I found this delightful little antidote the other day and shared it on my Facebook wall. I liked it because for me it was so resoundingly true every time I work at home. The clever observation was, “I worked from home the other day and got a lot of stuff done, which has led me to the conclusion that pants limit productivity.” I was going to leave it at that until a friendly, well, friend commented, “I hope there’s a smirk coming for this one.” In truth, up until I read that comment there was no… actually there was a Smirk in the works, it just wasn’t about that. However, thanks to Sarah’s comment, I gave it some thought …
Now I’m not sure why, but there seems to be the expectation that when you work from home, the last thing you put on is your pants, and that is usually around noon, but only if you are leaving the house for lunch. Otherwise, the pants get put on just before the misses gets home. This brings me to an interesting point, working at home without pants on is typically a male tradition, women prefer sweats or pajama bottoms instead, and since men are the pantless performers of the working from home stage, our only pant wearing requirement is at the curtain call at the end of the day, when the wife gets home.
Usually, it’s one of those things women don’t get, but men do. We really can’t describe why we get it and can’t comprehend for the life of us why women don’t. When we emerge triumphantly from our home office without any pants on after a fully productive day, women don’t care; they just shake their head and order us to, “Put on some pants.”
So why is it that I’m more productive when I’m not wearing pants? Here’s what I’ve come up…
Reason 1: A Cooler Self Increases Energy and Alertness
I am of the belief that when the temperature rises, my vigor and productivity wane. The warmer it gets the more I feel like I’m being wrapped up in a preheated blanket that has just been pulled out of the dryer, accompanied with the mental euphoria I get when eating a piece of fresh homemade bread that has just come out of the oven, which instantly begins melt the butter as soon as the butter touches it. See just the thought of that level of warmth gets me feeling a bit lethargic. Well that and makes me want to call my dad to see if he’s baked any of his homemade bread this week.
The warmer it gets the more I just want to nap out for a bit, and pants, they add insulation to the body’s natural thermostat, warming you up with fewer surfaces to vent out the constant heat your body is creating. Now let’s remove the pants… ah that’s much better. I’m not overheating at all. Actually, I’m cooling down quite nicely, which transforms me into being more awake and more energized, hence crating a higher level or productivity.
Reason 2: Physical Constriction Leads to Mental Constriction
According to my personal experience, when a part of the body is constricted that feeling transfers to the brain and then back to the entire body. If I am wearing jeans the natural outcome in the manner in which they fit around the body is to bunch up, either around the back of my knees when my legs are bent, or, and most commonly, around my unmentionables. I have to keep standing up and pulling my pant legs down to remove that uncomfortable restrictive feeling. The problem is that when you wear pants, even pants that fit perfectly or pants that are too baggy or too tight, the constant pulling up or down, or unbunching this or rearranging that, your body is very constricted, which translated into a restrictive work flow.
Remove the pants and you remove this anti-work block. If you remove the element that is hindering your ability to focus on your work, you become more focused on what you need to get done. Your mind isn’t constantly distracted from your work because something doesn’t feel right, or is simply uncomfortable. Removing the pants means reinforced focus to your work.
Reason 3: Pockets Lead to Distractions Pockets hold distractions. Don’t get me wrong, they are very handy at the right time, in the right place, say like when you win at slots and all those coins start pouring out. The more pockets you have the more coins you can carry. However, when it comes to working, pockets seem to hold nothing but distractions. Cell phones for instance, a lot of people store them in their pocket or in little holsters attached to their pants, usually by means of a belt. Then the phone goes off people not only stop working, but it takes a while for them to readjust their entire body to be able to get access to their phone. This is a constant distraction from work for many, not just the phone, but the digging around for the phone in your pocket and then the rearranging of one’s seated working position to put the phone back.
Let’s take the phone out of the equation. I am a firm supporter of using the pocket function on my pants… I put things in them all the time. Just yesterday as I was at work I leaned back in my chair to stretch and my hands brushed against my front pockets and I felt a bump. I had put something in my pocket… what was it? Now I had to investigate… oh yeah my voice recorder. I have a little hand held voice recorder for ideas… Smirks, stories, funny thoughts, something I need to remember to do, and so on. I get some rather grand ideas when driving from time to time, and pulling over to jot them down or hoping I still remember them by the time I get home has proven to be a less than efficient way to keep those thoughts… that’s why the recorder.
