120degrees.com

During a public protest, just hours before Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi visited a Tokyo shrine to war dead, Twenty South Korean men gave him the finger....literally.

Each of the men took turns, chopping off their little finger with small guillotines laid on the ground after shouting slogans against Koizumi’s plan to visit the Yasukuni Shrine. Cutting off a little finger is a method Japan’s "yakuza" mobsters use to atone for mistakes.

10 questions by Melissa

1. Open up your CD player, what’s inside?
Dave Matthews Band: Everyday

2. Look in your VCR, is there a movie?
nope, TiVo or DVD usually

3. If there happens to be music playing right now, what is it?
MP3’s from converted old Pentium box

4. What are you wearing?
faded Levi’s, polo from Eddie Bauer

5. Look down, what’s the first thing that catches your eye?
Some cool stickers I received in the mail

6. Turn on your TV if it’s not on already, what network is it?
ABC

7. Look out the window, what’s the weather like?
Hot, really humid and overcast. Expecting monsoon rains tonight

8. If you were to hit redial on your phone right now, where would it call?
Other than my dialup ISP, a rep at Putnam Investments

9. Say “hello?“ out loud, did anyone answer?
Nope- I’m the only one home

10. What are you planning on doing next as soon as you get offline?
Go get the mail and call a friend

Speaking of TiVo, did you know they sold antenna balls, stuffed dolls and lunch boxes? Me neither.

How To Be A Lazy Bastard by Edward Champion, has some excellent pointers for the aspiring lazy bastard or laid-off dot-commer.

Make sure you scroll down to Every URL Has Its Price.
[via: booboolina]

Mile-High club loses 2 members. An elderly couple who chartered a small plane on the pretext of having sex in the sky died when the plane plunged into the sea off the Florida Keys after they tried to hijack it to Cuba. A small tour company called Fly Key West, advertises "Mile High Club" tours on it’s website for people who want to have sex in a plane. "Once we were up in the air…they demanded to be taken to Cuba", said pilot Thomas Hayashi. A scuffle ensued causing the pilot to lose control of the plane, plunging it into the waters between Key West and Cuba.

Adding insult to the injury of this past week at work, my car battery died Friday. I drove to work as usual, nothing out of the ordinary. As I parked my car at work and cracked the window a bit, I noticed the power windows were a bit lethargic. Around noon, I went out to my car to start it, thinking maybe the battery was going down. Just as I had thought…nothing. Not a crank, no turnover…nothing. I wasn’t too surprised though, from experience living here in Arizona. Car batteries just don’t last. No matter what kind/brand you buy, you’ll only get about a year or so out of your battery (if you’re lucky).

Back when I lived in the Midwest, at least you were offered a warning of sorts when you started your car. Also, your battery usually only went dead in the middle of winter. Not here. No warning, just a little "surprise" for you later. It was no big deal really, I got a jump from a co-worker and purchased a new one on the way home.

three things I see:

1. The Gengar Pokemon character with light up eyes, staring at me on top of my monitor.
2. A printout of a story by Keith on my cubicle wall.
3. A multi-colored Hawaiian lei, hanging from a calendar. A reminder from a past "Hawaiian Day" here at work.

three things I hear:

1. My small desk fan sitting on a shelf beside me.
2. Mouse clicks coming from the other side of the cubicle wall.
3. The beeping from an unoccupied computer, announcing it has completed it’s task.

three things I smell:

1. A fresh peach sitting in front of my keyboard, waiting to be consumed shortly.
2. Peanut M&M’s from a Dilbert candy dispenser on my desk.
3. The dampness and humidity from a previous rain outside.

three things I feel:

1. The breeze from the fan sitting on my shelf.
2. My hair touching the top of my ears as it has grown too long, to be shortened tomorrow.
3. Tired, lazy and listless from the heat and humidity. Pretty much like this.

three things I taste:

1. Pepsi One from the can on my desk.
2. Peanuty-goodness from earlier said peanut M&M’s.
3. How good that peach is going to taste.

How not to wash your cat. COPENHAGEN - A kitten which jumped into a washing machine unnoticed by its owner survived a 20-minute tumble in piping hot water.

Well, yesterday was a rather unnerving day at work. Along with the recent departure of our CEO and COO stepping down, it was another day of the "restructuring" kind.

Now for a little background. The company I work for has 2 main locations, one in the west and one in the east. Out here in the west, the median age of our group is somewhere between 25-35. We are thinkers, do-ers and will try about any idea that seems like it could work. Out east, it’s a different story. The median age is close to 45-65 and they more of the "but, we’ve always done it this way" variety. Even though the company preaches to be one as a company between both locations. We are treated more as the red-headed step-child to them, when we are really a parent to them. Not even to mention that produce the same amount of product and sales if not more, while staffing 1/3 to 1/2 the amount of employees their location has.

Anyway, today our newly-appointed President (from the other location) came out with several other members of management for a little restructuring session. Let go yesterday was our General Manager and President of our location (also my boss), the CFO, the CIO and another CIO/Special Project Manager. This was a means to boost the bottom end and make the company profitable in the 4Q. We also had one of those "will all employees please report to the large conference room" meetings to assure us that no one else was scheduled to be let go. Of course we HAVE had meetings like that in the past where they cut the entire inside sales department with the drop of the hat.

I just have a hard time with a lot of the procedures and believing what we’re told to be true. So many times we’ve been told that the changes made were in the best interest of the company. It would help relations between the two locations to gel as one. But on the other hand, whenever there are changes in management or positions the norm seems otherwise. Rather than move up someone from our location, they would rather hire internally at their location, or hire from outside.

Another problem or possible coincidence brought up by a (female) coworker was the new managment recently put in place with the changes. The four management positions that were disolved all happened to be male. The new managers? All female. I’m not pointing fingers or anything and this is not a problem. It just bothers me a bit to know that all of the previous positions had been interviewed separately, at different times by different people and were picked as being the best person for the position. This new crew consists of the new President and other positions which she moved people up from previous positions within the company, all at once. One would assume that if "person A" leaves, then the next person in line for the position would be "person B". This isn’t the case in a few of the positions, which makes me worry. It’s not a problem of having a woman in that position, I worry about who the person is, male or female, and are they the best choice? Are they really the best qualified person for the position, or were they moved up for convenience?

*whew!*....So now, where does that leave me and my co-worker? Boss-less? We were informed of our new manager and that we would be keeping the same duties in the Graphics Department. We will have to just wait and see how this turns out. My thoughts are, that it is the beginning of the end. Until then, I am remaining pessimistically optimistic.

Derek relaunches the new site for his new book, using new software designed by Ben.