The Final Frontier

Me: [My boss] just gave me a model NCC-1701 to build.

StereoNinja: and that is????

Me: The Enterprise. You lose 5 nerd points for that question.

There's Not Enough Nerds At Work To Fill A Space Cruiser

By tomorrow afternoon I will have been home from my latest trip to England for an entire week. I haven't posted about it yet, and it's not because I'm lazy (though I am), nor is it because I didn't do anything worth writing about (because I did). It's mostly because I'm struggling with the format for writing it. Normally I would write it up chronologically, you see, but in this case, my activities for all of both Mondays, Tuesday afternoon, most of Wednesday, the second half of Friday, a good portion of Saturday and the following Wednesday morning are the kinds of things better covered on an entirely different sort of blog (and they will be as soon as I remember to do some blogging at a time that I'm not at work). Anyway, recaps of the best trip anyone has ever taken to England ever will be along shortly.

In the meantime, this just happened:

BrownsFan (to the new guy): You're not into Star Wars at all, are you?

New guy: I wouldn't say not at all, but no, not really. (pause) This has something to do with Amber, doesn't it?

As he said this, I was standing in the hallway of my office holding up a massive sleeping bag shaped like a tauntaun that I bought from Thinkgeek late last week and had shipped to the office because it's where I tell people to ship things. It is the single greatest stupid-ass thing I have ever bought in my life and I was determined to force everyone to observe my joy, so I dragged the entire box into BrownsFan's office where she was suitably impressed because she is fucking awesome. New guy, on the other hand, was spectacularly disappointing. He only had a vague idea what the hell we were talking about, but not only that, he has no recollection AT ALL of Princess Leia's metal bikini (which was brought up by BrownsFan who wanted to know why, if I was such a big Star Wars fan (I had just announced that no one is a bigger Star Wars fan than me which is probably bullshit but whatever) I had done a photo shoot in a Star TREK costume instead of a Star WARS costume, an argument I totally won by pointing out that the only reason I didn't have a Star Wars costume for that shoot is that the metal bikini I am having custom made for me at a cost of literally hundreds of real American dollars wasn't ready at the time of that particular shoot. OBVIOUSLY.). And then I described it to him, and the fact that she clearly had no underwear on, and then openly speculated about how they kept her cooch from popping out when she went flying through the air hanging onto Luke. And then I sat down to write this and re-read that last sentence and was as surprised as ever that I remain both gainfully employed and free of sexual harassment charges.

Resolution (I Think)

I don't want to count my chickens here or anything, but I think I may have solved my mail delivery problem by outsmarting the post office. Also, I don't actually have any chickens, so can't do a lot of counting of them.

I have received actual mail, not junk mail, real mail addressed to me, at my home, for three of the last four days. Some of it came from people or organizations who recently had things they tried to mail me get sent back. I am cautiously optimistic that this will continue.

So how did I solve the problem? Because contacting the local post office on the internets did not work. Contacting the national post office online didn't work either. Phone calls to customer service, the local post office and the main Chicago branch were wholly ineffective. Complaining about the total lack of assistance when they sent me a survey about my recent USPS.com experience garnered no results whatsoever. I was about to contact the Problem Solvers when I decided to try one more time in a last ditch effort before bringing in the big guns. Because the thing is, the US Postal Service is a huge bureaucracy, right? My telling them, again and again and AGAIN AND AGAIN that I hadn't moved did absolutely nothing to get my mail started because you can tell people they're doing it wrong until you're blue in the face, but unless you figure out a way to get inside the system, nothing is going to change. Well, I figured out a way: I used their online change of address feature and I changed my address from my apartment to...my apartment. That's right, I changed my address from the one where I live to the exact same thing and lo and behold, a few days later I got a confirmation letter with a packet of "Welcome to the neighborhood" coupons from USPS, and shortly thereafter started opening my mailbox and finding actual mail inside it. I've beat them at their own game. Bravo, USPS, you are a worthy opponent, but I watch a lot of Star Trek and I am a master at using logic to defeat the illogical.

Learning Curve

My company moved our offices last week, which has been quite educational as far as getting to know my co-workers and finding out which of them are crazy and which are not, something I will not go into here, less out of privacy issues than out of my not wanting to relive the experience because, seriously, oh my god.

