One Bad Random

Moving

2006-01-26T22:21:00.000-08:00

I'm moving this blog to another domain: Running as Root. This is slightly different from my clean blog. Each has a separate feed to avoid accidentally scarring someone for life. All new posts will occur at that site.

Almost an Exciting Story

2005-12-27T13:31:00.000-08:00

As you should probably be able to guess from the title, this is almost an exciting story. Lisa and I went to her family's for Christmas. One of her uncles on her mom's side has his own used car dealership. He typically buys cars from police auctions, cleans them up a bit, and resells them for a profit. He also has his own little financing setup to provide auto loans to people. Inevitably, someone can't pay and the car has to be repossessed. A different uncle, also on her mom's side, has been repo'ing cars for the original uncle.

Christmas night we headed over to the repo-man's house to drop off some papers the other uncle had asked us to deliver. Her uncle said he was going to repo a car that night and asked if we would mind giving him a ride to the lady's house and waiting in our car until we confirmed he had gotten the repo'ed car running. Are you asking me if I want to go repo someone's car on Christmas? Oh, hell yes. He briefly mentioned that we could get a police assisted repo if we would feel more comfortable. Lisa assured him we wouldn't need to get the cops involved. I, of course, agree. What kind of chickenshits would that make us?

We got near her house and dropped to drive by speed. Unfortunately there was no car in the driveway. While I'm running the spectrum of emotions (relieved not to get shot at, disappointed at the lost opportunity for adventure, another form of relief at not having to take someone's car on Christmas) the uncle said we could run by the lady's job--McDonald's. Ok. So now we're headed to McDonald's on Christmas night to see if some poor woman had to go in to work and get popped in the face with fry grease for $0.25 over minimum wage (did I mention it's Christmas?) so we can take her one means of transportation. She'll then incorrectly conclude that the car has been stolen, call the sheriff, and be told that it has in fact been repossessed--happy Christmahannukwanzica. She'll then have to walk home 4 miles, uphill, in the unforgiving Texas winter with nothing but a McRib stuffed down her pants to keep her warm--which she'll have to eat when she gets home.

Luckily, even McDonald's is closed on Christmas. But wait! The uncle suggests we drive by the town's only theater (which is open) to see if she is watching a movie (that costs her 2 hours wages, 4 if she buys a soda) so we can swipe her car there. At this point I don't know what to hope for. Can't I just follow the lady later and break her thumbs or something? But again, mercifully, she is not at the movies. That part of the night ends with us dropping the uncle back off at his house. Almost exciting. Maybe next time.

Brilliant Cake

2005-12-23T05:55:00.000-08:00

Lisa forwarded me this entry of a guy that gets an unusual birthday cake made for their mother. You'll have to scroll down to see the picture, but the entry is worth reading.

Another Potato Head

2005-12-22T13:17:00.000-08:00

If you know me, you know I've got a couple of Mr. Potato Heads. Well, there's another nice Star Wars themed toy on the market. That's right, the Spud Trooper is available, complete with a little potato masher instead of a blaster. Does it get any more brilliant?

Entertaining Blog

2005-12-21T11:31:00.000-08:00

Here's a the blog of a contractor in the IT industry that I mentioned to a few of my co-workers at lunch today. In particular, I liked the bath tub and the candy entry in particular. It's refreshing to get a different perspective on things.

Toys for Tots, Indeed

2005-12-15T08:36:00.000-08:00

There I am, minding my own business in the company kitchen when suddenly I see this year's "Toys for Tots" promotional poster hanging right there in plain sight on the refrigerator. Exhibit A:

What's wrong with that, you ask? Well take a closer look at the photo I snapped:

That's right, that's baby Hitler and his jack-booted hound dog riding up on his rocking horse ready to lasso his racist ass a veritable plethora of toys possibly including Dora the Explorer, Bratz, or even Teddy Ruxpin (he's making a comeback). Those cold, hate-filled shark eyes on baby Hitler completely ruined my day.

New Slang

2005-11-22T13:15:00.000-08:00

I'm sure someone has already come up with it independently, but I just came up with some new slang--jams my caps lock. As in, something that gets you angry or causes you to overreact. As you can probably already guess, it comes from people in IM or chat that have their caps lock on all the time. It "feels" like they're shouting. For example, "You know what really jams my caps lock? Those fucking Swedes and their chocolate houses."

My Tough Childhood

2005-11-08T12:45:00.000-08:00

I ran across a photo of my mother recently that leads me to believe I must have had a rougher childhood than I remembered:

Mom's sportin' a fucking AK!! Okay, I think it's actually a toy, but that look on her face says she's not playing...

Parting Shots

2005-10-12T11:20:00.000-07:00

This blog is read mostly by people I work with (who have already heard this joke multiple times), but I'll try to give a brief overview before getting right to the punchline. This will also give me a chance to over-explain a joke, which I think only makes it funnier. I'll warn you now that most people will find it pretty tasteless (although tame by my standards).

You can skip this if you know what foosball, stuffed shots, and facials are. We have a foosball table at work. It's a great deal of fun and a very nice stress reliever. Now, in foosball, when the goalie has the ball (typically after blocking a shot) they try to clear it past the opposing offense. Sometimes, the opposing offense manages to get in the way and shoot the ball back into the goal. Some people call this a stuffed shot. We happen to call it a facial around these parts. Now, if you're being clean minded you can imagine that the phrase comes from something like a volleyball term used when you spike the ball into the opposing player's face. (You can learn more about fun and exciting volleyball terms here. If you're not clean minded you can find a couple of alternate definitions over on Urban Dictionary. Good old Matt, who is leaving us, happens to hand out facials of the foosball variety on a regular basis.

