Walkin' on the Boulevard

This is a story of broken dreams.

I am a Deputy Financial Controller, which means I report to the region’s Financial Controller. It’s an easy thing to do, since his office is just two doors down from my cube (ok, it’s technically one door down since the office-in-between is also a cube and by design, lacks a door. But I digress.) My supervisor unfortunately does not enjoy the same reporting proximity, as his boss sits in San Diego. But every few months or so, she comes to visit us here in the Commonwealth, and that nearly guarantees one extra fringe benefit with my job:

FANCY. LUNCH.

There are two key aspects that are involved in making your mid-day meal a fancy lunch. The first important part is that you’re not paying. For 255 out of the 260 workdays in the year, you find yourself responsible for providing your own lunch, whether it be bought in the café or brought from home. So when the opportunity arises to eat on someone else’s dime, you seize it like there’s no tomorrow (or dinner.) Secondly, a fancy lunch is never held at one of your regular lunchtime haunts. It is often in a location that you would never even consider eating at, since you try not to spend more than 6 bucks on your whole meal.

If your starter salad costs 6 dollars, you know it’s a fancy lunch.

Because we dine out so infrequently at my company, it’s okay to have the occasional fancy lunch. If we were a lobbying firm, then I’d want my tunafish to be salmon, my carrot sticks to be 14 karats, and that juice box would be Capri Sun – anyone who drink fruit punch out of a silver reflective bag must buy their suits on Rodeo Drive. So when I was told yesterday we’d be going out to lunch today at steakhouse extraordinaire – MORTON’s – my hopes were as high as a Shaun White 1080 board grab.(I’m an Olympic geek. Sue me.)

But before I could go spend my lunch hour engorged in a porterhouse of NY strip, I had to sit through an excruciating group training session about a new project management computer system we are about to roll out. When it comes to coming up with the guest list for these things, the instructors assume that no matter the topic, it’s always good to have a finance perspective on things. That’s sound for the most part. Except that I end up at trainings that have about 8.2% relevance to my daily tasks and responsibilities. But I can persevere. I got steak on the other end of this class.

Or do I?

What went from a glorious daydream of the best lunch in months started to slip at about 11:15 during training. The plan had been to have the finance team exit stage right after this module was completed at 11:30. But then an ad-hoc lesson was tacked on and squeezed in right before the lunch break, which would now be pushed back 30 minutes until noon. For 37 of the employees in the room, this mattered little. Their bag lunches that were being provided via catering would just wait patiently outside the door a little longer. For the 6 of us, apprehension seriously started to set in.

The powers-that-be in the back of the room, the aforementioned supervisors, saw the clock and started to whisper. It was not looking good. I’m not great at reading lips, but I shuddered when I saw the word “tomorrow” mouthed from one to another. Hell, at this point, I was hoping they had said anything else, even “Sbarro.”

Looks like lunch has been postponed, as I sit here eating a hastily constructed ham sandwich from the bag lunch table.

Talk about a fall from grace.

Junk in the Comment Trunk

I’ve been hesitant to put up that comment authentication tool for the commenting YAB public for three reasons, really. First, I want those who would like to bring some funny to be able to crack jokes uninhibited, not being forced to spell words like “yinoxjti” or “bloufzarn” or “ovechkin.” Secondly, I know Mattias and Nordberg have both been making great strides on their spelling homework in recent weeks. I wouldn’t want to confuse them, making them think that there is more and more vocab to master. And thirdly, I wouldn’t be so wildly entertained by some of the junk comments that hit the board on a daily basis.

I’m sure every now and then those who frequent this site on a daily basis see the occasional random appearance of a non-sensical post, whereby YAB is being used as a springboard for the start-up business world. Granted, every morning, I pull out the e-squeegee and wipe the slate clean so that I can single-handedly thwart their business model (ok, double-handedly. E-squeegees are very heavy.)

Since January 14, YAB has been inundated by 108 generic comments that all follow the same exact format. This is no fan of the funny, this is the blog equivalent of an automated dialing machine. And like I said, it always follows the same syntax:

“ blog. ”

Let’s break down the art of the junk comment, shall we?

1 – The is the first strike of the mass marketers to get my attention as the YAB Chief Awesome Officer. In the last 45 days, YAB has been called prodigious, exciting, creative, sensational, suitable, astonishing, unusual, inspiring, energizing and hype. Whoever this guy is, he’s married to a thesaurus.

2 – It’s not that we don’t welcome readers from overseas, in fact it’s kind of cool to think that what we write is showing up on computer screens from Albania to Zaire. But our auto-comment man is just piecing together the English language like it’s an LFO song. A typical example would read as such: “This site I love much and it out did itself and will be back!” What will be back? You? The blog? Sanity?

