Time To Play…For Pay!!

I am excited to share with you that Thursday is Recess At Work Day. There is a really good chance, like over 100%, that I wrote about this last June, but I am going to resist the temptation to just repost that story. Although, I’d get bonus points for recycling and going green. As you may or may not be aware, I am not overly fond of having to eek out a living by being a cubicle dwelling, tie wearing, corporate crony. I guess that’s like me saying that you may or may not be aware that Britney Spears has some mental issues. I just like to state the obvious without appearing as though I am stating the obvious. For instance, when it is raining and we are all standing in it, I like to say that the chance for precipitation is very high. It’s a true fact and suggests the obvious without overtly stating it. I’ve got another one: I have the tendencies of an idiot. It’s like stating I’m an idiot without saying I’m an idiot. Now, I have drifted off course, which is odd given that fact that I planned on writing about playtime at work.

So back to the playtime thing. Isn’t recess at work a great idea? I most certainly should be done more than once a year, that’s for sure. Oh crap, I just stated the obvious in an obvious way, but we are talking about recess at work. I for one miss recess. Yes, it was my favorite time at school. I’m still not sure why it’s done away with by the time kids get to Junior High and High School. I’m not saying we needed swings on my high school campus or a sandbox (which would just have become a public litter box for all the strays in the neighborhood. I’m talking about cats, not people), but some break time longer than lunch or going from one class to the next would have been nice. I’m pretty sure if you go back to the original notes and drafts of the Declaration of Independence you will find a crossed out reference to recess being a fundamental and unalienable right. In fact, maybe if the Founding Fathers had kept that phrase in the Declaration, it would not have contained annoyingly big words like unalienable. My point: recess should be a lifelong daily observance, just like naps. Lucy and Ethel find it so hard to believe that a day will come when they will actually WANT to take naps. Recess in America should be like teatime in Britain or a pound of butter in a Paula Deen recipe. It just wouldn’t be the same without it.

At my office, we don’t have a lot of big, wide open ‘safe’ spaces in which to play and we have no grass. But, there is a small area out back where the smokers hang out that could easily accommodate recess. Now I realize that dodgeball or duck, duck goose would be the most obvious things to do during recess, but we are all grown ups and those games wouldn’t fly with a few in our office. For the record, I have no problem with it. After all, my job is stressful and what would relieve that stress more than intentionally getting to throw an over inflated ball directly at a coworker’s face?

I’m thinking our grown up workplace recess will require a hotdog vendor with his own cart and maybe a guy with a fondue cart and one with a snowcone machine. And yes, that is my plan for Lucy or Ethel’s backyard wedding when that time comes. Oh, and recess will require a cappuccino maker for the more ‘fancy’ and ‘mature’ people in my office who look down at us snowcone slurpers with disdain. I don’t mind giving them the cappuccino maker, because they are the ones I’ll be aiming for when we start dodgeball. Although, can THEY sue ME if I hit THEM with a ball while THEY are consuming a hot frothy beverage? I’d ask HR for some direction on this possibly contentious issue, but I fear they’d nix the whole thing as soon as I got to the part where I say ‘ok, imagine everyone out behind the office visiting and playing for 20-30 minutes each morning and afternoon…’

I used to regularly observe my own recess at work. I didn’t want to draw attention to it though so I didn’t call it ‘recess’ (remember that whole stating the obvious thing?). I called it ‘blogging.’ Then I got caught (or ‘sent to the principal’s office’) and had to stop. Now the closest thing I get to recess is when I plug in my Ipod’s headphones and hide under my desk for 30 minutes for so. No, I’m kidding. I only do that during fire and earthquake drills.

I am eagerly looking forward to tomorrow’s Recess At Work Day. I just can’t decide between hiring a bounce house or those big inflatable water slides with attached kiddy pool. It’s going to be hot again, so I’d better go with the water slide. But I swear that if during our recess the guy in the cubicle across from me asks me to deliver a love note to the woman in the cubicle next to me, I am going to charge him standard ground shipping rates if I miss my turn on the slide!

This Idea Smells Like…(A Repost?)

I wrote this almost a year ago when the 2008 Olympics were a mere gold, silver and bronze twinkle in China's eye awaiting consummation and riots and international concern. But now, all that fun is just over a month away. Oh boy, I just can't wait. It's been so long (that's what she said) since I got to watch and cheer my favorite Olympic sport - CURLING!!! Wait, that's a Winter Olympic sport? Oh dammit.

I came across an AP story this morning about yet another aspect of the 2008 Olympic Games in China. Simply put, an organization in China is preparing to make Olympic souvenirs like little Olympic trophies depicting Pandas taking part in various Olympic Sports. Ok, that’s a cute idea, but the souvenirs will be made out of (wait for it)…PANDA DUNG. Uhhhhhhhhhhhhh, come again? Yep, Panda DUNG! Yesiree, not only would you be lucky enough to attend the Olympic Games in China, but you could take home some lovely molded Panda ‘Passings’ to remember the event. I am actually booking my flight right now! Thanks Expedia!!!!

The story says that the souvenirs would mostly be made out of things like undigested bamboo found in the Panda dung and that it would be sterilized. Apparently Pandas don’t digest bamboo very well (I guess it’s kind of their version of ‘in corn/out corn’). I’m sure there is some eco-friendly benefit from doing this, but what it all comes down to is that you would be buying Panda feces made pretty. I realize that Pandas are cute and rare and endangered, but it doesn’t mean that their dung is too. I realize that's a harsh statement from someone who has never seen Panda dung, but I feel pretty secure in my assumptions this time (and we all remember what assumptions are, right? Brave guesses with a total disregard for any factual basis. But the key word you should remember is 'brave'). Isn’t the white Rhino or some other animal like that endangered as well? Have you seen what comes out of an animal like a Rhino? What’s next play-desserts made out of cow pies? Will there soon be hair care products on the market made of camel spit? Or how about hand lotion made of bird regurgitant? Seriously, I thought regurgitant would be a real word.

This all sounds like a really, uh, crappy idea. How do you put something like that on a resume? Obviously you want to dress up the description of any job you have ever had, but how do you describe this one? Are you a ‘Fecal Matter Recycling Expert?' Do your duties include ‘cleansing of Panda dung for preparation for consumer consumption?’ How about ‘Panda Waste Artist?’ And really, what job does this qualify you for? Do you look at the guys that follow behind horses in parades with buckets and shovels as the internship or training grounds for Panda Waste Artists? Do the Fecal Engineers in training practice honing their skills on Play-Doh or modeling clay or worse yet, pet waste? What does a job like this pay? What are the benefits and are gloves provided at no expense? Is the pay scale related to the relative size of animal’s waste? Is there hazard pay for the really big animals?

You know, I have a fairly large dog. The dog likes to eat and obviously requires cleaning up after. I’m just sayin’…

Let it be known that I would be more than willing to sell Mabel’s byproducts to a company wanting to make little sculptures of the characters on the Office or little NASCAR replicas. I mean, if it’s such a good idea and all why not cash in while the money's good?. Talk about unlimited supply potential here. I mean have you ever been to a zoo?? Or a dairy? Or an aviary? Heck, we need to figure out how to make energy or fuel outta this stuff!

Since I’m now to the point where I can really do nothing other than make crappy bad jokes, I should stop before I really stink up the joint. Besides, I need to start working on a new cologne using the essence of skunk…

Names Can Be Hurtful

Have you ever done something so stupid that your friends, family or coworkers (yes, or all 3 in my case) have renamed the mistake you made after you. Such as saying ‘she pulled a Michael?’ That’s what she said. Seriously, you know what I am talking about, right? If you see a skanky, skinny (also known as Skinky, perhaps) girl walking down the street, you might be inclined to say the young lass was pulling a Paris or a Lindsey. Yelling obscenities at your daughter? Yep, that’s ‘a Baldwin.’ Sex in the White House? ‘Pulling a Kennedy.’ Gheesh, that sounds dirty. You probably thought I was going to say Clinton, didn’t you? Nah, that’s too easy, but if it makes you feel better, I can offer you this. Ever done inappropriate things with cigars in the Oval Office while leading your country? Yep, that’s ‘a Clinton.’ Uh, a ‘Bill,’ to be exact.

Ok, I think I’ve given enough examples. Well, as if the planet ex planet Pluto hasn’t been beaten up enough, it has now joined the league of having something ignominious (lordy do I hope I used that correctly, it made me sit up just a little taller as I was writing it) and unfortunate named after it. Yep, from now on, whenever a planetary body thingy is too small, or ugly, or has too many craters or a bad attitude or comes from poor lineage or does something embarrassing in class, it will be called a Plutoid. I guess it’s the same logic as naming a little or mini hemorrhage a hemorrhoid? Ouch. That’s just disrespectful.

Essentially, if it isn’t important enough or good enough to qualify as a planet, it will be named after Pluto. Perhaps the scientists who decided to do this thought they were honoring Pluto by naming every wannabe planet after it, but if you were to ask Pluto, I bet you’d get a different answer. And just for the record, if you actually did ask Pluto a question and then received a response back on top of that, you would legally qualify as someone in need of mental help or be labeled just plain ‘goofy’ (I am now one character mention away from Disney coming after me, by the way). In fact, I strongly suggest against telling anyone that any of the planets in our solar system spoke to you or that you spoke to them. I imagine if you made that mistake you’d get the same looks I get when I am caught humming ‘The Hustle’ while waiting for something to come out of our networked printer in the office.

