Trouble Graduating

I have a friend who is having some trouble graduating. Let's call him Mr. Anonymous. You might know him, he writes a blog that I read a lot. Well anyways Brad . . . err I mean Mr. Anonymous . . . is having some trouble graduating. It's not that he's stupid. I mean, jeez, he may be the smartest person I know based solely on pure intelligence. Brad's . . . err. . . ah screw it, everybody knows who I'm talking about anyways. Brad's problem is he is in a constant battle with laziness, and laziness is winning.

Brad is in the final quarter of his 5th year in college. (Or so he thought it was his final quarter!) Keep in mind he's taking 26 credit hours this quarter (the max is normally 20) so he can finish up and get out. Keep in mind he's been there for 5 years and he has to take this many hours in his final quarter to graduate!

Well Brad applies for graduation. He gets rejected. Panic ensues. It turns out he is missing a credit. But Brad was confused. This was a class he had taken. In fact he had taken it last quarter.

Upon inspection Brad discovers that he received an incomplete in this course. Of course Brad was unaware of this because unlike normal people, he didn't bother to check his grade reports (you know, why bother!).

Oh well, all he has to do is talk to the Prof and get him/her to fix this mistake? Right?

WRONG

unbelievably the last day to "fix" an incomplete was Friday, the day that Brad discovered this. So now he has to work the backchannels and get his advisor or an assistant dean somewhere to fix this and let him slide. If only he had established some type of relationship with his advisor by visiting him/her like his parents had so often asked.

Of course, since it took him more than two years to officially change his major I suppose it wouldn't have mattered much because he would have been talking to the wrong advisor. Anyways, that was today's edition of laughing at someone else's misfortune. Hope everyone enjoyed it.

Top 10 College Majors

MSN put out a list of the Top 10 College Majors. I think it's crap and would love to know what their sources are. If "Undecided" doesn't crack the top 5 at most universities I'd be shocked. Shocked!

Ohio Education

Like always in the middle of the month, I've had no time to blog lately, and have little right now, but I figured I'd make a quick post. The funding for public education in Ohio is especially screwed up. It's all done by property taxes, so districts with a nuclear power plant have high schools nicer than most colleges, and schools in the ghetto barely have walls and a roof.

Everyone knows this system needs to be fixed. My personal favorite solution is to take property taxes, but to dump them into one state-wide bucket, and then to split up the money evenly, throughout the state on a per-student basis.

Recently a friend has made me aware of Educate Ohio. They have a slightly different plan with lots of loopholes (that's right, stay away from those Robin Hood AND anti-Robin Hood acts!).

There are definitely things that I don't like about it. However, there are positives, like it will be a good starting point for discourse. Maybe this plan will help people come up with ideas to actually make the plan better.

I'd basically just like to hear what others think about this thing, and to see if they think it's a viable solution.

Homeless Guy

For today's post I've got a guest writer. Yes, Luke is here with a story about the streets of Cleveland and his favorite homeless guy that is guaranteed to make you laugh. I think the only real background that you need is that Luke absolutely hates Miami University (of Ohio) and THE Ohio State University. Oh, and I guess that Luke really thinks of himself as at least pseudo-religious and he tends to like things that are about religion . . . I'm sure he'll comment and correct me if any of this sounds wrong . . . Anyways, here is his latest crazy musing, which made me laugh out loud at least twice when he emailed it to me.

The other day I got this camo & blaze orange hat as a "bonus" from a guy who I bought my new PW and 9-iron from on eBay. Since I walk by beggars on the streets of Cleveland on my way to the office each day I thought maybe I should give the hat to my "favorite bum" that I refer to as "FB." For some time now I have referred to this gentleman as "FB" when telling my wife, in-laws or family about my days. Since my wife and I live in the middle of the country and I drive over 60 miles to work in a large city each day, my work experience is much different than anything my wife has ever experienced on a regular basis in her life.

Back to "FB." Why would I refer to a random beggar as my Favorite Bum? Well maybe it is because every day when I pass this guy on the corner of East 9th Street and Euclid Ave. each day as he proclaims "You ladies and gentlemen have a nice day. God be with you." I generally have a soft spot for religious people (that's why I hate Brad), and even if he just says it so people will give him money (which is likely the case) there's a soft spot in my heart for the religious comment nonetheless.

