are too rusty to be able to figure out the subtraction on my own, which is probably just as well. The week after that will be the annual donnybrook known as St. Patrick's Day, and you can bet that the green beer will be flowing like, well, green beer, I guess. And just when it seems like we would be running out of days, along comes Palm Sunday on the 28th, ushering in Holy Week right along with it, and if nothing else, at least Palm Sunday is special to our cats, for the fresh palms that they look forward to all year long. So here we have a month with a little bit of something for everyone, and sometimes you just have to wonder how they manage to pack it all in.
In other local news, the last snowstorm to hit the area was a doozy (I apologize for throwing all of this technical nomenclature out there) and really got everyone's attention, even winter-weary New Yorkers who thought they were beyond being shocked by the weather anymore. It started early and piled up quickly, with soggy drifts full of heavy wet snow that soon became unmanageable. We tried digging out, but by the time I should have left for work, it was an even bigger mess than when we started, and I figured there was no sense in chancing it. I ended up walking to work instead, which was certainly better than driving, but still no picnic, believe me, especially when I dropped one of my shoes, and had to backtrack six blocks through the drifts and plow tailings to retrieve it, thanks not. Now it's true that I don't have to do brain surgery, and undoubtedly could have stayed home with no discernible impact on the hospital's functionality. But at least I got the payroll done for the six departments in my areas of responsibility, and didn't use the weather as an excuse for not getting it finished on time. Of course, there were no administrators around that day to sign the time cards anyway, and while it may have ended up as an exercise in futility, at least my part of it was punctual. By the time I left around 4:00 PM, the conditions were much improved, and the roads had been cleared for the most part, so Bill had no trouble coming over to pick me up. On the way home, we drove past our usual Friday night diner, only to discover that they hadn't even opened for the day, so we were on our own for dinner and had to make the best of it, but it just wasn't the same thing at all. Personally, I think in bad weather that diners should be legally required to open, for people like us who fought our way into work, or stayed home and shoveled all day, and deserve a nice meal out to reward our industrious spirit and heroic efforts. After all, we already have Snow Emergency Routes, I can't see why we can't also have Snow Emergency Diners.
Meanwhile, in sports news from Spring Training, I stand corrected on my erroneous assertion that they are not playing games yet, as Bill pointed out that there are not only actual pre-season games taking place, but they're actually being televised. Just for the Mets alone, they will be showing 18 games on television in March, which certainly tells you something about how the audience is starved for sports programming at this time of year, right there. The best part is that since the games don't count, it doesn't matter if they win or lose, which is sort of like a non-medal sport in the Olympics, where they just play for the love of the game, and the acclaim of the spectators for their abilities. We've already watched one game, and it was positively delightful, if only for the green grass and sunshine, which I personally would trade the entire team for right now, and consider it a bargain.
We get the following story from Bill, about sending out their sign catalogues at work:
==========================
Anyway, this is glorious in that it manages to be complete jargon gibberish AND ungrammatical at the same time. A true wonder of modern Postalese! (How could anyone wonder why stamps are expensive when these people are minding the store?)
Subject: RE: Forrest Engraving
Since Forrest Engraving is a Flat, it won't go through MERLIN, which would fail it for not being Move Update Compliant. MERLIN would have the same changes as what our software has. Since the file was ran through NCOA, the 3602 has the NCOA box checked but we did not use the NCOA changes. Technically, anything that is suppose to be changed should mail to the original address via First Class, but because the post office still has not responded to the inquiry & some addresses have been verified via phone & google earth, we will mail them Standard.
