Happy Halloween!

Hi everyone!

Happy Halloween and I hope y'all have a great night. I am going to go to a bar tonight after work to celebrate a friends Birthday, and then I will probably head down into the Village to check out all of their festivities too! So good fun should be had by all.

Below I posted a playlist from imeem, an awesome music website. It's a totally legal and safe place to check out really well made playlists and discover some new music. Check it out here.

And TricK or TreaT!!!

Halloween Tunes

Looking for some Spooky Halloween tunes? Look no further and enjoy!

Halloween Pressure

Sigh. It's that time again.

With celebrations coming up on Friday/this weekend and then ending on Wednesday night. It's the time I used to worship as a child...Halloween. I would literally count down the days 'til Halloween! I was so excited! Even if my costumes did suck - and I actually don't remember what I was ever - my Mom wasn't the photo-taking type. I would still rush home from school, change into my costume immediately and then bug anyone within reach to take my trick-or-treating.

At that time we lived on Air Force bases so we were allowed to go running around the neighborhood, as long as we didn't venture over to enlisted housing, or bug the Generals too much. It was obviously very safe and so we stayed out until it got dark, sometimes a little later. I remember the best house was General Schwarzkopf's house, he had two Doberman Pincers (very scary to a kid), but he gave out the best candy - full bars! Way better than bite-sized, so it was worth risking the dogs.

Anyways, after years of looking forward to this day, I find myself as an adult, dreading it. I hate the pressure to go out because, like New Years it's inevitably not as fun as it "should" be. I hate having to wear a cute costume (and for cute read: sexy), and I hate trying not to eat all the candy that is everywhere! I love being scared and watching scary/cheezy Halloween movies and even Halloween themed-TV shows. And, I like seeing other peoples costumes, I just don't like making a big "To Do" over it.

A task I've accomplished the past few years. Last year I went to see "The Rocky Horror Picture Show"(first time ever!), which was great, and the year before that I watched the East Village Parade for an hour or so, which was kind of lame. However, this year I have a friend coming in from Florida and she has already asked what we're doing. I just know she is expecting a wild "New York" night. Or something. Hopefully I will think of something fun to do that's not too much trouble for me. If you hear of anything let me know!

P.S. - Is anyone else extremely annoyed at the attention Halle Berry's "Jewish" comment has received? I just think it is really too much - our Nation is so scared to be un-PC. I hate to really go into it (because I'm scared too), but I really don't think she needed to apologize for her comment. Ok I have to stop now.

Fedex Came Through.

So last time I posted I was stressing about a package gone astray. I sent said package Fedex prority overnight on a Wednesday afternoon. I soon received several email confirmations from Fedex saying "package has been picked up", "package is being delivered", package has been dropped off", etc.

I thought everything went fine and I didn't feel the need to follow-up since I had received confirmation that it was sucessfully delivered. Enter my boss, on Friday morning, he was working from a meeting downtown but was on AIM, and he asked me "whatever happened with the tickets?" ( it was 4 Springsteen tickets that were in the package). I told him, "I sent that out on Wed. and Fedex said they delivered it on Thursday afternoon at 1:00 pm". All of the sudden my AIM started going crazy - my boss is all - 'what's the address you sent it to?', 'what's the tracking number?', 'are you sure you sent it correctly?'. I asked him if there was a problem and he IM'ed back- 'A' doesn't have them! I started to freak out a little bit (hence my post about anxiety), but I kept my cool, answered his questions and assured him Fedex delivered it.

So then, just to be the awesome, thorough employee I am, I called Fedex to follow-up and let them know there was a problem. The Fedex rep thoroughly apologized, went through the delivery with me and said they would start an inquiry with the courrier and let me know. I waited a couple of hours and hadn't heard anything. So I called back, and they did the same thing (apologized, went over deets), then they gave me one small piece of new info and said to call back when the courrier had reported to 'someone' specific. So I waited, and still nothing. Finally I called them back again and they said the person who received the report had gone home (what?!) and I should call back at 6:30pm (my job ends at 5:00pm) when the night person would be there. So I said I would, but I didn't - I went to a blogger Happy Hour and hung out with friends!! But I did email my boss to let him know the follow up I had done, and he (sadly) thanked me for being so diligent.

