What the Hell Happened: Joe's Revenge

Continued from yesterday

So who, against all odds, managed to avoid the chopping block?

Joe! Freaking Joe! Suddenly, I didn't feel all warm and fuzzy. Why did I get laid off and this guy's still there?

When we switched from Quark to InDesign a few years back, I was admittedly the last one to embrace it. But once I learned it, I found I really liked it and just kept learning new tricks and shortcuts. Whenever we had a little downtime, I'd explore some of the features and find something new. And if there was something I couldn't figure out, I'd keep trying different things, or look up the problem online until I found a solution. That's what I do. It's like when I couldn't remember the name of that cartoon with the talking fireworks. I FOUND IT! It took forever, but by God, I found it.

On the other hand, you have Joe. Who you may recall from his early work in Highlights for Children as Goofus. Goofus only learned enough to barely get by. Why bother retaining knowledge when you can just yell a question down the hall?

"MR. H., YOU GOT A MINUTE? I FORGET HOW YOU DO TABS!"

"MR. H., YOU GOT A MINUTE? I DON'T UNDERSTAND TABLES!"

"MR. H., YOU GOT A MINUTE? HOW DO YOU GET SMART QUOTES IN ILLUSTRATOR?"

I don't know if the bosses knew any of this or took it into consideration, and even though I'm eternally happy that I don't have to listen to "Remember that show Mr. Nice?" or "Are You my special friend?" anymore, he's there and I'm not, which in a way means he won, which makes my mouth taste like horse crap.

The truth is, the idea that someone might get axed was on all our minds for months, and the first choice, Mr. bathroom hog, was pretty easy, but if there was going to be two layoffs, and I don't think anyone ever though there would be, but to me, the second choice is Joe without question. And apparently Joe's obvious second choice was me. We never expressed this opinions to each other, of course; they were filtered through John T, but when I heard that I just though, "Well that guy's gonna be in for a real shock." And then of course the day came and somehow, against all reason, I'm the one that was laid off. Joe won. Sonofabitch.

I can't prove this, but the reason, I think, that I was let go rather than Joe is as follows:

A couple of months before all this, Joe was getting ready to welcome his wife back home after she'd been stationed in Afghanistan for six months. He had a framed picture of the two of them that he hung in the front hallway, and probably some other asinine gifts, and his 18-year-old son from his previous marriage was there with him, standing in the hall. She walked in, Joe moved in to give her a hug, but she side-stepped him, brushed him off and said, "I don't love you anymore. I met someone else. I want a divorce."

Now, Joe annoyed the hell out of me over the years, and I can't even begin to imagine LIVING with him, but damn, that's cold. That's really cold. She didn't even take him to the side and do it quietly; his son was standing right there. And despite her contempt for Joe, the kid had known her for like ten years. He grew up knowing her. She was supposed to go to his graduation a few days later, and he asked if she was still going, and she just said, "No."

Apparently, she met someone in her unit over there and they hooked up or something. I don't know what the Air Force policies are for that, but whatever. The important thing is she should have told him months ago. Because when you have someone you care about over there in harm's way, you worry about their safety the time. At least if she broke his heart earlier he wouldn't have to spend every night worrying that she might be ripped apart by an IED or something. He wouldn't care, and he'd be able to sleep a lot better. It's common courtesy, really.

And of course he should have seen this coming. While she was overseas, she and everyone else there had to ration their time to make calls and send emails back home, and she told Joe that she spend so little time talking to him because she gave up most of her allotted minutes to a homesick young airman. Right.

Look, I understand the thought of spending your whole life with Joe is like staring into the mouth of Hell, but she was just brutal to the poor guy the way she went about doing this. No tact at all. I mean, for all him many, many faults, that guy really loved her and the way it ended pretty much crushed him.

Anyway, all of a sudden, Joe is in the middle of this big, messy divorce. Again. And maybe the bosses were thinking they can't very well throw him out on the street now on top of all he's going through. I don't know what they were thinking, I know that they don't particularly like Joe, especially after the wake incident. And I know because of his tendency to rape the truth, he got yelled at a lot, sometimes justly, sometimes unjustly. But, for whatever reason, they kept Joe. Remember that.

Because I left on good terms, I still had my keys; one for the front door of the building and one for the elevator. I was allowed to come in any time to work on my stuff. It was a generous offer, but I didn't take advantage of it, because it just seemed like it would be terribly awkward. And I wasn't about to risk hearing that insipid country station ever again. But I did have the keys if I needed them.

One day, John T. called ad asked if I could turn them in. The reason being that the other guy who was let go had asked the boss if he could keep his laptop, and she said no, it belongs to the company, and I guess he was a little mad about that. She got a little freaked out when she found out that he had come in over the weekend to clear out his stuff without supervision, so she asked us to return the keys. We could still come in if we wanted, but there'd have to be someone around. No problem.

So...a week later, John T. called again. This time he asked if the police had called me. I said, "No." He said, "Well, they might."

