5 Disappointments from 2006

1. My attempts to write the definitive book on alchemy failed. Although I was able to turn tin into an erasable pen, which proves to be fairly useless.
   
2. My Ninja Training was stalled again this year. This is due to the fact that every time I pick up a nunchuck I somehow nail myself in the testicles and end up crying and asking for Mommy. She doesn't answer so I play her podcast over and over on my I-pod until I can stand again.
3. Superman and Rocky returned and yet nobody even thinks about making a sequel to Secrets of the Ya-Ya sisterhood. There have to be more secrets.
   
4. It is still unproven that Ziggy is not a hermaphrodite.
5. Still no leg hair.
   

Slinger posted this
Thought I would answer for him.

Top 10 questions for the transition from '06 to '07

1. Which cable news channel will have the best "2006 In Review" ? Al-Jazeera
2. Which network will have the lamest New Years Eve bash? Lifetime (A marathon of girl gets date-raped movies hosted by Judith Light)
3. Why do people feel the need to say "See you next year!" and think it is clever? All of them
4. How many times will Pam Anderson get married/divorced in 2007? None this is the year she gets her act together
5. When will the media realize that we don't care what Paris and Lindsay are doing at the clubs? Never because people do care... and that's the sadder point.
6. Will K-Fed make a comeback? Well that assumes he ever came in the first place. (There is a joke about having four kids with three mothers in there, but my post below about the obvious joke refuses my right to make it)
7. How many more terms will G.W. come up with in 2007 to avoid using the word "Civil War" in Iraq? 34, but it will take him until November because originally he will think a Thesaurus is the one with three horns that Fred used as a dishwasher in the Flintstones
8. How will O.J. Simpson spend his new year? Searching for the Real Killer and Sudoku
9. Will Hollywood realize that Russell Crowe is a jackass, and his window of fame is closed? Yes but he threw a telephone through the window so now technically it is still open
10. Could 2007 possibly be a year without having to attend a wedding? The odds are good! Impossible. Right now every man's significant other is looking to make friends with someone who is close to getting married.

I went to a TGIfridays last night for the first time in probably 3 years or so. I don't eat at Chain restaurants (except for Hooters and only on Ladies Night) normally. I once made an argument maybe even here that I would rather eat a crappy meal than a mediocre meal. Here is the thing though is I can understand why TGIFridays works. The food is reasonably priced and they have a lot of mixtures of flavors that if I were to be on the Family Feud and the category was "Foods that the typical American likes" I would guess. Then the wait staff is filled with the kind of kids who if the drama club put on a performance of Grease wouldn't play Sandy or Danny, but would have been the attractive members of their crews. It creates this nice illusion of fun. It creates a feeling of satisfaction. If TGIFridays was a TV show it would be King of Queens. There may be over the course of the duration one or two highlights, one or two lowlights, but most of it is on the good side of mediocrity.

I think that says something about America, especially when every other chain including 3 or 4 that I have never heard of are within a 5 minute drive from where we were. As someone who struggles with capital "C" Corporations on a daily basis, I think when I eat at TGIFriday's I am not part of the solution, I am part of the problem. I could never get that far because I was distracted by music I think I like, by 85 menu items, Free refills, by a waitress that looked like Katie Holmes before she got weird. And here is my grand point, thats what the best corporations do, they overload your senses. At Fridays' they give you food that is just good enough, mixed with alcohol, prices just reasonable enough, seats that are comfortable, etc,etc. And your employers do the same. They pay you just enough, they give you benefits that are just enough, work that is challenging just enough, bullshit that is just enough, Then they mix in enough fear and blame.

And don't even get me started on Quizno's.

IS there anything more awkward when someone must have had killed with a joke with some other crowd, but then meets up with another group that is more sophisticated, (the group that you are a part of, since obviously Lake readers are smart). The person tries it once and it gets a few nods of acknowledgement. Then, though, like Hercules rolling up the ball or some other metaphor for persistance, they keep trying it, thinking that the people are not seeing the genius in the joke, when really the joke just wasn't that clever.

To me one of the unfunniest things in the world, more unfunny than death of Presidents, disease, unrhyming couplets and leafblowers with their motor burned out is when someone makes the obvious joke instesad of seising that moment to put some spin on the backhand or English on the cue ball to make the more interesting play.

What incident in particular am I referring to, well there are too many to name...

2 Statistic questions that I wonder...

1. How do suicide hotlines calculate their success rate?
2. Are colorblind people more or less racist than the general population?

James Brown, Gerald Ford... if I was a famous person with a one syllable last name whose vowel is an "o", I would probably wait for the light to change before crossing the street.

Rest in peace.

The Lake is Catholic, the Field is Protestant. So This was my first time celebrating Chirstmas at their service. The big difference, the Protestants never met a verse they didn't sing.

It is supposed to hit 60 degrees today in New York City. Here at the lake we just got some popsicles and Gatorade to leave out for Santa.

I am exhausted.

Update: Update: I feel like Jerry Seinfeld when he gets the Royalty Checks from the Super Terrific Happy Hour. Do you know how hard it is to write 25 checks?

Update: My Yankee Swap/ White Elephant Gift is 25 one dollar checks. I called my bank this morning and I have no check fees.

And done.

Why if I was on the Price is Right and the first showcase has a new car I will always take it...

In January of 2000, my roommate and I got a flyer in our mail saying that a dumpy casino in Atlantic City had midweek rates of 26 dollars a night. We, at the time, were pretty much gambling on everything. It was perfect. We both get home from work and drive the 3 hours to get there. We stay up all night winning lots of money and having a too many Gin and Tonics. Finally, as the sun was coming up we call it a night, get a few hours of sleep. We then grab some breakfast and head over to another casino and win. Not a huge amount but we are probably both up 600. We grab a late lunch and decide to head home. As we are heading to the car, while still in the casino we see a place where you can get a back rub for a dollar a minute. We both kind of look at each other and say why not. So we walk in. The person at the counter says 10 dollars minimum. We so fine. Out comes this absolutely gorgeous Asian woman. I defer her to my roommate, assuming that if she is this good whoever is number two has to be at least equally good. Then comes out this guy who looks like the informant in a bad Kung Foo movie. He says in broken English "you here" pointing at his chair. I responded, "No I'll just wait for her" He says, "No worry I be good." I didn't want to offend so I sat down. For the first minute I was incredibly self-conscious that this man was rubbing my back. Then for the next nine minutes I half relaxed and thought about how my Roommate was enjoying the Jukebox, the Trip to Tahiti and the New Car, and I was stuck with kitchen furnature, a bumper pool table and a dune buggy. So if I ever go the Price is Right and get to the Showcase Showdown and the first one has a car, I am going for that one, because the second one sometimes is better but can often be worse.

The hot new thing as least in my sphere if influence is pine cones scented with cinnamon that you put out like potpourri in your house. We have some and I know of at least three other places that have them. At first it is nice, but after a few days your house begins to smell like the bathroom of my freshman dorm after someone drank way too much Goldschlager.

Thoughts on the Holiday Season

1. When is PETA going to get on Santa's case for the reindeer?
2. Are there any other Nogs? Why don't we have Bread Nog or Grape Nog or Carrot Nog?
3. Where are all the pretty girls when I walk by mistletoe. I think my record is Aunt Millie 40 times, Young, pretty, unrelated girls never.
4. These "Elves" what do they get paid, what are their working conditions like? It sounds like the biggest labor scam since Kathie Lee and Nike hired kids at pennies a day.
5. When will there be an E True Hollywood Story on Cindy Lou Who?
6. Six geese a laying, Four calling birds, Three French Hens, Two turtle doves And a Partridge in a pear tree, I fully admit that I know nothing about what women want, but I have got to believe it is not their own flying zoo.
7. If I had to chose, I think I would choose Comet to guide my sled, Prancer to decorate it, and Blitzen to be the bartender at the after party... it just seems right.
8. What fun is it in the middle of winter to ride in a one horse open sleigh? I have to think, its snowing out and cold, give me a 3 or 4 horse closed sleigh away from the cold and the smell of horses. Sit in there and enjoy a mug of Grape Nog? Now... Oh what fun.
9. What is Boxing Day?
10. When is Santa going to be on Springer? A big Fat guy that lives in the middle of nowhere, works one day a year and has a bunch of midgets running around, Its either Springer or a Kid Rock Video.
11. He sees you when you're sleeping, he knows when you're awake. Is that Santa or the Bogeyman?
12. Has any one ever tasted a second bite of Fruitcake?
13. You know who had a lot of patience, Mary. She has just given birth to the Savior of the world. She is shacked up in some barn with animals and three guys on camels. All she probably wants to do is put baby Jesus to sleep and get some sleep herself. But then comes allong this scrappy little kid with a drum. Now I know nothing about raising children, but I think I know that new born children probably don't react well to professional drummers. I mean if Max Weinberg or the one armed guy from Def Leopard were there I would guess you would not want them playing, but to ad insult to injury here is a little boy wiith a drum who probably sounds like Animal from the Muppets on Coke playing his drums as a gift. And Mary lets him do it and even somehow gets Jesus to smile at the boy.
14. Do they still make Mangers?

Yes Today is the Reflections From the Lake Holiday Spectacular and One Day Sale. But first a musical observation that maybe only I care about.

The beginning to Neil Diamond's Cherry, Cherry is very very similar to beginning of John Cougar Mellencamp's R.O.C.K in the USA.