Turns out I had three messages on the thing with no recollection as to what they might be. So clearly I had to distract myself from work long enough to listen to those messages. The first one was a success, because I had remembered to take the trash out. The other two were possible Smirk topics, which I made a note of. Now had I not been wearing pants I would not have had any pockets, and without pockets comes the lack of having things in pockets… long story long, the ability to get distracted is greatly reduced without pockets, and if you don’t wear pants you don’t have pockets and you remain more focused on your work.
Sure some people are going to suggest that the reason people get more done working at home is a result of few interruptions, but let me just point out that if you let people come to work without any pants on then people would interrupt you a lot less at work too… see, once again the “no pants” work ethic prevails.
I’m not saying these reasons are grounds for the business office attire standards around the world to change, but when it comes to working at home, these are pretty legitimate reasons for why I feel I’m more productive working without any pants on verses working at home with pants on… or working at work with pants on for that matter. I’m sure the same reasoning still applies; the only trouble is that if it became a standard some people would find the prospect of working in an office with a “pants optional” dress code a bit distracting. I would like to point out that if your gripe is that guys might go out of their way to distract a coworker that they fancy, pants aren’t going to make a lot of difference. You already know who those people are and they are already distracting the coworkers they fancy… ok thongs might be an issue, but that’s the reason for a dress code damn it.
It’s not a perfect science just yet, but I still believe there are some valid supporting points. If you are a supporter of the “no pants increases work productivity” work ethic I’d be curious to hear some of your reasons for increased productivity when you work from home pants free… or did I cover it well enough?
Image Sources:
Google Images, keywords: working at home in boxers, woman pointing, napping at work, phone in pocket, and no pants.
So, I just finished day one of a four day conference I’m attending in DC. The event is called Seven THE Event: Four Days. One Decision. Seven Figures. In short, it’s four sponge filled days where my sweetie-baby-cutie-pie-wifey-pooh and I, and 200 other attendees try to soak up as much brilliantly usable and applicable business information as we can, which is presented by four different entrepreneurs that all make a yearly seven figure income, letting us know that we can too.
Now, I’m not sure what the protocol is for meeting millionaires, especially at these conference thingies where you’ll essentially be hanging out with them for the day, but when I got up this morning to get ready I did have a thought. Is there a dress code for conferencing with millionaires? It seems like there might me, depending on the situation. I think a lot of the time people dress accordingly based on the culture and/or context in which they will be spending time with that culture. I mean you wouldn’t show up in a tux when going to drink beer and hunt woodland creatures with residents of a trailer park, unless you lost a bet or something. Likewise, it only seems right that you wouldn’t show up for a millionaire (x 4) hosted conference in a hula skirt and coconut bra over your “With a shirt like this who needs pants?” tee shirt, you know, unless you lost a bet.
So as I was getting ready for day one, my first thought was, “Damn, I wish I hadn’t lost that bet.” Ok, not really, but I was still a little curious on what to wear. I opted to go with the philosophy, when in doubt just dress yourself… with pants on. Wait, I mean “be” yourself… with pants on, and I need to say the overall effect was quite, well, devoid of having people stare at me in an uncomfortable expression.
I did take a few precautions though. First, I wore a belt so I would not be pulling up my pants every time I got up and/or walked around… it was almost a belt… it served as a belt like tool sustaining a solid pants to waist ratio support system… ok fine, it was the pull string from my pajama bottoms, but it worked just fine damn it. And I don’t think anyone apart from Angela noticed. At least she’s the only one that said anything to me about, and since she’s the one that is most likely going to forgive me for what I’m wearing, I really don’t mind with she shakes her head in disbelief and what I occasionally attempt to pass off as fashion for the sake of functionality.
