Flibbertigibbet

Rules for Trick-or-Treaters

I think the little kids dressed up in costumes are so cute and funny.

So, I have my porch light on and my bags of candy ready to go. But I have to say that of the 8 children who have shown up so far, only one was wearing a costume.

6 asian kids of about the age 13 showed up and called me a racist when I refused to give them candy.

One mother was outraged when I gave her daughter who was dressed as a princess candy but not her son who frankly said he wasn't dressed as anything.

Sorry, folks, this year I'm not giving candy to people who just show up. I require costumery as payment for my candy.

Update: It's official: I only had 8 kids come to my door and only one was wearing a costume. There's a lot of candy going to the office with me this morning!

Overheard in the Quick-e-Mart

Cashier: We have a $5 minimum on card purchases.
Flibby: Ok! Then I will buy anotehr gatorade!
Cashier: $5.28, please.
Flibby: So, why is there a $5 minimum.
Cashier: There just is.
Flibby: But why? What will happen if you try to run a purchase of less than $5?
Cashier: We just have a $5 minimum.
Flibby: I understand, but why? Is it the transaction fee for running the card?
Cashier: It's just...
Flibby: Because if there's a fee, I could pay that.
Cashier: If we run less than $5 we lose money.
Flibby: Right. So, it's the fee. I could pay the fee and not have to buy more than $5.
Cashier: We have a $5...
Flibby: I'm not talking to the right person to ask these questions am I?

SHOCKING!

Oh!

And did you watch America's Next Top Model last night? Can you believe they dropped Kyle and not that mouth-breather Nicole?

Kyle is sssssssmmmmmmmoking hot. I mean, I'm gay and I'd totally ask her out. Also, she's like 19 feet tall. I think she's part Amazon princess. (Although, that one girl, Nik is it? might be pretending like she's an Amazon with all the working out she does.)

Nicole is such a child and her look is bland to me. I'm not saying she's oogly. She just look like every other teen model you've ever seen in your whole life. And she's just not trying very hard to step it up.

I will admit that Kyle didn't seem to be trying super-hard, but she won the last two competitions with ease. I don't know how you can go from top to bottom in one week. And did I mention that she's incredibly hot?

HOT.

So, I'm personally scandalized right now. I can't believe Tyra did that.

Mea Culpa, Mea Culpa, Mea Maxima Culpa

I totally didn't realize it was the Georgia-Florida game this weekend in Jacksonville and I tried to go to class. I completely forgot that this is the High Holy Days at UGA

Please forgive me for I know not what I do.

Don't Get Stabbed

I've had three different people ask me today for the results of a task that isn't scheduled for completion until tomorrow morning.

Now, I understand that they're anxious to have it, but what amuses me is the thought that they're imagining me sitting here with the project completed just waiting for someone to ask me for it. As if I won't send it over until someone asks. Because I need one more thing just using up space on my computer and to-do list.

Ridiculous.

So, I want no one else to ask me for this project. I've thrown it away. It's gone.

Snarky Mood

I'm in a bad mood today.

At least three people who've spoke to me this morning asked me stupid questions that they should be able to figure out on their own. That really tries my patience.

It's not even 10:30 yet.

*sigh*

I was hoping to be productive today, but it looks like I'm hosting the idiot festival instead.

Overheard on a Telemarketing Call

Flibby: Hello?

Pause

Hello?

Telemarketer: Hello. Ees Fleeber D. Jibb ther?

Flibby: That's me.

Telemarketer: Hello, Mees Jibb, I am calleeng from Discover Inter--

Flibby:Look. I'm not interested. And could you also take me off of your call lists?

Telemarketer: I'm so sorry miss. I will make a note of that.

Flibby:I'm also male. Perhaps you could make a note of that as well.

Telemarketer: Oh. I'm sorry for that sir.

Flibby:It doesn't matter. Good bye.

I was totally not in the mood for them this morning.

Why Do These Guys Spit into the Toilet?

I've noticed that several of the men in my office spit into the urinal or toilet before urinating.

I know this because I can hear it hit the water and the sound tells me that it is a liquid and it is not very dense and it is falling from a height greater than that of waist-level. It seems that they're just pushing some bubbly saliva to the front of their mouth and letting it fall into the toilet.

One of the males has done this for years, but I recently noticed that a couple of other men are doing it, too.

I don't understand why. If you know, please tell me.

