World's Cutest Kitten Revealed

Pictured here you will see the most recent top prize winner in the "World's Cutest Kitten" contest who also just so happens to be my new kitten. Okay, so she hasn't officially won any titles yet but seriously she's got to be in the running don't you think? I've decided to make a one time exception to my self imposed "no photo" policy on my blog because I really thought that this was definitely a case of a picture being worth a thousand words.

Before people get all up in my grill about how weird cat people are I'm going to set the record straight. Yes cat people can be weird but so can dog people and vegetarians and mormons so why do cat people get such a bad rap? For some reason people have this pre-conceived notion that cat people spend all their spare time holed up in their one bedroom apartments talking to their cats as if they were their nearest and dearest friends. Sure I do this more than a few times a week but what's so wrong with having a strong affection for another one of God's creatures? A creature I might add that is intelligent, self cleaning, and provides constant loyal companionship and unconditional love as long as they're rubbed incessantly and their food bowl is full? Nothing as far as I'm concerned.

Here's the bottom line: I don't expect everyone to have a deep affection for cats but I just don't get people that seem to have some deep seeded animosity towards them. Like for instance, I had some people over to my house for a barbeque a month ago and I had some chicken and burgers on the grill and I went to pick my cat up and put her inside and some yahoo piped up and said "When does that go on the grill?" I managed my most evil eye and kept on walking but thought to myself "Right after we throw you on the rotisserie you sadistic wind bag." I mean come on, what are you some sort of serial killer? I don't particularly like hamsters but I'm not thinking of ways to mutilate them in my spare time. Yeah, not cool buddy.

I'll let the picture take it from here...

That's What Friends Are For

I got an email chain letter today. I don't know why these things still annoy me but I just sort of thought that by now they would have gone the way of the crop top . So a friend sent me this one that was supposedly in honour of "National Friends Week". Of course at first I was quite touched by the very personal nature of the message. As most people know, when you want to tell someone you really appreciate them you usually do that with a mass email that was written by some mysterious person who clearly has way too much time on their hands. This message was pretty original and included heartfelt sentiments like "A Good Friend Will Come to Bail You Out of Jail". Well that's certainly one to grow on. Gee, I guess if that's the case then I don't have any "good friends" because all of my friends have managed to stay out of the big house. Then again, I do have a friend who had a warrant out for her arrest because her license was suspended and she rode her bike down to the local police station to turn herself in. However, I didn't bail her out of jail so I guess that still leaves me friendless.

Usually my favourite part of the typical chain letter is "the hook". You know, the part where they tell you who's going to die in the next 24 hours if you don't forward this to sixty people in the next ten seconds. This one had a pretty good one which insisted that you forward it to five people within five minutes and if you did you should prepare yourself for the "biggest shock of your life to occur between 1-4PM the next day". Wow, that is some kind of hook don't you think? Can you imagine the resources it takes to make that happen?

Before you go thinking that I'm being too harsh here, I just want to make it clear that my reasons for despising the chain email letter are not purely selfish. Sure, they're a huge waste of my time but on top of that they're environmentally irresponsible. Just think of the resources that are wasted sending these messages across the world. Think of what we could do with all of the hydro electric power we're wasting by creating, storing, sending, and viewing these messages. Hmmm... now that I'm thinking about it I might have something here. If I play my cards right there might just be a Nobel Peace Prize in this for me somewhere? Seems like they're giving those out to just about anybody these days. Plus, who wouldn't support someone getting a Nobel Peace Prize for eliminating the email chain letter? Now that's a cause everyone can get behind. Well, everyone except for the unemployed I guess. What else are they gonna do with their time?

Before I started preparing my acceptance speech I decided to get back to the matter at hand. I don't usually feel the need to forward or reply to these types of messages but couldn't resist with this one and my response was as follows:

"Dear Friend: Thank you so much for the very personal and heartfelt message. As you can imagine, I was deeply touched. Please let me know what happens to you between the hours of 1-4 PM today as I am anxious to hear what life changing event occurs. I'm sending you this email during those hours and I can only hope for your sake that this is not it."

I guess that's one less person who'll be calling me to bail them out of jail. Mission accomplished.