What I always wondered was R.O.C.K an acronym and if so for what?

One of the Vice-Presidents pegged me yesterday as surely one of the people who brings a gag gift for our Yankee Swap thing on Thursday. There is nothing further from the truth. I usually give wine or alcohol, at least that way if they drink it fast enough on Christmas Eve they can position me in a good light. The problem with Gag gifts are that they are never really that funny. What is funny about a coffee mug that says "World's Worst Boss" or a Staples "Easy" Button. We have a 25 dollar limit to this adventure in unfun (and I don't say that because I am a Grinch), but honestly what is fun about buying something only to exchange it for something you would never buy? Anyhow, yesterday combining this VP's assumption that I was a gag-gifter and my own thoughts on what to purchase I came up with Reflections of the Lake Gag Gift For the Yankee Swap Buying Guide

1. Copies of the books Resumes and Interviewing Skills for Dummies
2. 25 Dollars worth of Rape Whistles and Mace
3. A years subscription of National Geographic
4. A 25 dollars savings bond (in Canadian currency)
5. A coupon that says you will give that person whatever you won in the Yankee Swap
6. 25 one dollar gift certificates to 25 different stores
7. 25 dollars worth of bottles of sparkling non-alcoholic grape juice.
8. DVDs of United 93 and World Trade Center
9. An offering to pay 25 dollars of their next Cable Bill
10. A Gap Gift Card

One minute movie review. The Field and I went and saw, For Your Consideration, the new Christopher Guest movie. Guest departed from his mockmunetary style to form more of a narrative. I don't know if this suited his improvised style. There are some funny moments. Fred Willard is as always a genius. But at the end of the movie we looked at each other and said, thats it.
The lake gives it 2 and half billion out of 5 billion stars. (I would show you the associated graphic but it takes too long to load)

9 Everyday products and their inventor

1. The Napkin, Robert Napkin
2. The Computer, Rex Comp and Linda Puter
3. CNN. Charles Nathan North
4. Thermostats Poppy Thermostat
5. Doors, Lewis Dornberg
6. Ben and Jerry's Ice Cream, Oliva Ben and Felix Jerry
7. Jackets, John It
8. Yellow, Hector Yallow
9. Apathy at work, the founder of the modern corporation Henry Ford

Yesterday I had a passion-fruit margarita at a going away lunch for a co-worker. It was delicious but I don't think it helped my street cred.

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

Today's Obvious Business Tip of the Day.

If given the choice to be a jerk or be nice: choose being a jerk.

Can anyone recommend a book written in Second Person?

I read Bright Lights, Big City.

4 Ways that Gingerbread Cookies are better than the New York Times Arts and Leisure Section

1. Gingerbread Cookies do not annoyingly address celebrities by their title such as Mr. Mrs. Ms., Dr. or Rev. When I read an article that refers to Mr. Pitt I think of Elaines boss on Seinfeld or whatever they call Dr. Pepper in the south, not the first part of Brangelina
2. Gingerbread cookies liked Borat
3. Gingerbread cookies take a week to be stale.
4. Gingerbread cookies only leave crumbs on your hands, which can be removed by brushing your hand against your corduroys allowing the crumbs to fall to the ground. The New York Times Arts and Leisure section leaves newsprint which require a visit to a sink with soap appropriate for washing hands.

Obvious Business Tip of the Day

One way to propel your career. When all the people in the office pool money together for one of those lottery pools, don't buy in. When they win, you will be the only person sticking around to do the work and will have to get a promotion.

Ding-Dong

So we have an office in Chicago. Actually somewhere north of Chicago.

For six months I have been slated to visit the folks who work there. It was originally sold to me as we go out there, do the meeting on a Wednesday, Wednesday night we spend in the Windy City, Thursday we catch a game at Wrigley, and then catch a flight home and then if we are too tired, work from home on Friday. Sounded like a nice trip.

Now I am going the first week in January where I heard the weather forecast is -44 with a wind chill of absolute zero. The good thing is that I have a whole slate of trips set up in 2007

In April I am going to visit our office in Malaysia in the rainy season
In July I am going to visit Costa Rica in the Malaria season
In August we have a three day offsite on the Sun.
In October I have to visit our Tuscon office when Tucson doesn't have gravity or change for twenties.

The new year is going to be spectacular.

5 Topics I would like to write a poem about but am too busy. Which may or may not be inspired by thumbing through an old yearbook recently.

1. About how the color of the sky moments before the sun crosses the horizon at sunrise is the most beautiful color in the world, and how it's a shame that so few people ever get to experience it on a regular basis; and use that as a metephor for my performance in the sixth grade Science fair
2. About a caterpillar who dies before she gets to be a butterfly. I want this to be a portrait of my crush on my Seventh grade English teacher.
3. About a windchime and the sound it doesn't make on a windless day, and the yearning it feels. This would be an expression of how I used to feel in Confirmation class in eighth grade when the teacher would play her Gordon Lightfoot records to teach us about Jesus.
4. About a Porcupine that has no quills and therefore cannot fall in love. This would be about my experience in the ninth grade when people wore a those baggy MC Hammer pants all the time, but I once wore a Christmas sweater to a dance. I was trying to look handsome not cool. Little did I know that 14 year old girls have no interest in Handsome.
5. About the small amount of time between when a person hears a bone snap and break and they start to scream. About the time in tenth grade Sociology class when I got a 52 on a test about "Brave New World".

6 Ways that Gingerbread Cookies are not helping OJ find the Real Killer

1. Gingerbread Cookies are neglecting their forensic science courses in favor of being shaped into houses.
2. Gingerbread cookies are busy being available for sale in your local grocery store rather than reexamining the testimony of OJ Simpson and the detectives of the LAPD.
3. Gingerbread cookies have way too much interest in this season of America's Next Top Model.
4. Gingerbread cookies have been seen in many paparazzi photos with OJ in Miami and Sarasota.
5. Gingerbread cookies cousin Oatmeal Cookie once dated Mark Fuhrman.
6. Gingerbread cookies have no memory.

There only one sport and one team that the Lake cares about. The Patriots. There is still a part of me that thinks things can happen. There is also a part of me that thinks there is still another good album in Counting Crows.

Sorry the Lake was frozen over for a bit.

But don't fret This week is "Make Completely Implausible Comparisons to Gingerbread Cookies Week"

5 Ways that Gingerbread Cookies are better than Speed Dialing on your Cell Phone and 1 way they are not
1. When your girlfriend breaks up with you for no apparent reason other than you play too many video games, you don't have to delete Ginger Bread Cookies.
2. If you have Gingerbread cookies in your pocket and you go to confession, Gingerbread cookies do not rub against your keys and accidentally call your boss.
3. If you are out of range for your phone coverage area and hungry you can't eat speed dialing but you can eat Gingerbread Cookies.
4. If you ever were at a picnic and were looking for a friend who had yet to show up while enjoying watermelon on a table that is wobbly. You can use a Gingerbread cookie to prop up the table while you called looking for your friend.
5. Gingerbread cookies can feed a duck, Speed Dialing can only feed your ego

1. Gingerbread cookies are not free on Nights and Weekends

2 Weeks from Today... The Lake Holiday Blowout. (Really more of the same, but with a little effort implied)

9 out of every ten emails is junk mail, according to this New York Time Reports.

Here are some obvious explanations:
1. Every male in the United States needs some help
2. There are a lot of Rich royals from Rwanda who need help transferring money
3. For every proven medical remedy there is a cheap over the counter herbal remedy
4. There are a lot of people who have tremendous stock tips that feel like giving them out for free
5. Every attractive female between 18-24 is lonely.
6. Companies that make Spam blockers send most of the spam to make their product more attractive and more profitable. Could they do such a thing?

One of the Greatest Seinfeld scenes ever comes from the episode the switch. George's plan for Jerry to switch dating roommates goes awry and it turns out the roommates want a threesome with Jerry to play the part of hypotenuse. Jerry is disgusted, but George so impressed at how well the plan works says, "That is like discovering Plutonium by Accident"

I thought about this when the whole Anthrax scare happened (as an aside how come we never hear any follow-up to that, I don't buy conspiracy theories, but it's equally as scary that we can't find the Anthrax people or Bin Laden), and I am reminded of it now with Plutonium in London. Everywhere they go these days they are finding trace amounts of Plutonium and they think it is related to this Russian spy. Well here is a question, why not look for Plutonium in a middle sized city that the Russian Spy never visited, like Kansas City? What if you find trace amounts there, or trace amounts of Anthrax? Could it be that there are just trace amounts everywhere and if you keep searching you will always find it. Not sure, but it might be worth a look-see.

• I am a member of our Floor's Fire Squad. We have a meeting next week. It potentially may be the most productive meeting of 2006.
• My favorite December movie, and probably my favorite movie of all time, is definitely worth a NetFlix this Christmas. The Apartment by Billy Wilder and staring Jack Lemmon and Shirley Maclaine captures December in New York, the politics of an office, the heartache of a crush and so much more humanity. It does it with such subtlety, humor and reality that even though the movie is 46 years old it hasn't aged a day.
• I have a paper cut on the piece of skin in between my thumb and my index finger. Why do they make paper so sharp?
• Are Sun Dried Tomatoes more expensive in rainy places like Seattle or London?
• If you get a chance check out Man vs. Wild on Discovery.
• The Colts are not as good as you think, but I still wouldn't want to play them.
• R has petitioned to be considered a vowel
• The song One Night in Bangkok is tough to get our of your head
• This weekend the Field and I are getting our first Christmas Tree. We currently have four ornaments so we may have a Beanie baby squirrel as our Angel.

