MyATMPinIs1234

Since the introduction of advanced trauma medicine, many fewer idiots are dying before they are able to breed. And people are clearly taking advantage. An example of this are the folks who are marketing something called The FitFlop, which I recently saw advertised on the subway.

It's the Flip-Flop, with the Gym Built In

The FitFlop claims that "every step you take in your FitFlops helps tone and trim your legs." Some additional claims, taken directly from the website, include:

"They challenge hard to reach muscles more." [WTF IS A HARD TO REACH MUSCLE!?!???]

"FitFlops have been clinically proven [PROVEN! BY SCIENCE!] to increase the amount of time that the gluteus maximus muscle is 'activated' during every single step."

Of course, since the FitFlop is so potent, they recommend that it "be used progressively to avoid excessive muscle soreness."

Man I feel like an idiot. This whole time I've been loading a large amount of weight on a bar, putting it on my back and squatting down repeatedly until I can't anymore. I could've just put on some flip-flops and be totally toned!

The synapses fire before placing in the shopping cart. I WANT THESE FLIPFLOPS BECAUSE NOW I CAN AVOID HARD WORK. WHICH IS HARD. AND WORK. TWO THINGS I LIKE TO AVOID DUE TO MY OBESITY.

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Oh wait, ignore this whole rant. They are claiming to increase muscle tone. Since this is not a real thing, they are not really lying. Because everyone knows that there are only two things that can happen to your muscles. They can get bigger, or they can get stronger. Pianos have tone. Muscles do not.

In a previous post I complained about the enormous amount of time wasted at the typical knowledge worker's job, and some ways things could be improved. It turns out, unbelievably, that I was not the first one to think of this! Best Buy has already implemented what sounds like a much better system called "Results Oriented Work Environment (ROWE)" which is described here. Now if only they could do something about being located in Minnesota, it might actually be a good place to work.

But back to my place of employment. Off the top of my head, I can think of two problems applying the ROWE technique here. First, it would require that my boss had an idea of what I was working on, as opposed to our current arrangement which was lifted from the policy on gays in the military.

Second, if we cut out wasted time, we would only be working about 45 minutes a day, and would no longer be able to justify running around screaming about how short-staffed and starved for resources we are. It would sound silly.

Also, of possible interest to the reader of this blog, I would no longer have to spend all day killing time and would stop posting.

[As a side note, this post took about 45 minutes to write, even though it kinda sucks. I got interrupted three times during its composition. Once to see if I wanted to get coffee (I did), once from someone who was just taking a walk to stretch, and once when a group congregated near me to talk loudly about someone's upcoming vacation. I would've also had 5 smaller interruptions, if I hadn't turned off Microsoft Outlook notifications.]

"Moody's Corp. employees may be fired if the firm finds that errors in calculating credit ratings for certain products were covered up, people familiar with the matter said, marking a turn away from the firm's more-defensive stance for months (WSJ 5/28)."

So you're telling me that Moody's is now willing to fire people that monumentally fucked up, and then lied about it to cover it up? What an interesting and novel HR policy!

While this is a step in the right direction, I think it should not take both incompetence and malfeasance to get fired.

It explains a lot though. When you rate a security AAA, that shouldn't mean it is safe only if everything goes perfectly. It should mean we have taken every contingency into account and it's still safe. Otherwise there is no point in rating something. Of course it'll be fine when everything goes well.

I think ratings agencies should have to append a "surgeon general" type warning to all ratings, stating that the rating is for entertainment purposes only, and was calculated by people who could never ever get a job at the firm that created the product in question, and who probably don't understand it or even know what the acronym stands for.

Yesterday I did a channel check on the state of the U.S. Economy. On Memorial Day, there was little traffic and no delays on the highways of the east coast, including entering New York City. EVERYBODY PANIC!

A Random Walk Down Wall Street. Some might recognize this as the name of book on investing. I would add that this is also an apt description of the pedal motion of tourists in our nation's financial capital. By that I mean, you can make no assumption on the direction of their next step based on the fact that the last step was forward.

