A Time of Reflection

2005 is drawing to a close, and a time of reflection is upon us. Here at Mercenary Words, we're not real big on reflection. That's because it frequently involved cringe inducing memories that we're trying to eradicate with frequent and massive doses of tequila. Of course, a massive dose of tequila often creates its own cringe inducing memories. I guess that's why they call it the circle of life. Or something.

Anyway, in the spirit of the season, I'm going to post some of the most memorable things I've said in the past year. And no, I'm not going to give you context.

• "Man, I feel like I'm growing a vagina just listening to this."
• "My god. That shits in my face three times!"
• "You could toss a small child into that thing and it still wouldn't stop. You'd probably need to clean out the auger after four or five of them, though."
• "Sweet Jesus. Drive as if you had a pair."
• "Why is all the good stuff is illegal in this state?"
• "I think we've failed to consider violence as a solution here."
• (singing) "Loooo-ving me is easy 'cause I'm beautiful."
• "I'm sorry but the ethical ramifications are making me really uncomfortable. (silence, followed by extended laughter) But seriously, can I get that in the form of a bank check?"

Just imagine. If you hung out with me, you'd hear this kind of stuff all the time. At least until you joined the ever growing number of people who've taken out restraining orders.

LM

Penetrode: The Movie

Marketing has decided to produce a brief film about the Penetrode experience. It's something
to play on the plasma screens when they're at trade shows. They want different people to speak briefly about their role in the company. Since they don't have any other writers, I've been nominated to represent the documentation process.

HR came around yesterday with releases for us to sign. The admin came to my cube and handed me the release. Our conversation went something like this:

• Lance Manion - Archduke of Funky Town. With a smokin' ass.
• HR Admin - A young woman we recently hired. For some reason we go through a lot of HR people. They tend to quit right after meeting with me for some reason.

(scene - Lance Manion's cube. Or, as I like to call it, "The Velvet Lounge")

HRA - Lance, we need you to sign this release so you can be in the company film.

LM - No problem. Just let me look that over.

LM reads the release

LM - Now, normally I let my people at William Morris handle this stuff, but I like this project. I think it's going to be big. Like Pulp Fiction big. It's got a real raw, indy feel. But I've got a few things I'd like to change.

HRA - Well, it's not really...

LM - (interrupting) Yeah, yeah, I hear you. First off, there's my trailer. I don't see a housing rider or anything here. This contract is really amateur hour. I mean there's not even a clause for ass work.

HRA - Uh... Ass work?

LM - Sweetheart. Baby. You're beautiful and I love you, but you know the Manion does his own ass work. I don't want to see any stunt ass in here.

HRA - The Manion?

LM - Damn straight, my little bubelah! Check out this ass! (drops trousers) America loves this ass! America can't get enough of this ass! Touch it! Feel it! This ass will make your movie. Did you see Shakespeare in Love?

HRA - Huh?

LM - This ass made that movie! This ass personally handed the Oscar to Gwyneth!

HRA - (looking away) It has hands? Wait. It was in Shakespeare in Love?

LM - Well, not in the movie. They hired it to just be around, inspiring the actors.

HRA - Ew.

LM - Listen. Hear me. Mr. and Mrs. Middle America love this ass. They fantasize about it. Put this ass in your movie and I guarantee you an Oscar.

HRA - Oh. Well, can your ass put its pants back on?

LM - Hey, this ass needs to breathe. It's star quality, baby. But let me just show you one more thing. Something to seal the deal.

HRA - Oh my god. Something's moving! I'm... I have to go. (runs away)

LM - Catch you later, babe! You bring that contract back with some edits and we'll do this. Caio!

And she left. And didn't come in this morning. Weird. I just hope this doesn't mean they're going try to cheap up on my trailer.

LM

Waste of Talent

So tonight Mrs. Manion is going to be very late coming home. This is because her students in the electrical engineering program are doing presentations on their final projects. Some of their efforts include the following:

• Lentil sorter - apparently it sorts live lentils from dead lentils. I have no idea how they can tell. Maybe lentils have a pulse. Maybe the live ones respond to the whole "How many fingers am I holding up?" thing. Maybe they're all dead. Who knows?B
• Banana picker - it works by shaking the tree. Seems kind of low tech for an entire semester's work.
• Tree planter - I mean, if the tree planter was a big ass cannon that fired an artillery shell across the city, and then fired a tree into the resulting hole, that would be pretty sweet. Instead, this thing looks kind of like a massive corkscrew on the back of a truck.

