AnonymousCoworker

The Baltimore Sun ran an article on blogs today, and by some stroke of something or other, they listed my blog.

It figures it’s on the same day I’m out of the office on, as they call it ’round here, “bidness”. D’oh!

First, I’d like to invite all Baltimoreans to the next Blogger Happy Hour & Katrina/Rita Fundraiser.

The Baltimore Blogger Community is coming together for a Happy Hour whose proceeds will benefit the victims of Hurricane Katrina.

Where: Sláinte, 1700 Thames St, Baltimore, MD 21231

When: Thursday, 29 September 2005 5:00-9:00 PM

Why: Portion of the Proceeds to Benefit the American Red Cross

Many thanks to our intrepid organizers, Jennetic and Zenchick. Bring your friends, family, fellow bloggers and non-bloggers alike. Let’s get together and raise many cups of cheer, simultaneously assaulting our livers and supporting a charitable cause!*

I was going to post this morning before I left for work, but it would have been at 6 am, and I don’t think the internet gets up that early, ’cause you know the internet is up at 4 am partying in Switzerland and doing lines of blow off of a stripper’s back and when you’re like, “Hey internet, stop doing lines of blow off that stripper. People are going to need you in the morning,” the internet is always like, “Quit harshing my mellow, facist.”

(Now that I’ve mentioned strippers and cocaine, I should probably warn the 2 new readers that this blog can sometimes be explicit. I curse (hell damn fart) and talk about necrophilia, and generally embarass the rest of the blogging community. Also, new readers should probably know that the word “blog” is a shortened version of “weblog”, but in my blog’s case it’s short for “bloated hog”.)

At first I was gonna post something about my day, but now I’m wondering if my grandmother is reading this and wondering how fast she can strike me from her will. New stuff tomorrow, I guess.

*Stolen, once again, from Jason J. Thomas, where, incidentally, my little brother first saw mention of my impending 15-seconds of fame and called my cell phone.

The woman who works at the front desk in our office (I guess you could call her an administrative assistant, but she’s really just a secretary (because women have no place in the workaday world (because they should be at home barefoot and pregnant and making me a sandwich (preferably smoked turkey on rye bread with spicy deli mustard and some fresh slices of tomato (which shouldn’t be kept in the refrigerator because it destroys the “flavor molecules” (that’s a scientific term (look it up))))))) just came up to me and said, “What’s Paypal?”

Having just received a SPAM/SCAM email about my “Paypal account” I told her that it was a scam, and that she could just delete the email.

“How do I delete it?”

“Just click on the email and then click the delete button.”

“Yeah, but how do I delete my Paypal account?”

“What?”

“I don’t want my Paypal account.”

“Do you have a Paypal account?”

“I guess I must have one if the email says I do.”

sigh…

So I spend the next 10 minutes explaining what Paypal is and what it does and SPAM and phishing.

“So I don’t have a Paypal account?”

“No. Just delete the email.”

“Should I tell the people that sent the email that I don’t have a Paypal account?”

sigh… It’s so cute when women try to use technology. You can almost see their cute little brains trying to figure it all out, but they can’t get a grasp on the whole thing because there’s no place to hold their make-up caddy.

My birthday was last Wednesday, and it was a fairly crap birthday. After work I went home and painted a wall, mowed the lawn, put a second coat of paint on the wall, had a slice of ice-cream cake and got a cool shirt from ACWF’s mom, put up our headboard, and then went to bed.

This past Monday my brother made up for all of that.

He had his present planned for me for about a month. He switched the date around a few times, but in the end he settled on the 19th to take me on a pirate cruise (scroll down) around Baltimore. On Talk Like a Pirate Day, no less.

When I met them down at the harbor they gave me a puffy pirate shirt, a pirate sword, an eyepatch, a pirate hat, a belt, a satchel full of booty, and a pistol.

We boarded and went straight for the bar. Being a pirate is much more fun when you’ve got booze in you.

Then a swarm of “pirates” boarded the ship. In reality it was one group that regularly sails with the ship, and the other group were Ren Fest nerds in for the evening (it being Talk Like a Pirate Day). The two groups didn’t seem to have done any type of rehearsal, but once we were out in the harbor, they settled down and mingled. We spent a good portion of the voyage sharing jokes with a few of the Ren Fest pirates. All in all, it was a good time, and it awesomely made up for the mowing, and the painting, and the general non-celebration on my actual birthday.

