What Not to Wear: The Office

Posted by John

I know I said when I started the Word Cup blog I wasn’t going to let it take away from this blog but clearly it has and for that I am sorry. It’s just that researching the World Cup teams and players is so damn fun so I’m spending all my time doing that. Clearly if you’re not reading that blog, well then you’re just missing out on all the fun.

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It has become necessary for me to come out with another What Not To Wear: Office edition post. Since I wrote the last one I’ve been hyper conscious and hyper offended by what my fellow coworkers wear to work on a daily basis, and I’ve had plenty of people e-mailing me about the shocking things their coworkers are wearing, so again, this might be a little painful for some people but it’s for your own good.

As they say, you should dress for the job you want, not the job you have. I agree with that unless you’re currently like an investment banker and want to become slaughterhouse janitor or something. In that case you should still dress like an investment banker until you actually make that career change. Basically it just comes down to looking like a professional all the time. Whether the job requires a three-piece suit or the office you work in is ultra casual, it’s still about being a professional.

Footwear: For dudes, footwear is largely functional and nothing more. While I admittedly have an unhealthy and unmanly obsession with fine footwear I still acknowledge that most dudes don’t, and I’m fine with that. But even if your foot’s covering is nothing more than a functional slab of leather and rubber, you still have to follow at least a few simple rules:

-Black pants require black shoes; brown and blue pants require brown shoes. Black shoes require a black belt. I’m sorry, these are just laws like gravity; if you try to violate them you are going to fall down. Maybe not literally but figuratively you’ve already fallen and landed on your face in my mind.

-No tassels. Ever. Ever. If you do wear shoes with tassels you might as well get a cardigan, a recliner, and some prune juice because you have more in common with your grandpa than you want.

As much as it pains me and my wallet to see my wife’s collection of 8 different pairs of nearly goddamn identical black flats this is not a referendum on how women are hypocritical for criticizing men for having a need to keep up with the Jones’s with their cars and tools and beer guts and whatnot, while women have the same need to keep up with the bunions with their heels, and boots, and flats, and whatever else, rather this is to acknowledge that for women there’s no question that footwear is often if not always the most important part of the outfit, especially for professional women who try their best to always look professional. To that end they need to be conscious of what their footwear says about their professionalism. For instance, knee high boots have a place in society, but in general if you’re wearing them to work you will definitely look like a professional, just not the type of professional you really want to. Save them for happy hour, or a night out on the town, walking the streets or whatever.

The Office Sweater: Personally I am cold all the time, especially in the meat locker that doubles as my office. Most humans are comfortable between 68 and 72 degrees. I know I’m comfortable on the high end of that scale but I cannot understand how some people, all of whom work in my office, are more comfortable at 54 degrees. It’s painful. But I know that and so I dress appropriately for it. Consequently I wear the same uniform to work everyday: wife beater, undershirt, dress shirt, sweater. Yeah, four shirts seem excessive but I’m not going to apologize for it. Do you think I want to wear a sweater to work in August? No, I don’t, but that’s the reality I live in so get off my back.

On a side note, when you wear a wife beater as your first layer of defense against office coldness everyday you can’t own too many of them. So I went to Target not too long ago to pick up another package and bought the same brand and same size I always wear but for some goddamn reason the quality control manager at this one particular Fruit of the Loom plant must have been dropping a huge deuce when this one particular package came off the loom because these particular beaters were anything but standard size. I noticed immediately when I put the first one on that it was far too tight but I just assumed it needed to stretch out a little bit and I was already running late so I just went with it. Boy, that could not have been a bigger mistake. I didn’t even get to work before the thing was constricting my body like a goddamn midget UFC fighter trying to get me in a grappling submission move. It was horrible and only got worse as the day went on. I couldn’t go into the bathroom enough to try to stretch that goddamn thing out and give me some breathing room but it was all for not. It would just ride up higher and higher until I felt like I was wearing a goddamn pushup bra. All I could think was, is this what it’s like? Is this what it is to be a woman? Dear god this is the worst day of my life.

At any rate, the point I’m trying to make is, I dress not for outside temperatures but inside ones, though not everyone shares the same outlook as I do. Everyone works with the people who are cold all the time but dress as if it’s going to be 80 and sunny inside everyday then come to work and the first thing out of their mouth is, “Boy, it sure is chilly in here today.” Consequently these people think they’re smart by keeping an Office Sweater at their desk to combat the cold. That seems logical on the surface but the problems with it are unending. First of all, they put that Office Sweater on every goddamn day. Why? Because the office has never been and will never be warm. If it was cold on Monday it will be cold on Tuesday just like it will be cold today and tomorrow just like it will be cold next week and next month and next year just like it was cold last week, last year, and every goddamn day you have and will ever work there. I’m sorry, it’s just a law like gravity. So if you don’t dress accordingly I don’t care what you wear to work, you’re going to end up putting on that goddamn Office Sweater every goddamn day you’re in the office. Why do you even have outfits if you’re just going to put on the Office Sweater when you get to your desk? Just come to work in your pajamas and put your stupid Office Sweater on and stop trying to keep up appearances by getting new shirts or ties for your birthday or something.

