Happy New Year!

Happy new year!! I took these photos at the annual Polar Bear Swim at English Bay and I just loved everything about this woman - the glasses, the smile, the gumption.... and can you read the small print on her t-shirt? It says, "Life is good," and you know what? Life is good.

Photo Journalism - a basic approach

Day 3 of the 365 photo challenge. (I skipped posting about day 2 because I kind of cheated on day 1 and did two...)

 Day 3 is brought to you by none other than Acid Reflux!! Today I went to the radiologist and drank barium and what felt like Pop Rocks, then was asked to roll around and lie upside-down whilst drinking fizzy chalky stuff through a straw, all to see if I have acid reflux. Here is my photo-journalistic approach to today - it is pretty hard-hitting....

A basic dinner

Get it? Basic? Acids, bases...ha.    ha.....

Summer must-reads

Hands-free Drinking Solutions

This is great. I was searching for an appropriate gift for a wedding shower and this was actually one of the options that I was given under the wedding shower umbrella of "gifts.com"

http://www.gifts.com/search/product/Beer-Holster?ideaID=9882&prodID=236846


Beer holster

                                                    


A beer holster. It is listed under the category of "Hands-free drinking solutions" and heck, if that doesn't say "Happy wedding shower" I don't know what does. This beauty could be yours for only $29.95 and not surprisingly, there are a number of other HFDS's available for your active-drinking needs - such as the six-pack holster, and the hooded sweatshirt with beer pouch (a personal fave of mine)

Reaching for a state of zen...and my toes

So I've taken up yoga recently and I have yet to, er, settle in, or find my inner guru or something. So before I proceed, I have several burning questions that I would like to have cleared up:


What is the reaction etiquette to accidental farts in class? Is it okay if I laugh? ...because that's what I've been doing, and it hasn't been well-received. On that note, what is with farting in yoga? I've heard at least one ripper per class since I started going. Does that mean people are relaxing? If I'm not farting, am I not relaxing enough at yoga?

When the instructor tells me to take my next breath "for myself," is he/she kidding? Would it be appropriate for me to respond, "I take every fucking breath for myself, thanks" ? (Or wait, is that before or after the person next me to cut the cheese? Because if it's after, I might give that breath to someone else, but I digress....) Does anyone else question the legitimacy of a workout that asks that you "take a breath, give it to yourself, and let it melt away the craters of your heart" ? Because I kinda think that's crazy-talk.

These questions are really plaguing me, because I just don't know if I can get down with a world that doesn't allow lol'ing at someone else's expense when they toot in public - that's a freedom I just don't think I can live without. And the frou-frou-y mumbo-jumbo? I just can't take it seriously. Namaste.

Dirty Feet

So I guess I'm still getting used to the whole "blog" thing, seeing as how if you don't continue to publish posts you seem to lose readers...hmmmmm. So, long overdue: a post!

Don't get too excited, it's a post about nothing. And by nothing I mean everything...and by everything I mean, still nothing. Just tryin to jazz up your attention for a moment. Since it's been months since my last post I have so much to say that I don't know where to begin, so I will begin with today, and the fact that I've just embarked on a 365 day photo challenge. Photo #1 is a throw-back to my childhood. Here is a snap-shot into my young, strange little brain. I'm calling it "Dirty Feet," which I think is appropriate. When I was a kid I had this black satin dress with a light pink sash and I wore it absolutely everywhere. I wore it to school, to my sister's softball games, to play in the front yard, to piano lessons, to search for snails...man, those were the days. There is something so amazing about the minds of children and how free and unfiltered their actions and words are.

Earth Hour: Appeasing guilty consciences all over the western world since '07

Once a year, for one whole hour, you can join the global movement of protesting climate change by turning off your lights at the same time as everyone else in the world, then turning them back on an hour later. It's pretty groundbreaking stuff, I mean really - consider this: you will be giving up one entire hour a YEAR - that's 60 minutes folks - to be in the dark, literally...but perhaps not figuratively because smart phones aren't plugged in, right? So it's cool to tweet and facebook about what you're doing during Earth hour, right?

