Tim Robbins picks out the wrong record. Make me chuckle and wish I was better with audio software.

Third straight Sunday, I made it back to church. Couldn't tell you if anything happened. Work is so preoccupying little vignettes started playing out in my head about what is to come in the next week or so in cable land. There is the distinct possibility that I'll get a chance to interview for my former post (If life was fair, it should just be given to me, but we all know about life). I'd like to do those things again, but it would be with a juandiced eye toward some of the collaborators. I thought there were tight friendships there, but that was only partially the case. Two women I worked with are fine. The rest of the staff there subscribe to the "If you are in the room, you get to play, if not, we don't know you" school.

The whole experience has left me professionally frustrated and socially retarded. There's no shortage of people willing to lecture you at work, but a dearth of people intrested in just helping out. This all came to me this morning. I'm standing the church hall, not mixing with anybody because I'm full for the work folly and it remains a hot topic.

Frustrating thing being is that I thought I was home. Good job and good reviews for doing the job. Now, I look to how I'm getting used and abused and thinking thank fuck for the decent health insurance. Guess I'm resenting how what should be what you do for eight hours a day is seeping beyond that eight hours when it doesn't deserve too.

There, got that off my chest.

Fun going bargain hunting at Borders yesterday. Took the youngins and we sought out new literature. Martin Amis for me, Traveling Pants for darling moody middle child, and Batman for Number one Son. The promise of expanding intellectuallism seemed worthy of a reward at Krispy Kreme. I stopped at coffee, can't abide their bake goods these days. Kids took up my slack. Good kids.

No doubt you have noticed the unimaginative, repetitive use of
four-letter words in modern insults. In an effort to stimulate cells in the Wit Area of the brain, I am sending some examples from previous eras, when substantive human beings used the English language to skewer, gut and vanquish the objects of
their various venomous vexations.

In other words, for when a hearty "fuck off" just doesn't seem right, I present...

"A modest little person, with much to be modest about."
-- Winston Churchill

"I have never killed a man, but I have read many obituaries with
great pleasure."
-- Clarence Darrow

"Thank you for sending me a copy of your book; I'll waste no time
reading it."
-- Moses Hadas

"I've had a perfectly wonderful evening. But this wasn't it."
-- Groucho Marx

"I didn't attend the funeral, but I sent a nice letter saying I
approved of it."
-- Mark Twain

"I am enclosing two tickets to the first night of my new play, bring
a friend...if you have one."
-- George Bernard Shaw to Winston Churchill

"Cannot possibly attend first night, will attend second...if there
is one."
-- Winston Churchill, in response

"I feel so miserable without you, it's almost like having you here."
-- Stephen Bishop

"He is a self-made man and worships his creator."
-- John Bright

"I've just learned about his illness. Let's hope it's nothing
trivial."
-- Irvin S. Cobb

"He had delusions of adequacy."
-- Walter Kerr

"He inherited some good instincts from his Quaker forebears, but by diligent hard work, he overcame them."
-- James Reston (about Richard Nixon)

"In order to avoid being called a flirt, she always yielded easily."
-- Charles, Count Talleyrand

"He loves nature in spite of what it did to him."
-- Forrest Tucker

"His mother should have thrown him away and kept the stork."
-- Mae West

"Some cause happiness wherever the y go; others, whenever they go."
-- Oscar Wilde

"He has Van Gogh's ear for music."
-- Billy Wilder

Lady Astor: If you were my husband I'd give you a poisoned drink.
Winston: If I were your husband I'd drink it!
Lady Astor: We should have a child. Imagine a child with my looks
and your brains.
Winston: My fear my good lady is the child would have my looks and your brains!

Something is on the horizon.....

I had to deal with a promotion we ran with the Tennis Channel late last year. One of the prizes that was to be given away was a trip to the Australian open to some lucky viewer. Because of legal and ethical dilemmas, we couldn't do it. I got a note today that as a thank you, the Tennis Channel is going to send a case of Mcwilliams Australian Wine (good stuff) to my attention to arrive next week sometime.

That's pretty fucking awesome of them.

Suddenly it got easier to laugh at the current round of inanties

Working for a communications collassus like I do, I can't help but marvel at my state of the art 1998 computer. Ever since I've been there, there has been a web filter to keep you from going to "subversive" sites. The joke is that you get this screen filling ominous warning that when you first see it, you're convinced the web cops are coming.

I think it sets off a light at our data center that if nobody's watching, nobody cares. I was researching a prize wheel once and got busted for "Gambling." If you go to my space, you get busted for "Nudity." The logic is there is no real logic. The warnings got strangely toned down with the take over, but it managed to block a truly "dangerous" site today.




Can't have that spoiling the corporate landcape.