I don’t know if any new Plutoids have been named since this decision was made but something tells me that as time goes on, the practice of naming inferior celestial bodies after Pluto will not just stop and fade away as often happens with our pop culture references. That’s the one hope that gets me through each day - the thought that having my name attached to doing something boneheaded will eventually stop and be forgotten. Well, that thought and the one that involves me going to the Tillamook Dairy in just over 2 weeks. Although after visiting the dairy, the hope that people will stop naming the act of doing boneheaded things after me will once again become the one thought that gets me through each day. Unless you are counting the promise of lunch and dinner because knowing that those two meals await me does help me get out of bed every morning. But that really has nothing to do with Pluto or Plutoids or the cosmic soap opera that has become poor Pluto’s plight, which by the way is the name of Oprah’s next book club selection.

Because of all this reclassifying planet mumbo jumbo, I now live under the fear that it will tear our family apart. As Lucy and Ethel prepare for the first grade, I know that one day they will be asked to appear in a class production of ‘The Planets’ or ‘Our Solar System’ or something like that. And it will just be our luck that one of the twins will get to be a real planet like Jupiter or Mars (but oh please God, not Uranus) and one of them will have to play the Plutoid Pluto. That will lead to the usual sisterly ‘why does she get to be a real planet and I have to be this tiny one that no one likes? I always have to be the inferior gaseous body without gravity!’ We deal with arguments like that daily and they are no fun. Well, ok, some of them do tend to get so silly that we can’t help laughing. But to our credit, we never let the twins see us laughing about which one gets to wear the redder belt or the khaki shorts that most closely resemble the khaki shorts I am wearing at the time.

And speaking of reclassifying planets, why is it so necessary? If you ask me, and I am painfully aware that you did not, I think astronomers started reclassifying planets because they ran out of things to do and need to appear that they are still busy and need to work. Why do I think this? Well let’s just say I have, uh, ‘reclassified’ the contents of my cubicle’s filing cabinet 5 times in the last two weeks. Although I think people are starting to catch on, I’m sticking with the ‘I’m trying to find a document I swear I just filed away in here last week.’ The use of the word ‘document’ makes it sound official and all businessy, so it usually gets me off the hook.

I feel for Pluto, but since I can’t do anything about it, I guess I should go join all the cool kids and watch Pluto through my telescope and point and laugh at it. Wait a minute, cool kids don’t have telescopes. Wait another minute, I have a telescope. Oh blurg…

In Search Of The Perfect Post

I will be right up front with you on this one. It's Father's Day AND Dale Jr. finally won a race after two freakin' years! Yes, that means I am too busy to come up with something new for today. Do I feel bad about that? Uh, sure.

For whatever reason, I rarely strive to undertake something to the best of my ability. I realize I should but it helps me manage people’s expectations. The lower I keep them, the less will hopefully be asked of me. I have made the mistake in the past of setting very high expectations, which only proves to be a pain to live up to. However, when it comes to this blogging stuff, I find myself striving for perfection at least three days a week. It may not seem like much, but that is easily three times more than the effort I put into work or rational thinking.

Daily, it seems that I read posts that are excellent and inspire me to want to create the ultimate post - one that should be marked as a classic in the dictionary or encyclopedia. Well, ok, I’d settle for an entry in Wikipedia. I came across a few of them again while surfing blogs this morning and it really got me thinking about what would make the perfect post, the post that when I realized it could not be topped would send me into blogging retirement, and maybe a book deal. Though I’d settle for getting a pamphlet published.

Of course by describing it to you, it kind of takes away the need to actually try to write the perfect post since I’ll essentially be doing that here, but maybe that’s just my way of talking about doing the work instead of actually doing it. While the perfect post means different things to different writers, for me and my personal standards, it would have to be witty, laugh out loud funny and at the same time make the reader think long after reading it, though not in a college philosophy class type of way. The penultimate post also needs to force readers to contemplate such deep thoughts as their own mortality, their particular brand of spirituality, how we coexist as a global people and why the Dave Clark 5 could be the most under appreciated band of the entire British Invasion. OK, you got me. I ran out of ideas by the time I wrote that last item. Perfection is hard. And though it doesn't make any sense here, I still feel like that last sentence deserves a 'that's what she said.'

As difficult as it would be to accomplish, I'd want my ‘classic’ post to also leave people in awe of my brilliant intelligence, or my ‘brilligence,’ if you will. I'm not saying that I'm brilligent, but I'd want my perfect post to leave that impression upon the reader (obviously I'm hoping for gullible readers). Oh yeah, getting people to cry would be cool too. So would having people quote it for years after or see it put into an email and forwarded, oh I don't know, dozens of times. And having it stolen for use as an advertising slogan. And having the post spark an entire new movement, but that’s it. OK, and it could lead to my own TV comedy development deal or daily humor column or multiple book deal. Or if I really dare to dream, the post would make someone want to do my lawns for free. Really though, if I had to choose just one effect if I ever am lucky enough to compose the perfect post, I’d just settle for the crying part. Or the quoting part. Although the TV thing would be pretty neat. Or perhaps it would make people want to mail me exotic cheeses, though they would have to be shipped in frozen containers because I got sick from a spoiled dairy product once and well, yeah, I'm don't want to talk about it now.

Now for the actual nitty gritty elements of my perfect post. I realize that by getting into these items that I am possibly providing you with what I think are the elements and blue print to compose the perfect post, thereby making it possible for my perfect post to be stolen. However, I am trusting, or naïve or maybe just not that smart, so I don’t mind providing these secret ingredients for the perfect post. After all, the perfection lies in how the elements are presented, which by the way I will also provide for a nominal fee. Or exotic cheeses, assuming you packaged and shipped them correctly.

All right, now here is what I think the perfect post should contain. Oh, you know what; I’ve already exceeded my 500+ words for the day. Now I won’t be able to share what I think is needed for the perfect post. I guess I spent too much time talking about it instead of just getting it done. Whoa, that sounds like my last employee review. Hopefully I didn’t get anyone too excited. Again, it just seems like that last sentence needs a 'that's what she said.' Sorry about stringing you along. Well, as long as I’m around to see the sunrise and my computer boots up, there’s always tomorrow. Hey, that’s pretty good. I need to remember that.

Whoa There, Don’t Blame Me

For one day, one brief shining moment, I can honestly say ‘it’s not my fault,’ especially at work. Well HONESTLY saying that might be a stretch, but in light of the fact that Friday the 13th (uh-oh) is ‘Blame Someone Else Day,’ I can now tell you whose fault it really is. Or whose it might be. Or I’ll just tell you whose fault I am deciding it was based on who I feel like blaming. (Wow, after those last two sentences, I feel like The Grinch taking about the whose and who’s so much. The noise, noise, noise. Sorry) Folks, you gotta like the sound of blaming someone else. Much like Ronald Reagan, we’ll all get to be Teflon coated for the day. This could be my chance to really stand out in the office.

I figure (which is a good hint that I’m probably wrong right off the bat) that there are two kinds of people in the world. Those who man-up and take the blame and those who shirk responsibility and blame someone else. I absolutely do not like blaming someone else for something I have or have not done, but true to my PR roots, I tend to shift blame focus somewhere else so that whatever involves me can be completely forgotten. Let’s say on some odd, once in a lifetime occurence, when Jupiter collides with Mars (oh no, I just quoted the song ‘Aquarius,’ I think that officially means I become a social outcast in the next 5 minutes. I’m melting…) that I miss a work deadline. When confronted with that, I might say something to the effect of ‘did you ever hear back on that initiative I asked you about a few months back’ to shift the focus to something else. Or perhaps I might respond with ‘wow has my computer been acting up lately. I spent so much time booting and rebooting my PC that I got behind on my project.’ See, I’m not blaming anyone there, I am offering up an excuse. Yes, I know that excuse can be construed as lying, but I assure you that the ‘lying’ as you refer to it, is purely an unintended consequence. Again, please notice that I am not actually blaming anyone, so I am hoping for brownie points there. Although I’d prefer coconut macaroon points or maybe Girl Scout Samoan cookie points. Those taste so good they’re like bonus points!

The beauty of it all is that on Friday, for the first time ever, I can blame someone else, like the butler. Yes, on Friday, I will actually be able to tell someone that the butler did it while not being engaged in a board game. For fun, I might even throw in where and how the butler did it. In fact, I’m pretty sure the reason that I missed turning in my expense report last week was because the butler did it with the plumbing wrench in the study during Anderson Cooper’s 360 on CNN. Oh wait, was that too specific? You have to understand that I don’t have a lot of practice in the art of blaming. Man, it sure is fun though. I could really get used to ‘blaming.’

For instance, the reason I forgot to call my grandmother on her birthday was that my friend called me at the same time I was looking up my grandmother’s new phone number in our address book. My friend kept wanting to run the schematics of his new water-fueled car engine by me. It seems he was having trouble storing the energy while the car was idling, hence losing power. And since he knows I am an expert in the field of water power, he desperately wanted my input. So as you can see, it was all my friend’s fault that I forgot to call my grandmother. And yes, the fact that I am in no way a scientific expert on anything or that I have no friend who could invent such an engine is completely irrelevant. What is relevant is that I just blamed someone else, which is completely acceptable on Friday and that the reason I provided definitely trumps the real reason I forgot to call her on her birthday. (Note to self: put my grandmother’s birthday on the calendar next year).

