Hope everyone is having an awesome Christmas full of love and food and nudity!

Me, I’ll be over here tormenting the cats with my awesome talking hamster :D

Love to all!

:D

Yesterday I inherited an old iMac from Catherine. She was using it as a doorstop, and I have a soft spot for old Apple computers. I’m not sure why this is, and it definitely doesn’t cross over to old Windows machines. If that were the case, I’d be cooing at the five PCs we have lying around the house in various degrees of decay – and my desk would likely be a shrine to the ingenuity of Gates instead of a temple of Jobs like it is now.

The iMac is one of the old bubbly ones, from 2001. It was the last edition of machines with a G4 chip, before Apple switched to Intel (this is important). It’s a 700MHz G4 PowerPC with 768MB of RAM and a 40GB hard drive; running Mac OS X 10.4.11. It is cute, and I’ve named her Betty (which may change, because it’s too similar to my MacBook Beth and yes I worry about these things).

Catherine had in turn inherited the machine from parts unknown, and therein lied the problem. The previous owner had been using it as a retail shop computer and also the thing he stored Limewire files on – the drive was filled with GBs of terrible music. It was also admin locked, and I didn’t have a copy of the system discs. Without the OS CDs, it’s extremely difficult to restore a Mac to factory condition – everything relies on having those discs handy, and I did not.

I did,  however, have discs for OS X 10.6, Snow Leopard .. which was about as useful as the 4 sealed copies of Windows 98 I have on floppy disc. The break between 10.5 (Leopard!) to 10.6 (Snow Leopard!) was when Apple switched from G4 processors to Intel, and you had to have one or the other. Discs for my Intel Macs would not work on this machine, which was running 10.4 (Tiger!). I didn’t have the admin password and therefore couldn’t unlock the machine to make changes, I didn’t have the CDs to do a full restore, and while I spent hours scouring the entire internet for previous versions of Mac OSs (Cheetah! Puma! Jaguar! Panther!) none of them worked. I was able to find a download of Tiger, but I don’t have any DVDs to burn the image to, and Betty is running USB1.0 so anything I put on a USB stick would take 3 hours to copy over (and then not work at all; I tried).

I spent more time reading Mac hacking tricks than I ever hope to have to do again. Some things worked – I was able to trick the system into thinking it had never been set up, and created a new admin account – but other things did VERY BAD THINGS that created an extra 5 hours of work.

Side story: way back in the ago, I had to quickly learn how to use DOS because I wanted to free up hard drive space on my old 286. I didn’t know what this “WINDOWS” directory was for, so I deleted it. Obviously, that was dumb – and I couldn’t fix it, so I learned how to use that command prompt like my life depended on it.

One of the tricks I tried had me tinkering with the System Preferences, saying that if I moved the app to the desktop and extracted something, it would eventually prompt me to reset the master password. This was a load of hooey, and I quickly found myself in a “new” admin account .. that was utterly unable to access ANY System Preferences, as it had BEEN REMOVED FROM THE COMPUTER. I tried this twice, and had two accounts that couldn’t do  jack shit. Hooray! Okay, now what. I installed tools, and pulled out the System Preferences from the Snow Leopard disc .. which worked about as well as you would expect; not at all. Think think think – can I download a copy? Other people had this same issue, but none of them were running the same OS I was and the posts were 3+ years old. Crap. Okay, what now? I rebooted multiple times, messed around in the terminal, then finally – around 2am – came across an article that explained how to check the hidden root account, and set up a password if it was missing. YES! This was exactly what I needed, and worked like a fucking charm – I set up a root password and was able to log in as the Ultimate King of Systems Administration with Fancy Pants and a Snazzy Top Hat. HOORAY!

I quickly set about deleting locked users, setting up a new one, and installing utilities to help me recover hard drive space. I found 25 gigs of hidden music (which I assume was hidden because it was terrible, terrible music – Michael W. Smith? Boy bands from eras past? Oh god no), and ultimately went from 12.3GB free to 30.5. YEAH! SUCK IT, TIGER! I AM THE BOSS OF YOU!

At this point it was 3am and I had literally been working on the machine since 7, so I went to bed.

