I believe this to be an opportune time to present some links, which you will perhaps click, in hopes that my promises of entertainment will be fulfilled.

Let us hope together.

- To begin, here is a stupid yet entertaining video that Chris Bosh made asking for All-Star votes. I urge you all to oblige, but I also urge Chris Bosh himself to first stop playing like a little bitch. 43.6% from the floor will not get you into New Orleans.

- So I found this 10 Puppies vs Cat video which is an absolute farce of YouTube versus videos, and it makes me want to like file a grievance of some sort against the video submitter for false advertising or titling or whatever. It's five minutes and thirty seconds of lies. Lies upon lies upon thousands of lies! There is not a single point throughout this video that would actually fit the title of "10 Puppies vs Cat" - the bill of goods this sold turned out to be bad. Where is the ominous cello music and the British narrator!?! This is some bullshit!

- This is a "time travel theory/project" available for $10 million on eBay. I didn't really read through it because the weird capitalization pattern hurts my eyes and makes me want to vomit, but don't let that stop you. What I'm most surprised here is that there's no type of crystal technology involved here, which I thought was generally a staple in time travel...stuff.

- Dad at Comedy Barn is an odd video that's like a big, smelly, comedy onion to me. Yeah, the creepy old man with the weird laugh is good for some chuckles, but the thing that amuses me the most is the guy just completely and utterly derails the routine for a solid six or seven minutes. I just keeps going and going and going...beyond the point of ridiculousness, and it reaches some territory or zone of lunacy that only exists on an abstract, metaphysical level. It gets to the point midway through it where you're just horrified and openly questioning the existence of God above, wondering why any intelligent deity could ever allow a world to exist where something like this is possible. The part where you can just see it breaking down at the beginning...you just won't believe the depths of the horror it precedes. HE JUST DOESN'T STOP LAUGHING.

- TBS is a dangerous channel for me, and although I can't blame it directly for forcing me to do things like...watch What Women Want back-to-back for four straight hours or jack up my watch count of Legally Blonde into the teens...it's still what allows me to do these things to myself, and thus it remains an everlasting danger to my personal psychological health and well being. What's surprising to me though is that I've made absolutely no effort to recognize that danger. Today I was blessed with In Good Company (here is the trailer), which remains as one of my personal favourites. A couple years back, I went through this really weird week during which I became like fanatically obsessed with Scarlett Johannson, and tried to purge it out of my system by watching Ghost World, The Perfect Score, The Island, and In Good Company all consecutively without break. ...I think it was a Saturday. Suffice to say, the experience shattered my mind into a million glimmering pieces...but I think I actually enjoyed In Good Company and it still holds after two rewatches. It's got Scarlett Johansson and Solsbury Hill - I didn't stand a goddamn chance.

Anyway.

Turns out I wasn't the only one in the world that had a bizarrely unusual affection for this movie...because while I was searching for that "trailor" on YouTube, I found another version of it...only reedited with clips from The Lion King II: Simba's Pride. Here is the "In Good Lion Company Trailer".

I-I...I have no words with which to describe this.

"Joan, how could you lie to me?"
"Abe, try to understand, I -"
"Oh, I understand. You sold us all a bill of goods, and those goods turned out to be bad. Then you sold me up the river."
"That may be, but I sent you up that river with my heart as a paddle!"
"But you took that paddle, and smacked me in the face, and I wear my heart on my sleeve, so when I wiped my face, I got heart all over it."

12/31/2007 12:26:00 AM | Comments (0)

Sell Out III

Ruff Riders Anthem - DMX

Just to get this out of the way, I have not been able to take a good shit lately. I don't know why. I come home after a long day and the first thing I want to do is drop a deuce in the comfort of my own home and...nothing. It's really depressing. There's nothing as satisfying as that feeling of going to the washroom and coming out feeling like you just shit out the remains of an unborn twin. People got problems, man.

Next, I want to congratulate William on dropping seven straight posts within the last couple of weeks. Your quiet dedication to shining a light on the depravities of mankind (and posting movie trailers) remains impressive.

By now, I think I've told everyone about my new job at RBC meaning that the brief chapter of my life concerning Gemma Communications is now closed. It is fitting that I have now TRULY sold out by getting an office gig at a major bank. I couldn't have planned this series of posts better if I had tried. Some final Gemma related thoughts:

I learned that there were four types of customers.