And speaking of calendars, all the programs I have been watching about global warming lately really are starting to get me concerned. Sorry, I know that has nothing to do with calendars, but it’s been a while since I did a segue and I’m a little rusty. I think before we can really solve global warming, we need to identify the biggest culprits. Yep, that means BLAMING someone. But to who to blame? Well, I chose to blame my neighbor. He mows his front and back lawns with his gas powered mower EVERY SINGLE WEEKEND. Seriously man, what’s the deal? He mows his yards every weekend and then that means I have to get up and mow my yards every weekend which means that I have to miss some really great sports event on TV like bowling or curling I am running my gas powered mower, which leaves a really big carbon footprint (did I impress you there with the ‘carbon footprint’ use? I saw it on some TV show a few weeks ago). We’re talking a huge carbon footprint here. A carbon footprint big enough to make Sasquatch’s prints look like Cabbage Patch baby feet. Not that I know anything about Cabbage Patch Kids though. And if for some reason I did, it’s because Lucy and Ethel each have a couple. Look at that, I just blamed them and didn’t even realize it. Blame Someone Else Day really is working out quite well.

There is so much more I have to say about blaming others and Blame Someone Else Day, but it’s my Dad’s birthday and I need to get back to the celebration we are having in his honor. Well, at least that’s what my mom tried to get across to me when she just said ‘we came all this way to your house for your father’s birthday and you are sitting at the computer.’ Oh no, I actually just blamed my mother for something. I guess therapy is next for me. I blame…well, I’d better stop while I’m ahead.

And by the way, Happy Father’s Day to all you fathers out there! And all you muthas mothers out there, because when you think about it, you kinda had a lot to do with it too. I’m looking forward to a relaxing day and watching the race with Lucy and Ethel, at least until about lap 10 – they still have pretty short attention spans.



***I have to share with you a new website that I found: http://diy.despair.com/motivator.php. It's a website that lets you make your own motivational posters like the one I created for this post. Since discovering it, productivity in my life has fallen to a minus 175%. Unless of course you count productivity solely on the amount of motivational posters made. In that case, I'm up 475%.

This Much Fun Should Be Illegal

Before I continue with this post, it should be noted that I was highly gassed for much of yesterday, which may or may not explain this next statement. And here goes: the hospital is so much fun, I would pay to go there, just like Disneyland. Oh wait, I do pay to go there. Through the teeth I pay, but I guess that’s just like Disneyland too. There are actually a lot of similarities.

The hospital has a little of everything. Rides (wheel chairs and beds), food (or a reasonable facsimile thereof) and lots of waiting. Imagine getting to the hospital at 5am only to be told the admitting office doesn’t open until 5:30am and that you won’t even be prepped for your procedure until 7:30am. Yep, if you are thinking that’s just ‘like a ride queue at Disneyland, you would be right sir. My favorite ride yesterday was Nurse Who I Couldn’t Understand’s Wild Bed Push.’ Not to throw around NASCAR terms, but I think my bed was a little on the tight side because it kept pushing coming out of the turns. This led to not one, not two, but three collisions with other patients’ beds. Fortunately two of the three were so heavily sedated they slept right through it, but I feel for the one we hit that wasn’t. It is not a pretty sight to see a post-op elderly woman jolted awake by her bed being hit. At least she was in the right place should cardiac resuscitation have been necessary. It probably didn’t help that I was laughing as we rolled through the halls. Though in my defense I was sedated and loopy too.

I probably don’t need to say this, but after the infamous emergency room nipple-shaving incident of December 2004, I’m a little leery when nurses approach me with sharp objects. I guess you could say I get a little ‘edgy’ about it? (The fun may be gone, but the pun is here to stay). Yesterday was no different. The nurse told me she was going to shave me and then her BIC razor wannabe started buzzing. This made me even more tense. I thought I was remaining cool and calm as the she prepared to shave me, but I forgot that I was hooked up to monitors that reveal everything going on with me short of hiccupping, so everyone knew I was having major razor-induced anxiety. I had visions going through my head of my skin getting snagged and chewed up by this nurse’s automatic razor, but fortunately my nipples remain unscathed. And I can now cross that phrase off the lists of things I never thought I’d get to say…

The worst part about the shave thing is that just like any thorough, caring and dedicated professional, the hospital only does what it needs to. This means that since my cardioversion patch had to be placed on the left side of my chest, that’s the only side they shaved. Now, one side of my chest looks like a European Olympic swimmer’s (or a 4-year-old’s) chest, which comparatively makes my untouched right side look like Sean Connery’s or Austin Power’s’ss’s’s’. (I guess that last part would translate better in a podcast as opposed to writing. Just picture me saying Powers’s’s’s’s’s in a Dr. Evil voice with the whole dainty teacup-holding pinky finger next to my mouth). And it gets better. Since I had to be shocked 3 times (that third one REALLY IS a charm), my skin is burned from the adhesive medical sticky and electricity transmitting pads placed on my chest and back. So, now not only is half of my chest freshly shaven, but I have a large egg-shaped burn line that makes it appear as though the world’s largest big-mouth bass gave me a hickey. Oh boy, now I get to cross that phrase off of my things I never thought I’d get to say list. Wow, two in one day. I’d better slow down. I’m supposed to take it easy for a few days.

Sadly, my cardiologist, who I adore, has given me a new nickname: The Horse. Let’s just say that I have never reacted well to anesthesia and this time was no different. For whatever reason, from the moment I went under, through the shocky shocky and until I woke up, I was lifting and then slamming my left foot down on my bed. I was informed that right after the procedure my doctor asked if I was having a seizure. Hey, procedure and seizure! That rhymes in a lovely Suessian way. But it makes me wonder if everyone just left me laying in the corner as the freak who likes to bang his legs in his sleep and whenever another hospital employee asks about it, the nurses just replied with ‘just ignore him, he’s been doing that for 20 minutes.’ Perhaps that’s why everyone was staring at me when I finally woke up, which I have to admit was a pretty freaky moment. The recovery ward I was placed in was full of old folks who had just had cataract surgeries, so all I saw was at bunch of people with one eye looking in my direction. When you wake up and are pretty groggy, that’s not a welcoming sight. It was like I was in the twilight zone and I was the freak because I was the only one with two eyes.

So, I can now add counting with my foot like a horse to the list of my reactions to anesthesia, which already includes asking out doctors and nurses, offering to buy a meat dinner for my doctor even though the meat is considered sacred to that doctor, singing disco tunes and offering to buy a round of drinks for everyone in the room. I have never been drunk, but can’t help thinking that I’d make a fun one. Kinda like Otis on The Andy Griffith Show. I also bit my toungue during the lurch after being shocked, so I now speak with a lisp. It’s a pretty good chunk off the side of my tongue. As long as I don’t eat salt, I shouldn’t hurt too much more than it already does. The tongue must be really important, not like the appendix or metatarsal bone (I’ll admit I have no idea where that bone is, but saying it instantly makes you appear smarter. Seriously, try it) because it sure is hard to talk with a little piece of it missing.

But in the end, I really can’t complain. My heart rhythm is back to the normal and boring beat, beat, beat which means that although it’s no longer playing The Hustle, it’s working correctly. And as if it couldn’t get any better and I couldn’t ask for more from life, I got a call from Lucy and Ethel last night who are vacation along the Central California coast with my parents. I guess they found a farm nearby that they have been visiting every day because (and make sure you are sitting down when you read this) Lucy and Ethel can feed the COWS there. Yep, my daughters, the lights of my life, are directly contributing to the process of making cheese. In fact, they are assisting with the first phase in the long series of phases necessary to making cheese. And yes, it made me cry, but just a little. It’s cheesy, I know.

That’s really all I can remember from my Hospital Land adventure so I’ll wrap this post up. Though from what I am hearing, there apparently is a pretty good chance that I may have signed my house over to the anesthesiologist because I was so pleased with his efforts. Let’s just hope I didn’t sign anything to make it official. I promise I’ll be back to the regular blogging subject faire tomorrow, assuming of course I have a home and computer from which to write it…

600’s A Charm??

So here I sit, knowing that I am writing my 600th blog post, which I will tell you upfront is not exactly accurate because of my fondness for being lazy reposts. But, I have pushed Blogger’s little ‘publish’ button 600 times, so I have no problem taking the credit. After all, assuming I have used my same index finger to push the mouse button to hit ‘publish’ all previous 599 times, I have expended a decent enough amount of energy. My first instinct is to look back fondly on many of my past post topics much the same way Mike Rowe does on Dirty Jobs after about every 25 episodes. I assume this is because of a lack of material on their part. Well, perhaps I am just pushing what I do onto Mr. Rowe. I think that is called ‘transference,’ but I’m really not sure. It could also be called passing the buck or making something up to complete a paragraph.

Whew, one paragraph down on my 600th post. If this pace keeps up, I will have completed the most boring and self-centered post ever written in no time! I wanted this one to be memorable, but since there are no really good faux holidays (Hi, Kat!!) until the end of the week I am on my own to come up with decent material, like denim. That’s a decent material. So is khaki, plus that one is fun to say and makes me think of tropical expeditions with pith hats and crocodiles. Oh wait, that’s the Jungle Cruise. Still, as far as material goes, khaki is where it’s at for me. Did I just type ‘where it’s at?’ Was I subject to reruns of ‘Laugh In’ while I slept this weekend? Sock it to me, that was bad. Uh-oh, did it again. At this point we can officially conclude that you should not blog while suffering a deficiency of oxygen. Translated – irregular heartbeats = irregular thought processes. Though that will be solved Tuesday morning, but more about that fun later!

