Everything will be ok
This is one of my favorite songs, and I’m so happy to have found a Sims animated video to go along with it. Kudos to young people and nerds who are able to enhance our artistic experiences. I’m not entirely clear on what Sims is, but the important thing is that some one made a kick ass video for this kick ass song.
This Guy Hates Halloween Too
So what’s your stance on a Halloween costume?
I mean I’m 38 years old, and everyone in my office is acting like I’m a complete turd because I don’t want to dress up.
Here’s news: I like my regular clothes. I don’t want to dress up like a One Night Stand or a Dirty Martini. I just want to dress up as Jeff.
Signed,
Jeff
I’m on your side, I don’t want to dress up either. Although to be honest, my reason is a little different.
The truth is I think I’m quite the creative, do-it-yourselfer. I take great pride in my handwriting, my doodles, my fine motor skills. Halloween is the time of year where a person with creative skills might be exposed as lazy or uninspired. The rest of the year you can be like “Oh yea I can’t go out tonight because I’m right in the middle of painting/sculpting/knitting/cutting mosaic tiles/baking cakes/sewing curtains and I don’t want to lose my artistic momentum.” People are impressed if you have hobbies and even if you just have art supplies slobbed all over your apartment that still counts as being creative.
Sincerely,
Dear Jeff,
But in your case, I think you should just be the I’m-so-enthusiastic-about-your-costume-that-I-can’t-even-dress-up guy. Ram enthusiasm down people’s throats. Ask them 500,000 questions about what they’re wearing, then say you have to go to the bathroom.
Poor Lucky Me
After receiving a large number of encouraging and outraged emails, I decided to try and watch a few movies on my list. Last night I was happy to discover “Milk” was playing on HBO so decided to go for it.
Well, I have good news and bad news. The good news is that I thought the acting was incredible and the cinematography made the movie so intense and real.
The bad news is…well…there was just so much talking and seriousness. I only got through about ten minutes, then i had to switch back to Simpsons reruns.
Maybe I’ll try again soon. Like maybe on a Saturday when I can’t get off the couch I’ll check it out again. I’ll switch the channel to HBO then throw the clicker across the room so I can’t get up and change the channel.
I’m pretty sure that if I wasn’t so used to doing at least three things at all times I would be a better movie watcher. But when you have so much entertainment at your finger tips, it’s hard not to watch TV, play scrabble, and check your email all at the same time.
Next on my list: Last Tango in Paris.
Dear Poor Lucky Me,
I always feel I’m about to be fired. Is this normal or perhaps an indication that I actually AM about to be fired.
In this post-modern world where no one actually makes anything and all our skills are ambiguous mental skills who actually knows my worth as an employee?
Also, I say the stupidest things in my yearly reviews, and I’m about to have another one. If I were my boss I’d fire me.
Yours Truly,
I Hope My Boss Doesn’t See This
Dear I Hope My Boss Doesn’t See This,
I completely understand your worries. You must act fast. First of all, are you really good at looking busy all the time? If not, here are some essentials:
a. Furrow your brow at least once and hour
b. Move stacks of paper from one side of your desk to the other. Put a pile at your feet on Fridays to look like you’re so busy you don’t even have enough room on your work space.
c. CC a lot of people on your emails. That makes you look very important. People are also flattered to be included, even if they pretend to be annoyed.
d. Find a couple of blogs that are pertinent to your industry. Quote them whenever possible.
e. Read the New York Times. People who read the paper don’t get fired.
f. Never ever express your fears to your co-workers. Office workers are like piranhas: if they sense a weak member in the group, they attack.
I think you’ll be ok if you really set your mind to looking busy. You’re right; without actual skills we are a lost generation of workers. Everyone is funneled through the white collar workforce because so much industry has gone overseas. Economists threaten that soon our white collar jobs will go overseas as well. I’m not too afraid though, because I’ve been watching Survivorman and can easily survive in the wild now.
Sincerely,
Poor Lucky Me
Ten movies that I feel would make me more sophisticated/ cool if I could watch. This list includes films that are either too violent for my delicate sensibilities, too grown up and therefore suspect of being boring, or too scary for an insomniac such as myself:
1. Reservoir Dogs / Inglorious Bastards. If I could watch one, I could watch the other. Unfortunately I cannot watch either.
2. Amores Perros. Several people have called warning me to never see this movie. In addition to showing hurt or dead dogs, the IMDB page rates it “R” for violence and gore.
3. The Reader. It looks really well acted, but a little on the snoozey side. I mean, the mature side.
4. Milk. I love Sean Penn and am very interested in the topic…but it looks like so much talking. They should have cut in a few scenes of Vin Diesel driving around San Francisco to spice this film up.
5. The Wrestler. I can’t even look at photographs of Mickey Rourke, let alone watch a whole movie about him getting smashed up.
6. No Country for Old Men. Just thinking about that air compressing machine will give me nightmares for a week. It’s like when I found out what drawing and quartering meant.
7. Last Tango in Paris. The nudity is intriguing, but there is a lot of slow talking in between. I tried, no dice.
8. Braveheart. I saw that scene where they all got arrows shot in their butts. There’s no way it’s going to get less violent after that.
