The Stench

Okay, so I was at a meeting today. I attend a lot of meetings. It's a good way to look busy without actually doing anything.

Anyway, this was a pretty crowded meeting, so we were packed pretty closely. So far so good. And halfway through the meeting, something starts to tickle my nostrils. Then something starts assaulting them.

Yes, someone in the meeting was passing gas. Ripping off a few silent but deadlies. And it was horrible. I'm not sure what goes on in this person's colon, but I doubt it can be explained by normal biochemical processes. It was nasty beyond all possible description. And it didn't stop.

At first I hoped that the air would just clear on its own. But it didn't. My eyes were beginning to tear. I looked around, trying to figure out who had inflicted this stench upon me. No one looked guilty. And the smell just kept getting worse.

I expected some undead creature to emerge from beneath the table or something. It would have explained the green tint in the air. And hideous evisceration was starting to look pretty good.

Eventually the meeting drew to a close. The host asked if there were any questions.

I stood and asked, "Which of you bastards has been blasting farts from the deepest pits of Hell?"

Well, I didn't really. But I wanted to. I really did. I mean come on, how low is that? Farting repeatedly in a crowded room? That's pretty evil even by my standards.

LM

Traduzca el Manion

My musical tastes, as I'm sure you know, are pretty broad. For example, today I'm listening to Mexican gangsta rap. Specifically, Si Senor, by Control Machete, off their album Solo Para Fanaticos.

Unfortunately, I took French in high school and college. (Who here wants to discuss proto-feminism in the works of Marguerite Duras? You know you do!) On the plus side, I can inquire as to the location of your aunt's pen in flawless French (It's on your uncle's bureau). On the down side, there's almost no French gangsta rap. Interessant, n'est-ce pas?

So when I'm filled with the overwhelming urge to know what I'm rapping along to, I have to track down the lyrics and feed them into Babelfish. And this is what I get.

"It tells me that one feels,
Tell me that one feels
Tell me that the sweat in the forehead feels
Tell me that it feels,
Tell me if you have a feeling
Tell me that the sweat in the forehead feels"

It's interesting, because I understand all of the individual words, and yet the final product might as well still be in Spanish. Sometimes that's the way it shakes down here at Mercenary Words.

LM

The Return of the American Jerk

So it's with great excitement that we announce the return of the American Jerk. The American Jerk, or Mr. Scoop as he was sometimes known around these parts, has restarted his own blog.

Turns out that he hates being called Mr. Scoop. Had I known, I would have referred to him as Mrs. Amandarama, or something like that. But if he thinks I'm going back through all 152 entries here and checking for his name to update it, he's got another thing coming.

In the early day of the intraweb, the American Jerk was well known as THE site to go to for dark humor, bestialy pics, and homemade explosive mixtures. I still use his recipe for Palmolive and unleaded in my disputes with local law enforcement.

Unfortunely, the American Jerk was eventually shut down after a nine day standoff with a Dominoes delivery guy. Details are vague, but the local paper later described the incident as "Topping dispute ends with 9 dead, dozens left homeless".

But I digress. From the staff of Mercenary Words, let us just say "Welcome back, and it's about damn time."

LM

Gangsta Manion

One of the many little known bits of Manion trivia is my brief foray into gangsta rap. It's true. For a brief period of time, (last Tuesday from 2:15 to 2:47) I was known as Chromosome M.

Why Chromosome M, you ask? It's pretty simple.

In fish genetics circles, Chromosome M identifies separate metaphase chromosomes by distinguishing these virtual colors. However, when Chromosome M determines gene expression in the embryo, the overlap of two patterns is represented by the third virtual color, making it unavailable to visualize the expression of a third gene. But because the nascent transcripts of genes occupy discrete volumes in the nucleus, the virtual coloring schemes established for chromosomal M-FISH can also be applied to the detection of gene expression on a per nucleus basis.

Get it? Per nucleus basis? It just slays my geneticist buddies.

Unfortunately, no one else gets it.

Plus, being a Volvo driving honky pretty much shot my credibility to hell. Vibe magazine described me as a "...whack-ass hoopty driving wannabe, with a fish fetish"

One of these days I'm going to make another run at it, but with another name. Possibly a play on Hegel's Phenomenology of Reason.

LM

Danger Manion

So this past Saturday morning, I was driving along a windy country road behind a beat up old Camry. Nothing was out of place was we drove along. And then we went through a broad curve. And the Camry decided that it didn't want to be constrained by existing social mores regarding things like roads and lanes. Instead of following left through the curve, it continued straight, at about 45-50 miles an hour.

The first thing it hit was a telephone pole, blasting it to pieces and ripping down the power lines. I would have thought the pole would stop the car, but I was wrong. It continued through a front yard, and into a couple of parked cars. It was pretty spectacular.

