Wasted Time

(Tweet of the Week by Matthew Taff on Twitter @MattTaff)

I hate the moment when you realize that you are reading something worthless. That your time has been wasted. That moment is now.

Vampirella in Neon Lights

(Image by Chris Benedetto, visit his site Honest Propaganda)


Here's another image by Chris Benedetto that caught my eye.


He says, "I had just installed the software so I was looking through my collection of random pics when I came across this pic, it was a woman at a comic convention dressed as Vampirella so I just screwed around with the  color/contrast, I even embossed it at one point."

F.W.D.= Freakin' Witless Denizens!

(by Hex-Girlfriend, visit her blog Hexus-Nexus)

To the Witless Denizens Who Insist on Abusing the "FWD" feature:

Yes, that's right - "Freakin' Witless Denizens" is how you will be defined when you assault my mailbox with your mindless use of that God-forsaken "Forward" button.  I liken this feature of email to a pestilent syndrome with its unbiased destruction of healthy, smart neurons replacing them with massive areas of dead-zone, zombie-cerebrums.  Can you think of a more witless act than the brain-numbing use of the "Forward" button?

I will no longer pay any mind to the malignant chain-mail invitations as God and the Essence of Humanity truly does not care if I delete "The Lord's Prayer" or the "Prayer for the Soldier", “"St. Peter's Wish" or the countless “inspirational” Power Point presentations and He will not cast me into the fires of hell for not forwarding these items to every contact in my address book.  No, I will not have 10 years of bad luck or a shriveled heart for ignoring the aforementioned items.  The only “inspiration” that will hit me will be to DELETE, DELETE, DELETE!  In my humble opinion, this is the smartest feature ever created for email.

“My Inbox is NOW PURGED of all EVIL!!  Hallelujah!”  Now, isn’t that a great feeling? 

Do not even get me started on the Amber-Alert emails preying on the worried-mothers who have nothing better to do in their trailer-park, gossip-mongering, talk-show-watching existence than click the "Forward" button while simultaneously being glued to OWN in the hopes of saving a stolen child.  Have they never heard of Snopes, Google or God-forbid the NEWS?  How about picking up a telephone and confirming the facts with the appropriate County's Sherrif's Department?? I liken the blatant lack of fact-checking (or blatant ignorance, if you ask me) nowadays to deeee-licious potential fodder for a civil suit. Perhaps this need to abuse that “Forward” button is a simply an indicator of a deep-seated brain/personality defect.  Not sure which option rings more appropriate.

You see, it does not do anything to "forward" my thinking or my station in life to read and send onward the countless emails which plead with me to wait and see what happens at 11:15 AM the day after sending this malignancy onward to the required allotment of contacts; or to have a heart and send to as many as possible in the next hour so Bill Gates can donate $1 for every email to a kid with cancer in Florida, Philly, Kansas or Katmandu.

I will also not be any smarter, luckier, kinder or richer for doing so - this is a bold-face lie which plays on the human need for validation.

But I do not need to be validated via my email inbox and all the contacts it contains.  Email was created as a convenient, stamp-saving, tree-hugging alternative to paper snail-mail.  How many of us would DARE send a chain-letter onward to all of our friends & family members by SNAIL-MAIL??  Would any of us even think to write down stuff we heard on a late-night info-mercial and mail it to all of our contacts via the USPS?? The newest Maxine we read in the Sunday-paper?? REALLY, PEOPLE!!??

And why do you think that is?

You see, calling it a "Forward" button is an oxymoron if you stop and think about it:  It does not bring or move you toward a position in front.  It will not move you in a prescribed direction or order for "normal use" and it surely does not help advance or promote you in the eyes of the recipients of your misguided "Forwards".

So you're reading this and are either one of 2 things - insulted at the mere suggestion that forwarding emails is stupid and pointless.  Or you're sitting there trepidatiously considering forwarding this post to all of your contacts because maybe it makes a valid point.  Just consider it carefully before you click "Send".

