A return

Well, I'm back. I sort of doubt anyone knew I was here in the first place, or that I left. Or care that I'm back. But here I am.

Knowing that this isn't likely to be read by anyone, ever, let me just summarize this briefly for you, if you've happened to stumble on this by accident.

Call me Spence. A few years back I started this blog to pass the time at a job where passing the time was pretty much what I was paid to do, for practical intents and purposes. It was a small business, and the recession hit them pretty hard. They were eventually faced with a choice between laying me off, or firing the boss's wife.

So I started working at an insurance company because, well, I guess I must just hate myself or something. Truthfully, though, I lost my job in mid-November, with Christmas looming, and no savings. My wife worked, but how can I put this? My wife's job barely covers the expense of having said job. It pays for gas and daycare, and not much else. I think that'll be a post all on its own.

So we were broke, and not in a mood to take chances at the time. This place I work now is one of the only places an English-speaking dude in the area can reliably find a job (though it took me 3 tries over the years before they would hire me). Being somewhat desperate, I applied and was in in record time. Problem solved!

Not true. You really can't go from selling snorkeling gear online, with 3-5 hours of free time every day through the summer, to working at an insurance company where they work your fucking nuts off then make you eat the nuts that just fell off without experiencing a bit of culture shock. I went from working with a married couple whose primary concern for new employees was being cool with the two of them swearing and telling crude jokes all day - Seriously, that shit is true - to a large company filled with the most unhelpful people I've ever encountered, and with religious overtones to the company mission statement. I work at a religious insurance company.

This bummed me out. Permanently, so far as I can tell. A year and a half I've been there, and it's really only gotten worse. I was promoted inside a year. To a shittier job. It might pay better, but I'm not in charge of people who I used to work directly with, which has apparently made the enemy. When you become an account manager you trade in your "good people" badge, apparently. And somehow, despite moving into middle management, I suddenly answer to more people than I used to. I don't quite get how that works, but there it is.

And I hate it. I hate it more than I can ever describe, though I'll certainly be giving it a lot of tries in the coming weeks (which is about how long I anticipate this blogging resurgence to last).

I don't know how that all relates to coming back to this blog after nearly 4 years, but there it is. This has now become Spence's "bitch about work" place.

What I really want to do is write. Unsurprising. If there's a blogger out there who wouldn't rather write than work I'd be shocked to my core. The way I figure it, there's really no money in Blogger, despite what google wants you to believe. But when I go to sleep at night at least I'll be able to say I wrote something, right? I'm not greedy. I don't even need anyone to read it. Which is good because, well, no one will. I could always engineer a couple extra hits POOP COCK TITFUCK COMPLETION but that'd just be cheating.

I'm not taking those out. I don't ask for readers but I'll take 'em if I can get 'em.

Alright, that'll do it for today.

such a sneaky bastard.

i figured out today that if you know the password to your wife's email address, you can go in there and see what she's been ordering online for you for christmas. dude, you magnificent bastard, you.

throwing axes yeeeeeeaaaahhhh!!!

lookitthisucka!


yeah, pretty sure she doesn't know about this blog.

Invented word of the day.

Peedar: knowing when to call customer service, so that you catch an agent just as they're about to announce a bathroom break. You evil bastards.

Invented word of the day.

Urinello: that specific shade of yellow, the morning after a huge binge.

Invented word of the day.

Today's word: grumpidex.

Grumpidex: A measure of one's mood, quantified according to how grumpy one is. Similar to the humidex, but measuring the pressure behind your eyes instead.

Happy Birthday, Maeve!

See, cuz she's 2 years old today and stuff.

i think the word you were looking for is presumptuous.

this blogging thing is funny.

what amuses me is how it inevitably comes with all the social baggage that comes with all human interaction. communities and groups are formed. and communities can't exist without "outsiders."

it's a lot like high school, i think, with the same social circles, same segregated mentality. the same elitist behavior of, "do i know you? are you known by anyone i know? no? well then, piss off." reflex action. any time you have 3 or more people in the same place, or doing the same thing, the hierarchy starts to build itself. any newcomer is either immediately shunted to the bottom of the unavoidable pyramid, or cast out entirely. it's funny that grown adults still fall into those same high school patterns.

and these blogs... they are, effectively, public diaries. diaries open to the scrutiny and commentary of others. of course, comments are only welcome from those who are "known." you gotta be part of the in-crowd, so to speak.

this is what makes me laugh, that these things actually have in-crowds. and they know that they're the in-crowd. well, they know that they are part of what they believe is an in-crowd. and they end up acting a whole lot like the in-crowd in high school did; that is to say, like self-important douches.

i wasn't aware that there could be an online in-crowd; seems like an oximoron. i thought the internet in-crowd was the demographic responsible for the coining of the term "pwned." but i guess that's a separate online social caste. and you can just see the gamer/programmer demographic glaring across the cafeteria at the blogger "community."

at any rate, sometimes the pot calls the kettle black, is what i'm saying.

that seems uncalled for...

i think i just got backhandedly insulted by anne altman. meh.

belated showing of wedding pics.

well, i was going to do this a while ago, but i always put it off, with the logic, "well, no one really looks at this thing anyway." which is still true, but fuck it, i'm putting them up anyway. so here we go.

this is me, when i'm dressed up.

this here is my new wife.

this here is the 2 of us together. i was going to try and do something funny with this, but fuck it, i'm lazy today. well, i'm lazy every day, but that's beside the point. the point is, i clean up real good, and my wife is hot. so there.