my team will be disbanded in december. i should probably be much more concerned than i am. i have survived countless rounds of layoffs in the past.

i believe it's a survival of the fittest. got me thinking... what unique genetic traits do i possess, aiding me in survival of the cube farm?

my colossal height - most managers are short despicable people, my height easily allows me to see over the cube walls. sort of an early detection system. i'm a long gone daddy before they ever arrive.

my extremely large head - most managers are also simple folk and easily distracted. just the sight of my large cranium can completely derail conversations. an intended discussion of lay-offs turns into a discussion of planets, or balloons or other such large round objects.

my faulty short term memory - i am fairly certain i've been fired many times but by the next morning i have forgotten and i just keep showing up.

my abnormally small orifice - the dirtiest of all my orifices is abnormally small. teeny tiny. one could claim it is nearly ultramicroscopic. it is nearly impossible to pass anything thicker than a pencil. the analogy of an elephant through a key hole comes to mind. any way, this malformed orifice results in frequent and lengthy trips to the men's room. most managers will not fire you when you're makin' mud.

this certainly is "unbelievable" technology. how does a microwave made of butter not melt its self when turned on?

also unvbelievable is that they can fit 15 of those butter microwaves in a single box.

whats next? peanutbutter toasters packed into envelopes?

wednesday i received an email from the time police. it chastised me for failing to log my time and activities. not for days previous, but for days future. through monday in fact.

so, basically i am in trouble because i am unable to time travel to the future and report back to the past about what i did in the future.

i also received an email from the human resources department about the benefit enrollment period. it was a warning, to inform me today is the last chance to make any changes before the changes period would begin.

so, basically they are saying, the changes period is to make any changes to the changes made before the changes deadline.

another recent email, informed us a specific employee was still employed with the company.

so, basically it was reminding us employees of the company are employed by the company until they are no longer employed by the company.

in a meeting, the project manager announced that the project start date had been put on indefinite hold. he said we should use the hold time to prepare ourselves for the eventual start of the project.

so, basically he was telling us to get ready to get ready.

today the a sales guy was proud to tell me he and the client had decided user interviews were not needed to perform our USER centered design process. as creative director of the USER centered design group, i was not consulted.

so, basically he was telling me it is no longer a user centered design process, it is now the sales guy centered design process.

it's truly a wonder how this company doesn't collapse from the unbearable stink of corporate brain farts.

so, basically i am telling you corporate america is screwed.

my sketchbook is overflowing with these little things, so time to move 'em to the doodle clearing house known as ultramicroscopic. i created a new category on the right for proper storage.

most of these are more confusing than they are funny.

here's the deal, i figure tom wilson spends at least 30 minutes on every dumb ass ziggy cartoon and the stupid things take up way too much space. I spend only 30 seconds making these, and do it in much less space.

i am out to prove i can be UNfunny in a much more efficient manner than ziggy.

the actual size of these is smaller than you see here, most about an inch by an inch in the sketchbook, that is why the text is hard to read sometimes.

whew, finally am mailing out birth annoucements of son 3. thanks to a few cool designers that provided me with some great critique; Rebecky, Greg, Robert, Casey, Brian, and Sergio.

the announcements are 18" by 6" and fold into a square (making for expensive postage!). can you count the influences? a fascination with hatch show prints, side show freaks and the circus drove the design.

oh, if you think it is offensive to portray my new ofspring with such a large head, you should have seen one of the early comps where his head didn't fit on he paper. (link also includes behind the design notes to myself for all you design freaks out there)

bargarrletterpress.com did a great job printing! go there now to see some cool shit. kissing the paper with inky lips!

inside my skull,
giant june bugs bump and bash trying to escape
synapses duck from frequent and random friendly fire
magic fingers vibrate
a spastic sphincter quivers
all for a buck eighty seven.
fuck you very much, starbucks.

after months of pontificating the greatness of apple's iphoto to the wife, she finally sat down at the mac to create a photo album. It is a very graphical application requiring much mousing around.

i stopped to check her progress and noticed she had propped the keyboard up vertically against the monitor in a completely unusable position.

me - why is the keyboard up like that, how are you using it?
the wife - i'm not using it, i needed more desk space.
me - desk space for what?
the wife - the mouse, i couldn't get to the left side of the screen, the keyboard was in the way.
me - oh.

then comes the dilemma, should i explain the mouse can be moved left, lifted and moved left again? or should i just buy a larger desk?

i need your help.

i am ass deep in a five hour, 430 question, psychological profiling exam. the company wants to measure our hidden salesmanship potential.

instead of simply asking an employee "do you have any sales skills or interest in sales?" the exam disguises the question in seemingly non-sequitur ways. here is an actual sample, when watching movies, i typically do not recognize the significance of evidence or behaviors that turn out to be critical. agree or disagree? now imagine answering the same question worded slightly different 400 more times. now imagine putting the barrel of a shotgun in you mouth.

so, this is where i need your help, the following questions have stumped me.

