What really gets me irked is when I come in at 9am, after having stayed a little late the night before, and offered to stay later to get things under control, and finding out that I have to copy and bind two 100 -age documents 5 times each, and have them served on people all over downtown Ottawa, by noon. They couldn't have had me stay late last night to deal with at least the photocopying? I think they could have, and should have. This deadline isn't a surprise or anything, I was told it would be no problem. And this after I constantly complain to them that they aren't giving me enough time to realistically do this work and do it to the BEST of my ability.

Then I get shit on when a small mistake is made. "Why are Exhibits X and Y on the same tab?" "Well, maybe it's cause the tab says 'XYZ' on it, and I felt that was clear enough, as did you last night..." "Or maybe it was because I didn't want to waste an entire other package of tabs just to get ONE tab out to make a new one for that Y Exhibit?" It's not life-changing. In fact, it doesn't affect anything in this case except for your goddamn sensitivities...

And then, making me rebind two entire booklets just because the title page on our own working copies were incorrect - "No, scratching out the incorrect title and writing the correct one in pen could cause confusion." Fucking dumb fuck.

And worse... "Wait, does this mean that all the ones that went out to parties today were like that?" No, it didn't. It meant that because I was in such a hurry this morning - your fault - I sort of threw everything I didn't need to get to people right away in a pile on my desk. When I grabbed the stuff to make our working copies from, I grabbed the wrong title page. Gods forbid. Too bad I'm human right?

I know I'm just bitching for the sake of bitching, but goddammit I'm so happy that I won't EVER have to step foot into this god-awful place after Thursday at 5pm.

Alright, so I know I just bombarded you with a bunch of stuff, but I just discovered this, and had to share...

Firstly, I discovered this through the Blogotheque website, a site I just discovered today (thanks to The World Forgot.

So, a little bit of backstory... There once was a group called The Rockets. These guys do Synth/Space Rock, and it's said that The Rockets inspired Daft Punk and other such bands.... Quite interesting to find out that there was a Daft Punk before Daft Punk.

Here's a The Rockets video, just for kicks (they are quite fun!):




Anyway, so the band was produced by a guy named Claude Lemoine, and eventually faded out after getting wildly popular in Italy, and releasing five albums... In the 90s, Claude Lemoine thought it would be great to combine Eurodance with a child's singing... You can see how this is going to be slightly funny, yeah? So he grabs his little 4-year old son, and has him sing 'Dur, dur d'être bébé' ('It's tough to be a baby') and mixes it in... Turns out to be rather hilarious and fun!

From Wikipedia:

"Jordy is listed in the Guinness Book of World Records as the youngest singer ever to have a #1 charted single. He achieved this feat at the tender age of four-and-a-half with the song "Dur dur d'être bébé!" ("It's Tough to Be a Baby"). "Dur dur d'être bébé" was #1 for 15 weeks in France and was a dance hit across Europe, Brazil, Bolivia, Colombia and Japan. It landed at #58 on the US charts....However, in 1994, the French government banned six-year-old Jordy from television and radio, out of concern that he was being exploited by his parents. Rumors of exploitation were furthered when the Lemoine family opened La Ferme de Jordy (Jordy's Farm), a children's tourist attraction which was a financial failure. In 1996 Jordy's parents divorced; he returned to school and was later emancipated."



"On February 28, 2006 he released his first new single in 12 years, "Je t'apprendrai"."


Too good, yeah? LOL

So... I spoke to my work people yesterday and quit my position. If i don't get one of the other positions I'm waiting on news from before April 17th, I'll be taking a paycut to go back to the PSC. And I've never been so happy to potentially take a paycut. I need the eff outta here, and I'm finally getting out!

( Read more... )

Here's some more music I recommend you all take some time to check out!


Scouting for Girls - I Wish I Was James Bond (Sorry, they turned off embedding... so annoying)


This next one's a little older (a year old or something) but it's still one of the greater ones! :D Yelle - Je Veux te Voir... And besides, who could not like that Happy Face shirt, and girls working out to fun music?