Second, as I was putting on my least wrinkly dress shirt over my tee shirt before leaving to the conference, it turned out that, unbeknownst to me, the shirt was missing a button. From top to bottom it went button, button, no button, button, button, button, but thanks to one of the props I had received from the event I was able to have my very own MacGyver moment. I noticed that if I put my name badge on a string and wore it around my neck. It perfectly covered my missing button and had enough weight to keep my shirt from popping open to giving those around me a little flash of my completely nondescript single colored undershirt with absolutely no dirty words anywhere on it. The best part, Angela didn’t even notice the missing button until I pointed it out to her after the day’s festivities had ended and we were enjoying dinner together.
As for the conference itself, there is something incredibly refreshing and satisfying about going to an event where, when something is sharing with the entire audience a profound breakthrough they experienced that one of the presenters encourage the breakthrough by telling the audience to, “Clap that shit up.”
Here are a few of my “ah ha” moments from day one:
You have a business to make money, the more money you make the more you can help others and the more good you can do. If you goal is not to make money you have a hobby, not a business.
Indecision is a form of self abuse.
The sure way to get clear about what it is you do is to make a decision. Only 20% of your message about what it is your business does is a result of your discoveries, the other 80% is because you made a decision.
It’s been a brilliant first day overall, the information has been grand, the presenters are personable and solid presenters, and the people attending are really quite lovely and friendly. Oh yeah, I even have business cards now! I’ve even handed out a couple. My tag line: Richard Timothy… writer, blogger, smirker. I know! I thought it rather fitting as well.
Definitely looking forward to tomorrow and I’m pretty sure my wardrobe will be a little more to code tomorrow as well, unless I decide to wear my intentionally ugly Christmas sweater. Tis the season you know.
Any thoughts about today’s Smirk?
Image Sources:
Google Images, keywords: man with suitcase, with a shirt like this, missing button, and shirt missing button.
I few months ago a friend sent me a link to a music video someone had made and posted on Youtube. The song by itself was quite mediocre and excessively uninteresting, like watching a video of a flower opening at dawn, but not in high speed… in actual real time instead. At least this s what I think based on my personal music appreciation. The song is Tik Tok by some lady named Kesha, which I think is spelled funny for “artistic” purposes. I believe she is an avid supporter of trailer park lifestyles, based solely on what I saw of her official Tik Tok video. I will state for the record that I was unable to finish the video due to valiant effort on my part to regain some of the sanity I had lost from watching the first half of the official video.
It is the unofficial video that my friend sent me, that explains why this song gets its very own Smirk. The unofficial Youtube video takes the song and gives it an image and theme worth the viewing. The person who edited the video “Treked” it up, introducing an entirely new fan base that would be willing to listen to this song all the way though because of the video’s new subject matter… Kirk and the gang. Brilliant unintentional marketing.
When I first saw this video, and was so entertained by it that I shared it with family, friends, readers, people I haven’t talked to since high school, and people I’ve never met and quite possibly will never meet. That’s right, I stuck it on Facebook. Soon I discovered that I was not the only one out there that found this combination satisfying enough to not only keep a smile on my face every time I watched it, but who enjoyed it enough to post it on their Facebook page to share as well.
The thing is it’s the combination that works for me. The song by itself… well, ten times out of ten I’m always going to change the station when it comes on. And as for old-school original series Star Trek, sure it makes me laugh, and I have a great deal of nostalgic appreciation for it, I can really only watch one episode. Then I need a few days to a week or two before I watch another one again. I just can’t watch them in a row… no idea why.
Now put those two things together and I can watch that video over and over again, and every time I’m grinning like that odd little kid in grade school that doesn’t say much, but just won the school spelling bee and is eminently pleased with their own existence. It’s a combination of true greatness, like peanut butter and chocolate, or grapes and fermentation, or Abbot and Costello. It just makes more sense to have them together than to keep them apart.
There is one more thing though, it’s the residual appreciation that I didn’t know I had. I learned this when I was in Hawaii. I was in a situation where the song was being played and I did not have the option to turn it off or change the station. What I learned is that as the song played, I found myself smiling as wave after way of Star Trek images from the video danced though my mind, enabling me to appreciate a heinous piece of pop music drivel, or, in short, making a bad song good. And to the person responsible for boldly going where no one has gone before and making this video in the first place, well done. If I knew who you were and where you lived I’d send you some cookies to say thanks.
