Dictations of the Office Overlord

And if you act now...

2009-09-15T16:27:00.000-07:00

As a follow-up to the previous entry, I'm a little surprised to say that I did, in fact, hear from the recruiter (let's call her "Jessica") again. She called me two weeks later, or one week later than she said she would. Interestingly, she specifically referenced our meeting in Target, though she left out the part about the boys' underwear.

She reminded me that she was a recruiter for a financial services company, although she didn't mention which one this time. Then she told me she was going to be in my area ("") again soon, and wanted to set up a meeting, "just ten or fifteen minutes to go over some things."

"Sounds great," I said, "but since I'm a stay-at-home Dad right now, meetings are a little tricky for me. Could we cover this first one over the phone?"

Pause from Jessica. Then:

"Well, I really prefer to do business in person. I can be...I can be flexible, I mean, I could do something in the evening...how about...uh...I'll call you back."

That was about two weeks ago now, and I haven't heard another word from her since. It seems almost impossible to believe that she has any sort of legitimacy about her, and yet I still can't figure out the scam. If she's just after SSNs, it seems a really difficult way to go about it. Was she going to knock me over the head at this meeting? Was I going to wake up in a bathtub full of ice with one kidney and only two of my three references? If anyone out there has a better idea, I'm all ears.

No, she didn't say if she was Nigerian

2009-08-19T08:31:00.000-07:00

As you may have gathered, I've been without an office to lord over for a few months now. In that time, I've been searching for a job while being a stay-at-home dad for my two boys, two activities that have grown increasingly more frantic (and occasionally discouraging) as the weeks have piled up. I'm ready for a break, of either the "vacation" or the "lucky" variety, or possibly even of the "5 to 7 years with no opportunity for parole" variety.

So I'm standing in Target on Monday, looking at little boys' underwear, when a voice behind me says, "Excuse me." I glance over my shoulder and see, not a poice officer, but a young woman pushing a shopping cart full of kids.

"Sure," I said, moving to provide her with equal underwear access. (Oh, how infrequently I say those words at this married, toddler-ridden stage of my life. Or pretty much any stage prior to this one, for that matter. But I digress.)

"No, I wanted to talk to you," she said.

"Oh!" I replied suavely. No doubt the studious contemplation I am giving to the question of whether to gird my child's loins in Diego or Grover has made her single me out as a caring father. What will she ask me, I wonder? Potty training advice? How to throw a spiral? How to keep her little darling from pulling down on Mommy's bathing suit top at the public pool? I hope she's prepared for a gentle rejection on all of those topics.

"I'm a recruiter with Citigroup," she says. "We're looking at opening a number of offices in the area, and we'll need to staff them up pretty quickly. I'm just wondering, are you keeping your career options open?"

Now, I have relatively little experience as a recruiter, but I have to say, one place I never looked for candidates was among the "spending a little too much time in boys' underwear" group at my local Target. I'd think that this economy would have the qualified candidates (and the people like me) flocking to the recruiters, not the other way around. Is this the new paradigm in the recruiting world? Or should I be concerned about a scam? And what kinds of recruiting scams are there, anyway?

Dad over Drone

2009-08-02T11:37:00.000-07:00

Five things about being a stay-at-home dad that are better than working in an office:

- Plenty of reading material in the bathroom means not having to print out Bill Simmons and then grabbing it off the printer before the boss does

- You can drink beer all day instead of having to load up in the morning before work

- Able to indulge my crush on Laurie Berkner without making excuses

- Having to stay late at work doesn't mean much

- Did I mention the beer?

Drone equals Dad

2009-07-15T12:23:00.001-07:00

Five ways in which being a stay-at-home dad is exactly like working in the office:

- Co-workers with the maturity of three-year-olds (or less)

- Weekends rule!

- Unable to enjoy any significant amount of quiet, self-reflective personal time without someone banging on the bathroom door

- Having to repeat myself. Having to repeat myself. Having to repeat myself. Having to...etc.

- A constant nagging fear that the people I'm in charge of will realize I have no idea what I'm doing

Drone over Dad

2009-07-05T10:11:00.000-07:00

Five things I miss about working in the office now that I'm a stay-at-home dad:

- Starting sentences with words other than "No".

- You can think a co-worker is hot without burning in Hell. (Not applicable in all states)

- Payday.

- A feeling of accomplishment other than "Well, everybody's still alive." (Wait, what am I talking about? I've never had that in the office, either.)

- Being relatively sure that the brown stain on my shirt is coffee.

The AfterFred (Part X)

2009-06-29T10:34:00.000-07:00

(Note: This is the end of a long, long story. For the beginning, click here.)

So what did we learn from the Fred "M"oland experience?

Well, for one, the obvious--take pictures, write down *everything* on the Statement of Condition, document everything you can and hold onto it. The fact is, if Fred had gotten off his butt and simply sent us a letter within the 30-day time limit listing his deductions and damages--fictitious or not--we would've had a much harder time proving our case against him, because it would've been simply our word against his. Fortunately, he didn't, and so we had both goodness and the law on our side. A nice one-two punch.

We learned that if the tenants before you are able to convince their dad to drive up from a neighboring state just to pump heating oil out of the tank rather than leave it for the landlord, you might want to reconsider your choice of landlords. If it's too late, well, a few extra pictures might not be a bad idea.

We learned that if your upstairs neighbor knocks on your door and offers to trade you some pills he found in his apartment for a bag of weed, you shouldn't answer your door in the future.

We learned not to rent from anyone who bears a strong resemblance to an aquatic mammal.

We learned that "Don't worry about that" can, on the lips of a lawyer, have a variety of meanings. To us, it meant, "I'd rather see this settled than make any additional money on it, so take the two grand and let's get out of here." When I received the check from David the following week, it turned out that what it had meant to him was, "I'm willing to settle for another $350 off the top so you guys can get your original deposit back, minus the $500 that you've already paid me."

Corollary: we learned why lawyers get everything in writing before agreeing to it.

And when all was said and done, we learned the value of compromise. I still wonder if we could've stuck it to Fred in court. I also wonder if we would've ended up with a jury of landlords and gotten nothing at all out of him. We did get our original deposit back, mostly, and we got the satisfaction of knowing that Fred didn't gain anything out of the deal. It ain't exactly triple damages, but it's something.

One more thing we learned, much later:

I pondered, for a long time, what my moral duty was to future tenants of Fred "M"oland, the Peachtree Trust, or whichever other sham name he whipped up for himself in the future. Should I try to warn every future resident of that house? Could I drop flyers? Take out an ad? At what point would it cross the line to harassment? I wasn't sure, so I did nothing and hoped that the scars would fade over time.

Then, in December of that year I received a very odd phone call. It was from Joanne, a new tenant at Fred's apartment. A package for me had been sent to my old address; fortunately, the sender had put my cell phone number on it, which was still accurate after all this time. Would I like to come pick it up?

I couldn't let this opportunity pass me by. Not just for the package--although I do really like presents--but to check in on the old digs and see if this poor person knew what she'd gotten herself into. I gathered up some of my notes from the case and headed over.

Joanne gave me the package, we made small talk for a while, and then I asked:

"So...what do you think of the landlord so far?"

Her look spoke volumes. Fortunately, so did she.

It started, for them, when they had some troubles with their dishwasher. After several calls, and familiarly enough, a missed rent check, Fred came by to look at it. Joanne remembered that part clearly, because he scared her half to death when she came out from the bedroom to find that he had let himself in, unannounced, and was hunkered down over the sink. He grunted menacingly and brandished his tusks, and she retreated to the bedroom again with her laundry.

A bit later, she returned to the kitchen to find that he was sitting at the table, helping himself to some leftovers from her refrigerator. This was when Joanne began to suspect that he was not, perhaps, the most upstanding of citizens.

"Wow," I said. "That may be a new low even for Fred. What do your neighbors in the other apartment think?"

"Oh, they're long gone," she said.

"Oh?"

Apparently, the downstairs neighbors had tired of Fred's antics even more quickly than Joanne and her husband had. Two of them moved out early; the third was still looking for a place, and had to stay a bit longer. That meant that he was there for several unannounced visits as Fred roamed through the apartment looking for damages to trump up (or, more likely, a bucket of raw fish).

One night, when he heard the sound of Fred's key in the lock yet again, the remaining tenant decided to do something about it. So he slipped into the bathroom with a cell phone, locked the door, and quietly called the police to report that someone had just broken into his apartment and he was hiding in the bathroom. Could they please send help right away?

Two of Belmont's finest were at the door just minutes later, blue lights flashing. Naturally, Fred was quite confused and unsure of which prepared alibi he should use. Sadly, we'll never know what he may have confessed to. The drama was cut short when the tenant came out of the bathroom--"Oh, Fred, it's just you! My bad!"--and everything was sorted out. The tenant moved out very shortly after, leaving behind a wonderful story for Joanne and, I assume, his security deposit.

When she had finished telling the story, I handed Joanne the packet of papers that I'd brought. "Here's everything you'll need when you move out," I said. "What we did...relevant passages of Massachusetts Housing Law...and here's the name of a lawyer familiar with Fred and what he did in our case." (Yeah, I gave her David's name, even after our little $350 misunderstanding. Again, the value of compromise--keeping Fred from stealing anything was the greater good.)

"Just do me one favor," I asked, "and share it with whoever moves in downstairs from you." Joanne assured me that she would.

That was the last I saw or heard from her. Up until I started writing this saga, I hadn't thought about it much since then. But here we are in a busy market, with college kids moving out and new tenants starting to look...perhaps its time to swing by that old brown house in Belmont and drop off some papers for those prospective tenants.

The perfect post title...for justice! (Part IX)

2009-06-29T10:14:00.001-07:00

It seemed to take forever, and yet it seemed to take no time at all, much like reading this blog, only not. Finally, before we knew it, the day was here. October 2 dawned clear and cool. It was the perfect weather...for justice!

This was it. It would be the final battle. One of us would not be leaving that courtroom alive. Or at least, one of us would not be leaving with our security deposit. To improve odds a bit, I asked James and Bert to go with me. Together, we formed a perfect team...for justice!

James and Bert were still roommates, so I met them at their place and we headed toward the Cambridge District Court in Bert's car. Howard Stern was playing on the radio. I've never been a big fan of Howard's--partly due to an unfortunate experience with a previous roommate (who is, by himself, a story for another day), and partly because, well, you can't like everybody. For some reason, though, on this day, I didn't mind. We were loose, relaxed, ready for action. We were on the side of good. We had the strength of our numbers and a lawyer on our side. On a day like that, even Howard Stern seems OK. Better than OK, it was perfect. The perfect radio...for justice!

We parked on the street (the perfect parking spot...ah, nevermind) and headed into the imposing stone structure. I'd made a practice run the day before, so we found it easily, and with the extra time we allotted for traffic we were actually a little early. We located the right courtroom and were the first ones to take a seat. David DeCelles wasn't there yet, so we were content to just talk amongst ourselves and wait.

Now, I mentioned last time that I might have to get a haircut for this one. When this court process had started, I had a tangly, frizzy mess of ruggedly handsome curls that ended somewhere in the vicinity of my shoulder blades. Between my last appearance with Fred and this one, I'd sent all those ruggedly handsome curls to Locks of Love, much to the delight of my parents and the dismay of my hockey team, which believed that my hair had Samson-like qualities. (To this day, I like to picture some little girl opening a package from Locks of Love, putting on the wig inside, getting a faraway look in her eyes, and saying, "I think I wanna be...a goalie when I grow up.") I'd decided to shave my head partly in conjunction with the aforementioned State Police interview process, and partly because it was just so darned *hot* that summer. Since I no longer needed a beard to make my gender apparent from a distance, that went, too.

But I didn't realize just how different I looked until Fred gallumphed in and took a seat right next to me. He swept the room with his beady little eyes, but I was blocking his view of Bert and James, and he obviously didn't recognize me. He took out a yellow legal pad--probably the closest relationship he's ever had with legality--and scrawled some notes. I did my best to read them over his shoulder, but his inability to evolve opposable thumbs didn't do much for his handwriting.

I was still trying to decide if I should strike up a conversation with him about kids these days when the judge entered the room. (After all the episodes of "Night Court" I've watched, I'm still surprised that we didn't have to "All rise!" when he entered the room. Once again, real life falls short of my TV-generated expectations.) As in Waltham, we began with a roll call. I think my favorite exchange of the whole proceedings was this one:

Judge: "Morrison v. Boland."

Fred: "Defendant."

Me: (after a beat, turn and give Fred my biggest smile) "Plaintiff!"

He jumped as high as his stubby little fins could propel him and quickly flipped the legal pad over so I couldn't see it, edging away from me as he did. Most enjoyment I got out of the whole trial.

We were again offered the option of mediation, but as it had worked so well for us before, we politely declined. With that, we were left to our own devices as the judge moved on to the next case. Fortunately, David showed up then and pulled me outside the courtroom for a chat. Bert and James followed.

Remember, this was the first time I had met my attorney face to face. For lack of a better description, he looked like a lawyer; tall, well-groomed, with distinguished gray hair and the requisite leather satchel. We shook hands all around and then got down to business. After a few minutes refresher and a few additional details, David offered to go talk with Fred. We waited in the hall.

He came back after a bit with an update: Fred was offering to refund our entire security deposit to us now.

"Right now?"

"Yes, today."

It was too easy. Not so much for us, but for Fred. And since we'd now purchased almost $500 of David's time to date, and we knew the law allowed for triple damages for this offense, it wasn't enough. Fred was not getting off that easy, and we told David so. He nodded and headed back into the courtroom.

He came out after a much longer pause this time. "He's not willing to negotiate," he said simply. "He wants to take his chances with the jury."

Okay. Unless the jury was composed entirely of crooked landlords, we had this in the bag. I mean, we had an attorney! And I'd gotten a haircut! What more could we need?

We spent some time going back through Fred's list of damages, explaining again why each one was bogus. After that we just stood in the hall and waited. And waited. And waited. James called in to work to say that he'd be later than he thought. Bert and I wallowed in our unemployment and just kept on waiting.

David popped in and out of the courtroom to check on the proceedings in there. At 11:00, he came back out with a grim look on his face. "They haven't even started jury selection yet," he reported.

Tell me again about the speedy trial? Is that really the same amendment as the one about a jury of your peers?

"Why don't we see if there's a free mediation room," our attorney suggested. "It can't hurt anything at this point."

We shrugged our assent, and off he went. It turned out that there was both a free room and a mediator to go with it, so we trooped on in. I don't know if David had to do any arm-twisting (sadly, only of the verbal variety) to get Fred in there, but he joined us shortly thereafter. The mediator, Denise, was a pleasant woman who acted like she'd probably been there long enough to have heard it all but not quite long enough to stop caring.

Once again, each side presented its case. We went first, and as I was getting pretty used to this by now, I summed up our side for her in much less time (and with fewer walrus jokes) than it's taken me to write.

Then it was Fred's turn. By now he had abandoned the "I don't own the property, I just own the trust" defense, and he saw what happened when he tried relying on the arbitration clause of his lease. Instead, his argument now seemed to be that giving the security deposit back to any one of us would result in each of the other two suing him for the same amount, so that he would be liable for paying triple the amount of the original deposit back to us.

I'm not exactly sure how this was a defense. Neither was David, who started gleefully cross-examining Fred until Denise made him stop. She decided it might be best if she spoke to each side separately, so she ushered Fred out of the room and sat back down with us. As soon as the door closed, Denise cut to the chase.

"How much would you be willing to settle for here?" she asked.

This was the first time we'd been asked that question, and we really weren't sure. "How much can we get?" we asked.

She shrugged. "Would you take the full deposit?" We shook our heads. "1,800? 2,000?"

"Fred needs to pay something for this," I broke in. "Or he's just going to do it to the next tenant. And we're not willing to let him keep a nickel of that deposit. Two thousand would still leave us short after our legal fees."

It was David's turn to pipe up. "Don't worry about that," he said. "If that's all that keeps this from being settled...we can work that out."

"So, two thousand?" Denise asked again.

We looked at each other. We looked at David. We looked at each other again. We were all thinking it, but I had to say it.

"Absolute minimum. Please don't start there." David nodded his agreement.

Now it was our turn to head out into the hallway, while Fred waddled back in. We sat down on the uncomfortable wooden benches that were apparently purchased for every courthouse in Massachusetts. After a few minutes of silence, I had this conversation with David:

Me: "We're in the right here, aren't we? I mean, I'm sure every client you've ever had thinks that he's in the right...but it seems like we really are. He's pretty much taken the Mass housing law and violated it word for word, hasn't he?"

David: "The guy's a bozo."

I've changed my mind about what I said earlier. THAT was my favorite exchange of the whole proceedings.

"So why are we talking about settling?" I asked. "Seems like, if the book is this open and shut, shouldn't we throw it at him?"

"Well, you'd like to, but the reality is that it doesn't usually work that way," answered David. "People are rarely awarded the full amount to which the law says they're entitled. We'd probably have to be here all day before they selected a jury and heard the cases before ours. They might not even get to us today, and then we'd have to come back. If we can get a check out of this guy today, we should take it."

I was still chewing on that when the door opened and Denise motioned us back in.

"Mr. Moland has agreed," she began, "to write you a check today for $2,000, in return for the three of you dismissing the claim against him."

You could see that coming, couldn't you? In hindsight...well, we'll get to that later. Again, the three of us looked at each other, visions of triple damages slowly fading from our eyes.

"I don't know," I said slowly. "We've already paid a lot in attorney's fees, and we've been here for another three and half hours' worth today..."

"That...don't worry about that," David shook his head reassuringly.

We looked at each other again. Not much point in paying for an expert opinion if you're not going to take it. Also not much point in pushing for a trial your lawyer obviously doesn't want. Besides, if he was willing to reduce his fee to get this settled, he obviously thought it was the right move. And it was closing on a year, now, that I'd been pursuing this. It was time to put it to rest. Looking again to James and Bert, we all nodded.

"All right," said Denise brightly. She quickly scratched out the terms of the agreement. It was very straightforward; Fred wrote us a check, we dropped the case, and both sides agreed not to sue the other over this again. We all signed it, and Denise went off to make copies.

For some reason, to prove to us, once and for all, that he was indeed the biggest wanker we could ever hope to meet, Fred opened his mouth.

"Any of you guys work with computers?" he asked.

We looked at each other. Bert and I both worked for software companies, so we kind of fit the bill. We shrugged.

"My son's been having trouble trying to save a document that he's been working on for school," Fred said. "When he opens it up and changes anything, then tries to save it, it tells him that it can't locate the file. Have you guys ever heard of anything like that happening? Any idea how to fix it?"

