Bored at Work?

Have you found yourself stifled in work and in life? Have you reached a dead end on the org chart of your career? Do you find it a challenge to contemplate the monotony of your job day in and day out? Are you starting to think there really could be a Matrix and your life forces are being harvested in a purposeless existence? Do you just need a giggle? Here are some things you can do at work to divert your attention away from the mundane. These are several entrepreneurial ventures that you can make from work without sacrificing any of those precious mental health days.
1. Use your time in the office on the phone to make random death threats to residential numbers.
2. Grow weed in your desk drawer.
3. Call Apple Computer and initiate a merger under your authority.
4. Start a grass roots political campaign to reelect Elliot Spitzer, Governor of New York.
5. In-source tech support calls from India.
6. Run an escort service for Russian amputees.
7. Collect Sweet-n-Low from every kitchenette on your corporate campus.
8. Read peoples fortunes over the phone (use Sweet-N-Low packets for material).
9. Become a bookie for cock fighting.
10. Raise a cricket farm in your cubicle.
11. Bring a bunch of old movies to work and run a video rental out of your cube and charge outrageous late fees.
12. Call every extension in the company and tell them there’s cake in the conference room.
13. Bring doughnuts to work and sell them with a 5% markup.
14. Monitor webcams across the world and report crimes when they happen.
15. Write funny lists.
16. Call two separate adult chat lines; place one on hold and tell the other one that you have your girlfriend on the line who wants to join in and repeat for the other line and then conference them in together.
17. Sell Mary Kay cosmetics.
18. Build a deck in your cube.
19. Call a very large hotel and initiate reservations for a major corporate convention including catering, production staff, and limousine rentals and then cancel at the last minute.
20. Start pirating as many office supplies and furniture as you can get your hands on and sell them on eBay.
21. Reserve every conference room in your building for 4:30 on a Friday and then ask everyone to come and bring their key cards and id badges.
22. Swap out sinks in all the bathrooms and educate yourself on rudimentary plumbing.
23. Hit CTRL+ALT+DOWN ARROW on your keyboard and Feature 86 on your phone, tell HR you think your cube is haunted and then try to get workers comp for mental exhaustion.
24. Make a fake badge that says “Hall Monitor” and stand in the hallway writing fake tickets to anyone that doesn’t have a hall pass.
25. Start a valet service in the parking lot.
26. Start a paper route on your floor and ride a bike down the hallways.
27. Rent out empty office space for rehearsal space to struggling bands and convert common areas to a nightclub after 6 p.m.
28. Advertise a starving artist sale and sell all the cheesy, abstract corporate art hanging on the walls.
29. Sell coupon books for the vending machines and cafeteria.
30. Bring an espresso maker, green apron and alternative accoustic soundtrack and open a drive through coffee stand outside your cube.

Is actually the new uh?

This is funny. I ask my wife if she thinks the term actually is overused or am I actually being my old cynical, self righteous, critical self. I looked up actually in a thesaurus. There are a ton of great words you can use in its place, really; words and phrases like really, essentially, in fact, truly, square business and no shittin. Any of these will work fine in place of actually. I hear it everywhere. I feel like I’m a dog tormented by a high pitched whistle. The term is used at least 3 or 4 times in every news interview, national news withstanding. Relatively intelligent people abuse the term when explaining a topic of which they are a marginal authority. I hear it from anyone giving sales presentations, speeches or toasts. It’s actually very annoying.
Where does this word come from? It’s actually been around since the 16th century. Galileo was heard chastising the Pope with “…it’s actually flat and no, it’s actually not the center of the universe.” I actually looked it up. It is defined as an actual or existing fact; really. (Okay, I’ll stop. Your dawdling mind has actually caught up to the point I’m making).
I don’t understand the need to validate every line of conversation with a disclaimer of truth. Actually is similar to saying “This is indeed a fact that I am prepared to state.” Have we become so immersed in bullshit that a qualification is necessary before every muttered claim? Is it similar to the use of honestly. I hate to stand on the receiving end of that one. As if you had a reason to lie to me otherwise. Do people reply often in conversation with; “are you in jest or in fact serious about that which you speak?” Even worse, actually has worked its way into written word. This is how Well, has become the fastest growing introduction to much correspondence. People write as they speak.
Uh, use to be the filler for a void in conversation and uuuuuuh. I’m sorry. I actually forgot where I was going with that. Actually is used in a similar manner of brain to mouth traffic diversion. It’s a speed bump in an explanation. It’s a delay to let the rest of your thought make it down the snout. Moreover, Actually is an overused indicator of emphasis. I feel sorry for creative writing professors everywhere (and not just in relation to this piece of literary tripe.) We throw actually in to say,
“get ready because this tidbit of information is going to blow your mind”
or “here’s a bit of unsolicited trivia I’m going to drop on you like mad science!”
or “contrary to conventional wisdom or any preconceived notion that your misguided perspective may attempt to bring to this conversation…”
It’s as if the small crumb of wisdom they possess will alter our physical existence and rock our grasp on reality and thus a disclaimer like actually is needed to prepare you. “Screw gravity! Your punctual use of the word “actually” just yanked the blanket out from my humble understanding of the world around me. It’s like Dianetics, man!”
The worst examples are the animal enthusiasts you see on local morning talk shows. The wealth of zoological information they carry in their heads astound the greatest intellectuals of our time. Not to mention the impression they make on morning talk show hosts.
“Actually, Coco here is a marsupial.”
“Actually, bats can see.”
“He’s actually sniffing my dog that I have at home.”