This morning, I had one more issue to solve – the innernets. Catherine had installed an Airport card in the machine, which was awesome .. but it’s an old card, and didn’t get along with my Airport XXXTREME because it’s only capable of WEP and not the WPA2 I needed. No firmware updates, and while I could unlock the network and connect just fine, I didn’t go through all the trouble of setting up very confusing wi-fi names to fuck with the hotel across the street for nothing. Finally, I opted to only attempt to connect to my “guest” network, which is locked with twist ties instead of steel cable. The iMac can’t see the rest of my network, but I’d rather have it online wirelessly than tied to my desk via ethernet anyway. I put everything back where it was (almost – I had to sacrifice my wired Apple keyboard to the new iMac; I’m using the tiny wireless one on my main iMac and IT’S SO SMALL I miss my keypad), hooked up the adorable see-through speakers, stuck in a CD (hey, it’s as far as that corner of my desk is concerned, it’s 2001) and ROCKED OUT.

I win, iMac.

This might even be more awesome than the time I forcefully installed Windows XP on a Vista-Only machine through sheer stubbornness and swearing alone.

I WIN!

:D

After some internal (and external; I tend to run all my life decisions by Twitter) debate, I decided not to tell my mother that I lost my job. Unfortunately, the decision was ultimately out of my hands – my mother returned my call today, and opted for the first time in her life to call my work number instead of my cell number. My phone has evidently been forwarded to someone else, and that person told my mother I was no longer with the company. Oops. She called my cell to find out what happened, so I spilled the beans: I am a jobless bum; a drain on society (not really, but I was hoping for Guilt Shoes).

Someone asked me why I cared what my mother thought about my employment situation, so I thought about it – and I really don’t. Whether or not I have something to keep me occupied each day and gives me money every once in a while is of no concern of hers, and since she’s grown out of her trademark rage her reaction isn’t really more than “well that’s too bad”. It’s never been fear that keeps me quiet, though – it’s what comes next: the helpful advice. I have an extremely hard time listening to my mother’s advice without my head exploding, because it always comes down to the same two things over and over again: lottery tickets and blasphemy.

When faced with the cold hard truth of a restructured company with No Room for Kimli, my mother offered up some sage wisdom: “you should buy lottery tickets!”. She went on to try to convince me that spending $6 a week for surefire winnings was the smartest thing I could possibly do, what with my temporarily halted cash flow. That $6 became $12, then $20, as the conversation went on – I could hit THE BIG ONE! Then all my problems would be SOLVED! Why bother buying knickknacks and paddywhacks to give a dog a bone when that money could be used to buy lottery tickets instead? You never know!

I’m going to have that engraved on my mother’s tombstone: “You Never Know”. It’s her favourite saying, and the only justification she ever needs for spending ridiculous amounts of money on lottery tickets. It grates on my teeth to no end, and makes me want to scream obscenities in a desperate attempt to force logic through the phone and into her head. Still, I smiled and nodded (and said “uh huh” because she couldn’t hear me nod through the phone) and quietly seethed as she moved onto her next bit of motherly advice: pray to dad!

I’m not religious in any way, comfortably straddling the line between atheism and some sort of otherworldly -ism (that allows bacon burgers, the owning of many things, and group sex) – but my mother constantly tells me I need to “pray to dad” to ask him to allow me to win the lottery, or something. This is just fucking weird to me, and – if I were one of those wacky religious types – seems really blasphemousy, what with thinking my dad is some kind of lottery-rigging deity and all. Sure, sometimes I have conversations at dad in my head, but those are mostly along the lines of “I miss you” “How’s it going out there” “you would have really appreciated all these presents wrapped in porn” – not “my heavenly father who art in the skies above pulling numbered balls out of a machine; hallowed by thy name”. I get the feeling my mother actually prays to dad, and definitely routinely asks him for help in “hitting the big one” so she can .. I don’t know what. Buy more toilet paper? Stock up on laundry soap? She often says she wants to “help out the kids” (meaning Ed and I), which I wouldn’t turn down – but honestly, we’re okay without the help. I’m not going to fall to my knees and throw my hands to the sky in melodramatic supplication so my dad will haunt some guy so I can win money – I’m weird, but not THAT weird. Seriously, even I draw the line at some things. This is one of them.