I was dumbfounded. I opened my mouth to reply, but no sound came out. This man--no, I can't even call him a man--this mammal had spent the last fifteen months trying to steal $1,650 from us, and now he had the nerve to ask us for help? If I were to light him on fire, I wouldn't stop long enough to spit on him, and he's asking for help? In what twisted recess of his mind does that make sense?

I don't remember exactly what we told him. I think Bert may have mumbled something about file corruption (appropriate, that) and we left it at that. If I had it to do over again, I would've told him to delete his Windows boot file and left him staring at the black screen of death, but I was too flabbergasted to think of that at the time. We just needed to get the check and get out of there. Denise returned to the room with several copies of the signed mediation agreement and passed them around.

The chairs in the mediation room were extremely large and unwieldy, which is the only reason that Fred is still alive today. After we all had our copies of the agreement, he said, "Now, I can't write you the check today, because I don't have enough in the account to cover this. I'll have to send it to you."

I blinked. James began turning purple. Bert made an odd gurgling sound. Acting quickly to protect his clients from themselves, David stepped in.

"Make the check out to me," he said. "I will wait until Thursday to deposit it and then send a check to Mr. Morrison. Is that acceptable?" He looked at us.

"Next week would be--" Fred began. Denise cleared her throat. "Yeah, OK, I can get it done by Thursday."

Deep breaths all around.

We left, shook David's hand, thanked him for all his help, and went on our way. James called into work again to say that he'd be even later, and we headed over to the Cheesecake Factory for lunch and much-needed beer.

Next (and final) post: The Aftermath; lessons learned, bridges burned, and more things staying the same.

Hammer time (Part VIII)

2009-06-29T10:05:00.000-07:00

Ah yes, the right of the accused to a trial by a jury of his peers. Stupid Sixth Amendment. Aren't Constitutional amendments supposed to protect the downtrodden and oppressed? (Oh, right...sorry.) And the appeal was scheduled for a full two months in the future, presumably so an expedition to the Arctic Circle could be organized to round up a herd of Fred's peers.

In addition to leaving our security deposit in Fred's grubby flippers for sixty more days, there was another problem with the trial date: it coincided with one of the many steps I was treading in the Maine State Police application process, the full details of which will be chronicled in the book "Not Quite Hero Material," available soon at your local bookstores or, more likely, on this blog over another overlong series of posts. I don't remember exactly which step in the process this one was--if I recall correctly, the timing should make it the review board--but I do remember clearly the boldface all-caps print telling me that THIS TEST MAY NOT BE RESCHEDULED.

I couldn't be in two places at once. It was time to get help. I needed a lawyer.

But how to find one?

My previous experience with members of the legal profession in Massachusetts fell into three categories:

- Randy, the corporate counsel from my last job. Like me, Randy was a Colgate grad, and as such, the stories I heard about his exploits featured more keg stands than witness stands. Besides, as one might expect from a corporate counsel, housing law was not his area of specialization;

- Late-night commercials for personal injury attorneys with names that sounded like rejected professional wrestlers, such as Jim "The Hammer" Shapiro and Howie "Squid Pro Quo" Fine. Their ads were always fun, with very serious-looking men wearing very bad toupees asserting "I'm Bobby 'The Teddy Bear' Robertson, but my friends call me 'The Executioner.' If you've ever been injured, know someone who's been injured, or have injured someone else, you're probably entitled to sue them. Call now and we can have you in a neck brace before you're off the phone! As I like to say, 'Habeas Corpses, baby'!" And, of course,

- Law & Order reruns.

None of these seemed like an entirely satisfactory resource. Instead, I turned to the Yellow Pages, where I found the listing "Lawyers - Landlord & Tenant." There were two names there, one of which was "AAA Super Best Legal Guys," so I picked the geographically closer one, Attorney David T. DeCelles of Arlington, MA.

I know what some of you are thinking, and you should be ashamed of yourselves. But I also know what some OTHERS of you are thinking, and that is: After all the time and effort I've put into this, I'm going to trust my case to a name picked at random out of the Yellow Pages? To which I respond: well...er...um...

The important thing here is that I wasn't looking for legal help, merely someone who could stand in my place and request that the trial be postponed until such time as I could be present for it. A trained seal could do as much. Unfortunately, walruses are their natural predators, so I needed a human.

I called up David and explained the case to him. He asked a few intelligent questions and agreed that I was totally in the right, so he obviously knew what he was talking about. We settled on an hourly rate that I hoped was fair, and I sent him a copy of the court documents and my notes on the case to date. (Some have said that I can be a bit long-winded when I write, dragging an account on for pages and pages when the pertinent details could be summed up in just a few paragraphs. I have no idea what those people are talking about, but in case they were right, I did hope he was a fast reader. He was charging by the hour, after all.) Again, I emphasized, I just needed someone to show up for the court appearance and ask for it to be postponed until I could be there. He assured me that he'd take care of it. Satisfied, I headed off to Maine for a trial of a different sort.

I returned to find a letter in my mailbox from the Third District Court of Eastern Middlesex (giggle...I said...), Cambridge Division. Ah! My new trial date! I eagerly tore open the envelope and read:

"Michael Morrison (Plaintiff) vs. F. Boland (Defendant).

This action came on to be heard at this sitting
Judge Hogan
and the Plaintiff
Michael Morrison
having failed to appear this action is dismissed."

Blink.

Dis...huh?

I sat down.

A trained seal. A trained seal!

I placed a call to my apparently untrained seal and left a message on his answering machine. "Hi David, Mike Morrison here. Just got back from my trip and found a letter here stating that the case was dismissed because I failed to appear. Why would it say such a thing? Give me a call when you can, please." I thought I sounded very calm, as they say one does when one is on the verge of committing a violent crime. I then headed inside to await the late-night ads in hopes of finding new legal representation.

Fortunately, David contacted me before it came to that. Turns out that a clerk in the district court had told him that the case was not scheduled for that day, or in fact for any day in June. Being an attorney, bless his heart, he made sure to get that in writing. Armed with this evidence of administrative misinformation, he assured me that it would be a simple matter to get the case back on track. He would file the necessary motions to do so and keep me informed. In return, I would put down the knife and back away slowly.

A new trial was scheduled for July 10, then rescheduled for July 17 when Fred protested that he wouldn't be able to make the first one. (The irony was not lost on me, either.) Since I was not required to appear, I had nothing to do but wait and hope that David made it to this one.

He did. And it went well. Because I enjoyed them so much, I'll let him tell it in his own words [with my comments in brackets]:

"Mr Morrison:

"Yesterday (July 17) I appeared before Judge Kilmartin [couldn't get a Judge Kilfred?] regarding my motion to get this matter back on track for the jury trial as per Mr. Boland's statutory demand.

"Although I was there at 9:00 AM, Mr. Boland had called ahead and said he would be late.

"Even after his arrival, we were not heard until 11:20 AM.

"Mr. Boland filed a written opposition. [Remember when he defaulted--twice--and I didn't oppose letting him back in? Do you see why I feel some antipathy toward the man? I bet he cheats at solitaire, too.]

"After interrogating Mr. Boland, Judge Kilmartin not only allowed the motion (reactivating the case); but also amended the original complaint to add Fred Boland, Trustee, Peachtree Trust, as a second party defendant.

"The latter occurred because Mr. Boland made much of his claim that you had selected the wrong defendant in that the building had been sold, during your tenancy, by himself, as individual, to a trust in which he is the trustee.

[This is my favorite part!] "Instead of creating a favorable impression by revealing that fact, the impact was the opposite in that it appeared to Judge Kilmartin, and rightly so, that Mr. Boland was trying a relatively unsophisticated trick to avoid liability.

"The matter has been scheduled for trial at the Cambridge District Court, Jury Session, for 9:00 AM on October 2, 2002. Of course, you must appear to testify on your own behalf, and I shall be there as well.

Very truly yours,

David T. DeCelles."

October 2. Fifty weeks to the day since I first filed in Small Claims court. A trial by jury! I might have to get a haircut for that one. I assumed David would coach me about such things. I wonder if I got to help select the jury? Ooo, what an experience this would be!

Well, I was right about that part.

Next post: Justice comes with cheesecake

"Hangin' Judge Finucane" has a nice ring to it (Part VII)

2009-06-29T09:56:00.000-07:00

'Twas a bit past noon when we emerged from our fruitless mediation session and returned to the courtroom. Not surprisingly, Middlesex County Clerk-Magistrate Michael J. Finucane was at lunch. The mediator went off to find him, and after a few minutes, he entered the courtroom, wiping a bit of mayo from his mouth as he ascended to the bench.

This was now the third time I'd sat before the Hon. Mr. Finucane to present my case, but the first time that someone had sat at the table opposite me. Our previous sessions had been much more enjoyable (for him as well, I suspect). The first order of business was the defendant's motion to remove the judgment of default. "You can object to this," the judge told me, "but unless you can show a good reason why the case should not be heard, I will probably have to allow it anyway."

I waved my hand dismissively. "I've got no objection," I said. "I'm happy to let the case be decided on its merits." Wasn't I cute? All that naivete and no place to go! (I have no theme music, so I can't properly set up the foreshadowing here, but remember this event--it'll come up again next post.)

That out of the way, it was time for each of us to present our sides. I went first, and I believe the two practices served me well; I was able to be pretty straight and to the point. ("Moved out. Waited 30 days. Didn't get deposit back. Want deposit. Also, please disembowel landlord. Thank you.")

Fred, on the other hand, seemed to think that the judge would be on his side against this punk kid. He started with his list of damages, showing how irresponsible we punk kids were with our drunken parties and careless showers and stampeding herds of water buffalo and all the other acts that he was sure were taking place at his apartment, all leading to this final $9,000 bill for--

"How much?" interrupted the magistrate.

"Over $9,000, your Honor," Fred said, throwing a smug glance at me.

"Well, the limit for Small Claims Court is $2,000," the judge replied. "If you want to submit this as a counterclaim, you'll either have to reduce the amount of your claim to that limit, or file this as a separate suit in civil court. You can do so downstairs in the Clerk's Office after we're done here, if you like."

The smugness disappeared. "Two...claim...civil...huh?" Fred argued glibly.

The Hon. Mr. Finucane repeated himself, speaking slowly and clearly, as one would to a small child, or perhaps an aquatic mammal. For whatever reason, Fred was unwilling to give up any of his fictional damages, so he withdrew his counterclaim--"For now," he said. Whatever. If Small Claims Court was the "simpler, faster process," I was pretty certain we'd exceed his life expectancy (only 35-40 years in captivity, according to safariclubfoundation.org) long before he pushed anything through civil court.

Fred next pointed out that he no longer owned the property in question. The property and its accompanying security deposit had been transferred to a trust. Therefore, if we wanted our deposit back, we would have to sue the trust. Oh, and pay Fred for all this wasted time in court.

"A trust?" inquired the judge.

"Yes, your Honor, the Peachtree Trust," Fred replied, the smugness back.

"And are you the trustee?" asked the judge.

"Well...yes," Fred replied, less smugly.

"And are there any other trustees?" queried the judge.

"Yes, your Honor," Fred replied, only mildly smugly.

"And who are they?" pressed the judge.

"Um...my wife..." Fred replied, totally smug-free.

"I see."

There was a moment of silence. I was beginning to think that perhaps Fred's showing up this time would actually improve the odds of a judgment in our favor.

Fred's final argument was to point to the arbitration clause in the lease that we had signed, which clearly waived our right to a trial in the event of any dispute concerning the lease. For this one, I actually had to argue my case, and I can't tell you how happy I was that I had done all that homework back before the first trial. I mean, I spent entire semesters in college without doing the kind of research I'd done for this case. (Uh...just kidding, Mom and Dad!) Notes in hand, I fired back.

"First of all, this dispute has nothing to do with the lease. The lease is over and done with. This is about the security deposit that you've stolen after the lease ended. Second of all--" I flipped to page four of my notes "--according to Massachuessets General Law Chapter 186, Section 15F, 'Any provision of a lease or other rental agreement relating to residential real property whereby the tenant agrees to waive his right to trial by jury in any subsequent litigation with the landlord...shall be deemed to be against public policy and void'." I produced a printout of the passage I had just quoted and held it out to Fred. He didn't take it. My hand was shaking a bit from the adrenaline rush--was this how Vinny Gambini got started?--so I returned the paper to my pile.

"Well, you still did $9,000 worth of damages to that apartment." Fred cleverly replied. Apparently, he'd run out of new arguments for the day.

"Fred, the only legitimate charge in there is the cans in the basement, and you know it," I shot back.

"My son spent a whole day cleaning those!" he argued.

"Well maybe if you'd done something when we called and told you the basement was flooding, they wouldn't have gotten so dirty," I responded. (And yes, I know this sounds like a lost episode of 'Jerry Springer'.)

"You'll have to talk to God about that, not me," was Fred's retort.

"I did. He said you should replace the broken sump pump. And also something about 'Thou shalt not...' help me out here...rhymes with 'veal'..." This is what I wish I'd said, now that I've had several years to think about it. What I actually said was, "I did. He was busy."

Not quite as punchy, is it? In future versions of this story, I'll probably just go with the first line. I'm swearing anyone who's still paying attention to secrecy here and now.

Anyway, Middlesex County Clerk-Magistrate Michael J. Finucane chose this moment to step in, narrowly averting an outbreak of slap-fighting. "Alright, I think I've heard enough here to make a judgment," he said. "You'll receive your decision in a few days."

Huh? A few days? Where was the instant gratification? Where was the gavel banging "Guilty!" and the burly bailiff upending Fred and comically shaking money out of his pockets into my outstretched hands? I'd had visions of seizing his car that very day! And now I have to wait? Argh!

The next few days passed torturously slowly...as did the following few...and the few after that. Why was it taking so long? Was the arbitration clause really valid? Was Fred doing something behind my back? Would he be laughing at me from the shady boughs of the Peachtree Trust?

Ten days I spent wondering these things, until that happy afternoon when the mailman brought me a letter from the Waltham District Court. Eagerly, I tore it open to read the words I'd longed to see:

JUDGMENT FOR PLAINTIFF(S)

And then, in much smaller print:

The defendant's reliance on the arbitration clause treated as affirmative defense.

I didn't know what that meant. I really didn't care. The clock was ticking once again, and Fred had 30 days to pay or we could start getting medieval on his butt. Sure, it had taken six months, but I like my justice, like my revenge, served ice-cold. I also like my lemonade that way, but that's neither here nor there.

"But wait!" you say. "In our judicial system, doesn't any party in a legal case who feels that it has been treated unfairly have the right to appeal that decision to a jury of their peers?"

Thanks.

One week later, this notice came in the mail:

"Please be advised that the above defendant has appealed the judgment that was rendered in small claims court in Waltham on 4/9/02. This appeal will be heard by a jury in Cambridge Court at a future date and time to be determined by that court."

A trial by jury?

Back to the Law & Order reruns...

Next post: Justice takes a commercial break

There's no "im" in "mediate" (Part VI)

2009-06-29T09:47:00.001-07:00

If you're still reading this, you have an even more boring job than I did. Good for you! Thanks for killing some time with me.

Now, back to the neverending saga of Fred "M"oland. If I recall correctly, the facts of the case were thus:

- I was one of three roommates who rented a moderately dilapidated apartment from Fred.
- We moved out in July of 2001 and waited three months for the security deposit that, by law, he had 30 days to return.
- We filed suit against him in Small Claims Court in October of 2001 and won, not once, but twice, when Fred failed to show up for either appearance.
- The court ordered Fred to pay up by April 15, 2002 (an enjoyably auspicious date for numerous reasons, chiefly being both tax day and the day the Titanic went down). I was to return for a "payment review" a week later, at which point, had Fred not paid, I could hire a constable to collect from him. (But would I be able to find the LAPD officers from the Rodney King video in time?)

And the most important fact of the case thus far:

- Fred is an idiot.

So it was no surprise when, after receiving notice of the second judgment, he again filed the same series of motions to remove the judgment and award himself the same $9,000 in damages. And I do mean "the same", because he simply mailed in an exact copy of his previous letter, right down to the February date and the typos.

And so, at 9 AM on April Fool's Day--really, I couldn't make this stuff up, though I wish I was--I found myself sitting once again in my favorite seat in the Waltham District Court of Middlesex County, listening to the magistrate call the docket of cases for that morning. For the third time, he called out "Michael Morrison vs. Fred Moland," and for the third time, I raised my hand and replied, "Plaintiff."

And for the first time, a voice called out "Defendant."

I didn't recognize him at first. You'd think it would be hard to forget the pig-eyed, ox-jowled, balding-walrus-headed face of your arch-nemesis. Turns out that those exact features are common to a much larger portion of the Boston small claims court population than I would have believed. To this day, when I meet someone matching that description, I'm aware of the instant dislike that I have for him (or, more rarely, her). I suppose it's similar to the new awareness that you have for a certain type of car or laxative after you've purchased one yourself; it was always there, you just notice it more now that you're looking for it.

Wow! Fred was actually there! This would mean that I would have to argue the case on its merits, rather than simply winning by showing up! It was like being thrust from the Special Olympics into the X-Games. All the nervousness that I'd felt the first two times came flooding back to me in a torrent of anxiety. At that moment, I was aware of two things: one, that I could not recall ever having won an important one-on-one competition in my life; and two, that antiperspirant ads are horrendously misleading. "Body-heat activated," my butt. "Body-heat overwhelmed" was more like it.

When both parties show up in Small Claims court, they offer you one last chance to work out your problems without involving the law. Trained mediators are standing by to try to help the two parties reach an arrangement before wasting the judge's time. If you cannot come to an agreement, you can still go back to the courtroom and battle things out there.

The judge explains all of this to you when he calls your name, and asks if you would like to attempt mediation. Being still without gainful employment, and not averse to wasting Fred's time (which, if you recall, he'd previously valued at roughly $150 per court appearance), I said sure. I'm not sure why Fred agreed as well; it may be that he didn't want to appear unaccommodating, though I doubt that. He may have known that he didn't have a legal leg to stand on and thought that he could talk his way into a smaller settlement. Or maybe he is just genetically programmed to come into contact with as many people as he can annoy. I'm really not sure. In either case, we both headed back out to the lobby to await our turn at mediation.

And await it.

And await it.

And await it.

Lemme tell ya, you want uncomfortable, try sitting on a wooden bench next to the person you're taking to court. I've had blind dates that weren't as bad. Well...not much worse, anyway.

After an hour of waiting, a mediator emerged from one of the side rooms and approached us. Finally!

"Hi," she greeted us cheerily. "Are you waiting for mediation?"

I nodded. Fred slapped his front flippers together and honked affirmatively.

"Well, I'm one of the mediators here," she began perkily. "We're just finishing up with this case, and yours is next on my list. Unfortunately, I've got to leave in fifteen minutes, and I wouldn't want to start with yours if it doesn't look like we'll have time to get through it. So I'll ask one of my colleagues to put you at the end of her list, OK?"

