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the new ibm stinkpad laptop computer arrived only a few days before i would be needing it for a biz trip. i took it home to install some apps from cd. i noticed the cd drive had a little dvd logo. interesting, but i have to dvd's to try it out.
wait a second...i remembered, i do have one dvd.
over a year ago, a perfect mix of improper influencers (beer, late night television, wife sleeping, a telephone within arms reach, and a low low price) aligned. the result of this alignment was a purchase i can not explain (and probably shouldn't try). i am the not so proud owner of girls gone wild, episode 3. i am sure you have seen the late night commercials for these videos, they are the ones shot during mardi-gras when gravity is reversed and young women's shirts fly above their heads.
one would think that not owning a dvd player might detour the purchase of a dvd, but like i said, the influencers were strong and my mind weak. upon UPS delivery, my wife was less concerned about the content of the dvd than the fact i had purchased a dvd without a player. she was as perplexed as i was. with no player, the dvd was tucked away on a shelf and forgotten for a long time, til i saw that little dvd logo on the stink pad.
purely interested in only testing the dvd drive on the laptop, i inserted the dvd. it didn't work. being a mac guy i didn't know where to start troubleshooting. after 5 minutes of tinkering with no success i gave up and attended to some other things.
the next day i brought the stinkpad back to work for the net work administrator to install some stuff. she began working on the machine, i was very busy and sat with my back to her working on my desktop mac. she asked if she could use the cd drive to install software. i said "sure", not really paying attention to her.
"hey, that's odd, there is already a cd in the drive, what's this?..."
shit. my stomach flipped and dipped. i spun around in my chair so fast i nearly lost my balance. my face felt flushed and hot.
she pulled the cd out and held it up for me to see. it was the installation disc for adobe photoshop.
a large sigh released muscle tension and i suddenly felt like jello and slumped in my chair. "it's just photoshop" i said.
it finally happened. i was sitting at my desk sipping coffee. surely just one more christmas cookie couldn't hurt. i took the first bite and the floor below me buckled. with the second bite the floor gave out. amidst a cloud of dry wall and concrete dust, i found myself sitting on the 4th floor. But not for long. the third and final bite again caused the floor to buckle and give, but this time there was no stopping. my weight challenged each floor, pausing briefly on each before falling through to the next.
i grabbed another cookie as i passed through the break room on the 2nd floor.
i waved at the guys in the mail room on the first.
the maintenance man seemed irritated as i passed through the basement.
i sank into the dirt. i saw wolly mammoth bones as i traveled downward through the earth's crust . it seemed to get quite a bit warmer as i passed from the transition zone into the mantle. when i reached the core, my journey to the center of the earth had concluded. i was still seated in my desk chair. looking up through the hole i just created, i could barely see the tiny heads of my co-workers peering down into the hole. i think i heard one say, "serves the fat bastard right".
i was surprised to find i was not alone. seated next to me was jerry lewis. he looked much bigger than i had remembered. he nodded slightly, raised his christmas cookie in a toasting manor and sipped his coffee.
it is going to be a long climb out of this hole i have created for myself.
i'm going, are you? i may be looking for a hotel mate to split the cost.
disclaimer, i WILL watch sportscenter in my underwear till the wee hours. i WILL scratch myself. i WILL have an international cooler stocked with st. pauli girl, negra modelo, and bass ale. i WILL snore like a chainsaw. i WILL destroy the american standard sunday morning while reading the sports section. i WILL put your hand in a bucket of warm water if you make the mistake of falling asleep before me.
now you understand why my wife has no interest in attending.
i have reserved the nights of march 8,9,10. email me references and photos of yourself if you have not been frightened away yet and are really so cheap you would do such a thing to save a few bucks. the hotel is 2 miles from the convention centre, i will have a car but will probably bring a bike to scoot around town.
oh yeah, if you want your very own room, i found the rates on hotel.com to be better than the sxsw discount rates. word up.
how am i an ass? let me count the ways...
1. hey, first come first serve, gimpy. if you want the spot, get up out of your wheelchair and fight for it.
2. hey, my neighbor bought a yellow hummer, so i had to get the white one. that's the way we do it in the burbs of dallas.
3. hey, i had nothing better to spend $50,000 on!
