What are friends for

An email from my good friend Tyler (I added the links to help you readers keep track):

Hi Tom,

This is Tyler, your #1 blog fan. That's a complete lie as Donny, Adina, and an assorted cast of characters vie for your admiration and blog inclusion, while I read not infrequently, but not quite regularly. I've often wanted to inject my opinion but haven't wanted to do a longtime reader..first time respondent type entry. I skip Gilmore Girls posts, Enjoy just about anything you have to say about the Red Sox. I too abhor misused and misguided colloquialisms such as Dunkie's.

Credentials established, why am I coming out of the woodwork now you ask? Basically, I was wondering if you and your Truck could lend your services to a former 18aer, someone who perhaps straddles the line between acquaintance and friend if only because I don't share your affinity for tragically bad TV. I do however love Fireball Island (Which if I'm not mistaken you posted on a while back.)

Anyway call me if you think you might be able to schlep a couch from Roxbury to Somerville. It would be an awesome assist, making you the Magic Johnson of former college floor mates. (I doubt Magic pays for dinner anywhere in LA if you catch my drift.)

If not, well I'll keep wandering the city with a desperate and roving eye, looking for my John Stockton.

Seriously dude, it would be sweet to catch up. Even if you can't help me out I'd still love to get together and chat: I've got some rad plans, and, you...adjust mutual funds or some shit.

Thanks for even considering,
Tyler

You bet buddy.

Thrifty

My consumeristic urges are running rampant. I am spending, spending, spending.

But, do not be deceived, I am not spending without motivation.

I have heard that in order to modify behavior in self-improvement-oriented individuals a reward system can be implemented:

-Standing up to, instead of cowing in the face of, an overbearing boss? Have a slice of chocolate cake.

-Resisted taking that extra slice of chocolate cake after dinner? Treat yourself to a pedicure.

-Didn't splurge on that unnecessary pedicure? Go tell off your boss.

The problem with these systems, I think, can be illustrated with the dieting and chocolate cake examples:

-Didn't take an extra slice of chocolate cake after dinner? Reward yourself with an extra slice of chocolate cake.

While I have found myself in a similar self perpetuating situation before, my current situation is a little less circular:

I have two problems: A severe lack of motivation at work, and a seemingly uncontrollable impulse spending.

A wise, mature, individual would attempt to fix both at once, possibly with the reward method in a manner that might work out like this:
Accomplished something at work? Have a slice of cake!
Resisted the urge to spend, spend, spend? Have some cherry pie!
(Weight loss is not something I'm trying to accomplish)

Instead, I chose to tackle the first problem by instituting a reward system and not even consider the second problem until the first one is solved.

I assume you all know what sort of reward I've instituted for accomplishing goals at work: I get to buy myself a video game!

The result is unrestricted spending on ebay, amazon, and half.com with the added bonus that occaissonally I can justify the purchase as a reward for showing up on time to the office.

I think, for most of these problems, the best thing to do is to find a system that works for you.

-t

Alarm!

The emergency lights just started flashing, the alarm just sounded. "This is an emergency alert, if this alert is followed by the evacuation signal please leave the building immediately blah blah blah handicapped blah blah"

This is exactly what a fire drill (or actual fire alarm) would sound like.

Except that there was no evacuation signal.

I'm sitting here under strobe lighting thinking there might be a fire. Which wouldn't be a big deal, right? I mean, if it was on this floor surely we'd smell the smoke, and then I wouldn't need any evacuation signal to tell me to get out, and, if it's not on this floor, then we're perefectly safe. This building is made out of concrete and steel and marble, and those things don't burn. Totally safe.

It's only half of the alarm. Light, but no sound. What do the lights mean by themselves? It's smoky?

And if there isn't a fire, then what set off the alarm? I have no idea. I could speculate (a disgruntled employee desperate for a coffee break, perhaps?) but I won't, because these lights are starting to get to me.

I'm getting a headache. FLASH flash flash flash. (3 second pause) FLASH flash flash flash. (3 second pause) FLASH...

This is probably going to trigger a seizure.

Well, make the best of it, I guess. I was going out for coffee anyway. I'll be sure to update you all if I spot any smokiness.

-t

Lingo

If you're sitting there reading over this post and thinking to yourself "Oh, I say that sometimes! Well, he can't possibly mean me because when I say it it's always cute/topical/clever/or endearing" you're wrong, and this is meant especially for you.

It's never "cute." Knock it off.

• When people refer to Dunkin' Donuts as "Dunks."


Saying "Dunkie's" is acceptable, but it must be used sparingly and only in mixed company.


• "Barnes and NobleS." There's only one 'S'! If you must stick an 's' on the end just go with the proper name: Barnes and Noble Booksellers.



• Anyone who refers to their home state of Massachusetts as "Mass." That is completely unacceptable, if you must abbreviate then I urge you to use the official postal abbreviation "MA," which is pronounced "Em - Ay.


There are only a handful of state names long enough to prompt abbreviation and do you really want to be in the same boat as those west-coast hippies who refer to theirs as "Callie"? No. Now go get a haircut.



• Oh, ditto for "tax-achusetts." If you don't like the taxes, move to New Hampshire. If you don't mind the taxes, shut it.



• Anyone who prefers Starbucks coffee to Dunkin Donuts. Dunkin Donuts brews far superior coffee. Starbucks lovers, you're wrong. You're probably all Yankee fans too.
  

-t

I would have reacted the same if it had been a barbershop quartet

I came into work on Monday and a few people were standing near my desk talking about girls.

And I thought to myself, "I hate it when they talk about girls at the office. Couldn't they talk about baseball or something appropriate?"

I came into work on Tuesday and a few people were standing near my desk talking about the best place in the city to get a haircut.

And I thought to myself, "I hate when they talk about hair or clothes or fashion at the office. Couldn't they talk about something important, like baseball?"

I came into work on Wednesday and just kept my headphones on because I just knew they weren't talking about baseball.

I came into work Thursday and they were talking about upcoming movie releases.

And I thought to myself, "Don't they have anything better to do than to rehash movie quotes they saw in some stupid commercial? I wouldn't mind if they were talking about the Red Sox."

I came into work today and the guys standing near my desk were talking about the Red Sox.

And I thought to myself, "Couldn't they just keep it to themselves, or go stand next to somebody else's desk while they do this? Why is it always my desk?"

And then I realized that it's probably not what they're talking about that's the problem.

Being at work before noon is the problem.


-t

Bee yourself

We're on a five-day deadline here at work, and today is day three, so, I was pretty busy for most of the day.

But now it's five o'clock, and, even though we're supposed work until five thirty, under the assumption that we won't be leaving unless all our work is finished, I've decided to stop working now.

Which means I have to look busy without actually doing anything for half an hour.

If I look too busy I'll attract attention and questions like "What are you working so hard on? Do you need help?"

If I don't look busy enough I'll get handed another project, probably something simple that can be completed in twenty-five minutes.

I can't leave now because they would notice that. But I don't want to work anymore.

So I won't.

-t

Dilbert

Scott Adams has a blog. And he's hilarious.


http://dilbertblog.typepad.com/the_dilbert_blog/

I just found it.

-t

For Boston

Excerpted from an article from the Slate.com archives about the Red Sox ring ceremony in April 2005 (full text here):

Right field upper level box, beginning of ring ceremony:

I grab a kosher dog with mustard and find a perfect spot to watch the celebration. Here is where I should describe for you my mixed emotions as a Sox diehard, how my very nature as a fan has been transformed, how much this means to me on countless levels both as a Red Sox obsessive and as a human being. But I won't force you to endure that. Suffice it to say the ceremony was a thrill. Blah blah Johnny Pesky blah blah rings.

Lo, it is revealed that the author is NOT a true Red Sox fan.
A true Red Sox fan would not even have the composure to analyze his feelings. A true fan would not be able to not talk about it, they would not even be able to write about thinking about not talking about it. It would already be written.

They would think “Should I talk about this?” and then glance down at the computer screen where there would be a four paragraph, completely incomprehensible ovation to the championship team and how it changed their lives forever.

Read Bill Simmons on espn.com (his piece about Big Papi vs. Larry Legend, for example) - that’s how it’s supposed to be written about.

Perhaps those four paragraphs were cut out of the article? A real fan wouldn’t cut that, it's too important. He would not try to reach a broader audience by minimizing what that World Series win did for the Red Sox fan base, or by deleting personal Boston-centric emotional outbursts.

A real fan doesn’t pander to the masses.

The lesson is clearly: Don't get your sports information from Slate.

This article is ridiculous.

It’s written for the wives of die-hard baseball fans who walk into a room in the middle of a no-hitter and ask “Ohh, that pitcher looks like somebody, do you know who I mean? That guy with the blonde hair. He was in that movie that was on Lifetime last week.”

THAT IS NO WAY TO TREAT A NO-HITTER.

A real fan would feel that it is fundamentally wrong to undercut the accomplishments of the 2004 Red Sox, and what those accomplishments meant to the fan, even for comedy’s sake.

I understand he’s a humorist. That’s fine, nothing wrong with humor. I would advise him to parody something he doesn’t care about, or, if that’s the case here (that he doesn’t actually care about the Sox), then to refrain from pretending he does care.

