Introduction

The following accounts which make up this book tell the tale of a web site known to the world as newfunny.com. It's about a man who believed that for better or worse, it was his job to show the world his unique brand of witty banter through the Internet.

The purpose of this book is to provide a unique inside perspective to the events that led to the rise of the newfunny.com web site. The story is told through excerpts from the web site itself, electronic mail written by people who are either directly or indirectly involved with the production of this web site, and text of Instant Message exchanges. This information was monitored and archived for the purpose of protecting propriety information and establishing original ownership of all concepts created for the newfunny web site.

I have no doubt a fair amount of confusion will be created when people start reading this story. Is this a completely accurate account, or is everything a work of fiction? Did "event X" actually occur, or was it created as a literary technique to enhance the overall story? Sometimes the concept of truth is a little more slippery than we would like to admit. The answer is yes. And no.

To complicate matters, these accounts were originally placed on the newfunny site on a weekly basis before the end of the story was known and before the complete set was published in the more traditional paperback book format.

How much truth is there in the last statement? On the surface it seems like a rather straightforward declarative statement. Much of the content of this book is being written as the events related to the web site are still taking place. During the writing of this book, it was at times necessary to extrapolate events and report on the most likely (or perhaps favorable) outcome. Elements of the past, present, and future have been combined to provide the most complete story possible.

When reading this, don't be too fixated on "if" things have actually happened. It may be true or it may be something made up. There is also a possibility it was made it up, but by the time you get around to buying the book, the event in question did happen. The legal department of the publishing company has advised me to clearly remind everyone reading this book that nothing actually happened and I made the whole thing up. While you may be thinking of me as a twenty-seven year old computer geek who happened to be the creator of newfunny.com, the reality of the situation is this entire story was written by a husky Scandinavian woman named Helga who was involuntarily confined to a mental institution back in 1964. I'm just a fictional persona first brought to life in words with a magic marker on the walls of a large padded room.

The multiple lawsuits filed to retain the rights to this story after Helga's somewhat mysterious death delayed the publication for several decades. Modern science has developed two explanations for the accuracy of predicting and describing the future state of technology in this story. The first theory is that Helga's overactive imagination was specially adapted to foresee the direction of existing technologies. The other theory involves a small army of time traveling aliens that spoke to her during afternoon television sessions about what the world was going to be like thirty years down the road. Which one was it? The world may never know.

Or was that part of a dream I had the other night after I ate leftover tuna fish and pepperoni pizza right before going to sleep? I keep forgetting. Just to be fair, I will provide one paragraph of factual information to get the ball rolling. While I am far from perfect, I firmly believe the following statements are correct.

My name is Omar Lutfey and I run a web site called newfunny.com. If you feel the need to stalk me or look at the website I keep mentioning, you can look either part up on the Internet. I am really, truly, honestly, not making that part up.

That turned out to be a rather short paragraph. The truth behind everything else in this book is up to the reader to decide. Believe what you want-reality is overrated anyway.

I would like to end the introduction with one of my favorite television quotes. Like so many aspects of life, the most appropriate insight can be expressed through a quote from Star Trek. In this situation, a passage from the "Deep Space Nine" series comes to mind. Dr. Bashir, the Star Fleet doctor assigned to the Deep Space Nine (one of the good guys) is sitting at the local bar talking with Garak, a Cardasian who lives on the station and has a rather shady past. After hearing a series of larger than life accounts from Garak, the young doctor questions that which he is being told. This passage should set the tone for the rest of the book.

Bashir: So of the stories you told me, which ones were true?
Garak: My dear doctor, all of them were true.
Bashir: What about the lies?
Garak: Especially the lies.


Chapter 1

Omar: Hey
Kerry: What's up?
Omar: I've decided that I'm going to quit my job and start a new web site.
Kerry: Have you been drinking? It's only two in the afternoon.
Omar: Does it count if its at a company sponsored activity?
Kerry: I'm not sure. I guess it depends on who catches you and what you were doing at the time.
Omar: Actually, I think it's more of a sugar high from the cake. They had a keg of Fat Tire there too, but I don't see beer and cake playing well together in my stomach. Marketing put together a fully catered celebration to mark the release of a new product here at the office. You know how that goes.
Kerry: Yeah, too bad I left Rave Software for a better job. There is a definite lack of beer and cake where I am now. And they don't even have a foosball table.
Omar: So anyway, I was sitting in the break room eating a wonderfully delightful piece of frosted strawberry cake when I had a vision. I'm going to start up a web site for people who think they are funny.
Kerry: I'm not even going to ask.
Omar: Each year I write a Christmas letter talking about what I've been up to. I figure that is a good starting point.
Kerry: OK, I'll admit your last Christmas letter didn't totally suck.
Omar: Would it kill you to admit I have talent?
Kerry: To be honest, I'm just not willing to take the chance.
Omar: I am tired of the man trying to keep me down-- this is my way of breaking free.
Kerry: I didn't know the man targeted twenty-seven year old white male computer geeks. I guess I've learned something new today.
Omar: The man chases us all, my friend. He can take many deceptive forms.
Kerry: Well, I've got some work to do. I have to add some functionality to the code base by the end of the day. It's not like the good old days of technical support where you can work on things whenever it is convenient.
Omar: Sounds like you have a tiny sliver of regret for leaving here. I know you miss all my witty banter when we shared a cubical.
Kerry: Yeah, it's pretty rough having my own office here. Send me an e-mail when you set up your initial public offering on your new web site.
Omar: Later.
Kerry: Bye.


Chapter 2

To: Karen
From: Omar
Subject: I'm sure you will love this

Hey there,

Sorry I've been blowing you off so much lately. I'd like to say I've been too busy at work to respond to your e-mail messages, but I think you probably know better. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that when I do write back it always involves stories of screwing around at work. It's kind of amusing how I don't seem to recall many stories about working really hard to fix customers' problems. I suspect I repress those memories for some reason. Only the power of deep hypnosis can bring them back.

I'm not sure if this counts as a "screwing around at work" story since it technically happened away from the office, but our entire technical support department went to Toys-R-Us today at lunch. Our manager decided that we all needed toy guns to help alleviate the stress and tension that has been building up lately in our office. Seeing 15 grown adults running around the isles of the toy store seemed to make the staff a little uneasy. They probably thought we were high on crack or something.

Technical support is now by far the most heavily armed division in our office building. Most of the equipment is of the Nerf gun variety that shoots foam projectiles at the target. One of the guns shoots out foam missiles that whistle as they approach their target. This turns out to be a very useful form of intimidation. Less intimidating, however, is the post attack negotiations where the attacker kindly and politely asks for the return of the ammunition.

I decided on a lovely gun and sword combination based on the abundance of flashing light and annoying sounds produced when the trigger is pulled. For some unknown reason, the sword vibrates. So I soon reclassified it as my "anal probe of death." This weapon is quite effective at creating fear in anyone who would dare oppose me. It seems a lot of people would rather have their head cut off or be stabbed in the chest than have to deal with the anal probe of death. My tactics backfired, so to speak, when one of my opponents became a little too interested in the details of my attack plans.

And I get paid for this! That's the part that always amazes me.

Well, I have to get going. It seems some of my coworkers have banded together and are preparing an ambush on my cubical in the very near future. I have no choice but to pull out the anal probe of death.

Talk to you later,
Omar (AKA your favorite brother)



Chapter 3

Brian: Hey there
Omar: What's up?
Brian: Not much-- I talked to Janet about Brian's Christmas party. She is going to be out of town that night, but I think I'll be there.
Omar: Cool-- from what Brian was saying it's going to be a pretty big event. Brian, Angie, and Phil are all inviting people. I guess they are all getting along pretty well since they moved in together.
Brian: I'm really upset that I wasn't there to help them move last week. Sounds like that was the REAL party.
Omar: You know that big blue couch that Brian bought when he was still with Julie? I was the first one to ever suggest that we take it apart before moving it. We turned it over and there were four bolts on the bottom holding the two end pieces to the middle section. Unscrewing the bolts made things a lot easier because we could carry it down the stairs in three different pieces. But I guess when you buy a vibrating couch, you have to expect it to be heavy. I couldn't believe how much stuff they had in that storage unit-I suspect that Angie burgled a small library or book store and hid the loot with all their personal belongings in the storage unit.
Brian: Good job on the couch. That's one of those intangible benefits of graduating from college. Impressive spatial and deductive reasoning skills.
Omar: I knew there was a reason why I stuck around CSU. I know it wasn't for the abundance of attractive women in the Computer Science department.
Brian: Hey, I forgot about Angie. How did your big date go with her last weekend? Did she like the motorcycle?
Omar: As far as the date goes-things went pretty good, we drove up Left Hand Canyon which is just north of Boulder. It was kind of cold by the time we got up into the mountains, but there were some amazing views of the leaves changing color. She has experience driving motorcycles from growing up in Nebraska. That made things a lot easier. The most important thing the passenger on a motorcycle needs to do is lean into the turns. She was great at leaning, so going up and down the windy mountain roads was a lot more fun.
Brian: Sweet-- are you going out again?
Omar: I don't know-- I called her on Thursday to see if she wanted to go out on Saturday. She said maybe, but then when Saturday rolled around she decided that she wanted to go to the art museum instead. I guess I'm a somewhat low priority.
Brian: You should have gone and "met" her at the art museum. Women like it when guys follow them around like that. And if she seems suspicious, you can just pretend like she never mentioned it on the phone. It's just crazy enough to work.
Omar: I thought we hit it off, but I've never been really good at figuring out what women are thinking. Did you know that she speaks Italian? She likes to talk about the architecture in Italy and things that happened to her when she went over there last summer. The fact she is so passionate about it is pretty cool.
Brian: Maybe your motorcycle wasn't cool enough. Did you try talking to her in an Italian accent? If you had done that, she would have had no choice but to fall in love with you.
Omar: Yeah, that's it-- if only I shelled out the extra money for the Harley things would be different.
Omar: Hey, I registered a domain name for my new web site
Omar: www.newfunny.com
Brian: Lovely-- so are you a dot com millionaire yet? Don't forget to order the Ferrari-they have a waiting list you know.
Omar: I spent the past couple of days looking for good domain names that weren't taken yet. I'm still working on the paperwork for the initial public offering, so I'll have to put the luxury automobiles on hold for now.
Brian: So what else are you going to put on it besides your Christmas letters?
Omar: I've been thinking about that. I have a vision for the site as a place for up-and-coming comedy writers.
Brian: Sounds kind of vague. Don't they already have sites that put up jokes and strange pictures?
Omar: True, there are a bunch of web sites that already put up jokes. I don't think I would be doing anything new if I did that. I was thinking more along the lines of developing a small number of people who write funny commentaries on a somewhat regular basis
Brian: Except you might have trouble finding people who want to put that much effort into a web site that nobody knows about.
Omar: True-- I've been thinking of writing a weekly story about things going on in my life. Hopefully that will help bring people to my site. If I can do that I should be able to convince people to submit their own works.
Omar: If that part works, I could expand the site into amusing flash animation and sketch comedy. I haven't worked with flash all that much, but I have a great idea for a continuing series-it would be "South Park" meets "Hometime". Robin and Dean would be animated characters. In each episode they find a new construction related method for killing off Dean. What do you think?
Brian: Sounds like you are working pretty hard at your current job. Besides, how are you going to pay for all that work?
Omar: I don't really want to bother with that right away. I pay 8 dollars a month to have someone host the site. If can get enough traffic on my site, artists will beg me to put their stuff on it. Maybe I'm being a little dramatic there, but I think you get my point.
Brian: Sounds like you have it all planned out. Except the Angie part.
Omar: I talked to her online the other night. She did the whole "let's just be friends" routine. So I don't think it's a case of me being overly pessimistic about women this time. It's not that big of a deal-I would have liked for more to have developed, but at least this way nothing strange happened. We went out once, nothing happened, and now we can still be friends. I have enough weird stories about the women I've dated. At least this one doesn't end with me making an ass of myself or her running off to join the peace corps.
Brian: Not a good sign. But maybe it's a good thing-- do you really want to go out with a woman who is living with one of your best friends?
Omar: I had this idea of seeing if she wanted to go backpack around Europe over the summer. Neither of us have anything really tying us down right now. If we planned it out now we could put all our stuff in storage and fly over there in March or April. I'm just going to keep that part on the back burner for now.
Brian: Probably a good idea-- it kind of has a "more than friends" ring to it.
Omar: well, I'm going to get back to work. I want to get the first version of my web site up and running before I leave work today.
Brian: LOL-- it's good to see you are maintaining your focus at work. You could point all the customers you are supposed to be helping to your new web site. They can be amused while you are busy not solving their problems.
Omar: I could put a little blurb at the end of every e-mail I send out. I'm sure my manager would love that.
Omar: I'm out of here.
Brian: Later.


