A month ago, my lazy sloth of a Great Uncle, Stoffel, invaded my home. Schrutes are obligated to provide lodging for family members, so long as they’re willing to hunt, slaughter, and/or cure meat in exchange for their room and board. Stoffel refuses to do any work of any kind. He just sits around on our wolverine-skinned couch, drinking tea, reading books, and shivering. The man is truly a 104 year-old menace to society and an example of what happens when a Rumspringa lasts from the Roaring Twenties through the Swinging Sixties.

Stoffel’s continued hedonistic lifestyle is a symptom of a pandemic sweeping the globe: with the spread of modern medicine, the elderly continue to live longer and longer, surviving despite their deteriorating bodies and minds, and burdening society with their “needs� (Note: insulin is a privilege not a right). A person should only exist as long as he proves beneficial to his community. Schrute children adhere to this rule by the age of 6 or else they’re permanently reassigned to a weaker, more tolerant family. So why can’t old people abide?

Unfortunately, humanity seems to lack the backbone to demand that the elderly continue to contribute until they terminate. Instead we both indulge their laziness and demean them, locking them away in retirement homes while they slowly rot in a medicated stupor. The thought seems to be, the elderly, like most minority groups, enjoy being grouped together in a designated living area. But what if we stripped them of their pills and deprived them of their Rascal scooters, perhaps the elderly would stand up and face death like a man: head on, in a battle royal. Win or lose, they’d be more alive than they are now, even if the exertion caused them to cease living.

I’m proposing we take all the seemingly washed-up old geezers sucking at society’s teat like wrinkled old leaches and put them on some remote island. There, they would compete for survival in a format not un-like the popular television program Survivor, only there would be no challenge rewards, medical assistance, or immunity. Just old men and women working together to battle time and Mother Nature, reliving their glory days in some treacherous tropical paradise.

Some would surely die, many immediately, but at least they would die with dignity. Plus there would be those that rise to the occasion—that fight and triumph against the odds. They would of course be welcomed back to our youthful society as conquering heroes, free to live out their days however they see fit. I only pray that if my body ever shows any signs of corrosion, that I’m given such an opportunity. There’s no way I’m going out like old Stoffel, annoying my relatives as I slowly expire. Better to die living my life with honor: sabotaging my opponents, crushing my competition, and surviving no matter what the costs.

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Although I may not agree with all polices made by the government, I still try to respect them. I oppose bans on AK47s, but I abide (even though they would come in handy when Wilson Farms inevitably attacks). I begrudgingly pay my income taxes. I try to tolerate a woman’s right to vote. But restrictions on one’s property rights are something I cannot accept. I believe it is every American’s right to do with their land what they please. That is what our forefathers believed. That is what Davy Crockett believed. I believe that’s what Clint Eastwood believes. I wish Dale Hegarty, the Wayne County zoning officer, honored this view, but he does not. Instead of respecting an American’s property rights, Mr. Hegarty chooses to stifle our freedoms by requiring us to get ridiculous permits. Did Gutzon Borglum need a permit before he carved Mount Rushmore? Probably not.

I want to build a moat around Schrute farm for 6 reasons. 1) It would discourage trespassers (I’ve had it with the pilgrims that mistake our farm for a satellite of the Yearning for Zion Ranch). 2) Adding a moat would drive the local agrotourism community wild. Then I can add a “Private Beach� to our list of amenities. 3) The farm’s waste needs to go somewhere else. 4) My piranhas are out growing their tank and need to learn how to hunt for themselves. 5) Mose has the habit of chasing butterflies into the woods and getting lost. A moat surrounding the farm should keep him from wandering as he developed aquaphobia last summer when he tried to play with his reflection in the pond down the road and nearly drowned. 6) The last and most obvious reason for a moat would be to protect the farmhouse. Without it we’re vulnerable to invaders, be it the beet weevil, Wilson Farms or the French. Despite the apparent need for a moat, the zoning officer prohibited me from filling my hole up with water. That idiot deemed the soft earth surrounding the house as “unstable quicksand,� and “geologically unfit� for a moat. Hogwash.

What the zoning officer fails to understand is that I come from a long line of moat diggers. It was my ancestors that constructed the moat surrounding Heinzburg Castle, which was the toast of Bavaria until the castle sank with the queen in it. And it was my uncle, Barnabas Schrute, that dug the first moat in Honesdale. I’m proud to say four trespassers have died in it and counting. Moat digging is in my blood, so it troubles me that a zoning officer with no history of moat engineering can decide whether or not I am allowed to build a moat. What does he care anyway? Should anyone drown in the moat I’ll be the one held accountable. Mose knows how to perform CPR and, if need be, how to embalm a body. If something happens to any of the guests staying at the bed & breakfast we’re legally covered; at check-in they’re required to sign a 33 page waiver. I am a responsible land owner and moat digger, so I take great offense to a system that allows a loser like Mr. Hegarty to compromise my property rights by telling me what I can and cannot build. If the house collapses into the moat and we all die it’s my problem not Dale’s - and it’s my right to have that problem. I think the zoning officer is just jealous because he doesn’t even own the land his house is on. Well, screw you Dale! Your wife’s fat and your barn sucks!

