I've seen better gift bags at Hot Topic

Gooze and I just checked in ... look out, Houston! No sign of any Commercial Appeal staffers, but rest assured: they'll rear their ugly heads soon enough when they get a whiff of Guzman's Drakkar.

So the Chronicle's registration lackeys shove these stupid gift bags into our hands with cornball karaoke invites (in Chinese takeout cartons, no less) and predictable reprints that I likely won't read.

Later, some Florida rag hands out ice scrapers as some sort of jab at the snowbound types up north.

Where are the REAL gifts? The kind I can spend? If these SND brass were REALLY glad we could attend — as they stated in the welcome literature — I'd expect a little more [green] in the way of gratitude.

Houston: I hardly recognize the place!

Of course, that may have something to do with my not having been within a thousand miles of this city since that workshop back during the Ford administration ... And I wasn't here as a tourist, either, but as a working journalist, which means I was peering at the place in the middle of the night through the grimy windows of a rented AMC Pacer, trying to find a Travelodge while holding down a fifth of Angus Dundee.

Man, I still shudder when I think about what those sheets looked like the next morning.

Two things, and two things only, have made it possible for me to attend this year's Society for News Design gala:

a) my solemn promise to our publisher, Mr. Hellier, that I would keep our boy Guzman here on a short leash and away from those grubbing recruiters from the unspeakable Memphis Commercial Appeal; and

b) a one-time waiver of the ban on out-of-state travel imposed on me by that crack legal team employed by my well-heeled ex-wife, the beloved (gulp) BEVERLY. I am told that the erstwhile love of my life was not entirely enthusiastic about granting this waiver, which explains why her legal representative demanded an unprecedented "waiver fee" in the form of $50 in small bills in a paper sack.

But all of that is in the past. I now inhale great draughts of freedom, pausing only to translate the highway signs for the notoriously linguistically-challenged Guzman as he pilots our rented Reliant through the glass-and-steel spaghetti of midtown Houston.

I'm looking forward to reviewing a few portfolios, grubbing down some high-quality hors d'oeuvres, and giving this company American Express card a workout!

More people should have their jaws wired shut.

Actually, Carter may not be so happy about the jaw situation, but at least we get a break from listening to his yap. Then when he finally gets the wires taken out, I bet we still don't hear from him for a week while he crams himself with solid food, the taste of which he has not known since that fateful day when the Goozemeister hit his reset button.

The other day I saw old Carter trudging back from the cafeteria and I don't know what the hell I must have been thinking, I just blurted out, "Hey Carter, what's the soup today?' And of course the old bastard usually runs off like he ate a parrot, but these days the parrot's eaten him, and he can't answer me. So what does he do? He starts blubbering.

The big damned baby. I'll apologize to him the day he starts apologizing for all the ruler-whackings he's doled out to my department in that "Random Musings" drivel of his.

And speaking of my department -- if any one of these bastards ever decides to actually file his work properly, I may have to celebrate by throwing a Graphics Department Kegger. Hell, I'll even invite my first wife. That's right, my beloved ... (gulp) BEVERLY.

Yeah. Get a couple of beers into THAT harridan from hell. She'll teach these clowns the TRUE meaning of Christmas.

"Random Musings" must die. Now.

I hate my inbox. I really do.

You name it, some asshole's tried to sell it to me: Viagra (or, lovv priced V I A G R A, as spelled out by some crafty filter-dodgers), penis enlargements, dates with lonely housewives, stock in white slavery, etc.

Now, it seems, junk email is turning into an INSIDE job.

Every day, our crack copy chief ships out something called "Random Musings" via interoffice email.

While most of it is filled with puff praise for EVERY item in the newspaper, he loves to turn the beacon of truth into the poorly lit crevasse that is Moral Volcano graphics.

