Whimsical Bullshit

Top 5 Petty Complaints About the Engineers Across the Hall

So for background, there's some tech company that has their office across the hall from mine and a couple of months ago they doubled their staff of engineers. I've been noticing some disturbing trends, mostly related to the only places I interact with them—the hallways and bathroom. I'll note that we did not have any of these issues until this company scaled up their engineering team.

  1. The barefoot dude who is barefoot in the bathroom all the time. 
    Now I understand the urge to relax and take your shoes off at work, I really do.  I would never do it because I'm not disgusting, but I do understand the urge.  However, bathrooms are gross.  People pee and poop in there—not hygienic. This guy (all of these incidents are perpetrated by dudes, obv) literally comes into the bathroom, going about his business, in his bare feet.  What. The. Fuck.  I have to wonder, is this something he is open about and has a philosophical stance on like “Humans weren't meant to wear shoes!  Monkeys don't wear shoes and I'm no better than that, so I don't wear shoes either!”  Or is it his shameful secret that he only indulges in at work because all of his co-workers are also super grody and won't bat an eye?  Does his doctor keep getting conflicting excuses as to why he keeps coming in with cases of hookworm?

    So many questions, so few answers.
     
  2. The “I'm too busy to wash my hands” guy.
    This fucking guy.  Never washes his hands, and is super blatant about how gross he is. He just walks in, drops the kids off at the pool, and then wanders out without a care in the world.  We've started putting signs up saying “employees must wash hands.” The signs aren't working.
     
  3. The crumbs in the hallway.
    How can there be this many damn crumbs in the hallway?  It looks like a construction site or a wood-working shop… but with like… crumbs instead of sawdust?  Are there ducks in the office you are trying to feed?  Because I haven't seen any ducks around here.  I think you are just walking around with your sandwiches being super gross eaters.  The ducks down at the park may approve of this behavior but I am not a duck, and I hate you.
     
  4. The toothbrush incident.
    You're a grown-ass man working at a fancy tech company. You probably have a bathroom at home with a mirror and everything. You're really bringing your toothbrush and toothpaste to work like it's some kind of middle school campout? No. No no no. It's gross, and you are gross. You are gross every day, because I see you doing this every day.
     
  5. The toilet situation.
    The state of our toilets is shameful.  I should have known what was coming because a month after all these gross nerds moved in, there were signs on every toilet stall stating clearly that “Due to popular demand, the toilets will be replaced with high capacity versions.”  Let me break that down for you:

    a) “Due to popular demand” - many people have asked for this thing to happen.
    b) “High capacity” - mega gross nerd shits.

    Even with our new super-shitters, the nerds next door keep breaking them with their uber-turds, and leaving celebratory piles of TP, bowl protectors, paper hand towels, and napkins (????) strewn about.  Fucking awesome.

I hope we've all learned an important lesson from this: nerds are horrible and gross, and all stereotypes are 100% correct.

The Story Behind the Flat Broke Puppet Co.

The Nick Jones of the Flat Broke Puppet Co. has been lighting up the corner of 24th and Mission for a year now with his goofy breed of musical puppetry, much to the delight of children and adults alike.  Recently, the Chronicle caught up with him to get his story:

Jones, 35, ran away to San Francisco as an “angry gay teen” when he was 17. He didn’t fit into the small fishing town in Rhode Island where he grew up, but when he arrived in San Francisco, it wasn’t the mecca of acceptance he had hoped for.

Like other teens who land in the city searching for answers to their complicated problems, Jones found a world of addiction and tough streets. Over the years he came and went from San Francisco, struggling to find a place where he could fit in.

Four years ago, he landed here again. This time, he found a community through his puppets.

Jones makes his own puppets with material donated by friends. Wolfie, a ratty faux-fur wolf with button eyes, was his first. The collection has grown to more than 20, but he still calls Wolfie his No. 1.
Wolfie comes to life with a touch of a rough-and-tumble East Coast accent that Jones says is inspired by his grandfather. Jones’ other creations include a cat, three dinosaurs, a shark, a witch, a 1960s wannabe diva kangaroo and Mary Jane Lane — a wide-lipped drag queen he calls his chanteuse.

Keep reading on SFgate, and be sure to watch this profile put together by Mission Local.

Muni's New Buses Are Two Fuzzy Pink Eyebrows Away From Being SF's Scariest Transportation Disrupter

When future generations of American schoolchildren look back at 2012 in their history ebooks, San Francisco's greatest achievement will undoubtedly be remembered as Lyft's pink mustache—perhaps the most significant leap forward in automobile anthropomorphism since Lindsey Lohan sniffed her way inside Herbie the Love Bug back in 1969.  But we aren't living in 1969, my friends.  This is bronze age of iterative disruption, and Muni has taken Lyft's fist-bumpin' badge of whimsy and pivoted it into a sinister, alien-eyed autobus frontage.

That's right.  Behold the future of Muni: these are the new electrohybridfuturebuses you'll be spending your anxiety-filled commutes in for the next 10-15 years, and oh how evil they look.

But it's a marvelous improvement, really.  And when you consider the driver of said alien-eyed autobus won't welcome you with a fist-bump, but instead a glare and mumbled obscenity, pehaps Muni's newly personified face is a fitting representation the entire system.

[Photo by munidave | via Streetsblog]

What Do Mission Residents Want?

According to some non-scientific survey of stickers on a Clarion Alley wall, Mission residents have twice voiced their desire for less hipsters and more pussy/booty, with single votes going to more art, places to BM, and various folk's self-promotion.  And all that sounds just fine and pressing, I guess, but, really, I think we can all agree one which is the most pressing:

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