3 – The second sentence always talks about surfing. ALWAYS. And it will pull the title from the particular post it is referencing for added hiliarity. And as I write post 396, I assure that no post has been safe, dating back to July 2004. It’s like blindfolded darts, and YAB is the doorway to the left of the dartboard. Another example: “when I have time to surf the net, I consistently find blogs about The Goooaaaliieee! In much favor.

I never knew how much you cared.

4 – Finally, the sales pitch. I’ve been targeted to help hawk cash advances, ice fishing shelter, boomerang supplies, work at home jobs, skydiving supplies, Spanish wedding planning, and shoes.

This morning, I received a perfect example of all discussed methods from a guy who posts as “Crazy Dan.” It read:

“Tis the season! I was searching the web and found entry Writer's Block Party. I really like your site and found it worth time reading through the post. I am looking to publish a comprehensive site ranges many types of historical needlework. All those interested in this area will find this article of interest as it is written from many perspective. Please feel free to take a look at my blog at atm machines and add any thing your want.”

All I have to say is Wow.

Workin' on the Cheney Gang

I’m glad I don’t have a job which requires me to bring the funny in exchange for compensation. There are just some days where comedy isn’t easily put into the written word. I feel like it’s often Fridays. Trying to bang out one more post before I take a hiatus for the weekend sometimes is as hard as pulling information from a hot-air balloon crash survivor. Sometimes comedy requires scouring the newswire for something comical. And then sometimes –

Dick Cheney shoots a guy.

I’ve spent the last week trying to get my brain around the ramifications, both comedic and political, of the Vice President of the United States being the guy on the other end a double barrel shotgun that wounds and hospitalizes a fellow American. Since I’m late to the game here, I’m sure Letterman, Stewart, and the rest of the pros have made all the jokes already. But just because somebody’s late to the party doesn’t mean that they don’t get a piece of the copious snacks and beverages. Well my name is Chris Condon, and I’m here for some Fritos.

Let’s just think about this for a second. Dick Cheney shot a guy, a lawyer friend of his, in Texas last week. Granted, this can happen to anybody – I’m sure hunting accidents are quite frequent in this day and age, but we’ve got the Number 2 in charge of the US of A trained with a firearm so astutely that if the President is ever attacked, we no longer need Secret Service guards. Just the VP with a concealed weapon.

This, of course, assuming that whoever attacks the President has brought along some quail in close proximity. Um, for moral support. Yeah.

The President is Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces. It’s part of the executive powers bestowed upon him in the Constitution. The Vice President has no part in the military. The greatest things he gets to do is:

1) Succeed the President in times of removal
2) Break ties in the Senate
3) Shoot guys in Texas

Ok, the third one is a bit of a newer power, but I think it’s time we had a new Texas Ranger. Walker has totally lost his credibility hawking home gym apparatuses during early morning infomercials. The law needs to be laid down, and Chuck Norris is slipping in his old age.

So what happens to Mr. Cheney now? Could he brought up on involuntary manslaughter charges should the lawyer not survive his stay at the hospital? Sure he can, but I’m not sure if he gets convicted. Vice Presidents have a history of avoiding trial proceedings, dating back to when Aaron Burr was called up on murdering Alexander Hamilton, and employing the “I’m not hearing you, I’m not hearing you” defense when served with a summons to court.

Of course, that was 200 years ago. But even if Cheney is convicted and jailed, wouldn’t that be grounds for the fastest Presidential pardon in history? It would be the equivalent of Cheney rolling double 4’s, just missing Marvin Gardens and instead going straight to jail, only to throw a 5 and 5 TEN to get out of jail and, while he’s at it, land on free parking. He wouldn’t even have time to be fitted for a ball and/or chain.

He’d just have to make sure he doesn’t throw another double 5's right after that.

Stop Me if You've Heard This One

Frequently last spring and summer, a YAB catch-up post would be penned while I sat in the chair of a grad student, listening to a lecture which had little relevance, importance, or even inflection. When I wrote those long, long ago, I felt that I had a justifiable cause to not pay attention. The professor’s yammering was not anything on which I would be graded (since there were no tests and the only deliverables were unrelated papers), nor did I see any future application in whatever career I end up with. And it was this justification that I wrote 2-a-days last summer.

Turns out I had no idea what justifiable cause was.

Looking back, that reason was no more than old-fashioned rationalization. I gave myself a reason to write, nothing more. Why did I come upon this revelation, as I sat in class yet again last night? Easy.

Now I know was justifiable cause is.

Let me explain. I am taking a professor for the second time in two semesters. Last fall, his course was called “International Science and Technology.” This spring, we call is “New Venture Initiation.” For the most part, these are two different topics. One deals with foreign applications and ramifications of have a hi-tech business overseas. The other is a glorified entrepreneurship course. Is there some overlap? Maybe.