Comedians - Customers who insist on making stupid jokes and odd comments during the phone call. For example, an agent will read the interest rate on a credit card that the customer is applying for and the customer might say "Oh, well if it's that high then I might not be interested. That's more like a distinterest rate, isn't it? (annoying chuckle)" I made that up, but that's generally the idea. These customers are capable of extending a call anywhere from five to twenty minutes and if these witticisms are intermingled with important parts of the script, then quality control is forced to endure.

Vigilantes - Customers who are immediately suspicious of the call and demand to know more information from the agent before they answer any questions. Common inquiries include: "What's your name?", "Where are you calling from?", and "Why don't you give me YOUR social insurance number?" The crazy thing about Vigilantes is how easily they are defused. Sometimes, the agent will just re-read the exact same script that they just read and the customer will be like, "Hmm, okay, well that sounds more believable." It's as if the act of making the agent do more work is some kind of victory. Even better are the guys who do it near the end of the call as the agent is wrapping up. You've already given them all your information!

Nervous Nellies - Similar to the vigilante, these customers are overly inquisitive; however, this behaviour seems to stem more from pure ignorance than paranoia. There is something about filling out an application that turns a normally intelligent human being into a bumbling simpleton. Simple words like "credit limit", "consent", "the" become cryptic phrases to the Nervous Nellie. They need everything clarified and by the time the call is over, you're almost sure that they still didn't understand a damn thing.

Rubes - The agent's best friend. These people sit around with nothing to do and when the agent calls, the customer simply says "yes" to everything until the call is over. No questions, no comments, just consent. These calls usually make me black out half way through. By the time I recover, I'm completely unsure of whether or not the agent may have threatened to murder the customer's family if they didn't finish the application. I just hit that Verify button and move on. A subset of the Rubes is the Sad Sacks. These people are almost sure that they won't be approved for a credit card, but agree to everything sounding like they're just happy that someone is talking to them for five minutes.

Cool names that are 100% real: Dale MacPhail, Albert Sundown (great name for a Western), Catherine Durnfordwang (sounds like something you'd make up under pressure), Yogaluxmy Balasubramanian, Cynthia J Cockerline, Patricia Brainerd, Saxhide Petropoulos, Cherry Pie V Rumbaoa, Sabato Carnevale (sounds like a cool professional wrestler from Mexico), Ron Otten (sounds like a lame professional wrestler from New Jersey), Penny Trusty, Hermogenes Lasangue

Cool names that must have been legally changed: Trust Unworried, Roman Kiss and Rain Morpheus

Cool name that should probably be legally changed: Wayne Allcock (and he lives on Nutcracker Drive!)

Cool foreign name that I would normally exclude because as far as I know it could be like "Stephen Jones" in another country, but it's just too awesome: Suthashiny Thirugnanasampanther

Cool name that Shirley Manh could use as an alias: Sharlynn Mannhardt

Cool name that William must consider for his own child: Zerubbabel Cheng

My personal favourite: Honeyleen P Superlario Aromin

My managers have been super supportive of my new job and I want to personally use this valuable webspace to thank them for the opportunity they gave me. They called me when I was sitting around doin' absolutely nothin' and I don't take that lightly. I felt so guilty after RBC called and I had to spend the next couple of days acting like I was sticking around because I didn't know how to break it to them. Every day they graced me with new responsibilities. "Here's a new campaign for you to learn, Alexander." "You're in our e-mail system now, Alexander." "Here's the Budget Shoe Warehouse girl's number, Alexander." They always called me by my full name.

It's going to be difficult to leave this group, because these are my people: the freaks and geeks of society. There's John, the middle aged gay man who always had an innuendo on the tip of his tongue. Marcus, that young guy who went to a local college and thinks he's got it all figured out already even though he still lives with his parents. Bernadette, your typical devout Catholic. Tom, the not so kindly old curmudgeon. Danny, the cocky guy who makes a million jokes without realizing that he's usually the guy who laughs at them the most and who calls himself God. Sylvain, the former alcoholic trying to make things work while juggling this job and his family. Alain, the mostly harmless black man who sounds, both in voice and character, like Idi Amin from The Last King Of Scotland (and yes, that's the second time I've compared someone to that character in the last six months). Lastly, there's Elizabeth, this perfectly cool girl who has perfect pitch and spends her weekends transposing, who has everyone reason to be confident except that she suffers from stage fright and the occasional panic attack. Then there's me.

