Okay people, here's the sitch

I've got 55 release notes to write by the end of the day. I've drunk six and half cans of Diet Coke (I think. It's hard to tell once they start getting blurry.) And I've got a brandy new copy of Civilization 4 sitting next to me. The challenge is documenting all of the notes, and getting the hell out of here in the absolute minimum amount of time.

I have two advantages:

• Unlimited caffeine
• Gun n Roses playing on my headphones.

I have one disadvantage:

• Rule - No Alert is captured even if there is prompt if file is from D:\ for the rule curVersion - Yes, this is what I have to work with. The developer who writes this stuff is somewhere on the Pacific Rim. No one really knows where. And he ain't answering his email.

This is why Penetrode has trouble attracting writers. Nonetheless I remain confident that I'll be lobbing nukes at all who oppose me by nightfall.


LM

Roommates Past

I've actually been pretty good about keeping touch with former roommates, such luminaries as Amandarama and Backdoor Johnny Balls. But over the years there have been a lot of them, and I've lost touch with many. So this entry goes out to the ones that I've managed to misplace.

Mad Dog - Junior Year, College - Mad Dog got the nickname when he dropped two tabs of acid and attempted to hold up the campus restaurant. With a spoon. A plastic spoon. Security maced his ass and sat on him until the spiders went away. Mad Dog was last seen smuggling himself into Cuba. Really.

Chimwemwe - Sophmore Year, College - After a series of housing screw ups involving the institutionalization of my planned roommate (hey, at least he had the decency to melt down at home, and not in my room) I ended up rooming with an exchange student from the University of Malawi. He was a nice enough guy, but very unclear on American culture. His expressed goal was to sleep with lots of American women. It was a lot like living with an African version of
SNL's Czech Brothers. ("We're two wild and crazy guys!") Chimwemwe was last seen heading back to Malawi, having been surprisingly successful at his goal.

Lynne - 1997, Brighton, MA - Lynne was (purportedly) a student at a Boston area college. And completely insane. When she applied to be our roommate (filling the hole left by a guy named Peaches), she told us that she enjoyed baking, cleaning, and walking around in her underwear. Okay, so we were stupid. It wasn't until later that we realized she was lying to us. Turns out that Lynne was actually an escort. I suppose she would have done the underwear thing had we paid her, but we didn't have that kind of money. The big challenge was keeping her and Backdoor Johnny Balls from killing each other. They had a hate that made the whole Isreal/Palestine thing seem kind of light duty. Lynne was last seen packing up and leaving. She didn't say where she was going. We didn't ask.

Yes, those are just a few of the many people to have basked in my glorious presence. Jealous? Yeah, you know you are!

LM

Interview with the Manion

As many of you know, I strongly advocate the use of a monkey puppet when you're interviewing for a job. Yesterday, however, I had the chance to use my monkey puppet on the other side of the desk. Yes, Penetrode is hiring another writer.

For the most part, this is good news. The only downside is that they're hiring the guy that I beat out for my current gig. And they asked me to interview him. I knew going in that he was a little bitter, but I was determined to be as professional as possible. But as my ace in the hole, I brought the monkey puppet.

So here's how the interview went.

Lance Manion - Professional. Smooooth. Yes, it takes four o's to describe how smooooth I am.


Monkey Puppet - A typical monkey puppet, which is to say it is belligerent, abusive, and deeply, deeply evil.

Bob - My interviewee. A fellow technical writer, about 10 years older than me, and apparently a little bitter.

So Bob shows up and we take seats in the conference room. I have Bob's resume and am just about to start discussing tools and document architecture, when Bob decides to start something.

Bob - Hey, that's a, uh, nice monkey puppet you have there.

LM - Yeah, but my monkey puppet has one problem. You know what that is Bob?

Bob - Um. No?

LM - He's not holding a banana, is he Bob?

Bob - No... it doesn't look like it...

LM - Do you know why that is, Bob?

Bob - No...

LM - Because apparently you don't want the job badly enough to get him a banana. Bob.

Bob - So you'd like me to get a banana for your monkey puppet?

LM - (Sighing heavily) Yes, Bob. Yes, I would like you to get a banana for my monkey puppet.

Bob - Is this a test? Some sort of leadership or role playing thing?