Secondly, no one ever brings their nicest sweater to the office to be their Office Sweater. Instead they always rummage through the closet to bring that one sweater that should not be in anyone’s wardrobe, let alone THE sweater that they put on every day in their place of employment. The multi-colored patchwork sweater; the burnt orange colored sweater; the cardigan with the elbow pads; the thick-ass cable-knit sweater with the teeny-tiny neck hole that isn’t suitable for a hand to pass through let alone a head; the one your aunt knit for you; the one your kid picked out for you at Kohl’s in 1994; the one your sister got for you for Christmas because she knew you would wear it and look like a douche each time. That sweater has no business even existing, yet there it is, on your back, every day, in your place of business. Imagine what the people on the 8^th floor who don’t know who you are and only see you occasionally but always wearing the exact same ridiculous sweater every time must think of you.

And that brings up the last and perhaps worst part of the Office Sweater: do these boners ever take their goddamn Office Sweaters home to wash them? They wear that sweater every day. They eat in it, they snack in it, they take shits in it and when the day is over they ball it up and put it back in the filing cabinet or on the bookshelf. That has to be the absolute filthiest, most disgusting article of clothing on the planet. If I was lost in the woods and had to drop a deuce and my only two options for wiping my ass were a bushel of poison ivy or an Office Sweater I would gladly take a calamine enema for a month before I even thought about touching that filthy-ass Office Sweater. Disgusting.

Sportswear: When it comes to clothing for a favorite sports team I should not be the one to talk as I own three Liverpool soccer jerseys, two scarves, three t-shirts, and two hats (and sometimes wear all of them at the same time during matches depending on how tough the opponent is), but here’s the thing, with the exception of a scarf in the winter months, I don’t wear any of it to work. Now, I’m not saying that you cannot wear clothing with your sports team’s logo to work. Not at all. What I’m saying is, sports teams logos are not carte blanche to dress like a douche. For instance, consider your team’s colors before you make an outfit choice around it. Red? Fine. Blue? Go for it. Black? Absolutely. Orange? Get ready to douche. That’s right, I’m looking at you Tennessee fans. Orange is a color that by definition should be used with modestly. It should not make up an entire shirt, coat, sweater, or dear god, pair of pants. In fact, if you have a sports team garment that can be identified from more than 100 yards away, don’t wear it anywhere except to that team’s sporting events. If it is a color that is universally accepted to mean “Caution: Construction Zone,” it should not be paired with a tie and a nice pair of slacks and worn to work. These are just laws.

Furthermore, if you’re still sporting the Starter jacket for your favorite sports team – you know, those nylon/vinyl jackets that were popularized back in 1992 then almost immediately depopularized and notable only for their singular design intent: to put the team’s logo as many times and as big as physically possible all over the jacket – you should immediately donate that jacket back to your childhood and go ahead and retire your Air Jordan’s too. Those shoes stopped being cool right after their namesake retired. The first time.

Speaking of outerwear: letter jackets. That’s all I’m going to say; I’m not going to even write any more.

Headwear: Hats certainly have a place in society and we can definitely show a debt of gratitude for the older generations for popularizing and keeping certain hats in style: the bowler, fadora, paper boy; these are all decent hats. The ball cap also has it’s place in society, it just isn’t at the office. I don’t care what you do, if you get up in the morning and put on slacks, dress shirt, tie, and then top it off with a ball cap, you’re douching. I don’t care if you take it off as soon as you get to work; you’re not 12, do not wear a ball cap to work. This is true even if you’re bald but especially if you have hair. Nothing says “I still eat Fruit Loops for breakfast,” like a case of perpetual hat-head. If you take off a ball cap and your hair is all greasy and matted down like your head just made the journey through the birth canal of a dairy cow, you are not a professional. Period. The end.

So hopefully this was helpful again and if not, hopefully at least you can look over at the Office Sweater in the cubicle next to you and think, “Oh my god, I just saw a mouse living in that filthy-ass goddamn sweater,” or something. 

Tenn Pins

Posted by John

Do you know what I hate? Bowling. Do you know why I hate it? Because I suck turds at it. I’ve truly only bowled a few dozen times in my life and I’ve sucked every single time. I know they say practice makes perfect but at this point in my life I’m not really into picking up a new skill that requires me to practice in order to be good at it. In fact, I’m actively trying to cut things out of my life so as to have more time for doing jack shit other than sleeping and/or napping.