Even though I'm super pumped to start my RBC job (the reality of actually doing the job for at least the next few years hasn't actually sunk in yet and is surely post material for another time), I won't forget that working at Gemma Communications was my first real job. It's only been a month. Can you believe it?

Now, some links:

Did you know that there were two films made in the last fifteen years called Jack Frost? We're all familiar with the wonderful Michael Keaton flick made in 1998. Courtesy of Wikipedia, here is Roger Ebert's take on it. Damn, that is hateful.

What most of you don't know is that two years prior to that, there was a cheap horror movie made with the same title. Courtesy of Wrestlecrap (the movie has nothing to do with wrestling, but plenty to do with crap), I give you Jack Frost. If you thought about skipping this link, I'll tell you right now that Shannon Elizabeth gets raped by a snowman. Go ahead and click now.

The weird thing is that I think the Keaton one is actually scarier.

I had a fun time going through The Onion A.V. Club Worst Band Names of 2007. Obviously, I don't recommend you read it line by line but feel free to skim. I especially enjoyed the commentary for the band Wishdoctor (near the end of page 1). I also liked Steaming Wolf Penis.

I know we were just watching this at my house so it's kind of redundant, but I had to add this clip to make it an official part of WAMBAG lore: Jake Brown at the X-Games. Look at that muthafucka's shoes fly!!!

A belated Merry Christmas and a premature Happy New Year to everyone!

*Coming Soon (no promises): Great Music From 2007 and some general holiday thoughts.*

Nice to have some positive reinforcement, isn't it?
Well, it's only positive reinforcement when they say it to you. In my case they're just stating the facts. I do look like the Arrow Shirt man, I did lace up my skates profesionally and I did do a fabulous job finishing my muffin.

12/27/2007 02:55:00 AM | Comments (1)

I'm assuming at this point that everyone is celebrating Christmas with their family and friends, or maybe even people they actually enjoy the company of. If not...well, then y'all niggas can go fuck yoselfs. I always have my big Christmas dinner on Christmas Day...which I've found is actually not always the case, as some people do it on Christmas Eve...or are Jewish. If that was the case for you...then...well, good for you.

For the day that Christmas graced your family, it was the most important day of your year. But for me...it was a Tuesday.

Here's my Christmas gift to everyone out there; regarding the previously mentioned Marié Digby, to follow will be a link to a zip archive of all her songs available right now, on her MySpace page, through iTunes (which I purchased with the three free song credits I got from that Virgin Music Festival way back when), or ripped from YouTube videos. Not sure if there's copy or distribution protection on the iTunes copies, but if that's the case then too bad for you.

PHP's kinda messed up on the site right now, so that archive link doesn't actually work yet. But maybe eventually when or if I ever fix it, it might.

LINK!

Password is "cocaine" which is the first word that "randomly" popped into my head when I was trying to think up a password.

Please enjoy.

"What's to-day?" cried Scrooge, calling downward to a boy in Sunday clothes, who perhaps had loitered in to look about him.
"Eh?" returned the boy, with all his might of wonder.
"What's to-day, my fine fellow?" said Scrooge.
"To-day?" replied the boy. "Why, Christmas Day."

12/25/2007 03:00:00 PM | Comments (0)

Here is the trailer for Hellboy II: The Golden Army. It looks fantastic, and I really want to see it.

And for those of us (read: ALL of us) already jonesin' for our next Will Smith fix, here it is in Hancock. Where he plays like a superhero or something, but whatever, it's Will Smith.

That marks two straight movie trailers that feature former Arrested Development cast members, a trend which ends here and thus makes you wonder why I even mentioned it in the first place.

Finally, this a trailer for Million Dollar Babies, which you will discover to not actually be a real movie.

All things considered, this has definitely been one of the lazier posts I've ever put up.

"Did you do your homework, sweetie?"
"HOMEWORK!?! I'M TRYING TO KEEP THIS FAMILY ALIVE!"

12/23/2007 07:33:00 PM | Comments (0)

Here's another stupid video kinda promoting Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story. It's a pretty standard Judd Apatow extras video, but it takes this weird turn halfway through it. The music? Fantastic.

Daryl is awesome.

I NEVER GIVE UP!

