Yesterday, I volunteered for a project I am not at liberty to discuss. I will say that because it involves the use of different languages I have never spoken before, it is quite the challenge. The team, comprised of other interns from various teams in the company, assembled and was briefed, complete with a spiffy video demo on some processes we'll be going through ourselves. Then we were commissioned, but not before they reminded us that the project was of utmost importance, needed to be completed ASAP, and was strictly company confidential.
Yesterday totally felt like the first Men In Black movie, when Will Smith voluntarily walked into the recruitment office of a top-secret organization for a top-secret project, and in the room, he found four or five other men that were the "best of the best" from other fields of work, and then he proceeded to punch logic loopholes through their competency tests, showing everyone else up at the same time. Except I sat there quietly nodding my head, asking a question at the end of the presentation.
I'm about to do something that hasn't been done on this space for a minute now. I'm about to get all introspective.
*Sidenote* - When referencing the Internet, how does one distinguish between being "on" the Internet and "in" the Internet? I wasn't sure which preposition to use, and believe it or not, I had to double check with Blackle to verify that "in" and "on" were indeed prepositions.
*Sidenoting the Sidenote* - Blackle. It's the energy efficient version of Google. Allegedly. I don't scientifically know if a monitor displaying a black background uses less energy than one displaying an outwardly brighter white background. But most of you, my dedicated readership, know that I inherently prefer the color colour (see, now there's a red squiggly line under the word "colour", it's very annoying), err, shade, black. Speaking of which, this fugly template needs to go. When the site gets back to black, then you'll know I'm back on track. Can one of you kids sitting at home with nothing better to do draw me up a new template? And if there are any Internet nerds that happen upon this blog, can somebody get a blackle-style version of Wikipedia running? Thank you.*End Sidenotes*
I lead a double life.
Take your time, don't choke on your food, chew slowly, and re-read the last sentence. I'll wait for you in the read-more section. I won't be hard to find. I'll be the one (who will make all your sorrows undone) in an bright yellow, oversized, ChiSox hat. Eating some Fried Chicken Snack. With a soda on the side. You see, this is how I figure. From Monday to Friday, I'm practically sitting on email all day. And by that, I don't mean obsessively refreshing the screen waiting for email, G-Mail has solved that problem by doing the automatic refresh. I just keep it minimized and answer emails as they come in.
From Monday to Friday, I'm also scouring the Internet for news, opinions, rumors and anything else that could offend me enough to rant about, or amuse me enough to link to, or ridiculous enough to adopt as a new theme.
From Monday to Friday, my fantasy sports teams are micromanaged to a tee. I build up a healthy lead and add/drop players just because I can.
From Monday to Friday, if you update your blog, I'll be reading it. If you have Flickr, I'll be checking it. If there's new music that has been electronically leaked, I'll be bumpin' it.
From Monday to Friday, I AM THE INTERNET.
Then Saturday hits, and for the next two days, my computer has to talk to a psychiatrist because it feels neglected, and there are many traumatic stressors that accompany feelings of neglect.
M.I.A.M.I.
Missing. In. Action. Me. Is.
The level people will stoop to to make an acronym work.
Call me Jason Bourne. I had no idea about this double life until the other day when I chided someone for not responding to a less-than-vital-but-important-enough email when they actually had replied and I just hadn't checked my email the entire weekend.
And when I did finally check, there it was, sitting there all pretty and smiling at me.
*Ahem, waiter, could you please help me choose between crow and a slice of humble pie? I can't decide which one to eat at this point in time*
And I think it's time for a change. Just in case a reputed publication reports on a Saturday that Armageddon (or a big sale of some sort) will be taking place Sunday, and I don't find out till Monday.
If it really is Armageddon, then well, you know, I'll pray to Bruce Willis and what's his face, Bennifer Affleck, to come save me.
But if it's a big sale I missed, then I'll be severely disappointed. The feeling that accompanies finding out you missed by a day on an extremely discounted item you've been hunting for is equivalent to the feeling of being ahead by a full lap in MarioKart, then in the final lap, watching the 7 other players pass you. One by one.
