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Sometimes I get these things from my brother that happened during the course of the day at his job. Here’s the latest…
Had a particular guitar riff stuck in my head as I “walked” into a phone conference, and since there is rarely any conversation as people dial in to a conference call and things get organised, I left my phone off mute and did my best impression of the guitar riff with drum accompaniment, hoping someone might recognise it.
What surprised me wasn’t that a couple of attendees joined in (if you foment that type of activity, you come to expect eventual passengers on the “entertain-me train”), but where they took it! One guy starts belting out lyrics in a high falsetto, and I’m suddenly thinking, “Hold on! That’s not the way it goes!”
Monkey: Hang on a sec’. What group is that?
TM1: Chicago
Monkey: Chicago? As in, “More Than a Feeling?” sung in a high, girly-voice and they-never-used-this-much-bass, Chicago?
TM2: You’re thinking of Boston.
Monkey: So my geography sucks.
TM1: Chicago was all over the bass in the 70′s!
Monkey: I’m pretty sure the riff I was “playing” was by Green Day.
TM2: Brain Stew
TM1: They TOTALLY stole that riff from Chicago! Like Vanilla Ice did to Paul McCartney!
Monkey: Vanilla Ice stole a Chicago riff from Paul McCartney?
TM2: Chicago originally stole it from Led Zepplin.
TM1: SHUT-UP! THAT IS SUCH A LIE!
Monkey: Sounds like you’re battling the last remaining Peter Cetera groupie.
TM1: PETER CETERA IS NOT CHICAGO! HE BARELY EVEN SANG ON THE FIRST FEW ALBUMS! THERE WAS ROBERT LAMM AND…
TM2: (cuts him off) Led Zepplin used that riff but much slower in “Babe I’m Gonna’ Leave You” which was released about a year earlier.
TM1: (practically screaming into the phone now) JUST BECAUSE THERE ARE SIMILAR NOTES, DOESN’T MAKE A RIFF A COMPLETE RIP-OFF!!
Monkey: So it was a partial rip-off?
TM2: (*patient sigh*) Jimmy Paige admits to being influenced by Joan Baez’ performance of a similar folk song which was later credited to Anne Briggs and thought to be “general use” since they were Folk Songs that were influencing numerous groups in the 60′s music scene. So really, Chicago only ripped off a riff that was already thought to be public use.
TM1: CHICAGO WERE MUSICAL GENIUS’!!
TM2: Genii
Monkey: Genies?That’s when the conference call host took over and put the discussion to an end.
At least, over the phone.
Starting the meeting had absolutely zero effect on halting the discussion from continuing in internal instant messaging and emails, and by the end of the day, I had YouTube links (which I’m not going to list here since you’ve got access to Google and YouTube and can find them for yourselves) to just about every possibly related song to the riff that had been stuck in my head and kicked it all off.The original song that started it all was “Brain Stew” by Green Day. Can you think of any others?
tdm
tdm
So much can get accomplished during meetings…
Read my books! Volume 1 and 2 of A Dragon Medley are available now.
http://www.sarahjestin.com/mybooks.htm
I host the feedback lists, which are maintained by drag0nfeathers.
http://www.sarahjestin.com/feedbacklists.htmAnother something from my silly brother…
Completely Random and Unrelated Facts Involving Snow and an Office Workplace
A 2 ½ft water balloon has a volume of about 8.2 cubic feet, which weighs approximately 510lbs (if the skin of the balloon is negligible in weight). Luckily, a 2 ½ft snowball doesn’t weigh anywhere near as much. It’s still pretty heavy, but nowhere near 510lbs.
I reckon about a quarter of that weight.
However, a snowball weighing 130lbs is still pretty awkward to manipulate into someone’s office or cubicle, and rolling it in doesn’t work if the office has carpeting as it leaves a trail of snow on the carpet that not only quickly reduces the size and shape of the snowball but also makes it difficult to roll and announces to others in the office (including the target of said snowball) that something out of the ordinary is about to occur in the office involving snow.