Let The Healing Begin (Update)

Spoiler Warning: If you haven't read my previous post entitled "Let the Healing Begin", you may want to read it before proceeding with this one.

I really didn't expect to be providing an update on "Project: Let the Healing Begin" this soon after it's inception since most people know that the healing process is usually a slow one. As of right now it looks like this particular healing process is moving about as fast as a war amputee walkathon.

So what happened you ask? Well, today my boss and the head of the other department that we've been at war with had a major knock down, drag out argument. The discussion started out as a casual conversation about procedures and allocation of roles and responsibilities between our departments. Initially the discussion took place in the open office area but within a few minutes, it quickly escalated into a much more heated "discussion" at which point they moved the festivities into my boss' office. Unfortunately (for them), the walls of my boss' office have virtually no sound dampening qualities so they may as well have continued the conversation out in the open or perhaps over the intercom system because we were privy to pretty much the entire argument.

As far as arguments I've been witness to in the workplace, this one will definitely go down as the loudest and most no holds barred I've ever been privileged enough to be in the presence of.

Here are some of the highlights which I should mention were all uttered in very much outdoor voices:

"Well, I believe that falls under my job description so I don't think it should be something you need to worry about..."

"It sounds like you don't think I'm doing my job?"

"If you and Jim think that you can do a better job running this department, then be my guest!"

"Nobody's saying that, stop being so sensitive..."

"How about you just do your f*?%^&@ job and then I'll do mine!"

"Maybe if you did a better job of managing your people then I wouldn't have to do your job!"

The rest of the discussion basically revolved around the same central theme which involved the need for more people to do their f-ing jobs and it's hard to argue with that...or so I thought. The interesting thing was how "The Argument Heard 'Round the Office" ended. As the final verbal barrage concluded there was a conspicuous silence and before we could designate someone to go in and check for bodies, both parties exited the office looking like they had just finished playing a game of parcheesi. Did they think we were idiots? We knew what had gone on in there. There was no parcheesi board in there. (I checked)

So it will be interesting to see what impact this has on the healing process my boss was working so tirelessly towards. Maybe tomorrow I'll ask him to clarify what exactly he meant by "healing" or at the very least what he had in mind as far as a "go" date for this elusive healing process because it sure didn't start today. Maybe it's just sort of like a diet - we'll just start it on Monday.

Let the Healing Begin

I look around at some of the people I work with some days and I’m so tempted to stop them as they do their best speed walker impression on their way to their next meeting and ask them “What’s the point?” I know they make a lot of money doing whatever it is they do during the twenty hours a day they spend at work making up pointless powerpoint presentations and elaborate excel spreadsheets and working through their lunch while their nanny raises their children. They must do it for a reason right? Part of me really wants somebody to give me a convincing answer to that question but the other part of me sort of knows there probably isn’t one, at least not one that would mean that much to me.

I’m well aware of the fact that this level of cynicism isn’t exactly a recipe for the career fast track. In fact, it’s probably not even a recipe for a job as a janitor and I do my best to hide it. Some days this is definitely harder than others. Days like today are a good example. At the end of our daily department meeting our boss began this very heartfelt (for him anyway) speech about putting an end to inter-departmental conflict. You see, there’s been this whole turf war that’s been slowly building between our department and another one and it had reached a bit of a fever pitch over the last couple of weeks . The problem has been that both departments have a shared role in achieving a pretty critical target. Unfortunately each department thinks the other department is the weak link which results in overstepping of bounds, finger pointing, blame storming, and all around ineffectiveness. This would all be totally fine if we were actually achieving the goal we were responsible for. Unfortunately, as the year winds down we’re starting to realize that our inability to get results may result in all of us (and many others) not getting our annual bonus. If there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that pretty much anything will be tolerated in the work place as long as it gets results but when people’s bad behaviour starts to affect results (or more importantly someone’s pocketbook) it’s just not kosher anymore. So my boss is giving us this heartfelt speech which is almost convincing until he ends it by saying “So I think it’s time to let the healing begin.” At which point I looked around to see if I had been transplanted into Dr. Phil’s studio audience.

