I think my plant may be retarded. I've been watching it for a while now, and things just don't seem to be going well with it. I know that it's getting enough water, and though the lighting isn't perfect, it's no worse than what the other plants that were handed out that day are getting, and they all seem to be doing fine. It's possible that I put mine too close to the computer monitor, and that's affecting it somehow. It's also possible that the plant is simply retarded, and was born that way, and it's not my fault, because I never asked to be responsible for a plant, which is a point that I cannot stress enough in the overall context of the plant's life expectancy.

UNFOUNDED RUMORS BASED ON MY HAVING NOTICED THAT THE BAND RUSH IS TOURING THIS SUMMER

Hey, did you hear that Rush is on tour this summer? Make sure you don't leave your stuff lying around. I hear those guys are big into taking shit and then claiming that since they found it, it's theirs.

I am currently mired in a bland yet forceful case of seasonal allergies. I had a bit of a row with the rabbi over the phone about whether I was blaming the Jewish people for my allergies. Man, I wasn't. I keep forgetting to pronounce the 'h' in his first name as a guttural consonant, and I think he's reading something into that. I thought about marrying someone from Iceland and bringing her around the office all the time as a retaliatory gesture, but I think that would be playing right into his hands. Please, could you stop the noise? I'm trying to get some rest.

IDEA FOR A BOOK / STRATEGIES TO CONFOUND THE CURSE OF POST-MODERNISM

Conduct extensive personal interviews with guys who work at car washes. Any time the conversation strays from their work at the car wash, steer it back that way. For publication, replace every adjective and adverb with its direct opposite, and change the names of those involved to prevent lawsuits. As a follow-up, publish the original, unaltered interviews. Assign a junior editor to track whether rivalries of any sort develop between the participants and their negative selves. If so, hire them at high salaries to work at "The All-Star Car Wash", and promote the business as being staffed by the guys from the book. Make a profit, and refuse to speculate why it has been a success, outside of interviews poorly translated from French, which are, themselves, poorly translated from English.

Anyway, I need a new job, one where God comes up less often. I am really not a God-talkin' kind of guy. I did a brief search for my dream job, and all that came up was bullshit.

ODE TO VARIOUS OGRES

Various ogres
Various ogres, various ogres
Fuck off, Hope
Various ogres

Do you think it would be construed as aggressive to post a list of the martial arts I know in my cubicle? I am just trying to make the place feel more home-y, since I seem to be stuck here, and my retarded plant is depressing the shit out of me.

MORE UNFOUNDED RUMORS BASED ON MY HAVING NOTICED THAT THE BAND RUSH IS TOURING THIS SUMMER

Hey, did you hear that Rush is on tour this summer? I hear that Alex Lifeson hunted down kids from the suburbs and subsisted on nothing but their blood while they were writing the "Subdivisions" album. Not for inspiration or anything, just because Neil Peart convinced him that the overall cost of doing that was cheaper than eating actual food, and he wanted to save up for a new naugahyde recliner.

Fine. Developmentally-disabled plant.

GREATEST MOVIE CHARACTERS OF ALL TIME, UPDATED RANKINGS

1 Yoda, Star Wars
2 Charles Foster Kane, Citizen Kane
3 General Zod, Superman II
4 Monkey, MVP: Most Valuable Primate II
5 Guy from obscure French film

Also receiving votes:
Cast, The Big Lebowski; Bear, A.I.: Artificial Intelligence; Monkey, MVP: Most Valuable Primate; Tom Waits, various; Guy from obscure Iranian film.

There are player-haters, of course, who will call me shallow for ranking the monkey from MVP II over the guy from the obscure French film. To that charge, I can only respond, "Fabricated biting incident." (Note.) Tomorrow, player-haters across the world will renounce their ways. Tomorrow! God! The greatest of days!

THE CONTINUING SAGA OF UNFOUNDED RUMORS BASED ON MY HAVING NOTICED THAT THE BAND RUSH IS TOURING THIS SUMMER

Hey, did you hear that Rush is on tour this summer? It's a little known fact that Van Gogh cut off his ear because Geddy Lee's voice has actually existed since the beginning of time, and...