queen of google? i believe it

a friend of this site, who, like the author, would prefer to be anonymous (and who likes commas as much as i do), sends us this note:

I am the self-proclaimed Queen of Google.  Here's how I did it:

Searched on Curiteich-Chicago Post Card, and Google suggested "Curiteich-Chicago PostCard".

Got all the collectors and eBay sites like you said. Searched on "Curiteich-Chicago, Inc". One of the top three sites returned tells me the company name is Curt Teich & Company Inc. Searched on that, and bingo.

that's some damn fine detective work. keep it up and you might get your own site-approved pseudonym.

new tattoo for me

... because i fixed a toilet last night.

pazizzle cardizzle

came across this over the weekend ... thought it might interest someone:


click on the card for larger version

apparently it was made for the gopher news co. in "minneapolis-st. paul," as it is listed on the back of the postcard. and since the foshay tower (affectionately known as "tha fo' shizzle" every time i see it) was built in 1929, the card must be from the early- to mid-1930s.

the postcard itself is a "Genuine Curiteich-Chicago 'C.T. Art-Colortone' Post Card", which as you can see from the link provided is a pretty popular mid-century postcard style. it's hard to find out more information on the company, and for this i blame ebay.

why is there air?

to provide a title for one of the best bill cosby comedy albums, perhaps.

when i was a young kid, my mom would take me with her to go visit her best friend. tish had a huge record collection -- all sorts of goodies, and the only representative from the then-modern day was her oldest son's kiss records (which i detested then, and now). the rest were comedy records and old buck rogers radio shows.

i loved those records. i'd lock myself away in the bedroom her sons shared, and listen to the same records, over and over. i always returned to those bill cosby records, because at the time the only thing i knew of cosby was "the cosby show" -- which i thought was funny at the time, but i was only 10 years old at the time. i had no idea he was a stand-up comedian.

they spoke to me in a way that, i imagined, made me oh-so-grownup. i never imagined my friends at school would "get" these jokes, and part of that was my fault, in that i tried to tell, say, the story of fat albert and "buck buck" and made it sound ... well, about how it would sound if a 10 year old told it.

all this came back to me as i read about how jeff foxworthy became the biggest-selling comedy artist of all time. the article does a good job of describing what happened to the comedy album, and why foxworthy is the King of Comedy.

think warm thoughts

next year, i'm going to schedule my review in my proctologist's office.

you know, because it's more sanitary and all.

***

for years now, i've been struggling over this thought: i'm not much good at anything. i don't have any discernable talent, or none that will make me more than the standard, average, lower-middle-class wage that most of us in the middle of the Great Bell Curve of Life can hope for. and if i ever do hope to rise above that, i've got to be someone i'm not -- the "true" parts of my personality must be suppressed to succeed.

thought: it's a self-fulfilling prophecy ... you are what you think you are. and if i keep thinking i'm as described above, then i'll end up as described above.

but thought: it's also not fair for me to keep judging myself this way, as i've come to these thoughts only in situations in which i either was not able to succeed (read: large corporate environments), didn't have enough time to succeed (read: small IT consultant shops), or got kicked in the teeth by the one-two punch of no business experience and a huge terrorist attack (read: self employment).

oh yeah? thought: that describes my employment history since 2000.

***

"if you don't want to be celibate," i told a. today after the review, "you don't become a catholic priest."

and that, in a very blunt nutshell, is the problem. i don't understand why i keep hitting my head against this wall, until i realize that i'm just choosing the same wall every time.

SuitWorld™ -- for all its cool commercials and glitz and reputation -- is just another large corporate entity. you could transplant our hq to some backwater hell in, say, arkansas, and you'd have the same thing. they might not attract as many east- or west-coast hipster art directors, but all in all, things would be the same.

SuitWorld™ (herein "SW") works this way: each team member (more anon) must please his manager. that goes all the way up the chain to the very top. so when you're doing your job, often times it's more about that relationship management than it is how well you do your job. and the larger the company, the more true this becomes, as you can pass on whole layers of work to other teams.

so in our new evaluation formula (just announced today), "job knowledge" counts for 0-10 percent of our total score.

how well we know our true jobs counts for -- at best -- 10 percent of how we're graded.

as johnny cochran would say: that does not make sense.

and yet that's how we're judged at SW. can we "play well with others" on our teams? maybe -- if we're applying to nursery school, i guess that'd be a good thing to worry about ... can we be a "team player" on our projects? perhaps -- if i'm playing a team sport ... can we, oh, i don't know, do our jobs correctly?

don't be ridiculous. why would that matter? and why, for that matter, would personality (insofar as it's not the bland saltine cracker kind)? why would an inquisitive mind that asks questions (insofar as it doesn't instantly come back with "solutions" to said questions)? why would passion and dedication (insofar as it exists outside the psuedo-japanese sing-the-corporate-song-at-meetings HR mentality)?

again, i channel balki bartokomous and say: don't be ridiculous.

