Rock, paper, scissors Championships

Top players from around the globe will gather in Toronto this weekend to compete for a C$10,000 ($8,840) prize and the title of world champion.

More than 500 contestants, including national champions from Australia, Norway and New Zealand.

Tournament organizer Graham Walker said players will have to steel themselves against psychological pressure as players typically form teams to rally each other.

"The team will surround the arena, provide moral support and usually try to intimidate the opponent," said Walker, who is also co-author of "The Official Rock Paper Scissors Guide."

Dancing eunuchs taxing red-faced shopkeepers

KOLKATA, India (Reuters) - Dancing and singing eunuchs are knocking on doors in the Indian city of Patna in a bid to embarrass shopkeepers into paying their taxes.

The new shock strategy, in which sari-clad and heavily made up eunuchs accompany officials on their rounds of crowded shopping areas in a country notorious for tax evasion and non-payment, has been declared a success.

The novel tax-collection technique kicked off Wednesday, with boisterous eunuchs loudly demanding that mortified shopkeepers pay up -- to the bemusement of scores of onlookers.

I wonder if this would work on Wesley Snipes?

My list is actually influenced by a similar list based how the IT industry. However, it’s a great list and though I would add my own since I’ve worked in a position that can be just as stressful and sometimes the worst job to hold in a company. Administrative & Executive Assistance. I have worked with some wonderful people who have truly inspired me. However, I’ve also worked with their evil opposites.

Ways to make your Administrative Assistant & Executive Assistance quit

• Give your Assistant an abundance of projects with tight deadlines so that she / he must work 60 hour week and than go home on time and don’t come in on the weekends.

• Pay your Assistant a salary, this way you won’t have to pay overtime as you would for hourly employees.

• Tell your Assistant that the project isn’t really a big deal but that you don’t have the time to fit it into your schedule. The next day after they have begun working on it, tell them it’s become a priority with the CEO and has to be done in a ridiculous amount of time meeting CEO standards with a budget that can not accommodate the standards.

• Ask you’re Assistant several times for information about the project that you’ve already asked for… such as how much is that going to cost? Can they lower their price (after the company already lowered it twice as a favor to the Assistant) and a personal favorite Can this be changed? Make sure the change is something that will effect the entire project.

• Ask your Assistant to gather creative original ideas wit pricing and samples for marketing free give-aways and than use only the standard free pens and note pads.

• Ask your Assistant to come in early so the two of you can brainstorm ideas and than arrive half an hour after the time you usually get there.

• Always take sides in disputes instead of moderating.

• Go to expensive lunches with the CEO and Sales Representatives bragging about al the great progress YOU have made on the project.

• In meetings (with your Assistant present) ask for opinions from other staff members why they felt the project failed or didn’t do as well. Every time an opinion comes up that your Assistant offered during the creation of the project that you didn’t implement say “Hey that’s a great idea, we’ll have to do that next time”.

• Hire a manager that has an addiction to something and is never in the office and when he / she are in the office they don’t make any logical sense on “Executive” decisions.

• Play favorism towards an employee who does only half the work as your Assistant and is always late returning from their manicure / pedicure appointment.

• Make promises customers and than ask your Assistant to make them happen. When the promises can not be fulfilled blame the assistant and tell the customer it was a manufacture’s error. Especially if your Assistant and the manufacture and your Assistant is on good terms.

• Hire your friends in supervisor type positions and allow them the benefits of managers and spend corporate money on Happy Hour breaks. Than tell your Assistant that there’s no money in the budget to allow her / him a few days off because they really need product M done by {requested day off}.

• Hire an Assistant for your Assistance who has absolutely no job skills whatsoever and but is super cute with a great pair job qualifications.

• Never cross train anybody on anything. The skills they walked in with are the skills they are leaving with. This way your Assistant will feel they can never take off more than a day or two.

• Justify not giving raises because they latest company product didn’t sell as well as they needed it to. Make sure the project was largely handled by your Assistant and includes ideas / marketing strategies that you didn’t implement.

• When your Assistant comes to you with a problem, act concerned but do nothing. This works great if your Assistant is being harassed or utterly annoyed by anther co worker. Don’t let it go too far though…drag it out until you have to take action.

