Super Soaker of Tea

Welcome to the 6^th floor.

Today's contributors are: Sara

Subject: Super Soaker of Tea

Excerpts of an IM conversation I had with a friend of mine who lives in Buffalo, NY.

Friend: My day is so boring so far! Anything interesting going on with you?

sara6thfloor: I only left the apartment once to meet Ann for lunch. There were some guys walking around dispensing tea from giant tubs on their backs though.

Friend: They were walking around dispensing tea? That's kind of weird..

sara6thfloor: They were promoting London tourism.

Friend: Oh. I guess giving you free tea is supposed to make you think of the English and want to go there?

Sara6thfloor: Guess so. Those tubs must have been heavy though.

Friend: Kind of like those Super Soakers where you wear the water tank on your back.

Sara6thfloor: Yeah. I don't think getting sprayed with hot tea would be that pleasant though. :-)

Friend: Well, if It was as cold as it was here, it might've been.

Sara6thfloor: I wonder how much caffeine you absorb by being squirted with it.

Friend: You should've asked!

Sara6thfloor: I think If I had asked, they would've tested it out on me. :-P

Friend: At least that's better than being bored.

Recruiters are full of Crap

Welcome to the 6^th floor.

Today's contributors are: Ann, Sara

Subject: Recruiters are full of crap

“Recruiters are so full of crap though.” Sara says, talking to Ann about her recent job searches.

“I know the feeling. I'm not sure you can take anything they say seriously.”

“The one I talked to the other day said the guy he wanted to pass my resume along to would be 'salivating'.”

“Hope you've got durable paper.”

“Well, this was a couple of days ago and I've heard nothing. Maybe he salivated right through the resume and lost it.”

“Typical. Recruiters are like men, they never call when you need them.”

“Ha! That's for sure. It's annoying to have to trek out there just so these people can talk to me. I'm so glad I don't live in the suburbs or something, I can't imagine paying the LIRR fares every time a recruiter wanted to 'get to know me'.”

“I had to do that before I moved into the city. It sucked. It's $12 round trip off-peak, and that's not factoring in having to take the subway.”

“Ick. I had this really bubbly ditsy recruiter call me once. She saw my resume on monster, and called me, and we talked. Then she had to put me on hold to ask her supervisor something. When she came back, she was totally confused about who I was or why I was on the phone. We hung up shortly after that, but then the next day she calls again! I have little recognition of names usually, but her voice was so recognizable because it was so bubbly. She'd gotten my resume off of dice this time, but she seemed to have no recollection whatsoever of having talked to me the day before. It was hilarious.”

“Damn! That's an awesome story. Did she ever end up getting you an interview?”

“Nope, I never heard from her again.”

“Aww, I thought you were going to say she got your resume off of careerbuilder the next day.”

“That would've been great.”

“I had a recruiter interview in this really dingy office once. The entrance to the building was just a door's width between two stores on 38^th, and the lobby was probably smaller than our living room. When I got upstairs in the slow elevators, I was in an even smaller lobby.”

“Similarly I went to this interview where they were redoing the office, so I get off the elevator, and I can't get into the actual office, there is no receptionist, and there is all sorts of construction going on. I ended up following a worker in, and turned a random direction and asked someone to direct me to the person I was looking for. It was eight in the morning too so the office was very empty.”

“Hopefully you won't have to deal with too many recruiters, and will find a good job pretty fast.”

“Yeah. Although there is some joy to being able to lay around and not do anything. And I've rediscovered the joys of being up really late.”

“That just means that you'll have even more trouble adjusting to a new job.”

“Yeah. Probably.”

6th Floor Blog goes the the Movies.....twice!

Welcome to the 6^th floor.

Today's contributors are: Ann, Sara, Tabitha, Frank, Billy and Scott.

Subject: 6^th Floor Blog has been to the movies

As always, movie posts may or may not contain some sort of spoiler moment. Cloverfield was very predictable and they actually tell you the ending at the beginning, but Sweeney Todd was a little more surprising.

“I can't believe we saw two movies this weekend.”

