Blog notes: I have a voice!
It’s time to write a blog post. What to do? What to do?
Unless there’s a burning issue sitting happily on my frontal lobe, step one is usually checking my “blog notes” and finding some scrap of an idea. But wait! It’s not as easy as it sounds.
For one thing, my notes are scattered to the wind across a wide variety of locations. In the physical world this includes sticky notes littered around my desk like dying leaves on an autumn lawn. There’s also two pocket notebooks filled with pages and pages of tiny scrawl. Most of it is not decipherable, even to me, the hand that did the scrawling. And they’ve both been through the laundry so the ink is fuzzy and faint.
In the electronic world I’ve cleverly tried to consolidate my little notes to self. There’s the “Notes” app in my iPad. There’s another app called “Werdsmith” I also use from time to time. And, in an app called “Evernote” there’s probably my biggest library of random thoughts. This one has the advantage of being shared with my computer, too. Lastly there’s a plain text file in the home directory of my computer that I maintain with a command line text editor.
Here’s a sample of what can be found in my notes. I’ve culled these from the herd for your edification of the writer’s process.
Artichoke or Boss?
Tags: smell, rat
As is often the case, my notes are generally useless when I revisit them later. They may seem obvious at the time but usually I don’t breadcrumb enough to lead my brain back to the scene of the crime and grok the point, if there even was one.
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Philanthropy: A Wing And A Prayer
The Tom B. Taker Wing
The problem with money is that too much of it in one place creates wealth. (It’s easy to imagine if you try.)
Money, an imaginary construct born of the human mind, is better at some things than others. What it may be absolutely worst at, perhaps, is as a yardstick for measuring the worth of human beings.
My personal theory is that the more you have the less likely you are to be deserving of it. And that truly stratospheric acquisition of wealth doesn’t provide enough atmosphere to sustain life. That’s why those with that much wealth have skin that looks like the surface of the moon.
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Don’t facial me, Facebook!
Fuck off with this shiznit already!
I went to a party last night. I know, I know. That’s completely atypical behavior for your guru. I found out about it on Facebook and decided to RSVP. A friend of mine accepted a job offer and was moving out of town.
Of course, while at the party, which was held in a backyard, I found dog poop on my pants. I no longer bother asking, “Why me?” This sort of thing has become routine for me.
Facebook is something I use quite reluctantly and on a very minimal basis. I keep all of my privacy settings as restrictive as possible. Since new features get rolled out with me automatically opted-in this is an ongoing battle. Fuckers.
Part of maintaining my privacy is managing photographs of me. Controlling my profile is easy. I never upload any. Ever. But what happens when other people upload pictures of me to their Facebook profiles?
That’s when the fuck sets in.
Their settings may not be private. In fact, the pictures they upload may be open to the entire universe. Worse, thanks to Facebook’s “tagging” feature, people may be drawing little boxes around my face, providing a beautiful and convenient trail of breadcrumbs to shit I didn’t want online in the first place.
Fuck!
So I told everyone I knew at the party, “No photos, please. My people believe it steals your spirit.” No, I’m not a member of any tribal population. By “my people” I mean uptight motherfuckers and vengeful passive-aggressive assholes who will end you if you violate my wishes.
The problem? Everyone and their grandmother at the party had fucking devices all over them. Cell phones with cameras, smart phones, iPods, iPads and iPhones were all over the fucking place. Thankfully I saw no cameras, but what good is that when everyone is packing devices that will do the same damn thing?
Worse, they fiddled with these devices continually. They played with them as if they were as fun as their own damn genitals. “Oops. It’s been ten seconds again. Time for my to fondle my iPhone. Stand back! I’m not sure how big this thing gets.”
Disclosure: I also was packing a device. An iPod Touch. But I kept it in my pants while interfacing face-to-face with actual humans. I needed no app for that.
Long story short, this morning I woke up and received “notifications” from Facebook that I had been tagged in two photos.
Motherfuckers!!!
Yeah, one person at the party (who I had explicitly asked not to take my photograph) had posted images, two of which contained my fearful visage. Then, a different person at the party came along and drew the little motherfucking box around my face, “tagging” me in Facebook parlance.
