Today is going to be a long day.
See, when I was in school, the grad kind, I got very little sleep. I’d get up around 8, get ready, grab my stuff, go to class, and then I’d do one of three things: more class, my part-time job, or go home and do homework. And then after that I’d go home and do homework until 2 or 3 in the morning, at which point I’d go to sleep.
Rinse, lather, repeat.
Thankfully, I haven’t had to do that in quite some time. I worried while in school that it was going to be a never-ending thing until one day the stress caused my heart (or brain or eyeballs) to explode, but it all ended with graduation and now, unless I’m a giant moron and take on more than I can handle, things are pretty okay.
I was a giant moron this weekend.
On my to-do list was designing some wedding invitations, making bookbinding kits for a class I’m teaching this upcoming weekend and doing laundry. I got the designing done and some of the bookbinding kits, but no laundry. If I’d been a boring, dull, intelligent person, I would have stayed home all weekend and gotten that done on time. But the weather was nice and there was a gigantic party at the Jungle and so I put on my best club gear and went dancing with Jennie and Obby, and it was awesome (I am so sore today). And then yesterday I slept until 1, which I haven’t done since college, and worked on stuff, and then went to Momocon to help Jennie pack up her booth, and went to dinner, and so I didn’t get started on things until 9:30. (As an aside, my max time limit for Momocon is approximately 2 hours. I am not that age any longer.)
And so 3:30 this morning saw me still awake, but headed for bed. 7:30 was a rough hour. I was not at all awake. I still might not be awake.
In closing, I have discovered that two monitors means I can watch the Highlander on Netflix and work on my computer at the same time, and if you can’t get the AT&T voice menu to understand you, speaking in a cheesy southern accent solves the problem neatly. Apparently Georgia Power actually instructs you to do this if the voice recognition software can’t understand you.
“Sahy it lahke theyis.”
knitters = angry mob 
Yeah, late comment, in my defence holidays without Internet access are great…
The marketeers of the world have spent huge amounts of effort on this regional accents in voice recognition, including the reverse transformation, text to speech. Weirdly, the cadence of a Scots accent fits text-to-speech wonderfully.
I have yet to find a voice recognition system that understands me swearing a blue streak at it, though- which achieves the desired effect of getting me through to a human, who I can be nice to.
For your continued entertainment- AT&T have an Indian accented English text-to-speech voice! She’s called Anjali, and you can have her read things out at:
http://www.wizzardsoftware.com/att_NV_demo.php
Hee hee. I do a pretty decent bad Indian accent. I think I may try that next.
Back when I was answering the phones, I found that I got major friendliness points if I slipped into a slight southern accent. Maybe AT&T just needs a friendly Southern voice.
The article I read (in Wired, I think) said that depending on the region using the phone system, it listens for certain language markers to recognize voice commands. So the accent that I’ve got, which is a mish-mash of many things but sounds mainly Midwestern, is unintelligible to the AT&T lines here in Atlanta, which recognize Southern accents. I plan on testing it with my full repertoire, including that Scottish accent we used to walk around campus using.
“Aw, you’re so sweet, bless your heart.” Sometimes the Southern accent works wonders.