I recently discovered this song... Two of my favourite mainstream artists - Alicia Keyes and Jack White (from White Stripes) - get together and, as I'm sure you can imagine, create beautiful music! Alicia Keyes & Jack White - Another Way to Die.





I visit this music blog called The World Forgot that I rather enjoy. Always very interesting music posted by its author. That being said, he recently posted about the Arcade Fire. My favourite part of that post - the collaboration between David Bowie and The Arcade Fire on Wake Up. This is like super old news, I remember reading about this collaboration when I discovered Arcade Fire for the very first time. Bowie's pretty much always been a fan of the bad... Anyway, it was neat to actually hear the collaboration, and I thought I would share it with you.

CLICK HERE TO CHECK OUT THE POST ABOUT THE ARCADE FIRE

The fourth link in the post is the Bowie collaboration. Highly recommended! If you take some time to read the comments below the post, you'll notice a link to HERE where there's a video of The Arcade Fire preparing for a show and doing Neon Bible to warm up and yet another version of Wake Up as their first number in the show. Kind of makes me want to see them live.

Anyone remember the old YTV shorts?  Here's a few fun ones for remembering!!!  You can't help but love 90s 3D animation!











Those are all great, but this one is the BEST!!!!

So, I got up about 15 minutes before my job interview this morning... Ooops!!!  I did make it on time, though.  Hooray for living 10 minutes away from everything!  Yet again, living downtown is tha BESTEST!

Anyway, so I had an interview for an indeterminate AS-02 position with Department of Fisheries and Oceans, as previously mentioned.  It went extremely well, as far as I'm concerned.  I've found, however, that it's tough to do an interview and to relate to a job where you do nothing of substance besides photocopying and filing.  I ended up having to refer to a position that I held three jobs ago mostly...  Luckily that job had me doing some pretty interesting things, so I was able to give great examples and answers to all their questions. 

I should find out in a couple of weeks or so how it went.  *keeps fingers crossed*

Been a while since I've posted any new music....  I have recently discovered some rather great groups that I thought I would share with yall!!!

The Ting Tings

I love me Indie chick bands...  These guys are like a mix between Rilo Kiley and the Yeah Yeah Yeahs...   Or nothing like that... You decide!

(it won't let me embed the video, so you'll have to deal with this link instead)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z-E8UlrF_9o



Coeur de Pirate

Yes, it's French music, and it's soft rocky....  But I just can't get enough of this young lady's voice, and the piano accompanying is absolutely beautiful!  Another great song by them is called Corbeau.




Fleet Foxes

These guys are like Coeur de Pirate if the lead singer was a man, and if they smoked way too much weed.  Or something...  I dunno, but there's something about this song that makes me think of sitting around a fire with my family and singing those crazy old campfire songs...  Their sound is somewhat reminiscient of Animal Collective with maybe a bit of The Beetles thrown in for good measure, which I do rather enjoy, and hope you will too!




Natalie Portman's Shaved Head

Yep, that's the band's name.  These guys are like a group of High School kids having fun being ridiculous, and they're TOTALLY FUN!!!!  The song I've posted is Sophisticated Side Ponytail, and that's all I should have to say.  I mean, with lyrics like "I like it when you say you're gonna beat kids up, that's so hot!  That's so hot!" is it even possible to go wrong?  Their song, Beard Lust, is my new theme song.





Thunderheist

So I'll be honest... I'd never heard of these guys until just now, but the song has potential to be a great dance anthem (if it isn't already somewhere) and the video for Jerk It just made me crack up. 





Deer Tick

I heard about these guys on www.theworldforgot.com , which is probably the best music blog I've stumbled across on the internuts, and I just couldn't help but to share with you guys.  They have the kind of sound you'd want to hear in a small pub while you're pounding back the beers, shooting some pool, and all around enjoying life.

