One of my coworkers included a Henry Ford quote on a e-mail that he sent out to the team. I replied adding a bit to it. . .

Henry Ford: Teamwork Quotes

“Coming together is a beginning; keeping together is progress; working together is success” Henry said as he wrote out a check to the Nazi party. . .

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Joe found a Goblet of Fire preview on a French site. C’est très fantasic.

And the American one doesn’t suck either.

I will get to see this in London. So excited.

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Woman: How do you write women so well?
Melvin: I think of a man, and I take away reason and accountability.
-Jack in As Good As it Gets

I am wildly stressed out. I have the complexion of a teenager. I was absolutely fine then between hormones, crap I have been eating and high stress. . . I am going to be a fat pimply bride. Stuart will take one look at my fat ass and blotchy face and he will say. “Well. Now that I think of it, this doesn’t seem such a good idea.”

I got a facial yesterday so hopefully it will clear up. The esthetician had this adorable Yorkshire accent. She kept calling me “Love.”

I used to get massages from a woman that got feelings about things. She would read your aura and base the essential oils she used on you on what she sensed you needed. I always felt like she could read my mind, which made the massage a more stressful experience that it should have been.

Once she said, “I get the sense that you are really hard on yourself.”
This made me a little uncomfortable because I knew she was right but I retorted, “Isn’t everyone?”
“Yeah, but I get the sense that you are really hard on yourself.”

I think the world would be a better place if more people were hard on themselves. If more people were accountable for their corner of the world.

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I came to a decision last week that even if were offered the position that I applied for in the UK that I wouldn’t take it. Given some things that I know are coming up, I didn’t want to deal with high work drama when I am dealing with so many life drama issues. . . International move, wedding, controlling my urge to throttle my alcoholic sister for what she is doing to her son and my mother. . .

Best decision I ever made. I came in this morning and NOTHING works. External and internal systems down. . .
down. . .
down. . .

The thought of walking out the door on September 30th and not being stressed out by this place and the systems being down every time we do a launch fills me with glee. GLEE! I have already composed my Sayonara e-mail. (I think I may be ready to leave.)

I’ve removed all references to my company name. Any work people that read this, I won’t be sending this out for another month.

It is with:

A. deep regret
B. indifference
C. utter unadulterated joy

that I announce I am taking my stapler and leaving.

I’ve decided to leave to:

A. spend more time with my family.
B. sell oranges on the side of the road.
C. go to Google.
D. join the French Foreign Legion.
E. become a professional killer.
F. bowl midgets.
G. sell Star Maps.
H. get a job writing something besides business e-mails so my 90K in student loans is not quite as pathetic and sad.
I. run for President of the United States.
J. get married to someone I just met, move to the UK and celebrate the Christmas holidays in Budapest eating borscht.

It is amazing to me that I have blinked and BLAM- six years gone. What shocks me the most about the last few years is:
A. (removed because it names my company)
B. How many gray hairs I have.
C. Scott Carlson hasn’t recently put on a dress.
D. All the above.

I will miss:

A. Michael Amezcua’s beef jerky. Wait. That sounded wrong.
B. The annoying questions Tommy “Why” Lee asks
C. Some amazing, talented, kind people. I hope you know who you are.
D. All the above.

I will not miss:

A. Replication delays.
B. The elevators
C. (The name of a evil client which I have removed to protect him)
D. All the above.

Please,

A. don’t be a stranger.
B. do not contact me under any circumstances.
C. feel free to come visit the land that modern dentistry forgot. I’ll buy you a pint and some crisps.

You can reach me at:

A. I can’t be reached. Please don’t try. I never really liked you. You scare me.
B. I can’t be reached. I suffer from technophobia. It has been necessary for me to be severely medicated to do this gig the last six years. That’s why you saw me sobbing in the bathroom like Holly Hunter in Broadcast News. Please leave me in peace. Unless you have a homing pigeon. I can communicate with pigeons. I like pigeons.
C. travelingtreefrog236@yahoo.co.uk.