• Create a desk cleanliness policy and than give your Assistant a meaningless task that involves at last 20 different file folders.

• Mandate that women must wear business casual shoes that are not open toes and look business appropriate but tell men its fine if they wear tennis shoes.

• Send employees lots of chain letters, poems and other crap spam when they are hard at work and than make jokes about how employees do nothing but read junk mail al day.

• Blame everything on the CEO because no one will ever tell him / her about it because the CEO is a tyrant, never reachable or always turns the table by saying something like “instead of being part of the problem be part of the solution – give me solutions not problems”.

• Make it mandatory that your Assistant must have a cell phone and be reachable at all times. Than use only their cell phone to contact them and tell them that cell phone charges are not reimbursed.

• Restrict all office calls to a 5 mile local radius and than continually ask them why they haven’t called client XXX back that is located 12 miles away.

• Ask your Assistant to call upset clients & customers to inform them that they will receive a refund, repairs or replacements and than make customers and clients wait for days even weeks for refunds, repairs or replaces and refuse to speak to them when they call.

• Give your Assistant a keyboard with keys that stick.

• Ask your Assistant where she / he were if they are late or if the went to the restroom or just took a 5 minute break.

• Tell your Assistant that because they’re salary they on call 24 / 7

• Tell customers and clients to call your Assistant about items that he / she have absolutely no information on.

• Buy the team lunch and always forget that Vegan in the corner...he'll come around. (provided by dumb little man blog)

• Ask your Assistant for suggestions on how to make the office run more smoothly and than never implement any of the ideas.

• Smoke or eat bad smelling food in your Assistance cubical. Works especially well if your Assistance isn’t a smoker. Or wear cheap perfume / cologne.

• Go on vacation to some exotic or extravagant country and send your Assistant photos of you having a great time.

I have karate class tonight and am currently putting something together regarding Office Acronyms.

I was thinking of a name to use as a example when I thought of Ed Gruberman - the guy from Boot to the head. I did a quick search for it and I found the lyrics. I'll have to download the song for my karate instructor. He has never heard it :0





Teacher: Approach, students. Close the circle at the feet of the master. You have come to me asking that I be your guide along the path of Ti Kwan Leep. But, be warned: To learn its ways, you must learn the ways of your own soul. Let us meditate upon this wisdom now.
So: Aaaaaaooooommm......

