Category Archives: Uncategorized

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The Reformat Aftermath

One of the great joys of having your system hacked and getting to reformat your hard drive (I type lacing each word with a heavy dose of dripping sarcasm) is not only getting to reinstall every application you’ve ever had, but things like unearthing product keys for downloaded  software can present a very special kind of “that’s neat” when you’re not sure where that information is written down.  That’s when you discover that the backup CDs you ordered “just in case” didn’t include the backup key on the CD case and you realize that in your haste you forgot to export your Outlook files  (I didn’t really need that information, right?) since they probably had some important emails containing the sought after information.  Thankfully, in my case, at least one product key was in an email I had at work.  Downside,work didn’t have about 8 years of stored important emails that got eaten.  Whoops.  Also, reestablishing old network connections can be tricky when you’ve completely lost the password.  My goal sole goal last Friday was to completely restore my entire system and I was mad and not entirely rational.

I’ve now reloaded most of my software, but as I mentioned, I’ve lost a network connection and I need to pick your collective brains.  Do any of you know of a place that is not Flickr, Picassa or even WordPress where I can store a mass of photos for this site? (I know you all were desperate to see my geek photos from the last post – how you made it through without pictures is a testament to your strong will and tenacity.  I said photos would be coming soon once I had that connection up and running again, but “soon” is relative – stop pressuring me!

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Sam’s Week: I’m Insane(er)




Sam

Originally uploaded by Big Blue Mess

It finally happened, Sam’s knee went out again and my stomach landed around my ankles. I called the surgeon’s office, had Jay drop her off the next day and then waited and waited to find out what happened. My work day ended with no news so I ended up calling the vet’s and asking if I could freak out over there. Fortunately, when I called the surgeon was out of her surgeries and was in the process of examining Sam.

I arrived and waited while listening to the sounds of Animal Planet on a big screen TV and wondering who the woman with the crazed looking poodle was in all the photographs and why this one photo warranted five gigantic copies spread throughout the lobby. Surely, someone else there has a pet? Dr. Caplan came out (bad sign – this is how the bad news always comes) while I was mid wall, floor, plant contemplation and calmly sat near me to break the news.

“I don’t see anything wrong with Sam.”

Great, another few thousand. How do we fix that?

“I performed all my tests and both knees are stable.”

So, I’ll drop her off Tuesday, they’ll keep Sam overnight to help her manage pain and I guess we’re back to isolating her for another 6-8 weeks. Wonderful.

“If anything, the left knee seems to be even more stable.”

I wonder what she’s talking about. And as the words settled in, I finally just let my crazy hang out there as I questioned away. Questions like: Are you sure? Her knee seems stable? The leg doesn’t look wobbly? You’re sure? When you say you performed your tests on each leg, did you mean you did this left one? Uh huh. And you looked at the left one? Are you sure? I think I’m crazy. Do you think I’m crazy? You don’t think I’m crazy? I really think this year has made me crazy. Yes. I’m crazy. I’ve really gone crazy.

At this point Sam came through the door, I looked up as I heard her familiar padding across their tile and we caught each other’s eyes at the same time. Sam let out the biggest wail – articulating beautifully what a horrible day it had been.

The vet’s assistant brought Sam over and I subtlely confirmed that she had examined this dog. What about the left leg? Maybe I’m crazy. You saw this dog right here?

Dr. Caplan said, and I think I may absolutely love her for this, “I don’t think you’re crazy. You may be seeing things I don’t see, you’re around her all the time so just monitor her. I’ll be happy to see her again whenever you need me to. One of the vets has offered to scope her knee for free and scrape off any meniscal tears or remove the knot if that’s causing her trouble. You’re not crazy.”

Wrapped in fresh reassurances, Sam and I headed home.

I’m pretty sure as the doors closed behind us, I could hear the staff saying, “wow, that woman was NUTS!” Sorry guys, I am.

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My Characters

A few weeks ago a group of us were sitting around our table telling stories and one of my friends pointed out that I was surrounded by characters. I’ve heard this before, but it did make me wonder – am I drawn to colorful people, do I bring out certain outrageous qualities or do I simply create them to fill a part in a story? and if I was creating them, what did it say about me?

I spent the next couple of weeks, during those quiet moments, making this a fairly big deal in my head. I like to prod and probe through the murk that makes up “me” on the off chance there’s something new to learn. It’s a great game that we introverts like to indulge in. Externally, I was also in the process of taking a few photos for April’s Summer Photo Scavenger Hunt – this is where we have the entire summer to capture a wide range of photos from “toy” to “mystical”. I shared the idea with a few co-workers who wanted to represent “Friendship” and “No” (both photos that are on the list), so I brought in my cheap point-and-shoot to work one day.

