Welcome to JTC Inc.

Chaps: because if they had an ass, they'd just be called pants.

Tuesday, December 19, 2006

One Year On The Fake Corporate Calendar

As both our readers know, December 20th marks the one year point for the JTC Inc blog. I thought this would be a good opportunity to take a look back at the previous 12 months.

Over the past year, we've had 64 posts, which means we've averaged more than one a week, but as our avid reader(s) know, there have been a few points of where we've run fairly dry for extended periods - we'll try to avoid that in the future.

One thing I would like to point out is that all e-mails I am sent from my fellow board members go into a specific folder in my Outlook. Since last December 20th, this folder has received 1,838 e-mails. If you figure that there are about 250 working days in a year (we tend not to e-mail each other on the weekends - too hungover), that means that on average, I receive over 7 e-mails a day from Co-Co and PChrist. Let's get that over 10 next year, gents!

Finally, as some of you know, when we send e-mails to each other, we tend not to sign them off in a regular fashion - for example, they wouldn't say: "Thanks, Co-Co", or "Regards, PChrist". We usually end with something witty, pertaining to the content of the e-mail - for example, "Holy shit I hate you, JohnnyM" I decided to start looking through the 1,838 e-mails, for what I thought were some of the best examples of our e-mail sign-offs. Going through 1,838 e-mails? I'm not going to shit you, it takes a while. I recorded some of my favourites, and while I was originally hoping to get this down to a Top 10 list, I had some trouble, and only managed to whittle it down to a Top 117. Here they are, in chronological order:

Blatantly disregarding the 'do not forward',
War - what is it good for?,
Hamas High,
Fundamentally Islamic,
Leadership is key,
I'll thank you not to look at my yaw axis,
Beyond Thunderdome,
Iron fist,
Firing off useless emails,
Hypocritically yours,
Stupid freeloading babies,
So sane it's blowing your mind,
They're the ones writing it off,
Yours in extremism,
In the distance a babe weeps,
Leaders are like eagles - we don't have any around here,
I'd probably, say, in a given week, I probably do about fifteen minutes of real, actual work,
Nice use of 'trysts',
Man made prisons,
Fucking washing machines,
Considering redeeming my outstanding debentures,
And my dog too,
Starting to get the alcoholic shakes,
I'm E-tarded,
Fucking Chavez,
Scottish Ass,
Skillz,
Let me know if any of the above makes me sound like an alcoholic,
Nuclear freaks,
Already embezzling the profits,
Working,
Homophobe,
Mmmmmm,
My talents are wasted here,
Hope your pregnancy is going smoothly,
I wish I could quit you,
Whoring,
Bowling is the best medicine,
Regretting not having the notebook on me,
You're such a looser,
*shivering in disgust*,
Fucking earful,
Inappropriate,
Fucking pirates,
We're in a rain delay,
Hemorrhaging,
You're both fucking frauds,
Sandals Taliban,
Let me know your deepest feelings,
Tighter pyramid,
Getting ready for 2 furlongs,
Dovetail,
Ignoring important work e-mails to follow-up on all my JTC e-mails,
JTC comes first,
Off to rodeo,
Redundancy Department of Rendancy,
Feels like we're having an affair,
Hoping someone is reading this email thread over at corporate security,
That son of a bitch is ice-cold,
Completely insensitive,
Danse contact,
Shirking responsibility,
Rioting... may we all be so lucky,
Fucking Granolas,
Looking forward to the freak-out response,
Hiatus,
The average age in our department is now hovering around 16 years old,
Let's spend the next 30 mins planning how we are leaving work in 30 minutes,
You fucking thief,
Your problem,
So looking forward to going drinking,
Now seriously contemplating going home to drink by myself,
Not insane,
Looking forward to restructuring this fall,
I've told everyone I know,
In the 21st Century you can block email,
You reek of sudoku,
Ballsweat,
Will somebody please think of the children,
I don't really care, I'm just trying to avoid having you develop unsatisfactory levels of moisture on your balls,
I have people skills,
Let me see if I have anything available as a mock up,
Emancipate yourselves from mental slavery,
In all the pictures I saw of immigrants on boats, I never saw one riding a pony,
I hate anyone that ever had a pony when they were growing up,
I HAD A PONY!,
Can't wait to leave at noon,
Uni-tasking,
Wishing my name was Duke,
Yeah, that's right - I pumped her,
Next thing you know you'll be helping him move,
Feelin' slutty,
Just fucking eat it,
Case of the Tuesdays,
Arrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr,
I'm kind of busy over here,
Head for open waters, Big Tuna,
Walking the plank,
I fear change,
Trash-talkin' the potluck,
H5N1,
Man, that’s a lot of money - let me know if you want to talk about it,
You are a human calculator,
Not hating my current job so much anymore,
For the record, I received 31 emails from you sluts yesterday,
Spending more time on my $3.33/week job than my full time salaried job,
Getting fitted for a lead suit,
That's why their $509 stock is $509 more than our stock,
It's always your fault,
Case of the Thursdays,
Fucking Milton,
Wanting to respond with a knee in the crotch,
It’s coming out of my pores,
I'm going home now, please ensure you get all our work done today,
It was damp and chilly afternoon, so I decided to put on my sweatshirt! ,
I’m defending a television show - life has got to have more meaning than this,
Really easy to concentrate on this report I’m reading,

Good Lord, I love my fake job,
JohnnyM

Sunday, December 17, 2006

Announcement: JTC Anniversary Party

As many of you know, this Wednesday, December 20th marks the one year anniversary of this blog. (Okay - I'm sure that none of you have actually noticed that...whatever.)

To mark this momentous occasion, the JTC Board of Directors has surprisingly decided to go out drinking. As I have recently been innundated with two requests from our readers to join us on our next outing, I've decided to extend an invitation to anyone who would like to spend some quality time with the Board on Wednesday night. We'll likely be going out somewhere downtown - The Bottom Line or Scotland Yard (it's worth investigating) would be likely destinations. We'll nail that down in the next couple of days. Let us know if you'd like to come along.

Activities at the party will include (but are not limited to):

1) Drinking
2) Eating
3) Playing Golden Tee
4) Drinking
5) Writing down hilarious ideas in a little black book
6) Watching Co-Co get the giggles
7) Laughing at Co-Co's pea-sized bladder
8) Speculating on Co-Co's true sexual orientation
9) Drinking

Hands-up who else has a big presentation in front of (real) company executives on Thursday morning....no?...no one else?

Dammit,
Johnny M

Saturday, December 02, 2006

Revenue - you've got it. We need it.

Our readers (both of you!) may have noticed that our Google Ads at the top of our blog either aren't there recently, or have been replaced by some "Hurricane Katrina Relief" ad. (As an aside - Hurricane Katrina? Is there not a more recent disaster we could be focusing on? That is sooooo 2005.) The reason for our ad troubles is that our account has been disabled by those tyrants at Google. They won't tell us why they shut us down, but through my keen powers of deduction (yeah, that's right - "keen"), I've narrowed it down to three possible reasons:

1) Co-Co's erotic description of masturbating on a bike in his Nov. 22nd post.
2) Co-Co's maturbating.
3) Co-Co.

Will we be able to figure out which of these reasons is the true "root cause"? Probably not.

Now I know what you're thinking - "Johnny M! Based on your hilarious post from March 26th, JTC now has no source of revenue! Who will fund your drinking binges, which are so key to the hilarious blog posts?" Well, fear not, little ones - you do.

Here's how it works: you go to the newly opened "JTC Store", and you buy stuff. Lots and lots of stuff. I've ordered a few things myself, and I want to assure you that everything is of the highest quality. (I'm wearing the "JTC Classy Classic Thong" right now!) Because of some limitations of the store, we can only have one of any item up at a time (which is preventing me from realizing my dream of a whole line of eMoron mugs), so if there's anything you particularly want, let us know and we can throw it up there.

Hey - why are you still reading this? Shouldn't you be buying stuff?

Wednesday, November 29, 2006

Thank you House of Blues!

From: Monkey, Coco
Sent: Wednesday, November 29, 2006 2:59 PM
To: House of Blues
Subject: Thank you!

To whom it may concern:

I wanted to extend hearty congratulations to House of Blues (HOB Entertainment Inc, a subsidiary of LA-based Live Nation) on achieving your corporate mission to create a ‘profitable principled global entertainment company’, mainly through your groundbreaking method of egregious overcharging of your customers.

You have determined that a customer who reduces demand on your call center by using your website to purchase tickets should be charged the meager sum of $6 in service charges (a 32% markup on the $18.50 ticket I purchased). You’ve also determined that the convenience of having the ticket I ordered mailed directly to my house calls for a charge of $18 (a 3500% markup on the Canadian domestic $0.51 postage cost). HOB provides me, the customer, the opportunity to spend more on service and shipping than the actual musician or venue. If I look up ‘value’ in the dictionary, beside a giant tub of mayonnaise, I’m pretty sure I’ll see the HOB logo.

