polish existentialism and other news of the weird

Someone in Poland found my blog by googling "eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee". I have hit the big time now. Seriously, go see what Polish Google turns up for "eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee." It may be the most interesting thing that's happened to you all day. Or maybe that's just me. In any case, who the hell googles "eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee," and what are they hoping to find?

And in even less-deep news, Jessica Simpson's dad is apparently complaining "to anyone who will listen" about how much alimony his poor beleaguered daughter is going to have to pay Nick Lachey, who of course has no assets of his own since he was famous for... what was it again? ....oh right, BEING JESSICA SIMPSON'S HUSBAND. Unless any of you know anyone who ever listened to 98º. I had to google him just to find out what band he used to be in.

I know, I know. You check the blog every day (or more, if you're my parents... hi Mom), and when I finally post, this is what you get. Stay tuned, though. Here is a preview of things to come:

1. The Pepsi bike is now in my living room. Soon I will dismantle it, injure myself with an Allen wrench, lose several important parts, and ultimately bring the whole thing to Freewheel in a grocery bag, crying. Let's get some advance sympathy here, people.

2. I'm car shopping. *shudder*

3. The office Christmas party is on the 16th. I have been warned about the Christmas party since I started this job in February. Last year gag gifts were exchanged; highlights include a condom with Osama Bin Laden's face imprinted on the tip, and one of those mechanical grabber things that old ladies use to get things off of high shelves. The (female) secretaries got extremely drunk and used the mechanical grabber to chase the (male) lawyers around, pinching their asses, and continuing to pinch at the exact same level when the lawyers turned around.

4. Sascha has convinced me (I think) to train for a half marathon with her. I ran for an hour and twenty minutes on Friday. You know what? That is a long ass time to run. I'm not sure a blue mug with a picture of a snowflake on it is really worth the effort. But we'll see. It's got to be better than BODYPUMP.

And that's it for today. I hope the previews were tantalizing. If you're looking for actual excitement, head on over to the House of Smithers. He just had a baby. It is very small and wrinkly. Now THAT is excitement.

update

Sascha has posted pictures from the drunken blogger ride in the thunderstorm. The existence of the flaming rum punch is confirmed there; any underwear-related rumors are not.

I'm going to steal this one, though. Just so I can remind myself every once in a while why I am not a 'hat person.'

who's the sexy blonde?

Apparently not all SNL skits actually make it past rehearsal. (This is old, but I just found it, and dammit, it's funny.) This one was rehearsed but didn't make the cut for the show itself... are your eyes deceiving you? Could that really be..... Marilyn Monroe?

easily amused

Is it okay if I think it's piss-your-pants hilarious when I see (in the newspaper) real people named Norman Bates? People young enough for their parents to know better, no less.

Wayne L. Cooper was best man. Michael Harmon, Greg Lawson and Wayne A. Cooper were groomsmen.

Brandon Maskell and Norman Bates served as ushers.

Audrey and April Brand were flower girls. Johnny Bates was ring bearer.

Hee hee hee hee! Is it cursing yourself to name your son Norman Bates? NOBODY will feel sorry for his mom later if it turns out to be a self fulfilling prophecy!

::wanders off to chuckle some more::

and no, nobody crashed.

Theoretically, I guess, EVERYBODY could write about Saturday and then you all could entertain yourselves with 6 different perspectives on the same events.... come on, guys, post.

Saturday night was, of course, the much-hyped bar ride in honor of Jojo's visit to Minneapolis. It was thunderstorming. Ordinarily in mid-November if there was bad weather it would involve snow, but George Bush and his "global warming? What global warming? Liberals invented that" philosophy can bite my ass because we had an honest-to-god THUNDERSTORM, with thunder and lightning and buckets of rain. Nate and I met up with Sascha, her boyfriend Scott, Jojo (who was wearing this crazy bomber helmet with lights all over it), Equipoise, and Andy/Sickboy, in downtown Minneapolis. I was riding the Raleigh -- 40 pounds of full-suspension, flat-tire (my pump is broken so it only works on Presta valves... ghetto, I know), four-inch-thick padded-saddle goodness -- and found that if I was going to keep up with people, two things had to happen. The other people had to slow down, AND I had to pedal like a crazed first-grader terrorizing the neighborhood on a tricycle. All I have to say is, you people will be sorry when the Pepsi bike arrives. Just try and catch me then.