Am I a party pooper if I don't participate in Secret Santa?

6 Backup Reindeer for Santa's Sleigh

1. Chuckie the Brown-nose Reindeer
2. Robert the Limper
3. Tina (Santa's attempt at Gender Equality)
4. Blitzen Jr. (He's Legacy)
5. Hoppy (His Great Grandfather was a Kangaroo)
6. Willard (Is actually a flying elk)

Two interesting sites for completely different reasons

http://marmadukeexplained.blogspot.com/

http://web.yes.com/yes-nation/

BRADY

Sick

http://www.damninteresting.com/?p=417

This is one of those things in life that we have all experienced but have no idea that is actually a named experience.

I remember it happened a few years ago for me with the word nonplussed.

David Cross covers Bank of America guy covers U2

A couple of weeks ago I posted the original of the Bank of America guy singing One. Now David Cross, who is one of the funniest comedians out there, does a cover of the guy doing a cover. Meta-Genius

My friend, who I will call the Cliff, and I have a performance art piece we eventually want to do. The goal would be to find a bar in Manhattan with the following characteristics:

1. A Goldilocks amount of afternoon mid-week regulars (not too many and not too few)
2. A jukebox, the old kind that plays whatever songs are played and cannot be fast-forwarded
3. Lighting enough for some filming

The Cliff and the Lake would walk in and enjoy a beer. We then would put a dollar in the jukebox and play some standard bar type of songs (I am thinking Solsbury Hill, Layla (the original version), Rio by Duran Duran and Tom Sawyer by Rush). Rio would be our cue to go to the jukebox again. We then would put a five dollar bill into the machine hopefully inducing 25 songs. We then would pick REM's Everybody Hurts 25 times in a row and walk out. We would then film the next 75 minutes. If we then did this 10-20 times I think we could edit it together into at least a 84 minute documentary for Sundance.

I referenced Teen Wolf 2 Below. Someone could totally make a comedy about an affable werewolf now.

Imagine Vince Vaughn as a used car salesman/ladies man who finds out he is a Werewolf a few days before the President's Day Sale in Miami on a full moon. Fred Willard will be his taskmaster boss, Steve Carrell could be his overachieving rival (who in the end we find out is actually a Werehamster). The two female leads would be a werewolf hunter who is looking for a used Van, and the sweet werewolf scientist from the local University who is tracking down VV's character.

The Title: Dino Wolf and the President's Day Sale.

I have never been to either Alabama or Arkansas and yet if you were to ask me to describe a person from that state, there would be different descriptions. I wonder if people in Arkansas think the same about New Jersey and Pennsylvania?

Is there something that exists that you try for the first time or see for the first time and you ask yourself how could I have gotten this far with this not even hitting my radar?

My last nine in this Genre
1. Orange Tic-Tacs
2. Renegade South American Dictators
3. Wind Chimes
4. Highlighters in colors other than yellow
5. Teenwolf 2 (Jason Bateman)
6. That 197 is a prime number
7. Bicycles where the front tire is really big and the back is smaller
8. Edna St. Vincent Millay
9. Red Cabbage

Only 1 and 9 are true.

In defense of Rachael Ray

When I saw this headline on CNN, I immediately thought the byline was going to be somebody like Beatrice Ray or Eunice Ray or Rachael Ray Sr.

Here is the thing, there are two types of people that watch cooking shows, people who are food snobs and people who could give an undercooked capon's breast about cooking and just want to be entertained. The first watch all of those nap-inducing PBS shows like Julia Child or Greetings from the Boring Cooking School. The second love Iron Chef, Emerill, or Yan can Cook.

Rachael, appeals to neither. The first group immediately scoff and almost vomit their truffle infused rabbit when they hear her say the first ingredient is frozen tater tots. The second group almost vomit their third helping of Doritos dipped in Velveeta when they hear her, cat rolled over by a desk chair, voice.

I don't know why but certain celebrities annoy the Lake. Hilary Duff, Racheal Ray, the annoying uncle that did the Bullwinkle impersonations on Full House. That's fine, we all have our own preferences, shoot the Field hates Scarlett Johannson. If there are people who need defense it isn't RR, it's people who at least spell their first name correctly. Stay tune for my article entitled In Defense of Rabid Woodchucks from Arkansas (It's the first in a series).

Holiday Party tomorrow night.

Every Holiday Party I have ever been to has had the following characters from central casting.

1. Young Attractive Immigrant who wears something that in 2006 is borderline inappropriate, but in 1990 would have been completely inappropriate.
2. Married guy with 3-4 small kids who looks forward to this night starting in about July. Usually drinks a few too many Amstel Lights. Towards the end of the night spends too much time with number one.
3. Young male, recent college grad who still feels he needs to capitalize on an open bar to the point of at least one or two really awkward comments, but often to lead to enough beer courage for him to think the single 36 year old VP who still goes to the gym every day at lunch is into him.
4. The Dancing Geek. The guy who probably spent his entire high school years as Dungeon Master, his college years as late night college radio DJ and currently knows way to much about Spiderman 3, and yet somehow can dance.
5. The once bitten woman. You can immediately spot her by her mixing every other white wine with a glass of water. She promises herself that what happened in 2002 will never happen again.
6. The Greaser. The career climber who uses the truth serum of free Corona to try and pump you for any inside information you may have, that may help him strategically in the coming months.
7. The Ansel Adams. There is always one person, who I can guarantee isn't drinking, there with a camera. They usually email the pictures before work even starts the next day.
8. The Lake. The bitter guy who will over the course of the evening, estimate how much this is costing, be forced to dance, will end up in awkward run-ins with Senior Management in the bathroom, and wonder as always why do we have to have it on a Wednesday in November.

Is there anything better sleep wise, then waking up at 3AM feeling completely rested, but still being able to roll over and sleep for another four hours!

13 things you don't know about Pilgrims

1. All the women have two middle names
2. The buckles on their shows are tin
3. They believed in ghosts
4. One of their descendants is Brian Williams from NBC
5. Men could only bathe at night
6. They collected pine cones in hopes of one day inventing peanut butter and bird seed so they could make birdfeeders
7. They could only whistle by sucking in air not blowing out
8. They invented the hatchet, until them all axes were full size
9. The Canadian Pilgrims always felt second class, that's why they forced their Thanksgiving a month early.
10. This item was removed at the request of the National Pilgrim Association
11. The Pilgrams invented the word glacier
12. Jim Henson hated Pilgrams
13. Walla Walla Washington is named after an old Pilgram battle cry.

Happy T-Day.

I am sitting here at the lake, baking a carrot cake
The rain is coming, but I'm not bumming
For what starts today, is some time away
from dreary old Excel, and the office as well.

It was in 1620 when the meal wasn't plenty
on the Mayflower they came, seeking not fortune nor fame
but what we forget, is that a record was set
by a Pilgram named Pete, the chef of the fleet,

For on that cold night, he caused such a fright
for after his ale, he suddenly turned pale
He said to the guests, he had a few requests
"Be not alarmed, for none will be harmed

But I must remind ye, or what tomorrow will be
For in a short while, Children will seek a smile.
So all of you drink greatly, and please slumber lately.
Because I will be at Target, at 5:30 buying toys for little Ichobob and Gertie"

http://www.cnn.com/2006/TECH/science/11/20/polar.bears.ap/index.html

When the news covers bears they always cover Pandas. Polar Bears are by far my favorite bear. I heard a great story once of a guy sea kayaking up in the norther reaches of Canada. A Polar bear spotted him. Now Polar bears are always hungry and never give up when they can see their prey. The guy saw the polar bear and started paddling as the tide was going out so he made good time, but the bear was still there always in the horizon behind him chasing on land. Finally after 11 hours straight of paddling, riding the tide at first and fighting it as he grew tired, he did not see the bear for an hour. So he tied his Kayak to a larger ice floe and tried to sleep. It was the middle of the night and he thought if he were to land the kayak he would leave himself open to attack, but attached to a floe he would be ready to move in minutes time. He was asleep for about an hour when he heard the roar of a polar bear. It was about 100 yards from him. He paddled for 22 more hours straight with the polar bear getting as close as 50 yards and slipping as far as 500 yards away before he came upon a fishing village the bear was scared of. You don't find that kind of determination in a Koala or a Panda.

We got our new corporate mission statement today. One of the bullet points is

Never lose your sense of humor

In some small way reading that made me feel a little bit better about where I work. (now reread this last sentence with a heavy dose of smarmy sarcasm and you will realize I haven't).

I was going to post about my favorite Frasier episode because I thought it was about Thanksgiving, however my memory is shot and it is actually about Christmas

Episode 12: Miracle on Third or Fourth Street - Frasier is looking forward to his first visit from Frederick in time for Christmas, but when the visit is canceled, Frasier takes out his disappointment on his family. He and Martin end up having a vicious argument, and Frasier chooses to spend Christmas Day at the station rather than at work. After spending a day listening to Seattle's loneliest and most depressed people, Frasier trudges to a seedy diner for his Christmas dinner, but gets an unexpected boost of Christmas spirit from the regulars.