So, until I find a new job, my weekly calls to my mother will consist of her telling me to spend my precious remaining dollars on a one in 13,983,816 chance of that mythical “big one” because “you never know”, and I should “pray to daddy” to make this happen.

This entire thing gives me both the heebies AND the jeebies.

Couldn’t I just have a puppy instead?

de crane! de crane!

earth reflects the heavens

I’ve been avoiding this update, because 2011 has been full of balls. Some of those balls were shiny and filled with delicious pudding, but most of them were hairy and slimy and smelly. Even with two epic adventures that were the highlights of my life to date, the rest of 2011 was so bad that the year ends up with a negative score overall. It was a bad year. F—-; would not buy again.

Nothing says “I’m a well-adjusted person” like constantly bringing up the past (I’ve only had 1.5 therapies; cut me some slack), so here for your enjoyment and my own personal torment is a recap of what happened in 2011!

January: My mother came to visit, with hilarious (now; not at the time) results. I got mystery sausage in the mail (that later turned out to be proactive guilt sausage). Gave up on my vagina; smoked a tiny pipe. Amused myself at work. Friendship-ruining drama ensued. We refinanced our mortgage for fun; was pretty fun. Carried the world in my bag. Did not die from expired mayo. Documented Visio diagrams to depict relationships in VC Andrews’ Flowers in the Attic and Heaven books.

February: Schnitzelfest 2011, complete with old people dancing. More drama. Started reposting older entries. Was late for work because of lesbian porn. Caught my very first computer virus; was humiliated. Played Rescue Ranger. Found out my blood type! Had a performance review and more fun with my work. Yanked some glass; had the first of many Sharepoint Rages.

March: Was offended at our new corporate website. Went to an amazing Yelp Elite event at Yew. Drugs! Abused euphemisms like no other. Made flags for work. Was scrubbed out. Volunteered at Twestival; had a great time. Went to a princess party! Celebrated ten years of Delicious Juice Dot Com. Had my giant project at work implode spectacularly; was surprisingly upbeat about it.

April: Pulled off the lamest April Fool’s joke in history. Was dirty on the internet. Vastly underestimated the size of cake. Publicly shamed some line-crashing cougars. Rose to Donna’s vaginal challenge. Wore a tie!

May: Went to a soccer game at Empire Field. Went to Cuba for a week! Had an amazing time! Burned the ever-loving fuck out of my right shoulder! Saw hockey boobs; put them on the internet. Was smug! Reveled in my love of ridiculous challenges. took Ed boating for his birthday, followed by a visit to the spa.

June: Made Ed a Very Special Card for his birthday. Listened to a couple break up outside my window. Fessed up to being depressed. Wrote some hilarious policy! Popped pills. Some riots happened; my post about it kind of exploded on the internet. Went viral on my birthday, which was kind of neat. Was on TV multiple times. Dug up some skeletons in my closet for the haters. Refused to apologize. Played with Lego, which started a recurring theme on my site. Gave up on pants!

July: Building caught on fire; thought I killed my cat. Learned a valuable lesson a day too late. Had more fun at work. Held a press conference, kind of. Was blocked in China; took Heather and Shan on a boat. Cherry Velvet dresses! Lego’d up some Game of Thrones. Had an orgy. Blew the lid off OK Cupid’s Selective Matching. Lego’d up the 80s. More drama; made demands. Shared plans to open a brothel. Was angry about bukkake. Tom of Legoland!

August: Did more Lego. Fancy Taco Friday! Booked a trip to London! Tried to become the Poet Laureate of Vancouver. Was incredulous. Found out I had a dead uncle. Was not serious enough at work. Had pigeons! Did crafts! Rescued the stupid pigeons! Saw one of my best friends get married! Flashed all of downtown Vancouver. Free ice cream with a side of church! Put things in a locket at the request of Twitter. Lost all my historic data thanks to a fatal hard drive explosion that I totally caused. Had scooter issues (that were later resolved); half-assedly did PAX 11. Killed Bill!