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Every summer since before I was even a young Schrute, my family has dug out an area in the Northwest fields to use as a swimming hole. We fill it with water and a variety of unmarketable beets (to use as flotation devices) and then all of the Schrute children are allowed to visit the pool once a week. Swimming in Schrute Hole is purely for instructional purposes. Since the loss of poor Great Cousin Cordula to a horrific drowning accident in Lake Wallenpaupack back in the early Sixties, it is a family requirement that all Schrute children learn how to swim. Unfortunately for me, I hate swimming.

My swimming lessons were simultaneously extensive and short-lived. I was eight years old, which is the age all Schrutes begin their aqua-training. From the very moment I was thrown into the center of the swimming hole, I knew that I was not meant to be a swimmer. As with all things for Schrute children, however, I had no choice in the matter. My father took on the role of swim instructor and began teaching me. I hated every second of it except for the fact that it was the first occasion I had ever spent time alone with Father.

After the first day, I had to hide in the barn because I didn’t want anyone to see me crying. Crying leads to shunning and at that point, I had already had all the shunning a young boy needs. The process of swim instruction usually takes three full months of weekly three-hour sessions at Schrute Hole. During my second lesson, I was having such a miserable time that I decided to defy my father. Instead of treading water, I sank to the bottom of the swimming hole and dug my heels into the mud. Faced with the choice of letting his strongest son drown or teaching me a lesson for defying him, Father made an incredibly wise decision. He allowed me to stay down there long enough to pass out, but then jumped in and brought me back to consciousness once back on dry ground. When the shock of almost dying wore off, I offered my father a compromise. I would complete the entire Schrute Swimming Course if he could condense it into a week’s worth of lessons. Much to my surprise, he agreed. For the next week, before and after the farm work was completed, I took the full battery of swimming lessons. At the end of the week, not only was I a proficient swimmer, I was an incredible swimmer. And I hated every second of it.

Ever since then, I have not stepped foot in a swimming area of any sort – be it pool, hole, or anything else. Yes, I was accidentally driven into a lake once, but that was not my choice. Being a hero that day was also not my choice, but I accept it for what it is.

I don’t know exactly what it is about swimming that I dislike so much. I believe it has something to do with the fact that I was often left in the bathtub in my youth and forgotten about. The terrible memories of my skin wrinkling until it could wrinkle no more are enough to make me avoid any large collection of water. Other than that, I think there are more issues at play. For most of my life, family members have told me that I quite resemble Great Cousin Cordula, especially in the mouth area. Her lips were apparently very admirable. Sometimes, Grandmutter would say that she can sense a little bit of Cordula in me and I think I’ve always been afraid that she was right. If Cordula’s spirit is in me, I have subconsciously believed that I could befall the same fate as her. This is all a stupid psycho-babble way of saying that I don’t swim because I don’t want to die.

So now, the only time I spend at Schrute Hole is when Mose wants to go swimming. I dutifully stand by as his lifeguard, because, in truth, Mose is my favorite companion at home and I would hate to see him die a terrible soggy death. It is the image of Mose drowning in that murky water that makes me such a vigilant, amazing lifeguard.

Today you have seen into the darkest places of my heart. Don’t think that this will become a regular occurrence.

Yours in Text,
Dwight K. Schrute

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Attention readers: this web log will be doubling as a public service announcement because people are literally DYING out there.

We are in the thick of summer, people. The sun, while a huge ally of the Earth, also serves as one of our biggest enemies. It provides light that we use to see, but it can also scorch your skin into a red blistering mess. There are so many heat-related illnesses that it’s almost impossible to name them all: heatstroke, heat rash, heat cramps, heat exhaustion, heat edema, heat tetany, heat syncope, heat mumps. The list goes on and on. The sun lurks silently in the sky, waiting to claim its next human victim and it’s up to us to stop it.

In the wintertime, nobody bothers to care about the sun at all. That’s because it’s busy resting. Just like bears, the sun hibernates in the sky during the winter. Sure, it still provides sunshine – but just enough to get us through the day. When the sun wakes up, usually around mid-April, it begins a program of solar destruction that takes so many lives each year that it should be at the top of every Most Wanted list in the world.

I feel that it is my duty to combat the sun’s evil efforts by providing you with this list of helpful sun-fighting tips.

