Work

So, I said I'd never blog about work. Well, as of June 30 I will no longer have a job. One company I am assigned to work for has decided to terminate their Joint Sales Agreement (JSA) with CompanyB. Honestly, I am not too shocked. Company A fired a bunch of corporate staffers in late Janurary and the day that they did that I updated my resume and put it on Monster and HotJobs and etc.
I am sad about my job in the sense that I will miss having a steady salary and health insurance, and I really like the people at my workplace (not the job itself), but I feel oddly free at the same time. I had been having some problems with my boss. Nice guy, but not really willing to let me broaden my horizons. I have been a go-to person by people in other departments only to have them be told NO by the boss. He doesn't like to share or something. Plus I've not been loving sales. I've discovered that I dislike dealing with local sales (not that I do the actual sales, but I have to deal with the fickle nature of them. Local merchants don't always grasp fundamentals of TV advertising, it can be frustrating.)
Company B's HR person said she'd do whatever she can to help us displaced employees.
Maybe I will move back to NY......

Actual Personal Ads Taken From Israeli Newspapers

A friend sent me these. Enjoy!
(I can't vouch for their validity, but they're funny anyway).

>>Israeli professor, 41, with 18 years of teaching in my behind.
Looking for American-born woman who speaks English very good.

>>Jewish businessman, 49, manufactures Sabbath candles, Chanuka
candles, havdalah candles, Yahrzeit candles. Seeks non-smoker. POB 787

>>Female graduate student, studying kaballah, Zohar, exorcism of
dybbuks, seeks mensch. No weirdos, please. POB 56

>>Staunch Jewish feminist, wears tzitzis, seeking male who will
accept my independence, although you probably will not. Oh, just
forget it.POB 435

>>Yeshiva bochur, Torah scholar, long beard, payos. Seeks same in
woman. POB 43

>> Worried about in-law meddling!? I'm an orphan! Write. POB 74

>> Sincere rabbinical student, 27. Enjoys Yom Kippur, Tisha B'av,
Taanis Esther, Tzom Gedaliah, Asarah B'Teves, Shiva Asar B'Tammuz. Seeks
companion for living life in the "fast" lane. POB 90

>> Divorced Jewish man, seeks partner to attend shul with, light
shabbos candles, celebrate holidays, build Sukkah together, attend
brisses, bar mitzvahs. Religion not important. POB 658

>> Couch potato latke, in search of the right applesauce. Let's try
it for eight days. Who knows? POB 43.

>> Shul Gabbai, 36. I take out the Torah Saturday morning. Would
like to take you out Saturday night. Please write. POB 81

Jew-isms on TV

Overheard during the pilot of Jake in Progress:

Kylie walks out into living room wearing a long black skirt, longslevved blue sweater, preparing for a date with Jake.
Kylie (to roommate): How do I look?
Roommate: Like a Hasidic Jew on her first trip to the mall.
Kylie: I don't want to give him the wrong impression.
Rommate: That the Holy Land is off limits?.....

March Madness- What's In A Name?

It's March. Basketball frenzy has gripped the nation. I have no interest in bracketology, but I have a interest in oddball team names. A team name is in some sense a representation of your school and/or city. So what posses some school to choose names like those listed below? What are the rules?

Let's take a look at some of my favorites:

• Stetson Hatters -they are named after the Stetson hat. Seriously. Like I'm real intimidated by a team called the Hatters . (Now a team named the Mad Hatters, that might be different).
• Boston University Terriers- again, not too intimidating (although scarier than a hat)
• UC Santa Cruz Banana Slugs- represents non-aggressiveness (always an important quality in competitive team sports).
  
• UC Irvine Anteaters- or as the students prefer to be called the C.I.A. (Completely Insane Anteaters)
  
• U of Northern Colorado Fightin' Whities - only an intramural team, but a great story. And don't forget the mascot.
• Texas Christian University Horned Toads
  
• Purdue Boilermakers
• Amherst College Lord Jeffs
• UNC Tarheels- Even UNC doesn't seem to know for sure what a tarheel is (note the use of the term "War Between the States")
  
• Georgetown Hoyas- what is a Hoya.
• College of the Atlantic Black Flies
  
• Brandeis university Judges- after judge Lewis Brandeis
  
• Columbia College (Hollywood) Claim Jumpers**
  
• Williams College Ephs- yet their mascot is a purple cow
• RISD Nads- GO NADS! Just wait till you see their mascot, Scrotie).
  

The use of clergy or religious themes-

• Ohio Wesleyan University Battlin' Bishops
  
• Providence College Friars
  
• Catholic University Cardinals
• College of the Holy Cross Crusaders,
  
• Wake Forest Deamon Deacons
  
• Lincoln Bible College Preachers

Points for having a good sense of humor:

• (CUNY*) John Jay College for Criminal Justice Bloodhounds
• South Dakota School of Mines and Technology Hardrockers
• Whittier College Poets -amusing, but not intimidating
• Oklahoma Baptist College and Institute Prophets- does this mean that they know what the resulting score will be?
  