“It really cut into our drinking time.”

“I only had one beer this entire weekend!”

“Wow. You must be going through withdrawal or something.”

“The one beer was a 24oz actually, so was really two.”

“Let's get out of here, get a drink?”

“Have to wait for Sara and Ann to finish up in the bathroom.”

“I'm surprised Ann made it through the whole movie with that gigantic-size soda.”

“She's lucky the movie was short. 84 minutes or something.”

“That is pretty short. I think it was a good length though.”

“Yeah. Longer would've been too long.”

“I don't know how that camera lasted even 84 minutes with them using it as a flashlight, and all the night vision while in the subway. Must be a killer battery.”

“Maybe they had replacement batteries and just didn't show it to us. Could show up in the deleted scenes on the DVD.”

Ann and Sara return from the bathroom, and the six of them start filing outside.

“Much better. So did you guys decide if we should do something else now?”

“We decided we're going to get a drink, since it's been a dry weekend and Billy's going through withdrawal.”

“Big surprise.”

“Guinness withdrawal can be pretty rough.”

“We going back to Catalina's, or you want to just head over to that bar there.” Ann points at a bar across the street.”

“Let's check that one out. We can always bail and go to Catalina's since it's on the way home.”

“I was pleasantly surprised with Cloverfield. It was depressing seeing my old work building in the background when they took off in the helicopters, but other than that it was cool.”

“I was kind of annoyed that they pretty much told you how the movie was going to end at the beginning.”

They go into the bar, which is fairly empty, and order drinks and actually find an empty table to sit at.

“There were other ways it could end, but yeah, that was pretty much how they set it up at the beginning with those notes.”

“I like how they kept them in Manhattan and not escaping. It was a lot better than a lot of horror movies that are so unbelievable that they keep missing the escape opportunities.”

“The camera bouncing all the time was starting to become rather annoying though. I was thinking 'just focus the picture and stop shaking the camera!' about 15 minutes in.”

“That's true. They had some cool camera angles though, when he puts the camera down.”

“Yeah, really makes you focus on what they're saying to figure out what's going on.”

“They were pretty good about not making it too gory too. Not like Sweeney Todd.”

“Sweeney Todd was a little more artistic than gross though with the gore.”

“That last scene probably would make a cool wax statue.”

“Gross Billy.”

“It was too much singing for me. One or two of the songs were funny though.”

“The cannibal one.”

“I knew you were going to say that. I thought to myself, this is gross and about eating. Billy's probably loving it.”

“I was surprised I liked Sweeney Todd though. Johnny Depp is pretty good at switching roles.”

“Too gory for me, even if it was artsy. I actually preferred Cloverfield and I certainly didn't think I would enjoy that more. I do like Johnny Depp though.”

“I didn't like Sweeney Todd that much either. I probably shouldn't have seen two movies, and had popcorn at both of them after losing my job though.”

“Eh, I'll buy you the first beer to make up for it.”

“Sweet, free beer!”

Sara loses her job

Welcome to the 6^th floor.

Today's contributors are: Sara, Tabitha, Frank

Subject: Sara loses her job

Tabitha and Frank return from lunch to find Sara laying on the couch watching Ellen.

“Hi Sara...What are you doing home?”

“And why are you watching Ellen?”

“I got fired.”

“Oh sweetie! I'm sorry!”

“But Ellen? How's that going to help?”

“What happened? Did they tell you why?”

“I kind of had a fight with the security guards.”

“A fight? You punched one of them?”

“No. I generally ignored them and then didn't login again when I returned from lunch.”

“And they fired you for that?”

“Well I may have scuffed up an elevator with my key fob. But only because the security guards were being such assholes.”

“So you defaced their elevators? That doesn't seem like a smart move on your part.”

“It was a plastic key fob that I use to log in. It did no more damage than sneakers on a gym floor. I guess they called their bosses who called the head of my company who apparently fired me without even talking to me.”

“Didn't even let you defend yourself? I guess they had you on security cameras or something?”

“Yeah. I feel so stupid. I just barely resisted screaming at the idiot security guards on the way out. They're so nasty.”

