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There’s just barely enough room for one person to pass another in it. So, when I’m standing at the microwave toward the door to the kitchenette and somebody wants to get past me to the sink or the coffee machine I have to move forward to the counter and that’s when it happens. I can’t tell anybody what just happened, of course, but on the inside I’m thinking, “that fucking ice machine below the microwave just fucking shocked me on my wiener!” There must be a short-circuit or something in the ice machine because whenever I get close to it, the machine sends out a bolt of electricity and shocks me, you know, through my pants. So far the shocks aren’t even near the intensity, say of a cattle prod, for instance, and so I should probably focus on other, more pressing hazards, like the mystery fibers that float around through the air and settle on any sheet of paper or manilla folder left out overnight like a fine drift of snow. The fibers which the building services department has described to me in response to my repeated questioning as “not asbestos.” Whenever somebody asks me what invisible thing I am cursing in the air and batting at, I always tell them. “Floating fibers!” Everybody told me that I should do something about it. And so I did. After countless e-mails to the building services manager (who looks like Ross on “Friends”), which he first ignored, Ross finally initiated the “fiber free in 2003!” campaign. The plan was described in a mass office e-mail and seemed comprehensive, if not a wee bit…. well… fanciful, and outlined what Ross described as a “multi-pronged attack against this floating fiber office menace.” Hazard eliminated? Hardly. Disappointingly, I learned later that the “fiber free in 2003!” initiative had not been communicated to anybody else in the office except for me, nor had it been implemented. Indeed, “fiber free in 2003!” may very well have been a calculated fraud designed to stop my incessant e-mailing (subject line re: floating fiber alert!) and, I suspect, a joke at my expense. Needless to say, 2003 is well expired at this point and the floating fibers in the office remain unabated. So score one point for office hazards, but back to the ice machine. Everybody hates that fucking ice machine. One time I found a 3” by 3” post-it note stuck to it on which somebody had written, “This ice machine ruined my marriage!” When I first started working at this office, one weekend the ice machine wouldn’t stop running, even when it got full, and so to save the kitchenette from certain flooding I ate ice and drank iced beverages all weekend long until my lips turned blue and I was on the verge of hypothermia and couldn’t stop whizzing. But I never use that ice anymore. I don’t even consider it an ice machine nowadays, it’s just a big barrel of frozen stink as far as I am concerned. Brian 10:56 PM Saturday, January 24, 2004 Without fail, I am always deeply saddened and disturbed whenever I see that even in a purportedly “civilized” society such as ours, some people (shockingly, in some cases even full grown men) don’t seem to understand that where there is a line of three urinals in a men’s bathroom, the middle urinal is cursed. This happened to me just yesterday: I walked into the men’s bathroom and there was this guy using the middle urinal! Most longstanding curses, while at first glance steeped in superstition, actually accompany cogent and practical reasons for dissuading such “cursed” behavior. Such is the case against using the middle urinal. The answer lies in the efficient use of resources. You see, when there are three urinals, and one person uses one of the side urinals, then another person may comfortably use the urinal on the other side and retain a buffer urinal between him and the other urinator. But if the first urinator uses the middle urinal, then no matter which urinal the second urinator chooses, there will be two guys peeing right next to each other! This is totally unnecessary!! Of course, if two urinators were to approach the urinals at exactly the same time, and there was already a urinator at a urinal, then it wouldn’t matter which urinal the first urinator had selected, at least in terms of proximity of urination. But come on! How often is this going to happen? Myself, I became aware of the cursed nature of the middle urinal in third grade from this guy named “Jerry,” in my class who fulfilled his structuralist role as “outlaw” by providing examples to the rest of the third grade society of what lay outside acceptable cultural norms, i.e. “Hey everybody! Jerry used the middle urinal and now he is cursed! Jerry is cursed!” So this is how I handled the situation yesterday. I stood really close to the guy while he was urinating until I got his attention and he said, “what?!” Then I made clucking noises and told him that he should be ashamed of himself. Then I stormed out of the bathroom shouting, “May God have mercy on your CURSED SOUL!!” Ok, this is a lie, the guy using the middle urinal was this really important dude who I have heard is really cool from other people. So instead, I attempted to conceal the shock and dismay I felt when I saw that he was using the middle urinal. Then I pretended that I had come into the bathroom with the sole intention of washing my hands, which I did. Then I went back to my office and held it. Brian 10:38 AM

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House of Noh!