Next we have the home run derby. This is where a pitcher throws easy pitches to a batter who then tries to hit a home run. It's a fun little contest to see who could hit more home runs if they got their ideal pitch.

And finally, we have my idea for Matt's going away thingee. He gets on the foosball table and repeatedly tries to clear the ball from his goalie in a very slow manner (right in front of the goal). The rest of his coworkers line up and take turns stuffing the shot, also known as giving him a facial. I call it foos-kake (after the particularly un-appetizing concept of bukake.

Enjoy.

The Plural of Monkey is Monkeys

2005-10-06T08:03:00.000-07:00

I was playing online poker last night while watching television. I usually don't chat much while playing online, but occasionally I get all kooky and/or goofy like a man insane. Here's my recollection of the worthless chat I had:

Player A: way to make your hand on the river
Player B: thats how i roll
Player A: roll on this
Player B: i dont get it
Me: i think he's saying you can roll around on his erect penis
Me: basically saying, 'fuck you'
Me: with the 'i' being implied in that statement
Me: reminiscent of the way primates assert dominance
Me: now do you get it?
Player C: even domesticated ones?
Me: yes. which is why i fuck the living shit out of my monkey every day when i get home
Me: to show that little motherfucker who's boss
Player C: is it a chimp? or an orangutan?
Me: those aren't monkeys. they're both apes. great apes in fact.
Player C: a spider monkey then?
Me: colubus. most monkeys have tails btw
Player C: it's monkies btw
Me: in fact, it is not.
Player C: ok. you're the primate expert, i guess
Me: now, the monkees were a 'band'
Player C: and a terrible band at that
Me: well, mike nesmith's mother invented liquid paper, so you've got to cut them some slack
Player C: i love liquid paper, especially with some scotch
Me: is that a 'mistake eraser?' similar to a 'mind eraser?'

And that is all I have to say about that. The table finished the rest of the game in silence, unfortunately.

San Francisco 2005 Trip Report - Part 5 (Final)

2005-08-30T10:39:00.000-07:00

Well, I stretched this one out long enough I guess. My five installment trip summary of an eight day trip took two months to write. Will it be worth the wait? Hell no. Did most of you forget I even had a blog? Probably so.

Day Eight - The Catch All

As is usually the case, the last day was the "Oh shit, we never got around to <blank>. Maybe we can do that today." We got up and thought it'd be great to go eat a lunchy type of breakfast in North Beach (the Italian area of San Francisco). Unfortunately, we were smack dab in the middle of 4th of July weekend (the start of tourist season), so our plan to take the street car was foiled by the droves of sightseers that were hanging off the street cars like the Turnbull A.C.s in the Warriors. We walked to the next stop thinking we could get on there...and then to the next stop...and to the next stop...look honey, we walked all the way to fucking North Beach. We thought about eating at the Stinking Rose but the restaurant next to it, Mona Lisa, had a selection that was three times bigger. They didn't have garlic ice cream, but I really don't think I was going to try it anyway. Lisa and I continued our epic battle of portrait versus landscape as can be seen here:

After eating we walked to the bus stop that would take us to our next destination: Coit Tower. As is the problem with public transportation, we waited quite a while before the bus finally arrived. When we got to the tower, there was a line of approximately twenty people waiting to take the elevator ride to the top. I stood in line while Lisa ran off to buy our tickets. There are a lot of murals on the walls of the ground floor. They're interesting enough to look at while you wait. Roughly thirty minutes later, we were riding to the top. The elevator was one of those old pieces of shit that require an elevator operator. I noticed that he had a container for tips (as everyone seemingly does these days) and that he missed the floor by six inches. Since I'm a tightwad, an asshole, and a ceaseless bitcher/complainer/critic I decided that if I tipped him he would never learn.

The view from the tower is great. I would definitely recommend visitors to the San Francisco area to go to the top once--and only once. After you've looked around and snapped a few pictures, you're done, which is about what I expected. Still a good view, though. We waited in line for the elevator again, reached the ground floor, and waited for the bus back down the hill. The amount of traffic coming up the hill was crazy, so we started walking. About fifty yards down the hill, we ran across our bus and hopped on. It took another twenty minutes or so for the driver to get crazy enough to just use the oncoming traffic lane to reach the top of the hill so we could, um, go back down the hill.

The bus we rode down the hill took us right to Fisherman's Wharf. Again, since it was a holiday weekend, the whole wharf area was super crowded. This of course brought out more street entertainers and con men, which is always entertaining. We grabbed a bite to eat and headed over to a nearby shopping area called the Cannery so we could pick up a bear for one of Lisa's friends at the Basic Brown Bear Factory. This seemingly innocent trip to what I thought was a toy store lead me down the rabbit hole into an entire dark, teddy bear centric subculture that operated as a strict gynocracy in which I was nothing but their sperm filled plaything. But that's a story for another time. For now, suffice it to say that if you've seen the build a bear things in the mall then you'll know what I'm talking about.

We did some last minute souvenir shopping in Chinatown and headed back to the hotel. Once there we had a pizza and had the traditional "see if we can drink the remaining alcohol we bought" challenge. Ultimately we failed but had a good time trying. Up in the morning, cab to airport, shitty breakfast in airport, and presto! We're back in the civilized world.

And thus ends the great San Francisco trip of 2005.