What are your thoughts? Does the Trek make this bad song good? Or, if you are of the disposition that it is a good song, does it make it better?
Image Sources:
Google Images, keywords: Tik Tok, Reese’s cups, and listening to music.
Some conversations end before they ever have a chance to get started. Others are one-liner conversations, much like reading the cover of a Cosmo while in the checkout line at the grocery store. And then there are conversations that begin with such obscurity that you can’t help but stand in muted awe until the person speaking explains what the hell their talking about. Take me for example, this weekend my sister was over visiting and the first thing out of her mouth was, “My boyfriend finally came out to me.”
And I just stood there, my mouth slightly open, wanting to say something, but pretty sure I needed a little more information before I began adding anything to the conversation. My sister must have noticed this because she quickly added, “He’s a closet meat eater.”
“He eats closets full of … or he eats meat in his closet?” I asked.
I think the new layer of confusion now resting on my face was the indicator that she needed to start this whole conversation over. “He’s vegan, at least he was. He has been for years.”
Turns out her vegan boyfriend, has been enjoying a little meat consumption without anyone knowing, and feeling just terrible about it, sort of. For the record, it’s only fish. He still is highly opposed to him consuming any mammals or fowl of any kind. But when it comes to fish, letting that boy lose in a sushi restaurant is like watching a claymation King Kong tear apart a model of New York. Oh the horror! Still, he does his best to keep his “closet” fish eating to himself and away from his friends and family.
My sister and I began discussing her “out” (or “fish-nivorous”) boyfriend and the issue behind calling yourself a vegan, when you are not even a vegetarian. Her perspective was that claiming you are a vegan, when you clearly aren’t, is lying to yourself about the person you truly are. I decided it was just like smoking. I have had many friends over the years who would only smoke when they drank, all the time referring to themselves as nonsmokers. They clearly were smokers, even if they only drank once a week, but because it wasn’t an everyday thing, they held to the personal opinion that they were nonsmokers.
There are a lot of people that do this though. People are constantly calling themselves something they’re not. Take me for example, for years I’ve called myself a “beady eyed vegetarian”, which meant that I would eat vegetables and animals with beady eyes. Things like fish or fowl, but big eyed animals like cow, lamb, pig, etc. were right out. So was I a beady eyed vegetarian? Not at all, because I ate meat, I still do. I mean if I really wanted to get more exact about my eating habits, I suppose I should just call myself a “carb whore.” Bread is my kryptonite.
If I am placed in front the consumables for what is traditionally called a meal, and there is any possible way of me pulling it off, ten times out of ten I’m going to be making a sandwich. It happens every time I have dinner at my parents. Even at Thanksgiving, or any meal even remotely Thanksgiving themed, I always grab a dinner roll first and slice that thing in half. I’ll place a scoop of stuffing on the bottom piece, then a slice of turkey, then some cranberries, then some of the lettuce from the salad, maybe a little salad dressing, and pop on the top of the roll and tada, I’m having a Thanksgiving dinner sandwich.
I guess I could call myself a “carni-lite” or a light carnivore, but that might confuse people because I am not a light person. I guess because I eat mostly fish, I could call me self an aquacannibal. It sort makes sense when you realize fish eat mostly other fish. Of course there is always going to be that one smart ass that thinks an aquacannibal is someone who only eats people who know how to swim. This is problem that always seems to happen when you introduce new labels into the already saturated human labeling market.
I have a friend to calls himself a vegan, but in reality he’s just a “sugar whore”. He might not eat any meat or dairy, but that chap eats more sugar than a nine year old with ADD on Easter Sunday who keeps announcing to the congregation that, “Blessed are the rabbits, for they shall lay chocolate eggs for all the good children of the world and have their feet considered lucky”… or something like that.
I mean if you are attempting to become a vegetarian then call it like it is. I would say calling yourself a “struggling vegetarian” might work, but I have a coworker that claims he is a struggling vegetarian, but to him it means that he struggles to eat any type of vegetable period. Actually, I think we should just make it a general rule of thumb, if you eat meat of any kind you are not a vegan or a vegetarian, especially if you are calling yourself one in between bites of your Chicken Caesar salad. I suppose technically, if you are eating a vegetarian dish, you could call yourself a vegetarian for that meal since you are following the dietary guidelines that coincide with the established definition of that label. But don’t. It’s confusing to everyone in the long run. Please for the sake of world sanity quit calling yourself something you clearly aren’t.
