Bloglet, the gentleman's mock turtle soup -- Moss made it sweeter than myrrh ash and dhoup
My steno machine is here!
It's got a case and a battery and a manual and two bottles of Stenolube and three toothpicks and a cover with sheet music on it and everything. Won't have any software for it 'til I start school, but at least I can play with the paper! Whoopeee!
Its name, by the way, is Lumley, after a dear and magnanimous benefactress.
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(2)
07:20:20 PM,Thursday 4 August 2005
KICKASS.
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(8)
11:34:50 AM,Monday 1 August 2005
This make me feel damn hopeful.
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(7)
03:10:27 PM,Sunday 31 July 2005
{sings}
Happy birthday to you Ditto Ditto
Happy birthday, dear [arsenal of sickeningly affectionate pet names]
See above.
And Thomas Mooooooooooore...
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(7)
09:09:00 AM,Friday 29 July 2005
I just went looking for videos similar to the backyard dancing dorks I posted a few days ago. I wasn't disappointed.
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(7)
10:32:50 PM,Thursday 28 July 2005
I am (if I do say so myself) rocking the captioning casbah at work, and have successfully persuaded the awesome tech guy to take me back on as a transcriber as soon as I'm good enough to do it stenographically (in about a year, if all goes well). Whup.
An exchange on the 1 train this evening:
Guy selling newspapers: And if you buy these, I can eat. Can you? Will you? Please? Hey, how about you?
Me: {shakes head}
Guy: Oh, come on, man. Um, I mean lady.
Kids across from me: {snicker}
Guy: No, she's a lady! Look at her! Hey, they don't believe me. You're a lady, right? Tell 'em you're a lady! Aren't you a lady?
Me: {nods}
Guy: Right? You are, right?
Me: {nods again, silently laughs ass off}
Guy: Tell 'em! Tell those kids! They don't know! You're a lady! {sings while exiting train} She's a laaaaady!
Middle-aged woman in the seat next to me: Don't worry. You look good either as a man or a lady.
Me: {still too much with the ass-laughing to even say thanks}
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(4)
09:40:42 PM,Thursday 28 July 2005
Ferny Foliage of Fennel!
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01:42:41 PM,Tuesday 26 July 2005
"You scumbuzzards couldn't close an umbrella!"
Scumbuzzards. I like that.
(You were right, Robert, you were right. It's my solemn duty to protect the delicate eyes of Country Music Television viewers.)
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(4)
12:33:57 PM,Wednesday 20 July 2005
After half a dozen tries and eleven months in the city, I have found a Chinese place that does good General Tso's Chicken.
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(11)
12:51:01 PM,Tuesday 19 July 2005
Hybrid makes my head smell like Halvah.
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(2)
08:01:16 PM,Monday 18 July 2005
via Spinooti.
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(2)
06:42:20 PM,Monday 18 July 2005
Other good things about my new job:
I get to work alone the whole day; I don't clock in -- just show up and sign on to AIM, which is what I use to ask questions of my supervisor. I get to choose what I want to work on (no more godawful assignments) through the network, and deliver it the same way; I don't have to beg for disks or wait for the printer to finish someone else's job. I'm the only one in the room so far, though there's an empty workstation that might get taken if they hire someone else. At the other place, I had up to three other people working in the same room, and I had to walk over to the office to receive (if I was lucky) and deliver work.
I work on video instead of audio, which means I can identify everyone that's speaking and even lipread for context if a word's hard to make out. Also, I just have to type the words, not identify who's speaking. At the other place, not only did I have to figure out who was saying what (which could be impossible when more than four people were speaking, if they didn't have clearly differentiated voices or accents), I frequently had to guess at how they spelled their names or even refer to them as "man 1", "man 2", et cetera, because the work form didn't tell me who they were.
It's all post production, which means that everything's been edited down to a maximum of 20 minutes per tape (as opposed to hours and hours of freeform rambling), is all audible (the sound quality at the other place varied widely, from crystal clear to completely indecipherable) and often floats helpful notations on the screen.
I don't have to spend time filling out the work form -- just set the margins to 2.5, turn on my caps-lock, and go. I also like not having to change and use the various autocorrects for each speaker and interviewer or having to muck about with timecodes, not to mention the ease of all-capped sentences. Makes a person almost start to sympathize with internet trollers.
My computer's connected to the internet, so I can do necessary research as it comes up instead of tagging every unfamiliar word, writing it on a piece of paper after everything's typed up, and then standing around until an administrator's computer is free.
But it doesn't even matter that all this time is saved; I'm not paid by the page anymore. I'm still not sure what they will pay me after my probation's up, but the emphasis is on quality, not quantity, and I won't drop from $22.50/hr to $15.00/hr if I get a show that takes half an hour to research properly or twice as much rewinding to hear all the words correctly.
There's a greater range of tapes, not just reality shows and interviews -- right now we're doing a lot of cooking and other instructional stuff, but apparently it varies with the season.
Best of all, though, it's steady work. I don't have to waste my mornings calling and hoping and wheedling a couple hours a day out of the place. I just show up, work, get an hour for lunch (which I could have taken before, of course -- on my own dime, so I never did), work some more, and go back home (come September, to school), all in blessed solitude, and having learned many useful facts.
Ok, so it's not five blocks from my girlfriend's apartment and it doesn't give me free pizza on Fridays, but I wouldn't trade it. The only thing that could put a lurch in my belly is if I found out they were going to pay me bookstore wages once they took me on for good, but the guy promised he'd be fair and I'd be happy, and I'm prepared to believe him. I'm pretty happy right now, debt or no debt. I like working.
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(4)
10:35:55 PM,Sunday 17 July 2005
I love baby corn, but whenever I eat it, I get the strange feeling that I'm tasting it with something else's tastebuds. A rodent or ruminant -- some herbivore whose only daily pleasure comes from the mild, faraway flavor of its staple food. I've never heard of an animal that lived off baby corn, but that's how it feels, all right.
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09:50:01 PM,Sunday 17 July 2005
Beluga whales love to have their tongues scratched.
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(3)
04:08:59 PM,Friday 15 July 2005
The best part of my new job so far:
Getting to type "Worcestershire" at least once per day.
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(2)
01:43:35 PM,Friday 15 July 2005
Cherryh is Asimov done right.
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(5)
12:41:19 PM,Wednesday 13 July 2005
"Jryy, gunax lbh fb zhpu sbe pbzvat naq vafgehpgvat zr, ernyyl, ba gur uvfgbel bs zbatenzf."
"Jryy, vg'f snfpvangvat. Gur jbeq zbabtenz pbzrf sebz gur Wncnarfr jbeq 'zba', juvpu zrnaf snzvyl perfg be flzoby, juvpu vf ubj nyy guvf tbg fgnegrq."
