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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.

Can I get a drum roll please… From the makers of Friday’s Quizzlet, Pye In The Face is proud to bring you – Monday’s Quotelet! This blog is at it’s best when it’s interactive, I’m a big fan of photo captioning contests, so it was only a matter of time until I introduced my own. It fell into place. The cookie crumbled. What comes around… came around. OK I’ll stop.

I wanted to have some special rule or stipulation that would set this contest apart – but at the same time I don’t want to be limited as to which sort of photo I use. I want the images to be current and topical. So it’ll be real simple. I’ll post a photo and get the ball rolling with a caption of my own. You guys can then try and top me. If someone manages to kick my ass, I’ll concede objectively. But I have to warn you – I’m pretty good. Bragging rights will take the form of a “current caption champ” section on the left hand sidebar – complete with your own photo and everything. And with no further adue…

“Paula – just so you know, I voted myself off three times in the car on the way here.”

I took Janet to see Jim Norton at the Comedy Connection Saturday night, and he was disgustingly hilarious. I first noticed ‘Little Jimmy’ as a regular on Tough Crowd, and have since become a big fan of his hyper-offensive and self-depricating style. Referring to one’s existence as the product of a scientist “injecting a pregnant duck with Down Syndrome” takes a level of self comfort that I’m not currently familiar with.

By far, my favorite joke was when Jim started talking about a T-Shirt he wants to create which would read – “It’s not rape if she blinks twice for yes”. I’m not going to try and do him justice here in print. Jimmy mentioned an HBO special he’d taped literally the night before in NYC, and I’m looking forward to seeing his “fat little b-cup man titties” again on my TV real soon. He’s among the best comedians working today and I’d suggest you check him out when he hits your town. Especially if you’re from the oft and easily-offended Garafalo/Cho camp.

It’s like clockwork. Just like a big stupid clock. The weekend comes and the heavens open up to piddle on Boston. So, like a trooper, I’ve stayed inside and done work today. A little domestic cleaning and a little on the laptop. So it hasn’t been a complete wash.

But listen, weather – and I’m deadly friggin’ serious now. One more weekend like this and I’m going to take down my weathervane, cancel my subscription to the Weather Channel and never – ever – listen to “It’s Raining Men” by the Weather Girls again. Not so tough now, are you… weather?

I am busy this week. Freaky busy. Four new clients starting the same month. I’m psyched we have a new sales guy and all, and by psyched I mean I want to drown him in a bathtub full of vinegar. Good for the company, but makey Davey crazy.

Had a great time with my old Vermont Academy buddies Cara and Bonnie last night. They’re just in town for a couple of nights, and what a first night we had. My point is, between work and necessary-decade-overdue socializing – blog time is scarce. So I need y’all to talk amongst yourselves today. I’ll even give you a topical topic.

Name a song that reminds you of someone you went to high school with, and why.

Oh, and I also want to point out that I have the leaked first-new-episode-in-3-years of Family Guy on my laptop ready for repeated weekend viewing. I love technology.

Have you ever wished there existed a one-stop-emporium for all things hockey enforcer related? Well, there already are a few hockey fight fan pages, but we’ll be adding a more humorous, personal bent to the pugilistic passtime. None of them are written and maintained by a minor league employee with a wit as sharp as a CCM blade, either. I’ll be helping out with the project and adding it to the mountain of partially-finished web projects now teetering on my virtual desk. It’s a great idea, a great domain name and I’m therefore proud to unveil:

www.goonblog.com

We’ll be clearing the benches towards the middle of next month, and I hope you’ll all get a kick out of it once it’s up and skating. I’m showing it to everyone now because as soon as I post it here on Pye In The Face – the sooner the search engines follow the link through and spider the domain. Jesus H. Christ I’m a dork.

Most hockey fans don’t need another reason to count Bobby Orr amongst their hockey heroes, but Sunday he gave them one anyway: “Our sport is in danger of becoming irrelevant unless both sides immediately put an end to this nonsense.” He’s referring of course to the complete lack of a hockey season this year, stemming from a stalemate which ultimately boils down to reasons of business (greed). Bureed. Grisness.