I nodded wordlessly. Fred scratched himself with a tusk.

"Great! OK, we'll see you then." She left. We waited some more.

After another hour, we were finally ushered into one of the side rooms, and seated at a large wooden table with several comfy chairs that were entirely too heavy to be wielded as weapons--a trait, I noticed, common to most of the furniture in the courthouse.

The mediation process was, after all that, remarkably ineffective. Basically, it's a chance to argue with a complete stranger rather than the person you hate. I suppose it cuts down on assault charges, but it's also a much less satisfying feeling, y'know?

I presented our side of the story, mostly the part about a Massachusetts landlord having 30 days after move-out to return a security deposit or provide a list of deductions, and how we were now 212 days beyond that. Fred presented his list of made-up damages and demanded that I fork over another $7,350 to pay the balance. I laughed at him and pointed to a few of his damages, including the "lost rent increase" and the items that he had included on the original statement of condition and was now charging us to repair. He admitted that "some of the items on there are a little questionable."

At this point, the mediators stepped in, asking if there were any charges that we could agree on.

"Yes," I replied. "We left the bottles and cans bagged up in the basement, just like it says. But I'm not paying him $60 an hour to take them to the recycling center."

"My son didn't like that job at all," said Fred.

"You pay your son $60 an hour?" asked the mediator.

"No, I paid him $5 an hour."

"So would you be willing to settle for your actual cost, then?" asked the mediator.

Smoke rose from Fred's tiny ear flaps as he thought about that. Finally, he nodded. Good for you! Have a raw fish.

"OK, so 7 hours at $5 an hour would be $35. And would that be acceptable to you?" asked the mediator, turning to me.

Now, I know I shouldn't have gone into mediation with an uncompromising attitude. But there was no way I was going to pay him a dime for labor his son did. And we certainly were not going to go through the rest of the list of damages one by one and whittle them down to nothing.

So I nodded.

"Sure," I said. "If he'll give us credit for the deposits on those cans and bottles. Let's see, he said it was over 800 of them...at a nickel apiece...that comes out to $40...so we're five to the good!" I smiled.

Fred's beady eyes sank even further into his wrinkly hide. "Now you're just getting nitpicky," he accused.

"Yes, and you're still a thief."

That about did it for our mediation session. This one would be up to the judge to decide...again.

Next post: My decision would have involved more sawblades

The landlord strikes back! (Sort of.) (Part V)

2009-06-29T09:36:00.000-07:00

The sweet taste of victory lasted for precisely three days. On January 31, I received my official copy of the court's judgement, and to my dismay, the court had neglected to include the 15 months of interest to which we were entitled, according to Massachusetts General Law (remember how I told you to get used to hearing that? I really need to get better about using Autotext).

Being the older and wiser person that I am now, I realize that I should've just accepted that judgment and moved on. But I was neither old nor wise back then (quiet, you), and the amount of interest was almost $200, which was not an insignificant sum to people of our means. So back down to the Small Claims Clerk's Office I went, to see what could be done about this situation.

In my previous column, I failed to do the Small Claims Office justice (rim shot), so let me briefly correct that oversight. The people who staff that office operate with human-like efficiency while maintaining a mechanical warmth, and no, that is not a typo. In their defense, they have probably heard every complaint, excuse, and argument out there, because as we saw, any yahoo with 19 bucks and an axe to grind can take it to Small Claims Court. I think that the day that technology advances to the point where we can replace them with machines will probably be best for all involved. Maybe even machines with big whirring sawblades that can decapitate landlords after, say, their third appearance in a five-year period.

[Computer voice]: Name.

[Nervous landlord]: Scott Stevens.

[Computer voice]: You may pass.

(The landlord shrugs and moves on.)

[Computer voice]: Name.

[Balding landlord with bad moustache]: Uh, Fred...Fred, uh, Noland.

[Computer voice]: Nice to see you again, Mister "Noland". *BZZZZZAAAAAWWWWWWWWWW*

But I digress.

The Clerk's Office gave me a form to fill out explaining what I wanted to change about the decision, and told me that it would be considered at my payment review hearing, which had been scheduled for March 4. That wasn't bad--even I wasn't so naive that I expected Fred to pay me the money before then, anyway. The turnip truck is at least around the bend by now. But neither did I expect the response that I did get from him.

On February 22, just ten days before the payment review hearing, I received a fat letter in my mailbox from one Fred W. "Noland". Why, I thought, he must have mailed me the entire deposit in cash! Wasn't that generous of him!

No...no, he didn't. What he had mailed me was a copy of the motions he had made in court to remove the judgment against him, dismiss the case, and award himself roughly $9,000 in damages over and above the security deposit he'd already stolen.

I'm sure you can imagine my reaction to this, but at the time I was unable to express it properly, there being a mandatory 7-day waiting period to purchase a handgun. I chose instead to vent my frustration through another outlet--namely, writing about it. I wish that other people could provide me with as much inspiration as Fred; within the next ten days, I had crafted a 14-page response to his motions, complete with citations in MA General Law, as well as an item-by-item refutation of the $9,000 in damages he had claimed. A few more landlords like him and my dream of being a novelist would quickly become a reality. (Heck, look at how many posts this has turned into!) I won't reproduce the entire thing in detail here, but there were some highlights:

- "The three tenants jointly paid the deposit thus, Morrison is not under any circumstances due any amount greater than 1/3 of the deposit of $1,650. Morrison's maximum claim on the deposit is therefor $530." (Apparently, math wasn't Fred's strong suit.)

- "...arbitration is demanded in the lease and is now demanded in this court or transferrer [sic] to such court where such demand maybe [sic] made..." (Nor was proofreading.)

- "The defendant does not own the property in question and thus is the wrong defendant; the property is now owned by a trust and the deposit was transferred to the trust." (Ah! His strong suit is attempted legal dodges! Well...not really. More on this later.)

- "I hereby demand a payment of $150 for this day in court." (As you'll recall, he had yet to actually appear in court...but if he's going to start putting a price on it, I'll settle for the same.)

The list of damages were a hoot, too:

- $540 to replace a porch railing that was broken when we moved in, plus an additional $100 in "punitive damages". (James established its condition by nearly tumbling to his death when he first leaned against it. Had he not had Bert's oversized head to grab onto, we would've been fighting our legal battles with Fred much sooner.)

- $809 for the soap dish he'd replaced in the shower;

- $270 for the kitchen sink;

- $1,531 for things listed on the Statement of Condition, including $475 of things he himself had listed there;

- $2,475 in lost rent because we'd left the unit in such poor condition that it could not be rented for six weeks; and

- $2,100 because he had to lower the rent from what he wanted to what he could actually get.

Those last two are my favorites, not only because of the sheer audacity of them, but because he had claimed in the very same letter that he no longer owned the property--it was now owned by a trust, remember? (See, I told you there'd be more on that later!) So he's not the owner, but he still gets to collect rent for the next year. Neat trick!

When March 4 rolled around, I arrived in court even earlier, fully prepared to refute every argument Fred had made. I had the signed Statement of Condition; listings of other three-bedroom apartments renting in Belmont for considerably less than what he'd had to lower it from, or even than what he'd lowered it to; I even had dug out the original canceled deposit check with our boy Fred's signature on the back. I was ready for a fight. More than that, I WANTED a fight.

But I have to admit, I was not altogether disappointed when he didn't show again.

Sports fans will tell you that a forfeit is not a satisfying way to win, but it sure looks good in the box scores. Fred's motions were denied, mine was accepted, and so the earlier judgment for the plaintiff was amended to include the interest. That reset the payment clock, meaning that Fred had another 30 days. I was getting pretty good at this by now, so that was fine--I'd be back in April.

This time, it would be different.

Next Post: You know what, it actually was!

Not exactly Wapneresque (Part IV)

2009-06-29T09:24:00.000-07:00

We left that apartment in July of 2001 wanting nothing more than to close that annoying chapter in my life. Little did I know that we'd be turning the short story into a Tolkien-esque trilogy.

I called Fred, son of Frederick, son of Fredonia, son of a...gun, Keeper of the Security Deposit, on the day I moved out, to give him my new address. Massachusetts General Law (get used to hearing that phrase, or MGL for short) states that he has thirty days to return it, or to return a portion of it along with a specific list of damages for which he has made deductions. I was definitely worried that he would make up some damages to try to steal our deposit, so it was with some relief that September 1 came and went without a peep from Fred. The thirty days was past; according to MGL, he could no longer keep any portion of the deposit, even if we'd burned the place to the ground. (In hindsight, we're pretty sure that's what his plan was: to drive some tenants to the point where they actually burned the house down, so he could then collect the insurance money. Had we only known, we could've avoided most of this trouble, because we would've cheerfully set fire to every house he possessed, preferably while he was in one of them. See how important communication is to any relationship?)

Then I realized that thirty days had passed and we hadn't gotten our check yet. I gave him another week, then called. Fred had "lost the address" and apparently didn't trust the postal service to forward our mail. I gave him the benefit of the doubt, as well as my address (again), and he assured me that he'd send the check out that day.

42 days and one written, certified, return-receipt-requested notice later, I was in the county courthouse for the first time in my life (honest!), filing in Small Claims Court. For the paltry sum of $19, I made my claim against Fred and was scheduled to appear in court.

In January, four months from now.

"Speedy trial," my butt!

So I waited. And I worried. I prepared myself by going home during lunch and watching reruns of "Law & Order" on TNT. (And this is the point in the narrative when I look at my life and say, "Geez, you'd think something would've changed in the better part of a decade.") When the trial date finally arrived, I was pretty certain that I was not only going to get the security deposit back, but I was probably going to be able to get him for conspiracy and grand larceny, as well. Of course, I'd let him plead to Man 1 to save the taxpayers the expense of a trial, and hope that Briscoe and Curtis didn't give me too much guff.

January 28 dawned clear and cold, a perfect day...for justice! I arrived at the courthouse half an hour early, found my way to the Small Claims Hearing Room, picked a seat in front, and waited.

And waited.

And waited some more.

At ten minutes to showtime, a bailiff meandered in, and I checked to make sure I was in the right room. He assured me that I was, so I went back to waiting.

And waiting.

Can you feel the tension building yet? I was sitting in a puddle of armpit sweat, and we hadn't even gotten started.

Eventually, other people started filing in. I studied each face as it entered, but since I hadn't seen Fred since he showed us the apartment, I had only a vague recollection of a balding man with a walrus moustache that rather matched his walrus-shaped body and walnut-sized brain. However, I didn't see anyone with that description walk through the door. Had Fred sent an attorney in his place? Was he wearing a disguise, or possibly a bad toupee?

I began to look about me suspiciously. Any one of these people could be the enemy! I needed a pair of sunglasses like "Rowdy" Roddy Piper had in the movie They Live. You remember, the ones that let him see which people were actually homicidal aliens in disguise? Sigh...once again, Hollywood has created a consumer need that it cannot fulfill. Perhaps I could still spout some incredibly catchy action-antihero lines, just as Roddy did when the sunglasses were broken.

I was spared the opportunity to embarrass myself by the arrival of the magistrate. He began by calling the cases one by one to see if, indeed, both parties were present. When he got to the case of Mike Morrison vs. Fred Moland, I piped up, "Mike Morrison!"

And only silence answered for the defendant.

"OK, Mr. Morrison, because you are here and the defendant is not, that means you have won your case by default. Go downstairs to the clerk's office and tell them that, they will give you a copy of the judgement and schedule a payment review session. The defendant will be given 30 days to pay, if he hasn't paid you in that time then come back at the payment review session."

That was it? I didn't even need a catchy line like "I came here to chew bubble gum and kick ass...and I'm all out of bubble gum"?

Wait a minute...that was it! I'd won! I'd won! This whole painful tale would soon be behind me!

Good thing *you* all aren't that naive.

Next post: Oh, we're just gettin' warmed up!

Never an ark around when you need one (Part III)

2009-06-29T09:09:00.000-07:00

It was raining in Beantown that spring. A hard rain. Hard enough to wash the slime right out into the street, down the gutter, and into its cushy downtown job, where it spent its days thinking of other ways to be a lousy landlord.

In all fairness, most of what I'm about to tell you is not at all Fred's fault. But it makes for good reading.

By March, things were really heading downhill at our place. James had begun working more overtime and I was playing more hockey, so we were lucky if we ran into each other once or twice a week. Bert and I had yet to hit it off, and without our common link, we spent most of our time on our separate floors of the house.

Here it's necessary for me to explain exactly how the house was set up. The first floor included the living room, dining room, bathroom, kitchen, and two bedrooms. There was also a set of stairs in the back that led up to the third floor attic, which had been converted into a master bedroom. For those scoring at home--bow chicka wow wow! For those just keeping score at home, that's first floor, five rooms; third floor, one room.

There was no fair way to decide who got this indoor football field of a room. However, Bert had a job that required him to be on the road five nights a week, so we gave it to him with the caveat that we would use it as our rec room while he was out of town. Unfortunately, shortly after moving in, his job changed from full-time travel to full-time work-from-home, which shot that plan all to heck. As a new solution, when we divvied up the utilities, we gave Bert the oil bill, the most expensive of the five basic rental utilities (phone, cable, electric, heat, and pizza). Remembering the lesson of a pickup truck full of oil barrels, we chose not to take the "auto-fill" option, which would have kept our tank topped off every month, but instead elected to pay as we went.

In hindsight--it's always in hindsight--there was one significant problem with this solution:

Bert's room was the only one with electric heat.

It was in early March that the oil ran out. March in New England is not known for being particularly balmy, and large houses with single-pane plastic windows held in by bent nails are not particularly warm. This was not a case of being able to put on an extra sweater for a week or two. This was friggin' cold.

After a few days of hinting ("Anyone want a tomato soup popsicle?"), mentioning ("Hey, Bert, how 'bout getting us some heat?"), and finally, threatening ("Y'know, they say an icicle is the perfect murder weapon--no prints, no evidence..."), we called an oil company and arranged a delivery for the next day. All Bert had to do was stay there with his checkbook to accept the delivery. Since he did not have to leave the house to work anymore, this wasn't supposed to pose a problem.

I'm sure you can all guess what happened next.

Divvying up tasks, I'm afraid, was not our strong suit. For instance, we never agreed who would be saddled with the responsibility of returning our empty bottles and cans for the deposit. Consequently, they gathered in our basement--neatly bagged and tied, but building up by the hundreds, because no one would break down and haul them back to the supermarket. Did I mention that we were all bachelors?

OK, so now I can start the story.

I came home one cold, wet, rainy night in March, the latest in a series of cold, wet, rainy nights in March. I was playing hockey that night, and looking forward to it more than usual, because at this point the ice rinks were actually warmer than our apartment. I was cooking a delicious dinner of some form of pasta and cheez (legally, I don't think they can call it cheese) when Bert came down from his electrically heated penthouse. "'Sup."

"'Sup."

"Cold down here."

"Yep."

"At least it's not flooded."

That one threw me for a sec, but we had been getting a lot of rain. "Uh...yep."

Bert heard the pause. "Have you looked in the basement yet?"

I could feel the fear coiling in my stomach like a snake. A vicious, many-fanged snake that no cheez could satisfy. My hockey gear was in the basement. "No..."

He handed me two plastic garbage bags. "You'll want these," he said simply, and continued on to the bathroom.

Uneasily, I left the cheez simmering on the stove, opened the basement door, and flicked on the light.

The water was already lapping over the third step. Bags full of cans floated lazily about the room like fat lily pads. From the steps, I couldn't see my hockey equipment, but I took some comfort in knowing that the majority of it, at least, was hanging up to dry, and probably still above water.

I pulled the plastic bags Bert had given me over my feet and secured them with a handy roll of duct tape. Stepping cautiously down the steps and onto the basement floor, I discovered two things: that the water was incredibly cold, and that the bags that Bert had given me both leaked. I sloshed my way over to my gear and took stock. It was, indeed, mostly above water, with the exception of the bag and--most unfortunately--the skates. I carried it upstairs piece by piece, grumbling most of the way, particularly when I noticed that everything of Bert's that was in the basement had been moved to shelves well above the waterline.

Later that night, inside those skates, my feet were the coldest they have ever been (and as my lovely wife can now attest from the other side of the bed, they get pretty cold). It was not a good hockey night. I came home shivering, wet, and wanting nothing more than a hot shower to try and restore feeling to my toes before I crawled under every blanket that I owned.

Funny thing about showers--they usually get their hot water from a tank. A tank usually located in the basement. A tank that, in our case, was heated by a gas burner that didn't, thanks to the six inches of water covering it.

To his credit, Bert had spent some time standing knee-deep in the cold water (actually, it would've been thigh-deep on him) alongside our upstairs neighbor, Russ, trying to get the balky sump pump to work. It was only when the pump threw off a few sparks that Bert realized that playing with a faulty electrical device while waist-deep in water, assisted by someone who was probably under the influence of more than one controlled substance, would make for an incredibly unflattering obituary. I certainly can't fault him for not wanting to join the ranks of the Darwin Award winners. He did call Fred, after paddling through the icy, chest-deep water to the safety of the bottom stair, and asked him if he might find it in his heart to fix the sump pump. Fred's response was, "You'll have to talk to God about that."

The Almighty made his presence felt in the form of the Belmont Fire Department, who cruised down our street the following night with a pump and emptied several basements along our street. We had a hot shower the next morning--again, full credit to Bert, who lay in filth reminiscent of Andy Dufresne's escape from Shawshank in order to relight the hot water burner. And we were once again touched, truly touched, by the depth of Fred's caring for his tenants, which seemed exceeded only by the depth of his caring for our monthly rent check.

By the time July 31 rolled around, we were more than ready to leave. We had given the requisite 30-day notice, packed our things, and left the place in more or less the same condition that we'd found it. The only thing that remained was to get our security deposit back and close the chapter on this life lesson.

Next post: The life lesson gets a sequel...of Harry Potter proportions.

Better Red than Fred! (Part II)

2009-06-29T08:56:00.000-07:00

If you'll recall, last post, we left our heroes just as they were about to enter the House of Not Ill Enough Repute. (Obviously, if it had been ill enough, we would've known.) I should take a moment to describe our heroes:

James (not his real name): The aforementioned former Marine (I once made the mistake of calling him an "ex-Marine", before being informed that there are no "ex-Marines," only "former Marines;" I believe this is a term of respect acknowledging the hard work and sacrifice required to attain such a lofty and enviable position, much like "former President" or "former boyfriend of Scarlett Johansson.") James worked the night shift at the hospital, so we only saw each other in passing a few evenings a week, when my hockey schedule coincided with his work.