I’ve read a few news stories lately that caught my attention. The first was the minor league baseball team in the Midwest that gave away a funeral during one of its games. That has to be one of the greatest giveaways ever. Though it didn’t happen, how great would it have been if little 7 year-old Timmy in section 5C Row 117 Seat 3 won the ‘prize package?’ As the cost of funerals and burials and other ‘now that you are dead’ costs rise over the next several decades, think what a cool customer Timmy would be knowing that his burials plans have been secured. Unless the mortuary company goes out of business, leaving him with completely useless burial plans as if you were the holder of frequent flier miles from some low-scale economy airline named something like U-Fly U-Sav or Econo-Air, or possibly Delta, that had to declare bankruptcy. I can just see Timmy right now in his 80s on his knees in a parking lot where his gravesite would have been doing his best ‘Stella’ or ‘Why?’ It’s very sad…

Then their was the story I mentioned in a recent podcast where a homeless woman in Japan was caught living in some guy’s closest…for a year. Seriously, if she got away with that for a year, I’m pretty sure that takes away her ‘homeless’ status. Though there are probably no official rules or handbook to refer to, you’d have to think that one year in the same closet is enough to qualify as having a home, don’t you. I mean it’s not as if I can say I’m unemployed while working in the same office for a year. Though I wonder if I could not come in for one year and say I AM employed. Hmmm, vacation time and my mom would think I’m a contributing member of society. I shall have to ponder this.

What finally got this squatter (why do I dislike the word squat so much, by the way) caught was that the owner noticed that food was missing. Yeah, it took him a year to figure this out. Do they have super big rats in Japan that a homeowner could assume was removing food from his domicile? ‘Honey, where’s the ham we bought last week?’ ‘Oh, I’m sure the rats got to it.’ I think that is officially the downward turn of mankind when an excuse like that is acceptable. Unless the downward turn is when we care about the goings on of people like Paris and Britney, or that we know people like Paris or Britney by their first names only, or the fact that people make good money photographing people like Paris or Britney coming out of a grocery store. Oh holy crap, our downward spiral has begun. Quick, to the Y2K bunker!!! Don’t laugh, now you are wishing you had built one…

Did the homeowner not catch on when he kept turning on his DVR only to see that 15 soap operas and Oprah had been recorded? I don’t know about you, but when mysterious programs start popping up on the TiVo, I begin to get suspicious. What about when those programs started disappearing from his TiVo. I don’t know about you, but when mysterious programs disappear from my TiVO, I begin to get suspicious. Yes, you are right, if only I would put as much attention towards my job as I do my TiVo. But, I ask you, does your job allow up to rewind, pause and playback in slow-mo things as they are happening in real time? Yeah, I thought not!!

There are other topics I could throw at you for this 600th post, like the fact that I can’t keep putting off removing all my Saturday Night Fever and Bee Gees songs from my Ipod. I say this because I do keep my Ipod playing loudly at work and do sometimes walk away from my desk only to hear ‘More Than A Woman’ blaring as I return to cubicle hell from doing something important like buying a Diet Dr. Pepper or a candy bar or going down the street to buy ice cream or running to the office’s shared printer after realizing I printed something that was not work related. Why I ask you does disco have such a stigma? There is nothing wrong with being a Disco Discerson! After all, you cannot do the hustle to Motley Crue. I tried, granted it was way back in the 7th grade, but I seriously doubt the laws of gravity, motion and musical pulsating have changed all that much since then. The fact that I was fully versed in disco by age 13 is a whole other problem to be tackled later while you are all drunk and cannot remember what you have read.

Well, I guess I have sufficiently written enough to qualify as a post because if I have learned only one thing over the last 599 posts (and believe me, the likelihood is quite strong that I indeed have only learned one thing), it’s that quantity always trumps quality. So, I will hit the publish button for the 600th time and start towards the next 100, although good ideas are getting hard to come by. Which reminds me, how do you feel about reading my opinion on the increase of gas prices as it has affected the purchases of minivans as it relates to the drop in demand for sippy cups that really are leak proof? Or how the coming of summer directly affects the global warming of the second story of my home? You know, I realized I am about to wrap up my 600th post and have yet to mention cheese or slip in a TWSS. That reminds me, I was telling someone at work about the quesadilla I made with 4 different kinds of cheese and topped with Chiptole Tabasco over the weekend. She responded that she’d like to get her hands on that. I responded with a firm and confident ‘that’s what she said.’ There, that takes care of that. And now, index finger, meet the publish button…


**This may be my last post for a few days, but it’s not because I’m resting on my 600 laurels. It’s because I get to show up at the hospital at 5am Tuesday morning (only about 4 ½ hours before I normally stumble into the office) to have a cardioversion (also known as the shocky shocky or ‘the paddles,’ if you ever watched ‘Emergency’ growing up). I’ll be released Tuesday afternoon if all goes well and then will be able to recharge 9-volt batteries just by licking them. Ok, I made that up, but THIS shocking will mark my 10th cardioversion, granting me access to the elusive Double Digit Club (which I made up, but it’s the only club I’ve ever belonged to, except for the BBQ Club we tried to start in high school, but it wasn’t officially recognized).

It might actually be my 11th cardioversion, but major league baseball has put an asterisk next to the first one I had because it didn’t work. Now I know how Roger Maris felt. See ya later in the week and thanks for reading my daily mental purges! I promise they’ll get better once I have a sufficient amount of blood being pumped throughout my body again. Heck, maybe my left foot will once again work properly, although I guess that has nothing to do with writing…

A Slow Pitch Right Down The Middle

I should go ahead and tell you that this is a repost. I know it's a horrible thing to do for a Sunday or Monday (depending on when you read this), but to make up for it, I can offer you a new new podcast to listen to. Besides, I have to think of something memorable to do for my next post on Monday night, which will be my 600th.

Feel free to offer suggestions because after 599 posts, I am running out of things to write about. As proof of that, I offer the fact that I almost posted my confession of love for home water filtration today instead of this repost. Fortunately I realized ahead of time that it would have been a 'Pur' mistake to do so. Hmmm, have I written about cheese lately? That always goes over well....

When you get your inspiration from making fun of odd news stories, it doesn’t get any easier than this: A woman with the last name of Butts was accused of stealing toilet paper from an Iowa Courthouse. Ok, it could have been just a little better; her last name could have been something like Wipey. Yeah, I would pay someone with the last name of Wipey to steal toilet paper. Hey, what about Hiney? Hiney would be good too.

What I can’t figure out is why someone with such a ‘touchy’ or ‘sensitive’ last name as Butts would ever try to steal toilet paper, let alone steal it from a hall of justice, how cheeky. Sorry. Couldn’t she think of better booty to loot? Now she’ll be the butt of many jokes, although she probably already is. I can think of a few of my own to well, crack. Of course, I would never make them directly to someone with the last name of Butts because I wouldn’t want to look like an ass. I guess in hindsight, I already do.

Where was I? Oh yeah, the stealing thing. It has to be on par with stealing a candy bar from a police station vending machine. I wanted to say stealing donuts from a donut shop, but that’s too obvious so I decided to glaze right over it and just sprinkle it in there. I don’t like to leave holes in my stories. Maybe the Butts family could open a cigarette shop or sell a certain prosthesis? But…which body part? How about chins? My favorite is the cleft chin, like the one I possess. Some folks refer to that as a butt-chin, although that should probably be a different tale.

I guess I have come to the end. I really have no other point to make. I’ve already come up with every angle of this story that I could. Unfortunately, I can be anal that way. So, I’ll wrap it up now. In hindsight, this could be my shortest post ever but it will allow me more time to cook dinner tonight. For some reason, I'm thinking of either rump roast or, yes you guessed it, pork butt, which isn’t what you’d think it is. I think it comes from the shoulder. Although in some animals, the definition of shoulder can be very broad…You know what, I’ll stop while I’m ahead. Or am I behind?

Friday Randomocity II: Electric Boogaloo

I have to thank Eva for the Randomocity title. I had kind of run out of things to call Randomocity Fridays other than more, even more and yet again more Randomocity. I think the Electric Boogaloo version works quite nicely, with the little exception of the fact that I dance about as well as a brick wall suffering a seizure. So, I present to you this week’s More Friday Randomocity, in electric boogalooing style…

* When a coworker is showing you the map of where she plans on vacationing over Memorial Day weekend and the address is on Starvation Flats Road, do you bring up the fact that NOTHING GOOD could possibly be located on a street called Starvation Flats Road? I’m sure there is plenty of parking there though.

* Can you cherry pick a nut or is that mixing metaphors? It obviously sounds crude, so I will explain. I was accused of fishing through the can of mixed nuts that was put in the communal place where we share food in the office. My coworker called it cherry picking, but my defense (and my only defense mind you) was that you can’t cherry pick a nut. Hence, my question…

* It has now become more fun for me to catch someone accidentally saying ‘that’s what she said’ than just saying it in the middle of a conversation. I shall give you an example:
Coworker: ‘Michael, the HR lady told me she can’t believe we hired someone like you.’
Me: ‘Really, she said that? That doesn’t seem professional at all.’
Coworker: ‘Yes really, I swear that’s what she said.’
Me: ‘Ha, you said that’s what she said’
Coworker: ‘you’re an idiot.’