Chapter 4

Kerry: Hey.
Omar: Hey.
Kerry: How is life in the world of C++ technical support treating you?
Omar: It's lovely, as usual. I'm helping train a new woman who started last week. Today I went over the 5 responses that answer 90 percent of all the questions.
Kerry: Fun fun. My favorite was always "its not a bug. It's a feature."
Omar: Yeah, that and "don't use our product for that part" is always a crowd pleaser. Except I don't think sales really likes it when we use that line with customers.
Kerry: That probably makes it harder for them to go back and grovel for more money next time around.
Omar: I can live with that. I'm not on a commission here.
Kerry: True
Omar: Hey, I registered a domain name for my future web site. It took me several hours of brainstorming and searching online, but I finally came up with a good name.
Kerry: You are still going through with that? I figured that you would lose interest after a week or so and move onto your next idea that would change the world.
Omar: No, I'm pretty committed to this one. The name of my new web site is "newfunny.com". I registered the name and paid the fee last night.
Kerry: Not bad, I suppose. I read online that the last of the one word domain names were registered a few months ago.
Omar: Yeah, I wanted "funny.com", but it was long gone. And I don't really feel like shelling out money to buy a domain name from someone. Even mediocre domain names that people have registered are selling for a few thousand dollars. I'm pretty happy with it though. It's short and has the .com extension, so I'm sure people will mistake it for a real web site.
Kerry: That has been known to happen on occasion.
Omar: I just hope it happens to me. I just want the world to know how funny I am. Is that so wrong?
Kerry: I'm not sure about that. Hey, you need to write about Jana on your web site. That woman has to be pretty high on your list of funny experiences in life.
Omar: Wow, I hadn't thought of that. I forgot how psychotic she was.
Kerry: Yeah, she needed her medication adjusted.
Omar: I even shared a cubical with her until she got fired. I think I've been repressing that memory until now. I don't like to take joy in the misfortune of others, but I was so happy when I didn't have to deal with her anymore.
Kerry: Well, when you stand up and scream "FUCK QUAKE" during a department meeting in a paranoid frenzy, you pretty much know your days are numbered. I don't know why she had such a problem with everyone else playing network games during their lunch break.
Omar: Yeah, I never quite figured that one out either. I think she was frustrated because everyone else was getting the hang of doing technical support faster than she was. I remember her going around saying she wasn't a "hot shot" programmer like some of us. She also had that obsession about noises. She would always get on my case because I would lean back on my chair and it would squeak on occasion. Remember when she complained that Glenn's CD drive was spinning too loud?
Kerry: And that computer was two cubicles away from her. What a nut case.
Omar: I'll remember to write about her sometime. I've almost finished with the design of the site. I've also found a place to host the site that doesn't charge too much. I should have everything up and running in a couple of weeks. It kind of depends on how busy I am at work. A lot of the design is getting done when there aren't a lot of issues in the technical support queue.
Kerry: So what else are you going to have on the site besides your Christmas letters? Or have you thought that far ahead yet?
Omar: I'm still working on that. I'm going to write more about things in my life. I'm hoping that I can find other writers who will contribute to my site. I'm sure I'm not the only person in the world who likes to write.
Kerry: Probably not.
Omar: Well, I've got to go-my phone is ringing. I suspect it's a customer. Gail has been getting on our case to get back to customers as quickly as possible. So I'll talk to you later.
Kerry: Have fun. Bye.


Chapter 5

To: Omar
From: Angie
Subject: Moving day

Omar,

Hey, thanks for helping Brian, Phil, and I move into the new apartment. I'm sorry I wasn't able to be there, but I wasn't able to get the day off work.

Are you coming to our Christmas party? I'm so excited about it. I've already started making cookies and other preparations. The apartment looks like a war zone right now, but I'm sure that several hours of intense effort will get the place cleaned up. Brian and Phil are in charge of the beverages, so you know there will be plenty of alcohol there. If you have any specific nonalcoholic drinks you want, you should tell them ahead of time. I just hope they don't get totally drunk and embarrass me at the party. Brian seems to hold his liquor pretty well, but I'm not sure what Phil is like when he drinks.

You don't seem to be much of a drinker-I hope you don't feel out of place at the party. We are going to have a bunch of games set up like Pictionary and Taboo, so I'll bet you will kick the asses of all the drunkards! And there should be some cute single women coming. Hopefully you can find that someone special-you deserve to find someone that will make you happy :)

Angie


Chapter 6

To: Everyone
From: Omar
Subject: newfunny.com is ready for business!!!

I've been talking about this a lot for the past couple of weeks, and now my work of art is finished. If you open a web browser and look up "newfunny.com" you can see what has been occupying all my time lately.

The general idea is that this site is going to be a place where people can read all of my writing. Right now I have several years' worth of Christmas letters up on the site dating back to 1996. I'm sure that you have read a lot of these before, but now they are all in the same place. At least this way I'm not as likely to lose them.

I'm also planning on writing a new story each week to add to the content of the site. Hopefully this will also keep people coming back to the site on a somewhat regular basis. The idea is that I will write about general things that happen in my social life. I'm working on a story right now about my squishy ball. That should be done later on this week.

I hope everyone gets a kick out of what I've done so far. Make sure to tell all your friends about the site. I want to be famous some day :)

Omar


Chapter 7

Web Story: 1995 Christmas letter

Dear friend,

Another year has passed before us and I am taking time out of my busy schedule to personally write you this letter explaining to you what is going on in my life. Please do not infer that just because I am constantly referring to you in the generic second person and not including any personal information about you that this is one of those tacky one-size-fits-all impersonal letters that are being mass mailed to everyone I know instead of taking the time to write individual letters. I would like to think that you know me well enough to realize that I am above that type of behavior.

Anyway, I guess that this part of the letter should be devoted to my accomplishments over the past year. I have managed to stay in school for another year. If you do not already know, I am currently a senior attending Colorado State University. I am currently working toward degrees in both Computer Science and Mathematics. I am, however, considering staying in college for an extra semester to get a minor in Viking Cuisine. My counselor, who coincidentally lives in the Viking homeland, is always telling me that I should expand my dining horizons.

During the school year I am employed as a tutor for the beginning level computer science students. Earning a wage that is comparable to that of migrant farm workers, I give helpful advice and words of encouragement to students who have not mastered all of the ins and outs of C++. Most of the time the problems are simple-- a missed semicolon or a misspelled word, but there was one guy this last semester who would always sit at the computer closest to my desk just so he could turn around every five minutes and say "Its not working" and expect me to correct every single problem in his program until it was completed. In retrospect, it probably would have been considerably less strenuous for everyone involved if I just sat at his terminal and wrote his entire program for him. That way I would have fewer visions of impaling him with a computer monitor and he would not have to suffer the strain of repeatedly turning his head around to talk to me. Needless to say (although I am saying it anyway) this young man was quickly labeled "The dumb guy." In the end the other tutors and I decided that taking a big permanent magic marker and writing something to that effect on his forehead, while being completely accurate, would have probably gotten us into some kind of trouble.

In other news, I am putting the four weeks of winter vacation to good use. I went to the dentist last week and in addition to having no cavities, I also received, at no additional cost, a dinosaur toothbrush. Unfortunately, it wasn't until I got home and opened up the box that I realized that the actual toothbrush was designed for the mouths of three year olds and didn't really fit my brushing needs. I have decided to keep it in its original box and hold onto it as a collectors' item. Not all toothbrushes go up in value, but I have a good feeling about this one.