RIght, so I hate my job.  I'm pretty sure that I have said this previously, but I just wanted to reiterate that.  I haven't done a single thing yet today.  Granted that I've only been here for 1.5 hours, that's still balls.  Last Friday, I didn't do a single thing in the 7.5 hours I was in the office.  This is just a continuation of something that's been a problem since I started in this position.  I've made it clear to the people that I work for that I no longer want to work here.  I'm sick of the bullshit I have to sit through every day all day.  I'm sick of being bored outta my skull at work.  That being said, I am still here, even though I could end my secondment early and go back to the PSC.  I figure that's the better move, career-wise.  So I'm sticking it out, getting paid as an AS-02, but doing the job of a CR-04, or nothing at all....

I have an interview tomorrow morning for Department of Fisheries and Oceans.  That means I'll most likely get that position.  It's rare I don't get a position after doing an interview.  I also have a second or third test for an AS-02 pool at the PSC.  I wouldn't mind going back to the PSC, really.  I just want to stay at the AS-02 level, not have to go back to the AS-01 level. 

I also recently did an interview for an AS-02 position for the Department of Foreign Affairs and Internationl Trade.  A position where I'd be working in Afghanistan for a year.  I'm still on the fence about that one.  A part of me knows that it would be a life-changing experience, that it would be smart financially, and that this is the time in my life that I should be doing things like that.  The other part of me is screaming that it's dangerous, that I'll be isolated and all by myself in a war-torn country for a whole year, that I cannot possibly leave everyone I love and hold dear to my heart behind for a whole year.  I still haven't heard back from them, but everyday I wait, I lean more and more towards the not going side of the fence... but I'm waiting on an answer from them before making my own decision.

So anyway, I hope that one of these positions pans out for me.  I would love to be able to get the feck outta here.  I am at the point right now where I think that if I don't get the DFO position I'm just going to end my secondment early and head back to the PSC.  Sure I'd be taking a paycut, but chances are I could work for the President's Office again, so that would make up for the cut - even if it means overtime a couple times a week. 

This is WAY too good.... Seriously, watch the whole thing, you'll nearly die laughing!

So things are finally starting to look up. Karma took its sweet damn ass time to return on this one. Anyway, within the next couple of months, I'm hoping my life will more or less go back to normal. I'm pretty excited about that, lemme tell ya!

In other news, I'm burnt up like a piggy on the BBQ. Playing cards naked in the sun without any sunscreen on is not the best idea... for the record. Gay campgrounds, however, are the shiznit!

And, for your viewing pleasure, two songs that currently make me pretty damn wet in the pants, including what I believe to be the only decent song on Madonna's newest album...

I've been watching a bunch of old cartoon intros... Ah, the memories!

Here's a few of my favourites:

I'm so sick of curve balls. I'm sick of things changing, and my life being in constant upheaval... I want to find somewhere where I can just be and continue to be without having to worry about what someone else might do to fuck it up... I think I want to disappear for a while, but that's next to impossible nowadays... Think anyone would notice if I ran away to another world? It's taking everything in me not to break down crying here at work... I took a washroom break to do just that.

10. You vigorously deny the existence of God, yet you frequently blame him for everything that is wrong in modern society.

9. You repeatedly insist that man did not, in fact, evolve from an ape. Apes and men both evolved from another species who did not resemble Curious George in any way.

8. You criticize Christians who don't know their Bible, yet you have never opened any of Darwin's texts.

7. While all created evidence and reasoning point to a Creator and absolute truth, you prefer to hide behind relativism and a theory of evolution which does not, in fact, describe the creation of the universe at all.

6. You can't seem to understand the fundamental differences between fundamental Muslims and fundamental Christians (hint: strap-on TNT)

5. You willingly attribute all historical atrocities in Europe to a demographic that contained approximately 100% of Europeans during the period in question.

4. You also like to ignore the beneficial discoveries of the aforementioned demographic.

3. You don't realize that a closed system can be defined however the observer wants, so you throw out technological phrases to try to ignore the implications of thermodynamics.

2. You accuse Christians of being hateful and you hope that they DIAF.

1. Your biggest complaint is that these typically hopeful and caring people want to share the greatest single thing in their life with you. You're like an idiot who wipes with winning lottery tickets. Clap. Clap.


