Happy New Year, Spring Is In The Air!

Aloha, ya'll (or, "you there", as the case may be). Hope you had a pleasant end to your 2009 and a very festive "two-seconding holiday"; as my mom calls New Years' Eve. We stayed home and watched the ball drop, also witnessed Dick Clark's countdown. What did you get into? Come on... you can tell me... I won't tell anyone. Pinky swear.

Alas, it is with great shame in America, but great pride in the gall of Reeses, that I again bring you a head-shaking demonstration of Rushing The Season. The Christmas candies haven't even reached the pivotal 70%-off phase yet, but here we go hocking Easter goodies?!

It's just wrong.

Makes me want to bite someone's delicious, delicious ear off.

Our Little Guy

If you don't talk to your cat about the perils of catnip, who will?


At the very least, teach him how to roll a proper blunt.

5 Guys Burgers and

Really? Really Really?!

I --- I --- I don't even know what to say.

Apparently We Need a Little Christmas

The photo below was taken on November 3, 2009, in downtown Bethesda, Maryland. And yes, mom, I was there for legitimate work related reasons on a weekday. Mostly.

Isn't it a little early for Christmas decorations? I mean, I feel like we just went over this last October when I spied my first Valentine's window display. What's with all the season rushing? Oh the poor, pour souls out there who work so hard to live in the present, to enjoy the day. Your efforts are surely for naught. How can you possibly walk down the street on a beautiful fall day, chin tilted towards the sky as your stroll turns into a care-free skip, admiring the blend of blue sky and orange leaves, and then BAM there's this 20 foot arbor-ation forcibly reminding you that the future is closer than you think.

Maybe this display actually is for arbor day? I think, technically, we're closer to arbor day than Christmas day. Maybe it's a sign of our questionable economy? To urge shoppers out of their packages to stimulate the economy? Probably just a sign that Bethesda can't afford tree-sized storage space space. Considering that parking a mini costs $18 an hour, can you imagine how much it must be to park this badboy?!

Anyway, please continue doing your best to live in the moment and enjoy every second. Life is short. Skip a little, but don't skip a lot. Merry Christmas and happy arbor day.

Happy Halloween

you creepy, creepy cookie you

King Wesparkinhood

Things about which I wonder:

• What happened to Cary Elwes? And I don't even mean the botched plastic surgery, I mean how did he go from being the romantic "As You Wish" handsome movie lead slash savior of the Princess to being an extra on Psych? Not even an extra that makes you go, "oooh! Look! It's him! The dude from the Princess Bride! I just love the way saying his name feels... Cary Elwes... Cary Elwes..."! But more like, "wait, is that him? Whatshisface from the movie with Andre the Giant? No, I think it is. Really. Look! You don't think so? Okay, I'll look him up on IMDB".
  How does that happen... without drugs?

• How did this guy make it through the focus groups? Maybe they were mesmerized by his fuzzy black sweater?
  

• Who exactly is being turned on by these Match.com commercials? I find the one where the dude proclaims his love for cheeseburgers, taps his hat and swishes around, then mashes a Hostess cupcake into his mouth to be particularly disturbing. I'm no vegan and have surely torn into more than my share of sub-par cupcakes, but come on, no one needs to see that.
  
  
• What gender is the Snuggle teddy bear? Are we talking cling-free sheets or dryer balls here?

That's it for now. I need to go wonder about some spreadsheets.

Investigation Into the Curious and Peculiar Bathroom Habits of Female Homosapians Continues. Today's Episode: The Encroacher

Welcome back to our provocative and deeply disturbing series on bathroom habits. Thank you for joining us, do have a seat.

In previous chapters we have visited a variety of long-standing and questionable norms, such as the insurmountable requirement that estrogen carriers visit the commode in pairs and, in episode 32, the genetically driven inability for women to leave more than three square molecules of unutilized space in medicine cabinets. Today, as our psychologically traumatic investigative series continues, we will discuss: The Encroacher.

Seen here: The Encroacher

Recently obtained photographic evidence of The Encrocher phenomenon demonstrates the preference of The Encoracher to occupy the stall immediately neighboring an already occupied stall. Note how The Encroacher appears to be completely relaxed in her native environment (and in her Doc Martins from the Spring, 1993 line), seemingly unaware of the plethora of unneighbored thrones to her avail. With eight stalls from which to choose, only a true-blooded Encroacher, as seen here, opts to mount a Swisher mere inches from the exposed butt-cheeks of a stranger.

