misAdventures of Workmonkey 3.0

I know it's been awhile, but I recently started a new job, so I've had to put all effort into casting the illusion of being a hard-working, valuable employee. I try to sell myself as being Mr. Joe Corporate Awesome. I do this anytime I start a new job. I come in early (i've been arriving minutes before 10:00 am each morning), I regularly check in with my bosses, I stay late, I avoid writing blogs. I'll do this for about a month before feeling comfortable enough to return to my normal schedule. After the month, each day, I'll arrive ten minutes later than the last day. I'll do this until a comment is made, or I miss a meeting, and then I'll know I've hit the "Cross Time" The "Cross Time", of course, being the very last minute that your bosses will allow you to arrive in the morning without actively registering you are late. Each company has their very own, unique "Cross Time", usually existing somewhere between 10:12 A.M. and 11:07 A.M. I'm hoping my new company's exists somewhere towards the latter.

I developed this specific technique when in college. The primary mistake I saw college students make was waiting until the last few weeks of the quarter before putting in their effort. Then they'd "cram" to make up for their lost time. They never realized that waiting until the end, and then trying to kill it on the final paper or exam, was too little too late. I would do the exact opposite. I'd start off the first two weeks as the picture-perfect student. Get in early, raise my hand, comment on the syllabus, stay after class to ask questions on the day's lessons (or, if you were neal, give the professor a blow job). After a few weeks of this, the teacher was convinced I was a good student, and I was granted the advantages that come with that categorization. Make no mistake, within two weeks, every professor has assigned their students into one of three groups: Good Student, Quiet Student, or Fuck Off. Once you are assigned into this group, you have no ability to move up or down. I was guaranteed an A- or B+ within the first two weeks, no matter what i did the rest of the quarter. I'm trying that same technique as we speak, hence, the lack of blogs. When you throw in my recent mancation/ghost hunt up in New Hampshire and Maine, and the temporary lack of internet access, you can feel confident your leniency in this matter is well-justified.

To further complicate matters, my new company has frequent company-wide meetings. Just this past Friday, we were acquired by Microsoft, so there has been about four meetings a day to discuss what this means. I don't really care what it means, though I do care that these meetings have food. Today's morning meeting had donuts and fruit salad. Donuts are cool, but fruit salad sucks. Fruit salad always has about two or three slices of a strawberry, a slice of a pineapple, and then cube upon fucking gross cube of cantaloupe and honeydew, or whatever that shitty green melon is called. Melons always sucks, unless they are watermelons, and even then they aren't very good. Cantaloupe, in particular, serves as nothing other than a filler for fruit salads. Cantaloupe are like the commercials to the fruit salad TV show. I hate them, and therefore I hate fruit salads.

For those of you who scan to the end of my long blogs, I shall treat you to a recap of my blog: New job, no cramming at school, cantaloupe awful.

Before our recent mancation up to Portland, Maine, when, during the normal course of conversation, the party in question would learn of our intended destination, I commonly heard the following comment:

"Why the hell would you want to go there? It sucks."

Further inquiry into the source of the comment would reveal one of two things: Either the person making that comment had never actually been to Portland, Maine, but held that opinion nonetheless, or had gone to Portland, Maine with their family when 3-years-old, and they remember a high level of suckiness.

This is to mention nothing of the fact that only a self-interested cock-knocker would deliberately denigrate the intended destination of your vacation. Jill recently informed me a co-worker responded, upon learning Jill was headed to St. Marteen for a wedding, "That place is soooo ghetto!"

Now, I'm as opinionated a person as you've ever met. I have opinions on everything, things as general as saltwater to things as specific as the fourth meteor of the leonid meteor showers. But even I know there is a time to share this opinion, and a time to not share this opinion. And when someone has already booked a ticket to a vacation destination, that is not the time to piss all over that said destination.

This issue also proves my long-held belief that human beings are in a constant, never-ending fight for the spotlight. No human being can safely sit back and just accept that I am going to Portland, Maine without sharing an opinion that puts the attention back on them. By stating their opinion on Portland, Maine, they are implying that they are 1) well-travelled, at least more so than me, as I have never been to Portland, Maine 2) high-class, as the reason for not liking Portland, Maine is due to a dearth of 5-star hotels and world-class status 3) a total, selfish asshole

As for the people who make that statement, even though they had never even been to Portland, Maine, I ask you: Does Atlantis suck too? And Hades? And a restaurant in 19th Century Indochina? And all the other places you've never been? Or did you see a movie once that gave you an opinion of Portland, Maine? Or a show on TV?

And if you went to Portland, Maine when you were three-years-old, please keep your mouth shut. Going anywhere before the age of fourteen doesn't count. Cause even if you remember it, you were with your parents the whole time doing gay family-vacation type shit that nobody is interested in.

For the record, Portland, Maine was a cool-ass city. Kind of like Seattle without all the self-indulgent Starbuck-drinking techies. Feel free to share this opinion in the future. And if you happen to be headed to the fourth meteor of the leonid meteor trail, save the trip. It sucks.

This past April 29th, at 12:35 A.M., St. Louis Cardinals pitcher Josh Hancock slammed his 2007 Ford Explorer into the back of a flatbed tow truck and was instantly killed. The tow truck was on the shoulder of the highway assisting a car that had stalled. Obviously a sad story, particularly because it was the second Cardinals pitchers to die in the past five years, and it was the lead sports story for several days. A few weeks after the accident, test results revealed that Hancock was drunk and possibly high (weed was found in the car). Further, they learned he was talking on his cell phone, speeding, and not wearing a seat belt at the time of the accident. Tragic nonetheless.