That’s when I took this photo of Merl. To put this in context, let me tell you about Merl. Merl has been with variations of our agency for over 35 years. When you mention where you work to people who are familiar with the agency, they typically won’t know the head of the agency or any of the upper echelon, but they’ll always ask if you know Merl and by knowing Merl, you go up in their eyes. He’s always polished, professional and the most knowledgeable person in the room. He’s our “go-to” and our front man. And of all the people I work with, he happens to have the most dry and wicked sense of humor. I don’t snicker, chortle, chuckle or laugh around Merl, I cackle from the bottom of my soul. I suspect people outside of our team get hints of this in meetings (if they’re paying attention), but I always wonder if they’ve ever been fully treated to Merl’s terrific sense of humor.

So, we were setting up his team to take the photo to fulfill “Friendship” and he furiously worked to lick down some red candy to match his team’s red outfits. Unfortunately, the red dye wasn’t transferring to his tongue. I finish taking the photo of the group with their hands overlapping and the next thing I see is Merl laying this fake candle on his head and smiling. I want to say that there was some declaration about being a unicorn, but I could be making that up. I asked Merl if I could take a photo of him with the candle on his head and as you see he was completely willing. This picture makes me laugh for so many reasons – the serene smile, the knowledge that our group are some of the few folks treated to his wit and seeing this highly respected individual, one who I consider to be one of the true faces of our agency, being so absolutely silly.

I’ve decided, I definitely don’t “create” the characters around me. Everyone is a character – it’s just a matter of degree and willingness to share.

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Relenting

I was about seven the first time I saw a vampire movie. It was late and I was at my friend Jeff’s who lived two houses down. The only clear memory I have of the actual movie is a swarm of hissing women in long flowing polyester dresses, bearing their fangs and chasing some poor selfish fellow around. Just like Sesame Street, this was clearly an allegory about the virtues of sharing and the terrified man clearly would have made Gordon, Maria and the Cookie Monster sob. As the child of social workers, I understood the importance of feeding the hungry and this man was setting a very poor example.

I guess this was a Hammer Horror flick of some sort and only terrifying to kids under the age of 10. When it finally ended, I ran home screaming in fear that I was being pursued by the Headless Horseman. Don’t ask. I’m not sure how my fear morphed from vampires to head deprived equestrians, but I flew across the yard screaming only to find the door locked. I beat on that door shrieking all the while until one very worried Mom came running out. (This may have started the trend where I can’t sit through horror films.)

I avoided vampires for many years until I came upon Mom’s copy of Interview with the Vampire by Anne Rice. There I met self-loathing Louis – a far cry from the suave, well-dressed babe hounds that I was accustomed to with their quirked brows and forced “Romanian” accents. (No offense to George Hamilton or “Love at First Bite”.) The book was original and steered-clear of the more ridiculous clichés associated with the genre. I faithfully followed that series through Memnoch, which I noticed, after plodding through the first few chapters, just happened to be the perfect size to brace our cat tree. I’m one of those who believe books are sacred, so this was a little out of character and a reflection on how much disdain I had for it. I was done with vampires again. No shrieking. Just an unceremonious shove under some cat furniture.

Then there was the online vampire game, which grew old once I realized that I was getting up in arms and shouting at people about interpretations of an imaginary world filled with vampires; the height of silliness. I wasn’t debating politics or engaging in any meaningful conversatins, I was screaming bloody murder over vampires. A low point. (For the record, though. Tethys, the handle of one of the online players, was entirely wrong. It is completely viable that members of the Swiss Guard would be excellent candidates to become vampire hunters. Like the Vatican wouldn’t have a keen interest in the living dead. I’m just saying. Ahem.)

I watched Buffy and Angel next, but we’ll stop there since some of my friends are rabid Joss Whedon fans who also happen to know where I live.

Twilight came out and received scathing reviews from several of my friends so I avoided it. I didn’t have time for another “oh, your skin it’s so cold, yet… yet… your trench coat and that leering thing you’re doing, which would be creepy from anyone else and might land them in jail, is kinda hot.” Every time they gave me another storyline update, I winced. Then True Blood became the rage, and I rolled my eyes despite my Twilight hating friends singing its praises. Enough with the vampires, already.

I recently broke my no vampire policy and starting watching the BBC’s “Being Human”. It’s like Three’s Company of the preternatural world. A ghost, a werewolf and a vampire get an apartment and zaniness ensues (or maybe they walk into a bar – the beginnings of a great? so-so? joke). Sadly, those wacky kids did drive their landlord insane. In all fairness, it’s not exactly a light-hearted romp. The vampire looks like he’s in desperate need of a good shampooing, the ghost is a tad neurotic and the werewolf has dating issues, but thankfully his new girlfriend has issues, too so it all works out. Anyway, it was a gentle re-introduction to a topic I now find somewhat stupid. Cut me some slack, it is a rather slow summer for television; it’s not entirely my fault.