Rather than listen to Seth Stevenson's Red Sox reminisces I read Bill Simmons, a great source for Boston sports info.

I agree with about 85% of what Simmons writes. The only guys I agree with more are John Kruk (commentator on Baseball Tonight) and Peter Gammons (basically the smartest man to ever walk the earth).

Seriously, if Gammons had gone into politics he would have the entire world united under a common flag, and we’d probably have colonized Venus and the moons of Saturn by now. I don't doubt it.

"Suffice it to say the ceremony was a thrill. Blah blah Johnny Pesky blah blah rings.”

That isn't diehard fanaticism. That is derision and mockery and self-depreciation.

We don't do that here.

So, take that, Stevenson, how do you like them year-and-a-half-old apples, eh?
-t

Too good to be true:

Yesterday I sent a message to a seller on ebay to inquire about and estimated shipping date for an item I purchased. Here is his response:


Hi, So I got back in town from a work trip last night and there was a note from the post office to claim a package.

Turns out all the packages I shipped one evening have to be repackaged because some knuckle head who used the automated postal center after me decided not to package a BBQ sauce very well and it got all over everything.

I ship in tyvek so your item is fine, but the USPS doesn't want sticky packages going through their machines, so I re-packaged everything and shipped today.

The new USPS tracking number is xx79807233602903tvuw, give it a day or two to register in the system. Sorry about this, very wierd.

What's weirder is that I thought I wouldn't have anything to post today.
-t

Worse than a rant: a ramble

For the second day in a row I have accomplished nothing at work.

This is in no way my fault.

Well, of course, it is my fault in some way. There are always steps I can take in order to accomplish something.

But that would require an inordinate amount of self-motivation. "Inordinate" in this case is synonymous with "some."

I'm talking about reasonable expectations. A normal person, on a normal day would have done the same - not some crazy scenario where I am replaced by a misunderstood world-beater with an inner drive, who would got to any lengths, including not sleeping or eating for days, totally bent on a takeover of the global air travel market by the time he's twenty-seven, and who is good enough to do it.

You know, the guy those apprentice contestants wish they were.

I'm not that guy. I'm me. (Hello.)

My goals involve much simpler things: watching the Colbert Report, eating lunch, not melting between the office and the T.

Those are all accomplishable goals.

"Doing my job" used to be.

It's the begining of the month, which means it's report time. I do not understand how to complete all of the reporting. (They tell me it should take aobut six months before I'm totally comfortable with it - this is my second month.)

I emailed my manager to ask for help. The text of the email read something like this:

Can you help me with the expense reports? I know how to book expenses once they're calculated, but not how to calculate them. Thanks.

My manager came over to my desk, and in a Bill Lumberg kind of way said

"Um, yeah, I don't really know much about this fund. Who did it last month? Yeah, well, maybe you should ask him, because this really isn't my thing."

That is no way to be helpful.

So, I emailed the other guy. Surprisingly he came over and helped. He said

"We don't calculate those, the client does. You should send him an email."

So I did. And I am still waiting.

Since then I have done nothing. There was a brief moment where I thought I would have a few trades to book because the system went down, but the system came back up.

I have resorted to doodling on notepads. (see intransitivity).

One of my coworkers leaned over the cubicle wall to inquire as to what I was scribbling. When he say the celtic knot I had on the notepad in front of me he said, mockingly,

"Is that work related?"

"No." I replied.

For two days now at work I have done nothing that has been "work related." How ironic.


And completely frustrating.


-t


recommended download:
Fall Out Boy, Dance, Dance

Too many hours in the day

I am writing this at four fifteen. It is going to be a great struggle to make it to five thirty today.

I was surrounded by sheets of paper for the first half of the day. Piles of trade sheets and balance sheets and dividend reports were scattered around my desk in an extremely haphazard-looking, but actually meticulously-organized, debris field.

There were entries to be made to the funds. Important entries. Entries with dollar amounts in the millions. They were not made.

Nothing was done for the entire first half of the day to upset those papers. No entries were made. I sat in front of my computer, waiting for comments on my blog. Hitting the refresh key, compulsively.

Then, I went to lunch. I had pizza.

When I returned the system had crashed. I waited for another half of an hour. My senior manager came to my desk to outline which entries needed to be made to solve all the problems I had been having for three days.

The entries took two minutes to complete. The funds were fine. The extremely well-organized stacks of paper were re-organized into actual stacks. Then they were filed away.

Two minutes. Three days work, done.

Since that time I have been, compulsively, checking for comments on my blog. I was fortunate enough to receive one comment about singing cows. It gave me an opportunity to demonstrate my near-comprehensive Sesame Street knowledge base.

Now I'm just sitting here.

Very soon I will look to consumerism to fill the void. Bargain video games on half.com, amazon recommends, zero percent financing on new appliances at sears.

Very soon there will be trouble.
-t

recommended download:
The Oinker Sisters, I Got A New Way To Walk (Walk, Walk) (if you can find it)


Update: I bought Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II, and Star Wars Battlefront II for Xbox, and really thought long and hard about getting this guy.

This is no way to run a business

Four questions: What, Why, How, and When. These are the questions I need to answer.

I have been at my desk since nine a.m. this morning. To this point I have not accomplished anything.

There are trades that need to be proccessed, entries that must be made, but I am unable to do that because I don't know which entries to make or how to book them to the system.

I have emailed both of my managers and even the guy that used to be in the group but transferred out. Each of them has responded with "Ask someone else, I'm too busy."

Hi, I'm Tom, you can call me "hot potato."

I understand that it's the begining of the month and they all have their own work to do, but, I also believe that having me, dead weight, not doing any work, only increases the amount of work they have to do later, either by explaining to me, in painstaking detail, which entries to make and how; or, by doing the work themselves before shooting me an email back to me with "all set" in the subject line.

Why not make sure I know what I'm doing, and then let me do my job? No more headaches for anyone!

What entries need to be made? - I have no idea
Why do they need to be made? - I have NO idea
How are the entries made? - Again, no idea

When was the deadline? - YESTERDAY.

-t
recommended download:
Bob Schneider, Orlando

Who's next?

Congratualations to MightyGirl!

A Natural

The two things that I do not understand about my new job are these:

(1) I do not understand what I'm supposed to do.

(2) I do not understand why that doesn't seem to bother my boss.

What's the deal? It's not like it's been explained to me a hundred times and they've just given up. It's also not like this is the most complicated game in town. This is, in fact, one of the very least complicated games in town.

But, like Blackjack, "uncomplicated" doesn't mean "easy to succeed."

It's easy to understand "get to 21," but learning what it means to double-down, split, or take insurance will take a couple rounds, and learning when to use each strategy might take a couple days at the tables.

Unfortunately, here, one "round" corresponds to one month.

I'd know what I was doing now if I did month-end calculations for five or six funds a day every day, but, instead, I see one fund once a month.

Like learning to waltz without a partner, one step at a time, through a correspondence school.

Slow. And ineffective. Exactly the opposite of what I like to be. (Fast, and effective.)

I swear this job is easy, it's just going to take me until St. Patrick's Day to know how easy.

-t

recommended download:
Flogging Molly, Within A Mile of Home
and
Rautokoura, Ruutitynnyri (find it here; for more info don't click here)

Burn down the Deli

We're having something of a food fight here at work today.

What is the proper way to construct a sandwich? Surprisingly the internet has been of very little help in this debate, for either side.

We're talking about a sub (or hero, grinder, etc) made on a long roll, sliced along its length, parallel to the tabletop.

How do you build the sandwich? Which ingredients do you use AND IN WHAT ORDER?

The order is what we're fighting about, and what the internet has failed to provide. Hundreds upon thousands of websites with interesting ingredients and tips for a better tasting sandwich (toasting, for example) but NO ORDER.

It's anarchy, basically.

So, the positions in the debate are these:
Position A
(1) Open roll flat
(2) spread conidments on roll (mustard, mayonaisse, etc)
(3) place cheese on both sides of roll
(4) place meat on both sides of roll
(5) fold together, and eat

Position B
(1) Open roll flat
(2) place cheese on both sides of roll
(3) place meat on both sides of roll
(4) spread (squirt, smear, etc) condiments (mustard, mayonaisse, etc) on meat
(5) fold together, and eat

For simplicity we will refer to Position A as "Condiments on bread" and Position B as "Condiments on meat"

The question I put to you, loyal readers, and sandwich eaters of the internet, is this:

Spread on the bread, or not?

-t

New Notice

I'm adding a new blog to the "On Notice" links section: from the pear.

In particular because the third post I read there was this one about the Gilmore Girls.

Frankly I have next to no idea what they're talking about because I get my GG info from abc family channel reruns (which are still being broadcast with no regard for continuity or seasonal groupings), but it seems funny none-the-less.

So, Pear, I'm putting you on notice. (congrats)

Incidentally, I whisked that link from the sidebar of erinire, which is why it may seem familiar to some of you.

-t

Easy Street

Two days ago I was invited to a CD sale at a local Newbury Comics store. Always one to (a) spend money and (b) leave work for any excuse, I accepted.

