Oh silly office politics… I never understood this particular unspoken code of office etiquette. If you’re done with your work, then go home. GO HOME. Do it. Do it now. I don’t care who looks at you funny. I don’t care if your coworkers see you leaving early and decide to plot against you from this moment onward. It’s not worth it. You’re done with your work. You should be rewarded, not punished by sitting around aimlessly while your slow and inefficient office mates blunder through their meaningless tasks at a verifiable snail’s pace. Who cares what they think anyway? If they had any brains to begin with they would have figured out how to finish their day’s work before 5pm. Just sayin’.

Go home. Trust me. You deserve this.

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You know the feeling all too well. You’re patiently waiting in line at the airport. You’re caught in a sea of people. Being corralled like so much mindless cattle. You made all the proper preparations. You didn’t pack your broadsword in your carry on. You don’t have any “liquids of death” or “nail clippers of doom.” You even wore your easily removable shoes that don’t contain weapons of mass destruction. You were so ready for this checkpoint. But the repetitive sound of gray monotone plastic bins stacking and re-stacking is slowly wearing you down. It’s sucking your will to live.

You arrive at the moment of truth. You’re no amateur, you’ve got the system down. Shoes, belt, pockets… Only a few more minutes of this charade and you can go sit by your gate for the next hour or two and make fun of other travelers with your clever inner monologues while you rock out to your iPod. But then, it happens. A large overweight TSA agent approaches you. You’ve been randomly selected.

There are really only a few ways you could interpret this “random” selection. You may choose from any of the following:

1. They think you are a terrorist. They’re on to you. That sweet innocent traveler act isn’t fooling anybody. Your shifty eyes must’ve given you away. Blast! It’s only a matter of time before they discover your shocks with the 3-foot collapsible machetes in them!! Should’ve taken the train you America hating Nazi!!

2. They don’t think you’re a terrorist. But they do think you’re hot, and they’re looking for a way to keep the eye candy around a little while longer. Because that’s what you are: sweet, sweet, delicious eye candy. I suppose you could take it as a compliment. Just remember that when they ask you to step into the image scanning machine, or assume the position for your pat down. What’s that you say? You’re sure they will be very professional when they’re sliding their hands up your crotch? Who are you kidding? We both know what’s going on in their heads. I’m a guy. I know how guys think. Should’ve taken the train you sweet, sweet temptress of the terminal!

3. You were selected randomly by some sort of machine, and you are just really unlucky. You poor loser. You can’t even win a game of rock-paper-scissors, let alone avoid being randomly selected for additional security procedures. At least you can take some comfort in knowing that our crack-shot airport security team is pulling a few random people out of line… Y’know, because they can’t seem to identify the loads of explosives under the pants of the guy ahead of you… I suppose you could’ve taken the train, but you’re so unlucky that someone would have placed a penny on your track causing you to derail and die a horrible  death by “exploding into a FIREBALL!!”  …you unlucky loser.

I should note here that I’m not in favor of “profiling.” What I am in favor of is some well trained professionals who aren’t making minimum wage, with real experience who can identify people acting and behaving suspiciously. But hey, what do I know? I’m just a guy who likes to take the train.

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Ok, since we’re on the subject of lines, I got a story for you. It was only a few years ago…in the land of Disney. It was a busy day at the park, and we had been having poor luck with rides breaking down. (In fact, this wasn’t long after our Tower of Terror experience.) Everywhere we went, it was especially crowded. No. Let me elaborate. You could not walk anywhere without stepping on exactly 5 small children, and someone’s straggling grandmother. Don’t ask me how I calculated those numbers…just trust me. They’re accurate.

