Month: January 2008

This is the last installment in a three part series. To view the other segments, click here.

When last we left off, we were making papier mache dolls of cute little babies, then “accidentally” leaving them in the driveway and “accidentally” running them over when the neighbors happened to be watching. And we were doing all of those in an attempt to be friendly and playful but also strive to maintain some “edge,” some bad boy status that will help build the attraction and lure in readership.

Is it working? Well… are you reading this? The answer to both questions is the same.

STEP 3: Do something high profile, stupid and downright crazy.

Lucky for us, there are a lot of good role models in this area. Bill Clinton had his Monica, Pam Anderson had her Tommy, Marv Albert had his chewing toy. These are all people whose names we won’t soon forget because they followed the scandal steps to success. They might not have been lighting the world on fire, but they had enough exposure that they became overnight sensations (or more accurately, humiliations).

Obviously, I’m not advocating engaging in oval office extracurriculars, “behind the music” videos with a bad boy drummer, or biting back (so to speak). But the idea is solid: once people know you exist, engage in some outrageous behavior to stand out among the crowd.

We here at MisusingBigWords are at somewhat of a disadvantage in that area, though, since our site and some of what can be found therein is fairly ridiculous and outrageous already. Also, we’re on the internet, where people have come to expect ridiculous and outrageous content.

So here’s what I’m thinking, and hopefully it’s both high profile and stupid enough to get some attention to our little grassroots blog: We get a bunch of senior citizens, preferably some with little bladder control, and we dress them solely in white knee-high socks and white pointed hoods, paint all sorts of offensive symbols (pentagrams, anarchy, etc) on their chests with some sort of animal’s blood, then give them slingshots and tell them to run around shooting each other. Then we take pictures of it all, write a nice story about it, and post it on here like it’s a children’s fairy tale.

I’m fairly certain that would fulfill all the obligations of ridiculous, outrageous, high profile, stupid, and not just downright crazy but almost criminally insane, and thereby hopefully cause the scandal I’ve been talking about in my two previous “The Making of a Scandal” posts.

STEP 4: Profit.

I’ve provided the structure for driving visitors to the site, now it’s just a matter of making it pay off. But that’s a story for another day.

Going out with coworkers on a Friday night can be an interesting experience. Let a few drinks get in you, and even the most buttoned-up of button-ups can let their inner-party animal run rampant through the streets (literally…). The complete behavioral transformation that occurs in some people from the typical office setting to the strobe-light enhanced disco ball atmosphere of a local watering hole can be startling. You find the mother of two who hasn’t quite let go of the sorority girl within her, or the quiet and timid IT guy who channels a 1977 John Travolta circa “Saturday Night Fever” with a lampshade on his head (who knows where it came from) and a senior citizen on his arm on the dance floor.

What’s interesting is that during the rest of the week, no matter how composed a person appears, you know that animal is inside, just waiting for a drop a liquor to let the beast out to play.

It was on this idea that some coworkers and I developed a series of videos to promote an office gathering we were throwing.

The concept is “Itch’n for Friday”, and it tries to capture the idea behind that inner-part of you, your “Friday self”, that as the work week goes on, and you are relegated to being a proper, professional worker, that can sometimes leak out in the tiniest of tiny glimpses in your everyday office routines.

Enjoy.

1. Itch’n for Friday – The Water Cooler

2. Itch’n For Friday – Hand Washing

There are real reasons to not date some one (they notoriously cheat on significant others, they excessively lie, they have genital herpes) and then there are fake reasons not to date someone that each person invents for his/herself. Those one or two little idiosyncrasies that for one reason or another bugs the bejesus out of you. Reasons that if not for them, things could potentially work out, but because they are there, it can just never happen.

For me, it’s funky elbows.

While this has never been an issue with anyone I have reasonably considered dating, it has ruled people out at a first impression. Perhaps they are nice people, but I just cannot get past the awkwardness half way down their arm.

One elbow, in particular, still haunts me to this day. Its image, burned into my brain. I see it some nights when I am lying in bed, trying to sleep. It was nearly a year ago, and I had only caught a glimpse of it, peeking out from the end of a rolled-up sleeve, but there it was….barely. That was the problem, it was near non-existent. It looked like a single lower case “c” in the middle of long poll.