12/19/2007 11:43:00 AM | Comments (0)

So apparently Ashy Larry has a new internet series called Ashy To Classy? ...it's pretty retarded, and surprisingly short on both ash and class. I'll have to do some digging for this one. You might remember Ashy Larry from the World Series Of Dice skit from Chappelle's Show.

The rest are sports related links, so please feel free to ignore everything else if you're not in that target demographic.

- Proceeding these six words will be The Mitchell Report, which was officially released by MLB last week. It's something like 300 pages long, not counting the appendixes...which turns out is a bit more than the "thirty something pages" I had originally said on Sunday. An honest mistake. Anyway, makes for some nice light reading. SPOILER ALERT: Snape kills Dumbledore at the end.

- I'm going to spoil another video for you. Yao Ming screams at Chris Kaman, declaring "YOU TRY FUCKING STOP ME!", Mutombo goes "YEAH!", usual YouTube comment hilarity ensues, and it's good times for all.

- Another old YouTube clip that I missed the first time around, of Darrick Martin snubbing former Raptors assistant coach Gene Keady. The disappointment in his face and the fact that he had to quit coaching to tend to his sick wife almost makes me sad...and then I think about how funny this is and the fact that you could imagine Darrick Martin doing this because he had some beef with Gene supplanting his role as the portly stocky guy on the Raptors...and I'm laughing again.

- Also, Baron Davis working at McDonald's. My favourite thing about that video is how absolutely black Oakland is. And if you listen closely (actually...it's pretty obvious), there's even police sirens at the end of the video - the guy with the Starburst car. "You trynna clown!" I don't think there's a single NBA player that's more entertaining than The Baron overall - factoring on and off the court. (Sloan from Entourage...so hot.)

SEVEM!

12/18/2007 03:21:00 PM | Comments (0)

I was witness to an interesting conversation today - or at least a part of it - on the elevator ride up to work this morning. My fellow passengers entailed two gentlemen, who were discussing the movie 30 Days Of Night. Or at least one of them was - the other actually thought they were talking about 50 First Dates, the romantic comedy of the not-really-that-similar name - I realized this because he kept asking whether or not if Drew Barrymore looked "hot" in the movie, which is another set of issues entirely. Anyway it would have been just a trivial, innocent mistake - only entertaining because it's about someone who actually still thinks Drew Barrymore is hot - but the twist of our story here is that the other guy - apparently mistaking Drew Barrymore for Melissa George (or whoever the female lead in 30 Days Of Night was) - kept going without correcting the mistake, and thus became gradually more and more confused at his friend's unusual interest in Drew Barrymore and her role in 30 Days Of Night.

...a role which of course, doesn't exist. And a fact that no one seemed to realize.

As well, he kept noting how it was "scary" it was, which threw off Drew Barrymore Fan #1...who apparently mistook his commentary on the scariness of the movie (which I haven't seen, but I'd imagine it to be relatively more scary than 50 First Dates, you know what with the vampires and all the days of night all that) to be a reference to how "scary" Drew Barrymore looked instead. Which created this rift between them, lead to this delicious silent moment of awkward confusion, where each guy is like silently nodding and externally showing signs of humble agreement with the other but secretly in their heads thinking about how much of an idiot the other guy is instead.

At this point the elevator opens up to my floor, and I leave with the assumption that the misunderstanding and the true cause of the awkwardness between them would never be fully realized by either man.

I imagine them years from this day, a full feud developed now between them. I wonder at the bitterness and hate that will linger in both of their hearts. What depths of animosity will they have for each other, born from a misunderstanding that came from an awkward elevator conversation about two different movies.

I live for moments like these, and its on days like this that I'm happy to be alive, waiting for and riding up on that elevator with those two guys having a discussion about a topic that was only really understood by the guy eavesdropping in on them. That awkward confusion...it's delicious, I eat it up like apple crumble. I'm like a Sailor Moon Negaverse villain planting seeds of "negativity" and gobbling up that dark human energy - all that awkwardness and confusion. It's fantastic.