Bert (not his real name): A friend of James', a generally OK guy whose body never quite grew to the size for which his head was intended, giving him the appearance of an upside-down Weeble. His most notable qualities, from my perspective, were that he was a very good soccer player and usually paid his bills on time, with one notable exception. (Ooo, look! Foreshadowing!)

Me (not my real name): Young, dashing, incredibly virile, with rippling muscles, a flashy car, and large stick with which to beat off the scores of beautiful women who rushed to my side in tight throngs. (Again, that's "STick" and "thRongs," for the benefit of those who may be listening to the book-on-tape version of this.)

OK, so I'm taking a little poetic license here...to be totally, completely honest, Bert's head was not THAT big.

Our lease started in mid-August, giving us a two-week overlap with our previous apartment, which was good because the new apartment hadn't been cleaned since the early 1800's...and the house was built in the 1950's. It's a testament to just how disgusting it was that three bachelors considered it mildly untidy. We gave it a good brooming, subdued or signed treaties with the larger bacteria, and settled in.

The tenants in the upstairs unit of this two-family house moved out at the end of August. I met one of them briefly on a sunny Saturday, as he backed a pickup truck packed with 55-gallon drums down the driveway and up to the basement window. Seemed like a good opportunity to get the inside poop on our new digs.

"Hey, I'm Mike."

"'Sup, Mike. Ryan." We shook hands.

"So, what's Fred like?" I asked innocently.

"He's a dick," responded Ryan. He said it so matter-of-factly, the way you might say "He's a mammal," that it didn't sink in at first. By the time it did, he had fed a hose through the basement window to someone inside, then cranked up the worn-looking pump sitting atop the barrels.

"So, uh...he gave you some trouble, did he?" I asked lamely.

Ryan snorted. "Our refrigerator stopped working in April. He stopped by once, ate some of the food out of it, and hasn't done anything about it since.

"He came by one time and didn't like our garbage can on the front porch, so his way of telling us to move it was to empty it out on our stairs." Ryan nodded toward the barrels. "That's why my dad drove up from Connecticut today so we could pump all the oil that we paid for out of the furnace. I'm not leaving that (expletive)sucker a (bleeping) thing."

What was that? Clue #5? Who's keeping track at this point?

I'd already lived in enough apartments (translation: one or more) to know that the most valuable thing that I have written to date is a detailed Statement of Condition. After being charged $5 a bulb for lights that hadn't had bulbs when we moved in, I learned to be nitpicky. Having seen the do-it-yourself lawyerese in the lease, I thought it particularly important in this case to pick nits to the nth degree. Every window crack, every peeling paint chip, every loose floorboard was recorded on that page in tiny script, along with a few more damages which didn't exist yet, but which I thought we ran some risk of causing. (That's a tip, kids, write it down.) The apartment's condition could best be described as "crap"; but it was a lot of space for not too much money, so who's to argue over a few spots on the carpet?

You may have noticed that Fred has not yet made an appearance in this account. He did the same with the apartment. After the first week, in which he replaced the garbage disposal and assured us that he would be replacing the carpet, I can clearly remember the number of times our dear slumlord paid us a visit, and the times he didn't:

- He DIDN'T when a persistent smell of gas filled the kitchen, and later the entire downstairs, for a few days straight. He assured us that it was just the normal function of the gas stove. Interestingly, the gas company thought it somewhat less normal, and suggested that we step outside until a representative could arrive to check things out. Turned out to be nothing more than a pilot in need of relighting, but it was nice to know that Fred cared.

- He DID...eventually...when the tile in our only shower started to disintegrate. His initial solution was for us to tape Saran Wrap over the hole for a week until he could get there. When he did show up, he tore out a large section of tile around the hole, left it in the tub, and disappeared for another week. When he returned to retile it, he left another heap of broken tile and grout in the tub. Not surprisingly, "Cleaning charges" were not included on his bill...but I'm getting ahead of myself. Did I mention this was our only shower? Yes?

- He DIDN'T come to visit when the kitchen sink broke. It's worth noting that on his own Statement of Condition, he had this item: "The kitchen sink faucet is loose but functions correctly." Not surprisingly, after a few months "loose" became "impossible to shut off." We closed the valve under the counter, put in a call to Fred, and resigned ourselves to using the bathroom sink for our kitchen needs for a few days.

And then a few more days.

And then yet more days.

Do you know how vital a working sink is to the creation of mac 'n' cheese? (I repeat: three bachelors.)

- He DID come to fix the sink when the first of the month came and went without a rent check. ("But, Fred, we thought you were coming out to fix the sink, so we just left the check here for you.") When he did, he found the check taped to the cabinet directly over the sink, and we found ourselves with a new faucet.

- He DIDN'T come to visit when he re-rented the unit upstairs. I am inclined to think that he never even met the people he rented to prior to their moving in. If he did, all I can say is that he is as discerning a landlord as he is an honest one. Russ was a twitchy, slightly-too-friendly sort, the kind of guy who you were pretty sure was walking to work because of one too many vehicular manslaughter charges. He did try to be neighborly by popping downstairs to borrow things, as neighbors do, but instead of borrowing an egg or a cup of sugar, Russ was always looking to borrow a cup of weed. Apparently, the local Store 24 was all out. His wife was a rail-thin chain-smoker who will be credited in the movie of my life as "Domestic Abuse Victim #1." The only thing in their apartment louder than their beloved "Journey's Greatest Hits (Vols. 1 and 2)" CD was their dog, a yippy little puntable that barked at anything that moved, up to and including individual air molecules.

If that was the best Fred could do for tenants, I would've expected him to BEG us to stay. Of course, I'd also have expected him to come out for the flood.

Next post: The one time when a cardboard box definitely would not have been better...and the reason we lost all of ours.

My own personal public service announcement (Part I)

2009-06-29T08:43:00.000-07:00

It occurs to me that I have never warned many of you about The Worst Landlord of All Time.

It also occurs to me that I have warned some of you about him a few times too many. Sorry about that. But this is a time of change, not only for the leaves on the trees, but for basically everybody who bought a house in the last five years. And while I'm told that the rental market in Boston has improved--the price for a cardboard box in an alley now includes utilities--someone will inevitably be suckered in by this putz. I'd like to make sure it's none of you.

I should preface this by stating that finding a landlord in Boston (and, I presume, everywhere) is about a 50-50 proposition. That is, for every 50 landlords you find, you wish you could legally shoot about 50 of them. And even if that WERE legal, I would save all 50 bullets for this one. Since some of what I'm about to say could be construed as libelous, I'm afraid I can't use his real name. Therefore, we shall refer to the slum lord in question as "Fred Moland," because that's what you would get if you substituted an "M" for the "B" in his last name.

I first met Fred on my third attempt to do so. I was looking for a 3-bedroom apartment in Belmont, and found one within our price range, or as close as Boston comes to a price range. I called the number listed, and the voice on the other end seemed more suspicious about where I'd found this information than he was interested in showing me the apartment. This seemed odd, since I'd found it in the ad he posted, but he eventually agreed to show it to me the following day.

(Let me break for a moment here to say that, in spite of popular opinion, I consider myself something of a writer, and as such, I frequently view real life from the perspective of how it would be written in a book or movie. I have been delighted to discover that real life uses foreshadowing just as much as those media do; unfortunately, without the benefit of a chapter end or dramatic musical crescendo, it's much more difficult to detect until later. Suffice it to say that this was Clue #1 that perhaps I should have run while I still could.)

I showed up at the apartment at the appointed time. It was a big brown house, a color that precisely matched what its owner had for brains...but I digress. Even from the outside, I could tell that it was spacious, with just enough parking for three cars, and with a large back porch perfect for grilling or sitting, or possibly even grilling while sitting. I couldn't wait to see the inside!

...but I was going to have to, because Fred never showed. I waited a half-hour beyond the appointed meeting time before heading back to the office, slightly disgruntled and a little worried that it had already been rented. Back at the office, I called Fred again, and we had the following conversation:

Me: Hi, Fred, I was just at the house and didn't see you. Did I have the address right? It's--

Fred: Oh, you didn't get my message. I called you back yesterday to say I wouldn't be able to meet you there today.

Me: Er...no, I didn't get that message. Where did you leave it?

Fred: No, I left it with someone at your office.

Now, at this point in my life, I was working for a microscopically small (but deceptively wiry!) company with exactly four co-workers, three of whom spent all of their time out of the office. This left one person other than me who could've taken that message, and I was pretty sure he wasn't secretly plotting against me. I knew this because I asked him if he was, and he assured me that he most definitely was not.

So, with Clue #2 out of the way, we rescheduled our meeting for the following day. The following day, I arrived at the apartment fifteen minutes early. That meant that I spent 45 minutes standing around this time rather than just 30. Thinking that perhaps he was waiting inside, I tried knocking on the front door, and the plastic window popped out at my first rap and clattered noisily to the floor inside. I tried shouting "Hello!" through this new opening, but unless he was cowering in the bathroom (more on that later), nobody was home.

I gave up at this point. As Lionel Richie once said, "Fool me once...twice...three tiiiiiiiiiiiimes a lady," and though I really don't know what that means, it makes more sense than "Dancing on the Ceiling." Unfortunately, one of my roommates was not so easily dissuaded, and he called Fred himself to arrange a meeting. It is worth noting that this roommate is a former Marine, so there may have been threats of bodily harm involved. Looking back, I kind of wish Fred'd skipped that meeting, too.

But he didn't, and when we finally did see the inside of the place, we fell in like. It had the grime of a hundred years (or possibly two college semesters) on the walls, but it had big rooms and plenty of 'em, and it was available. We decided to sign a lease.

The lease, as it turned out, was a little something Fred had put together himself. Now, most of Massachusetts uses a fairly standard form, to which landlords append clauses to tailor the lease to their own needs. Our previous landlord, for instance, allowed parties only if he was invited. This lease, however, appeared to be entirely of Fred's own creation, and included such exciting clauses as:

"In order to save time and legal expenses for the parties, in case of any dispute regarding the above lease...All fees, expenses, attorney fees will be paid for by the tenants unless they prevail in the entirety and in such an event the landlord shall pay an amount of one half of all expenses, attorney fees, costs, damages, etc. not to exceed $500.00 in total."

"...The tenants hereby acknowledge and accept the security risk to their person and property including the possibility of accident, forced entry, assault, rape and even death due to the wood and specifically the glass or plastic entry doors and windows...The tenants recognized the security trade off they make for esthetic [sic] reasons."

If a piece of cheap plastic held in by two bent nails was his idea of "esthetic", I'd love to see what he's done with his own place. And my personal favorite:

"If any damages are paid by the landlord to a court, government institution, any party or to the tenants or their representatives, tenants...will repay the landlord such amount including all expenses, legal fees, attorneys fees and costs plus 25% liquidated damages."

Also known as the "I'm rubber, you're glue" clause. It was the first time I actually called up my Attorney General and asked "Can they really do that?" The law student on the other end assured me that I couldn't waive my rights under Massachusetts law no matter what I signed; and with the housing market tight and the September 1 deadline rapidly approaching, the prospect of sleeping in a cardboard box for the next few months did not appeal to me. I crossed my fingers and hoped that this student hadn't been daydreaming during that part of class.

For those of you keeping score at home, this was Clue #D (dum dum dummm!). And just like the braless girl in the horror movies, darned if I didn't ignore the obvious clues and walk down the dark, bloodstained corridor anyway. Hey, at least I didn't twist my ankle while running away in high heels!

Umm...not that I own any.

Next up: Ways in which a cardboard box would've actually been better...

Mmm

2009-02-05T09:09:00.000-08:00

I'll always be disappointed that I didn't get to www.wrappedinbacon.com first.

Cover Me, Part II (Completely Unrelated to Part I)

2009-01-22T07:50:00.000-08:00

I learned during my last job search that generic cover letters get you about as far as no cover letter. If you want the cover letter to help you at all, you need to make it stand out. A good cover letter makes the recruiter want to read your resume, something that even your mom probably doesn't want to do.

On the other hand, a REALLY good cover letter makes the recruiter willing to disregard your cover letter altogether, particularly the parts that are suspiciously lacking in applicable experience.

I bring this up because, today, I took one step closer to my dream of a career in radio. I applied for a broadcast position with Voice of America radio. Sure, my only applicable experience consists of one semester of co-co-hosting a Saturday morning radio show in college. We had the 7AM to 9AM slot. It's entirely possible that they didn't even turn on the transmitter for us; we'd have no way of knowing, nor would anyone else, because nobody's awake and listening to college radio at 7-freaking-AM on a Saturday morning.

Anyway, that's the kind of application that requires a REALLY good cover letter. Here's mine.

What does the Voice of America sound like?

It sounds like Truth, bringing accuracy, balance, comprehensiveness, and objectivity to nations and peoples around the world.

It sounds like Justice, shining the harsh glare of the public's eye into the dark places of the world that flee from its light.

It sounds like Freedom, ringing from every mountainside to echo over the land of the pilgrims' pride.

It sounds like Self-Awareness, capable of making a series of pompous statements that place it on the scale of American heroes somewhere between George Washington and Spider-Man, all hopefully demonstrating the Voice's writing ability while still maintaining a (mostly) straight face.

What does the Voice of America sound like?

With any luck, it sounds like the voice that answers when you call me at the number listed on my resume.

Hey, at least I don't have to worry about not quitting my day job.

Salespeople who lie

2009-01-13T08:12:00.000-08:00

Seriously, quit wasting my time.

Speaking of wasting my time, I love it when my boss asks to see a work in progress, then interrupts me repeatedly to ask about things that aren't in there yet. I mean, c'mon, people.

Maybe I'll use my unemployment to write an employment guide for employees and for managers. A practical one, with chapters like "How to avoid lame office birthday celebrations" and "Creative displays of passive-aggressive behavior that won't get you fired (usually)." Reserve your advance copy now!

Unemployment To-Do List

2009-01-05T08:43:00.000-08:00

1) Video Games!

2) Drink Beer

3) TNT: The Law & Order Channel

4) Belch

5) Scratch

6) (May reverse order of 4 & 5)

7) Sit

8) Collect string

Resume

2008-12-24T08:11:00.001-08:00

I was never one of those kids who was ever able to get a faraway look in his eye and say, "I want to be a...dentist when I grow up." There was a stretch in high school when I was sure I wanted to be a Secret Service agent, but then I got older, had sex, learned about the political process, and decided that perhaps my life was more important than some Presidents' after all.

So, lacking any direction from myself, I've let my career drift down whatever path fate (or laziness) wanted to take it. Eventually, I became an office manager--excuse me, Overlord--and cashed in little pieces of my soul on a daily basis in exchange for mediocre compensation and the ability to sleepwalk through most of my duties.

Not exactly the American Dream, is it?

So I've been thinking about a career change for a while, for this and other reasons I'll maybe write about another time. The problem is, how do I apply my past experience to a new career? If I really want to strike out in a new direction, how can I do so without sacrificing the decade or so of experience that I've gathered to this point? How do I admit that those years were, essentially, a waste of time as far as my career's concerned?

Then I took a look at my resume. I've worked for four companies since college. Here's where they are now:

Company One: Expanding as I joined. Began to shrink shortly thereafter Moved into a massive new company headquarters built in large part just for them; when we did so, our 20-person department was the only one on an entire floor designed to accommodate hundreds. Eventually broke apart and was bought out. Fortunately, by then I had left for...

Company Two: An energetic young consulting company started by a good friend. I was the third employee in; at our height, we were up to three times that number, and moved into a custom-built-out space to house our growing numbers. A year later, I was the third-to-last employee laid off as we spiraled down and out of business. After an ill-fated attempt to follow in my Dad's footsteps, I answered an ad in the paper that led me to...

Company Three: A promising, publicly-traded company with scads of cash on hand--no worries about bankruptcy here! Except that we had no source of income. Apparently, this is a problem. This company moved out of its fancy, custom-built space into a smaller, cozier office, then rented a second office in order to expand again. Shortly afterwards, it began to shrink once more. Or possibly expand. It really depended on the CEO's whim that day and whether or not someone was willing to park their car next to his in the garage to keep his from getting scratched. Last I heard, they had moved twice more and were being threatened with de-listing from the stock exchange. But that didn't matter, because I had long since moved on to...

Company Four: A well-meaning but evil family-run business whose financial difficulties began, quite literally, the month after I joined, also the month they moved into their much-anticipated new office. After some ill-advised (but admittedly necessary) dealings with heartless bankers, a loan shark, and (shudder) the federal government, we'll be forcibly parting company next month, along with about a third of the rest of the staff.

This is the experience I'm concerned about giving up? I'd have more success trying to build a castle in a swamp. Entry-level position in my new career, here I come. Wonder if Ramen still tastes as good as I remember it?

Today's Business Lesson:

2008-12-11T11:28:00.001-08:00

Being nice will only get you so far.

Unfortunately, being a dick will only get you so far, too.

Oh, Dalton, you were so wise beyond your gorgeous, gorgeous hair. (Fifth quote down, in case you don't know Road House's most memorable lines by heart.)

Go do something (not this)

2008-11-11T10:43:00.000-08:00

But first, check out this article from Cracked.

I know, it's not at all what I've come to expect from them, either. But I kinda like it. And now, as much as I'd love to surf back to Digg and Reddit for a while, I think I'm going to go finish refinishing a highchair.

Halloween by the Numbers

2008-11-03T08:27:00.000-08:00

Number of kids: 28
Number of kids who dressed up as…
Princesses: 2
Ninja: 1
Fashionable Ninja or possibly Mortal Kombat characters: 1
“Kids”: 15
Number of moms who took candy for their kids: 0
Number of moms who took candy for themselves: 1
Number of candies offered to kids trick-or-treating with moms: 2 apiece
Number of candies taken by moms: 3
Number of candies offered to moms: 0
Percentage of times "help yourself" was interpreted as "take as many handfuls of candy as you can, as fast as you can": 100%
Number of Twix bars given out: 27
Number of Twix wrappers found on lawn the following morning: 1
Number of candies brought to the door by neighbors who had bought candy for my two-year-old but didn’t get home from work until after he was in bed: 4

All in all, a good night.

Practicality

2008-10-24T13:11:00.000-07:00

I'm 32 years old, a husband and a father. The last election I voted in was for prom king and queen. No, I'm not a slow learner--that was fourteen years ago.

In a week or so, I'm going to change that.

I'll admit it; I'm lazy. I can be irresponsible. I've had less lazy, more responsible friends point that out to me. I've heard them argue that I should vote, that it's my right and my duty, that there's no excuse not to. And, to cover up my laziness, I always struck back with the one point that they couldn't refute: simple practicality. On a national or even state level, my vote is virtually meaningless. A grain of sand on the beach. At least with the prom, my choices counted for 2% of the total votes cast. (Congrats again, Garth and Olivia!) But for President? The closest race in recent history was still decided by over 500 votes. Even if I happened to be living in the right county of the right state, my influence would be less than a fifth of a percent. I may as well stay home and do something more useful, like catching up on whatever's on the DVR.

