one

In college I took a few classes in Leadership Studies. The classes were all taught by the same teacher and even shared some of the same classroom exercises. One that stands out in my mind was more or less an informal debate designed to get people to speak up and voice an opinion. The basic premises of the exercise was:

A torch is traveling across the country and is being carried by a person. The torchbearer only carries the torch for so long and then passes it off to the next torchbearer in line.

As a class we have the choice of either blowing out the torch or letting the torchbearer continue on with his or her journey.

If we blow the torch out the world will have 100 years of peace, but blowing out the torch also kills the torchbearer.

If we do not blow out the torch then the torch continues on and is passed to the next torchbearer.

At the start of the discussion we were given no information about who the torchbearer is. But, each time the torch was passed the story would provide more information. Throughout the debate the torchbearer ranges from an average ordinary citizen, a woman dying of cancer, a murderer, a rapist, etc.

For most people in the class the focus was on whether or not to kill the torchbearer. Did they want the blood on their hands or not? The reward for doing so was quite nice. 100 years of world peace! How can you beat that? But as the discussion progressed I realized that everyone had a different view of what world peace meant. Some said that all violence would end, others said that all diseases would be cured, and some said that poverty would end. After running through this exercise a few times I got really good at stating my opinion... and pissing people off too.

This utopia that you all have created sounds great. I can actually picture all the rainbows in the sky and the unicorns prancing through the unpolluted fields. Oh, look over there. Off in the distance everyone is holding hands and singing "I want to buy the World a Coke!" I hate to say this but you are all wrong. This is not an issue of if we kill the torchbearer. Its about what the 100 years of world peace would really be like. None of you can guarantee that your vision would come true. There is just no certainty in anything. If you are looking to cure diseases and help those in poverty why not put some actual effort into doing that right now? Go join the Peace Corps. But no, you all are too lazy to actually do something on your own. You just want a quick fix for all of the worlds problems. What's to say that after the 100 years of peace that it would not just switch back to how it was before?

To which a fellow student replied "Don't you think that after 100 years of peace that that way of life would be instilled within everyone and they would just want to continue living in peace?"

I responded No! If a magical wizard can instantly change the world from what it is today to a world that is at peace then I can easily see that same wizard switching it back at the snap of finger, regardless of what the people of the world are comfortable with. If you really want world peace I challenge you to do something today about it. Don't be a hypocrite and say "Yeah, I'm for world peace" when you actually do nothing to help. If we all were to leave this classroom today and go out and do one thing to help one person and then that one person goes and helps one person the effect over the next 100 years could be huge.

Last night while I was watching TV there was a commercial with a bunch of celebrities talking about helping to end poverty and AIDS and starvation etc. I started to ignore it, but then I decided to check out their website (www.one.org). In order to not be a hypocrite myself I looked over what the organization was all about. There are some things I like and there are some things I don't like. But all in all I feel that this organization is making a step in the right direction to help change the world without having to blow the torch out. So, check out their website and see what you can do to help make a difference.

Ok, I'll get down from my soap box now.

land of 10,000 bad drivers

I almost got run over by some idiot yesterday. I was outside wandering the streets of St Paul during my 30 minutes of freedom (better known as a lunch break) and was crossing a street in, of all places, a crosswalk.

Go figure, right? A pedestrian in the crosswalk? Crossing the street with the crosswalk light? Wow, that is truly amazing!

The driver of said vehicle was not paying attention and tried to perform a rolling stop through a red light so that he could turn left from a one way street onto another one way street. This guy had no excuse for his lack of awareness. He wasn't even yapping on his cell phone. He was just trying as hard as he possibly could to focus on driving, and obviously not doing a very good job of it. I firmly believe that what I witnessed was enough evidence to only allow this guy to operate a 50cc Vespa scooter. That way he won't be able drive faster than 30 miles per hour, making the streets of St Paul more safe.

Regardless, the individual's lack of driving skills is truly another topic for another day. What amazed me the most was my reaction to the situation.

Most people would hysterically recall the incident as "Their life flashed before their eyes."

Me? Well, I threw dagger-eyes at the driver while thinking "You better stop, or else..."

Once the vehicle came to a complete stop, I verbalized my disapproval with a well chosen one-way dialogue, in hopes of bring his derelict driving behavior to his attention:

"I do say chap, you about knocked me out of my knickers. You, my good man, should pay more attention to your motoring. Well, cherri-o."

