Diary of an amateur driver

I bet everyone is wondering what Margaret did today. The 411...

• Walked around downtown to the tune of Joe and Steve humming, not silently, "Mmmmm.... hot dog vendors are out... mmmmm..." Stopped at my main music dealer and got a fix: Alicia Keys - Diary of Alicia Keys.

  What do I think? Let me be honest with you (does anyone cringe when I say that yet?)...

  I downloaded some of the tunes from this album right after it came out. My thoughts then? Blah. Fine. Whateverrrr. Nothing to get excited about, definitely should not buy it. Ooooh look, there's bright shiny stuff over there! *excitedly runs towards bright shiny things*

  Today I was weak. Today I needed stimulation (ok, so I need stimulation everyday). It seems a well-documented fact (and rather hysterical ongoing joke) amongst the people in my circle that I have an abnormally high stimulation level. We're talking "the art on my computer changes more than once a day", "my MP3 playlist is consistently around 2000 songs, rotates daily, and I still get bored with it", and "I taught myself CSS in one weekend cuz I was bored." Ha ha, very funny... but true. Thus, the Alicia album. Bring it on Alicia - entertain me.

  And holy hay-suess, did she deliver! My IT department is what the french call le extreme programming environmente, where headphones are strictly forbidden. I, however, am indisputably cute so I get away with it (and a LOT of other things... hee hee). To be courteous I usually keep the volume pretty low so I can still hear what's going on around me. Not today. Today was about Alicia. "Oooh baby, if there's anything that you fear..." Ok, I'm starting to repeat myself so I'm on to another subject. Hey look, bright shiny things at bullet #2!



• Said IT department decided to have a little exercise in bonding this afternoon. I put up my argument, made it well known I thought it was shitty that IT got to leave during the middle of a huge software release and leave everyone else fixing their problems, but was *still* forced to go. Literally forced. Said bonding exercise?: Go-karting.

  Even moral objections couldn't keep me from having a great time. Woot! I'll post some pictures tomorrow if I can get my little paws on them. Here's what I learned:

  -- The CTO is CTO for a reason: he drove me in to the wall so hard that I my left wheel went under the barriers and glasses nearly flew off. Yup. Here's what I saw: a lot of smoke, the flying of rubber, and a whoosh of 6 people go SAILING by me. It took TWO men to get me out. Two! Was he threatened by my stunning driving? Definitely. Was he intimidated by my go-karting presence? Always. Was he trembling in his little booties knowing of certain defeat and failure? Goes without saying. All I can say is that it sucks to be him tomorrow - his desk is RIGHT next to mine. He will pay for that little stunt. Oh yes, he will pay.

  -- Watch out for the quiet ones... the quietest fellow of the group, Pusit, got so upset at someone going slow in front of him that I watched Pusit rear end the fellow. Not once. Not twice. Not even three times. But FOUR times! Crazy mo-fo. Words of advice, keep the quiet ones away from go-karts.

  -- The guy who brings along driving gloves drives like Bowser in Mario Kart. The gloves are purely show, he *will* be the slowest one.

  -- And finally, be careful who drives you home after go-karting. Dave nearly rear ended us... a few times... as he wanted to gently *bump* the car in front of us in a lesson of the 'get out of my way or I'm sticking your ass in the wall' variety. Fo shizzle, yo.



• A little clarification on yesterday's post. I did decide on a name for le beloved computer (again, french): Shiva (not french, but Hindu and lovely).
  "He is both static and dynamic and is both creator and destroyer. He is the oldest and the youngest, he is the eternal youth as well as the infant. He is the source of fertility in all living beings. He has gentle as well as fierce forms. Shiva is the greatest of renouncers as well as the ideal lover. He destroyes evil and protects good. He bestows prosperity on worshipers although he is austere. He is omnipresent and resides in everyone as pure consciousness."

  Why did I pick this name? I leave that to your capable interpretation.

That said, I'm all out of boring things to blog about tonight. Really, I have GOT to come up with some new material... aren't you guys getting bored lately? For hay-suess's sake, I am nearly putting myself to sleep here. *Making mental note to self that tonight's homework assignment is to come up with something highly contraversial and/or entertaining for tomorrow...*