Yaaa. This is green thinking at its best. As a participant of Earth Hour, you can be very proud of yourself for doing your part and having a "voice." Then, as soon as the hour is up, you can go back to whatever you would normally do at that hour and all hours, on every non-Earth Hour day of the year. And you will then, officially, be an idiot.

Before I slander Earth Hour entirely, I must state for the record: I believe that, generally, global movements of awareness/protest are a good thing, as apathy is like a rampant disease whose symptoms are much like chronic fatigue syndrome crossed with frontal lobe lobotomy, and anything that shows that people are passionate about a cause restores my faith in mankind. However, "movements" such as Earth Hour fall into the category of :
"Warm Fuzzy Ideas that Probably Started With Good Intentions but Have Little Or No Noticeable or Meaningful Transformative Impact on the Cause That They are Campaigning For/against"

and also, perhaps, in the category of:

"Corporate/Government Money-saving and Scheming Opportunities, Disguised as Warm Fuzzy "Green" Ideas"

Earth Hour, while being masqueraded as a global climate change awareness movement, is really just an appeasement tactic for Western consumers who want to feel like they did their part in combatting climate change. Sure, energy was saved during that hour - but let's think about this for a second: how many of the participants in Earth Hour do you think will forego the use of light energy on days other than Earth Hour Day? Is light energy the big bad wolf of climate change acceleration anyway? Are any other concessions being made by said globally aware, green people? Furthermore, where does the money that was saved on energy costs during Earth Hour end up? Econ 101 lesson: saving money on electric bill = more spending money = cha ching cha ching of cash registers. In other words, this energy saving fuels consumerism, and consumerism fuels....wait for it, wait for it.....climate change. Way to go, Earth Hour idiots. If that's the only change you are willing to make to prevent/mitigate the big CC, then it might not be worth it.

Fashion faux paw

This fashion nightmare was spotted shopping on Robson street earlier this month. Ignoring the fact that her relaxed perm clearly needs a brush-out, her warbrobe screams, "I'm trying to regain my puppy days" in a way that only highlights this bitch's (old) age. She's sporting hair clips and collar ornaments that only new-born pups or Harajuku dogs can pull off. She needs to trade those sneakers in for Aerosoles if she wants reality to throw her a bone...

Don't ruin a story for lack of embellishment

I've always thought of my dad as the answer man, the holder of all truths. When I was a kid I would inundate him with questions everywhere we went - and he always had an answer...and not just a canned or obviously fabricated answer, a legit one. He's a straight shooter, on whom you could count on for a no-nonsense anything. This was a sharp contrast to my mother, who, how do I say it, invented the hyperbole? I'm a pretty literal person, so I struggled sometimes not to call her out on her level of exaggeration, especially when I was around for the actual event that she was exaggerating about, and I would stand there thinking, "that wasn't what happened...." but somewhere along the way they seem to have rubbed off on one another, and I can no longer discern what is truth, and what is fabrication. And worse? They passed it on. I've found myself repeating stories or "facts" that they've told me and it is, quite frankly, whittling away my credibility.

My dad once told me that a bus-load of children on their way to a school event were buried in the Hope landslide. Years later, as my best friend and I were driving through Hope, BC, I shared this tidbit of information, passed on from the guru of information, my father. I even convinced her to stop at the landslide look-out point, so she could see the gravity of its devastation, as she had never heard of this slide. So there we are, standing at the look-out point, and I'm recounting the tearful story that my dad had told me as a child, and my friend is listening, but she's also concentrating on the info plaque that is in front of us.

"Bus-load of children, hey?" she says to me. "Because this plaque here says that four people were killed. And it doesn't sound like any of them were children."