The Encroacher, humming and oblivious to the discomfort of The Encroachee, often lives a life of social malevolence, riddled with reckless abandon; including the transmittal of phone calls while in elevators, unnecessarily parking in more than one space at a time, and storing stinky food remnants in shared office receptacles. The inconsideration of The Encroacher often knows few social boundaries.

Unfortunately for The Encroachees, studies show that few tactics prove to be successful in the permanent discouragement of The Encroacher (outside of spankings beginning in early childhood). However, in order to likely remove yourself from the occasional interaction with The Encroacher, do consider initiating a game of "footsie".

Please do join us for our next riveting episode of Investigations Into the Curious and Peculiar Bathroom Habits -- "Hand Washing, Swine Flu, And You! Yes, YOU, YOU DISGUSTING PIG!"

Good Job, Sears!

Thank you, Sears! You have done a thoroughly awesome job of mucking up our entire lives! And not just because the dirty, rank dishes are piled to the light fixtures, with mere moments to spare before 100 of our closest family and friends come to town, but because I've now officially used more effort and vacation time to get absolutely nowhere with you than ever thought possible! Sears customer service is the embodiment of what is wrong with customer service in America.

I've done the math, check this out: more effort and time has gone into dealing with Sears this month than has gone into dealing with Comcast, and our internet has been down for 5 weeks! Just when I thought no one could care less than Comcast *insert mushroom cloud fantasy*, along comes Sears. Way to go, Sears!! Thank you for restoring my faith in rockbottom! All tolled, the time we have spent waiting for Sears to show up (which they haven't) or on the phone with Sears is longer, including the 10 hours of flight time, than our entire honeymoon.

I no longer have any faith in the "confirmation" call. Originally designed to instill confidence and encourage accurate scheduling, it is now merely a device of destraction. Oh, you "guarantee" that someone will be out tonight? Well, then I'll stop yelling.

Mistake. Big, big mistake, Sears.

Inconsiderate People Should be Shot: Exhibit 11

Seriously, why? Why must you insist on polluting our shared space with your toxic, greasy fumes? How is one supposed to get any procrastinating work done while sitting under an orangey-yellow cloud dripping with fried chicken aura?

Where is that you go every day for an hour (not that I mind, mind you! Please don't misunderstand! Take a 4 hour lunch for all I care!) only to come back with this dastardly abomination to all things gastrointestinal?

Seriously, why, WHY must you make those noises as you dive into the bucket like Mario Lopez in the Greg Louganis story?

Please, please, oh horrible cubemate from the depths of idiot hell, please pull an O'Malley and stop showing up here.

Five Dollar Foot Long Diabetes

Do hope you enjoy your new year...

...because it's going to be your last as a non-diabetic!

I mean, are you kidding me? LOOK AT THIS THING! It's a gargantuan rainbow cookie! It's the size of my anorexic friend's thigh! I'm going into insulin shock just looking at this thing!

It's like the grocery store went out of its way to mock me personally and assure that I never made it anywhere near the fruit aisle.

I just can't get over this thing.

The pot of gold at the end of this thing must be angioplasty.

Safeway, you just do not play fair. So very, very unfair.

Your Food Does Not Smell Good

Now accepting thoughts and (preferably) suggestions on how to encourage a not-so-intelligent cubemate to cease consuming aromatic lunches at our shared desk.

Said cubemate, who it turns out, sadly, is as thoughtful as they are intelligent, also deems our shared office trashcan an acceptable place to store leftover odorous foodstuffs. You were out for over an hour. And you brought back lunch to eat here? Right here? What the bloody hell were you doing for that hour? Standing mid-parkway and twirling? Letting your lunch congeal in the sun?

Any and all suggestions welcome. Those involving bludgeoning, calling that "guy you know" who "can take care of things", chair bombs, and/or coughing later escalated to polite requests have already been considered.

Thank you.

And Sure to be Topping 2009's "Hot On Amazon" List: Pedophile and Murderous Senator, Erra, Ringtones!

A phone was found in the lobby. If it belongs to you, please come by my desk to get it. It is ringing to a Michael Jackson *Billie Jean* ringtone and I am unable to answer it because it requires authentication.