LM - (composure slipping) No, Bob! It's a test of whether or not you're going to come through with a damn banana for my monkey!

Bob - Um. Lance, you know that the puppet's not a real monkey, right? It's a cloth thing with your hand up its ass. Seriously.

(lengthy, awkward silence)

LM - You're not a team player, are you Bob?

Bob - I'm a team player. I'm just kind of blown away that you're the guy that got my job.

LM - Bob, don't blame me. Blame the monkey.

Bob - Blame the monkey for what?

And then the monkey puppet attempted to pull Bob's scrotum up over his head. Sadly, the puppet never got Bob's scrotum higher than chin level, but he tried for quite a while. Then Bob brought the puppet a banana.

After that the interview went a lot better. And it looks like we'll be hiring Bob as soon as he gets back from the hospital.

LM

Back From the Dentist

Yeah, I went to the dentist today. I hate going to the dentist. And the dentist hates me. Mostly because I can move myself out of the chair and down the hall just using the muscles in my butt cheeks. Seriously, I get Exorcist style butt cheeks whenever I see that dentist chair.

It's just the pointy tools, and poking, and what not. My worst nightmare would be a dentist who also happens to be a giant spider. Just FYI for people who still haven't picked out a halloween costume.

My dentist is one of those guys who specializes in people who hate going. He deals with these anxieties using calming techniques and nitrous oxide. After a couple of good huffs of nitrous, you could take one of my legs and I'd be cool with that.

So I hate the dentist, but I still go. I don't particularly want to have to gum my food. And I even passed on the nitrous, because I'm a grown up, and have to drive back to work.

Anyway, I went this morning, and got a clean bill of health. My teeth are good for another 6 months. Yay!

LM

Sheep!

My parents live across the street from a sheep farm. Sheep are interesting creatures. They're dumber than a barrel of hair, and not all that clean. Still, they're relatively people friendly.

Unfortunately, that whole fluffy white Easter lamb thing becomes a little less of a story book thing when you realize that you're eating one of them. Oh well.

Now I'd like to share with you a sheep joke. (Yes, I'm one of the few people who actually remembers jokes. It's a disability and I'm seeking treatment.) The joke's a little old, so some of the references are slightly dated, but work with me here.

So an American, an Australian, and a Scotsman are walking down a country road. They come across a sheep. The sheep has tried (and failed) to jump a fence. It's suspended across the fence, with its butt hanging in the air.

The American looks at the sheep and says, "If only that were Cindy Crawford!"

The Australian looks at the sheep and says, "If only that were Elle McPherson!"

The Scotsman looks at the sheep and says, "If only it were dark out!"

The joke is funny because it implies that all Scots enjoy having sex with sheep! Is that great or what? Come back soon when we have Lance Manion's Ginormous Compendium of Blond Jokes, and Lance is bludgeoned to death by Mrs. Manion, a natural blonde.

Dance Off!

So I decided on a new method of conflict resolution in my life. It turns out that jamming a rabid howler monkey down someone else's pants comes under Massachusetts General Law section 43 part 97, "Felony Assault with a Farm Implement" Plus it's hard to find a store that reliably carries rabid howler monkeys.

Once my attorney got the charges reduced to "Malicious Fondling of a Root Vegetable" I decided I needed a new coping skill. So after some meditation in front of VH1, I decided that from now on I'd resolve my conflicts using that ancient and time honored method, the Dance Off! If it's good enough for Justin and Britney, it's damn well good enough for me.

Oh, and for the record, the correct spelling of Dance Off! includes the exclamation point. Otherwise it's just stupid.

So this morning I had a chance to put my plan in motion. Development wanted to change one of my document headings from "Importing Templates" to "Downloading Templates" And I looked at that developer, put down my howler monkey, and said "Oh it's on baby, it's on!"

And then I threw back my head and screamed the magic words, "DANCE OFF!"

Out of nowhere, a driving techno beat began, quickening my pulse. I started in with some light vogueing. I wanted to lull the developer into false sense of security.

The developer stood silent for a moment, before snapping his finger in a Z shaped motion. "Oh! You did NOT just go there!" He immediately began busting moves so phresh that I began to doubt myself.

And battle was joined. The developer was quickly joined by the forces of the Marketing department and QA. I was backed by Release Engineering and Professional Services. The dancing was frantic. Styles appeared, clashed, fused and burned.