Outside of a complete lack of practice, the other reason I suck at bowling is because I have abnormally large thumbs. Like, my thumbs are so huge that if I’m walking down the street and I’m not careful about keeping my hands tucked into my pockets cars will routinely stop thinking I’m hitchhiking. I’m sure this conversation has occurred on more than one occasion inside a car that is driving past me:

“Hey, honey, look at that hitchhiker. We should pick him up.”

“I don’t think he’s hitchhiking, dear. I think he’s just walking down the side of the road.”

“No, no. Look at those thumbs. He’s definitely a hitchhiker.”

“I really don’t think he’s a hitchhiker, dear. And even if he is, we really shouldn’t pick up hitchhikers. You don’t know if he’s some sort of crazy Tea Partier walking home from a protest rally or something.”

“Yeah, honey, but look at those thumbs. For Christ’s sake, we should pick him up if for no other reason than to find some useful purposes for those abnormally large thumbs of his.”

When it comes to bowling, having an abnormally large thumb means I need to select an abnormally heavy ball in order to get my thumb in the stupid hole. By the way, who in the hell decided on what standard size holes to drill into bowling balls? Did they measure a bunch of fingers and thumbs then see how much weight each of those fingers and thumbs could safely roll down a long wooden lane and come to a consensus on an average size hand-to-lifting-capacity ratio? Was it that simple because whoever did those thumb-to-weight ratios was a jackass. I have never in my life found a bowling ball that I can simultaneously fit my thumb into the hole and lift without appearing to be competing and losing n some sort of strong man competition. Do you know what it’s like going to a bowling alley among women, children, and rednecks looking like you’re about to burst a hemorrhoid every time you try to roll a massive boulder down the alley?

The same shit happens every time I bowl. After three frames of tearing through my rotator cuff I have to suck it up and go to a smaller ball. But a smaller ball means a smaller hole so it’s the same shit every goddamn time – I set up, take three steps, swing my arm back, swing my arm forward, release the ball, the ball stays attached to my thumb until my hand is about eye level, the ball suddenly dislodges from my thumb with a loud *POP* sound, it arcs through the air, peaking at about six feet above the floor, then comes slamming down onto the wooden lane with a thunderous *BOOM*, and the entire goddamn bowling alley suddenly turns see what all the commotion is. It’s one thing if that happens and everyone turns to see me get a strike. It’s an entirely other thing for the entire goddamn place to see my ball go directly into the goddamn gutter. Stupid goddamn leisure sport.

And that’s the other thing – who in the hell started calling bowling a “leisure sport.” There’s nothing leisurely about it. That shit stresses me out. I’d rather go to a women’s underwear store in the mall than go to a bowling alley, that’s how much that shit stresses me out.

One form of bowling that I don’t suck at is Wii bowling, but it’s too bad Wii bowling skills don’t translate to actual bowling skills. In fact, it’s too bad Wii skills in general don’t translate to any reality skills. If they did we’d probably see a lot more gaming nerds picking bar fights with meat-head Guido douchebags thinking their Wii boxing skills will help them out. “Nice blowout douchebag. What? What’re you looking at? You want to do this dance? You want to step into the ring with a Wii boxing champ? I didn’t think so. Go get another jager bomb, douchebag!”

Instead of Nintendo Wii they should call it Nintendo False Sense of Self-Confidence, because that’s really all it is. There isn’t a single skill in the Wii Sports realm that translates to real life. I can’t hit a tennis ball; I haven’t picked up a bow and arrow since I was 13; I’ve never once played shuffleboard; but you better believe I’m a goddamn Wii Pro at all of those things. Good thing they don’t have Wii engineering. I’d practice that shit at home and get really good and confident only to go into work and find out that shit doesn’t translate to real life either. As it is now I have no false sense of self-confidence so there’s no letdown when I royally screw something up. It’s just like bowling – “Well, that pretty much went exactly as expected. Next time you’ll think twice about inviting me to go bowling.”

Obviously I bring all this up because I just recently went bowling. Why on earth would I engage in something I am so horrible at, you’re asking? Obviously I got suckered into it. In this case, it was for a fundraiser.

But do you know what I hate worse than bowling? Bowling with children. Why, you might ask? Because children suck turds at everything.

Perhaps it’s not a fair statement to say that children categorically suck at everything because I’m sure there are some things that they’re good at. Playing with cars; soiling themselves; being blissfully unaware of leftover food all over their faces. That’s about all I can think of right now. Outside of those things and maybe a few others children pretty much suck at everything.

Case in point: several people brought their kids to this bowling fundraiser, ranging in age from 2 to I have no idea. I suck at estimating ages.

“And how old are you big girl? You must be at least six-years-old.”

“I’m 14 asshole, now back off before I scream.”

