Flaky Friday

Your omniscient author in absentia:
My morning routine is asunder having to get up and get to work extra early in order to leave work early so I can get my car (after last week's unfortunate fender bender) back from the body shop this afternoon and return the hideous rental so I don't get stuck with it for the entire weekend.

That is all.

(If I were Bobby V I'd have said that in Japanese after inventing a new type of sandwich, in anime.)

 

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The algorithm that binds us

Bill:
Remember the 2002 Red Sox...

 

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Doug:
Ah, wait, wait... just give a few seconds to, er, think...

 

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Bill:
Me neithah...

 

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Bill:
But Chad Finn says the version 2012 reminds him a lot of v2002.

 

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Doug:
Hmmm... that might be something palatable.

 

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Doug:
I mean Manny had a friggin monstah 2002 and package that up with $1.65 avg for a gallon of gas and it stahting to sound pretty good.

 

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Bill:
Wow, what a miraculous memory for minutia you have. Heh.

 

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Doug:
Yeah, it's a little something I live to call, "Googleito ergo sum."

 

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In like a lion...

Al:
Let the 2012 Major League Baseball season commence!

 

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Mike:
Yeah, and nothing quite says baseball like a 6am game in Mahch.

 

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Doug:
Or stepping out into a 39 degree ovahcast day.

 

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Al:
So much for Spring being like a perhaps hand which comes carefully out of nowhere with a happy ending.

 

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Doug:
Seriously, with this weathah coming on the heels of last week's 70s, it's more like Spring is a perhaps forced bukkake.

 

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Mike:
Well, when it comes to Spring, I think it's best to recall the words of our sagacious Red Sox managah — "Just because God delays does not mean God denies."

 

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Al:
Hey, this delaying and denying is one thing, but if Bobby V decides to bat Aviles and his career .318 OBP at leadoff, then it's time for God to get out some old school Biblical stylee smite.

 

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Doug:
Yeah, I'm pretty sure that's covered in Deuteronomy...

"And when thou fuckest with the order and nigh good comes of it, then whither thou goest the Lord thy God shall smite thee. And proclaim peace unto it."

 

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A conscious choice

Bill:
So what's worse than opening up the browsah and seeing a story headline "Catching up with Lackey"?

 

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Bill:
Seeing the byline "Dan Shaughnessy."

 

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Mike:
So is this a case of life following the rules of mathematics in which a negative times a negative equals a positive?

 

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Bill:
Ah, that would require actually reading the piece... I just don't have it in me, frankly.

 

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Bill:
I mean, yeah, yeah, Lackey is human, he probably all fucked up emotionally for a slew of valid reasons et cetera et cetera...

 

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Bill:
But as a fan, I'm under no obligation to interact.

 

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Bill:
So I chose to dissolve myself of John Lackey fully and absolutely.

 

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Mike:
Well, in the words of the great philosopher and mathematician Pascal, "Man's greatness lies in his power of thought."

 

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Old as you feel

Doug:
Oh, great. So there's already a "wedge" developing between the GM and managah.

 

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Mike:
That's appropriate because I'm pretty sure Bobby Valentine invented the wedge salad.

 

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Al:
Mmmm... blue cheese.

 

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Doug:
Speaking of blue things that smell... Seems the Yankees are lowah than the Red Sox in David Pinto's offensive probability spreadsheet.

 

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Mike:
Well, to be fair to the Yankees, everybody is lowah than the Red Sox who come in at numbah one, thank you very much.

 

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Doug:
I hope there isn't some Sports Illustrated type jinx associated with Pinto and Baseball Musings.

 

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Al:
Don't be preposterous... But if you put a hardcopy of Pinto's spreadsheet in the back of your cah, then all bets are off.

 

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Mike:
Jeez, Al, nothing like an archaic reference... what are you like 100 years old?

 

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Al:
101... But hey here's another one for ya...

 

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Al:
A milkman, a typesettah, and a ferrier walk into a bah...

 

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Just spring

Doug:
So we already have our first imbroglio with the Yankees and it's just spring.

 

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Arturo, the hot dog vendor:
"Nobody puts Bobby in the corner!"

 

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Doug:
If Valentine continues to look for trouble, this could be a looong season.

 

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Arturo, the hot dog vendor:
Indeed.

 

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Doug:
Speaking of long seasons, what do you have on the menu for a Lenten Friday special?

 

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Arturo, the hot dog vendor:
Ah, Ladies & Gentlemen, Boys & Girls, now being served "The Dr. NakaMats Special."

