From: Thanate
To: Virtue
Subject: tiddley, widdley, widdley, mrs tittlemouse
Date: Mon, 26 Nov 2001 12:21

I just spoke to the car people, who aparently are a bit busy this week, & don't want my car until next monday... and maybe then they'll be able to fix it within a couple days...? maybe, maybe...

right, so you don't have to ferry me about anytime too soon.

how are the king's quest hints?

From: Virtue
Sent: Monday, November 26, 2001 4:06 PM
To: Thanate
Subject: Re: tiddley, widdley, widdley, mrs tittlemouse

bzzz bzzz bzzz

Well, all the hint things I've found say "kill Dracula" without particulars, so maybe I'll try typing that in sometime when I have the stake. There's nothing too exciting in the box--a tiara, I believe.

Someday your car will be fixed . . .

Someday my fingers will be warm . . .

From: Thanate
To: Virtue
Subject:
Date: Tue, 27 Nov 2001 11:47

hm, somebody scribbled "hotel california" on this document...

i think there was something profound & worth saying that I was going to say, but I can't remember what it was. my eyes & sinuses hurt, and my nose is all stuffy. phoo.

--Thanate

From: Thanate
To: Virtue
Subject: nimini, nimini, not
Date: Wed, 28 Nov 2001 10:37

I want something interesting I can do with my eyes closed, only I can't think of anything... checking documents is not it, anyway.

did you know that jupiter has cirrus clouds made of frozen ammonia? (just thought that might come in handy...)

From: Virtue
Sent: Wednesday, November 28, 2001 11:10 AM
To: Thanate
Subject: NOONEE NOONEE NOONEE

>I want something interesting I can do with my eyes closed, only I can't
>think of anything... checking documents is not it, anyway.

Um, count sheep? Neon tie-dyed sheep with mohawks? Drinking rum out of coconut shells? Psychically manipulate your coworkers? Fantasize about the really big and tasty Italian hoagie you're going to have for lunch real soon now? Oh, wait, that's me. . .

> did you know that jupiter has cirrus clouds made of frozen
> ammonia?

That would be a "no."

> (just thought that might come in handy...)

Gee, thanks.

My desk is an avalanche of papers all representing paints that I have to make in the near future. Chaos is MINE!!!

From: Thanate
To: Virtue
Subject: nune, nuney, nooni...nuuneeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee
Date: Wed, 28 Nov 2001 12:00

>Um, count sheep? Neon tie-dyed sheep with mohawks? Drinking
>rum out of coconut shells?

I'm not sure I feel up to drunk technicolor sheep; they sound like a little bit of a project...

>Psychically manipulate your coworkers?

"You will turn down that raido now, you know you want to"...

>Fantasize about the really big and tasty Italian hoagie you're
>going to have for lunch real soon now? Oh, wait, that's me. . .

interesting thought. instead I have another soup thingy [read: daily salt ration in a steaming container] and cashews, which I have been snacking on... I find I feel better for about 10 minutes or so after I eat something... and for reasons unknown I'm considering getting a cup of coffee... I guess if I'm already feeling miserable, a little stomach ache won't hurt much. but why the idea appeals to me I really couldn't say. maybe I'm just too ill to be trying to make rational decisions?

>> did you know that jupiter has cirrus clouds made of frozen
>> ammonia?

>That would be a "no."

mars has normal ice crystal ones... stardate was going on about how it's a common feature in skies about the solar system.

>My desk is an avalanche of papers all representing paints that
>I have to make in the near future. Chaos is MINE!!!

whee... does that mean now if I call you I'll get chaos instead of suffering? that might be an improvement...

From: Virtue
Sent: Wednesday, November 28, 2001 12:30 PM
To: Thanate
Subject: Re: nune, nuney, nooni...nuuneeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

> whee... does that mean now if I call you I'll get chaos
> instead of
> suffering? that might be an improvement...

You get BOTH!!! Which makes us THREE for the low low price of one (which is nothing, but we won't mention that more than we have to).

-- Chaos, Suffering & Virtue, Inc.
Special deal this week on "Apocalypse Know," an exciting new trivia game from Hell.
Coming Next Week! 50% off the celebrity dating game "Hearts of Darkness"!

From: Thanate
To: Virtue
Subject: RE: nune, nuney, nooni...nuuneeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee
Date: Wed, 28 Nov 2001 12:39

and me, I sit here drinking bleached (french vanilla) coffee and playing with the squishy mousepad wrist rest they gave me. oddly enough though it does disagree mildy with the stomach-part, it's cleared up my head considerably. the coffee, not the wrist rest. that makes me think of waterbeds, I'm not sure why.

is "hearts of darkness" attempting to explain why celebrity marriages never last?

mmm, padded cells-- that's like a pillow, right? lots of pillow? do they give you a blanket, too?

