183 posts tagged “qotd”
How do you cool off when you're upset?
Submitted by K.
With me, there's nothing for it but time. How much time depends on what I'm upset about, whether I can do anything about it, etc.
When I'm really honked off, I try to keep my thoughts to myself, online and in conversation, lest I post/say something that I might later wish I hadn't. If I know I'm alone, such as while driving, I'll rant in the car, getting things off my chest.
Don't look at me like that. Don't act like you've never done a car rant or something like it. Maybe it was a shower rant.
I've also discovered that such rants have inspired me to combine scatological terms in unique and creative ways, resulting in a few expressions that I've actually retained in my personal lexicon.
If you knew me well, you might expect I would meditate to calm down. Perhaps I'm simply not that evolved because I have yet to be able to meditate my way out of the throes of full-on indignation,
I do have what I call the Curse of Objectivity. It manifests as being able to see the other side's point of view, no matter how much you don't want to. It doesn't change my mind and seldom helps me calm down any faster, but the Curse of Objectivity, when it pops up, can absolutely ruin a righteous mad.
If you could only eat ONE cereal for the rest of your life, which one would you pick?
As disgusting and cringe-worthy as the name is, it would be Kellogg's Mueslix.
I know, right?
But there's something about the combination of the flakes with the raisins and dates and almonds, along with some cold milk, that's sooooo good.
Sadly, I don't let myself have it anymore, or any other kind of cereal (Raisin Bran was always a good fallback) -- way too high in carbs. Don't get me wrong -- I'm not a stickwoman who has a Tic-Tac and a cigarette for lunch. HAH! I'm way down on the other end of that continuum. Built for comfort, not for speed. No, the reason I watch the carbs is damn diabetes. You'd think after being diabetic for ohmygod18years I'd be used to it by now, but nope.
I'm not even a GOOD diabetic. I fall off the wagon just about every day, it seems. Still, I try to be a good diabetic shopper in the grocery store buying just for me. I know that, if I buy it, I will eat it, so I just don't buy it. Most of the time. One delicious bowl of the stuff is almost a day's worth of carbs by some guides.
So, I like it a lot, but not enough to eat it and ONLY it for the rest of my life.
What does your ideal lifestyle look like 10 years from now?
Presented by Intel, Sponsors of Tomorrow.
Wait just a second, let me get into my idyllic haze. . . . all settled in. OK, in ten years, if everything works PERFECTLY, I'll be starting to think seriously about retiring before long. Of course, with the economy the way it is and the fact that it will take a while to right itself, that's not really as likely to happen as it was when I first set my course, but... crap, wait a second... okay, back in the idyllic haze now.
Yes, it will be wonderful. My little income streams that have been set up for my retirement and which I've been nurturing for so long will have met or exceeded their goals and will be chugging along, and among them all, I'll have a comfortable life.
Of course, this presumes the Social Security system which is one of those income streams, survives another ten years, and . . . who am I kidding about that, right?
[Warning! Warning! Idyllic haze is compromised!!]
What's your favorite Michael Jackson song? Bonus points if you share the video.
Hands-down: "Man in the Mirror" which surprisingly (to me) has barely been mentioned in the constant press coverage lately. The message of the song was very powerful, the song very sing-able and memorable, and it had that great mid-song modulation that really got to me.
Is it tacky of me that I can't help but think that this song would be very appropriate to President Obama's call to volunteer service?
Right? Maybe not now... or maybe...?I'm starting with the man in the mirror,
I'm asking him to change his ways,
And no message could have been any clearer:
If you wanna make the world a better place,
Take a look at yourself and then make that change...
I was never a big fan, so don't know if there even was a video for "Man in the Mirror". All I could find on YouTube were a couple of low-quality copies of live performances of it with still photos interspersed.
Today is Repeat Day, so we want to know: what song do you have currently have on repeat? Bonus points if you share it with us!
I've been in an early 1960s pre-British-Invasion mood today. The ones I've hit "repeat" on in the last few minutes are: Breaking Up Is Hard to Do by Neil Sedaka, possibly THE seminal song of that era of the genre, and Blue Moon by the Marcels, which is probably the best street-corner doo-wop song ever. Listen closely to it and you'll realize the only thing you hear except for blended human voices is a background drum.
