pwnd!

So I was forced to go to a meeting at work today, and as I sat there half-listening to my boss talk about the changes coming to the Cube Farm (note to self: find new job by the end of 2007), I thought about a bunch of different things: the dwarf construction worker I’d seen on my morning walk, what I needed to do before my trip, whether the new Stephen King book will be good or a piece of shit, and so on and so on and Scooby dooby dooby.

“Okay!” my boss M suddenly said, closing her laptop, and I jumped. “I have a manila envelope containing some important information, and I need a volunteer to take care of it for me. Anyone?”

“I’ll do it,” J, the chick from the mailroom said.

“Oh, wait, before you open that…did you want to delegate that to someone else? This is your last chance before you have to deal with it.”

“Um, okay, I guess I’ll pass it off,” J said, and the bitch stood up, walked to the other side of the table, and handed it to ME!

Gee, thanks a pantsload, I fumed. Not like I don’t have enough shit on my plate. And what about the time I helped you out when [the other mailroom employee] was gone for three fucking weeks? Twat.

“I guess we’d better get right on that, actually,” M said. “C, could you open it?”

So I did…and it was a twenty dollar bill. I held it up and everyone began murmuring excitedly. The moral lesson was something like how you might lose out on a valuable opportunity if you try to pass off your work on someone else, blah blah, whatever. All I cared about was that I had twenty clams for porn, candy, and magazines.

But you know what really killed me? I ran into J in the bathroom after the meeting, and she said, “Uh, do you think I could have that twenty bucks back?”

I laughed.

She did not.

And when I realized she was serious, I screamed, “Bitch, you tryin’ to jack my steez?” And then I ripped out her weave and used it to wipe my ass.

Okay, that last paragraph was a lie. I actually laughed again and said, “Nope, sorry,” and I washed my hands and left.

---

When I first heard about a video game in development called Bully, I’ll have to admit that I had a complete knee jerk reaction to it. Early reports said that you played a bully who gains experience points by tormenting the weak, and seriously, I was so pissed I thought my brain would burst. I was pretty badly bullied in elementary and junior high school (see Welcome to the Dollhouse for a more Disneyfied version) and I thought this was just the worst freakin’ idea. I sure as hell don’t believe in censorship, and I don’t think that games/movies/books/cloud formations can cause someone to do something bad unless they leaned that way to begin with, but it left a bad taste in my mouth.

Well, turns out that Bully, despite Jack Thompson’s frothing diatribes to the contrary, is not a “Columbine simulator” that will lead to “children across the nation being tortured and killed”. Nope, your character is protecting the weak, and I don’t have any problem whatsoever with that.

I also don’t have any problem with this:





That’s right, Rockstar Games, creators of the notorious Grand Theft Auto games (also known as the Cop Killin’, Hooker Humpin’ Fun Time Jamboree), lets you boost your character’s health by getting your mack on with the gender of your choice.

Bully > > > > > > > > > > > > > >Jack Thompson

---

On a more somber note, I’m heading back to Minnesota tonight. Things will be fine and dandy through the weekend---a swank dinner at Chino Latino, a trip to get my beloved blue moon ice cream, potential visits with old friends---but on Monday, Daddy-O is having hip replacement surgery. He’s never even had his wisdom teeth pulled, so he’s kind of freaking out. I know it will be the best thing for him, especially after seeing how badly he was limping during his visit here two weeks ago, but I’m still scared as hell. He tried to talk me out of coming, but there’s no fucking way. I’ll be taking care of him through next week, and then my brother, G, and the private nurse (Daddy-O’s already making lewd jokes about sponge baths, and G has threatened to call the service and tell them to send a man) will take over.

So if you could all keep a good thought for my dad, that would rock. I’ll keep you posted.