Student1 (Ed Gruberman): Uh, sir! Sir! (oo! oo!) Sir!
Teacher: Who disturbs our meditation, as a pebble disturbs the stillness of the pond?
EG: Me! Ed Gruberman?
Teacher: E-Ed Gruberman?
EG: Yeah, uh, no disrespect or nothin', but, like, uh, how long is this gonna take?
Teacher: Ti Kwan Leep is not a path to a door, but a road leading forever towards the horizon.
EG: So like, what, an hour or so?
Teacher: No, no, we have not even begun upon the path. Ed Gruberman, you must learn patience.
EG: Yeah yeah yeah, patience. How long will that take?
Teacher: Time has no meaning. To a true student, a year is as a day.
EG: A YEAR??? I wanna beat people up right now! I got the pajamas! Hah woo yah ooomm!
Teacher: "Beat people up"...?
EG: Yeah! Just show me all those nifty moves so I can start trashing bozos! That's all I came here for! YO ASTA STA STA!!! Pretty good, ey?
Teacher: The only use of Ti Kwan Leep is self-defense. Do you know who said that? Ki Lo Ni, the great teacher.
EG: Yeah? Well the best defense is a good offense, you know who said that? Mel, the cook on "Alice".
Teacher: No, um...Ti Kwan Leep is the wine of purity, not the vinegar of hostility. Meditate upon this truth with us. Aaaaoooommm...
EG: Listen, shrimp! All this fag talk is really starting to piss me off. Now, are you gonna show me some fancy moves, or am I gonna start wapin' the walls with you?
Teacher: Ed Gruberman, you fail to grasp Ti Kwan Leep. Approach me that you might see.
EG: All right! Finally some action!
Teacher: Observe closely, class. Boot to the Head! (SH-ZOOMP!)
EG (drunkenly): Owww! You booted me in the head!
Teacher: You are lucky, Ed Gruberman. Few novices experience so much of Ti Kwan Leep so soon.
EG (quietly, to himself): Ow, oh, my head!
Teacher: Now we continue. Aaaaaoooommmm...
EG: Hey! Hey, I wasn't ready! Come and get me now shorty, huh? Come on, are ya chicken?
Teacher: Boot to the head! (SH-ZOOMP!)
EG (again, drunkenly): Oww! Okay, now I'm ready, okay, now, come on, try it now.
Teacher: Boot to the head! (SH-ZOOMP!)
EG: Mind if I just lie down here for a minute?
Teacher: Now class, we shall return to our...
Student2: Master?
Teacher: It is wrong to tip the vessel of knowledge, student.
Student2: Many apologies, master. But I feel Ed Gruberman is not wholly wrong.
Teacher: What do you mean?
Student2: I want to boot some head, too.
Teacher: Have you learned nothing from the lesson of Ed Gruberman?
Student2: Yes, master. I have learned two things. First, that anger is a weapon only to one's opponent.
Teacher: Very good.
Student2: And secondly, get in the first shot. Boot to the head. (SH-ZOOMP!)
Teacher: You missed.
Student2: Uh, yeah. Well...
Teacher: You too shall be honored to learn a lesson...
Student2: You don't have to, you know. I-I gotta be going...
Teacher: Boot to the head! (SH-ZOOMP!)
Student2 : (agonizing pain) Oyyy oy oyyyy.... Oh....
Teacher: Can anyone tell us what lesson has been learned here?
Student3: Uh, yes, master. Not a single one of us could defeat you.
Teacher: You gain wisdom, child.
Student3: So we'll hafta gang up on ya! Get 'im guys!


(Teacher throws many 'Boot to the head!s' and 'SH-ZOOMP!s'.
There are many people groaning in pain.)

Teacher: And now class, let us rejoin the mind to the body and gaze into the heart of the candle in meditation.
Unison: Aaaaaoooommm....
Teacher: Very good, class.

THE SONG

Yi yi yai yi....

People talking in movie shows,
People smoking in bed!
People voting Republican,
Give them a boot to the head!

Boot to the Head! Nah, nah...
Boot to the Head! Nah, nah...
Boot to the Head! Nah, nah...
Boot to the Head! Nah nah nah... Nah. Nah nah nah...

Mechanics who can't fix a car,
Politicians who can't think!
The salesman who won't leave me alone,
The waiter who forgot my drink!

(Refrain)
Boot to the head! Nah, nah..
Boot to the head! Nah, nah..
Boot to the head! Nah, nah..
BOOT... TO... THE... HEAD!!

Sometimes the mind, for reasons we don't necessarily understand, just decides to go to the store for a quart of milk.
- Diane Frolov and Andrew Schneider

No one really listens to anyone else, and if you try it for a while you'll see why.
- Mignon McLaughlin

Best Inventions of 2006 by Time Online

Transportation Inventions: Tesla Roadster 100

Zero to 60 in 4 sec., tops out at more than 130 m.p.h. and has no gas tank – 100% electric. It is not only drivable but you can put your gas guzzling conscious at ease with this statement against pollution and oil dependence. Stop coughing words; I know what you’re saying!

It’s a sleek small red bulls eye must have for any California Gold Digger.

Home Inventions: Loc8tor

St. Anthony may be losing some of the prayers that are consistently directed his way in locating lost items. With Loc8tor you can attach radio-frequency-emitting tags to your most losable possessions. It homes in to within an inch of your item, while the tag itself emits helpful beeps as you.

Here is the greatest part. I went to the website where they promote the Loc8tor to read the products selling points. Here they are.

Protect your possessions with your personal locator device

• Lost your keys?
• Misplaced your mobile?
• Worried about valuables, pets, or children going astray?

Now you too can add Loc8tor to the collar of your beloved pet and you’ll never lose him again. If your in the need for some entertainment just put Loc8tor in spot he can’t reach such as his favorite magazine or shirt in the cleaning closet and watch him try to remove it… hours of fun. OH and it’s great for dogs too!