 

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Doug:
!

 

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Arturo, the hot dog vendor:
A shrimp sausage, with wasabi mustard, Japanese sweet mayonnaise, topped with thinly sliced bunching onion.

 

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Doug:
Arturo, you are a true craftsman!

 

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Arturo, the hot dog vendor:
You know what they say, Mr. Roy, "Pray as though everything depended on God. Work as though everything depended on you."*

 

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Doug:
Om, yom yom yom

 

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The Big Sleep

Doug:
Someone really should come up with a bettah word than "insomnia"...

 

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Doug:
I mean if it was just "sleeplessness" that really wouldn't be so bad, you know, just laying there all empty headed and not sleeping...

 

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Doug:
But it's the fucking relentless horror show your sleepless brain dishes out non stop that is the rub.

 

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Doug:
It's like the friggin OWN network–it's on but nobody fucking wants to watch that shit.

 

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Bill:
Have trouble are we? Maybe you should try Lunesta?

 

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Doug:
Lunesta? Are you fucking kidding me? I mean, Christ, aggressiveness, agitation, hallucinations, or confusion, occasional, tongue or throat swelling that may be fatal?

 

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Doug:
Death by swollen tongue? Fucking seriously?!

 

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Doug:
No thanks, I'll stick to something safah like heroin.

 

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Bill:
Maybe tonight you should just focus on something good... something that makes you happy.

 

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Bill:
For instance, look at that pic of Mel Parnell in skis in a snowy Fenway and tell me it doesn't put a smile on your face?

 

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Doug:
Man, it's always tough to lose one of the all time great Red Sox.

 

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Bill:
The winningest southpaw in team history...

 

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Blue on blue, heartache on heartache

Al:
So I absolutely love it when the cosmos are in harmony and we learn, for instance, that A-Rod's niece fancies a store called "Blue and Cream."

 

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Al:
I mean, of course she does, of course she does.

 

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Doug:
Hey, one can never be too blasé when pairing creams with the color of one's lips.

 

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Mike:
Yeah, you really couldn't find a bettah two word juxtaposition that just screams A-Rod than "Blue and Cream."

 

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Mike:
Well, expect maybe "Slaps Balls."

 

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Al:
You know, say what you want about A-Rod, but I think it's great that he's spending time with his niece and more importantly letting her shop at the same place where he buys his batting gloves.

 

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Doug:
And his purse!

 

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Mike:
Best. Photo. Evah.

 

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Doug:
I think it's nice, too, that Alex is experiencing first hand what it feels like to pay too much for something and not be able to get a refund.

 

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Creepus Interruptus

Your omniscient author in absentia:
Sorry to do this to you so soon after a vacation week (though you at least did get 5 days of Lisa, right?), but I'm getting clobbered from multiple directions at the moment. Let's try to pick back up and resume tomorrow...

 

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And we're back...

Bill:
So not sure what the frig is up...

 

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Bill:
I take off for a week, come back, and I dunno... doesn't feel like I missed any Red Sox news.

 

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Bill:
Oh, right, there's the meaningless games, of course, and the line-up cards that look foreign even to the most diehahd fan...

 

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Bill:
And the if you've read one you've read them all stories about "progress" and "setbacks" and endlesss fanboard parsing of quotes...

 

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Doug:
Dude, I hear ya...

 

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Doug:
It's like my Red Sox excitement went on Spring Break and was last seen on a hotel surveillance cam at an ATM machine with Joran van der Sloot.

 

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Sincerely Lisa

Lisa the Temp's week draws to a close as the Soxaholix will return from vacation on Monday…

Lisa the Temp:
This is my final day at this office for now, peeps. But let me share with you another of Lisa keys to success....

 

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Lisa the Temp:
I always believe it's important to leave in a gracious and thankful manner so that you will be invited back.

 

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Lisa the Temp:
This can be achieved with a simple note, like this one...

 

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Lisa the Temp:
To Whom it May Concern:

I don't know how your employees maintain their delightful sheen. It's as though there's something in them that yearns for this challenge—like so many mimes trapped in an imaginary box seeking an escape, miming and seeking, seeking and miming, seeking more, miming more, miming faster, until there's no one there, until the miming itself is the only thing, a vacant momentum. It's sad to think it has such a small audience as myself.

Sincerely yours,

Lisa⁵

 

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The sky's the limit

Lisa the Temp continues to give life lessons while the Soxaholix are on vacation …

Lisa the Temp:
Lisa is often asked, "So, what's it like to be an office temp?"

