"This kid can fuckin' earn!"

- Tony Soprano (via The Sopranos pinball game)















I cut a check for $2,000 for the Old Man today. As I handed it to him, I could tell that he was surprised to be getting anything. When he looked at the amount on the check his expression switched to one of pride. A look that had Sopranos pinball written all over it.

"Heeey, this kid can fuckin' earn."

Wise brokers tell us that to do well in the stock market, it takes perfect timing. Seasoned poker pros often say the same thing about poker. I echo that sentiment, as a cog in the corporate machinery.

A month after being hired by my present employer, an impromptu meeting was called late on a Thursday afternoon for an early morning Friday meeting. This is never a good sign in any business.

In my case, it meant that 70% of my co-workers would be gone in 5 months. I considered it bad timing...very bad timing.













The last time I heard such news was at my first corporate job, when MSOP (marketing standard operating platform) was unveiled. In effect, it required everyone in the marketing department to spell out, clear and bold, what it was that they did to deserve the compensation that they received.

It was presented as an opportunity to promote those who deserved it. Our in house production department made a movie called, "What does MSOP mean to me?" featuring actors pretending to be my co-workers.

We were required to have group meetings with "transition specialists" who told us about the Valley Of Death(as it was explained to us, the dip in moral when presented with change, and the eventual plateau coming out of that dip). We held an hour long meeting...biweekly...for two months with these people. Meetings would start with a simple drawing on the white board.

"OK, so where would you place yourself in The Valley of Death this week. Who wants to start?"









We took a full day to listen to VP's explain how great it will be to have a standard in marketing...all departments operating on the same platform...it would be such a beautiful thing, they said. People could transition from job to job seamlessly, they said.















Being corporate America, they didn't just explain it, though, they used an African Expedition as the backdrop. VP's were wearing tan shirts and shorts....boots and expedition caps as they painted a rosy picture of how great our jobs could be. Jungle noises played in between the speeches. A giant green snake hung above the podium. Leaves were draped from the ceiling. They served food.

Many people took a water and a soda.

It was, to say the least, bat shit crazy.

Mostly, though, it was meant to scare the shit out of people and encourage them to either quit or fight for their jobs. It worked! People started quitting left and right. Some were fired quickly, quietly, and with little fanfare. I was making $27,000 a year and couldn't care less what they did with me.

I had been taking on new responsibilities before MSOP came around, more out of boredom than from any expectation.

Without any warning, one day my manager burst into my cubicle...I was baked, listening to Phish.

"OK, how would you like to be an Analyst?"

"Ummm, yeah, sounds great!"

"Well, the director was hesitant to make you this offer, but I'm confident that you'll do a great job. This is a lot of responsibility. Are you sure you're ready for this."

"Yeah, sure, absolutely!"

"OK, this is your new position, this is how much you'll be making. This position puts you in a new pay grade. I think you should be happy. Just sign this and return it to me by the end of the day."

"No problem!"

I looked at the sheet and was, well, stunned. I went from earning $27,000 to $37,000 in a day. Suddenly all this bat shit crazy lunacy that I had been witnessing didn't seem all that crazy after all. I was in the right place at the right time, with no reason to argue.

That was five years ago. Since then I quit corporate America, went to school, dropped out, labored under the sun with alcoholics, couriered in Minneapolis, returned to Illinois, and found myself employed, once again, with Corporate America....

So when my manager came to me this morning, asking me if I had time to meet with the director in two hours, I half expected that it was Bad News and that I would probably be laid off with the remaining 30% in the next few months.

It turned out much better.

"So the reason we asked you to this meeting today is to discuss our new roles in the newly formed Planning Team. I've been very happy with how you've been doing so far and think that you will be a great fit in the new team. Your new title will be Associate Planning Analyst. This will be an increase in your job grade level, this is your new salary effective next Monday. You will also have some stock bonuses that will be mailed to you shortly"

"Shit yes!"

"Do you have any questions?"

"Hell no!"

"OK, if you could just refrain from talking about this until next week...we'd rather keep this quiet until everyone who is...leaving...is gone this Friday."

We stand up to leave.

"We should have more of these impromptu meetings!"

Director, suddenly distant...

"Yes, this was one of the good ones..."

And so I was wrong...it was good timing after all....very good timing.

A few more games like this and I might make Consigliere.

Ultimate Prudes



Dear Mr. Mezzo,

While performing routine reviews of accounts we noticed that your username "UrineDrinker" is not appropriate for use in our Cardroom.

We kindly ask you to provide three new username options (no longer than 13 alphanumerical characters) for us to make the change on your account.

...

Your account will remain temporarily closed until we get the requested information and the username change takes place.

Please do not hesitate to contact us back if you require further assistance or additional information.

Best regards,

Andie
Customer Support Department


Andie,

My ancestry belongs to the Koryak people of Siberia. We drink urine as a sacred ceremonial ritual. While many people in Western culture are unfamiliar with this practice, Urophagia is a part of many cultures worldwide.