Overheard on the Phone at Work

Customer No-Service Manager: So, do you have a hurricane there?
Flibby: There is no hurricane in Atlanta at this time. It's way over near the Yucatan.
Customer No-Service Manager: Oh. So will you get any of it?
Flibby: It's like a thousand miles away. It's a little too soon to tell how much it will affect us at this point.
Minion:I heard that Wilma is the last name they have on the list.
Customer No-Service Manager: Ha ha! What will they do if another one comes? Start over?
Flibby: They will use Greek letters.
Customer No-Service Manager: Ha ha ha!
Flibby: That wasn't a joke.
Customer No-Service Manager: Oh. Ha ha! So, the next one will be like Hurricane "Eks Vee Eye Eye" and then Hurricane "Eks Vee Eye Eye Eye?" Ha ha!
Flibby: No. Those are Roman Numerals. Greek Letters: Alpha, Beta...

I do have to give her credit for starting to count at 27 in Roman numerals, though.

Update: Cleo set me straight. The Customer No-Service Manager didn't even get THAT right.

Something I Hate

Listen up, Managers of the World!

Do NOT, I repeat, do NOT attempt to solve your employees problems for them. Your job is not to think for your lackeys and peons. Your job is simply to tell them what the goals are and what the limits are to their authority. Beyond that, you let them work it out.

Since I am not a CEO and therefore someone's lackey I want to tell you all that I take umbrage at having someone who asked me to tell them what problems I'm facing attempt to solve said problems for me.

If I needed help from my boss, I would ask for it. I would probably use terms like, "I'm not sure how to solve this problem." or "How do you think I should solve this problem?" I'm wild and unpredictable like that.

If you are a manager who is two degrees of hierarchy removed from your direct reports, do not pretend to know anything about the issues confronting them. Not only should you not suggest a solution, but you should not pretend that you even understand the issues in question.

It is perfectly acceptable for you to be and remain ignorant of the gory details of your employees' work lives. Pretenses at understanding will only come off as patronizing and the solutions that you force upon them will be taken as micromanagement.

The Triumph of Reason

Flibby: I'd like a large Sprite and a large water.

*Pause of Medium Duration*

McDonald's Drive-thru Attendant: You can only get a small water.

Flibby: You can't put water into a large cup?

*Pause of Medium Duration*

McDonald's Drive-thru Attendant: Yes. Drive up to the next window.

Walk This Way!

The title of this post is probably more appropriate to something I'll post on Friday.

My arms are all noodley today from working out. I'm not complaining; it's awesome.

This morning at the gym, I focused on chest and triceps because my partner was doing cardio and I don't need to do any cardio. I know. I told you already.

Anyway, I'm finding that my arms are not very interested in being straight right now. And my shoulders are trying to make me look like Quasimoto.

I am so happy that tomorrow we work on legs, which is why I should have saved the title of this post for Friday.

Anyway. I'm just loving being sore. We'll see how long the romance period lasts, though.

Oh! And I managed to fix my hairs today by afixing a comb to my steering wheel and leaning down so that my hair could be arranged by the turning of the wheel. This says a lot about the back of my hair right now, but I don't have to look at that part.

Fitness with Flibby

As mentioned, I've joined a gym and I'm working out again.

My goal is to gain a bit of muscle weight and tone up. In particular, I'd like to gain some weight in my chest.

I spoke today with one of my coworkers who is a gym-bunny and he scolded me again. I say "again" because we've been over this before.

I always say I want to gain weight, but I also enjoy running and refuse to cut back. This is a problem. If you want to gain weight, you need to burn fewer calories than you burn. If you run a lot, you will burn a lot of calories, which makes it more difficult to gain weight.

As a result, I'm supposed to maintain something like a 4,500 calorie diet.

This, in my opinion, is almost worse than the weights themselves and I hate lifting weights. I just don't eat very much. I have a standing rule that I only eat when I'm hungry and there are some times when I forget to eat.

You can't forget to eat and expect to consume 4,500 calories in a day. I'm trying to be sensible and eat throughout the day, but again we have the problem of me remembering to eat. 4,500 calories doesn't happen by accident, y'all.

Yeah, so anyway, I have to go grocery shopping tonight for dinner items that weigh more than a medium-sized dog.

How Will I Fix My Hairs?

Well, a friend and I joined a gym this morning and worked out.

I can't reach the top of my head any more. I can touch my ears but only if I put my head on the table next to my hand.

Love the burn!

One More Thing...

A reader also remarked that he couldn't believe I paid $13 for a pair of underwear. He seemed to think that for $13 you should get at least six pairs. (On the bright side, these bikinis I bought came in a pack of three for $7, which might explain why they suck.)