If only I could break a cricket bat over the back over their heads every time they say actually. Cooking shows are no less deplorable.
These buzz phrases come and go. Do you remember basically? That one served as the opener for countless public speeches and lectures in the 80’s. Pop culture sprinkled in Up you nose with a rubber hose; Where’s the beef?; Allrighty then; and Yeah baby! The 90’s ushered in the era of out-of-the-box and touching base with people. Some of these catch phrases were spawned in the workplace. Some were cultivated in social settings. Just like Maude; and then came like. This one may seem a bit juvenile but it’s a verbal mainstay for many 20-somethings. Take heed. It will work its way into your conversational rotation, much like gracias and de nada.

The wolf at our doorstep (Please read the entire article)

This may not be the most politically correct thing to say, but I believe it’s time we secure our border. I am proud to say that I am a native Texan. I was born in this great state in a time when our country was divided over many political and social landscapes. I was born in Dallas in 1968. This was a era in history when the very term “American” was called into question. We began to change the perception of what, or more importantly who, an American citizen was. Our social climate was forever changed. Certain human rights sanctioned by the founding fathers of this great nation were endowed upon all free men. We changed for the better. We became more accepting, more tolerant and quite simply more civil. Texas was cast into the tumultuous and unpopular center of this political upheaval. The state and it's people were asked to abandon 140 years of tradition and cultural complacency. Texas was called upon to redefine itself as a sovereignty. Then we discovered ourselves adjunct to a national agenda; this merely 100 years after a civil war. Yes, mistakes were made. Yes, intolerance and fear were rampant. One can clearly see the lasting effects even in this new century. Texas, with it's long standing heritage of isolation and independence, was reluctant. No other state suffers as much cultural mystification as Texas. No other state in the Union has pledged it’s allegiance to six different nations. No other state has reigned as a nation unto itself. One would think that a collection of people living under constant flux would welcome defectors of any breed. No single person can claim Texas as their own. They can only lay claim to being born here, such as I do.
Today, there is a certain type of foreigner that presses at our doorstep. There is a stranger just across the border that once again threatens our independence, our hard fought culture and our content way of life. A meager rivers stand between Texas and her cultural integrity, her decency and her pastoral innocence. I am confident that we all know who this threat is. We have all looked beyond our state's borders to see the tide of belligerence, ignorance and moral decay that bears down on us. Make no mistake my fellow Texans. The wolf is on our doorstep and she lies in want. That’s why I am all for building a fence. We need to build a twenty foot high fence and block these vagrants from coming into our beloved homeland and taking menial labor from us. We need to stop their children from over running our schools and corrupting our institutions. They can barely speak English much less understand our laws and public affairs. Desperate times call for desperate measures. This is why I implore our government to build a fence. Build a fence twenty feet high. Build a wall spanning the entire length of the Red River. Help us stop the people of Oklahoma from destroying our beloved state. The land rush is over Oklahoma. Carry your hic bums back across that state line.The eyes of Texas are upon you.