Something like this:

It was awful.

I just couldn’t bring myself to talk to the person after that.

It’s a prerequisite for the position of James’s girlfriend. Only Semi-normal to normal elbowed people need apply. Call me picky, but I have to have some kind of standards…

War for oil? High gas prices? Who cares! What really ticks me off is not the amount of gas prices, it’s the format.

Why do gas prices end in 9/10? How do they suppose they can charge 9/10 of a cent? I went to fill up my tank the other day, and got 13 gallons at 3 dollars and 13 and 9/10 cents a gallon. What’s the deal here? It looks like it’s $3.13, but it’s not really. It’s practically $3.14. So why don’t they just write $3.14?

Now don’t get me wrong here. I understand capitalism and marketing and how the human mind is more likely to buy something for $9.99 than for $10 even, despite the fact that it’s only a penny difference. While that is pretty silly, it doesn’t really concern me, because it is, after all, a penny—some tangible piece of money that I can actually use (though there will be more spoken about that in a future post).

In the case of gas, though, we don’t have tenths of a cent. There is no such thing. So how can they get away with charging something we don’t have? It’s just an easy way of skimming just a little bit more off the top. When your total adds up to $41.50 and 5/10 of a cent, it automatically rounds up to 41.51. How is that fair? I should be getting that last 5/10 of a cent back, but I can’t, because it doesn’t exist anywhere except in the gas station owner’s head.

That’s not even the worst part, though. Because of supply and demand, if two gas stations charge $3.13 and 9/10 for a gallon of gas, and one decides to be decent and logical and drop that 9/10 crap off and just sell his for $3.13, the other guy would simply drop his down to $3.12 and 9/10. It’s the most vicious of cycles, and nobody seems to care because “it’s just tenths of a cent.”

Well, I, for one, think this is both unreasonable and ridiculous. Do the quick math: let’s say the average person takes about 5 minutes to fill up one’s car, and puts about 12 gallons of gas in there. Then let’s say there are about 4 people filling up at any given time at a given gas station—for the sake of argument, let’s have them all begin and end at the same time. So, every 5 minutes, 4 people fill their cars with 12 gallons of gas each. That’s 48 gallons per 5-minute increment. That means every hour 576 gallons are being bought and paid for from one gas station. Just for a conservative estimate, let’s say this gas station isn’t 24 hours—it opens at 6 a.m. and closes at midnight. That gives it 18 hours of operating time, and at 576 gallons an hour, we’re looking at 10,368 gallons per day.

Now let’s say that there are two gas stations that sell the same amount of gas per day. One charges $2 per gallon, the other $2 and 9/10 of a cent. (Yes, $2 per gallon; this is my fantasy, I’m going to make it a good one.) For an average tank of gas—12 gallons—the first station charges $24, while the second charges $24.10 and 8/10 of a cent. And, of course, they round up to $24.11. That means that, on average, the second station skims 2/10 of a cent off of each person’s bill, which equals $1.728 per day and $630.72 per year. That makes petty criminals out of every single gas station owner, and accomplices out of every attendant. And those stations in the middle of nowhere that do loads of business? Well, they might even be charged for grand theft—that is, if anybody cared. But since nobody does, I guess I’ll just go on with my life, getting ripped off day in and day out. After all, it’s just a couple tenths of a cent. No big deal.

What happens when other industries start charging 9/10 of a cent? How would you feel about paying 9/10 of a cent on your orange mocha frappucinos at Starbucks? An avid frapper (frappucino-drinker) might buy one for $3.50 every weekday, effectively buying roughly 260 every year (365 days a year minus 104 weekend days) for $910 per year. If Starbucks started charging $3.50 and 9/10 of a cent per drink, they’re skimming a tenth of a cent off this avid frapper every time she buys a frappucino, 26 cents every year. If she continues this habit her entire working life, from 20 years old to 65 years old, she will have lost $11.70 for her lifetime. That is enough to write a check for $11.70 to give to her grandson for a birthday present.