======================
Well, I don't see any way of improving upon that, try as I might. And speaking of postage, I ordered stamps recently online, and got a very nice assortment of traditional first-class stamps, as well as some more unusual ones. There was one item that I needed to buy in a larger quantity, and they put all of them together in a plastic bag that they described as a "Value Pack of 5." Now, I don't mind saying that I'm as much in favor of value as the next fellow, but I couldn't help but notice that this so-called "value pack" was exactly the same price as the face value of the stamps to begin with, so I entirely failed to appreciate the "value" aspect of this merchandise. And if they think that packing all of this up in a plastic bag is what adds value to it when the price is exactly the same, then I'm afraid they have sorely misconstrued the whole idea of a value pack, and I despair of them ever actually grasping hold of the concept in any concrete way, that would represent real value, as opposed to a purely hypothetical value like this. Much less Move Update Compliant, for heaven's sake.
And while we're on the subject of packs, everyone knows that they just have to put NEW on something, and you can be sure that Bill will bring it home from the supermarket, and the President's economic advisers couldn't be happier. This time around, it was our friends at Hostess who came out with 100-calorie packs of Twinkie Bites, which are a scaled-down version of their regular Twinkies, with no trans fats for the health-conscious among us. Now here again, I'm as much in favor of good health as the next fellow, but I have to figure that someone who is eating Twinkies in the first place, obviously doesn't give a hoot about calories or trans fats, and in fact, wouldn't care to know how unhealthy Twinkies might be, if they're just going to go right ahead and eat them anyway. The people who care about that stuff are already eating granola bars and organic vegetables, believe me, while the rest of us scarfing down those Twinkies have long since given up caring how bad they might be for us. I will say that the Twinkie Bites don't really taste bad at all, but a 100-calorie pack of them is on the skimpy side, with the probably unintended result that a person who really wanted to have Twinkies would most likely just go ahead and eat the whole box of them in one sitting, and I ought to know. Of course, I have a perfectly good excuse because of the weather, and they were my Snow Emergency Twinkies.
Elle
Happy March! Although in many ways, it will be sad to leave the eventful February behind us, it can't be denied that we have now entered a special month full of special days for special people, and which February could only dream about. Earlier this week was our anniversary, and if celebrating 27 years of wedded bliss isn't enough, there's always presents, and no one has to ask me twice to show up for that, I can tell you. The anniversary elves did not disappoint, coming across with gifts of apparel, gadgets, jewelry and entertainment, with some practical items tossed in that will come in handy long after the excitement of the occasion has died down to a dull roar. Next week is my birthday, and I admit that it would probably bother me to realize how old I am, except for the fortuitous fact that I never can exactly remember my age, and my math skills are too rusty to be able to figure out the subtraction on my own, which is probably just as well. The week after that will be the annual donnybrook known as St. Patrick's Day, and you can bet that the green beer will be flowing like, well, green beer, I guess. And just when it seems like we would be running out of days, along comes Palm Sunday on the 28th, ushering in Holy Week right along with it, and if nothing else, at least Palm Sunday is special to our cats, for the fresh palms that they look forward to all year long. So here we have a month with a little bit of something for everyone, and sometimes you just have to wonder how they manage to pack it all in.
In other local news, the last snowstorm to hit the area was a doozy (I apologize for throwing all of this technical nomenclature out there) and really got everyone's attention, even winter-weary New Yorkers who thought they were beyond being shocked by the weather anymore. It started early and piled up quickly, with soggy drifts full of heavy wet snow that soon became unmanageable. We tried digging out, but by the time I should have left for work, it was an even bigger mess than when we started, and I figured there was no sense in chancing it. I ended up walking to work instead, which was certainly better than driving, but still no picnic, believe me, especially when I dropped one of my shoes, and had to backtrack six blocks through the drifts and plow tailings to retrieve it, thanks not. Now it's true that I don't have to do brain surgery, and undoubtedly could have stayed home with no discernible impact on the hospital's functionality. But at least I got the payroll done for the six departments in my areas of responsibility, and didn't use the weather as an excuse for not getting it finished on time. Of course, there were no administrators around that day to sign the time cards anyway, and while it may have ended up as an exercise in futility, at least my part of it was punctual. By the time I left around 4:00 PM, the conditions were much improved, and the roads had been cleared for the most part, so Bill had no trouble coming over to pick me up. On the way home, we drove past our usual Friday night diner, only to discover that they hadn't even opened for the day, so we were on our own for dinner and had to make the best of it, but it just wasn't the same thing at all. Personally, I think in bad weather that diners should be legally required to open, for people like us who fought our way into work, or stayed home and shoveled all day, and deserve a nice meal out to reward our industrious spirit and heroic efforts. After all, we already have Snow Emergency Routes, I can't see why we can't also have Snow Emergency Diners.
