Do You Remember Your First Crush?

I know it's supposed to be a "1" but COME ON...

If You Suspect It, Report It...

Less poetic, but still more efficient than "If You See Something, Say Something."

(Also, if you suspect this photo is sideways, report it to The Blogger mobile app team. I have rotated it in every direction, and that's the only way this thing will publish it.)

Retail Week: Urination Segregation

This sign would be genius if only it were at a Halloween Store rather than a Laundromat.

Retail Week: The Very Specific Deli & Cafe

If you're ever in need to Vitamin Water, Frozen Vegetables, or Organic, you now know where to go.
 

God help them if Vitamin Water ever goes out of business.

Drinks, Touches, and Leaves

I swear I never laid a hand on Sandy.

All right, you got me. I quit.

Square Peg/Round Hole

BS, indeed. I considered posting this over a copy machine today after solving yet another technical problem that could have been easily figured out by any one of the people here getting paid way more than I am. I opted for a tamer version without the final sentence. Still, there are some questions you may be asking yourselves:

1. What exactly was the problem?
Some genius put a Black Cartridge where the Bonding Agent Cartridge belongs and vice versa.

2. That's silly, but could probably happen to anyone. Isn't it HP's fault?
Not at all. HP has posted a smaller, color-coded illustration of exactly how the cartridges should be placed into the machine (you can probably see it in the top part of my own diagram). On top of that, HP has designed the cartridges and slots in a way that you can't actually put a cartridge in the wrong hole without forcibly ramming it in. It's rare that someone here actually makes an effort to do anything, but they had to really mash those things in there to cause the problem.

3. If it was so easy for you to figure out, why was the copier not printing correctly for several days?
"If you see something, say something" is not a motto for anyone working here. In the five minutes I spent troubleshooting and solving the issue, I had three people inform me that the printer was screwing up for most of last week. About 60 people use the printer and not one thought it was a good idea to report the problem to me.

4. Why would they report it to you anyway? You're not in IT.
Excellent question. No, I'm not in the IT department. I have no IT training and I have no HP training, but somehow, I'm in charge of 20+ HP copy machines--not IT! Fortunately, HP had designed copy machines that even humanoids can use and has detailed on-board troubleshooting when things go wrong. I seem to have harnassed the magical power of "reading instructions" and learned some basic problem-solving methods in 1st grade, so I can fix most issues quicker than it takes to call the helpdesk, log a ticket, have them contact HP, and have HP show up, diagnose the problem, and fix it themselves in five minutes (after 24-48 hours). My boss, who just doesn't get it, is a fan of instantly announcing "Call HP" whenever someone says the words "printer" and "problem" in the same sentence, but he's also on my ass every month about minimizing downtime for the printer fleet. More corporate hypocrisy!

Thanks for listening and no offense to the color-blind.

Sike, you color-blind fuckfaces!

A+ 'n Us!

This brilliant flipchart has been posted in our largest conference room all day. While I can't take credit for it, I'm still happy that there's been two large meetings in there already.

What's crazy is Abbott Nutrition United States is a real acronym. They've even got a Facebook Page where they'll presumably discuss the serious economic ramifications of Abbott Nutrition and London Stock EXchange.

Do Do Use Double Positives

I don't don't know about you, but doesn't this not seem like the least worst shipping label Staples hasn't never not sold?

 

Advanced Minimally Invasive Surgery

Amputation was last considered minimally invasive in the 1800s, so I think it's time for a new mascot.

Benevolence and Malice in Graffiti

I was in the restroom of a restaurant recently (PEEING!) and spotted a funny sign. The original version was fairly typical--inconsistent capitalization, a typo, and no punctuation--but what made it uniquely ambitious was the attempt to combine two barely related instructions on one piece of paper. That of course gave some clever urinator the idea of linking them and completely changing the message:

I was very impressed by the simplicity of the two X's creating a positive (albeit pro-smoking),LOLworthy message through omission all the while leaving the original message visible so the viewer could compare both. Maybe it was just laziness, but I think that simplicity made it twice as funny.