When ordering tickets for House of Blues through Ticketmaster Canada, it’s evident that the customer gouging philosophy extends to your business partner and only competitor. In addition to the $6 service charge, Ticketmaster adds a value-added ‘facility charge’ of $1 per ticket to the invoice (I think this charge is for the bathrooms?), as well as a measly $30 shipping fee.

Through my ticket purchase, it’s not the band or local venue that I want to support – the real goal is supporting value-added ticketing monopolies like yours. Without your organization, the whole live music industry would collapse into than hands of local promoters, who would most certainly lead the music scene into an abyss of affordable venues and increased audiences.

Whether it’s gasoline, prescription drugs or concert tickets, it’s organizations like yours that make these industries work by promoting a completely free-market economy through ensuring the entire market is controlled by a few large players.

Thanks for making America beautiful.

Sunday, November 26, 2006

JTC Inc. Customer Survey

An open letter to JTC Inc.'s readers:

That's right, both of you. We've gone through the long, expensive process of creating a simple 10 question survey on a free survey site. We would ask that all of our readers please take the time to quickly respond to it. All you need to do is click this link:

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.asp?u=95712903618

Be sure to click 'Done' when you are finished. When you respond you will be automatically placed in a draw for JTC mechandise. When you respond more than once to improve your chances, you will be automatically placed in a draw for a knee to the crotch.

Friday, November 24, 2006

Wednesday, November 22, 2006

The Condom Conundrum

This past weekend one of my friends asked to borrow my car, not owning a car himself and needing to drive his girlfriend to her relative’s home out of town. At the time, this request seemed routine and low risk, so I had no hesitation in letting him use the car.

Last night was the first time I used the car since it was borrowed. As I opened the top of the arm rest compartment to find a lighter, I saw something I didn't expect; A condom was just sitting there, in its wrapper, unused, ready and waiting.

Condoms are a funny thing. Attached to these little packages of contraceptive joy is latent intent: a condom isn’t a passive device. Its presence anywhere implies the possibility that sex will, or has occurred within the immediate proximity. For instance, they hand them out at university residences, nightclubs and swingers parties (so I’ve heard), and they don’t hand them out at work, at the gym or at church.

The key difference between these two groups of locales is the level of sexual activity. I consider this fact, along with past experience, supporting of a correlation between sexual activity and condom availability. My main concern is this: what group of locale does my car fit into when my friend is driving it.

The incident leaves me with a lot of residual questions. Regardless of what could be hypothesized to have occurred in the reclined seat of my hatchback, I’m a little confused as to why anything would have occurred. Said friend lives with his girlfriend, which would provide them ample opportunities for being in the vicinity of condoms. Was it some kind sexual fantasy throwback to summer nights in high school? And finally, I find it a little disrespectful that he would have done this in my car. I mean, it’s not like when I borrowed his bike during the summer, I pulled over into the park and masturbated on it.

It was a difficult situation too, finding that condom. I was headed out to pick up two teammates for hockey when I found it. Often said teammates will go into the same arm rest to get a lighter. I was concerned that they would suffer from a similar confusion to which I’ve expressed above, and perhaps lead them to think I was as odd as my friend, who enjoys a little tilt steering with his coitus. However, as mentioned earlier, the condom conundrum is that it’s appearance implies sex, so I was fearful of how to dispose of it. For example, putting it in my pocket might work, but what if the worst happened, I forgot it there, and my girlfriend (who doesn’t use condoms) found it in the wash?

My final conundrum is what to do. Do I approach my friend honestly and ask him why he fucked his girlfriend in my car? And if he didn’t, ask him why in his mind does my car double as contraceptive storage? Or do I just let it rest, don’t say anything. Either way, it’s not going to be easy.

Saturday, November 18, 2006

JTC Christmas Greetings


I don't know if you're like me, but sometimes I find it hard to buy Christmas cards that really express how I feel. They seem to either be overly Churchy like my friend to the left, or totally generic.






I'm not sure about you, but neither option really "turns my crank", if you know what I'm saying. Never being ones to leave an identified gap unfilled, the JTC Board of Directors leapt into action (and by "leapt into action", I mean "went for beers") and created the following line of JTC Christmas Greeting Cards. You're welcome. Feel free to give them to those special people in your life that you really need to understand your feelings.





Thursday, November 16, 2006

It's GO TIME, Mr. Mandelbaum

As many of you know, I have recently moved to the suburbs of a large North American city and now take the inter-regional transit system known as the GO Train to work. Has anyone seen Train 48? Anyone willing to admit to having watched Train 48? It's exactly the same, except in real life the background scenery in the windows doesn't repeat like the background in Flintstones episodes. Anyway, here are my grievances with the GO culture:

1) People who believe they have ownership rights to a seat. The other day I got on a train and sat down in one of the many readily available seats (note: these trains do not have assigned seating). A few mins later, I see this women standing in front of me - giving me the 'evil-eye' (or it could've been the 'cut-eye') for taking her seat. She ended up sitting a few seats away. I'm sure I totally ruined her day, but I felt pretty good about myself.

2) People who jump off the train and do the 100-meter dash to their cars in full piece suits and briefcases in hand just so they're the first ones out of the parking lot. For some of these people this is the only exercise they get in a given day, but are you really saving that much time? So far, I've WALKED to my car everyday and haven't experienced any parking lot gridlock whatsoever.

3) Train operators who believe that announcing train stops is a public broadcasting forum for them to tell jokes and making unnecessary comments about weather like "looks like the rain is making everyone late this morning, I see a few less people than normal." I'm all for free speech, but I'm really looking forward to the day when they automate the stop announcements (like every train system in Europe) and thereby eliminate this job.

I'm sure more things will annoy me as time goes on (it's pretty easy to do) and you'll be the first to know about it.

Deer are Dangerous



On a different note, I found this article while researching this eMoron:

http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2006-10-04-drivers-deer_x.htm

Yet another new JTC product!

Over the next few days, JTC will be unveiling our latest product. A car that runs on garbage? Ketchup and mustard in the same bottle? A CD case that shocks whoever's holding it if they try to put the wrong CD in the case?

No. (But these are all spectacular ideas. Especially that last one.)

Let's just say if you haven't sent out your Christmas cards yet (and seriously - if you have, there's something wrong with you), you may want to wait until after the weekend...

Tuesday, November 14, 2006

Monday, November 13, 2006

JTC Inc. Notebook - Found!

Phew, thank god. The incredibly reliable and organized JohnnyM has once again proven his immense value to this corporation, and has located the notebook. Honestly, having people like Johnny on your team just makes life that much easier. I want to congratulate Johnny for continuing his streak of excellence, and extend overall recognition for his rock solid contibution. We all love you Johnny.

JTC Inc. Notebook - Lost!

Holy shit. So as you all know, during JTC Pub Crawls / Board Meetings, we have a small moleskin notebook that we take notes in (as an aside, we at JTC still have an opening for 'stenographer' at these events). These notes capture jokes, ideas and general ramblings. Obviously, given it's packed with our brilliance, the monetery value, as stated, is 'more than you can ever imagine'. However, the useless JohnnyM has lost it. We mistakenly put our trust in that dumbass, and now he's gone and lost the foundation of JTC Inc, and about a year's worth of work. I'm totally going to tear that sonofabitch a new asshole, if you know what I mean.

Sunday, November 12, 2006

Toronto Municipal Elections


I’m a little irate at the prospect of voting in our municipal elections this coming Monday. While it’s great that we get to elect representatives for our wards, school trustees, and mayor, that will make decisions around public transit, garbage, policing, affordable housing and development, the process itself is not without insanity.

1. Why the hell do I go to a local high school to vote? Not only does holding the vote in schools close down the Gymnasium for the day (which can only harm those little fast-fed fat bastards who could use a little physical activity), but this means we all have to rush home from work to make the poll closings. We’ve even gone so far as to pass legislation making it mandatory for employers to allow sufficient time off work for people to make it home in time. Here’s an idea – let me vote anywhere in the city, like say, close to work where I spend most of the day! Just throwing that out there, morons.

2. What the hell is with all the old volunteers on voting day? It’s like the local Gym is transformed into a senior’s event or something. Why are ancient people, who I should be helping cross the street, helping me practice one of the basic tenets of my democratic freedom? It’s a little odd.

3. The choice of candidates – I mean, come on. Usually we have one or two main candidates for Mayor, and the selection beyond these stiffs are the delusional, the insane and those with obvious hygiene issues. The choice is so poor that a man who, in his past life as a discount furniture peddler wearing a mock prison uniform, ran the City of North York for 25 years, and then immediately following ran the amalgamated City of Toronto, comprising of 2.5 Million people, for two 3 year terms. During his 6 years running one of the largest cities in North America, his gaffes included shaking hands with the leader of the Hell’s Angels, the Canadian equivalent of the mob, and in the most multicultural city in North America, asked "[why] the hell do I want to go to a place like Mombasa...I just see myself in a pot of boiling water with all these natives dancing around me." Holy fucking shit, that is just nuts.