• The sun can only hurt you if you leave your skin exposed. Wearing a neoprene wetsuit will cover up most of your vulnerable skin. You’ll also look like a superhero, so that’s a double bonus.
• Sunscreen is sold by the pro-sun lobby. They want to create a market based on your fear of the sun. While your fear is very real and legitimate, their products are essentially a creamy snake oil. You’re much better off using a solvent made of beet juice reduction and white wine vinegar. It may smell delicious to you, and if you’re ever making salad dressing these are two ingredients you don’t want to leave out, but in reality the combination is like kryptonite to the stupid sun. It sends those dangerous rays right back where they came from and sends a message to that big yolk in the sky. It says “Hey Sun, not on MY watch!� So don’t waste your money on sunscreen, it just gets funneled back to pro-sun activities.
• Wear a floppy hat. They might look goofy, but so will you when your face is the color of my childhood wagon/portable beet showroom.
• Never leave your house without at least a gallon of potable drinking water. Drinking water makes you more resistant to the dangerous intrusion of the sun. The sun’s goal is to actually deprive you of water. If you drink water, you’re replacing the very substance that the sun is trying to steal from you. Plus, our bodies are comprised mainly of water. The sun is made up of zero percent water. So remind me, who invented all of the technology on Earth? Humans or the sun? It was humans. The sun never invented anything. That’s why I’ll not only trust humans over the sun, I’ll do everything I can to set myself apart from the sun. Number one on the list of ways to set yourself apart: drinking water.
• Stay indoors between the hours of 9am and 6pm. This will prevent contact with the sun when it is most vindictive.

I don’t know what the sun has against us. What I do know is that the sun is a killer. People die from sun-related problems every single day during the summer and even though I am only one man, I feel the need to do my part. Don’t let the sun catch you off-guard. Be prepared. One day, we will tame the sun and make it do our bidding. Until then, we must always be vigilant.

In Anti-Solar Solidarity,
Dwight Schrute

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Good June to you, or as we say on Schrute Farms: Guttenjuni!

There is a topic I’ve been meaning to bring up and this appears to be the appropriate time. I have noticed many more people taking photographs of things now that the true start of summer is nearly upon us. Photography is an “art� that I do not endorse. If you’d like to see how something looks, go see it with your own eyes. If you want to see a representation of something, then go look at a drawing or painting. Grandma Mannheim was especially adept at illustrating Strullpeter stories, so don’t try and tell me that photographs are better than drawings. Photographs merely replicate the human visual experience as a frozen moment in time and that insults the eyes and the memory.

When I was a tyke, my family did not have a camera. The general belief was that if a camera were introduced into our lives, our eyes would revolt, leaving us all blind and unable to operate our farm. Now that I’m an adult, I realize that this is unlikely. The eyes are very rational and I think they would adjust to sharing their optical duties with a camera, if a person chose to use such a device. I, however, still refuse to use a camera out of pure ocular respect.

The rise in popularity of so-called “digital cameras� is a direct affront to human biology and it angers me to no end. Traditional film cameras at least have a built-in limit. You can only take photos as long as you have film. When the film is used up, you’re out of luck. On top of that, film is fairly expensive, as is photo development. These costs made liberal camera use cost-prohibitive. Not the case with digital cameras.

Digital cameras allow the amateur photographer the freedom and ability to take six thousand pictures of a baby. Babies should not be photographed in the first place. They never grow up to look anything like they did as a baby, so what’s the point in having a picture of them? You might as well take photos of a small pony because that’s about as close a resemblance as babies have to their future selves and ponies are at least attractive creatures. But I digress. Digital cameras have all the negatives of traditional film cameras with none of the limitations. They’re like a mutated virus – attacking humanity without an antidote.

The biggest problem that I see with digital cameras is that they cause people to place so much less significance on a single image. If Leonardo Da Vinci finished the Mona Lisa and decided he didn’t like her barely detectable smile, would he have just thrown away the entire painting? Of course not. If the Mona Lisa was a digital picture, however, he easily could just pressed a button and the masterpiece would be lost forever. This is the plague of digital cameras. What once was permanent is now digitally expendable.

This is all to say that, even though I savor the taste of victory, I have interest in keeping the digital camera that I won by calling into Froggy 101. If you want to buy this worthless device, go ahead and make me an offer.

That. Is all.

Yours Truly,
Dwight Kurt Schrute

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Salutations, weblog reader. I hope you are reading this at home and not during working hours because this weblog entry has nothing to do with your job, unless you are an anime scholar, sexual education expert, cultural examiner with a focus on bizarre sexual matters, or a marine biologist. If you do not hold one of these jobs, please stop reading and continue in the privacy of your home where your time belongs to you. You may also proceed to read this if you are self-employed, but that is a slippery slope.

As you are well aware, I am interested in the representational arts of Japan, most specifically manga or, as it’s more commonly known in America, anime. While purchasing some new reading material recently, my manga got mixed up with another customer’s items and I ended up with several titles that I did not originally select. At first I was incredibly upset at the idiot behind the counter who let that happen. It makes sense that he’s working retail. Real salesmen don’t mess up orders. After fuming for a while, however, I was reminded of something Grandpa Mannheim used to say: “When life gives you lemons, find a way to turn those lemons into a profit, even if it means donating the lemons to charity in order to get a tax write-off.� I decided to use the misplaced manga to enrich my knowledge in general and discover some new artists and writers. This turned out to be a mistake.