I guess that I could talk about the other members of my family now. My sister Karen was in town for the holidays. We spent most of our time together coming up with excuses to not walk the dog. My other sister Barf, who does not actually exist and is a figment of my imagination, is currently in counseling. She is depressed because nobody is paying any attention to her. My dog Cal is doing fine. He has learned through continued positive reinforcement that if he whines enough when someone is in the kitchen, he will eventually wind up with a doggie biscuit. My parents are doing typical parent activities such as working, paying for me to go through college, and detonating small explosive devices in the back yard.

Getting back to my sister Karen, she is attending school somewhere in one of those "I" states, but I always seem to get them all mixed up. She is a graduate student in the area of sociology which means that I have no idea what is going on in her academic life. She is going out with some guy named Jeremy, who is also a sociology graduate student. I don't know much about him except that he plays a lot of computer games which means that he automatically gets my approval. Karen recently received her Masters Degree and is now working toward her Ph.D. thingie. While she was here last week she told me that she and this Jeremy guy got married in a super-secret ancient Indian ceremony. It involved, among other things, that Jeremy spend three days and three nights naked in the woods with only a small plastic spoon that he had to use to hunt down the largest moose in the entire state. This is sort of a secret, so if you see my parents, please do not mention the wedding.

I also have a girlfriend who is named Karen. She is working at Longs pharmacy where she got promoted to the position of technician. She spends her days being nice to all of the customers and pretending she cares about their medical problems. "Young lady, you just wouldn't believe how good this here medicine is when it comes to getting rid of them pesky little heartworms!!!" "You're right sir, excuse me if I get nauseated at the mere thought of that, have a nice day."

Karen has also spent the last two years letting her hair grow out. It is now all the way down to her knees. I keep on telling her that she should get it cut, but she refuses to listen to my pleading. She said something about getting into the "Guinness Book of World Records" if she can just grow it out another thirty-two feet. I guess that we can all root for her to make it.

Getting back to me, I am planning to graduate on May 10th ish 1996. Everyone is welcome to come and see it provided that I in no way incur any financial responsibility and that you leave when I grow tired of your company. Hope to see you there.

I really cannot think of anything else to say, so hope that I can see/hear from you a lot next year. To all my Christian, Jewish, and very tall friends, have a happy 1996!

Omar Lutfey

PS: You will be happy to know that my spell checker now has the word "heartworms" added to its database.


Chapter 8

Web Story: 1996 Christmas letter

The earth and the sun have once again completed another round of their cosmic tag team, no holds barred wrestling match which means it is time for the second annual publication of my Christmas letter. My goal for this year is to have at least three people (including myself) read this letter. I am sure that there are some people who are skeptical about this letter reaching such a vast audience. To you naysayers out there I would like to proudly introduce my new ally-- exponential growth. In much the same way rabbits procreate and chain letters clog your mailbox, this plan revolves around my ability to harness this largely unexplored force of nature. After you read this, pass it on to two of your friends and then give $100 to the Mission Impossible guy who is outside posing as a garbage collector. Here is how the conversation will go:

IMF agent (a.k.a. "Garbage man"): "How much for the women?"
You: "My spleen is fine, thank you"
IMF agent "What the hell are you talking about? Just give me the damn money!"
(You give him the money and then he kills you)

Believe it or not, I managed to graduate from college. I received degrees in both Computer Science and Mathematics. When I tell people that I have a CS degree the usual response is "You won't have any problem finding a good job." And when I tell people that I have a degree in general Mathematics they say "So you're going to grad school." I guess getting the math part is like being on the game show "Jeopardy" and knowing the Final Jeopardy question only to realize that the guy next to you has three times as much money as you do.

I have very mixed feelings about graduating college. On one hand I don't miss the "cultural anthropology" class I was required to take or the "Oh, but he does a lot of research" professors that are forced to teach classes. On the other hand, I liked being able to watch television until my eyes hurt and spend most of my time on campus with 10,000 women, most of whom were between the ages of eighteen and twenty-five.

It wasn't long after graduation that my parents expressed an interest in my time management skills. ("Get your ass of the couch and find a job or we will put you up for adoption") After pounding the pavement for a while (until I got to my car) I drove to a building often referred to as "McDonalds." I told them about my situation and they were very interested in giving me one of those legendary high paying cushy cashier jobs with my own personal secretary and limousine driver. This didn't last very long, however, due to the fact that I have a very rare neurological disorder that I only found out about after my training. It seems that whenever I try and say "would you like fries with that?" my vocal chords take over and produce wildly inappropriate phases like "There are squirrels in my pants. Hee hee hee," "I did it. I did it. I shot JR!", and "Have you ever showered with Rush Limbaugh? It's not as bad as people say."

After the whole McDonalds episode, I ended up at a company called "Saxe Inc." It is run by a guy named, strangely enough, Andrew Saxe. He spends half of his time in Denver and the other half in New York city. It turns out that he loves the legendary brown cloud found in Denver, but he just can't tear himself away from the more traditional forms of pollution found in New York City. Talk about the best of both worlds.

Saxe Inc. is a very liberal company. So liberal, in fact, that all the employees are gay transvestites running around with pitchforks. No, wait a minute. I am thinking of the classic cult film "The Rocky Horror Picture Show." To the best of my knowledge, nobody at Saxe Inc. is a gay transvestite, and we only run around with pitchforks when there aren't any of our clients in the building.

Saxe Inc. is a somewhat liberal company. Everyone is allowed to run around in shorts and T-shirts. The only rule is that you can't run with scissors. We also have a place to play ping pong when we get frustrated and feel like hitting stuff. Just to make it perfect, we also have a cappuccino machine. The front of the machine shows a picture of some great looking cappuccino with perfect looking whip cream with just the right amount of evenly distributed sprinkles. Unfortunately, when I went to get some cappuccino I realized that the machine is not equipped to dispense either whip cream or sprinkles. In an angry fit of rage I ripped the machine out of the wall, raised it up over my head, yelled "Where are the fucking sprinkles?", and proceeded to throw the entire apparatus at a prospective client. He didn't die or anything, but I don't know if he is retaining our services. My lawyer advised my not to disclose the terms of the settlement.

As a software developer, I spent some time working on a project to answer the question "What is the meaning of life?" After several months, I came up with an elegant and efficient solution for producing an answer to the question that has eluded philosophers, theologians, and Douglas Adams, author of the book "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy," for thousands of years. I started running the program only to discover to my dismay that the answer to the question "What is the meaning of life" cannot be answered by sitting inside a sterile office building at a desk with stale fluorescent lights and a 486 computer. It turns out I need a Pentium.

The other night I went out to an Avalanche game with some people I know, including a nose pierced, ex-stripper, bisexual Satan worshiper. No kidding. If I ever have kids I hope they never find out about this and use it to their advantage by saying stuff like "Come on Dad, I just want to go out and get drunk with this 24 year old guy I met at the bowling alley, it's not like I'm going out with a nose pierced, ex-stripper, bisexual Satan worshiper or anything." To be honest, we all had a reasonably good time and I can add her to the extensive list of women that I am too chicken to ever ask out.

Another highlight of this year was the condominium that I purchased in October. It came with two bedrooms, one bath, a huge loft, and a years supply of Spam. The biggest problem that I have right now is that I bought a couch that is too large to fit up the stairway. OOPS. All of my appliances are twenty years old and I say a prayer each night hoping that they don't all die at once. It is a strange feeling to have a thirty year mortgage to think about. Saying that it will take thirty years to pay it off makes it seem like a huge deal. I just think of it as 358 more payments. Assuming that the postage rate for first class mail doesn't go up in the next thirty years (hahahaha) I will be spending $114.56 on stamps alone. Sorry, I guess that the math-geek part of me is coming out.

While cleaning out all of my old college stuff, I came across a paper that I had written during my first year at CSU for a mathematics course. It started like this:


I can honestly say that I feel more complete as a human being now that I have written this paper. All my life I knew that there was some calling in my life that had remained, up until now, unanswered. Who knew that my calling would be to write a recursive algorithm for generating a lexicographical set of permutations from the set {1,2,3,...,N}? The Lord works in mysterious ways. Who am I to disagree with powers that I can hardly fathom?

Who says that science and religion can't just get along? The best part of this paper, in my opinion, is the following passage:


After I finished the algorithm, I went home and showed it to my mother. I could go on about how my mother is an algorithm analysis expert and pulls in the big bucks at Hewlett Packard, but I will refrain from doing so because of the fact that it would be an outright lie. She is actually a registered nurse who really has absolutely no understanding of the world of computers, but she thought that it was wonderful and found space to display it on the refrigerator.

I am sure you will be happy to know that I received an "A" for my efforts.

I think that I have said enough for this year, so (insert cliché end of the year saying here) and remember folks-- you don't have to go home, but you can't stay here.


Chapter 9

Web Story: 1997 Christmas letter

Well folks, it's that time of year again-- the days are getting shorter, annoying Christmas music is playing at the mall, the political forces that run our nation are gearing up for the next presidential election, and, of course, it's time to publish my third annual Christmas letter. This brings up the question of whether I should even try to construct a letter that surpasses the high standard that I set for myself when writing the first two Christmas letters. Consider the world of movies for a moment. By the time they get to making a third movie in a series it pretty much just sucks. I am sure they meant well when they made "Superman 3", but putting Christopher Reeves, Richard Prior, and a wacky evil computer together isn't something to be proud of. Even "Return of the Jedi" wasn't as good as its predecessors. Oh no, they built ANOTHER Death Star for the good guys to blow up at the very end. On the other hand, I listened to the School House Rock CD (which I own, of course) and learned that three is a magic number. I don't think they would have made a number magical if there was an inherent problem with it. In conclusion (of the introduction), I know the risks but I am none the less going to give it a shot. If you are not completely satisfied with this product, just send any unused portion to the address provided for a full refund.

In case you didn't already know, I left my job at Saxe, Inc. Among other things, the thought of developing software to help companies send out more junk mail slowly wore down my will to live. After a while I would wake up in the morning and stare at the ceiling thinking the world would be a better place if I just called in sick for the day. Even the lure of the cappuccino machine and the ping pong table (see last year's Christmas letter) wasn't enough to convince me to stay. My departure was civil and professional, considering the fact that several of the upper level managers were (and to the best of my knowledge still are) minions of Satan.