I pulled over to see if the driver was okay.

The family that lived in the house came to the window and immediately called 911.
The driver seemed okay. A little disoriented, perhaps. I'm not sure if the disorientation was from the crash, or perhaps a little St. Paddy's day fun that ran late. After all, with no brake lights, no skid, no effort to avoid anything, we're clearly not talking the most alert driver in the world.

He seemed a little bothered by the damage, and after telling me that he was okay, started walking away. I wasn't sure what to do, but I didn't want to physically restrain the guy, so I stayed at the scene of the accident and waited for the police.

The cops arrived about five minutes later, having picked up the driver on their way up. The first officers ran the plates of the car. After that, it got exciting. The conversation went something like this:

Cop - Is this your car?

Driver - Um, yeah.

Cop - Surprise! No it's not.

Turns out the car was stolen! And forty-three more cruisers suddenly appear.

So I had been the only witness to a real Grand Theft Auto style fiasco. The family whose yard and cars were trashed were more than a little irate. I had to hang out for a while and give a statement to the cops. They really doubt that I'll be asked to be a witness or anything. Still, I like that I've done my bit for the justice system.

LM

Lance Manion Needs Caulk

So there's a small gap between the siding of my house and the foundation. Being fairly handy, I went to the Home Depot to buy some silicone caulk to seal the gap. What follows is a mostly true story of my adventures there:

I got to Home Depot and went looking for caulk. I tried Fasteners and plumbing, but came up empty. I approached a nearby employee and said "Hi, I'm looking for caulk."

He looked at me for a moment. Then looked quickly to his right and left, and motioned for me to follow him. We entered the mens room. I was a little surprised. It would, however, explain why I couldn't find the caulk to begin with.

Then he motioned for me to join him in one of the stalls. One thing led to another, and I didn't want to be rude. I'd rather not talk about it, to be honest.

I left feeling somewhat cheapened. On my way out, I passed the caulk. It was in the Paint section. Next time I'm going to be more careful with my word choice.

LM

Shout Out

And I'd just like to give a big Mercenary Words shout out to our visitor from London, England who came to Mercenary Words while searching Yahoo for the string "wanging your penis"

Whoever you are and whatever you're up to, I hope that you find the penis wanging that you seek.

LM

Lance Manion Sings Понимающее and Other Uzbek Classics!

First, some exposition. Penetrode, like most software companies, has a pretty international group of employees. In addition to your basic Americans (of all sorts) we've got Russian nationals, Chinese nationals, Indian nationals, Japanese nationals, a scattering of EU countries, and a few others I can't recall.

"So what, Lance?" you're probably saying. Well, having a lot of different cultures working in close contact has had some interesting results. And I'm going to share a few of these with you. Today it's music. So put your hands together.

Anyway, For the official Penetrode Holiday Party this past year we all got video iPods. Not a bad gift, all told. And it's had an interesting side effect. People have been bringing in their MP3 collections and putting them on the network.

The results are surprising and educating. I've been listening to the contents of one developer's iPod. Unbeknownst to him - that's the great thing about being a security company. We have lots of ice and ice cutters - mad props to mah boy William Gibson. But I digress.

Alekseyev's iPod is loaded with Russian rock and pop. This isn't surprising given that the developer hails from the town of Chelyabinsk, in beautiful downtown Siberia.

The Russian rock scene is pretty eye opening. One tune, Понимающее by сердце sounds like some guy is taking a dump sideways while being given the heimlich maneuver. I have no idea what the lyrics are, though it seems to be an uptempo number. Maybe he's focussing on the song being over. I dunno. And Russian pop has a startlingly high accordion content. Who knew? Also, the word guitar is the same in English and Russian. No kidding.

One tune (Понимающее for those of you who care) has a reeeeaally weird spoken word bit with a guy who sounds like he smokes twelve packs a day.

I can also tell you that Alekseyev really likes Пикник. They (or possibly he) sounds like an Uzbek Marilyn Manson. He's got four albums by these guys.

To be fair, all of this beats the hell out of Tomoko's Japan-pop. That stuff sounds like kittens being pulled through a strainer.

So consider yourselves culturally broadened.

LM

PS. I don't want to get into how many language packs I had to install to get the cyrillic to render properly.

"Lance needs...."

Because I'm not feeling real inspired today, I'm reusing something I saw on fightguy's blog. It's pretty simple, and I was vaguely amused by the results.

Instructions - Go to Google, put your name followed by needs together in quotes. (Ex: "Sarah needs"). Now post five of them.

Lance needs to note that the Ogam wheel is not by itself a calendar, but gives rise to a family of calendars, one of which is used by Charles. - Not sure what this means, but it sure sounds impressive.