While there I purchased the brand new Flogging Molly CD/DVD "Whiskey on a Sunday," and also the just-released Pearl Jam EP "Live at Easy Street."

Both are excellent.

Then, yesterday, I purchased a new cellphone! Maybe you've seen the commerical for it, they feature this near-indestructible phone facing rain, dust, and a hailstorm of bb's.

I've seen first-hand what these indestructible Motorola phones can do. My brother had an earlier model that was run over by a dump truck. (He was working with the Parks Department and the phone slipped out of his pocket).

The hinge was broken, the casing was cracked in seven places (most notably along the battery door), the screen was smashed and blotted, and, the phone still worked.

Making calls, receiving calls, reception, clarity, you name it. The only thing you couldn't do was fold it back up or read anything on the screen.

Run over by a dumptruck, and it still worked!

This newer model, the i580, is even more indestructible, has a camera, and Bluetooth! Which means it can talk to my computer! Which means my calendar program can sync with my phone and I'll never miss a birthday or episode of Psych (Fridays this summer on USA!) again!

-t

recommended download:
Flogging Molly, Within A Mile of Home

Free Coca-Cola all around!

I started work today at one thirty.

The first three hours of the day were taken up with a pointless training session (see previous post), then I spent an hour on the phone (finally got a Nextel rep who was nice, and kind, and empathetic, and helpful), and eating lunch.

I just finished my first fund of the day, in fifteen minutes.

I spent thirty minutes listening to some coworkers poke fun at another coworker's hair.

At some point I plan on finishing my other fund. But I have until five thirty.

-t

The Train to Nowhere

Today's training class: Futures & Options.

I've railed about this before: Training should not be conducted as a Question and Answer session when the trainer is the only one who knows the answers. If we knew what we were there to learn we wouldn't be there to learn it.

It seems that this woman is convinced that in order for us to Know a thing all that is required is for her to ask us an open-ended question about the thing.

What experience convinced her of this? What part of the brain was she using when this approach occurred to her? There are no explanations, there is no flow of information. She asks, they guess. If they get it right we move on.

Why is it right? What are the implications? WHAT OF DONUTS?

If it's wrong, she just asks the same question AGAIN, slower.

The trainer speaks:

The first sentence out of her mouth:
Trainer: "So, futures & options.... What is a future?"
Group: [silence]

Trainer: "Why are futures/options called derivatives?"
Group: [silence]

Trainer: "Ok, let's talk about initial margin ... What is initial margin?"

Trainer: "Let's talk about why your investment manager goes out and trades futures. What are some of the reasons?"

Trainer: "We're buying 250,000 shares for ten dollars apiece, what accounting do we see on trade date? What debits, and what credits? ..."
Trainer: "... ... ..."
Group: [crickets]
Trainer: "You're all right! No entries are made on trade date."

Trainer: "For this exercise you might need more information for question three. There might be a function on the system that might be helpful..."
Some guy: "I'm looking at the Cost/Value sheet, but I can't find the answer."
Trainer: "But if you don't hold the security it won't be on the C/V sheet. What other sheet can you use to find something you don't hold?"
Guy: "Um..."
Trainer: "The .....? The .... .... sheet?"
Guy: "The 'Positions' sheet?"
Trainer: "No, the Reference sheet which is under a different tab in a different window."



If we knew we wouldn't be there.

gah.
-t

Shouting "movie!" in a crowded firehouse

Fire Drill!

Today we had a fire drill. It was great. Just after I finished my first fund the lights started going off. A few seconds later the alarm sounded.

The office got up quietly, and proceded to the stairwell. We walked down fourteen flights, joined by the employees who work on the twelfth, thirteenth, fifteenth, sixteenth, and seventeenth floors. There was a bit of a hold up near the fourt floor but, in the end, everyone made it out alive.

Also, as we were exiting the building past the watchful eyes of the fire wardens, everyone was handed a bottle of water. Whether it was to douse the flames that might have ignited our business casual attire on the way down, or to keep us hydrated while we stood outside in the sun waiting for the all clear, it doesn't matter: We never got water at the old place.

In fact, this was the nicest fire drill I've ever participated in. The stairwells were well-lit; they were very roomy (not once did I bump shoulders with anyone walking two abreast down the fourteen flights); and they were clean, except for the remnant from what might possibly have been about a gallon of blood on the twelvth floor landing, but I'm totally willing to overlook that, because if it was, in fact, mopped-up blood, it was definitely old mopped-up blood, so I think it's safe to assume there hasn't been any trouble on the twelfth floor for at least a little while now.

It's cool. I don't go down to the twelfth floor anyway.

We spent about half an hour out in the park at Post Office Square which was our designated gathering spot. The fire wardens showed up about fifteen minutes later to check everyone's name off of a master list.

My name was not on the list (due, no doubt, to the newness of my employment), but I'm not worried. I'm sure they wouldn't need a list to figure out I was missing, someone would climb valiantly back up those fourteen flights to get me. Right?

So we enjoyed the sun, we enjoyed our free bottled water, we enjoyed not working for about an hour. Then, when the all-clear was announced rather than enjoy a massive press of bodies trying to fit through the bottle-neck at the revolving doors and the hour-long wait for an elevator, a bunch of us enjoyed iced coffee instead.

Certainly one of the best fire drills ever.

I am looking forward to the next one.

-t

recommended download:
Bob Schneider, Orlando

I don't go to western Massachusetts

So, I'm back from the Berkshires. (Did I mention I was in the Berkshires this weekend?)

We spent a few days in the country surrounded by nature. It was awful.

The one day we went into the "city" it was even worse.

Driving was made very difficult because street signs are very difficult to find. The ones we did find were mislabeled, and, there was more traffic on "Main Street" (if you believe the sign) than on Comm Ave. during rush hour.

The traffic was probably due to the giant Arts festival at Tanglewood. The missing street signs were probably due to the general laziness associated with the rural people of this country.

And another thing: Why aren't any of these roads straight? Why don't any of these roads connect to each other?

In the city if you miss your turn you can go one block further and turn there, because cities are (mostly) laid out in grid fashion (with Boston's Back Bay being the notable local exception, but that contributes to the character of the city, so it gets a pass), but in the country, if you miss your turn you're screwed. Because there isn't another turn for two miles, and that road goes to some completely different, completely far-off place.

And why aren't the roads straight? All the corn in all the corn fields is planted in straight lines, it's not like "straight" is a foreign concept. I get that when there's a giant mountain you have to build the road around it or winding precipitiously up the side, that's fine, but when you're staring at a vast open plain of flat upon flat upon flat, tell me, what compels you to make your roads meander through the cornfields?

And another thing. There were rich people out there for the art festival and to go "antiquing," loads of them. Antiquing is every bit as loathesome as sitcom stereotypes make it out to be.

Stockbridge, though quaint-sounding in James Taylor's lyrics, and peaceful, quiet, and domestic in Norman Rockwell's memoirs, is now a place for the affluent to gather to flaunt their affluence. "There are others like us" they seem to say, "we should all pick a spot to gather so we may judge one another's worth based soley on the expensiveness of our luxury vehicles and SUVS, and the number and price of the antiques that have been laid out before us by the locals of this particular town to swindle our money from us (which, of course, is immaterial, for getting swindled can only illustrate how affluent we really are by trivializing the money spent over and above the true value for any item."

I was very tempted to run over a few Mercedes with my truck.

Also, in western Massachusetts everything closes at five o'clock. AND THERE ARE NO RESTURANTS OPEN ON SUNDAYS.

We ended up eating at the one place we could find that served food, the Barrington Brewery. The prices were outrageous (which, based on the yuppie culture mecca that we had come to understand Stockbridge to be, we should have anticipated), but the beer was good. I tried their light beer "Blonde" and was surprised at the tastiness, especially the finish. Great finish. And I also sampled the Barrington Brown Ale which was much darker than I had expected, much more of a Scotch Ale than a typical off-the-shelf brown ale, like Newcastle. Not bad, just much heavier than expected.

Again, though, prices were ridiculously expensive, and the food wasn't great.

Monday we drove home from the great wide western half of the state and settled back into the comfort of city-traffic and suburban summer heat.

Western Massachusetts might be a nice place to go for a week as long as you could be assured that you would have no contact with anyone for the whole time. I certainly couldn't live there. Not without a running tab with the local police for property damage to the tourists' luxury cars.

-t

I just want to hooooold you close...mm-mm-mm mm-mmm.

Two of my coworkers, the two that sit closest to me, sing.

Not "Hi, I'm a pop star who wants to be famous and I've got the voice that could take me all the way" or the "I'm the lead singer of a Zeppelin cover band that plays locally on the weekends" or "we're two of a barbershop quartet."

It's really more like mumbling with a barely discernable melody. Just melodic enough that you understand they're trying to sing a real song.

What real song? Why, practically any song that's been in the top forty in the last five years. As I'm writing this one of them is mumbling Aerosmith's Don't Want To Miss A Thing.

Two things:
1. They only sing loud enough for me to hear them. Unless you share a cubicle wall with either of these two the singing is imperceptible.

2. I say "one of them" is singing now because very often they start singing together. Out of nowhere someone will start up a song in the middle of a verse, I'll look around to figure out what that weird sound is ("oh, it's the singing"), and then, just at the chorus, the other one will come in.