The night before, someone broke into the office and stole five laptops. Now, I'm not suggesting that it's at all connected to the other guy being angry about not being able to keep his laptop. It is awfully coincidental, especially when you consider that only laptops were stolen; nothing else. No cords, no external keyboards, not even a mouse. (See what I did there?) And there was a CPU in the office that didn't work, but you wouldn't know that unless you turned it on. That curiously wasn't taken, either. You could argue that only laptops were taken because they are small and easy to carry. After all, it's hard to look inconspicuous wheeling a giant color printer down the street.

The truth is, ANYONE could have stolen the laptops, because...you're gonna love this...footprint evidence shows the burglar came through Joe's OPEN, UNLOCKED WINDOW. The studio is on the seventh floor, and on three sides it's a straight drop down to the pavement, but outside of Joe's window is the roof of the parking garage next door. There's not even a gap between the buildings; it's literally right outside his window. There's always cars parked out there. So anyone who was up there could look right through Joe's wide open shades, through his unlocked and open windows, right onto his desk where his laptop is still on, staring back at them. Tempting them. Daring anyone and everyone to just walk right in and take it and whatever else the feel like. Earlier this year, the boss freaked out over an exceptionally high energy bill. Worried that it might have been my from my heater, (because that place was always so frickin' cold) I started to bring in blankets, changed all the lightbulbs in my office to CFLs, and turned off the power strip for the laptop every night. But since it wasn't Joe's electric bill, he apparently felt it was perfectly acceptable to continue leaving his computer and his radio-his radio! on all night, every night. I guess that doesn't really have anything to do with the laptops being stolen, but that still steams my brocolli. Anyway, they kept Joe, he left his damn fool window open, and the place got robbed. That's all I'm saying.

In a way, I'm lucky to have been let go, because when I left, I copied all of my personal files from the laptop onto my external hard drive. But if I had still been there, I wouldn't have had a reason to copy my files and when the place was robbed, I would have lost EVERYTHING; drawings, photos, stories...all kinds of stuff. So if there's a "glass half full" way of looking at this, that would be it.

By the way, the police never did call me, and I'm a little offened by that. I mean, I didn't do it, and I wouldn't have had a way of getting into Boston, and I have an alibi with witnesses, but the cops could have at least entertained the idea. Way to be thourough, guys.

well, T. said all their stuff was insured, so they were able to get all new computers and up-to-date software. So that's good. And I guess they'll be putting bars on the winows, so that's good too, although a good first step might be closing and locking the windows before going home. Maybe even drawing the shades too, if you want. Go crazy.

So, that's what happened. Since I had ben at my job since 2001, I had some money in a profit-sharing account. It took a while to actually get a hold of it, but when I did, I took some of it out to buy a brand new laptop and a ton of programs, and I put the rest in an IRA. So I've been looking for another "office" type job, but so many applications call for prerequisite web-design knowledge, and I'm primarily a print guy. But since I now own them, I'm slowly learning Flash and Dreamweaver, and while I know a little already, I'm nowhere near the point where I can say "Yeah I can whip up a website with CSS and dynamic, uh, whatsits for you no problem." Actually I can say that, but I can't say something that would make any sense.

What I'm hoping for, and I know it's going to be hard, but I'm hoping to go out on my own and do some freelancing. I've got over ten years experience, I own Adobe CS4 Master Collection so I have every program Adobe makes at my disposal. I write, I draw, I take pictures. Not professionally, but I guess if you paid me that would make it professional, right? I don't know if there's a certificate or something you're supposed to ave. I can do brochures, postcards, brand-identity stuff like logos and stationery, business cards...if you've got a band, I play bass. No, I don't actually know how to do that, but I could design t-shirts or posters or those flier things for you. Can't do whole lot of Flash, so lay off that for a while, but I'm learning, and maybe I'll post my progress for you guys, you know, when I make some progress.

So...this degenerated into a commercial pretty quickly. Or desperate plea for help, whatever works. If you guys every do need anything, or know anyone who needs some kind of design work done, email me at jhammel@crea9.com.

I wish that was the end of this summer craptacular, but it was only the beginning, Check back tomorrow to find out what happened next. And you don't have to worry about it not being there because I already wrote it. I'm just trimming this beast into bite-sized pieces so you don't choke on all the depression.

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What the Hell Happened: Tell me about the rabbits, George

So...how was your summer? Mine was crap. I tried to write this several times over the past few months, before deciding that the best way to express my thoughts would be in my first ever video blog. But once I started recording, I drew a blank, so I had to write it all down anyway. And then there's the issue of where to look. I tried looking directly at the camera, but the constant stare came out looking insane and a little creepy. So I tried it again, looking slightly off camera, but without any eye contact, it looked like I was trying to hide something. So I ultimately decided to just go back to writing the whole damn massive thing out in sections like I was going to do in the first place, except now I have this needless explanatory paragraph to start out with.

Anyway, it all started on Free Donut Day. If you ordered a coffee at Dunkin Donuts, they'd give a donut for free. Who the hell doesn't like free donuts? So I went there first thing in the morning, got my coffee and my free donut, and thought "This is a pretty good day!"