Of course, I was slightly intoxicated and figured it would be a good idea to continue the evolution of graffiti:

My self-psychoanalysis screams jealousy. My brain clearly fixated on "king" because of the need to one-up and become the clever graffiti champion of this territory. I continued the battle theme by referencing Mike Tyson's Punch-Out!! and writing IN BOLD CAPS. Also, clearly not content with the simplicity of the previous vandal's X's, I instead went for violent scribbles.

Not surprisingly, the sign was removed soon after. I hope you all learned a lesson today.

















(the lesson is always take a picture of your vandalism)

Douche Nozzle

I came across some silly clip art today while attempting to make an "Out of Order" Powerpoint slide for a broken water dispenser and was tempted to post this sign in the company cafe area:



Look at how happy that guy is!

Quite literally

...this is The Christian Science Monitor:

Apologies for the glare in the window and/or the impending 40 years of darkness.

Sign O' The Tide

What's it gonna be, Tide. Are you Effective or Useless?

By the way, there were so many possible titles for this blog entry, I may as well share some others:

• In and Out with the Tide
• It was the Best of Tides, It was the Worst of Tides
• The Print of Tide
• Decide, Tide
• Uppity with a Touch of Downy
• Oh hey look, you can buy a 100 oz. bottle of Tide with a Touch of Downy for $69.99 at Amazon and a percentage will go to the RoBeast's upcoming unemployment fund thanks to Amazon Associates that I signed up for a hundred years ago and never used until today but now that Blogger has a widget for it you can certainly expect to see more selling out on this website!
  
  
  
   

TWO THOUSAND ATE 2009

...in terms of blog posts at least. Despite my efforts during Post-a-Day June, this year still lags behind the last considerably on content. Why? I'm busy, dammit! I've been especially focused on the band lately, as evidenced by all the video posts at the PMF site (and all the footage for more posts that I haven't even been able to edit yet.)

I also have technological constraints. It would be a lot easier if Blogger was plugged directly into my brain. I'd be much more prolific (and NSFWer). The lack of high post numbers may look like I'm not doing anything, but I start a lot of ideas and never finish them. Just glancing over the year's drafts, I see a bunch of posts never posted, updates never updated, reviews never reviewed, and photos never uploaded. Even this post that I'm typing right now is about to interrupted because I have a meeting in a few minutes.

Is it possible for me to post 60+ more times in the next 20 days? Yeah, I suppose it's possible, but highly unlikely. I'll tell you what. I'm going to do as much as I can for the rest of 2009. OK, so you'll probably end up seeing a lot of cheap Low-Content BatR posts in the next few weeks (which will be referred to as Lo-Co; Lo-Con may make more sense, but it doesn't rhyme or mean "crazy" in Spanish). Then again, it's what you've been seeing all year here anyway.

Here's a shitty photo of a Lukoil gas station I took with my camera phone back in October but never posted:

Why, you ask? I was intrigued and baffled by their white sign with minimal text. Let me clean it up for you with my CSI computers (you'll have to make your own unnecessary WHOOSH sound effects):


It says "we [heart] cars." With the sideways heart and lowercase lettering, the ad obviously emulates the text message speak of today's yutes in yet another corporate attempt to be hip. Very Gasol337, I must say. But they completely lose their credibility by tilting the heart in the wrong direction. A true teenybopper would actually type "we <3 cars" (and then accompany it with a photo of a girl at school that took a naked picture of herself in a car that was only intended for her boyfriend to see, but he forwarded to all his buddies and... well, that's another story). If they're going to go and tilt the heart at all, it should be tilted to the right.

I wrote to the Russia-based Lukoil and they responded: "IN COMMUNIST ЯUSSIA, CAR HEART YOU!" I think that means they either disagree or are trying to sell me really cheap mp3s. Do svidaniya!

Passive-Aggressive Signs, RoBeast Style

Here at Kindergarten, I mean work, we have a lot of folks that don't know how to keep their greasy paws off of things they shouldn't be touching. When they book a conference room too small for their meetings, they steal chairs from people's desks. When they don't how to put their laptop in presentation mode, they press every button and change all the settings on the projector. When they don't know how to power down a video conference unit, they just rip out all the plugs.