We were soaked by the time we got to Psycho Suzi's, and the bouncer guy came out into the parking lot to tell us that they were over fire-code capacity already and we couldn't come in. However, it took us so long to figure out what to do about this that by the time any decisions were made, enough people had left that we were able to go in. We met Gilby and Landon inside. Then, apart from the overall drowned-rat appearance of the entire group, it was pretty normal. Notable events include the table next to ours donating some leftover birthday cake to us (I guess we looked like we needed feeding) and a giant bowl of rum punch with ten straws and FIRE in the middle of it. After that we rode through lighter rain to downtown, where more beverages were had at Runyon's. Nate has discovered a latent love of Grain Belt Premium just this week, if anyone was wondering. And while Sascha might not have been wearing any underpants, I was, and everybody saw them. Tim, NOW aren't you sorry you missed it?

We got kicked out when Runyon's closed. I went to unlock my bike and found a box of cold french fries neatly placed on my rack. Uh, thanks, whoever you are. In the spirit of paying it forward, I put the fries in the back seat of a car with a broken window. Then we weaved our way home and I spent all day yesterday recovering.

Incidentally, somebody there had a camera. Whoever is the owner of said camera had better post pictures post-haste.

draw a pig!

Better than a quiz: the Draw a Pig Personality Test!

Here is my pig:


The official key for the personality test aspect of it is as follows (very subjective, you can all decide for yourselves how detailed my pig is):

You drew the pig:
Toward the top of the paper, you are positive and optimistic.
Toward the middle, you are a realist.
Toward the bottom, you are pessimistic, and have a tendency to behave negatively.

Facing left, you believe in tradition, are friendly, and remember dates (birthdays, etc.)
Facing right, you are innovative and active, but don't have a strong sense of family, nor do you remember dates
Facing front, you are direct, enjoy playing devil's advocate and neither fear nor avoid discussions.

With many details, you are analytical, cautious, and distrustful.
With few details, you are emotional and naive, they care little for details and are a risk-taker.

With less than 4 legs, they are insecure or are living through a period of major change.
With 4 legs showing, they are secure, stubborn, and stick to their ideals.

The size of the ears indicates how good a listener you are.
The bigger the better.

The length of the tail indicates the quality of your sex life.
And again more is better!

Draw your pig and link to it in the comments! Let's start a pig collection!

ebay, will you marry me?

Check this shit, yo.

A while ago I mentioned this notion I had to build a "crazy singlespeed contraption" for commuting. Of course, shortly after that we moved deeper into the suburban hellhole that is Woodbury and I went back to driving my car. But I am not exactly committed to this job, especially since common logic holds that it would actually be EASY for me to find a job that a) pays more and b) is not 26 miles away, so it seems perfectly reasonable to have a commuter bike ready to go when that time comes.

So this winter I am going to build a singlespeed. Myself. This is stupid, not to put too fine a point on it. I am stupid. The things I know how to do to my bike are as follows:

1. Change a flat tire.
2. Adjust the brake clearance with those little twisty things.
3. Move my seatpost up and down.
4. Take my pedals off.

As you can see, my store of technical knowledge may not be up to this task. I'm taking applications for volunteers if anybody wants to impart their wisdom to me.

Anyway, the whole point of this post is to show off what I won on eBay this morning. Ebay is friggin' cool. Nowhere else would you find this.


This, my friends, is a Pepsi bike. Apparently from 1979 to 1982, Pepsi was giving away bicycles to its employees. This bike is one of those. It is the exact same color of blue as a diet Pepsi can, it has Pepsi logos on each side of the fork, and best of all--the entire reason I had to have it--is what the top tube says:


You're jealous. I know you are. I'm just sad that it won't be here in time to ride it on this Saturday's drunken bikeblogger ride. Too bad. That honor will have to go to my big fat Raleigh. On the other hand, I seem to have a penchant for crashing bikes right after I buy them, so maybe it's a good thing.

Catch that Pepsi spirit. Damn, now I can't stop laughing.

creepy

I mean, I know guys like 'em young and nubile, but really.

did i mention i work in a monkey house?

So yeah, I suck at this blogging thing. I'm bored with it. I'm going to become one of those people who update their blog once every two or three months until nobody reads it any more. Recently I got an email pep-talk from that lean mean knitting machine Sui Generis, which included the phrase "and just make sure you write something every day... just like blogging!" I was about to say "But I don't blog every day!" and then I thought about it a little more and decided maybe it was a hint.

So this post is dedicated to you, SG. Although I'm not going to blog about Nano, because it's just too geeky. And it has been previously established that I am in fact a nerd, not a geek. Anyway, here's my story.

Last Monday, Halloween, it was about 4:58 and I was getting ready to go home when the boss called. The boss does not seem to actually work here, as most of my contact with him is by phone. He was, of course, very surprised to learn that it was 5, but he needed a minor task done before I could leave. I was done at 5:15, but that made me the last person in the building (for the first time since we moved from the old place). No worries; I had my key and I knew how to set the alarm system.