- N. (Front Desk Admin Chick)

The Downfall of Society

What the heck is this thing? And what is its problem?


Does it have a name? Who invented it? And when did it become acceptable to dole out napkins in this fashion? We've gone from luxurious cotton napkins awaiting us at the table, to plucking our own piles of paper (as you see fit) from a metal box, to juggling our food while wrestling with an obnoxious, self-serve, single pop-up whittled cardboard dispensary? From waitress service to being charged an additional 35cents per ketchup packet? Gone are the days of being able to grab a pile of plush paper napkins with which to sop up your pizza's delicious grease. Gone are the days of free sweet-n-sour sauce! Have you tried asking for mustard at your local fastfooderie of late? Go ahead, ask. You might be quite taken aback by the response.

Now, in addition to forking over additional funds for damn near everything, we must also suppress the urge to wipe our asses with each and every napkin obtained, as we pluck them, one by one from the gaping beak of an unruly and unattractive vertical beast.

Are the only people making money these days the repo men and the inventors of slicker ways to pinch pennies?

(Oh, and government contractors...)

ArtsCow is Neither

ArtsCow is a printing/photo company based somewhere overseas. I know this because:

• The last time I ordered from them, my photo album actually arrived on an actual slow boat from China.
• Their "order now for Christmas delivery" solicitations begin on St. Patrick's day.

It's a very lovely company, don't get me wrong. But check out the latest email they sent me, detailing their new "cartoon effect" option:


Use your creativity and have fun with ArtsCow! OR dress up and design your very own nightmares!

The Path Of Least Time-in-Cube-with-Idiot

My client was out last week, at the beach with his family. Promptly upon his return today, he called to send me on an errand. An errand that required me to not only leave my cube in order to retrieve a "very important document" (read: single piece of paper) but to also enter the great outdoors! In response to his hat-in-hand request, I think I actually said, "so, what you're saying is, I get to go outside"!? I donned my running shoes and was off on my errand! Pretty sure I left my client dangling on the line wondering wtf just happened.

Hooray for errands!

7.11

So I finally feel the urge and have the time to write a little something down. I come on over to blogger.com and sign in, eager to greet y'all, half expecting to see signs and pleading comments that read, "WE MISS YOU! PLEASE COME BACK! TWITTER AND FACEBOOK CAN DO WITHOUT YOU FOR JUST A FEW MINUTES! PUT YOUR SIMS ON FREEWILL, WOMAN! PLEASE BLOG AGAIN!" and instead, I received this error message upon attempting to post:

We're sorry, but we were unable to complete your request.

When reporting this error to Blogger Support or on the Blogger Help Group, please:

• Describe what you were doing when you got this error.
• Provide the following error code and additional information. bX-xovb7t
• Wait around for six weeks with your thumb up your ass
  

So by now I of course have long since forgotten what I wanted to tell you. Safe to say it was probably some variation of a complaint or retelling of a timely injustice resulting in an inconvenience of biblical proportions. And it was probably hysterical. Do write to your congressman and cc blogspot.com letting them know you were robbed and that they owe you some side-splittery.

So for this, my 711th post, I would like to announce that yes, the rumors are true, I have taken the plunge. Tied the knot. Sealed the deal. Locked on the old ball and chain. That's right, I have allowed by beloved other half to marry me!!! Let it be known far and wide that we now have health insurance and are official, legal, and happy (neigh! Downright delighted!) to be obligated to one another for the rest of our days.

See? Seriously =)

How Many Calls To The Helpdesk Do You Think They Took Before Adding The "PRESS ENTER" Portion?

Maybe it's too late in the day to be at the office, or maybe it's that I gave blood today and am running a quart low. OR maybe it's a combination of all that and exhaustion and water logging due to the 300% monthly average of rain that has already fallen... but this email I just got from Payless Car Rental dang cracked near me up:

Thank you for signing up to receive Payless Car Rental Special Offers by email. To complete the process, please click the following link:

https://www.paylesscarrental.com/subscribe/

If nothing happens when you click the link, please copy and paste the link into your web browser's address box and press the ENTER key on your keyboard.

If you experience any problems during the registration process, you can let us know by replying to this email or by calling 1-800-PAYLESS (729-5377).

Thank you,
Payless Car Rental