San Francisco 2005 Trip Report - Part 4

2005-07-31T17:48:00.000-07:00

Day Seven - Tour Day

With only two full days left in San Francisco, Lisa and I used Friday for the city tour and Alcatraz tour. We headed down to Fisherman's Wharf and bought tickets for a 3 hour Grayline tour of San Francisco. The tour was on a brand new double decker bus. The tour guide was a riot. He had a nice, biting / sarcastic sense of humor that I really enjoy. The tour itself covered North Beach (the heavily Italian neighborhood), the Castro, Twin Peaks, Golden Gate Park, the bridge, downtown, the financial district, and a lot of other little areas I can't quite remember.

It was a nice, entertaining overview of the city with little tidbits of local history scattered throughout. I went in thinking that $40 per person was a little steep, but I think overall it was worth it. If I had it to do over again, I think I would have scheduled a tour like that at the beginning of the trip. It was ideal for getting an idea of the overall layout of the city as well as getting an idea of what points of interest at which you would want a closer look. We sat in the top level, which was great for viewing. Unfortunately, the moving tour bus wasn't conducive to taking pictures.

And finally, our very entertaining and informative driver. I'd tell you to ask for him by name, but he had 5 or 6 name tags in case anyone complained about him:

After the tour, we headed to the totally free arcade museum on the wharf which our tour guide told us about. It only takes about 5 or 10 minutes to look around, but it was still interesting enough to recommend. The highlights of the "games" were the "Drunkard's Den" and "Opium Den." Those sure take back to my younger days:

After that, we still had almost an hour to kill before our Alcatraz tour. We spent it wandering around checking the shops and watching the street performers and con artists that had collected for the spike in tourists on 4th of July weekend. My absolute favorite was watching this group run the classic shell game with 3 Sprite bottle caps and a red foam pea. When we first spotted them, the guy running it was working with a plant, to show how easy it is to win at the game:

Con man: Watch closely, I go like this, then I go like this, now tell me where it is.
Plant: So, how much is it for me to play?
Con man: You can play for $30 or $60.
Plant: Ok. I want to play.
Con man: Show me money.
Plant: (Shows him the money without actually handing it to him) That one right there.
Con man: There it is. You win $60. (Doesn't actually give her her winnings somehow)
English tourist: That's pretty good. You look like you know each other.
Con man: Yeah, and you got a big mouth. You better get the fuck out of San Francisco!

At this point, several of the lookouts start crowding in on the tourist and get a little shovey until he leaves. Quite exciting. Lisa and I wander off so as to avoid the possible fist fight. However, the pull to see real live con men taking advantage of unsuspecting tourists is just too much to resist. Around 20 or 30 minutes later we find ourselves wandering around looking for the group again. As my incredible luck would have it, they were still there. Oddly, there were still roughly 6 people there that were there the first time. I'm sure it is just a coincidence. The same plant was still there, still unable to grasp how the game worked:

Con man: Watch closely, I go like this, then I go like this, now tell me where it is.
Plant: So, how much is it for me to play?
Con man: You can play for $30 or $60.
Plant: Ok. I want to play.
Con man: Show me money.
Plant: (Shows him the money without actually handing it to him) That one right there.
Con man: There it is. You win $60. (Doesn't actually give her her winnings somehow)
Random tourist: Man, I've only got $25. You gotta let me play.
Con man: (Takes the money) Show me. Nope, that's not it. Anyone else? (Directed in Lisa's general direction) No pictures.

Too late:

Now, this may shock you, but I think the game is fixed. Usually it's done with walnut shells and a foam pea, but the idea is the same. When you slide the shell forward, the foam pea catches on the edge, and squeezes itself out the back, where the guy picks it up, typically between his ring finger and the base of his thumb. Then, if he wants to show where it was, or allow his plant to successfully find it, he simultaneously drops the pea and moves the shell backward. This catches the pea and squeezes it under the shell, thus depositing it back in the shell. Very nifty, and much more reliable than three card monty.

The other con we saw was one where these idiots pretend that they're some sort of law enforcement official. As you walk by they say something like, "Sir, sir. You dropped your smile. I'm going to have to write you a citation for littering..." Or maybe this one, "We have reports of someone in the area meeting your description. I'm going to have to cite you for being under her influence..." Although I'm not sure exactly how it works, I think that at some point you're supposed to give them money. I can't really see anyone falling for that.

After all that fun, it was finally time for the Alcatraz tour. After heading over on the boat and getting off on the island, you immediately realize that Alcatraz means "Island of Bird Shit."

The whole place reeks of it. We headed up to the "big house" to take the audio tour first. It was pretty interesting to hear a lot of the history and semi-personal stories of the prison. I hadn't heard about the hostage situation they had at one point or about the Indian occupation after the prison had closed. It was definitely worth the time and money, although I don't think it has much replay value.

There are plenty more Alcatraz photos over on Flickr.

The final highlight of the day (besides drinking back at the hotel) was me mock threatening a kid for going into the ladies room to hassle his sister while Lisa was also in there. You can see the terror in his eyes:

San Francisco 2005 Trip Report - Part 3

2005-07-17T17:09:00.000-07:00

Day Five - Lisa and the Fishmongers

While I toiled away at JavaOne, Lisa headed up to Chinatown again. When we went on day four, a lot of the shops were already closing. She had read in the guide book that you could go see the fishmongers and thought that that would be fun. In general, she thought it would be fun to see the place during normal business hours. I think she had a pretty good time seeing everything with the exception of seeing a huge fish head still alive next to its own writhing body. Now that's fresh. You want the photo highlights? I've got the photo highlights:

After Chinatown, Lisa headed back down to the wharf to piddle around while waiting for me to finish my daytime JavaOne sessions. She had her camera, of course:

Once I finished up with JavaOne, I hung out with Lisa briefly before heading off to the After Dark Bash at JavaOne. Upon arriving, I was pleasantly surprised to discover that I got two free drink coupons. The default beverage you got with these was a bottle of domestic beer. Since beer is piss in my eyes, I tried two times before getting a bartender that would let me have two mixed drinks instead. I wandered around while Zepparella played on-stage. In addition to free food (pizza, nachos, popcorn, chicken fingers) they had some other things like pool tables, foosball (three shitty tables that I didn't get to play on), air hockey, a mechanical bull, etc, etc. I bought two more drinks and watched them auction off some pretty ugly paintings before heading over to the other side of the Moscone Center to see Dennis Miller.

