Office Worker’s Anthem

I'm in ur cubiclz, ritin ur reportz 

I was at a writing conference a couple of years ago and the keynote speaker said something that absolutely rocked me to the very core of my being…and I hope it will rock you, too.

It was Susan Musgrave, at the Surrey International Writer’s Conference. She was talking about when she was a teenager, and she was thinking about giving up on school. Well, you just know how that went over with the Principal. He called her into his office and he went up one side of her and down the other with the whole raging authority figure trip (because at that point nobody had heard of Susan Musgrave and, indeed, she had not yet become Susan Musgrave, per se) and among the many and varied things he had to say, he said this:

If you don’t finish school, young lady, the only job you’ll be fit for is a prostitute!

And, telling the story, she said, Well I knew that wasn’t an option for me, because I hate working with other people.

and who among us cannot feel that deep in the core of our being, eh?

She went on to say, “Have you ever met someone who worked with other people? They all hate it; the only things they complain about are all the other people in the office!”

and suddenly, writing alone by the glow of a midnight monitor doesn’t seem so bad.

In memory of that moment of realization, and in memorium of many an Orwellian moment in my own office experience, we present Mister Montgomery Burns of The Simpsons, performing what’s sure to become the office worker’s anthem: Look at All These Idiots! Lyrics over the jump…

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Operation Global Media Domination: Operation Ego!

TIABeen awhile since-t we had one of these, so there is much to report on the Global Media Domination front.

Beavers continue to do well, particularly after I scandalized a certain blogging conference with my references thereunto: one gathers they’re far more used to hearing terms like “Analytics” and “Clickthroughs” than anything more vividly … uh … castidoraean. Conclusion: Blogging about beavers is great for hits, but getting other people to blog about you blogging about beavers is truly Web 2.0.

I’m in ur googlez, baitin ur linkz!

Harshing on best-sellers in the comments sections of other people’s blogs is tonic for stats. If I wanted to win this, I’d simply say straight out that Dave Eggers’ prefaces and footnotes blow Jonathan Really Rather Ordinary and Mister Norell away, but I’m not like that…besides, Eggers has annoyed me recently.

Oo! Oo! I should pick a fight with Dave Eggers! He’s got a baby; no way is he well-rested enough to defend himself.

In other news, shoes are even better for hits than flamewars, particularly when the Manolo bypasses the two original-source articles I sent him and links directly to my own post. This takes me to my happy place and teaches me that there is divine justice in the world: those three pairs of fabulous shoes I bought on Robson Street were as sacrifices to the god of shoeblogging, and He looks after His Own, to the tune of perhaps six hundred extra hits over the weekend and a regained spot in the top 20 WordPress blogs and yay, finally! a temporarily regained place in Top Posts of the Day.

Not quite as good as blogging about shoes is blogging about crocheted bellydancing accessories; it may not bring as many hits, but it does bring prey, so that’s something. And, as always, flamewars bring out the necrophiliacs who gather around to watch the battle. I have no issue with people disagreeing with me: I have a major issue with people misrepresenting what I’ve written and being twofaced. And I have no issue at all with dumb, defensive, hypersensitive, condescending people; nope, no issue at all. It’s kill on sight.

Potentially more dangerous, or at least more criminal, are the readers of Court TV‘s forum who are fascinated (if, apparently, confused) by my post on the uselessness of Howard K. Stern‘s sperm. I mean, the rest of him is useless too; how hard can it be to figure out? But they can’t tell when I’m joking, when I’m quoting, or indeed, why any of this matters or if it matters at all. FWIW here’s a roundup: drug-abusing kid dies, junkie mother dies, rich baby held for ransom by lawyer with the paperwork and Larry Birkhead has the most obvious nose job in the history of the world. You’re welcome.

Also, broke 18k on Technorati. If this keeps up at the rate it’s been going, by this time in 2009 I will be the #1 blogger in the world.

