Don't Cry Over Spilled Lunch

Like many inhabitants of CubicleWorld (we actually have offices here, but OfficeWorld just doesn’t have the same ring), especially those that don’t make the big bucks, I normally brown bag it for lunch to save some money. Typical fare is whatever healthyish frozen lunches were on sale at the grocery store...healthy choice (hc), lean cuisine (lc), etc. Those of you that have had these know the packaging is not all that sturdy and well, I can be a little clumsy sometimes...

me: i spilled my lunch all over myself and the floor :(

Michele: ohno!!

sadness!

me: i smell like herbs now

Michele: hehe

you're herby

me: i am

Michele: what was for lunch?

me: chicken and pasta lc
i was cutting the chicken and the thing flipped over

I didn’t have money to buy a new lunch and I was pretty hungry, so I channeled my inner Joey “it’s still food” Tribiani.

me: i ate what i could salvage from my pants (steven said i'm very classy ;))

Michele: that you are

that you are

i would have done the same

And whether or not you want to admit it, I bet most of you would have too!

I graduated!!

Hello there dear followers.  Thank you for your extreme patience with us.  We know that it has been ages and ages since we last posted.  And we apologize for that.  The good news, however, is that Michele graduated!!!  She is now a Master of the Universe!  I mean, no... I am actually a Master of Education.  My full degree title is a Master's of Education in Counseling with a specialization in Sport Psychology.  How's that for an impressive title??


What does this mean??  It means that my research methods techniques, so eloquently described in our last post, were a raving success and BU granted me a fancy degree after three and a half years of hard work.  It also means that I will have more time to help out with the blog (all this 'free time' people keep speaking of), so you can expect to see more blog postings in the near future.  Huzzah!

Photo courtesy of Jenn!! :)

Effective Research Method

Ok ok, once again, life has gotten in the way of posting a new laugh for your day – but the wait is over!  Here we go... I hope you find this not only amusing, but helpful for all future research pursuits.  

So in the Spring of 2009 I was taking an awful awful awful class that I dreaded on a weekly basis.  It was my Research Methods course, a requirement for my program, and was one of the most painful classes I have ever had to endure.  Anyways, as these things usually go, when we don’t like a course we procrastinate getting work done for the course because we know it will be painful.   There was one day in particular that I had an impending deadline and was just dragging my feet to get the paper done.  Jenn was bored at work (gasp! That never happens) so to cure her boredom, I suggested she write my paper for me.

Jennifer: bored bored bored

me: :(

  youve got mail!

Jennifer: aw - yay!!

me: hehe

Jennifer: lalalaaaaaaaaaaaaa

me: beooootiful!

  you wanna write my paper for me?

Jennifer: what it's on?

  wow...that's good grammar..sure you want me to write it? haha

me: lol

me: its for my research methods class

  so its crap

Jennifer: hah - i can write crap ;)

me: alright!

  go!

  you need to talk about your literature review (at least 10 articles)

  what your research question is

  and how you would go about doing a project

Jennifer: ok, so i reviewed some articles and i think they all suck

my question is why do they suck so bad

  and i would go about finding out the answer by hunting down the people that wrote the articles and kicking them in the head until they explained what they were thinking

aaand i'm spent

me: LOL

  i LOVE it!!

And now, thanks to this conversation, we have a fail-safe Research Method we would like to propose to you, the general public.  When faced with researching something, and the articles are not up to your standards...

Simply find the author of said research article:

And demand an explanation as to why the article is so terrible:

It's bound to be more fun than sitting in a library!!

Fine Print - Jenn and Michele do not actually endorse random acts of violence on strangers.  Only on those you know, and only in a joking manner.  ;o)

Pirate Lobster

The day that Michele and I discovered all the fun animated emoticons in Gchat was a happy one (http://www.gtricks.com/google-talk-tricks/google-talk-hidden-emoticons/). They serve many purposes in our daily chats, probably the least of which is actually acting as an indicator of our emotions (after all, we live in each other’s heads so we already know what they are). Sometimes they are used as a greeting or as a challenge where we takes turns until one of us runs out of ideas, and often they are used for encouragement. Got a hard assignment to finish up? Well, here’s a parade of emoticons to get you through! :P V.v.V :(|) :(:) :*! Occasionally in our haste to get them sent, an emoticon might end up with extra and/or missing parts.

One day, Michele sent me ‘V.vV’ and we noticed the poor lobster was missing an eye! Naturally we decided that he would need a patch to cover that up…and if he’s going to have a patch… well, a peg leg and a parrot are requirements as well. And so, Pirate Lobster was born.

 

Now, usually this post would include the chat proof of what Michele sent me, but that seems to have gone missing and all either of us could find was:

Stacie: i am in love with the pirate lobster

Jenn: hehehe

michele sent me V.vV instead of V.v.V yesterday so we decided he needed a patch

and a parrot

so of course we decided we needed a pirate lobster

We looked everywhere and were quite perplexed, but we did come up with a possible explanation:

Michele: this whole pirate lobster chat/nonchat is sooooo weird!!!!!

  esp. since you say in your chat with stacie that i sent it to you in chat...

  hmmmmm

  bizzar-o

 Jenn: it is!

maybe we explain it by saying that the pirate lobster stole it and is holding it ransom for booty

Michele: heeh

  booty

  awesome

We also decided that one Pirate Lobster was not enough and we needed an entire army so Michele sent her representative to join mine.

 

Two is an awfully small army, so we’d like to invite all of you to submit your Pirate Lobster @ ShelJenn@gmail.com to be featured in a future blog post!

