So yesterday one of the boss peoples sends me a message saying that I need to compose one of our irregularly-published newsletters to send out to our customer base. This is nothing out of the ordinary, and, frankly, it’s about time to send a new one out. I was instructed to collect a "Top Ten" list of current issues (which in our parlance means bugs, since we try not to call them "bugs" or "problems" to customers) from our engineers and make them all pretty and written in the proper Queen’s English.

So I collect nine of the newest and most exciting bugs issues, compose the newsletter, and send it on its way. This morning, I got a message asking me to rewrite it, including different content so that the emphasis of the newsletter wouldn’t be on the bugs.

Did I miss something?

I don’t remember how I got there, but the website "Billboards of the Past" has a lot of huge vintage billboards (of the vinyl cover variety) for sale. Sadly, I have neither a spare $1,000 or so lying around to be spent, much less an eight-foot by twenty-foot frame to hang them on, but there’s a tone of retro goodness to be seen there, particularly with the beer, automotive, and Coca-Cola ads. There are a few funny ads as well; it’s always fun to laugh at once-earnest messages that have since been subverted by changing culture, slang, and mores in the intervening years:

Oh, those wacky negroes and their pidgin English! What trip down the hallowed paths of yesteryear would be complete without a glimpse of a jolly member of the racial underclass merrily serving delicious treats to the disembodied telekinetic heads of her white masters?

There are plenty of old cigarette ads talking about how mild, or even harmless, their cancer sticks are, but this is the first time I’ve ever seen one recommended as a cough remedy. Truly amazing.

I was trying to find veins between my toes when I found this beauty instead. Bet you didn’t know heroin was sold by the quart in the 1960’s.

Now for my personal favorite for reasons that I do not care to explain, here’s an ad that appealed to the lucrative and ubiquitous "inveterate masturbator" demographic.

There’s so much fun you can have with this old-timey stuff. I myself have a framed copy of this ad hanging above the toilet in the guest bathroom. Do yourself a favor and find some hilariously outdated advertisements. Even if you can’t possibly afford or display them, like the billboards above, they’re awesome Photoshop fodder.

Is there anybody under the age of 80 and not on powerful psychoactive medicine who enjoys the Family Circus? I definitely am not a fan of this sappy "slice of life" comic strip that ran out of gas sometime early in the Kennedy administration. It sucks. The author, Bil Keane, is actually mellow enough to post Ted Rall’s takeoff on his work, which even goes so far as to invoke incest and hydroencephaly, so he’s probably not all bad, but what the hell is up with a cartoon like this?

Just what the hell is the message here? Based on this image, I suppose it could be:

Family Circus strips practically beg to be abused in all kinds of ways. Even without doctoring them, you can have a ton of fun deconstructing them. Since I don’t feel particularly erudite today, I just took a recent strip and had my sinister way with it. I have to say it was very cathartic.

Man, does it ever pour.

On Sunday, my wife got splashed with lye in her eyes. That’s right, lye, sodium hydroxide. NaOH. If you thought acid in the face was bad, it turns out that alkalis are far worse, and lye is one of the baddest of the bunch. To make a long story short, she’ll be fine, and has since regained her normal sight. I took some time off from work to care for her and wrangle the kids.

On Monday, though, I was hit by horrible gastrointestinal problems. I’ll spare you the gory details. Suffice it to say, however, that my regular doctor has no idea what my guts are up to, so now I’ve got to go to a specialist, so that he can shove a camera down my throat and take a look around the inside of my squishy parts. I am so glad I’m not even remotely connected with the medical field.

Anyhow, we made quite the couple- she of the weeping Eye of Sauron, fumbling around the house and unable even to read, and me, curled up and whimpering on a couch, while the kids ran riot, only barely checked by an occasional sharp word of command. I’ve had better weeks.

I got pictures! I finally finished the Übershanty that hangs over the corner of my cubicle. I mentioned the Übershanty previously, when the building’s air conditioning conked out. The idea of adding a chimney to the shanty stuck with me, especially when I had to do a cable trace to the little network switch that sits under one of my monitors. It was hot and uncomfortable slaving away under my little corrugated cardboard roof. I might stop up the chimney this winter and enjoy the extra heat. Until then, I’ve got a bitchin’ chimney:

The first thing I had to do was cut a hole in the roof. A simple toilet paper roll provided the material for the upper pipe. It had to be unobtrusive, lest it risk running afoul of the "Thou shalt not have anything taller than your cubicle" commandment we have here.	While attempting to cut out the hole for the chimney, I found that the roof simply was a bit too flimsy in the center, despite its overall cunning construction. I found a suitable piece of compressed laminate floorboard in the dumpster. It made a nifty crossbar.
The all-important and dizzyingly high-tech paper cone that sits atop the heat vent. Cleverly constructed from adhesive tape and a few pages of a boring e-mail message that somebody printed out and left on the printer. Like they were ever gonna read it.	The Übershanty. My little plot on the cube farm. It’s pretty sturdy, taking up to fifteen pounds of pressure before the crosspins in the cubicle wall start to give way. I guess I’ll have to paint it next. Or maybe throw some kind of soft backlight.