One of the last things that I did before leaving Saxe was use up all of my vacation time on a road trip to see the Indianapolis 500. My friend Tina and I drove a total of 2,048 miles to watch thirty-three men drive around a big loop 200 times. Of course not all of them made it all the way through to finish the race. I don't have exact numbers, but quite a few of the racers stopped themselves by smashing into the outside walls, a few just ran into each other, and then there was one guy who was driving along minding his own business when his car just caught on fire. I felt bad for the guy, but then a bunch of people came along and extinguished him.

The sheer magnitude of the Indianapolis 500 is impressive. Hundreds of thousands of people converge to the Indianapolis Motor Speedway one day a year to see the big race. The planning required to pull something like this off is extensive-- roads are blocked off, businesses are closed down, and special busses are brought in to move the masses more efficiently. Every effort is made to ensure the audience enjoys the race. Having taken all of this into consideration, I don't understand why they built one of the world's largest racing facilities in a climate that on average receives more precipitation during the last weekend in May than the entire Amazon Basin gets all year. I guess I am still a little bitter about the fact that we were forced to go to the race track three different days before the race track was dry enough to get the race finished.

I really should have had a new job lined up BEFORE I left my old job at Saxe, but then it would have been a lot harder to take the entire summer off. After a few weeks of doing no productive work, I realized my summer needed a little more structure. Applying the theory that there cannot be light without darkness, good without evil, and "tastes great" without "less filling" to my otherwise unproductive summer free time, I decided to go back to school to start working toward my Masters Degree. After a rather flimsy search, I decided to take a graduate level mathematics class at the University of Colorado at Denver. It was rough, but twice a week all summer I got up, shaved, showered, and made my way to downtown Denver in time for my 4 PM class-- even if it was raining. A lesser person might have just stayed home and watched that old episode of "The A Team" where George Peppard and company save the defenseless workers from the evil bad guy while narrowly eluding the military forces that are relentlessly pursuing them for the crime they didn't commit. You know the one. Anyway, I got through summer school with only minor bruises and am planning on receiving my Masters degree sometime in the next 8 to 10 years.

All good things must come to an end, and my "summer of unemployment" was no exception. After evaluating my bank account, I begrudgingly realized that an "autumn of unemployment" was not a financial option. I started sending my resume out to companies and eventually was hired at company called Rave Software. Rave's current focus involves brokering brides of the Philippines to wealthy but socially underdeveloped gentlemen. Of course it's all a front to hide the fact they are really developing, marketing, and supporting digital dynamic reusable hierarchical multi-platform modularized procedural language libraries.

I am currently working in the Technical Support division of Rave Software. We have constructed an international array of computers connected through a highly evolved network of PPP, ISDN, and T1 telecommunication lines that allow for the fast, efficient, and reliable movement of information allowing us to seamlessly communicate in our ever increasing global community. Does this investment in time and money improve our relationship with our customers? I don't know, but it runs Quake really well.

One of the more interesting aspects of this job, besides, of course, playing Quake, involves the notion that part of our responsibility involves helping the customers so they don't have to call us in the first place. To achieve this goal we are constantly reporting bugs in our software, finding problems with our documentation, and publishing helpful hints on the Internet. The more successful we become at this venture the more people get fired due to a decrease in the number of customer calls. But, since most of us in technical support were just recently hired, we are only performing our jobs at a level where our wages are garnished.

With the possible exception of leaving a bunch of store bought tortillas in my refrigerator for an entire year just to see what would happen (they shattered when I tried to move them), I believe that my crowning accomplishment of the year would have to be the day that I completed all the levels on the "Duke Nukem 3D" CD that I bought for my computer in January. Anyone can get through a few levels and then give up, but I had what it takes to get through all 30 levels (and one of the secret levels that I am not allowed to talk about) without getting burned out. Sure, I could have stopped half way through and gone outside or read a book, but that would have been a cop out. I stuck by my guns-- knowing that I made it down a path where so few see any value whatsoever.

I am sending this letter by E-mail as much as possible in an effort to promote living environmentally friendly lifestyles. Remember to recycle folks, because if you don't all of us will have to live with the garbage until the sun runs out of fuel and collapses on itself with the resulting explosion enveloping the planet Earth as we know it-- instantaneously converting countless generations of accomplishments back into the basic building blocks of matter from which we were created. And that's a long time.

That about wraps things up here. If you ever question how to live your life, just remember what everyone tells John Cusack in the movie "Better Off Dead"-- "Go that way really fast. If something gets in your way, turn."


Chapter 10

Web Story: Six Months in Amsterdam

Now that I think about it, the title sounds like a good title for a song. It would be kind of like "One Night in Bankock" but with less of a techno beat and more references to sex and drugs. In case you didn't already know, I spent the first half of 1999 living and working in Holland. Here is my trip report.

Technically, it's illegal to buy and smoke marijuana in Holland. Of course it's also possible that you will sleep walk into the nearby woods in the middle of the night only to be awakened by the sound of your leg setting off a bear trap, but most reasonable people don't stay up at night worrying about getting caught. You can also go into special "herb" stores and get whatever other goodies that you feel the need to put into your body. Is this the best way to run a society? I really don't know, but my experience has been that the number of people on the street that you don't want to have anything to do with is comparable to any other large city I have ever visited. It's way better than New York City.

The other "selling point" of Holland is the legalized prostitution. If you go into the Red Light District you can shop around for women conveniently displayed behind the glass windows of their "shops." Provided you have the money and you don't have any visible open sores or other odd physical defects, you can have the woman of your dreams in convenient fifteen minute increments. Is this the best way to run a society? Once again, I really don't know, but it doesn't appear to be destroying the city. As one of my friends who came over to visit from Colorado said, "They still have pimps in Holland, but it's more of a desk job."

Holland is chalk full of first rate public transportation. Based on my experiences and some information that I pretty much just made up, here is my advice on how to build a city without having to depend on automobiles: First of all, start building the city in the middle ages when people are too busy with things like neighboring armies, crusades, and the plague to ponder ideas like the internal combustion engine, traffic flow patterns, and the needs of the middle class. Combine this with a series of interlocking canals and you have a city that just isn't very friendly to automobiles.

There is actually a law in Holland that forbids the construction of parking spaces in the city limits. OK, OK, they don't REALLY have laws in Holland, but it is almost impossible to find a parking spot in Amsterdam. The only vehicles that you see on the roads are taxi drivers and tour busses. Since their job is to just drive around all day it really isn't a problem. Occasionally a lost tourist from a neighboring country will accidentally drive into town. The desperate search for a parking space ends when their fuel supply runs out and they are forced to stop in the middle of the road. When this happens, the angry taxi drivers and tour bus operators stuck behind the vehicle work together to push the car out of the street and into the closest canal.

As difficult as it is to get around Amsterdam with a car, it's quite simple to get around with the public transportation. Intercity trains, subways, trams, and busses all work together to get you where you need to go. After a long day at work it is a lot less stressful to get on the train than to have to drive an automobile. I think it has something to do with the fact that you don't have to actually drive the train. They have people for that.

While the trains in Holland are, on the whole, pretty safe, every now and then you will see things that make you wish you had waited for the next train. The most disgusting thing I saw on the trains was a guy who picked up a crumpled Heineken beer can from the floor in an attempt to extract the last precious drops of alcohol that the previous owner missed. There were also the two women on the train late one night who were shooting up heroin. The really strange thing was that nobody else on the train seemed to care.

Whenever I hear the phrase "stick it where the sun don't shine," I always picture Holland in the winter months. Between the extreme northern latitude and constant cloud cover, the sun doesn't make much of an appearance until the spring. Combine this with cold temperatures and a fairly constant drizzle of rain and you have a nation that doesn't receive many tourists for half the year. The popular joke for the Dutch to say to foreigners goes something like, "Of course we have summer in Holland. Last year it was on a Thursday."

One of the most difficult aspects of my trip involved the language barrier. While the majority of the natives speak English, you never know when you will come across someone who can't speak your language. Of course there are times when body language is more than enough to communicate information. A lovely example of this phenomenon occurred after a rather odd series of events put me in a unique situation with a young woman at a local restaurant. Our nonverbal conversation, insofar as it can be expressed in words, went something like this:


Me: "I know that I am in the women's bathroom in a busy McDonald's restaurant. I'll leave now"

Her: "I don't know why you are in the women's bathroom in this busy McDonald's restaurant, but I'll let you save whatever small amount of dignity you have left at this moment in time by not screaming or otherwise drawing attention to the situation. I hope the rest of your day goes better than this."


Here is an interesting concept that is worth mentioning: in Europe, they play music videos on MTV. Sure, they play commercials and they have occasional news updates, but it's mostly just videos. It seems like the producers of MTV in Europe realized that constantly broadcasting footage of a bunch of twenty-year-old college dropouts driving around the world in a Winnebago just isn't very entertaining.

I generally don't keep track of any kind of vital statistics about myself beyond the usual, "my heart is beating," "I'm hungry," and "I'm currently standing in the women's bathroom in a busy McDonalds restaurant," but the past six months have seen some rather significant changes in my lifestyle. Here are some of the more interesting numbers that I came up with.



Taco Bell franchises I found in Holland: 0
House plants I killed: 1
Different countries in Europe I visited: 6
Number of fruit stickers I put on the phone in the apartment for no particular reason: 10
Most consecutive days I was forced to wear long pants: 89
Most consecutive days I didn't eat at an American franchise fast food establishment: 121
Days I didn't see a "Saturn" brand automobile: 183
Days I preserved the natural ecological balance of the back yard of the company apartment: 183
(or, the number of times I mowed the lawn) 0

I can honestly say that I enjoyed these six months in Amsterdam. For someone who hasn't spent much time outside of Colorado, I have come to realize that there is a whole different world out there where people aren't very tan, don't wear sandals, and don't have much interest in who killed JonBenet Ramsey. Sure, they get the words "soccer" and "football" mixed up most of the time and have adopted darts as their new national pastime just because a Dutch guy won the world darts competition last year, but these are small problems that can be easily overlooked. To quote the most commonly spoken phrase on any American talk show, "Can't we all just get along?"