Preparing for Nascar

I woke up this morning and shaved off what was left of my vacation beard. Unfortunately, my birthday/ midsummer/ July 4th extended weekend had come to a sobering end. As I shaved the shaggy Al Qaeda-esque undergrowth off my throat, I made a rash decision, or should I say “stache” decision, to keep the moustache for a few more weeks. Let me explain.
Last week, I turned 40. This rite of passage brings with it some implied tolerances to my manhood. First, I am a grown man by default. Once I reach the age 40, I am unmistakably a grown man by sheer number of years being alive. I oblige the expectation, hopes, wishes and desires of those around me to finally grow up. I believe this is truly what men dread so much about this age. Second, the allowances that I speak of signal that my body has reached its prime, thus succumbing to a half ass attempt to impress with my male stamina; the proverbial plateau for my mojo. People no longer expect to see my guns. They just expect not to see the crack of my ass or the bottom of my gut pop out when I reach up. People expect to see a little more flab around the midsection, a little more loss of hair at the top, a tight fitting world’s greatest dad tee and maybe little more huff and puff when I tie my shoes. A thousand years ago, people would be surprised to see me walking around. They would call me a wise old sage or an elder.
My wife bought me a ticket to drive an official NASCAR race car on a real race track. It’s a driving school built on fufilling the dreams of middle aged contibutors to mulletsgalore.com. It's like a Make a Wish foundation for aging rednecks. This is a chance to see if I would have really ever qualified to be something as sexy as a race car driver. Jet pilot was ruled out by my inability to complete Fundamentals of Math 101 in community college. There was no way I could be a secret agent or government spy. That was ruled out by my complete lack of composure under stressful situations. Plus, I probably would have flunked the urine test. I could have been a professional athlete but the only sport I physically measured up to was professional bowling. That’s about the only training regiment I could manage as well. Rodeo bull rider, perhaps, but that’s not sexy. That’s just stupid. So for one glorious day I get to pretend I’m Dale Earnhardt Sr., hence the moustache.
A moustache is an emblem of the by gone era of my parents. My father had a moustache. I have seen pictures of him holding me when I was about my son’s age. It was 1971. He weighed approximately 270 lbs and smoked cigarettes. He wore shirt sleeve dress shirts with ties. He sold industrial rubber hose for BF Goodrich in places like Memphis, Little Rock and Oklahoma City. I can only imagine the kitsch that surrounded his day and time. He probably stopped at the Howard Johnson or Sizzler somewhere on I-35, had a smoke as he waited for his flap jacks and hash browns. He wore English Leather or Old Spice cologne and read the paper. He packed his blue and white checkered polyester suits in Samsonite luggage that could survive any Braniff DC-10 crash. His stache probably smelled of pancake syrup, Crown Royal and Viceroy’s. Then he’d relax by the pool at the Holiday Inn in someplace like Omaha,Salina or Branson.
This nostalgia is partially responsible for my desire to grow an over the lip flavors savor. This coupled with a desire to augment my appearance to pathetically garner attention. People notice moustaches because you just don’t see them anymore except on cops, foreigners and FOG’s like my dad. He has long since shaved his off. Even porn stars have abandoned the wild wooly lipmark of manhood. I’m not sure if the stache will ever make a respectable comeback. Men these days want to look like they’re 24, not like Jim Croce.They frost their tips, go wakeboarding with their kids and dawn ball caps to cover their receding timeline. Men no longer want to look like men (secular third world extremists not withstanding). The American dad can hardly be spotted anymore. He wears Hollister board shorts and Keene’s and drinks Mojitos. He can be seen hanging out at the Starbucks ordering a Green Tea Frappacino and eating a salad.
I’m not oblivious to reality of change. Maybe the reduction of heart disease and lung cancer in men over 40 is a good thing. Mmmmh, ya think? But I would like to salute all those old farts that still sport the lip spider, the nose broom and the Italian caterpillar. I will grow my stache with pride. And when my checkered past reaches the checkered flag on my last lap of grand delusion, I’ll be looking a bit like Hal Linden,Freddie Prinze or Dennis Weaver still clutching to yesteryear. Carry on my wayward son, carry on.

