So there are all these weird sounds at my office that no one else seems to pay attention to. Every few days there’s a crying baby, which is odd, because there’s no child care in here or anything, and there doesn’t seem to be any pattern to it. And there’s this guy with an extremely loud cackle of a laugh, which you can hear anywhere on the floor, but only I seem to think his laugh is funny and mock it. Or maybe only I am juvenile. And there’s also a bird chirp sometimes, which is pretty bizarre, it sounds like the bird is in the room, not on the windowsill or something. I guess someone could have an extremely lifelike phone ring, but in that case, change your damn ring! It’s annoying. And I’m sure people have told you that already. Sometimes the phones seem to reset and go to super-mega loud volume for the rings, which is pretty annoying. So you hear then “BRAARRR BRARRR” and then “shit!” and someone turns it down. And then there’s a really loud alarm that just goes off for no reason apparently, and no one seems to mind. “Oh, we’re being burglarized again. Wait until he leaves.” Sometimes it goes off for a couple minutes before someone shuts it off, or it goes off or whatever. And no one ever seems to notice that someone is knocking on the door except me, so even though I am 10 cubicles from the door, I always open it, and then people are pissy because I took so long. “Whatever, if you aren’t cool enough to get a magnetic card to swipe yourself in, then you aren’t worth hurrying,” is my response. Well, that’s the response I think of. I don’t usually say it.

So I was bumming around the internet and saw a news article about a big dog winning the Westminster dog show, which I guess is cool, because I don’t like little yappy dogs. Anyway, I was reading the article and I was reminded how stupid show dogs’ names are. The dog that won is called “Josh” but it’s real name is “Ch Darbydale's All Rise Pouchcove.” That sounds like a brand of yeast, not the name of a dog. And what is a Pouchcove? Why would you name anything that? And furthermore, how do you get “Josh” out of that? If you’re going to call a dog “Josh” and you insist on giving it a fancy long name why not make its real name “Joshua Smith,” or whatever your last name is. Or “Sir Joshua”? That sounds fancy and isn’t stupid. But then looking at the site some more, that dogs’ parents are named “Ch Midnight Lady's Especially For You” and “Ch Darbydale's Shake'm Up,” which are again more stupid-ass names. I understand a lot of these names incorporate the dog’s parents’ names, but still, those names were stupid to start with. And looking through the list of dogs entered, I think it’s funny that under “Sex:” it’s either “bitch” or “dog.”

"So, what sex is that poodle?"
"It’s a dog."
"Don't be an asshole, just tell me."

Here are some more names that were more ridiculous than most: Ch Yakee Leaving Me BreathlessAtFranshaw, Ch Sim-Pa Lea's Razzmatazz, and Ch Ale Kai Mikimoto On Fifth. What is the purpose of “On Fifth” in that name? Is Ale Kai Mikimoto really that popular of a name that you need to differentiate which street the dog is from? And then there’s my all-time favorite, Ch Clussexx Three D Grinchy Glee, which makes no sense whatsoever. Although at least that dog’s dad was named Three D Genghis Khan. If you lose the Three D, then Genghis Khan is, finally, a good name for a dog. I think if these people spent more time training their dogs and less giving them names, these dogs would be saving more drowning kids than if Lassie joined the Coast Guard. Or they'd be herding lots of sheep or whatever dogs are supposed to do.

So I don't understand some of these Grammy categories: there's album of the year, song of the year, and record of the year. Album of the Year was "Speakerboxx/The Love Below? by Outkast, which I think is a great album and deserves the award. Song of the Year was a Luther Vandross song I've never heard before, so whatever. But then what is Record of the Year supposed to mean? It was a Coldplay song, "Clocks," not a record. To me, a record is an album, and song is just one song. Unless "Record" to the grammy people means "single," as in the $5 CD with the song and a remix or some other unreleased stuff on it, and song just means that one song. But that's stupid. I would think that almost no one buys a "record" for the other stuff on the single, and if they do, then maybe the song wasn't that good in the first place. It seems to me that the Grammy people just want to be able to give more awards out. Why not make "CD of the Year" and give it to some country music person so that everybody is happy and can take home an important-sounding award? I don't get it. And further confusing things, the White Stripes's "Seven Nation Army" won for "Best Rock Song." But wouldn't Coldplay's song (the "record" "Clocks") be considered a rock song? Can the big winners not win the smaller awards? And the Foo Fighters won Best Rock Album while the White Stripes won Best Alternative Album. The White Stripes aren't rock? It doesn't make any sense. What is alternative anymore? The Foo Fighters used to be alternative. If you sell so-many-million records (or albums or whatever the hell they are calling them), do you lose "alternative" status? I obviously don't understand their arcane-ass categories. And there's also "Best Rock Vocal Performance," which I only hope means live performances or their singing talent. Otherwise I'm going to go crazy.

And I didn't see most of the show, because Prince's salute to himself was getting boring, but I did manage to see an awesome acceptance speech, it was for Outkast, I forget which award. The camera pointed into the crowd like it knew where the Outkast guys were, and everybody was looking around, but nobody stood up for awhile. The camera showed some more stuff, they played a second Outkast song and then finally Andre 3000 came out, got the award, said "Thank you," did the peace sign, and walked off. It was pretty funny. I have been looking around the internet to see why they didn't come out earlier, and where Big Boi was, but no luck so far. Maybe they were in the bathroom or smoking dope or something. Or maybe it was on purpose. Either way, funny stuff.

so check it out:

i made that at the Church Sign Generator

so i'm really getting sick of this atkins diet stuff, they're taking over the world. i hope it's a fad, because it seems like every place I go now has low-carb stuff and pizza chains are talking about cutting carbs out of their dough. It's like the no carb people are making everybody else change their eating habits. I guess that's how smokers feel when they can't smoke in bars. well, that sucks. but at least I can watch sporting events and see breasts. i hope that's a new fad too, and i think that'd be a fair trade off. if you are going to make my pizza dough out of soy or vegetables or something, start showing hooties during sports. I'd accept that.