Chapter 11

Web Story: Christmas Letter 1999

Assuming that I am not going to get hit by a meteorite or trampled to death in some freak Y2K riot, I have made it through another year to write my fifth Christmas letter. I'm quite impressed with my ability to stick with the program for five years now. I can't really think of anything else off the top of my head that has involved such a level of commitment. I left my "Tamaguchi" in a restaurant a day after it hatched, college only took four years, and my longest romantic relationship was wrapped up in a little more than three years. What does all this mean? Not a thing. Now that I think about it, I took care of my dog for more than a decade, and I have stood by the Denver Broncos for even longer than that. Heck, I'm still waiting for that Haley's comet thing to come back again. Perhaps my level of commitment is not as underdeveloped as I first imagined.

In any case, it's been a rather eventful year for me. As you may or may not know, I spent the first six months of the year working and playing in various parts of Europe. I wrote a letter about that way back in June, so feel free to read "Six Months in Amsterdam" if you haven't done so already.

Getting back to Boulder was an interesting affair. For some reason that I don't quite understand, it takes roughly 5 times longer to fly from Europe to the US than the other way around. I think it has something to do with the fact that the pilots have to convert all of their calculations from the metric system back to our way of doing things. I walked by the cockpit during the flight where one of the crew members was asking "Now how many gallons are there in a kilogram? I always get that mixed up." Regardless of the reason, I have to say that I have never had the chance to watch four complete movies in an uninterrupted 16 hour period. It really wouldn't have been so bad, except that United Airlines picks out all the movies they show during the flight from the "Goober Bin" at the local video store. You would think that with all the money they spend on in flight video equipment they could find something more interesting to show than sappy B movies and old episodes of "Home Improvement."

Coming back to Boulder was a mixed blessing. I can't really say that I like one city over the other, so I made two top ten lists about what I miss and don't miss now that I am back in Boulder.

Top 10 reasons for coming back:

10. I'm afraid of the Euro.
9. Electrical outlets are all weird.
8. Company apartment has temperamental hot water heater.
7. No 24-hour supermarkets in Holland
6. I hated the "revolving door of death" at the Amsterdam office.
5. You think parking is bad in Boulder!
4. Cricket is just too hard to figure out.
3. I like seeing the sun every now and then.
2. No Taco Bell in Holland.
1. Poor news coverage of the ongoing Ramsey investigation.

Top 10 reasons for staying in Amsterdam:

10. I was just starting to get the hang of snooker.
9. Everyone sounds so smart on those BBC channels.
8. Chocolate eggs with the toys inside.
7. Eurodisney!
6. Nobody cares when you urinate in the canals.
5. Color coated money and coins that are actually worth something.
4. The novelty condom shops.
3. Numerous bars within walking distance of the apartment.
2. The Chunnel.
1. Public Transportation that doesn't suck!!!

After watching various Initial Public Offerings increase the value of a select few individuals by a couple of billion dollars (give or take a few hundred million), I've decided to form my own company with the intention of taking it public in the future. In order to capitalize on both the current Internet craze and the recent success of Martha Stewart's IPO, my new company is going to center around a web site devoted to food recipes that focus primarily on the wants and needs of men. Feel free to check it out at www.boxostuff.com. My personal favorite recipe: Box o' Cheeze Its.

Well, every year I comment on my increasingly pathetic attempts at working toward my Master's degree. I am proud to announce that this year I spent an all-time low three weeks attending classes. While still living and working in Amsterdam, I went through all of the trouble of applying to the Graduate Business program at CU. I started my Financial Accounting and Numerical Analysis night classes in late August. By early September I realized that neither subjects are very interesting in my own little world. I also discovered that as a reward for throwing in the towel quickly, the University gives back most of your money when you drop your classes in the first couple of weeks. At this rate, the only hope that I have of actually finishing a Masters degree is if scientists develop a computer chip that I can plug into my brain with all the relevant knowledge that I would have otherwise gained from sitting in class for two years.

December has been a pretty busy for me as I have been feverishly preparing for any and all Y2K issues that might arise at the end of the year. While most people are checking flashlight batteries and chopping firewood, I am busy watching a lot of TV. I don't know what the future will hold in the brave new world of the upcoming millennium, but I want to start it off with the reassuring feeling that I have committed every episode of "Charles In Charge" to memory. OK, in all honesty, I have bought into the hype just a little bit by going to the grocery store and buying an extra box of "Cheeze Its."

I've decided to start a new tradition of bestowing "Web Site of the Year" to the corner of the Internet that has arbitrarily provided me with the most laughs over the past year. This award goes to www.witcity.com. One section, called "The Lying Game" asks a new question every day and the top 10 most entertaining, insightful, or otherwise unique answers are posted the next day. It took me a while to get the hang of it, but in the past couple of weeks I have gotten five or six of my entries published the next day. I am not exactly sure why, but I've developed a knack for making fun of Sony's latest high tech toy, the "Robotic Dog." Here are some of the questions along with my winning entries:


Q: What features are part of Sony's new Robotic Dog?
A: Docking procedure no longer requires human leg.

Q: What are some of the merchandise spin-offs from "Toy Story 2?"
A: "Toy Story 3" trailer: It's Buzz Lightyear vs. Sony's Robotic Dog.

Q: What's the most appropriate holiday gift to get for your boss?
A: That Sony Robotic Dog, set to "Evil."

Q: In the Year 3000, what will be remembered about New Year's 2000?
A: Who would have imagined those Sony Robotic Dogs were going to evolve and enslave the human race?


Of course there is a lot more to me than an endless string of Robotic Dog jokes. For example, here is the very first Lying Game Entry of mine that was published:

Q: What is the plot of the new film, "Charlie's Angels: The Movie?"
A: Instead of working for the mysterious man on speaker phone, the Angels start a new job investigating questions submitted to the "Ask Jeeves" web site.

That pretty much wraps things up for this year. All that is left to do is to wait and see how life is going to be different now that the year odometer is making the big flip. I've done extensive testing and I am cautiously optimistic that my lava lamp and drinking bird are both going to operate correctly come January 1st. I don't think anything bad is going to happen, but if it does I'll be able to relax a little bit knowing that even though I didn't send out my Christmas letter until after December 25th, all of my friends will have gotten at least one good laugh before the world comes to an end.


Chapter 12

Web Story: Christmas 2000

Welcome to the sixth year of the increasingly inaccurately named "Christmas Letter Trilogy." The world seemed to have survived the whole Y2K scare without too much pillaging and plundering. Or at least there wasn't any more than last year (adjusted for inflation). Despite the fact I didn't get to spend six months in Europe this year and I didn't have any awkward experiences in the women's bathroom of any fast food establishments, I did manage to keep myself busy enough to write a witty and amusing end-of-the-year letter. My name is Omar Lutfey, and these are my stories.

I started off the year Dr. Evil style by giving the command to fire the (make quotation mark gesture with your fingers) "laser" on my eyes in an attempt to improve my less-than-perfect vision. The entire procedure took 15 minutes for both eyes and I was awake and alert the whole time. Overall I would say the procedure was roughly as uncomfortable as sitting through an entire episode of 'Threes Company' where, because of some wacky misunderstanding, Jack, Janet, and Mr. Furley think that Chrissy is pregnant. I was quite amused by the smell produced as the laser sculpted my eyes. I kept thinking how little pieces of my eye were vaporized and then sucked into my nasal cavity. Then I realized the entire operating staff was probably having the same experience. At that exact moment in time I stopped worrying about my personal safety or how my eyesight was going to be the next day, and focused exclusively on the fact a room full of people I will most likely never see again were calmly sitting there breathing in little pieces of my eye. In retrospect, my state of mind may have been affected by the fact the doctors had me hopped up on Valium.

The new year is all about making changes, and at the beginning of the year 2000 I changed my work hours at my job to four ten-hour days a week. Dispensing technical advise for C++ libraries ten hours a day isn't the best way to spend time, but having a three day weekend every week was pretty damn cool. I had every Saturday, Sunday, and Monday free from any job-related responsibilities. I quickly discovered that going skiing during the week is preferable to the weekends. The traffic on I-70 is 80 percent less likely to get you killed, you can actually park close to where you want to ski, and you can go into the ski lodge and leisurely enjoy a 14 dollar greasy hamburger without the weekend levels of noise and commotion. I am by no stretch of the imagination a good skier, but there were a lot fewer people around to see me perform the ever embarrassing "mogul wedgie."

In February I decided to use some of my extra free time by helping out at Habitat For Humanity. As a nonprofit organization, Habitat builds affordable, quality houses for families in need. I've picked up many new skills helping out-- everything from building foundations to installing drywall. I'm not sure it's going to help me out in the world of computer programming, but I think they are good general skills to have under my belt. Some people have told me volunteering my time at Habitat is a good way to meet women. I won't disagree with that statement, but I have also taken a liking to the various power tools they let me use during the construction process. Oh yeah, and helping out poor people-- that's good too.

I'm really good at putting things off a lot longer than I probably should at times, so this year I decided to get a jump on my mid-life crisis and learn how to ride a motorcycle. A coworker of mine and I decided to sign up for a motorcycle training class in April. I called up and discovered there was only one open position left in the next session. Being the kind and helpful friend I am, I told Scott that motorcycles are too dangerous, and I signed myself up for the last spot as to protect him from any temptation of taking the class. Ironically, a few months later he took a friend's motorcycle out for a spin and crashed it into someone's front yard. Scott is fine, the lawn he crashed into survived, but the motorcycle wasn't really happy about the whole incident.

I learned quite a bit about motorcycles during the weekend training class. We started Friday night by learning what all the knobs, levers, switches, and pedals do on a motorcycle and worked our way up to actually riding them around on the driving range Saturday and Sunday. We practiced just about every combination of how to stop, start, turn, and accelerate. I was one of the few students taking the class that had never ridden a motorcycle. I never got the cone weave down as well as I wanted, but I managed to get through the class without hitting anyone else or tipping the bike over, and for that I received my motorcycle license.

Once I could legally drive a motorcycle in the state of Colorado, the next step was to go out and buy a motorcycle. For me, this was by far the most annoying part of the entire process. I'm not very good at shopping in general (my wardrobe is strikingly similar to what it was in high school), and my total motorcycle experience started two weekends ago when I spent hours riding the same motorcycle around a small training course. I started by looking around at different motorcycle shops to see what they had to offer. That didn't turn up anything that I liked that also happened to be in my price range, so I turned to the classified section of the newspaper. I eventually found a motorcycle that I liked and could afford-- a dark blue 1993 Honda Nighthawk 750. After driving my motorcycle a few thousand miles since April I have become very comfortable with its abilities and limitations. If I ever encounter a police officer who wants to pull me over, I won't have any reservations about eluding him in a high speed chase through residential neighborhoods.

