Weekend!
At my job, I’m lucky enough to have a lot of leeway in what I do when. Generally, there are certain numbers of weekly or monthly things that I have to do and my boss doesn’t care what order I do them in so long as most of them are done by the end of the week and the ones that aren’t can sit until Monday. So if I get an emergency call and have to go take care of somebody in one of the rarely-used labs, he expresses envy that he doesn’t get sent across town anymore.
This week is not like that.
“AUGH WE’VE GOT A FIRE AND WE’VE GOT A DEADLINE AND WE NEED EVERYBODY TO WORK ON THIS CRAZY PROBLEM!”
“We just got a call from the off-site research lab. They say that they can’t find the instructions to pour the water out of the boot.”
“Tell them that you’ll go over there in a week or two.”
So off-site gets email support until the fire is out. “I’m pretty sure that the instructions are on the heel.” “Can you guys just come out here?”
So the rest of this week will be devoted to firefighting and, maybe, we’ll be able to chill out enough to get back to the whole “just get it done by Friday” thing next week some time.
As such, this weekend will be devoted to trying to generate more energy to make up for that which was lost this week as well as generate some extra for the coming one (which is likely to be just as crazy).
Which basically entails sitting in a dark basement and then, on Sunday night, going to watch The Royal Rumble and enjoying a feast of the wings from the good wing place.
So… what’s on your docket?
(Image is “Play” by Clare Briggs. Used with permission of the Briggs estate.)
This weekend is a busy one. NXT Takeover on Saturday night. Barber of Seville on Sunday afternoon. Royal Rumble on Sunday night. We also have to fit in grocery shopping and the other usual weekend chores.Report
NXT Takeover! Awesome!
It’s weird how that show has better wrestling and better storylines than the main one…Report
It is also interesting that some of the wrestlers (Elias, Baron Corbin) that never quite click in NXT become top guys on the main roster, while some NXT favorites (Tyler Breeze, Tye Dillinger) never really connect in the same way once they are called up.Report
The voracious wrestling fans are the ones most likely to buy the WWE network. These are also the ones most likely to watch AAA and New Japan… which gives them outsized input to the weird and oblique programming on the WWE network.
The people most likely to watch NXT are those who knew who, for example, AJ Styles was before he made his debut.
But… well, I have to tell this story. I was talking to one of the guys in the lab about wrestling and he was talking about how he could never believe CM Punk could go toe to toe against John Cena. CM Punk was just a scrawny dude! And CM Punk was (IS!) huge!
He concluded his speech with how he wanted to see giants hit each other rather than guys who merely looked like him.
The guy who told me this story was 6′ 1″ and regularly hit the gym, basing on his shoulder width.
Anyway… the guy I was talking wrestling with has never heard of New Japan or AAA or even NXT outside of “that’s the tough enough kinda league”.
But dang if he didn’t watch Raw and Smackdown and buy PPVs.
So the main shows listen to guys like him.
And I’m left watching 205 live and NXT.
And, yeah, the Rumble.Report
I am a faithful watcher of NXT, as well as both weekly shows, but to some extent, I agree with your friends sentiment about wanting to see giants hit each other, but not just guys that look like regular guys. It is not just a matter of size (though I do think there are a lot of smaller guys), but also personality and character.
Roderick Strong was a big deal on the indies, and they push him as a big deal on NXT, but to me, he is just some bland dude that I cannot bring myself to care about. I feel the same way about Hideo Itami and even Finn Balor. They are just missing something that makes them stand out and that really makes me care.Report
It’s the World Entrance Federation!Report
I get to wash human blood (not my own) off of my side door.
Apparently very early Thursday morning, some guy was running through the neighborhood, bloodied, and was pounding on doors to try to get assistance. Apparently he was also being sought by the cops, because when I called the police back to ask if I could clean my door or if it was now evidence, the dispatcher told me he had been arrested. I don’t know what for. It doesn’t really matter. All that matters is it was hella scary to be awakened at midnight by someone trying to get into my house.
My town is TOO DAMN SMALL for this. I feel that at a minimum, if I have to put up with this, I should have access to a large supermarket that is NOT wal-mart.
Anyway. Gonna make a Lowe’s run for heavy gloves and a face mask and a disposable bucket (I already have bleach).
I’m mainline Protestant Christian, so purification rituals are really not our thing, but a Catholic friend tells me that if I ask the local priest nicely, he might come and do a house blessing….I feel like I need something, at least for me, to dispel the slight feeling of dread I’ve developed about the house right now.
(I think I will also be obtaining a motion-sensing light for that porch. Even though it will shine into my neighbor’s windows.)Report
Ah, jeez. That must be terrifying.Report
I had someone suggest I was coming from a place of excessive privilege and sheltered-ness because of how freaked out by it I was.
I gave them a hard stare.
Part of my freaked-out-ness is that I am a single woman living alone, and if 2017/early 2018 has taught me anything, it’s that we’re basically lambs to the slaughter. I shudder to think what might have happened to me if the guy actually got in to my house.
