Outside The Box
We’ve all been told at some point in our lives to “think outside the box” by some weasel-face jackass, right?
The problem is when your mind is limited, it’s really hard to be aware of how it’s limited. Because, you know, you’re not even aware. True original thought is so contrary to our ingrained pre-programmed mental pathways that if we actually had one it would bite us in the ass.
Perhaps heart attacks and strokes are merely the symptoms of people who’ve experienced an original thought. Hey, I’ll bet that’s an original thought right there. Ugh. What’s this tingling in my fingers? Oh, pretty rainbow colors. My head hurts.
Thunk!
Oops. Sorry about that. I’m back. Turns out it wasn’t an original thought after all. Just the same old thing that always when I happen to stand up too fast. I’ll try to be more careful so we can get this damn post over and done with.
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Shut Down On This
Shall we play a game?
Before we can play, we need to know a few things. Like, what is a game? My attempt at a definition would be something like this:
Game – A competitive activity with participants, rules and objectives, and outcomes which are determined by strength, skill, or luck. A game is an activity severely perverted by the presence of humans.
Certain outcomes are deemed to be of value, others are not. The outcomes we like are known as winning. The ones we don’t are losing.
Too much emphasis on winning and losing can make the game unpleasant or even harmful, usually to the detriment of the “loser” but also, in many cases, to both sides.
I postulate that a game without rules is meaningless. If we sit down to a nice game of chess and you declare your opening move, “My pawn jetpacks above the board, whips out dual blasters and lazer-beams all your bitches” before sweeping my pieces to the floor, you have not won the game. At least not in terms of the defined rules.
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The Winning Sinning
Unlikely amoebas.
What is winning? What is risk? What is glory?
To win without risk is to triumph without glory.
— Pierre Corneille (1606 – 1684), ‘The Cid,’ 1636
Tough questions when it’s early on a Monday morning. Too tough. But I can tell you this much with 100 percent certainty: The continued existence of Charlie Sheen has absolutely ruined the internet for the term “winning.”
Out of the first 31 results in a Google Image Search for “winning” a whopping 28 of them had something to do with ye olde whack nut. On the highway of life Charlie Sheen is a single-vehicle accident.
I guess we could say he’s a winner when it comes to publicity.
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iLife’s an iBeach
Not too long ago I took a wee trip to an old-growth forest where I frolicked in a shady glen with frisky elves. (See: Forest Grump.)
But that’s not the only place I went. Driven as a lemming I set off on a quest to find where America ended. (And I got the answer I was seeking in more ways than one.) But, alas, there weren’t any cliffs from which to jump onto craggy rocks. Only a beach. A remarkably flat and wet piece of transitionary property where if one tried to throw himself down people would only laugh and children would point and ask, “Mommy? I thought whales swam in the water?”
As always I had to settle. Dammit. I can’t blame the children, though. It’s not their fault I was born with a blowhole.
And yet it turns out that I given the gift of photogenic scenery for a travelogue pictorial post. And this is that very post. If the subject line didn’t provide enough iClues see the inset image for a preview of the journey that awaits.
When he arrived in the New World, Cortez burned his ships. As a result, his men were “motivated.” If you click the link to make the jump you’ll be doing exactly the same damn thing. Beyond here there be iDragons.
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Christmas bonus – some restrictions may apply
If I designed that sign I wouldn't have split "apologize" and I would have put a space in "thank you." That's why I'm worth the big bucks.
Ah. What a dilemma. What to get the employee who has nothing?
It was mid-2011 and my wife’s employer had already announced there wouldn’t be any Christmas bonuses. A few key people were laid off and replaced with fresher and more inexpensive ones. (Good management is hard to miss.)
And yet, when Christmas rolled around, management had one more surprise up their sleeve. Yes, Virginia, there is a Christmas bonus, although, in this case, interpretation of the word “bonus” can be a wee bit tricky.
It was a little something that made my $50 Walmart gift card look like a gift from the Gods.
Can you even guess what her “bonus” might be? Close your eyes and try to imagine it before reading further.
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Nappy Yew Hear
Fucking grats. A rock has completed another circuit around its star. You know what that means, right? I’ll be up late tonight cuddling my kitties who are freaked out by another round of “let’s shoot our guns straight up in the air” brought to you by the inbred idiots I call my neighbors.
That’s just swell.
According to NBC Today/MSNBC the fun doesn’t stop there, though. On Jan. 1, 2012, 40,000 new laws brought to life by signed bills will go into effect. Luckily for you and me that total does not include a mess of new federal “rules,” too.
For once I thought I’d try to get into the spirit of this stupid fucking made-up holiday that for most Americans is yet another excuse to go out and get shitfaced. To celebrate, I’m going to try to think up some more laws that should also exist.
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Assholes abound
An aerial view of the property. The two trucks in the top-left belong to the property owner and are illegally parked.
You’re in for a rare treat today. Here are some pictures of the place where I work. I’ll bet you are excited now. Whoa now! Easy does it! Don’t get too excited.
We start with the aerial view of the property and a little background information.
The property is located within the city. The owner is a local developer. He wanted to build a structure that would serve as his headquarters (office space and storage) and also provide two other units that he could lease to businesses. Like the one that employs me.
And, because he wants it all, he wanted his very own parking lot, too, even though the lot size and shape made that problematic.
As you can see, the parking lot is a very tight fit. Employees are prohibited from parking in the lot because it is very hard for customers to navigate in such a confined space. But the owner wanted what we wanted so he found a way to make the lot fit – parking convenience for users be damned.
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In the left picture you can see another view of the parking situation. The final parking space is marked as handicapped, no doubt because some local, state or federal regulation forced him to provide such a thing despite his whining and tears.
In the right picture you see how he responded. He simply parks in such a way that he blocks the handicapped space from being used. After all, he does want to hassle with parking his big trucks in marked spaces and having to navigate in a parking lot that is too small.
That wouldn’t do at all!
When you are the property owner, you get to make your own rules. You know what rules are, right? Those things that apply to other people. When you don’t like the rules, be creative! Do things like inventing your own invisible parking spaces.
This concludes this reading from the Book of Assholes. Remember, they abound.
Shouts from the Abyss 
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