That's great news, Drew!

So the question begs, Zen, how the fuck do you deal with your sister?!

Well, I'm not dealing with her in a business setting, so that makes a difference. I don't have to try to get her to stop talking so I can get back to work; I just let her talk.

If this person is as much like my sister as she seems to be, then she's doing this because she's stressed. She's worried that you won't really understand the nature and gravity of the situation if she doesn't give you ALL the background and related information. She's "bringing you up to speed" on the situation. She repeats it all because the problem is hugely important in her mind and she's relieving her anxiety by talking about it. In other words, she's neurotic as hell. "I don't know, can we get back to you?" may sound to her like she's being put off, or maybe the problem is just too immediate in her mind to accept that she has to wait for a resolution. She also may not trust you to follow up in a timely manner.

Basically, she's not trying to drive you mad, she's trying to relieve her anxiety. Anything you can do to reassure her will help you out.

You can try the "I hear you saying x" trick to reassure her that you do in fact understand the problem. Just repeat the essentials back to her. "Okay, so you need x by y time from me or else x will happen. I understand this is crucial for your project. I have to do z to get x, but I will do my best to get it for you by y time. I'm sorry to cut you off but I have to get back to work now. I promise to communicate with you if there's a problem." Once that gets through, she may be able to settle down and stop the word barrage. It may take a couple rounds; repeat yourself if you have to. (If she's the kind of person who's open to being touched, try a light, quick touch on her arm when you say "I'm sorry...". Otherwise, make eye contact. Don't smile; smiling means you're happy and if you're happy you don't understand the problem.) Try channeling your irritation into a mirror of her anxiety: "I see how crucial this is for your project! Wow, you must be under a lot of pressure to get it done." She might deny it, and in denying how stressed she is, she might actually calm herself down by realizing that it isn't actually that scary. That's what I do with my sister; it's impossible for anyone else to reassure her, so I try to nudge her into reassuring herself.

Talky meat, sorry. Anyway, good luck.

I meant to also congratulate Jess and Plei!! I can't wait to hear the details of the new positions!!

Network shows I watch:

The Good Wife
Flash
Arrow
Criminal Minds
Castle
Supernatural
Elementary
SYTYCD
Grey's Anatomy
Scandal

More than I can keep up with some weeks. When in recess and over summer, I have Netflix. It is way more than I can ever get through.

Congrats on the new jobs!

I am perennially behind in my TV watching and resolving to just give at least some shows up, but...I want to know what happens next. Always.

Which is kind of orthogonal to my can't upgrade the DVR until I watch everything that is recorded on it problem. And the Netflix DVDs I have had for I don't even know how long.

And DirecTV has me over a barrel with football.

Zen, I was hoping you would figure out a way to meet up with us in the North Sea! Oh well, next eclipse maybe.

Congrats Jess and Plei! Good luck Drew!

Not just their assumption. Every time my foot falls asleep I convince myself that that last cookie just tipped me over into diabetes and I've got diabetic nerve pain and am about to lose my feet and my eyesight. It's possible I watch too much tv.)

OMG I totally do this too. Mostly because both my parents have it so I'm convinced I will end up legless and on dialysis. Even though neither of my parents are at that point.

Zen, I was hoping you would figure out a way to meet up with us in the North Sea! Oh well, next eclipse maybe.

Alas, I am Baroque, that is, out of Monet.

While you were all budgeting, I bought fluevogs. On sale, the pearl harts I've wanted for ages, but still.

I need to get better (and cheaper) Internet. I need to do battle with my car insurance to get better discounts. Because I drive so much, not. Though it is entirely likely that I will be moving to a different building in a couple years (lisah, the Rotunda.) It'll lengthen my commute a whole .3 miles and about a minute, total. Space isn't finished, so no idea of it will be an improvement. Convenient to a good booze store, a grocery, my nearest atm, the business st in Hampden. I hate change. I'm also less than thrilled at not being co-located with my hardware. It might not even happen, we've had about 4 different rounds of housing plans in as many years that haven't come to fruition. I'm out of fucks.

I don't have cable, I'm not going to give up my farmers market spendy greens. Taste soooo goooood.

My health insurance has similar cash back, but I resent the fuck out of it and don't want to feed that model of insurance. The point of the insurance pool is to equalize to hedge towards the middle, not the extremes. Though I'd really like to be able to pay my Y membership of of my fsa, or something. I swim over 13 miles a week. But of course they have some other bullshit metric. Also, hoops. I don't do hoops.

Discovered a major ohhellno towards the end of the day. Was looking into something else and errant thought ran through my head. Did you guys check this while I was out on mandatory leave? Of course not. Implications minor NOW, but oh god, how was this missed? There are certain things scheduled that we cannot do until this is fixed. So I might've just scuttled the schedule again, with my stubborn paranoia.

I'm out of fucks.

No, Zen, thank you for the talky meat, that really does shed light and perspective.

I'll have to reread that a dozen times to let it sink in, because it is truly helpful. Especially since my reaction to her always is the desire to clamp her face in my hands and say "STOP. BREATHE."

can you transfer things from your dvd to computer? I can do that with TiVO. and send those disks back and get off the netflix disk program, that will save some money.