I continue to maintain that office life is a bizarre, no, stupid thing. Eleven months out of twelve, we tax ourselves with the burdens inherent to political correctness. It is accepted, blindly perhaps, that the use of any word which refers to an activity in which one person might participate but another might not is the most abominable of acts. For example, one must never utter the word drive, because doing so might offend certain individuals who, either by choice or misfortune, do not drive cars, such as children, Amish, and the legless. The proper term is “displace via unspecific means of locomotion.”

However, following Thanksgiving (referred to in the office environment as “Late November Feasting Event” in order to prevent offense to British and Canadian employees), specifically, right on Black Friday (renamed to “An Interval of Time that Follows the Late November Feast” for the sake of those who do not use the Roman week), secularity is summarily quashed as revelers hang Christmas lights, menorahs, and Kwanzaa thingies on every available cork board, apparently in attempts to spread the respective words of their respective deities, whilst dressing such crusades in the guises of “holiday cheer.”

You may not know this, but I changed my hair a few months ago. That sounded really gay. I wear my hair differently now? No, that still sounds girly. I have restyled– eff it. I used to keep it gelled up, kind of spikey-messy-like. Now, it’s flat, a little neater but still messy, and flipped up in front. It looks pretty gay. Still, I think girls are attracted to homosexual men, anyway. It’s the challenge factor.

I do not award loyalty carelessly, but when earned, it is fierce. I have never, as far as I am aware, intentionally betrayed anyone or anything, deserving or not. So, when I say that the New Jersey Devils, a team for which I have rooted for as long as they have existed under that name, and shall so long as I continue to draw breath, are playing like a bunch of asstard brownie scouts getting their first periods, I want you to take that assessment as brutal honesty borne of love rather than the blathering rant of a frustrated fan.

It is funny to observe the behavior of those around me in the office as the morning turns to afternoon and evening. With each passing hour, the decorous restraint exhibited by your typical worker decreases, almost imperceptibly, until close to the end of the day, when such devices as douchebag begin to be deployed with flamboyant regularity.

Playing Mario Kart DS online is a pleasure that should not be missed. I wouldn’t mind being able to play Battle Mode online, nor would being able to play all of the game’s tracks online instead of only twenty of them disagree with me, but apart from that, my only big complaint has more to do with my own conscience than anything else.

You see, some of the people playing this game online are really bad at it. I mean, wow, I played at least two people yesterday who didn’t even know how to powerslide. This bothers me, because I see that they are being defeated consistently, which causes me to fear that they may lose heart and interest, and stop playing the game. Because of this, I always feel an obligation not to devastate these people too badly. Perhaps I will “accidentally” shoot a blue shell when I am in first place, or maybe I will make a “bad turn” and lose time while I work my way out of the dirt. I get no pleasure in massive victories. A close race is always more fun for me. But if I can’t have that, then I can at least see that the game does not lose players. I am still going to beat them, though.

In defense of this mindset, I should like to point out that I used to do the same thing with my sister, throwing the occasional match to keep her interested. She is now able to give me a serious beatdown at Smash Bros. when she is on a roll.

Being a stall fag has its downsides when it comes to hand washing. Stepping away from a urinal, it is understood that you only peed, and so, a soapless rinse is sufficient. When they see you coming out of a stall, however, fellow facility patrons will assume that you just defecated, whether you did or not, and will expect you to lather with soap. It becomes a needless extra step for me when the restroom is busy. I try to let the toilet seat drop audibly, to indicate that it had been up just a moment ago, but even then, I imagine people assume I am touching it with my hand rather than the bottom of my shoe as I do.

Re Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance - my word, is there ever some amazing artwork in this puppy. I wish I had the sorts of abilities that create images a quarter of this caliber. I believe such talents would better motivate me with regards to certain artistic endeavors of my own. Oh, the game is also fun to play.

I cut my face as I was shaving it this morning. The wound clotted over just fine after a few minutes, so I decided not to concern myself with it any further, and I put it out of my mind. But then, around 11am, a coworker, her face contorted into a look of frozen horror, informed me that I had blood dribbling down my neck. It continued bleeding for about an hour after that. Huh.

I saw the single longest hockey fight I have ever seen on Sunday night, between the Devils’ Darren Langdon and the Blue Jackets’ Jody Shelley. I would say it lasted a good two minutes, and was an exquisitely even match, with each contender landing about a dozen head shots before Shelley’s helmet came off and Langdon hammered home an extra five. Towards the end, it looked as if both players had had their fill and were just waiting for the referees to step in. They looked so tired, I couldn’t help laughing.

If it had been me, moving towards the end of the second minute, the two of us heaving and gasping from exhaustion, our passions rapidly fading, I would have handled it like so:
“Okay, I think that’s enough. I’m over it now. How about you?”
“Yeah, I’m good,” he’d say.
“Cool. Good fight,” I’d say as I let go of his jersey, brushing and straightening my own as I search for my gloves. “Is that Axe you’re wearing, by the way?”

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Mondays are always difficult for me, but I will not allow myself the Garfieldian cliche of saying that I hate them, because I do in fact appreciate them. Unlike most young males, I find a certain amount of comfort in uniformity and predictability, and Monday brings these things. I still crave adventure, I still harbor a subtle desire to be mugged just so I can remind myself, through the loudly snapping tendons of the miscreant’s unexpectedly broken elbows, that I am, indeed, still a black-belt martial artist, but being able to wake up in the morning and stop thinking for an hour while my body automatically executes the daily rite that I have prescribed for it is always a welcome relief. I think it may be this love of mine for patterns and routine that has fueled my lifelong interest in the military.

I think I remember my martial arts training as vividly as I do because of how military it was. Lessons began with a tightly regimented ritual; uniforms were kept neat and crisp; instructors were called sir. I was given orders, and I carried them out. In the do jang, I was a soldier, and I did not think, because I was expected not to - three hours each week when I did not have to worry about shaping my own destiny. It was laid out before me, and I was forcibly guided towards it. Man, that was great.

Okay, I’ve gotten sidetracked. God, I have yet to even make my point clear, and I am already off of it. Ignore that last paragraph. I only left it in there because it came out really groovy.

So, it’s not Mondays that I hate. This is something that you may have forgotten by now in the lengthy digression that you just endured. I do not hate Mondays - I hate Sunday nights.

During the work week, Monday through Friday, I wake up somewhere between 6am and 7am, head off to work, get home between 4pm and 7pm, and go to sleep by 11pm. This is the circadian rhythm of a typical, mature adult, a demographic into which my body fights every day not to fit.

By Wednesday morning, I have usually become accustomed to the early wakings of the grown-up world, but that tolerance is maintained by only the most draining of self-discipline. The night calls to me, because nighttime is party time, drinkin’ time, horny time. I have only been out of college for twenty of your lunar cycles. It still has not left me completely. When surrendering to my own motives, the relapse is swift and rhapsodic, like the razor sharp katana of youth drawn across the neck of the cute widdle bear cub of responsibility. The sleeping habits of a younger me resurface, and suddenly 5am becomes less an early morning and more a late night. This happens every Friday.

Saturday will begin no earlier than 11am, and will end well after it has technically transitioned into Sunday. And Sunday night will come, and with it, the necessity that I be asleep at more reasonable hours. My failure at that task is a given to which I have long since resigned myself. I will lie awake, mind wandering, for hour upon hour, before finally falling into a short, restless slumber, dooming myself to spend my Monday wobbling in that tenuous balance between dampered yet functional drowsiness and exhaustion-fueled adrenaline, the worst of both sides of that fearsome dichotomy rearing themselves in full.

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