Anyway, there were some young kids there who were all ape shit crazy about bowling even though every single one of them sucked turds at it. If you think about it, there’s really no excuse for a kid to suck at bowling. They have small hands and can therefore pick the smallest, lightest ball in the entire place; we allow them to break the rules by putting the bumpers up in the gutters; and in general they have a bunch of people cheering them on and encouraging them even though they are terrible at it. That’s like the bowling equivalent of growing up as a white middleclass male.

But it doesn’t matter, they all suck. Plus, have you ever seen a kid bowl who doesn’t use one of those sloped ramps to get the ball started? Have you ever seen a kid actually try to roll a ball down the lane? Holy shit, it’s worse than watching paint dry on grass that is growing or something. It takes FOREVER.

At one point a 4-year-old “rolled” the ball down the lane but it was traveling so painfully slow that I had time to go get a beer from the bar and still return to see the ball hit a pin and have the pin actually deflect the ball into the gutter without falling over. Is that even physically possible? How slow does a goddamn bowling ball have to be traveling in order to be turned away by a pin?

After all of that – the stressful bowling alley; the inordinately heavy balls; the ball sticking to the thumb; the kids; the kids sucking at everything including bowling; after all of that, do you know what the worst part of the whole experience was? I actually lost to one of those goddamn kids. No shit. He was two; he can’t talk; he routinely tried to kick the ball down the lane; in between frames he would play with cars on the dirty-ass bowling alley floor; he tried to stick his head into the ball return; over the course of two hours he shit himself twice; and the sonofabitch still beat me. How the hell does that happen? How in the hell does that happen?

The only saving grace I had the entire day was walking out of he stupid alley thinking to myself that would be the absolute last time I ever go bowling. Ever.

Until I was at work today and got an e-mail from the head of the mentoring group I participate in where we teach high school kids about architecture and engineering telling me about the end of year bowling party with the students coming up this Thursday.

Fuck. Off.

What could possibly be worse than losing to a 2-year-old at bowling? How about going bowling with a bunch of high school teenagers? I have spent every day of the last 13 years of my life trying to forget every horribly awkward moment that was high school and now all of the sudden I have to walk back into the lion’s den of awkwardness and actually go bowling with a bunch of high school teenagers? Dear God, I’m positively tremulous right now. The only way I can possibly survive this is to immediately go purchase a custom bowling ball with a 2-inch diameter thumb hole that weighs 4 pounds. What other recourse do I have? I’ll tell you what other recourse - none. 

St Patrick's Day

Posted by John

Today is St Patrick’s Day, a beautiful holiday to celebrate Ireland's most valuable exports: beer, funny accents, and bad decision-making. While old age has tempered my Paddy’s day celebrations of late, there was certainly a time in my life when March 17 was synonymous with making bad decisions. The ultimate of which occurred several years ago when I found myself locked in an epic Irish Car Bomb drinking contest with one of my 50-year-old female coworkers with the entire department standing by bearing witness.

In order to understand how I got to that ridiculous scenario, we’ll need to go back several months to understand the series of bad decisions that preceded such a St Paddy’s Day debacle.

It started one weekday in January when I went with several coworkers to a nearby bar for a late afternoon happy hour to celebrate several of our birthdays that occurred within a few days of one another. Sitting around enjoying a few beers quickly turned ugly when someone started yapping their big mouth (probably me) about how awesome Irish Car Bombs were. First of all, to digress for a moment, for anyone who doesn’t know what an Irish Car Bomb is, it can come in several different forms but the form I’m familiar with is ½ to 3/4 of a pint of Guinness in a glass into which you drop a shot of half Jameson Irish Whiskey and half Baileys Irish Cream then chug it all in one fell swoop. As I said, there are many different versions of the same thing so don’t e-mail me or post comments to my blog about how I’m not doing my Car Bombs correctly or there’s a better recipe or better method or whatever. I get it. I get it. The point is, Irish Car Bomb = Guinness, whiskey, cream, drop, chug, repeat, repeat again, probably once more, try not to vomit, pass out, wake up, spend the whole next morning on the toilet.

Now, some of you might think that the name “Irish Car Bomb” is kind of insensitive to those who were involved in the decade’s long conflict in Northern Ireland until you’ve had several Irish Car Bombs and realize it is actually like having a small car bomb go off in your intestines. In fact, in this chicken and egg scenario I’m pretty sure the Irish Car Bomb drink existed long before the actual act of putting explosives inside a car. A bunch of IRA drunkards were likely sitting around one day, downing shots of whiskey and Baileys in their Guinness when one said to another, “Ya know the day after drinkin’ these things, when yur colon feels like somethin’ detonated inside of it? Ya know that feelin’? It’s too bad we can’t harness that kind of destruction and use it practically to smother those British wankers.”

“Aye, I know what yur sayin’. But how is it possible to put somethin’ so explosive in such a confined space to maximize the damage?”

“Aye! I’ve got it! We just round up a bunch of Brit wankers and shove grenades up their arses! It’s like the same thing!”

