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I love my job. I really do. Solving puzzles is fun and that’s what I get paid to do. “I deal with the customers so the engineers don’t have to.” Wait! I’m the engineer, too. Oh, crap.
I’ve been so tied up earning a living, I haven’t had time to keep the blog up very well. April Fools Day was a blast. I really enjoyed writing and reading all the digs (Note: that’s digs not diggs. Even as a techno-geek, I find digg boring.) the blog-o-sphere created for the annual event.
Once the infernal taxes are filed, I’ll start planning next year’s joke. Taxes are a necessary suckness, made easier by guys like me. We take the tax code and turn it into a computer program in your web browser and in less than an hour, your taxes are done. Thank you computer nerds. I’d like to put us all out of a job with something like the Fair Tax. I’d end up paying more, but the stress reduction would be worth it.
If you’re curious, my effective tax rate was 9.72%, but I got a huge deduction for sending socks, Q-Tips, and lip-balm to some soldiers in Iraq. Kind of sad I had to do that, but I’m happy for the line item.
Vogue magazine lit a nice fire with the latest cover. I don’t have a subscription, but the new “Shape Issue” caught my eye. They expound on all sorts of shapes, but mine. My doctor keeps telling me I’m out of shape. I keep reminding her that round is a shape.
Let’s try to look beyond the racial divide that still exists the world over and take something away from this furor that can be applied to life. In general, life teaches us these things.
Prejudice is human nature. Yeah, I said it. Want to fight about it? You’re prejudice. I’m prejudice. We’re all prejudice in a different way. My prejudice is just against stupidity. If you want to read my angry rant about prejudice, well screw you! I don’t like you. You smell funny and I hate you so don’t read it.
This lovely phrase didn’t make the final cut for 33 Annoying Expression that Killed our Conversation, but it’s one very close to “There’s no accounting for taste,” to which I did pay homage. An interesting fact is the human brain is hard-wired for beauty. Studies show that, above all else, humans love symmetry.
One experiment had people rate attractiveness based on photos of faces. The one consistent factor of the pictures rated as beautiful was they had nearly symmetrical features. Makes you re-think the old, “There’s someone for everyone,” fallacy, doesn’t it?
Was down in the back yesterday? Naw. No one cares about a old, broken man’s lumbago.
Buttheads in Berkeley, CA banning the Marine recruiters? Naw. You heard that on the vast-right-wing-conspiracy, radio talk-shows.
My trip to the drug store? Naw. It was funny when I convinced the young lad at the register to card the lady behind me for her cans of Chef Boyardee. That laugh got me all the way to the car and I’ll get more mileage out of it at work tomorrow when I see my victim, Jill.
No. Today I think I will blog about the first time I saw my name in print. Yep. I’m “published,” as they say. Okay, it was only my name in the liner notes of a CD, but still, I couldn’t wait to show anyone who would look. Here’s the long and sordid tale.
In March 2007, it received and advance copy of Chris Berry and the Retrofitter’s Emerald River Project. Chris had approached me for a review and, never one to pass up free music, I gladly accepted. It turn out much better than the time I agreed to review Tubesock and the Magnificent Brass Band Rejects. Chris’ album was full of bluesy tracks with Western spices dashed in for a kick. The details are all in the original review. It’s a damn fine read, if I do say so myself.
Due to the aforementioned back problems, I didn’t waddle my fat ass to the mail box yesterday. As I pulled out for work this morning, I snagged a fat hand full of fliers, coupons, bills, and one fat, bubble-pack of blues. Chris had mailed the polished copy of the Emerald River Project with a message, “Read the liner notes.” There he thanks:
His lovely wife (Total assumption on my part. She may be a complete tramp if track 8 is auto-biographical.)
Some chick in Nebraska who is president of the band’s fan club. (Probably also a total tramp. You know how groupies are.)
A brilliant, insightful writer who loves music and reviewed the pre-release back in March.
There it was. My name as third banana in the “thank-yous” of the liner notes of a CD which you may or may not find in stores, but can always order directly from the artist by emailing chrisberryandtheretrofitters@hotmail.com. That started my day out perfectly. Nothing could touch me after that. I was bullet-proof. Twelve cups of coffee and five stupid users later, I was still smiling. Damn decent fellow that Berry.
Those are good, but, aren’t even the very best tracks. So order the CD by dropping an email to chrisberryandtheretrofitters@hotmail.com. I get no cut of the profits. In fact, all proceeds go to…um…saving babies…er…baby seals…yeah, that’s the ticket. Urban legends have it, every time you don’t buy a CD, a baby seal is clubbed to death. I don’t know if that’s true, but I have my copy and my conscience is clear.
Over the end-of-year holidays, I took some time off from work…all kinds of work…including shaving. By the time 2008 rolled in, I had to make a decision. I had to either shave or put a crowbar in my wallet and free $20 for a decent beard trimmer. As cheap as I am, I chose to keep my beard and opted for the trimmers. Now I am assaulted frequently with annoying expression number 34: “Hey, you’re trying to grow a beard.”
