I can only please one person a day and today isn't your day. (And tomorrow isn't looking too good either.)


These words have plagued the desks of receptionists, secretaries, and other clerical workers for years- nay- decades.  I could understand this being amusing for a few months around the time it first came out, but why the hell has is held on this long?  I can remember seeing this on the front of the principle's secretary's desk when I was in 3rd grade which was literally 20 years ago.  Memes come and go.  There was a time when we were all saying "WASSSAAAP" when we answered the phone.  There was a time when we got a kick out of saying "all your base are belong to us." But those all came and went.  They lived out their relevance and were discarded in the dustbin of nostalgia.  Hell- not even nostalgia.  Nostalgia is something you're supposed to look back on fondly.  We all just realize how annoying these memes have become and move on to new ones.  So why does this one meme persist?  Do people really think its still witty and original?  Are secretaries really such sad, emotional shut ins that they think they've hit on something amusing and original?  But even more so, does anyone still think this is amusing to the people who read it?  Whenever I see this posted some where I feel like I've been given the finger.

Here's a new version of the same sentiment for the 21st century:
I'm here to do my job but I'm so goddamn ungrateful to be employed in this shitty economy that I'm going to act like I'm being put upon by your being here and requesting to perform the simple service that I'm paid to do because I'm an ungrateful, ass gasket that thinks some bullshit catchphrase from 20 years ago is still amusing even though every other pop culture fad from the early 90's is buried deep in the dark recesses of the minds of society so FUCK YOU!


See how it just rolls off the tongue?

Bob's Burgers has been a little more enjoyable since it came back.  Maybe its just because Allen Gregory and Napoleon Dynamite were so bloody awful.  As much as I love Family Guy and everything else Seth MacFarlene does, it seems like FOX can't get any animation going that's not a Simpsons derivative.  Futurama was one of the best things they ever did and it had to go to Adult Swim to catch on.

Ah well- FOX is notorious for failed shows in general.

I'm reading Count Zero by William Gibson.  An absolute master of his craft.  Kids- if you don't know who he is, just remember that Ghost in the Shell, Akira, The Matrix and pretty much any other science fiction work that deals heavily with the future of the internet would not exist were it not for him.

It must be one of the joys of being a parent to spend 30 minutes putting your child in a life vest, inner tube, water wings and flippers only to have them scream and cry the minute they touch the water.

There was a rat poking around near the pool today.  When I was a kid I used to love Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH by Robert C. O'Brien as well as the film adaptation which continues to be my favorite animated movie.  When I was a kid if I'd seen a wild rodent I would have imagined that it was a hyper-intelligent being that had escaped from a government test facility and was harvesting electricity.  Today I worry about fleas, rabies, the Plague of Justinian, etc.  Aint bein' a grown up swell?

For some reason Blockbuster has been unable to ship anything to my new apartment since I moved in.  That said, somehow, someway, I'm supposed to have Borderlands arriving in the mail shortly.  Space cowboys, first person shooter, scrapyards of rusted metal.  Sounds like fun, Beavis.

Its difficult to swim for exercise when you're taller than the pool.  I also seem to forget that the main purpose of the pool is not swimming but sitting next to it fully clothed and talking loudly on your cell phone. In the words of Charles Schulz, "I love humanity, its people I can't stand."

I just watched the Star Trek episode where Will Riker falls in love with this androgynous alien.  The episode serves as a metaphor for the LGBT struggles but I have to say that one thing irks me- the way, so often, Star Trek TNG would introduce a new character who defies the cultural norms of their home world and try to break free, only to ultimately return to their kind and re-conform.  Its almost as if the writers just didn't want to deal with the baggage of incorporating all of these new characters, even though they had an audience that would have gladly followed every conceivable plot thread.  There were other characters, like Data's "daughter" or the scientist who Lwaxana Troi falls in love with days before he is to commit ritual suicide, that were such compelling characters who were created and flushed out in the course of a single episode.  At least one of my favorite one off characters, Hugh the Borg, returns for the season 6/7 finale/premiere, but wouldn't it have been great to have him become a regular character on the series, especially since the Borg are arguably not only the greatest villains in the Star Trek universe but some of the most stunning foes in all of fiction?  Strangely, the few recurring secondary characters that are introduced are some of the least interesting, Worf's insolent son being a prime example.

I haven't watched Next Generation since I was a kid and its always been the only Trek series I've really enjoyed.  Thanks to Netflix I've got every episode of every season sprawling before me and I'm debating whether or not to get into them.  DS9 is interesting, but the others just seem like pale attempts at redoing what TNG did right the first time.  (And I do mean first time.  I don't count the original series as being even in the same universe as TNG with the exception of Harlan Ellison's stunning classic "City on the Edge of Forever.)

On a side note, there's an odd documentary out there called The Captains which is meant to be a set of interviews with all of the actors who have played star ship captains on the various Treks.  Patrick Stewart is far and away the most interesting and I would recommend the movie except for one small factor... Shatner.  The whole thing is his idea, his direction, his project... and he kills it.  Instead of letting the other actors talk, he dominates each interview, rambling on at length with asinine personal anecdotes while the people he's supposed to be interviewing stare blankly, waiting for a chance to speak that seldom comes.  To top it all off, he presents himself in the film as trying to work through some sort of persecution/low-self esteem complex about how embarrassed he is to have played Kirk despite the constant montages of him being showered with affection from legions of adoring fans.  This, combined with his abysmal rendition of Black Sabbath's Iron Man, brings my already dubious opinion of Shatner to a new low.