Sunday, March 18, 2007

Hoboes

I've always been a fan of John Hodgeman ("I'm a PC"), but it has just been elevated to a whole new level. He wrote a book! And in that book is a section on hoboes, including SEVEN HUNDRED hobo names.

His website is maybe the greatest thing I've found on the Internet in years. The audio site (him reading ALL 700 names) is hysterical. (yes, I listened to the full hour, and am doing it again as I type). Plus, it turned into an internet-illustration project, and there are hundred of illustrations for all the hoboes now.

If you remain unconvinced, here are a few of my favorites:

#153: Slo-Mo Deuteronomy

#173: McGurk, Who May Be Found by the Card Catalogue

#399: Applebee O'Bennigan McFridays

#443: Hondo "Whatever That Lizard Is That Walks on Water"

#547: Myron Biscuitspear, the Dumpster Archeologist

Areas of my Expertise is definitely next on my reading list. In other news, I'm officially changing my name to "Packrat Red and and [her] Cart o' Sad Crap."

Stand by.

Tuesday, March 6, 2007

The Nazis had pieces of flair they made the Jews wear...

I'm pretty lame.

So I thought it would be a good idea if maybe once a month signing out a company conference room and showing a movie on the projector would be a good idea. At least, it wouldn't be a BAD idea. We could order pizza, even. And since roughly half the company is about my age, and a lot of them are also new to the area it would be a nice way for the younger, unmarried/childless people to hang out.

We'll ignore the fact that a lot of them aren't people I really want to spend time with. But that's the beauty of watching a movie -- I can pretend to be social without actually having to talk to anyone.

Since this is the first real job for most of us younguns, obviously the most appropriate movie to wach is Office Space. Plus, Skunk Nut hasn't seen it!

So I mentioned the idea to Boss, who thought it was awesome, and promised to go ask HIS boss (Boss^2?) if it would be ok to "misappropriate company equipment to watch R-rated movies." Boss even got excited about having beer, too! I suggested checking ids at the door and not letting anyone over 40 in.

Boss^2 liked the idea. His major concern, however, was what movie we wanted to watch. This is extra funny because he probably embodies the management in Office Space better than anyone else I work for/with. But he generously offered to loan Boss and I a movie to watch if we hadn't picked one out already:

"Well, if you would like to borrow it, I just ordered a video from the Discovery Channel. It's a very interesting documentary on Destroyers."

Props to Boss for saving the situation with, "Uh, well, I think that people would want to get paid if we showed that one."

Monday, March 5, 2007

Packaging Issues

When I was in California, I ordered the pirate badge holder from ThinkGeek.

It arrived last week....in a box roughly the size of the one my tiny jewelry chain came in last month. The badge holder was occupying one tiny section of one corner of the enormous, multi-document sized box.

Seriously? I don't remember what the shipping cost for this thing was, but....I'm pretty sure a padded envelope would have sufficed. Regardless, at the end of the day, I still love ThinkGeek and their stuff. I just wish their shipping division would ThinkGeek a little less and ThinkEconomical a little bit more.

The bigger question is: why do I keep getting mailed tiny things in huge boxes? I ordered Quicken2007 from Amazon this weekend....will it arrive in a refrigerator box? Actually, that'd be neat. Then I could build a fort in my living room.

My living room isn't much bigger than a refrigerator box. [I'm exaggerating a bit.]

I miss the days of refrigerator box forts/submarines/spaceships, though. I should turn my whole apartment into a giant box-fort-tribute. I can paint my living room a dull brown, with faint stripes to make it look corrugated, and use crayola markers to draw dials and guages and buttons. And I could stick things in the drywall to approximate levers and steering wheels, etc. That would be pretty neat, except the living room is too well lit to be a TRUE box fort. Back then, it didn't really matter what awesome controls and panels you drew inside, because really, you couldn't see them anyway.

A box fort apartment would be fun. And it would make all the jokes I used to make about living in a cardboard box after graduation a lot funnier.