How I Roll With the Red Phone

Many of us know that bizarre, impractical, and blatantly silly ideas often come from working in large companies. We all know how these come about. Some magical person with a fancy-pants title imagines that some less-magical person with a regular-pants title needs some extra step in their day to perform their job more efficiently. The former, hereafter known as "The Man," usually has his magical head crammed straight through his fancy-pants and into his Butt of Wisdom.

So, there's this phone at my desk. It's a red phone. It's red because it is the "emergency" phone. The idea being that if it ever rings, we drop what we're doing and answer it because, um, it's probably an emergency. I can understand why this might seem like a good idea to The Man. Emergencies are generally considered to be important.

It's sort of been an odd fixture on my desk for the past 3 years. It's never rang. Not once. There have been emergencies, but it turns out that people tend to dial "911" for those. Go figure. So I was only moderately surprised when the tech guy came down to rewire the desk a few weeks ago and asked me why we had a big red phone that wasn't plugged into anything.

Eh?

That's right. Not plugged in. Turns out that the phone is somehow not compatible with our super crazy phone system. That's right. It's *never* been plugged in. It's been nothing more than a shiny red paperweight for over 3 years. Surely, you say, someone would have noticed! Anyone who dialed the magical "emergency" extension, 5555, would have let us know that it goes nowhere! Except that as it turns out, *we* were the only ones who were told what the extension was.

Oh! And to further the drama, I just dialed 5555. It goes to another phone entirely.

Some people find fulfillment in their jobs when they save lives, I find it when discovering useless protocals and making fun of them. Am I bitter that The Man makes so much more than me? Of course not. The sense of intellectual superiority is all the compensation I need.

Flavian does his part for the roundup

Me: oh- just so you know, I didn't net a single penis hit from my penis roundup. :'( It was a total failure
Tha Flav: That's weird, I've been getting to your blog for the past week by searching for '"Mario Batali" penis'
Me: hahaha!
Tha Flav: I mean, I'm searching for it anyway, so why not.

I'm sure you all were dying to know that.

The Saturday Penis Roundup, part 2

Today was supposed to be the grand unveiling of the list of penis-related hits that arose from last week's Penis Roundup. Tragically, it seems like even the best laid plans don't always attract creepy old porn hounds. On the surface, one would assume that any penis post would attract countless hits due to the unsettling number of times that americans search for penis related content. What I didn't account for, however, was the fact that for every single one of those searches, there are probably 820937 websites and a metric butt-load of daily spam emails just waiting to be found before me.

So, the roundup was a complete failure. On the plus side, my average page read time has lept up by an astonishing 3000% since I posted the cock-talk. That's right. 3-0-0-0-%. And what are these people pretending to come here for?

"naked hippies " gay
vegan pot brownies
"crank yankers" turd (always a favorite)
planet porn
armpit of america
and my personal favorite:
costco pleather loveseat

Clearly, I attract a deviant crowd to begin with. They come for the vegan pot brownies, they stay for the penis. And now I will deliver.

Penis-related tip for the day!

Let's say that you've just broken up with a guy. He done you wrong and you want revenge. Wankershanks recommends pretending to spread a vicious rumor. Drop a fake "note to your best friend" where you know he'll find it. Make sure the note casually mentions the unsightly mole on the "family jewels" (note that being vague about the exact location is extremely important). Does he actually have one? Of course not! But he won't be satisfied until he's spent hours constructing an elaborate series of pulleys and mirrors just to make sure. Bonus points if he trims the hedges for a closer look.

For the fans

Someone has found my blog 3 times in the past few minutes by searching for the lyrics to the Fresh Prince of Bel air theme song. Now, I can't please all my fans all the time, but as I am incredibly embarrassed to admit, I happen to know those words by heart. I'm the kind of dedicated blogger who's willing to let a little of her dignity die to please the readers, so here goes:

(this is from memory, so it may be slightly off)
Now this is a story all about how
my life got flipped turned upside down
and I'd like to take a minute, just sit right there
I'll tell you how I became the prince of a town called Bel Air

In West Philadelphia, born and raised
on the playground is where I spent most of my days
chillin out nights, and relaxin all cool and all
shootin some b-ball outside of the school
when a couple of guys
they were up to no good
started making trouble in my neighborhood
I got in one little fight and my mom got scared and said
"you're moving with your auntie and uncle in bel-air" (insert picture of grandma-like caricature, wagging finger)

I whistled for a cab and when it came near
License plate said "fresh" and it had dice in the mirror
if anything, I should say that this cab was rare
but I thought 'nah, forget it- yo home to bel air!'