The soundtrack shifted and changed. We went through house, acid, trance, jungle, techno, acid house, and polka. It was during the polka that the tide of dance shifted in my favor.

As you can see, a security camera caught some of the action.

In this picture, you can see how one of the Marketing minions is brought down by some of my spicier Latin dance rhythyms. I call that particular move Salsa de los Pantalones.

Not every man can work Salsa de los Pantalones into the Beer Barrel Polka, but that's the kind of guy I am.

Her fall turned out to the turning point of the engagement. When she went down, Development's left flank was open, and the 11th hip hop brigade was able to move into position. After that, it was just clean up.

The dust settled, and the developer admitted defeat. And then, to show how magnanimous in victory I can be, I stuffed a rabid howler monkey down his pants.

LM

Vitor and the Children Part 2 - The Word of Vitor

So we were cold, poor, and hungry, trapped in the Sneath Pit at the height of the holiday season. There's a lot to be said for a traditional Dickens Christmas in London. Such as, it sucks when an outrageous splurge is Pizza Hut with cubic spicy meat topping.

And as we explored our home sweet flophouse, we found a book. Contrary to your expectation, this book was not the Bible, Talmud, or Koran. The previous denizens were not exactly religious people. No, the book was "Fortune's Fool" by Angela Wells, and published by Harlequin.

I reached into a dusty cabinet and pulled out the book. The cover of the slim volume was obscured by dust. As I brushed the dust away, I saw the cover art. An attractive young woman on horseback, with her tall-dark-and-handsome beau.

The book spoke to me. It said, "You are lost. I am the way. Also, if you're desperate enough, I might have some racy passages."

The back of the book promised the following "Ria had been joyously en route to the grand villa of her elderly guardian, the man who had rescued her from the slums of Sao Paolo and paid for her convent upbringing. Moments later Ria was staring into the ruggedly handsome face of her abductor, bracing herself for his ransom demands, demands that would surely seal her fate.
His words were chilling. "You're not to be ransomed," he said."I mean to marry you -- by this evening..."

Her abductor turned out to be none other than Vitor, a socially conscious lawyer with a penchant for kidnapping and seduction, and the sexual stamina of a dozen priapic lumberjacks. I knew then that I must follow the way of Vitor. That I must model myself upon him. And more importantly, that I must share the way of Vitor with others. For Vitor did sayeth unto me, "The people of the slums, they live the in pits of poverty. Your fiance, Eduardo, keeps them there. I fight every day to set them free, Ria. And set them free, I shall!"

And I thought, I live in a pit! And poverty sucks! And I don't want to marry some guy named Eduardo! Vitor will free me! So I brought the book before my roommates and told them of the way of Vitor. And they asked, "But how do we know that the way is true?"

So I flipped to another page, and read at random - "Vitor’s gaze was on her back and she couldn’t help reacting, feeling her body tingle. Why did he have to be so charming…so handsome? She wanted to mop his face with that hideous salsa."

To be perfectly honest, none of us were really sure how relevant that message was. Fortunately, we'd been drinking and were prepared to follow just about anything at that point.

So we pulled out our pens and paper and assembled with Way of Vitor. As Ways go, it's pretty easy to follow, with only a few major commandments.

1. Thou shalt not tell people what to do -
Vitor, chapter 3, verse 14 "Inside, they sat at a table, Ria with her back to a wall. Her evening bag in her lap, her hand inside it gripping her gun, she leveled a look at Vitor. “First, don’t ever tell me what to do. I’m responsible for what I do, and what I do will always be my choice. Not yours.”

2. Thou shalt honor the dead by grunting -
Vitor, chapter 6, verse 1 "Fear flickered through his eyes. Surprise chased it. “I hope so,” he said, though his expression seemed out of sync with his tone. “My girls need to know what happened to their mother. I need to know what happened to my wife.” He grunted.

3. The horniest among you shall become Nuns of Vitor -
Vitor, chapter 4, verse 9 "He hadn’t expected to find a houseful of ladies staring at him Several gave him an appreciative appraisal as he entered, but he only focused on Ria. She stood in the kitchen, hands on her hips. They were soft and curvy hips, too."