“I'm so glad I don't work for anyone. I don't know if I could handle dealing with power-hungry rent-a-cops every day. I'd probably have done much worse.”

“I guess I should've just pretended they didn't exist.”

“Or you could've just logged in and not gotten into this mess.”

“Come on Tab, we should be supportive here.”

“You're right. We should be supportive.”

“And we can start by changing this.” Frank switches off Ellen.

“I guess it's not the end of the world. I didn't really like the job anyway...and my boss still liked me, it was just out of my hands.”

“So at least you have a good reference then.”

“Yeah. I wonder if there is anyway to call the bosses of those security guards. I know 90 Park Ave is run by Vornado..hmm.”

“Maybe you should just let it go. Move on..”

“But revenge is therapeutic.”

“Isn't revenge what caused the problem in the first place?”

“Oh. I guess that's true. Damn.”

“I'm sure you'll find something else. I've heard the market's actually getting better.”

“I'll find out, that's for sure. I just hate dealing with recruiters. Recruiters suck.”

“Can't you just deal with a company directly?”

“I wish. Doesn't quite work that way. I can try, but in a lot of cases it's hopeless.”

“Well, at least you still have a week of pay due.”

“Actually two. My paycheck usually deposits right around now, and then I'll get this week's next Friday.”

“Ahh. Well at least that's not too bad. You got anything you want to do tonight to cheer up?”

“Strip club!”

“How's a strip club going to cheer her up Frank?”

“What you need to be asking is how will a strip club not cheer her up?” Frank looks at Sara and then back to Tabitha. “Argh, where are Scott and Billy? They'd agree with me.”

“I could use a drink.”

“Okay. Sure. We could go to Catalina's tonight.”

“Yeah. That's fine. I was thinking more like now kind of thing.”

Frank, who grasped her meaning immediately, returns from the kitchen with an open beer.

“Thanks Frank.” Sara takes a big drink, then looks at the television.

“Hey! You changed Ellen? Oh well, I guess Mythbusters is okay too.”

Tabitha has spotted the two discarded bottles of beer next to the couch and is picking them up and checking the floor for spills. “How about the myth that alcohol makes you feel better?” Tabitha says, trying to take the new beer from Sara.

Sara snatches the beer away, a bit too fast, and some of it sloshes out onto the coffee table.

Tabitha rushes into the kitchen to get a towel, and Sara laughs.

“Frank, call Billy and Scott to meet us at Catalina's for dinner. Ann's supposed to be home soon herself. I don't know if she's working tonight or not, but either way she's going.”

“Sure Sara, I'm on it. You want any lunch with your beer?”

“No thanks, I'll just lie here and listen to Adam and Jamie babble on about physics and explosions.”

“Okay. I'll join you in a bit, keep you company.”

“Whatever.”

Killer Bunnies

Welcome to the 6^th floor.

Today's contributors are: Ann, Sara, Tabitha, Frank, Billy and Scott.

Subject: Killer Bunnies and the Quest for the Magic Carrot

Disclaimer: Killer Bunnies and the Quest for the Magic Carrot is a card game, and really fun. And insane. We highly recommend it. (And off-topic, Thanks everyone for all the New Year wishes! We hope everyone is having a happy new year so far and continues to enjoy the blog as much as I enjoy bugging my roommates about it!)

“Okay! We're playing bunnies then.”

“Drinking bunnies?”

“Drinking always works. We never agree on the rules though.”

“When you kill a bunny take a drink, when you lose a bunny take a drink.”

“Drink for every carrot you get. Two for Flo.”

“I've got a better idea. Instead of trying to plan when we drink, how about we just drink, and play bunnies?”

“I'll make sure everyone's drinking enough.”

“Well then, Scott's volunteered to get us drinks.”

“Scott, I don't have a drink! You're slipping up!”

“Doh.” Scott gets up and gets drinks for everyone, and Ann deals and they start playing.

--

“I'm going to play poison cups on your sinister bunny Tabitha.”

“Pick your poison!”

“Why me? What'd I ever do to you?”

