"meta" hours of operation

I found myself in need of a replacement Social Security card, so I headed over to the SSA's website to find the hours of operation for the nearest office. Instead, I found the hours of operation for the web page that tells me the office hours. Yes, you read that right. The hours of operation... for the web page.

This still blows my mind every single time I see it.

Not being one to shy away from leaving constructive feedback, I decided to bring the problem to somebody's attention. Although being that I'm contacting the same people who thought it was a good idea to put office hours on a website in the first place, I'm not expecting much in the way of results. But nevertheless, here's what I wrote (click the image to enlarge):

I had to edit out four different swear words before it got to this stage.

After I wrote that, I thought it might be a little too snarky to submit. After all, the recipient of my snark is likely to be a person who already has the misfortune of working in Washington, DC (oy!) for the federal government (double oy!) in a little cubicle (triple oy!), and tasked with reading and responding to people's complaints all day long (mother effing balls oy!). So I decided to tone it down a bit, and ended up submitting this:

Maybe still a little bitchier than it needs to be, but it is what it is. We'll see what happens. Maybe it'll go to a committee for discussion, and then to a task force, then back to another committee, then submitted for vote, then conditionally voted down, then rewritten and log rolled into a bill about consumer privacy protections and passed, then passed on to another task force who will resolve the problem by spending $1.3M to construct a facility to house all of the federal government's secure servers in one central location, which, in order to reduce cost to the taxpayer, will only be operational Monday through Friday, between the hours of 5:00 AM and 10:00 PM EST.

a whole lotta shakin' goin' on (but that's all relative)

The Eastern US is in hysterics today, following an earthquake in the DC area earlier this morning. The way the media are covering this event, you'd think the earth split open and swallowed the White House.

What today's East Coast quake felt like, to East Coasters.

For those of us living in California, of course, the whole episode is entirely silly. Earthquakes here are a dime a dozen; we sleep through most of our temblors, and can't even bother ourselves to move from the couch for anything less than a 6.9. When they make the news, little attention is given to them outside of a few observations and B-roll footage of a leaking water pipe or something. So naturally, the excessive coverage and Twitter chatter about today's tremor is entirely laughable to us Southern Californians.

How East Coasters during an earthquake look to Californians.

Yeah, we Californians would never get so bent out of shape over a paltry 5.9 like our friends back East do. We reserve our media freakouts for when Mother Nature does something really crazy. Like two consecutive days of rain!

"Things are expected to get pretty hairy on Wednesday and Thursday!"

I guess the extremity of Nature's doings is just like that family reunion you had to go to last summer: all relatives.

"tipping" the scales of justice

A North Carolina waitress named Judy Proffitt has been arrested and charged with seven counts of "obtaining property by false pretenses" for altering the tip amounts on her checks at the restaurant where she worked.

Maybe she was trying to finance a new pair of glasses

It was a clever plan, but one that can only go on for so long before someone notices. Seriously, Judy, there are much safer ways to turn a Proffitt! Oh thank you, thank you, I'm here aaaaaaaaaall week.

80 ron? sure.

I was watching an episode of Seinfeld tonight on a Russian video hosting site, when I saw this ad:

I don't know who Dan Petrescu is (Russia's answer to Marc Summers, from the looks of it), but he's the Russian lovechild of Bill Maher and Mario Lopez.

That's really all I wanted to say.

unholy penguins of the damned

A lady at the place where I work is into ceramics. She tells people that she makes them herself, but that's a lie. She actually just takes pre-formed ceramic figurines and paints them. Back before I knew the truth about her [lack of] involvement in making her figurines, I thought to myself, "Boy, she's really good! Granted, her painting sucks, but her sculpting is amazing!" But it turns out that she's not good at sculpting but bad at painting, but sadly, just bad at painting. (Related)

I'm not one to make fun of other people's art coloring, and that's not my intention in bringing this up. I bring it up because her painted figurines are creepy as all hell. They all have exactly one thing in common (aside from being lied about), and that's a pair of ghoulish, heavily shadowed eyes. And this creeps me out. I don't know why she consistently does this. Maybe she's a secret creeper (like me) and hopes to give people nightmares with her art (like me). Or maybe she's just really, really unskilled with the paint brush (like me), with the result that all her pieces are, unintentionally, grotesque (like me). Whatever the reason, it needs to stop, because it's the stuff of nightmares (like me).

Take this cute horrifying little penguin, for example:

All good things inside you died just now.

Look at it. Just look. Stare into the vacuum of those cold, unfeeling eyes for a good, long minute.

You know that feeling you have now, like your soul has just been quietly but savagely violated within you? That's the feeling I have every day I go into work and have this thing stare at me from across the desk. But it gets even worse. Look...

It's like sharing a desk with the Children of the Corn.

More of them! Twice the terror! For the love of all that's good and holy, why do these things exist?! And why are they glued to the lamp at the reception desk?!

Seriously, how do we live in a world in which these are allowed to be?

I'm convinced that if soul-eating death penguins could talk, they would sound like small English children who speak without emotion. I can already see them waddling single file through my bedroom window at night, intent on murder, while I lay sleeping in my bed. Just for the record, I'll be sleeping with a carving knife tonight.

As disturbing as those penguins are (and they are!), they're not even the worst of it. Not by a long shot. What you're about to see is a whole different kind of wrong:

This is so bad, I can't even bring myself to write a funny caption about it.

Penguins of the Damned are one thing, but this is so disturbing that it crosses over into the morally offensive. I don't really know how to say this without sounding crass, but look at this and tell me how it can be anything but a victim of sexual violence. Now I know rape a very serious thing and nothing to joke about, but that's really the only thing this penguin looks like. The tear-filled black-eyes with running mascara, the bloody split-open lip (or nose, it's hard to tell on a penguin), the look of shame and indignity, the hands over the crotch... Seriously, what the eff. This thing exists. A freaking bloody nose, for crying out loud! What on earth was she thinking?? And who thought it would be a good idea to display it at work? Hell, man. The vacant, soul-eating penguins suddenly seem like Muppet Babies in light of this. Seriously, we have a huge problem here.

Conclusion: Someone at my work is very messed up, in a very Clockwork Orange kind of way. And I dread going to work (and to sleep) because of it.

now hiring!

Job title: Dennys Late Nite Music Selector

Key Responsibilities: Scouring the bottom of the pop culture barrel for the most insufferable "music" imaginable with which to punish late night clientele. Excessive auto tuning and inexplicable lyrics encouraged.

To apply, submit a mix tape consisting of equal parts ass rock, pop-hop, poorly remixed 80s duets, and Smashmouth.

EOE. Compensation commensurate with cultural obtuseness. Ke$ha fans encouraged to apply.

i'll be watching you...

When I was little, I thought the song Every Breath You Take by The Police was about an uptight, micromanaging scientist keeping a close eye on his new chemistry apprentice. This was due entirely to my mishearing the lyric "Every vow you break" as "Every vial you break".

Sting saw this happen.

Did You Know?: It's a little know fact that The Police were originally known as Sting and the Anal Chemists back in the 60s. They changed their name when drummer Stewart Copeland was informed by Mayo Clinic proctologist Barry Whittford that considerable confusion had arisen amongst his patients as to the use of chemical agents in treating colon infirmities.

Above: an early photo of Sting.

Now You Know!