delgrosso dot com

Ugh.

So @fatherjack, a lovely fellow from the UK, has tagged me with this “7 Things” meme whosiwhatsit. Now, I am not familiar with the things you kids do on the interwebs these days, what with your YouTooth and Bluetubes and all. Also, I am generally a very private person, but since I have been recently accused of not participating in Revealing Surveys About Oneself, I feel it’s time to bow to the peer pressure and just get it over with. Besides, I am not at all interesting, and this is sure to bore you to tears of pure pity for my complete and utter averageness.

Onward!

1. I was once in charge of Knowledge Management at Global Crossing. Yes, that Global Crossing.
2. Tony is actually my middle name (Anthony, to be precise). My full name is M. Anthony Delgrosso.
3. As an undergrad in college, I had a 7-legged tarantula as a pet. His name was Boris.
4. I refer to my office as “the treehouse”. I don’t remember why, exactly.
5. I wrote a screenplay remarkably similar to The Da Vinci Code, more than a year before that fucking asshat hack Dan Brown wrote his shitty book, and I’m still bitter that he got all the credit for the concept while my script got shelved.
6. I hate talking about music, because I can’t do it intelligently. I know what I like, and it’s all over the place, but discussing my tastes with people who really know music always intimidates me.
7. Despite my blog/Twitter persona, I am often crippled by my introversion¹; I love being around interesting people, but I can only do it for a short amount of time before I need to disengage and recharge my batteries, as it were.

So, there you have it. I feel so vulnerable… hold me…?

“There’ll be scary ghost stories and tales of the glories of Christmases long, long ago..”

So goes a lyric we all know from the Andy Williams song “It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year”¹. We’ve sung it in school, we’ve caroled it at home, we’ve heard it every damn Christmas our whole damn lives. It’s still a lovely classic, though.

But what’s the deal with the ghost story part? Scary ghost stories? Are you fucking kidding me? Have none of you ever stopped to wonder what that’s all about?

Perhaps it’s just that I grew up in some oddball part of the country where this Christmas tradition never took hold. But I doubt it.

Other than the ghosts in A Christmas Carol, did you ever sit around and tell ghost stories at this time of year? I didn’t think so.

My night is beginning to resemble a “choose your own adventure” book:

If you decide to force-quit the application BBEdit, turn to page 9.
If you decide to sit there and wait while the Spinning Beachball of Death twirls around for all eternity, turn to page 10…

You: a gorgeous Canon EF 50mm f/1.2 L USM.

Me: I stared at you while you sat in the display case.

I know you noticed me too, with your big glass eye. You’ve been used. I could tell. The minor scars on your skin told me that you’ve lived through a lot. But I can love you. Oh yes, I can take care of you. We can do beautiful things together.

Wait for me?

One of the benefits I get from my enormous city tax bill is garbage removal and recycling. My city provides recycling bins and rolling plastic trash cans, which we green citizens dutifully place on the curb once per week.

One of my recycling bins¹ is smashed and cracked to the point of uselessness. For the past several weeks, I’ve been putting it out on the curb, empty and upside down, in the hopes of indicating to the Guy Who Drives The Big Noisy Neon Green Truck Down My Street At 6:00am that I’d like them to recycle that bin. And each time, it just gets left there with the other bins.

Last week I tried throwing it into the trash can. The Guy Who Drives The *Other* Big Noisy Neon Green Truck Down My Street At 7:00am took it out of the trash can and left it on the curb with my other recycling bins.

Thwarted again.

So this week, I put a sign on the broken bin, saying “BROKEN – PLEASE REPLACE” in large, friendly letters. Again, the bin was left on the curb. But at least they took the sign off and recycled that.

Luckily my city has a dedicated phone line for Trash Issues, staffed by helpful and knowledgeable civil servants who are trained to answer all your disposal-related questions, such as “are pizza boxes recyclable?”, and “if I chop the body up, do I still need to put it in a plastic bag inside the can?”.

I called the number, and explained my bizarre situation. The nice lady on the other end put me on hold for a few moments, and then returned with her answer. “You have to put the broken bin inside of one of the other recycling bins if you want it recycled.”

On reflection, I guess that makes perfect sense.