The Continuation of the Saga of the Adventures of RoseNeko, Receptionist Extraordinaire

...Yeah. Life's been pretty uninteresting, lately. But it's amazing what you can do with a Really Impressive Title.

First off, I want to say that I think I was maybe a little hard on my brother. He's really trying, and God knows he's not at an easy stage of life - the transition into becoming responsible for oneself is one of the hardest stages of life (or at least, it was for me). And he didn't exactly do the somewhat softer transition by going to college for a while and having the dorm people take care of him - he pretty much cut all ties, moved across the country and started from square one. So maybe I shouldn't expect so much of him just yet.

Incidentally, I was talking about all this to Randy, and when I told him how frustrated I was with how my brother was acting because I don't like having an idiot for a brother, he said something quite perceptive - "So this is really about you, then?" I have to admit, my reaction was something very similar to this.

So Ace - on the off chance you're reading this, I'm sorry I called you an idiot and an asshat. I hope you'll talk to me again someday.*

In other news, I watched Elizabeth the other night, for the first time in several years. It was a really interesting (if very bloody, though these were bloody times) look at the politics of the time, as well as the price of power. It actually reminded me of nothing so much as one of the themes in Neil Gaiman's Sandman - "The price of getting what you want, is getting what once you wanted." Elizabeth wanted (like anyone) to be loved for who she was, but more than that she wanted to rule England and make it a powerful country again. And so long as she was Queen, she couldn't expect anyone to marry her for who she was rather than for the power it would give them (power she would have to relinquish). I thought the last sequence with her advisor was particularly perceptive, when he told her that people need their rulers to be more than human - so she decides to become the personification of the Virgin Mary, enthroned.

On a bit of a tangent, I wonder if that's part of what makes the U.S. such an unusual country - we expect just as much of our President, but we also expect him to seem human. Witness the 2000 election - both candidates were pretty equally bad at public speaking, but Bush came off as more bashfully personable, whereas Gore just looked like a statue. Witness also Clinton, who was incredibly intelligent and quite charismatic but had this one major flaw where women were concerned.

Here at work, I'm also getting a shiny new color laser printer to go with my shiny new computer and fax machine. One of the really cool things about it is that the black printer cartridges are a little over half the price of the ones for the current black-and-white printer, with almost the same output. Plus I get color too - yay! Though I can't think I'll use it that much - the only thing I know of that we're using it for is the Rainforest invoices, which only have a little color symbol in the corner. But we'll see.



*Yes, Rose is capable of an apology - and in public, no less. You can all pick up your jaws off the floor, now.

The Continuation of the Saga of the Adventures of RoseNeko, Receptionist Extraordinaire

...Yeah. Life's been pretty uninteresting, lately. But it's amazing what you can do with a Really Impressive Title.

First off, I want to say that I think I was maybe a little hard on my brother. He's really trying, and God knows he's not at an easy stage of life - the transition into becoming responsible for oneself is one of the hardest stages of life (or at least, it was for me). And he didn't exactly do the somewhat softer transition by going to college for a while and having the dorm people take care of him - he pretty much cut all ties, moved across the country and started from square one. So maybe I shouldn't expect so much of him just yet.

Incidentally, I was talking about all this to Randy, and when I told him how frustrated I was with how my brother was acting because I don't like having an idiot for a brother, he said something quite perceptive - "So this is really about you, then?" I have to admit, my reaction was something very similar to this.

So Ace - on the off chance you're reading this, I'm sorry I called you an idiot and an asshat. I hope you'll talk to me again someday.*

In other news, I watched Elizabeth the other night, for the first time in several years. It was a really interesting (if very bloody, though these were bloody times) look at the politics of the time, as well as the price of power. It actually reminded me of nothing so much as one of the themes in Neil Gaiman's Sandman - "The price of getting what you want, is getting what once you wanted." Elizabeth wanted (like anyone) to be loved for who she was, but more than that she wanted to rule England and make it a powerful country again. And so long as she was Queen, she couldn't expect anyone to marry her for who she was rather than for the power it would give them (power she would have to relinquish). I thought the last sequence with her advisor was particularly perceptive, when he told her that people need their rulers to be more than human - so she decides to become the personification of the Virgin Mary, enthroned.

On a bit of a tangent, I wonder if that's part of what makes the U.S. such an unusual country - we expect just as much of our President, but we also expect him to seem human. Witness the 2000 election - both candidates were pretty equally bad at public speaking, but Bush came off as more bashfully personable, whereas Gore just looked like a statue. Witness also Clinton, who was incredibly intelligent and quite charismatic but had this one major flaw where women were concerned.

Here at work, I'm also getting a shiny new color laser printer to go with my shiny new computer and fax machine. One of the really cool things about it is that the black printer cartridges are a little over half the price of the ones for the current black-and-white printer, with almost the same output. Plus I get color too - yay! Though I can't think I'll use it that much - the only thing I know of that we're using it for is the Rainforest invoices, which only have a little color symbol in the corner. But we'll see.



*Yes, Rose is capable of an apology - and in public, no less. You can all pick up your jaws off the floor, now.