And then you run into a tree.
It's time to bring some balance into my life. Internet, I will pay you a visit at least once a weekend. I'm sorry for being so unfaithful when it hasn't been convenient to me. Weekend bloggers, emailers, flickrers, newscasters, fantasy sports players, and merchandisers, forgive me.
The best part about the seemingly never-ending stream of celebrity stories flooding the online airwaves, not only are they barely note-worthy, they serve to distract the majority of the general public from ongoing issues, such as a potential presidential impeachment down south of the border.
How many of you have heard of Lewis "Scooter" Libby, or Alberto "You're Fired!" Gonzales?
Point proven. Although, I probably didn't help my case by linking to the useless celebrity stories.
*Sidenote* - If the president is impeached, does the vice president automatically step up and succeed the throne (or is it succeed TO the throne?), so to speak? Because in this case, I'd argue we'd have an even bigger problem on our hands, as the vice president is already running the show, if you didn't know. Can we impeach both?! Is it divine intervention that I'm eating peach yogurt as I type this? *End Sitenote*
The government used to raise terrorism threat levels up a color to sidestep real issues. I guess people finally caught on and started calling their bluffs, so now, the government must be resorting to leaking Hollywood gossip.
Brilliance.
Now, I like American politics and there just seems to be a lot more going on down there than there is up here, but I must reaffirm that I am Canadian. Excuse me a second.
*Ahem*
O Canada, my home and native land... Hmph. You came clicking down here expecting some more didn't you! Or at least expecting the rest of the Canadian National Anthem to be posted up.
But it's Friday. I'm calling it quits early on the blogging business. I got a fantasy football draft starting in five minutes. Why fantasy football you ask? BECAUSE I HAD FREAKIN' CHASE UTLEY ON MY FANTASY BASEBALL TEAM. THERE IS NO REPLACING FIRST ROUND TALENT AT SUCH A SCARCE POSITION.
*Preface - Just a couple clean-up notes from last post. I forgot to mention how the bigger they are, the harder they fall, so it would make sense that a big girl would cry harder. Also, just to set the record straight, I sing along every time I hear that song. It's like Umbrella. The song is stupid, but it's a hit single, and I love it.
*Sidenote* - Actually, there is no side to note. *End Sidenote*
U.S. researchers have found evidence obesity is socially contagious and weight gain can spread from person to person through a social network in a domino effect.
You are what you, AND your friends, eat!
My group of friends are tight...when we try to squeeze into one car.
So I'm not a good punchline writer. But the humor that can be extracted from these findings is endless. What's your take? Now I told you a while back to check out Shaq's reality show, Shaq's Big Challenge. I hate having to find humor in all things fat, but the premise of the show is Shaq puts 6 morbidly obese (I'm not even kidding, that was the doctor's diagnosis) kids through boot camp in order for them to lose weight and back on track with a healthy lifestyle.
The intentions are good and all, but let me tell you a little somethin' somethin' about our friendly giant that is Shaq.
Shaq gets paid millions of dollars to play basketball. Except he only plays maybe 2 months out of the year at most. The rest of the year, he's either officially on summer, or feigning an injury only to miraculously return to help his team "when the games count".
And what is he doing during the summer/recovering from an injury that never was?
*Preface - Unintentionally long, but because I hear this song every day either on the way to work, or on the way home, or if I'm super lucky, both, consider this pent up rage. Line by line style.
Watching season two, episode five, of the award winning series, The Sopranos, titled "Big Girls Don't Cry". This reminds me of the utter stupidity of a Fergie's song that happens to share the same title.
Buttug McOysty Attempts To Wade Through The Mess That Is Fergie's Lyrics And Break It Down For You
Fergie - Big Girls Don't Cry Da Da Da Da (We're off to a fantastic start.) The smell of your skin lingers on me now (Body odor is one thing that should not make a big girl cry.) You're probably on your flight back to your home town (Actually, probability does not favor this particular situation happening, considering that towns generally don't have airports of their own. More likely, this ambiguous "you" that you're referring to, is probably DRIVING back to their home town. You should probably re-write this line.) I need some shelter of my own protection baby (I don't get it.) To be with myself and center (You can't be with yourself AND center, either pick your self, or pick the center) Clarity, Peace, Serenity (Look! Fergie knows semi-big words! Has somebody been reading a dictionary?)
