Desk Monkey (camera phone)
Originally uploaded by rustedrobot.

This monkey has been with me now for over five years. For all five of my years at Ask.com, it has stood on my desk, devotedly offering my business card to any takers. I think it’s meant to hold playing cards, but who knows. It was given to me by my old boss from the late ’90s, Kristin Lieb, who is now a longtime friend and fellow maniacal appreciator of music. Her zest for all things campy and ridiculous always manage to crack me up good. I mean, she truthfully enjoys those movies with the Chucky doll. One time, she gave me a keychain of a small pig and when you squeezed it, a little poop came out of it’s butt. Yes, I still have it. Indeed, we’ve shared some good laughs.

Anyway, sometimes we can all identify with the desk monkey, you know? I’m feeling that way this week. When you work at a job and sit in front of a computer behind a desk, there are just some days when you ask yourself what it’s all for. Honestly, though, I can’t complain. The company I work for treats me terrific. But it has nothing to do with the job or the company – it’s just the typical waxing and waning we all go through when it comes to satisfaction. Some days you wish it was all different. Today I looked at the monkey and I thought “I feel just like him.

Random thoughts:
– I was pretty delighted by the litany of “guiltys” flying out of the mouths of Houston jurors today as the Enron verdicts were read. You know what though? I don’t want Skilling and Lay to go to jail. You know what I want? I want the judge and jury to clean them out of all thier money, then order them to work in Wal-Mart or Taco Bell (no promotions, either) until their bodies simply give out. I see no real reason to let them sit in jail with books, three square meals and plenty of sleep. Let them slug it out and try to survive on those wages. That would rule.

– Well, it’s May, and you know what that means. No, my birthday has already gone by, but thanks for remembering. It means I start really paying attention to the NHL. Everyone knows that the only truly passioniate hockey occurs during the playoffs and I’ve become addicited to the Edmonton-Anaheim series like a metrosexual on lattes. Tonight’s game was another thriller, even though the score may not seem it.

– Harry S. Truman biography update: I’m on page 123. That’s 12% of the way through, for those of you scoring at home. McCollough is a masterful writer. I read his writing and I think to myself “why do I even bother trying?”

– It is now confirmed: the world is is going to hell.