So what's different this year?

Is it really the most important election of our lifetime? Meh. They're all important. Well, maybe not '88, but pretty much all the others.

Have I grown less lazy? Sadly, no.

Have I moved to a critical electoral region with 499 like-minded friends? No again, although I do happen to live in a so-called "battleground" state.

Did I illegally register my two-year-old son so I could vote for him? No--but getting warmer.

See, I've looked at a lot of things differently since he came along. I've started viewing my own actions through his eyes. Like most dads, mine has gotten considerably cooler now that I'm no longer a teenager, and I'd like my son to think the same about me someday. As he enters the Terrible Twos and his vocabulary grows from "Waaahhh!" to "Oy doy doy" to "Don't eat your shoes," I've started preparing for the upcoming "Why?" stage. And since I always hated "Because I'm your father and I said so" as an answer, I've tried to make sure that I do, indeed, have a reason for the things I do.

That's how I've discovered that, when you say it out loud, "Because I'm lazy" sounds pretty stupid. I sure as hell (oops, heck--gotta watch what I say, now) wouldn't let him get away with it. How can I?

So I'm not. I've registered to vote. And since I travel occasionally for work, and I have a tendency to put things off until it's too late to do anything about them, I've sent in my request for an absentee ballot. No time for last-minute excuses. No chance of finding something so engrossing on the DVR that I can't tear myself away from it for thirteen hours on November 4.

It still doesn't mean my vote counts for anything. I'm still a grain of sand on the beach.

But at least now I'll have done something where, when he asks "Why?", I will say, "Because it's the right thing to do."

Put that way, it seems pretty practical after all.

Motivational techniques, by Goofus and Gallant

2008-04-22T11:03:00.000-07:00

Remember them? From Highlights Magazine at the pediatrician's office? For the uninitiated, they were a pair of cartoon boys who would teach morality. Goofus would forever be doing something wrong, and Gallant would continually be a paragon of model behavior. Of course, being a morality play aimed at kids, it tended to leave the subtlety at the office door:

"Goofus drinks the blood of babies.
"Gallant donates half of all his internal organs to needy children."

I had one particular boss who was so unashamedly corrupt that a co-worker and I used to make up Goofus and Gallant-style morality lessons about him:

"Goofus sneaks inside information out to major shareholders in exchange for lucrative kickbacks.
"Gallant always shreds confidential information to prevent insider trading."

I thought that, when I left behind that executive, and that co-worker, I'd have to leave behind that particular joke, too. But then I found a new manager who seemed to have a knack for choosing the "Goofus" route when it came to motivational techniques. So, I'm pleased to present a few examples that I've observed in my time with said managers:

On the manager's first arriving at the office in the morning

Goofus answers the employee's "Good morning" with "Yeah, yeah. I'm parked down on P2. Can you go move your car next to mine so nobody scratches it?"

Gallant brings Dunkin Donuts for the employees without even worrying about spilling coffee on the vinyl seats of his '87 Taurus.

On creating an annual budget for the first time in both the company's and the employee's history

Goofus says, "I can easily divide our income and expenses by twelve in my head to come up with the information these spreadsheets show. You haven't done anything here."

Gallant says, "This is a good start, but we should redistribute income and expenses to more closely reflect when we think they'll occur. Also, we should include more gifts for the downtrodden under 'expenses'."

On meeting with an employee to ask him to take a temporary pay cut in order to help offset the company's lack of fiscal responsibility

Goofus says, "Normally, we'd just fire you and figure out how to do your job ourselves, but we don't think we need to do that yet."

Gallant says, "You are a valuable employee, and not only will all the executives reduce their own salaries by an amount proportionally greater than yours, but we will give you a promissory note for the salary you are deferring. The executives will also begin selling blood as often as the Red Cross will take us, even forging fake IDs if necessary to donate more often."

Isn't it fun, kids? Try a few of your own!

Vital Idols

2008-04-07T11:48:00.000-07:00

Back by popular indifference, I will attempt to show that I have my EKG on the pulse of the heartbeat of FOX's producers by guessing the order in which the remaining American Idol contestants will be voted off. Last year, I was right about Gina Glocksen going home at #9, and nothing else, so this year I'll start with the Top 8. If I'm right about any of these, maybe I'll start from that place next year, or maybe I'll just get a life. I could go either way.

As the watermarks indicate, all photos ripped shamelessly from American Idol's site.

8. Kristy Lee Cook

Ah, Kristy, we've had quite a journey together. I remember seeing your audition and thinking, "Wow, what a babe! I hope she makes it to Hollywood!" Then I saw you in Hollywood, and thought, "OK, she can pretty much only sing 'Amazing Grace', but what a babe! I hope she makes it to the Top 24!"

And now? Well, Kristy, I'm starting to feel sorry for you. You approach every week's results show with all the enthusiasm of Drew Carey upon hearing he has four and a half years left on his Price is Right contract. (I was always waiting for Bob Barker to snap and recreate his fight scene in Happy Gilmore after the 4,000,000th time a contestant looked out into the audience for help.)

At any rate, you can't lust after someone you pity, so I'm ready for you to go home. Thank you, Kristy; you've taught me that looks, indeed, aren't everything. And yet, because this is "Idol Gives Back" week, the theme is Inspirational Songs. Which means...that's right, ladies and gentlemen, "Amazing Grace"! Again! And while I would appreciate the hilarious irony of Kristy getting voted off after her best performance of the show, I don't think it will happen. So...

8. Jason Castro

Remember that episode of The Simpsons where Homer got behind the medical marijuana movement and got the issue onto the ballot, only to space out on the day of the vote? I've been waiting for that to happen to Jason's fans all season. An excessively long inspirational episode might just do it.

7. Kristy Lee Cook

Unless you wanted to leak a sex tape to try to hang on for another week? No? OK, then, we're done here.

6. Syesha Mercado

Her ability to imitate a baby's cry narrowly edged David Cook's revelation that he's a "word nerd" as the Biggest Waste of an Opportunity to Win More Fans this season. So far.

5. Brooke White

I think--

"It's OK. It's OK. No, it's fine."

I mean, I really--

"It's OK. No, really, it's OK. That's fine. OK."

She--

"Thank you. Thank you so much. Thanks. No, it's OK."

Brooke White, ladies and gentlemen!

"No, really, it's fine..."

4. Michael Johns

I'm going to buck my own "Someone always goes home too soon at #4" rule, partly because I don't think either David is ready to go home yet, but mostly because Michael Johns really bothers me for some reason. He strikes me as the kind of guy who would steal your girlfriend, then cheat on her with your mom. I can't really justify my dislike for him, but it bothers me that I've let him get this far. This is where it stops.

3. David Archuleta

At some point, you have to be able to do an up-tempo song without looking like you missed your ride to the "Up With People" revival. I haven't seen it. On the plus side, he'll always have his Star Search victory to fall back on.

2. Carly Smithson

Note that this assumes that the wardrobe department doesn't get even with Simon's criticisms by dressing Carly in progressively more and more hideous outfits. ("No, feathers are making a comeback this year...you'll look great!")

Which leaves us with...

1. David Cook

Let's review the necessary qualifications:

1. Talent - Check.
2. Southern roots - According to wiki, he was born in Texas, a native of Missouri, and working in Oklahoma before Idol. Check.
3. Consistently chooses the right songs - Check.
4. Experience and stage presence - He used a vocoder in a performance for crying out loud. Check.
5. Nothing about his personality that could turn the viewers off - Check--almost too much, actually. Let's elaborate:

Ever since Simon's "I don't think you're as good as you think you are" comment, David's been very careful to not look too full of himself during or after a performance. Let's call it believably humble; not the "Aw shucks, really?" response to every compliment, from first to four millionth, that got old with Melinda Doolittle last year. David's is more of an "I'm letting my singing do my talking for me" attitude. It's polished and professional without coming across as slick. I love it.

But what really sold me on his self-awareness was last week's performance. The two biggest criticisms out on the Interwebs were: 1) "He's getting credit for his originality when he's really just copying other people's covers of the songs!" and 2) "He's sharing barbers with Michael 'Pay No Attention to my Baldness' Bolton!" So what does he do? Gets a new hairstyle and actually creates an original arrangement. Bam. That is someone who knows his perceived weaknesses and, just like the Dutch boy in the story, puts his finger in the duck before the leak turns into a flood.

Is he essentially Chris Daughtry II: The Christening? To some extent, yes. But he has the advantage of having the way paved for him by Daughtry's success, just as Chris had Bo Bice's coattails to rock upon. Will that be enough for him to win? Well, since I don't feel like rewriting everything above, I'll say: maybe.

Bonus question: How much longer do you think the producers of American Idol will put off the inevitable "Billy Idol" week? Two seasons? Three? As long as it takes for everyone to forget his Wedding Singer cameo?

Ship of State Ahoy!

2008-03-17T20:27:00.000-07:00

I've been thinking a lot about our Presidency, partly because it seems like it's been in the news a lot, partly because one of the side effects of having a God complex is that you assume all powerful positions of leadership should be personally vetted by you. (I'm kidding, of course. How could God have a complex?)

Anyway, it seems to me that this system's all messed up. (I know, I'm the first person ever to have this revelation. Bear with me.) The candidates battle it out for months, digging up more and more dirt on each other until all of them look like complete tools (a process which should take hours, by the way). Eventually, the (usually) lesser of two evils is elected. No matter who wins, though, it won't be long before some sort of crisis comes along that he or she--ha! I kill me--he can't handle quickly enough or cheaply enough or manfully enough, and America thinks he's even more of a tool than they already do. Things go downhill for the remainder of four years, then repeat.

Seriously. This is dumb. But I have a solution.

Hang on, I just found out what the President makes in a year. I don't think I could feed my family on that.

Never fear, I have another solution.

Look, being a President is a big job. Huge. Too big, some might say, for one man. So what's to do?

I see you're right there with me. And you're right: the solution is simple. Multiple Presidents.

But we're not talking a council. This isn't a democracy. No, we're going to recognize that everyone has their own strengths and weaknesses, and like a baseball manager, you need to match those strengths to the task at hand. You don't send in your left to face a left-handed batter, do you? Or wait, do you? Anyway, it's not important. It's the manager's job.

But how do we select these fine leaders? Simple: we take the most experienced ones available. No, I'm not talking about actual Presidents--haven't we just established that they were no good? Being the President is all about image and inspiring confidence. So let's get the people who looked the best at the job.

For the ordinary day-to-day political stuff, we'll have Martin Sheen. Terrorists attack? Dennis Haysbert sits in the big chair. Comet coming to wipe us all out? Morgan Freeman's the man. Alien invasion? I want Bill Pullman in the Oval Office (or in an F-18). Harrison Ford would pretty much just ride around on Air Force One at all times. Geena Davis could...um...well, maybe not every fictional President would need to have a role. We could figure that out as we go.

I Am Tina Turner

2008-02-28T13:00:00.001-08:00

Unfortunately, my chosen career path is Ike. It frustrates me on a daily basis. I used to just go home angry; now I go in angry, too. Road rage? No, just office rage that keeps getting out of the office. Well, that and a lot of moronic drivers on my commute.

My work desk was purchased from IBM in a surplus sale sometime in the 1980's. As near as I can tell, IBM got rid of it for being too conservative. Anyway, it's got those pull-out extensions on either side, just above the drawers, designed to give you more work surface when the rest of your desktop is too covered in hookers and blow. For about the last six months, I've had an eight and a half by eleven photocopy of my middle finger taped to one. Whenever I'm getting particularly frustrated with someone, I just pull out the desk extension, smile, and put it back. Lately, I've been pulling it out upwards of three or four times a day.

(Now there's a phrase I never thought I'd be able to say about the office!)

Seriously, at some point, you just have to say, "Enough." Which I suppose would make me more like Julia Roberts or Jennifer Lopez than Tina Turner, but I have a little more self-respect than that.

So what to do about it? The obvious answer, of course, is nothing. The slightly less obvious answer involves doing unfunny things with firearms, high explosives, and/or a naked molerat. A safer answer would be to find a new job, but having done that three different times already, and found myself in the a similar place after a similar interval every single time, it's becoming obvious that just getting a beating from a different-looking guy probably isn't a long-term solution. It's time to find a guy who will let me wear the strap-on.

You know, this whole extended metaphor is getting odd. Time to give it a rest. I am no longer Tina Turner.

I think my dream career still involves getting paid for sarcasm, rather than simply giving it away for free. Let me start with just getting my writing stuff in order. If any of the three people who read this know of a really well-organized writer's website that I can plagiarize wholesale, feel free to post it in the comments.

I Think I Can Manage Without It

2008-02-20T09:39:00.001-08:00

You know, management really isn’t hard. You make sure your people have what they need to function on a daily basis, make sure they’re all moving in the same (or at least the right) direction, act as their champion when they need someone with more weight to throw it around, take the blame when they fail, and give them credit when they succeed. Seriously, that’s it. 75% of the people in the world would go to war for a manager like that, and the other 25% are worthless pricks that you don’t want on your team anyway.

Why is that such a problem for so many people?

Poetry in Motion

2008-01-25T11:41:00.001-08:00

Yellow diamond sign
Does not excuse your driving.
Tot's first words: "Bite me!"

Be Honest

2008-01-24T09:41:00.000-08:00

Does anyone REALLY call you The Space Cowboy?

I didn't think so.

There, now. Didn't that feel good?

Bits and Pieces

2008-01-21T11:30:00.000-08:00

Typically, I'm the last one up in my house. Most nights I'll turn off all the lights downstairs, and then before I go up to bed, I like to look out the window and just gaze thoughtfully at the street for a while.

I don't like to do it for to long, though, because in the movies, that's when a zombie would come shambling by my window. Then I would have to stumble backwards in horror, just as they started smashing their decaying limbs through the windows, driven by their insatiable hunger for brains. And, frankly, replacing windows is a pain, and I'm in no hurry to do it. Although it would do nice things for my heating bill.

* * * * *

One of the dangers of sharing a public restroom with the rest of your building is that, at any time and without warning, other people can render it utterly uninhabitable. I work in a fairly small office, in a building shared with several other similar offices. Every floor shares a single common restroom for each gender.

Our men's room suffers frequent (almost daily) assaults from one individual who seems to be suffering from a severe fiber deficiency. In our office, we've taken to referring to this man as the "Sh*t Cannon". If you don't have the good fortune to get your business done before the Cannon fires, just forget about it, because it's not happening afterwards.

The other day, one of my co-workers came back from the men's room with an oddly triumphant expression on his face.

"What're you so happy about, Bob?" I asked.

"You may refer to me as Saint Bob," he replied.

"Saint Bob?"

He nodded. "Oh yeah. Because that bathroom's just been canonized."

What I'm trying to say is: sometimes, you need to find little ways to motivate yourself.

* * * * *

This is what we're reduced to without Whedon

2008-01-15T12:31:00.000-08:00

From a comment thread on The AV Club's message boards, regarding Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles:

i also feel the need to watch anything starring a cast member from firefly, be it this or a made-for-abc-family movie about a sorority that turns out to be a coven, so really watching this series is beyond my control.

7:01 AM Mon January 14, 2008

I watched half a Lifetime movie the other day because it had Fred in it. This was a step up.

11:57 AM Mon January 14, 2008

You know, it's people like this that are hurt most by the writer's strike. The bloggers...won't somebody please think of the bloggers?

Thank you, please call again

2007-12-31T08:09:00.000-08:00

Actual excerpt from my conversation with Dell last week, when they were pushing me to renew the warranty on my 1-year-old laptop:

Salesman: Don’t you want to protect your investment? What would you do if your laptop broke down?
Me: Well, I imagine I’d have to buy another laptop that wasn’t a Dell.
Salesman: And you think that’s a good risk to take?
Me: Weighed against the risk of the laptop actually breaking down after a year, yes, I do.
Salesman: Well, what about your car? Don’t you keep that insured?
Me: True, but I’m far less likely to kill someone with my laptop.
Salesman: …

I think I may have deviated slightly from their script on that answer.

How was your day, Honey?

2007-11-14T13:17:00.000-08:00

"Nothing great in the world has been accomplished without passion." --Georg Wilhelm

I haven't the faintest idea who Georg Wilhelm is, but I'm guessing he and Taylor Mali have read some of the same books. If your job makes you get up in the morning and say this stuff, lucky you. If not...well, you're most of us.

Incidentally, Teacher's Day in the U.S. is in May, but seriously, why wait? Teach somebody something today.

New Position Filled

2007-11-08T12:58:00.001-08:00

Ah! Back from vacation and ready for the demotivating world of the office again. Not even the funny, quirky office from The Office, or the so-soul-sucking-it's-funny office of Office Space, but the real, live, You're-Here-Because-You-Like-To-Eat-And-Have-Insurance Office.

Good times.

But hey, it gives me something to write about. Which is kind of like saying, "I save a lot of time on tying my shoes since that chainsaw accident!", but it's what I've got.

Right before I left for vacation, a large man walked into our office. It seems that he and his partner shared another office in the building, but they were being displaced by the sale of that suite. Did we have any space that we could sublet to them?

Since five of us were currently languishing in a space built to hold sixteen, it was safe to say that, yeah, we might. I took his card and told him we'd talk it over and get back to him. Then I headed into the kitchen for lunch, where two of the three owners already were.

"Who was that?" one of them asked.

"That was..." I checked the card--"Monte Coleman." (Not his real name)

"That name sounds familiar. Monte Coleman?"

A quick Googling showed us that the large man who had visited us had, in fact, played linebacker for the Washington Redskins. And now he wanted to come live with us.

I wanted this to happen. Nevermind that the sitcom potential would be off the charts. Ever since the days of Terry Tate, I've known that I wanted to work someplace that had an Office Linebacker. Also, it didn't hurt that continuing to finance enough office space to contain all of our hopes and dreams was expensive, and a subtenant would ease some of that burden.

When our CEO got back to the office and heard about the meeting, she was beside herself. A quick aside: though she knows nothing at all about football, she's had a strange fascination with football players ever since stealing an autographed football at a marketing lunch. She immediately took Monte's business card and ran to his office to have him autograph it for her. This established our starting negotiating position.

Shortly thereafter, a meeting with Terry--er, Monte--was set up for the following Monday. That was the start of my vacation, much to my disappointment--would he use "I'll refrain from tackling you...mostly" as a bargaining chip? I did prep a list of bullet points for them to address, though, having had some experience with subleases at previous jobs. After the meeting, a co-worker e-mailed me the terms they'd reached:

Monte and his partner would get two of our seven window offices; we would supply furniture; we would reconfigure our network to give them access to our printer; and we would continue to cover all utilities, janitorial expenses, and maintenance charges. In return, we would get the privilege of paying them $300 a month.

