for mature audiences:

 

also visit:

oxen.net

 

the word of the day

---

9-2-00 - Tilt

You may notice my entire site is BLINKING AND FLASHING LIKE A GODDAMN PINBALL MACHINE.

This is normal.

I've entered into an agreement with the good folks at Bla-Bla, and they just sent me my banner ads, which I've hopefully put up correctly.  It's a little weird, seeing things on my site that I didn't create, but I guess I'll give it a whirl for the time being.

If they annoy you, please send me an e-mail and tell me.  Really.

If you have some free time, click one of them, and then sit back satisfied, knowing that (according to my contract) you've sent me one-half of 80% of an undisclosed sum of money.

And anyway, the Bla-Bla ad at the very bottom of the page is a chance to win a free car.

I can certainly identify with that.

Oh, and for anyone who was looking for an update on 9-1... SORRY.  DIDN'T QUITE GET AROUND TO IT.  OKAY???  But, being the creative writer that I am, I have added one retroactively.

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9-1-00 - News Flash

Temping stinks!!!

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8-31-00 - Words.  Words.  Words.

It's time to take a look at some more keyword searches that are bringing people to this website.  Hey, no groaning from the back... this is good for you.  When you're older, you'll understand.

Some choice word combos people typed into Yahoo or other search engines that led them here over the past few weeks:

"office whores" (still number one!  Yes!)

"naked office rituals" (I don't even wanna know.  Well.  I sorta wanna know.)

"pants have fallen" (Well, who doesn't search for this at one time or another, really)

"molecule related toys" (A stumper.  I've reviewed office toys, but I'm not sure where I've ever mentioned molecules)

"how many outfits" (Depends on the play, really.  Are we talking Peter Allen, here?)

"chapperal boats" (Again, a head-scratcher.  What the heck does chapperal mean?)

"farting on friends faces" (Seems an odd thing to do research on... I mean, grab a friend, fart on his face.  You need a freakin' manual?)

"back of my shoe"

Okay, I need to stop here for a second.  "Back of my shoe"?  Who is looking for this?  And why?  Are you expecting the back of your shoe to get major mention on the internet?  Can't you turn your head, look down, and see the back of your shoe from there?  I DON'T GET YOU PEOPLE SOMETIMES.

And why the hell did you wind up here?

"biggie wiggie" (I JUST DON'T GET YOU PEOPLE SOMETIMES)

"fred prewitt" (a fictitious name I used in a memo.  Guess someone is looking for him.  Fred Prewitt, please call home)

"biker babes" (nope, not here, but if you find some, let me know)

"ganesha screensaver" (what better way to worship the multi-armed one?)

and, my favorite this month: "pictures of butt naked women swimming in public"

Sigh.

You know, just once, I would like to see "temping humor" come up.  Maybe if I mention it here, it will.  Temping humor.  This is a great place for temping humor.  Getcher temping humor!  Humor related to temping!

Oh, well.  I suppose I should just be happy people are coming here at all, right?  What's that saying?  Give the people what they want?

Fine.  Here you go, a butt-naked biker babe swimming in public with a molecule related chapperal boat.

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e-mail: temp@notmydesk.com

8-30-00 - Mental Illness

Every temp has those days where they wake up in the morning, look blearily at the alarm clock, and say, "Hmmm.. nope.  Not today."  (Just check out the tempcam.)

For me, that only happens about four or five days a week, and I usually ignore it.  Then there are the days where I actually am sick, which I also ignore.  Temps don't get paid for sick-days, unless they're long-term temps, which, generally, I am not.  So, I wind up going into work.  Gotta bring home da benjamins.

Still, sometimes, I just can't do it.  I can't go in.

The problem is... making the call.

I wish I was one of those people who can just do that.  Just pick up the phone, call in sick, hang up, and go back to sleep.

But I've got this weird paranoia/guilt thing happening.  I think that a) they won't believe me, and b) I'm doing something wrong by lying.