What do you plan to do when you retire?
HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!! Oh, Vox, you're so funny. "When I retire..." HAHAHAHAHA!!! Like I'll ever be able to stop working and live on my investments. (Get it? Shrinking, see?)
I used to dream of a retirement in which I would whatever I damn well pleased which, really, wasn't going to be that exotic or even ambitious. I'd like the opportunity to live life on my own circadean rhythm, by which I mean my system wants to stay awake till about 4AM and sleep till about 10AM. I'd like the opportunity to just relax, long term. Then, once I get that out of my system, I'd like to have time to do different kinds of volunteer work.
But, alas, all that is mostly a vapor now, in view of my retirement horizon as it relates to the economy being dans les égouts. I don't expect to be able to afford to retire when I'm "due" unless some things change more radically than expected. Specifically, I don't see my mutual funds recovering in time and enough, and I also don't expect Social Security to be able to pay me the amount on the statement I get every year telling me what I'll get. By the time I'm eligible for it, the system will have to have gone through some serious changes just to stay afloat, and I expect to become a casualty of that.
So... my plans for retirement? "Does not apply." Hopefully I can keep a job I enjoy and with which I'm productive, but I could end up working Burger King in the morning, Wendy's in the afternoon, and McDonald's at night, just to be able to eat. And if things keep going like they are, I could end doing that way before retirement age.
Now I'm all depressed and angst-y.
Which of your birthday parties was your favourite one?
Submitted by Jack Yan.
One year, I got to work on my birthday, and saw brightly colored pieces of paper with "a certain number" on them taped to the doors of the elevators. When I got off on my floor, more of the numbered papers led a path down the hall, into our suite, and into my office, which my staff had stayed late the night before and ... well, "decorated" isn't a strong enough word.
They'd crepe-papered my office EVERYWHERE and hung ribbon streamers with little gifties like bookmarks on them and there was confetti all over the place. There were banners hanging from the ceiling with comments about birthdays. There was a path I had to be guided through it all to my desk. As instructed, I worked in it all day long, and I grinned the whole time.
Others who worked in the building showed up in my office throughout the day, having curiously followed the path of the numbered papers that started in the elevators. At some pre-arranged signal after lunch, everybody showed up and there was a cake.
At the end of the day, though, they really got me: A few months earlier, I had gotten my Master's degree. My diploma was still in the little fabric-covered tent-style folder it arrived in, on a shelf in the office. I'd had my Bachelor's diploma professionally matted and framed a few years before, and it was on the wall. I was saving up to have the Master's diploma done the same way. Although I hadn't mentioned that to them, they'd had it framed for me, and in a perfect match down to the gold trim inside the matte.
It begs the question, however, of why I hadn't noticed that the diploma was gone from the tent display while it was off being framed, right? They'd made a photocopy of it before they spirited it out to the framer, and put the copy back in the tent and prayed I wouldn't notice. I didn't. They totally pulled it off.
They knew how hard I'd worked getting that degree while working about 60 hours a week . . . and they'd been very understanding of a boss who was occasionally crabby, sometimes harried, frequently frazzled, and always tired during the two years it took to get the degree. The decorated office was huge fun, and the all-day party was a hoot, but that particular gift really choked me up.
If you were to open up a business of your own, what would it be?
Submitted by beth.
Did it already. I had my own website design and management business for 8 years. I officially closed up shop, so to speak, on December 31, 2008.
I enjoyed it, was pretty good at it, and developed a decent reputation, getting most of my clients via word of mouth.
The problem was that, as the economy has begun to sour like a carton of old milk over the last few years, I've been having to work more and more at my "real" job -- they used to promise they'd hire me some help but it never happened and now it clearly won't, at least not for a long long time -- I realized it wasn't fair to my clients and, frankly, it became kind of a burden to me.
That was a shame because it was something I'd enjoyed so much for so long, and to have it change from something I looked forward to, to something that was more, "Oh, crap, that's right, I have to do that before tomorrow", was sad.