I hope you know, I hope you know (Honestly, at this point, I do want to know what she's babbling about, and I think she's about to fill me in...) That this has nothing to do with you (Comforting. At first I wasn't sure if I was the one with issues, but nope, the issue is still clearly your astoundingly bad lyricism!) It's personal, myself and I (Looks like that dictionary came with a thesaurus.) We've got some straightenin' out to do (Use. An. Iron.) And I'm gonna miss you like a child misses their blanket (This is going to need an entire sidenote.)
*Sidenote* - For one, children don't miss blankets. Children miss mommies. Children miss their pets/teddy-bears. Children are even expected to miss the point of a story sometimes. But children do not miss the piece of cloth that happens to drape over them as they sleep. They're TOO BUSY sleeping to notice the blanket in the first place. For two, any child that is allowed to miss their blanket, which usually entails a temper tantrum of epic proportions every time their blanket is not around for them to fall asleep under, is an improperly raised child. Show me a child that misses their blanket, and I'll show you a bad parent. Or two. Bad parenting is too common a thing nowadays that it is the norm. I'll give you a minute to click on those two links, and trust me, you'll need the whole minute, as you surely will question how those folks were allowed to have kids. I wish there was such a thing as parental screening, as in you must pass a basic test that incorporates common sense, and some simple math, before you get to become a parent. Skim those links. I'm going to go get a popsicle. *End Sidenote*
But I've got to get a move on with my life (Fergs, you've done plenty of damage to this world already. Please retire.) It's time to be a big girl now (And here I thought it was lunch time. I need to get my clockworks oiled.) And big girls don't cry (Uhm. Guess what?)
*Sidenote* - Big girls don't cry? Is this a definitive, big girls CAN'T cry because their tear ducts were surgically excised at birth, or is this more of a, big girls WON'T cry for whatever reason? And how does one define a "big" girl? Big is a relative term, so I ask, what is this song relating big to? Are these questions going to be answered in remaining lines of the chorus (unlikely after a quick glance)? Are these questions going to be answered in verse 2? The bridge? Should a song bring up so many questions? Is it healthy? Is it healthy that my wrists feel wonky, yet I spend most of my day typing away at a keyboard? Shouldn't someone have invented the cure for wonky wrist syndrome? Am I insane if I fantasize about curing inconsequential diseases? Is my fantasy baseball team doing well tonight? When does fantasy hockey/basketball start up? Where did my indoor flip-flops go? Where was I before I went on this tangent? *Trailing Off Sidenote*
Don't cry (Uh-huh.) Don't cry (Okay.) Don't cry (I've had it with the redundancy written into this song. "Me, myself and I"? "Don't cry, don't cry don't cry"? Go back to spelling out things. It fills up space slightly more inconspicuously than repeating phrases 3 times. Thank you.)
The path that I'm walking, I must go alone (Euchre!) I must take the baby steps 'til I'm full grown, full grown (Now this is deep. A baby, technically takes baby steps, until they are a baby no more. This one actually makes sense! But it's stating the obvious.) Fairytales don't always have a happy ending, do they? (YOU DON'T GET TO ASK QUESTIONS. I ASK THE QUESTIONS. Fairytales ALWAYS end happily. Otherwise, they can no longer be classified as fairytales. They become tragedies.) And I foresee the dark ahead if I stay (Darkness is the absence of light. You don't really see darkness. In darkness, you just don't see anything. Now, if you can't really see darkness, can you FORESEE darkness? Me thinks not. But my science is a bit faulty. Aawesome, but admittedly faulty.)