*snickers*

Hello life,

I understand that it has been absolute ages since I last checked in on you. I realize that I have been neglecting you, and that though you’re still interesting, and sometimes absolutely crazy, that I have been pretending that you don’t exist, but you do, and you remind me of that every now and again, often to my chagrine.

Things have been absolutely nuts over the past few months. My entire life, which was going so fantastically well, got flipped upside down and shaken. After having lived very comfortably and happily with Heidi and Florian for a little over a year, I was given about one a half weeks’ notice by them before they moved out. Given the brevity of the time I had to get things in order for me to take over the lease, I jumped into a crazy situation that I already regret. Suffice it to say that the apartment is now under my and my new roomie’s name, and that our banks are suffering big time because of it.

Luckily, the suffering of my bank account is slightly alleviated by the new permanent for-realZ government job that I now have. Benefits, paid sickdays, paid holidays, it’s all fucking great! Of course, I started this job just before having to change apartments, so the whole “It’s gonna help me get on my feet before Heidi and Flo move out!” thing went down the drain pretty damn quickly. Not terribly impressed by that, but what can ya do right?

I absolutely love the apartment I’m in, and think I will probably be here for quite some time to come. I don’t picture myself living with my current roomie for an overly extended period of time or anything, but he will eventually move out, I expect. For now, it works. Either way, we’re stuck together for a year. Stupid leases…

My new boss is anal about employee development, so I have been taking courses right, left, and centre since I began here. I recently took a Principles of Plain Language course, to teach me how to write properly. Kind of funny, that. Anyway, the next course that I’m kind of excited about is an “Editing Skills for the Workplace” workshop and a “Project Planning and Control: Techniques and Tools” course in October. I am still toying with the possibility of doing the latter in Montreal rather than here in Ottawa. I think it would be lots of fun, and would be interesting in that I would be taking the course with regional operations’ people rather than people who work in the National Capital Region. Once I get my life under control, once my debts are paid, once I have a Bachelors, I would like to start working in the regions on one-year or so contracts. Specifically, I think I would love to live in Montreal for a year, and then Vancouver for a year, then maybe Halifax or Edmonton for a year or six months or something. So that’s something that I’ve been keeping in mind and on the horizon. Some time off yet, I know, but it’ll happen eventually.

By January I should be back in University. I will begin taking one to three courses per semester, making sure, as much as possible, that they would not conflict with my job, and slowly work my way towards a Bachelor of Social Science in International Development and Globalization… If they let me change faculties. Otherwise, it’ll probably be something like a Bachelor of General Arts. Not as interesting, but should do the trick.

In March, just before I started this new job, my last job sent me across Canada to help host Engagement workshops in Saskatoon, Edmonton, Vancouver, and Montreal. For one and a half weeks I was flying across Canada. I went west of Ontario for the first time in my life… Flew for the second time in my life… Got to see an ocean for the first time ever… And had a wonderful amazing time. All in all, I’m pretty darn happy about it!

Anyway, life, you’ve become more or less bearable, these past couple of weeks, but just barely. That being said, when it’s good, it’s god-damned good, so I’ll try not to complain too much.

Vive la résistance! (you boner-biting uncle fucker!)

Before I get on to the whole life thing, Merry Christmas and Happy New Year (albeit belated on both accounts) to everyone. Hope you had wonderful holidays, and hope your 2008 will be better than 2007!

( A bit about my life, but mostly, just a huge pile of word vomit... Read at own discretion, I don't think I've ever felt or sounded so damned emo in my life.... )

...thanks to shoooola for this, the best XMas song EVAR!



This may very well have reinforced my respect and love for The Killers. What a frakking great video, and song!

So... One of my favourite online comics, Least I Could Do, has begun to do informercials or whatever for other people.

Here's their first one:



Now, granted that I think it's sad that they're making money peddling an internal deodorizer (I mean, seriously?) but the characters are all awesome! I absolutely LOVE it!

Well done Ryan and Lar!



On another note, life's crazy... no change there. Three possibilities of permanent government positions on the horizon. I should have benefits and paid leave and all that fun stuff within about three months, so that's really nice.

Boys are stoopid, that is all on that front.

