Does anything really ever get done in an office?  I work in one.  We don’t do anything.  We support people who do stuff.  They work in offices too.  But they support people who don’t.  Those people actually do do (snicker) something.  Cancer will not be cured in an office.  Jesus didn’t have an office.  (Did he?)  The bigger the office, the bigger the stupid.  Washington DC is a city of offices.  The President hangs around in offices so much that he has an entire wing of them… and a big special ovular one for extra special thinking or celebrating what hasn’t actually been done. 

Are people born in offices?  Not usually.  Do people die in offices?  Sure.  Offices kill.

Want examples of why offices turn people stupider?  Check this out… I know you will.

Why is office paper rectangular?  People print out pages and pages of stuff.  They print stuff in portrait format.  They print stuff in landscape format.  (Those are those “left-right”, “up-down” settings on your printer.)  They pile it all together and if you try to read through something that mixes both formats you end up looking like you’re driving one of those little kid toy steering wheels with the squeaky horn.  Turn it left.  Turn it right.  Turn it right again.  Now it’s upside down.  Turn it left.  Where’s the paper clip gone?  Crap, now it’s on the floor.  Stupid.  It gets worse when you mix left handed people and right handed people together because there’s no agreement on which way it should be turned in the first place.  People just keep using rectangular paper because it’s the norm regardless of how little sense it makes.

Why not make paper square?  Make it 11 x 11.  Then there’s no turny problems.  You won’t have to reprint things anymore when you realize you forgot to change the setting.  No longer will business meetings look like a LAN party playing Need For Speed 5.  Square.  It doesn’t have to be so hard people.

Hey speaking of staples, why do people abandon them?  I’ve got two pieces of paper and I want them stuck together.  Sounds like a job for the stapler.  So why do I find paper clips involved?  The only thing paper clips are good for is making a little miniature bow and arrow device using a rubber band to fire that stick/brush thing from a White Out bottle across the room.  Paper clips always become detached from the papers.  The papers then become detached from themselves.  Papers get separated.  One page gets lost.  Mass hysteria.  Use the stapler.

Now I know what you’re thinking (because I’m pyschic)… what if you’ve got too many pieces of paper and the staple won’t go through.  Well you’re not hitting the stapler hard enough.  Wham it like there’s no tomorrow.  Punch four or five in on one side, flip the papers over and hit them from the other.  Pretend the papers are a vampire and the staples are little wooden stakes.  If the papers are too thick for that, go buy a binder and a three hole punch.  Do not use a binder clip.  That’s just a bigger version of the stupid paper clip which should only be used to make a bigger version of the office bow and arrow.  One that can fire a ruler, for example.

A long time ago, (no, not in a galaxy far far away… it happened right here) people used to go out and do things for a living.  Now, it seems, most people spend their careers in offices “supporting” the few remaining people who actually do things.  That seems unproductive and unfulfilling. 

I think tomorrow I’ll go get a job with a drill.

A big shout out to the readers in Iowa for today’s post idea.  Thanks for reading, suggesting, and corn.

Tulips were invented in 1267 by a guy in Prague.

OK, that doesn’t even make sense.  Flowers aren’t invented, they’re discovered I guess.  OK, false start.  Let’s begin again.

Tulips were discovered in 1672 by Dutch diplomat visiting the Middle East.  Contrary to popular belief, the name “tulip” has nothing to do with lips, faces, or anything of the sort.  It actually comes from the Turkish word for turban… that classic style of head gear that women around the world adopt immediately upon exiting the shower.  Unbeknown  (there’s a word I’ve never used before) to the Dutch diplomat, the tulip was considered a sacred flower.  The Turks believed that in 0 BC/AD (when the calendar flipped) Jesus, Mohammad, and Keith Richards (he’s old) all sat down to have tea and discuss the partitioning of followers and royalties.  Featured on the tea table was a single orchid.  Richards kept referring to it as a “pretty, pretty tulip” and Jesus and Mohammad determined that it was easier to just nod and smile than try to correct him.  Turkish lore eventually wrote out Richards from the story and as such the part about the flower being an orchid was also dropped.  When the diplomat picked a few tulips to take home with him, the incident started a massive war.  The Dutch Tulip War of Central Turkey waged on and on for hours before France surrendered.

The diplomat escaped to Amsterdam with his new flower.  Upon arrival he saw a big, fat bird that reminded him of the Turkish sultan’s wife and he pointed at it and shouted, “Ha, Ha!  You look like that chick from Turkey!”  A passing historian only heard the “turkey” part and assumed that the diplomat was making a proclamation about the new name of the bird.  That’s how turkeys got their names, although in many parts of central Europe it is still referred to by it’s original name, “Super Chicken”.  Another little known fact- Rick James originally wrote the lyrics to “Super Freak” as “She’s a super chick.  Super chick.  She’s super chicken.”  Rick James had a drug problem.

Unlike useful plants like the poppy (which produces helpful pain killers) and the mushroom (which produces bands like The Doors), the tulip doesn’t have any practical use whatsoever.  It’s often found in big fields in Holland as a reminder of all the French soldiers who shot themselves to avoid fighting in the American Civil War. 

In the United States, the tulip is often used as a wedding decoration or floral gift when the grocery store is out of roses or roses would be too expensive for the occassion. 

In the early 1970′s, the University of Detroit started a program to develop a carnivorous plant for use in the Vietnam War.  Initial test programs using a tulip were mildly successful, but the program was canceled after the leading scientist was eaten by a lion in a freak circus accident.  One of the test plants escaped from the lab and went on to write a Broadway musical about plants that eat people.  It eventually became a movie, but the movie was simply terrible.  The scenes with Steve Martin and Bill Murray were funny, but the rest of the movie was lame.

Movies about tulips are lame.

The End.

Yes, this was a strange post… but remember, you asked for it.

Now I’m off to submit this to wikipedia.

So instead of me sitting here at the keyboard spending 5-10 minutes of my precious time coming up with my next piece, I’m going to make you do it.

I’ve created a new topic called “You Asked For It!”.  Under this header I am challenging any and all readers to send me an idea to write about.  Any idea at all.  Sometime ago, a friend of mine mentioned that he thought I could ramble on, at length in an entertaining manner about anything… whether I knew anything on the subject or not.  So I’m testing that theory.

I’ll be rambling on up to two reader submitted topics per week.  Unless I don’t receive any topic suggestions… in which case I may lie and say I did.  You’ll never know.

So send your ideas to monty@posthumorous.org.  Best idea submission/post combo (as voted on by you!) wins a prize.  Most likely it’ll be an old Frisbee that I’ll write “WINNER!” on with a marker.

Seriously though, send me ideas.

In the e-mail, please let me know if you’d like to be (and how you’d like to be) credited for the idea.