I pulled up to a house about 7 or 8
and I yelled to the cabbie "yo homes, smell you later!"
looked at my kingdom, I was finally there
to sit on my throne as the prince of bell-air

Thank you, thank you. I'll be here all week, folks. Tip your server.

The Saturday Penis Roundup

I've never actually followed through with any of my weekly features. But I have a good feeling about this one. Who doesn't love a good penis roundup?

For this week's penis roundup, we start with a tragic tail of stupidity and science.

Thailand's health ministry warned size-obsessed men on Friday to avoid trying to enlarge their penises with liquid injections, saying it could cause deformities.

The warning followed media reports that male teenagers in central Thailand had rushed to have their penises injected with olive oil or other liquids.

Clearly this is tragic, because that olive oil could have been used to make some killer foccacia, instead of a freakishy deformed penis monster.

Aside from that though, what is the deal with enlarging penises? What advantage does it give you? Really. Even in a best-case-scenario where you aren't lumpy and squirting pesto out from the sides, I just don't see the big penis guy coming out ahead. Let's explore:

Big penis- whether naturally, or through olive oil injections: You can't attract women with it, because if you run around telling people that you have a big penis no one will believe you, and you'll look like a loser. Once you're in a relationship where someone actually witnesses the beast, do you really expect her to run around telling her friends "this guy is huge! you should give it a go too!" No. No that will not happen. And once you've broken up, she'll tell her friends it's microscopically small, regardless of the truth, because we're just that mean.

Small, injection free penis- You won't attract women with it, but the fact that you aren't hunched over and smelling like Mario Batali's kitchen might. Once you're in a relationship, just get your girlfriend a gift certificate to The Honeysuckle Shop and be done with the problem. When you break up, she'll tell her friends it's microscopically small, but they won't necessarily believe her because she said that about creepy olive oil guy too. They found out the truth when they slept with him behind her back.

So the two are about even. Until you take into account that one of them injected oil into his nether regions. That takes him down quite a few pegs, dontcha think? Now guess who wins?

In other penis related findings,

A Michigan court apparently has ended the television career of a talking penis.

A three-judge panel of the Michigan Court of Appeals declared that the talking penis, nicknamed Dick Smart, telling "purportedly humorous" jokes on a Grand Rapids, Michigan, public access cable television channel constituted indecent exposure.

Those had to have been some pretty bad jokes for Reuters to use the word "purportedly" in front of "humorous" AND to employ the additional insult of putting the phrase in quotes. But really, you can't expect Mr. Smart to be on top of his game when his asian brethren are suffering cruel fates at the hands of their oil-wielding masters.

That's all for today's penis roundup! Join me next Saturday when I make fun of all the penis related hits that are sure to result from this post!

Journey to Georgia

This is a post for my good friend Flavian. He's visiting the grand city of Valdosta, Georgia next week- very much against his will. Apparently, he's being sent there by his employer, which sucks because they're sending him to Valdosta, but rocks because he can say he's going out of town "on business."

I've *always* wanted to say I was going out of town "on business." The closest I've ever gotten was when we ran out of pennies at Winn Dixie and I got sent to the Winn Dixie on the other side of town to borrow a few dollars worth.

But enough about my personal issues. Flavian is not looking forward to his trip because he's going to miss me terribly. Oh, and because it's a trip to Valdosta. But mostly because he'll miss my poise and sophistication. He's never told me this, exactly, but thanks to my matronly empathy and profound understanding of the human soul, I just know.

Plus, I am totally kickass. Who wouldn't want to party with me?

But alas, I can't go. So for Flavian, I have researched the magical city of Valdosta. I hope your trip is as tolerable as it can possibly be in my absence.

What's fun in Valdosta?

First of all, there's some slapdash amusement park called Wild Adventures that has a REAL WOODEN ROLLER COASTER! For those of you who live in 2005, you may remember wood as being the thing that was used to make roller coasters before they realized how crappy it was. But it's nostalgic! Or something! So, uh, go have fun, kiddo!