The comic books that the other gentleman was purchasing were of the “hentai� sub-genre. Hentai is disgusting. It is Japanese comic pornography and it is completely inappropriate. What disturbed me most about this man’s choices were that they were exclusively of the shokushu goukan variety. For those not familiar, shokushu goukan is the Japanese term for tentacle rape. These comics feature Japanese women getting taken advantage of by octopi. I truly do not understand their appeal. Octopi are, by their very nature, non-sexual creatures. After they reproduce, both the mother and father octopus die within a matter of months. What’s sexy about that? To chronicle the sexual nature of an octopus is as pointless as trying to find a beet weevil in December – it’s just a waste of time.

As I was perusing the contents of the various shokushu goukan comics, I kept happening on the same plot. Woman loves sailor. Sailor goes out to sea. Sailor is killed by giant octopus. Giant octopus rapes woman with its tentacles. This plot doesn’t make any sense. It paints giant octopi as if they’re these terribly vindictive creatures, not content to just kill sailors, but also to seek out and infiltrate their women. What do the Japanese have against octopi? What did octopi ever do to the Japanese besides providing a tremendous amount of nourishment in the form of tako sushi? It baffles me. It angers me. It saddens me.

The mighty octopus should be respected, not depicted as some horrible marine rapist. If you need to demonize a sea creature, make it the horrendous jellyfish, which provides not jelly but dangerous stings. I found out firsthand when I was taken to a beach on the shores of North Carolina in my youth. I have yet to return to an ocean beach.

Over the weekend, I will be returning to the shop where this terrible comic literature entered my possession. I will be exchanging it for my favorite manga: Ranma 1/2, the story of a teenaged boy trained from a young age to be a martial arts master, who is cursed to become a girl when splashed with cold water, but returns to male form when touched with cold water. Currently, the reason that it’s my favorite manga series is that there are no horny vindictive creatures with tentacles in Ranma 1/2 and that’s good enough for me.

This marks the end of today’s weblog. Fight Octopi Misrepresentation!

Arigato,
Dwight Kurt Schrute

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Many agrarians will tell you that there are certain signs that spring has arrived. Most of those signs are false and based solely on superstition. I’m tired of common people using these untruths to determine when it is springtime. For example, groundhogs have no true supernatural value. Despite what the idiots in Punxsutawney may believe, the shadow of a groundhog neither confirms nor denies the arrival of spring. It merely asserts the position of the sun in relation to a certain groundhog on a certain day. Additionally, when you see a red-breasted robin, it does not mean that spring is upon us. It means that food has disappeared from its previous location and now the robin is searching for new viands. Finally, “love� is never “in the air.� Yes, spring happens to coincide with the mating seasons of many animals. That does not mean that some unquantifiable substance called “love� is floating around in the atmosphere. Much the opposite. An increase in airborne animal pheromones has absolutely zero effect on the amount of pheromones that humans produce because pheromones from other species do not act as a pheromone-stimulant in humans. Humans can reproduce at any time during the year and only human pheromones can stimulate other human pheromones. Believing that spring has anything to do with “love� is just stupid and ignorant.

On Schrute Farms, there are five telltale signs that spring has arrived. These signs are easy to validate and require no belief in anything but solid fact.

1. The date is between March 21st and June 21st. If the date falls within this period of time, then it is a sign that spring has occurred or is occurring. It is indisputable. Seasons are demarcated by certain days in order to clearly define when a season is taking place.

2. The dirt is not frozen. In wintertime, the soil becomes frozen and unable to support crop growth. This changes when spring comes around because the temperature is warmer and the ground is thawed. If the ground is frozen, you can successfully determine that it is not yet spring.

3. There have been no major federal holidays for a month and there will be none for the next two months. At the beginning of spring, you do not have to worry about workers missing work thanks to federally mandated days off. If a worker attempts to miss a day of work based on a holiday of his own observance at the beginning of spring, that worker should be fired. The only holiday in the entirety of spring is Memorial Day and that doesn’t occur until the end of May.

4. My cousin Mose begins to talk about his birthday. Mose was born in late October and his birthday has always been a huge event in his life. He begins to start mentioning his birthday at the beginning of spring each year, giving him a full eight-month head start on the actual day of celebration. If Mose isn’t mentioning his birthday, it isn’t spring yet.

5. You can smell a faint stale manure smell when you walk outside. Manure does not give off an odor in the wintertime. The cold temperature neutralizes the smell and restricts the odor to the immediate vicinity of the excrement itself. In the spring, the rising temperature activates the smell of the manure and the longer it sits around, the more present the smell becomes. This scent becomes nearly unbearable to some people in summertime because it is too pungent. In the spring, however, the odor of manure hangs in the air like a gentle air freshener of defecation and that is how you know which season it is.

Please do not accept the unnatural indicators of spring as valid. They are merely children’s stories that have become accepted through years of negligence by an oral tradition that does not bother to check facts. The Schrute Farms Signs of Spring ring true each year and can be counted upon with the certainty of science. These are the only real ways to determine whether or not spring has truly sprung. Don’t believe the hype, people. Just stick to the facts.