And damn it, for a few hours, it was. My boss was in early that morning. To give you a little background, the company is run by two siblings; the sister is the art director and the brother takes care of the sales and business end, as well as lending his name to the company. A few years ago, when the lease was almost up on our current office, they spent months looking for a new place. Our old office on Appleton Street was too big, and this one was just a little too small. And only had one bathroom, which was frequently monopolized by this guy, sometimes for an hour at a time. They weren't able to find a new office before the lease was up, so in the end we all stayed put. Except the boss, who decided the best way to give us more room (and, more importantly, himself his own bathroom) was to get a small office a few blocks away and work off-site from there. He still came in almost every day, but for the most part was either on the road or in his new office, and in his absence, his sister moved into his old office, Amy moved into the sister's old office, and after she "left," I moved into that office.

But back to free donut day. The boss was in the office that day, and although it was a bit unusual for him to be in so early, I just figured there was a new project to go over. He called me into his sister's office, and I started to get an uneasy feeling, but still I assumed we were going over a new project. So I went into her office and sat down, and the two of them sat opposite me. He started, "As you know, things have been really slow around here lately." She looked like she was about to cry. Aw, crap.

"We have to let you go." I forget which one actually said it. They're not twin or anything, I just don't remember. You'd think I would, but, I just don't. And I have to tell you, I did NOT see that coming. I knew the economy overall was down, and my timesheets had less and less billable time, and I knew that there might be some layoffs here, but...I don't know, I guess I thought since I was the only one that knew even a little about web design, that it was sort of guaranteed job security. Nope.

I don't know if I was still in shock, but all I said was "Okay." He explained that client billing was off 40%, and that it had nothing to do with job performance, and they really like me, and they wished that they didn't have to do this. In all of their years in business, they'd never had to lay anyone off before. They both said that I could come in anytime and use the computers and printers to work on my portfolio and resume, and they would help any way they could.

And they said, "Just so you know, you're not the only one."

Throughout the whole thing, I just kept saying "Okay". And really, at the time, I was. For awhile, I started to feel like I was going to work a that place forever, spending my whole life there and never advancing. This was my chance for a new beginning. It was exciting, really. But Michele didn't find it as exciting as I did. And with good reason. We were already barely getting by as it was, and with our rental agreement up at the end of August, we were thinking of getting a house. So then I started getting nervous about what we were going to do next, but I still saw getting laid off as an opportunity.

But...

Then I started thinking. There were only four employees there. Four. And they downsized by half to two. Guess who's sill there? Go on...

Find out in the next thrilling installment of the end-of Summer Craptacular "What the Hell Happened"

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He's Toying With Us

It's been over a year since Joe mentioned Captain Nice. Or Mr. Terrific! I'm a little concerned.

Yes, he does still end sentences with "Arrrurrghrgrurrgh!" when he thinks he's said something particularly goofy, or when he's frustrated, or whatever the hell other reason he makes that stupid noise. And he still somehow manages to to add extra syllables to both "hello" and "you" in his stock greeting "Hello-o. How are yew-oo?" when he's making personal calls. I'd commend him for finding a way to stretch "you" into two syllables if I didn't want to hit him repeatedly with my stapler.

He even threw a "Holy D'Artagnan, Batman" or two at us recently. I think I heard Hassan chop not too long ago. "There you go thinking again," is another one. Oh, and "They always spoke so highly of you" is another old standby; he even uses it when referring to inanimate objects.

Joe's old gems never fade away, they just lie dormant until you've let you're guard down. "What if I don't want to" is still as strong as ever, and there's nothing anyone can do about it. It's almost enough to make me open the windows and shout "Shoot me now and get it over with!" But I mustn't stoop to his level. Mustn't I?

He still lives and dies by the word of Howie Carr, still hates the font Palatino because it has "Latino" in it (speculation, of course, but still, I'll bet he avoids using it) and insists there are "Asian Agents," a secret organized union of illegal Asian pan handlers in New York City. Asian Agents. Really.

He still has a grotesquely forced laugh that makes you want nothing to be funny ever again, ever. He still stands unimaginably close while he talks to you, and absolutely cannot walk past your desk without commenting on what's on your screen. It's usually a drawn-out "Oooohhh, pretty", or, "Oh, that looks really good." To be fair, he's trying to be nice, but many times the layout you're working on was designed by someone else in the office, or even by a third party, so his praise without the slightest knowledge of the history of the project rings hollow. He still lingers too long after awkward pauses, seemingly unsure when to clomp away. He still hovers around your desk asking personal questions all day, and just doesn't understand the concept of personal space in general.

He still doesn't wash his hands after he uses the bathroom. He'll still lie about it if confronted. He still can't go a day without exposing us to lethal levels of hairy butt-cleavage.

But he hasn't brought up Captain Nice or Mr. Terrific. Not since last January. He started rambling on about old TV shows a few weeks ago, and I thought for sure they'd be peppered in there. But, hold on, sorry, he did his idiot machine gun laugh while I was typing. Anyway, he was talking about some old show, and my ears perked up and suddenly I got all excited, just waiting for him to say "Hey, here's one, Meeester Tay, do you remember Captain Nice? But it never happened. But the fact that it didn't, and that I was actually disappointed about it, kind of horrifies me.

What have I become?