Last weekend I gave in again. With Dexter a month away, and Dexter not on until next month and then there’s Dexter, oh and a little show called Stargate Universe in October, my original show choices are somewhat limited. So, I figured one episode of “True Blood” couldn’t hurt, which turned into, “well, that ended on a cliffhanger, maybe I should just watch one more to see what happened” and sure enough, those sneaky writers ended on another cliffhanger, and who was I not to get just one more episode? Well, once you’re three episodes in, three more can’t hurt? Right? I’m on episode 8. I blame the writers.

And once again I find myself watching more vampires. Leather coat wearing, brooding, pff pff lisping, look-at-my-teeth-gaze-into-my-eyes, vampires. The kind that whine when Type O- isn’t available at the local bar, vampires. We may be dead, but we LOVE lots of gratuitous sex, vampires. Sure, it’s not my Dexter or my Deadwood or my The Wire or my Carnivale or even my Sopranos (pre-Adriana killing, which is when I threw in the towel) or anywhere close to my BSG, but it beats the snot out of more UFC matches (shh, don’t tell Jay – maybe he won’t read this far) or reruns of Deadliest Catch (you know, they just never wear leather or trench coats on those shows).

I’ll hang my head in shame as soon as I finish the series.

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Friendship vs. The Big Blue Mess

There’s nothing more devastating to friends and family than announcing you’ve just placed more trust in the words of a stranger than in them. No, not just for candy or a safe ride home, but for important things like “does this make my hair look short?” – the advice, the ego strokes – the things they try to tell you all the time.

See, here’s a simple truth – family and friends (the ones you haven’t crossed recently) lie. It’s their first and most sacred duty after they’ve surrendered themselves to the fact that they love you or at least will send a card for your funeral. Since you also love them in return, it is your moral duty to return the favor and also lie.

Take for example the recent trip I took with my good friend Anna. As we stood beneath the gigantic cypress filled with pigeons trying to locate a Geocached treasure, a kind bird bestowed a bit of well-digested lunch on us. Anna screamed, I leapt back and immediately began to whine that there was this microscopic spot on my arm. “Beth, are you looking at me?” See, never a good question and as I took a closer look at Anna, I realized no sympathy was going to come my way for this tiny dollop on my arm. The next question, one that caused a bit of a friendship crisis on my part, was “Beth, is it in my hair?” I froze and reviewed my options. I mean, it was REALLY maybe the biggest plop of… well, you get the idea… that I had ever seen on another person’s head . I’m pretty sure nothing quite that size has even hit my car. If she were a character on a sitcom, the laugh track would have been cued at this moment. I tried to think of a way I could possibly say “no”. I wish I were joking, but in truth I really didn’t want to be the one to say “yes”. The problem was, I knew I couldn’t figure out a way to trick her into sticking her head in the sink in the public restroom. Plus, I may have mentioned I am a dreadful liar – she would have seen right through me. She would never have fell for the ol’ “hey, let’s get that off your arm and while we’re in the restroom, let’s do something zany like stick our heads under the faucet. Look I’ll do it, too. Isn’t this fun?” because it turns out I’m kind of prissy and not particularly spontaneous. She wouldn’t have fallen for it.

All of this took place in a split second, but in Beth’s Panicked Brain Time, it was around 5 painful minutes before I got out the “yes” bit and proceeded to look around nervously. You see, I was torn between wanting my friend to think the best of herself – that she was bird-poop-free and the thought of how much trouble I’d get in once she figured out she had a bird poo sized beret as head decoration(which would have taken all of a second thanks to the whole can’t lie thing).

As further proof – I may have mentioned the time my friend was hit by a car in front of our high school. We were meeting up to run errands, but summer school was in so cars were supposed to obey the school speed zone rules. Julie came up to me plucking rocks from her leg. (I thankfully hadn’t seen the accident.) She had been thrown a good 10 feet along the asphalt, but the school officials sized her up and declared that she was good to walk home. Later, my step mother who was a nurse patiently explained that being an oblivious self-absorbed teen dunce was no real excuse for letting a friend walk home after being struck by a car (who knew?) and that just because the teachers let her go was no excuse. Would I dance naked in the trophy case if all the teachers were doing it, too? No, I don’t think so. You see, I was held to a higher standard than the morons who clearly ran our school. I digress. As we were walking to her house, she talked about how one of our friends who had also been hit by a car worried about how he might have torn his clothes – she was concerned about this as well, and she was very thankful she hadn’t. With each step, her clothes gaped and waved at me, daring me to let on as she told the story. I mean the girl had just had something fairly traumatic happen, she’d been hit by a car, the school had let the driver go without getting his name (this might have been why my parents didn’t hold my teachers in high regard) and really who was I to say “yeah, about that clothes thing…” You just can’t tell someone who has asphalt embedded in their skin that their clothes are ripped apart in the back. What kind of friend would I have been

See, sometimes you just lie or stretch the truth a tad to avoid hurt feelings. Sure, everyone you know whether they’re friend or family is beautiful and smart and talented – maybe to varying degrees, but you love them just the same and that’s how you see them – or at least that’s how it should be – obviously, there are exceptions and those people should be put on an island for mean people and lose the right to procreate. I’m just suggesting.

