niff.dot

5:10 am, Saturday.

Me: Hey, brain? It’s Saturday. TOO EARLY, man. Go back to sleep.
Brain: But, I wanna get up.
Me: I don’t. You can get up at 5am on Monday.  Today?  Sleep.
Brain: Sigh. 

7:15 am, Saturday

Me: Whaddahell??
Brain:  I gave you two bloody hours! What, are you a lazy teenager all of a sudden?
Me: It’s the principle of the thing…
Brain: What time did you go to bed?
Me: I duno, 11, maybe?
Brain: And it’s 7 now, that makes 8 hours.  That is absolutely sufficient.
Me: But the point of the weekend is to oversleep.
Brain: Considering that you usually get around 6 hours during the week due to your pesky Netflix habit, you have succeeded.
Me: But -
Brain: My logic is undeniable.
Me: Sigh

I am now getting messages from Ben’s family members.

“I can’t believe you would make fun of my brother Benjamin without letting me in on the fun. Send me your email and I’ll send you my Benjameme submissions.” – Ben’s brother

Apparently this is becoming somewhat of a Facebook/internet sensation.  Thanks, Kyla, for being such an amazing catalyst.

So, in no particular order:

I have to see Ben five days a week and now, when I see him, All I will see is this.  O_o

“Here we are folks!  The dream we all dream of…”

“U musta took (u musta took) a whole hour just 2 make up your face, baby!”

“ Courage! What makes a king out of a slave? Courage! What makes the flag on the mast to wave? Courage! What makes the elephant charge his tusk in the misty mist, or the dusky dusk? What makes the muskrat guard his musk? Courage!”

“Yes…no…yes…yes…“
No.

“Young man! There’s no need to feel down…
I said young man! Pick yourself off the ground…
I said young man!! ‘Cause your in a new town
There’s no need to be un-happy…”

“Shimmy shimmy ya!”

- “What are you gonna do today, Napoleon?”
- “Whatever I feel like I wanna do. Gosh!”

‘I am as innocent regarding any conspiracy as any of you gentlemen in the room!!”

“Give a girl the right shoes, and she can conquer the world.”

Benny G.  That’s all I’ve got, really…don’t know what I can add to this.

So. I work in a somewhat creative environment.

Working in a creative environment comes with its perks. It also comes with its people. People that over time and proximity and deadlines and angst you just naturally develop friendships with and feel like you can trust.

Or, so you thought.

We use Skype a lot at work. Mostly because we need to be able to communicate *and* be productive, and since most of us have mastered the fine art of chat multitasking we have managed to healthily integrate it into the workplace in a beneficial way.

Well, mostly beneficial.

Enter Kyla:
Kyla: This is why you don’t allow your co-workers to be your Facebook friends:
Kyla: (this is Ben by the way)
And posts a URL to the following photo:

For those of you who do not know Ben, he no longer wears glasses, has since ditched the gold chain, and the hair has been disciplined.

The response was immediate and almost audible amidst the cubicle farm.  Squeals, laughter, exclamations of “Oh my GOD is that his real hair?” could be heard.  It was horrible yet awesome.

And then I suddenly sense that my officemate is up to no good.

- “Ummm…what are you doing?”
- “I’m making Ben disco in Photoshop!”
- “Oh dear lord…”

She then sends this into the group chat, titled “BenJammin’”

Quickly followed by:

It was at this point that a collective lightbulb went off over the heads of everyone in the office who had Photoshop.  Which is pretty much all of us.

The LOL’s and laughing emoticons continued (one even muttered, “your tears sustain us”…brilliant).  The creative director made inquiries as to who was in charge of color-correction on this project and gave them a perfunctory ‘thumbs-down’.  Suddenly you begin to hear offset loops of “Ben” by the Jackson 5 wafting through the open spaces…it was diabolical.

Not to be outdone, Rob kicks Ben Morrison in (obviously resolving the color correction issue):

Which, of course, receives instant accolades.  I suddenly decide Annie is my best option for the Ben-Meme project so I toss mine into the pot:

Finally Ben starts to receive some sympathy but he decides to goad us into more, so QA chips in…

Then the design leads.  ”BenHemian Rhapsody”.

Then QA again.  ”Ben Simmons”.

And then the boss speaks up: “New rule: If you can’t adjust the color in Photoshop so Ben doesn’t look orange, you don’t get to play.”