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I Miss Meg Ryan

It's funny, I don't really like Meg Ryan. I mean, I don't hate her. I wouldn't name a bunch of kittens after her and then drown them or anything. But I don't think I've ever said, "Ooh! A Meg Ryan movie! Let's go see it right now!" Still, I miss looking out the window and seeing Meg Ryan. The film crew were only shooting on Newbury Street Monday and Tuesday, and they've long since packed up and moved on. Now it's boring around here.

Last year, we could at least peer out the window whenever the Yankees were in town, since a lot of them stayed across the street at the Ritz. But ever since the hotel changed ownership and names to The Taj, the Yankee sightings have stopped.

Then there was that car that caught on fire in the exact same spot where Meg Ryan filmed her taxi scene just a little over a year later.





But now, now I look outside and nothing's going on. A guy just pulled up in an orange MINI convertible with black racing stripes and a number 33 on the hood and doors, but ...wait, is that Herbie the Love Bug's number? No, that's 53. So what's this guy's deal? It doesn't matter, he just drove away.

It's quiet. Too quiet. Uneventful. I haven't even seen Tricycle Man in a while.


So Meg, forget what I said before. I do like you. Heck, I need you. I need the whole crew outside to distract me from the boring crap I'm supposed to be doing. I'm sure you could do a few more takes of the taxi driving away. What to you say? For what it's worth, I liked Innerspace.

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And Kathy Griffin as Olga

They're filming a movie outside my window. Not just any movie, but a Meg Ryan-Eva Mendez-Annette Bening movie, possibly the chickiest chick flick ever. It's called The Women and it's a remake/update of a comedy by the same name from 1939. The original boasted a cast comprised entirely of women, even the extras. This one seems to be taking the same approach, since the street is filled with female extras walking back and forth with shopping bags. Other than them, so far all I see are catering trucks and orange traffic cones.



Ah, here we go. They've started filming. Are you ready for some steamy pictures of Eva Mendez? Well, she filmed her scenes yesterday and I didn't have my camera then. Yeah, sorry. But how about some grainy pictures of Meg Ryan? And also Annette Bening's calves? I know I am. Ready, I mean.

The first scene they shot today was of Meg and Annette walking towards Brooks Bros., which is at the other end of the street from where I work, so they were never facing my direction. But I got a cool shot of the boom mike guy.



Meg walked back to her mark with the director, but Annette disappeared forever and from then on it was all Meg Ryan, all the time.



Just before lunch, they wrapped on that end of the street and came down to our section to shoot in front of Burberry.









Here's a particularly grainy one of Meg doing "The Meg Ryan Face." As you can see, it's much perkier and America's Sweathearty than The Nicolas Cage Face.



And what's this? Why it's our very own Mr. Schprock, with Daughter Number Two, being pointed away from filming by a guy with an orange flag while on their way to buy DN2 a new bike. Fortunately, they were cooperative and the man's flag remained holstered in his backback. It was a close call, though.



I don't know who this random hot chick is, but she was walking around the set with the crew all day. She was standing on a mark for quite a while, but I think it's the same place Meg was standing on, so maybe she's a stand in? Or she's an up-and-coming CW star prominently featured in the movie and I'm an idiot. Whatever, I dig her Snoopy T-shirt.







Okay, so the scene they're filming over on our end of the street is Meg Ryan trying to hail a taxi. The weird thing is, they're using three yellow taxis, but almost all of the cabs in Boston are white. First I thought, "Well taxis in movies are always yellow, so maybe they used yellow ones so people out in the sticks could easily identify the vehicle as a taxi." But when you look up close, the taxis actually have New York plates and say "N.Y.C. Taxi" on the side. That just raises even more questions. Why are they trying to pass Newbury Street off as New York? I'm sure New York would have let them film there if they asked nicely.



So I guess this scene takes place in New York, at the corner of Newbury and Arlington Streets right across from the Boston Public Garden. Isn't that where they do the Today Show? Anyway, Meg is trying to catch a cab, presumably to get to some famous Manhattan landmark, like the John Hancock Tower or Fenway Park. The first cab zips right by her. The second follows suite. But the third one, oh, hold on...

SPOILER ALERT!!!

The third one pulls up, she talks to the driver, and it drives away without her. Rude New Yorkers.



In-between takes, Meg stood and spoke with the director. At one point, she did this weird thing where she squatted down and did like a jazz hands thing. Don't worry, that mysterious brown cloud seemingly emitting from Ms. Ryan's rear is actually just the blurred edge of the concrete wall of my building.



The squatting like a crazy person thing didn't make much sense, until the third cab pulled up on the next take and she did the squatting thing next to the driver's window. "Oh, I get it, she's pleading with the driver to let her in." What I saw earlier was the creative process in action. Someone, either the actress or the director, suggested that for the next take she should be desperately pleading in front of the cab. And then they did, and the rest is movie history.

Each time they did the scene, the three taxis had to be returned to their positions by driving backwards down the street, and all the extras had to get back to their marks. There was a bunch of pink tape strips on the sidewalk to indicate that's where people stand, or where the taxi stops. They did four takes of the taxi scene and then packed everything up.