Not creative at all:

• St John's University (MN) Johnnies
• U of Illinois Illini
• St Bonaventure Bonnies
• New Mexico Institute of Mining & Technology Miners
• MIT Engineers
• US Merchant Marine Academy Mariners
• US Naval Academy Midshipmen
  

And the most creative team name in all of the NCAA:

• Webster University Gorloks

On a related note- high school team names
(for the record, my HS team was the Cougars)


*City University of New York
** If someone can explain this one to me I'll be much appreciative

Silver Spoons, Live!

I met Ricky Schroder last week. Yes, little Ricky from Silver Spoons. He was in town to promote his new movie, Black Cloud, about Native American boxers, at the Mohegan Sun casino (where they have both Native Americans and boxing events). I happened to be doing my daily time at the front desk while the receptionist was at lunch when this limo pulls up. I asked who was in the limo and the reporter( interviewing him) said it was Rick Schroder and then asked me (in all seriousness) not to act hysterical. I said I'’d try to contain myself and not reach a Beatles-level of frenzy. [He did not find this funny. Some people have no sense of humor.]
Rick was accommodating of the small group of employees (mainly female) pestering him for autographs. No sordid details to report. A nice guy, didn't seem pretentious or anything. A most posistive brush with celebrity.

Guns don't hurt people....

.....cats with guns do.

And in other stupid news:

Police Find Stolen Truck Carrying Radioactive Material

Driving around with radioactive material and you leave your car running= you are a Darwin Award waiting to happen.

The little things.....

Reading a story like this one gives me a small ray of hope for peace (or something resembling it) in the Mideast.
Too many people are wrapped up in the battle of egos, the "us v. them" mentality to take a step back and realize that they really don't need to be bombing, shooting, or otherwise maiming and killing those on the other side. And that education is the key. Like the bumper sticker says:

A mind is like a parachute- it doesn't work unless fully open.

Got family issues? Want to share them with the country?

(via Cynopsis)

The makers of Wife Swap are going to take an American family divided by conflict and over the course of seven days work with them in an attempt to bring the family back together again. The family members will be accompanied by a "Family Relationship Therapist" who will encourage the members to air their issues, be there to mediate, and hopefully repair the long standing feud that has separated them. The family tries to resolve their differences, relinquish their grudges and rediscover the relationships that made them a family in the first place.
If your family is interested in participating, contact Producer Sandra Philippeaux, RDF Media for more information at sandra.philippeaux@rdfmedia .com.


Sounds kind of like Jerry Springer gone the way of Dr. Phil.

i used to believe

i used to believe
is worth checking out. I found that there are ideas that I had as a child that others seemed to have shared as well. Such as:

• "I used to believe that all things that tasted minty (Gum, peppermints) worked just as well to clean your teeth as mouthwash did."
• "I used to think that thunder was God bowling and the lightning was when He got a strike"
• "I used to believe that if I broke open the T.V. I would be able to climb inside my favorite shows"

In my opinion the funniest thing on this site (so far) is this entry:

I had a strange fear that if I closed my eyes in the bathtub, William Shakespeare would come up through the drain and kill me. I knew his name, but I had no idea who he was, so I just naturally assumed he was some sort of bathtub vampire.

---

Good Drugs

*Caution- the following was written under the influence of Vicodin*

I had the afternoon off thanks to a procedure at the oral surgeon's office. The second stage of my dental implants is now complete. The final phase (where the dentist makes me a crown, well actually 2 crowns in this case) should be complete by the end of the month. Yay! Lyss will now have 2 more functioning 'teeth'. Which is good considering that I had another one extracted about 3 weeks ago. Damn genetics.
But that wasn't until 2:30. However the payroll person practically insisted that I take the whole afternoon off as (in her theory) missing an hour or two or three from a timesheet is just harder to deal with.
So I got a massage in the interim. My massage was amazing. I've got to do that more often.

Then I went to the surgeon's office where I have spent so much time in the past year that they consider me family (seriously, they told me that). This means that I am allowed to eat in the waiting room and the other patients and their loved ones are not. I felt loved.
All the warm and fuzzy feelings aside, things were not pleasant. I had to be awake for this procedure, which meant that I had to be awake when they plunged a needle into my gums to numb me. Not that I would rather have been without the Novocaine, but I hate the whole needle in the mouth part.
When I was 3 I had to go to the dentist for a filling. He not only showed me the needle (idiot) but when I wouldn't open my mouth he held my nose so that I couldn't breathe and was thus forced to open my mouth, at which point he nailed me with the needle. My mom said she could hear my screams all the way out in the waiting room. That was the last visit to that dentist. Luckily my mom's cousin soon graduated from dental school and I went to him until I was in college, when I was lucky to find a great dentist up in Ithaca.
So, needless to say, dentists make me anxious. Not the drill, as so many are bothered by its noise and vibrations, but the needle.
After they finished pumping me full of Novocaine there was lots of annoying, uncomfortable, and painful pushing and pulling. I think that I pulled a neck muscle from my jaw being forced open. (Apparently that is not a totally uncommon thing.). It was alright until the Novocaine ware off on the top spot (I'm still waiting for the bottom spot, on the other side of my mouth, to regain feeling). Pain. Throbbing pain. Vicodin is helping for now......sort of.