And try to harmonize.

-t

Broken Records

How do you kill two hours of time on a lazy summer afternoon at the office, after all your daily responsibilities are finished, after you've watched the Red Sox day game against the Kansas City Royals (1-0 Boston victory), and with nothing remotely associated with work left to do?

If you're working in this office, you talk baseball.

There are seven ways to reach first base safely. What are they?
(answers below)

There are nine ways to score from third base. What are they?
(answers below)


Will someone bat over .400 in the regular season before someone breaks DiMaggio's 56-game hitting streak? Will either mark ever be reached?

To that, I say no. Ted Williams was the last to hit over .400 for an entire season (.406 in 1941). Ichiro Suzuki is the game's best (most consistent, most technically proficient, most serious?) hitter, and his highest average in his first five seasons with the Mariners was .372.

DiMaggio's record won't be broken either, the game today features too many specialty pitchers, advance scouting, and better defense. Most recently Jimmy Rollins of the Phillies carried a 38 game hitting streak over two seasons. DiMaggio's single-season record is safe.

What other records out there are ready to be broken? Are there other numbers that will never be bested? Can anyone say for sure?

That last question is rhetorical. It's why baseball discussions among baseball fans are so interesting, and why they can eat up two hours of unstructured time - no one will ever know until it happens. But there are always two things you can count on: the anticipation that comes when someone makes a run at a record, and the discussion that goes with it.

-t

reach first safely:
1. hit
2. error
3. fielder's choice
4. base-on-balls
5. hit-by-pitch
6. dropped third strike
7. catcher's interference

score from third:
1. hit
2. error
3. fielder's choice
4. base-on-balls with bases loaded
5. hit-by-pitch with bases loaded
6. steal
7. balk
8. sacrifice
9. wild pitch

Feeding the Habit

Today I spent my lunch hour reading in Post Office Square. The experience was very enjoyable.

So enjoyable, in fact, that I plan to continue reading in Post Office Square on my lunch break for the foreseeable, fair weather, future.

Currently I am reading Tolstoy's War and Peace and have (relatively) little to go. Next up on my "to be read" shelf is some fantasy novel I've forgotten the name of, two detective books (I think), two sci-fi novels, and three other books I can't recall.

It is not very often I don't have a stack of books to be read, which is exactly the way I like it.

With the introduction of this new lunctime reading hour I expect to make good progress for the rest of the summer.

Any reading suggestions? High up on the list of "you've gotta read this book" books (which I have yet to acquire) are The Time Traveller's Wife, A Heart-breaking Work of Staggering Genius, and Moby Dick (I'm only half kidding about that one).

Adina, please do not suggest the Gilmore Girls novelization. I prefer my GG as reruns on the ABC Family channel.

-t

More on nicknames

Since writing this post the other day I've been thinking more about nicknames. Nicknames for me.

Unfortunately self-nicknaming is generally frowned upon, so I will have to appeal to the masses (I mean the half dozen of you who read this).

Dear masses: Since reading my earlier post have you also been thinking about nicknames more frequently? Have any of you thought about nicknaming your friends or online acquaintences? If so, I would encourage you to share what you've come up with in the comments section of this post - and if not, I'd encourage you to do so, and then do what I've already encouraged the other half of you to do. (Also, I challenge anyone to rewrite that sentence in a grammatically pleasing way - It's a word game! Word games are fun! Like soduku!)

Remember, just because most nicknames are related in some way to the personality or profession of the nicknamee (great word (that I didn't just make up, btw)), they can also be totally unrelated as long as they're cool.

Alliteration (one 'l' or two?) is a marvelous (one 'l' or two?) way to make the nickname sound cool. "Elbows" Eldridge, for example, or Pat "Pasta-face" Perogi.

Wordplay is also often used: "Tom Thumb" or "Tommy Gun" are popular variants. And colors, though less imaginative, can be used too: "Red," "Blue," etc.

Also, if you do decide to use a body part it is cooler if the body part has a violent connotation: "Elbows" Eldridge is much cooler than "Wristy" McGee, or "Knees" Neeland. Though, you also do have to be careful of doube entendres, "Fists" Allen, for example.

Actually, after re-reading that earlier post, I must say that I'm starting to like the nickname "Knife-face" more and more.

-t."a."e. (the 'a' is for "awesome")

Feed me

I'm reading the google news feeds.

Pop muppet weds Canada's answer to Tom Delonge
You'll all know who Avril Lavigne is, of course - she's the tiny wee singer who did that Sk8ter Boi song and is solely responsible for all the little girls who walked around in skinny ties for about a month four years ago...

Congressman speaks out re: Stephen Colbert
"They interview you for an hour and take the four or five minutes that make you look the most ridiculous. That's their job, and my job was to look ridiculous," Larsen said...
(video of the interview here.)

Stock price of Really Tiny Antennas Inc. (RTAI) sky-rockets after HP announcement
The "Memory Spot" is about the size of a grain of rice, if you can imagine a grain of rice with its own antenna or interweb access...

Overheard: President Bush likes English sweaters, improv, dislikes Syria, long speeches
Bush also said that when he next spoke to G8 leaders, he would keep it brief.
"I'm just going to make it up. I'm not going to talk too damn long like the rest of them. Some of these guys talk too long. Gotta go home. Got something to do tonight," he said."


Eventually I'm going to go to lunch.
-te

When my mind wanders, this is where it ends up

I've read many many blogs dedicated to chronicling the life and times of offspring. Amalah, defective yeti, Dooce, and KenandBelly (who I just found through Adina, hi! Adina's friends!) are all good examples. Pregnancy seems to be a good motivator for sitting still for hours at a time typing to anonymous internet strangers. (Work is also a good motivator).

Anyway, now that the long introductory links-filled paragraph is out of the way, I'd like to talk about my main point: nicknames.

In each of the above blogs the authors have chosen (seen fit?) to give their offspring nicknames. Is it to protect their innocent unborn/recently born/born a while ago progeny from the slings and arrows of anonymous slander from this wide web we call the internet in an age of shrinking privacy and growing ciritcism from worldwide webziens who think they know better? Maybe.

Is it to endear the child to the reader, in much the same way sports heroes are given names by their fans, such as the very endearing, and not at all violent, Frank "The Big Hurt" Thomas, "Tiger" Woods, "Hammerin' Hank" Aaron, Greg "Mad Dog" Maddux, Roger "The Rocket" Clemens, Dave "Cement Head" Semenko, and Eric "Elbows" Nesterenko, to name a few? Maybe.

These bloggers have used names like Squishy, Squirrelly, The Clump, and Leta (ok, that's not a nickname).

So I thought, I should be ready. At first I wanted a cool nickname, one that the other playground kids wouldn't make fun of, and maybe would be a little intimidating, like "Monster."

But that seems a little bit too much for an infant, he'd really have to grow into that one. Same goes for Killer, Mauler, Knife-face, and Son-of-Sam-Tom.

It can't be too girly either, no Daisy, Flower, Bumble-bee, Butter-fly, or Sparkle or anything stupid like that. I don't want my kid getting beat up before he even learns to stand.

It should be scrappy, but Scrappy is out because that's the name of Scooby-Doo's nephew. And I hate Scooby-Doo.

But I figured it out. I'll call him Scrabble. Possibly The Scrabble.

It's a little bit like scrappy, so you know he'll be ready for a fight. It's intellectual, plenty of room to grow there, it's practically famous, no worries about recognition, and you can bet your ass I'll have him ready to challenge any word you use that isn't a word.

Also, and this is my favorite part, when Scrabble grows up and has a kid, we've got the nickname "Scrabble Jr." built right in.

-t

Update: I just thought of another nickname - The Fund. As in, something all of my money will undoubtedly be invested in (possibly with diminishing returns - ha!)

Quick and firm, like a Band-Aid

I'm bored at work again. The monthly reporting has all been completed and my daily work is as done as it's going to get today.

I've spent the last two hours practicing tearing the receipt tape from my ten-key in order to consistently achieve a clean, even rip.

The edges are serrated so the edge of the paper on a perfect tear would look like this

"^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^"

Straight, even, nice.

(don't know what I'm talking about? here's a ten-key, here's another one.)

-t

All of this is true. Every word.

Happy Birthday, to me. This year I will turn twenty-four on the twenty-fourth.

I have completed, without major injury or accomplishment, twenty-four years here on spaceship earth.

Year twenty-five, I hope, will be filled with major accomplishments, and lots of other spaceships.

So, because I'd rather not be working: The Year in Review: A Recap:

Last year at this time I was promoted, receiving crazy messages from Adina, and got a truck (an issue which sparked the most comments on a non-gilmore girls post to that point).

This year at this time I am working at a new company and frustrated with the job, though fascinated with the existence of genuinely nice, friendly people. Adina made it to blogger (check the links), and I still have my truck.

Highlights of the past month include a pitching a fifty-one inning hitless streak in wiffleball, (racking up almost ninety strikeouts), and starting a new blog.

Highlights of the past year include receiving a regulation-size ping pong table for Christmas, and kidnapping one of the little blue penguins from the New England Aquarium.