Anyway, I have absolutely no idea why I decided to randomly pull a Sailor Moon reference out of nowhere, but as long as we're on the topic...Tuxedo Mask is a straight up pimp. I mean, he throws ROSES at you. And if that doesn't work, then he jumps out at you and beats your ass with a fucking cane, son. Goddamn! Serious - every time he shows up, he whips a rose so hard it sticks into the concrete pavement, like it was a ten pound lawn dart. Have you ever tried to do that? Man, it's hard. I'm sitting around in the hall behind my aunt's flower shop the odd weekend here and there for years, de-thorning those bad boys, and practicing my Tuxedo Mask Rose Dart Jutsu skills...and still, to present day - nothing. I remember coming home from elementary school, and eating bowls of Lucky Charms while slipping into a coma in front of the television for all that after school programming on YTV. Doug, Reboot, Sailor Moon...Rupert...I'd watch it all. There was not a single (male) child of the 90's that didn't grow up practicing whipping flowers at guys (weedy dandelions picked off the side of the road, generally) and playing 52 card pick-up Gambit-style. You can't tell me you never threw a playing card with the intent to kill another human being, which always immediately proceeded the slurring of the words "Feirst you charge de card..." or "Mon ami!" or some combination thereof. "Weeeeoooow! PSHOOOOW!"

Good times.

...

Anyway. Where was going with this...? I'm completely lost now.

Ah well. He likes turtles.

Man...I don't know what the FUCK you just said little kid...but you special, man. You reached down...and you touched ma heart.

12/13/2007 05:15:00 PM | Comments (0)

Couple more movie trailers today, accompanied with some jackass comments about how good I think the movie looks (usually "awesome") - which there is nothing else in the world that you would possibly care less about. Let's get to it then!

First, a heads up from Max Snax of Ajax (who continues to refuse to post or directly associate himself with this site in any capacity...perhaps wisely) - the Semi-Pro trailer is finally out. Every Will Ferrell movie features a water thin plot just to string together a bunch of skits together, and this time the gig is that he's an ABA player/coach/team owner. It's the same movie over and over again, but just with different wardrobes. This trailer is pretty much exactly as you would expect...which means it is fantastically awesome. If nothing else, this movie's going to spawn a whole batch of lines that we'll have no choice but to recite every time we play basketball. And we'll repeat them so many times that they'll no longer hold any relevant meaning to us anymore, and it will become impossible to elicit any type of emotional response from hearing them. If we're lucky.

Then The Machine Girl, proof that the Japanese just beat us at everything. Lots of Kill Bill type gore in that trailer, so maybe not a great idea to watch it along with your conservative Asian grandma or your six year old nephew. I'm pretty sure this is a comedy. ...I think. It has to be, right?

Next, the (relatively) new I Am Legend trailer, which I think I actually really want to see now. Please Will Smith, just one "AWW HELL NAH", just one, please. You don't even really have to say it, just do the facial expression when the all the zombies/vampires/whatevers are rushing at you in the obligatory scene. On a related note, I was checking out the Wikipedia entry, and it turns out this movie was almost made in the late 90's with Ridley Scott to direct and Arnold Schwarzenegger to star. How awesome would that have been, huh? Honestly. Just check out the other big names that were attached this property at one point or another. I'm not even sure I can watch this movie with an unbiased state of mind now...every scene I see I'm going to be thinking about how much better Ahnuld would have handled it instead. If weakling Will Smith has to run from the vampiric zombie monsters in a scene, I'm going to be thinking about how much more awesome this movie could have been if badass motherfucker and brilliant military scientist (he would probably have needed to channel some of his performance as a scientist from Junior, ie. wear glasses) John Matrix was there instead. Like if he ripped off a zombie's head with his bare hands, and while holding up the zombie head Hamlet-style, recited to the now headless body - "Youah know wat dey say...two heads is bettah...than NONE." Dammit, this movie hasn't even come out and already it's underachieving.

Anyway, not a trailer but in fact a scene from Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story. If you're anything like me, I'd advise you to just not watch it and go into the movie fresh...but I was tricked and deceived into watching this myself so now I must share it and spoil it all for the rest of you as well. Just great to see Tim Meadows get some serious burn on a contender instead of toiling away all those years on lottery teams.

And finally, not a movie trailer, but an ultra cheesy and lame commercial for American Gladiators. January 6th - SHIT BE POPPIN'.

Come on people, let's get sweaty. Basketball sweaty.

12/10/2007 02:30:00 PM | Comments (0)

Instead of dealing with the comedy of errors that is my life, I'm going to post some more links and continue (as I have my entire life thus far) to shirk away from saying anything profound or meaningful.

- Best article ever.

- Here is the new trailer for Harold & Kumar Escape From Guantanamo Bay. It's like they're just doing the first movie over again, but now they have tons more money to play with. Good stuff.

