I worked from home without permission today, but no one seemed to object. I think I am getting a wee bit of bad attitude. Just a wee bit though.

1. The crows have invaded my neighborhood. Literally a hundred or so of them hanging around going GRAWWWWWWWK all day. They’re fascinating, yet loud and annoying.

2. The I.T. departments at large companies are the last vestige of the old Soviet Empire.

3. It’s too bad that Saddam’s deadline falls on St. Patrick’s day. You know he’d rather be drinking green beer at Ba’athy O’Shea’s that night.

4. I want to be free! Like the bird, like the bee! Oh, why am I classed with the mammals?

5. I really really like this beer-cheddar bread I’ve been making. Like. Obsessively.

http://www.mcdonalds.com/countries/usa/food/nutrition/mcmeal/index.html

McDonalds is happy to introduce a new way to become a huge fat diabetic lardbucket.. the CYBER WAY!!!

I just consumed (virtually), a yogurt dessert, a small fries, and a big mac. 1180 calories. Please kill me now.

I await the Fatburger “Just Eat a Bucket of Chili already” flash movie or the Olive Garden’s “Dying of high blood pressure just like Mama back in Milano” java applet.

I don’t like being up doing work so late that I hear the paper hit the door.

Via jwz we have this appalling story: http://abcnews.go.com/wire/US/reuters20030304_651.html

Great. Mall cops are determining our reality. Gulag, meet food court.

Due to the kind folks at culinaryparts.com I have a new bread pan for my machine, so I’m currently in production on a loaf of honey whole wheat flax bread. Mmmmm. It’s amazing how much easier this process is with a nonleaking pan in the bread machine.

Not only did everything technical break at my job this week, but several good people are leaving which makes me sad. All for good reasons (they got other jobs where they wanted to live, etc.) but the last bunch that left haven’t yet been replaced. You’d think that in this dreadful eConomy it would be easy to find good programmers, project managers etc. but apparently not.

Learn Braille Online?

I hope it doesn’t make your screen bumpy. Courtesy trinnit

Looks like Easter falls on Hitler’s birthday this year. What’s a good Nazi mom to do, with two holidays at once and the little ones clamoring for fun?

Some suggestions:

• Paint the names of nearby nations on eggs before they hide them, so kids can get the fun of the egg hunt and learn about hegemony, too!
• This year, get a solid white chocolate bunny.
• Make a jellybean swastika cake and cut it with an SS dagger! Careful, keep little hands away from sharp things.
• Instead of the boring sunrise service, move into the New Millennium with a rousing hymn to resurrected Norse gods, and then burn some ..foreigners.. in effigy. The kids can help by making a piñata of one of the Mud Races!

Remember: keep it fun, and keep it Pure!

An unexpected problem being a African-American activist in Orange, County, CA: ‘The biggest problem is actually locating the sisters’.

She seems like a nice lady. I hope she finds all 10 black people in Orange County.

From Reuters newswire. I await the “girls of Dennys” and/or the “Hunks of the International Occupying Army of Iraq” issues.

Playboy Looking for ‘Women of Starbucks’
Thu February 27, 2003 04:28 PM ET
By Sue Zeidler

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Lattes aren’t the only steamy things at Starbucks these days. Much to the chagrin of Seattle-based Starbucks Corp., Playboy Magazine has issued an alert: “Calling all coffee-making cuties!” to pose nude for an upcoming issue featuring the “Women of Starbucks.”

With the application process already percolating, the chain of more than 6,200 coffee shops worldwide, is anything but thrilled with the cattle call by the adult magazine to its coffee-making employees, known as baristas.

The company on Thursday offered a frosty statement: “Starbucks Coffee Company is aware that Playboy Enterprises has issued a call for entries for a ‘Women of Starbucks’ section in a future magazine. Starbucks is not affiliated with this project and does not endorse it. All further inquiries should be directed to the contact at Playboy, Theresa Hennessey.”

Hennessey, at Playboy Enterprises Inc.’s Chicago headquarters, said the magazine was already getting a lot submissions for the issue. “Starbucks is such a big part of American pop culture, and Playboy is always trying to stay on top of the latest trend so it seemed like a natural fit, especially with all the beautiful women there,” she said.

Hennessey said that while Playboy had not approached Starbucks beforehand, it was sensitive to copyright and trademark issues.

FAIR USE, FAIR PLAY, FAIR PLAYBOY

“However we use or title the piece, we’ll be using it within the boundaries of fair use of trademark law. By saying ‘Women of Starbucks,’ that’s using it an a descriptive manner within the boundaries of fair use,” she said.

“If the girls want to submit their photos and want to do something in their off time, they should be able to do that.”

The application deadline is April 1 for a publication date likely before the end of 2003.

“The photo department will sift through the applications and will narrow it down and try to see who would be the best representatives to put in a pictorial. Typically we have about 10 to 15 women for a themed pictorial in an issue,” she said.

In recent years, Playboy has scored big with other corporate-themed pictorials such as “The Women of Enron,” as well as 7-Eleven.