Now, in my case it just so happens that all of my friends and family do happen to be brilliant, beautiful and gifted. As a group, they’re also fairly supportive for being terrible liars. Bless their hearts. In fact, I tend to get a little suspicious when they become too flattering and the flattery is entirely unprovoked. Do they need something? Is someone about to die? Yes, I’m adorable. Now is grandmother ok? Or maybe they’re worried my self-esteem is about to nosedive and they’re going to find me rocking quietly

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FAQ

Over the years I’ve had the more curious friends, family and co-workers inquire about various things I’ve done in my life. Since they tend to ask the same questions, I thought I’d throw together a little Beth FAQ.

1. Beth, your minor was in English, can you edit my [insert anything from documents to stories]
No. All my English minor means is that I am fairly well-read. Well, it doesn’t even mean that. It means I’ve read a long list of books that someone with some authority declared you “should” read to be considered a valuable member of society and I fell for it. It also means that I’ve spent hours dreaming up random meanings for words like “dirt” – as in, “when Buck uses the imagery of “dirt” in “The Good Earth”, it symbolizes her belief that an army of zombie children will rise up from the grave and establish themselves as the true totalitarian leaders over a pitiful corpse fearing peasant class.” In fact, I’ll give you a tip about successfully discussing symbolism – professors love the outlandish especially if you can “sell” it. If you can convince them that a peanut represents the Battle of Thermopylae and each half of the shell represents the opposing forces, then your work is done. Bravo. You are now well on your way to getting a minor in English. Convince them that “The DaVinci Code” is actually a statement about the injustices that befell the Czechoslovakian government in exile during WWII and you may be on your way to majoring in English.

What my minor doesn’t mean is that I want to spend one second tracking down your faulty parallelism, your tautologies or even attempt to determine if you would have been better off saying “that” over “which”.

Basically, your best bet is to find the non-English minors if you want something edited accurately; they can diagram a sentence. We AP English kids who were hand-picked and groomed to ace English in college cannot write a sentence. I’m just typing these with my mind.

2. Didn’t your cubicle mate at work call you an “English Nazi”?
No. Are you spying on me? Creepy.

3. Beth, you have a blog, therefore, you must also write fiction. When are you writing a novel?
Errr… no. I write and post letters. I just leave off the “Dear…” because it would confuse you guys and you’d feel like I was playing favorites with someone. Honestly, though that’s truly the origins of the blog – one of my friends was a little too nice about a letter I wrote and then two of them worked together to bring you this Mess – blame them. As for writing fiction – while I occasionally stretch the truth a tad to hopefully give the situation a more humorous spin, I just repeat other people’s stories. If I were to write something wholly fictitious, it would read like a really bad Dick & Jane novel. So, don’t loiter around Barnes & Noble waiting for your copy of “Dick & Jane vs. Tip & Mitten: Lollipop of DOOOM” any time soon – it will never make it to press.

Trust me, I’ve tried fiction. I’m just not that kind of storyteller.

4. You speak German and it makes me nervous when you eavesdrop on me talking about girls. Can you knock it off?
Really, you switched into a foreign language to talk privately about girls and you’ve got one year of German under your belt? Trust me 007, everyone understands what you’re saying. Are you 12?

5. Are you really a martial arts guru?
Yes. Don’t talk to my friends, though. They lie.

6. You play viola. Is that like a violin?
Yes. Except it’s better. All reasonable, forward thinking violinist will agree. (I’m looking at you, Erika.)

7. Can you teach me about music?
Sure. It started with someone probably beating someone else and they made a peculiar, yet compelling sound. Then they beat more people who made different sounds (see, these were exceptionally violent times) which created harmonic lines – eventually a tortured chorus was heard and people thought “this is pretty good”, which brings us to the Spanish Inquisition. A little known fact – Torquemada was a music critic, which is why no one liked to perform for him. Unfortunately, he tended to bump off the worst singers. See, a little history for you – and you claim to never learn anything from my writing. (See reference to why I don’t write fiction.)

8. Was that an indefinite pronoun reference in the above answer.
Yes. There are probably comma splices and awkward sentences, too. Just because I know what I do wrong (and choose not to fix it) doesn’t mean I’m interested in pointing out what you do wrong. At least not to you.

9. Must you speak Spanish with a heavy accent.
Yes. You whining about it will only make it worse.

10. You seem to know a lot about RPGs and online gaming. Is it true those people all suffer from Asperger syndrome and eat babies?
Yes. Every “gamer” I know. It’s tragic. It’s also true that none of them have ever dated. They all live at their mom’s… in the basement… and have every fast food delivery place on speed dial. It’s also a bad idea to look them directly in the eyes. Please, for your own safety, avoid eye contact.