I need to buy another shillelagh. I have one for in my office (long story but the campus cops counseled us to have some kind of cudgel-type weapon in this age of campus shootings) but not anything similar for home. not that it would help against a dude with a gun but I might sleep more soundly with a shillelagh propped up in the corner of my room.Report
Jeez. I’d suggest a gun but I know that some have a thing about that.
According to Amazon, the Louisville Slugger is under 20 bucks. Made in America.Report
Before our local coyote pack moved on, I was considering getting an expanding baton that I could carry in a hip pocket when I was walking past the wildlife area nearby. I kind of wish they’d come back — the rabbits are overrunning the neighborhood.Report
I’m not opposed to guns, but the thought of having to make time to clean it and go and practice (friends who shoot tell me you really need to go to the range once a month to keep up) and….I don’t need another hobby.
Also, I wonder about someone unauthorized getting their hands on it, like if I came home and surprised a burglar.Report
It’s really not that bad filly..
You clean it after you shoot, not much more often that than. Take a basic firearms course so you know how to handle it safely. Practice a bit. You don’t need to practice every month for hours. Just get proficient. More importantly, know your state and local laws on what’s allowed for home defense and firearm ownership.
Or get some really nasty pepper spray or a baton like Michael says-or both…so you can beat the guy while he’s tearing up. 🙂Report
Eeep, that’s very unnerving.
I expect your local Catholic priest would be amenable to blessing your house, especially if you have a parishioner friend who could assist with an introduction (and maybe explain the context/situation).*
As far as rituals go, be forewarned it is pretty low key… somewhere in the late 19th and early 20th centuries we put the Irish and Germans in charge of liturgy… with predictable results.
Now my Greek family… they know how to do a ritual house blessing. Incense, chanting, a small army of deacons, priests and acolytes with bells, books, candles and lots of polished brass. In the end, both are equally efficacious… but man, Orthodox rituals go to 11. Oh, you’ll probably have to book the entire day, and may or may not have to feed the entire party and their families… and about 3 or 4 ancient (and I mean ancient) ladies who will appear out of nowhere, but who have the strength and energy of 10 men (each). In the end your house will be blessed, and your kitchen cleaner than the day it was built… plus the ladies will probably leave behind a few kitchen tools they noticed you didn’t have, but should.
* p.s. I don’t know Fr. Jerabek, but his blog came up commenting on how Catholic priests will bless non-catholic homes… any other crazy things he says may or may not reflect my crazy opinions… it depends which crazy.Report
This was an awesome comment. I can see the little old ladies.Report
Well, there are a couple of ways to think about this.
The guy was bloody, so someone attacked him; maybe the cops, maybe another guy.
Was he a violent bad guy, or the loser in a brawl? Was he trying to hurt you, or find shelter from whoever attacked him?
If he did get in your house, it seems more likely he would have been begging you to help him.
I say this because we live downtown, 2 blocks from Skid Row, and see various kinds of police/ paramedic actions all the time.
Generally speaking, crazed violent people who want to break in and hurt you are vanishingly rare.
I know it’s scary when you come face to face with it, but street violence is almost always between people who have a relationship with each other.
And even then, most of these people just seem sad, people whose live have taken a turn for the worse and outside of the particular encounter, are, in my experience, perfectly nice and decent.
I guess what I am saying is that you probably are safer than you might feel.Report
My understanding was he punched out a window. Whether it was an attempted break-in gone wrong, or a fit of rage, I don’t know. My understanding is he was not the victim in whatever happened to him.
Still, being woken from a sound sleep to loud noises is not something I want to have happen.
There was also someone in my town killed during a home invasion burglary last year so that is in the back of my mind.
I have big issues with trusting people. I will call an ambulance for someone who needs it but would not let a stranger into my house. If that makes me a bad person, so be it.Report
Driving across the country with my son, as he heads to Philadelphia post-college.Report
Work is a similar dumpster fire for me right now. We’ve gone into system test with a system that’s really only ready for unit test (maaaaaaybe integration test if you squint your eyes just right). The group responsible for the development of this system has been criminally undersupported leading up to this moment, so there are mountains of tasks that haven’t been done, or much worse, that we haven’t figured out how to do yet. I spent HALF of yesterday working out an acceptable method for account creation, a task which should be easy-peasy at nearly any stage of development (and that’s just a workaround until we can automate things, though I did bet one of the devs a fiver that we ultimately deliver the workaround as the final solution).
And then there’s the (childish) political (childish) drama (childish) surrounding a misunderstanding on the part of a test leads and the way he worded a meeting invite (“if you don’t attend this meeting then you can’t support system test”) and a few of the–shall we say–“less skilled” admins on the team, who are now upset because they feel they’ve been unjustly excluded. This situation is being compounded by our lab manager, who is terrible at directing people who need direction and communicating with people who need communication, but otherwise a good boss.
The good news is that the engineering lead put in his two-week notice this week. I’ve worked two projects with him and he’s a wanker who won’t listen to anyone and refuses to listen to any solution which runs counter to his vision. The engineer taking his place is polar opposite, and the team already feels more relaxed under new leadership.
So all that long-winded whinging to this: Between work and this weekend being bookended by trips to Kansas, apart from the Rumble on Sunday I plan on doing as little as possible this weekend.Report