All right, all you lousy lurkers, this is your chance to come out of the woodwork! On Wednesday, October 3, time to just step up and type, dam it!
To encourage you bloggers out there, I will post a link to anyone who participates on our site (a day or so afterward. Give me time to type with two fingers, will yah?) And wouldn’t you just die to own your very own backlink from our fabulous, word famous blog of wonder? Of course you would! So, delurk, you MOFO’s!
After reading Tim’s recent How To Be Cool Tip, I started noticing how some people could be un-cool in that way. Yesterday, for example, I needed to use the ATM and there was a guy in front of me who was clearly un-cool. I was watching what he was doing (I politely averted my eyes when he entered his pin number) and I found his troubles to be a bit amusing and irritating at the same time. He punched how much he wanted to withdraw and the screen said he had to enter an amount that was a multiple of $20.00. So he entered $20.00 and then the screen said that amount exceeded the available funds of $0.00. He hit cancel and then proceed to do exactly the same thing two more times. He must have thought he could make the machine do his bidding. So then he tried a different card, and then did the first two steps exactly the same (I guess his math skills weren’t good enough to calculate multiples of $20.00). Finally he got a twenty dollar bill out of the machine, and then the screen asked him if he wanted to continue banking, he pressed yes. Then he pressed the cancel button in order to get his card back. But he wasn’t done yet; after checking the account balance on his receipt he decided to get another twenty dollars. By this time he finally figured out how to enter the correct amount of funds he wished to withdraw; however, again when asked if he wanted to continue banking he pressed yes and then had to hit the cancel button in order to get his card back. I almost felt sorry for him.
Dear Ernie,
Can you tell me why Apache Oil, Canada has sold out to the white man?
Harold Dell in Evergreen
Dear For Whom The Dell Tolls,
First of all we need a brief history of Apache Oil (for those of you who are new to this). Everyone has heard of the Apache Indians Native Americans; however few people know that they were the only tribe who ever had the foresight to retain the oil and mineral rights of their lands. It seems that around the time the tribe was originally negotiating with the white man for their land, the old chief, J’hed Loping Hare, was out shooting at some deer for food. He missed the deer but where the arrow struck the ground, oil started bubbling up. The chiefs relatives advised him to sell the land for a large sum of money and then move them all to a more prosperous area of the country, somewhere in the hills that is. Fortunately the tribe had their own legal councilor, Two-Faced-Forked-Tongue-Weasel, who had attended white mans school and so was able to retain rights to the oil on the land.
Fast forward something like 20 or 30 years later, to 2007 and things have changed drastically. Living in the hills area has caused the Apache Oil Tribe to lose sight of what their ancestors did for them. Add to this a few bad investments (Bre-X and Enron) and they have very little money left. When the white man came along again and made them an offer for the oil rights, the current chief, Walks-Like-A-Duck, felt he had no choice but to sell out. Ironically, it was a descendant of Two-Faced-Forked-Tongue-Weasel who brokered the deal for the white man.
Dear Ernie,
If I start paying the stalker, do you think I can use it as a write off for work?
Sign girl in Rocky Mountain House
Dear Signage Girl,
This would involve a few legal loopholes. First of all, if you have a restraining order in place, it would be considered a "conflict of interests" to employ him in any way. The other side of the coin is, you can’t write off the cost of his services if revenue Canada sees that you are opposed to his presence. You might be able to get away with both for a while, but eventually The Tax Man will discover the truth. Then you will have bigger problems than a mere stalker.
Now, if you were to drop the restraining order and employ your stalker you would have to define what exactly he is doing for your business. As I mentioned last week, you could tell all your customers that you are scared to work at night because of him. This would qualify the position as some sort of a motivational stalker. His presence encourages you to work more quickly and efficiently to meet your deadlines. Of course that would mean that on the day of the winter solstice you would have to make a sign in a little under 7.5 hours, whereas on the day of the summer solstice you’ll have to work just about 17 hours. This is something to take into consideration.
On a personal note, if I was a stalker I think it would really take all the fun out of it if I was being paid to be around the object of my obsession. But that’s just me.