* I am a horrible person. I have noticed this tendency of mine at work that bothers me. Well ok, my boss noticed it and pointed it out to me. That’s never a good thing by the way. Whenever I get a message from someone on my work line and they make a point of saying something like ‘this is the second message I have left,’ I feel the incredible urge not to call them back so that they can continue counting how many messages they have to leave me. I swear I’m not normally that mean, at all. I’m not sure why it sets me off. But, I am hoping that it can be used as medical proof that I am not suited for office work.

* I just discovered that Ms. I Want To Go To Mime School has never seen the animated ‘Grinch Who Stole Christmas.’ I told her I would bring in the video tape of it so she can finally see it and she informed me she has no VCR. Why am I not surprised? She also did not know who Steve Carrell is. I’m asking her about Mickey Mouse next.

* Ok, I asked her about Mickey Mouse (this was all time elapsed, by the way) and she got offended and asked if I thought she was an idiot. If only I had realized at the time that it was a rhetorical question. Wups…

And now for something completely different…

Those are all the randoms I have had this week. I think the lack of oxygen to my brain because of the ineffective pumping of the upper chambers of my heart is finally beginning to affect me. Holy hell, that sounded somewhat intelligent!!!

Anywho (to use a word that will completely end the intelligent credibility thing), I have a viewing recommendation for you. I rarely do this, but watched something last night that I have to share, especially given the fact that many of the current readers of this blog are very close to my age. For me, MTV stopped be relevant about 1992 (if not earlier) and it went that long only because of the cinematic pleasure that was Chris Isaack’s ‘Wicked Game’ video. You all know what I’m talking about…

Besides, we are all too busy these days with our full time demanding jobs or families or both to get to enjoy TV other than CNN, Discovery, The Disney Channel or The Food Network (which of course IS the Disney Channel for us grown up foodies) or the Green Channel (which by the way I am disappointed in. When I had heard about a green channel, all I could think of was how bold it was to create a channel in just one color. But then I turned it on and it was in the full spectrum of color. I did learn way too ‘mulch’ about composting though…).

So, it was with a mixture of disappointment and shame that I sat down to watch part of the MTV Movie Awards last night. And honestly, I am glad that I did. There was a 30-minute segment I watched that made me say ‘if I died right now, I could say that I just got to watch the perfect show to make it the last I would ever watch.’ I shall attempt to detail it for you in the hopes that you will want to try to catch a rerun of it, which I am sure MTV will be showing throughout the weekend.

The first part was a reunion of Wayne Campbell and Garth Algar from Wayne’s World presenting the Top Ten Dirty Names for popular films of this last year. For those of us from the great early to mid 90s SNL era, this was like Nirvana, who is actually from the same era. Dang, now I smell like Teen Spirit! They were perfect in all their Wayne’s Worldliness.

Immediately after that was what usually becomes an awkward, poorly written ‘banter’ between presenters. But not this time! It was the cast of the new Get Smart movie: The Rock, Steve Carrell (one of my heroes) and the beautiful Anne Hathaway. In the middle of their banter, Steve Carell said something prompting someone in the audience to yell ‘that’s what she said’ and it was clear the 3 presenters saw the brilliance of the moment. It was priceless!

And if it all can’t get any better, on comes Tom Cruise (sans couch, thankyouverymuch) with the career achievement award for Adam Sandler. While I am nowhere near being a Tom Cruise fan since oh, Top Gun, this was worth watching. I should mention that I feel he can take all those records off the shelf and listen to them by himself, for all I care. However, he kinda redeemed himself when he honored Adam Sandler by referencing SNL and his great movies. It was hysterical. Then, Adam Sandler comes on and sings my favorite James Bond song (and one I just mentioned last week on this blog as my ‘getting ready’ song) ‘Nobody Does It Better’ by Carly Simon. But he sang it about himself complete with gold bikini dancers and an appearance by Rob Schneider of ‘you can do it’ fame. I was literally bouncing up and down in my recliner yelling ‘oh goody, oh goody’ in between bouts of uncontrollable laughter.

It was a wonderful television watching experience and it actually occurred while watching MTV of all channels. Not Dirty Jobs, not Deadliest Catch, Not Bizarre Foods or Alton Brown or Brady Bunch reruns, but freakin’ MTV. So, if you are anywhere near my age and want a little good-time flashback, treat yourself to part of the MTV Movie Awards this weekend. You can even email me later and thank me, if you can stop laughing long enough…

Have a great weekend everybody!!!!!!

Your Mission, Should You Choose To Accept It, Is…

Imagine getting home from a long day of work all set to celebrate Cheese Day Eve and you are directed to a little postcard sized piece of mail. You are probably asking why don’t I just imagine that instead of asking you to do so. Well, I don’t have to because it happened to me. As this piece of mail had no identifying marks, a lot of things raced across my mind. Namely, I had finally been fired. I got ready to dismiss it as junk mail and then was directed to look at the other side.

And there it was: an invitation to call the sender of this bit of postage regarding a position in this individual’s ‘company.’ Because I am a very attentive person (no seriously), I noticed (after staring at the card for 25 minutes – see attentive) two key pieces of information that even our friends at CSI may not have noticed. The front and back were written by two different people (one male and one female) and that the sender used the word ‘company.’ Obviously, we’re talking at least a two-person operation here. After patting myself on the back for noticing these little ‘clues’ and tripping over the vacuum cord, I made my way to the phone and called the number provided.

Again, the recorded greeting I received left me no obvious clues, other than me having reached the ‘desk’ of the mail’s sender. So, I left a message, but because I am still not sure who I’m dealing with, I left my boss’ phone number. I figure if the guy calls back, it’ll up my bargaining status with my job when my boss discovers I am desirable. Wait, that really does need to be rephrased. I mean desirable as in ‘hotly wanted job candidate,’ not any other way. I really do need to stop writing the first thing that comes to my mind. Naw, I’m kidding about all of this. I left my work cell phone number, or as it is commonly referred to by my coworkers, the phone I never answer.

As of the time I sat down to write this I have not heard back from the sender of this possibly phony parcel. I know, shocking. Now that I have all this time to sit and wonder about what this company is that wishes to use my services, I can tell you that my mind is really working overtime (I guess it’s making up for my body, which tries to work as little as possible) dreaming up what business this company may be engaged in. And yes, most of them are spy related so I won’t share those…

My first thought was that maybe this is someone who came to learn about me via my blog. Then my second thought was ‘now who in the hell is going to hire me after reading this blog.’ Yep, you guessed it; I chose to ignore the second thought. I have written about a few things, so maybe this mystery company deals with one of them. Perhaps it’s a new cheese manufacturer with an edge trying to elbow out a little bit of the established market and is hiring only those persons who have a real love for cheese. It would be like the Apple or Mac of the cheese market. Mac and cheese? Honestly, I didn’t see that coming, but you get the point. Maybe they want to make me their advertising guru responsible for making their special brand of cheese seem better than all others. Perhaps they need someone to produce the cheese or even someone to taste it. And if I really choose to dream, maybe they want someone to lead the tours of their facility. I’m giddy with anticipation, I tell ya!

Or, this company wants to financially back my idea for a fast food fondue joint called Fastdue or Speedy Cheddar’s (just Cheddars for da locals). Oh wait; I haven’t shared that idea yet. Maybe their mailing to me was so nondescript because they need to keep their activities on the down low because they are an international export company (although I guess all export companies are international. Hence the ‘ex’port part) that really only IMports to save money. What if they want to use me as a mole? Or a test driver? Those would be fun. I suppose they could want me to join their pyramid scheme of selling vacuums or water filtration devices. Just think, someday I could have someone under me selling vacuums or water filtration devices and all I have to do is collect their money as I sit in front of my brand new swimming pool talking about how I made $40 last month without ever leaving my home…because of the house arrest device around my ankle that I also received while people under me were selling vacuums or water filtration devices.

Then there is the dark side of possibilities. Obviously these people know my mailing address. What if they sent me the card so I would contact them for an interview and then when I leave for the interview someone on their ‘team’ will break into my home (with the same mailing address for those of you keeping score) to steal all my valuable possessions. I am of course speaking about the things that mean the most to me and that I cherish as equally as my family like my TiVo or Wii. Or maybe they want to steal my (and I can’t believe I am even willing to admit this would even happen) PEZ collection or stash of Cheetos that look like the heads of Presidents. Although in all honesty my JFK one is just a Cheeto I took a bite out of. I know, that’s horrible. Write your hate mail…actually don’t. It’ll give me a complex. Oh shoot, they probably would not have known about any of that stuff if I hadn’t just shared it. Well isn’t that just shitacular…

Hmm, after all these recent ponderances, I’m now not sure anything they have to offer me will match up to my expectations. Unless they want to hire me to write nondescript post cards offering people the glimmer of employment. But I don’t have any experience with that. Darn.