The only thing the system can't do is locate the Loc8tor itself. For that you still need St. Anthony. (-Time Online)

Home Inventions: Air Mattress

Best Invention or future lawsuit?

A Dutch designer inspired by the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey has designed the first hovering bed. A sleek slab levitating in midair - unsupported - though lightly tethered at its four corners - 16 in. above the floor.

Its secret is a matching set of repelling magnets built into the bed and the floor below, that's powerful enough to support almost 2,000 lbs. The magnetic fields are supposed to be perfectly safe for sleepers… No comment on other activity… such as eating in bed.

AvailabilityNow for ONLY $1.5 million

Meals Inventions: CrustaStun

Forget Got Milk? That’s totally passé Tomorrow’s catch line will be along the lines of

Shock em & eat em!

A British barrister devised a kinder way to kill lobster and other live sea creatures. His CrustaStun electrocutes them with a 110-volt shock, dispatching them in about five seconds, vs. the two minutes it takes in hot water. A commercial version is already being used by a pair of seafood wholesalers in Britain. A smaller, home version measuring about 1.5 feet in width and depth will possibly be available by year's end. (-Time Online)

I could take this in a really demented direction… but I’ll a reader travel that road.

It’s only going downhill from here.

Clothing Invention: Amazing Embrace

Remember how cool it was to be beamed by anther PDA? OK, it really wasn’t that cool for me since I got beamed by an anonymous stranger on a San Francisco bus while playing a PDA game… it was actually pretty creepy… So let’s just pretend it was cool.

The Hug Shirt, a high-tech garment that simulates the experience of being embraced by a loved one.

Embedded in the shirt are sensors that feel the strength of the touch, the skin warmth and the heartbeat rate of the sender and actuators that recreate the sensation of touch, warmth and emotion of the hug to the shirt of the distant loved one.

I smell sexual harassment lawsuits already.

When a friend sends you a virtual hug, your cell phone notifies the shirt wirelessly, via Bluetooth. The shirt then re-creates that person's distinctive cuddle, replicating his or her warmth, pressure, duration and even heartbeat. And, yes, the Hug Shirt is fully washable.
(– Time Online)

The website says
Why the Hug Shirt?

The Hug Shirt is not meant to replace human contact, but to make you happy if you are away for business or other reasons and you miss your friends and loved ones! It also has some very interesting applications in the medical field with the elderly and children. And is fun to use and very soft!

Toys Inventions: Magic Message Mirror (winner) & Talking Pirate Skull

Here is something to take away the creepy feeling from the last two inventions.

Magic Message Mirror & Talking Pirate Skull was Created by a Hollywood special-effects expert, and is designed to be integrated with your home-security and home-automation networks. Think Bill Gates…. It looks like an ordinary mirror most of the time, but when it's activated, an ethereal face appears on its surface, and it makes timely pronouncements in the voice of a snooty English butler…

• A car has arrived in your driveway
• The Jacuzzi is warm

I have a question. Can I change the voice to sound like my current celebrity lust object? If yes, I’ll consider it...I just need to keep an eye out for anyone driving the Tesla Roadster 100.

Dead woman wins county commissioner's race

S.D. candidate gets 100 votes; official says voters knew she was deceased!

PIERRE, S.D. 2006 The Associated Press. - A woman who died two months ago won a county commissioner's race in Jerauld County on Tuesday.

Democrat Marie Steichen, of Woonsocket, got 100 votes, defeating incumbent Republican Merlin Feistner, of Woonsocket, who had 64 votes.

Jerauld County Auditor Cindy Peterson said she believes the county board will have to meet to appoint a replacement for Steichen. Peterson said she'll check with the state's attorney to be sure that's the process.
Peterson said voters knew Steichen had died.

"They just had a chance to make a change, and we respect their opinion."

Monday Night - Naturally caffeinated people are not made for traditional yoga.

As some may or may not know…. I’m taking karate and I am ridiculously not flexible. Last week I stretched out with a girl (16 or 17 years old) who was crazy flexible. So I decided I was going to try yoga again in hopes that I could be a bit more flexible.