Wait--what?

Funny, I hadn't thought that "turn a profit" was a necessary bullet point.

Best taste ever

2007-10-09T08:25:00.000-07:00

Taste test courtesy of The Onion.

Serve chilled

2007-10-05T10:06:00.000-07:00

So, a few months ago, I was given the task of writing a job ad for our company. We were looking to hire Java developers--something currently more in demand than air fresheners at a chili cook-off. To add hay to this stack, we need people with Top Secret clearances. The people who meet these two criteria have their pick of literally dozens of companies in the area. So how do we make them pick us?

My idea was to tempt them with hookers and blow, then blackmail them with the resulting video (or just sell copies of the video to meet our cash flow needs). My backup idea was to write a cleverly worded job ad that made us seem like a hip, fun place to work. That idea (the backup) was going great; I wrote something I was more or less happy with, and something that my boss was happy with. We were one big happy until we passed it by the CEO. Her comment:

"It's good, just take out all the funny parts."

Really? You want to make it exactly like every other ad out there? What, were you afraid we might get some resumes?

Fast-forward to this week, when the CEO is out on yet another vacation ("But I'm available by cell phone, so I don't really have to use vacation time,") and we once again desperately need Java programmers. And my boss came to me and said, "Mr. Overlord, I want you to come up with a really fresh, engaging ad, something that will grab attention and make people think, 'Hey, I want to work there!'." And I tap Ctrl twice to bring up the Google Desktop prompt, type in "megalomaniacal office manager", and bring up that job ad that I was so proud of.

We're running it next week. But for you, loyal reader (readers?), here's a sneak preview. And hey, if you're reading this and know someone who fits the description...if you care about them, don't show it to them.

Hey, you!

You have a security clearance and a resume that includes the word “Java” without being followed by the words “coffee shop where I worked between semesters.” With those two things, you have your choice of dozens of jobs posted here and elsewhere. Why should you choose this one?

Easy: because you want to work here. We just haven’t had a chance to prove that to you yet. We’d like to correct that.

We’ll start with a competitive salary. Add excellent benefits, including 100% company-paid medical insurance, dental, life, disability, paid vacation and sick leave, 401(k) with company match, FSA, parking or metro allowance, and tuition reimbursement. Throw in the flexibility, tractability, and attentiveness of a small company. And top it all off with a megalomaniacal office manager who possesses a penchant for using words from his word-a-day calendar when writing job postings.

What do we ask in return? Right now we’re looking for the following:

Software Developers
Specifically, developers with experience developing web-based Java applications in an Oracle environment. The work entails developing capabilities for an SOA, creating standards-based portlets for inclusion into a portal environment, and interacting with stakeholders, preparing documentation, and providing thoughtful leadership on various development issues. In other words, the qualified candidate will be able to communicate with people and computers equally well. Or at least have organized a 40-person raid in WoW.

Applications Programmers
Does the job description above sound like where you want to be in two or three years? Don’t worry, we have junior-level Java positions too, developing intelligence applications in an Oracle environment. If you’ve done that before and would like to do it again while building towards something more, this is the position for you.

Technical Writer
Does describing the work done in the above positions interest you more than doing it? We’re looking for someone who will serve as contract documentation specialist and will support the instantiation of a matrixed approach to technical documentation. Requires, among other things, at least 3 years of experience in software development documentation and the ability to come up with a better phrase than “the instantiation of a matrixed approach to technical documentation.”

General Qualifications
• Proven ability to work well in teams
• Ability and desire to learn new skills
• Ability to represent our company well when dealing with the customer
• Lack of rabid weasels attached to your face
• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science or related discipline.
• Active Top Secret clearance

Did we succeed? Do you want to work here? Then we invite you to forward your cover letter and resume. We look forward to working with you.

Heroes: Four Months Later

2007-09-24T20:02:00.000-07:00

*Checks calendar* Hmm...so it is. Props to them for getting that little detail right. And I'm glad they didn't feel the need for the same sense of realism for the episode "Five Years Gone" (or "Six Months Ago", for that matter, although that would've been cooler to see).

OK, so Heroes. If you haven't watched the first episode yet, this will probably contain spoilers. If you have, it won't. If you don't care, you're not one of the three regular readers of this blog, so I guess I don't know what to tell you. You were expecting maybe office-related humor? OK, here's something for you to use around the water cooler:

You: Hey, did you hear Marcel Marceau died this weekend?
Co-worker: No!
You: (Shaking head sadly) That's how good he was.

-or-

Co-worker: Yes! So sad.
You: I know. Should we observe a moment of noise?

OK, so for the rest of you, here is the thought that sums up everything I think about the show to date:

Love the ideas, but they got the archery wrong.

Let's do the obligatory preamble. I am a fan of Heroes. I love the premise. I love that it's made sci-fi shows suddenly cool, just like reality shows were after Survivor, even if it means that we'll be flooded with a bunch of sci-fi equivalents of "Temptation Island" and "The Swan". There were active debates in my household as to which of "Heroes" or "24" to watch live and which to DVR. (The excessive number of commercials in "Heroes" did nothing to help it here--something I would like to thank Nissan for correcting, if only for one week.) I still have last season's finale in coveted "Save Until I Delete" status. I love the characters, not in a jailbaited "Is it legal for me to admire those?" way, but in a "I'm genuinely interested in what happens to these people to the point where I'll yell at them when they do stupid things" way. I'm excited to see that Werner Brandes is still working.

But here's why 24 won the pole position in the live-vs.-DVR debate, why I always walk away from "Heroes" with a firm "but..." following "That was great!"

Japanese archery looks funny.

I know this, partly because I am a tremendous nerd, but mostly because I, like most, have a great talent for remembering bits of information that will never, ever, ever be of practical value. In this case, some portion of my brain devoted itself to the book Zen in the Art of Archery in my sophomore year of college. Specifically, it remembers two things:

1) Breathing is very important; and
2) Japanese archery looks funny.

It looks nothing like what you'd expect. It looks kind of like you just woke up and are stretching without yet having realized that there's a bow and arrow in your hands. There's a fun little animated .gif of it on the Kyudo.com site, or you can see it on the YouTubes.

If you were paying attention when the archers fired on Hiro and Kensai (although, honestly, I don't know why you would), you would have seen that they looked like they learned archery from Kevin Costner. I don't fault the actors here. I don't even think I can fault the director. I recognize that this is a stupid, annoying, nitpicky thing on the level of accusing Michael Dorn of accenting the wrong syllable in his Klingon war cry.

To me, though, it's just a symptom of the larger problem with "Heroes": the writing is just...well, good. Too many times last season, I felt like they were dumbing characters down to drag out a big reveal (like Niki/Jessica taking about 5 episodes longer to figure out her bipolarism than anyone with a brain) or inventing inexplicable plot twists because they'd written themselves into a corner (Hiro's missing powers). Little things that could've been done better, but weren't; little details that needed just a little more attention, but didn't get it.

Like the fact that Japanese archery looks funny.

I'm still in for the long haul, and I'll probably write about it again. But I'd hoped that, once they had proof that they could succeed, NBC would lavish money and Joss Whedon on the show, and it doesn't look like they did. And so it looks like I'll keep leaving each episode with a firm "but..." after my "That was awesome!"

Then again, who ever knew that watching TV could give you a firm "but"? (Rim shot)

On Writing

2007-09-21T09:22:00.000-07:00

Good stuff over at Pick The Brain. My favorite quote is from Mark Twain:

Substitute “damn” every time you’re inclined to write “very;” your editor will delete it and the writing will be just as it should be. ~Mark Twain

Even if I'm very, very guilty of breaking the rule very, very, very often.

I'm not going to go on a big long rant about kids these days, primarily because I'm lazy, but I do hope that the difference between "chatting in text" and "writing" is not lost in my lifetime. I think chatting has its place, and I like the Shakespearian aspect of making language evolve to meet your needs. I love using "book" in place of "cool" (it's certainly no worse than some of the other words I've seen used for "cool").

I just hope that I never see my son use "Ur" on a term paper about anything other than the periodic table or ancient Mesopotamian cities. If he does, I may have to get Full Frontal on him.

(Please click the link to see that that statement is very, very, very much less sick than it sounds.)

You Make The Call

2007-09-04T14:22:00.000-07:00

Is anyone else reading this even remotely old enough to remember that TV spot? (Or should I just stop that question after "this"?) They would show a potentially controversial sports play (like, say, A-Rod slapping Arroyo during the 2004 ALCS, or A-Rod shouting at the Toronto infielder during a routine pop-up, or A-Rod killing and eating babies and copping an attitude), then stop the film just before the crucial referee's ruling, and an impressive announcer voice would say, "You make the call." Then they would cut to commercial, and come back afterwards to give you the correct ruling, so you could celebrate like a madman if you were correct, or pat each other on the butt if you were wrong.

I have nothing so exciting as sports plays to offer you, but I do have HR nightmares. Lots and lots of HR nightmares. Why don't you take a crack at a few:

1. Your IT department has just found a large cache of pornographic images on the company server. They traced the folder to one of your managers, whom you have confronted. Which of these responses are you least expecting?

a) "Uhhhh..."
b) "Someone must have hacked my user ID and put those there to frame me!"
c) "Oh, those? Yeah, those are mine. What's your point?"
d) "Does this mean I won't be getting the additional server space I requested?"

You make the call!

2. Which of the following might be considered Justifiable Stealing?

a) Eating condiments out of the office fridge because you forgot lunch and are too cheap to buy any.
b) Using the company's FedEx account to overnight a birthday card to Europe because you put off sending it until the day before.
c) "Borrowing" the conference room TV for your Super Bowl party, so you won't miss any action while going to the kitchen for more bean dip.
d) Approving a round of low-priced stock options for the Compensation Committee, which in turn approves a 33% pay increase for you.

You make the call!

3. After months of poor performance, late arrivals, threatened lawsuits, unsubstantiated disability claims ("I am sensitive to criticism! It's a documented medical condition and you have to be nicer to me!"), management has had it. You have built an ironclad case to let your problem employee go. The employee knows it's coming. What should you wear to the termination meeting?

a) Business suit
b) Kevlar vest
c) Bomb Disposal Suit
d) Something that will hide the bloodstains

You make the call!

4. Rank these statements from "Most likely to provoke a harassment lawsuit" to "Least likely to provoke a harassment lawsuit."

a) "Well, of course you can't see it...you're Korean."
b) "What do you mean, you won't move those files? Are you afraid you'll break a nail?"
c) "Hey, once you go Asian, you never go Caucasian."
d) "My little grandson is just the cutest thing...and let me tell you, that boy has a whompin' penis! Do you want to see some pictures?"

You make the call!

5. Which of these is the least appropriate statement for a corporate officer to make during the hiring process?

a) "You know that candidate is clinically insane, right?"
b) "If we hired you, do you have any plans to become pregnant in the next year or two?"
c) "I'd really rather not hire an Asian person, I have a lot of trouble understanding what they're saying."
d) "You know, marriage is really just a social construct that goes against all our genetic programming. We're hard-wired to cheat on my spouse...I mean, our spouses."

You make the call!

Happy Anniversary!

2007-08-15T08:13:00.000-07:00

(Source: xkcd)

Government efficiency

2007-08-03T11:36:00.001-07:00

Spot the hilarity in this sentence:

"The benefits of applying electronically is that (1) Alleviates paperwork burden (2) Walks you through the entire submittal process thus reducing errors (4) Verifies the submission of required documents (5) Ensures speedy and secure delivery."

(Source: GSA eOffer FAQ Forum)

Funny Words (not mine)

2007-07-17T07:35:00.000-07:00

It's funny because it's true:

Hey, Look by Simon Rich

The Day After Independence Day

2007-07-04T20:11:00.000-07:00

July 5.

The virus worked. Across the planet, alien motherships are crashing to Earth like so many K-Fed follow-up albums. People of every nation are celebrating with cheers, heavy drinking, and various forms of interpretive dance.

What next?

There's no question that Independence Day was a huge success, grossing over $300 million dollars in the U.S., and better than three quarters of a billion dollars worldwide. Why, then, has there been no sequel? Only Titanic has grossed more without either being or spawning a sequel, and let's face it--there wasn't much they could do after that one. ("So, after 150 years, Jack's frozen corpse is found by a passing freighter, which just happens to have a beautiful young woman aboard who's unhappily engaged to the Chief Engineer, and they thaw him out and…hey, where are you going?")

Where, then, is the love for ID4?

In fact, plans for a sequel were bandied about the Fox studio in the summer of 1998. When it came time to approach the principal characters of the first movie, though, they ran into a few snags...

President Thomas J. Whitmore – Riding a wave of post-alien-invasion popularity most incumbents only dream about, President Whitmore cruised to a landslide victory that November. The first months of his second term, overseeing the rebuilding of the nation and the recovery of alien technology, were a smashing success, and there was even a groundswell of movement to amend the Constitution in order to allow him to run for a third term. Unfortunately, the administration was rocked by a scandal from within his own family (see below), and that movement never gained enough momentum to reach Washington.

President Whitmore served out the remainder of his second term and went on to lead a fairly typical post-office life of book tours, library openings, and extremely lucrative public appearances. Even then, though, he was not done being a part of America's political process. His stint as part of McDonald's “Healthy McLiving” campaign, exhorting customers with the words “Today...is our day of independence...independence from trans fats!” actually caused the Senate to pass a bill limiting the types of engagements for which a former President could accept a speaking fee.

Capt. Steven Hiller – After completing his enlistment, Captain Hiller went on to join the NYPD. It would not be the last time he dealt with extraterrestrials, however. His previous experience with aliens, as well as his exemplary record as a police officer, brought him to the attention of a secretive government agency charged with human-alien relations. He was regarded as one of the best of the best of the best—with honors!

He obtained his law degree through a correspondence course and practiced criminal law for a time, but a particularly dangerous case involving organized crime forced Captain Hiller into the witness protection program. He tried his hand at both professional golfing and professional boxing, but his success with both put him in too much danger of being recognized. Eventually, he returned to law enforcement with the secretive government agency that had initially recruited him. At last report, he was heading up a new homicide division that specialized in investigating crimes allegedly committed by artificial intelligence.

David Levinson and Constance Spano – As with most romances born of crises and reality shows, theirs faded after six months. David returned quietly to obscurity, though he would eventually be arrested for writing viruses directed would-be cable thieves. Connie returned to her position as White House Press Secretary, where she spent many late nights working closely with the President, working to rebuild the country after the invasion. Ironically, the candle David had accused her of having for the President years before now finally had a chance to burn, and she may well have been the first First Lady to marry a sitting President were it not for...

First Lady Marilyn Whitmore – Reanimated using alien technology found in the wreckage of the mothership, she became the first zombie First Lady (or second, if you believe the rumors about Pat Nixon). She would, unfortunately, prove the undoing of her husband's administration, as her hunger for brains eventually led her to eat one foreign ambassador too many. Nobody noticed when Canada's disappeared, and eating France's may have even upped her approval rating, but Trinidad and Tobago's crossed the line. She was tried, convicted, and sentenced to chasing by torch-wielding mobs, followed by chainsawing, followed by shotgunning. She plans to appeal.

Julius Levinson – What, another movie you're making? Oy! My feet, they're still aching from that movie! And my image! Hundreds of thousands of people going to see the first one, and me looking like I just rolled out of bed! You couldn't get a wardrobe that didn't look like it was picked up off the floor that morning? You spend millions of dollars making the alien ships look just right, you couldn't even buy me a comb? And what's this, who do you think you are, Mr. Big Man with the big sequel? Eleven years, you don't call, you don't write, now you just show up on my door expecting me to dance for your big sequel? In my day, we respected our elders more than that! And another thing I'll tell you...

Russell Casse, Tiffany the Ditzy Stripper Stereotype, and All Those People Standing on Top of Skyscrapers to Greet the Aliens – Their atoms, my friend, are blowin' in the wind...their atoms are blowin' in the wind...

Unnamed Commanding Officer (Dan Lauria) – Dan went back to his quiet family life in the suburbs, raising three children to the precocious narration of the youngest boy.

Captain Jimmy Wilder - Though he would never know it, his death in the first alien engagement saved him from an even worse fate—-life as a lounge singer off the Vegas Strip.

Major Mitchell – Jealous at the way congratulations and appreciation were lavished on practically everyone but him, Major Mitchell stole a high-ranking female officer's identification and, in spite of the improbability of a man having a name like “Jayne”, was able to bluff his way through security and swipe one of the alien spaceships. From there, he headed out into the galaxy to make his way as a mercenary, figuring that, one way or another, he'd find a way to be a Big Damn Hero.

Names you wouldn't expect to see in a headline together:

2007-06-21T10:48:00.000-07:00

Wes Craven and Pauly Shore

Do you think there's any chance they could settle this in movie form? I think I would actually pay to see Pauly Shore terrorized for two hours and eventually decapitated. Less if it was just a movie, but that would still be worth a rental.

Rejected campaign slogan

2007-06-14T09:42:00.000-07:00

You know, if they had had the guts to go with the obvious - "He'll clean up this town!" - he might've won.

Ruling the Road

2007-05-14T20:04:00.000-07:00

I've been living outside of Washington, DC for closing on two years, now. It has its pros and cons, but ultimately, I know that I will be leaving here in one of two ways:

In the front seat of my nearly empty pickup, having already packed and shipped the 8.4 metric tons of crap we've acquired since having a child; or
In the back seat of a police cruiser, having finally snapped and beaten another driver to death with the hood of his own car.

Seriously, those are the only two choices. And I wouldn't want to lay odds on which one it will be right now.

I understand that different areas of the country have their little driving quirks. Boston drivers are aggressive, but generally kind; if you can convince them that you have no regard for your own safety, they'll usually take pity on you and back off. I chalk this up to the democratic nature of the state. In Rhode Island, the person turning left across traffic has the right to block oncoming traffic for as much time as it takes to complete the turn; this is because Rhode Island has a very high percentage of senior citizens, and they all drive enormous old boats for cars that can stand up to being broadsided repeatedly. Some places insist that the first car making a left after a red light should go before the oncoming traffic starts, and others will gleefully T-bone someone who tries to get away with that. And so on. These are all local interpretations of the rules of the road, and once you've learned them, you can expect to see them followed by the majority of drivers in your locale. I'm perfectly fine with this.

In my time in Northern Virginia, commuting 60 miles a day, I've only learned one local driving rule. That is:

Rule #1: Be the biggest dink you can, to everyone you can, at every opportunity.