“Aye! I like it! I like it a lot… Ahh, but wouldn’t that get a wee bit messy, ya know? I mean, I fur one don’t want to get anywhere near those wanker’s arses.”

“Aye, good point. What to do? What. To. Do…”

Anyway, suffice it to say, an Irish Car Bomb is great going in, as it tastes a bit like a milkshake.

So, getting back to the story. We were sitting around a bar having some beers when some wanker suggested we start doing some car bombs. Never one to learn my lessons, I agreed and pretty quickly there was a car bomb setting in front of me and about four other people, including the aforementioned 50-year-old female coworker. Everyone raised their glass, cheers all around, dropped the shot in, and down the hatch. Now, the thing with a car bomb is, once you drop the shot you have a matter of seconds to drink it down, otherwise the Irish cream will curdle. Don’t believe me? I’ve seen it. I was once at a wanker bar with some friends when one went up to order a round of car bombs. But the wanker barkeep didn’t hand out shot glasses because too many fights occurred after people drank too many shots so instead the bartended just poured the whiskey and cream into the Guinness so by the time the beers made it back to our table the first words out of my mouth were, “Who put cottage cheese in my goddamn Guinness?!?” Disgusting. The other thing about a car bomb is you have to be careful not to tilt your head back to quickly otherwise the shot glass will slide right out and crack your front teeth. Don’t believe me? I’ve seen it happen.

So I distinctly recall drinking my car bomb with a bit of urgency but also somewhat leisurely. When I was about half through I heard the sound of a pint glass slamming down on the table top to my right and the voice of the aforementioned 50-year-old female coworker, “I won! I won! In your face, I won!”

“Whoa. Whoa. Hold on. Whoa. Easy. Hold on now. Whoa. Whoa. Whoa. Come on. Easy. Whoa. I did not know this was a race. No one said we were racing,” I said.

“I won, I won, I-won-I-won-I-won!” She continued.

“Fine. Whatever. Fine. Fine. Alright. Cool. Whatever. Fine. You won that one,” I said. But you know as well as I do, the last thing I’m going to do is let my mom beat me in an Irish Car Bomb contest, “Now that I know we’re racing, let’s do it again for real,” I suggested. So we did. Another round came out, glasses up, cheers, drop, down the hatch. But the second time around I was dead serious and went after that car bomb like a mongoose to a king cobra. Then just as the last drop was about to slip into my mouth, I heard the distinct sound of a pint glass slamming down on the table top to my right and the voice of the aforementioned 50-year-old female coworker, “I won! I won! In your face, I won!”

What. The. Fuck. I was furious. How on earth did I lose to a 50-year-old woman? Furthermore, how did I lose to a 50-year-old woman in front of all my coworkers? If the humiliation I suffered that day at the bar was bad, it was nothing compared to that which I experienced the next day at work. It was so bad you’d have thought I lost a beard-growing contest to a 6-year-old. Horrible.

But if the first Irish Car Bomb the day before was a bad decision, and the second an even badder decision, what I did next was perhaps the baddest of all. In an effort to redeem some level of dignity, I sent out an e-mail to the aforementioned 50-year-old female coworker and copied the whole damn department, challenging her to a one-on-one Irish Car Bomb drinking rematch to be decided on the biggest Irish Car Bomb drinking day of the year – St. Patrick’s Day.

Bad. Decision.

The logic in my head suggested that given ample time to prepare there was no way I would lose to a 50-year-old woman again, or anyone else for that matter. The reality of real life however, was much different. As it turned out, this was no ordinary 50-year-old woman; this was a bionic beer drinking super hero woman or something. Apparently back when she was in college (they had colleges back then?) she would go down to the local watering hole, challenge dudes to beer drinking contests with pitchers of beer, and win. Pitchers, I tell you! Not only was this a source of free beer for her, she actually made a tremendous amount of money in wagers in this pursuit. And it would seem that age did absolutely nothing to diminish her drinking ability. Dear. God.

I had no choice; I had to train, and train hard. So I did. I would routinely be at home at 10 pm on a weeknight, pour out some Guinness, a shot of Jameson and Bailey’s, glass up, cheers, drop, drink. Do you know what it’s like doing an Irish Car Bomb by yourself before bedtime on a Wednesday night? Aside from one of the top 10 signs of alcoholism, it’s like a Zinedine Zidane head butt to the gut.

The Friday of St Paddy’s Day was upon us before I knew it and the whole office was abuzz with chatter about the impending challenge. Just to make sure everyone knew I was serious about the contest, I went to work that day with a freshly buzzed head down to a number 1, a fresh, new, fat fu Manchu mustache, my aviator sunglasses, and my favorite Guinness t-shirt. If I was going to lose a drinking contest to a 50-year-old woman I was going to do it looking good.

