In Response To: Nice Try, Marty (Matt)
: I don't need to reply. It's merely an ardent desire of mine.
: Marty's days are a whirlwind of activity, but they begin casually when he
: saunters into the office around 11 AM. The pace immediately picks up as he
: makes a tea run. This is followed by a blistering verbal assault on Jay,
: who despite pulling another all-nighter has still not fixed the PowerBook
: Marty broke while attempting to launch a standard professional audio
: application. Joe gamely inquires as to the whereabouts of the audio he
: needs for his current project; Marty replies that he cannot begin his work
: until the animatic contains six minutes of black screen at the beginning
: so viewers can properly focus their minds on the audio. Thus begins a
: fusillade of thinly-veiled character assaults and lighthearted assertions
: that the other guy is going to get the whole damn team fired. At noon,
: like the coyote and sheepdog in Warner Brothers cartoons, they break for
: lunch together.
: When they return, Marty sits down to read some email, paying particular
: attention to a spam he received eight months ago which addressed him as an
: "important executive." Receiving this honor genuinely thrilled
: him and he dedicates the post-lunch hour to researching and ordering
: custom commemorative merchandise, such as t-shirts bearing the legend
: "I Married An Important Executive And All I Got Was This Lousy
: T-Shirt." Tea run. Once that's done it's time to check the Marty Army
: website. The Q&A page is a "holy chore" for Marty, who feels he
: must give each question the same amount of thought and consideration he
: would if the questioner was a dinner guest in his home. Some responses
: take hours.
: Around this time a Marketing bonehead none of us have ever seen before drops
: by with a CD from some soulless no-talent Hootie-and-the-Blowfish wannabe
: who has parlayed his thoroughly mediocre songwriting and marketable face
: into a #3 position on the Music For Thirty-Somethings Who Can't Hide Their
: Metamucil Dependency Much Longer charts. "He just did an interview
: with a lifestyle magazine for Nazi war criminals and jet-setting
: pedophiles, and he spent two whole sentences talking about how much he
: loves Halo," the Marketing person gushes. "Wouldn't it be
: awesome to have him on the Halo 2 soundtrack?" "Don't take the
: CD, Marty," I scream from across the room, "it's a complete
: waste of time." "I'll be the judge of that," says Marty,
: who retires to his studio long enough to listen to the whole CD four
: times. Eventually he exits, saying, "Wow, that was a complete waste
: of time." But he will keep the CD, staying late at night to pore
: through the tracks with a fine-tooth comb, searching for the subliminal
: mind-control messages embedded by RIAA-member record companies more
: insidiously evil than Microsoft at its worst. If he can extract them in
: time for the next soundtrack CD, he knows he won't even have to bother
: coming into the office anymore.
: "Speaking of complete wastes of time, Marty," calls Joe, "all
: our fans are going to waste oodles of time at the doctor when they don't
: hear any sound in this game and start to wonder if they've gone deaf.
: How's that audio doing?"
: "Speaking of doctor visits, how many fingers am I holding up, Mr.
: Visuals Guy?" quips Marty.
: Stephen Okasaki of the Halo team steps in and says "Hey Marty,
: BillClintonBobaFettWashingtonRoads." Everyone within earshot makes a
: concerted effort to ignore what happens for the next two hours. Marty
: finishes and makes another tea run.
: After all this effort it's time for a break. Marty usually relaxes by
: replicating complex works of art on his Etch-A-Sketch with inhuman
: accuracy, fondling his golf scorecard autographed by golf legend Gomez
: Tedium, top-loading his Jug O'M&Ms with carefully-measured portions of
: Peanut and Plain varieties, or speaking in hushed tones to Percy, a small
: plastic pig kept in an ovular funhouse-mirror contraption on his desk.
: "How's that PowerBook doing, Jay?" Marty asks as the daylight
: begins to fade. Jay tells him. Marty complains about Apple for a while.
: Then he sits down at his desk and uses the corporate intranet to see how
: his Microsoft stock options are doing. Marty complains about Microsoft for
: a while. Finding himself lost in the MSWeb hierarchy, he surfs through
: several unfamiliar pages before giving up and clicking a button labeled
: "Close Connection" on the current page. The entire building
: loses internet access. It's time to go home. Lather, rinse, repeat.
: -Matt
All those tea runs and no bathroom breaks mentioned...HE'S GONNA BLOW! *jumps behind a desk, pushes it over, and braces for explosion from behind it*
Interesting story, though. :)
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