In my dad's (and my own) defense, it was a devastating landslide, the biggest in Canada, in fact. This doesn't let him off the hook for giving me false information, though. Oh no, he ruined my random-fact-credibility factor, and I haven't let him live this down. We refer to the incident almost weekly in our household, using the phrase, "bus-load of children" as a sort of accusation to highlight any suspicion of exaggeration or inaccuracy.

I am now very careful to research any and all "facts" that my parents tell me before I pass them on.

First Class Mail and Shit my mom says pt 2

I came home last night to two very wonderful surprises: 1) a note from my mother, and 2) a summons for jury duty.

Now, I know that neither of these things may seem very "wonderful," but bear with me. Firstly, I must explain that I live at home, which has many downsides for a 27-yr old, but also many perks. Perks include: paying off the debt I accrued whilst obtaining two university degrees, allowing me to eke by on the poverty level wages that I earn from a job that required at least one of those degrees, having food in the fridge, living in a beautiful, nicely decorated home with a yard, having wicked parents that I call by their first names (makes 'em feel more like roommates), and getting notes like these from said parents/roommates:

(Okay, this probably needs some 'splaining. I had, ahem, a lady doctor appointment that day to talk about Mother Nature's lovely monthly gift to women. I had previously expressed strong concern and disappointment in being hurried through doctor's appointments, and being treated brisquely and with disinterest. This particular appointment had gone according to expectations, in that the doctor took the time to actually listen and answer questions...hence the note.)

Is it just me, or is this note particularly awesome? She could have said, "Glad the doctors appointment went well," or, she could have just left that part out altogether, but instead, regardless of who might see this note on the counter, she chose to use the words "gyno" and "attentive" in the same sentence. What a gem. This falls under the "shit my mom says" category for sure....

Secondly, next to the note, I had a stack of mail. Unless it's bills, mail is really exciting. The letter on top said,

"FIRST CLASS MAIL - OPEN IMMEDIATELY," and was from "Sheriff Services." So, my first thought was,

"we have sheriffs in Canada?"

I thought they only existed in America or on Halloween. Turns out, we do have sheriffs, and they dole out jury duty. Still failing to see how this is wonderful? Ya, me too actually. I was really only excited about it for the first ten minutes, because I hadn't really thought it through. I watch all kinds of crime dramas on tv and feel as if I'm an expert when it comes to the legal system now (ignoring the fact that most of those crime/courtroom dramas are American, and therefore irrelevant to the proceedings that I would be a part of as a juror, and also ignoring the fact that I didn't even know we had sheriffs. But seriously, don't you picture a western movie or the American midwest when you hear "sheriff"?) so naturally, I thought I would excel as a juror.

I have since smartened up, as I have done some light research and discovered that jurors are only provided $20/day for the first 10 days of their duty. Oh, and coffee and tea....those are provided.  Seriously?

So now I am on a quest to become an "undesirable candidate." My friend, Darla, suggested that it might actually be a great idea to talk about all the crime dramas I watch on tv:

"I've got this one in the bag. I watch Law and Order religiously and I can't wait to put him behind bars."

"Ms. Taylor, we haven't told you what the case is about yet."

"Doesn't matter, he's going down."

I like this idea. Accepting other escape-jury-duty ideas, so feel free to make suggestions.

Christmas Carols, you may now commence.

It is December 1st, and therefore a perfectly reasonable day to start listening to Christmas carols. 25 days of the same 20 or so songs in various arrangements by various artists is doable. 55 days (factoring in the entire month of November), however, is unreasonable. Imagine my surprise and disdain at the cheerful merriment of "Jingle Bell Rock" drifting into my unsuspecting ears while I was shopping  the week after Halloween. Before I fully realized what was happening, I was singing along; but, I had sense enough to nip that in the bud (where the hell does that phrase come from?) quickly, as I couldn't risk the possible insanity that might ensue if I was to keep that up for 55 days straight.
Jingle bells, jingle sells, jagged smells, farmer's dells..... blahblahblahblahblah
So I've been practicing selective hearing, and have switched my morning radio-alarm station from the soft faves of QM/FM, to my day-time favourite, The Peak, as the latter is much less likely to inundate me with The First, or Five Millionth Noel.

