Another book by William Dalrymple, The Age of Kali, mentions the Flamboya tree. I was wondering if this was yet another India-word that we white people have converted. Alas, I find that it's a Mediterranean species, which must have been transplanted to India (like so much else in the colonized world). But who knows, maybe it was the other way around. Yet it is a beauty to behold either way.

well thanks for asking...

I have been roaming in other lands. Daring perilous quests in search of honor and the ever elusive booty. In short, I've somehow become hooked on an online game, a massively multi-player one at that. I am an elf-wizard right now. I have spells and such. I've met some friends online, well maybe friends is a strong word, but we go on quests together and earn experience points. Yeah, it's pretty much a gigantic waste of time, but I have no excuse or defense, it has sucked me in.

The game is Lineage II : The Chaotic Chronicle. The graphics are pretty neat, and there really is tons of stuff to do. There're five races, each of which has different classes to choose from. I am an Elven Mystic right now, though I'm about to advance to the next stage and have to choose between wizard and oracle. I'm leaning towards oracle, which is basically a support character, you heal and protect others with spells. Well that's it, if you don't see me ever again it's because my brain has permanently interfaced with the computer (like there wasn't enough of that going on in my house already). Here're some pictures:


Here's me with Sang, the guy who introduced me to the game in the first place, Damn you Sang!


Here's my beautiful elven face. I'm hanging out on a mountain now...


This is this hottie dark elf boy I met. We partied for awhile, and then I took him out back for a good...


A hottie-girl of my own race and me, staring into the moonlight together. How peaceful and serene the elven race is. If only...

So as a federal employee I am paid according to the General Schedule (GS). You advance laterally across the "steps" depending on weeks served (52 weeks = 1 step), and up and down the "grades" depending on hours worked (2080 hours (or 40 hrs. x 52 wks.) = 1 grade). So anyways, to get to the point here, my coworker (e:southernyankee) got her grade advancement like two weeks ago. As of this week I still had not received mine, which was strange as I got my last grade before her and we had worked the same schedule for the last year or so (we carpool together so there's not much doubt). So I go and ask my secretary (they're in charge of reporting our hours and keeping track of these sort of things), and tell her I think there's something wrong. She then pulls out these stapled together pieces of papers and starts to look through them. I ask her what she's looking at and she says that it's my records, I ask her for a copy of them. When I get back to my desk I realize that what I have is my three-year record of attendance. It is literally three pages of numbers in a couple columns scrawled in and hasty arithmetic totalling the numbers up. Every week for the last three years a secretary has been manually counting my hours and writing them down on these peices of paper. There are things crossed-out, written-over, scrawls in the margins, it's a big mess. It boggles my mind that I get a paycheck issued from the Dept. of Agriculture (which is not the Dept. I work for) that comes from Atlanta and ends up direct deposited into my bank account, but there's no kind of central system coordinating something as crucial as my raise!

Well, I looked through the thing and right off the bat spotted some problems. I work a full pay period - 80 hrs. I work another - 80 hrs. Total time worked so far - 16 hrs. What's that? Maybe you forgot a fucking zero, and lost 144 hrs. there buddy! Another pay period had me as working just one week instead of two - 32 hrs. difference. After I had dissected the thing, I came to the conclusion that I was behind 292 hrs. (almost a month of full-time work). I should have received my raise three weeks ago. I guess that's what you get when working for the government though. At least they're going to fix it and credit me with the lost pay, just sucks that I had to fix it for them.

sidenoteish: On our last pay stubs we got a little reminder to vote in November. It very nicely told us that we could use administrative leave to vote if necessary. Take a look:



Notice anything wrong? Maybe something to do with when the election is? Yes, that's right, they've got the wrong fucking date. The election is on the 2nd not the 4th. Now I'm not saying this was intentional (though it's a fact that the highly unionized federal workforce generally favors Democratic candidates) but it's a least pretty fucking lazy. Hasn't everyone of us who's at least sorta intersted in politics heard the date, 11/2, like 1000 times this season? How is it that the D.C. employee (most likely a GS-15, see above payscale) who submitted this little helpful blurb was unaware of the correct date? I will say, to be forthright, that they did have a correction on the website this morning, which hopefully everyone who may have been led astray saw. Time will tell just how many feds are standing in line to vote two weeks from Thursday.

