Diary of An Irish Woman

musings of an irish lady now living in America.

Tuesday, December 26, 2006

World travels


Must say a big yeah to my baby sister Maevers who graduated from Queens Belfast University this year with her nursing degree. She's celebrating this year by going on a world tour with Warren her man in August. They head off to Brazil first and spend a couple of months on tour in South America before New Zealand, Australia and then Asia.

What I wouldn't give to go backpacking around the world. As you get older you have all this stuff that means you cant just pack up tomorrow and me and Jan hit the steppes. Car payments, rent , furniture, jobs - all that normal stuff.

However we can live through Maevers and her trips. I was mentally teasing her though as I've never seen her go anywhere without the hair straightner so camping and roughing it should be interesting... Bummer is we plan to go back to Ireland in October and will miss her leaving. They don't plan to head to the states on way back but maybe I can convince them.

Here lies comfort....

Friday, December 15, 2006

Yeah Gra !




my sister Gra graduation day from Queens University Belfast :-) Also Fig and Gra with moustaches and Dad with one too

BookWorm 3 of 03



So my sisterchicks name means The Irish form of the Latin name Cecilia, the patron saint of music and implies "pure and musical." And since she's an incredibly talented singer and musical its very apt so she's well named. So I was moaning via email that pity my name doesn't mean librarian in any language. Those who know me know of my obsession with reading and my dream of being a super librarian ;-) So she suggested maybe my name is bookworm in Borg :-) Which of course me got me looking up sites for bookworm in other languages but I did find some very good wee images. This is how I see myself - love that the worms also have specs..
Bookworm 3 of 03 signing out

(So mixing my Borg name now with Terry Pratchetts magical bookworm who evolved in magical libraries. Thats a magical bookworm because of the constant danger of running into a volume containing spells (which release thaumic radiation of course), the .303 caliber bookworm eats quickly. So quickly, in fact, that it has been known to ricochet off walls after boring through a shelf of books.)

I do have a life honest....

Office Slang

As I get older I hear phrases and I feel like my parents.. What does that mean? So from Office Slang website. We can now keep up to date with those hipsters... ;-) Found this from stumble, a site that goes out and finds stuff for you :-)

New Office Slang
==============================
404 - Someone who is clueless. From the Web error message, “404 Not Found,” which means the document requested couldn’t be located. “Don’t bother asking John. He’s 404.”

Adminisphere - The rarified organizational layers above the rank and file that makes decisions that are often profoundly inappropriate or irrelevant.

Alpha Geek - The most knowledgeable, technically proficient person in an office or work group. “I dunno, ask Rick. He’s our alpha geek.”

Assmosis - The process by which some people seem to absorb success and advancement by kissing up to the boss rather than working hard.

Batmobiling - putting up emotional shields. Refers to the retracting armor that covers the Batmobile as in “she started talking marriage and he started batmobiling”

Beepilepsy - The brief siezure people sometimes suffer when their beepers go off, especially in vibrator mode. Characterized by physical spasms, goofy facial expressions, and stopping speech in mid-sentence.

Betamaxed - When a technology is overtaken in the market by inferior but better marketed competition as in “Microsoft betamaxed Apple right out of the market”

Blamestorming - A group discussion of why a deadline was missed or a project failed and who was responsible.

Blowing Your Buffer - Losing one’s train of thought. Occurs when the person you are speaking with won’t let you get a word in edgewise or has just said something so astonishing that your train gets derailed. “Damn, I just blew my buffer!” (Synonym: “Head Crash”)

Body Nazis - Hard-core exercise and weight-lifting fanatics who look down on anyone who doesn’t work out obsessively.

Bookmark - To take note of a person for future reference. “After seeing his cool demo at Siggraph, I bookmarked him.”

Brain Fart - A byproduct of a bloated mind producing information effortlessly; a burst of useful information. “I know you’re busy on the Microsoft story, but can you give us a brain fart on the Mitnik bust?” Variation of old hacker slang that had more negative connotations.

CGI Joe - A hard-core CGI script programmer with all the social skills and charisma of a plastic action figure.

Chainsaw Consultant - An outside expert brought in to reduce the employee head count, leaving the top brass with clean hands.