But yes, I have paid more than $13 for underwear several times.

On a few occassions, I've spent more than $25 on a single pair of underwear.

Yes, this is outrageous.
Yes, I would do it again.
Yes, this is luxury.
Yes, this is the good life.

Sign me and my fancy (under) pants for more!

In All My Glory

In response to my underwear post, Ice Scribe sent me a link to this size chart for men's briefs.

The problem is that I am 6'2", 175lbs, and I have a 32" waist, so I'm not on that chart either. Also, extra large underwear would be completely inappropriate for me.

Actually, I went to buy a dress shirt from Ralph Lauren a while back and they told me I would have to buy my dress shirts custom-made if I wanted them to fit perfectly.

I am reminded of this quote from Francis Bacon:

There is no excellent beauty that hath not some strangeness in the proportion.

So, I'm going to claim that I'm excellent instead of being that guy with ill-fitting clothes.

Under where? A Review of Men's Underwear.

Maybe I should start a category about "Too much information" in which I talk about things that might also be categorized with Jim's comments about shaving his balls.

But, I need to tell you about underwear today. Men's underwear because that's what I know.

When I was young, I wore the standard-issue white briefs. Nothing fancy. I always hated how they had a fly though. I do not use the fly on my underwear at all and it always seemed unnecessary to me. I really didn't think much of these underwear at the time... that is until I got into highschool and saw that most of the boys in the lockerroom were wearing boxers.

So, I wanted boxers. This, for my hormonally charged body, was a thrill ride to be sure. I don't think I actually resorted to wearing my bookbag in front and low, but I don't think it would have been remiss.

But I noticed something: the waistband on both my briefs and my boxers were of tihs scratchy elastic stuff and after wearing them all day, I would have marks on my skin from them. Not fun.

I tried buying boxers with different kinds of waistbands, but generally, I was not happy with boxers. The problem is that they ARE very loose. They aren't flattering and they bunch up in your pants sometimes or ride up into the places where the sun doesn't shine. Also, not fun.

Then, in college sometime, I discovered Jockey's Sport Boxer Briefs. They rock. They don't have a fly. They have a smooth, cloth waistband. (Not the midway kind, because I'm not trying to wear a pair of pants under my pants.) They give you the support of briefs without threatening the circulation of my legs. Love that. The downside is that they are expensive for underwear. Sometimes they sell for as much as $13 for a single pair. But they are sooooo comfy!

The last time I was at the Jockey outlet buying underwear, a pair of their Sport Briefs (Sorry, I couldn't find a link) got mixed in with my Boxer Briefs. And, do you know what? They are awesome, too! They don't have a fly either and they are supportive and, if I might add, very flattering.

The only thing I don't like about the sport briefs or boxer-briefs is that they rise pretty high on my waist. In general, I do not want people seeing my underwear. Yes, I know it's the style and all that, but I'm old-fashioned like that.

Well, I went shopping for underwear last night and the outlet didn't have any sport briefs that aren't mid-rise. I was disappointed, so I decided to try some of their bikini underwear. They looked to me just like briefs, but without the fly and the waistband remains low. It's not the flat waistband I like, but I thought I'd give it a try anyway.

Bad idea.

These stupid underwear make me crazy. I'm not saying they don't look great (although they do look a lot like panties) and if I ever go on a hot date or something, I might wear them. But they don't really fulfill their function as underwear if you ask me.

Underwear is to cover, contain, support, and protect your genitals. The inside of outer clothing can be rough and unforgiving. Underwear also helps prevent unfortunate zipper accidents. Basically, I love underwear and think I need to wear it as much as possible.

Well, these underwear are made of FLIMSY material, so it's drafty in my pants. I'm not bragging or anything, but these tiny little things do not fulfill the "containment" function, if you catch my meaning, and that is quite disconcerting. Also, the elastic around the legs is pushing into my leg in an uncomfortable way. Furthermore, there is this stupid tag on the inside that is scratching my hip.

I think I will try Jockey's seamfree low-rise briefs, though. The material seems more substantial. It looks like the waistband I like. They're tagless. They also seem to cover a little more than these bikini briefs while not aspiring to the heights of a control-top.

I can't believe I used to not give much thought to underwear. Good underwear is comfortable, sexy, and functional. REALLY good underwear comes in a wide array of colors and patterns, too, so you can match them to your outfit, but sometimes I ask a lot.

Good underwear will change your life. I swear.