On the whole this has been good. I now have an office of my very own with an actual door and a window and a desk made out of wood. Also I have a weird diagonal beam in the back of my office that half covers the windows and truncates the usable space. Obviously I requested this particular office because I thought it was awesome, not to mention the fact that it is also the last one on the far end of the space, meaning that anyone coming this way is doing so on purpose to see me rather than walking by on their way to somewhere else, thus retaining my status of having the most private space of anyone here, which is good because I take naps under my desk Costanza style on a semi-regular basis (I have a pillow and everything). It is also gloriously RIGHT NEXT TO BROWNSFAN'S OFFICE. On moving in, I promptly tacked up a paper ceiling cat to watch me calculate because the CEO thinks it's really stupid. On the other side of BrownsFan is the CEO's office, in which he has laid out his furniture in a way that causes there to be a long alleyway of empty space to one side of his desk that everyone has had a suggestion as far as how to fill. Bowling alley was an idea. I went pinball machine after learning that he has a Star Trek one IN HIS HOME which he should obviously bring here so that I can play it. He has boringly gone with his own idea: tree. I was disappointed until he told me I could decorate it for Christmas at which point I started jumping up and down and squealing. I WILL DECORATE THE CRAP OUT OF THAT TREE FOR CHRISTMAS. WATCH ME.

Our new offices are located in the office tower portion of a train station, which I explored last week in an attempt to educate myself about my new surroundings. Here's what I've learned:

• There are no less than three Hudson News stores in this one train station (that I've found so far), two of which are directly across from one another. I bought a 20 oz. Coke Zero and a small bag of Chex Mix in there for over $7. It would have cost me less than $3 if I'd walked a few more feet to the CVS. I learned not to shop at Hudson News.
• There is also an Auntie Anne's Pretzels in here. Dangerous this may become. I am trying to forget that I know that.
• The trek to and from the office level floors involves a ride on the escalator. It is a huge pet peeve of mine when people get on an escalator and then just stand there, particularly when it's going down. People: The escalator is NOT A RIDE. Please either walk your lazy ass down the magical moving staircase or move the fuck over so I don't have to kill you.
• There is one major drawback to working in a commuter train station, which I discovered almost immediately: at quittin' time, absolutely everyone in the world is trying to get into the place you are trying to leave. And since it's the end of the day and everybody just wants to go home, they will mow you the hell down if you get in their way. Since I am leaving the train station I am, by definition, in their way, and getting home for me is now similar to a very frustrated salmon getting pelted with massive rocks on its way to spawn, except at the end I don't get to spawn. This strikes me as a very cruel joke. 

Remember when I said I wasn't going to talk about my co-workers at the beginning? I lied. Back in our old space, all of the offices had glass walls and the rest of the space was a sort of open architecture dealy-o, meaning everyone was pretty much all up in each other's business because you could hear and see everything that was happening. If you wanted to have a private conversation or scratch your ass this was not a good thing, but if you wanted to get someone's attention three desks away you could just call to them whatever it is you wanted. Apparently after 20 some odd years, this practice is a hard one for a few people to break. Despite the fact that we have these amazing walls now and that the layout is not at all designed for line of site to anyone else in the place, there are a few people who continue to yell into the hallway when they want to talk to someone. This is usually met with a yelled back "What?" which in turn leads to louder hallway screaming. BrownsFan and I have been supporting one another in our attempts not to strangle the others, who have not yet noticed, despite our reminders, that we have these amazing inventions called "telephones" and that proper usage of said "phones" would allow one to speak in a regular tone of voice whilst still being heard by the person five rooms away one would like to speak to without disrupting everyone else by screaming at the top of one's lungs. The technology is amazing, it's way beyond our time.

More on this later, and photos when I remember to take some. Currently it is time for my desk nap.

I Will Make Every Conversation About Sex Eventually. Every One.

The cake master's g-mail chat status read "ANTM is still on?" I had no idea what that meant so I googled it. Mistake.

me: Ok, I had to actually go look up what ANTM is, and now I'm upset that I did that
The cake master: hahaha
it's SO BAD

me: it's to the point where I don't even want to watch tv anymore because even if i'm watching something good there's going to be a commercial for something that flat out sucks

The cake master: haha
very true

me: also the history channel should not be allowed to be called the history channel any more

The cake master: why not?
because of the serious lack of history being broadcast on it?

me: who the hell's idea was it to make a reality show about logging? for reals. wtf?