So, these being the essential facts, I was mildly pissed to just read that Hancock's father has just brought a lawsuit against the following people:

• Patricia Shannon Van Matre, the manager of the restaurant that served Hancock his drinks. She is accused of "ensuring Hancock was never without a drink."

• Jacob Edward Hargrove, the driver of the tow truck. He is accused of taking too long to tow the stalled car, and not laying out flares.

• Justin Tolar, the driver of the car that stalled, for allowing his car to stall in the first place, and not getting his stalled car out of the way. Mind you, his car stalled when a car that cut him off caused him to spin out.

I was surprised to read that Hancock's father didn't sue Mother Nature for making it "unnaturally" dark that night, or his son's ribs, for not being able to "sufficiently protect" the organs against a tow truck. Essentially, you are suing a woman who did her job by being an attentive waitress, a man who was unable to pull ninja moves to keep his car from spinning out, and a tow truck driver who was unable to load a stalled car fast enough.

Come the fuck on. How was this lawsuit even accepted? If I were the law clerk who this was filed with, I would smiled, accepted it, then pulled down my pants and shit all over it. Your son was drunk, talking on his phone, and speeding. If 100% responsibility doesn't lie with him, then it lies with the father for raising a son incapable of calling a cab. I'm gonna go to the lawyer's house who agreed to take this case, insult him until he punches me in the face, and then sue him for "having hands".

As part of my job, I often use a thesaurus. Today, I had to look up two words: Life and Death.

The thesaurus lists 33 word alternatives to life. And 49 for death.

I think that says something particularly revealing about our society .... unfortunately, i'm not bright enough to figure it out. If you are, feel free to contribute.

I would like to request a moment of silence from everybody in memory of my trumpet, armoire, and leather couch, all recently eliminated by the treacherous former roommate of mine, dragonhair (actually, when reading, I guess you are already silent, unless you are one of those people that like to read out loud ... in any event, taking a moment of silence wouldn't necessarily apply here ... maybe instead you should take a moment of noise .. Let's try that again):

I'd like to take a moment of noise in memory of my trumpet, armoire, and leather couch (should I mention it's color? black), all recently eliminated (a more dramatic way of saying: sold) by the treacherous former roommate of mine (should i mention his race? chink), dragonhair.

When I departed San Francisco for the nubile adventures in New York City, I gave, no, loaned, no, entrusted (yes!) my most valued possessions to dragonhair/Lee. It wasn't so much that I was giving him "things", but memories. Yes, the couch, armoire, and trumpet, were technically "things", in that they were constructed of the small "things" that make "things" be "big things", "things" like thread, metals, and woods. But more importantly, they were the only three remaining items left from a lifetime of, well, life. Constant moves and general vagabond-ness have resulted in the total loss of any and all physical items related to my past (past being defined as anything before right now). I have no pictures, I have no home, I have no boxes of old stuff. What do I have? Or, rather, what did I have?

A trumpet, an armoire, and a couch. Three things, a thousand memories.

The trumpet, a Bach original, was purchased when I was in fourth grade, in Buffalo Grove, Illinois. I practiced every single day through 8th grade on that magical brass blowpipe. The trumpet marched with me in the 1985 St. Patrick's Day Parade in Chicago. Upon my move to San Diego, that trumpet was my best friend. By 7th grade, this trumpet had guided me from fourth chair to first chair in the Meadowbrook Middle School Band. The trumpet defended me against the violent charge of 2nd chair, Christoper Auge, as he attempted to bloody my lip so I couldn't play a trumpet solo (a beautiful piece - Dvorak's New World Symphony) for a concert in our school gym (it was the original Nancy Kerrigan/Tonya Harding scandal. Only much geekier.). In college, I took private trumpet lessons, to recover from the pain of romantic rejection (one of ten rejections before I learned girls actually liked it when you called them bitch and disrespected them). The trumpet made the move from Santa Clara to Milpitas to Sunnyvale to Noe Valley to Twin Peaks to Campbell. It was the worn-brass extension of me.

And now, what do I have in place of the trumpet? 75 bucks. Actually, I don't even have that. Lee has that. As he sold it. To some unappreciative Silicon Valley asshole. They're probably going to melt it down to use in microchips or something.

I don't even need to explain the worn leather couch. If you are reading this, it is guaranteed that you've sat on that couch. That couch was bought when I was in 6th grade. You have all napped, slept, farted, on that couch.

The armoire? Made by my grandfather, for my mother. Granted, it wasn't well made (no offense, ghost of grandpa .. actually, grandpa only spoke German, so I doubt he can take offense at that previous statement .. unless when you die, you can understand all languages, in which case I hope dead grandpa can take a joke), but it was a family heirloom. Now it is nothing but money in Lee's pocket.

No one person has benefited from the Anderson family than dragonhair. That guy will sell your fucking pants while you are wearing them. He'll rent out your apartment if you leave for the weekend. He'll sell your unfinished dinner on Craigslist. Problem is, you won't see any of the earnings. All that money goes into his general Lee pile of money, the one he is using to one day fund an invasion of mainland China.

So, armoire, trumpet, couch .. goodbye. I hope Lee appreciates the 175 dollars you earned for him. Hopefully, my memories of you will last longer than that cash. Because thanks to Lee, the Anderson family legacy has been pawned to some SCU kids and a bitch with a limp trying to furnish a bed and breakfast.

Actually, upon reflection, it seems evident that this blog is as good a reminder of those things as those actual things. I've got pictures, words, stories ... which, in actuality, seem more valuable that having those actual things, as those things were hard to move and smelled a bit like rotten swordfish flesh. I'll never have to move this blog. But anytime I want to call to mind the memories, I can visit this page, bring up the picture, and imagine letting a deep release of smelly gas into the seemingly endless cushion of that leather couch.

That's as good as anything.