I left work with another guy at noon to head to the bar to do a little pre-gaming and watch some March Madness, which should really be called March Waste of My Time because that’s basically what it is every year. I wasn’t about to jump into some car bombs cold turkey so I needed to get a couple brews in my belly to make sure I was nice and loose. You wouldn’t start a marathon without stretching first, would you?

When 5 o’clock rolled around to say I was nervous would be an understatement. Before I knew it I was standing face-to-face with the aforementioned 50-year-old woman, surrounded by dozens of coworkers, a pint of Guinness in one hand, a shot of whiskey and Irish cream in the other, cheers, drop, gulp, gulp, gulp…

In that moment there was one thing in my head: “If you don’t do this; if you don’t win, you might as well just walk right out that door, pack up all your shit, and move to a new town because you will never live this moment down.”

Gulp, gulp, gulp… I was in the zone. As the last drop crossed the threshold of my lips I slammed the glass down onto the top of the bar and looked up just in time to see her glass hit the bar a split second behind mine. I won. I won! “I won! I won! Holy shit, I won!” The crowd erupted¹.

If the story ended there, it would be awesome. Unfortunately for me, this is not a story about victory; it’s a story about bad decisions, and I made the bad decision to agree to a best of three series. Why wouldn’t I, right? Well, it’s predictable at this point what happened – two car bombs; two losses; and an overall drinking contest loss to a 50-year-old woman. What a humiliating day.

The rest of the night was nothing more than a blur through a haze of beer. The one thing I do remember is, I was asleep before the sun.

What a mess. I’ve only been in one Irish Car Bomb drinking contest since then, but that’s another story for another day. Suffice it to say, that instance was just as bad of a decision as the one described above.

Have a happy, and good-decision-making St. Patrick’s Day.

1. It’s worth noting, I have no idea if the crowd erupted or not; I was pretty sauced at that point.

World Cup 2010

Posted by John

Just to be clear, I don’t have time for this. But just to be clear, I can’t not do it. I’m starting a separate blog leading up to the 2010 World Cup in South Africa where I will post research on every nation, every group, and damn near every match of the tournament. I know what 90% of you are thinking: “I wonder who is getting kicked off American Idol this week,” because you stopped reading after the words “2010 World C-“. But truly this sister blog is not for you; it’s really for me. Honestly I really am doing this for myself because for me the World Cup is the greatest sporting event the universe has ever created and I have been anxiously awaiting it for the past 4 years and now that it’s almost here I can barely contain myself. I do acknowledge that there are at least a few people out there who are just as excited about the World Cup as I am and hopefully they can find some benefit in this little foray because if there’s anything better than the World Cup it’s knowing all there is to know about the World Cup and sharing in that experience with others. And maybe, just maybe, some of you who otherwise wouldn’t care about the greatest sporting event the universe has ever created might just take a peek at the new blog and in turn, might just get at least a little bit excited about the tournament. I can assure you, any interest you take in the World Cup will absolutely enrich your life. Absolutely.

And in no way do I want the World Cup blog to take away from this blog (except for this post, of course) so I’ll be stealing time from some other aspect of my life (likely work) in order to do the research and writing necessary for the WC blog.

Enjoy.

And pass it along. 

http://thebeautifulgamewc2010.blogspot.com/2010/03/wc10-south-africa.html 

Nightmare on Cubicle Street

Posted by John

There are few things in life worse than a Monday morning. Doubly so if you’re coming off the first spring weather weekend of the season. Dragging yourself out of bed; going through the same motions you’ve gone through for the past 2, 10, 30, or 50 years; commuting to work; plopping down at your desk; getting ready for yet another week.

But if there’s something worse than that, it’s getting into work on Monday morning and finding the voicemail light on your desk phone flashing. “Ah, Christ! Who in the hell called me over the weekend? Oh man, this is going to suck shit.” Or logging onto your computer and finding 20 e-mails waiting for you. “Twenty! Twenty fucking e-mails! Who in the hell was working over the weekend? Honestly¹. Ahh, I wish I had an appendicitis right now…”

This morning I didn’t have any voicemails. Nor did I have 20 e-mails. No, this morning I had something far, far worse. When I logged onto my computer I found just one solitary e-mail. The one e-mail I didn’t realize I was dreading until I actually got it. The subject said simply, “Shhh… It’s a Secret!” That should have been warning enough to delete that shit before I even opened it but my traitorous finger betrayed me with a double-click before my brain could send the warning signal down to stop it.

“Shhh… It’s a Secret! Donna’s baby is almost here so to help her celebrate the arrival of her bundle of joy we’re throwing her a department wide baby shower this Friday from 11 to 1! Be sure to sign up on the super secret list at Helen’s desk to bring a dish to the potluck then be sure to donate some money to the awesome group gift we’re getting her or go onto her baby registry to get something on your own! Get excited, and remember, it’s a secret!!!”

After reading those words there was one thought going through my head: “Dear God… This is my nightmare!”