I find the suggestion that drinking urine is in some way obscene extremely offensive to me, and my heritage. I urge you to reconsider your decision.

Sincerely,

-Mezzo

Poster Envy...cheaper, but more bad ass.

Motivate this, motherfucker!





































































(all images were found searching for "jesus christ"....well, jesus christ + some other random shit...like, you know, "Jesus Christ" + "Penny Loafers" + "Mr Rogers")

Ahhh, just go away.

Challenge

My efforts are par for the course. Prima & Youngest - what do you got?

"Technological progress has merely provided us with more efficient means for going backwards."
-Aldous Huxley









I could never understand this quote...until I bought a Roomba today. I'm fairly certain that I saw this vacuum on The Jetsons when I was 7 years old. That makes Aldous' quote seem very wise for someone who experimented liberally with psychedelic drugs.

Wait a second...

Rosie didn't look like a Roomba, and Aldous Huxley has only one worthwhile quote...but if you mention that one, you have to talk about The Doors.

I'd prefer to write a haiku few.

Ahem.

Tender red roomba
clean the cat hair off the floor
now kiss me, robot

Sweet sweeping vacuum
you are very powerful
like Mrs. Clinton

Magic machine glides
like a banshee in the night
picking up debris.

Yeah...I still got it.

Still Partying Like It’s 1999

I first met Nero at our fiancé’s graduate program award ceremony a couple of years ago. He was a Persian fellow with satanic facial hair, a first generation immigrant, and a small business owner at 26 years old. We talked for five minutes, and part of me knew that he would play a significant role in my life.

While I don’t really believe in reincarnation, this is one of three times in my life in which I met someone I felt like I already knew. Maybe he was a camel trader in a desert oasis a few centuries ago while I, the daughter of a rich merchant, a flower of the mountain, fanned with palm fronds and dressed in precious jewels, peeked out of my shaded caravan and made eye contact with him. Maybe he smiled and I shyly pulled back the white cloth shade and demanded fresh dates from my eunuch, who combed my pretty hair and clucked at me not to pay mind to the locals. You never know.

We met again at his fiancé’s birthday party. He pointed at the saffron in the rice and said, “this stuff is more expensive than drugs!”* and before long, he was rolling in hysterical laughing fits on the floor after ingesting something that was just as expensive as drugs, that is to say, was in fact drugs.

We met again on New Year’s Eve, and didn’t talk much at a dinner, despite the fact that I was unemployed and tentatively putting out feelers so as to entertain the possibility of re-entering the work force and I thought “Maybe I didn’t know him in a past life, maybe I wasn’t the daughter of a rich merchant, and maybe my whole life has been a lie!”

Then last week we met for his fiancé’s birthday party again. I asked him about his business. He took me aside and said, “I don’t know. I feel like all that I have been working for in the past five years I’m starting to lose. We are being forced to turn down work because we can’t afford to hire someone, and we have this great new software that is just a couple of months away from being released. Can you come into work next week and maybe give me some advice?”

This ship had already set sail, and I was powerless to prevent it from porting. I felt, in our first encounter, that part of my psyche was sighing, saying, “here we go again,” not as a harbinger of anything good or bad, just a sign of a path already trod.

On Monday, I stopped by the office for a brief meeting and left six hours later. I returned, sat in on a couple of meetings, and then we negotiated. I will own a small piece of his company after a year’s worth of work while getting paid just enough to cover my personal bills.**

In our negotiations, as I attempted to calculate on the fly the value of each percentage of ownership in a company of which I had imperfect information, I asked for more than what he offered and Nero recoiled momentarily. He had spent years upon years trying to make the business work, had friends and family investing and at key times keeping it afloat. He recalled times in which through force of will he closed deals with companies that had no business doing business with a kid and a dream. He asked himself why he should trust me, why he was trusting me, why his blink reaction was not only to trust me but to bring me in, and he grabbed my outstretched hand with both of his, and looked me in the eye, and asked me if I could help take his company to the next level.

With a heart full of self-doubt, with a body that had been riding this wave of energy I felt powerless to control, and with a resolution to do everything I could to help turn the company into a vast empire, I said “Yes. Yes, absolutely.”

----------

*A pound of dry saffron (0.45 kg) requires 50,000–75,000 flowers, the equivalent of a football field's area of cultivation. Some forty hours of frenetic day-and-night labor are needed to pick 150,000 flowers.

**I wrote down my fixed monthly costs today:

• Brazilian Jui Jitsu
  
• Rent
  
• Utilities
  
• Time Warner (broadband Internet)
  
• Cell phone
  
• Auto and moto insurance
  
• Health insurance (major medical, $3000 deductible - $60/month)
  
• Gas
  
• Groceries
  
• Flavored and scented lubricants
  
• Little Penguin Cabernet (purchased in bulk)

The Martyr-idation of Dick Cheney
or
Vice President Palooka

Am I the only one who gets nervous and a little bit skeptical when the AP runs an article with an opening line like this:

"WASHINGTON - Vice President Dick Cheney is reaching out to moderate Arab leaders for help in bringing stability to Iraq, a mission that will include pleas for postwar support for minority party Sunnis."












