Merde!

September 13, 2002: Place de la Sorbonne, Paris
May 23, 2003: Schoellkopf Field, Ithaca
June 30, 2004: Dag Hammarskjold Plaza, New York City

These cowardly terrorist acts of shit-and-run will not be tolerated. Listen carefully, birds: your uppance will come.


At least I had a can of seltzer with me to minimize the damage of today's strafing.

Finally, Yankees fans and I come together over something

"During the singing of "God Bless America" in the seventh inning, an image of Cheney was shown on the scoreboard. It was greeted with booing, so the Yankees quickly removed the image."

I heart Canada, vol. 2

If you polled Americans regarding July 4th, I'll bet the answers would mostly be lame-ass abstractions like "freedom" and "equality."

"With the nation gearing up for Canada Day, what uniquely 'Canadian' aspect do you think is most worthy of celebration?
7.3%:Universal healthcare
10.4%:Cultural diversity
56.8%:Hockey
23.1%:Beer
2.3%:Poutine"

Journey to the center of the girth

"In the end, we're left with two possibilities. The first is that Ball Park, and their ad agency, were unaware of the connotation. I can imagine how this might happen. Were I at the planning meeting where this ad was first pitched, as, like, a junior executive or something, I would not want to be the guy who brought up penises. So, maybe no one brought it up."

Yeah, I wouldn't want to be the guy who brought up penises in any situation. That's just not my homoerotic cup of tea.

hold me closer, Tony Danza

please for the love of all that is holy let me fall asleep now so that I can be relieved of the endless repetitions of Elton John's "Tiny Dancer" in my head.

various musical commentaries

* Yeah, I know: Alan Cross makes everything sound so simplistic and folksy, but his Ongoing History of New Music series is generally a treat, be it online or on air. Check out the Radiohead series if you're a fan.

* This Times article is disappointingly bland and recycled.

* I'm already salivating over Alex Ross's forthcoming book, The Rest Is Noise: Listening to the Twentieth Century, which he describes as "a history of the twentieth century which happens to have music as its subject." In the meantime, I'm entertained by his blog.

* Some interesting commentaries from the blog of NewMusicBox contributor Greg Sandow on the classical music world's search for a younger audience. I'm not sure how I feel about the "Concert Companion", but it's worth experimenting with.

Eight simple rules for molesting my daughter

"Called grinding, freaking or "backing it up" in its most brazen form, this kind of dancing is not flirtation. It is war."

The Times is two more features away from assembling a "Teenage Culture for Dummies" handbook.

And I'm still snickering over the quotes from the lycéens toward the end of the article. Le scandale!

Man vs. Beast, part 1 1/2: The Addendum

"It is not easy to stop a dog from barking. Though a recent study published in Science indicated that dogs may understand human language, in one case comprehending more than two hundred words, anecdotal evidence suggests that the phrases “Shut up,” “Knock it off,” and “Put a sock in it” are not among them."

Man vs. Beast

Just about anyone who has ever met me can tell you that I am not an angry person. I mean, I make Gandhi look pugnacious. During a recent spirited game of Therapy, my irritability was evaluated on a ten-point scale to be a “2”; that is, well below the mean. (ok, the sample size was too small to be significant, but I hypothesize that the results could be replicated…God I’m a nerd.)

Today, however, I indulged in some high-decibel verbal abuse and it felt outstanding. There’s this stupid monster of a dog (to be henceforth referred to as CholicBeast) around the corner from my apartment that has long been terrorizing innocent pedestrians. As my roommate and I casually approached the lair during an ordinary Sunday stroll this morning, CholicBeast decided that our sidewalk traffic was a threat to his lounging in the driveway behind a gate.

CB: WOOFWOOFWOOF!!!! ROWWWRRR!!!!
Me: SHUT UP! SHUT UP!
CB: ROWROWROWR!!!
Me: NO ONE CARES WHAT YOU THINK!!

The experience was even more gratifying when CB’s owner shouted “that’s my dog, you moron!” at me from the curb in front of her house where she was parking her car. She needs to know that this aggression will not stand. If necessary, I will invoke the Bush Doctrine of preventive war to forcibly disband CB’s terrorist campaign. I’m tempted to put a boot in its ass Toby Keith-style, but I don’t have any boots. Perhaps I should go for the shock and awe of a pepper spray offensive instead.

In fairness to CB, it’s not personal. I’ve given that same vitriolic response to Sean Hannity and Tim McCarver before. But yelling at the TV isn’t nearly as satisfying.

Weekly report: Humbert edition

"I'll confess there's something else I'm interested in here, a somewhat less innocent form of participatory journalism: I want to know how I, a grown man, will feel going out on a date with Sarah, an underaged girl. Resist your judgments, please. How can I not be curious?"

Unfortunately, that last rhetorical question isn't very effective in court, especially in Virginia.

Thank God someone can set the record straight.

Do the shareholders know about this?

Let it be known: in a men's room with three modestly spaced urinals, the left one in use by your humble author, the CEO bypassed the rightside vacancy and invaded the buffer urinal. This abuse of power will not stand.

