the do's and don'ts of picketing

yes, friends, i am currently "walking the line". and here, i will share some tips about striking that may help you in future labour disputes:

1) think of neutral conversation topics. suddenly, you find yourself spending hours each day with people who you liked to talk to on your coffee break, but never really wanted to meet in real life.
2) don't be afraid to walk away, walk alone. see above.
3) develop conspiracy theories.
4) trying to break up the monotony of chanting for traffic honks by leading people in a round of "we're here, we're queer, get used to it!" is NOT funny.
5) wear comfortable shoes.
6) keep an eye out for media, remember this is YOUR time to be discovered. tape the news and send a clip reel to potential agents.
7) rewrite Green Day songs with union-relevant lyrics. then, grab the bullhorn and try to force others to join in the singalong.
8) take this opportunity to think of "clever" slogans, puns on the company brand.
9) play honk bingo. big trucks, 5 points. SUV's 4 points. compact cars, 3 pts. motorcycles 1 pt.
10) remember, the people who will heckle you are generally not the noel coward set. be prepared with clever comebacks such as "that's what your mom told me last night".
11) hold on to your sign. it gets windy out there.
12) keep up on the latest gossip. remember, information is currency.
13) don't let the bastards get you down.

Detroit and the Doppler 4000

i never realized how concerned detroitagonians were about their weather until i started getting a time-shifted detroit channel on digital. every single day, i could be sitting here watching dr. phil or whatever, and the screen will go black, and a deep, booming voice will alert me to a "CHANNEL 4 BREAKING WEATHER ALERT!!!". it could be a marine warning, a sudden rain shower, some scattered hail, or even just some sudden cloud cover. but whatever it may be, Channel 4 is there, with images from the Doppler 4000.

not that it ever seems to be an emergency. i mean, they never tell you to prepare to head for the basement, or to grab a flashlight and a transistor radio, or to keep an eye out the window for the nice young men from the national guard coming to evacuate you. hell, we've had tornadoes passing by here that had less tv interruption time.

which is kind of what pisses me off. i mean, i'm watching my stories, and they're just getting down to the shit, when suddenly Sam Mantooth or whatever the hell his name is is there telling me it may be raining on Main Street, yet he still manages to return to scheduled programming in time for THE COMMERCIALS. gotta pay for the Doppler, but still.

and i could understand if Channel 4's target demographic was some cluster of michigan storm chasers with loads of disposable income:







but aren't the people that are sitting in their houses in the middle of the afternoon, fretting about the weather, more like this guy than indiana jones?






u/v

highlights of my day

1) the assmaster customer who called me "useless" while i went out of my way to be sweet and upbeat and help him sort out his phone service

2) rolling my little work filing cabinet over this bump in the carpet at work and causing a wheel to go flying off, throwing the whole thing off balance and causing the whole shebang to collapse to the ground

3) the girl at work who stole my desk and caused me to have to roll my filing cabinet over the bump in the carpet

4) being repeatedly bitten by the cat, who has incidentally developed a mysterious "sticky head" syndrome, i suspect from lying with his head in the garbage.

5) shin splints from running yesterday in the reeboks i have owned since high school

6) pangs of nostalgia for the LA Gear shoes i owned before the reeboks i wore yesterday, which also gave me wicked shin splints

7) not having to sit next to Optimus Prime at work for once

8) discovering that writing down "work on fringe show" in my day timer does not in fact equal a binding contract with myself to do so

9) discovering that Kelly whatsherhead won Dancing With The Stars, being mildly disappointed, then being mildly disheartened that i would be in any way disappointed by the results of a reality show i never watched.

10) od'ing on delicious, delicious sunflower seeds.

popularity

when did it leave me?

i never was one who enjoyed popularity... i spent most of elementary and high school secluded, hiding from bullies. a brief spate of friend-having followed in university, after which i decided to chuck it all and head out west for the open plains.

years passed.

which brings us to a couple of weeks ago. an unspecified birthday. a birthday to which numerous friends and even acquaintances were invited. said friends and acquaintances even said "yes, see you there, can't wait, it will ROCK!"

can you guess what happened?

the horror! every teenage nightmare come true. 4 people came out in total. i now acknowledge these select few as my TRUE FRIENDS. the rest... well, as i've said before, it just goes to show that high school prepares you for life in more ways than one, i suppose. where you spend your time secure in the knowledge that while you are morally and intellectually superior to them, the assholes seem to control the world and are rewarded for it.

i'm sorry, getting older has made me more bitter, apparently.

or it could be the running-induced exhaustion from my new fitness kick. either or.