 

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Lisa the Temp:
So let me give it to you straight, peeps.

 

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Lisa the Temp:
Le'ts say the temp career is an airplane. Traveling at 10,000 feet.

 

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Lisa the Temp:
And let's say there's no landing gear and nowhere to land.

 

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Lisa the Temp:
And fuel is limited. And one has a general idea of when the fuel is going to run out.

 

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Lisa the Temp:
Given this knowledge, peeps, is "travel" really the right word?

 

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Lisa the Temp:
And if not travel, then what?

 

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Lisa the Temp:
One sees one's life quite differently when one knows it isn't going to land.4

 

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Sage advice

Lisa the Temp doles out advice while the Soxaholix are on vacation …

Lisa the Temp:
The best advice I can give to a new temp just starting out is to never be afraid to ask questions. Never, peeps.

 

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Lisa the Temp:
No matter how commonplace or obvious you may consider any one of the meaningless tasks you are given, you should never assume that the office you're at that day doesn't have some sort of "special" way of doing things.

 

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Lisa the Temp:
And it's up to you to discover this by asking questions.

 

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Lisa the Temp:
For instance today at the staff meeting, Lisa asked, "Could I respectfully ask that, if someone has the time, and at their convenience, of course, if someone could watch me pee?"

 

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Lisa the Temp:
I have the feeling that I am peeing wrong, and as it stands, what's to stop me? I suspect there may be many others in this predicament. Thank you."

 

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Lisa the Temp:
You see, people, the failure to ask these sorts of questions as a temp worker seems to me an act of remarkable malice.3

 

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Lisa finds insufficiencies

The Soxaholix are on vacation, but Lisa the Temp continues to, er, temp…

Lisa the Temp:
At the end of a long day of temp work, I believe it's important to take a moment to reflect.

 

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Lisa the Temp:
You know, look back and say, "What was that?"

 

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Lisa the Temp:
But one can never answer sufficently, can one?

 

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Lisa the Temp:
Lisa can say, "I played Words with Friends, there was the lady with the hump at reception, and there was the itch from the UTI before the meds kicked in..."

 

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Lisa the Temp:
But still one hasen't summed up why one existed or where, has one peeps?²

 

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Lisa and the metaphysical

While the Soxaholix are on spring vacation, Lisa the Temp will keep the creepy show going…

Lisa the Temp:
When I return to an office I temped at before I often feel like an ex-prisoner-of-war, decades after my release, returning to the prison in which I was detained.

 

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Lisa the Temp:
The country is nothing like it was back then.

 

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Lisa the Temp:
The prison has been made into a tourist spot.

 

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Lisa the Temp:
I feel a kind of unspecific sadness — Not at my imprisonment, or at some lack of justice...

 

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Lisa the Temp:
But because the gift shop at the former prison sells sea shells. And this is a landlocked country.1

 

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A sane person to an insane society must appear insane.

Mike:
Nice try, Paps, but it's gonna take a lot more than that to push my proverbial buttons.

 

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Doug:
Seriously, if I let every lowah primate goad me, I wouldn't be able to walk by the monkey cages at the zoo without a hand full of my own feces at the ready.

 

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Al:
And talk about totally misunderstanding the magnanimity of Red Sox fans... so a guy throws his prosthetic leg into the bullpen? Hasn't Paps every heard the good luck phrase "Take a leg!"

 

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Al:
I mean, jeez, we're just trying to help is all.

 

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Mike:
But the biggest misunderstanding of them all may be our fomrah closahs naivete about his best new Philly fan friends... Have fun with that, kid.

 

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Al:
Meanwhile, don't anybody mention this to Rush, but it looks like taxapayahs willl be helping to pick up the tab on Fenway future renovations forevah and evah.

 

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Doug:
But the fans in othah cities shouldn't fret... No, instead they should console themselves for being treated as wards by imagining that they have chosen their own protector, our benevolent and well-meaning government shepherd.

 

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Just askin'

Two guys walking, no words exchanged:

 

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Two guys walking, no words exchanged:

 

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Two guys walking, no words exchanged:

 

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Two guys walking, short guy speaks:
Mr. Hall?

 

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Two guys walking, tall guy speaks:
Yes, Mr. Oates?

 

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Two guys walking, short guy speaks:
Well... I dunno... it's just...

 

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Two guys walking, tall guy speaks:
C'mon, Mr. Oates, out with it.

 

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Two guys walking, short guy speaks:
OK. So... Do you still love the Boston Red Sox?