“You've got triple bunnies.”

“Fine. Violet.” Tabitha rolls, Violet is higher and the bunny survives. “Ha!”

“My turn. Feed the bunny Billy.”

Ann and Tabitha are whispering to each other. “What are you two whispering about? No alliances now.”

“Alliances? Now would we do that? We were just discussing what drink we want Scott to get us next.” Tabitha grins.

“I don't think I agreed to fetch everyone's drinks all night did I?”

“Yup. You did. Now get on it.” Ann gives Scott her and Tabitha's drink orders.

“Fine, but I'm taking my turn first. I'm playing the green jello with evil pinapple chunks on Sara's Bunnies of Hazzard.”

“Hey now!”

“Use your defense.”

“I'd have to use both. I think I'll risk it.” Sara rolls, and gets a 2. “Fuck!” Sara puts the bunny in the discard pile and Scott finishes his turn.

--

“I can't believe this developed into a guys versus girls game.”

“Sara started it!”

“Did not! Frank's the one that locked us between the barriers.”

“Only because you placed the first barrier! The second one just make sense if I was going to attack Ann.”

“And why did you have to attack me? You could've attacked Billy.”

“Because Billy never wins bunnies, so it's pointless to attack him.”

“It's random! There is no way to know who's going to win each game.”

“He's right though. I never win. Even though I have four carrots right now, I'm sure they must all be losers.”

“Well, time to find out. My top run card reopens Kaballa's market and I'm going to buy the last carrot.”

“Oh! But I have no bunnies!”

“You've got a bunny in space, that counts.”

“Oh, okay. Dispense with the magic carrot revealing.”

Tabitha reads through the carrot deck, until all the carrots have been eliminated except one.

“Rick! Mine! I win! Haha, in your face Frank!”

“Lucky! I knew I should've stolen Rick somehow. We agreed the winner gets the next round of drinks right?”

“Yeah. I'm down with that, I'm tired of getting up.”

Sara gets up and does a little dance into the kitchen. “What would the losers like to drink?”

“Wow, it's 2am already? Maybe nothing.”

“Yeah, time flies when you're playing bunnies.”

“So the losers can't drink anymore?

“Just because Frank's decided 2am is late doesn't mean the rest of us can't continue drinking. Bring it on!”

--

The next morning arrives, and everyone is awake and has made their way to the kitchen to have breakfast. Everyone except Scott and Sara, who are asleep with their heads on the table, and a couple of empty bottles and two half-empty bottles next to them. Frank's debating what he should do to them when Scott wakes up.

“I guess I never made it to bed huh? At least I beat Sara.”

“How can you tell who 'beat' who?”

“She fell asleep first I think..but at least I woke up first.”

“Maybe that's because she out-drank you?”

“I don't think so..we were on the same amount of beers and..” Scott pauses and picks up the two half-full bottles of beer. “Looks about the same..” Scott takes a big swig of his beer.

Everyone: “Eww!”

“There. I drank more.” Scott looks up at everyone. “Why are you all cringing?”

Ann's Book

Welcome to the 6^th floor.

Today's contributors are: Ann, Sara, Billy and Scott.

Subject: Writers Workshop

Sara is standing in the kitchen with the fridge door open, looking in.

“Hey Ann! Do we have anymore yogurt? And how did your writers workshop go last night?!” Sara shouts.

“No and good.” Ann says, walking out of her room.

“Billy ate the last one this morning.”

“What can I say? I like yogurt.”

“It was basically a sell for their 10 week workshops, but I might consider taking one. It'd be a good experience.”

“That's cool. Maybe you'll have a book out before we know it.”

“As long as it's not too long.”

“And you have to have a hot chick on the cover.”

“Maybe two.”

“And they could be kissing.”

“Oooooookay then. I haven't even decided if I'm taking a class yet and they're thinking up porn to put on the cover.”

“Just don't give them any input on what your 'about the author' picture looks like.”

Ann shudders at the thought.

Ann's a Jinx

Welcome to the 6^th floor.

Today's contributors are: Ann, Frank and Scott.

