Pre-holiday crunch

Look, wipers: just because you’ve got vacation scheduled to begin soon doesn’t mean you can come running to me to help you get your work done, work that should have been done months ago. I don’t care that it’s the end of the year, end of the quarter, end of the month, or end of the friggin coffee break. Do your own work and let me do mine. Do I look like I got my work done before today? No. But you don’t see me all running off to have you help me. Oh, but wait. I asked you weeks if not months ago for your collaboration (not help. Never that from you). Yeah, no prob: I can send you my sent mail as a reminder, reject. I’m sorry you overlooked my email. sss. Multiple. More-than-one. Not singular. Get it? I asked for your help, you ignored. Now I’m doing my work and NOT helping you. Ever, if I can get away with it. You are incompetent. Please do not seep your helplessness onto me. I want no one seeing me near you, for fear of contamination by proximity.

Oh, and one more thing. When you get back from your well-earned vacation, please make sure I hear your inane stories about your European-holiday-ski trip-visit-to-Grandma’s five times, minimum. Please. I yearn to live vicariously through your useless life. Only the details of your exciting life keep me going day to day. That, and hearing you re-live last night’s TV experiences.

Astonomers hard at work

Well let’s thank our lucky stars that astronmers figured out exactly when Ansel Adams’ famous photo was taken. I’d hate to think they were working on something frivolous, like figuring out how to get us off this festering hell-hole of a planet. No, instead, photographers were able to take the same picture on the same hill with the same moon. Praise be.
Sources? Yeah, I got yer stinking sources: http://skyandtelescope.com/news/article_1595_1.asp

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4848982

Top worries searched on Google

Wow. Just when I thought we were all getting a little more concerned for the ol’ fellow man, the spirit of giving descending upon us, love and peace radiating as pleas for a lift on the death penalty, someone has to go and ruin it all by their concern about their own money. Lots of someones. Lots of money.Let’s have a look at the current Google Zeitgeist “Worries”:

Top Worries October 2005

1.     hurricane wilma
2.     bird flu
3.     earthquake
4.     hurricane katrina
Good. Concern for disasters and epidemics. If one were optimistic, nay naive, one might think even a concern for fellow man. But no. Creeping in at number five:

5.	housing bubble

Oh no! My house won’t triple in value next year! Let me tell ya, real estate always appreciates. Always. The only people who might lose money will be the ones who have the vast majority of their money tied up in mogul-sized ventures or in “flipping” houses small-scale. The rest of us, if we’re lucky enough to own houses, will make plenty of money on our houses just by living in them a few more years. Land ain’t goin’ anywhere on this planet. There is only so much of it.

So relax, jackasses. You might have to sell that “quaint fixer-upper” crack house back at only a couple hundred bucks, but that’ll be more than you paid for it. Meanwhile, your fellow man will be eyeing that back bedroom of the crack house. You know, the one with the holes in the floor? Yeah, he’ll be thinking that floor won’t affect how well the roof keeps rain off his face while he tries to scrape 2 hours of uninterrupted sleep.

Look, next time you’re worried enough to type “housing bubble” into Google, go down to the Starbucks — no not that one, the one next to it — and buy a regular coffee, venti!, for that guy out front. If you feel like being personable, it _is_ a rather pious time a year for most religions you know, ask him if he wants cream and sugar on the way in. Ask him if he wants to come in and order with you. Ask him to lunch. But be a man and friggin help the guy out by just seeing him. And stop worrying about your investments, dildo. This guy’s got nothing, and unlike the glossy $8 magazines that tell you to “simplify” your life, he doesn’t want to have nothing anymore.

Breaking news is “Hey, W., tell the truth”?

wtf? Is it a slow news day or something, with headlines like “Iraq calm as it locks down for election” and “41 Senators tell Bush: Be frank on Iraq”? I mean, are we supposed to be amazed that 41 whole senators are urging for — not the truth but — frankness? Or is it newsworthy that it’s frankness rather than truth they’re requesting?

Come on W, don’t be coy. Tell us where the nukies are.

Really. Shouldn’t at least 41 senators have asked for “frankness” back when troops rather inexplicably took a south-hand turn into Iraq from Afganistan? How about “41 Senators tell Bush: stop grinning like a dolt” or “41 Senators tell Bush: the cow says moo”. Better yet, “41 Senators tell Bush: and this button makes it vibrate.”

Buffoons.

The car zipper explained

Look, I’ll keep it to one single beef in a vast pasture of irksome driving habits for now: the zipper. The whole way it works without clogging the roads for miles and miles is for you to let one car in front of you. Then the guy* behind you does the same and on down the line. It’s simple, predictable, and sometimes even beautiful. But let one guy become selfish and do that nose-to-tail maneuver and it’s all over. Traffic backs up and hell breaketh loose.The basic problem is selfishness. One prick thinking he’s got some reason more important than yours to get wherever he’s going that two seconds faster can gridlock the whole system. Because he’s not alone, man. Those jerks run in packs like the mighty bison. I’d like to hunt those guys from train windows.

So schmucks, listen up. All I’m asking is for you to let one car in front of you. That’s it. And don’t friggin consider it a sign of weakness from another driver when he does the same. It’s not even a good deed I’m asking you to do. It’s the way driving works. Period.

I won’t even get started about the twits who drive on the shoulder to get up to the top of the zipper sooner. Look, if you less-offensive-only-by-comparison scmucks want to feel like you’re protecting your spot in line and not let someone in, let it be that guy driving up the shoulder. He deserves to wait at the back of the line, just for the plain audacity at thinking he can somehow be absolved of the system.
-Rhapsody

*yeah, I’m using all masculine terms and pronouns. I’m being general, though. I’ve met plenty of she-pricks, too. They’re probably worse, really, since they can be vindictive as well as just rude.

Ah, the blank slate.

Nothing wrong with that. And now, sullied.

Well, there’s nothing to do now but continue. So here’s the deal. I’m Rhapsody and I’m cheesed because it’s not even winter and I’m buried up to my pantylines in snow. Or I would be if I ventured outside. So I won’t.

Some things really irk me. Some things really jazz me. Together with my friend Harangue, we’ll explore the vast possibilities of kvetching. It’s a brave new world, and I mean to complain about what sucks in it.

*Rhapsody*