The demise of the Sasquatch

I really believe he is out there. What I find interesting is our never ceasing desire to know that he is out there. Like the dodo bird from the past, we have to club it, kill it and bring it in so we know it’s alive. There is a commercial for a brand of Beef Jerky where the theme of the spot is messing with Bigfoot. This is a perfect analogy of civilized man wanting to not only prove his existence, but to go ahead and impose our will upon him for our amusement. There are whales in the ocean 18 times the size of Bigfoot and we will never see them. Do we need to catch and kill them to know they are there? I see squirrels in a yard and think about why are we terrified of rats and yet cohabitate with squirrels without having to trap them or banish them? What is it about our nature that lets us live along side some species while others we doubt and fear?
I am a firm believer in Bigfoot. I belong to an organization called BFRO (Bigfoot Field Researchers Organization). Well, I used to belong. Honestly, I only bought a t-shirt from their website to wear on my independant field research. Basically a field researcher is anyone that can walk more than 10 feet, wear a comfortable pair of sneakers and contribute $350 to a hopeless endeavor. I’m not a cynic of the organization I belong to. I just disagree with the administration (much like the rest of this nation). Besides, if I had $350 to blow in the interest of furthering science, I'd spend it on advanced home brewing technologies or a car that runs on sea water.
Where ever Bigfoot is, I am sure that he has no problems believing in us and wants to stay as far away as possible. I shun the concept of an evil terror of a beast tearing apart tents in the wilderness and harassing campers and hikers. He’s probably pooping nervously under a fern somewhere far in the hills of British Columbia. That’s where he is, you know; British Columbia.
No I’m confident Bigfoot will someday choose to walk on down out of the woods. He will probably select one of the worse places to commence his first encounter with western civilization. It will, no doubt, be a Flying J truck stop or an outlet mall. He will probably meander behind a Bass ProShop just after some guy named Doug or Todd will have just bought a camo-colored 12 gauge and 3 boxes of shells. He’ll probably get caught in some embarrassing fashion so beneath his mythic status that he will instantly reduce his standing to that of a bear or rabid hound. Some Alaskan animal control officer will have a snare around his neck after catching him with a half-eaten burrito in a Jack in the Box dumpster. He’ll be on national TV with crumbs in his beard. We will hearken back to the less than anticlimactic capture of Sadaam Hussein in the hole. He’ll crap himself and curl up in a ball in the back of a truck next to stray pit bulls and a dead opossum. Sadly, this is the most probable demise for our mystic beast from the 70’s and 80’s. The beast that lumbered through our nightmares and led countless quasi,self proclaimed anthropologists on epic goose chase expeditions across the Sierra Nevada’s and Cascade ranges. The beast that ate DB Cooper. The gargantuan that battled Steve Austin in the “jump the shark" two-part episode of the Six Million Dollar Man.The indelible prototype to our beloved Chewbacca. It’s sad to picture the almost embarrassed and pathetic look on his face when they shove him in that truck. He’ll grunt and whimper like a darted bear. He’ll lick himself and look disoriented. There will be protests of course. They will be confused about what to do with him. After all the media quiets down, we will go about our lives in a one-less-unknown-menacing-mythical-creature-man-dominated-world. He will be donated to some farm that cares for wounded show pets and Russian circus bears. He’ll be lumped in with the bears even though he probably holds them in the same regard as we hold illegal aliens. He probably thinks they just eat the fish that he won’t eat but even still he doesn’t think they should be allowed to fish in the same river.
I hope I can go see him then. I hope I can get a ticket and travel to Alaska and visit Bigfoot before he passes away in a freak electric fence accident or strange dysentery brought on by canned bear food. I’ll look him in the face and tell him I believed. I believed just enough to leave well enough alone. He’ll growl at me and sit up on his rear haunches like a trained tiger. I’ll throw balled up sandwich bread at him. I'll move down one cage to see a cougar lying in the dirt next to a water dish. No mystery with the cougar. If you run into a cougar in the wild, your supposed to bang a stick against the tree and yell out "NO!".That will let him know who's boss.

Man Found Dead on Seattle Golf Course

SEATTLE TIMES BREAKING NEWS:
A man was found dead on local course from apparent overdose in golf. Investigators say the body was found hunched over the hole on the 17th green apparently retrieving what looked like crumpled paper, sticks and feathers fashioned into a make shift golf ball. The victim was found on the Coyote Creek course at the Willows run golf course in Redmond clutching a score card that recorded over 215 holes played with only one double bogey at the hole where the body was found. Everything before that was scored one below par, a birdie. The identity has not been disclosed, but initial reports indicate a male, 6'2'', dark hair, early forties wearing a Kirkland Brand golf polo shirt and tan trousers. The body was found dehydrated, sun burned and disgruntled over exorbitant food prices at the course concession stand. He apparently forgot about the turkey sandwich and Payday that he packed in his bag from home. Foul play was initially suspected when several of the victim's clubs were found tossed about and embedded in trees and bushes in a close vicinity to the hole on which the body was found. This was ruled out by a grounds keeper that witnessed what can only be described as the "most horrific man tantrum I have ever seen". Friend and relatives stated earlier today, "It's exactly how he would have wanted to go." Others were quoted as asking, " How could this have happened?" and "I can't see how he took a mulligan, went into the water, came out of the water, back into the ravine, and out of the ravine and into the sand and three putted and only got a double bogey?" A funeral has not been scheduled as of this reporting but sources say it will involve the deceased being placed into a golf travel bag lined with 500 thread count sheets and pillows stuffed with 1 week old Norwegian Snow Goose down and buried at sea in one of the ponds on the North Course at Sahalee Country Club.