Well, even though it's not a movie I'd ever see on purpose, it was still cool to get a first hand view of the process. And if the squat scene makes it into the final film, I can always say I actually witnessed it's inception. And I will always say it. Incessantly, in front of anyone I know for the rest of my life.

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Talking in Circles, eh?

Good Morning, good morning everyone, in the news this morning, good morning. A follow up to our top story, Trina is not dead. Ms. Smith, however, still is.

In other news, John Mooney, the coyote guy, has been moonlighting on the weekends as a security guard at a swanky apartment complex. I think it's an apartment complex. It's festooned with swank, whatever it is. He's also trying to learn French for an upcoming trip to Canada. But he's having trouble finding time to listen to the French CD, and he can't listen to it when he's stressed. I would have thought that he could listen to it at his security guard job, all he has to do is sit at a desk all night, right? Unless he's one of those security guards that patrols the grounds with a flashlight and a night stick, like the guy in Mannequin. And it was that thought that set off a chain of cyclical conversations here in the office.

Before I go further, check out this picture.



You may be thinking, "Why are Phylicia Rashad and Robert Downey Jr. at my local mall with a couple of mangy looking puppets?" Well, that's not your local mall, and that's not Phylicia Rashad and Robert Downey Jr., although I will concede those are some mangy looking puppets. If you were weened on Nickelodeon in the 80's you'll recognize the picture as the cast of Today's Special, a Canadian-produced kid's show about a department store where a mannequin comes to life at night and learns valuable life lessons with the help of a the display designer, the puppet security guard and a mouse. Obscure? Maybe. But it's still somehow managed to work it's way into an office conversation on more than one occasion.

As shown in Figure 1. (below), Mooney works weekends as a security guard, like G. W. Bailey (Captain Harris from the Police Academy movies) in Mannequin, which was about a mannequin that came to life at night, just like Today's Special, which featured a Canadian puppet as a security guard, closing the circle back to Mooney. Plus, Today's Special was a Canadian show, and Mooney's planning a trip to Canada to see a "female friend," which is why he's learning French and bartering with his cell phone service for a good deal on calls to the Great White North.



Joe has his own office, as does John T. But I share an office with Mooney, Amy, and a revolving cast of temps, freelancers and interns. The latest version is an intern that Amy knows from her hometown. I guess you could say the more interesting conversations usually stem from this room. Not all of them, but with Joe busy in his office grunting and lying about going to funerals, and John T sticking it to The Man by not wearing his shoes and microwaving fish, it's up to us to keep the conversations going, even if the subject matter tends to be repetitive. It's not that all we talk about is Canada, mannequins and security guards, it's just that once you get caught in the loop it's hard to break out of it.

Thanks to Mr. Schprock for the photo of feral Mooney and his deadly stapler!

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Man Vs. Microwave

Yesterday I thought I'd make a cup of instant coffee, or to be more accurate, microwave up some water and powdered French Vanilla cappuccino mix. The instructions say to heat 3/4 cup (6 fl. oz) of cold water in a measuring cup on HIGH for 1 1/2 minutes or until hot. Then empty the contents of the envelope into a mug and slowly pour the water over it. Easy enough.

But what if you don't have a measuring cup? Or even a second cup just to heat the water in? All I've got is a "Weymouth MRI" mug of indeterminate origin. I think it might have been Joe's; he's probably had a few CT scans in his day. I could have heated the water in the mug and then mixed the powder in afterwards, but then the powder gets all clumpy and doesn't mix right. So I emptied the packet into the mug and then filled it three-quarters to the top with water.

Whenever I attempt to heat water in the microwave, it always takes several tries before its even mildly hot. That's why the instructions say 1 1/2 minutes or until hot. It's because on the first try, it's always tepid. Then lukewarm, and finally whatever you call a step above lukewarm. Regular warm, I guess. I thought I'd skip all that this time by just putting it in for four minutes.

Four minutes later, in place of the box-promised "delicous cup of rich, sweet, creamy cappuccino", there was, well, this:



Now you can say all you want that maybe four minutes is a bit excessive. You could say that the instructions said 3/4 of a cup, as in the unit of measure, not cup as in the variable-sized drinking vessel. But I think the driving force behind this little drink-turned-science-experiment was putting the powder mix in the microwave. Somehow, the combination of the powder, water and microwaves caused all but about a quarter-inch of water to expel out of the mug and onto the microwave tray, while hardening the powder and water froth to give it the texture and appearance of coral. For a minute I wondered if I'd stumbled upon a delicious new treat in the form of hardened rocks of cappuccino, but I was sadly mistaken. Still, it was surprisingly chewy for something that cemented itself to the wall of the mug.

Today, I made popcorn. The bag said two minutes. The bag is a filthy liar.

So let's see, with the caramel, cappuccino and popcorn, that's microwave 3, man 0.

Speaking of fires, I can climb the highest mountain, cross the wildest sea, I can feel St. Elmo's Fire burnin' in me, burnin' in me...

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Eight Things in a Duffle Bag

Hey it's the middle of June. What happened to May? And April? I must have been really busy at work, because I sure wasn't posting my crazy theories on a Lost message board. That'd just be silly. Why would you even think that?