(For the record, I *totally* fixed mine…)

To sum up the conversation:

BC: I didn’t think the orange mattered
Rob: Not if you’re doing an Ompa-Lumpa.
Shauna: challenge accepted!
Rob: (chuckle) I knew someone would take that and run with it.

So, here we go.  Epic.

It *was* noticed that 1) no color correction was needed for his face, but also that 2) his eyebrows weren’t white.  And since we aim to please…

So there ya go.  If you were ever wondering what we do to take a break, unwind and unleash some stress once in a while around the office…well, we turn on our own in a fit of betrayal and mockery.

Thanks for being such an awesome sport, Ben.  And thanks Kyla for exploiting your peers.  ;)

(At about 8:00 I noticed this popped up; apparently Chase from QA put in some overtime.  Enjoy.)

Voulez-voulez-vous Oompa Loompa Doopity doo…

UPDATE:

This, by far, wins the day.  Received this morning via Skype.  Ben Ross.  Brilliant.
(I love my coworkers…)

Only until recently did I notice that the WordPress interface on my website stockpiles the comments I receive into a folder where they eagerly await my approval in order for them to appear on the corresponding blogs. When I saw the number 3,543 next to the “Comments” folder, my initial thought was, “Wow, I have far more readership than I thought!” and thus began the arduous task of perusing through the long list of commentary through my “beloved fans”, as it were. Until…

…I realized that this “comments” folder was pretty much the WordPress equivalent to my Spam folder on Gmail. The only downside is, WordPress has no method for separating the good eggs from the bad, so in order for me to cherry-pick the actual, real comments out from the “Buy your Viagra online!” posts, I have to scroll through them one.at.a.time. All 3,000+ of them.

Granted this task was not met with a great deal of enthusiasm. However, as my modus operandi as of late has been to see the Silver Lining, I figured the best approach would be to browse through all of them, looking for the valid, the mad, and inane. A shockingly large number of them were mind-bogglingly irrelevant to the post. But, I kind of invite that.

Some examples, if you are interested.

I wrote a post back in 2008 about Wikipedia Loops. Feel free to click the link and peruse at your leisure. At any rate, I found that the user “Adeyoyin” had posted the following diatribe in response to this post:

“that she’s been distancing hseerlf from everything, what sort of psychological thing does this mean. I’ve told her about how I feel and how badly I just want her to come home in person and through text messages, and when I text message her she wont answer me at all, and will only answer me if it has something to do that concerns her. She doesn’t like to be criticized at all, and she’s been screwing up a lot lately and it’s really hard for me to bite my tongue because I can’t stand irresponsibility. No matter how sweet I am, or the things I do or say, doesn’t seem to phase her at all. She left me once a while back when she got pregnant and came home 5 weeks later. So this isn’t the first time that she’s left me. I will quote her in a message she sent me. You don’t love me for who I am, you want me to change everything. You kept your hopes up that I’d change for you, but nothing will, I did the same for you. And it’s not going to bring me back. I have come to accept that if I stayed with you, we’d never be happy. We’d always have a problem, it has to be time to move on. I can’t live the rest of my life like that. The things that she’s refering to as changing for me meaning, she was a complete slob, wouldn’t clean anything, would make messes all the time, wouldn’t ever make dinner, wouldn’t buy groceries, and wouldn’t take care of our baby properly. I’d come home from work at the end of the day and our baby wouldnt be fed at all, or she would just feed her raman noodles or muffins from McDonalds. And her keeping up her hopes that I would change for her, meaning that I would lay off and stop telling her to be responsible.If anyone has experienced this in their lives, please share with me how you dealt with it, or how you got her to come home. Or in this case, if you’re a woman and a man did this to you, let me know how it worked out. I just want her to come home, and it’s been a month already and she doesn’t seem to want to come back but I’d like to change that.”

I did not correct their typos. I felt it was best to preserve artistic integrity.
I’m not sure if this person thought that my blog comment box was a personal journaling space, or some kind of message board for relationship issues, but…um. I thought about providing some feedback, but that would require me to “Approve” their post, and I like to keep my site drama-free.

“Adrian” posted on “Boon Has Tolerated this for Five Years“:
“Hey, I think this is really cool. I love the posts you make on dienerfft things you blame Lupus for. It is a funny side of blaming stray things on Lupus. Thanks for sharing.”

I assure you I made no humorous comment on lupus. What I want to know is, does this person spend their free time making this selfsame comment on random blogs? And if so…why? Do they themselves have lupus and are angry and bitter and are taking out their frustrations on the blogosphere? One can only speculate.