Neverthless, Christmas carols - I love 'em because I love to sing along and I know (basically) all the lyrics. So, carolers, you may begin.

The Good Samaritan?

Don't you love that moment when you catch someone doing something really awkward, and you know that at that exact moment all they're hoping is that no one is catching them doing it? I was sitting with my best friend in her car outside of Starbucks. We were finishing our conversation before we got out of the vehicle because both of us are equally paranoid about people listening in on our conversation - not that it was particularly top-secret, or incriminating, but we tend to use colourful language and superbly timed sarcasm and exaggeration that some people may take the wrong way. So she's telling me a story and I become slightly distracted by a woman who is standing infront of my bf's car. We are parked in front of a bank, and this woman is trying to find the entrance to it. There is no door where she's looking, the door is around the corner, but she is staring and exploring this wall of windows in front of us like they are a magic eye painting that will reveal a door if she stares hard enough at them. She walks back and forth in front of these windows, looking for a door that she might have...overlooked? She is stumped. I'm watching this, and I'm squirming, because I know this exact feeling, emotions flooding back from that fateful day in Portland when I approached a crowded cafe, in the middle of a crowed square, all four of its walls made of glass, presenting no obvious door structure, and I panicked. Do I paw at the glass? Do I knock? Throw a rock through the glass? (I needed coffee, bad.) I did that extremely awkward move, when you approach the place where there logically should be a door, and stand there, waiting for something to happen, and when nothing does, you feebly push on the glass in a couple of different spots, making you appear sort of mime-like....
So I'm empathizing with this woman and her situation, and hesitating to help, only to see if she will figure it out on her own, although it doesn't look promising. We have paused our convo and are now watching her every move. She steps back, gives the windows the final once-over, and begins her retreat to her car. She's giving up and the door is less than 10 feet away around a corner, but not even a sharp corner.
     "Ooh, I should tell her where the door is," I say, as I reach for the door handle.
     "Let's just wait a sec," bf says, stopping me, "You know, survival of the fittest."

After almost dying laughing, this is the type of conversation that ensued in the car: swap the robbery for a door-search, and the overweight man for a stupid woman, and you'll pretty much get the idea.





This is why we keep our conversations in the car.
(Don't worry, I ended up telling her where the door was...)

What's really at the end of the rainbow and other lies exposed

 Remember those little lies that your parents told you to keep you innocent and naive and make you believe that the whole world was made of gumdrops and rainbow sparkle cupcakes? You know, like Santa Claus, the tooth fairy, and you being really, really good at everything? Well hopefully you still believe in the latter, unless of course you're tone deaf and one of those people who continues to audition for talent competitions in the singing category, pay for voice lessons, and remain perplexed when you just aren't making it to Nashville...but I digress.

Do you remember the moment you stopped believing in Santa Claus? Personally, I was always a skeptic. My suspicions were confirmed early on by my grandmother, who ever-so-tactfully blurted out,

      "She doesn't still believe in Santa, does she? " to my shocked and infuriated mother, right in front of me at around age 6. I was unphased, although I gave an Oscar-worthy performance of "devastated" and "will likely need therapy later in life."  This only served to perpetuate what would come to be known as my "know-it-all" phase...which is on-going, btw. While other kids were peacefully dreaming of Santa landing on their roof, or the tooth fairy sprinkling them with sleep dust, I was plotting ways in which I could disprove their existence, so that the charade could be dropped. Come to think of it, I was kind of an asshole kid. I did the normal tests of course: I asked my parents a billion questions so they would have to provide some sort of semi-logical explanation for the wonderment of money appearing under my pillow when I placed a tooth under there, or how Santa managed to get presents under our tree when we didn't have a chimney. I wasn't placated by their answers, however, regardless of how creative they were. I believe my dad made the mistake of telling me that the tooth fairy just "knew" when to retrieve the tooth and pay up. Rookie move on his part; so, naturally, I had to test it. I recall having an every-so-slightly loose tooth, one that no-one would have expected or suspected of falling out for a while. That tooth didn't see what hit it - I gave it hell right before bed one night and slyly placed it under my pillow.