--Thanate, whose madness goes unremarked upon by those around her. (perhaps we're just all mad here... it's the work. nobody can survive it with mind intact...)

From: Thanate
To: Virtue
Subject: RE: nune, nuney, nooni...nuuneeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee
Date: Wed, 28 Nov 2001 1:45 PM

hm, there's somebody who looks kind of like Gayden fixing the copier outside. I think it's just the hair, though.

does coppier have two "p"s? neither one looks quite right... copppier, cooppier, coopeer...

noonee, noonee.

From: Virtue
Sent: Wednesday, November 28, 2001 2:43 PM
To: Thanate
Subject: RE: nune, nuney, nooni...nuuneeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

Copier.
>
> noonee, noonee.

It's contagious.

> an excellent medium for sprouting something in. maybe
> psychadelic
> mushrooms.

They're contagious too.

From: Thanate
To: Virtue
Subject: nune, nune, tekel, & parsin
Date: Wed, 28 Nov 2001 2:59

I've been thinking about that line about Ivan exuding a fuzzy cloud of mental incompetence... maybe I'm growing a brainful of fungic ivans... the idea is strangely disturbing... but I may sneeze myself into oblivion before they mature, so it could be ok. (which way would be better I'm really not sure)

the problem about being contageous is that my immune system is currently dealing with other stuff. I wouldn't be saying "noonee" if I weren't sick. But I feel somewhat vindicated in that you are playing fool's errand.

--Thanateeeeeeeee

they just had a meeting to tell us they are locking us out of where we're supposed to be doing our job. (well, not really, just the doors are supposed to be locked, & none of the temps have keys)

From: Thanate
To: Virtue
Subject: RE: nune, nuney, nooni...nuuneeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee
Date: Thu, 29 Nov 2001 09:19

do you suppose they'd notice if I just crawled under the desk & fell asleep?

[once in a while a thought interrupts my mindlessness]

--Thanate

From: Thanate
To: Virtue
Subject: nuni, nuni, bagel and garlic
Date: Thu, 29 Nov 2001 10:36

so is it just me, or is it a bad sign when you vaguely register the noise from radio one of your co-workers is playing as, "oh, that must be a commercial" b/c it's some guy talking with music in the background? and then you realize after it's gone on for a minute or two that it must be one of the songs... then there's the spanish station where the reception is bad enough that it sounds like you're on a plane-- it's got the engine whine & everything. but the girl who likes that one doesn't play it very much.

actually, today is not so bad as usual; so far it's all been pretty quiet. it's when one station I don't like gets turned up to the point where I can't avoid listening to it that it gets annoying.

I want to go outside. it's nicer out there, all moist & misty & stuff. and quiet...

--Thanate, continuing the search for more and better things to complain about

From: Thanate
To: Virtue
Subject: mene mene
Date: Thu, 29 Nov 2001 12:19

so I just though of why nobody could read the "mene mene" bit, let alone figure out what it meant; because the hand was just a disembodied hand with no eyes or anything, it couldn't see what it was writing and its handwriting was so bad nobody but Daniel could figure it out. (maybe he taught small children to write in his spare time, & so had lots of practice on uncoordinated handwriting...)

--Thanate

From: Thanate
To: Virtue
Subject: feeshie, feeshie, pickle and car seat
Date: Thu, 29 Nov 2001 12:25

of course, for all we know, it could actually have written "mangy, mangy, bagel & parsnip" and then Daniel just had a divine revalation of something that actually made sense. at this remove, it would be very hard to prove otherwise.

--Thanate, whose random association (or maybe disassociation?) dial is turned all the way up to eleven

From: Thanate
To: Virtue
Subject:
Date: Thu, 29 Nov 2001 12:26

can you tell I'm bored, yet?

From: Virtue
Sent: Thursday, November 29, 2001 1:26 PM
To: Thanate
Subject: Re:

> can you tell I'm bored, yet?

I did gather that. But your variations on mene mene were very inspiring.

At least you're not like poor Stan, who has mildewy boards in his office. They can't get thrown out, because they're samples, but there's no place else to put them, and we think he may be allergic to them. Sadness, woe.

From: Thanate
To: Virtue
Subject: many many veggies with french dip (or not...)
Date: Thu, 29 Nov 2001 2:56

I am thankful not to have mildewy anything. but I would have prefered to have lunch, which I forgot. instead I ate cashews and read about miles drinking scary green stuff.

--Thanate

From: Thanate
To: Virtue
Subject: biologists have no use for physics b/c if a bird falls out of the sky, that means it's dead.
Date: Fri, 30 Nov 2001 09:40

ironically, I am now the only person in QA who has been here every day this week. I make no guarantees, however, regarding who has done the most actual work.

currently I am trying to decide if super-strong sweetened tea tastes slightly better or worse than flavored coffee; fortunately, whatever it may taste like, the tea will only give me a caffiene headache, and no stabbing pains or anything equally unplesant. (well, unless I spill it on myself, in which case it will burn me...)

these Goldman docs they have us checking these days (I think Goldman is a different company) seem to be about loans to restaurant chains... yesterday I was doing taco bell & KFC; today I seem to be checking something on Dennys.