What A Loss

No, I’m not talking about politics or Hillary. That just makes people angry. Before I go any further, I need to warn you that what you are about to read is very sad, it’s beyond sad, it’s ‘Shitacular’ actually. It’s that rare mix of horrible and awe-inspiring rolled up into a big ball of cookie dough that you can’t help but taste even though you know the raw eggs are going to make you sicker than a visit to the nursery at the local preschool. That’s my definition of ‘shitacular,’ by the way. It just popped out of my mouth during a meeting at work and it seemed to be well received. But anyway, this post is going to sadden and possibly depress you, so if you need to read it at a later time like when you are so happy that nothing could bring you crashing back down to earth or after you go grab a box of facial cleaning wipes, or just tissue, please feel free.

What I am about to tell you (more like break softly to you) was covered by some media outlets over the weekend, so you may already know about it. In fact, one of my favorite bloggers even sent me a link to one of the stories. On Friday the James Hook & Co. seafood business in Boston caught fire and burned to the ground, which was actually water because it’s a waterfront business. So, it burned to the water, which is odd considering that water actually beats fire in the old ‘rocks, paper, water, fire game.’ And speaking of fire, there was also one at Universal Studios over the weekend, but you can rest easily because Wysteria Lane was not damaged. Neither were The Beav’s house or The Munster’s place. Yep, they are all on the same street. Goodness, what would June Cleaver think of the goings on in her digs nowadays…

But Wysteria Lane pales in comparison to the fire in Boston. It is always sad when a longtime business has to close its doors for a while, but something else went up in smoke with the James Hook & Co. building. Ok, actually it steamed and then went up in smoke. 60,000 pounds of lobster perished in the fire. If you love lobster like me (I actually read a book 2 summers ago called the ‘Secret Life of Lobsters’ and highly recommend it), go ahead and cry a good hard cry. I’m getting all Saddy Sadderson and my eyes are welling up again as I try to type this. If they were all one pound lobsters, that’s 600 lobsters that were lost. Wait, I don’t think I did my math right again. I really do need to stop using numbers in my posts. It’s not that I feel bad for the lobsters, let’s face it, they were pretty much heading for the scalding hot ending anyway. And this is where I have to say that there had to have been a few minutes while the building’s fire was the best smelling fire in the history of fires. Although I bet the hissing and whining sound of 60,000 pounds of lobster steaming was deafening! Or, that may have just been my cross-continental crying…

I feel bad for the company losing out on the sales of 60,000 pounds of lobster and even more, I feel bad for the people that won’t get to taste the delicious meat that comes from the clawed creature that is related to the bugs we try to eschew (or not chew – guzundheit). I’ve seen that lobstering show on the Discovery Channel and I can tell you that’s it’s no small claw feat to catch 60,000 pounds of lobster. If we lost 60,000 barrels of oil, we’d probably end up paying $13.75 per gallon, so let’s hope that the loss of lobster (also referred to in the business as LOL, even though there is nothing laughable about that. OK, I made that up. I couldn’t resist. It made me LOL. Go figure) doesn’t increase the price of the culinary crustacean to a point where we can’t afford to have it on our tables every night, you know because they are so affordable already. Although, the angels employees at Trader Joes offer up a lobster ravioli at the very reasonable price (this is where I am using my wannabe commercial guy voice) of $2.99 a bag.

It’s all just so sad. What a waste of such a precious commodity. I wonder if this is how ants feel when Lucy and Ethel spill part of their daily afternoon popsicle on the patio and then we spray it off with the hose. Because let me tell you, if that is how ants feel, I am making a pledge right here and now to never spray food bits off the patio again. Well, until I see too many ants on the patio. But don’t fault me, that’s just human nature.

There is a remedy to all the sadness and loss and carnage though. If you remember, and I am hoping that you do, Wednesday is Cheese Day. And let me tell you, nothing dries up tears better than a nice thick slice of cheese. Of course I mean that in the most metaphorical of senses. Kleenex works best for the real thing. It’s pretty absorbent. And they make some that have nice patterns on it. Those are pretty AND absorbent, but then you feel guilty snotting over such a nice design. Hmmm, maybe I’ll blog about Kleenex tomorrow.

It’s The Cheesiest!

Yep, I’m the one running through the halls of my office singing ‘It’s the most cheesiest time of the year…’ Yes, I realize that is horrible grammar, but it’s the only way I can bastardize that wonderful Andy Williams tune. I suppose I COULD sing it by saying ‘it’s the cheesiest time of the year,’ but that makes it sound corny. Well it makes it sound cheesy, but somewhere along the way the meanings of corny and cheesy apparently intersected. All of that aside, there’s actually a reason for me singing my cheese song…this time, anyway. Wednesday, June 4th is cheese day!! Yes, I realize that it’s only Monday, but I have already begun celebrating. This is mostly due to the fact that I did not get to leave the office early Monday in honor of Leave Work Early Day. And that folks, is a shame I can never shake. While you could successfully argue that every day is cheese day when around me, the official day falls on Wednesday. That makes Tuesday Cheese Day Eve, which is just as holy to most people as Cheese Day is. I believe that makes it cheddar, because it’s holy. It has holes, like cheese. It’s holy. It probably lessens the impact if I have to explain though.

Cheese Day is such an exciting time. It’s when we get to pay homage, or should I say ‘Fromage’ to that fattened dairy product that brings all of us so much joy - be it in deep-fried, melted, curdled, cottaged, stringed or even liquid form. Cheese just makes things better. It’s like alcohol or drugs without the side effects or legal ramifications. There are so many variations of it that there is a flavor to appeal to everyone. I tend to favor a sharp cheddar, but sadly have not yet been exposed to all the different varieties. I think in some way this is intentional. If I were to have all the cheeses in all the world displayed before me, I would literally eat until I became a drooling, incoherent semi-comatose being. Then I would pop. I would literally eat until I popped like they say fish do, although I have yet to be able to reproduce that reaction in my own fish tank. I’m kidding. I’m kidding! That would just be cruel, and then I’d have to clean the fish tank. But the cruelty part is really the main reason. Honest.

I had planned on caroling outside of a few of the local dairies near my home and office to thank them for their wonderful contributions, but have been told by my family that I will be doing that alone. Since caroling is a group activity, I may have to rethink this celebratory plan of action. This is probably also a very good indication that I will be asked to take down the cheese squares I tacked up around the house like holly and mistletoe. But that’s where I am drawing the line. It took me hours to grate enough cheese to make the Cheesy The Cheese Ball Man that is now in my backyard and he’s staying there until he melts, upon which time I will scoop him up and spread him over warm tortilla chips so I don’t waste all that cheesy goodness. Cheesy would have wanted it that way.

Obviously I made that up, but if I could make Cheesy The Cheese Ball Man, I would. Although, I feel a little awkward about the Cheese and Ball part. A more perverted individual could perceive that the wrong way. Maybe I should call him Cheesy The Man Made Of Cheese Balls. No, that doesn’t sound any better. I just can’t help shake the image of Alec Baldwin on SNL talking to Molly Shannon and Anna Gasteyer about his Schweaty Balls. Hmm, perhaps I should change the topic before I get all cheesed off about this.

I Gouda tell you though that I have officially declared this the summer of cheese. Seriously, I just stood up and yelled ‘this will officially be the summer of cheese.’ But now I wish I had realized that Lucy and Ethel were sleeping in front of the TV before I did so because I think I just gave them both heart attacks. I am naming this the summer of cheese because in a mere 4 weeks, I will be traveling up to Oregon to visit the Tillamook Cheese Factory. Well that and my cousin’s wedding where Lucy and Ethel will be serving as flower girls, blah, blah, blah.

Go head, you can ‘ooh and ahhh’ about the cheese factory part. It is pretty cool. I even bought another memory card for my camera in anticipation of this special visit. I plan on documenting everything from my arrival in the parking lot all the way through to the part where security escorts me off the property because I left the main tour and ended up in the ‘real’ part of the factory dipping my fingers in all the different vats of cheesy goodness. I just hope that part happens AFTER all the free cheese samples.

This is also the summer of cheese because I recently and finally found a ‘Melting Pot’ within driving distance of both home and the office. I plan on making full use of the advantageous location of this fine dining experience. That sounds too fancy. What I mean is that I will be dipping my skewer into their pot o’cheese as often as I can. And speaking of fondue (and cheesy segues), I am on the hunt for a decent fondue set to have around the house. It will sit right next to my charcoal grill on my culinary altar, to be joined some day by the deep fryer I am still trying to get. All three will finally complete my holy trinity of food preparation devices. I can still remember the fondue set my parents had while I was growing up and the awe struck fascination I felt the first time I realized I could dip a piece of bread into that olive-green cauldron of warm melted cheese. It still brings a tear to my eye just thinking about it.

Well, when it comes to the subject of cheese, I could go on and on with no stopping (that’s what she said). But, I feel it’s more important that we begin our cheese celebrations. So let’s just get to it and cut the cheese to begin this wondrous holiday season!!! Wait, I don’t think that came out right…

Want A Reason To Leave Work Early? Here’s One.

I have met very few people who actually enjoy going back to work on Mondays. Truth be told, when I have, I ignore them or point and scream. I am definitely one of the Monday haters. Sometimes though, all the moons line up just right and you get a Monday that is actually a holiday. Now granted it’s not one of those fancy schmancy Mondays where you don’t have to go to work like Memorial Day or Labor Day or whenever Fred Willard’s birthday falls on a Monday, but it’s close.

