RIP Marty Roberts, One falf of Marty & Elayne, the house band at The Dresden Room.

 Well, Marty Roberts has passed away.

For the year I lived in LA, there was only one place that always made me feel at home, and like could have been happy living there permanently: the Dresden Room. Each time I went to see Marty and Elayne play there, I chatted them up during their break and requested old songs that apparently nobody else asked for. They were always very kind and generous with their time.

One time, I asked if they knew Quiet Village. Marty looked a little surprised and said nobody had mentioned that song in a really long time. They'd be happy to dust that one off. So, I put my fiver in their jar and took my seat, and soon  Marty and Elayne went into Martin Denny's Quiet Village, including a jungle-drums jam that went on for ten minutes and earned them a standing ovation.

Marty & Elayne were fun and kitschy, and they were nice enough to remember me from my previous visits to the Dresden. Thanks for everything, Marty. I'm glad I got the chance to get to know him a little bit while he was around. My condolences to Elayne Roberts.

Pointy Tree Day Card - 2021 Announcement

 

Pointy Tree Day Card Get!!!!!

Get card! Have!!!!

2016 Pointy Tree Day Card Get!

You know how every year Exmess is a bigger and more expensive pain in the butt? Yeah, tell me about it. This year, make it a bigger and more expensive pain in the butt, but also have our free Pointy Tree Day card!

They're free, but we do need a mail box to send it to. Just email an address to PhilAreGo@gmail.com. Yeah, I know. You've got trust issues, and you're not too sure about giving us your (or anyone's) address. Take those trust issues and hand them to our Pointy tree Day Card F.A.Q.! Then tell those issues to stick it where the sun don't shine!

Phil Are GO! Pointy tree Day Card F.A.Q. (Fervently Aggravated Query).

Q: "How the hell can I get my copy of the Phil Are GO! Pointy Tree Day Card?

A: It couldn't be easier! Just send us your addre- Q: "TELL ME HOW!!! NOW NOW NOW!"

A: Hey, shut up and let me finish, spaz. Send us your address. That's it. PhilAreGo@gmail.com

Q: No way am I sending you my address! You'll stalk me!

A: If you think we have the time to sit in an unmarked van across the street from your house, you are probably grossly overestimating the interestingness of your life, and also the amount of free time we have here at GO! Tower. If you're that paranoid, give us your work address, or the address of someone you know. We don't care.

Q: Do you have any of the older versions of the Phil Are GO! Pointy Tree Day card lying around? Can I get a couple of those?

A: Yeah, we have some of those. We'll send an envelope with a few different cards in it while supplies last or until we don't feel like it any more. Gotta ask nicely, though!

Q: If I collect all the versions of the Phil Are GO! Pointy Tree Day Card from way long ago, will they be valuable some day?

A: Sure. Why not? Go nuts. All you have to do is live forever to prove it.

Q: Will the Phil Are GO! Pointy Tree Day Card always be a cigarette ad? No really, what's your problem?

A. Nope. We seem to have used those up. If we find another couple or few, we'll be sure to put them in the "maybe" pile for next year.  Also, shut up.

Q: Why do I want one of your stupid holiday cards?

A: Good question. I dunno. Because they're free and possibly funny?


Q: Why no jokey post today? Just this card announcement?

A: We're busy making sure tomorrow's post is a real horn-honker. (Note to self: Remind interns to make tomorrow's post a real horn-honker. Better call in to the office from the frisbee golf course to check on their progress. Have the Motivation and Shame Supervisor crack the whip a little on the interns.)


Q: Is the card going to be funny?

A: Hopefully. Especially if you make a little puppet out of it and make it tell jokes.*


Q: Can I get more than one card?

A: Maybe? Can't hurt to ask. It can hurt to ask for a stack of 100.


Q: Can I send Phil Are GO! a card?

A: Why? We'll have loads of them, since we'll be getting them printed up.


Q: Will this year's card contain any "post-consumer content"?

A: Eew. No. Sicko.

A: Oh! You mean recycled paper? Hell no. That cheap grey paper we used to practice handwriting on in third grade was made from recycled paper, and it was terrible for writing on and erasing on. Recycled paper makes terrible paper. No wonder people just keep recycling it.

*Jokes told with a Phil Are GO! Pointy tree Day Card Puppet are the responsibility of the Pointy Tree Day Card recipient and the Pointy Tree Day Card puppeteer. Phil Are GO! denies responsibility for any content recited by the Pointy Tree Day Card Puppet.