October 31 was the last day I worked at Rave Software. I had been working in the Technical Support Department for 3 1/2 years, and I decided that it was time for a change in my life. I'm going to miss working with everyone in my department and all the good times we had over the years. I can't possibly list every cool aspect of my job, but I'll never forget the foosball table, arsenal of Nerf guns, and occasional boxing matches with the phone coordinators. Of course I can't leave out our annual Gashos/Haunted House fun activity. Each year in October we would go to the Gashos of Japan (a Japanese restaurant where they cook the food right in front of you), get really drunk on saki and plum wine, and then go to a local haunted house. If you are wondering why I left such a fun work environment, I discovered that some of the people in the company received their positions by selling their souls to the Devil and go about their daily business as nothing more than minions of Satan.

I decided to celebrate my last day at Rave Software by going out that night and getting a four point speeding ticket. It just seemed like the right thing to do at the time. The cop clocked me going 57 in a 45. To make matters worse, he didn't even give me a chance to beg and grovel my way out of the ticket. I was telling a friend I had met online about what happened, and it turned out that she knew the officer who issued me the ticket. When I went into the courthouse to defend my driving skills, the clerk at the main desk informed me that the district attorney has offered me a zero point plea bargain. How cool is that? I accepted the offer and got out of there before they had a chance to change their minds. I never thought anything useful would ever come about from meeting women over the Internet, but I stand corrected. Thank you, Jenny :)

Where am I going to go from here? What will the true new millennium hold for me? If you know the answers to these questions, please e-mail me so I can get on with my life. I'm thinking of getting out of the computer industry all together and following my dream of dying my hair blue and forming a comedic guitar duo that sings funny songs for spare change out on the Pearl Street Mall when the weather is nice. I'm not sure exactly what kind of 401K plan that would provide, but I've already written a few songs such as "Taco Bell-- Village of the Damned" and "Tupperware Death Party" that I believe will help me earn a name for myself in the cut throat world of street performing.

Well, I guess I've rambled on enough for this year. I wish only the best for everyone in 2001. Everyone, that is, except for Jar Jar Binks-- I wish only bad and evil things for that computer generated monstrosity. I fantasize about him being pummeled to death in the next Star Wars movie by the Ewoks after some wacky misunderstanding during his gratuitous vacation scene on the third moon of Endor. But that's just me. Thank you for coming, have a good night, and drive safely.


Chapter 13

Web Story: Squishy Ball

Being a comedy writer is not always easy. Being a comedy writer that nobody has ever heard of doesn't make the situation any better. Or at least I suspect this is the case. I'm sure all writers have to deal with mental blocks that keep the words from being transferred from the brain to the keyboard from time to time. Sometimes it becomes necessary to "fall back" on countless readers who willingly send in funny local newspaper stories involving strange occurrences involving toilets, animals, and possibly explosions put together in some rather humorous combination. This method, however, can only be used if you are an established comedy writer with an internationally syndicated newspaper column where countless readers are aware of the fact that you write comedy for a living.

One of the most common approaches to humor is to make fun of a physical condition of a complete stranger. Try using the phrase "severe rectal itch" without it being funny. Not counting the last sentence. A typical example goes something like this: "My wife thought she had a SEVERE RECTAL ITCH, but it turns out she just wants to have kids." This type of comedy is, in my humble opinion, not particularly suited to my style of writing. First of all, I don't have a wife. And if I did, with my luck I would be the one with severe rectal itch. Readers would be scratching their heads wondering if our kids would have the ailment, and how that is supposed to be funny.

I think this style is better suited to standup comedians. While the aforementioned phrase used in the printed word does maintain some of its intended qualities, the heart of the joke lays in the physical interpretation of the medical condition. Just imagine a young man in a dark comedy club running around on stage pretending to be his pregnant wife who happens to be suffering from severe rectal itch. Now there is a five minute comedy routine that anyone would enjoy. Well, maybe not his wife.

So where does a guy like me turn to when the proverbial comedy well runs dry? Generally speaking, I go and play with my toys. On either side of my computer I have a lava lamp. When the words aren't coming out, I'll turn them on and start reminiscing about the 1970s. Of course I was no older than 5 years old during that decade, so I can't say I understood too many of the political and sociological changes that shook our nation. Elvis died before I had a chance to sing "Heartbreak Hotel" in the shower. Saturday Night Live was making fun of Jimmy Carter's career as a nuclear scientist before I was allowed to stay up that late. But I digress.

Lava lamps do their share to provide me with visual stimulation, but it's kind of a one way process. Sure, they can be turned on and off. Although they get hot, it is also possible to shake them up to see what happens. But when all is said and done, the lava lamps are just made to be watched.

Interactivity is the key for a toy to hold my interest. That is why I love my squishy ball so. It fits wonderfully in the palm of my hand. Inside the green stretchy rubber exterior is some type of fluid with hundreds of little tiny purple and blue beads that float about at will. I sit on my couch and play with it when I need inspiration. I squish one side of the ball and lots of the beads go squirting off to the other side. One of my favorite things to do is to squish the ball in half and try and get all the beads on one side, and all the fluid on the other. It's quite a difficult task. And the worst part is that the fluid inside is somewhat opaque, so I can never be one hundred percent sure I have achieved my goal. But that is totally beside the point. I can't explain how, but it inspires me to write.

Many of my friends who have seen my squishy ball notice it has a definite resemblance to a breast implant. That is why I now keep it carefully hidden from casual observers in the back of my desk drawer. While I'm not opposed to breast implants in extreme cases such as mastectomies and severe rectal itch, I don't want my squishy ball being surgically placed in the chest of a woman. Even if the recipient host were to somehow agree to quietly sit in my apartment and let me play with it whenever I wanted, I'm sure with my luck the "women-ness" would rub off on the squishy ball. It would only be a matter of time before the squishy ball would say to me, "Let's just be friends, OK?"

A lot of people wonder how much of what I write is the truth. I include myself in this group. I'm not saying I always tell the truth, but I would never lie about my toys. That is why I felt it necessary to dedicate this story to severe rect. I mean Mr. Squishy Ball.


Chapter 14

Omar: Hey
Brian: What's going on?
Omar: Not too much. I'm about to leave work. This week has seen an abnormally large number of annoying customers for me. I'm going to stop by my apartment, take a quick shower, and then head down to Angie's place for the party. I think I'll probably get there around 8:30 or 9.
Brian: That's cool. I'll probably get there a little bit later. It turns out that Janet is in town after all, but she just wants to go out to dinner because she is getting up early in the morning for a bike race. She said to have the party go on without her.
Omar: It looks like it might snow tonight. I think I might take up Brian's offer to sleep on their couch. I don't like the idea of driving back up to Boulder in a blizzard at 3 in the morning.
Brian: Not a bad idea, I suppose. Maybe you can sleep on the vibrating couch. You should call that one before someone else does.
Omar: I was trying to decide if I should bring anything. I know that they are cooking dinner there, so I don't know what would be appropriate. That and I don't really feel like cooking anything.
Brian: Just bring some Oreos.
Omar: I was thinking along the lines of Cheeze Its.
Brian: I think either one would be fine.
Omar: Cool, I'm out of here. See you at the party.
Brian: I'm sure it will be interesting. See you tonight.


Chapter 15

To: Brian
From: Angie
Subject: Party

Now I know why Omar doesn't drink very often.

Angie


Chapter 16

To: Angie
From: Brian
Subject: RE: Party

I was quite amused watching Omar at the party. He didn't drink all that much for how sick he got after the party died down. I thought he was going to be fine after he crashed on the couch, but I guess not.

After a few drinks he started going on about the anatomy of all my ex girlfriends. I didn't really appreciate that, but watching him with the ladies made up for it. I don't think Omar will be drinking much for a while.

Oh yeah-thanks for hosting the party. I don't think I'll forget it any time soon. And I don't think we will ever let Omar live it down.

Brian


Chapter 17

Web Story: Angie's Christmas Party

If you happen to be familiar with my annual Christmas letter you may be scratching your head thinking "But Omar, it's not anywhere near the end of the year-- how can you already be posting your Christmas letter?" I decided that publishing my Christmas letter only once a year is not consistent with my idiom of working on "Internet Time." I'm not exactly sure how to define "Internet Time," but for the purposes of this letter it is me being up at 3 in the morning in my boxers and a T-shirt surfing the web because I got tired of watching infomercials on the television.

What do women want? This question has plagued mankind since God kicked us out of the Garden of Eden (which I believed contained no menstrual cycles, beauty magazine quizzes, or clothes that made Eve look fat). When contemplating what women want, I prefer to approach the problem from a different perspective. It is possible to list all the things that men could possibly do, take out the things that woman don't want, and what is left, by the process of deduction, is what women want. While creating a list of all possible actions mankind can take is well beyond my attention span, I am willing to add a few items to the "don't do" list.

First of all, women like compliments. There are, however, some important issues to consider when telling a woman "I love you." Fellow men out there, I cannot stress this enough: only say this to a wife or established girlfriend. In general, a woman you have met for lunch once or twice and exchanged a few E-mail messages with does not meet these criterion. If you are invited to a party, it is generally considered bad taste to repeatedly yell out to the woman hosting the party "Angie, I love you. I know you don't love me back, but that's OK." For whatever reason you may think it's a good idea at the time (i.e. EXCESSIVE ALCOHOL CONSUMPTION), it will ultimately do more damage than good.

Secondly, trying to hit on women after excessive alcohol consumption is generally not a good idea. For example, you may think that going around at a party after downing a few drinks telling women you have never met they have a nice tail and a blouse full of goodies is an example of your witty banter, but in reality they usually just smile politely, leave the room for some reason or another, and strangely enough you never see them again.

And last of all, it is a good idea to stay after the party has died down and help clean up the mess. It is a bad idea to stay after the party has died down and repeatedly throw up in the sink before you pass out on the couch until the next afternoon. No further explanation is needed for this point.