Hopefully the rest of the year will see me maintaining my wiffleball dominance, improving my ping pong, and getting away with the penguin-napping.

You can be sure I will keep you updated.
-t

recommended download:
The Ike Reilly Assassination, My Wasted Friends, and Duty Free

File under: Fan Mail

An email from Samantha:


Reading about your job is depressing.


-t

Work flow

Ok. I'm going to try and lay this out for you in a direct, coherent, and slightly funny way. If it strikes you in any other way (lacking directness, incoherent, rambly (it's a word), not funny) then I encourage you to use that post-editor in your head and punch it up a little for me.

What's a little rewrite among friends, right?

Or, if you'd rather not try mentally rewriting the post to resemble what I had meant to say, instead of what you've actually read, then I encourage you to leave a comment.

That statement could totally apply to everything I've ever written here. On, then, to the story:

I think we will start out by saying that I am not a morning person, but not in your stereotypical "not a morning person" way. I am not grumpy, I don't moan getting out of bed, I don't accidentally put my car keys in the toaster, or spread jam on my newspaper, or leave the house, get in the car, drive all the way to the office, and then realize I'm not wearing shoes, or anything like that.

I just don't function as well in the A.M. It generally takes me a while to warm up. Like your car engine on a February morning in New England that you had to run outside and start so you could let it idle for fifteen minutes while you finish breakfast, sportscenter, or regis & kelly. Except instead of a car engine it's my brain, and instead of fifteen minutes it's however much time there is between "now" and "noon o'clock."

In the morning I let the auto-pilot run all the lower-cognitive functions between waking up and lunch time (like: showering, getting dressed, getting to the train, and most of the work I had to do for my old job).

At the old job I would complete most of my daily work in the first forty-five minutes of the day, before my brain actually turned on. It was nice, and in a way, necessary. The mindless daily tasks helped the transition from "zombie-mode" to "work-mode" (later, food would help the transition from "work-mode" to "normal-person-mode").

I believe having mindless work to do in the mornings made me a more effective employee. It certainly made me more efficient, since I would have been unable to do any work that required higher cognitive function that early in the day. Get the zombie stuff out of the way while I'm a zombie, work on challenging and interesting stuff after my brain starts working.

I tried to set up a similar system here at the new job. Unfortunately, under the current structure, the tasks that fall under "mindless" take about fifteen minutes at the start of the day which leaves me with two hours (at least) in which I am totally unable to perform anything more complicated than zoning out to some music, or writing a blog entry.

Now, alternately, at the new job, we have monthly reports that need to be prepared which take priority over the daily work. These reports also require a lot of thinking, which makes them "after lunch" reports.

It would seem obvious, therefore, that I would arrive in the morning, midlessly process the daily reporting for fifteen minutes, and then wait patiently for my brain to start firing on all cylinders (noon) before tackling the monthly reports.

This is, in fact, what I have been doing, right up until yesterday.

Yesterday, at approximately eleven thirty A.M. my manager approched my desk and asked how I was coming along with the monthly reports. I told him that I hadn't started on them, that I would do so that afternoon.

He looked at me in disbelief. "What have you been doing all morning?" he asked. I told him I had been working on the daily reports.

"No." he said. "Work on the monthly stuff. We can put off the daily stuff for a few days to get the monthly reports done."

Finally, a few facts, and a conclusion:
The monthly reports are due by the fifteenth of the month. I am new, they gave me a small fund, the monthly processing would take, maybe, two afternoons. We are in no danger of missing deadlines. If I am not doing mindless daily reporting in the morning, then I'm not doing anything.

The instructions I've received from the manager have basically eliminated my morning workload for every day up to the fifteenth.

If I'm not going to be doing anything between nine and twelve for the first fifteen days of the month, then I should not have to come in before twelve on the first fifteen days of the month. Right?

I've gone from semi-productive complete days to barely productive afternoons. I'm getting paid to stare into my coffee for three hours, eat lunch, and work for three hours. There's an extra hour of web surfing in there too.

-t

A Cure for what ails you me us

I don't think anyone should be required to come in to work on Mondays. I feel so strongly, in fact, that I would make that the central tenet of my congressional platform. They'll call me the "long-weekend candidate."

Also among my goals will be to nationalize Dan Goldin Day, abolish stupid laws, and make economics a required course for all college students. I had some other goals too, but I've forgotten them.

Back to the main issue: The weekend should include Monday. Everyone would be happy. No one hates Mondays anymore because it's a day off, and no one will hate Tuesdays because it's the start of a four-day work week.

Decades later I'm sure people will begin to forget that Monday was once a dreaded day on the calendar, and start hating Tuesday as the begining of the week.

That's ok. Let Tuesday see how it feels for a while.

And know I've got some critics out there. "Only a hippie/liberal/republican/unionist would make Monday the third weekend day. True patriots say it should be Friday!" They'll shout. "What have you got against Friday?"

I say to you I have nothing against Friday, in fact, I love Friday - and so do you! Everyone looks forward to Fridays as the start of their weekend, and you ask me to take that away?

Let's not overlook the fact that such drastic change, as my opponents propose, would ruin a nation-wide franchise of quality resturants, because the phrase is not "Thank Goodness It's Thursday," is it? No.

No, if we cancel work on Fridays henceforth it does nothing for Monday's reputation, nothing to cure "the Mondays," nothing to help the legions of beleagured workers across the nation.

Perpetual long-weekends. Vote for Tom.

-t

recommended download:
bluegrass anything.

Oh, and one month mandatory vacation.

Protest Song (update)

Earlier, I posted about Pearl Jam's appearance on VH1's Storytellers (here's a link to an article about the concert) in order to highlight Eddie Vedder's cover of Phil Och's Here's To The State Of Mississippi.

Here is a transcript of the song from a performance Vedder gave at the Shoreline Amphitheatre in Mountain View, CA on October 24, 2004.

Here's to the judges of William Renquist
Who wear the robe of honor in their phony legal fort
And justice is a stranger when the partisans report
When the court elected the president, it was the
        begining of this war

Here's to the land you've torn out the heart of
William Renquist, find yourself another country to be part of

And here's to the government of Dick Cheney
With criminals posing as advisors to the crown
And they hope that no one sees the sights and
        no one hears the sounds
'Cause the speeches of our president are the
        ravings of a clown

Oh, here's to the land you've torn out the heart of,
Dick Cheney, find yourself another country to be part of

And here's to the churches of Jerry Falwell
Where the cross was made of silver and
        now is caked with rust
And the sunday morning sermons pander to
        the fear of men in lust
And heaven only knows in which god they can trust

Oh, here's to the land you've torn out the heart of,
Jerry Falwell, find yourself another country to be part of

And here's to the laws of John Ashcroft
And Congress will pass an act in the panic of the day
And the Constituion is drowning in an ocean of decay
And freedom of speech is dangerous I've even heard them say

Oh here's to the land you've torn out the heart of
John Ashcroft, find yourself another country to be part of

And here's to the businessmen of George W.
Who want to change the focus from Halliburton and Enron
And their profits like blood money spilling out
        on the White House lawn
To keep their hold on power they're using terror as a con
While the bombs that fall on children don't care
        which side that they're on

Oh here's to the land you've torn out the heart of,
George W. find yourself another country to be part of.

Note: More recently on VH1's Storytellers Vedder substituted "John Roberts" for "William Renquist" and "Gonzalez" for "John Ashcroft."

-te

Sketchbook

Any fans of the recently posted pictures? I've added a new blog solely for the sketches.

Intransitivity

Visit as often as you like, but I wouldn't expect more than one update every few days.

-tgme

recommended download:
Bob Schneider, Somewhere Over The Rainbow

A message from beyond

AUGH! Tiffany, with whom I share both a current and former employer, just forwarded an email she received from none other than... the stupid kid. It seems quitting my job was not enough:

-----Original Message-----
From: thestupidkid@oldcompany.com
Sent: Wednesday, July 05, 2006 12:10 PM
To: tiffany@newcompany.com
Subject: Digits



Hi Tiffany,

What’s up? Are you enjoying your new job? I hope you like it better than here. Monday was the worst day ever because it was the first day of a split month end. It really sucked. It would have been a lot easier on all of us if you and Tom were still here. Why did you guys have to leave?

Anyway, I hope you had a good 4th of July and didn’t lose any fingers or other appendages due to firework misshapes. Bye bye.



-Joe-

"Stupid" is a permanent condition.

Last one I swear - unless I hear otherwise

-te

I may need a whole new blog for this

ok, two more. I need some feedback on these. I NEED IT. It's like frickin' heroin.





-tgme

The Big Cheese

As promised, my first attempt at a cohesive drawing (sketch, doodle, whatever) on the tablet:



(this is also the first time posting an image to blogger through blogger. No more blogging photos from flickr.)

-t
recommended download:
Shakira (featuring Wyclef Jean), Hips Don't Lie

A Protest Song

Phils Ochs was one of the most talented folk singers of his generation (which included Pete Seger and Bob Dylan). He may also have been one of the least well known.

He wrote a song condeming Richard Nixon's abuses of power and immorality.