9. Requiem for a Dream. I have enough trouble getting through episodes of Intervention.
10. The Lord of the Rings Trilogy. Sorry, but there is too much war and monsters and man love in these movies to keep me interested. And don’t get me wrong, my stance on man-love is pro…but not after hours and hours of monster warfare.
This is a photo of a piece of art I would like to own one day. I like it because it’s both creepy and judgmental. I could set it up in my front hallway when I have guests over and then when everyone is settled in and having a good time, I’d hide it in a dark corner near the bathroom. I feel confident that this was the artist’s intended purpose for this work.
Dear Poor Lucky Me,
I just don’t understand what I was doing before I got my iPhone.
How did I get anywhere without the little GPS? How did I entertain myself when I had to wait in lines without Scrabble and Solitaire and Tetris and email and You Tube on my phone?
More importantly, what will I ever do if I’m out somewhere and the battery runs out. Or, God forbid, I lose it? I think I’d be wandering around the city, crying and scared until some one picked me up and forced me into sex slavery.
Is this a common fear?
Signed,
I’m Delicate
Well I can say with certainty that before I had my iPhone I rarely left the house. I used to have a compass in my car that kept me oriented, but if I had to travel by foot I was terrified.
I tried to learn how to tell time by watching Crocodile Dundee on a continuous loop one weekend, but I ended up just falling in love with Paul Hogan. To this day there is a court order that prohibits me from calling or sending any packages to his home. That’s unfortunate because I think that Paul, or “Croc” as I call him, and I would be the greatest of lovers and friends. We’d have that kind of relationship where you just feel like you can’t even breath with the other person I had a bidet installed in my apartment so that if he ever does come over, he’ll have a place to wash his socks.
Your fears about sobbing in public and being sold into sex slavery are very common, and very real. I know they’re real because I live across the street from where Dick’s Last Resort used to be. Every Friday and Saturday night I get asked where Dick’s relocated and I can just tell it’s code name for something really scary. Because no one in their right mind actually wants to go to that restaurant/bar, and you know it.
Sincerely,
Dear I’m Delicate,
Poor Lucky Me
Dear Readers,
If every one says that we should be eating 5 small meals a day, shouldn’t we be lobbying our bosses and politicians to make a scheduling change in the work place?
I can’t keep eating my 2nd and 4th meals in the elevator, stopped between two floors with the alarm going off. I’m afraid some one’s going to call the fire department.
Sincerely,
Poor Lucky Me
Dear Poor Lucky Me,
What do you think about the balloon boy incident? I followed the story with great interest that entire day, but once found out the parents had already been on Wife Swap I got suspicious.
Plus, who has a balloon strong enough to carry their child away just sitting around in their yard?
Signed,
Nice Try
Dear Nice Try,
I never actually thought the little kid was in the balloon, because what the hell kind of Mylar balloon can carry off a six year old? Then later some one told me that weather balloons are designed to carry like 60 pounds of equipment. But since I didn’t know that at the time, I assumed it was a sham.
Turns out I was right- not because of the science I assumed I understood but because the family was a weirdo reality television family. I loved how every time a news person would ask the little kid what he meant when he said “we were doing it for a show” he would barf. It would be useful if all humans had that quality. I mean it would be gross, but it would out a lot of liars and cheaters.
I’m a sympathetic barfer though, so I guess I’d be worried that I’d always be barfing in the presence of liars, thus falsely implicating me as a liar. On the other hand, I could prove to people that I was telling the truth by not puking when asked about being a sympathetic puker. So, I think I’d be safe.
Sincerely,
Poor Lucky Me
Dear Poor Lucky Me,
Life has it’s ups and down and I accept the good with the bad. I’m generally a pretty happy person and feel good about the world I live in.
Except when it comes to french fries. Why in the hell can’t people get fries right? Is it so hard to serve them crisp and hot? How can anyone live with themselves serving up cold or mushy fries? Bad fries make me question the innate goodness of humans.
Yours Truly,
Jeff
I know a cab driver who owned an Italian Beef stand in the 90′s. He is a proud man and asked me to spread his message about fries.
The debate will rage on forever about cut size, frozen vs unfrozen, seasoning, and paper tray vs paper bag. But my friend insists that the only difference between delicious fries and bunk ass fries are Idaho potatoes. He says they are more expensive, but longer and meatier and make premium fries.
Smaller potatoes are cheap and have therefore infiltrated hot dog and Italian beef stands all around the city. They’re like Chinese cashmere: it all looks the same until you get home and realize you got what you paid for.
I hope that someday Americans take a stand against super cheap crappy products. I think that French fries are a small but significant place to start. Demand to know where your potatoes come from! *
Sincerely,
* Unfortunately, some of us have political objections to Idaho potatoes due to Idahos reintroduction of legalized wolf hunts. This puts a damper on our enthusiasm for great french fries since they interfere with our protests. Stay strong, friends of the wolf.
Dear Jeff,
Poor Lucky Me