I really can't continue until I confess something here. I didn't just use my overactive imagination to create three random activities women don't like. I attended Angie's Christmas party, got drunk, professed my unrequited love to her, told several other women they had nice tails and blouses full of goodies, threw up several times (for history's sake, I remember it being once in the sink, and three times in the toilet), and passed out on their couch. Around eleven in the morning, on what I think was my last trip to bow down to the porcelain God, I looked down at my boxer shorts and bare legs and commented to Angie, "I'm not wearing any pants" in a somewhat matter-of-fact tone of voice. It was well past noon when I finally thought I could make it home without blowing chunks in my car.

I can't say that I'm really proud of what I did, but I have to admit that it's pretty amusing despite the fact that I am the ass in the story. In general I like to write stories where other people look stupid-- it makes me feel better about my shortcomings in life. While I could have altered the facts of the story to make me look better, I don't think it would have made for a funny story. Since I put (slightly) more importance on being funny than being truthful, I recorded the events as accurately as my impaired brain recalled them.

For reasons that I greatly appreciate yet do not totally comprehend, Angie doesn't seem to hate me. I suspect it is analogous to the episode of "Cops" where the guy in the beat up old pickup truck gets caught with the prostitute only to realize SHE was really a HE while handcuffed in the back seat of the patrol car. Sure, you can send him down to the station to be booked, but in all reality everything that happened before the police and television crew arrived will torture his soul a lot longer than any consequences of legal proceedings. As far as Angie goes, I think it is safe to assume that her name will not come up in future letters any time soon. If I manage to get invited to next year's party, I think I'll be the designated driver.

And, just in case you are wondering, I took that line from the movie "Hot Shots." The actual quote is "Not playing to win is like sleeping with your sister. Sure she's a great piece of tail with a blouse full of goodies, but it's just illegal."


Chapter 18

Web Story: Do Pennies Make Our Lives Better?

Until last week I considered myself neutral on the entire penny issue. A recently published report sponsored by Americans for Common Cents (a pro-penny group backed by zinc companies) documents the effects if the Federal government were to take pennies out of circulation. Some of these negative consequences includes an effective 600 million dollar "rounding tax", erosion of consumer confidence, and increase in the national deficit.

I believe this report should be viewed with extreme skepticism. Aside from the copper coating, pennies consist of 98% zinc. I will admit upfront that I have no previous experience with the zinc industry or how it operates, but I think it is reasonable to believe they make a fair number of dollars producing all those pretty pennies for the US Treasury Department. Every time a penny is lost down between the couch cushions, dropped down a wishing well, or carefully placed in the path of an oncoming locomotive, the zinc industry is there to help produce a brand new one. That doesn't even include pennies that just get worn out by getting jiggled around in pockets and purses on a daily basis. If pennies were to be taken out of circulation, I don't think the zinc industry would be very happy.

After reading about how important the zinc industry thinks pennies are to the survival of this country, I started thinking about how pennies fit into my life. Every night I take the change out of my pockets and put it into a jar that sits on my nightstand. Once the jar gets filled up I take it to my bank and put the money into my checking account. The jar goes home and the whole process starts again. If I lived in a world without pennies, I think it would take a little longer to fill up the jar, but the process itself would remain unchanged.

I thought about this long and hard, and I have been unable to envision how pennies make my life any easier. Parking meters and vending machines don't like pennies. Parking meters swallow my pennies, but don't allow me to leave my car parked any longer. I guess it's not worth their time to give them back. Vending machines generally spit the pennies out into the coin return slot. I suppose I would not be too happy if I was waiting behind someone who needed to insert 125 coins before the king-sized Snickers bar dropped out of the machine.

Can our great nation survive without pennies? How can we fairly conduct commerce without the proper tools to pay the exact goods and services? The answer is that we do it all the time without even realizing it. Do you ever stop at a gas station and worry about how you are going to pay for gasoline that costs $1.59 and 9/10ths of a penny per gallon? Do you ever wonder how the gas station can charge 9/10ths of a penny for a gallon of gasoline? Of course not-- the gas station just rounds it to the nearest penny when they calculate the total price. Sure, they could set the price at $1.60, but then it doesn't seem like quite as much of a bargain.

Pennies used to be produced entirely of copper, but in the 1980's the composition was changed when the cost of producing a penny out of copper exceeded the value of the coin itself. According to Americans for Common Cents, it costs taxpayers 0.72 cents to produce a penny. What are we going to do when, as it did once before, pennies are too expensive to produce? How about pennies with holes in the middle? Or better yet, we could get rid of the metal all together and declare that any scrap of paper with the hand written phrase "This piece of paper is worth one cent" is legal tender up to four cents. At least that way we could all sleep easier knowing that we don't have to pay 600 million dollars in these so-called rounding taxes.

A sign that pennies aren't valued in our society anymore can be seen in those little trays near the cash registers of most gas stations. A lot of people believe it's easier to give pennies to a total stranger than slide them back into a purse or pocket. Do people leave their pennies in the tray because they believe in karma, or is it easier than having the coins stick around in their pockets until laundry day? Personally, I think it's a little from column A and a little from column B. Either way, it doesn't speak well for the value of a penny.

In all honesty, I don't know which course of action is the best for our nation. I'm sure that either way the sun will still rise each morning, another wildly successful boy band will rocket out from total obscurity, and people will find something else to annoy them in their every day lives. Perhaps somewhere down the road I'll write another article that starts "What's the deal with nickels? Why are they larger than dimes? Do they REALLY make our lives any easier...."


Chapter 19

Web Story: Time On My Hands

People covet that which is new and shiny. This universal truth has been demonstrated once again in the south suburbs of Denver, Colorado on Tuesday when hundreds of people waited for hours in the freezing early morning fog as the first Krispy Kreme store opened. I find this entertaining not because people camped out the night before the grand opening or that the wait to buy doughnuts was still an hour-and-a-half at eight o'clock in the evening. The really amusing part of this story was traffic was so heavy around the doughnut shop that it clogged up the highways in the area the entire day.

A lot of people tell me that I have too much time on my hands. While I don't disagree with that statement, I feel it is my duty to point out that I was not one of the thousands of people who stopped at Krispy Kreme on Tuesday. I would also like to point out there are many, many bakeries in the Denver area that bake doughnuts every day that can be visited without cashing in a sick day.

The story got me thinking about what kind of things I do to waste time. A lot of people seem to think that running the newfunny.com web site is clear proof that I have too much time on my hands. While I can't totally disagree with that statement, I'm not the kind of guy who wastes time with a single activity. No-- I like to think I am very diversified in this part of my life. To prove my point (and waste a little time in the process), I thought I would talk about one of my more memorable recent time killers.

Before I go into the details here, I would like to emphasize the point that not everyone who uses a vacuum to clean their patio has a mental illness. But I'm getting ahead of myself here. First of all, my patio is on the first floor and has a four foot high concrete barrier in lieu of a decorative railing. The concrete compliments the thorny bushes that block out 95 percent of the sunlight that attempts to get through. These architectural cues were borrowed from the beach front structures the Germans used to defend their positions in Normandy.

In addition to being a strategic location to mount heavy artillery, my porch is also a great place for dust and leaves to collect. If left unattended for a few years, the area would completely fill up with dirt and develop it's own thriving ecosystem. While I'm generally all for allowing man and nature to peacefully coexist, I also would like to get back my damage deposit when I move out of my apartment. So every now and then I go out and clean up the area.

The leaves and random pieces of trash that visit my porch don't really put up much of a fight when clean up time approaches. The real problem is the fine dirt-- it doesn't really sweep up very well since the area is not very large. The fact that the floor of the porch sits several feet below the ground means there isn't anywhere to sweep the dirt. That was when I decided to bring out the vacuum cleaner.

Anyone who has known me for any length of time probably wouldn't describe me as a "clean freak". The whole point of vacuuming my patio was to get it clean with the least amount of effort. In all honesty, I didn't think that using a vacuum cleaner was going to work very well. In fact it turned out to be a lot less effort than the half-assed approach I was initially going to use. Getting the porch cleaner than initially planned was just an added bonus to the entire situation.

I would like to encourage everyone who reads this to make sure to spend some time each day doing something that isn't productive. You don't have to look far to find such activities. Play a few games of "Minesweeper" on your computer. Think about what the sequel to "The Matrix" is going to be like. Sit around and imagine what Al Gore is doing today instead of running the country. And, if you are one of the many, many people who are wasting time waiting in line at Krispy Kreme, pick me up a half-dozen glazed doughnuts and a pint of milk.




Chapter 20

To: omar@newfunny.com
From: bob@yahoo.com
Subject: Web Site Partnership Offer

Dear Mr. Lutfey,

This message is in regard to the web site located at www.newfunny.com. According to our records you are the registered owner of the aforementioned domain name. If this information is incorrect, please disregard this message.

As you probably already know, Yahoo is currently the most popular search engine on the Internet. Every day our site registers over 3 million hits from people interested in the moderated directory list maintained by our company. The most successful initial public offering in this country has put Yahoo in a position of considerable economic clout. With a market cap of 10 billion dollars (and rising every day), Yahoo will be able to direct the growth of the Internet to meet the future needs of our massive customer base.

While we take pride in our past accomplishments, we are also looking at the future of the Internet. We realize that sitting back and enjoying our past achievements will compromise the future profitability of Yahoo. We are pleased to announce a new pilot program here at Yahoo called "Content Investment Strategy."
Content Investment Strategy, or CIS for short, sits at the heart of our plan to expand Yahoo from a simple search engine into an entire destination portal that meets all the general needs for everyone who is surfing the Internet. The strength of our web site is the fact that the directory listing is categorized and moderated to provide the most objective and useful information possible. While other search engines use automated processes that are subject to manipulation by crafty web designers, Yahoo invests considerable time and effort to ensure the highest possible quality.

The first step in the CIS process is to identify current and future areas of interest on the Internet. This includes a wide variety of functionality, including static informational content (information found in an encyclopedia, for example), electronic commerce, and Internet games. This list is by no means static-- categories are being added to the list on a continuous basis as the Internet evolves.

As these general areas are identified, we look for web sites which fulfill these needs and work to establish partnerships to help maintain the focus of the sites. This provides Yahoo with a system of reviewing and maintaining web sites for expanding customer base. Once a site is accepted into the program, it receives a prominent location on the Yahoo.com web site and is marketed within the Yahoo site through banner ads and other promotional devices. As long as the site adheres to the rules laid out in the CIS program, it will remain eligible for these benefits. We realize the Internet is constantly changing, but we hope the CIS program can provide a stable environment.

