In the 300 B.C., years before the birth of black Jesus, Aristole postulated that all good things were made of “win.” That was a pretty good guess, but he was drunk and probably also having an orgy. Modern day awesominers know there are actually 118 fundamental “awesoments” that compose all good things. The Periodic table of Awesoments can be a very useful tool. It’s designed to show the relationships between awesoments, and often one can even predict how awesoments interact simply by their positions on the table.

The Periodic Table of Awesoments

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I loves me my gmail. Now the goog is testing out some new features, and allowing all users to participate. TechCrunch has a detailed rundown here, but all you really need to know is there is now a new tab on the settings bar, “Labs.” From here you can enable new beta features that will possibly become fully functional gmail features in the future (largely based on user response). New ExFeats^{® ™} (my nonsensical-sounding invented name for this that I just created here and now, beware my wrath Google) are expected to be added somewhat regularly.

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This is one of the funniest things I’ve seen in a while.
Banana Mascot Scares People To Death

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Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez has resigned today. This being the second recent senior Bush Administration to submit walking papers in the past few weeks. The political wheels are finally coming off of the Bush war-wagon.

What does this indicate is happening to this Administration? Is the President finally accepting defeat? Are these resignations finally the Administrations way of saying, “Yep. We couldn’t do it ram it down everyone’s throats. We tried, we said 9-11 lot, and we showed a lot of gore on the TV, but the people still wouldn’t go for it.”

I am not sure if these resignations indicate a duck and cover strategy or if they are simply trying to put some distance between the most divisive of Bush’s cronies and the election in 2008. With Rumsfeld, Gonzalez and Rove all out of the public eye over a year before the next election, I suspect it will make people think the Republicons ain’t so bad. Especially if the cost of a gallon of gasoline starts to drop dramatically right before the next election.

I predict that gasoline will drop to about $1.45 to $1.55 per gallon right around Halloween of 2008.

Do any 8n5ers have any predictions or theories as to why Bush is throwing in the towel?

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It’s a dog-eat-dog world. It’s a jungle out there. It’s now what you know, it’s who you know. It’s not who you know, it’s who you blow. All of these clichés are valid if you work in a cubicle farm. If your cubicle farm exists in a giant corporation with lots of subsidiaries, then these clichés ring truer than any sane person would ever want. If your giant corporation rewards profit generation over actual ethical and valid work performed, well, that is another post entirely.

This post is about cubicle ninjas.

I am a cubicle ninja. I didn’t used to be a cubicle ninja. Previously to honing my powers of observation and my stealth techniques, I was merely a white collar professional who rolled with the punches. One day, there was a punch I realized I could not roll with.

A person whose attention to detail includes how people arranged things on their desks relocated to our building. My desk is and has been organized and clutter-free, but other co-workers have gained the ire of this member of the management team due to their messy desks. Other negative comments and actions have been directed around to my peers from this member of the management team, and I have tried my best to avoid this individual at all costs. There was one problem:

My avenue of escape from the Cubicle Farm went right past this leader’s cubicle doorway – my cubicle hallway actually ended right at his doorway. I had a single angle of sightline blockage I could use to my advantage, but it would take all my skills of stealth to make sure I passed by soundlessly and invisibly.
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The guy in the cubicle next to me is a smoker. I have never seen him smoke. But I know he is. He is around fifty and he often sounds like he can’t catch his breath. He is not overweight and looks to be in pretty good shape. Maybe he has asthma. But asthma doesn’t smell like cigarette smoke. He does. His wheezing and coughing is a constant reminder to me of why I stopped smoking. I didn’t stop smoking because I didn’t enjoy it. I did. Smoking was great. Many of my friends did it. It was a shared enjoyable experience. The losers who didn’t smoke always stayed inside breathing their damn clean air and hogging the beer.

It’s been nearly a decade since I quit smoking.

I have touched my lips to a cigarette - I have even lit one up but I did my best Bill Clinton and I didn’t inhale. Really!

I never really noticed the long-term effects of smoking because most of the smokers I know are young. This is the one of the few hard-core smokers I have actually had to work next to. (The other one got cancer and retired for medical reasons.)

He has coughing spasms.

He horks up loogies.

He sometimes wheezes loudly for no reason.

I am glad I quit smoking.

Do any 8n5ers have any thoughts of quitting smoking? Or, do any 8n5ers have any reasons for NOT quitting smoking?

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Arctic Cat announced layoffs and a move from Thief River Falls to the Twin Cities this fall. This is a crushing blow to residents in Kittson County, some of whom have relied on jobs at Arctic Cat for decades. While forty-seven years is a long time for Arctic Cat to have stayed in Thief River Falls and one thing is certain - they will be missed.

Jobs of this nature do not come to Kittson County readily. The departure of Arctic Cat will not only affect Arctic Cat employees, but will affect other small companies in and around the Red River Valley area that relied on the multiplier effect generated by an Arctic Cat presence in Thief River Falls.

Will a move to the Twin Cities be better for the company? Maybe. It will make it easier for executives to get to and from business trips anyway.

Will it make it better for the people Up North? Not the ones who are left behind. But they’ll cope and find something else to do for a living. It’s not going to be the best scenario for them. But if they don’t have an opportunity to make the move to the Twin Cities, they’ll just have to do the best they can.

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I apologize for not hanging around 8 and 5 as much as I could, but if you were giving a way an iGrill you might have more of my attention. I wrote a guide to First Avenue for Vita.mn and I thought I’d cross post it so here it is:

http://vita.mn/guides.php?d=view_guide&guide_id=75

Also, if any of you have a vita.mn account and would like to help me out, Go hit the +1 next to a few of the comments I’ve posted here:

http://vita.mn/user_profile.php?user_id=1196

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Since we’re a little political around here, because this guy is a good friend of mine, and because I built him a website to support his campaign, I am posting a mass mail to eightandfive. This mail will go out to people who’ve participated in the Minnesota Young DFL in the past, but the convention is open to anyone who is a Democrat and under the age of 36. We’re just trying to get as many people to this event as possible. Also, I haven’t sent this out yet so if you see any errors in it, let me know:

Dear Young DFLer,

As a young Democrat your opportunity to help us determine the future of youth organizing in the DFL party is here. This Saturday, April 28th the College Democrats of Minnesota and the Minnesota Young DFL will hold joint conventions to merge our organizations. At this convention we’ll be choosing new leadership for the new organization. The College Convention is at 11am at Edison High in NE Minneapolis. The MYDFL convention is at noon at Edison High in NE Minneapolis.
For directions go to our website listed below. Come and help us build our new organization into a strong organizing tool to elect Democrats in Minnesota.

I am running for chair to put my six years of organizing experience to work for the MYDFL to build our core competencies to help elect Democrats. If you believe it is time for us to get serious about organizing young people now then join me on Saturday, April 28th at 11 and let’s build this new organization.

Thank you so much for your help,

Shaun Laden
612.718.9070
http://victory2008.mn

P.S. If you can make it please bring a friend with you. To win we’ll need lots of people and you can help us double our support by asking someone you know to help us out. Let me know if you can bring someone.

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