Subject: Exercise? Never heard of it.

Frank walks in and peels off his heavy jacket. “I’m soaked. It’s warm out there!”

“Is it? I haven’t been outside all day.”

“Yeah. It’s probably 70 degrees out. I guess it’s nice if you aren’t in a heavy jacket.”

Ann walks in from the bedroom. “It’s warm out? Maybe I should go out for a walk.”

“It’s a nice day for it. It’ll probably be cold again before you know it. You’re a jinx, only a couple of days after you blog about it being frigid out and now we have a heat wave.”

“Maybe I should blog about not getting something I’ve written published then.”

“Or blog about not winning the lottery.”

“Or blog about never finding a boyfriend.”

“Ouch! Low blow Frank!”

Frank just grins. “I feel like sitting outside with a beer and watching baseball in weather like this. It’s a shame it’s still many months away.”

“Still over a month before pitchers and catchers even report to spring training.”

“I know. Only seven football games left too. Guess there is going to be a lot of hockey watching in the near future.”

“Or you could actually go out and play sports, exercise, that kind of thing.”

“Exercise? Naaaaah.” Frank flops on the couch and flips on Comedy Central. I want to watch the Daily Show from last night, I forgot. First one back since the strike started.”

“Oh, right! Screw the walk.”

“Now who’s skipping exercise?” Scott teases, bringing over three beers.

The Bitter End

Welcome to the 6^th floor.

Today's contributors are: Ann, Sara, Tabitha, Frank, Billy and Scott.

Subject: The Bitter End

The holidays have come and gone too fast and it’s back to the daily grind for most of us. Holiday decorations have started to come down, and even the leftovers have been eaten or disposed of. Soon discarded Christmas trees will start to line the curbs having outlived their usefulness. The weather has dropped to sub-zero temperatures so that cheeks are turning rosy and noses feel like they’re going to succumb to frostbite. Everyone is bundled up and rushing about from place to place even faster than usual, desperate to get out of the cold. It’s almost as if all the love and warmth of Christmas has been sucked out of the city to leave us with a cold dispassionate wasteland.

I exit the subway, taking the exit that’s farther away because it’s closer to my destination and allows me to stay out of the cold for an extra 50 feet. Everyone is bundled up in hats and scarves and gloves, and the few that aren’t look miserable. Every drop of moisture is quick to freeze; globules of spit have frozen to the sidewalk and coffee quickly cools off between the coffee shop and the office. Even though it's technically been winter for a couple of weeks, this is the first time you walk outside and think to yourself 'I want to just stay in and hide under my blankets all day'. The calendar has turned to 2008, and it's tempting to think of the future, of spring, baseball, barbecues, and the beach but there is still two or three long cold months to dredge through. There are snowstorms, ice pockets, slushy street corners that you have to leap over, cleaning off and warming up your car in the morning if you have one and always wondering if the jacket, hat, and gloves you brought with you are warm enough. Snowstorms can be beautiful, and plenty of people prefer the cold snaps of January to the heat waves of July, but when you're shivering while standing around waiting for a subway or a bus or a taxi, you're rarely thinking of how beautiful the snow looks against the backdrop of the Empire State Building.

The best part of the day is upon me, as I can return to my apartment until tomorrow, safely out of the elements and surrounded by my loving friends. The apartment is full of energy and warmth, and it's easy to forget it's below zero outside when you're joking around watching family guy reruns or playing Apples to Apples, a game Tabitha got for christmas. I unlock the door and go in.

“Hey Ann! We're going to watch Evan Almighty. You in?”

“Sure, I love Steve Carell.”

“I've got a pot of hot chocolate on the stove. You want some?”

“Wow, I can't think of anything I want more. I brought marshmallows and whipped cream.” Ann says, holding up the bag from the store.

“Add a splash of Rumplemintz in there, nothing like warm peppermint to soothe your soul.”

“And your liver!”

“I hate to admit he's right, but it does taste good this way.” Sara says, indicating the mug of hot chocolate she's drinking.

“Bring those marshmallows over here!”

“With pleasure.”