Yes, some of those solutions are successful shortcuts to immediate gratification if you have the brain of a puppy or an infant--it's just not as cute when the offender is an adult with a college degree and a high-paying salary. And so, as the increasingly disgruntled discoverer of these mindless acts in my building, I have to resort to language and pictures that animals and children understand in the vain attempt of preventing more damage from occurring in the future. It's a shame that it comes to passive-aggressive signage, but at least it keeps me from smashing my chair in the window.



(In case you can't see the last one, it reads "You don't win friends by disconnecting cables. Please leave them the way you found them." The graphic of the sad, lonely girl makes it particularly touching. I'll try to update the photo another day.)

Street closed due to oversize crains

...and undersized brains.

DO NOT ERASE

More workplace snark that I can't take credit for:

NO U

You say this:

But all I see is this:

What is my disorder? This is why I don't read anymore. I see letters and I automatically want to rearrange them. Is it some sort of dyslexia? Scrabblerackitis? Granted, I'm not really transposing any letters here, I'm just respacing them, but still. I can't be the only person that thinks it was a bad idea for these folks to start a food business with the word SHIT in the middle of their name.

I also refuse to pronounce PETSMART as "Pet Smart."


I prefer "Pets' Mart," like it's a market for pets. Which it is.


Your dog could be dumb, after all.

And now, two technical notes.

1. Blogger took it upon itself to underline the first sentence in this blog entry. Underline, as far as I can see, is not even an option in this text editor. There is bold, and italicize, but that's it. This means Blogger's underlining prank can't even be undone without going into the html editor and deleting the /u tag. Which I could do. But I'm not going to. I'm just going to bitch instead.

2. I'm also blocking all anonymous comments from now on. I received one the other day about a PETA bumper sticker post I made several months ago. It's not that I can't take the heat, it's just that I want to know who's in my kitchen. If you want to argue about abortion or animal rights, go right ahead. If you want to just call me names, please do. Just sign your fucking name, coward, so I can direct a brilliant retort back to you.

Waaaaaah.

69th Post

You clearly can't read this because Blogger sucks and refuses to honor my jpeg's original size and resolution and The Blue Lioness will mortally wound me with her metallic claws if I upload it to an image hosting site and link to it. Sure, you could click on it to view it in its nearly original form, but we know that I know that you know that no one likes a two-step process.

Anyway, here's what the letters say:

MATTRES SPICALE
ASSORTED BRAND
SMART CHOIEC

They even bought the right letters (and even left off the last "S" for Savings) and could really just peel them off the window and put them in the right place if they wanted to. It's sad that I drive by this place every day and don't help them out, but will make the effort to take my cell phone out while stuck at the red light, upload it to Verizon's convoluted Pix Place bullshit, save it to my computer, then upload it to stupid Blogger.

At the same though, there's no reason to feel bad. I may have been a champion speller in another decade, but I'm no elitist. I'm sure English is not the owner's first language, and the intended communication is still there (though it took me a few red lights to figure out that Spicale meant Special), so I don't wanna bust balls. I'm just extremely obsessed with signage and its influence. In fact, I think the world is more interesting with mistakes. If I drove past this place and everything was spelled correctly, I wouldn't look twice. But with a view transposed vowels, they've managed to infiltrate my brain and got some free air time on the most important blog in history.

OK, maybe their mattresses are as half-assed as their spelling. Who cares? I'm going to bash my head on the keyboard now and hit enter afterwards:

hy uyhubujiuuu76uyhj8huj9kkl67 g5f4 f5g4r

IJHORSUPOIAT "o;'P/;'P[/0:"?)p{;'P/[IFDSIUB JHIOB IJPOQYG53JP[HBRJBwY3WY H3WUQ53 yZJTEAZE TEAUT U4IJ4W YR M IUIJJUJHH HYYY66

Helvetigasm