It was only after the fact that I saw some accounts that criticized the selection of Miller as the evening's entertainment I'm probably a bad judge given that I like Miller's sense of humor and I am not what you would call easily offended, but I certainly do think people are working too hard to be offended these days. PC is so last century. After his show, I decided that this place is dead anyway and headed back to the hotel (where I drank some more). To the photos!!!!!

Meanwhile, while I was at JavaOne, Lisa went down on a chicken burrito:

Day Six - JavaOne is Over

Yeah, yeah...JavaOne is over on Thursday. This was my first JavaOne and while I did enjoy it, my overall impression is that it was very anti-climactic. Too many of the daytime sessions were vendors trying to sell their shitty product / service to me. For the amount of money JavaOne costs to attend, you would think I could get some ad blocking with it. I realize these companies are the ones that grease the wheels, but keep them in the pavillion--not masquerading as valuable information. And given the value of the name of a Java developer on a spam list, you would think that the rivers of swag would have flowed a little more freely. Trying to get a t-shirt was like asking someone if I could anally rape their daughter and finish it off with a little dirty Sanchez action for next year's SuperBowl half-time show. For those of you excessively loose with your daughters I mean that it wasn't going to happen. All of the night time sessions (birds of a feather or BOFs) were much less vendor oriented and had some meaty content. The problem with them was they went on too late. It's tough to attend a conference 16 hours a day. In hindsight, I would have gone and seen the town during the day and gone to the BOFs at night. Here's my modest haul:

Since Wednesday (day five) was the last day of JavaOne and we didn't need to pay a premium price for location near the Moscone Center, we switched hotels. We took a cab up to the Sir Francis Drake. They gave us a room next to the elevator, without a dresser, but with a couple of roaches. Definitely a step down from the Marriott. Lisa went and complained and got a room on a different floor away from the elevator, with a dresser, but unfortunately still with one confirmed tiny roach sighting later in the trip. They did have free wi-fi though.

Later Lisa and I headed to the wharf to take a bay cruise. They just take you out in a boat, go under the Golden Gate Bridge, circle around Alcatraz, and take you back in. My only comment is that it was windy as fuck going toward the bridge. Coming back of course, it was very calm. It was very foggy and there wasn't really all that much to see, but it was still fun. You get a pair of head phones and receiver to listen to information about the area as you're crusing along.

Finally, it's back to Pier 39 to snap some shots of all of those sea lions everyone talks about:

It seems that most people (including SF residents) don't seem to realize that they're seasonal. They show up in August, I believe. There is however a small group that stays all year.

Next we headed over to Ghiradelli Square and ate some seafood at a little place named McCormick and Kuleto's (which is part of a national chain named McCormick & Schmick's--I'm so confused). This time the seafood was badass. Quite good, but the portions were a tad on the small size for me.

We meandered a bit and hit the convenience store for some hard liquor before heading back to the hotel. SF is the first place I've ever seen anti-theft devices on bottles of alcohol. The Rite Aid we went to had unbelievably reasonable prices on alcohol. Back to the hotel for some drinking and later a pizza. That's a wrap--only two full days left.

San Francisco 2005 Trip Report - Part 2

2005-07-10T22:26:00.000-07:00

As detailed in part one, Sunday was the second day, and the turnaround as far as our attitude toward San Francisco. The one downside to the gay pride parade was that we forgot to wear sunscreen. Usually we're pretty diligent about it, but I guess we didn't think the parade would actually be as long as it was. Consequently, we spent the rest of the trip with sunburned heads and noses. The following is a mostly joke-free summary of days three and four.

Day Three - JavaOne Begins

JavaOne started bright and early Monday morning. I headed out from the hotel and rounded the corner only to see a line stretched around the block of programmers waiting to get into the first key note. I decided to skip the free breakfast and stand in line. It turns out that it was just that they hadn't started letting people in yet. Once they did, the line moved rapidly and there was plenty of room. Most of the speech was a lot of "Yay, Java!" type of stuff. To me, the main point of interest was that the Blu-ray DVD players will ship with a JVM. Good stuff I think. After that and some references to how Java is improving healthcare in Brazil I was off to see some of the sessions and score some free stuff.

Meanwhile, Lisa went to the Metreon, got some food, and went back to the hotel to play VMK.

After a disappointing day of sessions that were glorified infomercials, I took a break before my late night "birds of a feather" session met back up with Lisa. We went up to "the View", a bar on the top floor of the San Francisco Marriott and snapped some nice pictures of the city. We then rode the cable car down to the wharf and ate at a restaurant named the Franciscan based off of good ratings on CitySearch. Gratuitous food shot:

Although pretty, it was some of the worst seafood I've ever had. I would rather have eaten at Long John Silver's. Nice view though.

After a little walking around, we started the long process of standing in line for the cable car. There was a street performer playing while we waited.