11. Wow. A lot of indefinite pronoun references again.
Was there a question in that statement?

12. Finally, is the Blue Mess really that big? for that matter, is it truly blue? Or is it cyan? or even aqua?
Actually, the BBM has a tiny following estimated at exactly two people, both bullied relatives, but calling it the Puny Blue Mess or the Hardly Noticeable Blue Mess just doesn’t have the same ring. And since it’s a well known fact that messes only occur in the blue spectrum, which is part of the visible spectrum or the electromagnetic spectrum, if you prefer – it distinguishes itself by being quite messy. As for cyan, aqua or even periwinkle, no. This is a true blue. A deep navy blue. Not some sissy poser blue.

I really hope this has cleared some things up. But if you two have any more questions, just ask.

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Imagine Greater? I Can’t Imagine Worse

Let’s start with a story…

Once upon a time, a long time ago, I was sitting on some bleachers in a studio full of my fellow co-workers staring at a music stand draped with a black cloth. Beneath that cloth lurked our new company slogan and beside it stood our beaming CEO eagerly waiting to unleash it. Before it was released, she proudly boasted that the slogan had been donated and our benefactors were one of the premiere advertising company in our area – a donation that would not only help revitalize our company, but would help drag it into the 20th century (sadly, the century was wrapping up and we were plowing into the 21st). This particular advertising agency was well known in our area. It was one that sported many of the more popular initials in its name (no x’s or q’s there) and whose very name let you know that they were hip and edgy – no stuffy last names of executive octogenarians strung together for this bunch.

Everyone in the room was filled with anticipation and glowing gratitude as we reflected on charity and how it’s nice to give to the community and even better to have a tax write-off. Looking back, I now suspect the company threw their top local community college interns at the task of creating this “free” slogan. (Oh, and it turns out that “free” actually costs a whole dollar, but it does allow you to have the rights to your slogan.)

When the cloth came off, what I saw was not the bright future of our company, but an amazingly large turd sitting on that stand. A money sucking turd. A turd hell bent on costing us a re-branding fortune. The CEO smiled with great pride and I swear someone shrieked while another person exclaimed “JESUS!” and the rest of us sat in horror-stricken silence, golf-clapping the brilliance of the turd. The surprises didn’t end there. We were also being blessed with a new digital logo – one that was supposed to make us look “high-tech”, but the CEO failed to qualify the statement with “yes, high-tech for 1982 – someone go unearth the old Epson dot matrix, mama wants to slap the new logo on some stationery.” And maybe we weren’t that blindsided – I seem to recall a voting process where several options were presented, but truly when faced with the possibilities we were forced to apply the “suck” scale and made our decisions based on what seemed to suck the least.

I imagine that’s exactly how the minions at the Sci Fi network recently felt the day they heard the news that they were no longer going to be the Sci-Fi network, but were going to “Imagine Greater” and become Syfy.

I’ve given the new name a little over a week to grow me. I mean, at this point, everyone has had the opportunity to take a swing at the name, but now I suppose it’s my turn. I have to start with one of my obvious peeves – the misspelling. Why grossly misspell Sci-Fi especially when the network clearly wants to distance themselves from the genre? Why not a completely different name? Sci-Fi still sounds like Syfy, unless you pronounce it “Siffy”, which is actually what I prefer to call it. As for the misspelling, I can barely take brands like “Artic Ice” or “Liquid Plumr” not to mention any brands that incorporate words like “Qwik”, “Cheez”, “Brite” or “Krazy” and now we have Syfy? Really? Brands like “Infiniti”, “Gleem” and “Flickr” slip by me virtually unnoticed, but “Syfy” makes me choke every time I see it.

As I now re-read the CNN article, “Sci-Fi Channel becomes Syfy; will viewers tune in or drop out?” by Todd Leopold, I can’t help but feel the same amount of contempt for the Syfy channel’s president, David Howe, as he surely must feel for me, one of his core viewers. According to the article the original name is seen as a “barrier” and the feeling is that the viewers will be there if the programming is good. This is already an uphill battle for the network, because the programming is not good. My husband describes it as the “bad movie/wrestling/Ghost Hunter channel”, a fairly accurate description now that their one critically acclaimed show has come to an end. When the channel first aired, you knew you could count on it for re-runs of Sci-Fi classics or original shows like Good vs. Evil or The Invisible Man. Now it’s where I go when I want to watch schlock horror “hits” like “Mansquito”, “Ogre” and “Mega Snake”, and that urge never hits me. “Warehouse 13″ is being touted as the “flagship” of this newer/sexier rebranding effort and Howe is quoted as saying it “epitomizes the essence of the new Syfy”. I’ve watched it. Two episodes. I think that’s about all the time I need to devote to the series and it’s hamfisted send-up to “steam punk” and quite frankly, if this is the direction they’re going, then I’m glad they’ve parted ways with the term “Sci-Fi”. The show isn’t “bad”, it’s just not “good”. In my opinion, their “flagship” should be “Stargate Universe” with Robert Carlyle and money should be thrown at the executive producers, Brad Wright, Robert C. Cooper and Carl Binder. But I guess that’s Sci-Fi and not the new Syfy, Sci-Fi’s buck-toothed, illiterate cousin.

