proposed ceo perk cutbacks

Time to tighten our belts. The following list of perks will be slowly phased out over the next 36 months:

• Fluffers
• Whisky fountain
• Personal Sherpas
• Fanny powderers
• Seventy-three brown-eyed virgins (on retainer)
• Animitronic lobby dragon
• Fudge moat
• McMuffins
• Nap time
• Afternoon Magic Show
• Lunchroom “Lazy River”
• Corey Feldman
• Egg-drop balcony
• 2 of the pencil sharpening journeymen
• Seven day weekends
• Bagels
• Luge sharpening service
• Elevator massage team
• Pants-optional Thursdays
• Personalized theme-song hold music
• “Liposuction and You” presentation
• “You the man! How can I be the man? When you the man?” chanters
• “Get out of Jail Free” cards
• Washroom “Wishing Well”
• Butter Sculpterer
• Alchemist
• Safety Goggles
• The “Clapper”
• Foghat Reunion Show
• Corporate Greeter: Darius Rucker
• Weekend of Cake
• Lint-removal specialists
• Tear-away jerseys
• Todd Bertuzzi
• Holodeck
• Your horse-whisperer
• Ye Olde Buggy Whip Shoppe
• Frappuccino®
• The “utility” closet (wink wink)
• Wednesday evening snipe hunt
• A set of steak knives
• Hat-check boy
• Coat-check girl
• The elves (all of them)
• The honor bar
• Solid Gold coffee “challices”
• Those mini-marshmallows for your hot cocoa
• Your Haliburton corporate accounts
• Rooftop rollercoaster
• The “Vic Tayback” memorial kitchenette
• Avril’s Angst seminar
• Turkish taffy
• Complimentary monkey diapers and changing service
• The number “11” from your phones
• Mistletoe ceiling panels
• Helium
• White board markers (you’ll need to bring your own)

(I came up with this list for a project that LeROIduPLYWOOD is working on)

i’ve been thinking about writing a novel

It’s been a dream of mine for as long as I can remember and I’m going to give it a whirl. As I was rummaging around the ol’ ‘net tonight I came across an interesting site – How to Write a Novel in 100 Days or Less. I’m not too antsy to get it done that quickly, but there were a few things that I fond very useful towards getting me going. I’ve always considered my life too cluttered with the glorious trappings of family and career to be able to get this done, but John Coyne relays the following tidit which has pushed me over the brink: Yes, you have a job. Yes, you have a family. Neither have stopped great writers in the past. The poet Wallace Stevens was a vice president of an insurance company and an expert on the bond market. The young T.S. Eliot was a banker. William Carlos Williams was a pediatrician. Robert Frost was a poultry farmer. Hart Crane packed candy in his father’s warehouse, and later wrote advertising copy. Stephen Crane was a war correspondent. Marianne Moore worked at the New York Public Library. James Dickey worked for an advertising agency. Archibald MacLeish was Director of the Office of Facts and Figures during World War II.

Jesus. I’m just a web developer. I think I can carve out some time early in the morning or late at night to get this done. I have had a few ideas kicking around in my head for the past ten years. Yes, some of them are not conducive to a novel, but others might be.

I had planned on the doing the National Novel Writing Month in November this year, but why wait? I can’t wait to map some things out over the next few days and try to whip up a work schedule that won’t cut into family time too much. I think my best time is the late evening, but I;m going to give the mornings a try also and see what works best.

I’ll keep you up to date on how it’s going.