September: Survival of Covenants! Was a bad influence. The beginning of the end at work. Became an unwilling expert on Payment Card Industry Data Security Standards. Started to get in trouble for being myself. Peed on the couch. Was disgusted at the National Post for promoting hate in Canada.

October: Was grumpy at idiots. Wrote about tacos and music. My mother started dating. Became an ordained minister for fun! Was bitten by an asshole cat; had to get tetanus shot. A bunch of other stuff happened but who cares because Renee, Heather and I WENT TO LONDON! Had the friggin‘ time of my life; a definite highlight of 2011 and my entire life. Currently plotting my Return to London. Loved it.

November: Attempted to do an experiment that ultimately failed. Survived a round of layoffs at work. (finally) got in trouble for my Epic Cleavage. Was evil for fun. Work started to suck. Polled the internet for solutions to my boobs. Finally went to Victoria; was traumatized by g-strings. Was really, really depressed. Sought help for depression. Made boring grown-up decisions.

December: Tried to fit in with Pussy Bow Week, which fell short due to defiance. Started therapy. Dusted off my barista skills. Got the results of my background check; am total bad ass. Had a series of disastrous conversations with my boss; went from inquiring about my next raise to losing my job in exactly 6 days. Wrote copy for one of my favourite sites on the internet. Smelled bad things; wrote this damn recap.

There are still 10 days left in December, but I can’t see anything spectacular or devastating happening that would top the highs and lows of this year, so ..

2011 can’t come to an end soon enough. Don’t let the door hit you on the ass on the way out – I don’t want ass prints all over my new door.

C’mon, 2012: dazzle me!

Once upon a time in a city far, far away, I thought something had died.

There was a foul stench in the halls of our apartment, and having an overactive imagination and no true understanding of the real world despite my claims to the contrary, I immediately assumed it was the sweet smell of death:

As well, something in the building stinks. It’s a high pitched sour smell, vaguely masked by a sharp sweetness. I read too many books, and I’m now assuming that the stench I’m having to live with is actually the sweet smell of death. Something died in another apartment, and the deranged lettuce-and-fruit-salad-dropping individual can’t be bothered to dispose of the body because hey, cleaning stuff up is for losers.

We were also having an issue with someone in the apartment building throwing salad all over the stairs and not cleaning it up, but that is not important to this story.

Time passed, and the smell grew worse. For once, I wasn’t the only person who noticed something amiss, and the landlord was coerced into Doing Something about the increasingly bad smell of death wafting though the halls of our three-storey walkup.

As it turns out, the smell wasn’t death at all:

For the last little while, I’ve been hearing strange noises coming from outside my apartment window. I’ve been having a lot of trouble sleeping, so when I usually get sick of Bookworm around 3am, I crawl into bed and lie there for an hour or so hearing bangie thumpie whisper noises outside. Tonight, we found out what they were – someone had broken into our utility room/crawl space and was living there. There were porn magazines and water bottles and other assorted things down there. The creepy ass neighbours apparently knew about this, but either did nothing or just watched to see what would happen. Today the police were around, and tomorrow someone is coming to install a dead bolt on the door. This is creepy. My building is no longer a nice place to be, especially with the fragrant stench of human waste that seems to be seeping into the bottom floor of the building. Until I know further, I am blaming everything on the bitch who lives upstairs.

At the time, the “fragrant stench of human waste” was really just a euphemism. Unfortunately, it turned out to be spot on – someone had broken into our utility room in Calgary and built a highly organized nest: one corner for food and water, another strictly for masturbating to the collection of stolen porn, and a third acting as a toilet. THIS was the culprit of the smell in our hallways; actual human waste piling up beneath our building and percolating like some kind of toxic hobo stew. The utility room was cleaned out and deadbolted, and for a while things went back to normal.

Until people started masturbating next to our car, that is.

However, this is not an update about masturbation, or hoboes, or any other fond memories I have of Calgary. No, this is something much, much worse.

The smell is back.

The smell that I now know is not the smell of death at all, but of human waste – shit. Old, decaying shit.

