can you hear me now?

working from home has its advantages... yes. i've discussed many of these advantages in past blog posts. a 10-step commute. moderately flexible hours. working in bed, if i so choose. but it also has its disadvantages. socializing is limited to IM and email. no coworker lunches. 4-hour conference calls. FOUR-HOUR conference calls! and yard workers. yes, yard workers. each and every tuesday morning, it begins. i hear the faint roar of a lawn mower in the distance, and i remember... tuesday. curse tuesday. curse the yard workers who seem to take extra special care of the small patch of grass just outside my office/guest bedroom window. on tuesdays, i can generally be found on the floor in the hallway (the furthest i can get away from the lawn mower, aside from sitting on the toilet), cordless phone hung between my chin and my shoulder, laptop propped on my legs stuck straightout in front of me, trying to converse with clients and coworkers who i'm praying can't hear the obnoxious weed-wacker that might as well be cutting the carpet in my livingroom. "i'm sorry, can you say that again? i didn't hear you... oh no, i know it sounds like a chainsaw is hacking away at my phone, but it's just a riding lawn mower." ah yes, working from home. the glamor of it all.

survivorman vs. bear

i've said it before, and i'll say it again... anyone who thinks that survivorman is tougher than bear grylls is CRAAAZY! and i know i'm friends with a few of you. but seriously... survivorman?!

burton and i have been discovery channel fans for awhile now. we love ourselves some mythbusters (though, deadliest catch, how its made, and dirty jobs need to beat it), and we're big fans of man vs. wild. we've been faithful fans, even through the admission that his camera crew aren't just silent observers all the time, and that he has stayed in hotels mid-episode when supposedly he's roughing it in the jungle. but even with that all out in the open now and the overall format of the show changing to be more openly inclusive of assistance and human contact, i still think that bear grylls could DEFINITELY kick survivorman's trash!

having seen bear grylls drink the juice from elephant dung, stick his head in a dead zebra to get rotten meat that he proceeds to eat, cut the head off a rattle snake (and looking no more shaken than i do when i have to smack a cricket with my shoe), pee into the skin of said rattle snake as backup in case he finds himself dehydrated, drink said pee when he eventually does find himself dehydrated, catch a live skunk with a trap and then cut it's head off and cook/eat the meat which tasted like "someone's taken your steak and rubbed it in dog feces"... it's hard to compare it to survivorman's discovery of a berry bush. i mean sure, bear isn't winning popularity contests with the vegetarians of the world, and i can't say i don't prefer berries to skunk tail... but berries and sticks... for SEVEN days?

if you've ever watched survivorman, then you know that his mission is to leave nature the way he found it. which makes good sense if you're at scout camp or yogi bear's campground... but if you're in survival mode, i think there's room for an exception. he also holds true to the "if you find yourself lost, just stay put" philosophy. and while, again, that might make good sense... does it really make good television? watching this guy, spend an entire day sewing a sleeping pad out of dry grass in the arizona desert, only to discover at the end of the day that he's kinda hungry, but will look for food tomorrow... riveting, i tell you. anyway, burton and i can't help but laugh that the episode of "the office" where michael decides to go film his own survivorman show, and tries to make a lean-to out of his suit pants is so close to how the actual show really is it's hardly a mockery.

so that's it. i just had to publicly state my opinion that bear wins... that being said, can you imagine your husband coming home with elephant dung on his breath? mercy.