[As a side note, reducing the diameter by only 6inches results in a 2ft snowball which decreases the volume by half, and hence, the weight also by half! Much easier to manipulate.]
[Secondary side note: if your office doesn’t have carpet, and you’ve got access to an elevator for the upper levels, you’re not as limited by the size of the snowball.]
Other “completely random and unrelated facts involving snow and an office workplace”:
1.Turning off the heat for an entire office, on a cold day, in order to preserve the life of snow located in a particular office or cubicle while its regular occupant is away at lunch or a long meeting, tends to tick off your coworkers. Especially those originally from warmer climates like India, Sri Lanka, the Middle East and Texas.
2.It takes only 20 minutes for the temperature in an office to decrease enough on a cold day for the first coworker to notice that the heat is no longer operating, check on it, comment loudly with threats of violence, and restore the heating to its previous state.
3.At a thermostat setting of 73degrees Fahrenheit, the heating in an open-plan workplace will completely melt a 5ft snowman across a weekend, making cleanup much easier on Monday morning than Friday afternoon.
4.15 cubic feet of snow produces a LOT of water.
(that’s my bro in the red mask and monkey shirt J) )
twindragonsmum
tdm
All offices should have someone like your brother working in them…just to keep life more interesting :bigsmile:
Opal dragon- I just realized the middle picture in your sig is a unicorn. I always thought it was some kind of fish, but I knew that couldn’t be right because windstone does not make a fish!
Opal dragon- I just realized the middle picture in your sig is a unicorn. I always thought it was some kind of fish, but I knew that couldn’t be right because windstone does not make a fish!
:bigsmile: A PYO fish…it could be fun though!
Please keep posting these! I need to get my boss again someday, and this is inspiring! :bigsmile:
The Sheep Whisperer
Last year, as McCrevis’ birthday approached, I tormented him with visions of filling his office with farm animals and raccoons in diapers wearing party hats.
He retaliated by lighting my car on fire.
As a result, the celebration of his birthday was lack lustre to say the least.
This year, I remained silent, leading him (I thought) to believe that I’d forgotten his birthday, and it would pass – quickly… quietly… and without notice; like flatulence from a worn out sphincter. I laughed gleefully in anticipation as I built cardboard sheep to turn his office into a grazing yard.
He didn’t buy it for a second.
However, despite thinly veiled threats of bodily harm ala’ Dirty Harry,
we successfully transformed his office into the warm, welcoming repository for docile-yet-psychotically-skittish farm animals that we’ve always known it to be.
There was much debate over whether or not to adorn his office floor with real grass clippings (to ensure the sheep were kept well fed throughout the night) or merely green painted cardboard. The resulting decision was to cover green painted cardboard in real grass clippings while the paint was still wet which would be much easier to clean up later – always important to remember unless you really don’t give a flying stuff about the intended victim. Since I’m still making payments on the car repairs from last year, I opted for “easy cleanup”.
To finish off the full effect, we burned sheep noises onto a CD and put it on repeat via his office stereo.
Happy Birthday Phil McCrevis, sheep whisperer!
twindragonsmum :bigsmile:
tdm
haha that is great!
Recently married to the ever lovable BiPolarBear (little John)
www.weaselsoneasels.com | www.facebook.com/weaselsoneaselsAs seen on This is Life with Lisa Ling on CNN (2018) !
Always open for pyo commissions, repairs and fine artwork! Email me for current prices! awier(@)weaselsoneasels.comI can’t make out the added comment on the note 🙁
Read my books! Volume 1 and 2 of A Dragon Medley are available now.
http://www.sarahjestin.com/mybooks.htm
I host the feedback lists, which are maintained by drag0nfeathers.
http://www.sarahjestin.com/feedbacklists.htmPlease keep posting these! I need to get my boss again someday, and this is inspiring! :bigsmile:
Happy Birthday Phil McCrevis, sheep whisperer!
twindragonsmum :bigsmile:
The photo was bigger last night for some reason. The added comment is “No, but some things just have to be done & damn the consequences”
Nothing quite this fun happens at my office, but we did get the following email chain awhile back:
From: random person in office
To: All Office
Subject: Clients on site tomorrow
_______________________________________________Just a heads up that we’ll have several clients on site tomorrow, so please make sure to clean up your work spaces and put your best foot forward.