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We, as a society, have gone backwards when it comes to interpersonal communication. Neanderthals communicated using only grunts and gestures. As time passed on, humans began to overcomplicate language to the point where it is now difficult to accomplish anything because there are too many stupid people and they use too many stupid words. This is why I am proposing the use of a basic universal language for all human beings regardless of race, culture, or physical location.

This language will not take the place of conversation between people you know and trust. It will merely be used for the casual daily interactions with strangers that can become so difficult when words are introduced. If I sneeze, I don’t need to have a conversation about it. Thank you for your blessings, but please stop wasting my time. Also, it’s more polite to say gesundheit. My new language will take the place of these time-wasters and bring interpersonal communication back to its purest form.

My language, known as “Schrutanese� (named after its founder), will be comprised of grunts, claps, numbers, and two English words: yes and no. Each grunt will have several definitions and the meaning of a clap will be based on how many claps a person uses. Numbers and “yes� and “no� will retain their traditional meanings. Below you will find an excerpt from the very first edition of my Schrutanese dictionary.

Three claps: “Stop.�

Three short firm grunts: “Have an enjoyable day� and “This weather is lovely.�

One clap + quick low-pitch grunt: “I’m sorry.� [Only used rarely in Schrutenese]

Short nasal grunt: “Thank you for your help� and “go away.�

Long groaning robotic grunt: “Out of my way� and “take cover.�

Short slide-whistle grunt: “More,� “please,� and “really?�

Succession of rapid claps: “Good job,� “Bravo,� or “Congratulations.� [This is currently in use by most people.]

Two claps + howl-like grunt + four slow claps: “Ow.�

I do not expect to make any money off of this new language, so please do not think that I’m a huckster of some sort. I’m just a man. A man who wants to change the world through grunts, claps, traditional numerals, and two English words. If you are interested in receiving a copy of the Schrutanese dictionary when it becomes a completed resource material, please continue to search the internet as this will be the location of its publication. Thank you for your interest.

(Three short firm grunts),
Dwight K. Schrute

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Most people are unfamiliar with the powers of dehydration as a cooking tool for meat. These people think that all meat must be cooked in an oven or on a stove or using a grill. This notion is ridiculous. These people are clearly dummies. This weblog entry is specifically written to dispel their closed-minded ideals.

What good is a freshly grilled steak to me if I’m not sitting at a table? If I’m hiding in an elevated perch during a paintball battle, that steak becomes nothing less than a burden. When combatants from the other squad smell the steak, it could lead them right to me. If the steak sits out too long in the sun, there’s a strong likelihood that it will turn rancid. Shortly after that point it becomes a silent but deadly killer waiting for my hunger to unwittingly lead me into the meat’s treacherous clutches. “Traditional Meat Cookers� would probably want that to happen to me. They would like to see me die. Well guess what, enemies? Dehydrated meat leaves me vulnerable to NONE of the situations I described previously. It can be eaten discreetly and in any location. It is delicious without being messy. Best of all, it is highly nutritious.

Dehydrated meat is commonly referred to as “jerky.� I do not know who came up with this name, so don’t bother asking me. Jerky can be made from almost any type of meat. Most people are familiar with beef jerky. This is the most pedestrian of jerkies. I much prefer venison jerky -- be it deer or bear. The nutty flavor of the meat works surprisingly well when all moisture is removed from it. Venison jerky, like all jerky, is incredibly chewy in a very pleasing way. I have also seen jerky made from rabbit, badger, vole, raccoon, squirrel, trout, and salmon. This is by no means a complete list; it’s just what I’ve tasted personally.

To make jerky, you don’t need any fancy cooking equipment. I’ve seen television advertisements for professional “food dehydrators,� but these are made for morons (a category you may fit into if you still deny the awesome power of jerky). All you really need to make jerky is a knife and the sun. The knife is for cutting your meat into long, thin strips. The sun is for drying the meat. This all happens thanks to a little scientific process I like to call evaporation. If you so desire, you may also choose to season the meat. I don’t do this. It’s a frivolous task and a waste of spices. There is nothing wrong with unadorned meat and don’t let anyone else tell you otherwise. Salting the meat is a different story, however, and you should use salt liberally in order to remove as much moisture from the meat as possible. Once you’ve cut your meat into strips, find a clean area to hang the strips in the sun. Within a few days, your jerky will be ready for consumption, and when it is, the world is your oyster [NOTE: I have never seen or heard of oyster jerky].

Enjoy your newfound freedom as you travel the globe without worrying about where you’ll find a fresh source of protein. Your jerky will serve as a nutritional passport as you set your mind to other more important things, like how you will avoid the pickpockets that ruin most travel experiences both here in America and abroad.

Take heed, readers. Jerky will change your lives. All you have to do is open your mind.

This Entry Has Been Completed.

