who you gonna call? Officer Nasty!!

People, join the FBI—your country needs you. Besides, there has never been a better time to join the Bureau. I’m not talking about stopping organized crime or hunting down serial rapists or uncovering terrorist plots either. I’m talkin’ porn.

Why has the FBI taken on pornography? Because it threatens your children and destroys your family, and that’s against the law. Well, sort of anyway. I mean, it’s not like minions of the Porn Empire are stealing your children and forcing them to perform lewd acts on film. Because this isn’t about child pornography, it’s about perversion. You know, really really weird stuff like urination, defecation, S&M and woman-on-top. Sure, it’s between consenting adults, but it’s still porn! Sure, it’s legal, but someone really needs to keep these perversions in check—and who better to do this than the FBI? So really it’s more to do with protecting your fellow citizens from the moral subversion of the family.

Need more convincing? Check out the awesome uniform! It comes in Hunter Orange too. (HOT!).

So, join the FBI Porn Squad and defend America against moral corrosion, protect our children and families from imminent destruction and wear a cool uniform! Plus, chicks totally dig this stuff. Finally, a national security agenda we can all get behind!!!


But not in that way.

squid balm for the soul

Today has been awful. Customers have been streaming in all day and calling to complain about a variety of issues—some of which are our fault, some of which are due to their own stupidity. In addition, the phones have been ringing off the hook and everyone waits for me to answer them. If I let the phone ring through to the automated system, as I did at 2:45pm while I was frantically devouring my lunch, no one else will pick it up. Instead, they wait for it to ring through, at which point it rings at the front desk—the spot directly next to me, which no one occupies because they’re too cheap to hire a receptionist. So all in all I’ve been feeling deeply resentful and frustrated, a mood which is only exacerbated by the fact that my escape from this hellhole is a mere week away.

What could possibly salvage this day? Massive amounts of chocolate? An AK-47? The Second Coming (of any religion—just as long as it ends the workday)? No. It is the first ever pictures of a living giant squid.

A couple of Japanese scientists (who were reportedly researching the animal for scientific, not culinary, purposes) successfully lured the giant squid in with bait and shot the photographs at a depth of 3,300 feet. This seems a vastly superior method to the one that was recently documented in a Discovery Channel special in which the scientists would take turns sitting in a tiny one-man submarine several thousand feet below the surface, waiting with only what basically amounted to a mini-Maglite for a 30-foot squid to appear out of the cloudy darkness. No thanks. Give me a digital camera on a rope any day. Gotta give it to those Japs—they know what’s up.

This was a fun scientific mystery that I felt sure would be resolved in my lifetime, and I was content to just sit and wait for it, like a lonely nerd in a submarine. And finally, it has arrived and I’m happy.

So, the giant squid has made my day.

That, and the apple Danish that the strange man next door just dropped off for me in return for the unusual favor I did him this morning. More on that later.

good things come to those who complain

For the past six months I’ve been bitching and complaining about my job. In case you missed it, here’s how it breaks down: short-staffing + company growing pains + insane hours + meager pay = unhappiness. Ergo, bitching and complaining.

Well, like any grown up, I told my mom. And she told her friend, who told her boss, who was looking for someone to do a job I can totally do, so I sent in my resume and went in for an interview. Turns out I didn’t suck, because they made me an offer. For a great position. With awesome benefits. And a great salary—over 60% more than what I’m scraping out at my current job. So this week I strapped on the glass slipper, handed in my resignation and in two weeks I will officially rise above the poverty line. I’m relieved, elated, excited—and slightly discomfited by the fact that my mom got me this job, however indirectly.

It reminds me of the last scene in My Cousin Vinny when Marisa Tomei and Joe Pesci are driving off into the sunset. Vinny complains about his inability to win his first case without help and his supportive fiancee Mona sarcastically laments the fact that the only way he might become a successful lawyer is with other people’s help. “And then you’ll have to say ‘thank you’! Oh my GOD! What a fuckin’ NIGHTMARE!” This seems to sum it up perfectly. So I’ve decided I’m just going to keep track of my good karma and pay it back to some poor, overworked kid someday when I’m rich and fabulous, and in a position to hand out jobs like Halloween candy.

shalom, cowboy!