--Thanate-ee-ee

From: Virtue
Sent: Friday, November 30, 2001 10:23 AM
To: Thanate
Subject: Re: biologists have no use for physics b/c if a bird falls out of the sky, that means it's dead.

different company) seem to be about loans to restaurant
> chains... yesterday
> I was doing taco bell & KFC; today I seem to be checking
> something on
> Dennys.

You have successfully made me pseudo-hungry; congratulations.

Today I have learned that Rozone (a product that kills little bugs that eat things) is green. I have also learned that it is possible to be blinded by the combination of personal protective equipment and high humidity.

From: Thanate
To: Virtue
Subject: then we shall come & eat up ducks without their feathers on
Date: Fri, 30 Nov 2001 10:32:33 -0500

I want to have pipette fencing matches. or even a good rubber band war. unfortuantely we are still suffering from a great rubber band shortage, and they are too precious a comodity to waste shooting at other people. (and a plage and a great famine came upon the land, with not a rubber band to be found)

I thought it was also equally possible to be blinded by high humidity and perfectly normal vision correcting equipment. especially when paricipating in high-risk household tasks like separating boiling water from pasta, or taking things out of the oven.

is it a pretty green?

From: Virtue
Sent: Friday, November 30, 2001 12:27 PM
To: Thanate
Subject: Re: then we shall leave & eat up feathers without their ducks on

> I thought it was also equally possible to be blinded by high
> humidity and
> perfectly normal vision correcting equipment. especially
> when paricipating
> in high-risk household tasks like separating boiling water
> from pasta, or
> taking things out of the oven.

This is true, but does not usually occur without a large temperature differential between lens surface and surrounding environment. In this case there was a cohesive film of liquid water coating the inside of my goggles, as well as regular old fog on my glasses. The face shield was just dirty in general--dust and stuff from paint-making.

> is it a pretty green?

More of a scary-Mr.-Yuck-oh-yeah-this-is-deadly-poison-serpentine green. pretty did not leap to mind.

> --Thanate, who wants her LMB books on tape now, so she can
> listen to them while checking documents. Maybe I'll see if
> the library has
> tolkien...

I have long thought that books on tape should be cheaper, or the ones in the library in better shape, or something.

I got tolkien on tape from the Oberlin library and listened to it on a bus trip from OH to MA; that's how I finally managed to get through the two towers for the first time.

Dec. 19th for the movie, right? (I think I ran across that randomly yesterday, maybe).

Despite having eaten large quantities of chinese food for lunch, I am now desperately craving chocolate. Bad. Bad.

Janice is encouraging me in my use of one-word sentences. Why waste the effort of stringing words together if you don't need to? "Bad" and "Refrigerator" were my two most recent attempts at conversation.

From : Thanate
To : Virtue
Subject : RE: then we shall leave & eat up feathers without their ducks on
Date : Fri, 30 Nov 2001 12:35:56

>More of a
>scary-Mr.-Yuck-oh-yeah-this-is-deadly-poison-serpentine green.
>pretty did not leap to mind.

well, given the kind of stuff you seem to work with, I can't see that a killer of little phages wouldn't kill bigger ones too...

>Janice is encouraging me in my use of one-word sentences. Why
>waste the effort of stringing words together if you don't need
>to? "Bad" and "Refrigerator" were my two most recent attempts
>at conversation.

um... so just out of curiosity, what is your definition of need? (did "Refrigerator" mean more to anyone else than to me?) Grace spent a while minimizing her verb use, but while attempting to retain coherence in her communication.

hungry; don't want work. docs too long. lunch not till one. phoo.

it makes for an interesting and distinctive style of conversation. When you're tired or lazy or miserable, it also gets the point across more graphically.

Unfortunately, I'm not too good at it; I keep forgetting to leave out the verbs.

--eeeeeee.

From : Thanate
To : Virtue
Subject : but I am not the only one
Date : Fri, 30 Nov 2001 14:21:23 -0500

Yolanda, who seems to be about as tired and uninterested in working as I am (and whose daughter has the flu & "a little bit of mono" the doctors say) was complaining about her ex-boyfriend's mother. A bit of back story: she (Yolanda) lived with the boyfriend in his mother's house while the mother lived in some other state for the past year or so... anyway, aparently (among other disturbing things) the mother went through Yolanda's underwear drawer and told her off for not owning pretty enough underwear for her son. (To which Yolanda's response was, "well, it's not as if he cares")

--Thanate, her eyes starting to hurt. but soon I shall be let to escape...