He was pretty bad technically speaking (a lot of missed / dead notes, offkey usually), but it was oddly appealing and entertaining. We made it back to the hotel and I went to my late night session then called it a day. Photo highlights:

Day Four - Chinatown

While I did more largely uneventful stuff at JavaOne during the day, Lisa took the cable car down to the wharf and did a lot of exploring on her own. After the daytime stuff was over at JavaOne, we both headed up to Chinatown. As I've already told most of my co-workers, this is where my yellow fever turned into pneumonia. We did a ton of walking around (while I made as many happy ending jokes as I could) and eventually wound up at the Chinatown gate. Certainly anti-climactic. We ate dinner and, after a disappointing bowl of hot and sour soup, headed back to the hotel. Photo highlights:

My New Desktop Wallpaper

2005-07-08T17:50:00.000-07:00

During my blog reading I can across an article on Wired that leads to a picture that I think might just become my new desktop wallpaper:

Ahhh. Science.

San Francisco 2005 Trip Report - Part 1

2005-07-08T15:51:00.000-07:00

Most of the people I work with have already heard the two good stories I brought back with me from my trip to San Francisco (I was there for JavaOne), but I thought I'd document them anyway--you know, for future generations. The rest of you can skip it since it probably contains the same old tired jokes you didn't laugh at the first time.

Since I was going for JavaOne, I thought I'd go ahead and extend my trip both before and after and take the wife along for good measure (even though she kills my play). Unfortunately, the night before we flew out, we were both feeling pretty anti-trip. It sounded a lot better to just relax for a weekend, especially since I had just put in two extra long weeks (in terms of hours per day) at work. But, the money was already spent, so we went anyway.

Day One - I Hate This Place

We got into SF pretty early in the morning and took a cab to the hotel. We stayed at the San Francisco Marriott. It was $215 a night plus the "so, you're a tourist" tax and a whopping $12.95 a day for internet (ethernet, not WiFi). I finally decided to not rent a car (thanks to Matt, JP, and Cote for advice not to) so I escaped the roughly $40 a night parking fee. I'm very glad to have skipped the car as public transportation was adequate. The room was nice, although I'm not used to paying so much for "nice", but it was a 2 minute walk to the conference and most of the night time sessions were held at that particular hotel.

We arrived early, so that meant we had gotten up early. We napped until early evening and then headed out to explore. I must say that, although my opinion changed, my first impressions were not good. We apparently went the wrong way on Market Street and wound up skirting the edge of the Tenderloin. Needless to say, there were an awful lot of homeless people / bums and everything felt a little dirty and unsafe. In Austin, I'm used to homeless people, but apparently the ones in SF are in the "big leagues." Definitely dirtier, nastier, crazier, and more aggressive. We eventually headed back to the hotel feeling that the trip was a mistake, that SF sucked, and that we were going to wind up watching a limited offering of cable and surfing the web for $12.95 a day. Joy. Here are the highlights:

Day Two - I See Gay People

At the end of day one, Lisa discovered that the next day was when the San Francisco Pride Parade was going to be. Plus, it was only like a minute walking distance away. Score! I'm a big fan of gay people, especially lesbians. I'm only half joking. I know it's a stereotypical remark, but I swear gays are the most fun. My personal experience is that they really know how to cut loose and have a more edgy sense of humor than most people. So we headed down to get a good spot and watched the parade from around 10:30am until almost 2:00pm. I even had to run back to the hotel to unload the memory sticks (at least I think that's what the kids are calling it these days) because I was taking so many pictures. The parade itself and everyone watching was just a nice, high energy, and overall fun atmosphere. I highly recommend it.

After the parade, we wandered up Market Street into the "bad" area we were in the previous night. It was totally different during the day with huge crowds of course. I bought an $11 margarita and we wandered around just having a good time. I have a photo set on Flickr for the parade but here's a taste:

And finally:

I Think I'm Turning Into My Dad

2005-05-27T08:57:00.000-07:00

I was driving home from work yesterday and I saw some skanky young couple begging on the street corner. Their sign said that they were traveling and needed money for food and hotel. Sure, there could be all sorts of legitimate reasons they're traveling without sufficient money. Perhaps they were robbed or are running from some abusive situation at home. I don't know.

However, all I could think about while I'm looking at these kids is (that's the first one that makes me like my dad--everyone is a kid, no matter what their age), "I don't work for a living so you can skate by living off the crumbs and table scraps of the productive members of society. Perhaps you should learn to plan before going on your much needed vacation from sniffing glue and masturbating to Victoria's Secret catalogues. I didn't give at the office, and I'm not giving now. Get a job!" Well with the exception to the huffing and masturbation references, that's my fucking dad talking. I'm one step away from stepping completely off the edge and becoming the big Lebowski:

Your revolution is over, Mr. Lebowski. Condolences. The bums lost. My advice is to do what your parents did; get a job, sir. The bums will always lose. Do you hear me, Lebowski?

How sad. I think it only gets worse from here.

Valet These Nuts on Your Chin

2005-04-14T20:47:00.000-07:00

The other day, people from work were getting together to see off a fellow employee that got laid off. Everyone was gathering at North by Northwest. I usually don't attend any after work gatherings at bars since I can't stand beer and it's difficult to casually drink hard liquor. This time however, I really wanted to go.

So, I headed out after work only to arrive in the parking lot and see another co-worker get the last non-valet parking space. I circled out onto the street and back into the parking lot to see another co-worker who had also circled give up and take advantage of the complimentary valet service.

Unfortunately, the "option" of using the valet service wasn't open to me since I suffer from chronic anger, bitterness, and paranoia. The ex-boyfriend of one of my wife's friends used to run one of these complimentary valet services. He'd approach a store and offer his valet services for free. If they accept, he rolls in with the orange cones and his red-jacketed cronies. They park the cars for tips only and he gets a percentage. The problem is he was always having to deal with minorly wrecked cars and theft.

