MR. DUMMY McSTUPID AT YOUR SERVICE

I don't pride myself on this fact ... but sometimes I'm the stupidest idiot on the planet.

Yesterday, I show up for work.

I pop in the boss' office while tying my tie because I've now started to get dressed once I'm AT work. Saves time at home.

Anyway, I'm talking to her and I said "What time do you think we'll get off on New Year's Eve?"

She said "We'll probably get off early. Like 2 or 3."

I said "Well, I think I'll take my United Way Day on New Year's Eve because I'm deejaying a party that night."

(At my work, if you pledge one percent of your salary to go to the United Way, you receive two extra days off with pay per year)

She says "Why don't you just take a vacation day?"

I said "I don't have any vacation time. I started here in April. I won't get vacation time until April 2004."

She said I accumulated vacation time after six months ... not a year.

She told me to call our human resources guy to find out how much vacation time I had.

Answer: 7.5 days.

I have seven and a half days of vacation coming to me.

BUT ... I have to use it ALL before tomorrow, Dec. 31st. Use it or lose it.

Basically, I totally fucked myself out of a week's vacation because I never read the employee handbook.

I pleaded ignorance, but that wasn't good enough. They will not let me carry the vacation over.

So I told the boss that since we had two meetings yesterday, I would fulfill my obligations and attend both meetings.

But after that, I was gone for the rest of the week.

She was cool with that.

I can't really complain. She's a great boss and has let me have comp days throughout the year which I'm chalking up to imaginary vacation days.

Still.

Had I known about this and with our holiday schedule, I could have applied those vacation days and been off half the month of December.

Still.

A full rest of the week off is nice.

So the first meeting we're in yesterday is with a guy who's doing a book about our city and this was an update on where he stood with the progress of the book.

We're all sitting there and he's droning on and on about this and that and I'm staring at my watch thinking "I'm technically on vacation right now, jerkweed. Speed it up."

He finally shuts up and my boss starts talking.

While she's talking, Book Guy hooks a thumb in his nostril. Just a slight hook. Nothing too major.

Apparently, Book Guy found something in there. I have no idea what. A stray car key perhaps. I dunno.

But this crazy bastard then proceeds to start digging in there with his index finger.

Okay.

My boss is super cool.

Her speech just suddenly gets derailed while she's watching this guy, who is clearly hanging on her every word and watching her ... while cramming his finger into his nasal cavity.

My boss and I are sitting next to each other on one side of the table.

Book Guy's on the other side.

My boss starts swinging her knee into mine under the table in a subtle effort to say "Is this guy REALLY trying to jar his brain loose with his finger??"

Meanwhile, Book Guy is in a trance. He's fucking gone. He's nodding his head as she talks, with his finger prodding the snot out of his nostril.

He finally finishes maybe 20 seconds into his quest for mucus, pulls his finger out of his nose, looks at the result and drops his hand to the side of his chair under the table.

I usually have a very strong stomach, but this made me queasy as hell.

It was kinda comical.

At the end of the meeting, both the boss and I tried to occupy our hands ... cleaning up around the conference room and stuff ... ANYTHING to avoid shaking the guy's hand.

Luckily for us, he left without wanting to jam his snot crusted hand into ours.

He got on the elevator and she and I burst out laughing about his lack of couth.

If you've never watched a guy pick his nose intently in an important meeting ... kids ... you just haven't lived life.

So I rented the first season of "Space Ghost" yesterday because I've always heard good things about the show.

Apparently, and I don't know this as fact, but you have to be incredibly fucked-up to enjoy this show.

Because I watched two 15 minute episodes before I finally shut it off.

I couldn't figure it out. Were his guests just footage from other interviews? At times it seemed that way. But then they were also mentioning his name several times.

And was it supposed to be funny or boring? Because it was boring as hell to me.

Maybe I should give my buddy Amy a call and have her bake me some more brownies so I can enjoy this show.

Gah.

Hated it.

Also rented "Jeepers Creepers 2", sat on the floor of the den and cranked up the Surround Sound.

Loud surround sound can make a horror movie scarier.

Every time the central heat kicked on in the house and I felt a cold rush of air on my leg, I was convinced there was a ghost in the house.

And yes.

I was sober.

Now then.

Michael F'n Jackson.

Apparently, I was one of the few people who watched the "60 Minutes" interview with him the other night.

Now ... while the majority of my experiences with drugs have been somewhat positive ... Mikey's having the opposite problem. The boy can't handle his illegal drugs. And you'd know that if you'd watched the show.

Granted, he's probably wacked out on painkillers which seem to be his drug of choice since he's admitted an addiction to them years ago. But all throughout this interview, it was like he was about to nod off. His eyes were barely open and he was making up crap about how the police dislocated his shoulder and left huge bruises on his arm and locked him for 45 minutes in a bathroom with shit all over the walls in order to torture him.

The guy has CLEARLY lost it. I can understand some rogue cops roughing up a crackhead who took a swing at them.

But not Michael Jackson.

Then his whole "SURE it's okay to sleep with children that aren't your own!" schtick.

I loved it when Ed Bradley said "Do you know of any other 45 year old men who sleep with children that aren't theirs?"

"SURE I do!"

Ed's all "Hmm. Well I don't."

Kids ... that's television at its finest!

After seeing the interview, I'm on the fence as to whether he's been banging little sick boys up at Neverland or not.

On the one hand, you've got a guy who's beginning to look more and more like Robert Smith from The Cure who says it's okay to sleep with little boys.

And on the other hand, you've got a guy who lives in a major fantasy world. A 45 year old man who likes merry-go-rounds and naming his trees.

I dunno.

I have no point here really.

Except ... you know ... I watched the interview and think he's psychotic.

Other than that, I got nothin'.

I'm going to go enjoy my day off.

Peace.