And here's to the laws of Richard Nixon
Where the wars are fought in secret, Pearl Harbor every day/
He punishes with income tax that he don't have to pay
And he's tapping his own brother just to hear what he would say
But corruption can be classic in the Richard Nixon way...

Eddie Vedder, Pearl Jam's lead singer covered the song on VH1's July 1st Storytellers. He updated the lyrics for the current administration. Here's a bit about the concert.

-t

you can guess what the recommended downloads are:

Phil Ochs, Here's To The State Of Richard Nixon
Eddie Vedder, Here's To The State Of George W.

Frivolity defined

I'd like to take a moment, here on Friday afternoon, to tell you about a ridiculous item I just bought.

There is no real, actual, good, reason for me to purchase this particular item (which could be said of most all, of my purchases). This item does not fill a need, or provide a service, or anything.

But it will be cool to play with.

Nice, right?

I'm not a graphic designer, I don't need a professional-grade tablet with over one-thousand (1024) degrees of pressure sensitivity.

I can barely remember how to apply filters in photoshop I've been away so long.

On the other hand, I do really like to doodle. Now I can doodle online. Then I'll start uploading doodles to the web, and Ican share them with you! The readers!

But please don't expect anything like this, or this, or this.

because it will probably look a lot more like this.

I can hardly wait for it to get here.
-t

recommended download:
Dennis Caplinger ,D'yer Maker,
(Led Zeppelin cover from "Pickin' on Zeppelin")

The Grand Induction

We were scheduled to begin the Induction Day event at nine o'clock yesterday morning. It was held offsite in a small conference space about three blocks from the office, but, as any of you who are familiar with downtown crossing are aware, there are a lot of places to hide a small offsite conference space within three blocks of downtown crossing (first time trying to find the orpheum, anyone?), which can make it more difficult than usual to arrive on time.

Knowing this I made absolutely no adjustment to my schedule and instead counted on my infallible sense of direction and inante understanding of the layout and character of Boston. As it happens, it worked out. I discovered the building we were meeting at (Winter Place, off of Winter Street, off of Summer Street, tucked behind a bank, jewelry store, and bagel place) just in time to direct two of my coworkers who I spotted wandering around still searching.

The day began with an introduction from the head of our two-person training department. Everyone hates this guy. He is tall, good-looking, and acts as though all the world has paid good money to see him perform. He acts as though he disdains you, them, the "ordinary people" and nothing is important unless he said it.

After introducing our first speaker he moved to the back of the room to relax and call out sarcastic remarks during the presentation. Later he would drop copies of slides, training procedures, and a few financial exercises on our tables as he continued to speak over the presentation, never looking any one in the eye, because, clearly, no one was important enough to warrant his attention.

His was the name I would give later as an answer to the question "If you could take a swing at anyone here, who would it be?" (I was actually the first to ask the question in a not-so-subtle attempt to find others who shared my dislike for the head of the training department - there were many).

After our second or third presentation we were told the next two presenters had both flown out to New York for client meetings. This earned us a long lunch. Later when the final two presenters didn't show they let us take off.

The grand induction was supposed to last until five, followed by an office-wide barbecue and open bar reception at the Aquarium. We got out at three. As we left the conference space the fourteen of us new guys being inducted quickly banded together, took a quick poll, and decided not to go back to the office for two hours.

Had the presenters been able to see us then I imagine they would have praised our teamwork and ability to come to a decision and stick to it.

So I walked around the city for an hour or so. Government Center, Fanueil Hall, and so on. I enjoyed a few street performances, and grabbed a cup of iced coffee, and then decided to head down to the Aquarium to scope it out.

On my way I remembered that my brother was working that day on the harbor cruises, so I swung by the boats to say hi. He asked what I was doing, I told him I was just killing some time before the party. He suggested a harbor cruise.

So I took one. And it was gorgeous out on the water.

Forty-five minutes later I was back at the Aquarium and who do I spot sitting in a bar across the street but six of my fellow inuctees who had foregone the "walking around the city" and "harbor cruise" and gone straight to "drinking for money before drinking for free." We all headed over to the barbecue.

I must say that I was very dissapointed in the barbecue. I was told it would be an open bar. Apparently the company big wigs do not understand the fundamental difference between "open bar" and "beer and wine." Drinkers of the world, you hear what I'm talking about. "I don't see any Jack Daniels," I would say to the bartender. "I'm sorry, we have either beer or wine, no hard liquor. Would you like some Amstel Light?"

WTF, mate.

If I had known that there would be zero hard liquor I would absolutely packed accordingly (a flask of Johnny Walker Red). Instead I had to content myself with Sam Adams, which is a real dissapointment when you've been looking forward to a nice evening of whiskey for two days.

The food wasn't bad.

At the barbecue I learned that I was not the only one who hated the training guy, that my manager only became a manager because he was the most senior member of the group when the job opened, not because he was the most qualified, or because he wanted the job. I learned that the VP the guys in the office most like to see is Jill from New York who makes a monthly visit to the Boston office. Half of the guys in the office are convinced they have a shot with her. I think she is totally out of their league.

I also learned that the whole crowd has little to no tolerance for alcohol. After two beers the entire place had goofy smiles pasted to their faces and were giggling like school girls at anything anyone said. Feel good times all around. This is certainly not the "drown your sorrows" attitude I saw at the old job.

As the barbecue wound down the Executive VP raised his hand and yelled "Everybody follow me, we're hitting the bars and putting it on the company card!" and like that the whole tent emptied for an impromtu pub crawl along the waterfront. I finally got the whiskey I'd been promised and was in time to see the Red Sox win in dramatic fashion.

I deem the night a success, and sitting here now I am amazed that three beers last night is enough to knock these guys out for work today.

If I have any lasting impact on this office, it should be turning these folks into real drinkers. That's not a bad legacy.

-t

in the spirit of lazy summer nights:
Led Zepplin, D'yer Maker

For sex or money?

Who does a guy have to pay off to get AIM on his computer around here?

This is not an angry rant, nothing of the kind. Coming in I knew the INTERNET was expressly forbidden. I accepted this, grieved, and tried to move on.

Happily, a few days hours after I started working I learned that the policy about internet browsing is paid lip service only, and if you are compelled to check your fantasy line-up the very moment you get in to work because who knows which A-list, must-acquire, talent may have become available in the thirty-minute train ride to the office, that's ok.

So I've been surfing the net since. Mostly I've been surfing and resurfing the same old waves because as much as I'd like to explore other coves and inlets to find new and better breakers, the fear that the new waves could be brightly-colored, loud, contain offensive material, pictures, pop-up ads, or ocean-disabling viruses, keeps me trolling the same old spots.

But that's not really the point. Exploration is happening, but at a tedious pace. The point is that ten minutes ago I got up to grab a free soft drink and glanced at the computer screen of the guy who sits directly across the aisle from me upon which I noticed A GIANT INSTANT MESSAGING WINDOW!

I don't even have access to change the system clock on my desktop, I am totally unable to install third party software. I am not an administrator, nor have I stolen their passwords. There is no AIM in Mudville.

This other guy though, I can only surmise he has special connections with the IT group that earn him AIM privileges, new cd drives, and pretty nice-looking (sounding?) speakers.

So all I'm saying is, if it's expressly forbidden unless IT is your buddy... who do I have to pay off?

-t

recommended downloads:
Midtown, Empty Like The Ocean
Morcheeba, Daylight Robbery
Rautakoura, Ruutitynnyri (you might have to google that one)

Definitely not a cult

Tomorrow is Induction Day. Are you excited?

I am. A day long event full of philosophies, strategies to succeed, and pro-company propaganda.

After that they're hosting a barbecue.

But really, I swear it's not a cult. There are no uniforms, no ritualistic chanting, and the only drinks served at these things are alcoholic.

-t

p.s. updated links sections. did you notice?

In the corner pocket

Friday was my first night out with this new office gang. You may remember some of the stories about drinking with the old office gang. All of those stories were about how much I hated them.

This story is a little different. First, everyone shows up, the whole office, and after about an hour the group starts to break up.

At the old place this meant the old married people would go home, the young single people would go home, and the old single people would stay to get hammered and try to hook up. Watching drunken thirty-somethings groping each other in public is not my idea of a good time.

Here though, at the new place, after about an hour it was the old married people and the old single people that left, and all the young people stayed.

Doesn't that make more sense? Yes. It does.

So we played pool, all of us in the same age group, and not for money because it turns out one of my coworkers and his fiance are pool sharks and could beat everyone else even while one-handed, drunk, and blind-folded. Nevertheless, it was fun to play. I'm pretty sure I was holding my own until about the sixth Johnny Walker.

And when I say "holding my own" I mean I lost two games for every win, and that's not counting the three I lost scratching on the break. And when I say "sixth" I mean "I think it was the sixth, but I lost count about the same time."

Right, that's another thing, is drinking Johnny Walker really a big deal? I was the only guy at the bar who wasn't drinking drafts which elicited a few questions:

"What are you drinking?" they would say.
"Johnny Walker" I would say, or "Whiskey"
and they would say
"WOW."

Really? Big deal? I drink it because I like the taste. I wasn't drinking it straight, I wasn't throwing it down one-after-the-other. Is there something I should know?

