Highs and lows

[Anita Blake]

ha... I stand corrected... I will be working double time before leaving this job. My old boss called me and somehow managed to book me for most of next week - when I'm still working my last few days - funny thing is he's had me booked for the last couple weeks, even though he didn't know for sure if/when I'd be quitting... He called me last night and was like "so, can you come by thursday night, I need some help".

[Arawis]

What type of work do you do?

I work with clinical trials for cancer. Our commitments are different for each trial, but for the main one I work on I'm basically an off-site coordinator because I manage the entire trial (recruitment, patient appointments, data monitoring, logistics, safety reports, etc.). It's very different from all of the other projects my company usually does, and it was a guinea pig project that my bosses decided to do. I wasn't here when it started but I've been saddled with it since my first day so now it's kind of a one-woman show (everyone else who has worked on it quit, most of them before I even joined the company).

Hey Anita, congrats! I know it's tough to be double-booked but at least your freelance career gets a running start

[Anita Blake]

Low: I have to work this weekend, and possibly next weekend.

High: I get to bill for it! AND, my business cards came in, and they look super-cool. And reasonably priced, I thought. I feel all fancy now, I have a box of business cards that I designed for myself.

[Mike]

Hooray!

I've been wanting business cards for a long time. But I can't come up with a design. And I can't come up with a business. It must be so utterly cool to have both. ~nods~

[Anita Blake]

ha! I AM my business. Basically, I'm a whore. I sell my self. Perform services for clients in exchange for money. That's my business model.

Granted, I don't get naked, and there's no sex, but sometimes, I feel dirty anyway. (she says, having been in business all of 2 days).

[Anita Blake]

oh hey, double posting. yay me!

low: tired. so freaking tired.

High: apparently i picked the right time to quit my job and freelance, since i've never had so many people calling me asking me to do stuff, and saying how busy they are and really need someone like me. Doesn't hurt that one of the top guys in town is leaving for 2 months. Though I suspect the is the "feast" part of the "feast or famine".

high-low: jesus, i quit my job and I am busier than hell! i have hobbies to attend to!

[dark fuschia]

lol that is really great news Anita =) Make the most of it, and maybe when that top guy comes back you will be known too as a top guy.

Low: My alarm didn't work this morning and I was late, after planning a glorious early morning start where I achieved heaps of work by ten am.

High: Gosh I had a nice sleep in this morning...

[Eyreplenh]

High: Still some days of easter and freedom left.

Low: My email has finally been corrupted and has sent spam to all my contacts. Seriously, fuck that shit! Probably my own fault too, I logged in a couple of times on unsecure networks in turkey when I was there.

I'd like to add a curse to hotmail as well, as that seems to be usual practice, but to be honest I've used it for 10+ years without issues before now, so my guess is I screwed up.

Now, the question is, is this a sign I should leave m kindergarden-y, weird and current adress and change into something a bit more mature, like name@emailsupplier or something?

[Anita Blake]

low: last thursday pretty much the absolutely worst work-related thing ever happened. After being pushed to try to install some software that was incompatible with the OS, and after I had already basically said "it's not going to work" someone said "oh, just update the OS, the incremental upgrade should work, even if it's not fully supported", and totally against my better judgement, I clicked on the damn "update software" button, and then the work computer would not boot up and thought it had no OS at all. Which I thought was OK, because I don't keep anything important on the system drive... except for all of the work I did in the past 2 weeks and hadn't backed up properly, because the software I use automatically puts everything on the freaking system drive. So I basically spent all weekend preparing myself for the worst: having to completely re-do 3 episodes of a TV show and re-prep a movie - for free. Not to mention feeling like a complete moron for making this happen. Seriously not good.

High: I just talked to my contact there, and apparently the IT guy was able to clone the drive and get everything working again. I want to kiss him. (aside from him being probably one of the best-looking IT guys I've ever seen...) Also, still kind of coming down from the heart attack that has been looming for the past 3 days.

PS, don't ever let anyone tell you that Macs don't catastrophically crash. They totally do.

[AquaFizz]

Low: My email has finally been corrupted and has sent spam to all my contacts.

Low: I'm mostly just hurt that I didn't get any spam from Eyre this weekend.

High: Yesterday was my first ever Our Lady Peace concert. It was in, what has to be, the tiniest venue ever. I waited 15 years to finally see them and I think it was completely worth the wait. I want to move to Canada, just so I can pay taxes and thank Canadia for giving me Raine Maida and his awesome band.

[Anita Blake]

Hmm, OLP post-1997? Sigh...

Fizz, if you like OLP, you should check out the entire catalogue of 1990s Canadian Rock. I Mother Earth (actually, just their first 2 albums), The Tea Party (Splendor Solis, Edges of Twilight, Transmission - not to mention they still do the greatest live shows I've been to), Age of Electric, Matthew Good Band (not Matthew Good's solo stuff, though that's not bad either), Econoline Crush. Ah, the 90's. When I was a teenager and therefore music was better than it is nowadays.

[AquaFizz]

Oi! I love '90s. (Though, admittedly, I've never heard of any of those other Canadian bands. But I'll check them out.) Post-1997 OLP is soooo not sigh worthy, though. I know 'Innocent' and 'Somewhere Out There' were a bit cheesy, but there's so much more than that. The last album was really good. I think closer to old OLP in some ways but different enough that it's not just the same shit. I haven't heard the newest because it's not available in the US yet. But, yeah...it was one of the best shows I've been to, honestly. They sounded great. I love his voice.

I'm so going to check out those bands tonight! I love me some 90s rock!

[Anita Blake]

So sad that the Tea Party especially never really got their due in the US. They are teh awesome. I've seen them live, I don't know, 7 or 8 times over 15 years, and it's always been amazing, even this most recent reunion tour. They have been described as Led Zepplin meets the Doors, both in derision and praise. It's weird, because I'm not a fan of either Zepplin OR the Doors, but I love my Tea Party. They have lots of nifty "eastern" influences and have fun with different instruments. As a Fun aside, they own TeaParty.com, and were getting lots of high-priced offers for the domain a few months back, since your political folks seemed to think that would be a good domain to own and nobody outside Canada & Australia (and maybe Germany) has heard of The Tea Party. Which, I have to say, is really their loss. Oh, but their videos suck for the most part, so don't watch their music videos.

I Mother Earth's album Dig is pretty much one of my faves, it's really mellow upbeat and hard and different, great drums and vibes. Very groovy.

[Eyreplenh]

I can vouch for Age of Electric! Splendid stuff Speaking of Canada, what about Broken Social Scene? Didn't they break (hah, I'm too funny!) until after 2000 perhaps? Anyway, that's my favourite part of canadian music right there

[Arawis]

I vouch for I Mother Earth! Don't know any of the others Amelia mentioned Surprisingly enough, Canada isn't very popular down here...