"In an obvious effort to avoid the criticism they got for their sluggish response to Hurricane Katrina, the Bush administration spared no effort to warn the public of the dangers of the upcoming storm. President Bush used a speech to the Republican Jewish Coalition to urge people in the hurricane's path to comply with the evacuation orders." (Washington Post, 21 Sept 2005)

If you’ve ever lived in Texas, this will seem hilarious. If you have never had that privilege and you don’t get why this is funny, educate yourself.

Emmy monstrosities

Will someone please teach this woman how to tie a toga? Even a depraved Roman would be scandalized by this outfit.


Presenting the Bride of Cookie Monster!


And her slightly less attractive second cousin, Grimace.

crack that whip

Yesterday, after our bosses had left early to go to a friend’s wedding in LA, everyone in the office congregated at the front desk to chat a little, or to lay their heads down on the high counter. It was the fifth day of a twelve-day workweek—for at least on guy, the “shipping department” as we sometimes referred to him, it had been a month-long workweek. No wait, he took Labor Day off. I know, because the rest of us worked that day.

Anyway, we’re all standing around exhausted and feeling more than a little abused. Inevitably, a discussion starts about the workplace. No one comes right out and says it, but we’re all thinking the same thing—sweatshop. Right here, in this cheerful office complex. Outside: grass and trees and bunnies that hop around the bushes at dusk. Inside: a small legion of minions who toil away for a company that doesn’t pay them enough for the amount of work they do. Right under everyone’s nose. I briefly wonder what the interior designers next door would do if we suddenly threw ourselves against the windows screaming “Help, help! Save us! We are overworked and underpaid but too tired to revolt!”. A senior staff member sees the dejected look on everyone’s face and attempts to cheer us up.

“Well, you know they’re trying to think of ways to make our office more fun, right? Maybe some group outings like a baseball game and bowling or something.” Bleary eyes slowly turn to stare at her. No one comments. No one complains. No one can find words to express their loathing for the situation.

Except me.

“I know a great way we could make this office more fun,” I say with enthusiasm. “Not working on weekends!”

Everyone bursts into uproarious laughter. And then we realize how sad that is. We bow our heads quietly and head back to work.

spreading damnation

Credit this one to Jen--who's going straight to Hell by the way. But for different reasons.

time to bail?

So now we’ll let rapists and child molesters go free and award murderers parole for good behavior but we’ll forever lock up anyone who might commit a terrorist act without ever filing criminal charges. Who’s helping formulate this argument these days? Why a candidate for a Supreme Court nomination, of course.

all look same

The Library of Congress is currently holding an exhibit of color photographs from the Depression era. The writer of this article was all excited because unlike the famous black-and-white images from this time period, color photography portrays exactly what the Depression looked like, so now we can witness the Depressees in all of their naturally-hued glory. As fun as this sounds, I just can’t get excited about it. Probably because the only picture they included with the article shows a family in which all of the children are wearing the same ugly outfit. I know that the photo of these cheap outfits is supposed to illustrate the development of mass-produced textile goods for the poorer classes and all of that, but I just can’t escape its uncanny resemblance to my BS-side family pictures from the 1960s. (“BS” meaning “Biological Sire,” a useful denotation that was invented by a friend with a similar family situation.) As legend has it, Grima (that’s how she signed our Bible verse birthday cards every year which were bought in bulk and therefore always contained the same condemning Words of God) would go into town and buy an entire bolt of flannel. She would then cut and sew the same shirt pattern in varying sizes for all six members of her family (not including herself). Buy new bolt of flannel, repeat. The result, of course, was that everyone in the family had the same exact wardrobe. Husband, four sons, one daughter—all the same. With these odds they must have been hard-pressed to dress differently each morning. Was there a rush in the early hours to don your clean flannel first and prevent the other members of the family from wearing the same one to high school that day? Were there fistfights over shirts just as there certainly were over the one bathroom in the house? Somehow I think not for it seems that in every picture I’ve ever seen of this family they are all wearing the same flannel pattern at once. It’s like they went the other way entirely and decided that they would instead become the lamest, most dysfunctional family-army ever. I’ve seen an entire red-neck family dressed in camouflage on their early Saturday morning jaunt to Wal-Mart, but this beats all.

Ugh. Crazy, creepy, and depressing. But hilarious all the same.