The End is Near!

...or so said a sign written in magic marker on one of the many carboard boxes that belonged to a homeless man I saw this morning. He had a shopping cart filled with boxes, clothes, a lamp, and a rolly desk chair on top.

 

Suggestion: if the end is truly near, maybe you lighten your load a little. For starters, I know you've been holding out for that secretarial work but I think you can probably let the desk chair go. Hey, even if I'm wrong, most office work is on a, "You do the work, let US worry about the chair," sort of basis.

 

I saw a street lunatic earlier this week. He was having a conversation with a giant pile of blankets. But then he stopped to fix his hair. And I thought, "Way to pick your battles, sir." He senses he's not going to improve his situation all at once. He's got too much stacked against him, what with the homelessness, the total poverty, the hygiene and of course the insanity. But that doesn't mean you can't feel pretty.

A Haiku to Commemorate My Ten Thousandth Hit

Well, the hitcounter at the bottom of this page tells me that I've hit five figures on the page view counter (and it tells you that, too, if you would only listen. Oh, if you would only listen! But nay. to be continued...)

 

And that means that it's time to write a Haiku to let you know how I feel about it. That's how I roll, if you will. Will you? Gosh, I know I will.

 

On My Ten Thousandth

by Jeff Mac

 

my 10,000th hit

what an occasion for me

someone flick my ear*

 

*The meaning of this line has been argued by scholars for over one second. The true intention of the line is lost because the author wasn't paying close attention, even though he was writing it himself.

Karl Rove steps down!

Well, sort of.

 

I know the big news is about Scott McClellan resigning as press secretary, but Karl Rove is also changing his role in the administration. He's not quitting entirely, of course. But he is no longer going to be in charge of shaping White House policy. He said that while he enjoyed working with that side of things, he was happy to get back to his true calling, destroying the lives of people who get in his way.

Taxes Are Due

Well, your taxes are due by midnight tonight. It's a very stressful time, especially if you make more money than I did last year, I bet. Here are a few last-minute things to remember while you are preparing your taxes:

1. Before you begin a numbered list of things to tell people, you should really have thought of several items that might GO on such a list. Or even one.
2. Don't forget to claim your arms and legs as dependents. Where would they be without you? Nowhere, that's where. Frigging ingrates.
3. Deduct everything. And deduct it FROM everything. It's the only way. I don't really know what I mean.
4. If you smudge the ink on your tax forms, maybe they will make a mistake and refund all of your taxes! Maybe not, sure, but do you really want to take that chance? I know that I certainly don't want you to. Isn't it worth the fines and jailtime for a chance to do something that I've told you to do?
5. Always use an accountant, preferably one who is actually an accountant, and not just a kitty with a collar that says "accountant" on it.
6. When mailing your form, make sure to use standard, regulation mailboxes or post offices. Never simply throw your tax forms into the ocean, even at a moment when you are feeling especially "maily." I'm sure we've all been burned by this one, and it's not worth it.

I hope you are all enjoying our annual "How much do I owe you for those tax cuts for the rich?" ritual, and I hope you all get hammered this evening. Make sure you deduct any money that you spend tonight from your wallet.

Interesting Choices

I just saw a guy in a black leather vest and the worst toupee anyone has ever thought of. I think it was from the, "Oh Why Bother, You're Not Fooling Anyone" line. And he was dressed for, you know, work in a normal office. (I only bring that up because it's not like he was the mop boy at Flashdancers or something. If that were the case, don't change a thing. Sweet look, fella.)

 

I honestly think he could put the leather vest on his head and strap the toupee onto his back, and get away with it. Actually, I'd be interested to see how many more "Wow, you look GREAT today" compliments he gets.

 

(sigh) None of us get to wear jeans, meanwhile he gets to dress like a serial killer And nobody says anything. Well, not to his face, anyway.

Fixing Our Schools: The Bush Plan

Ok, it's hard to understand our President's plans sometimes. He's a complex thinker, and it's not always so easy to crack into that logic. But I'm here to help. Here's what I understand to be the Bush plan on education:

 

STEP 1: Give students standardized tests.

STEP 2: If they fail the tests, punish the schools by taking away their money.

STEP 3: Fearing budget cuts, everyone becomes a genius.

 

Now, at first glance, this might seem like telling a starving person, "Ok, you better start putting on some weight or I'm putting you on a diet, mister." But that is oversimplifying the issue to the point of, you know, truth.

 

The real issue is this: Teachers are lazy. They have grown content on their merely poverty-level salaries. In short, they have lost the eye of the tiger. We need to trim the fat out of those budgets to make room for younger, hungrier teachers who hum the theme from Rocky on the way to work.

 

You can see how this plan could be a total success in President Bush's mind. In a sense, the less learning our children absorb, the more presidential they will become.

See me on ComedyCentral.com! NOW!!!

Hey everybody. I taped an episode of Comedy Central's new standup show, "Live at Gotham" this weekend. It was pretty much one of the best days of my life, I have to tell you. The show doesn't air until the summer (June was the last I heard) but they've got a short clip of my set up there on their website.

 

Check it out HERE.

 

Ferret Alternative

Ok, if there's one issue that has been plaguing us all, day and night, it is the issue of whether or not a ferret is a proper pet. Obviously there are more issues, but this is definitely number one.

 

We need to reduce our dependence upon ferrets as pets. I know that only eleven people have them, but until that number reaches zero, I will pretend to care about this cause.

 

I would like to submit to you my opinion that rather than electing to buy a ferret as a pet, you would be served quite well by just buying a shovel.

 

3 Reasons Why a Shovel is a Better Pet than a Ferret:

• A shovel recognizes you when you come home at night. No? Well, guess what? Neither does a ferret. Sure, it might run up to you and bite your foot and then run away, sure. And I might be impressed by that level of 'affection' if the ferret didn't behave that way towards every object on the earth. He's not going, "Hey! It's that person I love!" He's thinking, "Hey -- a THING! I LOVE things!!! I will chew it/her/him!!!" Ferrets don't know who you are. Ferrets don't know who they are. All they know is that shiny is awesome.
• A shovel doesn't smell like a dead skunk that wiped its ass with an onion.
• You can use your shovel to dig a hole in which to bury ferrets. Convenient!

The Logic of the Dress Code

I know I've written about this before but, well, the tie is chafing me somthin' turrible today. And so, being the enlightened being that many of you have no reason to believe that I am not, I will now try to understand why business attire is required in an office.

 

Ok, let's say they lifted the dress code. You still have to do your job and look neat, but you can wear jeans and sneakers and such. Well, if you're wearing sneakers, you might get the urge to run somewhere. And we all know that criminals run places. Sometimes they do it before a crime, sometimes afterwards. Either way, you will have murdered someone. This will make meetings increasingly more difficult to schedule.

 

The jeans will turn you into a cowboy almost immediately. You will leap up on the fax table screaming, "Yeeeeeeeha!!!!" and you'll do a little step dancing. Now, at that point, what if a fax comes in. Everyone in the office will be so busy clapping and dancing and playing fiddles that they might miss that fax entirely. A sobering thought. So jeans are out.

 

And finally, the tie. Well, this one's obvious. If anyone from a rival company challenges you to a duel with fencing foils, your tie-less neck will be that much more vulnerable to injury, making you a serious insurance liability. Also, if you aren't wearing a tie, you might actually spend a moment of your day free of the thought that your job is choking the life out of you.

 

I hope that this has made you all feel much, much better about wearing office attire. Golly, I know it's changed my life forever and ever.