Holding On For A Hero

At my previous place of employment aka The Place That Sucked My Soul Like A Cheap Slurpee Through A Straw And Even Used That Spoon Thingie At The End Of The Straw To Scoop Away At The Very Marrow Of My Being (TPTSMSLACSTASAEUTSTATEOTSTSAATVMOMB for short) certain web sites were access denied. For instance, I could not look at DListed.com or Perez Hilton. You Tube was banned as was all streaming videos, sort of like music was forbidden in Footloose. If you tried to go onto one of these banned web sites this is what you got:

And at the bottom it said "Name of Asshole Company Here: ACCESS DENIED!!!" If the IT department could have figured out how to rig a wrangling cow bell to each person's computer I think they would have done just that so when you stumbled across an ACCESS DENIED web site your computer would jangle and lights would go off like a jackpot in Vegas. Only pink slips would tumble out, not coins.

A few months ago the stop signs disappeared. One day a friend of mine at work was at my desk and told me to look up some video on You Tube and I looked at her as if she was Kevin Bacon dancing in a warehouse with a cigarette and a beer. But we can't! I said. No we can! she said, They unlocked all the web sites! But I had seen enough Wile E. Coyotes to know that the cliff of the mesa is always just ahead, that a bundle of TNT awaits and that any product of The Acme Corporation will destroy you in the end.

A week later the stop signs were back and I can't help but wonder what it was all about. An IT glitch? A bar across the border of town with a jukebox? A conspiracy to out web surfers at work? Because I strongly believe that just because you're paranoid doesn't mean someone's not out to get you.

Admittedly I did have a long list of blogs under my favorites at work, aka TPTSMSLACSTASAEUTSTATEOTSTSAATVMOMB, blogs that flew under the radar of ACCESS DENIED. And I perused them often, in the mornings before anyone else got in, at lunch, before and after stressful meetings. I remember thinking that I really had to put them on my own blog or at the very least email them to my home computer. But I had no reason to think I would not be at TPTSMSLACSTASAEUTSTATEOTSTSAATVMOMB for a very long time, that I would not be there long enough to at least memorize the blogs I frequented throughout the day. And now my list of blogs is gone, sucked into the vortex of The Acme Corporation and I am left having run off the edge of the mesa, stuck in the air for that split second before gravity kicks in and I begin my free fall. In this second of float I am holding up a sign like the coyote used to do in those cartoons of my youth. My sign reads: "Fuck. I have lost my list of blogs" and my face is that stricken mix of confusion and absolute clarity.

So if you notice that maybe I haven't posted any comments on your blog lately that's why. Comment here and remind me of your name. Or maybe you want to let me know of a few blogs you think I'd enjoy. Leave a comment and help me build my list once again.

In the meantime I'll be here in my undershirt drinking a beer and doing back flips off the grainery at the mill.