No, seriously. And stop before you say, "Don't be such a pantywaist, every place has drivers like that." Yes, every place has drivers like that. And if all of those drivers got together and elected their presidents, and then those presidents got together and elected their Supreme Chancellor, and then that Supreme Chancellor had himself cloned a million times and forced each of the clones to watch nothing but Pauly Shore movies while listening to Bobcat Goldthwait and Roseanne sing "A Horse With No Name" the entire time they were growing up, then gave them all cars and set them loose in a 10' by 10' room, you would have a good approximation of the kinds of drivers we have here.

Take my commute (no really, please). There's one place along the route where the road widens to add a left-turn lane. This was done, presumably, so that the average driver would not be inconvenienced by a fellow driver ahead of him who must wait for the oncoming traffic to pass before making a left turn. A fine idea, to be sure, and very thoughtful of the VA DOT.

That's the theory, anyway. In practice, it works somewhat differently. You see, the left turn is into a church parking lot, which gets very little traffic for at least six (and possibly seven) days of the week. What this left-turn lane becomes, then, is a 200-foot passing lane for any frustrated NASCAR wannabe with an overcompensating car to pull out and race one or two car lengths ahead, only to cut back into traffic and force everyone behind him to jam on their brakes. I see this happen once or twice a week. And that's just when I'm driving by.

So what are your options in this situation? You can try to straddle both lanes, and count on there being enough oncoming traffic to keep Jerk Gordon from pulling around you anyway. You can speed up and tailgate the car in front of you, but then you're hoping that the person in front of you does the same, or Bobby LaButthead will just cut in front of him, and then you're really in trouble when the brake lights come on. Or you can sit there and take it while Dick Trickle (wait a minute, that really is a NASCAR driver's name?) cuts you off. Might as well offer to let him kick your dog and have sex with your wife while you're at it.

I've tried all of these options, and no amount of "Serenity now!"s can make them palatable. We need fresh thinking on this problem. We need an idea that allows us to act out our aggressions in a generally safe (and by that I mean "safe for me") manner. That is why, today, I propose:

Paintball Diplomacy.

A friend and I first worked this out in Boston, never realizing just how much it was needed elsewhere. The basic concept is simple: Every new car comes with a paintball gun. When you renew your registration, you get a certain allotment of paintballs. To keep things relatively under control, these paintballs will be unique in some fashion such that you are not able to obtain more on your own. Then, whenever another driver does something that annoys you, rather than curse or honk your horn, you just pull out your trusty gat and squeeze off as many rounds as it takes to make you feel better. No permanent damage is done, your blood pressure stays nice and low, and everybody goes home happy.

There are so many benefits to this system, I don't even know where to begin:

Drivers who claim to not know that they're offensive now have no excuse. If you come home with a couple stray hits on your vehicle, it's probably just a normal day. If you come home with your vehicle completely repainted--guess what, dude. You're the dink.
Rather than knocking a couple bucks off your insurance, a safe driving record would let you buy upgrades for your paintball gun, like laser sights, bigger magazine capacity, or--prize of prizes--fully automatic fire. Conversely, drivers who rack up tickets will have their gun downgraded as far as it takes for them to get the message, even if that's all the way down to a stick and a rubber band.
Carpooling before: letting weird strangers into your car to do your duty to the environment and get into a marginally faster lane that other people are sneaking into anyway. Carpooling after: three more gunners FTW!
The system inherently discriminates against convertible drivers. Isn't that what everyone wants anyway?

I'm convinced that Paintball Diplomacy would be a great leap forward for our country. If I'm ever elected to public office, I would make this the second piece of legislation I push forward, right after the one that lets me slap stupid people whenever I think they need it. I'm still working on the exact wording for that one.

Join with me! Let's take back our streets!

Get on Down

2007-04-03T07:50:00.000-07:00

So it turns out that it's possible there may be someone out there who reads this from time to time. Who knew?

In that case, I owe it to him or her to update this at least once every two months. And since I have no particularly good ideas at the moment, I'll take three draws from my Handy Bag of Popular Writing Cliches, and combine whatever I get to form an idea for this post. For those of you who write, I highly recommend keeping such a bag handy; you never know when you may need a cliche on short notice. Just look at the last few seasons of The Simpsons. Or, actually, don't.

OK, drawing now...

"Top Ten List".

OK, those aren't bad, I can always form an opinion or ten on demand.

"Predictions".

Predictions can be fun. Well, unless you have to write them down and leave them somewhere for people to see and poke fun at you later. But hey, law of averages says that I'll be right some of the time, right? Just so long as it's not about something that's left completely up to the whims of the lowest common denominator, like NASCAR fans or the FOX network.

"American Idol".

Crap.

Well, if that's what I've got to work with, that's what I've got to work with. At least I know that only the one person reading this will ever know how wrong I was.

Here we go, in the order in which I'm predicting their departure, your American Idol Top Ten:

10. Chris Sligh - Already gone, so this is not so much a prediction as an excuse to use the following quote:

"So, by that rationale, if a pig had a better personality, it would cease to be a filthy animal."
"Well we'd have to be talkin' about one charmin' motherfuckin' pig. I mean he'd have to be ten times more charmin' than that Arnold on Green Acres, you know what I'm sayin'?"

Sorry, Chris. You were charming in the beginning, but in the end, personality will only get you so far.

On a side note, Chris (and I feel like I can talk to you on a first-name basis because "Mr. Sligh" sounds too much like a weird Mutiny on the Bounty reference), your best bet right now for future success is to shut the hell up and stop with the "Yeah, I was, like, totally going to quit anyway, because I didn't really want to win" nonsense. It's like calling your ex-girlfriend and telling her that it doesn't matter that she didn't return your previous thirty-five messages, because you're breaking up with her. You showed her! Just disappear from view for a while and wait for your chance to open the tour with a stand-up routine. You'll kill 'em.

9. Gina Glocksen - This one disappoints me, because I like Gina and I think she's better than this. Ah, well.

8. Phil Stacey - On the plus side, now he can concentrate full-time on preparing for his role in the Yul Brynner biography.

7. Haley Scarnato - Haley, top seven? I know! But I have to give her credit for figuring out the formula that got Katharine McPhee to the finals: showcase your best assets and don't sing objectionably bad. Unfortunately, a nice pair of gams will never take you as far as a nice pair of hooters. (That's a tip from your Uncle Overlord, kids, write that down.)

As long as I'm making bold predictions into space, I'll predict Haley's wardrobe for her last few episodes: I'm thinking a dress slit up to there for Tony Bennett week, a miniskirt or hot pants for Latin week, and Daisy Dukes for her final appearance on Country week. That'll be it though, barring some sort of full monty wardrobe malfunction.

6. Sanjaya Malakar - Sanjaya, top six? Well, Howard Stern has a lot of loyal fans, although apparently not as many as Sirius quite literally bargained for. That said, some of them are even capable of dialing a telephone, as evidenced by his show. And this is not completely without precedent; Jon Peter Lewis made the top eight by channeling Napoleon Dynamite. Heck, Scott Freakin' Savol was top five just by getting in touch with his inner blackness. I don't think it's a reach to put Sanjaya here unless the hairstylist somehow runs out of ideas. With a French twist, dreadlocks, a beehive, and Pippi Longstocking yet to go, I think he can pull it off.

Anyone else think the stylists are just screwing with America and Sanjaya at this point? The hair's the obvious clue, but even wardrobe--I mean, the dude wore a sweater with thumbholes in the sleeves. Thumbholes! I can't decide if there's some sort of backstage pool going to see who can talk him into the most ridiculous getup, or if they've embraced his "So bad he's good" status and are pushing it as far as they can. The only other thing I can think of is that his older sister is giving him tips while still secretly seething with jealousy. Maybe it's a little from all three columns.

Anyway, Sanjaya lasts until May sweeps start, thousands of knuckleheads who think that they're screwing with American Idol keep watching and voting for the wost, and Simon laughs all the way to the bank. It's the American dream.

5. Justin Timberfake - Honestly, I find myself liking Chris in spite of me. I just wish he would stop moving when he sings. At all.

4. Blake Lewis - Week four always sends someone home too soon. (See Gray, Tamyra; Gracin, Joshua; London, LaToya (though only barely too soon); and Daughtry, Chris.) On the bright side, they usually end up doing pretty well for themselves. (See almost all of the above...sorry, LaToya.) Blake will have moved from "Dark Horse" to "Front Runner" just in time to be "Example To Those Who Didn't Vote For Him Because He Was The Front Runner".

3. LaKisha Jones - This feels about right. Sorry, LaKisha, but ultimately, we are a shallow, shallow people.

2. Jordin Sparks - While I don't like the Season 3 parallels (talented youngster vs. hard-working and talented veteran in the finals), what can I say? This is where you've brought us, people.

And that means that your 2007 American Idol winner is:

1. Melinda Doolittle - Ooo, way to pick the favorite to win! Ooo, big shocker! Ooo, why don't you go a little further out on that limb and actually break contact with the trunk, you loser!

Yeah, yeah, I hear your scathing remarks, Lone Reader of this Blog. (And let me tell you, Mom, those hurt.) But seriously, how could you pick anyone else?

She's in the top three, if not the top one, in terms of talent;
she has experience and stage presence;
she consistently chooses her songs well;
she grew up in Oklahoma and resides in Nashville (the South *always* wins Idol); and
as long as she doesn't overplay the "Aw, shucks" thing for too much longer, there's nothing about her personality that could turn voters off.

Give her Haley's legs and Katharine's boobs, and you'd have the perfect American Idol contestant. As it is, she should have more than enough to take this season.

Now I'm off to have my bracket destroyed by Tony Bennett week. Laters!

Too Soon?

2007-02-09T12:29:00.000-08:00

How long do I have to wait before I can comfortably look at naked pictures of Anna Nicole Smith again? A week? A month? Is there some sort of sliding scale based on the results of the autopsy?

- Accidental drug overdose: Tragedy. Three months.
- Deliberate drug overdose: Crazy chicks are hot. One week.
- Choked on own vomit: Rock star way to go! Hot. Vomit! Not hot. Split the difference. Four weeks.
- Murdered in elaborate paternity suit scheme: Weird. Wait for TV movie, hope that it comes out on pay cable instead.
- Unforseen congenital defect: Sad. Go back to surfing for supposed Britney lesbian pics.

I just don't know.

From the archives, with Love

2007-01-24T21:38:00.000-08:00

When was the moment you first discovered that the person you'd pledged the rest of your life to is crazy? For me, it was when we addressed our wedding invitations. Let me tell you, if you're going to get married, this is where you should start. If you, as a couple, can't survive this process, you might as well call the whole thing off. Where to live, when to have kids, how to pronounce "tomato", it's all a bunch of hooey. There are far more serious issues which you, as a couple, must deal with.

I'm talking, of course, about buying the right stamps.

I thought I was doing the right thing. I was at the Post Office the week before, and as I finished my transaction, the clerk asked me if I would like to buy any stamps today. Normally, I would pretend to agonize for a while before reluctantly saying no (hey, I don't want to even RISK starting a random spree of violence. Heck, I've let girlfriends down harder than I turn down my local postal worker, and I have the falsetto range to prove it); anyway, this time, I said, "Sure, I'll take a roll of a hundred stamps, please Mr. nice totally non-disgruntled Postal Employee." I thought this was pure genius. Here I was, thinking A FULL WEEK AHEAD (well, two days, really, but that's practically a week), and I was thinking about US, as a COUPLE, looking toward OUR FUTURE LIFE TOGETHER. If that wasn't worth some nookie on the weekend, I didn't know what would be. I made sure my fiancee knew all about the stamps at the next opportunity.

So imagine my surprise when she bought, not a hundred, but TWO HUNDRED AND FORTY stamps later that same week. I was confused. "But...but I...but...I have a hundred," I stammered, seeing my $37 investment in nookie turning into so much Enron stock.

"Oh, we can't use THOSE stamps, silly," she said, patting me affectionately on the head, much as you would a puppy that managed to pee on the carpet near the door rather than in the middle of the room. "They're not Love stamps."

Love stamps? I was vaguely familiar with these. Instead of toy trains or breast cancer or fat Elvis, they had some form or another of "love" on them. Not even the good forms, like Radar Love or a Groovy Kind of Love or even Courtney Love (available in self-adhesive only--would you put your tongue anywhere on that?). To the best of my knowledge, though, they were still worth thirty-seven cents apiece.

Unwilling to seek out the professional help that my fiancee so obviously needed, I thought I would consult with a representative sample of the female population. So I polled all of the recently married female employees in my office.

"Love stamps?" she responded. "No, I wouldn't give you a hard time for not getting Love stamps. The invitations will probably cost sixty cents to mail, though. The response cards, too. So I'd kick your ass for not getting the right amount of postage."

Let me get this straight: you're telling me that it's going to cost me $1.20 just to find out that Uncle Edgar is going to be coming to embarrass me with the story of "The Noodle Incident" again? Are you kidding? Who came up with this idea?

Fortunately, disaster was narrowly averted when the Post Office was able to produce sixty-cent Love stamps. But that's not the point.

Isn't it time to change? This is a new millenium! Emily Post is past! Miss Manners is missing the mark! Why can't we just e-mail our invitations? Click, click, click, and everybody's invited. We'll know by next week who's coming or not! People, it's time to start a revolution! Write to your newspapers! Write to your congressperson! Write to the President!

I'll even supply the first 340 stamps!

Why I haven't posted in a while...

2006-12-27T07:30:00.000-08:00

Santa and I had a little "disagreement" over whether or not I needed a PS3 for Christmas. Unfortunately, Santa won.

But I'm feeling much better now.

At the prompt, enter "/NOMOPOO"

2006-11-10T08:30:00.000-08:00

Three things I've learned about parenting in not quite four months:

1. Babies need to come with cheat codes. Seriously, wtf? I'm part of a glorious generation in which we've learned to face challenges via the medium of video games. If you get frustrated by a video game, you can hop onto Google, bounce over to any of a dozen gaming sites, and quickly find out what code you need to enter in order to get a few extra lives or unlimited gold. This is how things should be.

I tried that when my son was going through his "Everything's fine, must be time to scream for a while" phase. Googling "Baby Cheat Codes" turned up four sites of codes for video games with the word "Baby" in the title, five that told you how to unlock baby-related content in video games (i.e., Prince of Persia's "Baby Toy of Death"), and one album on CDBaby.com entitled "Cheat Codes". There's clearly an untapped market here. Why can't our secret government programs quit trying to genetically engineer a super-soldier and get working on a baby who can be programmed to change himself? Speaking of which...

2. It's possible for a 17-pound baby to produce four pounds of mucous, nine pounds of poop, and five pounds of spit-up in a 24-hour period. The Law of Conservation of Matter does not apply here. Someone looking for a renewable energy resource needs to get on this. Note that I didn't say "clean", just "renewable".

3. Your wife won't think it's funny if you pump your fist and shout "Chug! Chug! Chug!" while she's feeding the baby. This is especially true if she's breast-feeding.

More to come, as the Little Overlord sees fit to clue me in.

My quote

2006-10-24T12:08:00.000-07:00

Ego is one of the leading causes of deafness.

When I'm famous and/or dead, that's one of the ones I'd like attributed to me. Let some snot-nosed little high-schooler use that in his college application.

Get your head out of there!

2006-08-05T18:53:00.000-07:00

There are a number of topics you are prohibited by law or policy from discussing in the office. Size of your genitalia, for instance. What you and the missus did with those two hookers and the marmot last night. How important it is for your cubemates to accept L. Ron Hubbard into their lives.

And yet, when my wife was ready to spawn our firstborn child, no law or policy prevented one of our company's owners from turning to me in the midst of a company-wide meeting and asking, "Is she dilated yet?"

Why is that? She wasn't the only person to ask me that, although she did perhaps have the most appalling timing. But who would think that the inner workings of my wife's girl parts are an appropriate topic of discussion at any time, much less in the office?

I've been trying to come up with a male equivalent--that is, what someone could ask my wife about me that would be equally untoward. So far, the best I've come up with is "So, how's your husband's narrow urethra? Are those stretching exercises helping?", and that's only funny if you say it in Hank Hill's voice.

If you've got a better idea, by all means, speak up. Maybe something involving the words "colon" and "obstructed bowel." And if you're wondering...well, just keep wondering.

Why I like rural America

2006-07-24T08:22:00.000-07:00

Life, I've found, does a much better job of giving positive reinforcement to bad habits than to good ones. They're generally easier, almost certainly more fun, and until they develop a "Save/Reload" function for reality, you can't really say if things would have turned out better had you been diligent about maintaining "good" habits. So what's the point?

Take procrastination, for example. As witnessed by my recent posting schedule, I find it's very easy to put off obligations. I think it was Mark Twain who said, "Never meet trouble halfway; something usually happens to it before it arrives." Now that I own a house, I couldn't agree more. Sure, an ounce of maintenance is worth a pound of cure, but who wants to measure out sixteen ounces of maintenance when you could just slap down a pound of cure later?

I put a stone patio in our backyard about a month ago, one of the most herniatingly good times I've ever had. A small stack of wooden pallets has been sitting in my driveway ever since, a byproduct of the stone delivery. Unfortunately, since I have enough room to park and can still get into the garage as needed, getting rid of the pallets hasn't carried any sort of immediate urgency for me. The garbage collectors wouldn't take them, and getting rid of them myself would require loading them into my truck and driving over the hot, sweaty dump, where I risked stepping on a rusty nail and needing to get my tetanus shots updated, which would further require me to spend even more valuable XBoxing time going to the hospital...hence, procrastination.

And then along came positive reinforcement in the form of my local United States Postal Employee, or as I like to call him, my Mail Dude. After a month of driving by my house and seeing the pile out there six days a week, he finally came by on a morning when I happened to be outside and asked if I was going to do anything with those, or if not, could he take them for camp firewood?

So, let me get this straight, the problem gets taken care of without any time or effort on my part?

Well...OK.

Mail Dude came back that afternoon with his pickup, and I helped him load the pallets into an F-150 bed already packed with camping gear and various other sundries. So I guess it took a little time and effort on my part, but the payoff came in the form of this conversation:

Maildude: Let's see, just gotta make some room in my truck here... (moves a sack of potatoes).
Me: Mmm, spuds. Going to roast those in the coals?
MD: Nope. Those are for my potato gun.
Me: Potato gun? You got some unruly potatoes need keepin' down?
MD: (Takes out a 4' long contraption made of two pieces of PVC pipe with a screw cap on one end) Yep!
Me: How about that, a potato gun! What do you use to fire that, compressed air?
MD: Hairspray.
Me: Hairspray?
MD: (Unscrews cap and tips out a can of Clairol) Yup. I've got this grill igniter for a trigger...just put the wires to these two screws here, and push the button for a spark. Gotta clean the igniter, though, it's sticking right now.
Me: Well how about that. Hairspray! What kind of range you got on that?
MD: Depends on the potato, really. Good one'll go a thousand, fifteen hundred feet.
Me: Well, don't that beat all.
MD: Now, I know what you're thinking...
Me: I don't think you do.
MD: ...And the answer's no, you can't fire a golf ball with this. See, I went with the inch and a quarter PVC for this, I'd need to go smaller for that. But I'm gonna get a piece of that and cut grooves into the inside, and thread this end here so I can take it apart from the chamber. This one right now won't fit in my Camaro.
Me: Well, it's tough to get everything right on your first try.