In addition to the extensive marketing benefits of this program, we provide a generous benefit package for the owners of CIS web sites. Here are the highlights of the benefits:

For the duration of the contract, we will provide the following compensation:

As the manager of the site, you will receive a salary of $50,000 per year.

You will be provided with all the server space to host the site at no charge.

A budget for reasonable office space and related computer equipment will be provided

Stock options based on the number of visits to the web site through the Yahoo web site.

As you build up traffic on your web site, you may make requests for additional funds to increase your staff. Requests are geared toward increasing the content of the CIS web sites.

All CIS sites are assigned a general CIS manager. This manager will be responsible for allocating funds and supervising the general content of individual CIS sites. The main reasons for contacting the CIS manager will be to request budget alterations and inform him or her of large content changes to the member site. Any other questions regarding the CIS program or Yahoo in general should go through the manager.

Yahoo is generally not interested in censoring or otherwise altering the content of CIS web sites. While we reserve the right to remove sites from the CIS program without notice, the general manger of CIS will notify sites if he or she feels the content is not in line with the goals of Yahoo and declare a 60 day probationary period for the owner of the web site to modify the content. Yahoo in no way benefits when sites are taken out of the CIS program, so we want to actively work with CIS web sites to ensure they maintain the focus and goals of the site. Only in extreme cases (such as wildly inappropriate and offensive material being displayed) will sites be removed from the program without a probationary warning period.

We have examined the site at newfunny.com and believe it would be a good candidate for the CIS program. The general concept of providing a platform for comedy writers who are not established has the benefit of constantly updated content and the potential for a large audience base. We also feel that the marketing benefits of the CIS program would allow your site to grow at an accelerated rate based on the exponential increase in traffic. We would like to add your web site to the CIS program under the category of:

Entertainment/Humor/Original/PG-13

If you are interested in pursuing this offer, please e-mail me or get me on the telephone so we can discuss the matter in more detail. Your response to this offer will be reviewed at our next content assessment meeting on January 6, 2000. I'm sure your schedule is pretty busy with the holidays around the corner, so don't feel as though you need to make a decision right away. As long as I get a response before the meeting I can plan accordingly.

Thank you,
Bob Yager
CIS Director
Yahoo.com


Chapter 21

To: Brain, Karen, Mom, Angie
From: Omar
Subject: You won't believe this!

Hey everyone,

I can't believe this, but I got an e-mail from Yahoo. Basically they want to finance my newfunny site. I know it sounds strange, but I'm not making this up. The idea is that they pay me to maintain the web sites and expand the content, and in return they get to include the site as part of their "web portal." I guess they want to build a variety of sites so that people who visit the yahoo.com web site view it as more than just a directory listing.

How cool is that? I'm really excited about this. I really believe this is my chance to establish myself as a writer. I've attached the e-mail from Yahoo. Please do me a favor by reading it over and telling me what you think of the idea.

Omar


Chapter 22

To: Omar
From: Mom
Subject: RE: You won't believe this!

Omar,

I read your e-mail, but I'm kind of confused. Does this mean you are going to quit your job at Rave Software? You have been there for almost 4 years now and things seem pretty stable in your life. Are you sure you want to give that up? What if this other company decides to change their mind at the last minute? Are they going to offer health insurance?

You know I worry about you, but you should do what you believe is best for you. If it were me, I would stick with the more stable position. I was reading in the paper about how the dot com companies are overvalued in the stock market. Is this company going to be around a year from now? I don't want to see you jump ship and then be stuck without a job.

I'm sure that if your father was still around he would want you to take the chance. I think you inherited his free spirit when he died.

Keep me informed, and remember you are always welcome to come down to Denver if you want me to cook you a decent meal or do your laundry.

I'm off to ride my bike downtown, but I expect I will get back around two in the afternoon.

Mom


Chapter 23

To: Omar
From: Brian
Subject: RE: You won't believe this!

I thought you were making the whole thing up at first, but then I looked up on the Yahoo web site and it's all there. It doesn't sound like something I would be very interested in pursuing, but you seem to like to write about strange things. Do you think that you can keep writing about new things every week? Won't you run out of things to talk about after a while?

It looks like it pays about the same as what you are doing now, so at least you can be assured you aren't going to go broke. There is a danger they could pull the plug on the project whenever they want. But I suppose they are investing a lot of time and effort up front with the office space and all, so you would probably have to piss them off pretty bad before they kick you out.

I think you should go for it. At least this way you won't have to deal with irate C++ computer programmers all day long. That's worth a lot.

Brian


Chapter 24

To: Omar
From: Karen
Subject: RE: You won't believe this!

Wow, mom called me and totally flipped out. She doesn't want you to quit your job at all. She kept on going on about how dad always wanted to fly off and start his own x-ray company. You made her cry-- I hope you are happy. And I was the one who had to deal with her on the phone for an hour last night.

I don't know why you asked everyone for their opinion. I can tell by the tone of your last e-mail that you have already decided to do it. You have never been one for moderation or objective deliberation-- I don't know why you would start now.

But I do hope this works out for you. You realize that if someone is going to be paying you to do this you better start proofreading your work A LOT better than you have done in the past. I would seriously suggest you hire a proofreader as one of your first official acts of business. Being your sister I am unable to give you direct praise for your work, so I'll just say this: You better not freak mom out too much. You know that when she gets upset about things you do she calls me and wants to know. You live 45 miles away from mom, and I live 2000 miles away. So don't go sending her e-mail messages about shit like this. Call her and explain what's going on or go talk to her in person. I'll bet that will do a lot to keep her relatively calm.

Well, I've got to go and see if my car will start today. The high so far today has been negative twenty. As long as I start it up at least once a day it seems to work OK. I guess this is the price I have to pay for taking a job in Minnesota.

Talk to you later,
Karen


Chapter 25

To: Omar
From: Angie
Subject: RE: You won't believe this!

That is SOOO cool. I am totally jealous. So are you going to be working from your house, or are you going to be able to afford an office? I'm sure that you aren't going to miss working in tech support. You haven't seemed like a happy camper there for a while now. I say go for it! When is another chance like this going to come up for you? Besides, I'm sure you could always go back and work at technical support if this didn't work out for you.

Anyway, I've got to get going. My boss gave me a big report that has to be done by Friday, and I'm going to try and make it back to Nebraska this weekend so I can visit my brothers before things get too hectic with Christmas activities.

Enjoy,
Angie


Chapter 26

To: Bob
From: Omar
Subject: web site proposal

Dear Mr. Yager,

I have received your e-mail regarding the inclusion of newfunny.com into Yahoo's CIS program. I would like to officially accept your offer. I am excited to become a part of the Yahoo company.

What is the next step in the process? Is there some paperwork I need to sign before we get started? Are we going to meet in person?

Omar


Chapter 27

To: Omar
From: Bob
Subject: newfunny website

Dear Mr. Lutfey,

I am happy you accepted our offer to join the Yahoo team.

I will send you all the paperwork to begin the process. This should be a fairly straight forward process. If you have any questions about the contract you can call me and I will do what I can to clear things up for you.

As far as meeting in person goes, I don't think that is necessary at this point in time. I don't have more information than what I have already provided you, and I will be the only person you will be likely to be communicating with here at Yahoo. While I am not against you coming to the Yahoo main office, I would suggest that at this time you be focusing on your web site.

Once you sign and return the contract, I will expect an initial report on the status of your web site. As it is right now, the site is somewhat sparse. Given that you are being allocated additional financial resources, I would like to see your plan for updating the content of the site. Ideally this should be done on at least a weekly if not daily basis. I also like to see plans that include a variety of content updates. For example, having a smaller section that gets updated every day along with a more complex section that gets updated twice a month will keep people interested in the site. Finally, you seem to currently be focusing on your writing on the site. Expanding into other types of media would be a good idea.

If you have any questions don't hesitate to ask me.

Bob


Chapter 28

To: Bob
From: Omar
Subject: Getting Started

Dear Bob,

I received all the paperwork in the mail the other day. I didn't have any issues with any of the contract, so I signed it and Fed Expressed it back to you. I think you should have it by Thursday.

Here is the proposal report for the newfunny.com web site based on the advice you gave me in your previous e-mail.

Here is an overview of the site as it stand right now.

Currently, the site consists of writing I've done in the past, mostly relating to firsthand account of my life. For the most part, this has been achieved through the use of a "Christmas Letter" style of writing. The one exception involves the six month business trip I took to Amsterdam. These stories explain the highlights of my life from a humorous perspective.

I plan on expanding the site using three different types of media-- traditional writing, Flash animation, and Video. Here is a break down of my plans for each area.

Traditional writing:

This section will contain stories of three different types. The first type will be personal stories about my life. These existing Christmas letters I already have written will be part of this category. I will be writing them on a more frequent basis, but the style and content will be the same. Whenever something interesting happens to me, I'll write a story about it.

The second type of writing will be centered around a commentary approach. These works will include some type of social commentary while still maintaining a humorous tone. This will be focused on a national level of interest, so that anyone from the United States will be able to identify with the topic. Occasionally topics of local and international interest will be written to provide variety. One example that I am working on right now involves the politics of taking pennies out of circulation. It's not exactly front page news, but everyone in the country would have a small interest in getting rid of these coins.

The last section will involve a fictional character that is closely involved with the web site. I have named him Ertok and he is an Evil Alien Overlord. He was sent to assess the world defensive capabilities and report back to his superiors. Ertok has taken over the web site and oversees all the operations. I believe this will help attract all the Star Trek geeks out on the web. You would be surprised how many of them are out there.

All three of these sections would be written by me. I think that in addition to running the other areas of the web site (under Ertok's command, of course), I would be able to write one or two new 800 word stories a week and still maintain the same quality of my previous work.

Flash Animation:

This would be a completely new section. If you aren't familiar with Flash animation, it is basically a way of putting customized cartoon style animation on a web site. An example of this would be the cartoon on Comedy Central called "South Park." The idea here is to hire a director of flash animation. His job would be to put together a cartoon series. I believe we can recruit local talent from the numerous hi tech vocational and arts schools in the area. Since many of these students would be eager to show off their work, we s