4. hey, at least i didn't take up the whole handicapped spot, plenty of room for a gimp on a bicyle!
5. yeah, those are dealer plates, just bought it, it's a christmas gift for my wife. this gift really embodies the christmas spirit!
6. hey, if i take it off road, my tires might get dirty! never gonna happen.
everyone is aware of the 12 days of christmas, but did you know as a middle aged, married guy with kids there are also the 12 phases of christmas day.
1. denial - 4 am, i am awakened by a . i stare at the ceiling in the dark hoping not to hear another noise. i refuse to believe christmas starts at 4 am.
2. false excitement - 4:38 am, son one flies through the bedroom door, nearly knocking it from the hinges. he announces that and every one must get out of bed NOW. I pretend to be excited, as best i can at 4:38 am.
3. real excitement - 4:56 am, false excitement quickly turns to real excitement as kids are literally shaking with excitement and is ingested.
4. manic excitement - 5:15 am, things are in full swing now, an orgy of paper shredding interrupted every few minutes by some one screaming "YES!, a sponge bob just what i wanted!
5. is that all there is - 5:50 am, knee deep in a sea of wrapping paper the kids become oddly silent as they realize there are no more gifts to open. i let the kids unwrap a gift that some how was forgotten last year. unwrapping satisfies and eliminates the recently acquired addiction to tearing paper.
6. self doubt - 6:30, the wife examines the poor wrapping job i have subjected upon my gift to her. as she begins to unwrap the gift, my mind races with thoughts of .
7. reflective - 6:40 am, surveying all the gifts and wondering how does one return a bought from one of those gypsy carts in the middle of the mall corridor that has already packed up and skipped town?
8. construction - 7:30 am, the longest phase of the day. some assembly required will result in some gratuitous cussing. i search the house top to bottom looking for a .
9. exhaustion - 5:12 pm, the mind is mush. a little loopy at this point, i catch my self humming and enjoying it.
10. mundane - 6:15 pm, realization that christmas is a day like any other. it is not a holiday from the mundane activities cluttering my everyday life, i still need to .
11. persuasive - 8:15 pm, tuck the kids into bed and try to convince them the toys will still be there in the morning, and that it is not a good idea to sleep with their new .
12. vegative - 9:00 pm, kids finally asleep. open another beer, turn on the tv and slip into the fantasy that i am and everything will turn out ok this christmas.
now that we have cats again, i have revived one of my best stupid human tricks.
surely you have been to the circus and seen the classic lion trainer head in the lion mouth trick. mine is a simple spin off of this, but in reverse.
i insert an entire cat head into my mouth.
man, she hates when i do that.
joe strummer is dead. the clash made sounds very different from any thing i had ever heard. london calling is definately a top ten-er for me. only a few days ago when i learned of his collaboration with bono and dave stewart, i got really excited. now i am sad.
Below are a couple entries i wrote but never posted, at the time they didn't seem to have a point. well, they still don't but the death of joe strummer make them topical.
punk seems to be alive and well in toronto canada (recent biz trip). i dont know how i feel about this. the punk movement was an explosion meant to have no future. sort of ironic if you consider punk is now a quarter century old (if we agree it began with iggy, mc5s, ramones pistols and clash).
every generation has it's music, punk belongs to my generation. punk was designed to self destruct. the kids in toronto are punks by definition, but is that really posible? what shocked in 1979 seems tired today. the clothes are tired. the attitude is tired. the anger is tired.
television commercials use iggy pop and the buzzcocks music to sell cars. it confuses me. is that the worst thing that could happen to punk or punk's greatest f-you (corporate america paying huge sums of money for usage rights)?
i am unsure where i am going with all this. what it really boils down to, is that i am a grumpy old man, irritated with todays youth. just like my parents and grandparents.
i recently saw frank black at the gypsy tea room. a few weeks earlier i saw x at trees. for both shows, i was very curious about the audience they would draw. where have all the punks gone? i am happy to say the punks showed up to both. i am also happy to say they smell much better than they did in the early eighties. i guess we all grow up.
if you are one of the 8 people who saw me returning from the bathroom to my desk, and noticed the moisture spots on my pants, the spots were from the sink splash when washing my hands.
seriously.
