This or That

I was sitting in traffic on the national highway administered by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration when I thought of their ubiquitous "Click It or Ticket" campaign slogan. Its double-syllabic rhymes nuzzle into your memory, a likable song, a smiley poem, knocked out at once like a burly slap on the back to welcome you to this no-fucking-around campaign of swift penalty.

That I like.

What I don't like is the lazy ambiguity of the slogan--something only a word-stroking wanker like myself would notice. "Click It or Ticket"--the imperative mood of the former setting off the negative condition of the indicative latter leaves me screaming for the sure clarity found in names like the National Highway...something Administration.

Stormy Past

Never mind the time when a tornado separated me from the Franz Ferdinand guy. How about the time when Barry Manilow gave me the eye?

Choose your own Adventure: Jeans

"Are you going for the 'designer torn jeans' look?," commented the IT guy.

"Of course," I said.

"I ripped a pair of jeans on a computer once and-"

"Did you instantly feel cooler?"

YES--turn to next page for a miracle.
NO--turn to page 7 for more IT conversations that go nowhere.

What Color is your Fucking Parachute?

The results of the workplace MBTI are in! I work with a bunch of Feelers! Sympathetic, agreeable for the sake of harmony, tolerant, means-oriented--you know, the folks who think we have all year to consider everyone's feelings while walking hand-in-hand on the Yellow Brick Road to Getting Shit Done.

Single-Space

Finally, everyone has left the blog scene.
Finally, some peace and quiet.

I can't get enough of jobs!

I just learned from a fellow in HR that I am to assume the responsibility of putting on a large benefit event, a task that falls under the "other duties as assigned when your co-worker quits and administration wastes no time to implement a hiring freeze" section of my job description. Although I have some reservations about my long term ability to deal with people--that is, people and their insatiable need to have personalities--I'd like the company to know that I am a team player and will leverage my limited skills to put on this little wingding. In the meantime I shall continue to appreciate my current job, where other people's personalities are evinced only by the modifiers they like to dangle and misplace within my copy. Who knew wingdings could give me such job security?

Palin's Resignation Speech

http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2009/07/palin-speech-edit-200907

That's News to Me!

What happens when you write a 24-page annual report and the people responsible for approving it take months and months to do it, therefore rendering the financial statistics obsolete? You call it a newsletter! You use all your power to ignore the professional stock photos, booklet format, comprehensive information, and the total absence of news articles, and you call it a newsletter, damn it! You call it a newsletter and then you shoot yourself.

Faceblock

Let me tell you about this hip new thing I discovered on the Information Superhighway: Facebook. I finally put two and two together and realized that this was the thing everyone was talking about: keeping in touch with family members so you can spend even MORE time tolerating people you don't want to know that much about; gossiping about co-workers who've befriended you not at work, not in your personal life, but ONLINE so that you have to censor everything you say, for fear of a trip to the HR office on Monday; and getting back in touch with people who liked high school way more than you ever did. With my new public Facebook account, I can tell people what I'm up to, that I dislike doing laundry, which bands I like, what line of work I'm in, how whine about gas prices but in actuality just want to talk about what I drive and how cool it makes me, whom I tried to poison at work, and how I can sense the desperation in some of those profile photos. I like it. It's like a community of loud people with no self-control and a lot of stupid things on their minds.

Prize

In one month and one day, I could say, "Five years ago today, I started this blog, and have I confused you with all of those time references one month and one day ago when I mentioned the then yet-to-have-occurred five-year anniversary?"

And you will hang on now, reading for the prize at the end of the post: a statement of wit, wisdom, weirdness, and, you know, alliteration.

Delayed Blog Post

I've been on and off the softball field for about 14 years now. My greatest and only fear to this day is getting hit in the face by a savage ground ball, whose sudden rejection of course leaves my surprise a much delayed reaction.

Oh cra-!

(Hello again. I can't get into the Twitter thing.)

I "give" you this:

http://quotation-marks.blogspot.com/

Vote Today

What should I be?