Two pretty major events happened last week. If you've read Schprock's latest post, you know the first one, which I'll go into a bit more detail on later. The other thing that happened was I was tagged by Trinamick, and you don't mess with someone who can survive a fall trough a ceiling. It only makes them mad. So here are eight things about me, specifically, eight things that I should probably tell a doctor but never do. It's nothing major, but on the other hand, we all know what happens when you take the wait-and-see approach.

1. Sometimes when I chew or even if I'm just lying down, my jaw unhinges. Usually on the right side, but it's happened to both. It pops right back in after opening and closing my mouth a few times, but it always freaks me out. I always think the most recent time will finally be the one when it doesn't go back in, and my jawbone will protrude out of the side of my head under my ear, and I get all nervous until it sets back in place.

2. Occasionally one of my toes gets locked in the downward position, so it's pointing straight down and all the others are facing forward. That hurts like hell. It only happens when I'm not wearing shoes, when I'm putting on or taking off a pair of socks, or if I'm lying down and stretch out my legs. That's two bad things now that happen when I'm lying on my back. If you throw in the sleep paralysis, it would seem I'd be better off staying upright as much as possible. But I still say that apartment had some creepy evil mojo, because "things trying to eat my soul in my sleep" thing hasn't happened since we moved out of there.

3. Breaded or starchy foods, which pretty much makes up the entire gamut of what I eat, occasionally cause my throat to close up, which is usually followed by a fun half hour to forty-five minutes of hovering over the toilet spitting up long strings of saliva. The culprit is most frequently a dinner roll or fish that I either swallowed to fast or were eaten before I had a drink. One time at an outdoor restaurant in New Hampshire, it was french toast. That was a fun vacation. To Jose's infinite amusement, I explained this particular malady during an emotional and inexplicably angry tirade I apparently went on at a party in college, after downing nearly a whole bottle of evil, evil Goldschlager. Hey that reminds me, I never finished the second part of my college story I started three or four years ago. I'm a champ when it comes to procrastinating.

4. There's a pizza place down near our old office. You may remember they tried to rip me off a few years ago. Well, the first year I started working here, I used to go there a few times a week for lunch. It's a small place with only a couple of booths, and most people get their orders to go rather than eat in the cramped little space. Above one of the booths was a coming attractions poster for Dead Man on Campus a movie no one saw that came out at least two years earlier. No one knows why it was hanging there by the door at Rome pizza, but I'll never forget the day I was sitting in that booth and an albino guy with an alarmingly high voice sat down with me and started talking. I don't remember what he was saying, because I was trying my damnedest not to stare and trying to figure out why anyone, let alone a high-voiced, honest-to-God albino with pink eyes and everything would slide into an occupied booth and strike up a conversation with a complete stranger. That was really awkward. I guess that's not really something I would tell a doctor, but I ran out of those. I could have sworn I had more.

5. Last week, after Brianna went to bed, I was watching TV with Michele and just before 10 o'clock. we heard three loud shots come from outside the window followed by the sound of a car speeding off. The shades where down most of the way, but from where I was sitting I saw flashes that corresponded with each shot. We jumped up and ran upstairs to look out the bedroom window. It was scary. Michele had me check on Brianna. she was still asleep. A few minutes later a K-9 patrol car drove down the street past our townhouse beyond view. We started to get more worried, but the lights and sirens were off, so we weren't sure what that meant. I kept looking out the window, and about ten to fifteen minutes later, the police car drove away again. And once again, no lights or sirens. Even so, I figured even if no one was injured at the very least what we heard were warning shots. Something serious was about to go down in our little housing development.

The next morning, I walked over to the side of the house to see if I could find any clues as to what happened the night before. From far away I saw what looked like shattered glass all over the pavement, but when I got closer I discovered that it was just dead pine needles. But I did find what I was looking for. A few feet away there was a hollow cardboard tube surrounded by powder. The tube had "Triple Bangs" written out it. That explains the three shots. The night before when I was hiding out by the upstairs window, I called my mom, and she said it was probably someone setting off fireworks. But it didn't sound like the usual kind, the bottle rocket kind that shoot up into the air and make a fizzle sound before they pop. People set those off around here from June to mid-July. I don't see the point, though. They're illegal in this state, which means you have to go across the border to New Hampshire to get them. Not that it's a particularly long our dangerous journey, but the lame little fizzle hardly seems worth the effort.

The whole thing made me feel a little uncomfortable with myself. There are only about forty black people in Weymouth, and thirty-nine of them live in my housing development. Does the fact that I automatically assumed it was gunshots reveal some latent racism? Probably not. I think anyone hearing three loud shots at night and seeing a car speeding away would make the logical jump that someone just got shot. And anyway, I'd rather live next to black people than creepy high-voiced albinos any day. Nothing personal, High-voiced Albino Guy. You just give me night terrors.

6. I lied earlier. I really was posting crazy theories on a Lost message board. I don't even know how it started, it jut sort of happened. I'm not proud of it, but there it is. I thought I'd be able to get back to the blog when the season ended on May 23, but then I got some new big projects at work and it got harder and harder to find time to get back to blogging. If it makes you feel any better, they didn't mean anything to me and I was thinking of you the whole time.

