A holiday will be declared. Preparations will be made. Celebration will be the order of the day. Libations will be served. There will be much rejoicing.
What is it, you ask? Ah, but it's not time to share just yet. Despite my giddy anticipation, I will remain quiet for the time being in preparation for the formal announcement. Okay, one small hint. A series of grueling glute workouts are in store for me, as my hindquarters need to be really strong and reinforced just in case they should be hit by a door (in mid-departure, for instance). Yes, it's quite likely that this is an unnecessary precaution, but this is really important and I'm not going to leave anything to chance.
Stand by for more on this developing story...
2:21 PM
Thursday, June 10, 2004
New, Improved Resignation Letter, Now with 30% More Vitriol! Dear Mr. Steinbrenner:
I hereby give you two weeks’ notice of my intention to leave my position as Mindless Bureaucrat IV. Remaining in this drab office and choking on my rage for the next two weeks will not be pleasant or easy for me, but I believe that courtesy and prudence dictate that I do so. Not unconsequently, it is my courtesy, prudence, decency, 3-digit I.Q. and daily bathing, among other things, that make me a poor fit for my current position.
I have decided that it is time to move on and I will be seeking a position in a different field. This was an unbelievably easy decision and took almost no consideration. Well, at first it was a somewhat more difficult decision, but after checking with my attorney and learning that "but those dumb motherfuckas SOOOO needed the life choked out of them" would not be a valid defense of Plan A, it was a no-brainer to go with Plan B, which is getting my ass out of this swirling cesspool of an office. My desire to depart was helped along immensely by the fact that my work environment is like an asylum, albeit with less intelligent inmates with less meticulous attention to personal hygiene. I am confident that this decision will help me to move toward some of the goals I have for myself. My main goal is to not work with the bunch of (see list) that pass for my coworkers here ever again.
Please be assured that I will do all I can to assist in the smooth transfer of my responsibilities before leaving. This will be an easy promise to fulfill, since I do almost nothing.
I wish you every good fortune and would like to thank you for having me as part of your team. For the team, it is my hope that they continue to live sniveling, miserable, and insignificant lives and that none of their dreams come true. It was an extreme lapse in judgement on my part to ever join this team, but I'm not going to blame the coach.
I just made a random comment, as I felt a point was much in need of addressing. It was stated that whiny men are equally as annoying as whiny women. I submit that whiny men are far more annoying than whiny women. Men gripe. Men complain. Men rant. Sometimes these things are perfectly understandable and tolerable, other times, less so. But men should not whine. Nothing is worse than some emasculated male with delicate emotions whining about what a bad day he is having. Pathetic eunuchs, who wish to inform anyone who will listen about their ex-girlfriend (who broke up with him six months ago after dating him for all of three weeks) and her commitment issues and his therapist’s take on the situation, have no place in polite society. Am I saying men shouldn’t have or express emotion? Hell, no! Men should have feelings. Men can say what they’re feeling. Men can air their grievances. Men can gripe. Men can even cry (if circumstances dictate, it’s not okay to cry because you can’t find the belt that matches the shoes you’re wearing). But when they do these things, they must be men about it. But I think I’m stating the obvious here. So onto the funny part. This was a comment about men in general and wasn’t meant to be nearly as deep as I’ve now made it. It was just something I said because I work with a bunch of sniveling, whiny man-bitches and therefore have a particular dislike for irrational sissy-boys. But upon reading it, a certain male, who shall remain nameless, apparently saw himself in my words and responded accordingly. I totally wasn’t talking about you. Or at least, I didn’t think I was talking about you. Now I must wonder...
2:12 PM
It would appear that some folks who fancy themselves geniuses have invented the "Mega-Q," a number that is only very slightly more meaningful than my own "LeBaroness Index", which can be used any time an utterly meaningless number is needed to console some simpleton. It's your phone number divided by your zip code, added to the sum of your weight divided by your age.
Picture a stack of copy machine paper 8.5 miles high. On one -- just one -- of those sheets of paper is a set of winning numbers.
Now imagine how difficult it would be to pick that one page out of the stack on a single try. That's what it's like trying to win the 11-state Mega Millions lottery game, whose top prize carries the staggering odds of 1 in 135 million.