10 Things about North America

1. It is has a Sister Continent South America
2. When purchasing a Secret Santa gift it prefers Starbucks Giftcards
3. It often leaves it's cellphone charger in hotels and then gets upset with the hotel when it calls them to get them to mail them back
4. This weekend it is going to see Borat
5. It Tivo's Dancing with the Stars
6. It has planned a vacation for President's Weekend
7. It has to leave early today
8. It's son wants a Playstation 3 for breakfast
9. It had Subway for lunch today
10. It is Yellow

That actually isn't North America, that is everything I have learned about a new employee this week.

My immigration solution.

Give every citizen in the US a pass which upon turning 18 years old they could use to allow one person into the country. You get one your entire life and you get it when you sign up for Selective Service. Now you could use your one as you see fit. You could use it to go backpacking in Sweden and fall in love and get married and bring your wife back to Akron. You could use it to sell to a Greek Shipping Baron who would like to be allowed to work out of Houston. You could hold onto it in case you ever meet someone you feel should be allowed in the US. You could donate it to a refuge organization and let someone from East Timor move to the US to pursue a better life. You could use it however you would like, but you only get one.

Then we limit our immigration to political asylum seekers and those people who people in the United States are vouching for. I am sure somewhere in there this idea can be attacked as racist, sexist, discriminatory in some way, but then the current way of doing things could be attacked the same way.

Why I am Proud of the Field's Profession!

TIME magazine has come out with it's top 100 albums since some random date. One thing I like about lists like this is that you can immediately find one album that discredits the writers credentials so you never have to get to #100. If your list of top 100 albums includes the Eagles. I stop reading.

Today's Easy Word Jumble
Topic: Women's Names

Alicai
Lias
Tiffayn
Jlli
ollyP
essicaJ

Time Limit 15 Minutes.

One metaphor that I like to think of from time to time is the one of men in a foxhole in WWII. These men are young guys from small towns. They have traveled across the world to Europe or Asia to defend freedom. They sit at night in the foxhole telling each other that it will be okay, that tomorrow won't be the day they get killed, ambushed or lose a leg. It's a powerful image.

I was thinking about that image today, when I was sitting in a meeting. A meeting that never needed to happen, where everyone who attended just told everyone else what a great job they are doing (even if by all rational measures some of them are not). There weren't enough chairs so I had to sit on a table near the perimeter of the room, physically and psychologically apart from what was going on at the conference table. It made me feel better, because as much as they thought the conference table was a foxhole, it wasn't even close.

Today we have a Division Town Hall. Because of this I offer you the following Quiz

Please place in order of preference the following events

• Division Town Hall
• Being Sprayed in the eye with Windex
• Broken Zippers
• Red Dye Number 4
• Marbury vs. Madison
• Redbook (yes the magazine)
• Black Licorice

Good Luck!

If you have read half of any of my posts, you know that grammer is not one of my stronger suits. With that as an intro, one thing that is interesting to me is the number of people who use "did" wrong. I joke with one of my friends about this, but lately I have heard people who have strong educations from very good schools who would never write a sentence such as

George had did his chores so he could play his oboe freely.

but speak sentences such as

Lucy had did her gorilla feeding, so now we could walk to the ice cream shop.

4 Knock Jokes Involving Elms

Knock Knock
Who's there
Elm
Elm Who
Elmer Fudd

Knock Knock
Who's there
Elm
Elm Who
Elmentary my Dear Watson

Knock Knock
Who's there
Elm
Elm Who
El M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

Knock Knock
Who's there
Elm
Elm Who
Elm Trees from the Park

NY has been passed as well by my wife. Although I think for cutesy blog purposes I am now going to refer to her going forward as the Field. Because the Field is what is next to the Lake.

Three interesting things about Houston.

1. Nobody walks anywhere.
2. I spent the most I ever had on a haircut in the Galleria mall. Normally I get my haircut by an Israeli barber who works in the nooks and cranies of the subway for 9 bucks. I needed to get my hair cut for the wedding. I go to one of those Salons in the mall. 30 bucks. I will say this, they did something that revolutionized how I feel about haircuts. What is the worst part of the haircut. Walking around with bits of cut hair in your doo, until you can shower. Well this place. Washed your hair, cut it. Then when they were done, re-washed it, so all the hair was out, and then styled it. Great idea.
3. I think I could get used to being able to swim in November.

For the three people that know my wife and also read the Lake.. She passed the Bar on the first try in NJ. I don't know who is more relieved.

I love when someone older gets email for the first time. It's like all of a sudden it's 1997 again and for a few weeks I get a bunch of emails about:

1. How Bill Gates will send me $100
2. How Men are like Library Books and Women are like Toothbrushes
3. How Sunscreen causes blindness
4. Jokes where the punchline is "Oh I thought you meant the Pasta Maker"
5. Poems about the importance of loving your life
6. Lists of Jokes by Stephen Wright

Then eventually the novelty of sharing kilobyte after kilobyte of crappy information wears off and they finally figure out what the digital in digital camera means and I start to get pictures about peoples kids and pets who I will never meet.

A creative writing teacher once quoted someone as saying, "Sorry for the long letter, if I had more time it would have been shorter". The bandwith the internet provides allows for great things like blogs (especially ones from lonely cubicle jockey's) but it also allows for people to forward the same 9 forwards around again and again. To each their own.

Great line from over at the Daily Gut...

Rumsfeld's replacement, Robert Gates, is a former CIA chief (back when that
meant something) and a close friend of the Bush family. This is good, as Rove
won't have to waste time briefing him on how they pulled off 9/11.

The Office on NBC has done something incredible. It has taken a show I loved, redone it, and made it into something I love equally as much. Think about how nearly impossible that task is to do.

Imagine you go to a restaurant and order Filet Mignon, that cook then gives his recipe to another cook at another restaurant and you go and order it again, what are the chances that it tastes as good as the first time? close to impossible.

Imagine your favorite band records the best song you have ever heard, then they give their notes and lyrics to another band and that band records the song again and you love it just as much. (I know what you are thinking there are versions of cover songs you like better than the original... but that is liking better. In the cover song debate one always wins out)

Add to the degree of difficulty that arguably The Office is top 5 television writing examples ever.

Ten years from now we will look back at the show with wonder.

9 Things I Don't think about as Much as I Once Did

1. Exponents
2. Swords
3. Death by Meteor Shower
4. Led Zeppelin
5. Batman
6. Velcro Alternatives
7. Alphabetical Order
8. Jen Warner
9. Radio Shack

Told you so

I know a few people that work at Bank of America and I love their passion.

Unfortunately I don't know this guy.



one bank on Vimeo

In recent days my boss, her boss and a colleague of my poss have all said they are moving on. I said to my boss's boss's boss with all these people leaving we should bring back "xxxx" an awful employee from our past.

His response, "It's not so much that they are leaving as they are going someplace else. Think of it as us increasing our virtual team".

This weekend I am going to Houston. If Daylight Savings time makes me grumpy traveling one time zone over does too. I realize what I am about to type is impossible but given the following circumstances imagine that I was given a business trip to visit Chicago. Additionally on the planet Earth there are two duplicate Chicagos. One is located where London is located and one on the shores of Lake Michigan. Other than that for the intentions and purposes that I need to visit it doesn't matter which one I go to. Additionally to get to both Chicagos I can take a mode of transportation that would place me at my hotel in the exact same amount of time. Everything is the same, weather, food, experience, buildings, except that one is an hour behind my normal timezone of Eastern. The other is the five hours plus that London is. I hate so much the one hour shift that I would visit the one in London.
To me if you jolt your body something substantial, sure it screws you up for a day or half a day or whatever, but then you are over it. Where as the one hour just teases you for the whole time you are there. Time for dinner, nope wait an hour. Boy must be time to get up. Nope only sleep another 60 minutes schmuck. Boy I am getting tired. Welp its only 10PM.
I think its this predisposition that makes it a good think that I am not one of those no wrinkle suit wearing airport warriors and am instead a cubicle jockey.

Opportunity N.: What a corporation tells you before they make you work long hours for the same money and more headaches and eventually bring in someone from the outside for a lot more money who is less capable

Four Reasons Why You shouldn't vote.

1. Mathematically your vote doesn't matter.
2. I hate when people say if you don't vote you can't complain. Well if you do vote it's your fault. Always choose silence over guilt.
3. Old women who check your name off lists, scare your.
4. Not a US citizen.

Four Reasons why you may want to vote
1. To impress the hip girl with the "Stop Bush button standing by your polling station"
2. Nothing better to do
3. Finally see what the inside of town hall looks like
4. You like Jury Duty

Four Reasons why you should definitely vote
1. Girlfriend is running for office
2. Mother checks names off the list
3. You own a voting booth rental company
4. As an Alibi.

Every time I read about Hugh Jackman, I think of a sideshow star called Huge Akman.

Similarly the former Baywatch star Donna D'errico I thought she was Donna D. Erico.

Similarly Kate E. Holmes.

I don't think such things however about Michael J. Fox I know it's not Michael Jayfox. I also don't think that Ann B. Davis Ann Bea Davis.

Here is what I don't understand. If you admit no wrong doing then why do you resign?

The excuse of "for the greater good" is BS. The greater good is always the truth.

Genius!