I'm absolutely fucking SICK of winter. I mean, what is this shit? 2 feet of snow in 24 hours? Mother Nature, I'm gonna have you killed. I mean, there's a line between joke and insult, and you're way the fuck over it.

Christmas is just around the corner. This year will be different from every previous year in that I will be in Sudbury instead of New Liskear until Christmas Eve. I'll be spending the second half of holidays with mom in North Bay, but Suds... That'll be way weird. On the plus side, I will probably be hitting up the ONE gay bar there on Saturday night with Brandon when he gets in that night! :) How exciting! :D

Alright, I am outtie! Bye boys and girls! Hope all is well! Keep smiling, and remember, chickens don't wear pants.

Ganked from the_o_in_god

This is getting kinda ridiculous.

Aqua Dots contain traces of GHB

I think it's ridiculous that kids can now date rape their friends... *sighs*

Day One: Whee!

Day Two: I like to run!

Day Three: I look good when I run!

Day Four: I also look good standing still. Running across Riddermark v. good excercise. I swear my butt has just gotten firmer. Is that even possible?

Day Six: Is Gimli staring at my butt?

Day Seven: No wonder he's always lagging behind.

Day Eight: Unnerving moment when bumped into Eomer. Thought he might be prettier than me until he took off helmet. Fortunately he looks like an aardvark. He hit on Gimli but I warned him right off. Nobody tries it on with my dwarf.

Am still the prettiest.

Day Nine: Pile of dead and smoking Orc corpses so not pretty. Aragorn showed off and went on and on regarding hobbits laying about tied up. Do not know why he thinks kinky hobbit games so important.

Still prettiest.

Day Ten: Bother! Fangorn Forest. Leaf mold terrible for my complexion.

Still prettiest but a bit on clammy, unwashed side.

Day Eleven: Bumped into Gandalf who is all sparkly white now. Asked him, "Who do you have to blow to get last bottle of bleach in Middle Earth anyway?" Gandalf said, "The Balrog." So not worth it.

Am rethinking, though. Roots are showing.

Still prettiest although at this rate for how long?

Day Twelve: Asked Gandalf for Balrog's number. Gandalf said I couldn't call him. I told him not to be jealous and posessive. He said he wasn't, it was just that he killed Balrog last week.

Note to self: never date Gandalf.

Day Fifteen: Arrived in Edoras. V. upset. Suspect Eowyn may be prettier than me. Most unexpected as always thought shield-maidens were more hefty, pear-shaped types.

Not the prettiest! V. bitter.


Day Nineteen: Aragorn stood up to Theoden today. Aragorn so butch. Have goosebumps.

Day Twenty: Poke bonnet absolutely hideous. No longer even remotely pretty. Considering suicide.

Day Twenty-seven: Exeunt Aragorn, pursued by wolves of Isengard. On con side: Am stuck with ugly necklace. On pro side: No longer have to wear poke bonnet. Am pretty again!

Day Twenty-nine: Aragorn back. Apparently taking header off cliff not as deadly as one would have thought. Told him to throw me down and shag me senseless, but he just clapped me on the shoulder in a manly fashion and said, "Yeah, it can get a little chapped sometimes but just put some lotion on it."

Aragorn just kind of a wanker, really.

Day Twenty-Nine: Battle of Helm's Deep so embarassing. If was not bad enough to face thought of death at the hands of smelly Orcs in backwater rural province, have now been saved at zero hour by Haldir showing up with really bad weave.

On plus side, Eowyn stuck in rancid cave. Perhaps will develop cave blight. Then I will be prettiest forever.

Day Thirty: Battle over. Gandalf always fashionably late it seems. Hopes for after-battle quickie dashed because Aragorn sulking over postcard from Faramir. Is jealous over Ringbearer. Told him Sam will kill Faramir if he tries anything but Aragorn not cheered up.

Sod him. Have received suggestive note from Eomer. Will go see if what they say about men of Riddermark is actually true.

No one has bothered to get Eowyn out of cave yet. Still the prettiest by far!


Excerpt from The Very Secret Diaries, courtesy of Cassandra Claire