(Actually, that is not even close to the obscenities that I spewed at the driver. But to keep this G rated I decided to go British oh him.)

Back to my point. Did the driver stop because he saw me? I'm fairly certain that he did not. He was looking for cross traffic to the right (which there was not), turning the steering wheel counter-clockwise, preparing to execute a left-hand turn, and then stopped half way into the crosswalk. What made him stop? The only logical conclusion must be that he telepathically picked up on my dagger-eyes and thoughts.

This got me thinking: Do I have super-human-mind-control powers?

I had to find out. After lunch I focused my new found talent on willing my boss to give me a raise.

No dice.

OK, so maybe that was just too ambitious of a place to start. Next, I focused on my co-worker and attempted to get her to stop complaining about her kids.

Again, no luck.

I guess that means I don't have any special powers. Unless my special powers are to make people aware of how bad they drive. And, if that's the case, I am the man for the job!

ready? set? go!

It’s really easy to get a child to do something they don’t want to do. All you have to do is say the magic words: "I'll time you. Ready? GO!" Instinctively the kid will storm out of the room to complete the task at hand. I know this for a fact because I was one of those kids. The more this occurred, the more I became delusional when faced with a challenge. My mind would conjure up the most absurd fantasies that had ever existed. Like when I was supposed to do my chores around the house, I pretended that I was training for the 200 yard vacuum dash, or that I was a world class speed-duster. I was damn good too. I would have won a medal in the '88 Olympics if it weren't for those Swiss and French kids who were ingesting illegal amounts of chocolate and coffee. There was no way I could have ingested enough Hershey's and Mountain Dew to compete against those foreign kids who had access to Toblerones and triple shot espressos.

I now know that it was just a clever way of motivating me to do something that I was supposed to do anyways. And, I'm pretty sure that the time I was given upon completion of a task was simply made up. But, my competitive nature grew from those childhood experiences.

Now that I am older I have realized how much I miss doing ordinary tasks by pretending I am an astronaut or cowboy. So, to jazz-up my mundane job I have adopted this mentality once again. That is why I am proud to officially announce my bid to be a member of the US Office-Olympic Team. For the next three years I will be training to participate in two events for the 2008 Office-Olympics in Beijing: The 200 yard Fax-and-Dash relay, and the Individual-Filing-Medley.

For those of you who are not familiar with the events let me give you a brief overview: The 200 yard Fax-and-Dash relay - This event requires a team of 4 athletes to run 25 yards to and from a fax machine while carrying a 20 page document. Once the athlete reaches the fax machine he or she is required to fax the document to the judges table. After the fax has gone through the athlete runs the document back to the next individual on the team who repeats the process. The document must be sent a total of four times to the judge and be faxed in order. Any team that faxes the document out of order will incur a 2 minute penalty for each page mis-faxed. The team with the fastest time wins. The Individual-Filing-Medley - A stack of 100 files are randomly placed in order and given to the athlete who then has to organize the files into numerical order (smallest file number to largest file number). Once the files are verified to be in order by the judges the athlete then has to place each file into the corresponding folder located within one of two 5-drawer filing cabinets. A misplaced file results in a 2 minute time penalty and each paper cut suffered by the athlete results in a 1 minute time penalty. The fastest time wins.

I secretly started training two weeks ago and have found my strongest event to be the Individual-Filing-Medley. The training has not been easy though. On a number of occasions I have been rushed to the hospital for emergency Neosporin and Band-Aide treatment because of severe gushing paper-cuts. Now, I’m not trying to act overly tough about it. It just comes with the territory and I’ll wear these scars as a symbol of my dedication.

The best thing about the Office-Olympics is that the IOC allows athletes to use office-stimulants (i.e. coffee, tea, soda, dounuts) to enhance performance. So, to maintain my competitive edge I have started a strict coffee-training-diet to help improve my mental sharpness. Right now I'm up to 6 cups a day and am aiming for 10 by the time mid-summer arrives. The only side effect has been the constant twitching of my hands. It isn't too much of a problem though, but I do have a hell of a time trying to type and maneuver my mouse to a specific spot on my monitor.

Well, I’ve done enough procrastinating for the day. I must get back to my rigorous training.