I wish:

A. for a pony.
B. that zombies attack you in the dead of night and chew your face off.
C. you all the best.

And so:

A. Take care,
B. Cheers,
C. Bite Me,

A. Nicole
B. Nic
C. The Finance Liaison Nazi

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“Hello. My name is Nicole.”

“Hi Nicole!”

“I am a bookaholic.”

I just shipped all of my stuff to the UK. Boxes and boxes of mostly books. Novels, non-fiction, fiction, cookbooks. . . you name it- I may very well have it.

Last Tuesday I bought a copy of, We Thought You Would Be Prettier : True Tales of the Dorkiest Girl Alive by Laurie Notaro because I love her stuff and she makes me giggle. (I need to write her a “I am a huge fan and if you ever want to get drunk together, it will be a blast” letter.)

I’m already done reading it if course. The way I read I consumed it in two days and that is only with reading on my lunch hour and for the few hours I was at the airport high on a couple of bloody marys.

Today I bought The Daily Show with Jon Stewart Presents America (The Book): A Citizen’s Guide to Democracy Inaction.

Now it must be said. I have been waiting for AGES for someone to by me America. I thought I would get it for Christmas but no go. I thought someone would buy it on my birthday but zipporeno- so today, I bought the book I have wanted for months. My restraint should be commended because beyond the politics being right up my proverbial alley, Jon Stewart is my number one celebrity crush. He even beats out George Clooney and John Cusack. My crush goes back to 1999 when he was in a sweet but forgettable flick called Playing by Heart.

It’s funny that he ends up with Stuart’s number one celebrity crush, Gillian Anderson in that movie. AnyWAY. After that movie I was a goner. And then when he got the Daily Show gig. . . forgetaboutit. Maybe I just have a thing for short Jews. I also had a crush on Rob Morrow during the Northern Exposure years for a long time.

Now, I know that my celebrity crush will go nowhere. One, he is married. Two, he has a small child. Three. I am not an insane stalker and I know that liking the look of someone and respecting their work does not mean diddley. (God help me if I ever meet him though. I will be a simpering idiot.)

But that is not the point of this post. The point, my dear darling reader is, “WHAT THE BLOODY HELL AM I DOING BUYING ANY BOOKS???!!! I am moving to London. I need to schlep this shit across the Atlantic.”

There must be something wrong with me. . . Beyond the obvious I mean. . . But really. . . There MUST be. Today I read about this book and I considered buying it, It nearly weighs five pounds.

I need electric shock therapy.

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Okay. . . eww.

Troops’ Gravestones Have Pentagon Slogans

By DAVID PACE, Associated Press Writer

ARLINGTON, Va. - Unlike earlier wars, nearly all Arlington National Cemetery gravestones for troops killed in Iraq or Afghanistan are inscribed with the slogan-like operation names the Pentagon selected to promote public support for the conflicts.

Families of fallen soldiers and Marines are being told they have the option to have the government-furnished headstones engraved with “Operation Enduring Freedom” or “Operation Iraqi Freedom” at no extra charge, whether they are buried in Arlington or elsewhere. A mock-up shown to many families includes the operation names.

The vast majority of military gravestones from other eras are inscribed with just the basic, required information: name, rank, military branch, date of death and, if applicable, the war and foreign country in which the person served.

Families are supposed to have final approval over what goes on the tombstones. That hasn’t always happened.

Nadia and Robert McCaffrey, whose son Patrick was killed in Iraq in June 2004, said “Operation Iraqi Freedom” ended up on his government-supplied headstone in Oceanside, Calif., without family approval.

“I was a little taken aback,” Robert McCaffrey said, describing his reaction when he first saw the operation name on Patrick’s tombstone. “They certainly didn’t ask my wife; they didn’t ask me.” He said Patrick’s widow told him she had not been asked either.

“In one way, I feel it’s taking advantage to a small degree,” McCaffrey said. “Patrick did not want to be there, that is a definite fact.”