You can still be a vegan or vegetarian supporter even if you eat meat and vice versa. Also, vegans of the world, stop telling meat eaters that Tofurkey or a tofu anything that is processed to look and taste like meat actually tastes like meat… it doesn’t. Quit trying to convince anyone, yourself included, that it does. Good for you sticking to your dietary convictions, but you’re not fooling anyone telling us it takes like meat. How would you know?
Likewise, to all you excessive-amounts-of-meat eaters, don’t be a douche and when hanging out with the veggie people and constantly talk about how delicious meat is, and asking the veggie people if they want a bite of your steak. To them meat is murder… tasty, tasty murder… kidding, sorry (I saw that on a t-shirt once and it always pops into my head every time I hear the phrase “meat is murder”). To them meat is the equivalent of, well, a carnivore eating a Tofurkey loaf for Thanksgiving. Get over it and try having a non-meat related conversation with them. And in one final attempt to those that still don’t get it, if vegans and vegetarians don’t eat meat that means there is more for you. Same goes to you veggie people in regards to vegetables. That way we all get something we like and we all get along… Check please!
I know “beady eyed vegetarian” might be a new term for some of you, what are some of your self-created food consumption labels?
Image Sources:
Google Images, keywords: conversation, confused, vegan, thanksgiving sandwich, eating chicken Caesar salad, and eating meat.
Last week I went to see Norah Jones in concert at a lovely little place in Salt Lake called Red Butte Gardens. They always put on a concert series, but only during summer due to it being an outside venue. It is a beautiful, and always a great show… unless you have allergies… or a freak rain storm blows in… or if any other extreme and tedious weather mishaps occur. For my night with Norah, it was perfect.
The other groovy thing about concerts at this particular location is that it is an open bar venue… as long as you bring the bar. So with a cooler in hand, well, it was a cooler on wheels so I just had to hold on to the handle and let the thing roll along behind us, we found a spot on the lawn and began to enjoy our dinner and some wine as the warm up band began warming up. It was almost the perfect evening…
There was a collection of little nuances that helped sculpt this evening into a night that will not be soon forgotten. First was the wine, all very yummy, but a little difficult to get to at first. For the record we remembered the Swiss Army knife. The down side is that we grabbed the one without the cork screw. This was easily rectified thanks to the couple sitting next to us. They, being wine drinkers as well, were kind enough to lend us their de-corking apparatus. So in a fit of brilliance, I opened all three bottles at once so we would not need to bother the couple again each time we wanted to open a bottle. This would have worked perfectly had we not been so pressing in our re-corking of the freshly opened bottles. One of our reds had the cork returned a little too much. Then trying to remove the cork by hand, the little thing tore right off. But the nice couple retained their nice trait and lent us the wine opener again. (We even gave them cookies to as an offering of our gratitude.)
At one point in the evening while we were still enjoying our wine and cheese, and before the sun had completely set and Norah had come out, there was a bug that had chosen to nestle in my hair without my consent. I didn’t care because I couldn’t feel it. My sweetie-baby-cutie-pie on the other hand did notice it and felt very adamant that this bug was crossing the social etiquette line. So in response she reached up and swiped at the bug to get out of my hair. The bug was a trifle petite and suffered from an incredibly weak constitution and from Angela’s little swipe jumped out of my hair, landed in my ear and proceeded to instantly die.
At this point Angela began laughing and tried to get the dead bug by sticking her finger in my ear, hence pushing the newly deceased insect deeper into my ear. I then acquired the disposition of an ex-junkie with a permanent tic having an acid flashback. I started out with shaking my head from side to side. The dead bug remained. Next, I started banging my head again my open hand while tilting my head so the ear with the bug in it was facing the ground. Then I started fanning my ear with my hand in an attempt to create a small breeze that would dislodge the bug and let it slide out of my ear. Eventually this, along with the occasional banging my head against my hand freed my ear of the deceased intruder. Angela was kind enough to continue laughing though this entire debugging process.