Luckily, Starbucks hasn’t resorted to stealing from the elderly yet. Which is more than I can say for gas stations.

Let’s say that the average driver, beginning at age 20 and not driving after turning 60 (because let’s face it: we probably don’t want them on the road after 60 anyway) fills up his tank one time every two weeks with 12 gallons of gas. That means the average driver fills up his car 26 times a year with a total of 312 gallons annually. Over the 40 year span of his life behind the wheel, the average driver buys 12,480 gallons of gas, filling his 1,040 times. Now, no matter how much gas fluctuates, let’s assume that gas stations will always set the price at some dollar and cent amount plus 9/10 of a cent per gallon. For 12 gallons of gas, one will automatically lose 2/10 of a cent each time one fills the tank. That’s $2.08 each person is getting ripped off during their life.

That may not seem like much, but I could buy a cheeseburger with that, and I’m hungry. Screw you, gas stations.

As I drove home last night after the usual day of trials and tribulations at work, I found myself asking myself “Have I had my break today?”. To which I had to answer, “By James! I have not!”. Moments later, I was pulling into a McDonalds parking lot, ordering at the counter, and answering the classic final transaction question “for here or to go?” with a hesitant “for here…?” (which is a stark change for me, the avid “to go-er”).

Eating my McRib Extra Value Meal at one of the booths, a consistent and uncontrollable tapping of foot and bobbing of head took over my body, one song after another. The ecletic mix of classic gems I hadn’t heard in ages and modern hits was extraordinary.

I have always had a strange curiosity with culinary d.j.-ing, and more importantly, a desire for the opportunities presented by a “now hiring” sign.

It is a critical, yet largely overlooked mood-setting role, but maybe, that’s how it’s meant to be. Surreptitiously blending in and adding to the dining experience, but never peaking its head out from the crowd enough to be overly noticed.

In that sense, maybe the weekday evening night shift d.j. at the stadium McDonald’s did a bad job. Or maybe he just has big dreams. Truthfully, you can’t fault him either way.

If you’re planning to imbibe this weekend, here’s a few surefire ways to make sure it’s a night you will never remember.

Jeopardy!
1 Drink every time someone buzzes in
2 Drinks every time someone gets a wrong answer
4 Drinks every Daily Double
5 Drinks for Audio/Video Daily Doubles

Let’s Make a Deal
3 Drinks every time someone makes a deal

Wheel of Fortune
1 Drink every letter that is turned
2 Drinks every spin of the wheel
4 Drinks each time someone buys a vowel

The Dating Game
3 Drinks every time an innocuous comment is turned into a dirty euphemism

The Newlywed Game
3 Drinks every time someone says “Make whoopee”
1 Drink every time wives insult their husbands
4 Drinks every time husbands insult their wives
1 Drink every time couples kiss

Press Your Luck (aka the “Whammy!” show)
1 Drink every time someone gets a Whammy. Last person to shout “Whammy!” has to drink again.

This is the second chapter of the Machinationacy series… For the first installment, click here.

I was not always aware of my stratagem life though I did have a hint that someone was always watching me. When I was a baby, adults would coddle over me, using the excuse of “being so cute” to monitor my well-being and every move.

I knew I was something special early on.

There wasn’t a minute gone by that someone was not watching, listening or supervising my every move in some way. However, being a baby and new to life, I had not known better and did not suspect anything unusual.

It was not until I turned five that I really started to think something was fishy. My parents secretly enrolled me in a program in which they called “Kindergarten.” This German program (translated into English for my own advantage for information processing), taught me all that I really needed to know in life. I was introduced to many young children my age who also were “selected” and objectified to a machinated life.

In Kindergarten, we were exercised regularly through walks, or small games. One game in which I grew to be fond of (and naturally very successful in) was one in which my facilitators secretly disguised one child as a “goose.” It was part of our training to take turns trying to find out which child it was.

We sat in a circle and touched the top of each child’s head, just enough to read his or her aura. It was our job to determine through this mind-reading activity to determine which one of us had been “goosed”.

A lot of the times, I did not know I was the goose. That’s how rigorous the program was.