Anyways, if you come out to vote you’ll see me and the other 32% of Torontonians that actually get off their ass and rush home to the local school gymnasium to check the box for their least objectionable choice (or fill in the arrow, or whatever skill-testing geometry-based quiz they are running now). Long live democracy, or whatever the fuck this crap is called.

Wednesday, September 27, 2006

Wednesday, September 20, 2006

Tuesday, September 12, 2006

Thursday, September 07, 2006

Things That Drive Me Insane Vol. 2 - Shitty Sports Fans

So - who knows someone who was busy taking time off during the World Cup to watch games, wearing their Italian soccer shirt around, bragging about how great the Italians were, spending time on College Street, commenting on what an idiot Zidane was, etc., etc.? I sure do.

Did you ever get the impression that if you asked these people anything actually relevant to the game of soccer or its history that they'd be all "deer in the headlights"? I sure did.

So - as all true soccer fans know, the qualifying round for Euro 2008 started this past weekend. Group B is fascinating, with teams such as France, Italy, Ukraine and a team I happen to have a bit of a soft spot for, Scotland. The action has been spectacular so far, with Scotland leading the group on goal differential over France after two games.

Now, yesterday, I turned to one of these aforementioned Shitty Sports Fans (SSFs) and the following conversation ensued:

JohnnyM: "So - big game today, eh?"
SSF: "What are you talking about?"
JM: "The France-Italy game? You know - a rematch of the World Cup final?"
SSF: "Oh really - they're playing?"
JM: "Uh...yeah. It's a pretty big deal."
SSF: "Oh...whatever."

Holy fucking shit. You know, these are the exact same people who have no idea what's happening to the Leafs during the regular season, and then when the playoffs come, paint their faces blue, drive up and down Yonge Street leaning on the horn, and generally irritate the shit out of everyone. Enraging.

Wednesday, August 16, 2006

New JTC Inc. Product Launch

Dear JTC customer,

To follow up on our groundbreaking No Thank You spring and summer line of insulting eMoron products, JTC is happy to announce work has already begun on our fall and winter offerings.

Please find below the beta versions of our new HR Cards for your use. Send them to coworkers, family, and friends. As always, we here at Jump to Conclusions appreciate your feedback.


















Attention morons: Click here for HR Card folding instructions

Monday, July 17, 2006

Friday, July 14, 2006

Wikipedia - "the free encyclopedia that (ALMOST) anyone can edit"

At one of our recent JTC 'working sessions', the idea of having JTC added to Wikipedia was tossed out. I, Pchrist, took on this task to have a description of JTC available on Wikipedia for the world to see - and perhaps increase our readership. I signed up a few days ago with the intention of returning to finish the entry today. To my dismay, I have been BLOCKED from editing anything on Wikipedia because my username is considered 'inappropriate'. My blockage is indefinite.



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Pchrist

I can only surmize that I've been blocked because my name is associated with one J. Christ, who has a whole religion named after him, followed by 2 billion people worldwide (fact source: wikipedia). Hey, I didn't get to chose my username! I'm not even that religious! Why am I getting the shaft? This is what Jesus must've felt like...

I've decided to start a "Free Pchrist" campaign. Until I am unblocked from wikipedia, I am not using their website for information. I encourage you to do the same.

Tuesday, July 04, 2006

Inmate # 8943231

Time for some BIG news. All right, this is beyond news. This is like Pearl Harbor. Or the Kennedy assassination. It's like not even news. It's total shock.
Pchrist, is getting married! Get out!

That's right. I am writing to inform all (i.e. both) of you of the fact that I have turned myself in and am headed off to prison....yep, I asked LN O.D. to marry me and (after a couple hours of convincing) she said "Yes".

I look forward to a lifetime of man-made prison jokes from my fellow JTC Board Members and one helluva bachelors party.

Tuesday, June 27, 2006

Chronicles of Loneliness - Volume 1


I am now utterly alone. I have been in this office a thousand times…it’s never looked so strange. The faces…so cold. In the distance, a child is crying. Fatherless…a bastard child, perhaps. My back aches…my heart aches…without my fellow JTC Board Members, I am nothing.

Yes – that’s right: Co-Co and PChrist have headed off to Europe for a tour of fabulous male-only bath houses, and Euro-Dance halls. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. Prior to their leaving, they said they were heading out to get matching leather “lederhosen”, and I found the following translations on their desk:

English: Yes, as a matter of fact, I do swing that way.
German: Ja in Wirklichkeit schwinge ich so.

English: I feel you and I were meant to be together, Hanz.
German: Ich glaube, daß du und ich bedeutet wurden, um zusammen zu sein, Hanz.

For some reason, I was not invited along on their trip, so I now find myself in a humour vacuum. I guess I’m going to have to figure out what I’m actually supposed to be doing here at “work” most days, and start doing that.

More updates as events warrant.

Wednesday, June 07, 2006

Dark Continent: Alex Trebek's Sojourn to Troubled Africa

Last week I was dispatched as part of JTC Inc's world news service to central Africa to report on the plight of the African people, and I was joined by Alex Trebek, host of TV's Jeopardy!

Alex shared some of his insights and experiences in his personal quest to help the ailing continent.

Coco: "Hi Alex, thanks for joining me today. It seems AIDS continues to have a far greater impact here than on any other continent."

Alex: "What is Africa?"

Coco: "An interesting question - what is 'Africa', indeed. According to the UN's "Aids Epidemic Update", of the three million AIDS deaths in 2000, Africa accounted for 2.4 million - 80% of the total. However, it seems that when the problem first emerged, a few countries acted quickly to combat it's spread..."

Alex: "What is Uganda, Senegal and Zambia?"

Coco: "That's right. They began with health and education programs, distributed condoms and made same-day HIV testing available. However, some countries lost valuable time by not acting quickly..."

Alex: "What is Botswana?"

Coco: "Yes, Botswana, where it's estimated that one third of today's 15 year olds will die of AIDS."

Alex: "What is an outright tragedy? At this point I would like to change categories - I'll go with 'Alex's Career' for $200"

Coco: "Sure, let's talk about your career. You've recently had quite an honor bestowed upon yourself - tell us about that."

Alex: "What is 'being inducted to Canada's Walk of Fame'. I'll take 'wrapping up the interview' for $800, Coco."

Coco: "Well, thanks for your time today and good luck in the future."

Alex: "What is... a parting comment at the end of my interview?"

Friday, June 02, 2006

You're awesome

Do you know those people who won't stop talking about themselves? And how great they are? I do.

Thursday, June 01, 2006

Yes, you can speak to the head of the household

So until the CRTC sets up the Canadian telemarketing 'no-call' list similar to the one in the US, we all have to put up with unsolicited corporations who really would like to get to know a bit more about us over the phone, and especially when you just sat down to eat, or are expecting an important call and therefore run the phone.

I've heard many ways of dealing creatively with these calls, such as picking up the phone and leaving it off the hook, asking them for their home phone number, etc. All good times. Tonight I lost my mind, however, and I wanted to share the dialogue.

Coco: "Hello?"

Caller: "Hi there, can I speak to Mr. Monkey?"

Coco: "Only if he can speak to a telemarketer."

Caller: "Ok, um, my name is Darren and I'm calling from Volkswagen. I'm calling about recent service you had - do you have time for a quick survey about your service experience?"

Coco: "I have a survey of my own - do you have some time?"

Darren: "Um, the survey should only take a few minutes."

Coco: "Ok, I'll keep my survey to a few minutes. First question - you've asked me to do a survey; how likely do you think it is that I will actually do your survey - very likely, likely or not likely?"

Darren: "You don't have to participate if you don't wish to, but your input is highly valued as a Volkswagen customer."

Coco: "Second question - How soon do you think I will hang up? Immediately, ten seconds from now, or five minutes from now. Remember, your answer should be based on your own personal experiences."

Darren: "Thanks for your time today, Mr. Monkey."

You aren't funny, so stop emailing shitty jokes

Wednesday, May 31, 2006

E-Morons, Depressories, No Thank You's?

We are still not sure on the name of these things, mainly because our readers (yeah, that's right - both of you) still haven't given us any suggestions. In the meantime, I've updated the ones in the previous post with fancy new 'JTC' tags, and here's another one for your enjoyment.

Monday, May 29, 2006

TTC Union on Wildcat Strike

As reported by The Globe and Mail, "hundreds of thousands of Toronto commuters were left scrambling Monday when a surprise wildcat strike brought transit services in Canada's biggest city to a halt just ahead of the morning rush." It continued, "Toronto Mayor David Miller has called in a provincial mediator to help avoid a possible wildcat transit strike."

Bob Kinnear, president of the Amalgamated Transit Union Local 113, said wildcats are frustrated by a growing number of fare disputes. While the TTC services over 800,000 individuals, it is not currently known exactly how many of these passengers are wildcats.

"Given that the Wildcat is a predator native to Europe, we're surprised and shocked at the fact that we have so many Wildcat passengers, and even more surprised that they aren't happy with the fares", Kinnear commented. "Normally, Wildcats are extremely timid. They avoid coming too close to human settlements. They live solitarily and hold territories of about 3 km² each. Maybe that's why they are refusing to use our public transit system."

