I got a letter from a lawyer today. I've never gotten a letter from a lawyer before. But many moons ago in a cyber-world called Britannia, I was a volunteer staff member for almost a year. Apparently, some former volunteers filed a class action lawsuit about a year ago basically claiming that Electronic Arts owed them money for their work. Now, I dunno about the plaintiffs, but I do know that I signed a contract with Origin Systems (which later was merged with or bought by Electronic Arts, I forget which) which basically said that I agreed to provide volunteer services and in exchange I'd get a free account to the game, which I did. But apparently EA discontinued the "freebie" thing which would in essence make them in breach of contract, which is I guess why the suit was filed. So, anyway, I got this letter from a lawyer saying if you wanna participate in the suit, please fill out this handy-dandy little form. Now, the greedy bastid in me says "Ooh cool maybe I'll get lucky and get some free money outta this" (the suit is basically for the volunteers to get paid at minimum wage for the hours worked) but the ethical wench in me is saying "Hell, you volunteered, you doofus, and they gave you a free account what are you whining about?" so now I must decide which side to give into. I have a feeling the suit will not go in the favor of the plaintiffs because they were volunteers, but since EA *did* yank their perks, and they did have to "work" set schedules, who knows? I also know that no current online game has a "volunteer" help staff anymore, so this lawsuit (as well as a similar one against AOL) did make changes in the online industry and the people who are on help staffs now *do* get paid, so that's a good thing. But if I do decide to join the lawsuit, I have all my stuff. I am a packrat and I still have not only a copy of the contract I signed, I also still have all my "timecards" showing what days/ times I worked, how many calls I took etc. Hell, I even still have a copy of the counselor work schedule hehe. Damn I am anal.

[ 7:17:00 PM ]   Posted at the speed of blight by NONOBADKITTY!  



Thursday, December 05, 2002

My cat has a new nickname: Wynona Wigglebutt. The Wynona part comes from her constant whining to go out (she got spoiled on Thanksgiving weekend when I let her play outside for the first time since she was now old enough to be treated for the pesky fleas that reside outside) and the Wigglebutt is from the funny little wiggle in her walk when she trots because her back end is bigger than her front end. She's also been typing a lot more on the keyboard, she used to be so good about stopping it when I said NO but now, since she's discovered banner ads and the fact she can make the cursor move all by herself, she's addicted to the internet just like me. I think she's been trying to send secret messages to her cyber kitty friends too, here is one of them:


89.,67nnnnnnnnnnnn jty,kb 24555555533333w D

I'm not sure but I think the spaces are a secret code or something, she uses them a LOT.

In other news, I told the peeps at work today that I was gonna leave in 2 weeks (or three if they *really* need me to stay longer) so I will be "free" soon. I start school fulltime again in January because I can't get into the university until I complete ALL of my lower division stuff because my major is impacted which means too many people applied to the major so they gotta screen out the losers somehow. So, I still need 4 more classes. I'd hoped I'd be able to postpone them until I started at the university because I'm not eligible for financial aid until then because I already got my AA degree. Or at least I think so, I'm gonna go to the FA office next week and ask who knows maybe I coulda been getting free money the last two semesters that I've been paying outta my pocket.

[ 6:28:00 PM ]   Posted at the speed of blight by NONOBADKITTY!  



Tuesday, December 03, 2002

Well ok I'm not really hopeless and distraught, just a little depressed due to my probably failing yet another math test last night (I swear math teachers are evil, the homework was easy, no problem but the test had a bunch of wacky questions and I was like wtf is this stuff? I couldn't even figure out which formula to use on most of 'em so I just kinda winged it.) Fortunately I did fairly well (well, fairly well for *me* given my math-handicap) on the previous tests so as long as I do ok on the final I should be ok, but I was really hoping to do well on the first 3 tests so I could relax on the final, now I'm paranoid he's gonna pull another evil test out for the final. And work is pissing me off, I really really really hate monkey jobs.

In other news, the kitten finally has a name yay! She'll be 10 weeks old tomorrow (by my estimate and the estimate the vet gave me based on her weight, size and number of teeth in her wee little mouthy) so I decided that the time had come to give her a name. I'd been trying a few out, like Sage and Terra and Aggravation, erm Aggy, but she didn't seem to like any of those and the sucky-face sound name was just too awkward (what is it with the cat and her sucking my head?) So, I have decided on a variant of Terra, Kaia. I know I know, it's not one of the mentioned ones, but she's gotten kind of used to me calling her Kitty because she had no name so when she responded to the name Kaia after my trying out a long list of possible names on her, I decided to use that. I can couple it with Kitty and call her Kitty Kitty Kaia till she gets used to it, but she does come when I call her by name ... sometimes. Hehe. She will no doubt pick up a few nicknames and I may even change her name again. Anyway, the name Kaia is Celtic for Earth (and Terra means earth too) and I like Celtic stuff, I like Earth and the kitty is kinda earthy colored and she was born on the equinox (or thereabouts, it's close enough to make it her "birthday" since I don't know the exact date she was born) and the equinox is an earth thing, so that's her name at least for now. Here are a couple more annoying kitten pictures to celebrate! <sniffle> my baby is growing up! <sniffle>

[ 6:47:00 PM ]   Posted at the speed of blight by NONOBADKITTY!