I wrote the photographer and asked her to edit me out of the pictures or pull the pictures down. She replied, “I have removed the tags.” She didn’t do as I asked. Either she’s dumb or she thinks she knows better. Grrrr.
Yep. The pictures are still on the internet. Completely outside of my control. And I’ll bet you dollars to donuts that some other person can still come along, think they are being helpful, and tag the fuckshit out of them – again.
Conclusion
As a global citizen of this planet, and one not wishing my copyrighted bread and butter (my face) gets on the internet without my consent, there is only one option left to me. I’ll never go to another fucking function where there is anyone I know.
I’m going to get me a lawyer to start sending “cease and desist” letters to my so-called “friends.” Yes, once again, that is Facebook parlance.
Make no mistake about it. If I want a facial, I’ll do it myself.
An offer you can’t refuse
A message from the Godfather
How do most people handle “invitations” from the boss for company events on your off-duty time?
The word “invitations” is quoted above, of course, because when my boss is involved, the matter might be phrased in such a way that attendance seems to be optional but really it’s not.
You … will … be … there. Or else.
My boss has a long history of making off-duty invitations that had better not be ignored. As always what he wants is of paramount importance.
One time he wanted an office Christmas party – on fucking Dec. 24th of all things – and he only provided a few days of notice! I told him – surprise surprise – that I already had plans with my family that afternoon. I wasn’t even lying. Imagine that! Families having plans on Christmas Eve? Who could ever foresee something like that! If only there was a way!
Long story short, we played a cat and mouse game that ended with him threatening my Christmas “bonus” if I didn’t attend. He flat out told me, “If you don’t go, you don’t get a bonus.”
I said, “Then that is the way it shall be, since I still got these plans, yo.”
That says a lot, doesn’t it? “I’m your employee. I won’t spend Christmas with you at your little tea party even if my yearly bonus hangs in the balance. Merry Go To Hell! Ho ho ho.”
As we all know, he turned every screw in his arsenal against me and I eventually capitulated – thus earning myself a legendary $50 gift card to Wal-Mart. Oh poop.
Another time it was an employee potluck on fight night. Yes, the boss just loves him some pugilistic delights. He does all the pay-per-view bullshit and will jizz in his pants over humans hurting each other. Again we respectfully declined, mainly because we don’t like hanging with the boss, our free time is precious to us, and we don’t fucking enjoy his sort of “entertainment.”
If you truly care about someone and invite them to an activity, you do so because you want to be nice and do something nice for them. It’s not about control and getting what you want. In that scenario when someone graciously declines you accept it without complaint. You might feel disappointed but you would probably recognize the fact that other people are human beings and not your personal Barbie and Ken dolls to play with.
Of course my boss doesn’t care, doesn’t see things that way, and is all about the control and squeals like a stuck pig until he gets his way. No matter the cost. You will show your neck to him for him to rip out with his bare teeth.
So that brings us to present day…
All of the employees have been “invited” to a “celebration” at a company dinner. It turns out that myself and one other employee have been with the company for five goat-fucking years. And that is something of significance that demands recognition – in the form of more torture during our off duty hours. Things that I would really appreciate, like a cash bonus, a paid day of, or even a gold Casio, are, of course, completely out of the question.
Incidentally that other employee threatened to quit today and un-RSVP from the party! LOLOL! Yeah, you might say morale is low around here. I plan to publish the results of my special employee job satisfaction survey soon. I’ll probably be done gathering data by tomorrow.
Anyway, I was studying the “invitation” and realized it just reeked of my boss’s special control stylings.Things like:
- NOTICE TO ALL EMPLOYEES.
- RSVP is required for reservation.
- RSVP ASAP
Sounds like something fun is in the horizon, eh??? 🙂
“Yes, boss! Right away, boss. Thank you, boss. May I have another, boss?”
Oh, and the kicker? They’ve picked the local shithole disgusting restaurant for this little shindig! Yep, someplace I really don’t care for at all. It’ll be a low-brow festival of pain and hog wallerin’. As usual it never occurs to him to think about what someone else might want and enjoy. Just decide for them. They’re probably too stupid to know, anyway. Thank God boss-man is here to save the day!
Maybe if I live through it and not kill anyone I’ll be able to report back later on how it went…
Shouts from the Abyss 
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