This one is priceless:
From “staiscite” on “STARBUCKS, SUCROSE & SUBTERFUGE”
“But if you find yourself going off on long tangents about personal matters, it’s time to get back on track. You have to find the right balance, and with practice you’ll discover it. If you would think twice before saying something in a phone call or email to a customer, you should leave it out of your blog.

cheap jordans”
My blog IS tangents and personal matters. Move along. And thanks for the Jordans link. Do people still wear Jordans?

My favorite by far:
From “diablo 3 gold”:
“obviously like your web-site however you need to check the spelling on several of your posts. Many of them are rife with spelling issues and I to find it very troublesome to inform the truth.”

Fuck you, pal. I mean seriously. Take your self-righteous ass to Reddit.

I don’t even know what the hell this means: (click to enlarge)

I’ve only been through about 500 of them thus far. I’m sure I’ll come across a few more gems as I make progress.

Voulez-voulez-vous buy Ambien online at huge discounts!

I now have a plush uterus. My magnificent coworkers felt that a plush uterus would make a fantastic placeholder for the real thing. I find it makes a fantastic pillow. I have been given a wide variety of plush gifts during my convalescence. I have now amassed a teddy bear, an otter, a Curious George, a flying screaming monkey, and now, a uterus. Complete with bendable Fallopian tubes. The manufacturer of said uterus has an entire amalgamation of organs for you to select from. Even glands. Thyroid, pituitary, hypothalamus, take your pick. Not to scale, mind you. I cringe at the thought of the size of the being constructed of these organs. The intestines alone would be enough to warrant an abdominal cavity the size of a Buick.

In related news: today I receive a link from the givers of aforementioned uterus. The saga continues:

Awesomesauce link.

I am now plagued by the desire to pack my uterus with me when I leave the house and take advantage of photo-bombing opportunities. Group of duck-face blondes on a Friday night? BAM! Uterus. Group of Japanese tourists in front of Pike Place Market? UTERUS. Oh yeah. I’ll be more notorious than the Travelocity gnome. Or possibly have a warrant for my (or the uterus’) arrest.

All of this “missing uterus” business, coupled with my plethora of free (recovery) time, has unfortunately also given me time to contemplate…whatever has become of my sad, abandoned-in-the-night ovaries?

Yes. That’s right. They left my ovaries behind. Lost in a sea of intestines and bladder and kidneys and whatever the hell else happens to reside in there. The Beatles’ White Album could be shoved in between my liver and spleen for all I know. They meant well; in an attempt to prevent the horrors of premature menopause and the ensuing emotional fits and hot flashes and hormone ugliness which I do, in fact, appreciate. But I digress.

So, you’ve got these ovaries right? And for decades they’re attached to these Fallopian tubes and separated by space and time and this seemingly infinite and vast expanse of land beyond their comprehension. They would see each other, smile, wave a friendly “hello”. Perhaps once in a while, holler across the void:

- “Hey man! How’d your egg go?!”
- “Pretty good! You?”
- “Eh. I’ve had better.”
- “Sorry to hear, man. Hey, wanna grab a drink?”
- “Dude, can’t! I’ve got this Fallopian guy all over my ass!”
- “Oh, right. Well, maybe someday…”
- “Yeah. Well, talk later!”

And on it goes.

Until one day…

A deep rumble…
A piercing ray of light…
A screeching noise…

And before they can comprehend the situation, they are ripped from the only home they have ever known…they only anchor, their safe harbor…and left adrift…to flounder in an uncertain future, their only purpose in life stolen from them.

What now? What was to become of them? DEAR GOD WHERE DO THE EGGS GO?!

It was at this point I began to conjure up images of my wayward ovaries, succumbing to their search for their own kind, becoming lodged in front of my carotid artery, forcing me to squeegee them back down my neck…or one of them inadvertently getting lost in my digestive tract…ye gods. Self-cannibalism! The horror. I do hope they manage to stay put. I never thought to ask my doctor if she thumb-tacked them down or anything. Maybe gave them life preservers or, at the very least, water wings for their entrails. I now have these unfortunate images of them as star-crossed lovers, no longer separated by anatomy, ever searching for one another. Just trying to find the one being in the world who truly knows them. I have my very own anatomical soap opera. I kinda wish they’d sewn them together so I could feel more cozy about the whole thing. Ok, now I just imagined my ovaries as testicles. Ew. Nevermind.

Voulez-voulez-vous it ain’t ova til it’s ova… (I know. So bad. My apologies.)