To say that I am disappointed is a profound understatement. There is not a single beer or laser related project in the mix. I would fail each and every one of these kids. If were in charge, A's would go only to students who have invented beer powered lasers. Or possibly laser powered beer.

What is it with the kids of today? Did they not watch "Real Genius" (Val Kilmer's finest hour)? Do they not understand that nothing is cooler than massive destructive capability and a 5% or greater alcohol content?

The wild man project in this group is a portable microfilm projector. Oooh. The whole thing makes me sick. When I was in college, I knew a girl who won a huge gift certificate to the greatest sandwich shop in the world (Big G's in Waterville, ME). Had I won that prize, my friends and I would have eaten like kings in a massive orgy of excess. Instead she donated it to a homeless shelter. And people wonder why I try so hard to be a bad person. I'm just trying to balance the cosmic scales, folks!

So I'm boycotting lentils as a result. I'm not entirely sure what that's going to accomplish, other than minimal self sacrifice. I've actually been boycotting lentils since an unfortunate experience in 1992. But now I've got justification.

LM

Going Undercover

I graduated from Colby College several years ago, and look back fondly on my time there. So I was shocked when an article came across the AP Wire telling me that Colby College is going to have undercover police officers sneaking into parties to cut down on "...the dramatic increase underage drinking." That didn't seem like Colby to me.

Colby is the kind of place where the alums get together, and tell long, haunting, pointless stories, and make people like Mr. Scoop and Mrs. Manion apoplectic with rage. In my memory, Colby is a magical place, where every Spring the snow melts and you can still see where "We fuck sheep" was painted onto the roof of the old DKE house.

My reaction to this information (the undercover cops, not the sheep fucking) was twofold - "Do they think the average student is completely brain dead? And, "Who do I have to kill to get that job?" Colby only has about 1700 students. By December you can recognize pretty much everybody by sight, if not name.

All I can imagine is some forty year old cop with a wearing an ill-fitting Maroon 5 T-shirt and a mustache standing in a corner and hoping nobody notices him. It's like some horrible parody of 21 Jump Street, but with Andy Sipowicz playing the Johnny Depp role.

I think the whole cop thing is a solution in search of a problem. As my old creative writing professor used to say (shortly before he went off to become a woman, but that's another story) you go to college to learn exactly how much it takes to make you throw up. And dammit, denying these kids a safe and nurturing environment in which to puke on each other is removing a vital piece of growing up.

And I really doubt that there's been a serious increase in underage drinking. The only way the underaged kids could drink more than we did would be with a beer IV. We didn't abuse alcohol. We buried it at a crossroads with a stake through its heart. We had a game called QB4. The rules were simple. Four players, one keg. No one leaves the room until the keg is empty. Now that's alcohol abuse.

Nonetheless, for the public good I am prepared to put on my Colby sweatshirt and play beer die with the kids. It's like the saying "Set a thief to catch a thief" except in this case it's "Set a Manion loose in a room full of drunk twenty year olds to catch something that will take a great deal of explaining to Mrs. Manion."

When even I recognize a plan as a truly bad idea, you know you're on to a serious loser, people.

LM

Add'l Note to Self

Note to self -

Do not listen to "Sweet Transvestite" from the Rocky Horror Picture Show at volumes loud enough to be heard outside the cube, lest you end up answering questions from Ying-Li, the incredibly innocent and niave QA intern. Such questions may include:

• What is this music?
• What is transvestite?
• Oh! Do you like transvestite?
• Is play? What is play about?
• Transvestite is gay and alien?
• What is bi-sex-ual?
• You like to play bisexual alien?

And for the 43rd time this year, you get to visit HR for a talking to.