7. Way back in March, I started to write about the seemingly unrelated weekend deaths of comedian Richard Jeni and Boston frontman Brad Delp. I was going to title it "Ssssmokin" since Boston had a song called Smokin and Jeni was in The Mask, but then thought maybe it would be in poor taste and let it drop. Which may be for the best because I wanted to contrast the two deaths by examining how one gave up on life and the other had life give up on them, and as we found out a few days later, Delp took his own life as well. Boy would my face have been red! Anyway, all this time later I still actually feel guilty. Richard Jeni shot himself in the face. I didn't really know much about the guy. I'd heard of him, I knew he was a comedian, but I didn't know any of his jokes. He was number 57 on Comedy Central's list of 100 Greatest Stand-up Comics, so I guess he was pretty good. But all I really knew him from was as the sidekick from The Mask. Now I can't watch that movie, because the whole time I'm just going to be thinking, "That guy shot himself in the face!" The movie's ruined for me.

I feel guilty because a guy died and all I can think of is now I can't watch a movie because I'll just be thinking about how the guy killed himself. Plus, maybe if I knew more about him apart from, "That guy from The Mask, he wouldn't have felt the need to kill himself. You can never really be sure of the motives people have for killing themselves, but you have to wonder if it's because they were sort-of famous but never really made it big. And it's sad, because were things really that bad? Wikipedia actually has a whole category of actors who committed suicide, and, weirdly enough, a sub-category of porn stars who committed suicide.

Just the day before, the Metro had a picture of Michael Keaton as Beetlejuice, at the top of the entertainment page, next to a few lines about that night's performance by Brad Delp's Beatles cover band, Beatle Juice. He was supposed to perform that night, but died before the show. Of course at the time, it was a mystery. He'd been heading Beatle Juice for years, he had a fiancee that he was going to marry this summer and even a new Boston tour and album coming up. The guy was allegedly a health nut and didn't even drink. In fact, I actually learned the word teetotaler from his obituary and having to go look it up. So the idea that someone like that could just drop dead was somewhat unnerving. When the news came in that he'd died of asphyxiation by locking himself in the bathroom with gas grills, well that made even less sense. I wonder why he couldn't see all he had to live for?

8. Which brings us to number eight. Last winter, the looming deadline set forth by John T's prickly blonde tormentor, Ms. Smith, nearly tore our little office apart. The air grew thick and tempers grew short. Shouting matches became more frequent, as did longer hours, and Ms. Smith's own pilgrimages to our office. And each time she blackened our door, she likewise blackened our spirits. Blackened to the pitch of her black, black heart.

I was lucky enough not to deal directly with her, my own experience with her came the previous year when I was designing a schoolbook catalog for her. It was for Oklahoma teachers and featured several images contained within the outline of Oklahoma. She didn't like the way it fit on the page; it wasn't filling the space like the New York cover did. Her solution was to stretch out Oklahoma so it looks like a pot instead of a pan. I did what she said because she's the boss, but this thing was going to teachers. I think they might notice that their state is shaped wrong.

Anyway, with this project as with most of her work, John T and Joe managed the bulk of it. But the effects were felt just the same and I got the overflow of all the other jobs that would have went to them if they weren't working on this huge project. Everyone was on edge and threats of quitting were not uncommon. I was held in the unwinnable situation of either going home at five and getting dirty looks from those left behind, or staying late and suffering the wrath of Michele, who insisted family comes first, especially when we don't even get paid overtime. I was the only one with an eight year old at home. One night Joe huffed that he worked plenty of late nights when his children were young. Yeah, guess what, he also got divorced, so he's not quite the model to strive for. No matter what I did, someone was going to be mad at me, I just had to decide who I wanted to piss off on any given day. Money was tight, tensions were high, and wispy Ms. Smith, at the center of it all, didn't even have the common courtesy to eat the bowl of fruit my boss laid on the table for her. She was a vegan, but not the granola, hairy armpits type. She was extremely conservative, and actually stated that she didn't like animals. Apparently her disdain for all creatures great and small may have been so potent that she didn't even want animals anywhere near her body, including on her plate. But she wore leather, so it's more likely that she didn't eat any solid foods in general.

We got a brief but welcome break from her when passed out, in a grocery store of all places, and was taken to the hospital for dehydration and exhaustion. But she checked herself out a few days later and, while not quite at the velocity as before, was back to her charming old self.

During those tumultuous months, the strangest thing happened. Ms. Smith had Joe running ragged. Some days she'd actually be in his office with him all day, hovering over his desk and monitoring everything he did. One day she caught him working on a file for another client and she walked into our boss's office to say he "wasn't focused." While her scathing comments in the margins of her edits were usually directed at John T, her purest vitriol was reserved for Joe. Oddly enough, Joe was her favorite person here. In her eyes, Joe was the only one who could do anything right, and the rest of us were stumbling idiots trying not to choke on our own drool. So her nastiness towards Joe could have been a form of "tough love". She wanted Joe to make all the edits to the brochure, even though he was extremely busy and they were just text edits that a monkey could do. If anyone else worked on her project, she was not to know about it. As the weeks went on, Joe became less irritating, loud and stupid, and almost sympathetic. Maybe it was because he no longer had time to be irritating, loud and stupid trying to appease Ms. Smith's every tyrannical whim, but I started to feel bad for Joe. The poor guy. That's the power Ms. Smith yields.