Thank you, 
L

The Problem with Lying

(by Pete Lopez. Read his blog Road to Absolute Zero.)

The trouble that comes to mind after reading the title is probably a morality principle. Lying is evil and a gateway sin to a life of murder and treason. Honesty however, is the best policy and escorts you to the gates of heaven. Truthfulness is the fabric that holds society together but discussing that any further is about as exciting as a head of lettuce. Instead, I prefer to preach my thoughts on the pros and cons of lying. 

I believe there are many benefits of fibbing that are often overlooked. One is to be a hero and rescue an individual from shear humiliation. We all have a friend or coworker that has a great heart, but is annoying to be around. If this person invites you to the opera or a box social, the immediate thought is how to escape without hurting their feelings. Well that is when super lie saves the day. A simple, “Oh, I have baseball tickets that evening” or “Damn, I have open heart surgery that afternoon.” 

Now the problem was averted and everyone is still smiling. There is a small chance that the victim will research to find that the baseball team was off that evening or request to see your surgical scar but taking the coward way out is well worth the risk. If it backfires and you never regain speaking terms, it wasn’t really that much of loss. That person was irritating anyway.

Another advantage of an untruth is keeping self-esteem. There are plenty of times when you’re caught chatting with a casual acquaintance and it’s better to salvage dignity as an alternative to spilling the pathetic facts. Let’s say hypothetically I took a two week vacation but nothing significant ensued. Replacing passports, souvenirs and tan lines were the more lackluster refrigerator cleaning*, daylight naps and cable TV movies. Things that aren’t noteworthy and seem like they were a senseless waste time off.

Eventually my meaningless vacation ended and I headed back into the pants and outside world. For my first lunch break, I returned to the local deli nearby my office. As a result of my frequent visits, I became familiar with the staff and we often engaged in small talk. It never escalated to discussing politics or infected rashes but simple stuff like the weather and hating Mondays. 

After my elongated absence the staff inquired of my whereabouts. This is when White Knight Lie bailed me from conversing about my uneventful time away. I randomly replied “I was in Carolina visiting some family.” 

In actuality, I did not travel there nor do I have any family residing in either Carolina but it did give the illusion that my vacation was well spent. I was praised for being a family man and avoided being teased for my solitary confinement. 

Upon exiting with my lunch, I did realize a hole my lie was prone to. Any of the employees could have been raised or familiar with the state. If one proceeded to make a deeper inquiry then my response would have likely been a blank stare. Alas that did not happen and I was safe not knowing that South Carolina’s state bird was the wren. Although I did get lucky, I would have taken the risk regardless because I’m sure the chef would have put less care into preparing my sandwich if he thought I was a hermit. 

Well I could carry on with more examples such as “Baby, you don’t look fat in those pants” or “No, this chicken tastes nothing like rubber” but enough viable cases of admirable lying have been shared. In fairness, before concluding I should discuss a drawback I learned from dwelling in false land. It’s not from feeling dirty inside and the lies were eating away at my soul. It’s that if I consistently spit out untruths then I begin doubting the legitimacy of what others say to me. If I’m lying, then I start assuming everyone is lying to me. 

My skeptical mind questions every generic offering that others tell me such as “Did so and so really grow these tomatoes in their garden or are they lying and they’re from the market?” The constant untrusting of humanity is disturbing so for selfish reasons I keep lying to a minimum. 

To accomplish this, I have instituted a clause that each white lie possesses a 24 hour window where it can be retracted. It’s a reasonable amount of time for someone who has manipulated the truth to recant without fearing consequences. Withdrawing a lie to a person is difficult and if it’s done within a short frame, it shows there was guilt felt about the incident. 

As final tip, the above rule only pertains to lies on a small scale. I am trying to change my bad habit of telling people I enjoyed a roasted hen with applewood bacon for dinner when I really had leftover pizza from the floor. If you cheated on your significant other or used “creative” accounting for a tax refund, it may be in your best interest to keep denying it. 

