Top 10 Best Ways To End The Office

10. The final episode begins with everyone in great spirits. Dunder Mifflin is in the black and giving competitors like Staples and Office Max a run for their money. Michael is back with Holly. Pam and Jim are still together. Ryan and Kelly are still a couple, but, luckily for Ryan, Ryan is cheating on Kelly and she has no idea. Dwight and Angela are reunited. Even Stanley is in a good mood. The episode ends with Michael Scott walking out of the office building and getting shot in the head by the guy he fired after trying and failing to fire Creed early in Season 2 (Devin or Devlin, I'm not sure which and I couldn't find him on imdb - it was a Halloween episode and he was dressed as a hobo).

9. Michael thinks it would be hilarious to fake his own death. He manages to succeed so thoroughly that Dunder Mifflin hires a new regional manager and his condo is sold to someone else.

8. Michael does one of his infamous fake-firings, but on a grand scale. He fake-fires the entire office. Everyone believes him. The final episode deals with how all of the office's former employees have moved on. Everyone agrees on one thing - their lives are better now. The final scene opens with Michael giggling to himself and bragging about how surprised everyone is going to be and how he "got everyone GOOD." The episode ends with the film crew playing a tape of Michael's now former employees talking about how much happier they are now. Michael stands and watches it soberly, well into the night.

7. Dwight is finally irrevocably fired. The final scene ends with Dwight pulling into the office parking lot and entering the building carrying an arsenal of guns and homemade explosives.

6. Dunder Mifflin goes out of business, but Michael refuses to accept it. Fueled by Dwight's mad ravings, Michael encourages all of his employees to stay and uses the metaphor of a band of survivors in a post-apocalyptic film. And, as they usually do, Michael, Dwight, and Andy take the metaphor way too seriously - they board up the office, arm themselves with shotguns and golf clubs, talk like they're in a Mad Max film, swearing to keep on selling paper until the zombies come and eat all their brains.

5. One of Michael's comedic idols - preferably Steve Martin or Robin Williams - comes to Scranton. Michael stumbles upon them in a bar or restaurant. The celebrity tries and fails to get Michael to stop bothering them. Eventually, Michael follows them to a hotel where he manages to catch them doing something unsavory with someone like a teenage girl, a hooker, etc. Michael blackmails them to help him get his comedy career moving. He quits Dunder Mifflin and goes on a stand-up tour which enjoys a degree of unexpected success - largely out of an ironic appreciation for how horrible Michael is. He basically becomes the stand-up comedy version of William Hung and Snakes on a Plane.

4. Dunder Mifflin is bought out by a UK office supply company. Michael Scott meets his new boss in the final scene - David Brent, played by Ricky Gervais.

3. Michael wins the lottery and uses the proceeds to fund his film opus Threat Level: Midnight. He invites his employees to star in the film, and the final episode is littered with scenes from the finished product. It's possible Michael Skarn's love interest will be played by BJ Novak.

2. The final episode opens with Michael Scott found dead in his office. Dwight conducts a characteristically stupid investigation. We never learn who did it because everyone had equal motive and desire. However, the general feeling is that everyone is better off for it. Including Michael.

1. The film crew either decides they're finally done filming, or they run out of funding. Michael tries everything he can to keep them at the office. He tries to complain to the producer of whatever documentary they've been making all this time. He even tries calling corporate to fund a new film crew. The series ends with Michael running after the crew, simultaneously begging them to come back and singing "Don't Stop Believing". It goes to black on the word "stop."

Top 10 Thoughts Upon Finishing Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban

(It should go without saying, but this contains SPOILERS)

10. I was disappointed there were no new racial slurs like "muggle," "mudblood," or "parselmouth."

9. I wasn't happy to see time travel rear its ugly head in the series (though I guess, in a sense, the argument could be made a form of time travel was used in Chamber of Secrets). I guess I should have expected it. I just get tired of it being used in stories of the more fantastic variety. It's just an easy way to solve so many plot problems. And it's been so over-used at this point that, unless the entire story is about time travel, it always feels like a cop-out.

8. Don't get me wrong. Overall I liked the story and this was probably my favorite of the series so far. But there are certain repetitive aspects of the series I'm getting tired of. I'm getting tired of the introductory chapters with the Dursleys. I always just drag my way through those chapters, breathing a sigh of relief when they finally get Harry to Hogwarts. It isn't that I'm anticipating the hero freeing himself from his mundane guardians, it's that the plot itself doesn't really begin until Harry gets away from the Dursleys. I'm also getting tired of the whole Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher thing. You'd think if they were willing to give Snape a full-time job, they could find a Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher who wasn't evil, a fraud, or a fucking werewolf.

7. Speaking of Snape, so far I find him the most intriguing character in the series. I'm very curious to see, when push comes to shove, who he'll be standing with.

(And that is NOT an invitation for spoilers. Seriously, if anyone spoils the rest of the series for me, I will hunt you down and burn your comic books.)