Like the little school mate in the school yard (Making a point to point out the "little" school mate huh! That's mean.) We'll play jacks and uno cards (I don't think I've ever heard a uno reference before. I'll give this one to Fergie.) I'll be your best friend and you'll be mine Valentine (Presumptuous. It's probably safer and more polite to ask first.) Yes you can hold my hand if you want to (Can't. I'm too busy holding in the laughter your lyrics are evoking.) 'Cause I want to hold yours too (Too bad.) We'll be playmates and lovers and share our secret worlds (Whoa. WHOA. This is from the perspective of children isn't it? Weren't you just in the schoolyard playing uno cards? This is inappropriate.) But it's time for me to go home (This is the second (incoming pun) time in the same song that Fergie has informed me what time it is.) It's getting late, dark outside (It tends to do that. You know, the sun setting as the day goes on. Science. It explains phenomena. Learn things.) I need to be with myself and center (Talked about this already, going to take a quick nap) Clarity, Peace, Serenity (zzz)
La Da Da Da Da Da (Maybe, just maybe, Ferie Ferg should've stuck to the La Dee Da's. But who am I to judge, her song gets more radio burn than music I deem good. The music industry is frustrating. I'm going to bed.)
Us Chinese folks come up with the most brilliant of ideas. Firing rockets at clouds! I mean, it has to work, right? Otherwise, the rocket, comes right back down...
*Preface - My prefaces can go anywhere. This post is mainly in response to posts I've read elsewhere. There was another comic I was going to Photoshop up, but I suck way too much. I'll just put up the punchline, in bold.
Ready?
Steady?
I thought I told you to go watch Shaq's Big Challenge. Have you?
Rectangles are just popsicles without the stick!
*Preface For The Rest - Just some comics found over at nedroid.com, funnier than anything I've said up to this point
*Preface - Welcome to an edition of the long-forgotten Buttugly lengthed posts. Better go eat your dinner and get your chores done first. You know, tuck your children into bed and all.
Did you miss me?
Did you miss me...a lot?
Did you miss me...
...like a child misses their blanket?
Admittedly, I haven't been around here as obsessively as I used to be. And while there are topics that are begging to be covered by me, topical posts take time, and for the last few years, I've been trying to avoid being "that guy" that writes about the food I ate for dinner, or the people I hung out with. You'd be bored witless.
To prove my point, I kept a journal of my entire yesterday, just to give you an idea of the material I've been trying to avoid posting.
Monday, July 16, 2007 8:40AM: I woke up. The 8:20AM arm flailing action that turned off my alarm clock does not count as waking up. It was merely a reflex. The alarm clock itself was merely a formality. My finely tuned biological clock wakes me up everyday at 8:40AM anyways. Except for last week when I decided to test the hypothesis by intentionally forgetting to set my alarm clock and ended up opening my eyes for the first time at 9:30AM.
8:50AM: I grabbed a yogurt from the fridge and scarfed it down. My mother insists I eat a yogurt a day because I refuse to drink milk.
*Sidenote* - Milk sucks. *End Sidenote*
9:00AM: I battled against raging drivers rushing to get to work so they can do nothing for the next 8 hours. I follow the exact same route to work everyday. I even merge at all precisely the same spots. An inch more or less and it stresses me out.
9:30AM: Coffee time.
9:40AM: Type type type. Produce produce produce.
10:00AM: Internet perusal time.
10:15AM: My cubicle mate's friend decided to drop in for one of his twenty or so daily visits. Sometimes he'll just say, "Yo, whatsup man", stare at us for two seconds, then leave.
10:16AM: He's still here.
*The next 7 or so hours never happened, except for the following event*
2:15PM: Technically this happened today, but it takes the aggregation of two days worth of material to make this post remotely acceptable. The company security squad performed a random checking of my cubicle last night for violations of the company privacy policy. This is the second time I've failed, both times I've left writable media on my desk. So I hung my head low and took the walk of shame to the security desk to retrieve the writeable media THAT HAS NOTHING ON IT. I think my manager was notified of my repeat-offense. I wonder what happens at strike three.