The prospect of fender benders or stolen items coupled with watching too many "cons exposed" shows left me feeling leery about the valet stuff. I just don't like turning over my keys to some stranger. That covers the paranoia. Now comes my chronic bitterness and anger. I circled the parking lot about six times waiting for a spot to open up only to miss every spot to the car directly in front of me. All the while I stared longingly at the thirty or so spots sectioned off by the valet service. I was tempted to park in one of the empty spots anyway, but figured I'd either get towed or keyed.

I finally got pissed off enough to just leave. On the way home I tried to call the wife on the cell phone only to discover that the piece of shit hands free jack had finally stopped working. That is the third straight phone (between the wife and I) on which the little fucker has crapped out. Luckily, since this was around 6pm, I got the full experience of rush hour traffic.

Not that it will have any effect, but North by Northwest is boycotted by me. Their valet policy nearly caused me to fly into a fit of road rage and fling my own feces at fellow motorists. Instead I stopped by the Sizzler and blew snot rockets on the buffet.

Wall to Wall Balls to Jaw

2005-04-11T18:58:00.000-07:00

JP at work has been reminding me lately that our jobs are just our jobs. When we leave work, we shouldn't really worry about what's happening at our place of employment. We can't obsess about it. Although I complain about the state of things at work consistently, it's just that I always think things can be better. Of course, I don't seem to care enough to actually affect change by directing my suggestions or dissatisfaction directly to the top (like Coté).

Anyway, I've always felt I do an adequate job of separating work from personal life. I was thinking about this today when I remembered about two months ago I watched a documentary about the porn industry in which straight men shot gay porn (commonly called "gay for pay"). The paycheck for gay porn can be as much as ten times the amount for straight porn. Now that is discipline. My ability to separate work from personal life pales in comparison to that of a straight man saying, "Sure, some guy was fucking me in the ass while I was going down on 8 inches of fat cock ready to rock, but that's my day job. That doesn't make me gay."

I'm a Special Olympian!!

2005-04-10T15:05:00.000-07:00

Most of the people I work with have already heard me mention this, but why not put it on the internet to be preserved for subsequent generations?

For many years, the Special Olympics has failed to gain anything near the success of the "other" Olympics. They've been unable to score the major advertisers, the sweet prime time coverage, and completely missed out on stirring up that feeling of national pride that our athletes are better than everyone else. I can't help but wonder why that is.

Then, it struck me. It's the events (or lack thereof). Are any of us going to get excited about watching a group of special needs kids play bocce or throw a few rocks during a bowling match? Yeah, me either.

I don't know about you, but I have my favorite real Olympics events and none of those currently listed at the Special Olympics site are among them. Why not add the more interesting sports to the list? Boxing, judo, taekwondo, and wrestling could easily be added to the list of available sports to compete in. In addition to allowing the more violent and aggressive special Olympians the opportunity to compete I think it'll attract more viewers. I know I'd watch.

Oral Presentation

2005-04-10T14:57:00.000-07:00

I found an article with the interesting quote that, "adolescents also believed that oral sex is more acceptable than vaginal sex for adolescents their own age in both dating and non-dating situations." The belief seems to be that oral sex isn't really sex at all. That it is less of a threat on their "values and beliefs." More acceptable in non-dating situations? Sounds like young girls are giving out blowjobs to their friends with reckless abandon these days. Why, oh why, was I born too soon? Well, it's too late for me (without risk of jail time), but if I ever have a son you can be damn sure I'm going to arm him with the necessary information to get his female friends to slob that knob on a regular basis. Not to go all soft or anything, but I can finally begin to see what people find appealing about having kids.

Easter Weekend

2005-03-27T19:45:00.000-08:00

Lisa's parents decided to come to Austin this weekend, so we decided we should go to Livingston (her home town) to see her aunt. As broken up as I am at not getting to see them, I was able to get over it with the help of an Easter egg hunt that the town puts on every year.

The town sections off several fields (divided up by age group) and lays out 15,000 plastic eggs. The eggs contain candy and wooden tokens that can be redeemed for prizes like bicycles or other toys. My wife's cousin took her kid to the event and went to the 3 and under "assisted" field. The adult assisted field is for kids that are too young to have the killer instinct when it comes to eggs, either because they're too young or handicapped. Her kid is young although I would classify anyone that doesn't have a broadband connection at home as handicapped.

For a few seconds after the hunt started, everything seemed fine:

About 5 seconds into it, the adults started "helping" the kids by scrambling for whatever eggs were in reach. This caused all of the kids to freeze up and just stand there. After 20 seconds, the whole thing was over. The unassisted fields lasted around 5 minutes each. The cousin's kids did alright, I guess, on gathering eggs:

Unfortunately, all of the kids that weren't working with an adult don't have the mad egg gathering skillz that an adult might. One adult in particular ran out on his own (no kid in sight) with two baskets in one hand and started rapidly scooping and tossing eggs with his free hand. He totally fucking owned the two and three year olds (to say nothing of the handicapped kids). As an adult myself, I was quite proud to see an older gentleman totally rock the kids at their own game and then proudly walk off with his well deserved haul:

Score, bitches!!!

The In-Laws are Stalking Me

2005-03-06T16:56:00.000-08:00

Contrary to the way most of my posts about my family read, I actually get along with my parents for the most part--it's just that a lot of their "quirks" drive me up the wall (and they make good content). I really don't like my in-laws though. They're just not my type of people. They're selfish, petty, hypocritically religious, nosy, gossipy, have a lousy sense of humor, are emotionally needy, and are always freely dispensing worthless advice.