On a few occasions I have wanted to buy him thermal socks or a jacket or a skull cap to keep him warm, but I have never really gotten up the motivation to spend money on "FB." So while I thought about giving him my "bonus" hat that I know I will never wear, I thought about the fact that he may wear the hat all of the time and think it's the greatest thing since sliced bread. To get a free hat from one of the "Big Shot City Workers" (which I am not!) may be a big deal to this poor guy. So I thought to myself, why not use this as a marketing opportunity if I am gonna give him something? I mean hundreds of people pass this guy each day as he proclaims his little "God be with you!" line. Why not take advantage of it all? I can give him something and get something in return! You can see that working in marketing for the past 4 years has really gotten to me!

Suddenly a better idea comes into my head. Why not use this opportunity to do some reverse-marketing. There are many things that piss me off or annoy me so why not bash one of them. Now my decision is this; should I buy a Miami University Alumni hat or a Ohio State University Alumni hat for "FB?" I mean a homeless bum begging for money in an Ohio State Alumni hat... How funny would that be?

Jennifer Wilbanks

Breaking news (but not really breaking anymore) Here's a quick synopsis on America's newest moron, Jennifer Wilbanks.

Extremely buggy eyed woman gets cold feet over her impending wedding and leaves town. Only she doesn't just "leave town". No, she takes a freaking bus all the way from Georgia to Albuquerque. Only she doesn't just head out west, visit Vegas, and gamble for a couple of days. No, she makes a 911 call telling the dispatcher that she was kidnapped while jogging through some her affluent suburbian neighborhood.

Of course, her family has money, so this becomes the biggest deal on all the 24-hour news channels with nothing better to report. Everybody is talking about the buggy eyed woman who got kidnapped in Georgia. The town is up-in-arms. Her family is offering reward money. Its a constant sobfest.

Well then we find out that Jennifer Wilbanks is a lunatic. Well, maybe not a lunatic, but a liar and a creep. Apparently it's starting to come to light that her little trip was totally premeditated. She had been looking at bus schedules and setting aside some cash. Brilliant! Why is it that rich felons can never cover their tracks? And, if only she was poor this wouldn't be a big deal at all. Poor people go missing everyday!

I really don't care if she ditched her soon to be husband (and we thought she had cold feet before this ordeal!). If you're getting married and you can't go through with it, so be it, I guess you've got to do something . . . But when I start to hear about it, it's gone too far.

What really bothers me is how revered she became in her short stay in Albuquerque. She left there looking like a walking Albuquerque Police Department marketing model with all the APD apparel that she was wearing. Oh, the officers had the nicest things to say about her. "She needed help" and "She was just confused". Are you joking me!?!?! You'd think police officers would recognize how much of other's officers' time she wasted while pulling off this extravagant ruse.

I hope that they press charges. I hope the County Prosecutor sucks it up and charges her with something just to stick it to her. This is why it's too bad that we live in civilization now. What they should do is just make it so she's never allowed to get married. After all, if this is the way she's going to act when she's about to get married, I don't think she should be given that privilege.

It's my new law-making philosophy. Waste our time, get civil liberties stripped away. If Congress wasn't so embroiled in this Social Security battle I bet I could get them behind it too. I mean, jeez, it's just like what they're already doing to gay people.

Lazy Co-Worker Revisited

Alright, so this is border line unbelievable, but as always everything I say here is true. No more than 24 hours after I made the blog entry about my lazy co-workers than do I get an email from my boss! It says that "Joyce's" mid-year review is coming up and I've been one of the people selected to review her. I believe my initial reaction was "ohmygodohmygodohmygodohmygodddddd!".

Well, now what in the hell do I do? Do I skip the Q&A and rating scales and simply provide a link to my blog about her? Do I delete the email and pretend I never saw it? Do I provide my boss with a list of reasons that "Joyce" is irresponsible and unprofessional? (You know, something like. . .)

• Feeling a little 'run-down'
  Moving much slower than originally anticipated
  Sleeping to fend off sickness
  Plumbing emergency
  Knee Hurts
  Forgot Report
  Sidetracked
  Cramps (of which kind, we were afraid to ask)
  Traffic
  Forgot my Laptop

I mean I MUST sugar coat the truth, right? If I tell my boss the truth then I'M going to be the @$$hole. Yeah I get selected to review someone with a higher position than me and I give her a bunch of two's and one's (out of 5). That'll look realistic and like I don't have a grudge, or some sort of mental jealousy thing. Things are getting interesting, that's for sure.