Dwight Kurt Schrute
Jerky Enthusiast

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I wish a pleasant January to you all. January is usually the month where Schrute Farms undergoes many of its reconstruction projects. During our recent transition into an eco-tourist destination, we opened our farm and its themed-rooms to tourists of all types. This has led to problems. While dealing with the needs of our varied guests, I no longer have time to begin the reconstruction efforts the farm so badly needs. My cousin Mose doesn’t have the initiative to start the projects on his own (although he is quite a diligent worker when told exactly what to do), so until I can get some free time, the farm will remain unkempt.

Additionally, the guests that we have hosted have not treated our belongings with the respect that we Schrutes give to our possessions. The night table constructed by my Great Uncle Gernot has been chipped and scratched as if it were a common scratching post. My familiar dining table has had beet jelly spilled upon it several times and, as everyone knows, beet jelly leaves stains that are entirely irremovable. After discussing the situation with various co-workers, it was suggested that I visit the massive furniture store run by Swedish people (In an effort to not slander nor promote any corporations in this weblog, I will refrain from naming with Swedish furniture store I patronized. Let’s just say that it was a bad “IDEA� that I shopped there).

After driving quite a ways to get there, I found the enormous monstrosity of a store. At first, I was worried that I had mistakenly driven to some massive indoor stadium. Unfortunately, this turned out to be my destination. Once inside, I was comforted by the abundance of umlauts in the signage but that’s where my comfort ended. The store was filled with shoddy items constructed of shoddy materials. Of course the prices are low – how much could they really charge for compressed sawdust?

While sampling their meatballs (surprisingly delicious, but not worthy of comparison to Grandma Mannheim’s fleischklops), I persuaded myself to buy one of the Swede’s night tables as a replacement for Great Uncle Gernot’s fine oak table. I just couldn’t imagine letting that table endure one more night of abuse by irresponsible travelers. The replacement table cost twenty-five dollars. It was made out of pine. Pine. For twenty-five dollars, I expect a lease for a small plot of land in a pine forest. Instead, I received eleven pieces of unfinished wood. Perhaps they would have liked to spit in my face as well.

When I got the table home, I set Mose to work assembling it. He completed the assembly in just under three minutes. I remember Mose making a similar table out of forest lumber when he was seven – as a joke. While we all laughed heartily then, except for Mose who was shunned for a week for participating in humor, nobody at Schrute Farms was laughing this time. Mose cried when he finished the construction. I don’t know if it was because of the poor materials and ridiculous tool he had to use or the memory of his long-forgotten forest lumber joke, but either way there were tears running down his bearded face and it breaks my heart to see that. It equally breaks my heart to have a piece of furniture in my home that is made of such a quality as that Swedish bedside table.

I smashed that table to pieces immediately. I couldn’t stand looking at it for one more second. From that day forward, I swore that I would never allow another piece of second-rate Swedish furniture into my home ever again.

Anything that makes Mose cry will henceforth be banished from Schrute Farms. Do not trifle with a Schrute. Ever.

That is all.

D. K. Schrute

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Please take a moment to ask yourself this question before reading this web log: “Am I a stupid person that can’t spell?� If yes, then answer this question: “Will I be offended if somebody, namely Dwight K. Schrute, makes fun of people that can’t spell?� If yes, then please visit another destination on the World Wide Web. I suggest http://www.dundermifflinpaper.biz. Also, take solace in the fact that you know how to read at all, despite your shortcomings in the spelling department.

For those of you who remain: welcome. You’re among decent spellers. It feels good to get rid of the poor-spelling moon-faces. Good riddance.

I was at a gas station this weekend and heard a little girl ask her mother a question. This question might as well have been “Why am I so dumb?� but in actuality, it was “Do reindeer fly better when it’s raining?� Obviously, the girl thought that reindeer was spelled “rain deer.� Children are stupid. What sense is there in naming an animal after a weather condition? There is no such thing as a hail bear. Nor is there a sleet squirrel. The only exception to this rule is the snow leopard, which is named more for its coloring than its preference for cold weather. I’m also aware of ThunderCats, but they don’t count because they’re alien creatures.

The point is, this girl didn’t know how to spell and her mother didn’t bother to correct her. That’s why I had to step in. I politely explained to the little girl that she was stupidly spelling the word incorrectly in her head. I went on to say that the rein in reindeer is spelled like that not because it refers to the reins that man uses to domesticate these animals, but because of the word’s etymological roots in the Norse languages. Additionally, I told her that reindeer are also known as caribou. The girl started crying and needless to say, I won’t be returning to fill up at Bewick’s anytime soon. I’m in the process of refining biobutanol from this year’s beet harvest anyway, so I won’t need gasoline at all from now on.

Spelling has always been important to me, as well as the Schrutes in general. Considering that the name Schrute is not the easiest name to spell, we decided that, as a clan, we needed to make spelling a priority. As a result, our home schooling emphasized spelling at the expense of other subjects that were deemed to be less important, like geometry and AP U.S. History. While I can easily spell “rhombus,� I sadly have no idea how to identify one.