*Sidenote* - Would you want your security guards to be helpful/friendly? Or would you rather they maintain a mean demeanor throughout the day that properly conveys a frightening image to anybody wanting to threaten the safety of the company's employees/property? I'm divided on this issue with me, myself, and I. *End Sidenote*
5:15PM: Back to yesterday. A fellow intern has requested a ride to a subway stop of my choosing. Naturally, I oblige, because I'm friends with said intern, and a favor doled is a favor owed. I'm kidding. I don't bank favors. I bank shots in off the back board, Tim Duncan-esqe.
We proceeded to talk about potentially overlapping courses next year, which profs to avoid, and the weather. The trip to the subway station was microcosmic of my conversational skills. Atrociously awkward.
6:00PM: Upon reaching my bungalow castle, I instantly whined and moaned about being hungry.
6:15PM: I continued to hassle my mother for dinner while I worked on the daily Toronto Star crossword. I finished, but came to find a word I had never encountered before. Demur. According to the crossword creator, it means "object". Huh! Who would've thunk'd.
6:30PM: Can't journal. Eating.
7:15PM: The father decided it was a perfect night to go to the local upper-middle-class-filled-with-old-people mall, Bayview Village. My brother excitedly asked a Chapters sales representative/stock boy about the proper line-up procedure come the night of July 20th.
7:25PM: My brother mentioned that this is going the biggest book release of the century. For. The. Fifth. Time. Tonight. To burst his bubble, I tell him how reading books is overrated and that by tomorrow, the book will have leaked to BitTorrent. I didn't really mean a word I said, but I still nailed the future.
7:45PM: My brother and father headed off to the LCBO. I went to my old stomping grounds, Laura Secord, for some French Crisp ice cream action.
*Last Sidenote I Promise* - There is a three year separation between me and my brother. He's still technically in his teens. And don't get it twisted, I'm the older sibling. Is it odd that he's the one going off to buy alcohol with my dad while I'm going to get an ice cream cone? Am I the only one who finds this peculiar? *End Last Sidenote I Promise*
8:15PM: They still were not done deciding between domestic or imported beer. Who cares. I headed over to the store across from the LCBO that I have never wandered in before. The friendly young lady working in the store recommended I check out the cigar room. It smelled nice. Because I was a complete cigar newb, I asked for personal recommendations, and got the standard "you can't go wrong with Cuban cigars". She went on to claim that smoking cigars was more of a lifestyle choice. I failed to see her point, but nodded anyways because I was in way over my head. I was even attempting to smell the different cigars. They all smelled remotely the same. Because I caught a cold over the weekend and couldn't smell anything anyways.
8:30PM: I thanked the nice lady and finally headed home with nothing to show for a mall outing. Terribly disappointing.
9:00PM: Have you seen Shaq's Biggest Challenge? Go find it and watch it. High comedy.
The rest of the night is a blur of personal reflection time mixed with some Nintendo DS Big Brain action. The game insulted me by insinuating I had the brain of a 27 year old, which apparently is not a good thing. According to the game, I'm supposed to be shooting for a 20 year old brain. The game is skewed and does not factor in something I like to call LIFE EXPERIENCE. Learn things Nintendo, learn things.
There was the day in its entirety. I'm never doing this again.
*Preface - Wondering why I haven't posted anything that takes about 30 minutes to read lately? Or why I didn't even notice my now-fixed but was-problematic 'read more' link? I'm about to tell you why... next time I post... potentially. But for now, I, Buttug McOysty, proudly presents to you:
The Song of the Half Year + A Few Days - Umbrella!
No, don't go for the red x button at the top right corner of your browser window. And please don't click the back button. It's not the Rihanna version. It's not even the remix with Jay-Z's mailed in verses. Somebody has gone out and redeemed the song. Peep:
I couldn't award this prestigious title to Make Me Better - Fabolous (ft. Ne-yo) because it's a straight sample off some old RZA stuff, but this song's the hottest thing burning up the radio these days, and I'm going to link it anyways:
I have used your email service for quite a few years. In part, because you pretty much forced me to sign up for one to use your popular messenger service, and partially because I wanted to divert junk mail away from my yahoo account, which, back then, was my primary email account.