The next morning, no dough, just as I suspected.

Did I get up and tell my parents about the great injustice I had endured at the hands of the so-called "tooth fairy" and demand answers or sympathy? No, I was an asshole, remember? I didn't tell them, but I held them in silent and (to them) perplexing contempt, brooding and huffing and puffing for days, making outrageous claims, such as having never experienced a good day in my whole life...at 5. Worse than telling them the gig was up, I made them continue the charade, made them really work for the tooth fairy/ Santa Claus street cred for years to come. Sorry, mom and dad.

So here's what's really at the end of the rainbow:



End of the Rainbow



Rural America? Grain silos? Well, who knew? Maybe not the pot o' gold you were hoping for; but, technically, wheat is "Saskatchewan gold."

#100 of 100 things to do before I die: play DnD

Okay so I'm almost immediately regretting blog-admitting this, and am having cold-feet about whether I actually want to keep this in my top 100 list, since I just finished some light research on it, but before I really knew what it was all about, I wanted to partake in a DnD event, you know, just to say that I have, and to see what all the fuss is about.

What's DnD, you say? Well if you're wondering, you must not spend a lot of time in your parents' basement, glued to a computer screen. I'm talking about Dungeons and Dragons, my friends. Dungeons and freaking Dragons. It's one of those things that everyone's heard of, but that not many people actually know much about...myself included. For a long time when I heard "Dungeons and Dragons" I pictured "Snakes and Ladders" and still have difficulty not picturing that at the mention of DnD. Of course, I had also heard that there was a costume/role-playing aspect to DnD that was glaringly absent from SnL, which only led me to picture DnD as people dressed up as dragons, playing Snakes and Ladders, in dungeon-like places...obviously. This all seemed pretty weird, but somehow awesome, right? So, in the hopes of having my suspicions confirmed, I Wikipedia'd it. Having shed more light on the intricacies of DnD, I've come to realize that I was, in fact, wrong.
DnD is not SnL. Not even close.
And costumes? Not part of the game (although I'm pretty sure there are fanatics out there that make it part of the game...and I salute thee.)
Role playing? Check! So it's not a total wash....

I also found out that DnD is the best-known and best-selling fantasy role-playing game (according to Wikipedia), so I have left in my top 100 things to do...even though I was looking for something with mandatory costumes, and I always liked Snakes and Ladders.

Dragon playing Snakes and Ladders....but accidentally breathing fire on the board

So I'll be on the lookout for players...any takers?

Happy graffiti: my second favourite kind

Geneva, Switzerland

Geneva, Switzerland

Geneva, Switzerland

The key to feeling important.

Keys are the key to importance.

I have found that the amount of keys on my keychain is directly proportional to how important I feel. Less keys on your keychain doesn't say, "minimalist," it says "loser," and, "possibly untrustworthy." Sorry.

A field guide:

Two keys. A key chain with one or two keys is a sad and lonely sight. Two keys means you have access to your own home, and maybe a car, or a bike lock. You are not responsible enough at your place of employment to be trusted with keys.

Three keys. I think that it's essential to have at least three keys at any given time. Now you can get into your own house/apartment, drive a car or bike, and the mysterious third key could mean any number of things. It is most likely a work key, which is a start! But hey, it could be the key to someone else's apartment (wink wink), the key to a storage locker, the key to your diary, who cares! Each additional key makes you exponentially more important than the last.