So there it is, in all its glory. The chimney works very well, too. I’m pretty impressed with its performance. Seriously, it’s like eight or ten degrees cooler at my desk now that most of the considerable heat generated by my CRT monitor goes right up the stack. As long as the office manager doesn’t notice the scorch mark that’s starting to form on the acoustic ceiling tile, I’ll be able to slave away in my very comfortable darkness.

Today is turning out to be one of those crappy days that make you want to just go home and plant yourself face down in the bed until it all just goes away. At least it wasn’t one of those "everything was going so well" kind of days. Today has been very upfront about itself from the beginning.

As of this moment, it’s been relatively quiet on the karmic front. So far, though, the following pratfalls have taken place:

12:15 AM: My oldest son has a random weird nightmare. My wife slumbers through it, or pulls off the best fake-out ever. I get up to deal with it.

12:18 AM: I return to bed to find a cat has taken my place. While picking the cat up to move her out of the way, her feet flail out. A claw tags me through my shorts right on the glans.

12:19 AM: A quick inspection in the bathroom reveals that said glans is still intact, despite the stinging pain, which soon begins to pass. The stinging pain was not, however, apparently did not wake me enough to avoid stubbing my toe on the doorjamb on the way back to bed. In order to avoid waking the entire house, I crumple to the floor and suffer silently for a few minutes, rocking back and forth like some sort of autistic child.

12:25 AM: The fucking cat is back in my spot in bed.

2:24 AM: A nagging reminder of my increasing decrepitude, my bladder sends a signal to my brain, indicating that it is now operating at maximum fluid capacity. Attempts to ignore the signal fail, forcing me back into the bathroom.

2:35 AM: My alarm goes off. Thank you, Mr. Bladder, for robbing me of those last few precious moments of sleep. I hope it was worth it, you asshole. I hit the snooze button.

2:45: AM: The alarm has another go at it. I hit the snooze button again.

3:20 AM: The cat goes out of its way to step on the back of my knee as it picks its way across the bed. The resulting combination of claw and pressure cause just enough pain to make me realize that I turned the alarm off at 2:45 instead of hitting the snooze button again.

3:35 AM: The fat white squiggle on top of the loaf of raspberry-glazed bread I bought turns out not to be some kind of cream cheese, but is, instead, some bizarre and rubbery stuff with no taste. The more I chew it, the more it reminds me of escargot. So much for breakfast. Bleah.

3:50 AM: I run out the front door and drop my lunch. Bending over to pick it up, my sunglasses fall out of my shirt pocket, and are now irredeemably scratched.

4:20 AM: About thirty miles into my commute, the fuel light comes on, reminding me that I was supposed to have bought gasoline this morning.

4:24 AM: I make it to a gas station, and quickly go through the routine: credit card in, gasoline grade selected, cap off, nozzle in, latch up. The nozzle, however has other plans, and the spring-loaded vapor recovery shroud propels the nozzle out of its place in my car, spewing about twenty cents’ worth of gasoline into my immediate environs. Approximately ten cents’ worth soaks my right sock, shirt, and pants. It turns out ten cents’ worth of gasoline goes a long way when it’s in your clothes.

4:39 AM: Several miles down the road, I finally realize my throbbing headache is not due to lack of sleep; it’s because my clothing is acting as a powerful air de-freshener: noxious petrochemical fumes are wafting up from my raiment, gently dissolving connecting tissues in my forebrain.

4:50 AM: Finally, I’ve arrived at work. I trip on the curb as I exit my car, spilling my lunch again. So much for soup. The salad’s still intact, though.

6:01 AM: In the shower after my morning run, I find that the bottle I used to transport shampoo previously held bubble bath. The bubbly froth is easily dealt with, but my hair now smells like fruit punch. Still, it counterbalances the gasoline from my pants, so it’s not too bad.

7:39 AM: Things are going reasonably well until, without warning, a massive sneeze bursts forth from my nose and mouth. Both monitors are now covered with a multitude of clear droplets that refract my work into tiny and delightful but illegible rainbows. I also find I’m out of Kleenex.

8:22 AM: While idly scratching my chin, I also remove a shaving scab without realizing it. I notice it a moment later when the keys under my left hand feel a bit slippery. Apparently spit and nasal mucous weren’t enough bodily fluids to spread around my cubicle. I spend the next couple of minutes cleaning my own blood off of the keyboard.

Hopefully that’s the extent of it. If not, tune in tomorrow for the obituary detailing my improbable death involving a paper soda cup, optical mouse, and a handful of thumbtacks.