The cake master: oh i know, it's ridiculous

me: also, discovery channel ghost hunters needs to be called "old houses make noises, get over it"

The cake master: omfg
HAHAHA
indeed
and BBC America needs to be called, "Hey, we have a few British shows"

me: OMG RIGHT? I love TNG n' everything but THAT WAS AN AMERICAN SHOW OH MY GOD STOP

The cake master: I actually emailed them about that once
like, BBC has so many good shows, can't we get a few more instead of TNG?
and they responded it's a popular show and they get good ratings on it

me: "it stars a british guy, what the eff do you want from us?"

The cake master: hahaha
right, now they have Battlestar Galactica
which I love, but COME ON
of course, it stars a british guy too, so I guess I shouldn't complain
a British guy with an American accent

me: There's already a Sci Fi channel. It's called SyFy

The cake master: and it used to show Battlestar Galactica!!

me: i really need to bang patrick stewart. fyi

The cake master: haha nice

me: like, a lot

Rebirth of Slick (Beverages, That Is)

Last night I went to Tai's because the comic was in town and because we would be in St. Louis on Thursday and therefore not at Tai's. And I got some of the best news I've had in a long time.

Back in the day not so long ago, there was a Star Trek museum inside the Las Vegas Hilton. It was filled with trekness like model ships hanging from the ceiling, people dressed and in character as different species from the show (a borg once asked me if I required "photo-replication" before posing for a picture with me) and, most importantly, Quark's Bar. The reason why Quark's Bar was so important was because it was home to the greatest mixed drink of all time: the Warp Core Breach. It came in an orb as big as your head, bubbled and foamed from the dry ice in it, tasted like love and rainbows and the best sex you ever had and was notorious for getting the Tai's crew fucked up enough to dance in the taxi line and then threaten the life of the driver (ok, both of those were MrSteve, but really it could have been anyone). For many of us* it was half the point of going to Las Vegas in the first place. You can view a fuzzy video of a bunch of not very entertaining guys drinking the smaller sized one here.

But then tragedy struck - the Star Trek museum closed and it took Quark's Bar and our beloved Warp Core Breach with it. There was much rending of garments and gnashing of teeth. I feared one of the greatest chapters in my life was over and gone for good.

So what's my wonderful news? Big Charlie, a connoisseur of the Warp Core Breach and one who imbibed it in astonishing volumes, has spent the last year or so since the museum closed experimenting and has finally perfected the recipe for the Warp Core Breach. He doesn't have any dry ice, but I suspect I can provide my own for this momentous event: the Warp Core Breach Resurrection.

Thank you Charlie, thank you!

*Me.

KHAAAAAANN! KHAAAAAAAN!!!

Which do you think is the greater tragedy: That we have lost the great Ricardo Montalban, or that this article does not even mention his greatest role ever?

Klingon Clock

There is an episode of Star Trek: TNG ("Ethics", season 5) in which Worf undergoes an experimental and dangerous surgery to replace his entire spine, which had been damaged in an accident leaving him paralyzed, with a brand new replica spine created in the lab. Unfortunately, removing a spine and sticking in a new one is no walk in the park and he dies on the table. But shortly thereafter, when the counselor goes to inform his young son of his death, Worf miraculously comes back to life. This is because Worf is a Klingon, and his physiology has built in redundancies that back up all his systems, including neural function. Klingons need this because as warriors and a generally angry race, they have a tendency to get stabbed, shot, bludgeoned, impaled, etc. on a pretty frequent basis. Without it, they would probably all die in their youth and have no ability to propagate the species. But that's not really my point.

My point is that I think my alarm clock may be a Klingon. Now I realize this may seem far fetched. My clock is not prepared for battle, in fact it is quite peace loving. There is also the somewhat minor point that alarm clocks are inanimate which may disqualify them from being considered a part of a humanoid alien species. But Klingons are down with meditation, much like my clock, and it is also capable of spontaneous regeneration.

