would you say i had a plethora of pinatas?

The Friday Wednesday Weigh-in

Well, against my better judgment, I weighed this morning and was quite startled with the results: 191.7 -- down nearly two pounds from last week. I called bullshnarf and weighed again, twice. The next two weights were actually less than that. So i guess i'm happy that despite my lack of recent exercise i'm still losing weight.

But since i don't trust that scale, i'm setting even less lofty goals in my half-assed weight loss effort (which i promise will one of these days return to having the wednesday weigh-in on a wednesday).

Today's weight: 191.7
Goal for next week: no more than 195

Reader Contest

Well, Courtney is in Seattle now and will be heading to Alaska this afternoon. A couple of thoughts on the reader contest (scroll down to last Thursday if you don't know what i'm talking about). Ryan, before courtney left she threatened to kill me if i even considered any sort of paint job. so your $50, i'm ashamed to say, is safe.

Mom, I know that's you that came up with the frog aquarium. Most people would have said "without gloves," a few people would have said "sans gloves," but only you would have used "senza gloves." so next time you want to take a cheap shot, at least put your name on it. But i certainly appreciate the effort.

You can learn to cope with stress, you can beat the IRS, and the Incredible Frogboy is on the loose again

I was standing at the check-out with my 12 items or less a week or two ago and decided that if you took a survey, express lane cashiers would have a higher rate of job satisfaction than normal lane cashiers.

Each transaction takes less time than the normal lane, so you have more opportunities to experience a sense of completion. Things are less monotonous and you deal with more people, so they day goes by quicker.

that, in turn, got me to thinking about what job has the highest rate of employee satisfaction. After much thought, i decided that it had to be tattoo artists.

(Warning: the following explanation is likely to include sweeping generalizations and a stereotype or two.)

I can't imagine there are too many people who are tattoo artists that would rather be doing something else. Drawing on other people, it seems, is something one gets into because that is what one intends to do. It's not like waiting tables at a restaurant "until your book gets published," or working at the mall "because your parents made you get a summer job" or exotic dancing "because i needed to put myself through law school."

Granted, i'm not sure a lot of kids are out there saying that they want to be tattoo artists, but after watching Top Gun in 1986 i wanted to be a fighter pilot. So it's not like adults have to live out their childhood dream to be happy with their job. By the time you're close enough to adulthood to make a reasonable guess as to what you'd like to do (and for me, having two feet on the ground was a requisite), i think that's when the career-happiness meter starts.

and this is just a guess, but i bet there are more people out there who aren't tattoo artists who wish they were than there are tattoo artists who wish they weren't.

If you disagree and can think of a profession with a higher satisfaction rate, be sure and post it in the comments.