Alright, I must cut this essay short. I am off to donate blood followed by reading fairy tales to unfortunate children at the orphanage. Just do me a favor and be around within the next 24 hours, there may be something I need to tell you…... Farewell and lie safely


* refrigerator cleaning is code for finishing the remaining beers in the fridge

Oh God

(Tweet of the Week by Matthew Taff on Twitter @MattTaff)


God never closes a door without opening a window. We are worried he may have OCD.

Dr. Pedophilo

(by Doctor Dick)

Dr. Pedophilo had been distracted by his wife's call requesting that he pick up several food items before returning home that evening.

He had been busy focusing on the scantily clad pre-pubescent boys in the Pool Section section of Young Boy's Life... and now yet another distraction from his receptionist saying his Eleven-o-clock had arrived.  No sooner had she said it than the fat sweating client was settling onto the couch.  Don't sweat on my couch yelled the psych doc in his mind and then went back to trying to remember what his wife had said to get...

"I tell you Doc this girl who lives in the apartment next to me is driving me fucking crazy!  I just want to tear her clothes off and rape the fucking shit outa her!"

Bread, eggs... milk, cheese...

"Doc, she got nipples on her titties as big as a thumb. And Doc... her ass!  Just looking at her ass would make a dead man cum... and her mouth... Doc... she looks like she has a second vagina right on her face..."

Was that two dozen eggs or just one...?

"I tell you Doc... someday... someday...  I'm just gonna go over their and fuck her so hard and so fast up the ass that my cum shoots right outa her mouth..."

Uh... what was that thing about the 'mouth'?

"Shoot cum outa it... you know... from fuckin' her up the ass...?"

And whose ass is this?

"My neighbor's... God... Doc... haven't you been listening?!"

Well, you do know that's a medical impossibility... ejaculating through a mouth during anal sex.

"Yeah... Doc... it's a metaphor."

I'm glad you said that so you will understand that the neighbor you want to fuck in the ass is symbolically-- metaphorically speaking-- your mother.

"What!"

That's right.. I want you to go back to work... and think about that and also consider very carefully where that sperm will land when it's ejaculated from your "Mom's" mouth.  It's very important for you to know the place where it will land.  Now I think we've achieved a very important therapeutic milestone today.  I'll see you next week at the same time.

British English versus American English

(Language Laughs)

As an American I've always pictured the British as being so perfectly proper. It seems that over the years we Americans have been messing up their lovely English language.

Here's a quick primer on how convert our bastardized American words to their British correctness. For the most part we just need to throw in an extra letter or two. Instead of a simple O, they use OU. Color, favorite, and honor become colour, favourite, and honour. G becomes GUE. So analog, dialog, and catalog become analogue, dialogue, and catalogue. K becomes QUE so bank and check become banque and cheque. It's often good to throw in an E for good measure so aging, argument, and judgment become ageing, arguement, and judgement. Instead of using a simple E it is often good to go with AE such that words like encyclopedia and medieval become encyclopaedia and mediaeval. Then there are other random cases where you toss in extra letters such that jewelry, draft, plow, and program become jewellery, draught, plough, and programme.

Learning how to spell like the British is great, but in order to really entrench oneself in the British language the American must also come to grips with their different usage of words. For example, we might 'ride an elevator' but in England the would 'take the lift'. We 'take a vacation' from work while they 'go on holiday'. If you ask to see a football game you'll be shown a soccer match. Two weeks is a fortnight. If someone needs quid they're just asking for money. You live in a flat and use a torch (flashlight) if the lights go out.

I hope you all have had a jolly good time learning British English. Cheerio.

I used the following page to get the British Word Spellings.

Fat, Fuckin' Secretary

(by Hex-Girlfriend, visit her blog Hexus-Nexus)

Lucky is the one these days that lands a job and keeps it for years and years without so much as a write-up for wearing flip-flops one time in the summer when it was so hot the thermometer broke and the rest of the shoe-clad minions suffered the heat with spontaneous combustion-inducing temperatures.  “Unlucky” would be the one who joins the team after Fat Fuckin’ Secretary is set in her anal-retentive, short-tempered ways and parks her high-horse in the Executive Lot and feeds it all apples off the company tree just because she fuckin’ feels like it and nobody will tell her shit.  “Boo” would not be the thing to speak to Fat Fuckin Secretary when you’re agitated and distressed over some unfairness that is unfair because it goes against the Golden Rule of Employee Handbook.  “Handbook” is in an ever-changing state of revision so like going to the dentist you just sit and swallow.