Thursday, January 29, 2004

Lately I have been discovering that my office work environment is lousy with hidden safety hazards. But I haven’t told anybody of the specific hazard that I am about to relate to you. I mean, it isn’t the kind of thing that I could even mention in a workplace environment (it involves my weiner). The hazard is this: lately the ice machine on my floor has been shocking me with bolts of electricity in a very intimate way. The kitchenette on my floor where the refrigerator, coffee machine, sink, and the ice machine are is tiny. There’s just barely enough room for one person to pass another in it. So, when I’m standing at the microwave toward the door to the kitchenette and somebody wants to get past me to the sink or the coffee machine I have to move forward to the counter and that’s when it happens. I can’t tell anybody what just happened, of course, but on the inside I’m thinking, “that fucking ice machine below the microwave just fucking shocked me on my wiener!” There must be a short-circuit or something in the ice machine because whenever I get close to it, the machine sends out a bolt of electricity and shocks me, you know, through my pants. So far the shocks aren’t even near the intensity, say of a cattle prod, for instance, and so I should probably focus on other, more pressing hazards, like the mystery fibers that float around through the air and settle on any sheet of paper or manilla folder left out overnight like a fine drift of snow. The fibers which the building services department has described to me in response to my repeated questioning as “not asbestos.” Whenever somebody asks me what invisible thing I am cursing in the air and batting at, I always tell them. “Floating fibers!” Everybody told me that I should do something about it. And so I did. After countless e-mails to the building services manager (who looks like Ross on “Friends”), which he first ignored, Ross finally initiated the “fiber free in 2003!” campaign. The plan was described in a mass office e-mail and seemed comprehensive, if not a wee bit…. well… fanciful, and outlined what Ross described as a “multi-pronged attack against this floating fiber office menace.” Hazard eliminated? Hardly. Disappointingly, I learned later that the “fiber free in 2003!” initiative had not been communicated to anybody else in the office except for me, nor had it been implemented. Indeed, “fiber free in 2003!” may very well have been a calculated fraud designed to stop my incessant e-mailing (subject line re: floating fiber alert!) and, I suspect, a joke at my expense. Needless to say, 2003 is well expired at this point and the floating fibers in the office remain unabated. So score one point for office hazards, but back to the ice machine. Everybody hates that fucking ice machine. One time I found a 3” by 3” post-it note stuck to it on which somebody had written, “This ice machine ruined my marriage!” When I first started working at this office, one weekend the ice machine wouldn’t stop running, even when it got full, and so to save the kitchenette from certain flooding I ate ice and drank iced beverages all weekend long until my lips turned blue and I was on the verge of hypothermia and couldn’t stop whizzing. But I never use that ice anymore. I don’t even consider it an ice machine nowadays, it’s just a big barrel of frozen stink as far as I am concerned.

Brian 10:56 PM

Saturday, January 24, 2004

Without fail, I am always deeply saddened and disturbed whenever I see that even in a purportedly “civilized” society such as ours, some people (shockingly, in some cases even full grown men) don’t seem to understand that where there is a line of three urinals in a men’s bathroom, the middle urinal is cursed. This happened to me just yesterday: I walked into the men’s bathroom and there was this guy using the middle urinal! Most longstanding curses, while at first glance steeped in superstition, actually accompany cogent and practical reasons for dissuading such “cursed” behavior. Such is the case against using the middle urinal. The answer lies in the efficient use of resources. You see, when there are three urinals, and one person uses one of the side urinals, then another person may comfortably use the urinal on the other side and retain a buffer urinal between him and the other urinator. But if the first urinator uses the middle urinal, then no matter which urinal the second urinator chooses, there will be two guys peeing right next to each other! This is totally unnecessary!! Of course, if two urinators were to approach the urinals at exactly the same time, and there was already a urinator at a urinal, then it wouldn’t matter which urinal the first urinator had selected, at least in terms of proximity of urination. But come on! How often is this going to happen? Myself, I became aware of the cursed nature of the middle urinal in third grade from this guy named “Jerry,” in my class who fulfilled his structuralist role as “outlaw” by providing examples to the rest of the third grade society of what lay outside acceptable cultural norms, i.e. “Hey everybody! Jerry used the middle urinal and now he is cursed! Jerry is cursed!” So this is how I handled the situation yesterday. I stood really close to the guy while he was urinating until I got his attention and he said, “what?!” Then I made clucking noises and told him that he should be ashamed of himself. Then I stormed out of the bathroom shouting, “May God have mercy on your CURSED SOUL!!” Ok, this is a lie, the guy using the middle urinal was this really important dude who I have heard is really cool from other people. So instead, I attempted to conceal the shock and dismay I felt when I saw that he was using the middle urinal. Then I pretended that I had come into the bathroom with the sole intention of washing my hands, which I did. Then I went back to my office and held it.

Brian 10:38 AM

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