- A Practical Guide To Racism: Stereotypes - there's a series of these on there, but I wanted to highlight this one in particular as it addresses the stereotypes of gypsies, which I feel is an important lesson that we all can benefit from. There's also a video game related installment, but if you're not familiar with Punch-Out or Street Fighter (or racism) then you need not apply. The funniest things about all of these is just the pseudo office thing he's got going there, with the goofy Greco-Roman bust and the blackboard full of unintelligible scribbles there.

- Word on the street is that there's going to be a fourth Terminator movie that will star John Connor rallying the armies of man against our future, emotionless, Austrian overlords. Joseph McGinty Nichol aka McG is to direct - you might remember him from such films as We Are Marshall, Charlie's Angels, and Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle. And if that doesn't get you pumped for Terminator Salvation: The Future Begins (hahaha) then I don't know what will.

His producer credits are notable as well - it includes projects like Fastlane, The OC, and The Search For The Next Doll...so yeah, this is going to be pretty awesome.

And once you cast Batman as John Connor, then the Hugh Jackman Factor in the Van Helsing Scale starts looking pretty good. Either way, good or bad...this is going to be an amazingly entertaining movie. Summer 2009. Clear your schedules.

- The very first Street Fighter 4 news has come out. No idea if that's an actual gameplay shot, but word is that it's going to be polygon graphics...but two dimensional gameplay (THANK GOD). If there's an arcade port, I'm all over that - I'm getting back into the seedy world of arcade games with Street Fighter 4. I want so badly to be good at a fighting game again. That hasn't happened since like...1999, with the first Marvel vs. Capcom. Just like in the same way that StarCraft 2 will get me back into real time strategy nerdery. Except I was never good at StarCraft.

- Drag queens + McDonald's + tire iron + hot french fry grease = When Transvestites Attack. Black people make everything better. Extra points for grimeyness.

- Boy gets raped by a dog while he plays Wii. Other than the stated, I also immensely enjoyed...
- the fact that he just keeps playing, hoping it'll end somehow
- the complete unconcern of the cameraman
- the possibility that this is something they taught the dog to do on command
- the screaming
Honestly, that's some of the funniest screaming I've heard in years.

"You're like the talking mailbox."
"I'm going to assume that's a Haldeman reference, in which case...I thank you."

12/07/2007 03:47:00 PM | Comments (0)

A song about Tetris. Just as all great men have moustaches, all great songs on youtube have memorable solos. This one does not disappoint.

And for added enjoyment, watch Buzz Aldrin coldcock some random douchebag for claiming that the moon landing was faked.

12/06/2007 04:09:00 AM | Comments (0)

Sell Out II

No One - Alicia Keys

* I really enjoy driving on the empty roads after midnight. Just me and the road and the radio. I love it. Unfortunately, I have developed a nasty speeding habit. Especially when I'm listening to a song like Stronger. I'll just be cruising along, listening to that damn Bubbly song (already the most overplayed song of the year) and then I'll find a station with Stronger on it and I'm suddenly going 30 over the speed limit and weaving in and out of lanes. It simply cannot be helped. That song always seemed to be missing something for me and now I know what it was: an element of danger.

* Ever since I started high school I always wanted to get a job at the mall. Ever since I first saw The Office, I've wanted to work in an office building. Gemma Communications is situated in an office inside of the mall. Verily, dreams do come true.

* To further explain my job, I'm required to decide whether one of our agents managed to successfully make a sale or not and then whether the customer's information was properly verified. The other day, I had one call end with the customer saying that she didn't have time to verify her info because her water just broke. How should I be logging that exactly? A week later, another customer asked if the agent could hurry up because she was having a baby. Our timing is impeccable.

I've also realized that there's lots of room for interpretation when deciding whether I should hold a sale or not, especially when the agents take liberties with the script. One agent said that the customer would be happy AND delighted with their credit card insurance. "Happy" was in the script, but not delighted. I'm not sure that's the sort of thing we can legally guarantee.

* I haven't gotten around to socializing yet. My job is to listen to phone calls, not my coworkers. During my lunch, I saw a couple of coworkers in the food court and I just breezed right by them. The funny thing is that one of them asked me later if I'd taken my lunch yet. See how I move around undetected? I'm like Matt Murdock with that shit. I'm right next to you and you don't even know it.