Much like Worf, my clock was recently faced with a catastrophic injury. While I was away in Baltimore, the storm of the century hit Chicago, sending down as many bolts of lightning in a couple of hours as the area normally receives over 6 months. Seriously. Lance Berkman actually ran off the field in the middle of a play during the Cubs/Astros game amid almost constant lighting. My alarm clock, being plugged into the wall, got hit with a huge power surge and promptly died. Also like Worf, my clock underwent experimental "surgery" when I attempted to get it to run on batteries in the hope that it was just the electrical cord that was damaged. No luck. My dead clock sat on my night table, not chiming and not telling me the time.

For three days.

Until two days ago around midnight when I heard from inside the closed lid the sound of a chime tuned to E. I quickly opened the lid to discover that my alarm clock was on and flashing 12:00, having apparently regenerated itself from its redundant Klingon anatomy. It is obvious that there can be no other logical explanation. From now on I will try to always show honor and courage in front of my clock and try very hard not to piss it off.

QAPLA'!

Dude, Where's My Tail?

Krissy woke me up the other morning for food and petting as she always does. I lay there petting her for a while, and then she decided it was time for breakfast and gracefully leapt off my bed and onto the floor. This got me thinking about an old episode of Star Trek: Next Generation in which Data writes a poem for his cat, Spot. Specifically this line:

"A tail is quite essential for your acrobatic talents; you would not be so agile if you lacked its counterbalance."

File this one under Amber's More Bizarre Thoughts if you must. But I suddenly became very concerned about the whereabouts of my tail. What happened to it? Where did it go? And when? I started listing the other mammals I could think of that had tails: monkeys of course, and cats, dogs, cows, giraffes, pigs, even whales. But I am a mammal and I have no tail. What gives?

The obvious answer, of course, is that humans don't need tails. Which is fair enough, but it doesn't explain the cows. What is a cows tail for? It doesn't help with balance or propel it through water or anything. All they do is use it to swat at flies. I mean, that's barely even useful. But I could use it for that too, if I had one. It would be nice to have something to smack at mosquitoes with when I have a beer in one hand and a beanbag in the other, no?

The bartender did not want to have this conversation with me (shocking, I know). "We never had tails," he announced. "We came from apes. Apes don't have tails."

"But they DID," I argued. "Once upon a time humans apes, monkeys - we were all they same. Now some of us have tails and some of us don't. It's totally unfair."

I want my tail back. I have a tailbone, what is the point of that if I'm not going to also have a corresponding tail? Seriously, I think we got gyped.

Fear and Drinking in Las Vegas

Hi. I'm back. From Vegas.

As it turns out, what happens in Vegas actually DOESN'T stay in Vegas and the reason for this is that I have a blog. The trip was ostensibly for the Tai's Til 4 family of employees and patrons to attend the bar and restaurant show which was in town. The real reason was for us all to get very very drunk and gamble a lot. I've been trying to write this post for 3 days now, but for some reason these people keep giving me work to do. So instead of the original post I was going to write that would have taken you six days to read, I now present the abridged version:

• The bartender, who was my roommate for the trip, and I headed over to Paris the first day to sit in the sports book. I am not a gambler myself, so I was basically there just to watch television. The bartender finds this "not gambling" thing completely foreign and set out trying to convert me by teaching me how to read stat sheets. He might have had a better chance if he hadn't started the lesson with, "Hey math geek, check this out."
• Later that evening, we traipsed over to New York New York and met MrSteve for drinks at the Irish bar. We proceeded to get very drunk. Also, I spent a lot of time staring at our bartender, whose nametag said he was called Lee, because he was the most beautiful boy I have ever seen. In our drunk, the three of us decided the best course of action would be to all stand near the bar, pull out our phones, and start texting people we left in Chicago, where it was approximately 3 a.m. It seems we texted Brandon a few times, which he was very pleased about given that he had to get up in the morning for his first day at a new job. Also, all three of us sent a barrage of messages to Big Charlie, who was also drunk. A good time was had by all.
• The second day, MrSteve and I decide it's time to hit the Star Trek Museum. This was by far the thing I was most looking forward to in Vegas, because I am a huge geek. Luckily, MrSteve also likes to get his geek on so I had a partner. There are two rides at the museum. The first one we went on was Klingon Encounter, where I got to stand on the bridge of the Enterprise, somewhere near the tactical station (hello, NERD!). Somehow Steve and I managed to lose each other in the gift shop after the first ride, and I ended up going on the second ride by myself. This was a mistake because I had no one to grab onto when the Borg started jumping out from behind things and dragging people away to be assimilated. I assure you, it was one of the most frightening experiences of my life.
• Afterwards, MrSteve and I decide to hit up Quark's Bar for an alcoholic beverage. This beverage is called a Warp Core Breach. It is served with dry ice in it so that it smokes and bubbles, and it tastes like purple. While enjoying this, a very drunk woman began trying to start a very loud an incoherent conversation with us. Eventually we moved down to sit closer to her and her husband. Their names were Don and Matilda (I know there's a Waltzing Matilda joke in there somewhere, but I just can't find it) and they were at the Star Trek museum celebrating their 21st wedding anniversary. Don was very nice and normal, was a 49ers fan and talked football with me for some time, while MrSteve was dragged by Matilda into a conversation I'm not entirely sure he needed to be there for. All was well until suddenly I found Matilda behind me, playing with my hair and stroking my neck. Much as I enjoy people playing with my hair, it's kind of creepy when total strangers do it, and I was more than a little freaked out.
• That night, a large group of us went over to The Foundation Room for some fun and vodka. We were waiting for a few late comers to show up when the body came over to the bartender and me and told us he'd taken some new pictures on his phone he wanted to show us. Apparently he'd gone out and hooked up with not one, but two different women his first night in Vegas. Which we didn't know when he came walking up to us and so we were totally unprepared for his pictures. We both stood with our mouths hanging open as the body narrated his little slide show: "This is a picture of her tits, and this is a picture of her sucking my dick, and this is a picture of me sticking it in her ass..." He looked at us for our approval of his two conquests, but we were a little bit freaked out. All the bartender could manage was "I can't believe I just saw your dick."
• The next day I woke up with a fever and a sore throat, because that is exactly what I should have been expecting on my first real vacation in 10 years. Needless to say I was pretty upset, though not as upset as the bartender was. We had discovered the day before when Steve and I went to Star Trek that I was the bartenders lucky charm. Whenever I was standing next to him he won, and whenever I was somewhere else he lost. He had taken to dragging me around with him to all his favorite slot machines and rubbing my head for luck. Sure enough he lost that day.
• The bartender was waiting for a phone call from his friend who was driving us to the airport on our last day. When the phone call came he had just gotten out of the shower and came running out of the bathroom stark raving naked to answer it. This made me extremely happy because I think he should be naked all the time. Later when he was dressed he asked me if I was feeling any better. I told him it should be obvious that I wasn't by the fact that I didn't attack him when he was running around all nekkid, which he agreed was a good point.
• Ever gotten on a plane when you're sick? Don't. It sucks about seven kinds of ass. It sucks about 700 kinds of ass when you're sick and sitting next to Fatty McGee who is taking up half your seat and can't seem to sit still, and also you're in an aisle seat and are prone to motion sickness and really really need to be by a window, and also you want to try to sleep but four other people on the plane are snoring like it's their job, and also there's so much turbulence that you're sure the plane is going to fall right out if the sky.

So those are the highlights (and lowlights) of Amberance Goes to Vegas 2006. Stay tuned for Amberance Goes to Florida in May and Football Season: Vegas Strikes Back sometime in the fall.

A Fragile Truce

Don't you just love it when you have a falling out with someone and you decide it's not worth maintaining a friendship anymore, so you write them off, and then 3 months later they come back and start acting like nothing ever happened? Of course you don't, because that's a dick thing to do, and it's annoying.

The Gander, my primary confidant-turned-arch nemesis has apparently decided I'm pretty darn neat after all. I had actually been debating calling a truce myself, not because I wanted to, but because I need some electrical work done in my kitchen and sometimes you just have to swallow your pride in order to sucker your friends into helping you out for free. But The Gander beat me to it.

His first overture was to offer me free Browns tickets. Out of the blue he walks into my office and says "One of the investment management firms we deal with rented out a suite for the Browns/Patriots game on Sunday. It's like a vendor meet-and-greet, of sorts. I have two extra tickets, I thought you and Mary might like to go. Open bar starting at 11."

"Wow," I said. "I'd LOVE to go. Thank you so much for thinking of me. I'm really flattered." I really was really flattered, the dude hadn't done anything but spit nails at me since August. It appeared to be one of the best olive branches ever.

