February 2008 Archives

I am currently on a conference call with the Detroit office.  These calls are often very flavorful, and you get gems like this that get shouted out:

"I have two uncles who got shot throwing dice."

Man, all my uncle ever did was lie to a nurse about being a veterinarian!

Ignoring for a moment how odd it is that this was scheduled for Valentines Day...I had my first official review at work today.  That is always nerve-wracking, even when you're doing a good job and you know you're doing a good job.  I supposed there is just something generally unpleasant about being judged.

First, I must quickly interject that the atmosphere at work is extremely, extremely casual.  Tshirts and sneaks.  Ponytails and gum-chewing.  Cussing and drinking.  At your desk.

So to dilute the awkwardness of the day, me and one of the other guys on my team decided to be way too formal about this and to try to confuse and/or flatter our boss.  So we both came to work today in full-on business suits.  He has on a tie.  I have on heels and earrings.  It feels like 1984 IBM corporate headquarters in here.  Or like Michael Douglas and Charlie Sheen could come walking around the corner any minute, talking NASDAQ or communicating in that broker sign language.

And it totally backfired.  Instead of thinking it was cute/funny that we took this so seriously, our boss was really disgusted!  She wanted to send us home!?

Back in my hometown, I am often entered into sports "contest" rings without my knowledge.  My dad or my pretend uncle Johnny will buy extra squares or entries or whatever in a given contest, and then just put my name on it since they can't legally enter multiple times.  I realize this is borderline identity theft, but usually when my name wins...they're very good about sharing the winnings even though I totally had nothing to do with it.

For the Superbowl, my dad entered me in some weird contest where you have a number for Team A, and another number for Team B.  If at any point during the game, if both teams' scores end in your corresponding numbers, you win a wad of cash.  Well, my name won a wad of cash!  I got an envelope in the mail from my dad, which contained a check and this poem:

Roses are red
Violets are blue
Eli made the throw
So here's your dough

My dad is so cute.  He always tries to be poetic, but he doesn't understand that it is possible for a poem to not start with "Roses are red..."

Also, in the memo line on the check, he put: "for car repairs".  ???

I was recently alerted to the existence of a man called Jon Mikl Thor, who is (all at once) a bodybuilder, rock legend, filmmaker, stunt man, van enthusiast, and Viking poser.  He made a film in the 1970s that was a fictional account of his band AND a horror flick, all at once.  The "plot" goes something like so:

• The band goes to a farmhouse in the remote countryside of Canada to record their sophomore album and rehearse for their upcoming tour.
  
  
• The number of people staying at the farmhouse is conveniently an even number, with an equal number of boys and girls.  It follows that every person is matched with another person and has a sex scene.  Thor's is in the shower with a redhead and a very cheap, very low-pressured shower head.
  
  
• One by one, band members and girlfriends start to disappear and/or be murdered.  No one is terribly concerned by this.
  
  
• The culprit seems to be these little cute muppet wads of flesh.  Each has a tuft of hair, one eyeball, and two fingers on each hand.  These are apparently shapeshifters, because sometimes they take the shape of the people staying in the house.  Or starfish.  And then kill.
  
  
• Then suddenly...Thor's hair is teased up to epic proportions and his redhead girlfriend turns into Satan and they have a battle in the barn.  I recommend you forward to the 5:20 mark, where Satan starts to fling starfish at Thor, and they "stick" to Thor in form of him "catching" them and holding them to his body:

• Thor wins the battle, and suddenly the movie ends with a tightly cropped shot of a house, and then pulls away, then fades out.  It definitely gave a sense of closure except for the fact that...that was the first time that particular house was shown in the movie.

Before finding success as a heavy metal superstar, Jon Mikl Thor used to be a strongman whose favorite trick was blowing up hot water bottles until they popped.  Why he didn't do THAT to battle Satan, I'll never understand.

I met my dad and sisters in Vegas last weekend.  (Well, I mean I met up with them, I've actually met them before.)  That in and of itself is not that amazing, I think that's about the 20th time I've been.  It becomes difficult to separate all those trips in my mind, but two extraordinarily memorable things happened so I doubt I will forget this particular trip.

Amazing Event #1

I didn't hit any jackpots.  But...a jackpot did hit ME!?!  We were at a blackjack table at Fitzgerald's (which seems to be a recurring setting for all the Vegas drama in my life).  I was sitting at first base.  During play, a security guard walked up with one of those chip caddies to refill the dealer's stash.  That usually takes them a minute to check their math and sign their slips of paper, so I turned to my sister when suddenly...crash!! 

Hundreds of chips had spewed all over the table.  My first reaction was that I was a criminal and I put my hands in the air.  I expected lots of heavies to emerge from the shadows of the casino with guns drawn...but no one else showed up, and the pit boss, dealer, and guard honestly laughed it off like it wasn't that big of a deal.  They picked them all up and recounted, and everything was fine.  The pit boss leaned over to me and said, "When was the last time someone dumped $10,000 in your lap?"  I said, "I just got off work at the Crazy Horse II about 2 hours ago, so...two hours I guess?" 

Amazing Event #2

We went to see Penn & Teller.  Awesome show.  I love those guys.  As you know, Teller's gimmick is that he doesn't talk.  They do this one mind-reading bit where they pass a bunch of joke books out in the audience, and ask everyone to pass them around at random in order to choose their mind-reading victim.  My hard-of-hearing dad was on the aisle seat, and I saw someone kneel down beside him to say something.  I leaned over, knowing that I'd probably need to translate for Dad, and I found myself staring into this face with these words coming out of the face's mouth:



To reiterate, I heard Teller speak.  Holy shit.  I knew he wasn't really mute and that was just his character, but STILL. 

Greetings, I apologize for disappearing off the face of the internet for a while.  I hope life has been treating you well, and that you have received your W-2s and have found success in achieving a big fat federal income tax refund!

My friend Val had this hanging up in her cubicle when I used to work with her.  Her son intended to praise how cool Texas was, and inadvertently inverted the 'a' and 'e' in Texas.  This is way better, anyway:



In celebration of this tax season, I would like to share a little surprise with you.  I got a discount on TurboTax through my investment peoples, so use this link and you can get a couple of bucks off, too!

http://turbotax.intuit.com/affiliate/trowep4

Sorry I didn't hyperlink that.  But I'm in web analytics and I'm paranoid they'll run a referring URL report and find that I sent you there, and renege my discount.