What Day is This? A Handy Reference Tool for Anyone Lost in the Work Week

Do you ever lose track of what day of the week it is? If so, my friend Adrian has started this quick & handy reference tool to keep you on track.

 Monday: The day the boss comes in early to knock down each person as they arrive late.

 Thursday: The only day anything gets done — and it all happens at lunch.

And finally:

 Friday: For those who didn’t get a DUI after leaving the Happy Hour scene at Chevy’s, they’ll find their place of work with nary a salesperson to be found. If you’re in the office on this day, consider yourself a corporate flunkae {sic}

 A big Thank You to Adrian for this amazingly-useful and insightful business person’s book of days, brought to us by the foremost experts on suburban consciousness that I know.  Unfortunately, if it’s Tuesday or Wednesday or the weekend, you’re on your own to figure things out.   Good luck with that! 

So how do you determine what day of the week it is?  Come on, don’t withhold!  We’re dying to hear more winning tips to help us know if we’ve approached Hump Day or passed it.

Just Fell Off Pumpkin Truck, Please Send Ten Grand

The following is my ode to all the creative scam artists out there, who teach me that if you just write your heart out, the money will clearly follow.
      

Dear Sir/Madame,     

I’m writing to report to you that I just fell off the pumpkin truck and am assured a fortune in legal winnings if only you can lend me $10,000 to get started.  You’ll surely make $10 million from such a wise investment.  In case you were wondering, I was born yesterday and, being so fresh off the boat, I’m assured of getting extra points for the pure inculpability of my gullibility.       

In a side suit, are you aware that the word “gullible” is not in the dictionary?  I will most certainly make another billion for this incredible liability oversight on the part of the English dictionary-writing conglomerate.  For just $15,000 you can buy yourself a piece of the action.     

If you believe this, then you should know, I’m an African prince and cannot get my vast inheritance out of my country without your help.  For a mere $20k, I will split my zillions with you halfsies.  In a related matter, I have a friend in Bankgok (sic) in the exact same situation, and I’d be happy to deliver your cash to him.     

Please understand, these matters need your utmost attention. You do not want to miss out – each is a once in a lifetime opportunity.  Unfortunately, if I don’t hear from you in the next five minutes with your down payment, my email address is set to self-destruct.       

Yours truly,     

Prince Ali Bobo            

PS. For a small fee, I am available to update all your online banking records.  Please send all your secret pin codes and credit card expiration dates to me quick like a bunny, before this special deal flies the coop.

Meat Your Match: Innocent Internet Quiz Step One to Hanky Panky

So this is how the torrid affair begins.  All I did was try to find out what type of meat I am.  Now I’m getting personal ads in my email from vivacious singles who live right down the street.   

Let me assure you, I’m an innocent in all of this. One minute I was reading about why I’m corned beef, next thing I know some guy screen-named ”goyum” is well, add your own racy meat metaphor here.  Ready to slip me his sausage.  Makin’ Bacon.  Something crude about a ham sandwich. 

Probably happens all the time, this kind of unintentional meat-up orchestrated by Internet matchmakers with a big streak of entree-prey-neur.  I wonder what they get out of hooking me up to this virtual meat market?  I never said I was lookin’.  All I did wrong was take an Internet quiz that promised to tell me what type of meat is my spiritual advisor.

Naturally, it was a little disappointing to find out my life is guided by the spirit of corned beef. 

Snakes are People, Too, St. Patrick!

Yes, Bad Apple is Irish. Of course, she is.  She’s still mad about the centuries of injustice against the Irish, and that isn’t easy when you’re brought up on California sunshine.  It’s much easier to be mad about how boring and suburban my youth was, to give you just one example.  Being mad about ancestors from long ago, far away, living in a whole other ocean –  that takes real determination.

It didn’t hurt when All Things Celtic dot com paid me to scour the Internet for content for them to buy up.  I learned a lot of stuff about the old ancestors, in a weird Internet-mediated sort of way. But it was the height of the dot com bubble, and apparently All Things Celtic dot com blew their budget at Amazon buying every book on Ireland ever written, or at least, that’s what I heard.  The Website never got off the ground, but I learned enough about the Potato Famine to want to go back in time and kick some Brit butt.