So my boss’ speech was humorous for a couple of reasons least of which being the fact that he is the most divisive person I’ve ever met. I haven’t met Hitler but based on what I’ve heard he would be a close second to my boss. I really believe that if given the opportunity my boss could have turned Gandhi into a serial killer. So you can understand why I may have had a hard time taking him seriously. The other funny part was afterwards one of the guys in my department stopped by and asked “So what did you think of that ‘Come to Jesus’ speech we got this morning?” I hadn’t really thought of it as a religious experience per se but I did find his characterization of the meeting amusing. I was also glad that I wasn’t the only one in the room who found the whole thing a bit melodramatic. I don’t know, sometimes I think that some of the people I work with forget that we’re not curing cancer. To be honest, I thank the good Lord everyday that none of the people I work with have anything to do with finding a cure for cancer or even athlete’s foot for that matter. There would definitely be no healing in sight.

Dance Like No One's Watching

I recently saw a band called Mute Math in concert. If you haven't heard of them, they're a band from New Orleans and they put on a really good live show. As far as the type of music they play, I guess the easiest way to describe would be to say it's rock you can dance too - along the lines of The Killers or The Bravery. They were playing a really small venue in town and tickets were only $14 so it seemed like a great opportunity to see a good concert for pretty cheap.

One of the things I enjoy about concerts is seeing what cross section of people are there. I’ve always felt that the music people listen to tells you a lot about them. So invariably, I’m intrigued to see what types of people are enjoying the same music I enjoy because on some level I must have something in common with them. When I first arrived at the concert, the first thing I realized was that I may be getting old since I was probably one of the oldest people there not including parents that were chaperoning their children for the evening. I started wondering if I was turning into one of those people that listens to the same music “the kids” are listening to as some sort of dysfunctional way of trying to stay hip. This was going to be a bitter pill to swallow if that was the case. I realize, I’m not getting any younger but I didn’t think I had become one of those people already.

As I stood near the bar, I watched the parade of kids saddle up to the bar and flash their wristbands at the bartender like some sort of badge of honour as if to say “Yeah, I don’t really like beer but I want you (and everyone else) to know that I can have one”.

The other thing that struck me about the crowd was the diversity in the group. Not the cultural diversity of course, since there are approximately three non white people that live in this city and they’re not allowed to be out past 9:00. The unique thing was that there seemed to be two distinct groups that were represented: There was the group of really clean cut kids who looked like mom and dad had dropped them off in the family mini-van for the evening and would be picking them up promptly at 11. Then there were the kids in the strategically ripped jeans with their freshly minted fake I.D.'s who had made sure their parents had dropped them off a block away and would be going home whenever they felt like it, or whenever their allowance money ran out – whichever came first.

As the band began I sort of became intrigued/distracted by a guy standing in front of me. I was distracted because of how “into” the music he was getting. The best way to describe him would be Ned Flanders meets Johnny Christian meets Nerd McNerdy. He was dressed in a button down blue oxford shirt and khakis with very sensible shoes. I couldn’t tell if he had just finished a tax audit or wrapped up his weekly bible study but either way, white boy had some serious moves and he wasn’t afraid to show them off. The problem was that his “serious” moves were seriously bad. The other problem was that I couldn’t keep my eyes off of him because he was totally oblivious to the fact that everyone was watching him. As I watched him throughout the concert I couldn't help but think, “So I guess this is what it looks like to dance like no one’s watching. I guess he can go ahead and check that off his to-do list”. That thought was followed shortly by the realization that although dancing like no one's watching seems like a good idea when it’s stitched on a pillow, it can be less of a good idea when actually put into practice.

The other interesting thing I observed was that as the concert progressed, the group of friends he had arrived with had slowly migrated away from him to the point where he was pretty much standing/gyrating by himself at the end of the concert. I sort of felt sorry for my accountant friend at that point and it was a reminder of just how fickle friends can be when you're a horrible dancer.

The truth is, I sort of admired the guy for not caring. It’s rare that you see that kind of reckless abandon on display and I think we could all learn a lesson from him. I for one am going to make a more concerted effort to throw caution to the wind on a more regular basis. In fact, I think I’ll start doing that tomorrow. Actually, tomorrow’s not so good. In fact this week probably won’t work at all. Plus, I should probably take some dance lessons ahead of time. I’d just hate to be unprepared for something this important.