PHB: "We have all these pages and they don't have anything on them."

Me: "Uh-huh, and?"

PHB: "Well, Loogie (not her real name) in PR wanted to know what those pages were and I didn't know."

Me: "Those are blank pages. Those are the pages that need content. Those are the pages that Loogie has to write content for."
PHB: "They aren't blank on the existing site."

Me: "No, they aren't. They have a photo and a block of graphic links. But the new system creates dynamic links in the sidebar, so we need a paragraph to explain what each section contains. Otherwise, we have a blank page."

Really. A page with nothing on it is: Anyone? Anyone? A blank page, you fucking moron.

So, for the last three months? when I've been flapping my pie hole at you? telling you that there's all these blank pages with no fucking content? Yeah. That's what I've been talking about.

That. A page with nothing on it. That would be the definition of a blank page, a page with no content.

Repeat after me: There is just not enough alcohol in the world.

P.S. Just in case you guessed, yes, Loogie is the person who keeps sending me PDFs, even after I have explained, requested, begged, pleaded and stamped my little foot and pouted that I cannot use them on my site. I cannot use a PDF. I cannot use them here or there. I cannot use them anywhere. I do not like them in a file, I do not like them in a pile. I do not like them on a floppy, I do not like them as a copy.

Sorry. Got a little carried away.

The office I'm in has four walls and a door. These are real walls, not wall-ettes: they go all the way to the ceiling, not nose level. There isn't a window, but hell, I have the real walls and the door.

Today, and for the last month or so, I've been particularly thankful for the door. I've mentioned before that my team shares office space with another team. Their work habits require me to use my door as a sound baffle.

The woman across the hall leaves her door open, and only uses speaker phone. All day. She also listens to particularly bad radio and sings, but that's a walk in the park compared to her speaker phone abuse.

The Toxic Manager manages by standing over his employees, way too close, and watching them work. And sits behind them and tells them what to click on with their mouses. And just hangs around pontificating in an unidentifiable accent that makes everything he says sound like Laurence of Arabia talking to his camel "hut hut hut".

I had a dream the other night. I was forced to go on a date with President George Bush. We were going to the opera. It was black tie. I didn't want to go with him, and kept protesting that he was already married, and so was I, and we were not wed to each other.
To no avail. I had to put on an evening gown and go. I was in my parent's house, but it had been appropriated as a temporary White House. The Bush women were ridiculing my mother's decorating. They stuck their heads in my bedroom and made loud noises about how this room certainly was NOT part of the official residence.

I told them that it was my childhood bedroom and off limits. Then I had to go into their area to put my makeup on in their bathroom. They didn't know how to turn the lights on and were only barely polite when I showed them where the switches were.

We (the President and I) finally got into the limo to go to the opera. Only it wasn't a limo, it was a Lincoln, and the POTUS was driving it himself. I was pissed because we were late and they were holding the curtain until we arrived. I felt that he was taking advantage of his position, and that the curtain shouldn't have been held.

When we finally got to the opera house, the POTUS had someone take off his overcoat, and I saw that he was only wearing a tux jacket, shirt and tie, and that from the waist down, he was dressed in jeans, boots and leather chaps. He then left me in the lobby to tip the help and pay for my own program.

I thought he was a major ass hole. By the time the opera was over, I had organized a demonstration in the lobby, and the crowd was chanting "Defeat Bush" when he came out.

End of dream.

This weekend was just tits, man.*

It started on Friday, with the RLA and I meeting up with my friend, The Coolest Person In the World TM, who has been in the area for a while.

After seeing the two of us slam back the (first) vodka, the RLA decided not to even try to keep up with us. It was wise. It would have been wiser for me to remember that I can't keep up with her. Nevertheless, I gave it my best shot, and didn't get sick. I'm pretty sure that the end of the night saw me promising to meet her and her husband in New Orleans for Mardi Gras, as the spouse will be riding with one of the big Krewes this year, and so would entail hanging around with a much higher caliber of riff raff than would other wise be available to the likes of me.
I did sleep for half the night in the bathtub, but I never puked. The RLA says that when he went in to check on me, I was lying in the tub with a shit-eating grin on my face, and the hot water trickling over my toes, and he figured that it was some kind of sauna cure, and I was fine.

I was. And had only the teensiest of hangovers. But he still made me pay the next day by dragging my sorry ass all over Miami to grocery stores, shoe stores, book stores... oh, it was an ordeal, I'll tell you.

There was some heavy lifting in the kitchen on Saturday, as I prepped for a Fourth of July party. Tabouli, fruit salad, my mom's cole slaw (the recipe for which she stole from the Pink Pony circa 1948) and which is just to die for, a mango upside down cake. Burgers. Chips. Beer. Mango daquiris. More beer.

Our guests were two couples, one from San Francisco in town for a visit, and the other newly-made friends from across town. All six of us are artists of one stripe or another, and aside from hanging in the pool drinking, the major activity of the day was doing a jam painting on the wall around the koi pond. It isn't finished, but it is way cool. There's a fish, a mer-man, leaves, and swirls, and bubbles, and color. Photos will follow.

We also indulged in fire works (shhhhhh). The noble dog Nails proved his worth by attacking the tanks. This caused much consternation among the adults who had to tackle him, pry the still sparking fireworks out of his mouth and toss them away before the actual fire crackers exploded. What a dog. Not afraid of anything, and he should be.

Yesterday was a day of cleaning, resting and recuperation. And painting and swimming. Tonight there are vague rumors of getting together with The Coolest Person In the World TM again. I only hope my liver will one day forgive me.

* for reasons I cannot remember, back in college, this was the highest accolade my buddy Andy could bestow on something.

Marlon Brando. R.I.P.

Damn. He was fine in his youth. He was tortured and brilliant throughout his career. He was the size of a small village at the end, but he'll always be Terry, from On The Waterfront to me.

Or the mincing, lisping Fletcher Christian.

Ah, well, another icon, down. Think I'll watch Guys and Dolls this weekend.

This is what was driving through the hospital campus today while I was at lunch.



You can't see the writing on the side, so I'll include the literature they were handing out of the head pig.
"The largest pig shows the financial cost ($200 billion)1 of America's attack on Iraq, including the projected minimum cost of reconstruction.

The smaller pig illustrates the annual federal spending on K-12 education ($34 billion)2.

The wee little pig shows annual federal spending on reducing world hunger and poverty ($10 billion).3

For the same amount of money that we're spending on the war in Iraq, we could:

provide Head Start for all elibible kids,

provide Healthcare for all uninsured kids,

build 2,500 new elementary schools, and

reduce grades 1-3 class size to 15 students

for the next 5 years.

1) Eric Schmitt and Robert Pear, New York Times, Feb. 3, 2004. Also see Congressional Budget Office, "Estimated Costs of a Potential Conflict with Iraq," September 2002.
2) U.S. Budget, FY 2004
3) U.S. Budget, FY 2004

For more information, visit www.TrueMajority.org/pigs"

And just think, this was going to be a post about the lousy customer service offered up by Circuit City.