But that was then and I guess, what with certain world events occurring in the intervening time, well, I say, why not let bygones be bygones?  After all, as an American who am I to say we shouldn’t forgive the tragic mistakes in foreign policy and human rights that occur every now and again throughout history?  Forgive and forget, or something like that.  That’s what the green beer is for.

So forgive a little and forget a little this St. Patty’s Day, because remember, even a snake from a country as chilly as Ireland had a mother who may have loved it, in a slow reptilian sort of way, but nonetheless.

Nix The Bug Diet : Why I’ll Never Get Anywhere in The Green Economy

I used to like the idea of promoting The Bug Diet and had gone so far as to create a new product, Land Shrimp, TM, the details of which I can only leave to your imagination with one hint: Think Arachnid.

The Bug Diet had a lot going for it; For one, it was green. The world has more bugs than anything, and people have been eating them since kingdom come without making a dent. If people just ate less meat and more bugs, everything would be better, I chuckled. I myself being strict vegetarian would, of course, not partake.

Then Discover Magazine had to come out with the story earlier this year about how bugs have these super-condensed, highly-efficient brains, so that even though they are tiny, they may have quite-developed feelings and thoughts for such little guys. So that puts me in a bind about The Bug Diet, because I’m not about causing any more pain and suffering in the world–God knows I cause enough without even trying.

Probably my windshield has killed enough bugs to provide at least several hearty meals, not to mention all the bugs in my strawberry jam and all the myriad insects that die to bring me my oh-so-vegetarian agriculture. Yeah, I’m already a freaking insect holocaust without even beginning to push my Bug Diet, and I have to consider things. Things like the Afterlife.

What if God is a bug or sympathetic to them? I read that even the ants will testify against your injustices upon, well, I guess it’s Judgment Day or something along those lines, I don’t quite recall. Maybe it’s at the pearly gates with that saint, after you die. Yeah, even if you hurt a fly, God’s gonna hear about it.

So please don’t eat bugs, because you’ll probably have to eat quite a lot of them. Best to fill up on sourdough bread, that’s what I’m going to do.

***

Read the Discover story about insect brains here.

Ben Blows US Beer Buzz: Ben Franklin, Brilliant Dude but Early Teetotaler

I love Ben Franklin, and working in a library, you could say I owe him a lot.  But as great as the library and his other huge ideas were, what really intrigues me is the amount of space he devotes in his autobiography to the topic of drinking in the workplace. 

What we often forget in this country is that our great industrial economy was founded with a workforce that was at most times if not all-out drunk, than at least pretty well buzzed.  Beers weren’t just for breakfast in Franklin’s time.  A good header of stout was enjoyed throughout the day by workers, and Franklin, ever the efficiency engineer and perhaps monumental party pooper, couldn’t help but notice by day’s end that the workers weren’t doing nearly as good a job as they might have had they not been on their 12th pint, or whatever.

As we know now, America’s love of all-day alcohol was a train wreck headed right towards prohibition.  Forcing it underground only seemed to create even more delight in drinking, although certainly no one was doing it at work anymore.  Not openly, that is.  Probably there were always folks drinking at work.  They still do, although less now than ever.  Gone are the three martini lunches of my parent’s day.

I don’t know any day drinkers myself, I just once heard a rumor, that’s it.  And of course, librarians have sort of a generalized reputation for being alcoholics, ironically, since Mr. Franklin was the brain-daddy of the public library. But the best alcoholics, the ones who last for years that is, always wait until after work to drink anyway. 

Yeah, even here in way-out California, the Puritan work ethic and Benjamin Franklin’s teetotaling sentiment have had their way, and now most drinkers, as it is in Japan, only let alcohol ruin their lives after work.  That’s the way it should be, turns out. 

Yep, old B. Frankie was right again!

Classic Lines in Customer Relations

Here’s a novel take on customer relations in response to a complaint about a bare breasted woman on the KOIBOX company’s nail polish ads. A letter, apparently written (is it possible?) by the company’s president, is super arrogant and insulting to the complainant throughout, and ends with the phrase:

The TITS stay. Go find another product to bitch about… quaker.

Best, James Koustas

That’s got to be one of the classic lines of customer relations right along side famous ones like:

“Who gave you this number?” and “Send this damn fool the bedbug letter.”

The quaker line and story was excerpted from The Hot Librarian.