 

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Two guys walking, tall guy speaks:
Oh, Mr. Oates, where is this coming from?

 

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Two guys walking, short guy speaks:
It's just, you know, it's Spring Training but there's no welcome look in your eyes. And now you're starting to criticize all the little things they do.

 

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Two guys walking, no words exchanged:

 

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Two guys walking, no words exchanged:

 

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Two guys walking, no words exchanged:
It's just that, you know, I don't want it to slip away.

 

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Two guys walking, no words exchanged:

 

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Two guys walking, no words exchanged:

 

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Two guys walking, no words exchanged:

 

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Two guys walking, tall guy speaks:
Mr. Oates I think you're doing what they call "projecting."

 

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Two guys walking, no words exchanged:

 

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Two guys walking, no words exchanged:

 

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Two guys walking, no words exchanged:
I'm going to be watching you, Mr. Oates, yes, watching you.

 

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"The doctor will be with you in a moment ..."

Your omniscient author in absentia:
I've got to do my annually 12-hour fast and doctor visit this morning which is messing with writing mojo. Yes, I'm a total whuss. (I just worry that I may have to suffer being anally penetrated for an unnecessary sonogram... hmmm... worry or wonder?)

 

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93 to 53

Mike:
Ladies & Gentlemen, Boys & Girls the Eephus pitch has made its first grapefruit game appearance.

 

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Bill:
In a world of chaos, I cling to the Eephus like an unfortunate cruise line passengah clings to a float.

 

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Mike:
And why not?

 

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Mike:
I mean listen to this description from Valentine, "It's quite the contrast. It's a little slower and a little faster on both ends."

 

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Bill:
Wow, what a timely coincidence... I just heard Rush Limbaugh say the same thing about Sandra Fluke.

 

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Bill:
Ba dum chhh. I'm here all week, folks. Try the quahogs.

 

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Of signs of spring

Mike:
Like the multiple dull drum...

 

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Mike:
Of sap in empty pails...

 

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Mike:
Comes the sweet tidal flow from Spring Training...

 

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Al:
A righthanded pull hittah, Cody Ross seems like a good match for Fenway.

 

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Doug:
Doubrant, shahp. Lestah, shahp. Beckett, shahp.

 

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Al:
Millah hitting 96 on the gun? Matsuzaka (Matsuzaka???) "impressive".

 

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Mike:
All that and we find out from none othah than the CHB that he clubhouse chicken preference was Popeyes and not KFC.

 

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Doug:
The Red Sox are always a classy bunch; we know this.

 

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Al:
You know to me—Kentucky-Fried, Pop-eyed, home-styled—doesn't mattah. Nevah been a fan.

 

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Doug:
Seriously. If the good Lord had wanted us to fry chicken then the good Lord wouldn't have given us the Ipswich clam.

 

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Mike:
Food of the gods that.

 

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Al:
Chubby Woodman you did a very good thing, a very good thing indeed.

 

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Sighs, short and infrequent

Susan/Circle:
Eliot was wrong...

 

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Susan/Circle:
April isn't the cruelest...

 

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Susan/Circle:
No the cruelest is the first week or so of Spring Training when baseball's back and yet it's not.

 

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Susan/Circle:
I mean talk about your mixing of memory and desire.

 

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Mike:
Yeah, and then clutch the broken image of Tek in tears where the sun beats down and, well,

 

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Mike:
Here, there was to be heard / no complaint but the sighs...

 

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Susan/Circle:
Che l'aura eterna facevan tremare.^★

 

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Mike:
Indeed.

 

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Let it not be

Al:
I'm not entirely sure, here, but I'm getting the impression that this guy Luke Scott doesn't care for Red Sox fans too much.

 

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Doug:
Who the fuck is Luke Scott?

 

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Mike:
Looks like BigBri has a new hero.

 

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Al:
"Luke, I am your vulgah."

 

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Mike:
The funniest paht for me is how he talks about how awesome it is to be so-called "classy" but then proceeds to relate how he, an MLB playah, rolled down his window aftah a game to taunt Boston fans leaving Fenway.

 

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Al:
Yeah, way to personify class, Lukey.

 

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Mike:
And like his taunting would actually have some sort of effect... what the uninitiated fail to comprehend about us is that we're as ruthless to each othah as we are to anyone else.

 

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Doug:
Serioulsy, we seek respite from tolerance in every sense.

 

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Doug:
Stop being nice to me. Say to me, "What are you fucking retahded?"

 

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