TGIF

Another frantic busy week at work, then evenings were going home & crashing, except Wednesday, when co-workers got together for a little impromptu cocktail party for our East Coaster being in town. Good wine, blood orange cosmos (yum!), tasty nibbles, including my manchego with homemade quince preserves, then Rock Band on XBox while my boss barely tolerated the noise…heehee…

Not that I’m a gamer anyway, but I have been extra dubious about Rock Band, since if you actually know how to play guitar or bass, I thought it would be weird to press buttons on a fake plastic guitar instead of aiming for strings and frets, but I was 97% or so on the couple bass tracks I did (one was Rolling Stones since I didn’t know it at all to sing!), and not surprisingly I was a consistent “Serious Skills” 97-98% on vocals. I like this more than karaoke since you’re the whole band jamming together. We did Radiohead’s Creep, Nirvana’s In Bloom (twice and I still couldn’t tell you what the lyrics actually are!), something called Mississippi Queen I had never heard before, but was able to fake along with the provided lyrics, The Clash Should I Stay or Should I Go, I Think I’m Paranoid by Garbage, some a couple times because the selection is limited, and I can’t remember what else. The weirdest thing for anyone who reads music is that these lines come along to the front to time the notes you’re playing, like Dance Dance Revolution, but they seem like bar lines for measures, but when your note is syncopated, your line comes faster to arrive at the front when you’re supposed to play it, so that takes a bit of getting used to. The real bassist in our group was the best drummer, and I don’t think she ever tried bass…haha. The plastic bass was tinier than the guitar, so that was extra weird for me to play. One guy tried his hand at vocals but crashed & burned badly enough I had to jump in or the game would have stopped us mid-song! They had me keep singing after that attempt. My boss left after about a half hour of that, obviously thinking we were crazy but entertaining I guess. I stayed until 11pm then excused myself, since this was up in San Francisco and we had a 9am meeting the next day too, but the last 3 stayed rocking until 1am when the upstairs neighbors came down and complained. You’d think we were college students vs. mid-thirty-somethings!

It took almost 8 years, but I finally have a cube with a window!

Marketing finally has headcount this year to hire more people, plus Sales moved over a row of cubes, so after 5 years of the same two rows of cubes & offices, we now have a third row of cubes, which opened up 2 window spots, so the next ones up for seniority were me & the real bassist. They only move equipment on Thursdays, but she moved all her stuff last Friday. I started packing up my 5 years of chaos, photos & toys that day, moving most of it over, but I still worked in my old bare cube until yesterday, trying to decide if I wanted to set up all my toys & photos again or perhaps edit my copious collection to try to be more grown up and sophisticated. I’m not sure the grown-up thing will last since it seems a bit boring to me. I couldn’t resist having Edward Scissorhands & the Captain Jack with Davy Jones figures, so they’re now right in front of me around my computer instead of behind me in display of 5 Disney animated casts, Animaniacs, Trek MiniMachines from every era, and Harry Potter Lego set. It’s still too much of an in-process mess to show photos of my setup but maybe next week perhaps. I did bring calla lilies and blooming quince branches from my yard which look nice in vases with my oak leaf ivy in its stand. Yesterday everything functional was moved, like extra data port activated for my Mac laptop, and my phone, so I was finally actually working in my new spot. The desk surfaces are set so that we can’t actually face the window while working, but if I turn around in my chair, I can see this view…

The view is not always as crystal clear, but unless it’s foggy or rainy, we can usually see San Francisco & the Bay Bridge in the distance. I still can’t believe I’ll have been at the same company for 8 years this June. It’s definitely no dream job and I hate the commute, but hopefully this new space will help keep me going awhile longer until I can figure a way to make enough money to live by doing something creative. We’ll see!

I really need a weekend, and it’s yet another one with absolutely no plans with anyone, so I guess it’ll be yardwork & more spring cleaning. I hope everyone has a good weekend!

Uncategorized rock band, work