Anyway, after about the sixth or so I stopped making quite as many shots and also stopped caring about the game.

Then later I went home. It was a late night, I think, but it was a lot of fun.

I had intended this post to be more substantial, I don't know what happened...

-t

recommended download
J.G. Thirwell, The Venture Bros. Closing Theme (available at adultswim.com

Two for the road

Last night I participated in a focus group focussed on the popular opinion of a prominent product, and the opinion of the marketing for that product.

The product? Beer.

I arrived at the designated office at the appropriate time, signed in, and took the elevator to the fourth floor.

They had piped-in elevator music IN THE ELEVATOR.

I would have ridden that elevator to the top floor of the building if I could have. That was practically the highlight of my whole night. An elevator, with music, I thought those had become extinct in the modern age.

I say it "would have" been the highlight of the night because when I got up to the focus group they provided the actual highlight: Free Beer.

That's right. I was asked to participate in a group to talk about beer, and in return I was given $70 cash money, elevators with music, and free beer.

We sat around, the six of us in the focus group, assigning personalities to different beer brands, talking about our tastes, likes and dislikes, and sipping on cold beers that come in green bottles from other countries.

It was not a bad way to spend a thursday evening in the summer when there is no Red Sox game on.

The only better way to spend a weekday evening in the summer is to pitch the game of your life in wiffleball, which is what I had already accomplished on Wednesday, the day before the beer study.

I had every one of my pitches working for me: curve, sinker, knuckleball, riser, slider, knuckle-curve, cutter, you name it, I was throwing it, and throwing it for strikes.

I pitched a two-hitter through twenty-two innings. The game was tied at sunset the end of regulation, but we kept playing, because you can't end in a tie.

The game went for six more innings through dusk/twilight/navyblue without any runs scoring, and we still kept playing after pitch dark. When it was physically impossible to see the ball, the strike zone, or the other fielders we finally suspended the game on accoun of darkness.

A 1-1 tie through (approximately) thirty-seven innings. I'd given up five hits, and struck out sixty-eight batters (we play two outs an inning, there were four ground outs).

I'd be making millions in the big leagues if I could throw a baseball half as well as I can throw a wiffleball.

Instead, I got a night off, seventy bucks, and some free beer.

and don't forget the elevator music.
-t

recommended download:
The Ike Reilly Assassination, My Wasted Friends
Morcheeba, Everybody Loves A Loser
Bowling For Soup, Almost

Dependant Personality

I'm in the midst of a personal crisis: My iced coffee doesn't taste good.

There's nothing wrong with the coffee, it's the tried-and-true Dunkin' Donuts blend, no, I think it's me.

I used to be addicted to the stuff, a heavy drinker, six cups a week, or ten smalls (because the paper cups are better for the environment). And it did become a problem - not the expense, not coffee breath, nothing like that. It was a problem because I am apparently accutely susceptible to caffeine dependence.

Drinking coffee wasn't the problem. Stopping was.

It got so bad that if I missed a day without coffee a migraine would set in turning my formerly caffeine-saturated brain into a head-sized Io, on of Jupiter's small moons, breaking apart and erupting molten material from the inner core due to intense tidal forces brought on by the gas giant's gravitational pull.

I recognized that I had to cut back, way back. So I did. It wasn't easy. Friends and family sometimes refer to this stretch of my life as "the lost period." The first few weeks were spent just surviving crash after crash after crash, like trying to coax a day or two, just a few more hours out of that college laptop from Gateway running Windows ME so you could try and back up your research papers and mp3s to an external hard drive.

After that it got harder, I would snap at people, cursing and sniping and being generally unpleasant, disagreeable, and mean.

But I made it through. I stopped drinking coffee almost altogether. I was a new man. My average heart rate dropped by ten beats per minute. My hands stopped shaking. My eyes changed color from hazelnut back to blue. I vowed to never fall into the trap again.

Now, years later, I do still imbibe in the occassional caffeinated beverage. But now I have limits. I have become much more of a social drinker. If I'm out with friends I will let myself enjoy a coffee. Never two in one night, never more than three in an eight day span. I never order a large, and only order a medium if I'm eating something solid with it.

Lately, though, things have been sliding a little. The new job starts earlier but I haven't adjusted my schedule yet. It means earlier mornings and late nights, which means I'm not fully awake in the mornings. I made the mistake of turning to caffeine.

I swore I wouldn't. That I didn't need it. That I wouldn't use caffeine as a wake-up. But I did. And now I sit here, with my iced coffee in hand, tasting bitterness, cream, and unflavored, watered-down coffee.

It's horrible.

I need to get back to where I was. Back to where I can appreciate coffee. Because if I keep drinking it I'm going to descend into pandemonium, and if I ever want to come back out it will mean migraines, and volcanoes, anger, furious anger.

This is a cry for help. Somebody stop me.
-t

recommended downloads:
The Ike Reilly Assassination, Heroin
The Velvet Underground, Heroin
The Dandy Warhols, I Never Thought You'd Be A Junkie (Because Heroin Is So Passe)

In the interest of interesting reading

I read a ton of blogs in the morning. I get to work, open my email, then start clicking links.

After a while I start to thinkg "I enjoy reading these, I should update my own blog so that others can enjoy reading it."

Then I try for three hours to come up with something to say. Usually I end up talking about how bad my posts have been lately, or my beard, or how good I look (usually the beard posts do not coincide with the looking good posts).

So today, after staring at my screen trying to unsuccessfully exercise the creative/witty/cohesive-narration part of my brain I realized this:

In order to write a good post I should take some time each day to reflect on life; the important things, the not so important things, and the really important things that don't seem very important at the time but upon further consideration reveal themselves - the sheep in wolf's clothing of things - or is it wolf in sheep's clothing? I don't know analogies.

Then I realized that the only things I have to reflect on are (1) work, (2) sitting around at home watching television, or (3) last night's main event: sitting around watching the dog sitting around staring at the clock.

Really. She was fascinated by the second hand.

So, unless I experience some spontaneous burst of creativity, inner-sight, or a cocaine habit, you can expect more of the same.

Maybe later I'll write about something exciting, like punctuation.

-tgme


recommended download:
The Ike Reilly Assassination, I Don't Want What You Got (Goin' On)

Scruff

It's an exciting time in the world of sports: a controversial time-out call in game five of the NBA championships could be the difference in the series; Edmonton has gone from "about to be swept" to "totally dominating" in the last two games against Carolina in the NHL finals, and has forced a Game 7; and, of course, the World Cup has captured the hearts and minds of the United States just as it does every four years.

To make things even more exciting, I have decided to grow a playoff beard. Actually, it wasn't a real decision, I just stoped shaving for a few days.

But now, it's a decision, because I realized that the Oilers, Heat, and the US National soccer team haven't lost since I started growing the beard.

I stopped shaving, they stopped losing.

Now, some of you may find this a bit unsettling. Let me put your fears to rest: I will shave eventually, so don't worry about it.

Unless the US keeps not-losing. Then I might pull the old amp out of the closet, dust off my shades, and start that ZZ Top cover band I've always dreamnt of.

-t

recommended download:
Ryan Adams, The Bar Is A Beautiful Place

I don't need to work hard, once I make it I will. What's wrong with that?

I don't like reading the blogs written by successful people. I'm perfectly content spending my time thinking about all the wonderful success that awaits me "sometime in the future" I don't need to be reminded that other people have already made it.

I also don't need to be reminded that those other people have been working hard for years to get where they are.

A kid I graduated high school with was just named Director of Operations for a professional sports team - and no, not some lame professional sport where that doesn't mean anything like MLS or MLL (lacrosse) - a real professional league.

Sure, he's maybe the most diligent worker I've ever met in my life and has been so singularly focussed on establishing himself in the world of professional sports that I'm often surprised he remembers to eat every day, and he's been dedicated to this idea since he was eight, but he's twenty four years old.

Twenty-four. That's young. Think Theo Epstein. Think Dougie Howser.

Ridiculous.

And I'm sitting here thinking "Yeah, in a year and a half I'll have that sort of success too. My book will be a best seller." or "My company will be making millions." or "I'll be on my third screenplay for Paramount." or "My hit tv show will be in its second season." or "I'll be a household name."

Nevermind that in order to accomplish any of those things THE THING I NEED TO NOT BE DOING RIGHT NOW is wasting my time at a stupid job AND POSTING BLOG ENTRIES THAT HAVEN'T EVEN BEEN PROOFREAD never mind thought-out, well-planned, or edited.

If I don't actually start to do SOMETHING then that "success two years down the road" will always be two years down the road.

On the other hand I'm totally telling everyone I know that this kid just got named Director of Operations because, seriously, that kicks ass.

-t

I am the only person I know who posts before 11:30 AM. More of you need to start doing that.

Today I am wearing black shoes, black socks, charcoal-colored Dockers flat-front chinos, a maroon shirt with charcoal-colored buttons and the sleeves rolled up, and I look awesome.

The only way I could possibly look more awesome is if maybe the shirt didn't have a few wrinkles because I was too tired to care that much about ironing this morning.