I drew a picture of her, which was actually just the Grinch, hunched over with a sack slumped over her back, and added some blonde hair under the cap and replaced the Grinch's Santa coat with the black-and-white-horizontal-striped, knee-length coat she often wore to the office, that made her look like a Dr. Seuss character anyway. I'd planned on writing this post much earlier than now, but I lost the Grinch picture I wanted to go with it and like so many others, I never got around to writing it.

The original due date for her project was just before Thanksgiving, but it was pushed back to December 22. She continued to make edits, seemingly for the sake of making them. One night after we sent her a round, she said she'd read through it and send us the edits in the morning. This is what we expected would be the final round, and she's already anticipating another round of edits before she even reads what was sent. All of us were in the office the Friday night before Christmas Eve, even our boss. Ms. Smith was off-site, faxing and emailing edits as fast as we were sending her revisions. Or rather, John T was doing that, having come in early that morning and staying well past eleven PM. My part was to collect the files that had been approved and burn them onto DVDs. We finished after ten, and went home for a week of relaxation, with the nightmare finally behind us.

But no. Ms. Smith was not happy. Like a blonde, designer-bag wearing Scrooge, she expected at least some contingent of our company to be diligently working the next morning, a Saturday, and Christmas Eve no less, even though the files were sent off to her company. Which was the initial plan all along, by the way. The files were supposed to be in their hands regardless of the status and they would make any additional edits themselves. So she wrote a nasty letter to my employer, and there was a bit of a falling out.

We hadn't heard from her or her company in months, and as expected, without her to draw sympathy to Joe, he's back to his old annoying self. He may even be more annoying now. She did contact my boss a few months ago and all but apologized for what is commonly referred to as "throwing us under the bus." So it was several months after the fact. Better late than never, right? Cut to last Thursday. My boss breaks the news that Ms. Smith was found dead in her house. She was 33, like Jesus. But unlike Jesus, she was a horrible bitch. Everyone's saying how, deep down, she was a good person and they feel bad. I ALWAYS feel bad when someone dies, whether I knew them or not, regardless of who they were. But I feel no sorrow for Ms. Smith. I feel terrible for her family, and I feel bad that I don't feel bad, but she was just an awful person and I'm sure she was somehow responsible for her own death.

I think she may have killed herself. For each of the past five years, she's held a different job at a different company, burning bridges everywhere she went. Prior to her most recent job, she was fired from a major publishing company. Her story, of course, was that she quit. And while that is technically true, she just beat them to the punch. If she hadn't had her next job lined up, she would have been shown the door. Her entire life revolved around her work. She stayed in her office well past midnight, micromanaged everything to the last excruciating detail. If anything you could say that she had a passion and dedication to her work, which could be seen as admirable, but look where it got her. That night we all stayed late before Christmas, my boss told us stories, possibly rumors, about Ms. Smith. He said during meetings sometimes she would go into the bathroom and come back out with red, watery eyes. Sometimes she'd just break down and cry. It's clear that she was not very happy, so it wouldn't be a shock if she killed herself.

Even if it wasn't intentional, she could have literally worked herself to death. The schedule she kept wasn't given to her by her superiors, it was self-imposed. For some reason she was trying to prove something to herself, as if sleep was a weakness. Her fainting scene in the rice cake isle was a huge red flag. If she'd heeded her doctor's warnings and lightened her schedule a bit, maybe she'd still be here to torment us next Christmas. Instead she joked about it, and although her parents gave her a curfew and took away her Blackberry to keep anything like that from happening again, she didn't let it stop her. It's very likely that her heart just stopped, especially since they're saying that she died of natural causes. I'd like to say again that it doesn't matter what I thought of her, but my heart goes out to her family. I heard that her father discovered her body. That is truly tragic.

If sleeping was a sign of weakness to her, then surely eating was raising the white flag. While not completely skeletal, she was very thin and more people have seen Bigfoot than have seen Ms. Smith with food in her mouth. She could have very well been anorexic, and that's what killed her.

There were also whispers that Ms. Smith, who never smoked or touched alcohol in her life (hey, I get to say teetotaler twice in the same post) was secretly a coke fiend. I don't know how much I believe that, but it explains an awful lot if she was.

Whatever the reason, she's dead now. The wake was last night, and Joe said he was going to go, because for whatever reason she seemed to like him. This morning I asked him if it was an open casket and he said it was. John M asked how she looked. Joe told him she looked a little fuller. When he clomped away, Amy called me over to her desk and asked if John T told me to ask that. I told her he didn't and wasn't really sure why she'd even ask that. Are you ready for this one? Apparently, John T did go last night, and Ms. Smith was cremated. Joe! Why? Why does that guy have to lie about everything?! So now we all know that he's blatantly lying about going to the wake last night, but no one's let him in on it yet. Of all the lies he's been caught in, this might be the best.

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