Just yesterday, he raked the Gooze over the coals for an errant street name in a locator map. "We need to be more careful with our maps," he wrote. "Del Guzman has brought great shame on not only the newsroom, but the entire Moral Volcano family. He should be sorry he ever reported for work that day."

Talk about tough.

Del went through the roof.

Now, thanks to an in-house email, a quick temper and a fragile ego, we have one copy chief with a broken jaw and one infographista sitting in county lock-up on an ASSAULT CHARGE.

All this, and it was our good-for-nothing INTERN who did the map.

Now, THAT's a marked-up proof!

OKAY, so for the fourth time this week, a graphic proof freshly back from the copy desk has up and DISAPPEARED from my desk. That's right, fellow professionals -- one of the newsroom mongoloids has seen fit to lay his grubby, dirty-fingernailed paw on a page proof representing three hours or more of a copy editor's desperate, tongue-extruded struggle to sound out the big words, and simply WALK OFF WITH IT.

Walk off with it!

I mean, it's bad enough when someone rummages through my desk for loose change -- I can understand the motivation there, what with the allure of the vending machines right around the corner from my department (you all tried those new chili-cheese Fritos? Damn.) -- but what possible use could some whiskey-soaked failure of a junior metro editor have for a marked-up copy of my five-column sewer map?

Sewer map.

Oh.

Wait a minute.


... ALL RIGHT YOU BASTARDS, I found my page proof, and if I ever get my hands on the clown who took it into the men's room, there's no Guild rep alive who'll save your ass this time! And apparently it's ALL ABOUT your ass, looking at the unspeakable condition of this page proof, which I've wiped off as best I can, although I'm going to have to send it back through the desk for a few clarifications ... Here it comes, boys ...

Anywhere it wants

Jokes have a funny way of coming true, don't they?

Take the old joke about the 800-lb. gorilla, for instance. "Where does an 800-lb. gorilla sit?" the joke begins. "Anywhere it wants."

Except no one's laughing here in Turnersville.

Word on the street is a simian of large but unknown girth is running the pressroom. It often can be found resting atop our Goss D-600, sipping magenta ink and throwing fecal matter at the pressmen. And no one can do a THING about it.

It wouldn't be so bad if she just STAYED there. But, in true ape fashion, she often wanders the plant, raiding the breakroom fridge (they tell me she took care of the three-bean casserole) and stopping in the NEWSROOM to leave gag photo requests -- half-complete, of course -- with Pimlott.

While seeing Pimlott suffer a nervous breakdown is high on my to-do list, I'd love to have the fridge back.

If I have to hear about one more damned Jedi ...

Seems "Star Wars" fever is sweeping the newsroom and the metropolitan area of Turnersville. Maybe even if the NATION, if all the promo spots on HGTV and the Speed Channel are to be believed.

People are retarded for this crap.

My niece in Antry called the other day to say she almost was crushed under a falling mound of Star Wars action figures at the nearby Wal-Mart SUPERCENTER.

It wouldn't be so bad if publisher Clem Hellier himself weren't such a big WOOKIE, or whatever they called themselves. Our man Guzman was reduced to tears yesterday when Clem called for the creation of a large Star Wars GRAPHIC, much like one he saw in the Timeweek newsmagazine. "Pull out all the stops, Gooze," he bellowed. "I want lasers and smoke and people ... lots of people."

I want out of this business.

Day 37: Communal fridge held hostage

Sources close to their Lean Cuisine frozen dinners report the staff refrigerator in the second floor lounge is taking on a life of its own. The afflicted have asked this editor to use his BLOG to make the following announcement:

Will the staffer who left the three-bean casserole on the bottom shelf of the fridge please dispose of it?

We're ADULTS here, people. While I'm satisfied with the wording of the agreed-upon plea above, our Sunday magazine editor adds, "we're not your mothers. Clean up your f***ing mess."

On a personal note, the next sad sack who Shanghais my Teriyaki-style UNCLE BEN'S RICE BOWL, well ... it'll be your last meal here.