I’ve already written extensively about how horrendous office potlucks are, but now some devil worshipping terroristic Judas of a co-worker has gone and done the only thing that could possibly make an office potluck any worse – added a goddamn baby shower to it.

Now to be clear, I’m not saying baby showers are categorically a bad thing. In fact, I have no idea. I mean, I imagine they’re horrible in the same way I imagine beauty pageants, pedicures, and talking about things like feelings and emotions are awful, but not having any first hand experience automatically disqualifies me from knowing for certain. I would think that a baby shower among close friends and family is probably a pretty enjoyable thing – you sit around socializing and opening gifts full of useful shit you otherwise don’t want to buy yourself. Some women probably even enjoy multiple baby showers among a broader group of friends and an extended collection of family. But I’m pretty sure that if you poll 100 pregnant women, 110 will respond that the absolute last thing in the world they would want to go through is a baby shower at work. Doubly so for a surprise baby shower. I mean, there isn’t a woman alive in this world that wants to unwittingly walk into the conference room one day to find all of her coworkers gathered around for an event where she and her pregnancy are the center of attention and seeing Bob from Accounting sitting back in the corner stuffing his face with cupcakes and thinking about anything that has to do with her and delivering a baby then having to open the group gift which just so happens to be a breast pump which launches Randy from the Electrical group into a fit of giggles while Brenda and Alice won’t shut up about how horrible labor is and Cindy keeps going on and on about how children are the work of the devil while Gary is talking about how his kid just got locked away in Juvie.

Good Lord, that has to be any pregnant woman’s nightmare and being party to any bit of that is my nightmare. I don’t know how I’m going to get out of this shit but I’m going to spend the next 72 hours figuring that out exactly.

The only way – and I mean the absolute ONLY way I will even entertain even a hint of a possibility of attending this godforsaken thing is if I can somehow convince the New Kid that he is obligated to attend and further obligated to bring a gift. What would he do? Holy shit, what would he do? After his Thanksgiving Potluck Ruffles Smokehouse Barbeque Chips with Ridges, and his Italian-themed Potluck quiche, and his Office Dirty Santa Mission: Impossible I gift, dear God, what would he do for an Office Potluck Baby Shower? What on earth would he do? A box of diapers? A butt thermometer? A bib that says, “Mommy is a MILF?” Holy shit the possibilities are limitless.

If you think that kid isn’t capable of topping his previous performances, oh boy, you are wrong. Dead wrong. Just this morning he attended our weekly department meeting with a bowl of cereal. A bowl of cereal, I tell you! What is this? Fucking Saturday cartoon hour? Who do you think you are bringing a goddamn bowl of cereal to the department meeting? If that wasn’t bad enough, after he was done crunch, crunch, crunching his way through his Rice Krispies, he actually slurped up the milk from the bowl! I can’t make this shit up! Right in the middle of everything he’s drinking the milk from his cereal bowl like he’s 6!

Boss: “So we see here from the weekly projection matrix-“

New Kid: SLUUUUURRRRP!!!

Boss: “-that we’re going to have our-“

New Kid: “Ahhh!”

Boss: “-hands full for the next few weeks. Does anyone have any questions?”

Uhh, yeah, just one question: In order to help manage the work load do you think it would be possible to hire on Snap, Crackle, and Pop as summer interns?

Last week it was toast with peanut butter. But not just toast with a little peanut butter; toast drenched in peanut butter. Have you ever watched someone who loves peanut butter eat peanut butter? It’s like watching one of those movies from the 80’s with the talking animals. Before CGI that’s what they did – they’d jam a wad of peanut butter into the dogs mouth and as he’s trying to lap it up they film that shit and pretend like the dog is speaking. That’s how the whole goddamn meeting was. The New Kid constantly looking like he’s trying to talk.

Boss: “New Kid, was there something you were trying to say?”

New Kid: “Mmm…” shlurp, shlurp, “No,” shlurp, shulrp, “Jus ea’in some,” shlurp, shlurp, “toast.” Shlurp, shlurp.

I’m pretty sure the inventor of peanut butter intended for it to be enjoyed modestly, otherwise it would have been a solid or a liquid and not one of the top 10 pastiest substances in the universe.

This truly is a conundrum though. Willingly walking into one of my nightmares just for the chance to see a New Kid blunder of epic proportions. What to do? What? To? Do?...

1. For the record, back when I was ambitious about my career I would routinely log onto the work e-mail server from home over the weekend and send out a few messages to various people in middle management to make it look like I was working Saturdays and Sundays. Obviously I wasn’t working though; I was usually drunk. Just a little tip for getting ahead in life. 

