When our team has a higher than normal workload, for some reason all the requests starting coming in as high priority requests to which we joke, “It’s all high priority!”

There are some people around the office that we think would never get the joke. We use MS Outlook for our e-mail system and there are some employees here that believe every single message they send out is meant to be marked High Priority. They fail to realize a few things, however…

• Outlook only adds a tiny little ! onto the message and a tiny little note saying This message was sent with High importance.
• If all of your messages are marked High Priority, chances are you’re the only one who thinks so.

Perhaps the worst thing is that the little red exclamation point attaches itself to the message so when you forward it or reply, it’s still marked High Priority long past the point that anyone cares. And it’s not that some of the messages I get aren’t very important, but I usually know which ones they are and they’re usually not marked High Priority. This seems like a perfect segue to close on a YouTube video:

And a quick P.S. Just like a driver’s license and wearing spandex — carbon copying (cc:) others on e-mails for matters which they aren’t responsible for is a privilege, not a right. And forwarding a message to someone that was already on that message’s distribution list is simply unacceptable. The price you pay for any of these sins should be that I get to collect your f–king head, or at least knock you back to using the phone and pen & paper for a week. That’d learn ya.

I’m pretty impressed by this 36-piece set from My Pro Kitchen. At $280, it seems a bit steep, but if it’s truly professional quality, it’s worth it. About all that it suffers from is not being “pretty” but it looks very functional. I’d love to be able to condense down this much but it’s a lost cause.

Ask any professional chef, and they will agree that no one needs a $200 fry pan, a 24-piece knife set, a mango slicer, or a bacon press shaped like a pig. None of it will make your food taste better or save you time in the kitchen.

Yeah, yeah, yeah… but kitchen gadgets are irresistible and there are plenty that would agree with me. Still, this set is the kind of thing that Wal-Mart, Target or any number of “grab and go” big stores need to carry instead of those little sets filled with redundant items. If I were on a serious reduce-a-duce kick, I’d probably pick one up myself and donate a lot of my items that I rarely use. Unfortunately, I already have items that cover everything in the set and so do a lot of people I know, with perhaps the exception of a strainer. I like the people they say this would make a good gift/purchase for, second homeowners, bachelors or minimalists to name a few.

I know far too many foodies who probably already have an overstocked kitchen like me, but next time a gift opportunity comes up, this set might come to mind.

I was pretty reluctant to get up and out of bed this morning. Last night was movie night which I haven’t done in a long while. I got some good snacking food and drinks and planted my ass on the couch for over 4½ hours of movies. I gotta tell you, I am not a fan of this new fangled super-movie. I think Titanic was the first one that did it to me. If my ass has fallen asleep before the movie is over, then the movie is too long. About the only thing today had going for it was that it was Friday, but still it was gonna be rainy and muggy and there was a matching cloud over my head matching those in the skies.

On the metro ride here I realize I forgot one type of bag to add to yesterday’s rant. Wheeled… backpacks. Those two words together already make my brain hurt. I mean it’s a backpack, but with a carry handle and wheels. The mechanism containing the handle and wheels likely makes it too heavy and/or painful to carry on your back as it is, yet for some reason you wanted a “backpack” instead of a briefcase or similar. The best part about the one I saw this morning… it was faux-denim. So I give it points for pure anti-style, but still get that thing off the left-hand side of the escalator, there’s people trying to walk!

Anyway, I made it here and was quickly checking up on my comics feeds when today’s Order of the Stick strip made me laugh out loud when I got to the above panel. It’s not even particularly hilarious, just so well-timed and sassy. And really the only comeback to being told something’s “beyond your ken”. Starrbooty aside, the movies really need more drag queen action heroes.

I hope everyone’s having a lovely Friday and that your time in the office is swift and relatively untroubled.