No offense if you happen to be religious, it's just not my cup of tea. I think religion should be like sticking everyday household objects up your ass--whatever you do on your own time is fine by me, just keep that shit to yourself (no pun intended). I happen to be agnostic by the way. I can't take the full know-it-all stance of pure atheism. I figure if I can't understand rugby or cricket, who am I to say that I know for certain there is no God? I just have a great amount of disdain for organized religions that seem to think they know better and I have a lot of problems with most of their doctrines. If I'm going to hell for lusting after women and masturbating, then so be it, but the devil's getting one hell of a facial when I get there.

Anyway, back to my wife's parents being asswipes. There are any number of little anecdotes that add up to why I don't like my in-laws. I think they definitely fucked up early on when my wife's Dad called me a bum behind my back (this was before we were married). That's it. Start throwing coal into the "fuck you" machine of the guy that's eventually going to marry your daughter. They say living well is the best revenge (I think I make double what he does not to mention I'm debt free) but I think treating people like shit is a close second. From there it's been downhill. I try not to miss any opportunity to point out what I hate about her parents to Lisa. I think she really appreciates that.

Lately they've been getting really annoying with their emotional neediness. Any time we visit, they seem to think we should spend the entire time sitting on their couch watching SG-1 reruns and gossiping about everyone in their small town (estimated population 5,000). When they come here, they typically don't tell us they're coming, stay with her brother the entire time, then try to pop in on us. They were here two weeks ago. We went to the obligatory dinner with them. Her dad then throws out the massive hint of, "Dessert at Lisa's place, I guess." We both ignored him. Then he goes further with, "I haven't seen your new TV yet." It's 65 inches and fucking spectacular, by the way. We continue to ignore him. "If I was ever invited..." Awwwww. Invited where? To the bum's place? Eat shit.

I sleep in on the weekends and I'm a very heavy sleeper. Well, when I get up today, Lisa has a voicemail and there's a message on the machine. Her parents have come to town today without telling us. They're outside wondering where the hell we are. Oh, by the way, Robert's car is unlocked. What the fuck? They come to my house unannounced expecting me to let them in so we can gossip about the people in their little town, find that I'm not home (actually asleep), and decide to see if my car is locked? I imagine they tried the door as well. They often hinted that they need a key to my house. Maybe that would be for emergencies like this.

For your enjoyment you can hear the actual message from the answering machine and the cell phone.

The Beauty of Search Engines

2005-02-22T20:18:00.000-08:00

I think I mentioned it before, but man I love those search engines. They allow people that otherwise wouldn't find my little blog to suddenly realize it's exactly what they're looking for. Why, take the log entry I just saw on how a user landed in my little corner of the world. They searched for: dad fuck "man's ass" oh

I, of course, was the very first hit (at least for the Japanese version of MSN's search):

I'd like to thank everyone that believed in me.

Tom Sizemore's Fake Penis

2005-02-20T17:44:00.000-08:00

Though somewhat sad, I'm still somewhat amused by the fact that actor Tom Sizemore failed a drug test while using a fake penis to pass someone else's clean urine. He even had a heating pack to try and maintain the proper temperature for the urine. Unfortunately, the incorrect temperature is what got him caught.

Another interesting aside is that this was not some sort of custom crafted fake penis. Apparently you can buy it under the brand name of the Whizzinator. It even comes in several ethnic models.

Singing in the Shower

2005-02-18T23:29:00.000-08:00

I stumbled upon the Animation Factory site the other day. It's full of some pretty cool animated gifs that you can buy to spice up any web site. While perusing, I found this curious image of a woman "singing in the shower":

Unless the song she is singing has something to do with that jelly dong she's jamming into her word hole, the image makes no sense...

I'm Going to Score So Much Puss on My Scooter

2005-02-18T22:36:00.000-08:00

JP was talking about cars with me today when we turned to the subject of scooters. He told me about the new Honda Ruckus. I got a chuckle out of the promotional picture that was on the screen:

I think they're implying (perhaps I'm inferring) that those girls are interested in those rebellious dudes on the sweet hogs. By "interested" I mean that those backpack wearing, helmet headed retards may actually get to have sex with those girls in the vagina, possibly the ass, but most definitely the mouth.

My Clean Blog

2005-02-18T14:57:00.000-08:00

I don't post often enough mainly because I try to post higher quality / more amusing anecdotes on this site. I don't particularly want to include code snippets or product reviews. Maybe readers wouldn't mind, but I think it's confusing. Further, if I post information about a side project I am starting / working on, I'm very reluctant to give this out as "my blog." The thought of my less enlightened co-workers having to wade through multiple pages of pussy jokes to get to what they consider my "real" content would keep me up at night. It might also not be something to mention on the resume or in an interview.

Therefore, I'm starting another blog that is guaranteed to be less entertaining and therefore less dirty (since the two go hand in hand). If anyone is interested, it is http://accordingtorobert.blogspot.com. I'll continue to post my obscene rants at this location and even intend to increase the frequency.

Sedan versus SUV

2005-01-17T19:19:00.000-08:00

The following is long and boring. You have been warned:

There's currently a lot of road construction going on in the area a short distance from my house. This weekend, they diverted the main road for the third time in the past six months or so. Previously, one of the east-bound turnarounds that popped out on the left side of the west-bound road had its own lane for a few hundred yards. However, since the most recent redirect, the turnaround has a brand new yield sign and unfortunately no longer has its own merge lane. It now immediately merges into the west-bound traffic.

As my luck would have it, one of my fellow morning commuters didn't notice or pay attention to any of the many new signs declaring the new need to yield. As I was passing the turnaround I saw a big black SUV coming at me. I had enough time to realize that I had a car on my right and one directly behind me. Swerving and stopping didn't appear to be options so I braced for impact and screamed like a little girl.