So, the process usually goes something like this:

6:00am

Alarm goes off.  Wake up. Hit snooze.  Go back to sleep.

6:09am, 6:18am, 6:27am, 6:36am

Repeat.

6:45am

Alarm goes off.  Now, I'm late. Bordering on being really late.  Too late to catch the ferry, and if I don't leave soon, there will be no parking at the train station, so I'll be even more late.

Decide to call in sick.

This is where most people would go back to sleep, wake up when they know someone will be in the office, call in sick, and go back to bed again.

6:46am

Start obsessively rehearsing what I'm going to say.  Lying in bed, I start talking to the ceiling.

"Hi... it's (cough cough) Chris.  Yeah, not feeling too good.  Got a (cough) cough."

or (gravelly voice) "Hi, it's Chris... my throat is killing me.  Think I need to stay home."

or (pathetically weak and miserable voice) "I think I have food poisoning.  My stomach feels awful."

The first problem with rehearsing is my voice loses its normal morning scratchiness, so any attempt at sounding truly sick becomes completely phony.

7:11am

The second problem is, and this shows just how completely lame I really am, I start to acquire whatever symptoms I am claiming to have.

It's true.  If I'm claiming I have an upset stomach, my stomach actually becomes upset.  If I'm going to say I have a migraine, my temples start throbbing.  Sore throat?  By 8:00am I can hardly swallow.

It's guilt, plain and simple.  I feel so bad about lying, I actually become sick.  On the other hand, I may just be the biggest method actor on the planet.

This is why I don't call up and claim a family member has died.  I'd have to go out and kill one.

7:49am

Panic!  The lying won't work!  If I leave now, I can still sorta almost make it in time to explain being late!  Get up!  Go!!

Calm down.

Rehearse.

8:01am

Now, I am officially late.  I squirm guiltily in bed, picturing everyone else arriving at work.  In about five minutes, people will start looking for me.

Rehearse some more.

8:15am

Call in sick.

The actual call is quite traumatic for me as well, because I never reach a secretary who will just take the message.  I always wind up getting the boss.  The boss, who never, ever answers the phone, somehow decides to answer on this particular morning.  So, add nervousness to paranoia and guilt, as I forget which symptom I decided on, try to make my voice sound scratchy, and over-explain the hell out of why I won't be in today.

"Yeah, um, (cough), I, I'm not feeling so well, I'm kinda sick, with my stomach, I (groan), think I ate something bad and my head hurts, feeling a bit, (cough) you know, phlegmy, and, uh, blind, can't see, erm, yeah, (moan), and uh, there's blood, um, seeping out of my, (hiccup), ears, so, you know, I, um, probably won't, uh, (gag), be in until, like, 10:30."

Yes.  More often than not, I completely wuss out and just go in late.  And even if I do stick to my guns, I have to pretend to not be feeling well the rest of the week at work, since I've made up such a remarkably afflicting disease, much too distressing to be gotten over in a 24 hour period.  Not to mention, I spend the day off feeling guilty and experiencing whatever symptoms I invented.

Pretty pathetic, huh?  For a day off, an unpaid day off, I spend a week suffering a feigned illness.

I hope no one else goes through anything like this.  I know the regular, permanent employees I work with every day have no problem calling in sick, or going home sick, because they do it all the time.  And a lot of the temps I have known do it all the time.  I once filled in for a temp who was sick, who was filling in for an employee who was sick.

It makes me sick just thinking about it.

(cough)

Literally.

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e-mail: temp@notmydesk.com

8-28-00 - Don't Panic

Is it Monday already?  Cripes.  How depressing.

What's this?  Why, it's just another glimpse into my Vision of the Future.  

If you haven't seen it yet, my Vision of the Future is a commentary on where home video games are headed.  Right now, there's all this talk about PlayStation 2 and Nintendo's N-cube and such, but disregard all that nonsense!  There's something greater out there, a powerful system that doesn't cost an arm and a leg, and it's available NOW.

