Saturday, May 21, 2011

The Office

Over the course of the last three years, the junior staff at the office have maintained a healthy level of insanity at the work place.  Besides the pranks, there have been several instances of un-professional behavior.  In no particular order, I present to you an ever growing list of workplace idiocy.  I'm sure I've missed a few... fill me in.

1. The 100 Cheesburger Poker Night
Five people.  Simple concept.
We drove to a McDonald's drive-thru after work.  Ordered, 5 Coke Zeros, 1 medium fries, and 100 $1 cheeseburgers.  After the recovery from the initial shock, the franchise gave us two huge boxes of 50 burgers (Later, upon counting, we realized that they had given us 106 burgers instead).  We took our burgers, went back to a conference room at the office.  Took out a deck of cards and played poker, using the burgers as chips.  After an arduous duel, I emerged victorious, winning a grand total of 83 burgers, the rest were eaten or given away.  Originally we had planned to give away the burgers to homeless people, but we got lazy and instead filled the kitchen fridge with them.  The next day we put up a notice saying FREE FRESH BURGERS.

2. Chair Racing
First instituted as a late night boredom reliever during the dark days of October 2010, for a while this became a dominant act for bragging rights to set fastest lap-times around the cubicles.  The leader board was kept on JK's desk as a reminder of who's top dog.  Over time, with JK's move to a different desk, the sport disappeared in to obscurity.

3. Russian Roulette
An aftermath of the "Assassination of Pragyan" prank.  Suddenly, Nerf guns. One of them the Maverick, a revolver type Nerf reminiscent of the Mel Gibson Western character.  Russian Roulette with Nerf Guns, simple enough idea, tons of fun.

4. The Rube Goldberg Machine
A testimony to the great times in Office 208.  An idea that led to one of the most fun things I've done since graduating college.  Props to Gilmartin.  


5. The GSE Index and the Great Crash

6. The Big Lebowski

7. Crotch-Crotch Ball

8. Fish Here, Fish Now

9. Vs. ICF06344

10. Ka-Me-Ha-Me-Haaaa

11. Halloween

12. Fogo De Chou

13. RPS Tourney

14. Baseket and Kricket

15. The Two Towers

16. Conquer Club

17. The Paper Throw League

18. The NC Fan Club

19. The Capacity Price is Right!

20. Improv Night

21. Vidz-Ball

Monday, May 16, 2011

The Great Depression

Another disappointing end to a promising season.  Another season racked with false hope.  Another season of crappy refereeing - please don't argue with me on this one.  Another season of squalid rumors about Wenger and Fabregas and Nasri and Co.  I don't particularly care that Arsenal hasn't won a trophy in six years.  What I care about is that they play good football.  Alas, of late, the team seems shaken with doubt and self belief - losing at home to Villa in a pathetic manner.  I want the team to stay together, I don't want anyone to go - ok, maybe Denilson.  Still, we have one of the sharpest strikers in the world, two visionary playmakers, a good man in goal, a vermin-exterminator on defense, and a warhorse in pits.  We can come back from this and we will, one day this walk of shame, will only be a distant memory.  Vive le Gunners.

Saturday, May 14, 2011

John v. Fredrich (It's Goin' Down Yo)

Sometime ago, two people, an economics professor at Geroge Mason University, Russ Roberts and film-maker John Papola started a website called Econstories.tv to try raise awareness about the economic paradigm we live in and the policies our governments subscribe to.
Their first endeavor was a rap battle between two opposing stalwarts, John Maynard Keynes (father of Spending Theory) and F.A. Hayek (father of the Austrian perspective).



After the resounding success of the first video, they released a sequel recently:



Enjoy!