12:30 am, returning home.
i decide to drive by the front of my house to see how the christmas lights look.
it is late and my house is the last on the block still lit. wife and kids are asleep, the lights are waiting for me to turn them off. seven years at this house has resulted in an odd combination of lights, big blue ones, little white ones, and a few strings that seem to slowly throb. there is no continuity. the lights are applied haphazardly to the shrubs and roofline. it appears very amateurishly done.
a three foot tall plastic santa lies on his side, a victim of the recent high winds. he also waits for me.
a tricycle is parked next to a basketball goal in front of the house. inside my son's window i can see light shifting colors. the light exuding from a fiber optic peacock. i received the hideous peacock the day before in a white elephant gift exchange. i intended to re-gift it at the party i had attended that night, but my son thought it was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen. the peacock was waiting to be turned off.
all the lights illuminate the sidewalk enough to see what barely remains of four day old chalk drawings. drawings by a three year old, done so crudely, only his father can decode them.
i press the button to open the garage door. the garage has been left lit also, making the eight steps from the car door the house door much easier to navigate. i like coming home to a lit garage. i turn off the light as i enter my home.
i love my life.
when boarding the down elevator and some one asks "going down?", why do you laugh, that's not funny
when you see a co-worker in the bathroom and they say "fancy meeting you here!", why do you laugh, that's not funny
when the guy in the team meeting eyes your granola breakfast bar and says "did you bring enough for the whole class?", why do you laugh, that's not funny.
i am finished with laughter for the sake of being polite. laughs are precious and rare, i refuse to waste them on office humor and the people who spew it. taking it a step further, i will be using evil humor to ensure complete silence and squelch any chance for mundane office humor. it is my mission.
when boarding an elevator i will announce to it's passengers "i hope we don't plummet to our deaths in this tin box, i hate all of you and would rather not spend my dying moments with you assholes."
when recognizing a co-worker in the bathroom i will say "damn it, urinal 3 is mine, every one knows that, never use urinal three, what is wrong with you, if i ever catch you deflowering urinal 3 again, i swear to god, i will beat you like a red headed pinata! asshole."
when walking into the team meeting with my granola bar i will announce "hey smell my poop finger, i must have forgotten to wash after my morning crap session, it was a doozy. um, you want some granola, asshole?"
i think my wife just attempted to have phone sex with me. i know lots of dirty words. she only knows one or two, and she can't bring herself to say them aloud, no matter how hard she tries.
it went something like this...
i can't wait to get my hands on you, when you get home, i am gonna..., um, well you know, and after that we are gonna ...um do things and then your gonna do things then um...,
the desired result was not achieved.
she just ended up laughing maniacally, and hung up the phone.
here at the spacious and odor free offices of ultramicroscopic, we spend over 8 minutes a day manufacturing mundane content and thinking about you. without you, we would only be ltramicroscopic. you all show your appreciation by posting confused, rambling, non-sequitur comments. we appreciate your appreciation.
to show our appreciation, we would like to individually recognize one of you. mike whybark was able to overcome his ridiculous last name (a name my neighbors dog has never contemplated at 2 am) and graciously left the 1,000th comment! he will be rewarded with a special edition lunch box.
the box is constructed of the finest tin gathered from the exotic and dangerous tin mines of lower slobovia. it has been hand crafted by some very handsome and smart dolphins wearing robotic hands at the bottom of the sea. ultramicroscopic contracted the single most gifted and skilled graphic designer in all the land to add the "ultramicroscopic" touch, resulting in a lunch box that is fit for framing.
ultramicroscopic only wishes we could provide everyone with special edition lunch boxes, but time and rabid squirrels make that impossible. perhaps mr. whybark will share with all of you, if you ask politely.
ultramicroscopic is not responsible for any injury or dismemberment resulting from the use of the lunch box.
mike, if you email us your home address, we will stalk, er, i mean send your prize just in time for you to ditch it at the office chrismas gift exchange.
part 1
the tap attached to the coffee machine dispenses water directly piped in from hell. it's hotter than boiling, but still in liquid form (is that possible?). i find it useful for scorching out previous days of coffee sludge at the bottom of my mug.
today a man stood waiting and watching as i filled my 8oz mug with 3oz of hell water. he continued to watch as i moved over the sink, swirled the water about and dumped the coffee sludge, mixture down the drain.
