rupees burning a hole in my pocket

so i got my paycheck statement online, and i got paid my biggest company check in my career. it was so great, i almost cried. i've been banking a lot of my overtime. i have 10 vacation days a year and i haven't been able to use them at all this year and it looks like my manager isn't going to pay me for them, that sucks. TheGeneral has a program called deferred over time (DOT) where, instead of getting paid your overtime (OT), you can "bank it". that is, it gets converted in straight time (ST) --- (i.e. 8 hours DT = 16 hours ST, so i can take 2 days off). in countries/areas that are inconvenient for TAs to work in, TheGeneral gives location premiums dependent on the level of inconvenience. i got 45% in turkmenistan and i believe we are getting 40-45% here. since this makes every our i work almost time and a half (OT) already, i've been banking all my OT here. i've maxed it out last paycheck (600 hours = 75 days = 15 weeks, YEE-HAW!), so now i'm getting all my OT, all my DT, and the location premium. it is a nice place to be at right now. makes this place incrementally better. and we will be working a lot more OT coming up as the site has informed us we MUST be running by christmas day. we've finally been told the contractual COD date (commercial operation date). this is the date TheGeneral gets to leave. i don't know if we are going to make it, but if we do, that will require massive amounts of OT. we'll see.

in other news, i was looking through some other blogs and found a link to a comic strip i haven't seen in years. great stuff, really off-the-wall, dark humor. great stuff. you should check it out. i particularly like the 'bug-eyed earl' and 'milkman dan and karen' ones. you can look at them chronologically or by character. oh yeah, the name of it is Red Meat by max cannon. great stuff.

so with all this money i just got, i was itching to buy something. i usualy buy a lot of stuff on the internet, but of late, i've actually been a bit busy, so no go on that front. today i found sometime. i went to amazon and bought the 3 red meat books that are out, a nerd book, and the new COLD CD. then i got an e-mail from thinkgeek and they had some cool stuff so i bought 'em. i got an RC UFO, 2 duct tape wallets from ducti, and a stonehenge watch. cool shite. i love gadgets and duct tape and watches and pens and bags (backpacks, alice packs, messenger bags, etc). i haven't bought anything in a while, and now i think i feel better. yeah, i think i do. thank you thinkgeek and amazon. you've done me well today.

and the update on my bug bite... still taking massive amounts of pills and creams, not hot anymore, the redness has decreased and is no longer tracking it's way through my body, and the swelling is confined to a small area. kinda nasty, but this is ACTUALLY an improvement. i'm waiting for the thing to pop and launch spores or something. ick. india bugs are ass.