(outtro music)
Risin' up, back on the street
Did my time, took my chances
Went the distance, now I'm back on my feet
Just a man and his will to survive

drink better water

Apparently rapper 50 cent has entered into the business of bottled water. Actually, I am not sure if he is really selling or endorsing the water, but the company GLACEAU VitaminWater was at least inspired enough by the skills of 50 cent to develop a drink in his likeness, cleverly named Formula 50. The drink is a grape-flavored water which contains 50 cent (or 50%) of your daily dose of vitamins C, E, B3, B5, B6, B12, and Folic Acid. According to a recent study, scientists have found that these vitamins have been proven to develop rhyming abilities in lab rats. Specifically the combination of B5 and B6 were shown to increase synapsal responses in the brain which lead to quicker word rhyming recognition.

Naturally I had to try this miracle elixir. As expected this drink is full of flavor. But the real question is: Am I now a better rapper for having drank the Formula 50? Well... Uhm... I can feel something happening... Wait... Uhm... No... Sorry, just a sneeze. Ok, so it hasn't given me the ability to rhyme and flow like 50 cent, but maybe it's an accumulative effect. I better go out and drink some more.

Regardless, I think that this is a step in the right direction for a more socially conscious hip-hop industry. Instead of promoting the glamours of "partying likes it's your birthday" every night of the week we could listen to music about the benefits of drinking eight glasses of water a day. "Cruzin' round town I am hydrated; I know all you fools be player hatin' ; all you punks should know that when your thirs-ty; all you have to do is reach for the Formula Fit-ty." Wow, this stuff really does work. I can start to feel the flow building in my brain. Ooo.... I got more for ya. "I drank my 8 glasses and now what to do?; I think I'll just lean against this wall and act cool; This Formula Fit-ty got the most flavor per ounce; Sorry my man but I gotta bounce; To tell you the truth you know why I've gotta leave?; 'Cuz every five minutes I've gotta go pee." Ok, this is starting to freak me out! This stuff has me on a roll. I've got to save my material and try to get a record deal out of this. Who knows, maybe one day you will see me take over as the company spokesperson for GLACEAU VitaminWater. I will be everywhere: Billboards, TV, radio, magazines.

If the media starts to become receptive to the idea of nutritional hip-hop I could see the food pyramid getting an urban make over. Just imagine 50 cent starring in a School-House-Rocks-style video where he raps about the importance of eating 3-5 servings of vegetables or 2-4 servings of fruits per day. There would be an entire generation of youngsters who would beg their mothers and fathers for more carrots and broccoli because they want to grow up to be just like 50 cent. What a utopian society we could live in.

I'm sold on the idea already. I want to be just like 50 cent. I think tonight I'll go out and get my Ford Taurus equipped with bullet proof armor. You can never be too careful. Once Dasani and Aquafina catch wind of what this flavored water can do they will surely want to protect their market share by eliminating anyone who uses the Formula 50.

"I woke up this morning and I couldn't see; My eyelids still heavy from last nights par-ty; I went to my fridge. What could this be?; none other than the thirst quenching flavor of Formula Fit-ty." Man I just can't stop. Still thinking I made the drink up? Then check out www.vitaminwater.com and look under Formula 50.

surviving the embarrassment

I love the way life brings me back to reality. Just when I think I have everything figured out and am walking around with the ultra-suave-James-Bond-I-can-do-anything mentality, life intervenes and makes me look like a fool. Typical occurrences include: tripping over my own feet on flat ground, walking into an "automatic" door, spilling food items everywhere (most likely a drink), and my personal favorite: a complete shutdown of all verbal abilities resulting in a death struggle to form a coherent sentence. There is nothing more embarrassing than when I try to voice my opinion in a conversation but end up blurting out "Hop-schotching cats eat pizza in the fall." I'm stuck. There is no way of getting around a statement like that. I now have to defend my position on hop-schotching cats even though I know nothing of their kind.

I am not 100% sure why life causes these things to occur. Maybe it's so I stop neglecting my opposable thumbs and thank them for giving me the ability to hold things. Or, maybe it's so I sound even more intelligent when I'm actually able to form a proper sentence. No, I think life does this so that I can see the true colors of those around me. When one of these unfortunate events takes place I am completely vulnerable. Those lucky enough to witness one of my shining moments have the choice of how to react. To a degree I expect them to laugh and rib me a bit. But, I find that those who are true friends will hold the incident with the least amount of importance. They will just write if off as: "Well, that's just Blondie. What did you expect?"