Cut to Monday morning. My boss came into my cube and very seriously explained that we needed those tickets, The recipient (A) checked his house and his neighbor's very carefully and couldn't find them. He also told me that 'A' had tons of scuba gear on his front porch which should ring a bell for the driver. So I said I would follow up, although to be honest, after the run around I got on Friday, I didn't expect much. So I called Fedex, went through the apologies, the deets, and the "we can offer you $100.00 for the loss" (which means nothing to my Boss!). After that I basically told the rep the money was useless to me and then asked what else could be done, and then I just stayed on the line, unwilling to give up, and kept asking "what could be done?", until she finally said - "let me get my manager". YES!

The manager came on, and very bored-like asked me what the problem was. I told her, and I repeated the new information about A's porch being covered with Scuba gear. She sighed and said she would check with the driver and call me back. Honestly! Was that so hard?!

Cut to: An hour later - my boss comes running up, all "They found them!" I was thrilled! But where? My boss said the driver delivered them to the wrong house. Awesome. That guy has one job and he screws it up. I swear. So the lesson here is when dealing with call centers - if you don't get the answer you want, hang up and call right back to see if the next person will be able to help you, if not - the manager! is the best thing ever.

And so it all worked out - 'A' got the tix and went to the concert, and my boss was impressed with my follow-up. Yay!

TGIF??

All of the sudden I’m feeling very anxious. I can’t seem to focus at work and I haven’t been to the gym in 4 days. I know that doesn’t seem like a long time, but to me it really is. I have plans to go tomorrow but right now I am really feeling ‘stifled’ – this morning was weird to begin with – I never hit a “rhythm” and now at work I essentially have two things I have to get finished by today that I am stressing out about. And they are relatively simple tasks! I do them everyweek, and yet today I am struggling so much!

This week I did have something really cool happen to me – I’ll blog about that later (when I get my photographic evidence together). For now I felt like I had to express my anxiety before I imploded on myself.

Furthermore, I have a plans for Happy Hour later today that I have never needed more.

Oh and P.S. – Is it really my fault if I sent something important to someone FedEx overnight and that person didn’t receive it? I mean, Fedex dropped it off- their tracking devices say that they got it. Except my boss says that person didn’t get it, and it is now my fault – I’m on it. Le sigh.

P.P.S. - I am loving Pushing Daisies the "Hopelessly Devoted To You" number was amazing!

Updates, recommitments, and tomfoolery.....not necessarily in that order

Tomfoolery-
Because the sky is blue, it makes me cry.....

I'm completely obsessed with this song thanks to the new Movie Across the Universe. I saw it on Saturday and pretty much loved it - there were parts that weren't so great but for the most part - All of the songs were done beautifully and the visuals were gorgeous and any movie with Eddie Izzard in it is fine by me (except maybe "The Wild")

Recommitments-

Anyways, part of my great plan this weekend was to get up on Saturday - go workout and go see Across the Universe - Unfortunately, I stuck with my default plan which has been to hit the snooze button about 20 - 20! times before I get up....it's ridiculous! This morning I finally broke the cycle and got up at 7 am to go to the gym - but it was wretched, and the workout sucked. I saw this woman next to me with coffee on her treadmill and I thought - that is what I need! I'm planning to program my machine to make coffee that I can just guzzle by the cupfuls before I set out. Because AM exercise is not ok without it.

Updates-

The Gators lost to Auburn last weekend and that's fine - as long as we beat LSU this weekend everything will be ok - if not I might I have to hide under my desk until the end of the season (we have an USC alum in the office).

A did come to my bday party (I may have already mentioned this) - and she gave me a semi-expensive (for me) piece of Betsey Johnson jewelry - so punk rock! I really liked it - until it completely fell apart on the streets of NYC - thank goodness I noticed pieces of it as they were falling off - I gathered most of them and have to go return it this week.... quel dommage.

I think that will wrap us up - work wise I am still doing ok - although I always need more work, and my bosses are constantly gone so it's difficult because when they are around everyone else needs them too because they've been gone so long.... it's a little tough.