This week's game is a space adventure, so slip into your space-suit and get ready to run from giant fruits.

And no, I'm not talking about visiting San Francisco.

Vision of the Future     This Week's Game     Last Week's Game

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e-mail: temp@notmydesk.com

8-27-00 - Bla-Bla Black Sheep

So, if I've done this right, you should see a little logo dealie spinning around up in the upper right-hand corner of the screen (I think you need Flash on your machine to see it).  This is because I've joined up with bla-bla.com, who will be helping me get Not My Desk seen by more people, as well as supplying me with advertisers while paying me ungodly sums of money (bold/italics mine.  Actually, entire phrase mine.  I just made that up).

Now, I'm not thrilled to have banner ads running on all my pages, but I figure I will try it for a while and see what happens.  I'm hoping to avoid any banner that has to do with punching a monkey, except this one:  

I'm still waiting for the ad code from Bla-Bla, but hopefully it will arrive soon, and then the huge amounts of loot will start rolling in cha-ching $$$$!!

You can also see a Stile Project Top 100 Sites dealie above on the left.  My site first appeared on Stile Project a couple weeks ago as part of a link exchange, and then as part of his Top 100 (where it managed to hang in around number 50 for the most part, which was rather amusing to me.  I mean, there's all these porn site links, and then my dinky temping site.  Go figure).  Both sent me a ton of traffic, and that's actually how Bla-Bla found me in the first place.  In fact, Bla-Bla had been hosting Stile's site for a while, since January, I think.  However...

There's been some sort of dispute this week, with Stile claiming Bla-Bla locked him out of his site, and Bla-Bla claiming Stile had violated their agreement, and both being pretty unhappy with one another.  Stile appears to be back up with a new host, anyway, and it's been interesting to watch the whole thing unfold and read different versions of the story.

Of course, this had to happen on the very week when I was getting beaucoup traffic from Stile (which was cut down considerably due to his site going down), and also on the very same week I'm getting my Bla-Bla affiliation rolling.  As my dear friend and site researcher Kris put it, "Your timing is for shit."

I agree.

At any rate, I'm not prepared to weigh in with who I think was right or wrong.  First of all, I don't have have any idea what really happened.  And second, my opinion is completely inconsequential to the proceedings.  All I can say is, both parties have been very nice to me; Stile by putting up my link in the first place, and Bla-Bla by offering to make me an affiliate.  There's a good guy named Neil at Bla-Bla who I've conversed with both via e-mail and over the phone, and he's been very complimentary about my site and helpful in getting me started with Bla-Bla.

Also, I'd like to thank spinn and wabe for making a suggestion about my theme weeks, namely, how to make them easier to navigate.  They made a good point about how if someone were to visit my site in the middle of a theme week, it might be hard to follow what was going on, due to the newer content being at the top of the page.  

How about putting near the top a "START OF THEME WEEK" link to the first (bottommost) entry, and next to the "TOP OF PAGE" links at the end of each article a "NEXT ENTRY" (physically previous entry) link? Might help navigation for those showing up in the middle of a week...

Good thinkin'.  I will definitely apply this idea to the archived theme weeks and the next theme week I do, which I am currently planning.  After all, if you go back and visit Women's Week, there's my naked butt right off the bat.  No build up, no suspense... it just doesn't work unless you're visiting on a daily basis.

Speaking of theme weeks, I'd like to thank Nikki for insisting I read Who Moved My Cheese? in the first place, and for helping me figure out how to do the whole page/word count conversion, because I'm remarkably dense when it comes to figuring out how to add numbers to other numbers and get a third number.  Really.  I would have had no idea how to do that.

Also, I'm trying out a smaller font here because the larger font was bugging me for some strange reason.

Coming up this week:  A new addition to my Vision of the Future, and maybe, just maybe, some content about temping.  Sure, it's a radical idea, incorporating some temping content on this temping website, but that's just the kind of guy I am.  Radical.

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e-mail: temp@notmydesk.com

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