Not really a post. Insulated boots memo.

Memo to myself. Insulation of any kind is just a thermal barrier. It keeps temperatures separated by means of blocking heat transfer, but that works both ways. Insulated boots can be your friend or your enemy.

Since it's now 2 degrees in Chicago, giant insulated boots seemed like a smart thing to wear this morning. However, if you're a person like me, who has low blood pressure (I know. Cry you a river.) and always has cold feet and hands, once you're sitting in a nice warm car in traffic, those thermally insulated boots are keeping your cold feet cold by denying the ambient in-car heat ingress to your shoes. So, you can wind up with a bead of sweat trickling down your chest while your feet are getting numb, thanks to your choice of insulated boots. Irony.

Not only this, but the sheer bulk of the boots means that you may find yourself accidentally pressing more than one pedal at a time, which, as you can imagine, is bad. You may either press the gas while also pressing the clutch or press the gas and brake at the same time so that when you release the brake, the car leaps forward. Unfavorable.

So, I guess you should reach for the Columbias if you're going to clear the driveway, but for sitting in your car, just throw them in the trunk for emergencies and wear your Adidas replica racing shoes for your high-speed commute (yeah right).

Proper post coming soon. Thank you for your patience.

A Thousand and Oneth Post! - The British Library Makes Millions of Graphic Gifts.

Yesterday was Phil Are GO!'s A Thousandth post, which is an arbitrary milestone based on the way humans count things, which is probably based on the number of fingers we have. Hooray I guess! That makes this one here our Thousand and Oneth post, which we are using to commemorate this largely meaningless achievement.

To mark this seemingly significant occasion, the staff will have the day off, taking some time to reflect on humans' desire to get excited over things because the number is nice and round. A Thousand is a nice and very round number, I think you'll agree. So, we'll let the rest of The Internet spew some content into your eye-holes today.

The British Library dumps over a million images onto Flickr and the Public Domain. Last December, The British Library teamed up with Microsoft to scan an undisclosed number of books from the 17th to 19th centuries, which  means they're out of copyright. The images from those digitized books were programmatically dumped onto a Flickr page, meaning it was a huge process done by computers, so nobody has cataloged - or maybe even looked at - all the pictures. There are gobs of images, and the British Library is encouraging everybody to use them however they like, and help them organize the whole mess by adding tags to the images in Flickr.

To find (and rude-finger-save) a high resolution version of any image in there, look for the three dots icon to the right of an image. This will spawn a menu with DOWNLOAD / ALL SIZES in it. In the subsequent screen, you can choose to view the image at original size. From there, you can do a normal RIGHT-CLICK-SAVE IMAGE.

Here are some gems we found. Be careful. It's a fascinating time sink, and you can lose hours this way.

Now Improved with the Double Strength of Two Fancy Men!

PAG! Pointy Tree Day Card - Last call!

Okay, citizens, this is the last call for Pointy Tree Day / Seasonal Obligation Cards. They'll be going out next week, so send us an address or your Pointy Tree Day Stocking will be empty, smelling only of a foot and NOT of a postcard!

So, get yours while they're free... and existing!

PAG! Pointy Tree Day Card Cattle Call!

Okay, people! The Pointy Tree Daycards have come back from The Printers, and what to my wondering eyes do appear? They're typo free. Champagne corks fly! They're going out now, so get yours while it's still The Holidays. Send your address to PhilAreGo@gmail.com. No, we won't send you junk mail or stalk you. They're free and no salesman will visit... at least not from us. It's just a friggin' postcard. Jeez. Free until we run out, and then they're still free, but you can't get one any more.

Look familiar? It's over one the sidebar too. Crazy, huh?

No post again! - Antiques Creepshow go-go Doll. (Put Laugh-In joke here.)

The temperature is under ninety degrees today, so we assume the first blizzard of the 2012-13 season is only a few weeks away. So, the staff at GO! Tower is having snow removal drills, in anticipation of the approaching winter. Also hypothermia casserole will be served in the commissary today.

Also, please fail to enjoy this freaky go-go girl doll, photographed in an actual display case in an actual antique store by one of our field scavengers. Observe her filthy face, and the half-assed manufacture of her basically cylindrical cheap-as-chips form. Don't forget to revile The Seventies.