Finally, Norah joined us all and came out on stage. Spirits were high, and two bottles were now completely empty. As her set played on, I did notice something, as Norah was playing her set I was enamored with the songs she was playing. They were from her newest album, which I’ll admit I’ve not listened to as much as I would have liked. Then, when she got to her tried and true songs that people who listen to her know and love, I wasn’t nearly a smitten. I enjoy her recent stuff a lot more than the music that got me hooked on listening to her in the first place… I’m not sure that has ever happened to me before.
Then at one point during her set, as she finished one song and the audience started clapping, and cheering, and woo hooing, one of the friends we were with, would had topped off most of the third bottle all by himself at this time, belted out, “I love you Natalie!” This was followed by his wife briefly explaining to him that Norah Jones was on stage and not Natalie Merchant, which was followed by a round of giggling from our corner of the audience.
The only mishap apart from the bug in the ear was when I finally got to my car during the mass exodus after the show ended. The white SUV I had parked next to was long gone by this point, but they had been kind enough to leave a white strip of rubbed off bumper along the driver’s side of my car. If ran the length of both doors. I guess the driver was lacking in the “backing straight out” skill that helps compile the “competent driver” skill set that I thought was necessary for people to get their drivers license. Wishful thinking on my part I guess. The white bumper streak wiped off pretty easily though, and since my car is a tool that gets me to work and back and not something I pamper and wash once a week, and weep when it gets violated as such, I’m not all that emotionally attached to it. It wasn’t that big of a deal. Still, it certainly added to the overall experience of evening.
All in all, it was a great night and a brilliant concert. If you get chance, by all means check out one of her shows. I recommend three bottles of wine per four people, but feel free to play with that number depending on your budget and your consumption level limits as a professional drinker. Oh, and don’t forget your cork screw!
What was one of your more memorable concerts?
Image Sources:
Google Images, keywords: Red Butte Gardens, Swiss Army knife, bug in ear, Norah Jones, and bad drivers.
So last Thursday, the 19th, I and a few of friends, made it to the RiffTrax Live! performance at one of the local theaters. Now usually when I mention RiffTrax I have to give a brief history about what RiffTrax is. If you already know, feel free to skip the next paragraph. If you don’t, a little history never hurt anyone… except all the people that were harmed in the making of the history involved… right! So about the history of RiffTrax, in order for me to do that I need to first tell you a little about their origins.
RiffTrax is essentially the love child of Mystery Science Theater 3000 (MST3K) and short lived Film Crew. MST3K made a cult name for itself doing the very thing that we all do when watching something “sort of” to “epically” lame on the television, which is… making fun of it with your own open commentary. MST was a show about watching people watching bad movies while making fun of it. After the show ended, the three guys that finished the series started a new venture called the Film Crew. After a few hang-ups there, namely MST owner Jim Mallon (who, in my opinion, is kind of a douche bag) told the distributor of the DVDs that he would pull all future MST title distribution unless they passed on the Film Crew series, the Film Crew ended and RiffTrax began.
I know, it’s a lot of exposition just to get to the point, but I think it helps those who have no idea what RiffTrax is. A RiffTrax Live! event is where the RiffTrax crew do a live performance in a theater where you get to watch them on stage making fun of a movie. In some cases they broadcast this live event to a bunch of other theaters across the country. This is what I went to and enjoyed last Thursday.
Having been to a few of these broadcast events now, and being an MST3K fan that treads somewhere around of the edge of the “devoted” to “ludicrous” waters, I always know I’m in for a good time. One of the best things about these events is that you are surrounded by like-minded and like-humored people, people who are there because they too love MST. The audience is full of that ready to laugh energy. It’s infectious and it makes the whole event that much more entertaining. The experience did offer two new additions that I had not experienced before, namely Frank and Dwight… two of the friends that join me for the show were pretty much MST virgins.
Ok, so maybe Dwight had gotten to second base with an MST episode or two before, but that’s about it. Frank had heard about it, but I don’t think he’d ever had a full and true MST experience… which, technically, he still hasn’t, but he will. I can say that neither are RiffTrax virgins anymore. Not that it was ever on their “bucket list”, but at least now they can now put it on the list and cross it off at the same time. Also, both are newly devoted fans to the riffing on movies experience. I must say, there is something incredibly satisfying about introducing friends to one of your favorite things in the world and having them become fans of the art that is MST.