The owner of the company that has been making gravestones for Arlington and other national cemeteries for nearly two decades is uncomfortable, too.

“It just seems a little brazen that that’s put on stones,” said Jeff Martell, owner of Granite Industries of Vermont. “It seems like it might be connected to politics.”

The Department of Veterans Affairs says it isn’t. “The headstone is not a PR purpose. It is to let the country know and the people that visit the cemetery know who served this country and made the country free for us,” VA official Steve Muro said.

Since 1997, the government has been paying for virtually everything inscribed on the gravestones. Before that, families had to pay the gravestone makers separately for any inscription beyond the basics.

It wasn’t until the invasion of Iraq in March 2003 that the department instructed national cemetery directors and funeral homes across the country to advise families of fallen soldiers and Marines that they could have operation names like “Enduring Freedom” or “Iraqi Freedom” included on the headstones.

VA officials say neither the Pentagon nor White House exerted any pressure to get families to include the operation names. They say families always had the option of including information like battle or operation names, but didn’t always know it.

“It’s just the right thing to do and it always has been, but it hasn’t always been followed,” said Dave Schettler, director of the VA’s memorial programs service.

VA officials say they don’t know how many families of the more than 2,000 soldiers and Marines who have died in Iraq and Afghanistan have opted to include the operation names.

At Arlington, the nation’s most prestigious national cemetery, all but a few of the 193 gravestones of Iraq and Afghanistan dead carry the operation names. War casualties are also buried in many of the 121 other national cemeteries and numerous state and private graveyards.

The interment service supervisor at Arlington, Vicki Tanner, said cemetery representatives show families a mock-up of the headstone with “Operation Iraqi Freedom” or “Operation Enduring Freedom” already included, and ask their approval.

Former Sen. Max Cleland, D-Ga., who lost both legs and an arm in Vietnam and headed the Veterans Administration under President Carter, called the practice “a little bit of glorified advertising.”

“I think it’s a little bit of gilding the lily,” Cleland said, while insisting that he’s not criticizing families who want that information included.

“Most of the headstones out there at Arlington and around the nation just say World War II or Korea or Vietnam, one simple statement,” he said. “It’s not, shall we say, a designated theme or a designated operation by somebody in the Pentagon. It is what it is. And I think there’s power in simplicity.”

The Pentagon in the late 1980s began selecting operation names with themes that would help generate public support for conflicts.

Gregory C. Sieminski, an Army officer writing in a 1995 Army War College publication, said the Pentagon decision to call the 1989 invasion of Panama “Operation Just Cause” initiated a trend of naming operations “with an eye toward shaping domestic and international perceptions about the activities they describe.”

Mainline veterans groups are taking the change in stride. American Legion spokesman Donald Mooney said the organization hasn’t heard any complaints from its members.

“I’m concerned that we do what the families want,” said Bob Wallace, executive director of Veterans of Foreign Wars. “I don’t think there’s any critical motivation behind this.”

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This is really funny and an excellent example of how both stories are the classic Hero’s Journey. (Joseph Campbell, Jung, etc, etc. . .)

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I found a fantastic blog today. Paige Pooler is an illustrator and her stuff is really fabulous.

A special thank you to her because she explains in one of her posts how to put a banner on your blog . . .so I was able to play with the html to put sleepy lamb in my banner.

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Tony Thompson, Martin Bright , Gaby Hinsliff and Tom Phillips in Gonzaga, Brazil
Sunday August 21, 2005
Observer

Police officers from the team involved in the fatal shooting of Brazilian Jean Charles de Menezes did not believe he posed ‘an immediate threat’.
Senior sources in the Metropolitan Police have told The Observer that members of the surveillance team who followed de Menezes into Stockwell underground station in London felt that he was not about to detonate a bomb, was not armed and was not acting suspiciously. It was only when they were joined by armed officers that his threat was deemed so great that he was shot seven times.

Sources said that the surveillance officers wanted to detain de Menezes, but were told to hand over the operation to the firearms team.