4. Whenever possible, thou shalt be naked -
Vitor, chapter 12, verse 3 "Vitor put a hand on her shoulder, startling her before she could turn away. “Hey, you look great. Now take off those clothes.”

5. Blessed are the truck theives, for they shall receive unlimited airtime minutes -
Vitor, chapter 2, verse 2 "“I stole a truck,” Ria said. “I’m heading home. I — I’m groggy as hell from the drugs, but I think I’m okay. And I'm keeping that jerk's phone.”

And so now we follow the Way of Vitor. Spread the word. Services are held in the behind cement mixers, for such is the Way of Vitor - "Ria rounded the corner, and saw Vitor, prone beneath the chute, concrete splashing onto his chest."

LM

Vitor and the Children, Part 1 - Vitor Comes to the Sneath Pit

So, some of you have noticed a recurring theme in the comments section. That theme would be a series of references to someone known simply as Vitor. The tale of Vitor is a deeply moving one, of squalor, deprivation, and Sneath, ending in a triumph of the human spirit. But mostly it's a tale of Sneath. So grab yourself a Tennent's Extra and pull up a chair.

As I've mentioned before, after college a few of us went back to the UK to live and work. Here's the cast:

• Lance Manion - Dangerously Sexy
• Amandarama - Dispossesses Slyly
• Rob the Fightguy - Dismembers Swiftly

We touched down in London one day in October, with no jobs, relatively little money, and no place to stay. We had decided not to burden ourselves by overplanning the trip.

After a quick search, we found jobs and housing. We ended up in a squalid little furnished flat on Sneath Ave, in Golders Green, London. Recognizing that image is everything, we christened our new home "The Sneath Pit."

As for jobs, we found the following:

Lance Manion - Professional balloon animal maker
Pro - I was the highest paid of the three of us.
Con - Constantly tormented by German tourists, occasionally blinded by balloons.

Amandarama - Jewelry salesperson for Christian Dior in Harrods
Pro - Got to wear home thousands of dollars worth of costume jewelry.
Con - Christian Dior eventually noted absence of jewelry.

Rob the Fightguy - Referee for Quasar, (Organized Laser Tag)
Pro - Generous coworkers with large supplies of weed.
Con - Weird hours, worked with children.

So anyway, we were in London, cold, poor, and hungry. But at least we had a crappy little 10" television. We were plucky and made the best of it. We would gather nightly and watch Red Dwarf, Absolutely Fabulous and Get Stuffed.

And then one day we were burglarized. Not that there was much to steal from our squalor. But the burglars were plucky as well and made off with the aforementioned crappy little television. They also trashed our flat. Well, all the parts except mine, which I had already trashed.

That was a dark time. There was a void in our hearts and in our souls. And we looked to fill that void. One night as we sat around listlessly, we explored the many dusty cupboards and boxes left by previous denizens of the Sneath Pit. And as if it had been waiting for us, we found a book. And this book not only filled the void in our lives, it changed us forever. And I must share this book with the world.

Coming soon, Vitor and the Children Part 2 - The Word of Vitor.

LM

Manion Poetry Slam: Haik-u Buddy!

Yeah, it's that time again! Time for another Manion Poetry Slam! After all, when Haruki Murakami posts to your blog, it's time for some high-grade Manion poetry.

This outing I'm going with the time honored form of haiku. A haiku consists of three lines, with 5-7-5 syllables. They also usually use two lines to set a scene, with an event happening in the first or last line. Bet you were dying to know that.

Truth be told, I had originally wanted this iteration of Manion Poetry Slam to feature limericks, but Mrs. Manion still forbids me from publishing my long form limerick epic, "From Venus to Nantucket" So instead we're going to have haiku.

Here we go.

My anger is unchecked
QA worker in my grip,
Sweet caffeine lifts me.

Disk crash a bad thing?
Marketing doesn't think so.
A release note dies.

A Five AM cat
flies (briefly) from the window.
Darwin strikes again.

And for the big finale, a story in haiku.

The iron bars hold me-
Arrested for showing it
to the cheerleaders.

Mrs. Manion sighs
heavily and pays my bail.
Cops return my stuff.

There ya go. Manion Poetry Slam, in all its eloquent glory. Feel free to grip the mic and go for yours, baby!

