Everyday Stupidities

Greetings, blogosphere. The home improvements just keep coming. We've finished painting the livingroom (colors below) -- the darker grey is on the left side of the room (the one with the window and front door) and the back (which is mostly hidden by a bookshelf), the lighter grey covers the front and right side plus is on both sides of the hall. What's odd is that while swatches and samples make it seem like it'd be dark, it really isn't... the light parts look off-white in good light and the darker parts look the same color as the light parts in low light. You'd probably have to see it to wrap your head around it, I know I did. We had the drapes cleaned and replaced the curtain rod, and that was sort of an adventure because it seems the curtain is a lot wider than it should be for that size window. So now we know why the bar was so rediculously long! I cut the trim strips last night [and repurchased / redid the ones I screwed up this morning] but we haven't bothered to prime and paint them yet. I got flak for a week for not doing my end of the trim deal, then she doesn't do anything with the goods once I have them ready (and she stayed home from work today so she had every chance to prepare them). Anyhow, they should be done and in place in a few days, hopefully. We can't put the furniture back in place until that happens! We also spent about $400 to get the heater and ducts cleaned, which may sound extreme but it'd not been done since 1995 according to the log taped on the front of the system. And looking in the crud-filled intakes as I replaced the grilles in the hallway during the paint spree... it was 10 years overdue. Two reusable electrostatic filters in the hall will replace the one disposable paper filter in the heater.

It's time for a word about our sponsor, Blogger. As I think I mentioned last time, I was involuntarily converted into the login-with-Google thing while writing last week's entry. Typically I do my text editing while viewing the page with Opera 6, but upload the picture(s) by creating the entry with Internet Explorer 6 -- and it's done that way because Blogger would not insert pictures if I didn't add them first thing (later attempts would say they were complete but the code wouldn't show up) and any attempts to add pictures at any time with Opera would fail (same story, it'd say done then no code). So today I try logging in through IE, and it wouldn't finish putting up the Google Login box. Okay, click Old Blogger Login, and enter my old Blogger info, and it chastises me that I am supposed to use my Google login, and fills in the Gmail address. Great, here's my password, and... still doesn't finish loading the page. Ahh, but if I go back to Opera, not only can I log in with the Google address without a hitch, I can now upload pictures with it and have the code show. (Doing so first thing, no sense tempting fate that later would work.) Er, guys? Thanks for fixing my gripe while breaking a lot of other people's logins!

Employment update, in brief: It's sliding over the "midweek" hump and I'm ready to hear now. I've had both of my contacts contacted, both gave glowing reports, and the interviewer even said he'd only heard good things about me. A couple people have told me that if the place bothered calling my contacts, that means I must have passed the second interview. Good to know, but I sort of expected to get that call or an email on Wednesday... there's always today. Else I'll jingle their chimes tomorrow, and they'd better have good news. It won't be them I'd be upset with if I get bad news, it'd be whatever the cause of the bad news is; call it paranoia or total lack of trust in the people I've worked for and the third-parties that get consulted about my worthiness as a human being, but I fear others actively trying to deep-six my chances of getting a worthwhile job because I've seen it happen before. The concept of working for a business for over a year yet not wanting to list them on one's work history due to them always giving bad reports, or being punished by the future for something you didn't get punished for in the past, annoy me.

I don't have a real stupidity to list, though I did have a couple historical anecdotes I wanted to share but it's 2:35am so I can't remember what they were. Will say that the amount of spam I've been getting lately has taken a sudden spike -- I'd been getting almost none for weeks (to the point of not getting any mail at all; how I miss your letters, Ariel!) and then suddenly a few days ago, a massive onslaught started on three of my accounts at the same time. Thought it was interesting when Royal Canadian Bank wrote me twice asking me to fix my account information. There's an anti-stupidity, though; 25 days after I mailed that package of candy to Hungary by the US Postal Service and Posta Magyar (since UPS wanted an obscene amount) I got word that it has arrived, hopefully unmolested, raising the delivery rate of my packages there back to 50%. Anyhow, here's the paint, as seen in the corner behind the television. The entire room used to be matte white, with yellow undertones where the previous crackheads' furniture used to be because they painted around it, so this is a vast improvement. Keep thinking good thoughts for me, and I'll be posting ASAP about my new job. *crossing fingers* [update 11pm: I received an email with an employment offer letter at 3:45pm... yaaay!!! Details about when I start training will be worked out tomorrow.]
Smoke Screen -=|=- Faint Flicker