Fat Fuckin’ Secretary can book a meeting with you to go over your weekly workload because she’s been here since the dawn of Creation and needs to know whenever you leave your desk to sneeze or pee.  Of course it’s out of concern and consideration for YOU that this meeting is requested and booked for the same time each week.  It’s to “assist” with anything that may or may not be urgent for which SHE will make the determination of such.  She is the expert, of course, from which you will learn all things.

Never-you-mind that on the first of such meetings, she refused to sit her ass down politely like a normal person, proceeded to nit-pick through every bit of paper, stressed-out over and criticized each item which she did not recognize and basically worked herself up into a froth for which there was no umbrella big enough. When she was halted in her criticisms and told pretty much to forget it if this was the purpose of such meetings, Fat Fuckin’ Secretary stormed out of the office trailing a firestorm of expletives behind her for which she certainly used those Puppet-Master hands of hers to get The Boss to type bad things in your Performance Review.  Then she deleted each and every consecutive weekly meeting from her calendar and yours.

Did Fat Fuckin’ Secretary ever get a write-up for the unprofessional act of screaming and cursing?  Hell-to-the NO-she-DIDN’T!  Fat Fuckin’ Secretary is pretty much untouchable – she’s got the power to put up her I’m-so-fantastic, I-do-it-all-for-pretty-much-everyone, I-dare-you-to-fault-me-for-taking-90-minute-lunches “Reprimand-Shield” at will.  You can try to “fire” if you like, but if your blows don’t bounce directly off of her then they will surely bounce off The Boss whom she has molded into the super-dependent lump of clay that he is.  He is nothing without his Fat Fuckin’ Secretary.  

So, it was NOT the Founder or Executive Director of Supercompany who changed the dress code to prevent all secretaries from displaying “any works of body art or piercings” – it was Fat Fuckin’ Secretary.  Never mind that the 200 counselors, instructors and interns canSTILL freely walk around campus with full arm sleeves, wrists, hands knuckles, lips, noses and necks adorned.  Fat Fuckin’ Secretary can make each and every Secretary and Desk Clerk remove every glint of metal or gemstone no matter how microscopic and wear ¾ sleeves in 110-degree weather if she wants to because she is: FAT FUCKIN’ SECRETARY.  (*And we’re also pretty sure that Fat Fuckin’ Secretary can call you in privately so as not to embarrass you in front of Supercompany and send your sweaty-ass home for lack of hygiene while you’re forced to wear those ¾ sleeves on the hottest day of the year.)

Similar thing for the change-in-dining-room-policy – That email did NOT come from the Executive Director. Fat Fuckin’ Secretary (or Puppet-Master in this case) either shoved her claw-appointed hand up his ass or sat at his desk and used his email for her own satisfaction.  So at this point in time, nobody in Supercompany is permitted to remove any foodstuffs from said Dining Room; that is, unless one wishes to get slapped, punched in the arm or yelled at by Fat Fuckin’ Secretary.  We are a sort of casual, friends-and-family Supercompany which is probably why Fat Fuckin’ Secretary got away with such behavior.  She’s sort of like the drunk Grandma who’s been around so long that everyone is used to her drunken rants and bad behavior – we just laugh about it afterwards like enabling family-members. Has anybody ever heard of the Department of Labor? 

In closing, and just FYI in case you didn’t get it yet – Fat Fuckin’ Secretary is an ever-changing kaleidoscope of moods and emotions which she brandishes like a faulty wand or whip.  “CRACK!”   Rules good for one department or person are not necessarily applicable to every department or person.  This could be based on the smell of the wind, the direction in which the cream swirls in her coffee or whether her biscotti-count was off by possibly one which for all you know might be blamed on YOU.  So watch out, hide your crumbs, don’t clock in or out within the “Red Zones” and leave your .75mm micro nose-pin at home.  We wouldn’t want to twist the moods of the Fat Fuckin’ Secretary.