LM

Status Report: Small Amount of Cat

As long-term regular readers of Mercenary Words know, we have a cat. The cat is known colloquially as Small Amount of Cat. Professionally the cat goes by Lafite, as in Chateau Lafite Rothschild. It made as much sense to name the cat after a first growth Bordeau as anything else.

(We used to have two cats, but one day Sack of Garbage just never came home. Seriously, we have no idea what happened. The vet's assistant pretty clearly thinks we terminated Sack of Garbage. But we didn't. At least I didn't. And I'm pretty sure Mrs. Manion didn't. I mean, I'm sure there was a good reason she was out digging a hole in the back yard in the middle of the night...)

Anyway, Small Amount of Cat has decided that it's very important that we get up at about 5 in the morning. It's getting to the point where I'm ready to dig a mysterious hole in the back yard too.

Small Amount of Cat clearly has some amount of siamese heritage. And also clearly has some amount of air raid siren heritage. I'm thinking we may have to make her sleep in the basement for a few days until she gets the message. Or at least gets the message that waking me up at 5 in the morning six days in a row is not a plan guaranteed to ensure long term kitty health.

I've offered to start waking up the small cat with an air horn whenever she's asleep so she knows what it's like, but Mrs. Manion says that's not a good plan. She also nixed the spring loaded platform that would have fired Small Amount Cat of gently out the second floor bathroom window. So I'm working on it. I'll keep you posted.

LM

Lance Manion Meets SuperFrog

So yesterday I was one of the select few to hear celebrated author Haruki Murakami at MIT. Mrs. Manion got there early and saved me a seat. This was a good thing because the fire marshalls ended up chasing out everyone who didn't have a seat. In the words of Professor Junot Diaz "That's some cold shit." I wish more professors were street like that guy.

Anyway, eventually things settled down enough for the reading to begin. Murakami spoke excellent English and seemed like a genuinely nice guy. He read from my favorite short story "SuperFrog Saves Tokyo" It's dark tale about a giant frog that battles a giant worm to save Tokyo from disaster.

The only disappointment was when Murakami let some other MIT faculty member take over reading the story. I mean, I didn't haul my butt into Cambridge to hear some random guy read the story. I came to hear Murakami read it. Ah well.

Then there was a Q&A session. The questions were good for the most part. I had a question, but didn't get to ask it. In the unlikely event that Haruki Murakami reads Mercenary Words, I'll post it here:

"Many of your novels open with the protagonist talking about how he's awkward with girls, and has very poor luck meeting women. And yet during the novel the protagonist needs to carry an umbrella because tail just rains down from the sky onto this guy. Seriously. This guy scores like a freakin rock star. This guy scores like he's LeBron James playing against a team of handicapped midgets. This guy scores like he's invented scoring. This guy scores like he's playing the lead role in the movie 'The Guy Who Scored All the Time.' This guy scores like..." My question goes on in this vein for a few minutes, but I'll cut that in the interest of space. "...So yeah. What's up with that?"

I like to close my questions with "What's up with that?" I feel it makes them more intellectual. I also wanted to suggest a sequel story where SuperFrog and Worm team up to battle Rodan. Maybe next time.

LM

My Father vs. Wisteria Drive

Once upon a time, I lived on a street called Wisteria Drive. (Long before the Housewives ever got Desperate) It was sort of curvy, emptying out into a long straightaway. The curve reached sharpest right around our mailbox. And a couple of times a year, some lousy driver would come along and wipe out the mailbox. The annoying thing is that they never came to the door and offered to make amends, they just kept going.

And this injustice became a point of pride for my father.

The first few mailboxes were generic things of wood and plastic. Virtually any car could knock them over with minimal damage. So we began putting the mailboxes on stronger posts. Much stronger posts...

One of the earliest "car resistant" designs involved putting the post in a concrete base. This was good. Instead of merely scratching someone's bumper, we were now collecting parking lights.

But it wasn't enough.

Dad wanted a car. He wanted the whole car. He wanted the driver to have to come to the door and beg for mercy. He wanted the bumper stuffed and mounted over the fireplace.

So we pulled out the cement. It wasn't providing enough resistance, and it was making replacing the post much more difficult.

