I AM HESTER PRINN.

I am not like you, nor am I like the other people that work at my job. I am a contract employee, which means the company I work for is paying another company more money than I am getting for having me work there. I am surprizingly ok with them taking a cut of my goods and services for two reasons: I am not going to be worth anything to this company for a long while and the contractor pushed up my payrate much higher than I even value myself at.

In regards to pay I really hope I'm given the promised payrate when I see my first paycheck. I have an offer letter but the whole "THIS CAN BE RENEGOTIATED AT ANYTIME WITHOUT YOUR CONSENT" thing scares me. I believe the agency gets a percentage of my hourly rate so I think its in their best interest to be honest with me. We'll see at the end of the month (I think I get paid then... I hope I get paid then).

Aside from that I'm pretty much a second class citizen: I have to complain for any access to anything that real employees are given the keys to on their first day. No company funded health care or investment plans is also annoying. It'll be k though. I'll tell you what's not k, I spent a good portion of my lunch hour finding neat stuff at the company store. I was told at checkout that I wasn't allowed to purchase anything unless I was a 100% pureblooded employee.

I think this is how the holocaust started.

Calm Down. I was only gone for a minute.

I'm back....I'm back. Now settle yourself down. I leave for a short period of time and you start flipping out and waking the neighbors. Don't worry where I was, I ran out for a minute. Let's not talk about how I left you. Let's talk about your behavior when I was away. You need to be able to handle yourself when I leave you. You are old enough to not be scared about me leaving you. You have the capabilities of entertaining and supporting yourself in my absence.

... I'm not going to hold this over your head. I'm back now. So what are we going to do with each other?

Rekindling the magic

Ten things that could make me excited about this blog again:

1. The return of Sleepy Cricket

2. New and exciting things happening in my life to talk about

3. Life getting substantially worse so that I would have something to talk about

4. Being in possession of a baby

5. Any artistic ability whatsoever

6. Energy

7. Time off

8. An exciting new project to tell you about

9. A new videogame/movie to inspire praise/wrath

10. More readers

Pasta and greens, heavy on the greens.

I just made an amazing dish, so now you're all going to hear about it.

Cut and prepare some green beans, asparagus, cucumber, green (or red) pepper, green onion and yellow (or red) onion and throw in a pan.
Add some oil (canola, of course, and remember, less is more) and crushed or minced garlic.
Turn on the heat and mix it up.
Let it start to simmer...tsss....yeah~~.
Add some salt, ground pepper, Mrs. Dash, chili powder (optional), and cumin (not optional - this is what makes green beans not suck).
Keep mixing it.
Smelling it yet? Good.
I forgot to say this before, and my mouse and arrow keys are broke, so I'm saying it now: At some point, start boiling some water, and chuck in your favorite pasta (penne and bowtie are both great for this). I suggest using less pasta then veggies, they are the stars here, with pasta playing a supporting role. Prepare al dente.
Drain pasta and add to frying pan. Keep frying them together on a lower heat until they are mixed perfectly.
Add some Parmesan cheese.
Enjoy knowing that since you cook, you are better then those who don't.

Variations:
Skip the parm and use eggless noodles to go vegan.
Zucchini and squash can also be added.
Grilled chicken can also be added.

EA Active is 20 dollars at Sam's Club and possibly Toys R Us

Sleepy cricket and I both purchased EA Active for Xbox and PS3 respectively. I have completed two days worth of workouts and I would like to make it part of my daily routine despite the jank. I have said this before of Wii Fit, but Wii Fit sucks. The primary reason why Wii Fit sucked was because it made you go to the main menu after every routine. The average routine in Wii Fit was about 1.5 minutes long, and few of the routines involved keeping a WiiMote in your hand. So routine ended up being; start Wii, select your Mii, get harrassed for not playing often enough, select workout, LOAD, start routine, LOAD, select another, LOAD, shut the Wii off without saving in disgust.

EA Active 2 seems to correct most of these problems, but the PS3 version adds a new one. You have to wear arm bands on both arms and 1 thigh, which the game tracks about 50% of the time. This means its awkward and you are going to do 50% more reps than the game will give you credit for. But what the hey, it was 20 dollars and I don't really have a suppliment right now to my increasingly occasional runs.