Last semester, the course devolved into a speaker series. Maybe my professor was busy, I don’t know. But we had many entertaining speakers, the most interesting being an intellectual property lawyer who had much to say on the world of patents, copyrights, and trade secrets. In fact, it even spawned this post about the Catholic Church hawking Listerine. Hell, I even gave I guy a name: Litigious McLawyerson.

Guess who’s back?

I went into class last night well aware that we were having an IPR lawyer. However, McLawyerson was not the listed guest on the syllabus. It was another guy. But as I sat down in class, unpacked my notebook, and got ready for a relaxing 2 hours of trademark talk, I realized the speaker loading his PowerPoint looked remarkably familiar.

MCLAWYERSON.

Now knowing that it would be impolite to repack and leave, I realized I had been tricked. I was the only student in the class that was in the last semester class, and this presentation was IDENTICAL to the one I had heard just three months earlier. Screwed, with no way to voice my annoyance. Or is there?

Déjà vu, anyone?

When I was 12, we went to Colonial Williamsburg on a family vacation. The first day, my mom and my sister blew us off to attend some “American Girls” tea party with the writer of those books, leaving my dad, myself, and Dr.Bisignano to roam wild in the village of CW. One of our stops was at the shop of the “Cooper” (that’s Colonialese for “barrel-maker.”) The re-enactor had mastered a killer West Indies accent, to make the tourists think that he had come from the Caribbean (which was often the case in that era.) At the end of his talk, he asks the crowd where they think he’s from. After guessing every major island chain in the Sea, he finally lets on he’s from Arkansas.

So when my mom and sister rejoined us the next day, and revisited the same cooper, I found myself at 12 years old in the very same situation I have encountered with McLawyerson. When the cooper finished his talk and asked about his own origins, legend has it that I didn’t even hesitate when I declared, “ARKANSAS.”

So when McLawyerson asked any question last night that he was certain no one would know the answer, you better believe I answered EVERY last one. Why? Easy.

Spite.

Vault! Who Goes There?

Last May, the Coca-Cola Company lost a heart-breaker to PepsiCo here at You’re a Blog, when each company’s rival sodas squared off in match play, with the boys in blue taking the best-of-nine tourney 5 to 4. If you recall, it was all square in the final frame, when the battle of the citrus sodas was announced. And in a walk, Mountain Dew demolished Mello Yello despite the Days of Thunder product tie-in. A blowout ensued, and Coke was left dumbfounded after coming so close to greatness.

Sound familiar, Bode Miller?

As the Seattle Seahawks can now attest, when you lose the big one, the best thing you can do is put it behind you, rebuild and retool, and get ready for next year. Now I’m not YAB will host another Cola War in ’06 (Recycled Funny? Never!), but it’s nice to know Coke isn’t settling for second best.

Since the new Coke of the 80’s ended up being a disaster, they now know better than to tinker with already good products. Instead, they have decided to upgrade their bullpen, and sign a new closer (since Mt. Dew effectively connected on an inside-the-park grand slam against Mello Yello.) With spring training around the corner, it seems that they’ve got their rookie.

VAULT.

I found out about Vault when I went down to grab lunch this afternoon. Normally, I do not partake of the bottled soft drink cooler, but seeing that they were stocking yellow Gatorade for the first time in, oh, EVER, I headed over. And sure enough, there was Vault, a green bottle with what looks like tire treads around its midsection, boldly proclaiming “Drinks like a soda, Kicks like an energy drink.” Ah, it drinks AND kicks. Sounds like a donkey with a penchant for tequila shots.

Anyways, I passed on entering the Vault today, since I wanted to research it a bit first. But even before I could Google, something from my past shot to the forefront of my mind. Could this? Is this? Will this be?

A second coming of Surge??

For those not in the know, Surge was Coke’s mid-nineties response to Mountain Dew. It was green. It was sugar-laden. And it was actually pretty damn good. Freshmen year of college, Spud actually donated his entire supply of blood donated to the American Red Cross so that he could have this one soft drink pulsing through his veins. It disappeared for good in 2002, due to the fact that Coke decided that the only way to enter the new millennium is to add lemon, vanilla, or lime to every single product offering. And since a “Surge with Lime” had the potential to literally turn your skin green, the project was abandoned.

And yet, 4 years later, Vault has rolled onto the scene. According to Wikipedia (they amaze me more everyday), there has been a sweeping effort of “soda activism” online for the past quadrennial under the heading www.savesurge.org. And the reviews in the blogosphere have been raving. (But then again, most of the blogosphere is populated by raving lunatics, so that’s pretty much par for the course.) But the real reason that Vault is going to survive can be traced back to, yes, Days of Thunder.

Mello Yello had a stock car. It still exists today.
Surge did not have a stock car. It was deep sixed long ago.
Vault? Looks like the rumors mill is alive and well.