Now, I understand that nobody likes a skeptic…but this is just silly. Reaching out? The last time Cheney reached out and flew in to the Middle East, the Bad Guys tried to bomb him to death. The only thing Cheney has ever plead for - hell, the only thing the man wants, his aids say - is a follow up to the massively successful Greco-style White House Dinner Orgy of 2003.

Cheney couldn’t stop asking for a Second Feast, a thought echoed by many. The only reason the administration hasn’t staged a second coming is due to the risk of another leak. Weeks after the 2003 dinner, journalists found fragments of a disturbingly pornographic transcript from the event. These excerpts were found on a sheet of paper, stuck to the floor in a White House bathroom stall.

“…the lights have dimmed now, and the men, led by Cheney, are disrobing and forming a sort of human pyramid…”

“…electric wires hang from the ceiling, crackling. The smell of burning flesh has filled the halls, somewhere in the distance I can hear Dubya’s laugh, only slower, like a monster…”

“…Jenna Bush, now in stockings and high heels, is giving Lincoln’s portrait a strip tease—licking the paint now, hugging the frame…”

“…Bill Frist dances alone and naked in a corner, but for his belt, which features hundreds of hypodermic needles filled with multicolored liquids and gels. The needles chime like bells as he dances. He is surrounded by a circle of animal bones…”

“…the crescendo of White Rabbit has been playing on an endless loop since the sacrifice…everyone is naked...someone is talking about making online gambling illegal...”

“…heaving their bodies against the walls, the senators screamed as blood and animal fat splattered across the room…”

Expensive dinners/orgies are Cheney’s thing, not international diplomacy. I think the whole thing smells rotten...










So why am I telling you all of this now?

While watching Queen Elizabeth at the White House on CNN, I noticed a truck unloading vats of animal fat and human-sized crates in the background.

The second dinner will soon begin.

It very well may be Cheney's last.

One faux international diplomacy trip
+ one previous assassination attempt
+ one despised administration official
+ one final orgy
+ one trip to the middle east
= Cheney, the American Martyr.

Hated in life. Loved in death.

A martyr for what?

OIL

black gold....Texas tea...you know the stuff...














Somehow...someway...it always comes back to oil. Oil and the fucking Beverly Hillbillies. Oil, the Beverly Hillbillies, and long term religious tension.

You heard it here first.

Top Ten Events From My Week In Chicago

10) Received instructions from the Old Man regarding what to do in the event of his untimely death.



9) Discovered a haiku written on a small notebook in the Old Man's car. Poetic and sad.

You must Ruthlessly
eliminate Hurry
from your life

8) Rolled around on the imported sands of Lake Michigan for engagement photos. The photog was a hip urbanite who insisted on poses in which I can only describe as "bad touch." Several times she lifted her face away from the camera, exasperated. I was hopelessly white and stiff and passionless and uncoachable. She asked us to lay on top of each other on the beach. I went along with it, but it felt wrong to have a rush of blood flow down under for a photograph my family might be purchasing, and hanging on a wall somewhere. She said "Look at her!" "Smile!" But all I could think was "Does the Photoshop 'smudge' feature work for erections?" Actual photo below:



6) Drank too much with Master P and felt my whole body ache with pain the next day. I couldn't shake the hangover, and felt sluggish for most of the week, combined with congestion from allergies. It was only when the Youngest became afflicted with a similar set of symptoms that I realized I was sick, and had passed it on to him. It's like in the end of Fight Club when all the odd things during the course of the movie fall into place. It was similarly gratifying, particularly because I was all but recovered.

5) Attended wedding for my future sister-in-law and was called an "asshole" by the father of the bride in his speech. I'm sure I had it coming.

4) After aforementioned wedding, helped father of the bride stuff a centerpiece of flowers into a garbage can while the woman were distracted, to avoid an already over-stuffed minivan from bottoming out on the ride home. Asshole, indeed!

3) After aforementioned flower stuffing, nearly was beaten on the side of the highway by two local thugs, armed with makeshift weapons. Granted, it was 3am, I was wasted, and still wearing my tux, but I never expected to encounter highwaymen in this day and age on a quarter-mile walk to a gas station from my hotel. It was a good object lesson for anyone - if you're too drunk to be scared, local thugs might leave you alone.



2) Fought with the Youngest over his computer qualifications. I spent about 12 hours trying to install a foolproof backup system for the Old Man's work computers. In doing so, one of the computers was unable to boot properly. I spent more time fixing almost all subsequent problems and asked the Youngest for help. "I don't know anything about computers," this from a member of Generation Y who grew up phishing for credit cards on AOL and achieving a stable Windows 95 beta build on his x386. Little fucking bastard!

1) Bribed the Youngest's cat with treats...to sit on my lap and purr...which feels amazing!