*rubs hands together, mutters “eeeeeexcellent!“*

In Ego news, this is not designed to keep me humble; although truly it’s hard to imagine what could. That is obviously not a task to be undertaken by mortals, and Curtis has wisely chosen the easier path of flattery, may Azathoth poop ten-tentacled blessings upon him and ensure that he never glimpses the Unspeakable Pun at the Centre of the Universe and thus goes irrevocably insane.

Cuz then he couldn’t flatter me again, yo.

Curtis‘ technique is emulated by the esteemed and historic Juvenal of Bread and Circuses, although he fails to specify whether I am bread or circuses; I prefer to think of myself as some kind of fusion between the two, a juggling pop-tart, perhaps, or a particularly acrobatic type of crumpet, performing daring stunts on the back of a docile and magnificent Andalusian and no, I don’t mean Antonio Banderas.

In related news, az has posted about the fascinating internet personality type taxonomy site Flame Warriors, and guess which type I am!!!

But I am impervious to insult:

i can has force field!

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Nine Inch Nails live: I just want something I can never have

Not the greatest band in the world, but up there. I guess Trent has been single-handedly responsible for the fact that so many people have rejiggered their concepts of one-man bands. Not an Oompah in sight.

Lyrics over the jump…

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So Ashley MacIsaac says to me…

not yer grampa's fiddler 

Well, he says it to a couple of hundred other people, too, because there we all are at the Vancouver Celtic Festival‘s free concert he gave on Sunday on the Granville pedestrian Mall which has, for once, actually been made off-limits to traffic so you can have things like, say, pedestrians on it and even some pretty nifty concerts, and we are: there we all are, pedestrianating away madly and concerting in a disconcerting manner and all.

Cuz that’s how we roll.

And there he is onstage, Cape Breton‘s greatest living fiddler and that’s saying something, for Cape Breton fiddlers get stalked by degreed Irish musicologists with great notebooks full of stuff about Celtic cultural survivals in exotic lands like, say, Canada.

Now, the lad is a bit of a character, to say the least and, as a Canadian, one would always be tending to say the least, at least until someone had bought you a few stiff drinks, so we shall leave it more or less at that…

And he’s about to launch into another song when he comes over all full-body spasm and spins around like an impaired Tasmanian Devil who can’t afford the whole whirlwind or maybe just has commitment issues and prefers to be a one-twirl Devil, and we think for a moment that he’s having the bloody brain lightning right there onstage, but lo, we are mistaken and mighty guilty-feeling we all are, for yea, the man’s working hard and looking pretty clean for a brain-lightning candidate lately.

Ashley MacIsaac, in thug uniform

Well, relatively speaking.

And he says to us, he says:

“Now, I have to tell you one more story.” And cheers erupt, for he is not half bad at that, either. Multi-talented, that’s our boy. And he says, “I was going into my house in Toronto [and at this point we gasp as we realize how low he’s fallen, to be forced to live in the big T-zero] and I saw this guy outside on my lawn. He had a ballcap on backwards, like this,” he says, helpfully demonstrating, although I doubt the lawn-lurker’s hat is decked out in a big scripty letter A all in bling, “and he had a hoodie with the hood pulled up and he was looking, well, he was looking like he was having a rough day, so I said good day to him and gave him a cigarette and took out my keys and went inside.”

“And,” he says, says he, “a couple of months later I was going in to my house in Toronto and there was the same guy, sitting there, and he looks at me and I look at him and he says, ‘I KNOW YOU!‘ and I think maybe he does, but then he says, ‘and do you know who I am?’ and I say no…”

“And he says, ‘I’m the World Champion Irish Fiddler from Saskatchewan.’” Laughter erupts at this point, wide, deep and long. I mean, have you been to Saskatchewan?

“And I said ‘All right, prove it!’ and I took out my fiddle and my bow and I handed them to the guy. And let me tell you, he was better than I am on most days. So let that tell you…something.”

Ashley?

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reason #3 that U2 is the greatest band in the world

All I want is more songs like this one, my favorite:

All I want is you, live at Slane Castle. Lyrics over the jump.

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