The executives at Syfy must truly see their core viewers as dirty and undesirable based on their series of decision – from methodically divorcing itself from science fiction over the years to this latest rebranding. My apologies to them – you see, I actually chose to watch science fiction on a channel calling itself “Sci Fi” because I expected science fiction shows. And while Sci-Fi may be geeky and in the narrowest of definitions imply people are floating around in space, what does Syfy say? The network can’t spell? They get to make more poor programming decisions? The implication from the execs at SyFy seems to be that by misspelling Sci-Fi, more people will be drawn to shows like Battlestar Galactica? Really? Who are these people? Drunk people? Blind people? The execs also seem to believe that if you slapped Battlestar Galactica on the Biography channel or TNT, more viewers would be drawn to it because they would be fooled into thinking it was something else. I’m sorry, I do love Battlestar Galactica, but what’s keeping the mainstream from the show is not that it’s on a channel calling itself “Sci-Fi”.

Needless to say, I’m incensed and a lot disappointed. I enjoy Sci-Fi and this new Siffy obviously has no place for me. I can only hope channels like Biography, History, Discovery or even the Military channel don’t wake up one day and say “you know what? Our viewers aren’t cool. Let’s move away from our roots and try to be more like the CW network. We want THAT demographic.” Who knows though, maybe tomorrow I’ll turn on BBC America and find we’re broadcasting from Dubai – I mean, it is sexier and think of the revenues.

… and I’d like to think that when the out-of-touch execs at Siffy unveiled their personal enormous turd of an idea, their more savvy staff snorted with displeasure and maybe a shriek was heard or an indignant “JESUS!”. … and I sincerely hope they didn’t pay more than $1 for the new name.

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Feedback: Top 5 Lists

I received some very touching feedback from my friends regarding my previous entry: INTJ or What I Learned About Myself on Facebook. It seems that I may have been a little too critical of myself and that my adorable friends would actually include me on more than just their Top 5 Tattlers I Know list. I can’t express how touched I felt reading their lists and I wanted to share a few of them with the rest of you.

Without further ado:

“I think you should know that you’d totally be on my top 5 lists of people to ask geeky computer questions as well as the best place to go to a Star Trek convention…”

Thank you, and it’s true. For the record, the Origin conventions are typically the best Star Trek conventions, in my opinion. Had the Hilton in Las Vegas not shut down their Star Trek area (good bye, Star Trek Experience – good bye, Quarks – good bye, mini Star Trek museum – live long and prosper *sniff*), that one would have been my top choice for annual conventions. I’d also recommend the San Diego Comic Con. I believe it has a decent Star Trek cast turn-out, but I actually haven’t had a chance to attend and confirm.

“Any sort of sci-fi convention, comic book convention, or otherwise geek culture convention, where [Beth] will not actually offend anyone but won’t chastise me when I do. Even better, [Beth] will encourage my bad behavior and not judge.”

I’m completely flattered, because this comes from one of my friends who is a contributor to Sequential Tart – a webzine about the comic book industry written by women. To be considered in her top 5 conventions goers is quite frankly an honor since she’s been paid to go to the convention and write articles (not sure she took them up on that, but that’s another story).

Anyway, I hadn’t thought about how encouraging others in their bad behavior is a skill I possess, but now that I think about it, I guess I am fairly decent at getting other people to do bad things. I mean, I just tap into their need to do whatever bad thing they’re considering, and who am I not to get a giggle in the process. Is that so wrong? I’m just the little Beth that sits on your shoulders and coaxes you with “do it, you know you want to”. Of course personally, I’m not going to “do it”, because that’s both wrong and not how young (or old) ladies should behave.

Smoke break time. She’s excellent company and doesn’t complain about second hand smoke.

Again, I must say I am an excellent second hand smoker. And when I die of lung cancer, I’m sure the shocked response will be, “but she didn’t smoke!” Seriously, if you want to know what’s going on where you work, everyone in the smoking circle knows and what makes this group great, is the smoking circle defies job hierarchy boundaries – you’ll find the cleaning crew smoking away with your CEO and unless you’re a smoker, it doesn’t matter how much you pick up after yourself or exchange pleasantries with the custodians, you’re not getting anything out of them – smokers will not betray a confidence. The cigarette butt, stomped and smashed around firmly on the concrete, marks not only the end of the break, but an unspoken vow of silence. As a non-smoker, it’s a tough group to break into since you’re immediately thought of as suspicious and a word to the non-smoking wise who do want to hang out with this crowd – it’s usually better if you don’t approach them while sneezing, waving your hands frantically around your face and definitely, do not cough or whine about the lingering smell on your clothes.