7 Other Myspace Idiots

1. Ted Wilkerton - Posted a picture of Brad Pitt with his head superimposed on Top
2. Jane Walsh - Said she was a fan of Wilco and The Arcade Fire to seem more hip
3. Dr. Phillip Walzman DDS - Posted pictures of clients teeth without their permission, but left their names on the caption
4. Fred Bustman - Posted in his Myspace blog that he completely cheated on his Algebra II mid-term even though one of his buddies was Ralph Gerner president of the Martin Luther King Jr. National Honor Society
5. Reverand Henry Porter - Referred to Sunday's Gospel as being from Luke when it was Mark.
6. Steve Walker - Has a screen name of MuscleMan74, even though he can only bench press 145 pounds
7. Stacy Walker - Has a screen name of BikiniModel 78, even though she wears a one piece when she goes to the tanning salon

I have the start of a zit on my nose.
Also this morning my voice cracked.
I also heard Bon Jovi this morning on the Radio.

I am one sweaty palmed slow dance away from being me at age 12.

Proof that the Chinese are Smart

Last summer I went down to Atlantic City on a Saturday night to play some poker with my roommate. We play all day, I am up like $200 and have quite a number of cocktails. We decide to get up from the table and walk around and see the sights. Not 10 minutes later, I run into someone from work. First, she is dressed nothing like she does at work. She is dressed to go out and pick up a guy. Second, we immediately, independently realize we need to acknowledge each other. There was a noticible pause followed by an awkward hug/kiss hello. I wish that was an isolated incident. Here are some estimated statistics.

Percentage of Females I know I am on a hug hello/hug goodbye basis: 50%
Percentage of Males: 4%
Percentage of Females occassionally there is a hug involved 20%
Males: 3%
Percentage of Hugs per year that are not awkward: 50%
Percentage excluding my wife: 98.3%

In the end my thoughts on Hugs:
Aunt at a family reunion - Fine.
Mom on Mothers Day - Fine
Softball Teammate after winning the league championship - Okay but you must also tap their shoulder very forcefully
Friends Girlfriend or ex-co worker - You should just be able to nod your head as if to indicate "Yes, I acknowledge we know each other & yes it is good to see you again, but also we don't need to press each others bodies near each other to prove that"

No Grunting

Here is the Lake's 7 Things you should also never hear at the Gym

1. Debbie Gibson so loud you can hear it over a person's headphones
2. Anyone on the Stairmaster talking on their cell phone about their bowel movements
3. Rachael Ray on the TV
4. Someone on the Treadmill working the rosary beads
5. The fart sound that is made when someone in a sweaty T-shirt does sit-ups on a rubber mat
6. Any man with a shaved chest who talks about "enjoying the burn" of benchpressing 500 pounds
7. The cry of a man whose personal trainer whacked him with a medicine ball in the crotch

The girl who sits right next to me is my kryptonite. She is such a genuinely nice person that I can't even respond sarcastically to such gimme's as:

• Does anyone have a need for extra ice skating tickets?
• Is anyone else sad about Reese and Ryan?
• I am collecting money for homeless dogs does anyone want to contribute

In college I had a boss who was all Unicorns, Puppies, and Cupcakes. She would dot her i's with stars and hearts. She owned every Disney movie. She would tell us how great we were. She would email us inspirational thoughts. She would take interest in our personal lives. She really seemed like she cared. Then one day I needed to do something. It wasn't a big thing, but it would mean that I would miss watching Dawson's Creek or where she was making lasagna for everyone. Immediately she turned, the sweetness was completely drained. It was all a ruse. It was all a sham. She was faking it all. She was still my boss so I still had to play some of the reindeer games, but on the inside and in asides with colleagues I mocked it all. Somewhere though I still have the sticker she gave me "Who I am Makes a Difference". Yeah Okay.

But now the girl sitting next to me is so altruistic, so earnest, so sincere that I just can't mock. In a way it is refreshing, in a way it is a nice change from my first instinct to be snarky, in a way it is completely frustrating. Besides all of that, the homeless dogs of New York are now 5 dollars richer.

This is a horrible story. First it is horrible for the kids, but then it is horrible for Duct Tape which for many years has had a very positive influence on childrearing.

For Example.

1977. I was one, and received a ball of Duct Tape as a pacifier
1979. In a fit of alcoholic rage Cindy Winslow's father rips the head off of her stuffed Walrus, Mr Wum-Wum. He tapes it back on with Duct Tape
1981. Leornard Mack uses Duct Tape to strap in his child Pete's carseat as the 1974 Pinto station wagon has broken seatbelts
1985: While taking his son Rex to a topless bar, and not wanting to expose his child to the debauchery, Rex Sawyer puts a Duct Tape blindfold on little Eddie.
1987. Instead of sending his daughter Lucy to summer camp for soccer, Gene Reynolds Duct Tapes a Soccer Ball to the clothesline and has her practice kicking
1991. Mrs. Porter uses Duct Tape on the front door when her daughter does not make her 10:45 curfew
1995. Ned Cole uses Duct Tape to attach his son's "F" on a paper about the Scarlet Letter to his chest for an entire Saturday

As someone who has on many occasasions tried to say something funny or biting and had it not be perceived with the same sense of humor or cleverness that it did in my head before I said it, people need to give Kerry a break.

3 incredibly awkward momnents.

1. Running into your ex-girlfriend to find out she is hanging out with your Brother now, and she lost an eyelid.
2. Getting up to give a presentation and realizing not only is your fly down, but you are wearing two different shoes and your Powerpoint Presentation is an older draft, where instead of using your company's name you use the term "Idiots"
3. Sitting in someone's office when you find out that their Grandmother died.

Only two more to check off the list and I will have the trifecta.

Why are all control rooms in Submarine's dark?

Trick or Treat
Smell my Feet
Give me something Good to Eat

If you don't
I won't Care
I'll pull down your Underwear

Or in my case today

Trick or Treat
Stare at Spreadsheets
never a break from my seat

It's okay
I don't care
Staff meeting was cancelled and out of my hair

I realize that it is probably for mopping purposes but is there any other obvious reason I am missing as to why bars and restaurants put their chairs up each night?

Daylight savings time sucks. Sorry for the harsh language.

IS there anything more telling then when someone comes up with a really clever halloween costume, but then is overly proud about it. Saturday night I saw the movie Cocaine Cowboys. I cannot recommend it highly enough. It's a documentary about how drugs really built Miami into the city it is today. It included a lot of archival footage, a lot of explanations about how it was done, and really some spot on interviews. It ran a notch long, but otherwise great film, and best of all the soundtrack was done by Jan Hammer who was the music guy for Miami Vice.

Anyhow on the bus on the way home, there were two guys dressed up as the Super Mario brothers. The costumes were clever and pretty sharp, but in the end they were way to proud, bordering on hubris about the whole thing, and it showed that they probably had been thinking about these costumes since last year's party when they came as the two kids from Boy Meets World and bombed.

Tonight I will be dressed as Mike Vrabel from the New England Patriots as hopefully they win in Monday night.

Friday I was interviewing college seniors for jobs at the Corporation for after they graduate. One of the people had been in a foreign army as an officer and commanded 15 people. As she told stories I wanted to say, "the last time I had ordered 15 people to do something and they listened I had a to start with 'Simon says'"

Francis Scott Key, by the way, only wrote the lyrics, not the music. He was Taupin and David, to John Stafford Smith's Elton John and Burt Bacharach.

Can you believe the news that in the past the Amazon River flowed backwards?

Just think about that for one second, the largest River (not the longest, the longest is just a river in Egypt) once went in the other direction. Think about the consequences of such a finding. Absolutely nothing. That's right. I don't care. What it does prove is something I realized long ago 99% of things that scientists do, is like 99% of the work that I do, meaningless.

I once wanted to be a scientist, but I never could spell the word hypothesis right.

My 10 favorite Halloween Costumes of All time (In my life)

1. Age 2 - Francis Scott Key
2. Age 4 - A Kenyan Marathoner
3. Age 7 - Arlen Specter
4. Age 10 - Sexy Nurse
5. Age 12 - Putty you use to tack posters to your Dorm room wall
6. Age 15 - Jamacian Elvis
7. Age 19 - Skipped it that year because I was in the Hospital
8. Age 23 - The Noid
9 . Age 27 - Apathy
10. Age 28 - Craig's List

TomKat has set a wedding date, in other news I have passed the one billion mark of things that I have heard that I don't care about. Number 999,999,999 were design specs for a new database I got an hour ago. Number 234 which took place in May of 1977 was "You know who the cutest baby in the world is, you are" as spoken by my Mother's friend.

5 Wonderful Names for Whalewatching Tourboats

1. Moby Ship
2. The Lose Your Lunch
3. The 35 dollars can make you miserable and bored at the same time
4. The No, those pretentious kids will never shut up.
5. The Stop it with the Sperm Puns Already!