Chip Jewelry - Old computers destined to be scrapped or turned into decoration. “I paid three grand for that Mac and now it’s nothing but chip jewelry.”

Chips and Salsa - Chips = hardware, salsa = software. “First we gotta figure out if the problem’s in your chips or your salsa.”

CLM (Career Limiting Move)- Used by microserfs to describe an ill-advised activity. “Trashing your boss while he or she is within earshot is a serious CLM.”

Cobweb - A WWW site that never changes.

Crapplet - A badly written or profoundly useless Java applet. “I just wasted 30 minutes downloading that crapplet!”

CROP DUSTING - Surreptitiously farting while passing thru a cube farm, then enjoying the sounds of dismay and disgust; leads to PRAIRIE DOGGING.....
Cube Farm - An office filled with cubicles.

Dead Tree Edition - The paper version of a publication available in both paper and electronic forms.

Dilberted - To be exploited and oppressed by your boss, as is Dilbert, the comic strip character. “Damn, I’ve been dilberted again! The old man revised the specs for the fourth time this week.”

Dorito Syndrome - The feeling of emptiness and dissatisfaction triggered by addictive substances that lack nutritional content. “I just spent six hours surfing the Web, and now I’ve got a bad case of Dorito Syndrome.”

Egosurfing - Scanning the Net, databases, etc., for one’s own name.

Elvis Year - The peak year of popularity as in “1993 was Barney the dinosaur’s Elvis year”

Flight Risk - Used to describe employees who are suspected of planning to leave a company or department soon.
Generica - Fast food joints, strip malls, sub-divisions as in “we were so lost in generica that I couldn’t remember what city it was”

Glazing - Corporate-speak for sleeping with your eyes open; a popular pastime at conferences and early-morning meetings. “Didn’t he notice that by the second session half the room was glazing?”

Going Postal - Totally stressed out and losing it like postal employees who went on shooting rampages
GOOD job - A "Get-Out-Of-Debt" job. A well-paying job people take in order to pay off their debts, one that they will quit as soon as they are solvent again.

Gray Matter - Older, experienced business people hired by young entrepreneurial firms trying to appear more professional and established.

Graybar Land - The place you go while you’re staring at a computer that’s processing something very slowly (while you watch the gray bar creep across the screen). “That CAD rendering put me in graybar land for like an hour.”

High Dome - Egghead, scientist, PhD

Idea Hamsters - People whose idea generators are always running.

Irritainment - Entertainment and media spectacles that are annoying, but you find yourself unable to stop watching them. The O.J. trials were a prime example.

It’s a Feature - From the old adage, “It’s not a bug, it’s a feature.” Used sarcastically to describe an unpleasant problem you wish to gloss over.

Keyboard Plaque - The disgusting buildup of dirt and crud found on some people’s computer keyboards.

Link Rot - The process by which web page’s links become obsolete as the sites they’re connected to change or die.

Meatspace - The physical world (as opposed to the virtual) also “carbon community” “facetime” “F2F” “RL”

Mouse Potato - The online generation’s answer to the couch potato.
Ohnosecond - That minuscule fraction of time during which you realize you’ve just made a terrible error.

Open-Collar Workers - People who work at home or telecommute.

Percussive Maintenance - The fine art of whacking the crap out of an electronic device to get it to work again.

Perot - To quit unexpectedly. “My cellular phone just perot’ed.”

Plug-and-Play - A new hire who doesn’t require training. “That new guy is totally plug-and-play.”

Prairie Dogging - When something loud happens in a cube farm, causing heads to pop up over the walls trying to see what’s going on.

Ribs ‘N’ Dick - A budget with no fat as in “we’ve got ribs ‘n’ dick and we’re supposed to find 20K for memory upgrades”

Salmon Day - The experience of spending an entire day swimming upstream only to get screwed in the end. “God, today was a total salmon day!”

Seagull Manager - A manager who flies in, makes a lot of noise, shits over everything and then leaves.

Siliwood - The coming convergence of movies, interactive TV and computers; also “Hollywired”

SITCOMs - What yuppies turn into when they have children and one of them stops working to stay home with the kids. “Single Income, Two Children, Oppressive Mortgage”

Square-Headed Spouse - Computer

Squirt the Bird - To transmit a signal up to a satellite. “Crew and talent are ready...what time do we squirt the bird?”