With the most recent posts, it appears that I also hurt a few feelings by unintentionally excluding folks from the Top 5 People to Dispose the Body – my body buriers. So, let me smooth some ruffled feathers:

Tori – you made a great point, your family does own the funeral home in Chicago and you have the willingness and the know-how (thanks to the family business) to double-stack a body and bury the evidence. So, until the business is sold, I’ll gladly bump one of the Lynn clones and make a spot for you. Come on down!

Buddy – a decade plus of working in a prison certainly means you’ve been exposed to a lot of “how your master plan can go really wrong” types. My only hesitation is you’ve been policing the criminal failures instead of the masterminds, but I suppose we could give you a trial run and see where we’re at once the dirt is patted down. Of course, I can’t be there for the actual job thanks to the “ratting you out” I’ll invariably do if questioned. So, I will have to rely on Lynn to perform the “job” evaluations and get back to me with recommendations.

I must say, though, that I am a little disturbed that so many of my friends came forward to declare that they’d be really good at burying bodies. It’s a little disturbing, but I appreciate their ambition (there, there, nice sociopath). I also want to give a big thanks to my friends for letting me know that I was among their geek gurus whose good for hanging out for a smoke. It’s heartwarming. I love you guys.

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INTJ or What I Learned About Myself on Facebook

I’ve done a lot of soul searching over the past few months – trying to nail down who I really am – someone who is hopefully more than a laundry list of physical attributes – you know, the “real” me. Fortunately, I didn’t have to take this journey alone; I’ve had some great guidance through Facebook and its many well thought-out and insightful quizzes.

For example, I’ve learned that of all the Muppets, I’m “Miss Piggy”. Sure, I have always related more to the laid back, piano-playing Rowlf or the balcony hecklers (when I’m feeling both feisty and critical), but they’re not me. I’m “Uhura” in Star Trek – not Scotty – I was sure I was more a Scotty – an easily stressed out yet comical nerd, but once again I was completely mistaken. I guess one too many lengthy phone conversations revealed my true nature and landed me firmly in the communications field. Sure, I’m no xeno-linguist, but really who needs to be? Isn’t that what the universal translator is for? I’m “Zoe” on Firefly. Ok, I’ll admit that I flat out cheated, but I’m pretty sure my sexier, cooler, tougher, more athletic alter ego is just like Zoe. My inner-me also happens to look quite stunning in leather. I mean, everyone who knows me knows that I’m actually “Wash”, the nerdy, Hawaiian-shirt-wearing, sarcastic pilot, but a girl can dream.

Oh, and speaking of sarcastic, Facebook helped me come to terms with the fact that I’m not really all that sarcastic. Hooray! I mean, I’ve always suspected that people were just trying to hurt my feelings and now it’s confirmed – Facebook understood me in ways my friends never could (they probably weren’t hugged a lot when they were small).

You see, these 10 question quizzes truly reveal my soul.

After learning I was this Uhura-Miss Piggy non-sarcastic hybrid that really wasn’t Zoe because of the whole cheating-thing in a sad attempt to be cool, I moved on to the 5’s of things. Yes, the 5’s. You see, your whole life can be boiled down into top five lists. Top 5 beaches you’ve visited: Ummm… Galveston, Galveston, then there was Galveston, South Padre, and Cape Canaveral – I know, I know, I’m very well traveled). Top 5 beers I like. Top 5 cars I’ve owned. You get the idea.

Feeling this Uhura-Piggy could only stand to benefit from these Top 5 insights, I had to participate. And really, what I discovered is that I developed a hyper-compulsive need to group things into 5’s. I’d see an item on my desk and it became “Top 5 Post-It Pads I’ve Owned” (slow day at work, you see) or I’d drive down the street only to find myself thinking about the “Top 5 Billboard Signs” or the “Top 5 Keep Austin Weird Food Joints”. And while all of these lists of 5’s were terribly revealing, I still had more to learn about myself. I wanted to take the Top 5 to that next level. “Top 5 People Who Would Help Me Bury the Bodies” (Of course, the answer had to be Lynn x3 (through cloning technology), Anna and Jay – I mention their names in case you’re hiring – consider this a reference – although, you’re going to have to work out the cloning details with Lynn and then figure out how to grow her to full adulthood in time for your little “adventure”, but that’s your path to cross when you’re ready.

