Just for Fun

For the past 2 months I have been working out at a gym 4-5 days a week. When I was just about to leave today, I had a peculiar thought and felt obliged to share with my reading community.

I work out at the same time each day, and there are some other people that work out at the same time I do, just as often. Here is the problem with that, I get there about the same time as 5-6 other guys and leave about the same time, and therefore change and shower around the same time. I find it very discontenting that I see the same guys naked on a daily basis. I really shouldn’t be seeing the same people naked day in and day out other than myself and my wife. Weird…. And gross.

That leads me to another point. Why do people like to make fun of the weight gain of pregnant women? I understand that it is very easy to do and often gets the cheap laugh. In fact, I’ve had to stop myself from doing it a time or 2, but what is there to really gain? Do people really think women appreciate or in some way actually find it funny that people make jokes at their expense… terrible.

I say this because I’ve seen it happen, but there is also a few wackos out there that like to make the cheap joke about a pregnant woman, and then move on to the husband. What are these people thinking??? “ha ha, which one of you is carrying the baby?” “Are you pregnant too?” Clearly I’m not, so you are just calling me fat, but think you can get away with it because you are near a pregnant woman. I bite my thumb at you! It has happened a couple times to me, but recently at a family event where an aunt that I only see once a year had the audacity to make one of these jokes. I responded with a joke, but was really tempted to hit her with a comeback. I’m a guy that appreciates awkward humor anyway, it would have been fun.

My immediate reaction that I was able to hold in was “no no, I’m not pregnant. I’ve actually lost about 8 pounds since my wife got pregnant. But thanks, I hate you too.”

I knew that would have been terrible, so was really tempted to come back with a joke about her age. Clearly women must enjoy jokes about their age as much as their weight. “I know I’ve gained a few pounds since the last time I saw you, but you have really aged in that time. I know it has only been a couple months, but it looks like it’s been years!” No doubt, she would have loved that.

My last response that honestly came to me in that situation, but I did not say: “I could see why it may look like I’m pregnant, cause... well… I ate a baby last night. Seriously, I think I have a problem… there may be a warrant out for my arrest.” If you don’t respond in anger and decide against jabbing back, you might as well get completely ridiculous. Maybe she’ll think I was telling the truth. She would never make fun of me again.

My last bit of fun is to share with you the pumpkin that I carved for Halloween. I must say, I am very proud of my work.

Thanks for reading!

Something About The Keg of Glory... No... Wrong Show

In response to Liz and Keith: I eagerly await the arrival of Kindle 2.0. Improved features and $100 less is right up my alley. I thank Keith for the compliment. It is true, I am bodacious. Liz, you should know this by now, and come to accept it, even appreciate it.

I’m sure my readers would be proud to hear that I took 1st place in my company’s Office Trivia Challenge. The event was a tremendous success. More than 30 people showed up to have some pizza and socialize. 15-20 of those people sat around the large conference table and watched the game in its entirety. The game itself was a DVD trivia game, which added additional entertainment for those watching because there were many clips from the show. We used a projector so everyone could watch. I thought the game was well constructed, but I did have a few qualms. There were 6 or 7 categories you could land on, but many of them had the same introduction video. It was nice in the beginning, but just wasted time later in the game because the videos were redundant and not funny anymore. All of the categories had an intro video, followed by a clip from the show, and a question. Occasionally the clip would be related to the question, and everyone enjoyed those, but most of the time the clip was random and the question was completely unrelated. My final qualm was the use of non-office related trivia. This happened 3 or 4 times, in one example they showed a clip of Pam and Angela at the vending machine, and then asked “in what country was the vending machine invented?” We never claimed to know anything about general trivia, the game was purchased to play Office trivia, and I think the questions should follow that guideline. There was also a clip of Jim playing a prank on Dwight followed by the question “who is the current Queen of England?” Not at all related, I found that odd, and somewhat annoying.