Torture comes in many disguises and yoga is one of them.

The exercise room was dim and the music was traditional meditation and the teacher was stereo-typical Mad magazine yogi. I kept looking around thinking ok where are the hidden cameras, who is famous in this class and where is Ashton Kutcher hiding?

The stretches were not so bad, I do a couple of them in karate but the time to hold them was too much and than the teacher would forget to tell us to switch sides. He may want to forgo the Peace Pipe before teaching classes. At one point, a lot of women who apparently were doing a particular stretch correctly looked like a group of crabs that were missing a leg on each side.

Welcome to Crab Amputee Anonymous - where we don’t judge you any differently for having only 4 legs… and no shell and no claws… oh wait these were mostly women we have claws.

Back to yoga

So as if were not already in these strange formations of human Gumby arrangements he would go around to different people or just at will say things like “how are you doing today? Are you ok? Is all well? Lets all be at peace. Just let everything flow. “

One of the things he said and I’m sorry (sorta of), I did chuckle out loud… He would say “lets do this for 10 breaths or not, who knows, who am I say, do what you can”

WTF? You’re the one to say because you’re the instructor.

I thought my Thursday night karate instructor was a sadistic… no he’s just tough. With my wacky imagination, I can totally picture this guy going through 3 hours (3 different classes) of yoga filled with peace and love and reaching towards spiritual wholeness and than going home to put on his leather and fetish wear next to his Goodie Closet and giving instructions of a whole different meaning.

Ya know…. That stripper dance aerobic class doesn’t sound so wacky anymore.

I don’t know why but sometimes I can be a bit too apathetic. My keyboard wasn’t a great thing to work on and even Hurricane in a can didn’t work. So I finally asked for a new one and I now have a fancy nacy sleek black ergonomic moon curved keyboard with all sorts of functions I have absolutely no clue how to use or what they’re for. But it looks cool and I look edu ma cated and pro fess shon al.

So I’m thinking of how I can use my personal life to write blog entries that add more personal touch without going into irrelevant, even un-necessary or in a manner that is “ uncouth”. I would like to think I have a knack for making uncomfortable experience into something a bit more humorous and animated.

Sunday night I took a chance (at least for me) and went to a very mundane Lady’s Night Out. The first thing I noticed was that the two women who were there were very clean cut, (TV show) OC looking with stylish casual clothes and had beautifully and statically placed honey blonde highlights that was perfectly styled in a look that looked comfortable and easy… which never is. And here I was with my very dark hair pulled in a tight ponytail and wearing all black (casual) with my comfy Converse tennies. I was thinking “Oh lord what have I got myself into?” I couldn’t sneak back out the door as the bar is small well lit and they were sitting directly to the right. “ahhhh crap”. So I did the only thing I could do… I turned around and ran like Hell was after me……… just kidding.

I joined in with what was actually a small group of about 3 other people and all looking very OC… There were these two guys who so badly wanted to be part of our Lady’s night. The first guy was nice enough but when you wear a shirt that says “Cheap” Hmmmm that is really all I need to know about you. He was waiting for his date and I just couldn’t help but think “you dressed yourself didn’t you?” Come on guys, you do not want to wear a shirt that says Cheap on a date and especially not a first date. Than again, the first date should not be at a bar unless (and this is only if you are 75% sure) that the women wants the after bar result…

The second guy was a kiwi (New Zealand) and he was actually pretty cute… until he spoke. To make a long story short… I ended up having a great time. The bar owner who had arranged the Lady’s Night Out is super friendly and easily got all of us talking and chatting and it genuinely felt like an old fashioned Lady’s Night Out. I promised to come back next Sunday to have something called an Irish Car Bomb. She said next Sunday she would go behind the bar and make it personally for a women and I who had never had one.

She recently bought the bar and has put some great feminine touches on it while keeping the bar looking like a place both men and women could feel was their own.

Sometimes I lie awake at night, and I ask, "Where have I gone wrong?"/ Then a voice says to me, "This is going to take more than one night."
- Charles M. Schulz

When they call the roll in the Senate, the Senators do not know whether to answer 'Present' or 'Not guilty.'
- Theodore Roosevelt