I now regret the decision of using my Hotmail account for the junk mail that inevitably comes when signing myself up for a variety of things. Simply put, your spam filters are as leaky as the vegetable an old bucket. Granted, that is why you have a "junk" button, just in case something gets by your frustratingly flawed filtering system.
But in the past two weeks, I have labeled a specific message "junk" about ten times, and what do I find this morning when I log in because Windows Live Messenger informs me that I have two unread emails?
I FIND TWO UNREAD EMAILS WITH THE EXACT SAME TITLE, EXACT SAME MESSAGE BODY, THAT I HAD PREVIOUSLY LABELED AS JUNK.
This is simply unacceptable. Do your employees sit around all day wondering why the sky is blue?
It's time to overhaul the entire department. Starting from the top, and going right through to the bottom, hire an actual monkey to replace the current "monkey" to take care of spam filtering.
*Preface - Thanks to all who participated in the insane freestyle battle my last post incited. We should do it again soon. Go check out the commenting section to decide for yourself who won. I'll give you a clue though, it wasn't close, and it was me.
Bumpin' Flow 93.5 on the drive home, Rihanna's new hit song, "Shut Up And Drive", comes on over the radio.
I look over to my right at the soccer mom talking on her cell phone as she attempts to navigate her way through rush hour traffic and smile at the appropriateness of the song to the situation.
Then I realize that I am listening to Flow 93.5, a self-proclaimed urban hit and groove tune station. And when they say urban, they are referring to the musical genres rap, reggae, and R&B (or as I'll bluntly put it because that's the association people will quickly draw, "black music"). Rihanna has a darker shade of skin, so I mean we're all good, no? The virtual world's most accurate encyclopedia has informed me of the fact that she's actually Barbadian, so reggae roots can't be that far off, so again, we're all good, no?
Have a listen for yourself. I'll wait.
*Hands on my hips, impatiently tapping my left foot*
I thought you'd never finish, so I went to get a Popsicle. I hope you don't mind...that I don't mind whether you mind or not.
The first time I heard this song, there was no way I would've pegged Little Miss Sunshine Rihanna to be the one responsible for the semi-catchy song I want to sing/yell at most talking drivers that are incapable of multi-tasking yet still attempt to. It's something I would've instantly labelled Avril Lavigne, or Hilary Duff. But Rihanna?
Actually on second thought, I understand the business, and I understand the dynamics of how an established and loyal fan base. Because Rihanna previously delivered "urban hits" such as S.O.S. and Unfaithful (still one of the dumbest songs ever created, so dumb it incites me to ROFL every time I hear it), she now has leeway on an "urban hits" radio station, and can get away with a pop-rock song here and there. If anything, it was trending that way with the album's first single, Umbrella (yet another rofl-dumb songs).
I get it. Totally.
But then a few songs later, I'm treated to a healthy dose of Maroon 5. MAROON FIVE. The group has no established fans in the hip-hop community, as they've only dabbled in "black music" as guest performers once or twice to my knowledge. And the band's lead singer has possibly the highest, unmistakably whitest, voice this side of the equator. And to top it off, the song only uses three cuss words in total. Take another "urban" artist getting tons of radio play, T.I., his "Big Things Poppin'" contains seven no-no words IN THE CHORUS ALONE! Do the math! It's so parental-discretion-advised-rated that he's had to change the words for the radio mixes! I'm not saying it's right, but that's just the trends. And Maroon 5 is not a part of the trend.
Color me befuddled.
Popular music truly goes in cycles. Pop music seemed primed for a return anyways, and is probably sitting around in a corner waiting for a chance at the limelight. And apparently, the Spice Girls are reuniting for a tour.
*Preface - Explain why MIMS is hot! Link to an explanation you found. Attempt to write out your own theory. I realize it's been a good half year since this song came out, but the fact that I'm still pondering the claims he makes, and the fact that I run this blog, those facts are both completely irrelevant. I'm aawesome. Head over to the commenting section, it should all be going down there. I hope. Allow me to start.