Something else that I saw happening that contributed to my shutting down was that my lack of free time was keeping me from staying on the bleeding, or at least leading, edge of website technology. In that line of work, it doesn't take long to fall to the middle of the pack. Sooner or later, I'd have been struggling to hang on to the back of the pack. I didn't like that for my clients and I definitely didn't like it for myself.
I'm keeping the domain name, though. It's a good one and who knows, right? ;)
Have you ever walked out of a movie?
Submitted by Jack Yan.
Twice that I can think of. First was "Deliverance" and it was only ("only"?) the rape scene. I was very young and not really ready for that. I wasn't offended, I was freaked. I knew such things happened but had never seen one vividly portrayed like that, or at all for that matter. Like I said, I was young and still a little sheltered at the time. I gave it time to be over and then went back in and watched the rest of the movie.
The other time was "Ghostbusters" but that was only because the Fire Department came in about 20 minutes into the movie and shut it down and told us all to get out of there. It was wintertime and outside, an officer told me that the furnace or whatever heating device they had in the basement was overheating to the point that it was glowing red. A couple of years later, I finally saw the movie, uninterrupted, on HBO at a friend's house.
In fairness, I should add that I haven't seen but two movies in an actual theater in the past 10 years or so. I got tired of paying zillions of dollars to listen to other people's conversations. Now I watch movies at home.
If I'd been paying to see "Eyes Wide Shut", I'd have walked out on that. As it was, it was during a time in my career when I was traveling a lot for work, and I watched it in some hotel room. So instead of walking out, I let it play just to see if it was as bad as I'd heard, and it was.
What's the best part about living with a roommate? Worst?
My experiences with roommates were, on the main, terrible. In order, starting with my first college roommate (college roommates were total strangers, thrown together by somekind of lottery or something), there were the following. Learn from everyone's mistakes, including my own:
- F - Not bad at all, actually, we just had NOTHING in common. We did talk each other through boyfriend problems and she taught me to play Spades. We parted amicably but never kept up with each other. I don't remember her last name anymore.
- J - Nightmare. Nursing student who stayed jacked up on bootleg speed for days on end. I found out she was hiding the stuff in our room on my side and threatened to tell the resident advisor, so she moved out. No way did I want to be busted for her crap. Last I heard she was stashing it behind the hubcaps of her car.
- D - We were actually best friends in high school and we are still BFFs now -- in each other's weddings, I was godmother to her children, etc., so we survived the one summer we lived together and nearly killed each other. She saw me as a slob and I saw her as a neat freak and we were probably both right.
- K - My one and only really good roommate. We had jobs that should have made us "natural enemies" but we had similar values and similar senses of humor, and agreed to just work around that, and did. The one and only time I ever had the honest-to-goodness flu, thank God for her; I lost 10 days out of my life that I can barely remember, during which I probably would have ended up hospitalized or worse if she hadn't been there and so willing to keep an eye on me. The only reason we stopped rooming together was that, totally by coincidence, we each got jobs in different states at about the same time. I wish we'd been able to stay in better touch.
- P - Nice person but very immature and totally not ready to be out in the world. Had never lived away from home before. When she realized I wasn't another mom, she moved back home. Amazingly, she later sent me the money for the balance of the rent and utilities she'd owed me when she left.
- R - The worst of them all. I was desperate for someone to share expenses with that I put an ad in the paper and took the first person who waved the deposit money at me. That was a stupid, expensive, and potentially dangerous thing to do. It was my place and I told her that, besides the money stuff, I only had two rules -- no outside doors left open (I had indoor-only cats) and no one-night-stands. Within a couple of weeks, I'd come home and found various people I'd never met before eating my food, showering in my bathroom, sleeping in her bed, and all when she wasn't even home. Then one day she just didn't come back, owing me several hundred dollars. One week, two weeks, a month. I had the locks changed and chalked it up to experience. Then she shows up banging on the windows and wanting to know why her keys doesn't work anymore. Turns out she'd hired on a fishing boat (lived on the coast) and had been at sea for all that time. She offered to pay me IN SHRIMP. No thanks, seeyabye.