Why is it close? Well, Monday is ‘Leave Work Early Day.’ As soon as I learned of this blessed day, I knew immediately that I needed to blog about it. I’ll be honest with you though, I was tempted to make it a really short post (as in Mini Me or ‘Da Plane, Da Plane’ short) because most everyone I know blogs from work. Except for me because I am the quintessential loyal employee – well that and the fact that I have already been caught for blogging at work, but mostly because I am a wonderful and exemplary employee. Perhaps I already mentioned that? Let’s face it, if you get to leave early, you won’t have time to read this post and I certainly don’t want to be the cause for you having to stay even one minute longer at work on Leave Work Early Day. I really can’t fault you. After all, I have spent all day on my list of persuasive arguments for my boss on why I should get to leave work early on Monday in case my employer chooses not to recognize the holiday just like they did last year on the 6-month eve of my birthday or the day after I finally perfected my BBQ rub. And I won’t even go into the lame excuse they gave me when I tried to get the end of this year’s writer’s strike declared as a day off. ‘We pay you to work, not celebrate fake holidays’ my arse!!!

I’ve been having trouble concentrating lately. Oh hey, there’s a humming bird. Sorry. Trying to get through work Monday is not going to make that any easier knowing that I get to leave early and have the power of an internet website declaring my right to leave early behind me. I’m just hoping I can fit my dress shirt and pants over my cargo shorts and ‘more cowbell’ t-shirt because if I have to change in the office bathroom, it’ll force me to stay longer than the holiday calls for. Well, that and the whole ‘customers sometimes seem to have issues aiming at the toilet’ thing, but that’s a whole different disgusting blog post for an evening when I haven’t had 3 glasses of yummy lemonade.

Many holidays have rules like ‘fireworks and BBQs’ on July 4th or ‘start celebrating in late August’ for Christmas, but I’m a little unclear on the celebratory protocol for Monday’s Leave Work Early Day. Namely: how early do we leave work and what do we do when we leave work. Since the holiday’s departure time is ambiguous, I am very tempted to go into the office just long enough to have my coffee with crème brule creamer, tell everyone I’m leaving early and then set my email out of office thingy to tell everyone that emails me that they can go suck it because it’s Leave The Office Early Day. For those of you unfamiliar with my job, that would make my departure time approximately 7:37 seconds after I arrive in the office, which for those of you unfamiliar with my job is approximately 35 minutes AFTER I should be there and when all of my coworkers normally arrive. Please note that the use of the word ‘normally’ means the same in this instance as ‘expected to.’

As far as the issue of what to do when you have left the office early, well I’d like to think that’s up to your discretion. I haven’t decided yet. I’m torn between going home and taking 3 naps, hopping in the kiddy pool in full business attire (and I’m not talking that sissy business casual stuff) or driving around the office honking my horn and yelling ‘I just got off, I just got off,’ for about an hour or so knowing that my boss and some of my coworkers would stay at work so they could get stuff done without me bothering them (and what the heck is up with that by the way), but it has been brought to my attention that the phrase I’d be yelling can mean something entirely different than what I would be using it for. And suffice to say, that’s the sort of thing that leads to ugly office gossip.

So to wrap this all up, if you are reading this while at work on Monday (and don’t lie because I check my blog stats and know that’s when most of you visit), stop reading and leave the office. You can leave quietly or make a big fuss like they do at the beginning of the Drew Carey show. The more I think about it, my departure will probably go something like this: ‘I just got a phone call that my dog is ill and I need to go donate my spleen so she can recover. This means I will have to leave early, but I promise I won’t be enjoying myself because I have to donate my liver, I mean spleen, to my dog and that requires cutting and blood and anesthesia, though not necessarily in that order. Now, don’t you feel bad for me? I swear I will not be enjoying myself as I donate my appendix, I mean spleen, to my doggy, Mabel.’ Yes, you can use that line if you need to. Enjoy the short workday everybody!

The One Where He Drones On Forever And You Are Stuck Listening To It

Well, the weekend is upon us and really, who wants to spend all day reading something, especially when the weather is so nice and the kitchen needs to be cleaned. Wait, that last option doesn't sound like much fun.

I have an alternative for you. You can listen to something. It's really much more efficient an activity when you think about it. You can crank up the volume and do whatever you wanted to while still being able to listen. Your hands are freed up and you are not stuck in front of your computer. I prefer this option at work, but even though it is more efficient, my productivity suffers horribly.

Now here's the downside. The thing I am offering up for you to listen to is 9 minutes of solid, irrefutable evidence that I should stick to writing. I am going to choose to say it's because my podcast skillz (the use of the 'z' makes me hipper, though if you read that really quickly, you'll probably think I just wrote the word 'zipper') are a bit rusty since I haven't podcasted since Halloween. Gheesh, that's like 3 months ago.

So, if you'd like, feel free to click on over to what I like to call 'the essence of what hell will be like in audio form.' Have a great weekend!!!!!

http://thewonderfulworldofnothing.mypodcast.com/
(it may take a second to start, or you can always download it)

Where Hath The Time Gone (And Why Am I Using Words Like Hath)?

Increasingly I am beginning to feel my advanced 34 years of age. The month of May has given me heart issues, that mysterious popping sound in my leg heard ONLY when I go up a flight of stairs and now yesterday’s events. Lucy and Ethel graduated from Kindergarten. I realize that apparently some people don’t view the completion of kindergarten as something worthy of a graduation ceremony (hi Mom), so I will rephrase that to say Lucy and Ethel completed Kindergarten with honors. Yes, I added the honors part. This all means that effective this morning, I can now say that I am the father of two first graders.

Here’s the rub: I don’t want to be able to say that. Not because it makes me feel old, unlike the effect of having two open-heart surgeries or falling asleep in the recliner before 9:30pm every night, but because I am not ready for my little ones to grow up. It also isn’t made any easier by the fact that they are now easily more mature than I am. I know that a lot of the people who read this blog have kids older than 5 and I honestly don’t know how you have watched your children grow up without immense sadness that renders you immovable. Unless of course that’s just me, in which case I made that part up. I feel fine. Solid as a rock. There’s just something in my eye.

I can see an end to the days where they want to sit and watch TV with me, want me around all the time and try to emulate me, except for saying ‘that’s what she said,’ because they have gotten very good at doing that. Don’t get me wrong because at the same time I am getting all wistful and sad, I am also feeling immense pride about how grown up they’ve become. It’s very Mr. Hyde and Dr. Jeykll, or is that Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde? See what it’s doing to me! I will admit though that it’s a little odd to be put in check and told what not to do by a 5-year-old, but they are smart enough now to realize what is appropriate and inappropriate in public settings. For the record, sticking elongated food items in your ears while at a restaurant or singing ‘Yellow Submarine’ on the edge of a public fountain is not appropriate. Nor is picking Lucy and Ethel up and playing them like guitars when I drop them off at school or try to sing along in a falsetto voice to all of their Disney movies. I could keep going on with examples like these, but I’m starting to think they don’t paint a good picture of me.

After a two month break Lucy and Ethel will enter the first grade and join the other salmon swimming up the stream of public education. Though salmon die at the end of that trip, right? Hmmm, that may not be the best analogy here. Well, I’ve got the next several years of public education to work on a better one. For now, the girls will be out of the house for almost 8 hours a day. And I’ll finally be able to set up my hammock in the back yard and, wait, I’ll be at work for all that down time so it really won’t be down time for me at all. Ok, I’m not wistful anymore. Now I’m just mad. For the first time since 2002 my little girls will be out of the house long enough to do whatever I wish, like play the Wii with no interruptions or eat my Tillamook cheddar without having to share and I will be busy working. Wait, I don’t want to do those things without my girls. They are my little best buddies. The proverbial Gilligans to my Skipper. The Robins to my Batman, the Barneys to my Andy, the C3POs to my R2D2, the Pips to my Gladys Knight, the Hillarys to my Obama…Ok, I’ve now officially taken the comparison thing too far. But now I’m wistful again.

A few years back, I wished that we could freeze one of the twins between the 1-3 age mark and let the other one grow up so we could have the best of both worlds. I now realize that’s not a good idea because carbon freezing almost killed Han Solo and that might bring some unjustified and unwanted attention to me, not mention the unavailability of that technology. Also and perhaps more importantly, I would not have gotten to experience the growth and maturity of both Lucy and Ethel. So, I am just going to try and enjoy each phase of their lives no matter how sentimental it makes me for all the phases and milestones they will continue to pass. But since they still giggle at the word ‘toot,’ I hoping maybe I’ve got a little more ‘kid’ time left than I thought.

Now, why the heck can't I get 'Cats In The Cradle' out of my head?

I just read that Harvey Korman passed away. Watching him crack up at Tim Conway on the Carol Burnett Show was a part of my childhood (in reruns of course) and it still cracks me up whenever I see it...

This Is One Mission That Will Not Go Down The Drain

Space travel can be pretty serious and life threatening stuff. After all, if we had been meant to be space dwellers, we would have been born there. Wow, that may have been the dumbest thing I have ever written. Well, not counting the proposal I turned in at work once that had errors I put in it just to see if they would be found, because that was a whole different kind of dumb, as in I really thought I’d get away with it but didn’t and am lucky to still have a job.

