Snips and Snails and Puppy Dog Tales

I'm a technical writer, and I've inherited a set of documents I have to maintain. Someone else created them, someone else named them. One of the file names is anal_timing. It's about timing analyst, so there's plausible deniability on the name, but every time I have to refer to them to someone else, I'm embarrassed. However, as long-time readers of my LJ know, my humor is kind of out of wack -- if someone brought me a file named anal_timing, I'd have a hard time not snickering out loud. My brain would SO go to the adult meaning first. But would other people?

So help me, friends list! What do you think about having a file at work named anal_timing? While the name could be seen as fitting, there are many other, not-potentially-offensive names that would fit too.

[Poll #2035897]

I really want to get this whole buying a new car thing over with. It's been dragging on and on, and it's literally keeping me up at nights. I want to make an offer today, but I'm running into the same problem has been stopping me all along.

Kelly Blue Book (and other pricing sites for new cars) says this for the car I want:

MSRP $24,960
Fair Purchase Price $23,490
Dealer Invoice $23,508

The dealer is quoting me: $22,788

The price is lower than the dealer invoice. Which seems odd, since then they're not making money?

So my question is, since his quote is lower than the invoice price and the suggested fair offer price:
[Poll #1906584]

I could pay his offered price on the condition that they throw in floormats for free. ($100 and change value.)

This election season depresses me for many reasons, but one of the biggest ones is that my vote does not matter. I could vote for Obama, I could vote for Romney, I could vote for a spotted cow. California is going to go blue no matter what. I don't know if me voting is even worth the price of the postage stamps to mail it in, and that's a sad thing. (At least there's local stuff that my vote will matter on.)

The up side of this is that I've seen a grand total of five political commercials all season (and I watch TV a lot). Four for Obama (all a really nice one with a voiceover done by Morgan Freeman), and one by Romney (I think I actually hissed at the TV when it came on). Obama's were positive, Romney's was an attack ad.

Since I'm posting about political stuff (...again, I know), let's have a followup of the poll from two months back. I'd like to see if opinions have changed. Answer, if you would:

[Poll #1874764]

Even if you're not able to vote, feel free to take part!

Two months ago we had:
Who do you want to win the election? 15 Obama, 3 Romney
Who do you think will win? 13 Obama, 3 Romney

This time I added the 'too close to call' and 'undecided' options.

Less than 100 days until the election. My worry seems to be growing by the day. Early on, I tried not to worry, since I know the news media wants to blow things up so people feel more involved and thus watch the news more.

Now I'm thinking my worry is no longer unfounded. Now I'm really worried.

How about you?

[Poll #1858957]

[Poll #1858958]

[Poll #1858959]

[Poll #1858960]

Remember how I said maybe eight in ten LJs are Russian? I swear, today it was 99.999999% Russian. I'd like to read the posts when there's an interesting picture! Online translations rarely cut it.

I can't stop looking at this picture:


Imagine if those were real! They sure as heck wouldn't eat nuts...

[Poll #1555755]

Edit: Windows 7? Firefox? LJ? is driving me crazy. When I look at that image on its own, directly at http://www.hot-hot-hot-catlove.com/random/squirreltiger.jpg , it looks about half the size it appears in my post. Are other people seeing it as a different size in post than on its own? This happens every time I post an image here.