I was thinking for Halloween I’d just be myself. What do you think? Too boring? At least I won’t look like a cheap costume for Halloween. At least I won’t be screaming, “Hey, I shopped at the makeshift Halloween Costume Depot with the rest of the loser adults who want to look either clever or theatrically slutty on Friday!” I’m going to be myself for Halloween. I’m going to be a candy-pitching bitch who will walk around in her normal corner-whore clothes and tell the cops, “Hey, you can’t arrest me! This is my theatrically slutty costume for Halloween!”

Friends > 20

After several years of dismissing Internet-based social networking sites like Facebook and MySpace, calling them petri dishes for the social bacteria of high school and college cultures, Sylvia signed up for an account on Facebook, inspired only by her younger brother's tasteless, yet hilarious urinal photograph. In just days, Sylvia accepted 20 "friendships" from people she stopped talking to for one reason or another.

One Reason: She is related to them.
Another: She is no longer in high school with them.

What she learned from this isn't that it was a bad idea to sign up for an open-to-anyone social networking site. What she learned was what breeders her classmates turned out to be!

Please note that I have wised up and changed my privacy settings on Facebook, so don't bother trying to become my friend. I already have over 20.

Looking to the Future

Earlier this week I flew to Seattle in search of "Gayway" (see pictured). A place that promised gayness and bold use of lighting couldn't have been more welcomed after a tumultuous week at work. I walked around all afternoon, asking if Gayway was anywhere near the Space Needle. Finally, someone was nice enough to inform me that Gayway was a thing of the past, specifically of the 1962 Seattle's World Fair. I said, "No, it's not a thing of the past, as you say. It's a thing of the future--always was--and the future is where I want to go. I've had a rough week at work, and I want to get beyond it--and soon!" The jeans-wearing guy rolled his eyes and said cynically, "It was just an amusement park, lady." That I was in fact not amused, emphasized further my need to be in Gayway.

On the Rebound

Disappointed about the dog adoption thing, I turned my attention to ponies. I found this guy on the web, much the way I found Harley. In fact, his butterscotch and cream fur reminds me a bit of Harley. Ponies aren't therapeutic after all.

P.S. I think that little girl is too big for the pony.

ADOPTED (but not by me)

Harley was not in his kennel today. A family with three kids took him home with them this morning to have a Harley-happy life.

Hmph! Did I mention they also adopted a puppy? Dog hoarders.

Rock You Like a Hurricane and/or Earthquake!

What, me? Panic? I continued to leave my voice message, continued to sound professional, despite the earthquake's steadfast attempt to rattle me. A magnitude 5.4 quake hit the Los Angeles area just before noon today. Though I recognized the natural hazard immediately, my reaction was a delayed and nonchalant one--one that would bring shame to those who spent so much time ensuring my earthquake safety inculcation. Stop, drop, and roll!

"What the hell are you doing?," shouted a nearby co-worker from under her desk.

"C'mon, Marilyn, I know the drill! I was born and raised in California!," I shouted back.

"You're supposed to take cover under your desk and cover your neck!," she exclaimed.

"That's old school! Too many spinal injuries. Stop, drop, and roll is where it's at these days!," I yelled back.

"You're crazy! That's for fires!," she said.

"Fire extinguishers are for fires. I'm rolling to avoid falling objects in an earthquake!," I explained.

The conversation lasted long after the earthquake stopped. Ol' Marilyn later huddled around the water cooler with some other office workers and laughed about my earthquake preparedness. Whatever. I know what I'm doing.

And all I got was a lousy candy cane...

When I was a kid, I knew another kid who peeled dried glue off his fingers and kept the scraps in a stolen interoffice envelope that said "Property of Robert Elementary School".

I also knew a girl who didn't know what Single File Line meant.

I knew a kid who stole caterpillars from the classroom science station and tried to grow 'em in his own room. When they died, he returned them to the classroom and none of us kids were ever able to believe that butterflies could emerge miraculously from a pile of dead worms.

I knew a bunch of undeserving brats who got a boatload of cool shit during the holidays, and it sucked. All I ever got from Santa was a boot in the face and a ride down a red slide at the mall. Oh, and a freakin' candy cane if my parents bought 5" x 7"s from the pimply elves!