LM

Mind of a Manion, Part Dos

I've decided to take a break from my usual tasks to share with you a few things that have been on my mind of late:

• Penetrode has finally settled on another writer. She starts in late December. I'm pleased, because now I have someone to blame things on. It was harder (but not impossible) when I had to blame everything on QA.
• You're not really rocking your car stereo until the side mirrors start to vibrate with the bass line.
• It's looking like I'll be sent to Japan for a week or two in January. Somebody got the bright idea that since I wrote the book on configuring Penetrode Enterprise that I should go actually perform one. I'm looking forward to it. For what would be a more natural environment for an office ninja than downtown Tokyo...
• The Penetrode Holiday Party is coming up. It's going to be held on-site. That's kind of lame, unless they're passing the savings on to me in the form of a large check. In which case they're princes among men.
• The receptionist and I (having graduated from the same college, though many years apart) plan on introducing beer die (the most complicated drinking game in the world) to the company during the holiday party. Look for me to be fired for a massively inappropriate display of pantslessness before they can ship me to Japan.

So that's most of what's on my mind these days. The rest is just porn and filler. Happy Ho-days!


LM

A Manion Thanksgiving, Plus Added Bonus Meme!

So it's been a while (yet again). I don't really want to go into the details. Suffice to say the Manion family Thanksgiving was celebrated in warm and lovely San Diego this year, at my brother Sonny Crocket's house. One thing led to another, some Manions went to Tijuana, some drugs were smuggled, body cavities were searched, penis ensued, Manions were arrested, police were bribed, Manions escaped, and the whole thing ended up in this multi-state crime spree, high speed chase fiasco. But I suppose every family has its traditions.

I'd go into it more, but I've been invited by the always scrumtrellescent fightguy to participate in this whole "meme" thing that the kids are doing these days. I'm too lazy to think of an excuse to get out of it, so here goes. The unifying theme seems to be multiples of five. How 'bout that?

And so....

20 years ago I was: Stuffed into a locker somewhere. I'd rather not think about it.

15 years ago I was: Worshipping a half deflated basketball on a rock with a man named Backdoor Johnny Balls. It seemed like a good idea at the time. In retrospect, it might have been kind of weird.

10 years ago I was: Thinking to myself, "Sure, selling stereo equipment at Circuit City is all glamorous, but maybe there's something else I could do."

5 years ago: Recently married, getting evicted. Man, you accidentally flood one apartment and the landlord just holds it against you forever, you know?

1 year ago: Recovering from 'roid surgery. Two weeks off, tons of pain meds, and all the Aqua Teen Hunger Force you can handle.

Yesterday: Documenting how to break unbreakable encryption algorhythms (Elliptic Curve Encryption, Cipher Streams, that sort of thing). Hint - Go after the implementation, not the crypto itself. Yeah.

5 snacks I enjoy: Pretzel goldfish, beer, sushi, Chex mix, methamphetamines.

5 songs I know all the words to: Miami 2017/Billy Joel, Our Lips are Sealed/Go Go's, Blinded By the Light/Manfred Mann, Ziggy Stardust/David Bowie, Volcano Girls/Veruca Salt

5 things I would do with a million dollars: Aston Martin DB12 Vanquish, fully stocked wine cellar, pay off my house, travel the world, hire a squad of bloodthirsty mercenary lemurs to be my 24 hour body guard.

5 places I would run away to: London, UK; Auckland, New Zealand; Champagne, France; Nantucket, US; Napa Valley, US.

5 things I would never wear: Skin tight bike shorts, sandals, clamps of any kind, loungewear, underoos.

5 favorite TV programs: Futurama, Battlestar Galactica, House, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Tres Mujeres

5 bad habits: Displaying mercy, not thinking things through, trying a bad plan again because "it might work this time", being lazy.

5 biggest joys: Mrs. Manion, the crushing of an enemy, doing something new, exploring, rage

5 favourite toys: Computer, car, home theater, pocket multi-tools, my magical pants weasel.

5 fictional characters I would like to have dinner with: Lucy Weston (Dracula), The Lady Door (Neverwhere), Jay Gatsby (The Great Gatsby), Havelock Vetinari (The Discworld Series), Crowley (Good Omens)

With any luck, these little bits of Manion-related trivia have given you a deep insight into my character (or lack thereof). Finally, I have memed. I feel so dirty. But that's kind of my ground state, so it probably has nothing to do with the memeage.

LM