**

maybe my development ended my sophomore year in college. maybe my personality is such that the freewheeling, give-and-take atmosphere of a college classroom is where i last tasted true group happiness. maybe i've been deluding myself into thinking that my personality is all smiles and sunshine, or at least that it's not obnoxious and overbearing.

and maybe someday i'll stop trying to succeed as the man in the gray flannel suit and realize that my greatest talents lie fallow in a field that most large corporations -- SuitWorld™ being just the latest example -- dare not till.

ps an example of my derring-do meeting strategy

10 minutes to write

as i was shaving this morning, i looked down at the ever-present bottle of tylenol pm on my vanity top, and i wondered what you would say about it to someone who didn't know what it was.

"'pm?' oh, that stands for ... uh ... tylenol pain management. go ahead and take two or three."

***

we're having a dinner guest tonite, and as always my brain is racing with things i could cook, but won't. for the record, we're having (appetizer) brie and little tiny toasts, with fruit; (main course) grilled bone-in chicken breasts, asparagus, baked potatoes and mushrooms; (dessert) strawberry shortcake with homemade ("housemade" if i were obnoxious) whipped cream.

when i think about cooking, i'm always thinking of small things. i'm fascinated with small things (i know, i know -- there's a joke in there somewhere). when a. and i were at the grocery store last night, she picked up a box of mini nilla wafers. those fuckers are cute! little baby nilla wafers ... so i got to thinking:

take a baby nilla, use a melonballer to scoop out a tiny bit of ice cream, put another baby nilla on top -- have appetizer-sized ice cream sandwiches!

not this time. but soon.

***

i have my "review" coming up in two days at work. i'm not sure how it will go, seeing as how this is the first time i've had one, and the first time i've had one in SuitWorld™. it could go well, it could go horribly, but come 9 a.m. tomorrow morning, it will have gone regardless.

i am almost certain that a large company doesn't have room for someone with my, shall we say, unique outlook on the corporate world. and SuitWorld is notorious for advancing along only those who fit that rah-rah-sis-boom-bah corporate enthusiasm.

i was talking with the TaskMaster™ the other day and she was telling he how she ran into the CEO of SuitWorld™ in an elevator. she was more enthusiastic to tell me about the guy who was with the CEO -- "he's always positive, no matter what you take him," she said of the other guy, going on to tell me how mr. positive was kind of "her role model" at SuitWorld™.

i remember thinking that i didn't want to be -- i could not be -- that guy. sometimes, when life hands you lemons, you don't make lemonade. you take a huge, honking bite out of that lemon, let the sourness sit in your mouth for a while, and then go grab a packet of sugar and swallow that too.

eventually, it'll all come together. but until it does, the sour can be as enjoyable as the sweet.

michael vick = george costanza

or, rather, ron mexico = buck naked

cultures

it's amazing how we get caught up in a culture of behavior without realizing it.

for example ... some days i take a really early bus. in the past two months i've taken the 6:10, 6:25, 6:40, 6:50 and 7:15 buses. (don't ask how i know all these times by heart.) on each, the routine is the same: people mill around, waiting on the bus, and do the passive-aggressive shuffle to get on -- everyone kind of knows who got to the stop in what order, and everyone kind of obeys that order when the doors open.

but on the 7:15 bus, things are different. there's this older woman who demands to be first on the bus. she guarantees she'll get the first window seat in the first row. she always is first. always.

and her behavior affects everyone who rides the bus with her. there is a rigidly enforced line, straight as an arrow, for the 7:15 bus. but she's never in the line. she waits in the little bus shelter, all by herself. when the bus arrives, she sprints as fast as her vericose-veined legs can take her to the front of the line. and we all wait, quiet and orderly.

same thing at work. the taskmaster -- i'm fond of "the taskinator," only because it allows me to get a mental picture of ahnold sitting in my staff meetings -- does not believe in deviating, ever, from the image of the modern manager general, which reminds me of a song:

she is the very model of a modern manager-general,
she's information time-tracking, vacational, action-plan-ical,
she knows VPs of finance, and she quotes projects historical
from mainframing to wireless, in order categorical ...

anyway. that's the taskmaster. and the culture of the people i work with permeates my daily life. i'm using "bandwidth" to discuss how busy i am. i'm thinking about the "a ha!" moments during my day. i'm writing knowledge at home on how to brew coffee.