It seems that our interstellar gamble with space travel has come back to bite us (in the rear) again. Yep, while taking Lucy and Ethel to school this morning, the radio reported that the toilet on the international space station has stopped working. I was immediately touched by how difficult dealing with this will be for the unlucky astronauts aboard the space station. Then I realized I could blog about their bodily relievement challenges and felt much better. Seriously though, what a hard time they now face. As anyone who has ever witnessed the failure of public restrooms on a NASCAR race weekend can tell you, non-operational toilets can make things messy real fast.

Not to worry though. As we showed in Apollo 13, nothing is beyond our ability to solve or overcome, even when it is in orbit. In other words, we can flush wipe away fix any problem. And the international space station’s toilet is no different. NASA has a contingency plan and that plan is…(I’m stalling here to let the excitement build, hum the 2001 Space Odyssey Theme or Star Wars or Star Trek or the original Battlestar Gallactica theme, if it helps) plastic bags with sticky openings. While I cannot 100% confirm this, it is my assumption (and remember, an assumption is making a brave speculation with too little information to actually make a speculation with) that the sticky opening of the bags are to help the bag affix to the ass-tronaut so it doesn’t detach while the bag’s user is well, using the bag. Because of that fun, but annoying because it’s not there when you really need it thing called gravity, the space station’s toilet has a fan and sucking type device so that the bodily relievement is drawn toward the appropriate storage device (Cosmic Relievement Assistance Procurer – CRAP. I was literally giddy in bed in the middle of the night last night when I finally thought of that) instead of being released into the space station.

I’m not sure if the astronauts have ever had training time with the sticky bags, but it certainly gives new meaning to the phrase ‘to boldly GO where no man has GONE before.’ Oh come on, you saw that coming the minute you knew this was a potty post. Let’s just hope it all goes smoothly because if the sticky bags prove difficult to master, the interior of the international space station is going to be the exact type of place where we’d see Mike Rowe say ‘and this…is a dirty job.’ Every time something goes wrong aboard the station or an astronaut gets flustered and yells ‘crap,’ all the other astronauts are going to instinctively duck to avoid undesirable floating objects (yes, UFO) aboard the station. Get comfortable, because I’m probably just going to sit here and make bathroom jokes at the poor astronauts’ expense for the rest of this post…

I guess there will be no splash landings aboard the station until the toilet gets fixed. Do you think Mission Control keeps radioing the astronauts to tell them ‘oh boy, urine trouble.’ Perhaps the astronauts are reciting the septic tank owners’ mantra of ‘if it’s brown flush it down, if it’s yellow let it mellow.’ At least I think that’s the septic users’ mantra. I really only know one family that has a septic tank, my aunt and uncle in Maine, and they have that saying needle pointed and framed over their toilet, which makes me think it’s the septic tank owners’ mantra. And let’s face it; if it isn’t then it really deserves to be.

Since Apollo 13 was such a huge hit, do you think this space challenge will be made into a movie if everything ends well? I bet the astronauts involved hope it doesn’t. I seriously doubt that they want to be the butt of a poop load of bathroom jokes. Do they really want all the difficult moments they encountered, like getting the sticky bags stuck to their fingers when trying to open them as they flail their hands around trying to get the bag off? Or how about when they had to use the ‘force’ to overcome the inevitable zero gravity induced constipation? Honestly, I have no idea if zero gravity induces that. I just couldn’t find any other way to work ‘the force’ into this post. Heck, zero gravity probably works on the body in the exact opposite way and makes the digestive system work at warp speed.

All right, I’ve got it all out of my system (that’s what the astronaut said). I’m done now. Thanks for indulging me. Do you think they use stools to reach things in zero gravity? How anal would that be? It’s pretty ass-inine, if you ask me. Ok, now I’m done.

Book ‘Em

Well, we all made it back to work after the weekend that marks the unofficial start to summer. We celebrated with 55 degree weather, the Danica Patrick 500 Indy 500, lobster ravioli from Trader Joes (I swear to you when I saw it in the freezer section, I heard angels sing for the first time. And I mean real angels, not the ones in Anaheim or the ones from those crappy Philadelphia Cream Cheese commercials) and of course a BBQ. Ok, you got me. The BBQ was actually a fire in the fireplace to keep the house warm, but there were flames and I got to go all goo-goo while watching them flicker. I also got to spend some time in a book store, which got me thinking. In my defense though, I only mentioned to my friends three times that I was going to have to blog about it. Ever notice how often we say that phrase? I just spilled lemonade on my shorts, I gotta blog about it. Thanks to a fortunate twist of rigor mortis, the dead possum in the middle of the road looks like it’s flipping me off. I gotta blog about it. I just saw a program on TV about cheese. I gotta blog about it. I woke up today with the greatest idea for a blog post, ever. I gotta blog about it. Wait, that one kinda makes sense…

So like I said, I found myself in a bookstore over the holiday weekend. I don’t know if everyone who likes to write and has ever dreamed of publishing a book feels this way, but I’m always amazed at the variety in a bookstore. Though I guess that’s the natural thought progression to being amazed as a kid by the variety at Baskin Robbins. 31 different flavors? Do you know how long it would take me to sample that many different varieties of ice cream if I could only have one flavor a day? It would take like a month. Hmmm, that’s not as impressive a stat as I was hoping it would be, unless…it was a month like February. Yeah! Then it would take me a month and a couple of days!

I always get the same feeling when I am in a bookstore. Actually, I guess I always get two feelings, but one of them is an urge. Yes, I seem to always want to bust spontaneously into a song and dance number. I assume that’s because it’s so quiet in a bookstore and I seem to have issues with the status quo. So, pardon me if you are ever in the same bookstore as I am and your reading a book instead of buying it browsing is interrupted by me dancing through the store loudly singing John Menllencamp’s ‘Authority Song.’ The other feeling is the one I meant to write about. I always look at the ginormous selection of books on every topic known to man and some that weren’t previously known to man (or woman or child, sorry) and think ‘who honestly reads this stuff?’ That thought is followed shortly thereafter by ‘if I bought a cup of coffee in the bookstore’s coffee shop and promptly spilled it all over a large paperback book, would I be liable? After all, by selling coffee in the bookstore, they are saying it’s ok to parade around inventory consisting of basically nothing but paper products with a hot and stainable liquid.’ I also find myself thinking ‘not only do I wonder who reads this stuff, who writes it? And better yet, who gets paid to write it and why didn’t I think of that?’ Those last questions there are more to the point. The spilling of hot liquid, while valid, doesn’t really have anything to do with this post.

If you have ever suffered from writer’s block, take a trip to your local mega-chain bookstore to get over it. It will most certainly inspire you to write about whatever you want. I saw books about road trips based solely on great food joints, books about the hamburger and books containing nothing but surfboard photographs. By the way, I now have the utmost admiration for the original surfers. Their boards were featured in the surfboard book and the tips of the earliest boards were essentially the same pointy-ness as a knife used to cut open the secret ingredient on Iron Chef America. You could grab one of those boards and easily surf and harpoon a large sea dwelling mammal at the same time. I guess it would be called Surpooning?

All of this brings me to an idea. Don’t worry though; this idea will be much better than my idea for combining lawn darts and the Slip and Slide (Darts and Slide – trademark TBD. It was inspired by Dan Akroyd’s character who sold Bag O’Glass and Johnny Switchblade on SNL). I had sensory and creative overload after my most recent trip to the bookstore and started reeling off dozens of book ideas. Though the one I had for a coffee table picture book featuring time-lapsed photography of me shaving my face with a dull electric razor did not qualify as a real idea, according to family and friends. Nor did my idea for a book that could only be read under black ultraviolet light called ‘The Big Book Of Almost Invisible Stains.’

And need I really tell you that I thought the ‘Yearbook of Potato Chips – Portraitures in Similarites, Class of 2008’ would be the biggest fad since ‘Where’s Waldo?’ It was going to be a fake yearbook containing people’s yearbook-style photos of their potato chips that look like Jesus, Elvis, Richard Nixon, etc. I was really ready to move forward with this one, until I went through 5 bags of different types of chips (including those fakers – Sun Chips) Memorial Day Monday and did not find a single look-alike. I did find one chip that looked exactly like another chip in the same bag, but since neither chip looked like someone famous, I don’t think the unique twin factor is as impressive.

After that spectacular failure and consuming 30,000 calories in chips that looked like no one, not even President Millard Fillmore, I have decided I want to write a book about all of the books in the bookstore. It’s similar to other ideas people have had, but if I pretend not to be aware of those ideas, it holds me unaccountable, right? The book can be my written tour of what’s actually in a bookstore, including the popular, the mundane, the obscure, the best-sellers and yes, the bargain table. Or, I could just live inside of the bookstore and be sustained by only things in the bookstore (including the coffee shop) for 2 straight weeks. Picture Morgan Spurlock’s McDonalds stunt combined with Les Stroud’s Survivor Man on The Discovery Channel. I’ll just work my way through each and every aisle, chronicling what I find and the books I skim. It would be an avid reader’s idea of heaven. I was going to go with the working title of ‘Book Whore in the Book Store,’ but I fear my mom would be very embarrassed when she finally sees my name in print and it’s next to the word ‘whore.’

So, if any of you know of a bookstore that is willing to let me live there (rent free) for 2 straight weeks, please send them my way. Although, I guess I should find a publisher first. How ironic would it be to write an entire book about bookstores and living in and off of one and then not be able to get it published or sold in a bookstore? Actually, when I stop to think about it, that sad eventuality kind of sums up my life. Wow, that’s depressing…