Update: Ok. Now I have to complain about sizing. Here's the chart they give:

WAIST (inches) CHEST (inches)
Small (S) 36 28-30
Medium (M) 38-40 32-34
Large (L) 42-44 36-38
Extra Large (XL) 46-48 40

My waist is 32". Why is my waist not on this chart? I am a full-grown man and I am able to buy pants with that waist size. Why aren't uderwear made with me in mind? And I don't know what my chest size is. I'm going to continue buying mediums, but still. Bothersome.

Update 2: Since I'm telling you what I think about underwear, I did leave out one classification of underwear in the discourse above: thongs. My ex-boyfriend thinks that thongs are attractive and so he bought me one once. I am against them for reasons that should be immediately obvious.

I don't like underwear that crawls up my butt and thongs are designed to do exactly that. Ladies, I do not envy you on this; your outerclothing is often made of really sheer fabrics that do not hide panty-lines.

I think that for men, if you just need to show your butt in your underwear, you should go for the jock strap approach, but I don't really like those either. 1) the waistband is usually too wide, 2) the waistband is usually made of uncovered elastic, 3) containment issues also prevail, 4) I would also add covering your butt to one of the benefits of underwear in most cases.

Secrets

My company has a bad habit of keeping secrets from its employees. A good example is my boss' recent resignation. Apparently, he gave notice more than a week ago, but his direct reports only just found out two work days ago. Why was this information kept from his direct reports for a week?

It seems to me that much of the secrecy that plagues our organization stems from paranoia. It's like everyone thinks that everyone else is petty, vindictive, emotionally delicate, and manipulative. As a result, when my boss quit, he was instructed not to tell anyone else presumably out of fear that he would start bad mouthing his superiors.

He has been bad mouthing his superiors for months.

Some also said that the secrecy was necessary to prevent a sharp decline in morale. This implies to me that they are already aware of a morale problem. If morale were not a problem, then we would be happy for someone if they left to pursue a better opportunity and that event would not trigger any sort of major itch for a change ourselves.

So, finally, he was given permission to tell his direct reports about his departure on Friday. However, his direct reports were not allowed to tell their direct reports until today.

And even though his last official day is Friday, his last day in the office will be Friday. They don't want him to come in for the same reasons above and they don't want him to destroy anything before he leaves. How will making him leave a day early prevent that? It makes no sense to me.

I understand that companies need to keep some secrets; not every employee needs to know every single going on in the company. In a certain sense, a proper amount of ignorance protects employees from liability should something bad happen.

But things like, "your boss is leaving" don't really qualify as being top secret information in my mind. And the more secrets are kept the more mistrust it breeds in those frequently kept on the outside.

The secret keeping is, I think, another symptom of that mentality that thinks everyone else is a petty, usurping, back-biting, little snake and I think that the people who hold this outlook are themselves petty, usurping, back-biting little snakes.

It's bothersome and destructive. More importantly, it's bad business.

I Hate You

I want all y'all crazy foo's that called me today asking to have your project done that you didn't even mention to anyone to know that I hate you with the blazing white-hot passion of ten thousand suns.

I don't know what possesses you to think that anyone should even entertain a discussion on that topic with you, but it must be something the devil excreted.

Hear my words: When I say the project takes 30 days, you better damn well reflect on this situation and give some notice. If you don't, I'm going to call your boss and see what he thinks of your asinine tendency toward poor planning.

I hate you so much right now.

Hooked on Phonemes

It's funny this should come up because just the other day a friend observed that accent and pronunciation are not strongly emphasized in foreign language education. In my mind, this is very important; I just think if you're going to bother learning a language you should at least give a go at imitating native pronunciation. This has paid off for me because when I've visited Central America and South America, I have been complimented on my accent. Some native speakers were surprised by my limited vocabulary and inability to properly conjugate verbs (Hey! I don't get much practice!) because of my pronunciation.

Accents and pronunciation basically consist of imitating the sounds native speakers make to pronounce words. You also have to learn what sounds can be substituted, run together, or just left out altogether without changing the understanding of what words you're saying.

pho•neme The smallest phonetic unit in a language that is capable of conveying a distinction in meaning, as the m of mat and the b of bat in English.

But a phoneme also consists of all the sounds that can be substituted. For example, in English, we will often accept a D sound in place of a T sound, like in the word "button." (Compare the British English pronunciation versus the American English pronunciation.)

Well, I will tell you that I get annoyed when people deviate into questionable areas with their phonemes. For example, I have a coworker who is American, Southern even, and he doesn't consistently pronounce the letter H.

