lunch break

Finally—the phone has paused in its incessant ringing, my bosses have left for the afternoon, everyone is absorbed in their own work and I’ve completed my morning tasks. It’s one-thirty in the afternoon, but whatever—better late than never, you know.

I’m absolutely ravenous—time for lunch. Mmm, lunch. Homemade leftover fajitas await me in the office mini-fridge. I nuke them and scramble back to my desk before someone nabs me with a question or some form that must be faxed RIGHT NOW.

I am content. Warm fajitas and Spanish rice. Spicy. Just right.

She wanders up behind me. She is holding a stack of papers and looks preoccupied. She starts talking. To me. I swallow quickly and glare at her. She doesn’t notice and presses on.

No, go ahead, you aren’t interrupting the only chance I will have to eat today until I leave this hell-hole at eight o’clock at night. Oh, it isn’t that important? It’s relevance to our daily functioning is negligible compared to our strenuous workload for the month? Then by all means, keep talking. Speak louder, please—I can’t hear you over the angry growling of my stomach. I had one bite, it should tide me over ‘til 4pm at least. Oh really, is THAT what he said? Well, that’s so funny—he’s so funny. I know, he is. Oh, okay, you get back to work. Wouldn’t want to waste any more time, you know.

My fajitas and rice have reached room temperature. It’s too risky to go back to the kitchen to warm them up. I scarf them down.

Mmm, fajitas. You are so much better than the cereal bar I had for lunch yesterday. You are so good you make me forget my troubles. Everything is forgiven, including that meddling whore.

pin the name on the panda

A short time ago Washington DC’s first panda cub was born at the National Zoo and zoo officials have decided that the public should decide what to name him. These are the choices we have been given:

- Hua Sheng, which means “China Washington,” and also “magnificent.”
- Sheng Hua, which means “Washington China,” and also “magnificent.”
- Tai Shan, which means “peace mountain.”
- Long Shan, which means “dragon mountain.”
- Qiang Qiang, which means “strong, powerful.”

Are you kidding me? These are the most boring names ever! We’re naming an actual CELEBRITY here, people. Even human children of celebrities get more interesting names than this—and they’re not even famous in their own right! Or almost extinct! And their names can actually cause them emotional harm! We can saddle this cute, famous animal with any name we want and we’re going to choose “sleepy mountain” or some shit? C’mon, we can do so much better than that! You could name him Voltron or Apple or Dumbass and he couldn’t care less—so go nuts! Here are some celebrities’ children names to get you warmed up:

Jane Goldman and Jonathan Ross named their children Betty Kitten, Honey Kinney and Harvey Kirby.

Bono named his kid Elijah Bob Patricus Guggi Q.

Uma Thurman and Ethan Hawke named their kid Levi Roan Green.

Forest Whitaker named his kids Ocean, True and Sonnet.

Jason Lee named his kid Pilot Inspektor.

Demi Moore and Bruce Willis named their kids Tallulah, Rumer and Scout.

Frank Zappa named his kids Dweezil, Ahmet Rodan, Moon Unit and Diva.

Spike Lee named his daughter Satchel.

Bob Geldof and Paula Yates named their kids Fifi-Trixibelle, Peaches and Pixie.

Any suggestions?

Presidentially fucked

It turns out our expectations were unrealistic and our plans were logistically flawed.

- We can’t squash the insurgency (who knew there’d be so many enemies who wanted a piece of us?)

- We can’t fix the electricity or water works (do we cut the black wire or the red one?)

- We can’t create a working national economy (I guess they need a secure environment, water and electricity to get that sort of thing running)

- We can’t forge a free democracy (but an Islamic Republic is close enough, right?)

- We can’t make the Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds get along (how were we supposed to know they hated each other so much?)

- We can’t prepare the Iraqi forces for the security nightmare they will inherit (we’re teaching them everything we know but it doesn’t seem to be enough)

In short: We went, we warred, we screwed things up—it must be time to leave.

Brain-mixing: Air France crash and The Justice League

Last night I dreamt that I was on one of two jetliners that crashed into a field. We were all hanging out and having a good time until the pilot came onto the intercom and calmly asked us to take our seats. We immediately went into a nose-dive and I looked out the window and saw the ground coming up towards us at a very fast rate. The first plane hit the ground and exploded into a giant fireball. We were next. However, even as our plane smashed into the ground and the cabin was engulfed in flames I knew that everyone was going to come out of it okay. Sure enough, several minutes later all of the passengers debarked through the giant hole where the rear restrooms used to be in a calm and orderly manner. It was only then that I realized the plane was chock-full of superheroes. Superman and Wonder Woman were there, along with all of their friends. What the hell? Did this dual plane disaster occur at the unlikely moment when all of them were on lunch break? Maybe they weren’t concerned about the crashing fireball scenario because they were all super—but what about ME? I know I was in the minority, but come on! Lazy bastards. Even cheerleaders are more helpful these days.