Return of the Mack

Awhile back on a Monday morning (7/13 to be precise), I arrive and immediately see that I have several messages on my work answering machine. Apparently people only leave messages for me when I'm not sitting at my desk. It's a shame, because my ring tone is super cool, and I never get to hear it (it's not that cool anyway, whatever).

I fly through the first 3 messages which are mostly internal messages of people asking me ridiculous questions (like if we have any A4 paper WHICH WE OBVIOUSLY DO). Then I get to message number 4 which is "Return of the Mack" (a 90s gangster rap song) playing on someone's radio, obviously muffled through their pants pocket. It lasts for about 2 minutes.

My first reaction is that the voice mail is from my girlfriend. "Return of the Mack" happens to be one of her favorite songs, and it seemed like maybe it was a cute gesture from her: "hope your week goes well, enjoy this 90's jam <3 <3 <3", or something similar. I call the number back, it goes to voicemail.

"Hello you've reached [Raph's Boss] please leave a message...". Yup. My boss listens to 90's gangster rap on the way to work. The best part is when he gets in to work he sort of defensively asks me "Why did you call?". I had to awkwardly point out that I was returning his call....and that all I could hear on the message was "Return of the Mack". We had a good laugh. Then we promised never to speak of it again.

In Moldova, Company Hires You!

I send a lot of FedExes in my line of work. So far I've been fortunate enough to send two packages to Moldova (The Republic of). A funny thing happens when you try to send a FedEx to Moldova: the "Company" field disappears from the online form. This leads me to believe that there are either no companies in Moldova, companies are outlawed in Moldova, or even that possibly Moldova is a company itself (Update: I checked, its a country after all).

Wh4t 4 l33t r3$um3!!1

I just printed out a resume for a potential candidate at work (my boss does a lot of interviews because he's pretty high up in the company) and I loled at his email address. I don't want to use his real name or anything but for the sake of the story, lets say his name is Sean Lee. His email address (in this example) would be: S3an L33. Yup, he used his l33t email address for his professional resume. What a n00b....

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..I hope he gets hired!!1

Farewell Borders

I'm sad that Borders is going out of business. Two "topical" blogs in a row! I wouldn't get used to it oh faithful reader (intentionally singular), I'll be back to spewing pointless nonsense in no time. Also, this isn't really that topical. Borders has been floundering for close to a year now, thanks in large part to Amazon.com and the Kindle/eReader revolution. Today I made my (most likley) last purchases at Borders EVER (for the record: a football book, a book about the history of the Earth, and a book about the Higgs Boson). This is kind of a big deal considering I've spent literally hundreds of dollars on comic books, ahem excuse me, graphic novels, over the past 3-5 years.

I will always fondly remember the time I spent alone there, sitting alongside the manga nerds as they killed time before their foam kendo sword practice sessions. It was one of the few activities I could do at school that was totally and absolutely a solo mission. I didn't have a car at school, which meant going anywhere for lunch or any other activity was always contingent on other people getting their  act together. This proved especially frustrating living in a house with 6 indecisive and usually, to use the technical term, "high as shit" guys. Strolling down to Borders on nice sunny day was a great way to get away from the arguments about kegs and who spilled an entire bag of sugar in the kitchen the night before and forgot to clean it up.

It was totally worth it.

But Borders has also been a source of negative memories. Like the time I overdrew my account buying "The Ultimates 1 : Volume 2"  and had to ask my mom for money. Or the time I witnessed one of the most horrifically comical things I've ever seen. There was an extremely large, fat man in glasses and giant Jorts (Jean Shorts) sitting on the edge of a window sill. He was positioned so that his ass was angled almost up into the air, as his belly popped out of his shirt onto his frumpy paunch. He was reading a comic and talking on the phone at the same time. While on the phone, he began farting. Loudly. Continually. He made no effort whatsoever to conceal it and didn't even for ONE second look around to gauge reactions of the people around him. He didn't even break the conversation he was having on his phone. It's a soothing thought to know that next time he does this, he will be forced to sit in the comfort of his own home and shop on Amazon.com. Either that or find a Barnes and Noble.

Picture him in Jorts.

Farewell Borders :(

It was the best of times it was the blurst of times

So yesterday there was an earthquake. I'm sure you've heard about it by now, seeing it happened roughly (very roughly, I'm bad at estimating time) 20 hours ago. However, one thing this blog has never claimed to be is current...or even informative for that matter. All you need to know for the following word-splosion (it's like a story but less boring) is that there was an earthquake in DC yesterday afternoon, I work in an office in Boston on the 11th floor and I felt it.

My initial reaction? I honestly thought the vicodin I had just taken had kicked in and I was getting that oh-so-sweet painkiller headrush and dizzyness. You must be asking yourself "Wow! What kind of rockstar life does this Raph live?! Painkillers during the day on a Tuesday? I bet he gets laid on the regs!". Let me quickly resovle this misunderstanding by saying a few words: the vicodin was prescribed from my wisdom teeth operation and yes I do get laid on the regs. 

A quick aside about my wisdom teeth before we continue: I've never realized how much I enjoy solid food and drinking out of a straw, both of which I've had to abstain from since last Friday, or roughly 2 weeks ago (see? I told you I sucked at this whole estimation thing). The vicodin is great and luckily my face hasn't gotten swollen at all. The downside to all the vicodin is that my work ethic has suffered horribly. All I think about all day at work is going home to play videogames.

Speaking of videogames (and I'll keep this brief): I went 47-7 last night on Arica Harbor in Battlefield 2: Bad Company. For the uninformed, that means I killed 47 people and only died 7 times, acquiring a K:D Ratio (Kill to Death Ratio) of  roughly 7:1 (my best estimation of the blogpost, for those scoring at home). Again, for the uninformed, a K:D Ratio of 2:1 is considered a good round, and a K:D Ratio of 7:1 can roughly be described as a n00b genocide.

What was I talking about again? Videogames? Check. Drugs? Check. Oh right, the earthquake. So once I realized that my chair was actually vibrating, and that there wasn't some not-so-hilarious prankster from the legal team behind me shaking my chair (I'm looking at you Rick), I realized I was in an earthquake.

The real question is this: Really? An earthquake? Didn't we already have a tornado? Aren't there hurricanes coming? I'm not saying I believe in all this rapture talk, but I had this thought. What if the rapture really is happning this year, and God is hitting us with everything he's got. Only his arsenal of "end of the world weaponry" is about as dated as a scifi movie from the fifties. When I picture the end of the world, I picture the sky raining fire, rivers turning to blood, etc. Maybe God has (dare I say it?) lost a step. He's like an old pitcher who used to throw 99 mph, but now he's only working with a curveball and an 89 mph fastball. Maybe he can only muster a tornado here or an earthquake there*. Ice that arm big guy.

Anyway, it was my first earthquake. I'll always remember it, and most likely associate it with vicodin and having my wisdom teeth removed (and hopefully that SWEET 7:1 round I had last night). All in all, a solid portion of my life has been immortalized.

*I originally went on a tangent with alot of salary cap metaphors, but I decided against it.