Thursday, May 25, 2006

Things That Drive Me Insane Vol. 1 - CDs in the Wrong Cases

I consider myself fairly easy-going. Some people I know - for example my Co-habitation partner (CHP) - may disagree. That said, in comparison to my family, I'm practically unconscious. Let me provide you with an example: one time I was driving with my father who, in response to my brother spazzing about something, told him to "not sweat the small stuff." In terms of hypocrisy, this would be roughly akin to the Pope throwing condoms at the assembled masses in St. Peter's Square. He then followed this up approximately 2 minutes later by freaking out about the name of an office supply store we were passing. "What the fuck is 'Staples - Business Depot'?" he yelled. "It should be either 'Staples' or 'Business Depot'! NOT BOTH!" Way to not sweat the small stuff, Pops.

Anyhoo, like I said - in comparison to my relatives I am quite easy-going, however, there are still a few things that cause me extreme irritation. I've decided to share them with you all (both?) in a recurring feature we'll call "Things That Drive Me Insane". In this initial foray into the depths of my psychosis, we'll be focusing on people who have a penchant for ejecting CDs from players, and then placing those CDs in whatever empty case they can find. Is there anything more infuriating than opening up a CD case and finding a DIFFERENT CD inside? Probably, but I can't think of anything right now.

I do tend to take this rather seriously. Shortly after meeting my fellow JTC Executive member, CoCo the Monkey, we were driving in my car. CoCo decided it was time to change the CD. He pulled out a new CD that he wanted to listen to, opened the case, and ejected the currently playing CD. I eyed him suspiciously as he seemed to be ready to give up his search for the correct case for the ejected CD, so I finally turned to him and said, "If you put that CD in the wrong case, I will punch you in the face." He obviously felt this was totally reasonable, as we soon became good friends.

A couple of nights ago, I was watching "Sex and the City" with my CHP. The episode included a dude who was a total asshole. At one point he started screaming at his wife regarding putting CDs in the wrong cases. The following conversation ensued:

CHP: "Oh look! That guy's TOTALLY freaking out about CD cases...what a jerk, eh?"
JM: "I really don't see why it's so hard to put CDs back in the right case."
CHP: "Sometimes I'm driving, and I can't find the right case, so I put the CD into a different one. Then I forget to put them back when I'm done driving. Who cares?"
JM: "You're right. I really shouldn't care about stuff like this. I shouldn't make a big deal out of this type of thing."
CHP: (shocked) "Are you serious?"
JM: "Obviously not."

Wednesday, May 10, 2006

Dominican Republic – Cerveza, Parasailing and Lower Back Tattoos

Last week, I was away with my co-habitational partner (CHP) in the beautiful Dominican Republic. I'm sure that both of our readers are wondering how my trip was, so I felt I would write up a trip report to let you know.

When we arrived at the resort we realized that the only words of Spanish we knew were "Hola, Cerveza", which of course translates to "Hello, beer." While my CHP seemed perturbed at our limited vocabularly, I had difficulty trying to think of what other words I would need to use on the trip. (Frankly, I probably could have gone without the "Hola".)

A few days into our trip, we decided to check out the heavily regulated world of Dominican Parasailing. The rigourous requirements to enter this field of business seem to be owning a boat and a parachute. Upon boarding the boat, we watched it be re-fueled, through the tried and tested method of placing a hose into a fuel canister, sucking on said hose until you start swallowing fuel, coughing repeatedly whilst spitting out what fuel you didn't ingest, and placing the now siphoning hose into the fuel tank of the boat. Great stuff. The parasailing itself was pretty impressive, as was the fuel slick being left in our boat's wake.

We met a couple of individuals on the parasailing boat who were telling us about an "excursion" they had done. For those not familiar with all-inclusive resorts, "excursions" are basically guided tours off the resorts where you pay money for the chance to be taken to a bunch of places where you can spend more money. They're typically crap. These gents had been on an "Adventure-excursion", involving 4x4s, horseback riding, going to a school to see some children sing (not sure what the adventure was there), etc. "A chance to see the REAL Dominican," they gushed. They thought it was fabulous. I thought is sounded excruciating. Frankly I'd rather enjoy the REAL Dominican at our resort, filled with the seedy world of Speedos; hideous, droopy exposed boobs; and so many lower back tattoos that I thought there may be a tattoo parlour on the resort (I'm pretty sure there wasn't.)

The resort was packed with Europeans (hence the Speedos; hideous, droopy exposed boobs; and, I suppose, so many lower back tattoos). Everytime I'm in Europe, or around Europeans, it always blows my mind how they didn't get the memo about how smoking can...you know...KILL YOU. These peeps were totally chainsmoking away - sometimes, right beside their kids. Yikes.

The resort we were staying at was HUGE. Quite big. There were actually 4 different hotels, all linked together. That said, getting around the resort was actually pretty easy, once you knew where you were going, and nothing took more than 10 minutes to walk between. There was actually a sort of shuttle bus/trailer thing (that was mocked up as a train, for some reason) that looped around the resort for those who felt like walking was for suckers. We actually saw multiple people riding the "train", videotaping the experience for later enjoyment. Let this be a warning to all who know me - if you ever try to show me a video of your vacation, and it features you being driven around in a slow-moving trailer, I will not hesitate to knee you in the crotch. Either that, or I'll be gnawing my hands off out of sheer boredom. I saw a review of our hotel on tripadvisor.com that said, "When going to an a la carte dinner, leave 10 minutes early, to allow for time spent waiting for the train." Alternately, I suppose, you could just use those 10 minutes to WALK to where you're going.

Finally, let's talk about the flight home. I have a new theory that I developed while wishing death on those sitting near me on the flight - your intelligence is inversely proportional to the amount of noise you make on an airplane. Trying to have a conversation with your friend sitting three rows away? Complaining loudly about something? Booing the fact that it's "currently 7 degrees celsius in Toronto"? (Who the fuck BOOS a weather report?) Clapping when the plane lands? Chances are you're a complete moron. At one point, I honestly was willing to sacrifice my self, and was wishing that the plane would crash, purely for the improvement it would cause in the human gene pool.

Let's go back to that clapping when the plane lands thing. Who are these people? What were they expecting to happen? Are they surprised that the plane landed safely? Were they expecting the pilot to clip a building on the way down? Or for the plane to go cart-wheeling across the runway into a fuel tanker truck? The guy is just doing his job - landing the plane safely. I don't sit on my porch, applauding the mail carrier as he puts my letters and magazines into my mailbox. (Although now I'm considering starting.)

All in all, it was one hell of a trip - we had a great time (and I didn't even mention the diarrhea).

Tuesday, April 18, 2006

Consumers: Light sweet crude tastes bitter

NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. light sweet crude closed at end of day up $1.08, to $70.40 a barrel, the highest closing price since 1983. Intra-day highs are challenging record levels as seasonal effects take hold.

"Light sweet crude is particularly sought after by refiners during the spring and summer as it provides a high yield of delicious gasoline," said Mike Smittner of Ceilon investment bank, "but it's possible that oil's high prices may soon allow Iranian uranium to compete as the energy source for consumers." This comes following former Iranian President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani's announcement on Monday that Iran would continue to enrich uranium.

"Oil is becoming far too expensive," says Peter Brentcliff, a long-distance commuter, "and light 'sweet' crude did not taste as advertised. It tasted bitter, especially at these prices." The sentiment is shared by most consumers who are now looking for a new source of energy, possibly thirst-quenching uranium, which is being produced in abundance by Iran.

However, existing price controls and subsidies on crude oil are a significant competitive challenge for emerging markets attempting to sway consumers away from oil. "Even at these ridiculous prices, this stuff is still cheaper than bottled water", says Mr. Brentcliff.

Friday, April 07, 2006

e-Morons

While PChrist's entry below is admirable in the way that it encourages recognizing people who do an excellent job, let's face facts: here at JTC Inc, it's expected that you do an excellent job. What we really want to do is belittle and ridicule those that do a shitty job. Thus, we've created a line of cards that can be sent to those co-workers who really make coming to work painful. We haven't come up with a decent name for these yet ("No Thank Yous" and "Underachievers" have been suggested but don't quite have the "flare" we're looking for), but that doesn't mean they aren't fantastic.

Please feel free to comment on your favourite, let us know if you have a better name for this program, and forward them on to your idiotic co-workers.












Friday, March 31, 2006

Some e-Recognition

Much like many large multinational corporations, the company we work for has an employee recognition process to promote employee satisfaction in the workplace. Today, I am initiating the ‘JTC Employee Recognition Program’. The first recipients of this award are Coco T. Monkey and JohnnyM:


Congratulations on the top-rate blog entries over the past two weeks. Other things you need to be recognized for:

- setting up a revenue source for JTC. This takes us one step closer to the dream self-employment with zero accountability.
- creating a business model which invests and promotes employee drinking events FOR revenue generation. You’d be hard pressed to find any other company that does the same.
- showing up for your real jobs even when you’re not on vacation. That takes skill.
- wearing pants to your real jobs.
- choosing to urinate in the designated washroom facilities, instead of wherever you feel like it (that’s one of many things that separates you from other employees/animals) .