If you're more interested in seeing trees before they were prematurely slaughtered and sliced into a grotesque display of consumerism* then you can visit the second largest swamp in Georgia at the Grand Bay Wildlife Management Area! Their motto: "Who doesn't want to walk through a Georgia swamp in June?" Just try not to enjoy it too much, Flavian. You are there "on business" remember!

And last, but certainly not least- the Annual Downtown Celebration will be happening during your stay! Aren't you lucky? This is apparently held in honor of some dude named Mack and will be held, conveniently enough, at a place called "Mack's Park." What better time to fulfill your yearly quota of Mack-related activities? You can paint on a Community Canvas in honor of Mack's birthday! You can view the new Mack Mural! You can even enjoy a 3-D Mack-attack with a sculpture appropriately entitled "Where is Mack Now That We Need Him?"

It's a timeless question. And with nothing better to do, I have no doubt that the good people of Valdosta will find an answer soon.

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*Did that annoy the shit out of you, Flav? Cause that's kinda what I was going for.

So, I'm back

It looks like the beachside shanty town isn't really my bag after all. It turns out that quitting my job and living off the fat-of-the-land is a little too... what's the word... "poor" for my tastes. After all, I'm used to making the big bucks as a low-level employee at a technical college. Plus, there's not much fat to live off of when the only thing around you is sand, saltwater and drunk teenagers. Unless someone tells me how to grow soybeans in 90 proof puke, I think I'll stay put.

I did have a fantastic time at the beach, though. I did everything on the list in my last post and more. So when my friends Brian and Greg suggested that we have a "Tuesday Spectacular" (that name is all my idea... if I could find the ASCII code for it, I'd totally do the copyright logo next to it.) that concluded with a day of surfing in the shimmering waters of Cocoa beach on wednesday, I was all for it. Such is my rediscovered love of all things beachy.

And what is a Tuesday Spectacular? Well, first I have to explain it's humble origins: the "Tuesday Night Rum Night." This was a tradition back in the day where we all got together on Tuesdays and drank a lot of rum. The name, therefore, is kinda self explanatory. The only issue is the obvious reuse of the word "night." Why not just "Tuesday Rum Night," you ask? Or, for brevity's sake, "Rum Tuesdays?" Well, because I was always drunk while pondering this, and the name just stuck, okay?

Now, clearly a Tuesday Spectacular is much bigger and better than just any old Tuesday Night Rum Night. This particular Tuesday Spectacular started out with me, Mr. Wankershanks and assorted friends smoking [substance deleted]* at Brian's place. Then we devoured some cheesecake, a canister of Pringles, a lot of candy bars and other assorted snacky foods while watching kung fu movies. This is clearly the way to go about watching kung fu movies. The realization that I've been doing it all wrong for 23 years is sobering... Or perhaps that's the wrong word to use here.

Anyway. It was then a short jaunt over to our place where leftover liquid Cinco De Mayo party favors (aka margueritas) awaited. The plan was to have a few drinks, do a little karaoke, and fall asleep in time for an early morning trek to Cocoa Beach. It turns out that smoking [substance deleted], drinking tequila and watching Wonder Showzen until 5 am does not lend itself to early morning beach trips. I think I've learned this lesson before, but I must have been too hungover to remember.

So we have another Tuesday Spectacular planned for this tuesday. Will we make it to the beach? Will we learn from our mistakes, or are we doomed to repeat them? Will Flavian and Mr. Wankershanks torture us with another suicide-inducing rendition of "Under Pressure" or will we eat their insides before they can grab the microphones?

I'm sure you're all on the edge of your seats. Tune in next week to find out! Or don't. I'll probably forget about this by then.

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* [substance deleted] for several reasons:
a.) I don't want to be personally responsible for making the baby jesus cry
b.) Impressionable youngsters, pure of mind and soul (such as Flavian), regularly read this blog.
c.) I'd probably have a third reason if I wasn't a bad person who thinks that [substance deleted] isn't really that big of a deal. So just pretend there's some great moral-type stuff here.

go away.

I'm on vacation this week. I'm at the beach and I don't plan to do anything that isn't in the following list:
1. lazing around on the beach
2. eating
3. watching Arrested Development reruns

As you can no doubt see, "blogging" isn't on the list. So you all can just bugger off until Saturday, when I might be back. Unless I decide to give the finger to the "rat race" and move into a beachside shanty town. It's looking like a real possibility.