Now what you’ve been waiting for. A picture of me dressed as a pirate.

clickificate to bigificate

When I was in high school, actually, when I was a senior in high school, I frequently took the liberty of excusing myself from classes and wandered the halls of the school looking for something to pass the time.

One of those days I walked past a nearly empty classroom and noticed my friend Travis. Travis, not being the type of person who can regulate his behavior in a way that allows him to fit in with the rest of society, called out the door, “Dude! C’mere.” Feeling my oats, and ready with a good excuse as to why I was wandering the hallways (um, because I, uh, have to go to my next class?) I ventured into the classroom and sat down in the desk next to Travis’.

“Mr. [myreallastname]! Always a pleasure to see you.”

My head whipped around and I saw my Algebra 2 instructor from the year prior. This could go one of two ways: Mr. Murphy would go apeshit on me because he’s the wrestling coach and I just wandered into his class, or Mr. Murphy would appreciate the humor in a student sneaking IN to a classroom.

I was betting on the latter because of two other things: Mr. Murphy was nicknamed “Head in a box” by my friends because he was sometimes so oblivious to his surroundings that he failed to break up a fight in his classroom, notice students getting up and leaving his classes, or see a stapler thrown from the back of his classroom fly over the heads of his students and strike the front of his desk at the head of the class. The other thing was: Mr. Murphy was not Mr. Working. Mr. Working was the football coach who taught anatomy, and who was famous for imparting the same piece of instruction to all his students, which was, “They call it the ‘taint’ ’cause it t’ain’t quite ass, and it t’ain’t quite pussy.” He was a real class act.

“I guess you really wanted to take the test we’re about to take?” Mr. Murphy asked me.

I replied affirmatively, and then asked what course he was teaching, hoping against all odds that I wasn’t in his Algebra 2 class.

“I’m administering a make-up test for Mr. Working’s anatomy class. These fellas* here missed the last exam because of the athletic awards ceremony yesterday.”

I was screwed. I knew about as much anatomy as I did Algebra. I asked what the particular topic was.

“Reproductive organs!” Mr. Murphy said with a surprising amount of glee in his voice.

I was suddenly very excited to take the test. I had recently misplaced the delicate flower of my youth and blossomed into a man, and in doing so, had done a great deal of “personal research” into the male and female anatomy. I was sure that I knew my stuff.

The test was administered, and I finished the male reproductive organs in a flash. A little seminal vesicle here, a little urethra there, rectum, prostate, testes- I was in the zone. I flipped the test over, and staring at me like photocopied goat skull was the female reproductive system. Previously foreign and abstract, the female reproductive system no longer seemed so strange. I started at the bottom and worked my way up and out. Outer labia, inner labia, clitoris, vagina, cervix, urethra, fallopian tubes… I finished the female anatomy almost as quickly as the male anatomy.

Sure of myself, and still feeling a bit bold from wandering into a classroom and getting away with it, I got up and handed the test in to Mr. Murphy.

He went over the test as I stood above him, his red pen poised in his hand, ready to make a mark at any of my mistakes. He flipped from the male side to the female side without making a mark.

“Let’s see how you do on this side,” he said as he bore down on the now properly labeled goat skull. His pen hovered, but never found its prey.

“Are you taking Anatomy 2 right now?” he asked me quietly so as not to disturb the other students.
“No.”
“But you took Anatomy last year?”
“Nope.”
“How do you know this stuff?”
“I don’t know. General health classes over the years, I guess. Must’ve finally sunken in.”
“Well, I’m impressed.”
“Thanks.”

Then Mr. Murphy stood up and said to the class, “If your penis looks as good as [Myreallastname]’s, I’ll give you extra credit.”

*I went to an all-male Catholic high school.

It’s not normally like me to shill for a company, organization, musical group, or movie, but there is something I must tell you about.

Haloscan commenting.

• It’s freakin’ easy as balls to set up. I should know, because I’m an idiot, and I have Haloscan comments.

• I’ve yet to be spammed. Which is nice because I don’t have to read about penis enlargements, or mortgages, or penis-enlarging mortgages. That it, unless I decide to write about them. Then I have to read about them.

• You can customize your comment screen and stand out from the crowd. Just take a look at Ian’s comments.

• And last, but not least, you don’t have to type in the retarded word verification thingy every time you want to say, “Dood! Hysterical!” Which is to what 78% of my comments amount.

So go get Haloscan. You’ll be glad you did.