Less talkie-talkie...more trick-or-treaty

Happy all Hallow's Eve eve! I hope everyone has their preparations in order. It's going to be a good one this year, I can just feel it. I go home tonight and decorate my porch to majestic heights of festivity. Or something...

Courtesy of Fark, I present to you the GREATEST HALLOWEEN COSTUME IDEA EVAR: A Christopher Walken mask - just click, print and cut. And viola! I tell ya', if I were more ballsy (and unafraid of making a total dorkwad of myself), I would wear this thing all day at work Wednesday. But...I'm a weenie. So I won't.

In honor of the pending holiday, I give you Walken reading Edgar Allen Poe's "The Raven":



(Conspicuously absent: cowbell)


And because this is M's favorite (oft quoted!) clip:



("It's gonna hurt...REAL bad. Right here. For 8, 9 seconds.")

Making all of my teeniest, tiniest dreams come true

Yesterday we went to a Pumpkin Fest across the bridge. Although there wasn't much having to actually do with that king among gourds (it was more deep fried foods and what was passing as "crafts" than about pumpkins), we did drive through horse country and I amused everyone with my musing about how I would have physically picked up and stolen away with a miniature pony I saw in someone's yard. Today, it seems that some brilliant person in the UK had the same idea.

Lets do the timewarp. Again.

I was getting coffee this morning - as is customary these days to battle the malaise that overcomes me the minute my foot slips over the threshold into my office - and glanced at the little digital clock on the coffee maker. It was projecting 1:17 PM. I got confused for a second and thought I may have slipped into a fugue state while the better part of the day passed unnoticed by me, so I had to glance around the corner and check the time on the other clock. I was relieved to see that our breakroom clock was about four hours ahead, so I hadn't slipped into a dimensional wormhole or anything. But I was also a little annoyed that the time was off and had to fix it.

The Slate is running an amazing article about what to do to ward off wild monkey attacks. Thank God, people! I would otherwise never have realized that a macaque might be serious about wanting that cookie I'm holding until it had actually engaged its canines in my flesh. But now I'm all freaked out about the possiblity of roaming bands of marauding monkies showing up on my block. So not only do I have to prepare for the inevitable zombie apocalypse, but a monkey mob as well? Great. I suppose some of the same defensive implements could be employed in both scenarios, which would cut down on the cost of stockpiling weapons. Both would be equally messy.

M - it looks like your internet may have been fixed? How exciting! I didn't see you yesterday - how did your interview go? I'll be sending you a message later to check. And there's a club zombie walk planned for October 29th!! I'll have to get photo evidence that they actually organized something cool for once...

I'll give you PUNCH

I just got an e-mail from a coworker announcing there will be cheesecake and punch for his boss's birthday. His boss is my boss-by-proxy, since my actual boss hardly speaks to me or acknowledges that I might make any valuable contributions. In fact, today, while introducing me to some people who were visiting as guests (important ones, I'm guessing), he said "And this is maus (haha, no he said my real name - I don't think he's aware of my plethora of nicknames)...she does such and such, and manages our budgets." He looks at me and says "And how much are our budgets?" and I answer "Roughly X-million dollars for this year", which he repeats to the people he was introducing to me. And then he says "Well, really she doesn't do much but sit there all day in that office." I guess he was joking. I hope he was joking. I didn't find it all that funny, especially since I'd be hard pressed to explain just what it is HE does all day - when he's even here...

What's better than a taser for pest control purposes?

The answer, at least according to a local police officer who sprayed at or near some Muscovy ducks right outside of the police station a few months back, seems to be pepper spray. This has been headlining news for a couple of days on our local 24-hour news loop, which I find both hysterical and pathetic. So let this be a lesson for all cops: pepper spray is for beligerant homeless people, not ducks. And always make sure there are no witnesses.

I received something in the mail the other day with this on the envelope:

My first reaction was to think "No, I suppose not. Neither is the viewing audience. Has that show been yanked from the airwaves yet?" Then I opened up the envelope and saw it was a marketing ploy for Geico - part of their "Up With Cavemen" campaign, with the tagline of "Cavemen are people too". Okay. But they JUST AREN'T FUNNY. And neither was this lame newsletter for car insurance that is lamely masquerading as entertainment that was clogging up my mailbox.