Meanwhile, in sports news from Spring Training, I stand corrected on my erroneous assertion that they are not playing games yet, as Bill pointed out that there are not only actual pre-season games taking place, but they're actually being televised. Just for the Mets alone, they will be showing 18 games on television in March, which certainly tells you something about how the audience is starved for sports programming at this time of year, right there. The best part is that since the games don't count, it doesn't matter if they win or lose, which is sort of like a non-medal sport in the Olympics, where they just play for the love of the game, and the acclaim of the spectators for their abilities. We've already watched one game, and it was positively delightful, if only for the green grass and sunshine, which I personally would trade the entire team for right now, and consider it a bargain.
We get the following story from Bill, about sending out their sign catalogues at work:
==========================
Anyway, this is glorious in that it manages to be complete jargon gibberish AND ungrammatical at the same time. A true wonder of modern Postalese! (How could anyone wonder why stamps are expensive when these people are minding the store?)
Subject: RE: Forrest Engraving
Since Forrest Engraving is a Flat, it won't go through MERLIN, which would fail it for not being Move Update Compliant. MERLIN would have the same changes as what our software has. Since the file was ran through NCOA, the 3602 has the NCOA box checked but we did not use the NCOA changes. Technically, anything that is suppose to be changed should mail to the original address via First Class, but because the post office still has not responded to the inquiry & some addresses have been verified via phone & google earth, we will mail them Standard.
======================
Well, I don't see any way of improving upon that, try as I might. And speaking of postage, I ordered stamps recently online, and got a very nice assortment of traditional first-class stamps, as well as some more unusual ones. There was one item that I needed to buy in a larger quantity, and they put all of them together in a plastic bag that they described as a "Value Pack of 5." Now, I don't mind saying that I'm as much in favor of value as the next fellow, but I couldn't help but notice that this so-called "value pack" was exactly the same price as the face value of the stamps to begin with, so I entirely failed to appreciate the "value" aspect of this merchandise. And if they think that packing all of this up in a plastic bag is what adds value to it when the price is exactly the same, then I'm afraid they have sorely misconstrued the whole idea of a value pack, and I despair of them ever actually grasping hold of the concept in any concrete way, that would represent real value, as opposed to a purely hypothetical value like this. Much less Move Update Compliant, for heaven's sake.
And while we're on the subject of packs, everyone knows that they just have to put NEW on something, and you can be sure that Bill will bring it home from the supermarket, and the President's economic advisers couldn't be happier. This time around, it was our friends at Hostess who came out with 100-calorie packs of Twinkie Bites, which are a scaled-down version of their regular Twinkies, with no trans fats for the health-conscious among us. Now here again, I'm as much in favor of good health as the next fellow, but I have to figure that someone who is eating Twinkies in the first place, obviously doesn't give a hoot about calories or trans fats, and in fact, wouldn't care to know how unhealthy Twinkies might be, if they're just going to go right ahead and eat them anyway. The people who care about that stuff are already eating granola bars and organic vegetables, believe me, while the rest of us scarfing down those Twinkies have long since given up caring how bad they might be for us. I will say that the Twinkie Bites don't really taste bad at all, but a 100-calorie pack of them is on the skimpy side, with the probably unintended result that a person who really wanted to have Twinkies would most likely just go ahead and eat the whole box of them in one sitting, and I ought to know. Of course, I have a perfectly good excuse because of the weather, and they were my Snow Emergency Twinkies.
Elle
posted by El Tango Fandango @ 1:22 PM
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