9 Half-Thoughts from a Very Busy Monday

1. If you see a woman on a hot day running in pants or working out at the gym in pants, I think that means she didn't shave her legs.
2. To me, who has no style, there is no bigger style suicide then wearing a shirt from one athletic clothing manufacturer and a hat from another. For example if you see someone with a Puma shirt and a Nike Hat. Pick a sponsor buddy.
3. Why is it that the Peanut butter in a Reece's product tastes so much better than Jif?
4. Is anybody watching the World Series?
5. How dissapointed is the kid who got adopted by Madonna? Eventually at all these prestigious Montessori schools in London and LA there will be kids who make fun of each other based on how big a celebrity they were adopted by.
6. The end of this sentence will contain a fuzzy egg.
7. The Norse Gods did not believe in 19.
8. If when you wash your whites you tie two socks together, you improve you double your odds of winning the lottery, you however will be frustrated with yourself when you untie it.
9. 14 People will be born today, who eventually will read Mody Dick in its entirety

I think it's great that there is now a word, "Conversate", meaning to engage in a conversation with someone. I really don't think it is a word, but I keep hearing people use it as such. Granted I am horrible at spelling, mixing tenses, and punctuation, but how would anyone ever think that is a word.

I just reread the paragraph I typed and I feel 86 years old.

In other news, another dude got stung in the heart. If I was working in Morning Radio this morning I would be writing lyrics to Bon Jovi's, "You give Love a Bad Name"... "You got attacked by a Sting Ray...

Why does it seem like 30 is a much older age than 31?

So already today I have offended librarians. But it was nice because I got to know a little bit about the demographic of the readers of the Lake.

I am going to try and flush out the rest of you by saying some other negative things and hopefully you will get upset enough to give up your profession.

1. People who write copy for travel brochures have bad manners
2. If you are a product designer for binoculars you are the product of bad genes.
3. If you are a postal clerk in New Mexico, get a life
4. If you are an Eskimo Firefighter from Palm Beach, your hose blows.
5. If you Tivo the weather channel so that when you wake up in the morning you can immediately tell the weather, your Mother wears combat boots
6. If you teach Linear Algebra at a small college in Rhode Island and gave me the only D of my life in 1995, well I have finally gotten over that.
7. If you make more than one reference to Teen Wolf a day, have an awful day in an awful way
8. If you have a brother that blogs, then you are okay.

You are a celebrity. Let's say you are the kind of person who is often second banana in films. In a romantic comedy you are the guy or girl leaves to be with the one they really love. In a buddy film you are the one who dies causing the hero to overcome the enemy with inspirted heroism. If you wanted to be on TV you could definitely get a show without breathing hard. You get who you are. You are going to an Awards show. You are nominated for an award, It was probably the performance of your life, but if you are being completely honest with yourself, you realize you nomination is helped along by it being in a pretty weak category where there is an obvious winner. Here is the question: Do you write an acceptence speech and why?

trigger said...
I'm one of your 6 faithful readers and I'm a librarian. Scary, huh?
9:52 AM

With respect to Walt Whitman's "O Captain My Captain"

Librarian! Librarian! My book is overdue
The stamp in the back’s date has passed, late fees did accrue
The end was near, the resolution was clear, characters were changing
But five more chapters to reveal, left pages of explaining
But O Time! Time! Time
O the bleeding hands of Time
For behind that Desk, Librarians Wait
Full of Scold and dread

Librarian! Librarian! Please cut me some Slack.
I whisper in my lowest voice and put periodicals in the rack
For I am not the jerk with soda or the internet creep
I used the Dewey Decimal System and never fall asleep
Librarian! Dear friend.
Let me return my book
And when I borrow just, say “Thanks”
Without Scold and Dread

Librarian, does not answer, the face is mean and raw
Gives no break, doesn't contemplate, He enforces his law
The crummy ending that took extra days is finally closed and done
And my penalty ends up leaving me 3 bucks less than begun
Exult old books and sing old friends
But I with sunken head
Walk away from the Librarian’s eyes
Full of Scold and Dread

Librarians much like Police officers, Principals, Biology Teachers and Suit Salesmen are very nice people except when they are at work.

Thirteen Good Names for a Pet Walrus

1. Wally
2. Walter
3. Wilma
4. Warren
5. Willie
6. Winnie
7. Wendy
8. Will
9. Wayne
10. Ward
11. Wade
12. Warner
13. Russ

5 Scary things

1. Sharp Knives
2. Monsters
3. Surgery
4. People who raise ponies
5. Librarians

If you ever want to feel really futile about our existence, read the stories of O. Henry or Guy de Maupassant. I just read the Coming out of Maggie by O. Henry on my lunch break. There is something timeless in their writing.

The Reflections from the Lake Guide to Making a PowerPoint Presentation at Work

1. Remember the point of making the presentation is to make yourself look smart, not to communicate thoughts and ideas to the audience
2. If you are going to add a joke, make sure that it is appropriate. Topics such as Sex, Religion, Babboon Butts and Wizards should be avoided 96% of the time, safe topics include Mondays, how you traveled to the presentation and Hilary Clinton.
3. Each slide should contain as many words as the font will allow. Bullet points actually synthesize information into easy remember nuggets for your audience, you are much better off with whole paragraphs of text.
4. If you actually decide to use a flowchart (which are really hard to create) the minimum suggested number of points is 60. All that clutter will make you seem really smart and intimidate people from asking questions.
5. Once per slide name drop someone. Often people will make the mistake of only name dropping senior executives or so called Harvard Business School experts, the real master will throw in a made up name to appear to be even more important. One piece of advice make the name very tough to spell or very common so if some 22 year old whipper snapper Googles the name he comes up blank. (E.g. "As the visionary Swedish Industrialist Sven Sborgmosk said...:)
6. Whenever you are asked a question, before responding say "Good Question"

Some morning Numbers...

11 Minutes until the Staff Meeting.
300,000,001 people in America
2 Rejection Post Cards from Who Want's to Be a Millionaire last night.

My wife said it was because they knew I would win. Somehow the kind words felt more like a third postcard than the kindness she intended.

That's okay my trivia is better suited for Bar Trivia contests or being really annoying when someone confuses Robert Wagner with Robert Urich.

6 Irish Pubs You definitely want to stay away from:

1. The Wounded Dove
2. The Blighted Tree
3. The Rowdy Cougar
4. The Heated Argument
5. The Post-apocalyptic Dublin Inn
6. Jimmy "Yes I have a Toothache" O'Shea's

I wouldn't be so bold to say that when you get a Blackberry you immediately become an A-hole, but if you are an A-hole and then a Blackberry lets you be an A-hole to a higher degree of difficulty.

To my six faithful readers: Who the bell tolls it tolls for thee. I am back and with a wordiness that can only be matched with Nunchucks and hand bells.

5 People who I don't understand

1. People who own more than one Crossbow, but don't own a Crossbow museum
2. People who wear flipflops and mittens (Do you really have much temp discrepancy in your extremities)
3. Anyone who Tivo's Home Shopping
4. People who spend more on Window Treatments than Windows
5. People who consistently Google themselves

3 People I do understand
1. People who don't drink coffee
2. People who put together coherent thoughts communicating valuable information
3. The clerk at CVS who is large and looks a bit intimidating but actually is always friendly.

I am in another office today. Excitement. Anyhow, I just used the Men's Room. I tried to take a picture of it but my cameraphone doesn't perform well under the darkness of a Men's room. There are the 6 rules about using the Men's room posted in 8 different places.

1. Paper towels do not go in the toilet they go in the trash bin. Putting it in the toilet stops them up.
2. Please flush.
3. If the sink is leaking please speak to security don't just return to your desk.
4. Please lock you door when using the stall
5. Please do not print out articles from the internet and leave them on the ground.
6. Please wash your hands.

What are the chances if you make a sign like this that you are a good manager?

Back at work.... YIPPPEEE!!!

Today is the big day. I am sitting here waiting to go to lunch with the Groomsmen, while watching an infomercial on Colon Cleansing (Luckily no pictures). It is called the the almighty cleanse. The person who is the "expert" calls himself an Evangelical Health Missionary. My mind is too focused on the wedding to come up with the set-up but the punchline is something along the lines of but the ironic part is the he is full of crap.

Interesting that my excitement is manistfesting itself in a blog about poop.

Talk to you next week.

This morning in the the staff meeting they had bagels and cupcakes for my pending marriage. IT was nice. I still had to give an update.

When I started the lake, my intentions were to try to capture universal thoughts, ideas or ramblings that come from my head. I intentionally ignored the personal. Too many blogs become 16 year old girl's diaries, not that mine isn't but I didn't want to aim for that. Anyway, I feel as faithful readers I should warn you, because blogging will probably be light this week and next, that I am getting married on Saturday.... Now when I look into the Lake I will see two faces.... So bear with the light blogging as I prepare for a night of toasts, tuxes, terrifficness and tremendousness (I love alliteration).

Yesterday they actually made me work the whole day. Yesterday was one of those days...

Awesome Picture

So the Mona Lisa might be pregnant according to new analysis. The top five suspects:

1. Kevin Federline
2. The pitchfork dude
3. This guy
4. This Guy
5. Artificial Insemination.

I read a fairly interesting book a few years ago, "Why do Buses come in Threes?" It is all about math applications in everyday life. One of the things it talks about is the frequency of once in a life time occurrences. Last year, two days before New Years, I ran into a Finance professor of mine from college coming out of customs in Heathrow airport. That to me was a mindblowing coincidence. But here is the thing, in airports I have run into people I used to work with, people I went to college with, people who I know from my days doing improv etc etc. Here, roughly is the math, and any math professors please feel free to expand. The chances of me running into my professor in Heathrow Airport at that time unknowingly over the course of my life time might be 1 in a million. But lets say that over the course of my life time my circle of knowledge is 3500 people and I visit Heathrow airport 10 times. Now all of a sudden my chances of running into anyone I know at Heathrow, one of the times I have been there, is 35,000 in a million. Now if you say well lets look at all airports I will be in, and all of a sudden my chances quickly get over the million mark. So what does it mean. Well had I ran into unknowingly my freshman year roommate in the Cincinnati airport (actually in Kentucky), the coincidence would have again been spectacularly rare feeling, but the notion of running into anyone I know unexpectedly would not have been.