Procrastination. Without it, I'd have missed out on this entire conversation, easily one of the highlights of my weekend. Now I just need a gravel truck to tip over in front of my house so I can finish my rock garden.

Falling down on the job

2006-05-01T11:15:00.000-07:00

114,000 bras linked together, and the best headline Fox could come up with was "Cancer Activists Create World's Longest Bra Chain"?

That's pathetic! Who's editing over there? Not to go all Charlie Bales on 'em, but they were staring an opportunity in the face (or thereabouts) here, and they let it slip through their fingers.

"114,000 Strong; Cancer Activists From A to DD"

"Fraternity Party Gone Horribly, Horribly Right"

"Cancer Activists Give Hoot(ers) About Cancer"

"Breast Cancer Activists Show Support By Removing Theirs"

"Cancer Activists Form Support Chain"

Any one of these would've grabbed more attention for the cause. Fox, we expect better from the company that brought us "The Swan".

Cover me

2006-04-29T14:23:00.000-07:00

I am a fan of music. By this, I don't mean that I am a "serious" music fan. I don't spend hours a day deciding if I want to sort my CD collection alphabetically by lead singer's first pet, or from west to east by band's city of origin. I'm happy for people who are fortunate enough to have found their particular talent in life in this manner, but if that's mine, I'll just keep looking.

No, when I say that I like music, it simply means that, most of the time, I'd rather have the radio on than off. My CD player is the first thing I turn on when I walk into the kitchen, and I'd rather drive across the country without A/C than without FM. Like ribs (for her), it just makes things more pleasurable.

I realize that the very act of listening to the radio rather than some obscure garage band diminishes me in the eyes of the "serious" music aficionado. I have heard some independently-produced albums that sound great (yeah Dogfight, woohoo!) and some that don't. Ditto for the radio. I know that the songs sung by Avril and Snoop and Eminem and pretty much anyone else I've ever heard of are in some way influenced by the record companies that pay them millions of dollars a year. Frankly, I don't see what the big whoop is. If you prefer what they sing to nothing, leave the station on; if you don't, put in your college roommate's demo tape. Live and let live, I say.

But even though I say that, there are still a few basic conventions that need to be made clear. We may argue back and forth all day about classic subjects like indecency vs. art, free speech vs. obscenity, to-MAY-to vs. any vegetable that doesn't taste like puke. But there is one area which must be addressed, and must be addressed soon:

Cover songs.

Yes, taking someone else's material and foisting it on mankind as your own is as old as Prometheus. Sometimes it's no big deal, sometimes it really is an improvement, and sometimes it's Celine Dion singing "I Drove All Night."

But why was it OK when Roy Orbison covered Cyndi Lauper's song, and not when Celine Dion did? I'm glad you asked! May I present:

Three Simple Rules for Cover Songs

1) Your version must add something.

In the example above, Roy pretty much added the Y chromosome to Cyndi's original. Can't argue that *that's* not something. Celine added a bad French accent. I'm not saying that there was necessarily anything wrong with her version, but...did it really add anything to the music world that a Montreal karaoke bar couldn't?

In fact, maybe that should be the rule: "Your version must add something that a Montreal karaoke bar couldn't."

I'm not saying the new version has to be earth-shattering; Hall & Oates added a jazzed--up guitar part and an extra "don't" to the Everly Brother's "You've Lost That Lovin' Feeling", and that was enough to make it different. But if an artist can't even do that, then he's just trying to siphon off record sales from confused youngsters who think that Michael Bolton was the first person to sing "Dock of the Bay". And yes, I have reached the age where I'm trying to look out for America's youth. Don't sass me, you whippersnapper.

2) You cannot cover an artist's defining song.

I know, I know...who decides what a "defining song" is? Well, as the saying goes, if you have to ask if it is, it probably is. Anyone who thinks they can deliver more "Satisfaction" than the Rolling Stones deserves to be beaten soundly with Mick Jagger's lower lip. C'mon, that would be like me trying to take a piece about exploding toilets away from Dave Barry. That's just arrogance.

To take a subject that's closer to recent history, Michael Jackson had scads of hits, and we could debate for days on whether or not "Thriller" was a more defining song for him than "Beat It." (In light of his recent legal troubles, it probably won't be "The Girl Is Mine.") At any rate, I think we can agree that, for a number of reasons, it's definitely not "Smooth Criminal," and since Alien Ant Farm kicked things up several notches in their version, that passes muster.

In a similar vein, but different enough to deserve its own rule, is:

3) You cannot cover a one-hit wonder.

I heard a cover of "Jessie's Girl" on the radio a while back. Leaving aside the fact that the band (Frickin'A) broke Rule #1...c'mon, guys. This is the only reason Rick Springfield ever shows up on a Google search. How can you try to take that away from him? You wanna kick his dog while you're at it?

There you go. Aspiring musicians of the world, please take note of these three simple rules, and we can all live in harmony (nyuk!) with one another. At least until some record label hears me singing "Tiny Dancer" in my kitchen and signs me to a deal.

Quote of the day

2006-04-24T08:52:00.000-07:00

From someone who was clearly and gratuitously trying to be the quote of the day, but what the heck, it wasn't bad.

"The president has to be like Moe Howard: At some point in every 'Three Stooges' short, Moe slaps both Curly and Larry and says, 'Get to work,' " -- Bill Whalen, a research fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution, referring to the Republican party's need for unity in the face of record disapproval ratings.

From today's Seattle Times.

Now that's good writing!

2006-04-19T12:41:00.000-07:00

Saw this bit in last Sunday's Washington Post, and it's one of the funniest non-Dave-Barry things I've read in a newspaper.

First, the backstory: the White House has hosted an Easter Monday Egg Roll since the days of Andrew Johnson (Campaign motto: "One way or another, I'll be a historical footnote!"). Each year, this event promises more family-friendly fun than the Hawley-Smoot Tariff, and so families line up for well in advance to get tickets. The particularly hardcore pitch tents and wait overnight (or even nights) for their chance, joining Duke basketball fans and people in Darth Maul impersonators as people who will one day look back on their lives and wish that they had grown up in the '60's, where they could at least blame the drugs.

At any rate, this year's line included a greater-than-usual (that is to say, nonzero) number of openly same-sex couples with their kids. Some were there to make a statement; some were there simply because their kids wanted to go, and no doubt shocked and awed their parents with a combination of creative whining, sniffling, and Bambi eyes until Mom and Mom caved. Many were there as part of a concerted effort to encourage same-sex parents to come out of the closet, as it were, and simply enjoy the weekend of family togetherness (or at least as much as one can enjoy a camping trip in the middle of a major metropolitan area after all the bushes in the area have been picked clean of broad, soft leaves).

Many of the couples wore rainbow-colored leis or bracelets as a show of support for each other--a sort of visible secret handshake, now that all the good ribbon colors have been appropriated by bumper stickers. The author of the article spoke to some of the other people waiting in line to see what they thought of the whole affair:

"As long as that's all they do, the leis, that's okay," said Lisa Padres, 34, who lives near Chantilly. "I just wish they would just go dressed like everyone else and not stick out. That would be better."

Padres waited in line with two friends all night, the trio wearing fuzzy bunny ears.

Sometimes it only takes one side to show both sides of the issue. That's good reporting!

The full article, by Petula Dvorak, is available at the Washington Post's website. (Subscription required, unfortunately, but at least it's free.)

HI COO

2006-04-06T13:27:00.000-07:00

VANITY PL8 NOS
GIVENU ME-NING 2THETRM
CRE8IVE L1CENSE

I really like vanity plates. I think it's the hidden writer in me. Vanity plates are a form of creative expression as strictly structured as any haiku or sonnet. You have a few simple rules:

You may only use capital letters, numbers, dashes, and spaces;
You must keep your creation under seven letters (plus one space or dash)
No dirty words...usually.

That last one's open to some debate. Here in Virginia, at least, there's a nifty little online tool that lets you input your potential plate and see if it's both allowed and available. The tool knows enough to reject obvious curse words ("ASS" is smacked down, for instance--sorry, Seinfeld fans), but not enough to stop the substitution of numbers for similar-looking letters ("A55" pa55e5 with f1ying c010r5). Maybe the DMV needs to hire more from the ranks of the leet (warning: sound) to get hip to the modern lingo.

Now, those are the impositions of the DMV. Good sense dictates that the potential plate poet exercise a bit of restraint, too. You need something that's funny more than once, since you're going to have it for a while. You don't want a plate that takes too long to understand, because if there's anything less funny than a joke that you have to explain, it's getting rear-ended by the person behind you too busy trying to figure out what "TI 3VOM" meant to notice the red light you'd stopped at. (Hint: that plate works better on the front of the car.)

With all these restrictions, though, there are still hundreds of good combinations out there, bounded only by the imagination of the vehicle owner. And let me tell you, the vehicle owners in Virginia have some pretty good imaginations. Some of the good ones I've seen:

JS4LAFS - cute, simple, to the point. People probably let this driver cut in a lot. I did. And to her credit, I got not one but two thank-you waves in return.
KELTYC - simple phonetics tribute to Ireland.
PL8 NMBR - can't argue with that. Ditto for "CAR" and "TRUCK".
AG EQUUS - on, naturally, a silver Mustang. I admire this one; it's not often you can list everything you remember from two high-school subjects in seven letters.
AU EAGLE - while you'd think this would be on a gold Talon, it was in fact on a black Honda, which made no sense at all until I saw the Auburn U sticker.
VGEPUNK - "I eat my tofu...raw."

...and some of the not so good:

I DZRV IT - on a red Mazda with a license plate frame that said "Call me! 1-800-YOU-WISH". Hmm, little red coupe screaming "my driver is a dink"...do you think this might be the most-pulled-over car in the state?
ISMLBCN - I guess not. But what chutzpah! Why not just put "SPEEDER" or "CR THIEF" on there? (Both are available, by the way. So is "8ALLZY".)
FCASTRO - Fidel supporter? Or is he saying "F--- Castro!" Or maybe the guy's name is just Frank Castro. Too many options.
WHT RBT - on a black Mustang. Maybe just a Monty Python fan?
ULYSTK - huh?
LADZ MAN - funny, but mostly because I didn't initially prounce the "D" correctly, leading to a run of Brokeback Mountain jokes.
BROKBAK - just kidding. That one's still available, actually.

So what about me? I've just got the boring ol' standard-issue plates, for now, in spite of spending more than a few idle hours whiling away various combinations at the Virginia DMV site. Much to my dismay (if not surprise), "OVRLORD" is long gone. So is 'NOGOL4U". "BIG PNIS" is still available, but let's face it, I don't want to have to back that up. Also, unlike the aforementioned BCN-SMLer, I'm perfectly content with the number of moving violations I have currently.

No, I'll just stick with what the state gives me, for now. As you may have noticed by now, conveying a pure, concise message in as few letters as possible runs pretty much exactly contrary to everything about my creative style. But if I'm whiling away some time on the internet some afternoon, and I discover that OVRLORD is suddenly available...I may not be able to HLP MSLF.

Farming it out

2006-03-29T14:23:00.000-08:00

Some days, I just have to accept that nothing I could produce (pun intended) would be funnier than vegetable-based humor.

http://www.storewars.org/flash/

It's Haikuesday!

2006-03-28T08:08:00.000-08:00

Titles are always tough. Am I being sarcastic, or just lame? It's hard to tell sometimes.

Yes, haiku! Like most folks in my neck of the country, I spend entirely too much time commuting--about three hours a day, on average, locked in my Detroit-made rolling coffin with an assortment of podcasts and a supply of daggers (suitable for glaring).

I like to make up poetry in my head to pass the time. Since there are only so many rhymes for "dumbass", I've branched out into non-rhyming forms. I like haiku, because they don't make me sound like a Jewel wannabe, and because I can usually remember seventeen syllables at a time.

For today:

Your hand gives payment
As you merge in front of me;
Keep the change, and thanks.

I can't even begin to count how many vehicles I'm sharing the road with on an average day. Enough to have figured out that, barring an unluckily short yellow light or two, letting a few cars in front of me isn't going to impact the amount of time it takes me to get home at all. And it's usually easier than riding the butt of the car in front of me to keep someone from cutting between us--particularly since, if I do that, that someone will simply zip ahead in front of *that* car and get in front of both of us. (I miss that about Boston. I'm continually fascinated by the regional driving rules that locals establish for themselves, and how different they can be from one place to the next. More on that another time.)

Anyway, while we've established that I can't generally keep you from getting in front of me one way or another, I still expect a "thank you" wave for the courtesy of letting someone in, for the same reason that I say "Bless you" when you sneeze. And not a half-butted flick of the fingers while you're turning the steering wheel, but an honest-to-goodness, visible-through-the-back-window, "Thank you for acknowledging my existence" flash of all five fingers. A woman in a green Honda gave two waves this morning; one when I motioned her out of the parking lot, and another after she'd merged into traffic. Last I saw her, she was still breathing without difficulty--I don't think the gestures took too much out of her.

I refer you again to Red Foreman's quote. And if you can't be bothered, then I should be entitled to fling my own crap at you. (Hey, 90 minutes is a long time to go with a full mug of coffee and no rest stop.)

Pretension

2006-03-24T20:36:00.000-08:00

It's not just what you are before you're uptight.

"Do you like to dream beyond limitations, swim against the current and risk for the sake of greatness?"

Would you use that sentence to open a job ad for anything other than American Inventor Contestant or Comic Book Hero?

How about Senior Claims Specialist with Progressive?

What sort of greatness do you aspire to, exactly? And what are you risking? Life in a vinyl-covered middle management chair?

Winning Acquaintances And All That

2006-03-24T14:39:00.000-08:00

An awkward situation arose at the office this week, when our newest employee had the gall to celebrate his birthday on just his third day of employment. Now, we try to be accommodating of employees' different birthdates. Heck, we are small enough that we usually celebrate with a cake and a mildly humorous-but-inoffensive card. But this was really putting us to the test; two days is simply not enough time for us to each come up with our own inane but unique message to scrawl on the birthday card.

And if that wasn't inconsiderate enough, he brought his own cake! His own cake!! The nerve! How are we supposed to make him feel welcomed and appreciated if we can't give him cake? Next thing you know he'll be bringing in pictures of his kids or his wedding or some other aspect of his personal life that we'll have to feign interest in, which should not be expected of us for at least two to three months. There are RULES, here, people! As Red Foreman once said, without rules, we may as well be sitting around in trees, flinging our own crap at each other.

To prevent such savagery, I thought I would clearly establish the proper timeline of behavior for New Guys everywhere, in order to ease their transition toward acceptance. These rules may also apply to New Females, but as future bloggings will no doubt prove, I haven't the faintest idea about the members of that kingdom, so I'm writing what I know.

Week 1: At this point, everyone still believes that you might be cool. The surest way to screw that up is by interacting socially with any of them. You're starting with a clean slate; try not to run your fingernails down it right away. You should spend most of your time at your desk, reading whatever paperwork they've given you and trying to determine the best monitor angle to hide your web surfing from the casual observer. Once that is accomplished, see if you can figure out exactly what it is you were hired to do.

Week 2: Took too long to adjust your monitor, eh? That's OK, you've still got some time. If you don't remember what you were hired for, try instead to figure out what industry you're in, based on what you see around you:

Large machines = Manufacturing (supplies, or possibly textiles)
Sick people = Health care
Very short people = Education or the Circus
Repo men = Dot-com

Week 3: You can begin to venture out of your office for such necessities as coffee and the bathroom. If you encounter a co-worker in your travels, you should greet them with a nod and a casual "Mornin'" (or, if you're feeling daring, "Afternoon"). Should you encounter the same co-worker again, you've left your office once too often. Play with fire and you'll get burned, my friend. Your only hope of escaping with dignity is to fake an asthma attack and rush back to your office for your inhaler. If the person follows you out of "concern," remove your sock and breathe deeply through it. This person is not actually concerned for your welfare; they are just looking for cracks in your facade of coolness. Don't give them anything this early.

Think of these as Special Forces Recon missions: get in, get your man, and get out. See if you can overhear a few important details about your company, such as "Gee, I sure am glad we're manufacturing so many textiles right now!" Be prepared to pull your feet up onto the toilet seat to avoid detection. You're not ready to encounter a co-worker in a room with only one exit.

Week 4: OK, this is the moment you've been preparing for all month: it's time to engage in conversation with your fellow employees. For the first week, we'll stick to the two safe topics: sports and the weather. But don't get too excited and make the classic rookie mistake of using both in one sentence, as in, "It's too bad the local Major League Baseball team was rained out last night, huh?" You've just exhausted all of your conversation options in one shot. Now you'll have to hide out in your office again until football season.

Weeks 5-8: As your conversations progress, you can gradually mix in a little color and small details about yourself, as in the following example:

"I really enjoyed last night's local Major League Baseball game! That starting pitcher can really bring the heat! Speaking of heat, what do you think of this weather we're having? I do not enjoy it!"

Here, by expressing your opinion on the subject, you encourage your dialogue partner to share his own. Most of your co-workers will pick up on this. The truly reluctant or conversationally inept, such as the members of your IT department, may require further drawing out. An excellent technique to employ here is the use of direct questions. To wit:

"I really enjoyed last night's local Major League Baseball game, you know? That starting pitcher can really bring the heat, huh? Speaking of heat, what do you think of this weather we're having, eh? I do not enjoy it, do I?"

This should be sufficient to prompt even the most reluctant conversationalist to act.

Week 9 on: You have progressed as far as you can socially with this group. It's time to seek a transfer, or if necessary, a new job. Good thing you adjusted your monitor back in Week 1, isn't it?

One final note: you may skip ahead one week in your development for each "New Guy" who joins after you, because now you are "the Seasoned Veteran." Other personality types to aspire to are "the Grizzled Veteran," "the Sarcastic Veteran," and "the Grizzled, Sarcastic Veteran." Such a lofty title often takes years of hard work, weather, and baseball games to attain, but as with any job, you must establish your goals early!

First post

2006-03-24T08:44:00.000-08:00

So this is what happens when procrastination meets opportunity. Well, eventually.

More to come.