Some of my snappy comebacks are “No. It’s grown,” and “Trying? No. I’m doing a damn fine job of it” and “I have to do something with all this testosterone since your wife cut me off.” Grabbing my face like Macaulay Culkin in Home Alone and screaming, “Where the hell did this come from?” hasn’t offered the impact I’d hoped.
The reason “Hey, you’re trying to grow a beard” grinds my gears is men are always growing beards. That’s the whole point of shaving every day. By shaving, we men are constantly trying not to grow beards.
Which makes me think of a new witty comeback for the next clean-shaved dunderhead who accosts me with this annoying expression. “I see you’re trying not to, putz.” I should just start walking up to people and saying that without provocation. Lord knows I can be annoying, too. My skills may go soft if I don’t practice more.
Email is the blessing and bane of daily life. Get too much and you can’t get any real work done because you are just replying to emails. Get none and you start wondering if the pink slip is the next message you will receive. When emails start to drive you mad, take your revenge creatively with these suggestions.
Fun with acronyms
Every industry or company has their own language. One of the unfortunate side effects of jargon is that common phrases turn into acronyms. Honestly, most people in the company have no idea what 99% of the acronyms represent. So make some up and put them in the signature of your emails.
I once managed a mailing list of about 300 people that used a particular computer system. Monthly or weekly communications were my responsibility and I would sign every email with “MOBTAS LOAIS” under my name. After 18 months and hundreds of emails, only one lady ever asked me what the acronym meant. Everyone else either ignored it, thought it was some project code, or was too proud to admit they didn’t know. The lady that finally called me on it had a good laugh when I told her it stood for “Master of Both Time and Space. Lord of all I Survey.”
Be creative, but not crude with your acronyms. A wonderful alternative to this is to remove all vowels from your emails completely. Oddly, they remain readable.
Fun with Languages
Use a free on-line translation service like BabelFish or FreeTranslation to translate your text into a foreign language. I like to use Dutch or Norwegian. Don’t use Spanish or French since everyone learned a little of those in high school. Non-Latin alphabet languages don’t work well for this game. You might try sending one to yourself just to check the font.
When the bewildered response comes, translate your reply again. When you finally get the inevitable phone call from the befuddle recipient, insist that you are sending plain English and the problem must be on their end. Tell them to check their software settings. Recommend they uninstall and reinstall their software or operating system. Be adamant that they must have some strange font installed on their computer. When they say, “But it only happens to your emails,” tell them it must be a virus that soon will spread to other emails. Convince them to unplug from the network until help arrives.
Fun with Sound
Record yourself reading the email text and attach the sound file to the email. This is actually a really helpful tip if the recipient is blind, but it’s fun for the sighted, too. Where does the really fun part come in? Record something other than the email text and attach it.
Imagine an email with very dry, technical, run-of-the-mill facts in the text with a recording of Robert Frost’s “Stopping By Woods On A Snowy Evening” attached. You might even attach a paranoid, lunatic rant, including Biblical prophetic citations of the end of the world, about how your dog is stealing your girlfriend and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police are tunneling under your house every morning at 3 o’clock.
It really confuses them if you sent a few recordings that match the text and then suddenly attach a recording of Hamlet’s soliloquy to your monthly report. Pairing “fourth quarter sales are up 8%” with a recording of your best falsetto Lady Macbeth’s “out, out damned spot” speech is always a boardroom winner.
Fun with Legalities
Sign all your emails with a paragraph of legal jargon in 4 point type. Make it light gray to make it even more unreadable. You can reproduce a product warning label or use a software programs “terms of use” text as the source.
I get emails every once in a while with “if you are not the intended recipient…” under the sender’s signature. If I’m not, you shouldn’t have sent it to me. Be more creative than that guy. Make your “terms of use” say
By reading this email you acknowledge from henceforth and in perpetuity to:
Wash the sender’s car on alternate odd Saturdays.
Profess to the world on every Federal holiday, the sender’s genius.
Love the sender’s dog even when he has the mange.
Refer to the sender as “Loretta” on Wednesdays
Call random recipients up four weeks in the future and ask them when they are coming over to wash your car. Threaten them with breach of contract if they don’t show up by 5PM, Greenwich Mean Time.
One word of caution if you follow through with these ideas, keep your resume up to date. I can’t be held accountable for your insanity. We all have to find our own, personal madness and make it work.
It’s coming. International “Talk Like a Pirate Day” is coming. Avast ye maties! September 19th is two days away and you don’t want to be any where near me when it happens. I will be the most obnoxious guy you’ve ever been around.
I will talk like a pirate. Swagger like a pirate. Even my dogs won’t know what to do with me.
I will eat at Arrrrrby’s and make necklaces out of the bones. Maybe I’ll eat baaaarrrrebeque and slop the mess all over my beard. (note to self…grow beard in the next two days.)
If it quacks like a pirate, walks like a pirate, smells like a pirate…it must be a pirate. Have some fun y’all.