This causes complications for those of us attempting to get to work, as the sidewalks begin to resemble Brownian motion with fanny packs. I don't hold it against them, seeing as most of their previous walking experience was between their garage door and car, but as a public service, I've decided to come up with a list of guidelines. Feel free to hand these out in the local airports and train stations.

NYC Walking Guidelines for Tourists

1) Walk in a straight line at a brisk pace.
2) If you need to stop, quickly look behind you to make sure no one is following closely (except as provided in subsection 2b).
2b) Do not ever stop on subway stairs.
2c) If you need to stop on a sidewalk, move against the building or the curb. Do not stop in the middle of the sidewalk. If this requires changing your direction, please see rule 3.
3) If changing direction, look to the side and slightly behind where you will be going to make sure no one is coming up besides you. You might recognize this as being similar to what you do in your car back home when changing lanes.
4) Your family does not need to walk 4 abreast. Walk single file or two abreast until your destination, at which time you can discuss how bright the billboards are.
5) In case of rain, you do not need an umbrella with the same circumference as the dish NASA uses to track Voyager II as it passes through the heliosheath.

Please Save Me, IEEE 802.16!

I'm getting really fed up with the Internet access restrictions in place at my current employer. They block personal email, so I either have to use work email to communicate with friends, not communicate with the outside world during work hours, or use a blackberry.

All of those options have massive shortcomings. Using work email is a non-starter, because then you switch jobs and people spend the next 7 years sending messages to your old, dead, account. Using a blackberry is ok, but it's a pain, and people spend all day sending you links or images that you can't see without jumping through hoops.

They also block instant messaging. Now they are blocking Facebook as well. Come on, shitfucks, it's 2008 already! This stuff is not controversial anymore. IM and social networking tools are becoming more and more necessary, especially for the younger employees.

Obviously the solution is resignation, but in the interim before I can make that happen, where is this WiMax I've been hearing so much about? I want to be able to just set up an old laptop to use with external communication. Of course, the minute I did that, they'd probably move me into a Farady cage.

New Product Idea

Combination diet pill and birth control pill. Chocolate flavored.

Hey Bernanke, it's not just food and oil anymore. I just paid $4.65 for four rolls of toilet paper. Defend the dollar you fucktard.

New Game

Sending emails to your friends, the contents of which, make the most bizarre "sponsored links" show up in Gmail when they open your message.

“It's a problem of motivation, all right? Now if I work my ass off and Initech ships a few extra units, I don't see another dime; so where's the motivation?”

   - Peter Gibbons, Office Space

The other day I was at the gym doing a rather difficult workout named "Murph," in honor of a Navy SEAL, Lt. Michael Murphy, who came up with it.

A third of the way through, as I was sprawled on the floor of the gym gasping, with people glaring at me while they interrupted their long rest breaks to do some preacher curls, my brain was filled with compelling excuses about how I had already gotten a decent workout and should pack it in.

And I probably would've gone home, had the workout been named something else. But instead, I thought about how finishing this workout was probably about 1% of how much Murph had been eventually tested, when he sacrificed himself by staying in direct Taliban fire to try and radio for help to save his SEAL team. The LEAST I could do was finish a workout that this guy did (in full body armor) in his play time.

So for the next 30 minutes I tried to avoid vomiting and finished the workout in an unimpressive time of just over an hour.

What's my point? First and foremost, thank god, despite the vagification of our society, we still have dudes like Lt. Murphy in this country to ensure that, when needed, the tip of our spear is razor sharp.

Second, everything worth doing is hard. The problem isn't the difficulty, it's the motivation. Whether you are trying to lose weight, write a thesis, climb a mountain, or improve the environment by making sure we get enough CO2 into it, don't worry about how hard it is, worry about not caring enough.

Money Making Scheme

1) Change your name to Mr. Test Patient.
2) File lawsuit against Duane Reade Pharmacy for unlawfully disclosing your medical records in their advertisements.
3) Profit.