The reason I preamble with this is that this morning I was coming back from picking up my dry cleaning. The street I live on is tree lined. I saw something that I would wager I would never see again. I saw a squirrel fall from a tree, land on its back, get up run into a moving car, bounce back and then get up and start to reclimb the tree. Today, I hope employees everywhere emulate the squirrel.

6 Pop Tart Flavors soon to be popular in the San Diego Zoo

1. Bugs
2. Chum
3. Hay
4. Reconsolidated Horse Meat
5. Grasshopper
6. Strawberry

An interview with a Sabretooth Tiger (A Lake Exclusive)

RFTL: So what is it like being extinct?
ST: Not bad really. We get a lot more attention than we did when we were actively breeding and roaming the planet, now we get books, papers, plastic toys focused on us. In way we are kind of like when a musician offs himself and then in death his music sounds better, like Cobain or Nick Drake.
RFTL: What do you miss about being an Instinct Species?
ST: First off, and I am kind of an expert, the opposite of Extinct is not Instinct. Instinct is what makes you flee a beehive when you are prowling the land you now call North Carolina. The word you are looking for extant. I miss a long nap on a hot rock. I miss the view of sunrise on the edge of the frozen tundra. I miss the cry of a bald eagle, that I am about to eat sushi style as a snack before I feast on a lame antelope.
RFTL: What advice do you have for humans?
ST: The big teeth thing looks menacing, but in the end it doesn't help that much with evolution, and really hinders kissing. Also stay away from Tar pits, as appealing as they look, they are deadly.
RFTL: What are your thoughts on cats today?
ST: Good Question. The problem with cats today is you run the gamut. Sure you have lions and tigers doing their best to be king of the jungle. The problem is that they are mocked by the homo sapiens. You take Elton John and have him create a show about the scariest cat of them all and in the end kids end up crying because the father dies. Tigers, you make them sell sugar cereal and name a baseball team in a bad city after. I really did the Leopard, all those cool spots and bad-ass vibe is just hip. As far as house cats go, there is something adorable about the way they rub against your leg, and when a kitten drinks milk from a saucer, precious.
RFTL: Anything else you would like to share, I know you have a tee-time?
ST: About 50 years before our species died we started having Sabretooth Idol, a singing contest. I am not trying to imply anything, but be warned.

I just got my performance review. Two highlights (The Lake has been used to protect my identity)

• The Lake creates a positive work environment with his humor and good nature
• The Lake should not pull back from more Senior Level exposure

So despite my hatred of staff meetings, listening to people talk about how they accidentally used cinnamon vs paprika in their deviled eggs and people who when approaching a problem think about solving it as number four or five on their task list, they are going to keep me around for another year.

You know what is an interesting fact? People never remember on Monday what you told them on Friday that you were doing that weekend. I am going to stop telling people, because it's not worth telling them.

"So what are you doing this weekend?"
"I will tell you on Monday."

I have been tapped to be involved with the promotion of Junior employees. Therefore I get to be involved with incredibly political meetings where everyone is qualified, but certain people are more qualified. After only being involved for four hours I feel like everyone else on the committee are the like those girls who say, "Oh that dress is beautiful" only to turn around and say, "Wow I can't believe how much she ballooned up."

I said in the meeting that I thought that people should only be promoted if they were coming in as an outside hire, would we hire them at that level. I was looked at like I had six heads.

I have been tapped to be involved with the promotion of Junior employees. Therefore I get to be involved with incredibly political meetings where everyone is qualified, but certain people are more qualified. After only being involved for four hours I feel like everyone else on the committee are the like those girls who say, "Oh that dress is beautiful" only to turn around and say, "Wow I can't believe how much she ballooned up."

I said in the meeting that I thought that people should only be promoted if they were coming in as an outside hire, would we hire them at that level. I was looked at like I had six heads.

Please watch the show 6 Degrees, it is being set up for this years show that I really get into and then they cancel leaving me hanging. Like they did with Reunion last year.

Slinger, who has a very readable blog over here, baited me to comment on Deal or No Deal. Three things on Deal or No Deal.

1. The show becomes unwatchable very quickly. Last Christmas when they had the first week, I was absorbed. It was amazing the choices people would make. It was great to see people go from doing really well, then through hubris end up with 10 dollars. It was great to see people with no chance in hell of doing anything then turn out to win 200K. Immediately, being a numbers guy, I began to strategize. Then I realized that there is no strategy. Pick a number and hope that you are lucky is the strategy. There are 26 cases. 5 have a lot of money. So pick a case and you have a 19.2% chance of picking a big amount. Then play it through and hope that towards the end you will still have a lot of the big cases.
2. The people they pick to be on the show are the same types of people that when walking down Broadway or in Union Square here in Manhattan that you can tell are tourists. The kind of person that goes to their husband or wife to ask which fanny pack they should bring on vacation. These are the kind of people who get "my kid beat up your honor roll kid" bumper stickers to put on their 1989 Chevy Trailblazer, without irony. Not that there is anything wrong with these people, but there is a disturbing thing about television. On television, real people appear nuts. I don't know if this is a cause or effect. Part of me thinks, that for ratings producers intentionally try and get wackos. But part of me wonders if the shine of the spotlight makes people not act normally, and maybe that is why TV is better left to the professionals. Spend an hour watching Real World, Survivor, The Apprentice or DOND and tell me if any of these people really reminds me of your friends or relatives. I am going to guess not.
3. Howie Mandel is awful.

3 combinations of Ice Cube Trays and Humans that bug me.

1. People who don't fill the tray with enough water, making it nearly impossible to get the cube out.
2. People who put an empty tray back in the freezer
3. Genocidal dictators who hold ice trays.

This is the high school where I took the SATs. It was one town over from my high school. Three things to think about.

• These are kids who in the age of Myspace, parent's basements, Tivo, Ipods, and Texas Holdem, who still want to go to dances, instead of punishing them, they should be rewarded.
• Think about how far behind these kids are going to be when they go away to college and are at their first college party. How are they ever going to find a prospective one night mate when they do not have the grinding skills of their classmates? Is not the role of high school education?
• Grinding is a "sexual" dance. Not to ruin it for the principal but all dances are sexual. Come on: The Twist, The Fox Trot, Limbo, The Mashed Potato and Hokey Pokey.

Yet again, we see the example of someone with a little bit of power stretching it to go on a power trip over something that doesn't get to the heart of the matter anyway. It's like when the manager complains to his employee about being five minutes late, but never even considers changing a process that is completely absurd.

State Equations (The very rare math/geography joke that maybe my father and brother will find funny and nobody else will)

Alabama = Virginia – 50 years
Alaska = 1/Hawaii
Arizona = (New Mexico +Nevada)/2
Arkansas = Mississippi + Bill Clinton
California (Texas+New York+Oregon)/3
Colorado Kansas + Mountains
Connecticut Rhode Island + Boring
Delaware = Maryland/4
Florida = New York – Young People
Georgia = Alabama + 20 years.
Hawaii = (Florida – Hurricanes – Elderly)
Idaho = Montana *2
Illinois = Iowa +Chicago
Indiana = Kentucky/2
Iowa = Kansas*6/7
Kansas = Missouri - Cities
Kentucky = Tennessee
Louisiana (Alabama + Mississippi + Las Vegas + New York City)/4
Maine = (Vermont *2 + Massachusetts)/3
Maryland = (Virginia + Pennsylvania)/2
Massachusetts New York – R’s – successful sports teams
Michigan = Pennsylvania + Great Lakes
Minnesota = (Vermont + Illinois)/2 + 10,000 Lakes
Mississippi =(Alabama +
Missouri = (Illinois+Kentucky)/2
Montana = Wyoming *2
Nebraska = Kansas*1.5
Nevada = (California+Arizona)/2
New Hampshire =Vermont - Cuteness
New Jersey NY/3
New Mexico = (Texas/34 +Arizona)/2
New York = 1/Alabama
North Carolina = (Georgia + Virginia)/2
North Dakota = Iowa/2
Ohio = Illnois/2
Oklahoma = Texas/56
Oregon = (Washington + Vermont)/2
Pennsylvania = New York – New Jersey
Rhode Island = Massachusetts * 1/4
South Carolina = (North Carolina + Alabama)/2
South Dakota = Iowa/34
Tennessee = Kentucky
Texas = (New York – Massachusetts)*Alaska
Utah = Nevada - Fun
Vermont = Colorado + disenfranchised New Yorkers
Virginia = (Alabama + New York)/2
Washington = (California + Idaho)/2 and then pour on with water
West Virginia = Virginia/90 + Alabama
Wisconsin = (Kansas + Minnesota)/2
Wyoming = 0

The latest Pope controversy. The Pope has come out against Stringrays. Evidently Steve Irwin, the Crocodile Hunter, was only a marginal Methodist at best, but an attack on a Christan somewhere is an attack on Christains everywhere. The Stringrays will surely riot and offer death threats to the Pope. The Vatican responded by the cancelling a proposed mass at the Great Barrier Reef and limiting all papal swimming to freshwater.