Lance needs to decide if he is or isn't going to grow a goatee - I've thought about the goatee thing, but I'm going to wait until it's definitively uncool before going ahead with it.

Lance needs to vanquish an evil being. - Fortunately I did this twice before lunch. Man, I hate the Marketing department.

Lance needs to check the box declaring himself gay to push himself ahead of Asian-Americans with straight A grade averages. - Hey, whatever it takes, you know?

Lance needs a day or two more of drying. - Actually I haven't had anything to drink since last weekend, so I'm already pretty dried out. But today's Friday, and the Scoops are visiting tomorrow...

LM

Net Effect of Promotion

So several of you have written to me asking what the actual results of my recent promotion are. I list them here:

• I can now communicate telepathically with tapeworms. This has led to an interesting personal discovery about the contents of my intestines.
• I can now officially declare a party to be either bangin' or whack
• Although my job title remains "Drone/Bottomfeeder" my direct reports will now be referred to as "sub-minions"
• I can authorize company expenditures of up to $10 at Circle-K.
• I am now permitted to take Centrum Silver vitamins, despite being under the recommended age. Truly, it's a great time to be silver.
• On business casual days, I can now get away with wearing a tuxedo t-shirts.
• In the event of Enron-scale malfeasance, I may be called upon to act as a scapegoat.
• My business cards now come with my name pre-printed, instead of a fill-in-the-blank.
• I am now permitted one fake doctor's appointment per month.
• When I finally am fired, I will not be charged for the cardboard box containing my stuff.

Yes, it's a pretty proud time in the Manion household. Screw the expense, tonight we're eating the good cat food!

LM

An Office Ninja Gets Promoted

So you may remember that I was recently fired from Penetrode for my bold new ideas involving diseased ticks. Well, being fired may sit fine with some people, but not with me. And certainly not with an Office Ninja.

The challenge as I saw I was getting the termination paperwork from the VP of HR before it could be processed. But the VP was on vacation, and his office was locked. Lance Manion simply isn't equipped for this kind of skullduggery. But an Office Ninja is. Oh yes.

There's a small air vent that runs above all of the executive offices. I could get in, and slither over the heads of the execs, dropping down in the VP's office. I knew it would be a tight fit, so I went down to the cafeteria salad bar and took off my clothes. I surveyed my choice of lubricants. I thought about the thousand island dressing, but eventually went with a basic viniagrette. I thought the orange dressing might look silly.

So once I lubed up, I snuck over to the air vent. It's a narrow opening only about 2 inches by 8 inches. Even with the lubricant, the Office Ninja was having serious space issues. After ten minutes of serious effort, I had managed to get half an arm into the vent.

To make things more awkward, I was in office's main hallway, and Bob, the QA manager stopped by. "So, uh, Manion," he asked, "You uh, seem to be, um, naked and oiled on the floor of the hallway."

"Yeah, Bob. Seems to be the case." I replied.

"Any particular reason?" Bob asked.

"Lost my keys." I answered.

"Oh." he said. "After a lengthy pause, Bob started up again. "My wife, and I, we sometimes get together with other like-minded couples for, um, some sort of experimental lifestyle choices...."

"Really, Bob. How's that working out for you?"

"Pretty well, pretty well. Um, do you think that you and Mrs. Manion might be interested in joining us at some point?"

"Not really, Bob, but thanks for asking. I'm just going to keep looking for my keys now."

"Sounds good, Manion. Good luck with that." And Bob left. Still, I knew that my vent plan just wasn't working out, so I extricated myself, and retreated to the cafeteria to get some lunch and think about a plan B. Also, my clothes were still in a pile by the salad bar.

So I got my clothes and just used a wrecking bar to force the door open. A quick search turned up the notice of termination. I post it here for you to see the kind of place Penetrode is.

Employee Name - Lance Manion
Reason for Termination - We at Penetrode have made a significant effort to integrate Mr. Manion into our organization. Unfortunately, his obsession with "rage" and his tendency to run naked through the office has had a detrimental effect on our organization. Despite repeated warnings, we find it necessary to terminate Mr. Manion's employment at Penetrode.

I immediately ate the notice. I did this for two reasons. One - it quickly and permanently destroyed the evidence. And two - I've been trying to get more fiber. And then I had a moment of inspiration. The rest of HR would still be expecting some sort of notice or direction. So why not replace the termination with something a little better? So I got a blank sheet of paper and wrote of the following notice of promotion and put it in his outgoing mail box.

By using what is possibly the girliest font in existance, I guarantee that the VP will simply deep six the note rather than carry it around.

And the plan appears to have worked, as I've been promoted to Documentation Manager. I can just imagine the look on the VP's face when he gets back from vacation!

LM