I moved into a new office yesterday. The office itself is actually much nicer, it's in a quieter location, and it's got a little more cache than the old one.

Unfortunately, the woman who moved into the office directly adjacent to mine is a ghastly posterchild for Bring Your Gun To Work Day. Firstly, her perfume reeks. It's so bad that I assume she's marinating potpourri in turpentine for a few days, then bathing in it each morning. The whole suite of offices smells like a goddamn whore house, and she's only been here one day. There's about six offices here joined to a main atrium, and when you walk into the central room, it smells faintly of urine; or maybe a wild animal in full rut.

As if that's not enough, she's in her office right now singing. Okay, I don't give a shit if your Mariah fucking Carey; don't sing at the office. Who the hell behaves like that? She's a total hack too. I can't even recognize the song she's singing. It sounds like vocal Muzak, and that's before she starts faintly wailing along with the melody. Her voice reminds me of a violin being played with a hack saw.

Topping it all off is her ridiculous personality. A full-on Obnoxious Yankee, Jersey variety, early baby-boomer vintage. You know, the guttural raspy tone, weird giant jewlery (giant bracelets clanging around her wrists, giant earings weighing on her sagging giant ear lobes, giant teeth jutting out of her giant lower jaw - wait. That's not jewlery is it? Anyways, back at the ranch...), and one of those laughs that makes you want to punch a baby. Good Lord, how I would love to punch a baby right now.

The upside to all this, is that she's retiring in five or six weeks and they're already recruiting for her position. I can only hope that Fate and Irony will not collaborate against me, and find a replacement that's even worse. I mean, the only way to insure my sanity is to weasel my way into the interview process. At least then I can attempt to control who will be invading my space on a regular basis.

So I was listening to someone this morning who said that grocery lists are a sure sign of recession. This assertion is, by far, one of the laziest and most inaccurate economic indicators I've ever heard of. How in the hell does one go grocery shopping without a damn list?

Obama can't handle the heat? You know, I've had just about enough of this frickin' n00b. If these debates are wearing you out, do I really want your pussy ass in the White House for four years? I'm surprised that the guy has gotten so much attention anyways, being that he lacks experience and has such a questionable background.

Since the inception of the automobile, people have long pondered the innate connection between a man and his car. Which is stupid, because it's retardedly obvious.

Evolutionarily speaking, men crave simple logic-based reciprocal relationships. When we were hunter-gatherers, the men hunted and understood the dangerous but practical circumstance of such an activity. A primeval man understood that he must eat and feed his family; hence, he must hunt large animals with fangs/claws/husks. Ever since, men have always sought out roles that best-suited their overly pragmatic mindset.

The logic-based reciprocal relationship was that if you didn't get too loud, stand windward, or generally make an ass of yourself; you'd be bringing home dinner. Act outside of the common sense of hunting, and you'd be eating salad for a couple of weeks.

When we moved to an agrarian society, men took up the role of learning how to raise crops. Which plants had the highest yields, or had double-harvests. Support the crop and the environment they grew in, and you'd have a high yield.

When we moved to manufacturing, men took the lead. Of course, at about the same time, women and children began to take manufacturing jobs too. But it's no surprise that men lead the way. To provide for your family, whether it be hunting wild game, working a peice of land, digging a coal mine, or driving a desk; men were for the most part first into the work place. Work for a company for thirty years, and you got benefits, a pension, and a salary with which to raise your children.

These days, as men and women find themselve sharing the role of sole breadwinner, we guys have had to find things that make us more valuable. Providing for the family is no longer solely a man's domain.

Cleaning a carburetor, on the other hand, is entirely a family man's business. Changing the oil? Dad. Brake pads? Dad. Anyone know the significance of blue exhaust or white exhaust? Dad does. Checking sparkplug gaps? Dad's job. Should i go with synthetic or conventional oil? I dunno, ask Dad. Hey, should I use 10-10-10 on my centipede or 5-5-10? You know, Dad told me...

Cars are machines. They work on the simple principle of "Good in, Good out; Bad in, Bad out". If a man takes care of the car, it will reward him with years and years of service. I've seen Pontiacs (yes, Pontiacs!) go 200,000 miles on basic preventive maintenace from the home garage. Granted, you invest a lot of time, but it beats buying a car every five years.

So get out there, read some shit, and try not to be such a prickish little pussy about getting your hands dirty and your mind full.

I know I'd get knocked for this, but I'm still bearish on oil in the long run. Yes, even in the face of recent inflation. If inflation is the reason for the recent drive in oil prices, then the oil market is pricing in a 10-15% inflation factor. Ridiculous.

The price of oil has quintupled in the last six years. The only other market in recent memory where price runs like this have persisted for such a long period of time was (drumroll please) real estate. And look what happened to that 'miracle investment'. All I'm saying is I think that too many speculators are in the market, and they're making positions on oil that are driving up the price. Once people start saying "Just buy it, it'll never lose value!", that should be your ticket to dump it.

Even in the US, we're curbing fuel consumption and beginning to turn towards more efficient technologies. Demand has already shrunk in many European nations, it's planing here, and inventories are at seasonal norms. As the price rises, demand will wane; and eventually we won't need to be buying it on the open market, because we'll be supporting demand by ourselves. Consider that:

"If we raise fuel-efficiency standards by just one mile per gallon, we save two ANWRs full of oil over the projected 50-year life of the fields. If we raise them 2.7 mpg, that's more than all the oil we import from Iraq and Kuwait combined. If we raise standards by 8 mpg, we don't have to import one drop of Persian Gulf oil into this country. Fuel efficiency is an untapped resource. It's cheap oil."

Why is it that nearly all the Brits who make it onto TV shows are raging pricks.

Simon Cowell, a cunting condescender if there ever was one, pretty much makes money coming up with creative ways to tell people they'd be better off shoving that mic up their ass than singing into it.

I'm pretty sure that Gordon Ramsey is really just Simon Cowell in an apron. I mean, he makes money telling people they'd be better off shoving their cooking up their ass than eating it.

What the hell, UK? The only Brits on TV who actually seem like enjoyable people are the guys from Top Gear. I mean, I would actually like to sit in a bar and get drunk with those guys.

Can you imagine what it would be like to get drunk with Simon Cowell? He'd end up getting into a bar brawl with someone over how their shoes look 'shtew-pid' or something. Unfortunately for him, he'd find that outside of American Idol, most people with 'shtew-pid' attire are big enough to kick his cockney ass. And Ramsey? The guy totally strikes me as a grade-a, skeevy letch. He'd probably get drunk and start sizing up anything in the bar with a warm snatch. You can't blame him though. I don't know if you noticed or not, but if you get a close look at his face, it looks like he's been dropping it in deep fryers. Fame is the only thing that's getting him laid, and he's just trying to ride the wave as long as possible.

This is awesome. Imagine the impact that an information network this speedy would have on life as we know it.

Of course, it's also kind of freaky that if it went down, and you were 'cloud computing', you'd pretty much be ass-out.

And how 'bout that collider? I like how the theory is that the LHC will either produce a tiny harmless little thingie; a blakc hole, or a runaway fusion process. That's only two out of three for an outcome that would result in total cataclysm.

It's an exciting time to be alive...