We waded through the masses, trying desperately not to be run over by an army of designer strollers and obese people on fat-carts. I mean seriously…c’mon chunky. If you’re overweight maybe you should think about walking instead of cruising around on your personal fat-mobile. And don’t even get me started on the strollers! Disneyland was not made for strollers. When I first went to Disneyland I was only 2, and I didn’t have a stroller. I walked dang-it. And when I got cranky and tired my dad carried me like a real man, and not some yuppie pansy. But I digress…

With the poor luck and long lines we had encountered, we searched for a ride with a decent wait time. We finally decided on Pirates of the Caribbean as the wait time was listed below an hour. We stood in the line and began our journey towards eventual ride-dom. The line had been zig-zagged and strung out quite a ways from the actual ride. Ropes had been used to corral us like the cattle that we were. About 20 minutes passed by. And then, the strangest thing happened. As we followed the line, the line disappeared. Actually, “disappeared” doesn’t do it justice. It evaporated. The line literally vanished. All of a sudden, it was just gone. There was no one in front of us. And with the exception of a couple of confused people, there was no one behind us. We stood in the middle of the street, looking around with stupefied looks on our faces. Were we being watched? Was this some sort of Disneyland test used to discover the results of poor trafficking and line management? I may never know.

As we walked aimlessly, having completely wasted 20 minutes of our lives, we overheard that the ride may have broken down, which could have lead to the line’s annihilation dispersal. It really was the weirdest feeling. You think you’re going somewhere, and then all of a sudden…you’re not. Kind of like life after college.

Later in the day, we would in fact ride the ride…only to get stuck in the middle…for over half an hour… Shyeah. I can pretty much tell you every single detail about every pirate in that portion of the ride. And I’ll tell you what… Those pirates are persistent. They just keep shooting at each other endlessly. Over, and over, and over… At least I had the redhead to look at.

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Could I ever live in LA? There is a growing number of people who are plotting my relocation to the Los Angeles area. They think I would enjoy living and working there. I have mixed feelings.

On the one hand, there are a lot of creative opportunities down there, and I DID study film in college.

On the other hand, you could spend the rest of forever trying to land a decent job in LA and never really get anywhere.

On the third hand (let’s just assume we’re some kind of extra appendaging mutant), it’s still California, and there’s no snow there, and that is marvelous.

On yet another hand, it’s Dodger territory, and that could prove to be very hazardous to my health.

So I have very mixed feelings. I’m not sure I could really fit into the LA life. What if I get too caught up in the glitz and the pursuit of fame? What if the paparazzi pester me so much that it interferes with my personal life? What if my private matters are plastered all over the tabloids to such an extent that it ruins my marriage to Catherine Zeta Jones, resulting in a tumultuous divorce and custody battle, thus bringing my life to shambles?!?! Soooo many things to think about…

The post This Is LA appeared first on Raccoon Toons.

Hey that’s great. That’s really interesting. I’m so glad to hear that. Listen, I gotta go finish up my workout and get out of here. I need to drink a protein shake before it gets too late. And there’s a ballgame on.

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It’s a story that’s all too common in the gym. You’re waiting for a machine, or the cables, or a bench to open up. You’d come back to it later if you could, but you’ve already finished everything else from your workout. All you need is just three sets of one last, stupid, exercise. But you can’t do it. You can’t do it because some gym-illiterate nimrod has been sitting there on the machine all evening long. It’s been half an hour and he’s still there, doing the same repetitive exercise with barely any weight. And that’s if he’s actually doing any exercise at all. Half the time he isn’t even using it. He just sits there staring into space. You desperately want to believe that he’s resting between sets, but that can’t be since the pansy had barely any weight on there in the first place. Often he’s sitting there talking to someone, mindlessly droning on and on about some pointless piece of drivel. Or maybe he’s chatting up some young gym bunny who’s been running around on the stair master without enough clothes on.

The point is he’s the only thing that stands in the way between you and your workout. There are a couple of methods you can try at this point. You can stand there, obviously…hoping that he’ll get a clue that you’re waiting on him and have been for the past decade. But often these people are completely oblivious to the world. You can ask politely if he’ll let you and perhaps others work in. But chances are that the poor sap is so lost to proper gym etiquette that he probably wouldn’t even have a clue what that means. He’ll stare blankly at you with a stupefied look on his face, wondering why you’re readjusting the weight when he’s still “using” this particular piece of equipment.

“Look pal,” you’ll say, “I could do a week’s worth of workouts in the time that you’ve been sitting there hogging the [insert gym equipment of choice here]. It’s bad enough that you stole it from me an hour ago when I was trying to use it during some supersets. But now you’re still here. And you’ve been here. All night long. Taunting me with your sheer immovability. Well no more. I’m finishing my workout and I’m going home. Why don’t you go use the ab cruncher. You look like a guy who thinks that he can lose some of that flab on your gut by using the ab cruncher.”