Parental Advertising

Posted by John

Here is yet another link to an article that I fully anticipate you will not read so I will summarize it for you:

http://adage.com/article?article_id=142459

Basically Northwester University did a study to find out that advertising intended to stop binge drinking on college campuses is actually contributing to the problem. Really? We really paid somebody to do this study? They interviewed 1000 college students to come to this conclusion. Really? I can only assume the conductors of the study were either 8-years-old or had some how wandered into a hyperbaric sleep chamber for the duration of their teenage years because if they had gone to high school or college all they would have had to do to complete this study was interview one person: themselves.

Interviewer: “So, Self, what do you think about binge drinking?”

Interviewer’s Self: “It’s fucking awesome!”

Interviewer: “Really? Why do you say that?”

Interviewer’s Self: “Uhh, because it’s awesome and chicks are way more willing to make out with me when they’re wasted.”

Interviewer: “I see. And how do you feel about advertising designed to discourage you from binge drinking?”

Interviewer’s Self: *PFFFRT!*

Interviewer: “Uhh, did you just fart in response to that question?”

Interviewer’s Self: “Yup.”

Interviewer: “Wow, ok. Well, I guess that concludes our study.”

The study went on to suggest that using guilt and shame to warn of the dangers of binge drinking was particularly ineffective. Really? Someone actually thought that guilting or shaming a teenager would get them to do or not do something? 

“Timothy! Turn off that godforsaken music! You’re going to go to hell if you keep listening to it!”

“I know, mom. That’s the point. That’s why it’s called Death March to Hell by Metal Death Machine,” as Tim cranks it up to eleven.

Finally they concluded that advertising would be more effective if it was positive and the message was toned down. What? How are you going to spin a positive message out of binge drinking? “Sure, binge drinking is fun. But do you know what’s more fun? Calculus!” Come on. Advanced mathematics is not a solution to drinking; it’s a cause.

This whole discussion is very timely because every day I drive past this billboard on the way to work that is an advertisement for an organization that helps teens fight addiction. Now, on the surface this sounds like a great organization and one that I could fully support because teen addiction is a legitimate problem. But then when you look that billboard you realize this organization is a one-way ticket to failure:

What’s wrong with this billboard? I’ll tell you what’s wrong - that kid looks cool as hell. He looks like he doesn’t have a care in the world like he’s thinking, “Dude, I’m soooo wasted right now. This is awesome! I’m going to go make out with some chicks.” That’s because some adult dreamed up this advertisement and thought if you showed a picture of some listless kid sucking on a beer bottle it would send a strong message. Well you’re right – the message is, “I need to find someone who’s 21 and willing to buy me some booze!”

If they wanted this ad to really be effective they would have taken the biggest most awkward pimply faced loser from the home ec class, stuck a beer in his hand and the tag line would be, “Kiss all your friends and popularity goodbye because binge drinking will make you look like this kid.” Boom. Problem solved. If while I was growing up I had seen an advertisement for something that promised to make me more awkward than I already was, I would have avoided that shit like chicks avoided me. It’s that simple.

Listen, I’m not trying to say that binge drinking is okay or cool or that trying to discourage teens from drinking is a bad idea. I’m just saying you shouldn’t have to fund a study through a major university to figure out that methods dreamed up by parents of teenagers to try to stop teenagers from drinking is not going to work. No, if you really want to discourage kids from binge drinking, or doing anything they shouldn’t be doing, you need to really get a lot more childish and devious than that: go at them with fear. Fear and lies.

Let me try out a few advertising slogans on you here and you tell me if this won’t scare the shit out of some teenagers:

“If you drink alcohol, the terrorists win.”

“Marijuana is a gateway to socialism.”

“Pre-marital sex will kill your grandmother.”

Do you know why that will work? Because teenagers are dumb. Okay, okay – that’s a bit harsh. Maybe they’re not so much dumb as they’re just blissfully uninformed. About everything. When was the last time you saw a teenager reading something informative? Never, is the answer to that one. So all you need to do is find the one or two tv channels that all teenagers watch and the handful of websites they visit everyday and just flood them with advertising full of lies and fear.

“If you skip school your dad will lose his job.” What? Is that true? Oh my god, if my dad loses his job I won’t be able to steal money from is wallet to buy weed. That’s horrible!

“Cigarettes are manufactured in China by Russians and packaged by Iranians in North Korea.” Wow. No one wants to support nuclear ambitious cold war communist Muslim dictatorial regimes.

“Only alcoholics pay taxes.” Holy shit! What’s worse than being sober? Taxes! Obviously.

“Support our troops: Say no to drugs.” Wait… are you trying to say that drugs are unpatriotic?

You’ve got to scare the shit out of the kids and the best way to scare the kids is to lie to them because they are too dumb to know otherwise.

If you go back to that billboard I drive by everyday and instead of showing a picture of badass looking kid drinking a beer you simply said, “Beer is like free health insurance for illegal immigrants,” Bam! The only people that will be drinking beer from now on are people with zero-premium private health insurance like Medicare and Medicaid. It’s that simple.