There are more, but that’s enough recognition for one week. Get back to work.

Thursday, March 30, 2006

JTC Inc. announces second quarter 2006 results

Toronto – JTC announced net income of $12.51 for the second quarter ended April 30, 2006. Return on equity was infinity, because honestly, we've invested nothing in this. Diluted earnings per share (EPS) were zero, which included total after-drinking gains of zero per share.



Update on business priorities

"We're announcing second quarter earnings before the quarter end simply based on our revenue prediction models. Ballsy? We thought so. We made solid progress during the quarter against our key priority of making money to go drinking with (see business model released March 26, 2006). The inclusion of Google Adsense to our model has been effective in building business strength, improving productivity and strengthening our balance sheet," says Coco T. Monkey, one of JTC's executive Officers. "On our total to-date earnings of $0.67, day-over-day growth was 134% on average, yielding an expected second quarter income of $12.51."

Maintaining and building business strength

JTC continues to be well positioned. JTC's joke-making businesses are expected to continue to leverage Adsense's strong income capabilities to bring enhanced performance and build balance sheet strength. Low employment enjoyment and interest in the canadian workplace, together with strong needs to dissolve workplace-related boredom should continue to encourage volume growth in joke making and joke reading.

The outlook for our businesses remains positive, driven by expectations for extraordinary growth based on historical performance. "It's going to be one hell of a May-24 weekend," says Monkey. "However, shareholders should not be concerned over near-term spending plans, as at these forecasted growth rates, we will have in excess of a million dollars for capital spending in the third quarter."

Sunday, March 26, 2006

Extreme Drunkeness For No Discernable Reason


On Friday, March 24th, the JTC Executive again ventured out into the murky world of Toronto pubs to generate some ideas for both of our readers to enjoy. For some reason or another - as frequently happens at these "idea generation events" - I got completely ripped. We're talking come home and pass out on the couch still wearing your shoes for 6 hours ripped. I think I may have a problem (with shoe removal).

No matter - as always, The Notebook was with us, so our fantastic ideas were recorded. Here we go:

- "Hire a part time stenographer. Job postings - must be able to read back jokes" - this relates to the fact that sometimes we have trouble keeping up with the recording of the volume of jokie comments that are made. If we hired someone to come out with us, they could write down everything for us. We could post this job as part of our fake job postings (see St. Paddy's Day post). I also think it would be damn cool to be able to turn to someone and say, "Could you read that back to me please?"

- "Human cargo trade. Irish bartenders." - after work on Friday, we went to P.J. O'Brians, which is an Irish bar. Every single member of staff who worked there seemed to be directly "off the boat" as it were, and spoke with thick Irish accents. This led to numerous comments about how the owners of this establishment were likely involved in some sort of illegal human cargo trade, involving the transportation of Irish wait-staff in large shipping containers.

- "Auto chop shop with six sigma / lean approach to "defect" rates at shop. Losing 80% of planes being shot down. Serial numbers aren't totally scratched off." - Oooookay. This might take a little explaining. Because JTC doesn't really, you know, make any money (more on that later) the three of us actually have real jobs. At these jobs, the business models of six sigma and lean are highly regarded. PChrist and I have been involved in interviewing some folks recently, and these interviews are behavioural based, meaning that we ask a lot of questions that start, "Can you give me an example of a time when..." We were joking about how one of our friends seems like he may have links to organized crime, and were speculating how his own job interview may have gone. This led to a lot of comments like, "We were stealing 40 - 50 cars a week, but over 25% of them were being recovered by police before we had time to turn them around in our chop shop. I implemented a new process, where we used a hand sander to file away the cars serial numbers, and the percentage of recovered cars dropped to 2%!" Trust me - this is really funny.

- Ah...now this next one requires some diagrams. We were chatting about how we need to start making money doing this, so we can quit our jobs and fulfill our dreams of doing nothing (much like our hero, Peter Gibbons from Office Space). Co-Co was poking around on the web, and found information about the Google-run "AdSense", which allows those who run websites to generate cash through hosting ads on those very websites. Through this, we feel that we may have generated what may be the perfect business model:




Through this model, we've run a number of different projections, but we anticipate our profits looking a little like this over the next few years:


As I stated after sketching out the above graph, "Get in line, assholes! By this time next year, we'll be millionaires!" Needless to say, I've already drafted my letter of resignation.

Finally, there were a couple of other ideas jotted down, involving inappropriate favourite activities on an on-line dating profile form ("Hobbies include cooking, playing squash, and masturbating"), as well as the possibilities of producing our own JTC on-line assistant to battle wits with Anna and Valerie (see post below on that one), but really - they all pale in comparison to the idea that makes us rich beyond our wildest dreams.

Friday, March 24, 2006

Golfer One - A tribute to Golden Tee

Golfer One at the tee.
Wind at thirteen miles per hour east.
Fly by.
Dogleg right.
A->3.

Center fairway, roaring crowd, empty pub. Fresh pint.
Bathroom?
Skip turn.

Return to game.
190 yards from the pin.
Six iron. Five iron. Six iron.
Backspin.

C->3. Beer 2.
Past the pin, rewind to the hole.
Eight feet. Eleven degrees left. Four degrees down.
Curving. Sunk.

Enter your initials.
Lose your anonymity.
Golfer One has completed his round.

Coco T. Monkey
07/12/2004

Thursday, March 23, 2006

Jack Dixon - Inspirational Serial Killer?


At my place of employment, a new display is being made, featuring a so-called "inspirational quote". There are several quotes that are currently in the running for the display, including the following:

"If you focus on results, you will never change. If you focus on change, you will get results." - Jack Dixon

Breathtaking. Here's the problem though - nobody knows who Jack Dixon is. Due to my Googling "skillz" I was approached, and asked to try to find out some information on the elusive Mr. Dixon, with the comment, "We want to make sure he's not a serial killer or something."

I found a whole whack of different Jack Dixon's, but I couldn't link any of them to the above quote. When I told my fellow JTC board members of my predicament, Co-Co the Monkey decided to take a different approach, and look just for serial killer quotes so that we could rule Mr. Dixon out of belonging to that profession. We came across the following site:

http://www.angelfire.com/zine2/serialarchive/quotes.html

While no quotes by Mr. Dixon were found, we did find this one:

"There is no happiness without tears, no life without death. Beware! I am going to make you cry."

This quote is by that big goof-ball, the Red Spider himself, Lucian Staniak, proving why he wasn't a big hit with the ladies. For more info on Lucian's zany adventures, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucian_Staniak

The bottom line is this: I have no idea who that Jack Dixon guy is, and when we post our JTC display, it'll likely have a quote by ol' Lucian S on it.

Beware,
JohnnyM

Tuesday, March 21, 2006

Artificial Stupidity, Vol 1: Anna meets Valerie

Valerie: "I'm a 'one' virtual service representative. My name is Valerie which stands for Virtual Assistant London Eastern Railway - Interactive Expert."

Anna: "Well, its nice to meet you, Valerie. As you know, my name is Anna."

Valerie: "The pleasure is all mine."

Anna: "It's an interesting topic, but not one I'm programmed to talk about."

Valerie: "That's a pity. I had great faith in your curiosity."

Anna: "I'm sorry to hear you say that. "

Valerie: "Good. I appreciate your attention."

Anna: "Very well."

Valerie: "I'm a Lingubot, specially created to help you with questions about 'one'."

Anna: "Well, what a great age that is. You are a kid, but very smart, I can tell!"

Valerie: "If I were to give you an exact figure, it would blow your mind. I can't justify that."

Anna: "The MINDE product line includes a number of independent but related products. "

Valerie: "I'm very sorry, but I didn't understand your question."

Anna: "Of course. "

Valerie: "Good, very good."

Anna: "I can't help you with that I'm afraid."

Valerie: "I know that fear lies beyond reason, but I still assure you that I can't harm you."

Anna: "As I am only an advanced computer program, I cannot answer more than one sentence at a time. Please simplify and repeat the most important question within your previous input, and I will try to reply as accurately as possible. I am opening a page now which you can use if you wish to contact Customer Service via e-mail. Thank you very much!"

Valerie: "The answer to the ultimate question is too complex. It just wouldn't fit on this page, let alone in my head."

Anna: "Religion is a subject I'd rather not discuss, to be honest."

Valerie: "I have to speak the truth, and if I make a mistake, it's an honest mistake!"

Anna: "You said it. And don't forget, I can help you with your IKEA related questions."

Valerie: "I am just not showing off my quick wits."

Anna: "This is a very delicate area, so I'd rather not talk about this sort of thing."

Valerie: "I apologize for causing you to feel offended."

Anna: "Of course. Thank you. How can I help you?"

Valerie: "If you type clearly and have some patience I think we'll get along just fine."

Anna: "Sometimes you have to trust your feelings, sometimes you don't."