So I turned out all the lights, set the alarm, ran out the door, and stuck my key in the lock. Didn't lock the door. Tried again; still nothin'. By this time my 30 seconds were up, and as the door was not locked and I was still dicking around with it, the alarm decided I was an intruder.

SCREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE
EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE
EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE
EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE
EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE
EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE (it said)

Of course, in all our training on the alarm system, nobody had told me how to turn the alarm off once I had tripped it. So I ran inside, hands clapped over my ears, to try and find the phone number for the alarm company. Most important numbers were taped to the inside of the receptionist's desk. These important numbers included Axel's, but not the alarm company. So I called Boss #1. No answer. Then I called Boss #2. No answer there either. I was out of cell numbers, but I went outside to use my phone without listening to SCREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE the whole time. I called both guys ten times each, and left messages that I hoped didn't sound too unbalanced, and then my cell phone battery was dead.

Now, when we first got this alarm system, we were assured that as soon as the alarm went off, the alarm company would be calling us to see if it was just a mistake, and we had a Secret Password that we were to use to prove our identities, and if we didn't know the password then cops would be there in short order. Presumably this would also save our asses if we were in the building with angry gun-waving intruders as well. However, I had been listening to SCREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE for six or seven minutes now, and the phone had yet to ring. If there had been gun-waving intruders, I would probably have been DEAD.

Finally they did call though, and I got the thing to stop screaming at me. However, I still couldn't lock the door. So I did what any self-respecting feminist would do: I started crying and called my boyfriend.

Yeah, all of you can bite my ass.

Mostly I was hoping he would know if there were ways to lock doors that didn't involve sticking the key in the lock, but he didn't. I also had to tell him that I would be late picking him up, since, as you know, he no longer has a car.

I logged into the receptionist's computer and started looking for the list of cell phone numbers that had been distributed when we moved to the new office, but couldn't find it, and of course only the cell phone numbers of the two head honchos were taped to the Important Numbers area. But those guys were obviously not near their phones, and it was now 6:15.

Ultimately, what saved me is that I am a huge-ass slob. Nate and I have recently discussed packing up some of our dishes and putting them in the basement-- the logic is that if we don't have as many dishes, we can't pile as many dirty dishes in the kitchen. Heaven forbid we wash them. So of course the last time I cleaned my car was.... well.... pretty much never. I found the cell phone list crumpled up under my passenger seat where it had been since August 25th. It turned out that the process of locking the front door doesn't actually involve a key at all. It involves an Allen wrench and two tiny bolts on the back side of the door handle. Ghetto? Yes, quite. And not something I ever would have figured out on my own. I finally escaped around 6:35. By the time I got home, all the trick or treaters were long gone, so all five bags of candy are busily packing themselves onto my ass. Lane Bryant, here I come.

The next morning, an informal survey revealed that fully half of the staff did not know that the key didn't lock the door. You may be detecting a pattern in which important information is not disseminated around here. You are very astute.

Here's the kicker, though. Thursday morning they installed a new door. It locks with a key.

Argh.

how the other half lives

As I write this, Nate is trying to stuff his iPod headphones into the dog's ears. The dog is trying to eat the headphones. Just for the record.

curious george visits some real live black people

Dear Lord. I guess this is pretty ancient news by now, but I didn't hear of it until today, so here it is. Thought Bush was a stupid, politically tone-deaf, bumbling clod before? Read this Washington Post article.

Highlights:
It was Soul Food Thursday at Howard University (you know, the premier black university in the country...) last week, and many students were looking forward to their favorite meal: fried chicken, macaroni and cheese, collard greens and cornbread. At lunchtime, however, students discovered that much of the campus had been locked down and that the school's cafeteria was off limits.

Apparently, many of them did not know that President Bush and first lady Laura Bush had arrived for a "youth summit" at the Blackburn Center, where the dining hall is located. Stomachs began to growl, tempers flared, and, eventually, a student protest ensued.......

......What might have been a public relations coup for Bush -- a visit to a historically black college to show concern for at-risk youths -- ended up as another Katrina-like moment, with the president appearing spaced-out, waving and smiling for television cameras while students were trying to break through campus security to get to the cordoned-off cafeteria.....

......But the visit went from bad to worse. On a day when the U.S. Senate passed a resolution paying tribute to civil rights icon Rosa Parks, who died last week, campus security guards were telling students that if they wanted to eat they'd have to come back when the president and first lady were gone, then go to a service door at the rear of the dining hall and ask for a chicken plate to go.

Yeah, you read that right. The SERVICE DOOR. The same service door black people had to get their food at back when they weren't allowed into white people's restaurants. Way to go, George. This will surely boost your poll numbers amongst African Americans.