Instead, we went from traditional 4x4 lumber to pressure treated 8x8 timbers. It's twice as thick, and weighs a ton. It's not unlike hitting a full grown tree. Now were were getting whole headlight assemblies. And this was good. But still not victory.

So Dad went in an entirely different direction, and took a page from the army. Yes, we became the owners of the world's first (and only) mailbox post/tank trap. (You can take Dad out of the military, but you can't take the military out of the Dad.)

The idea was that when a car hit the mailbox post, the impact would lever up an underground arm on either side of the mailbox. The arm would rise out of the ground like an undead claw and grab the car's transmission. It was the mailbox equivalent of punching the car in the groin. A car can keep going without headlights, even without a bumper, but not without a transmission.

Constructing it took a day. Installing it took another day. Testing it was impossible. A successful test would have cost us a car. We would just have to wait. And wait we did. And wait. And another car never hit the mailbox. It was like they knew about the trap.

Eventually my family moved. And years later I drove by the house again. And the tank trap post was gone. I'm curious if it ever bagged a car or not. But I'm not about to ask the current residents, "Hey, did your mailbox ever destroy a passing car?"

LM

PS. Believe it or not, had the tank trap post failed, the next one was going to be a steel I beam (think construction girder) in a wood sheath.

Lance Manion, a Catholic Girls School, and a Cup of Cottage Cheese

I'm kind of tired today, so rather than exercise my creativity gland, or whatever body part is responsible for that sort of thing, I'm going to tell you yet another true story from the Manion Files. Hey, it beats writing software documentation.

Before we were married, Mrs. Manion used to teach at Emmanuel College in Boston. Emmanuel is a women only Catholic school specializing in women from developing nations who are the first in their families to attend college. Not that this is particularly relevant, I just like exposition.

So one day, I went to visit Mrs. Manion while she was tutoring. I hadn't had lunch that day, so I was very hungry. It turned out that Mrs. Manion had a left over individual cottage cheese unit that she hadn't eaten. She offered it to me. The cottage cheese in question appears below:



So I said, "Sure, I'll have the cottage cheese." Unfortunately, I was in a library. I thought to myself, "Lance, you can't eat the cottage cheese here. Not in public. Not in the middle of a library. It's icky."

I looked around for a moment. "You know Lance," I thought, "this is an all girl's school. You're the only guy you can see. It's not like there's anyone is in the mens room. And it's probably sparklingly clean from lack of use. Why not just go there, inhale the cottage cheese and get moving?"

Like most of my plans, it seemed like a good idea at the time.

So I headed into the mens room. And it was clean and quiet. Then I realized that I had no utensils. Ever the problem solver, I washed my hands and opened the container. I used my fingers to hork down the cottage cheese as quickly as possible.

It was then that a male professor walked in.

It was then that I stood in the middle of the mens room at a catholic girls school with cottage cheese on my hands and face.

Now you're probably asking, "Wow, Lance! You looked like a serious freak! Is there any possible way that you talked your way out of this?"

And the answer is no, there was no graceful way out. So instead, I screamed like a little girl, flung the cottage cheese at the professor, and threw myself out the window. If you're going to be freaky, you might as well go all the way.

Sadly, Mrs. Manion's contract was not renewed after that year. I'm almost positive that I had nothing to do with that.

LM

Is It True?

I've noticed that this blog has had the unintended effect of starting a lot of rumors about me. So I've decided that rather than let these things get out of hand, I'm going to address them head on, here and now.

So Lance, is it true that your 'roid is dating Lindsay Lohan?

No. Although my 'roid has been seen out and about with many a starlet, my 'roid and Lindsay remain "just good friends."

Just how many times have you been arrested?

You'll have to clarify the question. In this country? What if I was just detained for questioning? By which law enforcement agency?

Are you high?

Huh? What? Right now? Why? What have you heard?

We've heard that in job interviews you refuse to answer the "If you could be an
animal, what animal would you be?" question.

This is true. I used to say "I'd like to be an intestinal parasite." But that creeped people out. Now I just don't answer.

Is it true that you attended a gay wedding this past weekend?

This is also true. The food was excellent and the cake was to die for. The music emphasized show tunes a bit more than I might have chosen personally, but the event was a blast. I think this alone is more than enough reason to legalize gay marriage. You can marry a soap dispenser for all I care, so long as you have an open bar.

LM