Recent Effluvia:

1. Protracted insurgency: No, it’s a war. Plain and simple.
2. Deck: Yes, some sad hipsters still use this.
3. Fab, faboo and fabs: [shudder]
4. Calling white folk crackers. Please. The proper term is “pasty white cracker”.
5. Misusing the word mod. Sorry, but painting your rocking chair is not “modding it”. Neither is putting a Ché Guevara patch on the army jacket you stole from your dad.
6. Axe: It’s a tool, not a guitar.
7. Baby Momma: What’s wrong with loser? Or irresponsible teenager?
8. Being called hon or kiddo by someone 20 years younger than I am.
9. Hair of the dog that bit me: I’ll stick with beer, thanks.
10. Santa Clause: Since when are we spelling Claus with an “e”? I have seen four companies spell it that way this year.

Two soup issues in one week. Unfair. Next time we make boiling hot miso, avoid spilling it directly on the nether regions.

As you may have read yesterday, Blockbuster Inc. announced it is eliminating late fees on all its video tapes, DVDs and video games as of January 1st, 2005. However, customers will be given a one-week grace period to return the product.

After that grace period ends, Blockbuster will automatically sell them the product, minus the rental fee, and send Mormons to their doorstep. Customers not wishing to purchase the movie can return the product within 30 days for a credit, less an annoying restocking fee, to be collected by some rather unsavory Scientologist Sumo wrestlers.

Customers disputing the restocking fee will be given a 15 minute head start to escape a tribe of blood-thirsty Jivaro Indians who will catch them by their ankles and remove their heads. The heads, once shrunken by the Jivaro, will be sent to Blockbuster’s lawyers where they will be used in the annual company racquetball game.

The next time you make corn chowder, try to stay awake for the stirring process.

I woke up on the wrong side of the bed. I was under it. While attempting to extract myself from the boxspring’s grasp I was attacked by a band of voracious dust bunnies, that were obviously high on goofers.

No quarter was I shown by the merciless ways of the marauding dust bunnies. They removed my upper limbs and replaced them with prosthetic arms fashioned from bed lint, cat hair and not a few lost socks. Needless to say, scraping frost off the windshield proved somewhat difficult.

Arriving at work on time, I was unable to find my beloved cubicle. In a well-intentioned, but ill-planned cost-cutting move, accounting had combined our department with a local Farmers Market. I was now stationed with Amish pies and day-old scones. The back-end programmers were to be found with cheese and homemade soaps.

Staring languidly out the window, I noticed that the clouds were forming the exact patterns of the Rorschach inkblot test. I was stuck pondering card cloud 23 when a voice on the loudspeaker announced that a fire drill was taking place and would we quietly leave our Halo 2 games long enough to form a line outside?

We waited outside as the fire department arrived in what proved to be not a drill after all. The flames engulfed our peach crate cubicles and the smell of rosemary oil and burning CRTs filled our stinging nostrils.