All aboard the love blog

Earlier in a post I laid out a small gallery of characters who populate my office environment for your entertainment. Some of you might have felt teased by my description of Mr. M, the non-kissed guy, and you might have noticed that he has not populated any of the tales I have spun here since. Well wait no longer, I have something good for you.

There are some major changes going on inside the madhouse where I happen to work, the biggest is the departure of one of the founders, Mr. J, and that whole affair deserves a post later on which revels in the details on how this came to be, but that is such a story that I will leave it for a later date. However, considering that Mr. J is one of our main sources of comedy inside the company, some of my colleagues became a little worried about the entertainment level of the office. During a lunch, in which I, for reasons I cannot recall now, was not present, Luke and several other colleagues boxed Mr. M in and somehow convinced him that he should start a in-house company blog detailing the women he meets and how his quest to do something (*anything*) with them progresses.

The fact that Luke tried to make him do this is funny enough in its own right, but the best part was that Mr. M agreed to do this... So, now there is a blog open for selected members of the firm (me included) that eagerly follows and comments on his escapades. In pure entertainment value I would say that his blog surpasses mine by far. I believe that he is somewhat aware of the fact that he is being made fun of, but I think that this is countered by his need for attention which this amazing blog can provide him.

So far we have had the chance to comment and give our recommendations on several girls he has met and the funny thing is that he seem to meet a lot of girls but somehow always fails miserably before he can "close the deal".

Now he seem to be working on a girl that might give some form of payout and we closely follow this development. I find it especially entertaining that he gladly posts private correspondance and messaging between him and the girl for all of us to see without her knowing. The fun never ends!

First Ranking List!

Ok, after careful market research I have observed that great blogs often have "top ten" lists or similar so I have decided to start doing this as well!

It is with pride that I introduce the "Best ever Male Rape Scenes from movies"

1. Deliverance ("squeal like a pig")

2. Mad Max: The Road Warrior

3. Pulp Fiction (feels a little too much like a tribute to Deliverance to be really great, but still...)

4. Any prison movie (an underrated genre no less)

Thank you for your attention!

Mad Max vs. Waterworld

My Waterworld post seemed to stir something in one of my astute readers and to a certain extent I am ready to offer my apologies. Granted, Waterworld did not have a male rape scene as in Mad Max: Road Warrior and instead of a young Mel Gibson had Kevin Costner which is two large negatives already there. But how interesting is Mel Gibson really nowadays, he's the guy who made "The Passion of the Christ", so any coolness factor that he might have carried in the past is long gone as far as I'm concerned.

So, ok, Waterworld is a complete rip-off of the Mad Max movies, but if we look at the positives, it had a pretty big budget and Dennis Hopper is in it after all and seem to somehow enjoy the silliness. Ok, Lord Humungus in Mad Max 2 is one of the best villains ever, but still.

I am not stupid enough to try and argue that Waterworld is a movie up there with the Mad Max movies, but it's not as awful as some people make it out to be. There you have it!

Staring into the Abyss

I am a changed man now... Gone are the days of playful laughter and snickering at the incompetence that is going around all over the place. We have started a new project and for some reason it is still me, Luke and The Boy on this project as well. We've been working together for so long now that the work style that has developed is quite fascinating in a disturbing way. I might elaborate on this at a later stage more, but it can be summarized in a few key words: Obscenities, Ebonics and Stupid Nicknames. But again I digress.

We gave up on searching for the Bigfoot Management, tired of being ridiculed and laughed at by management experts that refuse to believe that such a thing can exist. However, just when we thought that we were safe the Bigfoot Management style entered a new phase and it's name is Mr. Chin... His prescence became known to us not because of what he has done, but because of what he hasn't done... We are now caught up in a tornado of incompetence and are desperately trying to find something to hold on to while this lasts, it's not decreasing either...

I recall the words of Nietzsche: "If you stare into incompetence long enough incompetence stares back at you"...

Not the most coherent post, I can admit that, but for now I am just trying to survive until "Golden Week" here in Japan. The topic of "Golden Week" probably deserves a separate entry when I get around to it, but in the future I promise to lay out such interesting topics as the sometimes violent relationship between El Presidente and Mr. J as well as the you-won't-believe-it's-true story of Mr. M's in-company "love blog" (it's even better than it sounds!).