6. I think I commented in my first top ten list about Harry Potter that I had difficulty taking characters seriously with names like "Dumbledore" and "Voldemort." I think Rowling crossed the line with this book. I mean, I can eventually forget that the two most powerful wizards in her fictional world have names that make them sound like lawn gnomes, but naming the head of the Ministry of Magic Cornelius Fudge is beyond the pale. I mean come the fuck on. Dude. I mean. DUDE.

5. It's really tough trying to NOT be spoiled. I managed for years to keep myself far away from any mention of the last episode of The Sopranos until I finally managed to see it for myself on DVD. Unfortunately, I ended up figuring out quite a bit of Prisoner of Azkaban's plot by doing nothing more than stopping by IMDB because I was curious about who played who in the film. This revealed that Gary Oldman played the "villain" Sirius Black and that the character appears in at least two other Harry Potter films. And in spite of the fact that you're lead to believe he's a bad guy, the IMDB photos show Potter and Black looking like they're buddies. That revelation lead to me figuring out most of big reveals, though I was wrong in some small parts (e.g., I figured out that Black was hiding as an animal but I was wrong about which one - I thought Black was Hermione's new cat, not the dog, because I assumed the dog was actually Lupin because I'd already figured out he was a werewolf).

And as an example of what I assume is another fairly big spoiler, I also find it curious that, according to IMDB, Black doesn't appear in Half-Blood Prince or either of the last two films currently in production.

(Again, keep your mouths SHUT please.)

4. My opinion of the Hogwarts faculty is not dissimilar from my opinion of the Jedi council. They're supposed to be incredibly powerful, incredibly smart, and to be able to see what the rest of us can't, but time and again they prove themselves unable to find their own assholes unless they have a thirteen year old boy around to poke it for them.

3. With each book, it's becoming more and more clear that in the world of Harry Potter, the most powerful threat to the world may very well be the result of a bunch of guys at a high school not liking each other very much. I think Rowling may have a few issues concerning her teenage years.

2. In all seriousness, while I liked the first two books, I think this is the one that officially hooked me. It's the first one that shows some real growth in the main characters and the first one to more blatantly lay groundwork for the following books.

1. I see the series getting a little bit darker, a little bit more "grown-up" but I feel like the transition is awkward. One minute Harry is filled with a red-hot, vengeful rage, swearing silent oaths to cut through the ranks of his parents' old enemies like a wild samurai, and the next he's a whiny little shithead about not being able to go to the sweets shop with his friends. Priorities, dude.

Top 10 Things That Are Just F#$%ing TRUE - They Transcend Opinion And Are Just Plain F&@$ing Correct!

10. If they weren't insanely popular, the same whiny critics who talk about Coldplay like they're the worst band in the world would be complaining about the "sheep" and "lemmings" who refused to notice this brilliant little English band.

9. If in the face of the hunger, murder, rape, disease, and abuse standing against the world, your major complaint is "I WANNA BE ABLE TO KEEP THE GUNS I HAVE AND GET MORE KINDS OF GUNS," you're an asshole. You should shoot yourself in the head. It isn't even a question of whether or not gun control is good or bad. If THAT is what is important to you, you suck. You are stupid. You should die.

8. If you do not believe in Universal health care, you are inhuman. You are not conservative or liberal, you have rejected your humanity. You are inhuman. And not in the cool way where you get to live on the moon and hang out with giant dogs.



7. If you are against gay rights, then you are either afraid of sex in general, you are concerned about the size of your penis, or you are afraid of something about yourself which you stupidly think you can subdue if you work to squash it out of everyone else. Or all of the above. Time has proven me right about this, and will continue to do so.

6. If you own a Hummer, you're an asshole. There really aren't many ways around this. There's no reason, NONE, to own a hummer other than reasons that make you an asshole.

5. Kevin Smith is a hack.

4. All this zombie bullshit is getting to be very fucking boring.

3. Yea, I was looking at them. And will continue to do so.

2. I'm not an atheist, but I'm working towards it.

1.

Top 10 Best Things About Almost A Whole Week of Getting to Work Before 6 AM

10. I get to leave at 2 pm.

9. Going to work early and leaving work early means I miss both of the day's traffic headaches.

8. My lovely girlfriend is letting me use the car.

7. Most days, I will have two-and-a-half hours between when I leave work and when I need to pick up Maryann. As long as I'm smart about it, I can gather a LOT of whores and heroin in two-and-a-half hours.

6. There's really no way to notice or care about any particular person at work being a jerk. At 6 am, everyone's an asshole and everyone hates you.

5. Free breakfast crap at work.

4. I can get the drop on Iron Man.



Drunk fuck.

3. The attempt to actually come up with 10 things that are good about being at work by 6 am may be futile, but it's certainly a great way to exercise the part of my brain that thinks the glass is half full.

2. The more I practice getting up early, the better chance I have this December of catching that fat fuck on the roof and making him cough up that Castle Greyskull.

1. "It's better to have to be at work at 6 am than to not have a job to go to at any time, regardless of convenience." -Confucius

P.S. The Albany cityscape looks pretty in the dark.