Monday, April 21, 2003

Today is the Boston Marathon, aka "Have a good time trying to get anywhere in the city if you're one of the few saps who still has to work on this made up holiday called 'Patriots Day.'"

The atmosphere is fun, even my coworker and I ran up onto the roof of our office building downtown when the marathon started so we could watch the F-15 jets fly over. Then we noticed there were all kinds of folks out on the tops of various apartment buildings on their patios having barbecues and such.

I need to work for the state, they get every holiday off. I had never heard of Patriots Day before I moved up here. Some say there's history behind it, and I'm sure there is, but it also still feels a little made up to me. We only get the major federal holidays off here at my lovely place of employment.

Oh, and here's one of the funnier parts of the marathon...Will Ferrell is running it! I'm not sure if he'll be streaking for the entire 26.2 miles, but who knows. Film at 11.

Wednesday, April 16, 2003

Yesterday's ride home on the bus was eternal. On the ride over the Mass. Avenue Bridge, I saw people walking along next to us, who then passed us, who then MADE IT TO THE OTHER SIDE OF THE BRIDGE BEFORE WE DID. It was like that scene from Office Space where Peter sits in traffic watching an old man with a WALKER get somewhere faster than him.

But, to make it more bearable, I see Mother Nature took my note fairly seriously and handed on down some nice weather for the beginning of the week. It was 75 degrees yesterday, and today it's in the mid 60s. Yet with all that, it was only a nod from Mother Nature, as tomorrow's weather isn't supposed to get much above the mid 40s. Sigh. Only nine more days until my weekend in Ft. Lauderdale.

Monday, April 14, 2003

Today, I had to call my company's computer gurus again for help. It seems that Mondays are the day for EVERYTHING to break.

So I called up the all-knowing Rob at our office in Detroit, and he walked me through everything patiently and got everything to work again. I asked him if he wanted me to send him a gift for all the help he's given me through the last months when everything breaks. He said, "How 'bout a bottle of 12-year-old scotch?"

I was thinking cookies, but okay.

Thankfully, he was joking.

Wednesday, April 09, 2003

In all my angst and anger over the recent cold weather, I decided to take it to a higher authority. That's right, I've written Mother Nature about my concerns regarding the arctic ass cold weather we've had in the past week.

Dear Mother Nature,

I'm writing because I have some concerns over the cold weather we've had up here in Boston recently. I'm sure you'e recently been inundated with requests to (and I quote some people I've heard here) "Cut this cold, snowy, sleeting sh*t out, dammit!" and I can understand your worries about reading yet another letter regarding the same thing.

Well, I must say I feel the same. But who really needs to swear, you know? I feel like our culture resorts too much to swearing rather than using the old creative non-offensive words to express the murderous rage they're pushing deep down inside. Whatever happened to phrases like, "Gosh darn, this weather sure is chafing my snuggly buns!" or "Boy howdee, instead of making me want to ski gaily down the lovely white slopes, this weather is making me long for a big pretty club to take care of all the seals that have been gathering! Teehee!"

Mother Nature, I am writing to ask you to stop this cold weather. Sometimes I hate when you tease us New Englanders. A few weeks back we had a whole week of sunny and warm weather (it hit 55 degrees!) that made me want to skip through a field and enjoy the daisies and bunnies rather than snap their necks. You see, I think warm weather makes people happy, especially after such a horrible winter where you decided to continually dump loads of snow on us. So, you could really be helping mankind by bringing us some warmer weather.

Just think of all the happy, positive situations you could cause. Instead of a scene where a motorist hits another car because of ice and they both then get out of the cars and bash each over the heads with windshield scrapers and snow shovels, motorists in Boston could go back to hitting each other's car for no other reason than just for being crappy drivers. They would then get out of their cars and hand each other flowers and hug and say, "Wow, you're a horrible driver, you stupid f-ing moron, but look at this great weather we're having! Have a flower!"

So, in conclusion, I understand that I live in New England and weather here isn't as consistent as say, the Red Sox losing excessively each year. But come on, it's April 9th, and you just gave us another four inches of snow yesterday! And so I ask nicely, please send us some of the good stuff.

Puppies and rainbows all around,

your friend, Me

Monday, April 07, 2003

What the f? It's supposed to snow today, and it's not just a little bit...we're supposed to get between 3-6 inches, maybe more. What the f? That's it, someone needs to find Mother Nature and have a talk with her. It's APRIL! It's April SHOWERS bring May flowers. Not April snow or April sleet, that stuff doesn't rhyme with FLOWERS. That's it, I'm making up my own.

April sleet means Mother Nature's a deadbeat.
April snow sure does blow.
April sleet brings MOTHER NATURE A MOUTHFUL OF CHICKLETS!!!!!!!!!

Stay tuned.

Friday, April 04, 2003

Today this woman walked into our office. She's the girlfriend of my coworker, Dan, and she was there to have lunch with him. I had not yet met her, so I introduced myself.

"Hi, I'm H, it's nice to finally meet you," I said.

She replied, "Oh, you're the comedian!"

She then reached over the desk, grabbed a hold of my hair, and slammed my my face into the desk six or seven times...I lost count because I blacked out temporarily.

I then jumped up and did a flying rabbit kick to her gut, sending her flailing backwards into the chairs in our waiting area. I leapt over my desk and went after her. With my nose broken in at least three places, I grabbed her by her hair and dragged her to our front door. I proceeded to slam our front door on her head repeatedly, all while screaming, "Say uncle, bitch!"

She said uncle, so I stopped. But it was all a ploy. She spun around on the ground and knocked my feet out from under me. I managed a quick chop to her voice box. She sat there gasping and sputtering as I grabbed a chair and raised it up over my head.

Then Dan came out to the front area to meet her for lunch. I dropped the chair and went back to work and then they went out to lunch.

Wednesday, April 02, 2003

I had a dream last night where Hillary Swank asked me to be her date to a potluck dinner. I don't remember if what we made involved a casserole with green beans and crushed potato chips on top.

Tuesday, April 01, 2003


fun with coworkers

In honor of today's beloved ancient holiday, here's a fun trick to play on your coworkers or friends (I did it to my coworkers this morning). Put a post-it note on the bottom of their mouse, right over the roller ball. Then giggle naughtily as you watch them try to figure out why their mouse won't move across the screen. This giggling fit will only last about 10 seconds, as most are intelligent enough to pick up their mouse to find out what's going wrong. But hey, it's still fun.

*Note: This trick won't work as well with a real, live mouse. They tend to not enjoy having post-its stuck to their bellies and chewing will most likely ensue.

For more fun, poke a particular coworker or friend with a stick throughout the day. Now that's a good prank!