The Essay that Allows Other Essays to Shine (Part I, Spam)

(by Pete Lopez. Read his blog Road to Absolute Zero.)

Before penning this, I came to the conclusion that I needed a heroic essay to fall from grace. If all my written output was considered elite literature, then none of it could rise and stand above. If I'm only preparing grade A steaks, their supreme flavor starts losing value. My writing menu needs an article of spam, a side chapter of vegetables and a thesis of leftovers on it as well. Once in a while, I need to lower to the salad bar so that when I offer prime beef work, you can still notice how tender it is. 

With that said, I must prohibit consistently being consistent from prohibiting my stuff to stick out. On purpose I am going to purposely make this written piece of writing suck like a sucker to ruin my reliable streak of reliability. That will stop and prevent a crowd from over crowding at the top of the top and free some free space for my other pieces that are not this one, to brightly sparkle a bit brighter. 

Since the above proves that this essay is deliberately taking a dive, a plausible reader’s reaction would sound similar to this. “Upon these new set of circumstances, that nonsensical masterpiece I read yesterday was damn entertaining. I lost track of what a marvelous author Pete Lopez was because everything he composed was a diamond. After suffering through this rough, I hope his next submission to R2AZ regains that superior shine I mistakenly took for granted. I promise to do a better job of stopping to enjoy the roses, which are his words.” 

To break it down further, I draw a comparison to the propaganda of ‘Mom says to always look your best’. If I took adequate time to fancy myself up every morning, the overall result would make me appear rather generic. There would be slight variations from day to day depending on pimples, the angle of the part in my hair or the number of inches of my heels but nothing that would distinguish me on a daily basis. After a month of monotony, people would stop accounting for my fantastically awesome looks. 

Wow, after years of it uselessly hibernating, I can include something I learned as an economics major in college, the Law of Diminishing Returns. Loosely translated, if you wear the same type of shit everyday regardless of the brand quality or thread count, people will care less and less as time carries on. To combat regularity, if a couple of times a week I intentionally head to work in a less groomed manner, people would closely monitor my appearance. Like they say in the media, there is no bad publicity. Although a worn down version of me sheds a negative light, it's still in the office spotlight. 

Well, I am not going to sugar coat that this technique will offer instant praise. Arriving at the office with an appearance that questions if I am homeless, is not immune to a spattering of, “Wow Pete you're looking lousy and smelling of day old alcohol today. What the hell were you doing on a Tuesday night?” 

As a whole, I do swear that the compliments gathered will greatly exceed the amount of detrimental remarks. When the flattery arrives on days I tidy up, a minuscule part resulted from shock but the majority of the acclaim was from everyone recalling, just how attractive I am. Who doesn’t like compliments? Well it surely won't happen if I only dress like a financial robot. Not only do I have to remind people every so often that I am breathtaking, I must occasionally rip that sensation away......to be continued

Psychics for Real?

(Tweet of the Week by Matthew Taff on Twitter @MattTaff)

I've been to 8 psychics and they all told me the same thing: "no we don't take checks". I don't know how some people can still be skeptical.

No More Free Rides

Sadly, I must deliver the news to you my loyal readers that Adult Musings can no longer be produced for free. Since there is currently no advertising in place, this means the costs will have to be covered by you, our readers. You will be receiving an email in the forthcoming fortnight with a billing plan.

Please understand that I feel terrible having to charge my dedicated readers, but hard economic times have required drastic income model changes. Google has just announced that starting May first they will be charging users 5 cents per search to supplement their advertising revenue. Internet Explorer and Firefox are planning to charge users $1 per hour for browser usage starting in June.

There's no need to panic yet as there's still some time yet. After all, it's only April first today, April Fools Day!