Otherwise I am surprised to see that my blog has received a few comments, something which both disturbs and amuses me equally...

Almost...

My whole team is very dissapointed and exhausted today... We thought we had seen some management, we were pretty certain that we had verified some management... All of us were very excited and felt that we had made a breakthrough. But in the end, it turned out to just be a prank that someone played us... Our hunt for the elusive Bigfoot management continues, we are tired but still have not given up on it being out there if we just look hard enough...

Bigfoot Management

The current disaster of a project I talked a bit about earlier is now temporarily on hold, I almost hope that the whole thing will fall apart since that would make a great story for years and years to come.

We have also had some new people joining the company so I might as well introduce them as well. First we have Mr. Chin that joined on management level (which means directly on top of me...), I am still working on figuring that man out. Most distinguishing feature is, as the name indicates, a huge underbite. On a junior level we have also had Mr. Chin Jnr join. He seem pretty relaxed and smart, however, he also has a huge underbite. Apart from that likeness, those two guys seem pretty different.

Anyway, I introduced these two new people into my gallery of characters since it has some relevance to the latest humoristic escapades in the office.

With the previous project put on hold, we are now running a different project that is outside the core of what we usually do. This means that it gets much much more difficult since we basically have no idea what we are doing in the beginning and we have to learn everything about the market dynamics etc. On top of this Mr. Chin is supposedly managing this project and our work as his first real project. He has a very interesting managing technique that intrigues me a lot and also inspires me, it basically consists of not answering questions, generally staying away and when we actually reach him he give very vague answers that are not helpful.

I think this management technique is called "Bigfoot Management" - we have heard that someone is managing the project, but no one has really seen any management, there are rumours flying around and people claim to have experienced some managing, but there is no solid evidence of this. We will continue to investigate this and I might have reasons to come back to this later.

Also, please take note that the "WHATEVER Managing" technique is very much compatible with the "Bigfoot Management" style. It could actually be the ultimate combination.

Land of Harmony

Japan is sometimes labeled a "land of harmony" and the country where delicate and refined arts such as calligraphy, ikebana flower arrangement and the tea ceremony came too. People who have visited this country often talk about the friendly welcome and excellent service they received during their visit. Even though they might not speak very good English, the people always try to help and the hospitality is overwhelming.

However... There is another side to the Japanese mentality as well which we often confront at a certain stage in our work. In our work we often times try to set up interviews with people that can be helpful to whatever thing we might be researching. These interviews sometimes have to be arranged through the noble art of cold calling... For those of you who for some reason are unaware of this interesting technique; it consists of calling a certain company, research institution, hospital or similar place in order to talk to someone who first of all have a clue to what you are looking into and secondly actually are willing to take the time and talk to you.

Gone are all pretense of kindness and helpfulness... The Japanese who answer the phone are not the same people who invented calligraphy and ikebana, I can tell you that for sure. Usually the first hurdle you must navigate is the receptionist who can be anything from having a distant pretense of friendliness to a open hostility. Many of them seem to invest considerable time and effort into making things as difficult as possible, classic techniques are the "wrong connect" when they connect you to a completely unrelated department from which you have to try and sneak your way out of. Other classic techniques are the "put on hold and then just hang up" and when you call back trying the apologetic line "excuse me, but the line disconnected for some reason" they don't even flinch and gladly put you on hold for a long while before they tell you that the person don't want to talk to you.

However, rejoice! You actually managed to navigate through the receptionist and reached someone through pure luck or a receptionist that on that particular day couldn't be bothered to torment you (rare occassions though) then the next challenge awaits...

Some people react with the same friendliness as if they had caught redhanded while you are skinning their children with the intent of making an apron or something of the same degree... Here reactions can come from the old classic "hang up while you are talking" to the more non-descript and general scolding for disturbing them when they are so extremely busy (the obvious question; so why the hell then did you take the phone in the first place never seem to get answered).

And we are not even trying to sell people things... Think of this the next time you enjoy the elegance of calligraphy or ikebana, will you?