Response to want ad for Reference Number:HCS284

"Job Description:A Textile Carpet manufacturer has an opening for a Sales Representative with High-end Carpet sales experience. Must have sales experience with Hospitality, Contract, Residential, Commercial, or Retail Carpet companies with strong programs in both Woven and Print. The Sales Representative will be responsible for building relationships with buyers, manage daily sales responsibilities, and develop programs for specific customer accounts."

I read that and came to what can only be described as a Jack Nicholson "As Good as it Gets" moment. Gone are the days of First Class jet setting to sunny So-Cal for a quick back nine before a colossal time waste of a meeting at noon about cutting the bottom line. Gone are the restless nights spent with the beer sweats in a king size bed between sheets that cost more than my best suit in a quasi-post modern personality hotel with a complimentary happy hour, substandard nautilus gym, and as much Lodgenet™ porn that a liberal arts college major with deficient math skills can proficiently bury in an expense report. Gone are the herb encrusted filets and the 18 year-old scotch calls from Smith & Wollenski at 4:00 in the afternoon. These are all the things I reminisce about as my fat, middle-aged, cynical ass sits on 635 trying to manipulate my $240 a month gas guzzler across three lanes to get home to my 3 lovely line item dependents, my cat shit eating dog, my mortgage, my hopeless attempt at a lawn and my ever growing laundry list of yet-to-do-to-the-house-but-I'll-get-to-it-on-Sunday-'s. All my options have surmounted to my current position or this miserable piece of shit so called "opportunity" trying to foot cram one more "value-added resource" into the already over bloated, oversold, undifferentiated market of business to business commodities. One more Ford Taurus or Dodge Intrepid parked in the back of a business park in Grand Prairie idling while listening to the Ticket and reading the paper. One more day spent handing out business cards and collateral with invaluable information that ends up topping off the trash cans inside every office in the DFW Metroplex. One more 30 minute, technically challenged powerpoint presentation to a daft 19 year old receptionist that has all the decision making authority of an oompla loompa in Willy Wonka's Choclate Factory. All of this only to come back to the office and fill out a 3 page excel spreadsheet flagging it as a "Class 3 Potential Opportunity" that only needs about 8 more months of qualifying and filling out a prospect analysis of said receptionist as the key relationship that will bank roll your entire 4th quarter.
Ah, life.

DFW City Slogans

Lake Highlands looks down on Lakewood.
Lakewood: Highland Park with Democrats
Cedar Springs: Where Straight Lane begins to swerve
Uptown: It ain't Downtown.
Highland Park! Anything else is University Park.
Oak Cliff: Come for the views, stay for the arson.
Pleasant Grove: You're not in Seagoville anymore.
Flower Mound: Lewisville is for townies
Frisco Sucks!
Grapevine: Tuscany by the airport
World Famous Mesquite Rodeo (the town not so much)
You're not lost, you're in Richardson.
Keene: We built this city on moving violations revenue.
Welcome to Lancaster! You look lost…boy! Hey boy, I'm talking to you!
Yo Quiero Farmers Branch?
Addison: Making Plano tolerable for 25 years
Coppell: The only thing higher than our IQ's are the taxes
Trophy Club: Southlake without the riff raff
Plano: The original middle of nowhere
Burleson: Crepe Myrtle capital of the metroplex (No really, that's their slogan)
Bedford/ Euless: The t'aint of DFW
Hurst: Just keep driving until you get to Bedford.
See Seagoville! Smell Balch Springs
Balch Springs. That's 100% pure Balch you're drinking.
Work and play in Irving. Ok, just work.
Colleyville……
Las Colinas: It's gonna happen!
Arlington: Stick it here
The Colony: Their Days Of Peace Are Over
Carrollton: Just try and miss our pot holes
McKinney: The pot of gold at the end of a nightmare commute
Denton: The self proclaimed crown jewel of the self proclaimed golden triangle
Duncanville: Come see our mall.
If neighborhood charm has got you down, come to Allen
Cedar Hill. Yep, that pretty much sums it up.
Welcome to Garland! The gangs are all here.
Mansfield: As banal as the name implies.
North Richland Hills, just North of Richland Hills.
Wylie…Boy, we are out here.
Melissa, the sticks for people in Wylie
Keller: It could've been a Southlake
Sachse: No, that's Rowlett's water tower you're looking at.
Saginaw: You've seen the silos. Now come see the city.
Little Elm…what, you think you're better than me?
Grand Prairie: It's actually more of a plateau of sorts.
Ferris: Now with running water
Rockwall: In case you make it over the lake