The smell is hovering around our bedroom, just like last time. It’s worse at night, and seems to be strongest in the closet and bathroom. I don’t know where it’s coming from – it could be the suites above or below, or the bathroom we’re connected with next door via plumbing. It’s not our suite – I’ve scrubbed and cleaned and triple-checked everything, and there is nothing but bleach and a cat standing on my back.

Something is wrong somewhere in Sparta, and I can’t find the cause (and it’s not the damn lamp this time). Short of knocking on doors and asking the neighbours if they’re stock piling feces for a rainy day, I’m not sure what to do about it. There’s always incense, I suppose, but there’s only so much Nag Champa I can stand before I start thinking about giving dreadlocks a try. What do I do? Is it time to play Nancy Drew and start looking around for a hidden crawl space?

That’s it, isn’t it – it’s not like I have anything better to do. Time to get a flashlight and a couple of friends named George and Bess and an asexual boyfriend named Ned – let’s solve this mystery! YEAH!

i will also need to get a shapeless blue dress and a beige bathrobe

I need a job. It’s been a week, and I’m already trying to solve mysteries.

Look! I copywrut! :D

The guys from Nerd Merit Badges asked if I’d take a stab at writing the copy for their latest badge, to which I squee’d and said HELL YES. I love Nerd Merit Badges *and* writing words, so it seemed like a good time to me – and it was! I wrote copy! I am a Mad Men! Let’s go drinking martinis in the 60s!

More words coming shortly, including the return of a mysterious figure from the past. Spooky!

Logically, I KNOW it’s foolish to pay $2 for 113ml of ice cream when $6 will get me 414ml, but I can’t help it. Single-sized servings of fancy ass ice cream have pretty much become my raison d’etre – they’re perfect. Love ’em, even if it means I pay a ridiculous premium for a cute little cup of just enough ice cream to soothe the savage beast. After all, I’m an upwardly mobile young professional – I can totally afford to splurge on tiny gourmet items!

Oh, wait.

Shit.

Do you ever wish that you could take your outward common sense and apply it to yourself? If I could convince myself to take my own advice, I’d be so much happier. For example, I spent most of yesterday freaking out because I don’t have a new job yet.

I’ve been unemployed for three days and 4 hours. I haven’t even finished updating my resume yet, let alone applied for any jobs. Why am I beating myself up for being a failure? Oh, right, because I’m a complete fucking idiot – but even knowing that I’m being beyond ridiculous isn’t helping at all, and I’m panicking because I’m a shiftless bum. Everyone tells me I’ll have no problem not only finding a new job but finding something AWESOME given my mad, mad skills (portfolio coming soon!), but the confidence that others have in me, while very appreciated, isn’t quelling my fears of government cheese and daily glazed hams OR my uncertainty in myself. I mean, deep down I’m overly certain of my abilities – I built a goddamn intranet – but that doesn’t mean a very large part of me isn’t freaking the fuck out. What if I can’t find a new job? What if no one needs anything documented in a dazzling forthright manner? What if no one appreciates technical manuals written as a Choose Your Own Adventure book? What if I totally suck and people have just been coddling me all along?

What if?

These are all totally normal feelings to have on your fourth full day of being a bum, right?

i'm still really proud of this thing.

I woke up this morning with a migraine, but had to power through it because I had Important Things to do. As I waited for the caffeine and drugs to kick in, I found myself doing Lamaze – at least, my perception of how to do Lamaze, which is entirely based on what I’ve seen on TV. I exhaled in short bursts, made some train noises, had a panicked blundering husband in the background trying to fluff my pillows and pack a suitcase at the same time, and swore a lot. None of this really seemed to help, and I gave some serious thought about boiling a pot of water just in case (and probably would have, if I didn’t need to leave the house). Why I thought these things would ease my headache is a mystery to me, but once I made the Lamaze connection I just sort of went with it. I mean, it couldn’t HURT, and as long as I concentrated on breathing funny I didn’t have the wherewithal to focus on just how badly my head was throbbing. It was a good system, and now I feel confident that I could totally have a baby if I needed to. Success!