Bobby’s been quiet thus far regarding the labor dispute, publically putting trust in National Hockey League commissioner Gary Bettman and NHLPA executive director Bob Goodenow to resolve their differences and do what’s best for the game. Well not no more. Since the lockout’s inception on September 14th, the two men have met nearly 40 times to try and reach an agreement – and now Orr feels more drastic measures are in order:

“Owners and players should demand that both sides continue to meet until they emerge with a deal or a statement that they can’t resolve their differences and are stepping aside.” Orr is obviously not alone, but the buzz his column is generating on both sides of the border might finally push something through should either of the major players in the negotiations wish to keep their souls.

According to Mike Brophy, “Bettman, the sixth man in charge of running the NHL since 1917 has taken hockey from heaven to hell to non-existence.” Even the best Zamboni can’t smooth things over in that kind of heat, boys. Let’s just please wrap this up so I can stop pretending to like baseball. Much appreciated.

One of my co-workers has been chatting with his parents on and off all morning behind me. They live in Hawaii and apparently his poor mother was admitted to the hospital over the weekend, hence the multitude of calls. The one-sided versions of the conversations I’ve been privvy to started off normal enough, but have gotten progressively weirder as he must have been able to tell – because he just came over to tell me what was going on with mumsie.

Star Trek 2: The Wrath of Kahn sticks out among my childhood memories for two reasons. It was the first VHS tape we rented at the video store after getting a VCR in 1982. The second reason being the awful scenes involving Ricardo Montalban placing slugs into the ears of various prisoners thereby controlling their minds. “Mind-controlling Ceti Eels” to be exact. Please believe me when I tell you I had to look that up. There’s a party in my ear, and everyone’s invited.

So this guy’s mother wakes up Saturday morning with a narsty headache. After a few hours some blood begins to drip out of her ear and his father rushes her to the hospital where they learn she’s hosting an uninvited skull-guest. They’re taking it out later today and still don’t know exactly what it is. He seems to think it’s a cockroach as they’re apparently way too common in Hawaii. I think someone needs to track down Mr. Roarke immediately – the safety of the Reliant, the Genesis project and Dog the Bounty Hunter may depend on it!

People like to Google themselves. I’m no exception. I don’t want you to get the wrong idea though – Google as a verb means to look something up using the search engine of the same name. It’s not a euphamism for feverish masturbation. Although most people I know enjoy that as well. Myself? Well, some days I don’t even leave the house.

This site gets hits for “david pye” and “dave pye” every single solitary day. They can’t all be looking for me. So I decided to sniff around and see what some of the few folks I share my name with have been up to. Are Dave Pyes Googling themselves and finding me? Are there Dave Pyes of considerable notoriety out there somewhere? Nobel prize winners? Astronauts? I decided to have a wee look.

There’s Dave Pye the power lifter. Dave Pye the math teacher. Dave Pye the sound engineer. Dave Pye the software COO. Dave Pye the electrician. Dave Pye the distributor. Dave Pye the DJ (he even refers to himself as “Pyeman”) – and the list goes on. The other thing all these cats have in common is that they’re English. Apparently we’re a dime a dozen on the haunted isle. Am I the only colonial Dave Pye? Do others exist? If you find this, let me know. It would appear we’re on the brink of extinction here in North America. Act now and Sally Struthers will send you a bundt cake.

I got my new Inspiron 6000 home last night, switched it on, and immediately found myself jacked in to someone’s wireless connection. And to top it all off – it’s one of the fastest wireless connections I’ve ever seen. Amazing. Is it the girls who live above me? Is it Seamus? Is it someone across the way? I don’t know – and I don’t care.

I was planning to spend the day on my roofdeck, getting some sun and setting up my new machine. But at the stroke of weekend, the weather went south and I’m stuck indoors like a veal. It was beautiful all week. And it’s supposed to be beautiful all next week. But the moment I got off of work, the locust descended.

So I suppose I’ll make a pot of Tim Horton’s and enjoy my new toy. Incidentally, today is Boss’s 8th birthday. My best little orange buddy is 56 in cat years. Time flies. Actually – time screams. Like this wireless connection.