But truly, the real eye opener came when I got to thinking about what Top 5 lists my friends would put ME on. Ok, so if I were honest, I wouldn’t be the person you went to in order to bury the body. I’d more likely be “Top 5 Friends Who Would Rat You Out”. Yes, that’s me. I can’t lie. It’s a flaw. It’s not from a lack of willingness or even trying, I just have too many “tells” and then I easily cave. No need for a bamboo shoot manicure here. In fact, a former supervisor knew that when she suspected something hinky going on in the group, she should see me first. My best strategy in those situations was avoidance. If I wasn’t around I couldn’t betray everyone and give up everything I knew about the question at hand and I couldn’t throw in a little extra ratting out as icing on my big mouth. Hey, if you’re giving up all you know, it never hurts to sprinkle in a little extra so that when you’re running the gauntlet of withering looks from your co-workers, you know it’s well-deserved. I think this is why the CIA never came beating down my door to be one of their operatives.

Now, I might make the “Top 5 People You Could Have Hold the Flashlight While You Dug the Shallow Grave” – maybe – but more likely “Top 5 People I’d Send Out to Get the Top 5 Body Buriers Burgers”. I wouldn’t be in the “Top 5 People Who are My Calm in the Storm”, I’d more likely appear on “Top 5 People I Expect to FREAK RIGHT ON OUT at the Worst Moment and Maybe Drool”. If I want to even pretend to make a more positive list, I would probably land on “Top 5 Friends that Would Bawl Over Oprah or a Hallmark Commercial” (I did cry when I was about six years old over Mrs. Walton getting a new sweater, which disturbed my Mom a bit, but Mom didn’t understand just how much that sweater meant to Mrs. Walton) and maybe it’s just me, but that doesn’t sound particularly “positive”.

So, I’m thinking maybe I should avoid Top 5 lists and quizzes altogether. Sure, I’m learning a lot about myself thanks to Facebook, but I think another truth has emerged – that I am the “Person Most Likely to Get a Complex by Taking Inane 10 Question Quizzes”. Perhaps I should just stick to something a little more reputable like Myers-Briggs.

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Beth vs. Trek


With the latest Star Trek movie out, I’ve been trying to work out how to write about my take on Star Trek and Science Fiction in general.

I’ve always had a soft spot for Science Fiction, thanks to my father. We spent countless hours watching Star Trek with Kirk rolling around, his shirt half torn while hollering self righteously about humanity. Here was our intergalactic hero – the ambassador to alien-kind spitting on the “prime directive” week after week when duty called and duty always seemed to have Kirk’s number on speed dial. But despite Kirk being the head of the space version of Wagon Train, let’s face it, I was still more a Spock/Scotty girl.

In fact, one of my prized geek moments was James Doohan asking if I’d like to have my picture taken with him. Picture? No, I want to sit in your lap and hug you. Sadly I didn’t have a camera on me at the time and had to shyly excuse myself from plopping down on the poor man.

When “The Wrath of Khan” came out, after sitting for hours with my high school friends to be the first in line, I was barely able to hold it together when Spock died – “I have been and ever shall be your friend” still gets to me – I wept again when Picard played his flute after living out an entire life in a dream. In fact, my Trek love goes so deep that I’ve attended Star Trek conventions, had my picture taken on STNG’s bridge, fled from the Borg in one of the two Star Trek Experience adventures I’ve been on, had my pre-wedding dinner at Quark’s and have several autographs of my Trek heroes. I would have gotten married on the bridge of the Enterprise had Jay not had to put the breaks on my over enthusiastic adoration of Star Trek. You see, I am a complete Star Trek dork. (Unless challenged with the “Name that Episode” game and If it’s not “Mirror, Mirror” or “Amok Time”, I haven’t got a clue.)

And as much as I personally love Star Trek and its various incarnations, I don’t view it or its characters as sacred. I just honestly can’t stand up and say without snickering that the writing was consistent, the acting was great or that any of the shows were the best TV had to offer. Sure, I liked it just fine – loved it even; it was entertaining. But, when people start whining about the Star Trek “cannon” being violated by the latest incarnation or point out the inconsistencies it has with the old story line, I quite frankly snort. And I’m sure in doing so, I’ve lost some Trekkee cred somewhere – I’ll be denied entry into Stovokor and someone out there will wish upon me a hearty “die young and poor”.

“Star Trek: The Future Begins” was hands down the best Trek movie to date. You may love your Khan or your search for whales, but they’ve got nothing on this latest installation. The movie reinvigorates a dying franchise (thank you for driving it into the ground, Rick Berman) with a fresh re-imagining of what was often tired and stale story telling.

The movie did for Star Trek what Ron Moore (God bless that man) did for Battlestar Galactica – another beloved, poorly realized science fiction show that I watched loyally every week. Solid ideas were made so much better. Again, I say that and can still love Dirk Benedict’s version of Starbuck, but honestly, give me Kara Thrace any day and I wave a cheerful goodbye to Muffit (poor chimp) and Boxey.

In fact, let me just come out and say that while I love sci-fi shows and will stand by them to the end, a lot of them are just not great (or even good)t; however, we do still love them and they can certainly be entertaining.

Now I’ll patiently hope that J. J. Abrams does something with the whole Star Wars debacle. I’m eyeballing you, Lucas.