admin

It’s an exciting and somewhat scary time at my place of work. We’re beyond busy – with a pipeline that’s fixin’ to burst. Needless to say, I’ve had little time this week to write entries at night. I usually scribble or come up with an idea in the evening, and then post it or quickly write it up the next day. I try to blog about blogging as little as possible – so I hope you’ll bear with me today as I continue to try and keep my head above water here in “the mines”.

Then I have to cut my work day short and run home to clean my apartment because my building is being appraised tomorrow. So I can likely add “apartment hunting” to the stress docket within the next few months. But I’ll cross that security deposit when I come to it. Still – inspiration may yet strike me today, and I could waste 15 minutes writing about fruitflies, midgets, Christopher Walken or a bicycle I had when I was five. Stay tuned.

Those of you who read Pye In The Face don’t need to be told about my search engine optimization fetish. So occasionally I mention a website here simply to have it indexed by the major search engines – because their spiders love me and visit often. So bear with me, kids. Plus, I’m writing to you from the roofdeck and I may be suffering hypothermia-induced dementia right now. You never really know with my frequent roofdeckery.

If you’ve ever been outside on your laptop, say on a roofdeck for instance, you may have had trouble seeing your lcd screen because of the sun glare. Well your worries are over! If you like to work on your notebook computer outside and are looking for a laptop screen sun shade, please visit the all new LaptopScreenShades.com!

And we were laughing our asses off the whole time…

“Comedian Dave Chappelle has checked himself into a mental health facility in South Africa and has remained there since late April, according to a source close to the situation. The same source denies rumors of drug abuse. Other sources have also told EW that the future of Chappelle’s Show — the hit Comedy Central series that was entering its third season — is more uncertain than the network has suggested.”

Get well, Dave. Here’s hoping Wayne Brady has to choke a bitch again, real soon.

There’s a new craze amongst teenagers in England which is apparently influenced by American Shows like Jackass, Viva La Bam, etc. “Happy Slapping” has become all the rage amongst British yutes, and it’s a lot more sinister than it sounds. Here’s what a male 16 year old “slapper” (I have to make the sex distinction to avoid confusion with another popular definition of that word) had to say in defense of his new found hobby:

“Even though it might be quite painful (for the victim) and you obviously feel quite sorry for them because they’re injured or hurt or whatever and they’ve done nothing to deserve it, it’s still funny because it’s like seeing the sketch on TV.” Wicked funny, Niles.

What these little bastards do is akin to what we call swarming here in North America. A group of kids run up on, surround and then slap the shit out of unsuspecting bystanders – while one or two others record the assault on their camera phones. If that weren’t bad enough, some of the lower-level bottomfeeding British cable channels then compile these beatings into hour-long television shows. A concerned English blogger compiled some particularly violent excerpts. “I dug up quite a bit and hacked them together into a streaming media file. It’s not for the squeemish, these kids are clearly criminals“.

Jackass was all about a group of lifelong friends playing pranks on or subsequently beating the everloving Christ out of eachother – not ‘jumping in‘ random strangers on the street. It was their cameraderie which made the show so much fun to watch. Happy Slapping is frigging twisted – violent attacks can scar people for years – I know. I sincerely hope that the Old Bill puts the kaibosh on this ridiculous practice like yesterday. Please mark this moment on your calendars as the first time I officially rolled my eyes and muttered: “Kids today”.

I have a huge block of conference calls today, and although they’re an intregal part of my job – I never look forward to them. But I suppose coroners don’t exactly look forward to the next tractor trailer vivisection that’s flopped down on their slab, either. It’s the job – suck it up or hit the breadline while you find your true calling.

My aversion isn’t human interaction – or my occupation itself – but rather the telephone. I’m not a phoner. I don’t call people to idly chat. I don’t like it when people who aren’t related to me call me for no good reason. If I’m not dating you, I shouldn’t have to pretend to be interested in sustaining a polite phonecall. Jesus this makes me sound like a prick – but there has to be a few of you out there who share this aversion.

And the sprawling, three-minute voicemails about nothing drive me insane. I sometimes go several days without checking because I dread them so much. “Hey, haven’t talked to you in about 47 minutes. Wanted to see what you were up to. Listen, uh, give me a call back when you get a chance, so we can continue to burn cell minutes talking about things I wouldn’t cross the street to say to you.” Or the gem I actually had to exit a restaurant and walk 2 blocks to get a signal in order to hear: “Hey, remember when I called earlier and said I’d meet you at that restaurant at 6? Well I’ll still be there at 6.”

I once thought it was unique to women, but have had to change my stance. I have male friends who are on their phones every free minute of the day. “Whatcha doin?” “Nothing.” “What are you doing?” “Fuck off.” It’s tough love – you’re not a 12 year old chick eager to talk about whatever episode of the OC just ended. Get off the phone unless a mutual friend has died. Preferably someone to which I owed money.

Thanks to everyone who came to the Cinco De Cinco party on Saturday night. Apparently, there were actually several of you whom I did not get around to making out with, but I promise you’ll be on the top of the list for next time. I feel so dirty. Not really. Anyhew (selected) photos will be forthcoming, and let’s just wash ourselves with de-lousing powder and move on to the quotelet, shall we?

“My boobs get all biggish, when I eats me spinach. I’m Kelly the sailor whoore.”

Someone just told me to “shoot them an email” and I came to a violent realization – I have a new pet peeve. I saw his mouth form the aforementioned words, but “Shoot me in the head with a rusty whaling-era speargun” is what I heard in my mind’s eye. I’ve been meaning to start working towards actively changing some of our company’s vernacular, and this is as good a time as any. Also on my hitlist:

• Brainfarts
• Whatnot
• Push (interchangable with ‘shoot’ in most cases)
• Comprehensive
• ‘Here’ and ‘there’ used at the end of every phrase: “I wanted to reach you on the phone there and get you in touch with our tech guy here. Did you have anything else you wanted to ask me about there? Or can we run with the ball here?”

I’ll leave it there for now. I need to comprehensively get some work done.