So goes the lesson taught to statistics classes at Alamo Community College, where some students have become so fascinated with lottery odds -- and the public's relentless attempts to defy them -- they've developed a lottery-intelligence quotient called "Mega-Q" to show which Mega Million states have the wisest players.
Their conclusion: Texans are among the smartest because they spend the least per capita. But rather than deliver their finding as a cold statistic, they came up with "Mega-Q" to give it more impact.
"We don't spend nearly as much as New York and some of the other states," said student Frank Rodriguez, who said he was amazed to learn about lottery odds.
I've often called the lottery the "dirtbag tax" and I'd be lying if I said that it attracts mostly people of higher-than-average intelligence. But for the most part, the lottery is voluntary, harmless, cheap, and fun. As long as someone doesn't steal their dollars from me and will not be stealing dollars from me in the future, they can choose to invest in Treasury Bills or lottery tickets without worry of condemnation from me. But this Mega-Q number is pretty damn useless and certainly undeserving of a newspaper write-up. (See the chart in the article.) If you make a big ole pile of money, it's hard to argue that you're stupid if you spend a negligible $20/month from that pile on lottery tickets. But if you make $200/week and most of that is taken from your paycheck automatically by court order for delinquent child-support payments and you only have $50/month in discretionary funds, perhaps spending $20 of that $50 on lottery tickets isn't the best use of resources. The kiddies at Alamo Community College might be able to come up with a more relevant number than the LeBaroness Multi-Purpose Index if they considered the average per capita incomes in the various states. If it were possible to collect the data, it would be interesting to see the percentages of total income spent on lottery tickets by various groups. I think it would be a fair assessment that someone who spends 50+% of their income on lottery tickets is stupid. But if another person spends the same dollar amount on lottery tickets, but that amount only accounts for 0.000002% of their total income, then they may not be quite as stupid. All these students have shown with the Mega-Q creation is that numbers can be manipulated to give whatever results you want, by making questionable assumptions. And the Houston Chronicle has done no real service by highlighting this accomplishment, unless their intent was to prove that Alamo Community College is a leader in the field of pointless exercises.
"We're finally realizing that when you have such a tiny chance of winning, you're throwing your money away. There's better things to spend a dollar on," the professor said.
No argument here. There are many better things to spend a dollar on. There are also many worse things to spend a dollar on. It's your dollar. Do as you damn please with it.
10:31 AM
Monday, June 07, 2004
The Horror of Teh pRon
When bigdave3d dropped that BOMB on his website about that snot-nosed, bitchy, semi-attractive (on a really good day) gym-goer appearing in Hustler, I KNEW exactly who he was talking about. I say again, I KNEW. Without a doubt. It never crossed my mind that perhaps there might be another hoochie at the gym who also fit her description. Even though the description was just about her horrid expressions and "me-and-all-my-belly-fat-are-superior-to-you" attitude, I still knew it was her. And I must say that I harbor a fair amount of resentment for the hoochie I thought was being described, so I was somewhat happy because: (a) my foe was such trash as to dream of being in Hustler and to take steps to realize this dream, and (b) I was going to mock the naked picture of her to no end, 'cause there was nary a doubt in my mind that she would not photograph well and would be fraught with laughable flaws. Yes, I'm somewhat ashamed of (b), but get over it, I'm a chick, and chicks are catty.
Well, imagine my surprise when I open the email containing the offending image, fully expecting to be horrified at what I saw, but also smugly satisfied in the knowlege that there was photographic evidence of my foe's pathetic depravity and that she would have flabby thighs, a paunch, sagging boobs, or all of the above, and THEN being greeted by a fully-nude photograph of a complete stranger. I felt at first that I had violated the poor little girl's privacy by gazing upon her ample belly (her belly is such that I honestly don't recall boob sagginess or lack thereof) and dumbass facial expression. I got over this quickly, consoling myself with the knowlege that she had sent a naked picture of herself to Hustler in the hopes of it being published, therefore there was no privacy for me to violate. But it's still weird that I have seen a nude picture of someone that I personally bear no ill will toward. I describe her as such hesitantly, however. For she is so utterly nondescript that I could have suffered some minor slight at her hands and forgotten about her totally. She's neither attractive nor hideous. She could disappear into any crowd and go unnoticed indefinitely. Which might be why she felt that sending her naked likeness to Hustler would be a good thing. But the point is that no good comes of looking at pictures of naked chicks.
2:46 PM