So, how am I able to survive the dumb things I've done? The key is acknowledgment. Once I can see the humor in what I've done it is much easier to join others in laughter. If I can't laugh at myself the embarrassment will just end up demonizing my life.

i believe you have my stapler

I love the movie Office Space. I first stumbled across it in college where it had achieved the status of a cult-classic. I could always find someone to borrow the movie from and people even incorporated scenes into class presentations. Blindly, I praised the cleverness of director/ writer Mike Judge for emphasizing all of the annoyances of life in the working world.

Flash forward to the present. I am now out of school and have spent a few years in the real world. Though my love for the movie has not change, my appreciation of it has. To my surprise, the movie was not exaggerated at all. Sure, I have never assaulted a fax machine with a baseball bat, but the daydream has popped into my head. In college I had thought that the environment in which the movie was set in was just an accumulation of every office stereo-type that existed. Now, I realize just how accurate the work place was portrayed.

I tried for the longest time to ignore all of the similarities that my office shared with the movie: the cubicle farm, Hawaiian shirt Friday, the office gossipers. Maybe I wanted to believe that what I did for a living was more exciting than filing TPS reports all day. Eventually, reality caught up with me. It occurred on a typical day...

I was busy being a desk-jockey, pushing papers around from one folder to another. But, I was having a terrible time with my stapler. On average it took five attempts to get just one staple through a stack of seven to eight pages. Each time the stapler failed I became more frustrated. After an hour of this, the frustration became too much and I snapped. Now, I am not 100% sure what happened, since I blacked out, but I do remember repeatedly slamming the stapler with my fist. I guess I figured if I could just hit the damn thing hard enough that the staple would make it through the paper. I was wrong. When I regained consciousness, I had succeeded in joining only the first and second pages together, plus I had wasted an entire clip of staples on one file. I must have made quite a commotion because all of my co-workers were nervously peering at me from behind the safety of their cubes. Everyone's eyes were saying the same thing: "I hope he doesn't hurl that stapler my way." To ease the awkwardness of the situation I responded to the stares by saying "Out of staples," and shrugged my shoulders in confusion like I could not figure out where all of the noise had come from either.

I b-lined it to the office supply room. My safe haven for the time being. I could pretend like I was looking for a new box of staples even though I was just looking to hide from the curious eye of my co-workers. Surely by now the rumors of my meltdown had spread all the way to top management. It was only a matter of time before the "nice men" came by with a pretty white jacket to take me to the loony-bin. So, I stood in the supply room waiting for something to happen. But nothing did. After a few minutes had passed, I grew calm and my senses began to adjust to my surroundings. Out of the corner of my eye I noticed a small glowing object resting in the corner cabinet on the second shelf from the bottom. I was intrigued. What could this glorious treasure be? I inched closer and knelt down to have a look. My hand reached out to touch the rectangular cardboard box that had drawn me in. As I lifted the box from the shelf the fluorescent lights fixated a spot light on me, and in the background a choir of angels began to sing. I slowly opened the box and removed the object. The angels began to sing louder and in an increased octave. It was pure beauty. It was God sent. It was...A new stapler! I quickly pinched myself to make sure I was not hallucinating. I was not.

Now the only problem was getting back to my desk without anyone noticing the holy grail of staplers that I had just discovered. The last thing I want to do is flaunt my new prized possession and incite the desire in my co-workers to rob me blind when I am not around. So, I placed the stapler in my pocket and disguised the lump by carrying a folder over my leg. I put my head down and headed strait towards my desk. "Walk with a purpose. Walk with a purpose," I kept telling myself. Trying hard to avoid any eye-contact. I ran past the gauntlet of questions which assaulted me from every cube I passed. I made sure to quickly give only a yes or no answer.

Once back at my desk I loaded the new stapler with a clip of fresh staples and pulled all of the dead staples out the file that had caused me so much frustration. With a gentle tap I activate the stapler. It functioned with the precision of a Swiss time piece. I reclined back into my chair and smiled from ear to ear. One staple! One staple! Finally a stapler that actually works!

After a few minutes, I drifted back to earth from cloud nine. As I did so it occurred to me how pathetic I was for getting genuinely excited over a stapler. If this was the highlight of my day at work then I truly do live in the real world version of Office Space.