7.5

When thinking of this article during my morning commute, that’s the title that was sort of stuck with it.

I cook up most of these posts during my long bus and train ride into the office, because I find it much easier to press my forehead against the window and daydream instead of read, or scribble in the little notebook that I carry around with me like Super Nerd.

It’s easier, in part, because I’m always somewhat fuzzy until about 10am. I was never a morning person, though I wake up at 5:30am because I resent not having enough time to sit around and bitch about having to go to work.

The larger reason why I’ve turned to daydreaming during my commute is because everyone else is bored to tears and, the moment you whip out a book or start writing, the person next to you is going to become intimately involved. There have been times I’ll look up from my notepad, see the person staring at me wide eyed, and been asked what’s next.

Well, sir, go to Greatsociety.org, because I’m posting again after a two year semi-hiatus. And all my posts are gripping and exciting. And, after a few paragraphs, when the idiot bosses who plague my readers give up reading, I talk about horrible things. Sometimes I even post huge pictures of cartoon genitalia. Oh, and, why the fuck are you all up in my business you motherfucking pervert? I’ll give you a ten minute head start and, then – Manhunt! KAPOW KAPOW! You’ll take it bitch! You’ll be on the ground with a bullet in you and, then, maybe I can have this seat to myself and not have some nosy shitheel all up in my ass.

7.5 wasn’t about this. It was about how a friend has recently informed me that all seven seasons of MacGyver are currently available online at CBS.com. My office conspires to block just about anything useful. The latest incarnation of tv-links doesn’t work, Netflix is crippled so I can’t use their watch instantly section, and the computers are pieces of sad shit that have trouble playing the enormous amount of illegal downloads I steal every day.

But, for some reason, CBS.com works. The “7.5” refers to how long I work each day. My office is “European” and “liberal” so they “award us” with a 7.5 hour day. Which is really 8.5 hours, because they don’t pay for lunch. Actually, it’s really 11 hours, thanks to the commute.

So everything’s a lie.

On average (and even if it’s ignoring my duties), I try to put in 45 minutes of work a day. Oddly, I do that work during lunch, because it’s usually a last minute panic to get it done. I regard the 7.5 hours as my time. Working, unless at a real job, is against everything moral and just. So I’m going to cash their checks, stay in this windowless office, and do nothing. Call it a protest. But how to kill seven hours when the internet is hobbled? Luckily I have what representatives at the Washington Post call a “hobby.” I’m running a publishing company, and our third book is getting some great buzz. So I’m doing stuff for that book from when I wake up at 5:30 to when I pass out around 10pm. But there’s an awful lot of downtime waiting for replies or events or whatnot, so I’m still left with dead air during the day.

Most of my co-workers bring in laptops and watch movies. They’re very good at hiding this, somehow. I have a harder time, because my bosses either (a) expect more from me or (b) hate me. Their frequent visits to my office make movie watching difficult.

Then my friend sent me to CBS…and it worked! So I’m on episode six of season one of MacGyver, with a million more episodes to go. Though the show really started to suck in the fourth season when the format switched from secret agent MacGyver to hangs out with little boys and recycles MacGyver.

Still, though, it’s a thrill to get paid to watch MacGyver. And it’s in a little window on my second screen, turned from the door, so I can sit with correct posture and have all kinds of work stuff up on my first screen and be all working and stuff and things.

Strangely, I’ve found myself working more throughout the day. Episode of MacGyver rolling on screen two while I sort of half watch it and automatically do all the stupid shit I’m required to do. Then, when the credits roll (or I pause to watch something blow up), I’m a little shocked at how much I was getting done while on auto pilot.

Back to title troubles. When I typed out the “7.5” title, with the intent of talking about MacGyver and my office habits, it hit me that I had come on a title for a not-so-cataclysmic disaster movie. Earthquake: 7.5! Oh, yeah. The statue of Jefferson Davis fell over! Cliffhanger ending!

I could make a whole string of those films. Cold Front! Traffic Jam! Winds Gusting to 30 MPH!