Actually, I do talk a little with this girl who sits next to me named Andrea. She helps me out with whatever small questions I have when I don't feel like bringing it up with my supervisor. Her brother, Derrick, is a telemarketer for Gemma so I get to listen to his calls every now and then. There was this really creepy one where it sounded like this guy was flirting with him. First he was like, "Where are you from? Oh, Guyana. That's in South America, right? I bet people don't know that." It sounded like the customer was trying to impress him. But then he started asking him his name and how old he was and making cheesy jokes. Still, I dismissed it as idle chatter. Then he, er, jokingly said "Are you going to give me a kiss on the lips?" I'd like to explain the context that that was said in, but it wouldn't make it seem any less inappropriate or perverse. So I'm going to leave you with that. I let Andrea listen in and we had a good laugh about it.

* Another fun part of work is all the names I see everyday. That doesn't sound too exciting, but I was excited to know there's someone named "Mamadou Sow" out there. That sounds like either the best or the most disappointing NBA centre ever. Also, there was a guy named Jeffrey Joy. What are the chances that he's just the meanest, most irritated guy in the world? Pretty high, right? Then there are the bizarre: Daniel Potlog. John M Whynot. Ken Cosmos. Gerald G Merlin. I just found new names for my fists. Bonus porn name: Ashley Playfair. I feel like Jack Horner in Boogie Nights. Those are great names!

* Okay, I'll admit it. I'm kind of stalking the girl who works at the Budget Shoe Warehouse a couple of floors down. A little bit. She's not that hot, I'm just bored. She might have seen me looking down a couple of times, but how does she know what I'm looking at? I was watching her talk to this guy, who may or may not have been friends with her. It was certainly not her boyfriend as she ended the encounter with a cordial handshake. Hmm...a potential rival? Maybe she already has a boyfriend so he got blown off? Maybe she doesn't want to meet someone while she's at work. All important things to consider.

* There's a washroom on the first floor that has the usual automatic amenities. You've got your sink and you've got your hand dryer and you've got your urinals, but there's also an automatic soap dispenser. This is new to me. You simply hover your hand under it and a usable amount of liquid soap is squirted out. It evokes the feeling of someone ejaculating into the palm of my hand. Not that I would know what that is like. Yes I do.

I also witnessed a drug exchange in that same washroom. I'd like to think that it wasn't a deal per se, but rather one brotha helpin' another brotha get his weed on free of charge.

* Now that I have access to the e-mail system, I'm privy to the dialogues shared by the top dogs in the company. It is less than thrilling. One supervisor will e-mail another supervisor with a problem, then the second supervisor will react defensively and accuse the first supervisor of incompetence. Supervisor One will then respond in kind and so on and so forth for the next hour or so. With each e-mail, there is an increasing level of aggravation as indicated by the exclamation points which seem to spawn exponentially.

* The one really terrible thing about having a job again? I miss Adriana. I really, really miss her. I hate allowing anyone to have that kind of...hold over me, but she definitely does. Dragging myself into work every day just isn't the same when I don't have that reason, that real reason for being there. I swear, I stayed an extra year at that place just because I couldn't imagine not seeing her regularly. It is incredible how much you can enjoy being around someone even though your relationship can only exist in the work atmosphere, which is so naturally unpleasant. I'm gonna stop now.

Who's that?!?
Nobody.
Don't lie to me, Jack. I've had plenty of women mad at me the morning after. Just don't let her light your sneakers on fire in the bathtub.
She would never do that Tracy. She's a very special woman.
So then what's the problem?
Well, we're just on opposite sides of a feud.
Oh, I get it. Romeo and Juliet. Capulets and Romulans. Mmm hm. I been there. I'm black, she's white. I'm black, she's light-skinned black. I'm black, she's seventeen! Listen, if she's your soulmate you go for it.
Tracy, I don't believe in soulmates. I work too hard to get where I am to sacrifice it for some woman. I don't care if she is beautiful, brilliant and she does it like her dad's a minister.

12/06/2007 02:09:00 AM | Comments (0)

There is this guy on Youtube who makes alternate opening sequences for old TV shows. If ever there was an argument that the internet has done more harm than good for society, surely his/her work would be a part of that argument.

Naturally, I present to you a link to his version of Duck Tales. He has some other stuff, of varying levels of wrongitude.

And on a saner note (but only slightly), here's Ed Helms (Andy from the US Office) as a zombie.

12/01/2007 09:43:00 PM | Comments (0)