Okay, James Lileks better fear my wrath. Him AND his oustanding writing skeelz. I was all ready to write a nice long post about the flu, and the flu vaccine, and why the American news media is absolutely crapping its collective pants, and why this is completely retarded. Then I go through my daily reading and BOOM, good ol' Jimmy (he hates nicknames almost as much as I hate him for scooping my column idea) has a nice Backfence about it.

So he better be glad he lives in Minnesota instead of, say, next door to me, or else his house would be SO egg'd on Mischief Night. Except that I plan to be in Hoboken on Mischief Night, causing great deals of mischief. So he better be glad he doesn't live in Hoboken, by cracky!

Anyway, I got nothing, so I'll just share a few high-larious links with all of y'all, starting with the AOLer translator. In short, it translates anything you might ever want to say to someone into the language a 12-year-old AOL chatter would use. Examples:

• Greetings, I am Matt! I enjoy long walks on the beach, late night Cinemax, and Resolve Carpet Cleaner Martinis!
  GRETNGS IM MAT11!!1! OMG WTF I ENJOY LONG WOKS ON TEH BACH LAET NIGHT CIENMAX AND RASOLV3 CARP3T CLEAENR MARTINIS1!1!1!! OMG WTF LOL
• Dear Sir: Please be advised that your account has been turned over to a collection agency, "Plank's Bail Bonds, Collections, and Altamont-style Biker Security Incorporated."
  DAAR SIR PLZ B ADVIESD TAHT UR ACOUNT HAS BEN TURNAD OVER 2 A COL3CTION AEGNCY PLANKS BALE BONDS COLECTIONS AND ALTMONT-STYLE BIEKR SECURITY INCORPORAETD!!111 OMG LOL
• Hey Jill, John is hot.
  H3Y JIL O IS HOT!11!11! OMG

My buddy Matt, who told me about it, believes that the AOL Translator is the greatest website of all times, and I tend to agree with him.

In other news, they're doing more work on the support beams in my office building again (Long version: here. Short version: the building I'm in is 150+ years old, and many of the support beams are merely 12" oak pilings, many of which are rotting, which they are replacing one by one with massive I-beams surrounded by drywall.), right next to my desk, so per the norm they're installing a large drywall enclosure to keep dust in and to keep us from having to be blinded by arc welders. I'd like to share with you the following two conversations between two of the workers. Conversation 1:

Caucasian worker: "Didn't you get my message?"
Hispanic worker: [mumbles something incoherent in a heavy spanish accent]
Caucasian worker: "You know I can't understand a G*ddamn thing you say."

Conversation 2:

Caucasian worker: [some kind of fake pidgin spanish, followed by] "No espanyol."
Hispanic worker: "Si espanyol."
Caucasian worker: [pause] "Shut the hell up."

It's also worth noting that one of the hispanic workers almost got decapitated about 5 seconds ago by a hanging lamp when the rolling platform on which he is standing was unexpectedly rolled down the hallway by his buddy.

Safety: always our first priority. Oh wait, no, that's not right . . . not safety . . . what's the word? Oh right, stupidity, that's it, thanks.