"well that was a waste of hot water now, wasn't it?" angry man was very serious.
wtf? wasteful? more wasteful than all the cold tap water, dish soap, and paper towel i would have used to clean it? what? is hell suffering a water shortage? his comment was so confusing, i am still bothered by it every time i pour a cup of coffee.
addendum - i wrote the above text 2 months ago but never posted it because it seemed rather mundane (not that the mundane isn't a big player here at ultramiroscopic!). A few days ago, part 2 transpired. thought i should probably post it. a confrontation seems eminent and the homicide detectives might find the information helpful.
part 2
i stood at the coffee machine running the hot water tap into my sludge ridden mug. from behind, i heard feet enter the break room. the mug was full and i took a step toward the sink to dump it. i looked up and instantly recognized angry man. i said nothing. i quickly decided to not dump the hot sludge water into the sink. i feared another confrontation. i just pretended i actually wanted the steaming sludge water.
the mug sat on my desk for 2 hours before i dumped it into a potted plant. i feared he might still be in the break room.
why do i fear this man? what kind of pussy am i?
when i saw my wife in the garage painting some old furniture, i freaked. she was using my prize possession t-shirt as a paint smock.
me - "What are you doing in that shirt!
wife - "what!?, it's just an ancient rag from your closet.
me - "ancient, i just won that!"
i won the shirt in a sand volley ball league what seemed like a couple of years ago. as i checked it for paint splatter, i read the text across the chest. "Sand Volleyball Champions, 1993". 1993!?!? that must have been a misprint.
the shirt is nearly a decade old. manufactured back when oj simpson was known as a football player.
this made me curious of what else lives in the closet that time forgot. that shirt was a recent acquire compared to most items.
now, i have always accepted that i do not have the best taste in clothes, but combined with being 10 years out of date, i am horrified. which brings me to jug head plan #72.
all clothes should be stamped with an expiration date. jackets, 6 years. shirts, 2 years. underwear, 6 months.
i need that type of guidence.
six years ago (before i had children) my view of the world was much different.
when someone at the office announced they were expecting a baby, i wondered why they wasted my time to tell me such a thing. i was indifferent about the news and slightly annoyed that i was supposed to act excited. to me, having a baby was not much different than going to the store and purchasing light bulbs. not necessarily worth shouting to the world about.
then i had a baby. my view changed.
i was genuinely excited when others told me they were expecting a baby. i was enthralled with the whole "miracle of life" idea. i actively and excitedly participated in conversations about mucus plugs, breast feeding, nursery decor, and baby car seats. everything was roses, even baby snot was cute to me.
a year into my second baby, my view changed again.
i am still genuinely excited, but in a different way. I am excited to see that guy in the office that never misses a happy hour, plays basketball and softball four times a week and drives a corvette will soon lose every personal freedom that makes me hate him. i am genuinely excited to see some one other than myself will find petrified cheerios fused to the elbows of his favorite shirt. excited to know he will soon be forced to use that ridiculously expensive palm pda to schedule un-spontaneous sex with his wife when both of their schedules agree. excited to know his bank account will be quickly siphoned off, one 3 dollar bottle of non allergenic formula at a time.
welcome to my world, sucker.
my boss and i coincidentally stood in the same line. both waiting to pay for a cup of coffee.
small talk led to a conversation about the status of a high profile project. boss showed complete disinterest in the project conversation, but played along.
boss handed the cashier money and a frequent consumer card. the cashier used a hole punch on the card. boss stepped aside but continued to pretend interest in the project status conversation.
I wondered why boss stood so close and continued to clutch the card. then i realized boss wanted me to scam a hole punch on the frequent consumer card.
me - "oh, hey why don't we get another punch on your card?!"
boss - "oh, great idea! thanks"
cashier gave me the skunk eye and punched the card. boss quickly disappeared, leaving the status conversation unfinished.
i now better understand boss's priorities and concerns. developing my career is somewhere below obtaining a free 8 oz coffee.
i think i will surprise boss with one of them 48 ounce jobs from 7-11 tomorrow. that should put me on the fast track.