Starter Marriage - A short-lived first marriage that ends in divorce with no kids, no property and no regrets.

Stress Puppy - A person who thrives on being stressed-out and whiny.

Swiped Out - An ATM or credit card that has been used so much its magnetic strip is worn away.

Tourists - Those who take training classes just to take a vacation from their jobs. “There were only three serious students in the class; the rest were just tourists.”

Treeware - Hacker slang for documentation or other printed material.

Umfriend - One with whom one has a sexual relationship; as in, “this is Dale, my...um...friend.”

Under Mouse Arrest - Getting busted for violating an online service’s rule of conduct. “Sorry I couldn’t get back to you. AOL put me under mouse arrest.”

Uninstalled - Euphemism for being fired. Also: decruitment.
Vulcan Nerve Pinch - The taxing hand position required to reach all the appropriate keys for certain commands. For instance, the warm re-boot for a Mac II computer involves simultaneously pressing the Control key, the Command key, the Return key and the Power On key.
WOOFYS - Well Off Older Folks.

World Wide Wait - The real meaning of WWW.
Xerox Subsidy - Euphemism for swiping free photocopies from one’s workplace.

Yuppie Food Coupons - Twenty dollar bills from an ATM.

Thursday, December 14, 2006

some wee notes

Fourteen Things That It Took Me Over 50 Years To Learn—by Dave Barry

Never, under any circumstances, take a sleeping pill and a laxative on the same night.

If you had to identify, in one word, the reason why the human race has not achieved, and never will achieve, its full potential, that word would be "meetings."

There is a very fine line between "hobby" and "mental illness."

People who want to share their religious views with you almost never want you to share yours with them.

You should not confuse your career with your life.

Nobody cares if you can't dance well. Just get up and dance.

Never lick a steak knife.

The most destructive force in the universe is gossip.

You will never find anybody who can give you a clear and compelling reason why we observe daylight savings time.

You should never say anything to a woman that even remotely suggests that you think she's pregnant unless you can see an actual baby emerging from her at that moment.

There comes a time when you should stop expecting other people to make a big deal about your birthday. That time is age eleven.

The one thing that unites all human beings, regardless of age, gender, religion, economic status or ethnic background, is that, deep down inside, we ALL believe that we are above-average drivers.

A person who is nice to you, but rude to the waiter, is not a nice person. (This is very important. Pay attention. It never fails.)

Your friends love you anyway.

Thought for the day: Never be afraid to try something new. Remember that a lone amateur built the Ark. A large group of professionals built the Titanic.

Monday, December 11, 2006

the mailing



Himself and myself spent yesterday in getting our Christmas Cards ready. He tweaked the design of the CD he burns every year for folks and we had a fun time picking out songs for the CD. This is our third Xmas together but first married so lots of fun. Also I decided to burn some CDs for mates and family who have babies, nursery rhymes and songs that will haunt their dreams as their kids demand to hear them again etc. Theres been a lot of baby activity last year. We have 17 friends who had babies this year. Each of them is getting 4 cds for the baby and also one from McViking mixes aka Jan. Nice on a rainy day to sit in and do stuff like that. I read 5 books over the weekend and had a nice relaxing weekend. Well apart from the pole dancing class but more on that later. Time to put Bing Crosby on again and tape all these parcels up. UPS loves us man..

Tuesday, December 05, 2006

Hero's


If you aren't watching Hero's the new series go rush now and get it on your TiVo. Plays NBC and Sci Fi as well.

You can actually catch all the episodes to date online as well Heros

Premise of the show is that evolution has created some advanced talents in ordinary people and them finding about their superhero powers and also relationship to each other while of course trying to save the world is half the battle. Most shows of this genre don't appeal to non sci fi fans where this one does a nice job of doing both. Also every episode is a good one - showing you some new surprise. (where as although Battlestar Galatica may be beautifully written and is one of my fav shows ever, doesn't always have great episodes every time). Hiro the Japanese character who can time travel and freeze time has to be my fav character. The not so hidden geek in the show

Watching the show spurred conversations to what your superhero power would be, I thought of mine in a flash - super reader... Like a super librarian.. Reading at speed of light etc. Not the most powerful but for those who know me, fits me like a non-OJ glove..

So what's your superpower?