The two teams have fallen out over the circumstances surrounding the incident, raising fresh questions about how the operation was handled.

A police source said: ‘There is no way those three guys would have been on the train carriage with him [de Menezes] if they believed he was carrying a bomb. Nothing he did gave the surveillance team the impression that he was carrying a device.’

Last night, Metropolitan Police chief Sir Ian Blair admitted he was told that shooting created ‘a difficulty’.

In an interview with the News of the World, Blair said that an officer came to him the day after the shooting and said the equivalent of ‘Houston, we have a problem’.

‘He didn’t use those words but he said “We have some difficulty here, there is a lack of connection”. ‘I thought “That’s dreadful, what are we going to do about that?”.’

The Observer can also reveal that the de Menezes family was offered £15,000 after the shooting. The ex gratia payment, which does not affect legal action by the family or compensation, is a fraction of the $1 million (£560,000) reported to have been offered the family. Police yesterday denied they had made the offer, which the family has described as ‘offensive’.

Members of the firearms unit are said to be furious that de Menezes was not properly identified when he left his flat, the first problem in the chain of events that led to the Brazilian’s death.

Specialist officers with the firearms team active that day had received training in how to deal with suicide bombers. A key element was advice that a potential bomber will detonate at the first inkling he has been identified. They are trained to react at the first sign of any action.

The Observer now understands that seconds before the firearms team entered the tube train carriage, a member of the surveillance squad using the codename Hotel 3 moved to the doorway and shouted: ‘He’s in here.’ De Menezes, in all likelihood alarmed by the activity, stood and moved towards the doorway. He was grabbed and pushed back to his seat. The first shots were then fired while Hotel 3 was holding him.

The Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) is to investigate if the firearms officers, with only seconds to decide whether to shoot, mistakenly interpreted de Menezes’s movement as an aggressive act.

For the firearms officers involved in the death to avoid any legal action, they will have to state that they believed their lives and those of the passengers were in immediate danger. Such a view is unlikely to be supported by members of the surveillance unit.

For reasons as yet unclear, members of the firearms team have yet to submit their own account of the events to the IPCC. The two members of the team believed to have fired the fatal shots are known to have gone on holiday immediately after the shooting.

In one case, the holiday had been pre-booked, in the other the leave was authorised by Blair, who yesterday received the backing of the Home Secretary, Charles Clarke: ‘I am very happy with the conduct, not only of Sir Ian Blair, but the whole Metropolitan Police in relation to this inquiry.’

Meanwhile, questions have been raised about the accuracy of the police intelligence that led to the raid on the block of flats occupied by de Menezes. It was initially suggested that the flat was connected to the man known as Hussein Osman, who was arrested in Italy. On the Saturday after the shooting, officers raided the flat in a high-profile operation watched by the world’s media. As a result, a man, identified only as ‘C’, was arrested ‘on suspicion of the commission, instigation or preparation of acts of terrorism’. But he was released on 30 July with no charge, raising the possibility that the flats had no connection with the bombings.

The IPCC is also expected to look into selective briefings to the media over the days following the shootings.

The parents of de Menezes said they have rejected all financial offers made by the police. ‘I feel hurt and offended,’ Jean’s mother, Maria Otoni de Menezes, told The Observer this weekend. ‘I didn’t think it was right to talk about money so soon after my son’s death.’

One document seen by The Observer and handed to the family on 1 August by the Met’s assistant deputy commissioner, John Yates, sets out a final settlement, on top of an agreement to pay repatriation and legal fees. ‘The MPS offers £15,000 by way of compensation to you for the death of Jean Charles,’ says the document, dated 27 July. ‘This … extra gratia paymen … means it is paid without any consideration of legal liability or responsibility.’

Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2005

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I am annoyed and bit surprised by a new way spammers try and get people to randomly click on their shit. I’ve had a few comments posted like:

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Like someone is stupid enough to click on hyperlinks in a comment. I erase the dumb things but they still make me grumpy.

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