Happy Holidays and a merry “That is all� to everyone.

With Utmost Sincerity,
Dwight Kurt Schrute

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A lot of people have asked me how the Schrutes enjoy the traditional holiday of “Thanksgiving.� The answer is simple. We do not. Celebrating a holiday that encourages blind appreciation for everything and anything in a person’s life diminishes the rare instances that a person is truly thankful for something, i.e. when that person is pulled from a well they may have fallen into. Giving thanks is also a sign of weakness. It shows that you are placing yourself in situations in which you cannot depend on yourself and, thus, must rely on others to do things for you. At Schrute Farms, we choose instead to celebrate our own holiday called “Resourcefulnacht,� which is a Germlish hybrid word that roughly translates to “Night of Resourcefulness� in English.

Resourcefulnacht is both a holiday and a small series of challenges for children. You can think of it as a dinner theatre with the theatre element being replaced by a string of events that include: knot-tying, beet loading and unloading, hand-to-hand combat using common household cleaning items, juggling, and a cooking challenge not unlike television’s “Top Chef� program*. In my teenage years, I was the knot-tying champion of Resourcefulnacht six years in a row. It remains one of my proudest achievements and also led to my inheritance of Schrute Farms.

Dinner on Resourcefulnacht is quite similar to a traditional Thanksgiving dinner. We eat turkey, as most Americans do, but unlike Thanksgiving celebrants, we actually earn our keep. Two weeks before Resourcefulnacht, the Schrute men are dispatched into the forest where they hunt for wild turkeys. Once the largest winged beast is found, it is then dispatched with a bow and arrow and returned to the farm for preparation. After the turkey is cleaned and ready to cook, it is placed in a smoking pit two feet into the ground and buried there until Resourcefulnacht. This ensures that the turkey will be deliciously moist for all to enjoy. The children may only eat on Resourcefulnacht if they win one of the events, which adds an extra layer of pressure to the proceedings. Schrutes also enjoy a sweet potato casserole topped with marshmallows.

The Schrute children look forward to Resourcefulnacht all year as a way to prove themselves to the elder Schrutes. It is on this night that a Schrute child can go from anonymous teat-sucker to worthy contributor in the family. My second cousin, Ehrlich, proved himself to be so useful during Resourcefulnacht festivities that he was placed in charge of the family’s international beet distribution operations. Sadly, Resourcefulnacht does not test for mathematical skills and it was soon discovered that Ehrlich had quickly run the entire international venture into the ground.

Whether you celebrate Thanksgiving or Resourcefulnacht, I commend you on controlling the turkey population in America. Should they be allowed to reproduce unchecked, this nation would be overrun by turkeys.

That is all.

Dwight K. Schrute

*NOTE: The Schrutes created this event long before “Top Chef� was ever invented. I’m not accusing them of stealing the idea, I just want all of my readers to know that the Schrutes are the progenitors of this style of culinary competition.

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Seeing as it’s the second to last week in October, it seems fitting to discuss the major event that will soon be upon us: the full moon. This cannot taken lightly, as it only happens once every 29 and a half days when the synodic month is reset. It is also not to be taken lightly because of the havoc it creates around the world. FACT: more crime occurs during full moons than all of the other partial moons combined [source: imagination]. Makes you think, doesn’t it?

The full moon is also the time when the mythical lycanthrope, or “werewolf,� emerges. I do not believe in lycanthropes. I put no credence in the theory that a human can change into anything other than a decomposing human. Some of my relatives, however, fully trust that lycanthropes exist. Some have even claimed that they have seen them with their own eyes. They are obviously liars. They would have been devoured and unable to report the sighting. They also say that lycanthropes are especially attracted to Schrute Farm. False. The claw marks that we find the morning after full moons are from real wolves that enjoy the bounty of our farm. They are not from werewolves, no matter what you may have heard. Please do not let these rumors keep you away from the farm – it is beautiful this time of year. If you are seriously concerned, merely stay away from Schrute Farm during the full moon period and return as soon as the lunar cycle has advanced.

Also, do not believe the rumor that a member of my family was injured by one of these “shapeshifters.� What you may be referring to is an unfortunate accident in which my cousin Heindl was mauled by a small sheepdog that was working for my family. The Schrutes have long employed the help of canines as a means of scaring off small vermin. Heindl was very rude in his dealings with the dog and was unable to sense that this animal was about to violently attack him. He is an idiot.

No matter how callous this may sound, Heindl deserved the bites and infections that he received. He also learned a very important lesson that day. Yes, he did have to spend a week in the hospital because of the blood loss and the ruined eye, but no, he was not attacked by a so-called “Man Wolf.� I hope this sets your mind at ease. All are welcome at our farm!

That is all.