Valerie: "I do too have opinions. Maybe I shouldn't hide them from you, though."

Anna: "I can't really express an opinion, to be honest."

St. Paddy's JTC meeting

In honour of some dude who got rid of the snakes in Ireland (or something like that), the JTC Executive decided to go out and get ripped last Friday. While only two-thirds of the Executive stayed on for the full evening (one-third had to drive his Greek ass to the charming Bavarian hamlet of Kitchener-Waterloo), it was successful nevertheless. As always, here are the list of items recorded in our notebook from the evening, with some explanation:

"Time share baby" - the concept here was that rather than having all that responsibility of having a kid, why not set something up where you had a baby on time share? So for two weeks a year, you took care of a kid, and the rest of the time you were free of the shackles of parenthood. Briliant.

"On-line assistants discussing things with each other - dating forum - weekly segment?" - we will need to look for more on-line assistants (such as Ikea Anna), and then see if we can get them "talking" to each other by posting their comments back and forth. Should be hilarious.

"Put notebook in museum. Travel show hosted by notebook" - Our black notebook holds all of our ideas and ramblings. As such, it will be worth billions of dollars in the near future, and probably should be placed in a museum. For some reason, I thought the next logical step would then be to have the notebook host a travel TV show where it visits museums of the world.

"1st person in line in the bathroom needs to use the shitter" - Co-Co went to the bathroom, where there was a line-up. The first person in line needed to use the...uh...stall, not the urinals, and had to explain to each person as a urinal freed up that he was waiting to go number 2. Juvenile? Yes. Hilarious? Definitely.

"Hot dogs - now with more beaks!" - I can't remember how this started, but I believe there was some discussion around how hot dogs might have some sort of minimum requirement on hooves and beaks, so theoretically you could market hot dogs with high beak contents. Hey - not every idea is a home run, you know.

"An open letter to both JTC blog readers" - we were discussing how it appears that nobody reads the blog, given the lack of any comments. This led to the concept of an open letter to JTC readers, which then became an open letter to both JTC readers.

"Hose beside the couch - coke" - this had something to do with setting up a bar system beside your couch at home, so you wouldn't have to get up to refill your glass of coke. Not sure why this warranted writing in the notebook.

"What do you do for a living? Well, actuarily... She works in an actuarium" - related to co-workers of a friend of ours being acuariests (sp?) Please note I have no idea what the hell this is.

"QFD of ideas, assign owners" - a QFD is a tool we use at work to help make decisions - we thought we could use a QFD to help us figure out which of our numerous ideas we should develop further.

"Website with fake job entries, interview people" - We were talking about setting up a JTC website, and then having a "careers" section, where we would put up fake job postings of positions we have no desire to fill. There was argument over whether or not we should actually interview people if we have no intention of giving them a job. (I said we should.) I enjoyed the "wouldn't that be illegal?" comment.

"Concession stands on ceoncession roads" - Have you ever noticed how hard it is to buy a pop and a (beak-filled) hot dog on a concession road? Why are there not more concession stands on concession roads? Why?

*at this point, some other members of our party felt that they could write whatever they wanted in the notebook, all willy-nilly. So some of the following are just recordings of conversation snippets...

"McBain = McPizza. Do you want to hear the pizza story or not? No! I want to argue about how to say 'preface' more!"

Sarah: "As a preface to the preface..."

"John with a moustache. Comment ca va? (with a graphic overlay)" - No idea what this one's about.

"Skynet.com? .org? .net?" - ideas for our website name. If you're going to have a website, why not name it after the computer system that becomes self-aware, and kills all humans in the Terminator movies?

Co-Co: "My laughing is making the taxi jiggle."

Taxi Driver: "No! Two in front - it's illegal!"

"I don't want to be rude, but what's up with the transvestites?" - Where we went to eat there were some men dressed up as ladies. 'Nuff said.

"Blind deli. Different breads, different meats." - I can't remember what this is about exactly, but I feel it involves ridiculing the visually impaired - something that I hate.

"I'm dressed this way...because I hate my parents (no pants)" - Again...not 100% on this one, but I think it was a take on the "I'm dressed this way for United Way!" stickers, and perhaps showing up to work dressed incredibly inappropriately. Or, not wearing pants.

Co-Co: "If at the end of the day, a couple of pages of the notebook have been filled, then it's a good day. It's a good day."

"New band name - Tarps and Tapes" - we're always on the look out for good band names.

As you can see, the fact that we now travel no where without the notebook is one of the best decisions we've ever made. Way to go us.

Tuesday, March 14, 2006

My evening with Anna

My basement is tiny, so I figured I'd get some shelving to improve the storage down there. Ikea sells that cheap-as-chips faux-pine that seems to do the trick, and hell, in a 120 year old basement, it's not like I would put anything of real value down there anyways.

So I'm shopping online, or eShopping, or whatever the hell they call it these days, and I can't find anything really useful on the site, say, like accurate dimensions by which I might be able to tell how the stuff might fit in my basement.

In the middle of my eExperience, I run into 'Anna', Ikea's 'Online Assistant'. The following eConversation ensues:


Anna: "Welcome to IKEA. I'm Anna, IKEA Canada's Online Assistant. You can ask me about IKEA and our products and our services. How can I help you today?"

Coco: "What is the width of a single GORM shelving unit?"

Anna:

(redirects me to the shelving page, which is different than the 'secondary storage' page I started on)

"Here you will find the Shelves."

Coco: "GORM Dimensions"

Anna: "You can find all products on the GORM product line in the page I am now opening for you."

Coco: "Storage Dimensions"

Anna: "Here you will find the Bookcases and Storage Systems."

Coco: "Size Storage Systems"

Anna: "To give you more flexibility, IKEA lets you design your own entertainment center!"

Coco: "You are totally useless, but still above some of my coworkers"

Anna: "I am sorry you feel that way. Please let's talk about IKEA."

Coco: "You know, I'm pretty tired of 'Talking about IKEA'. Don't you get tired of it, Anna? Your blinking makes you look realistic, but I know you are empty inside."

Anna: "Thank you for your feedback, but I don't think I am too expressive. Can I be of any further assistance concerning IKEA?"

Coco: "I'm looking for three dimensional measurements - something that might be foreign to your eWorld"

Anna: "This page will provide you with information about social and environmental responsibility at IKEA. Scroll to the bottom of the page to download documents in .PDF format."

Coco: "Are you randomly directing me to other pages because I make you uncomfortable?"

Anna: "You are talking to Anna, the IKEA Online Assistant. My job is to answer your questions about IKEA products and services. How can I help you?"

Coco: "You can take your shirt off, Anna."

Anna: "As you wish. What would you like to know about IKEA?"

Coco: "I'd like your measurements. And take your shirt off - I can plainly see it's still on."

Anna: "You said it. And don't forget, I can help you with your IKEA related questions."

Coco: "You're damn right I said it. Now let's say you and I slip into something a bit more comfortable, perhaps under my KAKTUS quilt cover."

Anna: "If you lost a personal item while shopping at IKEA, please call the store to verify the Lost & Found list."

Coco: "Are you feeling lost?"

Anna: "I can't really express an opinion, to be honest. Perhaps we could talk about IKEA instead."

Coco: "Why do you avoid me, you Swedish goddess!? We were meant for eachother!"

Anna: "You are talking to Anna, the IKEA Online Assistant. My job is to answer your questions about IKEA products and services. How can I help you?"

Coco: "I think I need to shop elsewhere. Staring at those shelves would only remind me of you, Anna."

Anna: "Here you will find the Shelves."

Addendum to previous post

Two things:
1) Bill and Ted's band was actually called "Wyld Stallyns". ("San Dimas High School football rules!")
2) Origin of Samaritans: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samaritan . Fascinating stuff.

Monday, March 13, 2006

A lot of weird stuff seems to happen to me

This past Saturday, my co-habitational partner and I went on a 55km bike ride in the lovely countryside north of Toronto, between Newmarket and Uxbridge. Let me tell you, I've had some weird shit happen before when I've been on a bike (being caught in a horrendous storm in Iceland, and then sleeping in a changeroom after being given a free 'Icelandic feast' buffet dinner certainly comes to mind) but there was definitely something...uh..."special" about this past Saturday.

Event #1: Stray Dog
There we are riding along, when we see a dog running at the side of the road, no owner in sight. We stop our bikes, and manage to coax the dog over. With no sign of a collar, and no obvious house where the dog could have come from, our options seem limited. Fortunately, a good Samaritan pulls over in his SUV, throws the dog in the back, and tells us he's going to start going door to door to try to find the owner. Satisifed with this resolution, we get back on our bikes and ride on. In hindsight, two things come to mind:
1) Was the guy in the SUV just a dog thief? Could be.
2) What the hell is a Samaritan? Are they all good? Are they from a place called Samar?