[size=xxl] Happy Birthday Lilho!!! [/size]

Have a wonderful day, and get your ass smashed.

NY has become the first state to recognize marriages between US citizens performed in Canada. The decision so far affects only NY-goverenment workers and the availability of spousal pension benefits to gay partners. But, it may lead the way for further recognition of the rights of gay Americans married abroad. Comptroller Alan Hevesi, the trustee of NY State's Pension Plan made the decision backed up by an advisory opinion issued earlier this year by state Attorney General Eliot Spitzer. Of course, the courts, and/or legislature may butt in still and overturn the decision. But it's exciting to live in the state where it's happening, too bad I still can't get in on it (will we ever get that progressive here?).

Almost forgot in all the birthday excitement. (e:tina) 's b-day is today too, shout out and I'll see you tonight for some fun fun fun.

It's (e:southernyankee) 's b-day today. We gonna party on down tonight! Now what to get her for her birthday...that's the question. Maybe you're saying I should have thought of this before the actual day, but I got it off, I gots time. We'll see...

sidenote: It's often said that we are a very litigious society (especially by those on the right who want to limit our ability to use our legal rights, or cap the amount of damages). A new report by Public Citizen shows who's really taking advantage of our legal system. According to the report, U.S.Businesses File Four Times More Lawsuits Than Private Citizens And Are Sanctioned Much More Often for Frivolous Suits. In some samples (which were done in county, state, and national levels) businesses were filing up to six times more lawsuits than individuals.

"Some of the loudest voices for restricting the legal rights of consumers and patients also are the biggest users of the court system. For example, claiming that it is inundated with class action lawsuits, the insurance industry has led the charge for federal legislation that would restrict the rights of consumers to bring such cases.

Yet in Cook County, Ill., insurance companies filed about 8,000 lawsuits in 2002 — 35 times the number of class actions filed there by individuals that year, Public Citizen found. In fact, insurers file so many suits— mostly “subrogation� suits designed to recover the expense of covering their own policy holders — that last year they asked to be exempted from a model lawsuit “reform� law that would limit citizen access to the courts and that they otherwise support."

Ralph Nader and Wesley Smith have a really great book about this subject, called No Contest It gives tons of concrete evidence detailing how much advantage corporations have when it comes to lawsuits versus individuals. When you read of the car company who made a car, knowing that the gastank placed directly in front of the rear bumper was a fire hazard, and calculated the potential cost of lawsuits filed because of this defect (which in effect means how much will we pay out if someone is burned/maimed/killed). There is a memo that actually puts numbers to these figures, in other words dollar signs next to human beings. It's disgusting. Please read.

(e:trisha) and (e:paulnotpaul) tied the knot in a ceremony that brought me close to tears. It went perfect, there wasn't a thing I'dve changed about it. Trisha's face...just beaming out joy to everyone as she marched to meet her groom (no one hampering her to offer her). That image will live in my mind forever. Almsot makes me wanna have a "real" wedding. With pomp and circumstance. But no Jesus, sorry feller. He can watch if he wants though. The dancing was wild. Our own (e:lilho) caught the bouquet, and (e:flacidness) was wrestled to the ground by a ten year old after the garter (who then gave it back once he realized what he had to do with it). We made it back safely, what more can you ask after that kinda partying? (e:springfaerie) came over afterwards for more partying, but we stayed true to ourselves and ended up smoking ourselves into quiet philosophical conversations instead. A good ending for a perfect day.

I love you, trish and paul, I hope you're having yourselves a blast in gorges-ous Ithaca.

If you wanna vote and you haven't registered, today's the last day. Here's a link to the form. You have to fill it out, print, and mail it today.