Four keys. Now we're starting to feel a little important, right? When you whip your keys out of your purse or pocket in front of someone you've just met, don't think they don't do a quick count.

Five keys. You're in fairly safe standing here, but you could be much more important if you could open more locks.

Six +. Nice work, you are decently important. You can probably be trusted, or at the very least, you own lots of stuff that requires locking.

I have been known to keep keys on my keychain that no longer unlock anything. Changing the locks at work doesn't mean that I replace the old ones on my keychain. No no, I just add 'em right on there with the old ones because no one needs to know that some of the keys on my keychain don't work, this will be our little secret;)  You'd think that since I know that they're not really "keys" anymore, that this would lower my feeling of importance, but nope, it doesn't. There's something very satisfying about having so many keys on my keychain that I have difficulty putting them in my pocket. I have ten keys right now, and I feel especially important. (Three of them are mystery keys that I no longer know the use of, but one of them is a key card, which is worth at least 3 regular keys in coolness, so I'm good to go.)

You're such a kittenhead...

Kittenhead: noun (ktn-hd)

 Everyone knows one of these, or is guilty at one time or another of being one themselves - folks, I introduce to you, the Kittenhead. The one who is vacantly staring at the wall while everyone else is engaged in conversation, or who absentmindedly interjects during said conversations with completely unrelated (and random) comments, the Kittenhead should not be confused with The Idiot, or The Simpleton, yet they may exhibit remarkably similar characteristics to both. The Kittenhead is, in fact, capable of intelligent thought and conversation, yet it slips easily in and out of social awareness, into a state which can only be likened to the type of distraction that a kitten experiences when confronted with a ball of yarn.

 The term originated over a dinner with six friends: five non-Kittenheads, and one Kittenhead (KH). The dinner conversation started off light, then moved to education, and even law-enforcement, at which point the KH disengaged and at several points made unrelated, even Tourrette's-like remarks. It has been speculated that the topics moved beyond the KH's realm of interest, and he, therefore, withdrew attention. As the five non-KH's observed their subject's behaviour, and speculated on what the subject of his thoughts were, they concluded that his brain was temporarily filled with kittens playing with balls of yarn.

You, or someone you know, may have experienced this condition before, but you needn't be alarmed, as it is, for the most part, harmless. Actually, at times it can be quite useful as it allows the subject to remain completely selfish throughout conversations, as the KH's friends will either reach a point of tolerance for, or even enjoyment of the KH's strange, seemingly idiotic trances, or they will follow specific conversational threads that are of interest to said KH, so as to keep him/her engaged.

Shit my mom says

In the line-up at Zara with my mom on the 27th birthday, I, foolishly, whisper to her that my stomach isn't feeling so hot, maybe it was lunch? She nods in acknowledgement, gives me the "Aww, I sympathize with you" look and we continue to wait in line. I should have known I wouldn't get off that easy though, as the woman whispers louder than I talk. A few minutes pass, and she lets the voice immodulation rip,

     "Honey, is your tummy okay? You think you can wait in the line-up, or do you need to get to the bathroom?" drawing stares from the women both in front of us and behind.

I wondered, then, if it was in fact my 5th birthday, and not my 27th.....

    "Really mom? My tummy? I'm gonna make it...thank you."

This makes her laugh hysterically, as she realizes how much of a mom she sounded like, then she has to mock-repeat herself whilst laughing, drawing further attention.

    "Bahah! How's the tumtum pumpkin? Ahaha!!" all in a pretend yell-whisper.

Happy birthday to me! At least my tummy held up through the line-up:)

I love this woman.

Jake Gyllenhaal, Swedish-American Jew, and the Prince of Persia?

Observation of the week: virtually no one in the movie The Prince of Persia, is Persian. Furthermore, everyone in the film has a British accent.