I am reminded of My Fair Lady. "In Hartford, Hereford, and Hampshire hurricanes hardly happen."

I think what bugs me about this is that this guy doesn't talk like Liza at all. He has a plain old American accent with a slight southern twang. Furthermore, he isn't consistent in not saying the H sound. Sometimes he says it and some times he doesn't.

For example, he might say, "Hello, Flibby! Meet Ms. Hughes," which sounds like, "Hello, Flibby! Meet Miss Yous."

This caused a problem for me in a meeting yesterday.

Dude Sometimes Without H's: I'm really surprised that you said that. I mean, it's really shocking because no one else makes comments like that.

Flibby: What was so strange about what I just said?

DSWOH: Not you. You. The consultant.

Flibby: What?

As it turns out, there is a consultant named Hugh somewhere. I've never met him and, in fact, I didn't even know about him until that meeting.

H's are important, folks! Please use them as appropriate! Don't make me crazy by not saying them.

I wonder how on earth this guy would deal with learning German, with all those glottal sounds.

Oh Crap!

I just found out that Director Dan has resigned. His last day is Friday.

This is not very good news because I've been working with him to build our working relationship to a point where, in December, I could ask him to support my plan to go back to school full time.

With him out of the picture, my situation becomes much more precarious. The chances of me losing my job or having to resign in January are greatly increased.

I'm going to talk to him today about my plan and get his thoughts.

I'm totally freaked, though.

Update: I spoke with Director Dan about his departure and I told him about my plan to go back to school and he said that he would let his boss know that he and I had agreed to allow me to flex my schedule to go back to school.

We'll see how it turns out.

Still freaked.

Cleaning House

Well, as I write this, 3/4 of my house is clean. Laundry is done. Dishes are done. The floors are done. Every thing has seen the touch of disinfectant, ammonia, or bleach.

Unfortunately, the remaining 1/4 is the part that was occupied by the crackheads and they left things in disarray.

But my parents are coming up this week, so I have to make sure that the area is inhabitable by them, which means neat, clean, and devoid of the funny smells that my roommates seem to have suffused onto every thing they touched.

*sigh*

Well, I gotta hop back to it.

Y'all have fun!

Be Advised

I had my advisement appointments for class next semester! Here's what I'm taking:

Icons in Byzantium - An Art History class that will teach me about the rarified Eastern Orthodoxy, I imagine. I'm going to have to break out my book of saints for this, I bet.
18 Century European Art History - Pretty obvious, right? Should be pretty good. It's the Age of Enlightenment, right? High-baroque music (Bach!) and neo-classicism in art. Sadly, we also have Kant, Hume, and Berkley are during this time as major philosophers. BAH!
Ancient Philosophy - Aristotle, YAY! Plato, BOO! Socratese, WTF? Sophists, LOL!
Modern Philosophy - I am sure most of the materials for this class completely suck.
Elementary German - Wie Ghets!

So, here we go!

Don't Get Stabbed

I was in charge of running a drawing in my office today. The prizes were several Starbucks gift cards and an iPod Shuffle.

Aside from completely ignoring my emails which gave the instructions for entry, the people in my office were largely really obnoxious about the event and made it mroe time-consuming and difficult than it should be to have such an event for animals reportedly more evolved than hyenas, let along adults.

Well, one of my good friends won the iPod Shuffle.

Immediately, people "joked" about the drawing being rigged. And immediately I started wondering why dueling is outlawed.

My good friend, fortunately, stood up for me and responded, "Hi. Have you met him?" And they could but acknowledge the obvious truth that I would not engage in sort of fraud.

But, it's a good thing, because saying things like that is how people get stabbed. I'm just saying.

Overheard at Work

Director: This is a very explanative document.

Fall Fever

I think I have a mental illness. It's the good kind, though. I see cute guys all over the place!

There was this guy in Starbuck's this morning (Yeah, I know) who was totally looking at me. And I even smiled at him! I never do that!

See, I am actually shy. Radical, loud-mouthed and shy. When I see a cute guy, my strategy in the past has consisted of two words: run away!

But a good friend of mine who gets frustrated with me on this point told me that I need to practice eye-contact and smiling and that's what I did this morning! And he totally smiled and nodded back!

The other unfortunate thing is that I can't tell if cute guys are gay. Their cuteness totally short-circuits my gaydar with wishful thinking.

Anyway, one of these days, I will get up the guts to actually ask one of these cute guys out and maybe they'll say yes!