NEW BOY SETS THE LITERARY WORLD ON FIRE

Remember how I was all like "Oooooo...I LOVE my new job!" yesterday??

Scratch that shit. I "LIKE" my new job. But the love affair is OVER, baby.

Okay...it's not "over" ... but yesterday, I didn't have A THING to do.

Not a single frickin' thing. Okay...I had three things to do...I called three places...two in Oregon, one in California...left three voice mails...and then sat there for eight hours waiting for these three people to return my calls.

Two of the three people called me back, but they left voice mails because I never heard the damned phones ring.

It's a pretty weird experience when you start a new job and the biggest obstacle that you face is mastering your freakin' phone.

And I'm CONSTANTLY going up to our receptionist and asking her how to do things with the phone. She looks at me like I'm retarded, because ... c'mon...IT'S A PHONE, DUDE. You pick up the receiver and talk. I'm coming off like some sort of well-fed cro-magnum man with my total ignorance of this marvel of modern day technology.

Soooooo...I sat all day long and surfed the web.

I checked out everything I could find on the cities that I would be working on. Lemme tell ya...Eugene, Oregon looks like a beautiful place ... but there ain't a whole helluva lot of info on the city on the Web.

I musta read the Chamber of Commerce's site about a dozen times yesterday, which doesn't really give you any dirt on the place ... it just gives you a candy coated glimpse into "their" version of the city.

And for those of you out there that always thought it'd be cool to have a job where you just surf the web all day ... wrong, Bucko. For me...when I surf the web, I wanna download songs...can't do that at work. Not on your second day anyway.

I went to lunch with Wendi and chastised her for not updating her diary in so long. She felt bad and told me to tell all the Wendi-heads that she's under the weather even though she's not, she's just lazy and doesn't have the time to update it.

While at lunch, we saw our old boss AGAIN for the second day in a row, which was rather odd. Don't see the guy for several years and now we see him two days in a row at two different restaurants.

Also saw local radio legend Harry Stephens there. Harry and I have done a number of different fund raisers together over the years, but the bastard never calls me by my name, which infuriates me. For 13 years, we've co-hosted bachelor auctions, beef cookoffs, fashion shows ... Christ...I've seen the guy in his underwear more than I've seen my wife.

And the bastard always greets me with a "Hey! How ya doin'" generic greeting.

I just wanna throttle him and scream "It's Uncle Bob, you uncaring, egotistical bastard!! Remember my name you piece of slimy moose shit!!"

But I don't. I just say "Hey Harry, how's it going?" and shake his hand.

Bastard.

I took part in my first office meeting yesterday.

We met in a conference room where I was kinda told how to turn my stories in when I finish them, etc.

After 15 minutes, the meeting was winding down. I was asked if I had any questions.

"Can we just stay in here for a while longer," I asked. "I don't wanna go back to my desk just yet."

I was assured by Wendi and the others that at first, it's kind of slow around the office. But once business picks up for me, it's not going to stop. Which is cool. I'd much rather have something to do all day than to sit and surf the web and look like I'm deep in thought while I'm doing it so that when people walk by my office door, they look in and say "Boy...that New Boy looks deep in thought. I bet he's fine-tuning his latest epic story on some business in Oregon."

Errrr....no. I'm reading about Paula Poundstone getting hammered and sticking her finger up her foster children's asses.

I do have one source of entertainment at my job.

The guy across the hall from me has some kind of allergy problem. On Monday, he couldn't quit hacking...at one point I got up, walked out into the hallway and checked to see if one of his lungs was resting on his desk in a puddle of bile.

It wasn't.

Yesterday, it was sneezing. This guy sneezed and sneezed and sneezed.

He seems to be a pretty nice guy when he's not sneezing. But damn...the kid wouldn't stop. It was like he was trying to break a world's record or something.

Then...about 4:30, he started getting really boisterous for some reason. He works in conjuncture with another woman across the hall and he kept yelling at her rather than getting up and going in there and being professional about it.

"Hey, Sandy," he'd yell. "Do you have the Long Island reports?"

She would get up and go to his office each time and say quietly, "No, I don't."

I mean...that's how you act in a professional setting, Sneezy.

I don't think he got it.

About 4:45, he started doing that annoying as hell Adam Sandler line "I've got a snake, man" line.

I'm sure we've all heard it by now.

I'VE GOT A SNAKE, MAN.

I always took the line to mean that some idiot thinks his penis is a snake.

Sneezy kept it up. He must have said it about five times.

Guess what, El Sneezeroo? You're hollering at the top of your lungs that you have a penis. The CEO of the company is three doors down. If you wanna keep sneezing here, I suggest you hold it down.

Then again, I'm New Boy.

It's best I keep my mouth shut and let this guy hang himself by his own snake.

So...sad news to report...

A.J. is a drunken bastard.

A.J. from the Backstreet Boys is in rehab and hallucinating just fine, thank you.

I was rocked when I heard the news. I kinda sat there for a second, staring at Matt Lauer as he told me and said to myself "Wow. I'm rocked over here."

I mean...A.J. Who woulda ever anticipated this sort of news?

A.J. always had the coolest facial hair. Are you trying to tell me that it was some drunk bastard that shaved those geometrical beauties into his face?

And when all the other boys would be wearing their hip stage outfits, A.J. would show up in ripped jeans with that look that just screamed "I'm hungover as shit and could hurl at any time."

I thought it was just an act. You know...his gimmick. Kinda like Ozzy ate pigeon asses on stage...A.J. was the "Devil may care" member of the band.

And now...we find out it wasn't a gimmick. A.J. was drunker than Paula Poundstone at a Day Care Center when he was onstage.

This bothers me.

Do you know how many little 12 year-old girls are going to go raid Daddy's liquor cabinet now, so they can be like their hero?

How many seventh graders are getting their stomachs pumped this morning just so they can live the life of A.J.

My God people. I named my damned child after him!!

Well...not really. But Andy's initials are A.J. So technically, if I wanted some sympathy, I COULD say I named him after A.J. But I didn't.

Anyway, I hope A.J. gets the help he needs and the Boyz get back on the road soon.

Godspeed to ya, A.J.

You drunk motherfucker you.

And finally, my dad goes into the hospital today for a follow-up procedure to check the metal coils in his brain that he had put in there after his aneurysm last spring.

So for those of you who DO believe in God (i.e. NOT Gay Wayne), say a little prayer for my Pops today if you don't mind. He's a much better man than I, and I'm sure you'd all love him if you met him.

That's it. Now if you'll excuse me, I've gotta shower and head to work.

I've got some websites that need surfin'.