Yesterday my funds both tied out for the first time since I've started this job. I was done working by about eleven thirty, and spent the rest of the day watching World Cup soccer (hence the preceding WC rant ). Today I am trying to keep my eyes open for large rubber bands. The kind used to keep stacks of manilla folders, ot inter-office envelopes together.

I plan on collecting many of these rubber bands and then making a long chain of them, like you used to when you were a kid, with those fabric loops. You loop one over the fingers of one hand, then loop another over, then lift the loops of the first over the second, and then repeat that a hundred times.

The fabric loops also made great potholders if you had that potholder frame and could figure out how to loop the ends and tie a knot that wouldn't come undone.

Seriously, we made, like, a billion potholders when we were kids. Great fun for mindless hours of summer vacation!

So I'm thinking I can duplicate that sort of chain if I find enough of these rubber bands. Then I'll have an elastic chain which is the first part in what will become an office-supply-a-pult.

-t

recommended download:
Under the Influence of Giants, Mama's Room

News from the underground

Ok, just before I left my old job the group structure looked a little like this:

management:
hypermanager & the kid that I hate

then

seniors:
me, the vietnamese girl, & the quiet girl

then

rank and file:
lurch, pony boy, the stupid kid, the bible guy,
& the kid that I didn't hate


I left, and the vietnamese girl left, the kid that I hate transferred to another group.

All of our funds were passed down to the rank and file, and all other responsibilities were passed up to the quiet girl and hypermanager. They both were recently promoted one step each.

I have just learned that the kid I didn't hate is leaving that group on friday. I have also learned that pony boy is sick and tired of assuming more and more responsibility and wants to get the hell out. He is interviewing all week.

The group has not picked up any new employees. When they both are gone the group will look like this:

management:
senior hypermanager, quietmanager

rank and file:
lurch, bible guy, the stupid kid

You might be able to look back through the archives and find a post or two where I state that I hope the group goes down in flames after I left it.

It has.
-t

It's certainly not the flu...

I'm feeling a little light-headed. I've been sitting here at my desk typing with clammy hands, alternately feeling hot and feeling chills, and I was thinking to myself, what am I coming down with? I figured it out...

WORLD CUP FEVER!!

Ugh. Honestly. I have been trapped here at my desk forced to watch the games as they are aired on ESPN2. I do not hate this, in fact, I can get behind any sporting event that has a modicum of strategy, skill, talent, excitement, or worldwide implications.

I'm telling you: I could watch the world championship polo match and not hate it.

But, just because I'm watching it and not hating it doesn't mean it couldn't be better.

First: It is terrifically hard to get behind a sport where the expected outcome is a 0-0 tie.

A TIE.

Sports should have winners (and losers).

I'm not saying the 0-0 France/Switzerland game wasn't exciting, I'm saying if maybe it was a little easier to score then you can look forward to a last minute goal. Buzzer-beaters in NBA and college hoops are ridiculously exciting, but in World Cup soccer everyone, even the players, seem to resign themselves to not scoring past the eighty-seventh minute.

Which brings me to another thing -

Second: Count DOWN, please. Why do Europeans count up? These are the people that invented, and then perfected, time-keeping devices, so I get that they like time, but why, for Pete's sake, do they count up?

Looking at a clock that reads 78:52 doesn't mean anything to me. We were watching a match earlier and someone asked how much time was left. That shouldn't be a question I have to do math to answer. Really, go ahead, figure it out. Wouldn't it be easier just to see that information displayed?

Just start the clock at 90:00 and let the time tick away. Watching strikers race toward the opposing goal while the clock ticks up can't possibly be as exciting as watching them race with mere seconds remaining, can it?

Would Jack Bauer ever have to disable a bomb that was counting UP to the explosion?? No.

Third: This is the last bit, and it's for ESPN - can you please use your stupid little info blurbs to reveal information that is actually relevant to the game we're watching? You know you're broadcasting to an American audience that doesn't care. Maybe you should try involving them, and explaining a little of the game while the match is going on.

What's that yellow arm-band mean? Is there a difference between a free kick, and a corner kick? How and when can players be substituted, do they need to wait for a whistle, like basketball, or can they change on the fly, like hockey? I get that a yellow card is bad, but how bad, and what determines when one is given? Finally, WHO THE HELL ARE THESE TEAMS?

You should be able to find someone in the soccer-loving rest-of-the-world who can draw some parallels for this United States audience. "France plays a lot like the Dallas Mavericks, they are outside shooters who concentrate on offense, whereas Brazil plays like the Miami Heat, they've got two big go-to guys, and a third guy who'll remind you of Dwayne Wade, plays offense and defense, and makes everyone around him better."

ESPN, you're blowing your opportunity to highlight the crazy characters you know we love. Where are the human interest pieces about the players with dyed hair, crazy nicknames, flamboyant behaviour, and on-field rivalries? Where are the sideline interviews with coaches and players, and where are the roving reporters you usually send out into the stands to interview crazy fans?

AND SHOW MORE INSTANT REPLAYS FOR CRYING OUT LOUD. Your camera angles cover about fifty yards at a time, you can't show a little picture-in-picture replay action in slow-mo? Come on.

And, oh yeah, where are Alexi Lalas and Mia Hamm? GET THEM INTO THE STUDIO FOR SOME COMMENTARY.

It's not bad. But it could be better.


-t

Cover This

This is a song I hated in high school.

Much later I heard a live recording and found a new appreciation for the song, the group, and their music.

I've heard a lot of covers. Matchbox 20's lead singer Rob Thomas defined a cover once, at a live show, as a song you wish you'd written yourself.

This is the first, very cool, spoken word cover I've heard. And it's pretty cool.

And when you're done with that...

recommended download:
U2, Sunday, Bloody Sunday
O.A.R. with Matt Nathanson, Sunday, Bloody Sunday
Evergreen Terrace, Sunday, Bloody Sunday
Pillar, Sunday, Bloody Sunday
The Living End, Sunday, Bloody Sunday

Preferred

I prefer Dunkin' Donuts coffee to Starbucks.
 
I prefer backpacks to briefcases.
 
I prefer wearing jeans and a t-shirt with running shoes, to wearing a suit.
 
I prefer baseball to soccer.
 
I prefer IM conversations to email or phone conversations.
 
I prefer comedy to drama.
 
I prefer wiffleball to badminton.
 
I prefer racquetball to squash.
 
I prefer not working to working.
 
I prefer sleeping to getting up before eight thirty a.m.
 
I prefer MarioKart 64 to MarioKart DS.
 
I prefer fiction to nonfiction.
 
I prefer Bucky Katt to Garfield.
 
I prefer subtitles to dubbing.
 
And I'd rather be wise than dead.
 
-t
 
recommended download:
The Ike Reilly Assassination, I Will Let You Down

Six of one

I'm writing to let you all know that I've been conversing via email with John, Samantha, Lindsay, and Donny today. I have twenty emails in my inbox containing conversations about the following:


(1) the price of a vodka tonic, the famed Russian proclivity for vodka, and comments on the modern ingredients and method of making vodka with an opinion on where the best vodkas now come from;



(2) foosball, origins of, possible derivations for the name foosball, a brief history of the game and a link from google to some interesting websites dedicated to the topic;



(3) criteria that make a bar a good place for a company function, including but not limited to foosball, low level lighting, an attractive waitstaff, cheap drinks and tvs;


(4) talk about new jobs, both my own and other people's;


(5) tentative travel plans for September;


(6) discussion and clarification of Donny's eyelash injury.


So riddle me this:


Besides the automatic company instituted archival procedure that will lock these conversations up in a dedicated encrypted server for the next fifteen years so the IT department, or government, or outside auditors can amuse themselves by reading them sometime in the future - how is this any different from Instant Messaging?


-t


P.S. How many of you out there read the title "six of one" and thought to yourself "Is this post about the Borg? Because the title sounds like 'Seven of Nine' and she was a Borg, though, it actually reverses the naming protocol." ?


Those of you with your hands raised are nerds.


P.P.S. How many of you read that post script and thought "Man, Seven of Nine was the lamest character ever. You want a cool Borg you should pick Hugh or Locutus from Star Trek: The Next Generation because those guys kicked ass."


You folks are double nerds.


RECOMMENDED DOWNLOAD: (I'm serious here guys)

The Ike Reilly Assassination, My Wasted Friends

bona fide

I take it on good faith that things are going to work out, that they're going to be ok.

I'm just letting you know.

Also, I had a really great idea for a web comic that I can't execute because I no longer own a copy of photoshop. I remember when Adobe was charging four hundred dollars for a six hundred dollar piece of software. Now they're charging seven hundred bucks for a piece of software of which I will only use about four hundred dollars worth.

But it would have been the best kind of web comic. The kind that isn't really funny, isn't updated consistently, and seems to have server issues or problems with image hosting every other week or so.

-t

recommended download:
The Ike Reilly Assassination:
Garbage Day, I Don't Want What You Got,22 Hours of Darkness, and Heroin

So you won't say I didn't warn / invite you

I mentioned this in the second half of a previous post. Now I'm giving it it's own:

You Are Invited!

what: Open House
when: Saturday, June 10th begining at two o'clock
where: my house

There will be food, and fun, and all that jazz, but you should be concerned primarily with these two facts:

There will be ping pong. There will be beer.

-t