Productive Day at Work

Hello all!  Our apologies for the looong delay in-between posts.  Apparently we have more time in the summer than during the fall to post stuff… weird how that works.  Anyway, work has finally slowed down a little for me recently, so I am going to share with you a fun story from this summer.

About mid-August the DC-area was continuously hit with some rather nasty storms.  There was one in particular that caused some black-outs and damage.  I was concerned for the well-being of my friends and family back home, and my co-worker, Gin, had come into my office complaining of a knot in her shoulder.  So, she sat at my desk so I could work on her shoulder (I’ve been told I’m a fairly decent masseuse).  I was, obviously, talking to Jenn, so Gin took over for me.  I also wanted to call home to see if my parents ok, so I was on my phone with my mom.  Here is the conversation that ensued:

me: did you have any issues with the storm yesterday?

Jennifer: we had power surges at work and my computer restarted about 10 million times but no problems at home there were some lights out and branches in the road

me: hi - this is gin typing for michele - good to hear you didn't have anything to major. michele is talking to her mom right now.

Jennifer: hi gin!

  and hi to michele's mom!

 me: hi there! and I have to admit, michele is trying to work out a knot in my shoulder

 Jennifer: wow i am impressed with the multitasking

  send her over here when she's done

 me: mary lou says hi! - ah yes, ERC skills!

I'm sure michele wishes she was there with you

 Jennifer: i think if i had the choice today, i'd come there - my office is boring and it's still gross and rainy out

me: yes - awesome 70s and the weekend looks great, the problem is most of our beaches are closed due to the great white hanging out...and no, not in our elevator!

Jennifer: hahaha - you better be careful just in case!

  we are looking at 80s and t-storms for the next week!!

 me: indeed! I think you will be sending us those storms and then we'll send you the 70s

Jennifer: works for me

me: michele hit the knot in my shoulder AND i think i am going to vomit

  can you draw that?

 Jennifer: lol ewwww

  i totally could!!

me: its michele - i'm back1

Jennifer: welcome back

  bye gin!

 me: shes getting some water

  my mom laughed at the situation in my office - gin typing to you while i'm giving her a massage and talking to her on the phone

  she was like, a lot of works getting done

Jennifer: i was trying to draw her a picture, but i realized it would take more than 5 sec so i don't really have time now but it is so going to be drawn

The Dress

I've always been fascinated by convertible dresses. One dress, many styles! Not too long ago, I stumbled upon a great deal for one at ideeli, but wasn't sure if I should buy it or not. On to consult Michele!

Michele: hows your day been?
me: okay
lunch now and trying to decide if i should buy a convertible dress and if so what color
Michele: convertible dress?
me: where you can convert the dress into different styles - the bottom is the same, but the top is two panels that can be twisted, tucked, etc.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ScnNVYSsAs&feature=player_embedded
Michele: that is a bad ass dress
yes, you should get one!!!!

Michele said it shall be, so it shall be! I got one in gray and convinced Michele to get one (in purple) too since it looked super cute and the video made it seem very easy to create lots of fun styles. The only bad part is that the dress wouldn't ship for a couple of weeks. So, we anxiously awaited the arrival of our dresses until one happy day:

Michele: my dress shipped too!!and is currently in watertown, so i should get it today or tomorrow
me: yay!! my tracker says i am getting mine today
excellent! just in time
Michele: i know! :)
wooot
me: just have to figure out how to use it first ;)

There were no instructions and the 'dress' looked like a skirt with two really long straps attached. But we were up for the challenge of trying to learn how to use it.

Dresses cut down to our navels didn't seem like a good idea, but Michele was sure she it had the next time!

Or not... How about this?!

It looks like Michele was about to finally master the dress...

...as long as no one sees the back!

After the same trial and error, I finally managed to make something that looked like a dress and was actually work appropriate.

In the end, Michele decided the dress was not for her and returned it. Once I figured it out, I liked mine and decided to keep it, but don't plan on buying another item of clothing that requires a learning curve anytime soon!

Kick 'Em in the Head!

For anyone who has ever had a job, I’m sure that you’ve experienced the feeling of not wanting to be there and doing something else.  Whether it’s a gorgeous day outside and you just want to be out enjoying the nice weather, or it’s a snowy, rainy, miserable day, and you would rather be curled up on the couch in your PJs with a good book (or good movie).  Well, Jenn and I have experienced this feeling often (even though we both enjoy our jobs!!).  It is often coupled with being frustrated at something that has gone wrong, either an application is not working properly, or gchat decides to randomly sign one of us out, or in rare instances, a coworker has not done their job properly.  In order to knock some sense into said application/gchat/colleagues, I often respond with “kick ‘em in the head!”  Which resulted in me sending this image to Jenn:

Every so often, work gets in the way of doing something fun, like going shopping, or going out to enjoy the weather, or talking to each other ;o) 

Jennifer: stupid work

  gets in the way of everything

me: bah

  kick it in its head

  how would i make a pic of that?

  ooo

  i know!@

  one sec

Well, recently I was having an issue with a project I was working on, where I thought I was going to have to create a website to house training materials for a certification I was working on. 

Jennifer: could the site also possibly help if someone needed to reference one of the docs and wasn't in the office for some reason?
Me: um.. yeah, the trick is blocking those who are not tutors from seeing training materials
Jennifer: password protection?
super secret web address!
Me: yeah!!
Jennifer: a foot that comes out and kicks them if they are not tooters?

So next time work gets you down, just remember, it could be worse.  You could have a hairy, smelly foot come out of your computer screen and kick you in the head.