At Cajun Christ's request

Last Friday was the retirement party for Edna, a woman who'd been with my company(anyone who has a good fake name for it, feel free to write in) for 30 year or so, so it was an elaborate affair, complete with wine, shrimp etc. Before the party was called by Sparky's father, the company head, to pick up some masking tape- I assumed for decorations. I wasn't actually in the room for the rest of the party, getting the tape forced to me to the back of the line, out of eye and earshot. It was five days later that I discovered that the tape was for him to "playfully" cover the mouths of the company's two Chinese employees, and point at them and say "Sars! Sars! Sars!" It made feel dirty to be an accomplice, especially an unwitting accomplice, to that sort of shit, and I look forward to the day someone sues and/or punches him the next time he says shit like that. All I know is it won't be me.

Attempts to assimilate the jerk store phrase continue apace, though it may not have made a perfect fit into a conversation about a jerk chicken store. Also discovered Sparky used to be called Costanza in college. Feel vaguely guilty about making fun of Sparky when he has done some tough things over the past week or so. Not exactly sure why writing in sentence fragments and passive voice.

(Edited for clarity and for not skipping over crucial words at Veg's request.)

A month ago, my coworkers and I went around repeating Michael Corleone's "You're dead to me...." My new plan is to get everyone using George's ultimate comeback from Seinfeld: "Oh yeah? The jerk store called and they're all out of you!"

I knew there was a practical use for camera phones

For those who don't know, Fox is burning off the final hilarious episodes of Futurama on Sundays this summer.

At some point, I'll redo this template and put up my blog roll so that more people than just Phil Nugent is there (speaking of which, are you going to update again?) When I do, the gadget blog, Gizmodo is definitely going there. Without it, I wouldn't have found this article about how flagarantly I've been violating the etiquette of camera phones.

Went to Czech beer garden here in Astoria last Friday (yeah, I know, and just got around to blogging about it now), and had an interesting conversation with a woman who works at the in house advertising agency at Harper Collins. Jokingly, I asked her what it was like working for an international supervillian. She remarked that she'd only seen him once, at the News Corp. Christmas party. She did say that Harper Collins was actually hiring right now, as opposed to everyone else in the publishing industry, having expanded smartly and put in a hiring freeze at the right. The publishing house is, like Fox broadcasting network (and as opposed to the New York Post and Fox News) a fairly apolitical outpost - whatever difficulties Michael Moore says he encountered getting Stupid White Men to press, it got there, and I'm fairly certain Murdoch has no particular qualms about the mint he's made on it, any more than he does about 24 repurposing the most outlandish left wing conspiracy theories about September 11th into an action show.