My Poor Boss

(My boss stops by my desk to assign me a project.)
UIM: “Ok, I’ll work on that. How are you otherwise?”
Boss: “I am doing well. How are you?”
UIM: “Ticking along like a Timex strapped to the horn of a rhino, while John…” (pause) “..who was that newscaster who did those sorts of Timex commercials in the 50s? Anyway, ticking along like that.”
Boss: (that look) “I… I… I haven’t thought about those commercials… in decades..” (starts to get up from the chair)
UIM: “No one has had a sane reason to.” (mutters to self) “John… Cam…. Cameron….”
(My boss stands, and makes the turn around my cubicle to go back to his.)
UIM: “John Cameron Swayze. That’s it.”
(My boss stops briefly, intensifies the weird look, and shakes his head.)
(I dissolve into cackles and giggles while my boss walks back to his own cubicle.)

Quick status update.

Things are going well enough.

Weather is nice in bursts, so I've again started making lunch dates with cow-orkers whom I've known and liked for years.

Frage and I are straightening up the home a little each night.

I've been throwing a few more gags and emails from the back files into this web log, in no particular pattern, but assigned to the dates I originally wrote them.

I'm not saying that I feel quite like a room without a roof, but things are okay.

#FictionalConversations

A: "So, how's the relationship going?"

B: "Well, his depression seems to be kicking into overdrive."

A: "How so?"

B: "When I write him a 'good morning' e-mail now, his response is 'Nos morituri te salutamus'."

A: "So, you're gonna spike his morning soda with Lexapro, I guess?"

Why UIM is not a rapper. (#001)

"If you're having girl problems
I feel bad for you, son.
I got 99 problems, but
a female love interest with significantly different goals and bad communication skills
is not one."

Those who opppose his mighty shield must mope.

I saw Captain America: The Winter Soldier with my cousin on the weekend that the film opened.

I really liked that movie, but I did have one giggle fit during the final showdown between Cap and the Winter Soldier.

Whenever I saw Sebastian Stan in this movie, with his hair grown out, I kept thinking, "He looks like a member of My Chemical Romance."

So, in the final fight, as Cap pleads with Winter Soldier to stop fighting him, the WS keeps screaming "No!" and throwing things at Cap.

And I'm stifling the giggles and I'm thinking, "Emo Action Sequences!"

As I watched my mother dye sweaters by hand...

Normally, I don't do silly lyrics to Metallica songs, because some things should remain sacred.

While Frage was up visiting her dad a couple weeks ago, though, I found myself wandering around home, mangling the Metallica cover of "Am I Evil?"

"My mother loves to knit
Blankets miles wide.
She's been nearly squashed to bits
By all the yarn she buys."

I'd share this with my knitting-addicted mother, but given that she's never going to be familiar with the heavy metal genre, it really won't resonate with her.

Editor's note

From this point on, my fiancee will be referred to with the alias "Frage"

#RepressedSarcasm

"Go string your violin, Sherlock."

Passing comments, realizations, and empathy for others.

(One Sunday morning, at breakfast with my cousin, `Backer, killing time before the movie we went to see.)
UIM: "I accept that we come from the 'hold my beer and watch this' demographic.' "

#RepressedSarcasm

"It might even be boombastic.  I'm not sure.  I haven't checked the error log yet."

Trips Down Memory Sewer: "Blasted kids. Where's the whiskey?"

Back at the start of 1996, New Year's weekend, I was up in Connecticut at Purge's condo with the hometown posse, and amongst the nerdery was a session of the Star Wars role-playing game.

I no longer recall whether I chose this template for my character, or I was awarded it by popular demand.

http://d6holocron.com/wiki/index.php?title=Failed_Jedi_(Template)

All I know is I failed every roll I made, and wound up tied to a medical table on a smuggling ship (owned and piloted by Metrocake's character), being tortured by a demented Ewok (played by Tempest's best friend) while Doc was failing every roll as a protocol droid trying to help me get away from the demented Ewok.

"The dark side kept calling, and things never worked quite the way you wanted them to."

Good times.  Good times.

#FictionalConversations and #RepressedSarcasm

A: "What dreadful threat will next menace our stalwart heroes?"
B: "Futons."

#RepressedSarcasm

"You are the polar opposite of fergalicous."

#EnthusiasticNonsense

"It's the futhark era, funked up with a Viking twist."

#RepressedAnger

"Your insanity inspires people to punch your mother."

BOLO: A couple in their forties, being weird near the milk products...

(UIM and Frage are standing in the dairy aisle at Target.)
(Behind them, another customer is on the phone relating the various berry flavors of yogurt which are available.)
Frage: "Well, they don't have the brands I want."
UIM: "I just hope they have snozberry flavor."
Frage: (pats UIM on the shoulder) "Maybe someday they will have it for you."
(Frage leans in close.)
Frage: "Or maybe they'll have dingleberry flavor for you."
(Frage and UIM crack up laughing.)
UIM: "Ew.  Tastes like a Tea Party screed."
(Frage and UIM crack up laughing harder, gasping for air.)
UIM: " ' There's this weird couple, walks into various Targets, and stands around laughing in the dairy aisle.'  I don't want to be on a Target corporate Wanted poster."

Maybe we've got a motto there. Let's translate it into Latin and stick it under a shield.

UIM: "Well, I'm sorry I pushed the joke too far."
Frage: "No, you be you, honey."
UIM: "Awwww."
Frage: "And suffer the consequences."
UIM: "Grrrr."

Nothing you can do sometimes, because MFBC

(While in a cab on the way to work one morning, thanks to Metra trains running way behind, we discussed certain untrustworthy processes at my workplace.)
Frage: "I argued that, on the business end, but I'm sorry I couldn't stop the insanity."
UIM: "You couldn't have stopped the insanity, because no one is going to listen to the sane.  You could only have stopped it with worse insanity, because Motherf^{kers Be Crazy."
(Pause.)
UIM: " ' Hey, why do UIM and Frage have matching tattoos of MFBC on their clavicles?'  'Because Motherf^{kers Be Crazy.' "
Frage: "We might have to use it as the monogram on our wedding invitations."

That's the sound of the man working in the data gang.

(On Take Your Children to Work Day, my boss had to run a small stock-trading simulation game with the kids.)
(He spent a few minutes prepping me and my colleague for our parts.)
My boss: "If it all goes off the rails, I may have to ask you gentlemen to describe your jobs in 30 seconds."
Me: "Uh, boss?  What is my job description?"
(Pause, as my boss of 8 years stares at me exactly how you imagine he would.)
Me: "Because I've never successfully explained my job in 30 seconds.  Or without profanity."

We don't let him plan things. It's for everybody's safety.

(Frage comes through the living room as UIM watches music videos on demand.)
UIM: "Hey, sweetie, what do you think about this as your entrance music at the wedding?"
(UIM presses play, and Ludacris appears on tv.)
Ludacris: "My chick bad, my chick hood.  My chick do stuff your chick wish she could."
Frage: "I'd be worried and offended if I believed you were serious."