Hmmmm, I may have to dust up on my history of Persia, but something tells me that this was, in fact, wrong. Grossly inaccurate? Pretty ridiculous, if not downright absurd?  Are North Americans that simple that applying a British accent to characters that are set virtually anywhere outside of our continent will suffice in making us "believe" in the authenticity of their foreignness?

I guess so....because goddamn that Swedish-American Jew, Jake Gyllenhaal, makes for one hell of a prince o' Persia. He pretty much had me at "Allo, gov'na", which is "Disney Persian" for "Salam"

How to waste time

I consider myself a resident expert in time-wasting at work, having spent 6 months at a job that is neither interesting, nor stimulating. During my time at work, I have developed a profound skill for distracting myself with basically anything unrelated to my actual job.

Do you hate your job? Are you under stimulated and underpaid? Don't be predictable with your time-wasting by spending countless hours on facebook, creeping on your ex's status updates and looking at older, skinnier pictures of yourself, when you could be doing this:


1) Reading the news. Knowledge is power, so make sure that you're up to snuff on your current events. Be careful not to waste your time on slanted and biased rags such as CNN and The Globe and Mail, though. You can really never believe what you read in those sensationalist rants. I highly recommend visiting http://www.theonion.com/ for a reputable and credible source of a broad range in breaking news. For example, polls have suggested that Obama may, in fact, be a cactus. Who knew? Don't be in the dark any longer...


2) Googling yourself.    Knowledge is power, and self-awareness is empowering, so you should get to know your Internet self.

*Disclaimer* - this may not take up too much of your time, depending on how accessible you are to the world wide web, so don't rely on this as a primary time-waster, and don't use this as a popularity gage because you may be disappointed. (On the other hand, though, if you get lots of hits, go ahead and use that as a gage for not only your popularity, but your importance as a human being, as well as your all around awesomeness.)

3) Writing letters.  I don't mean the obligatory type, like to Aunt Millie, asking how her hip is healing and how many cats she has these days, I mean the kind where you respond exactly the way you would if you had no social filter whatsoever, and, therefore, no concern for how the recipient will react.

So your boss emails you and he's all, "You know that spreadsheet that I asked you to make 20 minutes ago that tracked our expenditure and calculated all kinds of crazy stuff, dating back to the start up the company 6 years ago? Yaa, is that ready yet?" Which can be translated into him barely understanding how to open the spreadsheet, let alone read and understand it, since he obviously has no concept of what it takes to produce it....which is a perfect moment for you to respond using the succinctness of the written word:

"Dear shitiot (this is a shitty idiot),


It's been twenty minutes, so OF COURSE I have that spreadsheet that you asked me for out of nowhere when I was already elbow deep in other shit for your stupid company that you don't know how to run. It was a snap, thanks to all the speed-reading and wizardry I've been mastering over the years. To the normal human, going through six years of poorly-documented accounting for a company they've just started at and recording it into a database so that it can be graphed and analyzed might take longer; but, I take Gingko biloba daily and am a really positive person, which I'm told helps get the job done right, so I finished early.


Just so you know, the part of the spreadsheet that says "I'm drunk" was just a computer error, Excel sometimes does that. I didn't type that, because it's 9:30 and I don't start drinking until at least 11.


Here's the spreadsheet, let me know what you think!

                          - Leigh :) "

(I don't actually drink at work, but I really am (basically) a wizard.)

For great examples of how to do this, you should visit David Thorne's blog (that should also take up a block of time, it's a goodie) to see how he responds to everything from permission slips from his son's school, to noise complaints from his landlord.

http://www.27bslash6.com/    unreal.

Now, I'm not suggested you SEND these letters, but writing them wastes a lot of time, is therapeutic, and is worth a few laughs.


4) Keeping hydrated. *Hiccough*. 

It's after 11 now and I'm pretty sure it's 5 o'clock somewhere. You see where I'm going with this...






Okay so those a just a few ways to occupy yourself in the workplace. Get back to work...?