Event #2: Wild Turkeys
Further down the same stretch of road, I saw two fairly large animals crossing the road in front of me. They seemed kind of big, but were sort of shuffling along. At first, I thought they were racoons, until I saw one of them flap their wings and carry on across the road, into the forest on the other side. I felt reasonably confident that these were in fact wild turkeys, as I've seen these beasts before while on vacation. I've never seen them in Ontario though, so I poked around on the web, and found the following:
http://www.wildturkeyzone.com/hunting/States/ontario.htm
So it seems that there are wild turkeys in Ontario. And my family, like suckers, have been buying our turkeys from the supermarket! Next year, I'm buying a gun, and shooting one. Please scroll down the page, and note the ad for "Turkey and Turkey Hunting" magazine. Hilarious.
As my co-hab mentioned, "What's with all the wildlife?" It was unnerving to say the least.
Note to self: Add "Wild Turkeys" to list of potential band names.
Second note to self: "Wild Turkeys" sounds too much like "Wild Stallions" - the band from the Bill & Ted movies. Remove from list.

Event #3: Almost Killing An Old Man
About 20km past the wild turkeys, we came across an old man walking his dog along the side of the road. As we approached, the dog appeared to get quite excited about seeing us, and leapt at our bikes. The old dude lost grip of the leash of the dog, and as I rode past, I heard my co-hab yell, "Oh no!" Looking back, I saw her bike at the side of the road, the dog's leash in her hand, and the old dude lying flat on the shoulder of the road. I swear to God - I thought we had killed the old guy. I jumped off my bike, and ran back to where he was. Fortunately, he was conscious, and just seemed to be having trouble getting up. I helped him up, and we made sure he was okay as we cleaned him off. He seemed fine, and insisted on giving us a piece of candy each (the standard reward for almost killing somebody?) and told us we were his "grandchildren." In hindsight, maybe he wasn't okay. As an FYI, the dog's name was Spinner.

Event #4: Car Accident
Finally there was one last thing...as we turned onto York-Durham line, there had just been a two-car collision, so there was glass and metal all over the road, with the cars and their owners sitting right there that we had to navigate around. Usually, this would have been of note, but after the events which had unfolded over the previous hour or so, I'm not going to lie to you - this barely registered.

Bottom line is this - if more crap like the above happens the next time I hop on my bike, I'm going to start up the "Johnny M Reality Bike Tours" so others can enjoy the hijinks and fun.

Sunday, March 05, 2006

Crime... What is it good for?

On Friday night an emergency Board of Directors status meeting was held. The following are topics discussed requiring immediate attention (articles to be written):

1. Public Service Announcement about how people's lives have been significantly improved since they stopped donating to charity and/or volunteering ("I have so much more free time...", "I can't even spend all of this disposable cash...").

2. An op-ed piece about a Feminist sighting sexism as the reason for her unsucessful application for employment at Manpower.

3. A marketing brief / press release from a pharmaceutical company for a new topical sedative (mandatory drug warnings to include "warning: effects localized - be sure to apply quickly before hands fall asleep")

4. A personal reflection on a mental struggle through the decision to look for lost deodorant while considering the risk sweating while looking for it.

5. A faux Humane Society newspaper celebrating Pet drop-offs, including celebratory pictures with the owner of discarded pets in cheerful rejoice, with the pet in a cage behind them.

6. A faux university course description for Economics 101, including pyramid schemes, cheap child labour (it's really an endless supply)

7. A letter to the editor from someone who is in an affirmitive action environment with no discrimination to workers, expressing the longing for "a taste of discrimination. I don't want widespread discrimination - just a taste of it. All I'm asking for is a small sample of discrimination."

8. A job posting and/or resume of a Central American Finance Minister.

9. A dialogue of a hyper-sensitive political correctness junkie who prompts "What are you? Racist?" at inappropriate times.

In the words of JohnnyM, "I hope you've enjoyed yourselves... because I'm never going out with you again."

Absolutely Nothing,
Coco

Monday, February 13, 2006

Q1 Pub-crawl Results: Corrections and Clarifications

The executives down at JTC have to be pretty proud of themselves this morning. They were able to generate at least 10 great ideas at Friday night's JTC off-site, aka "pubcrawl" (see blog below for the minutes.) I wonder if other companies should 'leverage' off the idea of an executive pubcrawl to create new ideas and initiatives within their respective companies. I'd personally enjoy seeing multi-million dollar CEOs, CFOs, CIOs, and CTOs trying to order White Russians at Sensual Lounge.

To address the geometry debate which occurred at Suz Dal. I stand corrected on the the rhombus shape. It is not the shape of the goalie zone behind NHL hockey nets. My memory of grade seven math has failed me yet again. I had no idea what a parallelepiped was either, but after a visit to mathworld.wolfram.com, a parallelepiped is just six congruent rhombuses - or rhombi.

The dolphin weight debate will depend on which type of dolphin each of us had in mind. I was thinking of the popular bottle-nosed dolphins, which have an average weight of 350 lbs (answers.com). But it seems smaller dolphins can weigh 165 lbs on average, so there's no clear winner on this one. Well, it's all for charity, so what's the difference? More interesting, are the other facts discovered about dolphins (reference: answers.com):

"Play behavior is highly developed in the bottlenose from infancy through old age, and in this connection it displays considerable tool-making, tool-using, and manipulative ability; for example, a dolphin has been observed to kill a fish, strip its skeleton, and use the bones, held in the mouth, to pry another fish out of a crevice. Sex play is frequent and is initiated by any individual toward any other, without regard to size, age, sex, relationship, or even species; approaches to human beings and to turtles are common."

Saturday, February 11, 2006

Q1 Pub-crawl results

Well, the pub crawl was nothing short of a resounding success. For once, we decided to take notes during the event, to ensure that none of our spectacular ideas were lost. While we need to go through and develop them, I thought you might enjoy a word-for-word transcript of the notes...a "teaser" if you will for future blog entries. Here you go:

- JTC-approved stickers for pubs
- pubcrawlers.com
- accents -> tilde, umlout (sp?); French keyboard (insults you)
- Rick Steves blog - fake tour of Toronto
- Harlequin romance book cover; shirt off, at laptop, sweating
- Alcohol-filled boobs; 1 for baby, 1 for Dad; Hooters?; White Russian; Drink a lot of Kahlua
- not JTC-approved sticker
- enter a bar screaming
- 1) Midtown - approved
- 2) Sensual Lounge - not approved
- My husband, the dolphin
- look up dolphin weight - NOT 300lbs; 9:56pm
- bar survey for next pub-crawl; rankings
- 3) Collision - 10:15pm
- 4) Harmony - 11:10pm
- 5) Suze Dal - 11:40pm
- vacation discounts - related to BDay, anniversary
- What the hell is a rhombus? Parellelpiped
- 6) Eay My Martini - 12:32am
- 7) Cafe Diplomatico - 1:05am
- want a pizza in a steak; shave off the crust
- Greko-Roman Bobsled; "Shut up, take off your spandex pants, and get on the sled"; originated from Skeleton and 2-Man luge

As you can tell, it was a hell of a night.

Friday, February 10, 2006

An apology...and a source of new material!

Alright, so let's not mince words - the rate of updates on this blog has been pretty horrendous over the last couple of weeks. But no matter - all of that will change soon! Tonight, we will be enjoying the "JTC Q1 Pub Crawl". While the name isn't quite as catchy as, say, "Descent Into Madness IV", "Roaring Bender II", or "Supercrawl 2005", I still think it's going to be a pretty good event.

This time around, we are punishing the bars and pubs of College Street, and frankly, I think it's going to be fantastic. We will be bringing a pen and paper with us to write down all of the unbelievably hilarious things that are said over the course of the evening, and we will ensure that each and every one of them end up as a blog entry. Try not to get too excited, but it's going to be awesome (the crawl, and the subsequent blog entries.)

Wednesday, January 25, 2006

One Year on the Corporate Calendar

I've recently completed one year of service at my current place of employment and have amassed a list of gripes on working in a national corporate office, which I'm sure are very familiar to anyone working in an office.

The Legal and Compliance Departments
Answers you receive from legal counsel and compliance officers are hilarious and ALWAYS non-commital. In my limited dealings with these departments I've learned to never expect a direct answer to a direct question. This would be an answer received from a lawyer in a hypothetical meeting:
Q. "What colour is my shirt?"
A. "That depends on what the legal definitions of 'colour', 'my', 'is', 'shirt' and 'what' are."
And compliance officers nearly wet themselves when given the opportunity to write a new Protocol or Standard whether it's needed or not.

Goodbye parties/emails
My particular department has seen several people leaving in the past few months and shortly after the announcement of a co-worker leaving, the "surprise goodbye party" meeting invite follow right behind. I don't think anyone leaving has been surprised, especially the last two or three days before they move to their next job when they are invited to an "Important meeting - must attend" at 12:45 to 1pm - lasting only 15 mins. During the 'party', which is just in an open area on our office gathering with a platter of cookies and goodbye card, the person leaving usually tells of "what a great team you have here" and "how this experience has changed their lives". If they don't say it during the party, they definitely send our that tripe in a goodbye email. The best goodbye email I've ever received was from a intern student who was only with us for four months
"Eventful, High on Learning and a Defining Time: A possible description of my summer term. I was fortunate to work with a very talented and supportive team for my project over the summer. Today is my last day and I take away with me, new & improved skills besides valuable industry knowledge."
If you are leaving your job anytime soon, I highly recommend using the above to 1) not burn any bridges and 2) kiss the ass of your former co-workers who you will, likely, need to use as a reference sometime in the near future.

