Reason number 45,671 on the list of reasons why I hate working for a soul-sucking Fortune 500 company is the restraints they place on internet access. While I'm grateful to be working out of the rain in a position where I have a Firefox logo on my desktop, the restrictions placed on the one thing that keeps me sane during my workday are becoming increasingly patronizing.

Every few months another of my favorite on-the-clock timekillers falls victim to the company's web filtering. The latest on the list is Urban Dictionary. Other blocked favs include the South Park production blog, Fark and Sploid. Any site that contains too many uses of the words "video" and "games" is also restricted. Strangely enough, Blogger has yet to be banned. Knock on wood.

The official line on these restrictions is to prevent viruses from getting into the network, to prevent offensive content from reaching innocent eyes and to, of course, increase productivity. As of yet, no rules have gone into place stopping my coworkers from bringing in Game Boys, mini DVD players and trashy romance novels. So the internet junkies among us are being unfairly prosecuted while the rest are allowed to indulge themselves because their questionable activities can't be monitored by software.

My shiftless heart swelled nearly three sizes when "Cup O' Noodles" passed along a link to a few proxy sites. Supposedly proxies.com and the like offer a way to bypass corporate net nannies, granting dead-end drones like me access to sites that dare to contain words you still can't say on television.

Unfortunately, the corporate autocrats here are at least fifty steps ahead of me. Every proxy site I've managed to track down is blocked. Curses!

I can just see those network guys downstairs. Laughing it up as they ogle Suicide Girls and download illegal music onto company machines, their wallets swelling as they make twice what us chumps up on the fourth floor pull in.

It just isn't fair. *sniff*

If you're reading this net guys, cut us a break, will ya'? Oh, what, the joke about the Suicide Girls? Aw, come on. It was just a gag. You can't seriously be upset about that. Ok, fine, fine. You work very hard for your money. I take it back.

Aw, don't be like that. No, get away from there. You don't need to restrict my access to this blog. Even if I was asking for it.

You guys are geeks, right? You probably dig all those "Matrix," "Aeon Flux," anti-"machine" movies. You probably just exited out of the PC edition of "Path of Neo" to go through the list of sites accessed this week. Don't you see? You're just like Agent Smith, Trevor Goodchild and Big Brother all rolled into one.

You're working for the man, man! Take the red pill and use your powers for the forces of good. Don't worry. Your manager will never find out. We all know they can't even open IE, let alone keep tabs on something like this. It'll be our secret.

Free. Your. Mind.