******************************************************************************
From: our media guy
To: All Office
Subject: Re: Clients on site tomorrow
_______________________________________________I guess I should wear pants then
******************************************************************************
[20 minutes pass]
From: our media guy
To: All Office
Subject: Re: Re: Clients on site tomorrow
______________________________________________I meant PANTS INSTEAD OF SHORTS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
*snerk!* That’s pretty good! *pants instead of shorts!* :bigsmile:
Things To Do In The Office On A Hot Summer Day When The Air Conditioning Has Stopped Working
Low-Power Computer Monitor Replacement.
If your company still has some workstations that use CRT monitors instead of LCDs, this will work well, since this is often a sore point to those employees who still have the boat anchors on their desk.
fedExBox<– Take a “Large FedEx box“, or one similar to it. Shipping boxes are usually easiest to find around the office.
You’ll need a cable with a 15-pin VGA / SVGA adapter at one end (your typical computer monitor cable) to really sell this one. If you DON’T have access to some spare computer cables, just yank the one out of the back of your computer (you can return it later if it doesn’t get confiscated, and you’re not going to be using your computer while you’re doing this anyway).
While the box design in the photo may fool some of your co-workers, most of them are going to look at that box and know something’s not quite right, so I suggest you paint it black and print out a colour copy of “a generic Windows screen background” (or whatever a generic background for your office’s computers looks like if you happen to be employed at one of the few places of employment that is running some other operating system than Windows). If you can print it out on A3 or 11×17 paper, you get a better effect.
(Sidenote: At this point, “someone” asked, “Why don’t we just print out their computer background and use that?” To which I replied, “Because then, we’d have to change it every time we try this on someone new!” Then he said, “So?” And after I reminded him that access to a workstation isn’t always an easy thing, he reminded me that we work in the IT department, and said, “You’re just being lazy!” But not in such nice words, and at that point, we agreed to stop “discussing” it anymore before the tires on someone’s car were accidentally lit on fire… again…)
lowResMonitor“Plug” the cable into the back of your box near the bottom and glue the fake background onto the front.
We preceded our prank with a group email to the targeted department explaining that “in an effort to decrease our company’s carbon footprint” and “due to the massive draw of power on the city grid that these monitors often use” and “the obvious effect on the company’s air conditioning”, the IT department would be swapping out their CRT monitors throughout the day with “thin, sleek LCD monitors”. “Please bear with us as this is an ongoing process”, blah, blah, blah, etc, etc, etc.
Then it’s just a matter of walking up to a co-worker’s desk with their spiffy new LCD monitor, asking them if they got the email this morning and if it’s alright to swap out their monitor – “It’ll only take a minute.” As you’re swapping their old one out and plugging in their new one to the back of their computer (see where that cable comes in handy?), explain that it may take a minute or so “for the configuration to kick in on the new computer”, so their “mouse may not be responsive immediately, but give it a minute and call us if there’s a problem.”
“All done!”
Take away their old one and tell any other co-workers who are gazing longingly at the newly installed LCD that you’ll be back a bit later to swap out some others.We did this 6 times.
Only 2 co-workers stopped us before we got out of the office/cubicle-farm.
1 co-worker called the Help Desk to report that the mouse still wasn’t responding and asking if someone would come up and take a look at it, which is when our “monitor” got confiscated and further replacements ended…tdm :bigsmile:
tdm
Methinks these guys might have a tad too much time on their hands…
Read my books! Volume 1 and 2 of A Dragon Medley are available now.
http://www.sarahjestin.com/mybooks.htm
I host the feedback lists, which are maintained by drag0nfeathers.
http://www.sarahjestin.com/feedbacklists.htm
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