Only then, at long last, do you finally get to finish your workout. You may sound like a jerk. But at least you’ll finally make it home. And silently, everyone else in the gym will appreciate your sacrifice on their behalf.

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Don’t you just hate it when this happens?? You feel sick. Miserable. Coughing. Aching. Sneezing…and all that other stuff they talk about in the NyQuil commercials. But you’re much too tough to go to the doctor. Who wants to go waste a day at the doctor’s office anyway? You have to make an appointment. You’ll have to tell the receptionist what’s wrong with you.

“Um…yeah…everything’s coming out…bad…”

“Can you be more specific sir?”

“Um…no…”

You know they all start laughing at you the moment they hang up the phone.

Then you arrive and you have to fill out a bunch of paper work. You could have your leg chopped off and they’d look at you and say,

“Please have a seat and fill out this sheet with any changes in your insurance.”

“My leg is missing!”

“Yes sir. I can see that. We have quite a wait here in front of you. Please have a seat.”

You laugh, but I’ve totally had this happen to me. Well…fine…it wasn’t my leg…

Your moment finally arrives and you get to see the doctor. Only, you don’t get to see the doctor. You get to see a nurse first. She’ll ask you to sit on the little bed, then she’ll want to take your blood pressure, look in your ears, and take off your shirt. Hmmm…wait…you know now that I think about it that sounds like a pretty good date…

But just when you think the nurse really likes you she’s gone and there’s some old pompous man with a white coat and a fancy degree. And then, it happens. It always happens. You explain what you’ve been suffering through for the last week at least, but all of a sudden the symptoms seem to have disappeared. It’s like the germs got stage fright or something.  The doctor just nods his head while you try to convince him that you’ve really been sick.

“I was throwing up! There were colors!”

“Mmmhmmm… is that right?”

The patronizing look from the MD is too much for you. You watch in agony as he scribbles something into his little folder no doubt labeling you some kind of hypochondriac. As a last resort, you try desperately to muster up some coughs, a sneeze, ANYTHING! But no…the virus knows exactly how to play this game. It wants you to appear totally and completely healthy as long as the man with the meds is there.

The doctor says you’ll be just fine. And so you leave. And vow never to return. But the germs will get you again one of these days. And as you leave the doctor to his little room and his smug smile you know in your heart that sooner or later you’ll be back. And you know that in a few weeks time, the bill will arrive with the fees for this “consultation.”

Blah. I hate you all. And your little coats too.

If you enjoyed this rant, you’ll love this:

http://www.raccoontoons.com/2weeks.html

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Ok. I know a lot of you are going to hate me after this. But I have a confession to make. I’ve read the Harry Potter books, and I’ve watched all the movies, and… -get ready for it- I think I might actually prefer the movies to the books. I know, I know, blasphemy you say. But I remember when I read the books, there were all these things that seems unnecessary as far as the story structure goes. Several times I remember thinking, “Man, I wish she’s just get on with the story instead of going off on this ‘house elf’ tangent.” Sometimes I honestly believed the author was just writing to try and fill pages to make the books longer.

Now, before you all leave my site and never come back, let me clarify by saying that I really did enjoy the books. I think the stories are great. I think the characters are great, and I think the author did a great job of strengthening the characters within the stories. I just think there’s an awful lot of unnecessary filler in there. Maybe it’s because I’m not really into the fantasy genre as a whole, and that’s kind of the style there.

Now when I watched the movies, I got really excited because they cut out a lot of the fat. The screenwriters cut out all those things that I wanted to cut out while reading the books. I thought they still stayed true to the stories (with just a few glaring omissions), and I felt the movies really kept the pace alive. I enjoy both. But the films have stuck with me much more.

It’s ironic really. Because I was out of the country for a couple years when Harry Potter mania stuck. At first I really avoided it altogether. I finally watched the first two movies at the request of a friend. I thought they were alright. And then some kids pushed me to read the books, which I also enjoyed. Then the movies grew up a little, and they really won me over. So yeah, there ya’ go. Don’t hate me for my opinion, but feel free to comment below.

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