1. you are on a train traveling 45 mph. a shirtless man drops a 5 dollar bill on the floor. he looks at you and says "water is to ice as diarrhea is to loaf", strongly agree or strongly disagree?

2. you fear a magic monkey with golden testicles will explode from your butt and your peers will giggle. strongly agree or strongly disagree?

3. you give three cookies to carol and five cookies to bob. how many animal skulls under your sofa? strongly agree or strongly disagree?

oh, and if it helps your answers, this is not the kind of test i want to do well on. in fact, the worse is better. i would be devastated to find i have greater potential in sales than design.

actually i believe the real test is to see if you finish the test. anyone who can dedicate free five hours to such an exercise in stupidity must have very little to do and is considered expendable.

i got a flu shot today!

na na a poo poo!

in fact, i got two. just because i could.

my feet are a bit sore from stomping my way across an ocean of small children and elderly woman to get it.

a bit odd, the nurse walked into the room with the syringe, she told me to drop my pants and bend over. i did so, then she gave me the shot, in my upper arm.

ultranote - i know you are probably saying to your self that this sounds out of character for the humanitarian griff, stepping on babies and all. well, get used to it. this is the new griff. the new rethuglican griff. i think it is time to celebrate the fact that i was born a white male and am part of the huge corporate machine that keeps this country humming. i have wasted too much time and too many votes in attempt to empower the down trodden. if the white wannabees, jews, fruitcakes, tree huggers, and dames can't get their shit together and vote correctly, it is their own damn fault. for the next four years, it's all about me and my new buddy, dubya, and whatever serves our best interests. the old griff is dead. the new griff wonders why you hate america.

i once celebrated halloween as the evil midnight bomber, what bombs at midnight. the response to my costume was much like the you are suffering from now.

worst. costume. ever.

anyway, that's not what this story is about, so let's not focus on that. the important thing to focus on in this story is how i accesorized the worst costume ever. i made bombs. the bombs were made to look like the bombs ACME provides to all cartoon evil doers from snidley whiplash, to wiley coyote.

the bombs had humble beginnings as styrofoam spheres. the spheres were painted black. a two inch long wire protruding from the top served as the whick. small bits of tinsel attached to the wire gave the appearance the bombs were lit, just waiting to explode. the bombs were the best of the worst costume ever. they looked exactly like a cartoon bombs should.

so, after a halloween evening filled with frivolity, libations and confusing looks, my buddy, dressed as scratch man (an equally lame costume) returned me home. before leaving him, i wedged one of my bombs between the dashboard and wind shield as a parting gift.

here is where the "tales from the office" comes in. scratch man is employed by the same silly corporation as i. this silly corporation employes equally silly security personnel. one day scratch man parked his vehicle in front of said silly corporation, much like he did everyday, but this day would be different.

that day, scratch man was working on the set of a live corporate broadcast when the director's voice came over his headphones requesting him to report to the control room immediately. an odd request during a live production.

security was waiting for him in the control room. corporate security's training, which obviously included watching hours of cartoons each day, had paid off. the potential danger of a styrofoam orb adorned with tinsel is immeasurable. quick action and severe measures had to be taken.

they told scratch man to have a seat. they told him the jig was up, they knew about the bomb in his car. the officers grilled him, probing him for answers but scratch man is one tough customer. it takes more than barney fife in a rent-a-cop outfit to make scratch man sing. scratch man never flips an accomplice. because of him, the evil midnight bomber, what bombs at midnight remains free to this day.

free to wear confusing costumes each halloween. costumes like senior stink, a cross dressing luche libre.

second. worst. costume. ever.

today i heard a few words of inspiration giving me great encouragement to vote.

a person reminded me that voting is the great equalizer. we are all equal, we all have one vote.

my vote counts just as much as rush limbaugh's vote, or al franken's vote. it counts just as much as the vote of bush or kerry themselves.

the inspiration quickly faded when i reversed the logic to discover that my vote counts only as much as that moron standing in front of the 7-11 wearing swim goggles, a large sombrarro, and cycling shorts with a squirrel mounted on his shoulder.

oh, i also realized there is a difference between limbaugh, franken and i. i don't have access to television or radio outlets to influence millions of votes. i only have access to roughly 8 half retarded loyal readers of ultramicroscopic (no, you're not the tard. although some may question that shirt with those pants).

vote. vote to offset the vote of the insane and stupid.

son three's first halloween was marred by an unfortunate wardrobe malfunction. the wife claims he is supposed to be an elephant. i think he is a dick head.

why a dick head?
- since when do elephants have a scrotum under their trunk
- since when do elephants have a patch of fur just above their trunk that resembles pubic hair?
- since when is an elephant trunk 6 inches long and fully erect?

some where in a tiawanese costume factory, a small man is laughing his little ass off thinking of american mothers proudly parading around little dick head babies.