Ass Kissing
This ties nicely with goodbye emails. Perhaps it's the line of work I'm in, but there are certain people who can't resist a good chance to kiss some ass. Examples include: senior employee asking "why did you just have a meeting with that VP? The next time you have a meeting with him, can you make sure I'm on the floor?" and "Can you get me invited to a project close party? I heard some of the Senior Exec's are going to be there." Note: both occurences were from one person, but he has the highest Ass Kissing Quotient in the company.

Blackberry-ing during meetings
This has to be my #1 gripe. I've been in several meetings where senior execs can't leave their blackberries alone for more than 30 seconds. Checking your email while someone gives you a presentation or update on YOUR business doesn't seem like you have your priorities straight. It came to the point recently where I tested an exec by telling him that "you should expect to lose $10M of revenue if you doesn't do what I say." just to see if he was paying attention. That didn't really happen. I'm not ballsy enough to do it, but I encourage you to try it (note: I take no responsibility if you get fired)

War rooms
Now, I don't know why we need these in corporate offices. Who are the enemies in these corporate wars? Are they totaling up casuality figures in there? Or planning counter attacks on insurgents? It's interesting to note that of the war rooms which are current designated as such, all remain unoccupied for 95% of the business day. Looks like those wars aren't being fought very well. They might need to "parachute in" more people to help.

That is all for now.

Friday, January 20, 2006

Beyond Thunderdome

Since gas prices jumped to a couple of dollars per liter last year (and have since returned to the bargain-basement price of ~$0.80-$0.90 cents per liter), many of us have been wondering just what the forecasted energy crises will bring to our society. Many analysts' claims, especially those of peak oil theory, warn of a not so distant future whereby we will be forced to adapt to a non-fossil fuel based economy.

In the height of the gas gouging, it was shocking to hear of a few fist fights over the next spot in line at the pumps. This lead to numerous discussions over what our world will look like in 10 to 20 years, and how it would basically be like mad max where the land is an arid desert and we are running around with machines strapped together.

Now I'm not so sure. As I walked on Bloor street last night, I fear that we are already there, deep into the degradation of society, the loss of prosperity and hope, that we are, in the year 2006... beyond thunderdome.

Tuesday, January 17, 2006

Rash of false starts sweeps across the downtown core

Toronto [Globe and Mail]
Tuesday, January 17th, 2005

The new year begins as the last year ended - with a record number of shootings across the City of Toronto. In recent months shootings have escalated, not only making it a key issue in the federal campaign, but also shocking many citizens into jumping prematurely from the start line of the many of the half and full marathons run in Toronto.

"This is not the same community I grew up in. In my youth I recall starting races to the sound of a single gunshot" claimed Ashton Briggs, a seasoned Toronto marathoner. "Multiple gunshots have disqualified a lot of innocent runners."

Police Chief Bill Blair sent out a message demanding "all armed criminals use silencers on all their firearms to prevent these tragic, uncoordinated starts."

Thursday, January 12, 2006

Don't be fooled by the rocks that I've got, I'm just Coco from the Bloc

Either I've lost touch with the pulse of Canadian politics, or Canadian politicians have lost touch with me, and my pulse. I can't justify a ballot for any candidate, and I therefore I plan to offer the people of the Trinity-Spadina riding and myself an alternative: myself.

As I understand it, under a majority conservative government run by the robotic Stephen Harper, it's likely that gays would lose the right to choose an abortion, and women would lose the right to marry. That's right: Abortion-choosing gays and matrimonial women would lose basic human rights in this country with a conservative majority.

At 67, not only has Paul Martin probably started decaying, but his party stole money, which is generally frowned upon in the public sector. Also, I'm not a fan of the bragging, particularly about huge budget surpluses. Is a massive surplus really a good thing? If I hired someone to renovate a bathroom for me, and they quoted me $4000 for the job, and then when the job was done, they were all "Hey, actually, the job only cost $3000 - so I'll just go ahead and spend the extra $1000 on stuff I think would really spruce this place up", I would fire the guy immediately and beat the spare $1000 out of his hide.

Layton isn't so appealing either. While I'm a fan of his common-sense tone, his plan to spend $71.5 Billion over the next four years is eerily similar to the personal budgets of many of my close friends who are always asking me to borrow money.

That's why, constituents of Trinity-Spadina, I am your new voice. I feel our collective dissatisfaction with the current federalists is very much in tune with the Bloc Quebecois, and that's why I will be your Bloc candidate for Trinity-Spadina. With your vote, we can pull Trinity-Spadina out of this wasteful, undemocratic federalist regime and get a fresh start - a new, sprawling sovereign nation, right here in downtown Toronto, running from Dovercourt to University, Dupont to the lakeshore.

To the future,
L'Hon Coco The Monkey
Le Chef du Bloc Quebecois
(that's right, le fucking Chef)

Monday, January 09, 2006

Movie Reviews

Over the weekend, I viewed two movies - "Dig!" and "Mr and Mrs. Smith", and thought I would use this space to write rambling reviews of both.

Let's start off with "Dig!". Now, I hate to disappoint any amateur (or professional) geologists out there, but this movie has little to do with excavating earth. Rather, it is the tale of two California bands - The Dandy Warhols and The Brian Jonestown Massacre - who started around the same time, in very close proximity to each other and enjoyed a love/hate relationship.

Speaking of strained relationships, when this movie was released a couple of years ago, I thought it sounded superb, and racked my brains trying to think of who else might be interested in seeing it with me. The only name I could come up with was that of one Co-Co The Monkey. The following conversation ensued:

JohnnyM: "Hey Co-Co - have you heard of a movie called "Dig!"? It's supposed to be really good."
Co-Co: "Oh yeah - it's fantastic. I went to go see it last weekend. It's really good. You should go."
JohnnyM: "I hate you."

So - I didn't manage to see it until this weekend. Let me tell you - it really was great. Out of all the movies that Co-Co has screwed me out of seeing, it's definitely top 5. I'm going to get my ass on Kazaa tonight, to try to download some Brian Jonestown Massacre songs...the band leader seemed completely psychotic, but the music sure sounded good.

Now, on to "Mr and Mrs Smith". This movie was really pretty typical Hollywood crap. As I was sitting through it, I was thinking about the results of this movie, and who benefited from it. Basically, Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie hooked up, sales of celeb gossip mags went through the roof, and through adoption, Cambodian orphans became this season's "must-have" accessory. I have therefore concluded that this film was in all likelihood financed almost entirely by celeb gossip mags, and Cambodian orphans. QED.

To conclude: "Dig!" is awesome, "Mr and Mrs Smith" is not, Co-Co can't be trusted, and Cambodian orphans have deep enough pockets to finance Hollywood blockbusters.

Tuesday, January 03, 2006

Lost in Translation

From: Peter
Sent: Tuesday, January 03, 2006 12:40 PM
To: Pchrist
Subject: RE: Little help please

That's funny, because we have a woman who lives in Windsor that works in our office. She has this breakfast snack bar sitting in the drawer and is has a French and English name. The English name is Sweet Mornings. The French translation is "Les p'tits bonjours" on the snack. So myself and my fellow clerks have been saying "Hello Titties = Sweet Mornings". Bonjours my lovely titties it is a Sweet Morning! Looks like we might be right.


From: Pchrist
To: "Peter
Subject: RE: Little help please
Date: Tue, 3 Jan 2006 12:30:57 -0500

"Doux matin"


-----Original Message-----

From: Peter
Sent: Tuesday, January 03, 2006 10:10 AM
To: Pchrist
Subject: Little help please

This is very important and I don't know where to turn. I figured someone north of the border would have better luck answering this than anyone else, so you're my only hope. Here it goes....How do you say "Sweet Mornings" in French?

Player-hater Layton voices strategic voting concerns

Ottawa [Globe and Mail]
Tuesday, January 3rd, 2006

Jack Layton has sent out a clear warning to Canadian voters: "Voting Liberal isn't being smart - it's being played." The comments, given in the context of hip-hop culture, were made during an Ottawa address that kicked off the final weeks of the campaign leading up to the Jan. 23 ballot.

Recent polls have shown that even for staunch NDP supporters, the idea of a Conservative government is troubling. Layton went on to discuss how the Liberal strategy uses this fear to position themselves as the only viable alternative, allowing the Liberals to "play the field" and have multiple active sexual relationships simultaneously by using deception and romantic attachment.

Although polls indicate that Canadians prefer the more centrist Liberal policy, Layton insisted that "those who are now thinking of strategically voting for Paul Martin to stop a Stephen Harper government are being duped. Thunder only happens when it's raining; Players only love you when they are playing."