Today's Links

Every now and then I like to point you in the direction of other good stuff. This is where I like to make a listing of stuff I've come across that I think is great. Also, looks like I may have a guest blogger from time to time coming on here and stirring things up a little. Something to look forward to for sure. For now, onto today's links.

-- This is a great blog entry comparing people to poop. Much like those "what type of alcoholic drink am I?", "What Simpons character am I?" or "How am I?" quizzes.

-- Why did the chicken cross the road? Celebrities answer the age old question!

-- The most disgusting advertisement that I've seen in quite a while!

Lazy Co-Workers

So have you ever worked with somebody so lazy that you've wanted to gouge their eyes out with a Papermate pen? If not, you should come work with me. I work in a very relaxed office environment. Our day runs from 8:30 to 5:00, but it's not like we're punching timecards or that we have a boss lording over us.

The reason I pick up on the lazy co-worker happenings is because I sit about 3 feet away from 2 other co-workers, one whom is lazy, the other who shares in my disgust. Let me share some insane stories. So this lazy co-worker . . . let's call her "Joyce" for anonymity's sake.

Well Joyce has many annoying habits that drive me and the co-worker who shares my disgust, for anonymity's sake lets call her Mrs. Kirby, insane. Joyce likes to mumble, butt-in to conversations that don't include her, argue about stupid things, not listen to our advice, and she doesn't have an extremely good grasp on the English Language. In short, Joyce sucks.

The most annoying thing about Joyce is that she doesn't find it necessary to show up to work on time. Now I don't mean that she hops in 10 minutes late each day. At least once a week she ambles in several hours late. I've worked here for four months now, and I'm quite sure that not one week has gone by without incident. Joyce rarely shows up before 9:00, and she sometimes shows up after 11:00. Mrs. Kirby and I began collecting the list of excuses she has offered up to explain her lateness each time. I assure you that these are not doctored, even though they seem extremely made up.

• Feeling a little 'run-down'
• Moving much slower than originally anticipated
• Sleeping to fend off sickness
• Plumbing emergency
• Knee Hurts
• Forgot Report
• Sidetracked
• Cramps (of which kind, we were afraid to ask)
• Traffic
• Forgot my Laptop

I mean come on! She's 32 years old! But do you know the most gut-wrenching, maddening part that makes me want to smash her over the head with a laptop? Everyday I leave at 5:00 (you know, because I bother to come in before 10:30). Joyce always stays late, but when I leave (ON TIME I remind you) I get a snotty look or a condescending remark like I'm sneaking out or something! It's insane. I just wondered if anyone else works with someone who has attributes like Joyce, and how they handle them.

Get More Traffic To Your Blog

Hey fellow bloggers. I didn't start this blog to become a total shill, but this is something pretty cool that I didn't know about until just recently. There's actually a site that lets you get more traffic to your blog by becoming a member and surfing other members blogs. Plus you find some other interesting blogs in the process. It's really a win-win.

75 Ways To Order a Pizza

This guy at the Conservative Legion wrote an absolutely hilarious post about 75 different ways to order a pizza. I haven't laughed out loud this many times since I read Come and Get It At Ponderosa. I listed some of my favorites below.

2. Make up a charge-card name. Ask if they accept it.

3. When they repeat your order, say "Again, with a little more OOMPH this time."

4. Order a Big Mac Extra Value Meal.

5. Terminate the call with, "Remember, we never had this conversation."

11. Do not name the toppings you want. Rather, spell them out.

14. Put an extra edge in your voice when you say "crazy bread."

16. Ask if you get to keep the pizza box. When they say yes, heave a sigh of relief.

20. Say "Are you sure this is (Pizza Place)? When they say yes, say "Well, so is this! You've got some explaining to do!" See how they respond.

31. Ask to see a menu.

45. Start the conversation with "My Call to (Pizza Place), Take 1, and. . . action!"

52. Start the conversation by reciting today's date and saying, "This may be my last entry."

57. When listing toppings you want on your pizza, include another pizza.

62. Make the first topping you order mushrooms. Make the last thing you say "No mushrooms, please." Hang up before they have a chance to respond.

63. When the order is repeated, change it slightly. When it is repeated again, change it again. On the third time, say "You just don't get it, do you?"

67. Order term life insurance.

68. When they say "Will that be all?", snicker and say "We'll find out, won't we?"

71. Dance all around the word "pizza." Avoid saying it at all costs. If he/she says it, say "Please don't mention that word."