(Internal memo: Remind me to have an intern write some kind of joke pertaining to the fact that this doll is fairly sock-shaped, and the popularity of the catch phrase "sock it to me" in the Laugh-In days of Goldie Hawn and her psychedelic bikini. When joke is complete, insert in title bar and delete this memo before posting.)

Postless today. - Sandwich.

Someone left the coffee machines on all weekend, here at GO! Tower. As a result, the offices will be closed today to have the coffee varnish chiseled out of them. So, no post today. Instead, please enjoy this painting of a sandwich I once knew. How I miss it.

In totally unrelated news, tomorrow in the P.A.G. cafeteria, we will be featuring a special "Coffee Toffee" dessert tray. Extra crunchy type. Free while supplies last, or just take the whole tray.

Click for slightly bigger.

No Post Day, sorry for the lack of convenience. Also pizza.

Sorry, everyone. No post today. We're having the offices here at GO! Tower de-updated with some new avocado Formica, orange shag and Masonite paneling. If anyone knows where we can get a hold of a few IBM Selectrics with USB 3.0 ports (Hey, we're not total savages!) please let us know post haste.

In the mean time, please enjoy this painting of pizza I did. It, along with the breakfast painting are from my widely reviled series entitled "the hungry eye". Please enjoy.

[-Mgmt.]

Memo - Little later today.

The offices at GO Plaza are having their wallpaper upgraded this week to a double-sided adhesive type that eliminates the need for shelves and coat racks. Although the start-up cost is substantial, we expect our Annual Small Items Storage Accessories Expenditures quotient to drop significantly.

Savings from this initiative will be funneled directly into our new effort to improve joke content on the blog. Look for an additional 2.6 jokes per week. Please tell your friends.

So, there will be a new post today, just a little later than usual. Probably around noon or something. Until then, please continually pound the REFRESH button on your browser as fast as possible. If your finger gets tired, please use a hammer.

Thank you for your patience.

[-Mgmt.]

Trees down. Blogger down.

[P.A.G. internal memorandum follows]


Could someone please get on the horn to Blogger and ask them what the eff? The image uploader is once again stuffed, and as you all know, pictures are the bread and butter of our collective meat and potatoes.

Disclaimers and excuses dept: Please whip up some kind of explanation about Chicago being pounded about the head and shoulders by a furious system of storms that blew down a zillion trees and a few Sears Towerses. Sorry, what's the new corporately auctioned off name for that building? Oh yeah. "Willis Tower". What you talkin bout, Willis tower naming committee? Jagoffs.

Images and Scanning Them Dept: Please have a fresh ridiculous and defenseless old picture ready to go once Google gets it's thumb out of it's backside and remembers how to upload a picture. If the Okidata AdequateScan 620 is down, just grab another one out of Storage Closet F on the fifth floor. The Equipmemnt Aqcuisition Squad found a pallet of them at Montana Charlie's Little America Flea Market and Dysintery Distribution Center over the weekend, so no more excuses for un-scanned pictures. I want no less than three P.A.G. IAST staffers constantly hitting the "upload" button until it works. We've got literally tens of viewers waiting to see what we've got in store. Some of them are depending on us, perhaps!

Today's lunch in the GO! Cafeteria is carefully arranged peas and medium ham quadrants. The vegetarian option is salmon cubes in aspic with napkin.

[-Mgmt]

Apology / Excuse - No post today.

Due to one thing and another, and also some other stuff, there will be no post today.

[P.A.G. internal memorandum follows]

The Images and Scanning Them Squad blames today's non-post on the downtime of the Okidata AdequateScan 620 image scanner for the lack of content in today's post, (which is not really a post).

The Refreshment & Perishables Dept. regrets the reappropriation of the Okidata's SCSI cable for the experimental online operability of the waffle maker. While their efforts are sure to forward the boundaries of breakfast connectivity in the long run, they have been reprimanded for their shortsightedness.

The Images and Scanning Them Squad demands satisfaction, and say they will settle this at the foosball table. The Refreshment & Perishables Dept. doesn't see what the big deal is, but agrees to the grudge match, adding "your ma".

Foosball tickets will be on sale in the east cafeteria of Go! Tower at lunch today, with the competition scheduled for tomorrow's lunch hour. The entree will be hamdingers almondine. Proceeds from ticket sales will go towards the procurement of a second SCSI cable, to avoid such cockups in the future.

We apologize for the lack of a post today. This is not a post.

Sherbet Grom
Phil Are Go! Apologies and Excuses Supervisor

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