Better than an annoying FWD:

Returning to work after a long holiday weekend is always particularly painful.

Due to much tighter pants, you've sworn yourself to a diet of minestrone soup or Lean Cuisines, so the 11:32 a.m. kitchen snack of Baked Doritos isn't there to brighten your day. Your office chair you previously thought comfy and adequate pales in comparison to mom and dad's recliner. And the traditional five-day work week is looming ahead, mocking you. Friday is so far away.

I'm glad I discovered the someecards.com Workplace section so I can bring a little sarcastic sunshine to my coworkers tomorrow. I've loved the site's irreverent e-cards for quite a while, but hadn't yet perused the section perfect for gifting to your coworkers. I am scared that the creators of these cards "get" the workplace as much as they do.

The free cards are spot on, with jokes about not joining your colleague's LinkedIn network, apologies for IMing them from three feet away and feeling connected to your cubicle mate via their shared iTunes folder. They even poke fun at inevitably pointless colleague chatter, such as "It feels like a Tuesday." I'd rather it feel like Friday, myself.

So go ahead and clog the email inboxes of your colleagues. These cards are likely to be the one thing they fish out of their quarantined junk box that brings a smile to their face. Although, I can't for the life of me imagine an appropriate time to send some of these, like uh, this one.

Although, I do really want to see a card like "Do you have the dial-in number?" or "Sorry I ate your box of Wheat Thins while you were on vacation." But of course, my current favorites joke about timesheets, like the one you see above.

How could a joke about timesheets not be funny?

Cat Power

I have been sending too many cat videos to my coworkers. One suggested I make a cat blog. Sounds a little scary, so I think I'll stick with just a funny cat video every now and then. This one is great - cats are so smart!

Rorschach Turkey

Behold, the impressionist/ink blot turkey masterpiece I created in honor of Thanksgiving.

Isn't he pretty? You can make one, or something else less festive, at http://www.jacksonpollock.org/. Play around with it, try to spell your name, draw your favorite pair of shoes, your dog, etc. FYI, hitting the space bar clears the screen.

Make sure you hit F11 and do a "print screen" and paste into another application when you see something you like. You can save the image as a jpeg and do absolutely nothing with it. Enjoy.

Attention Black Friday Shoppers

I am that girl that gets up at a very unreasonable hour the day after Thanksgiving to grab much-needed Starbucks and then fight my way through the mall. My name is Brianne, and I'm a Black Friday shopper.

This is not necessarily because I'm aware of any great deals or really need to get my holiday shopping done. I just love feeding into the crazy madness and seeing all those bloodshot people, tired from all the tryptophan, lunging for cheap electronics. I sit back with my Peppermint Mocha and laugh at the ensuing chaos.

So imagine my surprise when I found out there was an entire blog dedicated to Black Friday deals and ads! There are literally message boards lovingly referring to Black Friday as "BF" (hey! it's an acronym not just for your boyfriend!) and threads about everything from being pregnant on Black Friday to a drunk poster asking why beer companies don't participate in post-Thanksgiving discounts. You can even sign up for "Black Friday Ads Mobile." Wow, this is almost like Facebook. Can you "poke" people, too?

One user who is a certified "Black Friday Pro," is going to share all of her November 23 shopping experiences live via webcast at http://bf2k7.fundies.org/. And it looks like a journalist from the board is including her in the article about Black Friday for an New York-based newspaper. She said she'll post the story once she's done with it - I am really curious how it will turn out. Even Gizmodo likes this site.

So for those of you who haven't found a favorite hobby or sport, maybe you should take up "Black Friday Shopping." You could buy really cheap holiday gifts and parlay it into some Internet fame.

Pretty Trash

Right now, everything is "going green" or "eco-friendly." I feel a little passe with my non-hybrid car everytime I go to the gas pump. However, I am finding I really do like an off-shoot of this trend - using things that are usually deemed as trash to make something much more pretty, art.

Case in point, Tara Donovan's upcoming exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York opening this Tuesday, November 20, that makes larger-than-life installations out of ordinary objects you'd find around the house like tape and drinking straws. So instead of piling up in a dump, or on a beach like Styrofoam beads are want to do, it becomes pretty amazing art that you can pay a $20 suggested donation to see. I'd love to see something like this Stryofoam cup extravaganza. Tara's also got about 18,000 graphite pencils on display at BEDFORD Gallery in Walnut Creek, Calif. through December 22, 2007. Bay area friends, check it out!

Also, like the Blueprint blog, Bluelines, I am a very big fan of Chris Natrop's lovely paper pieces. I instantly thought of Tord Boontje, too (anyone looking for an over-priced Christmas gift for me? It would be Boontje's beautiful and quite heavy coffee book, thanks.) Natrop has a piece called "Super City Spin" over at Chapman University in Orange, Calif., that I might just be tempted to check out.

But what I'm really interested in is the lasercut free-flowing paper constructions from his site like the pretty one to the left. He also has a book that you can download for free, check it out.

Peter Calleson also makes some crazy large-scale paper installations (and works on snow, ice and water...wow.)

So, lesson learned - there's actually a LOT more to supposed trash than meets the eye. Maybe next time you want to throw out that pizza box, you can repurpose it to make an oil painting or something.