So I get in before the cutoff by one minute. The producer says, "Just made it buddy." We are handed a manilla envelope (The kind you interoffice, except instead of names crossed off, it has a number.) The producer explains the rules: 10 minutes, 30 questions, afterwards they will immediately grade the tests, remember your number, begin. I rip through the 30 and I am confident that I know 20. I then go back through and am pretty sure of another 5. I then go back through and educated guess on three and completely guess on two. I finish before the one minute warning. My number is "73". They pick up my test. There are probably 130 people in the room. Third number called 73. Only ten people are called. The producer then says that if we want to stick around we can get tested to enter the regular contestant pool as well. I meet with a producer who I tell about the time Harvey Keitel stared me down. I tell about my love of US Weekly. I make Seinfeld references. We'll see.
So then I take the regular test. I am amazed at how easy I found it (I say that humbly not arrogantly). I get through 27 of the questions confidently. Two, I educated guesssed on and one I hadn't a clue (It was about the name of Gwen Stefani's fashion line). I was number 67. Fifth number called number 67. I was told to wait in my seat. We didn't have to be reinterviewed. In 2-3 weeks we will hear via postcard if we are entered into the contestant pool, then we will hear via phone if we actually get to be a contestant. Not bad, Not bad.

The ABC cafeteria looks like every crappy corporate cafeteria.

From my application for Millionaire Pop Culture Edition:

1. What do you like about Pop Culture?
Not to get too philosophical but “Making your way in the world today takes everything you got, Taking a break from all your troubles Sure would help a lot. Sometimes you want to go; Where everybody knows your name, And they're always glad you came; You want to go where you can go People are all the same; You want to go where everybody knows your name.” Like Cheers, pop culture is comforting.
2. Why should you be on this show?
Much like when George Costanza needs to move the Frogger Machine across the busy streets to save his high score, “I have been preparing my whole life for this”, plus I will never have the abs to be on the Real World Road Rules Challenge, so this could be chance to be on television.
3. Is there anything else we should know about you?
If you want and it would help my chances of being a contestant, I can lie and tell you that I was an Andrea Doria survivor.

Today's Million Dollar idea, flavored envelopes.

Today's interactive question: If someone told you that the most delicious thing you could ever eat would be Walrus, would you?

Tomorrow afternoon I have an audition for the Pop Culture edition of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire. If the planets are alligned maybe all those years of watching Saved by the Bell and listening to America's Top 40 will pay off.

They didn't have time for me to make my update at the staff meeting today. In a way I felt like I was released from Jury Duty.

Here is my million dollar idea. Create something, not sure what, maybe a pill, maybe a breathing technique or maybe a white noise machine that will allow you to keep the feeling of overwhelming tiredness you get when you are sitting on the couch at 11:30 at night watching TV, when you actually get into bed.

Without fail, three or four nights a week I am sitting their struggling through the 11PM Seinfeld, only to go to bed and end up thinking about things for half an hour or so.

5 ways the world would be worse without birds
1. A lot of sports teams and schools would need new mascots
2. No Chicken Noodle Soup
3. No more building Birdhouses for Cub Scouts
4. Nobody to go to the park and feed stale bread to
5. Bette Midler's Wind Beneath my Wings would make no sense.

How disgusting is it when you go to the bathroom and sit down on the throne and the seat is still warm from the person before you.... Ewwww. It makes we immediately want to go shower.

To me there is something inherently sad about someone in their mid 40's who is really really excited about their car.

90% of all people do less on the weekend than they do during the week. If you can hire for your team only people who have an active social life and engaging hobbies, your productivity will go up significantly. Think about it, look at the person sitting next to you. If they are going home to get suckered into watching makeover shows or a football game they don't care about, that is only marginally better than being in the office. However if they are going out to dinner with friends or training for a 5 mile swim, or volunteer at a woman's shelter, that is much better than where they are. So those people are going to get their stuff done, so they can move on.

The worst feeling in the world is when you get to work on Monday and you don't even make it to lunch before you start thinking about Friday.

I had one of my favorite kind of meetings today. The kind where the person running it doesn't really know what they are talking about, but wants to show that they have power so they don't let people who do know what they are talking about (such as your faithful blogger) talk. Every time it ended up meaning that a meeting should really have only been a two email exchange is now an hour and half long.

All this leads me to ask you, which would you rather have: someone who doesn't easily grasp concepts but is motivated to be a good employee and politically savvy or someone who isn't very motivated and thinks politics are BS, but can easily grasp concepts and boil down problems to solutions quickly.

If you have read this blog for more than a day, you can probably guess which camp I fall in. The thing is in corporations say they want efficiency what they really mean is they want someone else accountable for their actions.

All Gorillas and Apes are, are humans to lazy to evolve.

Also from the makers of Go-gurt:
Stay-Gurt
Come Back-Gurt
Leaving in a little bit-gurt
Go-udding
Go-ello
Go-ttage cheese
Go-atmeal
Go-oothies
Go-ced Coffee
Do whatever you want-gurt

The next Adam Vinatieri.

You know what needs to end, the "Happy Friday" email. Come up with something clever. Thats like saying "Happy existence?" or "Happy breathing!" You know what I usually email back.

"Don't get too excited your weekend probably will suck and Monday is gonna be a bitch."

Boy, I am Debbie Downer this morning.

You know what I would never make fun of, a Grandmother wearing a T-shirt with her kitten on it playing Bingo, some moments are just precious.

I am sitting here watching Celebrity Duets, the other night they had Dancing with the Stars. Whatever happened to Celebrities Act in Compelling, Funny or Clever Programming that makes me forget that the next day I have to go back to work.

5 ways the world will be better when teachers are replaced with Robots.
1. Teachers will have optical receptors on the back of their heads, meaning no more spitballs.
2. Teachers would be able to answer any question by way of a central database.
3. Teachers would never have to go to the bathroom.
4. Teachers would never get sick, they broke down all they would have to do is be replaced by another robot.
5. Teachers would never have inappropriate sex with students.

2 ways the world would be worse.
1. Robots are never very good at teaching social studies.
2. Robots can't help teach penmanship to left handed people.

There is good news, there is great news, and then there is this.

You know what term always makes me laugh when I hear it, Fallopian Tubes. Don't know why but it just does.

Kind of makes you wonder what we were talking about at lunch today doesn't it.

54 Names for Kittens that start with “R”

1) Roger
2) Reptile
3) Rodent
4) Rwanda
5) Rescue
6) Rig
7) Righteous
8) Retaliate
9) Roscoe
10) Regional
11) Remember
12) Return
13) Regulatory
14) Rambo
15) Resurrection
16) Request
17) Remnant
18) Rejoice
19) Robber
20) Robby
21) Rotate
22) Rope
23) Revolution
24) Ripe
25) Rocket
26) Rickets
27) Rubella
28) Rook
29) Retainer
30) Requiem
31) Renovation
32) Rapier
33) Relaxation
34) Restitution
35) Reno
36) Religious
37) Repopulate
38) Romeo
39) Rome
40) Rom
41) Ro
42) Refuge
43) Refuse
44) Refund
45) Refinance
46) Rascal
47) Renegotiate
48) Rebound
49) Renounce
50) Reality
51) Realistic
52) Robot
53) Rider
54) Revoke

I give you all these to prove that the naming of Kittens has become an Epidemic in this country. We name our kittens whatever we want and don't think about the consequences. If you feel as strongly about this as I do, I ask you to donate to www.namethemkittyortabby.com.

This mornings conversations so far.
One guy spoke about his Milk regiment (his words not mine)
One spoke about their experience voting in the primary Tuesday morning
One spoke about their recipe for coffee cake
One spoke about the line at Starbucks
One spoke about how the dial-tone in Singapore.

None of these conversations were under five minutes.

If I had one wish for this morning it would be to be a Chopper Pilot.
If I had two wishes it would be that my co-workers had came to work with anything interesting. I am thinking of setting up my intern with the divorced secretary from the other side of the floor so at least we can have some Melrose Place type gossip.

Tonight I have a meeting with a Bishop, an actual ordained Bishop. If you are like me you are probably wondering the same thing: "Is he required to walk diagonally?"

Will let you know...

I just had a meeting on my calendar for an hour. It went like this

People I was meeting with: "We need this done"
Me: "I can do that by end of day"

I have set a goal for myself in the time I saved to complete their request and blog here about it. Will let you know if I accomplish...

Why is my efficiency not rewarded?

The astronauts lost another bolt. These guys get spun around in huge contraptions to make sure you don't throw up under pressure. They go through psychological examinations to make sure they won't freak out and either open the door and kill the crew or spend the entire time in space making fart sounds with their armpits. The never get training on how to hold things with gloves on? That is the kind of oversight that happens when you are so worried about the big picture. I see that all the time in business. You train salespeople with incredible skills to close deals with sophisticated buyers, but you never trained them how to accurately enter their order into a computer. You train managers incredible project management skills, but you never teach them that it might be nice to ask their employee how their weekend was. You train interviewers in how to ask very technical questions to see if the person is qualified for a job, but you never train them to see if they would fit in with the culture of the team they are joining.

John Wooden, the legendary UCLA basketball coach, would spend the first few hours of his first practice each year teaching his players how to put on their socks, that way they would never get blisters, they would have the support they needed. Even the talented need to be reminded of the little things.