"Well Jay, V-man, Brian and Tom are all going, and I already asked Tim and Dennis, and neither of them can go. So after that I thought of you." A-ha. So really what happened is he ran out of football fans in the office and, lest the tickets get wasted, was forced to offer them to me. A little bit of a let down, but he DID offer them to me and, hey, open bar starting at 11, who am I to complain? So that was nice.

Fast forward to yesterday. I'm at home last night watching a tape of Friday night's Star Trek: Enterprise episode (OK, I'm a GINORMOUS nerd, so sue me) and my phone starts ringing. Mind you, my phone doesn't ring much, largely because I have almost no friends, which may or may not be related to things such as the fact that I like Star Trek. So I'm a little startled, because I just paid all my bills so I don't owe anyone money and I can't think of another reason why someone would want to get in touch with me. But since I am a Star Trek nerd I ignore it because, damn it, I'm watching Star Trek right now! When it's over I grab my phone to see who called and am extremely surprised to see the words "1 missed call: Gander cell" blinking up at me like a beacon of confusion. I assume he's still at work and in the midst of a self-inflicted crisis, that he's lost something he Desperately Needs Right Now, and that he's calling to 1) ask me where the FUCK CHRIST the GODDAMN FUCKING thing is or 2) accuse me of never sending it to him. I decide I had better call him back before he has an aneurysm.

"Hello?"

"Hey, it's Amber."

"Oh, hi."

Long pause.

"Um, I saw you called. Did you need something?"

"What? Oh. No. I was just out drinking with [007], and he really wanted to talk to you." 007 is one of our clients. One of our most demanding clients and our single biggest revenue source. I don't work on that account, and therefore I don't ever have any occasion to talk to him. What's more, I had been under the impression that he was only peripherally aware of my existence.

"He wants to talk to ME? What for?"

"I don't know. Here, let me put him on."

Pause.

"Amber? Hey, it's [007]. I'm with one of your clients...?"

"Yes [007], I know that. How are you?"

"I'm real good, thanks. Listen, I was at your place today, and I was going to stop by your office and talk to you, but [The Gander] dragged me into another room for a conference call." The conference call was the only reason he was in our offices in the first place. "[The Gander] tells me you're leaving the company."

"Yes, I'm moving to Chicago."

"Wow, that's great for you. I know [The Gander] will be sorry to see you go. He thinks very highly of you, you know. You'll have to come back sometime and we'll all go out and have a drink." ?????????????????????????????????

"Sure, [007], that would be great. Thanks so much." Thanks for what? I'm reeling; I can't think of a single coherent thing to say.

"Ok, well I'm going to give you back to [The Gander], I know he really wanted to talk to you."

Pause.

"Amber?"

"Yeah?"

"Ok, I guess I'll see you in the morning then?"

"Sure." Right. What the fuck just happened? First of all, he has not mentioned to me once anything about my resignation. He has also spent the last 3 months meticulously explaining to me how very incompetent I am. But he's out telling a client how brilliant I am, and how my leaving is such a big blow to the company? And not only that, but apparently that I'm also a rip-roarin' good time at bars? I have no words.

Which brings us to today. The consultants all got new e-mail capable cell phones. The Gander is a total gadget-head, and must immediately drop whatever he's doing to try out each and every new feature. He comes tearing into my office. "We got new wireless devices! I just sent you an e-mail from it. Let's see how long it takes for it to get here!!!!" He's all fidgety, practically dancing as he stands beside my desk peering over my shoulder at my screen. He looks like a kid trying not to pee his pants. Twenty seconds later a little envelope pops up. "Open it!" he cries giddily.

I open it. "eat shit :)"

"Nice," I say.

"No, wait! Now you send me one and we'll see how long it takes to get to me!"

Exasperated sigh. "Alright." I type "you too" and hit send.

waiting....waiting...ding! He pokes the screen with his little stylus. "'You too.' Thanks a lot. HEHEHE!" He gives me his best Charlie Brown grin and skitters away like a chipmunk on crack.

Incidentally, I e-mailed Mary about the exchange and received the following reply: "It's kind of comical to think of how sometimes, that gadget will ding-ding some happy little tune, and then the little guy checking the corresponding email will turn red and his head will pop off." True that.
In the meantime, it appears I have my friend The Gander back. At least until some really minor thing goes wrong and he goes all "The Shining" on me. HEEEEERRE'S JOHNNY!!!!!!!!!