It felt a little like saving the Oompa-Loompas’ from total destruction and introducing them to a new life filled with songs and candy… and what really kind of comes across as slavery… hmmm, ok bad example. I guess you could say it’s more like smoking… minus the disgusting, smelly, smoky, cancer causing affects. What I mean is when a smoker meets someone who is also a smoker there is a sort of bond, an unspoken connection to that other person, I guess the same could be said for scrap booking… and I know I feel the same way when I learn that someone loves MST3K.
So what did we watch? Reefer Madness… in color no less. If there is one thing this 1930’s propaganda film can teach you about pot, it’s how to laugh at people who smoke too much of it. It really was a grand time, accompanied by a few really crappy special effects and some “crazy eyes” camera angles that will keep you giggling for a good two or three days after. Frank and Dwight loved it, which I loved because, guess what that means? Yep, I’ve got some MST/RiffTrax/Cinematic Titanic parties to plan. One universal truth about MST is that, even if they are fun to watch, they are so much better when you are watching them with friends that are enjoying them as well.
The point I wanted to make with all this is this… tomorrow, August 24th they are doing an Encore performance of the Reefer Madness RiffTrax Live! event. If you are a fan, but missed it, or didn’t even know about it, tomorrow is your chance to check it out. If you enjoy MST3K at all it’s well worth the price of the ticket. I just hope you live in a town that will be showing the Encore performance. Hope you can make it.
Click here to check and see if it’s playing in a theater somewhere close to you.
If you did happen to make it to the show, what did you think?
Google Images, key words: RiffTrax Live, second base, and Reefer Madness.
I found this delightful little antidote the other day and shared it on my Facebook wall. I liked it because for me it was so resoundingly true every time I work at home. The clever observation was, “I worked from home the other day and got a lot of stuff done, which has led me to the conclusion that pants limit productivity.” I was going to leave it at that until a friendly, well, friend commented, “I hope there’s a smirk coming for this one.” In truth, up until I read that comment there was no… actually there was a Smirk in the works, it just wasn’t about that. However, thanks to Sarah’s comment, I gave it some thought …
Usually, it’s one of those things women don’t get, but men do. We really can’t describe why we get it and can’t comprehend for the life of us why women don’t. When we emerge triumphantly from our home office without any pants on after a fully productive day, women don’t care; they just shake their head and order us to, “Put on some pants.” 
The warmer it gets the more I just want to nap out for a bit, and pants, they add insulation to the body’s natural thermostat, warming you up with fewer surfaces to vent out the constant heat your body is creating. Now let’s remove the pants… ah that’s much better. I’m not overheating at all. Actually, I’m cooling down quite nicely, which transforms me into being more awake and more energized, hence crating a higher level or productivity. 
Pockets hold distractions. Don’t get me wrong, they are very handy at the right time, in the right place, say like when you win at slots and all those coins start pouring out. The more pockets you have the more coins you can carry. However, when it comes to working, pockets seem to hold nothing but distractions. Cell phones for instance, a lot of people store them in their pocket or in little holsters attached to their pants, usually by means of a belt. Then the phone goes off people not only stop working, but it takes a while for them to readjust their entire body to be able to get access to their phone. This is a constant distraction from work for many, not just the phone, but the digging around for the phone in your pocket and then the rearranging of one’s seated working position to put the phone back.
I’m not saying these reasons are grounds for the business office attire standards around the world to change, but when it comes to working at home, these are pretty legitimate reasons for why I feel I’m more productive working without any pants on verses working at home with pants on… or working at work with pants on for that matter. I’m sure the same reasoning still applies; the only trouble is that if it became a standard some people would find the prospect of working in an office with a “pants optional” dress code a bit distracting. I would like to point out that if your gripe is that guys might go out of their way to distract a coworker that they fancy, pants aren’t going to make a lot of difference. You already know who those people are and they are already distracting the coworkers they fancy… ok thongs might be an issue, but that’s the reason for a dress code damn it. 