At least he washed his hands afterwards.

My true love has been fixed

Updating a previous story, the printer has been fixed...and not in some sick Bob-Barker-help-control-the-office-machine-population kind of way either. Turns out all it needed was someone to jiggle its wires and turn it back on. (Yes, I do feel like less of a man now). But it further shows that I have a calamitous, Charlie Brown-like touch with electronics.

Let's never fight again.

Office romance gone awry

To my dearest HP OfficeJet 5600 printer:

Whither will this unfortunate standoff lead us? After all we’ve been through together, isn’t it unfair to shut yourself down and withdraw from me so?

Maybe I’ve been taking our love for granted. The warm stacks of invoices that await me every morning are more constant than the song of the sparrows or the beep of the garbage truck outside my bedroom window.

Sure, we’ve had our problems, but all couples do. I was wrong to think that opening your tray in the middle of a job would evoke a mere pause, but that was no reason to completely turn away from me and be so unforgiving. If I had the duplexer that you say needs to be installed, I would deliver it to you with most immediate dispatch. But you and I know that you are a one-sided machine, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Oh, Darling! I can’t bear to fight any longer. Your red “error” light flashes at me menacingly, exacerbating my sorrow. Would that you illuminate your screen, steady your green light, and tell me you are READY for the hot product of our love once again. Once we make it through technical support therapy, I promise never to interrupt you again, and to always load your letterhead right-side up. Our love is too important to be discarded over such a silly row.

And let's resist the temptation to make a stereotype joke

If you insist on picking up the tab on a date, then caveat emptor, my friend.

Another way this morning could have been better spent

(Link lifted from Wonkette)

Brain Aneurysm Friday!!!

*spend more time listening to instructions than accomplishing the task
*verify thousands of account numbers one by one on obtuse software
*paw through file cabinets for folders that may or may not exist

Burst a blood vessel in your brain to show your team spirit!

the new cigarette break

as pleasurable as the extended lunch break can be, there's nothing quite as satisfying as taking a dump during company time. No ringing telephones, no password requests, just contemplative solitude.

Dude, I got the munchies for some Tim Hortons

If a conservative think-tank in Canada proposes this, imagine what the liberal ones are like.

Zen moment

Hot day

Frigid office

Sweatshirt indoors

blah blah editor's note blah blah

Your author hopes to avoid the acute self-importance of most blogs by keeping posts short, funny, and…well, occasionally relevant. So there will likely be few references to personal acquaintances and few comments on mundane things like what the author had for breakfast this morning or where he does his laundry. If the reader is really interested in such things, there are enough LiveJournals to browse to satisfy her voyeurism.

That said, this whole thing can be seen as an exercise in self-importance since no one is reading it anyway. Perhaps during blog sweeps week, your author will throw in lots of fabricated sexploits a la Washingtonienne to spice things up and attract readership.

While we’re at it, let’s get the identity thing out of the way now since it may explain the content of the site: your author is a 23-year-old male temping it up in New York for another month before he mortgages his future to pursue a PhD. in musicology at McGill University.

And your author promises to stop referring to himself in the third person starting…now.

more miscellaneous office-related humor

Which Office Moron Are You?
Rum and Monkey: jamming your photocopier one tray at a time.

Happy Birthday, Radianz

The company I work (temp) for is pronounced like “radiance,” but it’s spelled with a Z at the end. I think they’re trying to be all gangsta, like when they make their sales calls to Merrill Lynch saying “M-Dawg, what y’all needs is mo’ them muthafuckin’ VLAN router shee-it.”

Today is their fourth birthday, and employees are invited to “help celebrate by eating some fruit.” I’ve never been asked to “help celebrate” something before, and I’ve also never been asked to “eat some fruit” for a cause other than the health of my own bowels. Nonetheless, I’m taking home a mango so as not to be a party-pooper.

Office-related comment I wish I were clever enough to come up with on my own

After an hour in a spreadsheet I was done.
[...]

Scott: That was fast.
Gary: I was inspired by the title of the program. 'Excel,' it said. I said, 'I will!'


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Whereas this entire blog exists as a diversion from my office tedium--at least for now, while I have a job--and whereas I actually have a quite a bit to do today, enjoy this link and forgive me for a lack of commentary at the moment. I'm currently trapped in cell C4 of 'useless_task_6-4-04.xls' with no exit strategy.

The Scripps-Howard Spelling Bee has been TiVoed

Now accepting suggestions for creative drinking games.

You may be asking yourself, "isn't there something fundamentally wrong with using an event with 12-year-old participants as an excuse to indulge in alcoholism?" And to you I say, "put your pants back on, Dr. Chomsky."

Thoughts so far:
* Each player (in the drinking game, not the Bee) picks a "favorite" he thinks will go all the way. For each round that contestant advances, the opponents drink.
* If you can spell the word correctly before it is flashed on the screen, your opponents drink.
* For the rare times when there is a word of German origin, it's a "social". Round of Jagermeister for all.