Dwight K. Schrute

Post Script: Please do not come to Schrute Farm attempting to “trick or treat.� There will be no treats available for you. Also, if you plan to “trick,� be advised that Schrute Farm is private property and any actions with bad intentions will be dealt with as an immediate threat to farm security. You will be maced or bludgeoned and you will be delivered to the doorstep of the Lackawanna County Sheriff’s Office. See how much you like getting your treats in jail, kids.

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Hello internetizens. I have returned from my web logging hiatus. You may be asking yourself, “what happened to Dwight all summer?� Shut up. It’s none of your business. Just focus on the present. In this case, the present has two meanings. In its first usage, it is temporal. The present is the here and now. It is also being used to mean “a gift.� This web log is a present from me to you, the reader, because you do not pay for it and I am giving it to you. Enjoy your present (both meanings).

This weekend, while my cousin Mose was aerating the soil in the East Field, he came upon a metal box labeled “For Dwight. DO NOT OPEN UNTIL 2005.� Luckily, Mose is not nosey and brought it to me unopened right away.

As it turns out, the box was a time capsule that I had left for myself in 1985. It was quite interesting to see what 1985 Dwight had left for 2005 Dwight, even though 2005 Dwight forgot it was there and had to be reminded by 2007 Mose two years later.

These are the contents of 1985 Dwight’s Time Capsule:

1. A dehydrated beet sculpture of myself holding a very small metal box meant to represent a miniature version of the time capsule. I was very much into beet miniatures when I was teenager. I did not, however, know my “BeetDwight� would shrivel into dehydration. That occurred because of science, not intention.

2. A friendship bracelet. They were all the rage amongst agricultural teenagers in 1985. I was susceptible to fads back then. This has since been corrected.

3. Half of a Twix Bar. It must have fallen in.

4. A letter to myself. It said: “Hello Dwight. If you’re reading this, then you are not dead. Good. If you are not Dwight and you are reading this, be aware that this letter is cursed and the ghost of me will haunt you forever. Dokken Rules. Dwight.�

5. A letter to my wife. This is a sensitive subject as I am unmarried and have obviously disappointed my former self.

6. The carcass of a vole. At first I thought it had either fallen in or been trapped while attempting to retrieve the Twix bar. After careful thought, however, I remembered that this was the skeleton of my neighbor’s pet. I despised him and kidnapped one of his voles. Unfortunately, the vole perished before I could return her, so I threw her into the time capsule so there would be no evidence. This serves as my confession. If any authorities are reading this, I willingly accept any punishment bestowed upon me, although I believe the statute of limitations on vole manslaughter has run out.

This “blast from the past� has cast an interesting shadow over my week. It has provided cause for great self-reflection. In truth, however, I am proud of who I have become and regret nothing. Now I must make a time capsule for 2025 Dwight. I hope he is alive when he opens it. And married. And running a large paper company. And a beet magnate or mogul, whichever is most powerful in 2025. Additionally, I hope he has created a way to keep miniature beet sculptures hydrated over long periods of time, thus making himself very rich yet unburdened by the pressures of being overly wealthy.

That is all,
Dwight K. Schrute
2007 Version

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Every year, when spring comes, my mind goes to one place and one place only, Ninjas.

Every time you read about Ninja’s attacking somebody or assassinating some public figure, it seems to happen in the spring. I’m not sure why, it’s just the way it is.

Maybe it’s the fact that the spring is traditionally the new year in most pagan religions. It is also the Persian festival, “Naw Ruz� or “New Year�.

Whether it is a throwing star to the neck at a bowling alley, a poison spike that sails through an open window and lodges itself in the fleshy part of the leg, or a mysterious black-clad figure with a bo staff, perched up on the ceiling of your garage as you pull in your car from your awesome job, ninja attacks can and will happen anywhere and anytime.

And they happen to the best people too. Just ask my cousin Heindl. She has lost 12% hearing in her left ear from one.

Things to remember:

Be alert. Everybody loves a lert. (Ziggy joke)

Check ceilings first, when doing your safety inspections, that’s where they like to ‘hang’.

The best defense against a ‘shuriken’ or throwing star is a good offense. Also, armor.

You will never beat a ninja at a sword fight, one on one. When the Ninja draws his sword, fire your taser â„¢. A well placed taser â„¢ will take out even the most deadly of ninjas.

Show them that you know they’re there. Shout out, when entering a new locale or a suspicious locale, “I know you’re there, Mr. Ninja. Your element of surprise has now been taken away� [I’ve gotten many ‘funny’ looks for this kind of preparedness, but so be it. That is a risk I’m willing to take. Are YOU!?]

But most importantly, remember that a Ninja is only trying to kill you if someone has hired that ninja to do so. So for every ass-kicking Ninja trying to take someone out there is some alienated girlfriend, some enemy rival at the workplace or some Japanese feudal lord who has paid that Ninja to kill. Or worse.

I hope this web log has made your spring a more beautiful and restful time. That was the author’s intent. Also, fear.

Dwight Kurt Schrute, Assistant Regional manager, Dunder-Mifflin Paper
Chairman and Founder, Lackawanna County Ninja Preparedness Council

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