Tuesday, December 23, 2008
This is Funny
Saturday, December 20, 2008
Bud Diesel to the Rescue
Sitting in the business class lounge in Tokyo's Narita Airport makes me appreciate what America can offer. Sake's fun, but nothing beats the Diesel after five days of weak drinkers and raw fish.
I admit to particularly enjoying the envious looks I get from other Americans in the lounge. Cowards.
I admit to particularly enjoying the envious looks I get from other Americans in the lounge. Cowards.
Thursday, December 11, 2008
Chuck E Cheese, Den of Iniquity...
Lewis, apparently, you shouldn't have any more birthday parties at Chuck E Cheese!
Friday, December 05, 2008
Santa Exposed
Now we know how Santa gets all the toys delivered. Now, I don't expect for you SPA types (not to mention SOC, or, god forbid, SIS) to understand the math behind Santa, but I think we can all appreciate the truth from someone on the inside.
Monday, December 01, 2008
A World Without...
Several years ago, while working at a certain firm, I walked into the office on December 1 -- my birthday. I was feeling good. It was a Friday, and I was looking forward to getting through the workday and commencing long-planned birthday celebrations.
This firm had been founded by a man from Manhattan who liked for his firm to reflect his "Manhattan sensibility" -- including the furnishing of the office with art from a local gallery, and hosting gallery shows one Friday a month.
Not long after I arrived at work, I noticed a strange woman placing black, cloth shrouds over every picture and sculpture in the office.
I was immediately angered -- this was my place of employment, where I frequently spent long stretches -- often 12 hour days or longer -- and not only were the artworks I enjoyed looking at (they took some of the sting off of staring at computer monitors all day, and some of them were quite beautiful) being covered over, but there were so many works of art, and therefore so many shrouds, that the office was beginning to look like a funeral parlor.
On my birthday.
Eventually, I tracked down our VP for HR, who told me that the unknown woman was a gallery rep. She was covering the artworks "in honor of" World AIDS Day, and its corollary, "A Day Without Art". It turned out that A Day Without Art is an initiative associated with World AIDS Day in which "...the creative community observes A Day With(out) Art, in memory of all those the AIDS pandemic has taken from us, and in recognition of the many artists, actors, writers, dancers and others who continue to create and live with HIV and AIDS."
She saw nothing wrong with our office being converted into a virtual funeral parlor, used to make politically infused statements about the state of the anti-AIDS movement. I did, as did several of my colleagues, and we let her and other firm leadership know about it.
Ever since then, I have hated World AIDS Day. I hate that my birthday has been converted from a happy day, just after Thanksgiving, and looking forward to Christmas, to a sad day. It now obsesses with a fatal, incurable disease. I hate that A Day Without Art essentially assumes that all artists are gay, and that a world with AIDS means a world depopulated of gay men, and therefore a world depopulated of artists, and therefore we should cover all art because if we don't cure AIDS, we'll never have art. Bullshit.
I hate that you can't turn on the news on my birthday without seeing coverage of World AIDS Day.
I also hate the proliferation of "awareness" days/weeks. There are so many now, for so many random and insignificant purposes, as to render them all pointless -- we have Salt Awareness Week, Food Allergy and Intolerance Week, National Potato Day, National Impotence Day, International Noise Awareness Day, National Stop Snoring Week, National Eczema Week, and on and on and on. They don't raise awareness except for those members of CNN and MSNBC who have to write and read copy covering the latest "Some Cause Awareness Day/Week".
If I were a freshman member of the incoming Congress, my first act would be to introduce a bill cancelling all previously established Awareness Days/Weeks and placing a 10-year moratorium on the creation of any new ones.
Except for Brian Chapin's Birthday Awareness Day.
This firm had been founded by a man from Manhattan who liked for his firm to reflect his "Manhattan sensibility" -- including the furnishing of the office with art from a local gallery, and hosting gallery shows one Friday a month.
Not long after I arrived at work, I noticed a strange woman placing black, cloth shrouds over every picture and sculpture in the office.
I was immediately angered -- this was my place of employment, where I frequently spent long stretches -- often 12 hour days or longer -- and not only were the artworks I enjoyed looking at (they took some of the sting off of staring at computer monitors all day, and some of them were quite beautiful) being covered over, but there were so many works of art, and therefore so many shrouds, that the office was beginning to look like a funeral parlor.
On my birthday.
Eventually, I tracked down our VP for HR, who told me that the unknown woman was a gallery rep. She was covering the artworks "in honor of" World AIDS Day, and its corollary, "A Day Without Art". It turned out that A Day Without Art is an initiative associated with World AIDS Day in which "...the creative community observes A Day With(out) Art, in memory of all those the AIDS pandemic has taken from us, and in recognition of the many artists, actors, writers, dancers and others who continue to create and live with HIV and AIDS."
She saw nothing wrong with our office being converted into a virtual funeral parlor, used to make politically infused statements about the state of the anti-AIDS movement. I did, as did several of my colleagues, and we let her and other firm leadership know about it.
Ever since then, I have hated World AIDS Day. I hate that my birthday has been converted from a happy day, just after Thanksgiving, and looking forward to Christmas, to a sad day. It now obsesses with a fatal, incurable disease. I hate that A Day Without Art essentially assumes that all artists are gay, and that a world with AIDS means a world depopulated of gay men, and therefore a world depopulated of artists, and therefore we should cover all art because if we don't cure AIDS, we'll never have art. Bullshit.
I hate that you can't turn on the news on my birthday without seeing coverage of World AIDS Day.
I also hate the proliferation of "awareness" days/weeks. There are so many now, for so many random and insignificant purposes, as to render them all pointless -- we have Salt Awareness Week, Food Allergy and Intolerance Week, National Potato Day, National Impotence Day, International Noise Awareness Day, National Stop Snoring Week, National Eczema Week, and on and on and on. They don't raise awareness except for those members of CNN and MSNBC who have to write and read copy covering the latest "Some Cause Awareness Day/Week".
If I were a freshman member of the incoming Congress, my first act would be to introduce a bill cancelling all previously established Awareness Days/Weeks and placing a 10-year moratorium on the creation of any new ones.
Except for Brian Chapin's Birthday Awareness Day.