Despite these small shortcomings, I was able to collect more that 20 Shrute Bucks, get past Dwight and his challenging questions, and be the first to arrive at Michael’s Office to claim victory. I was given the gold medal which was a necklace of paper clips with a rubber band (unfortunately could not find gold yogurt tops). There was also a prize donated from our marketing department which was a very nice desk clock. It was in a small wooden box, and when you open the cover you find a stylish analog clock, and the company emblem on the inside of the cover. I was very impressed and glad to have claimed first prize.

Hardworking, Alpha Male, Jackhammer

Do you ever take online trivia quizzes when you are bored? I like them. Not only because I like to test my knowledge, but also because I remember lots of funny scenes from tv shows and what not. It is an enjoyable time. You know what I find particularly vexing? Getting your score for an online quiz and them not telling you what questions you missed or what the right answers are. C’mon people! That is nice that I scored an 18 out of 20, but if I don’t know what I got wrong, I’ll miss the question again if asked by another site. I do want to sharpen my knowledge, not just see how well I did. Frustrating.

A couple weeks ago I was talking to a co-worker, who is probably the closest thing I have to a friend at work, and I mentioned something about watching the office. A couple days later she came back and attempted to test how big of a fan I actually was. Her test was a simple question of what kind of office merchandise to I own. Apparently, another person in my office has a bobble head Dwight doll and some other memorabilia, along with an office trivia board game. I later found out that he got the game as a gift and hasn’t even opened it, but that was beside the point. I exclaimed that it was not a proper judgment on his fanitude and of course challenged him to his own game. He accepted the challenge and our co-worker who got us started on this decided she would be the moderator or official. We tried to set up a day to have this challenge over a lunch break, but it didn’t work out for the next 2 weeks because of business, vacation days, and what not.

After talking trash back in forth in office-ese we decided this needed to happen as soon as possible. We arrived on the date of 10/23 on our lunch break and we are going to get some pizza and have ourselves a showdown. In the following couple days, it crossed my mind that 2 people playing a trivia game and one person officiating might be a little lame. Since I’m sure that there are some other Office fans around, I started asking around to see if someone else would join just. There were a lot of people that had seen some episodes, but did not think that could really compete. Though they wouldn’t compete, they said they would come and hang out for the social event. Now we had 2 people playing, an official and 3 people watching. Finally we found a 3rd competitor. He was on vacation this week, but another co-worker assured us that he is a big fan and would be a fierce competitor, so he got volunteered. Now we had 3 players, an official, and 4 people watching. It occurred to me that other people might get left out, so we made the decision to go ahead and invite the whole office. I told our official to go ahead and send out a mass email.

The result, of course, was not what I was expecting. Instead of inviting others to join in on the game, she invited others to have pizza and watch the TWI Office Challenge. Now I have people coming up to me in my cubical and saying they are routing for me and hope that I am studying up. One guy even said he has $10 riding on my victory. Instead of a fun game among co-workers, we have an all out challenge between 3 people representing different departments with an official, support people, and fans to watch. Talk about pressure. I really need to re-watch some episodes to be on top of my game. On top of all of this, the CFO, Treasurer, and VP of our company each picked their own person to rally behind and told us that they would “sponsor” the event by paying for the food and drinks. It is amazing how this thing escalated. I was going to play a bored game with a co-worker or 2, and now I have corporate sponsors, fans, and people betting money on me. Absolutely Ridiculous!! Though it is really exciting and I think we are going to have a lot of fun. There has also been talk of getting some awards from our marketing department.

I get to take off work Monday – Wednesday for a vacation with Liz and her parents. I’m really looking forward to some time off and good fun with family. Plus my sister is getting married tomorrow, so there is all kinds of excitement going around. I think I’m going to have a lot of fun over the next 5 days, and after it is all over, I am going to come back to work and compete in the greatest trivia challenge of my life. Or possibly second greatest compared to Ali’s trivia madness over the holidays. Of course, I didn’t have corporate sponsors for her event.