My head does hurt a lot less, though. The drugs finally kicked in and getting out of the house worked wonders. Also, I have Nutter Butters. As far as Wednesdays go, this is the best one I’ve had in months.

I’m ambitious, but I also know when I’m licked and should just lay low for a while. That’s why my goal for this week was “be better than last week” – sounds pretty simple, right? Last week was one of the worst weeks of my life; there’s no way this week could be anywhere near as bad!

Well, yesterday I lost my job and today I dropped one of my favourite mugs on the kitchen floor where it shattered into a thousand dangerous little pieces. At 9:36 on Tuesday morning, we’re off to an excellent start for the week. I can’t wait to see what’s next!

On account of my having eaten approximately three normal meals in the last two weeks, we – and my ass – are all going to ignore the fact that I ate a LOT of cheesecake yesterday. A lot. Like, I was up at 2am eating cheesecake. It was messy. Today I am going to try to eat something green.

Do they make green cheesecake?

Okay, onto the good stuff, in bullet point format so you can see that I am serious:

• Officially, I was laid off due to restructuring – my position was eliminated
• I am not angry at my boss about this – I have a feeling the decision was not hers, and I think it was rough on her to let me go (that could be my ego talking; everyone wants to be missed)
• If I’m going to do anything, it’s going to be backwards and convoluted – I was actually part of the initial round of layoffs on November 1st, but they kept me a while longer to see what would happen like a science experiment gone horribly wrong
• Yes, I received severance – in fact, I received far more than I had any right to expect
• There will be no talk of lawsuits – yes, I raise an eyebrow in serious need of grooming at the whole “let’s fire her while she’s having serious mental issues and two weeks before Christmas to boot” thing (which I can only assume was followed by maniacal hand rubbing and an evil laugh), but maybe I’ll just get a crutch and an ascot and call myself Tiny Kim
• My life insurance and long term disability benefits were terminated yesterday, BUT my health and dental were extended to the end of January – including my entire and not insignificant health and spending allotment for 2012, which will come in very handy when I talk to my therapist about all of this
• I should probably go to the dentist and refill my prescriptions while I’m at it
• Yes, this all sucks – but it could have been so much worse; they could have easily Dooced my ass but instead took the happy ending, for which I am grateful
• I could have been Dooced because someone who was not a Fan of Kimli was stalking my blog regularly and tattling on me for “putting the company in the public eye” – hey, those of you who don’t know me personally! Pop quiz! Where did I work? You don’t know, do you? Probably because I NEVER MENTIONED IT ON MY BLOG! Enjoy your moral superiority, mysterious tattler, because it is ILL GOTTEN!
• I’m going to use some of my severance to splurge a little and buy a new Dustbuster – yeah! I’m living the life!
• Thank you all for your tweets and DMs and emails – you guys made yesterday a lot less painful, and I appreciate you all
• Uh .. how do you do a resume?

So, the new chapter begins today. This week I plan to update my resume, put together a portfolio, and buy some damn groceries. After that .. well, it’s the holiday season, but I’m still looking. And thinking about freelancing. Anyone need any documentation done? I’m good at words and stuff.

bad news is easier to deliver in poster form

I’d like to claim that I’m really self aware and totally attuned to the emotions in the ether so I was prepared for this, but honestly, I just had a brilliantly timed tantrum.

On Friday, I stripped my desk at work and packed up all my toys. I wasn’t told to do it; it was a knee-jerk reaction to being told I don’t fit in. You want a sterile workplace? Okay, I’ll GIVE you sterile. The rainbow arch came down, all my prints, the 37 different Hello Kitty things – all gone. I packed everything into bags and boxes, and set it aside.

On Sunday, after the Great Bieber Hunt of 2011, we went to my office to drop off everything we had bought. We also picked up all my stuff, just in case.

This morning at work, I packed up the rest of it. Better safe than sorry, right?

I was one folder of old packing slips away from removing every trace of my existence when I was called in to talk to my boss. There was another lady there; a stranger. I knew what it meant.

I lost my job today.

My toys are safe, though.

So there.

More words will come later (after the cheque has cleared). Right now, I need to cry. So I’m going to go do that, and maybe eat some of the cheesecake in my fridge.