in short, the culture i'm in every day is changing it even after i catch the bus ... and i'm never, ever the first in line.

at least his first name wasn't 'rotten old smelly'

i don't know why this is funny

from an old "calvin and hobbes," in which calvin tries to draw a comic

suitworld, addendum I

back in the day, i described what it was like to work in SuitWorld. since then, i don't think i've mentioned work much, because (1) it's getting (somewhat) better all the time, and (2) it's not that interesting for people to read, i don't think. maybe it is for people who are in SuitWorld with me, but i see them all the time anyway, and besides, it's hard to get fired for criticizing SuitWorld in print when, well, you don't criticize it in print.

nevertheless, a conversation with T. yesterday reminded me that i needed to amend the original SuitWorld's list of characters. i had described our former manager as The Hammer, which is never more true than it is today ... and i described our current manager as GoodCop/BadCop.

turns out that, upon further reflection, the latter half of that is not accurate. the former half is not enough to suffice, so the search is on for a new appellation.

as always, your thoughts, etc., are welcome below.

for my 'liberal' friends out there

some readers of this blog might be shocked to learn that even sensitive, caring, "i feel your pain" bill clinton is not above a little gay-baiting now and then ...

"... He went to Massachusetts and married his longtime male partner and then he comes back here and announces this," Clinton said at a Harlem news conference.

"I thought, one of two things. Either this guy believes his party is not serious, and is totally Machiavellian in his position, or there's some sort of self-loathing there. I was more sad for him."

what, i wonder, does a GOP activist being gay have to do with said activist opposing hillary clinton?

the bushPod

see what the prez has on his iPod. it might surprise you.

then again, it might not.

all is right with the world

amazing how one little thing can make you happy.

such as getting your watch fixed so that the latch doesn't dangle open, daringly, off the wrist ... looking up "precipitously" at dictionary.com, knowing that it's almost the word you want, but verifying that you are, in fact, a genius ... groove salad with good lighting in your cube in the morning ... realizing that someone else notices the evil force behind a team's mediocrity (see last few paragraphs) ...

of course, it's not yet 8 a.m. on a monday. so all this is subject to change.

stupid ... like a fox!

so was "maxwell's silver hammer" the most annoying beatles-era song paul mccartney ever wrote? or was it so damn smart it just seemed stupid?

buy me some kleenex and cracker jacks

first monday in april: must be opening day 2005.

first monday in april: must be that my preferred team is in turmoil about its starting lineup.

first monday in june: i'll start waiting for training camp 2005.

it's not easy being a pirates fan. in fact, it's not easy being fans in more than a few major league cities. but with the possible exception of tampa and kansas city, it's hardest being a fan in pittsburgh.

"I want a leadoff hitter that hits .330 with 25 home runs and steals 60 bases a year," [manager Lloyd] McClendon said. "A No. 3 hitter [behind Jack Wilson] who hits .340 and drives in 120 [runs], a No. 4 hitter who hits 50 home runs a year, a No. 5 hitter who hits .345."

You get the point. The Pirates don't have that kind of lineup -- let alone that kind of team -- so what difference does it make who starts today? Most likely, the same eight position players won't be back out there Wednesday afternoon in the season's second game.

that's the problem: at some point -- usually after a mid-june swoon, preferrably during a long west-coast string -- pirates fans have to wonder what difference it makes who puts on the uniform. they all are below-average major leaguers. the pirates as currently constituted would tear up some AAA league somewhere. too bad they play in the national league central.

the only hope i can see is that the rest of the nl central is depleted by injuries and/or roster moves. the cubs are damned now that dusty baker and jim hendry have chased off ... steve stone and chip caray. (not the name(s) you were expecting, no?) that team is a shell of its former self, though i do think they will see some psychic benefit from no longer having sosa round.

the cards are depleted and i don't see how they can get by with the pitching staff they currently have -- that's been larussa's achilles since he's been there. the reds and mariners ... blah. maybe the reds. who knows?

all i know is this: it's going to be a typical hover-around-.500 two months for the pirates, then they'll fall apart.

c'est la vie.

only in my sort-of hometown

the nailers sign up for a few more years in wheeling. but they want more saturday games. why?

i don't think she's buying it

i don't think my lovely niece is buying the post below. :)

this is so logical, it's scary.

reminds me of that old foghorn leghorn cartoon, where foghorn's playing hide and go seek with eggbert -- foghorn hides in one place, but the nerd kid finds him in another. foghorn doesn't understand what's going on. but does he try to figure it out?

no.