Immediately after the wreck, I pulled off the road so as not to clog traffic. The woman got out of her gas guzzler and said, "Um, I have my own lane." I informed her that she in fact did not as the recent construction had diverted traffic onto a new stretch of road, minus the extra lane. She apologized and said it was her fault. I chuckled and shrugged. "Well. I AM sorry," she insisted. I tried half-heartedly to say it was okay.

Shortly afterwards one of our community's fine law enforcement officers showed up on the scene. "How's your day going?" I asked. "Fine until now," he said. "Yeah. Tell me about it," I replied. Always good to be friendly to the police.

When asked, I told the officer what had happened. When he asked the lady, she said she didn't understand what had happened. It was her fault, she thought she had her own lane, etc. "Yeah. That's what happens with all the construction around here. You've got to be careful," he said. "Don't speak to me like I'm an idiot! I don't think that is necessary," she blurted out. Nice move, dumbass. Around that time, my wife showed up on the scene. I had flashed the "Lisa Signal" into the sky right after the accident and she had leapt into action.

While finishing up the paperwork, the officer saw Mia and mentioned that he also had a new puppy. He also said he lived in the same neighborhood as I do. He then started writing Ms. Sass-mouth a ticket. "Am I getting a ticket?" "Yes ma'am." "What for!?" The officer smiled a little and said, "failure to yield." It's nice to see people enjoying their job.

My left front rim was a slight bit bent and the officer suggested changing the tire. So, I put on the little donut and limped home. After this is over, I'm going to sacrifice the trunk space to have a real fucking spare tire. Tonight, I put the old tire back on the car. It's got to be safer than driving around on that "Little Debbie Snack Tire."

Before leaving the house, Lisa had called Progressive (our auto insurance). She was given a claim number and told that someone would call her within twenty minutes. No call. She called them back and was told that someone would call her in an hour. No call. She called back and was told that, while the guy would call her, perhaps she should contact the other person's insurance. Our insurance person connected her on a three way call and got the ball rolling. Probably the only thing they did correctly.

Anyway the other insurance company, Geico, seems to be handling things very well. They took the details, recommended a local body shop, arranged an appointment, set up a rental car, and explained that the rental fee would be paid directly by them when we pick up the rental tomorrow morning. They apologized that that was the earliest available time. The woman in the accident had never called them to start things rolling on her end, so Geico tried several times until they got a hold of her, confirming that it was her fault. They were friendly and responsive, much like a good hooker.

This is smart business on their part. By doing their job well, they may very well have convinced me to switch to their insurance company. They had the customer of a competitor handed to them on a silver platter and they showed what a good insurance company should do. Meanwhile, we still have not heard from our insurance guy. He was apparently in a nearby town handling another claim. I guess he's the single point of failure for my policy. Geico emphasized that we could talk to anyone there as they shared all of the claim information (probably on one of them fancy computers).

Quite the eventful day.

Follow up

Well, I got my car back one week after having taken it to the body shop. They replaced a bent tie rod, the fender, the bumper, one tire, and one tire rim. They even washed the car and shined up the tires. It drives like new. I believe the cost to fix was somewhere around $2500. I paid nothing for the fixes or the rental car thanks to the fact that it was someone else's fault. Alls well that ends well.

Flickr, Baby!!

2005-01-16T20:09:00.000-08:00

Cote' had been mentioning Flickr for quite some time. I finally got around to looking at it, and I like it very much. The wife and I have a shitload of pics from every vacation, holiday, etc. After messing with it for a day or so, I upgraded to the pay account. After the wife played with it for a bit, she went absolutely crazy going through old photos and uploading everything. This works out well for me, since I get all of the benefit of getting my choice pics online without actually having to do any work. You can drink from the Robert & Lisa photo firehose courtesy of my Flickr account.

Late Halloween Photos

2005-01-12T18:27:00.000-08:00

I've been meaning to post these but I have been way too lazy lately. Better late than never I guess. These are the pumpkins the wife and I carved for Halloween 2004.

Ben & Jerry Stole My Idea

2004-12-03T06:05:00.000-08:00

I mentioned previously my "million dollar" idea of using bums as advertising space...well, now someone has gone and done it. Apparently it may not have been as completely stupid as I thought.

A Time to be Thankful...

2004-11-26T23:08:00.000-08:00

...that I don't live with my parents anymore.

Well, to start things off, my mom figured it'd be much easier to cook the turkey a week in advance, carve it up, drop it into freezer bags, and freeze it. Then, on Thanksgiving day, we can thaw out and microwave whatever we want. Now that's some tasty bird. Is it moist and/or juicy, you ask? Not so much, but still mostly acceptable. I'm not wild about the holiday as a whole, but I'll deal with it. No, what I want to know is who the fuck cares about the lame ass tradition of having turkey. Why, oh why must you torment me so?!

Another concept my parents never really grabbed onto is that there are four of us for Thanksgiving. To feed this army of eaters, my parents made six huge potatoes worth of mashed potatoes (because I once mentioned that I "like" mashed potatoes), bought six whole pies, cooked (and froze) an entire turkey, and baked up fifteen or so rolls. There were, of course, other items on the menu, but they were in more reasonsable quantities.

This year we managed to go without the traditional father/son fist fight between my dad and Carl (only because Carl wasn't there). Nothing says "holiday" like hearing, "You think you can kick your old man's ass?" But, I digress.

The following day we went to Red Lobster for lunch. My wife and I try to decide what we might want from the menu when my parents just start ordering their food. The waiter gets around to us and we both make snap decisions on randomly selected seafood dishes. After the waiter wanders off, I comment that it might have been nice to have had a few minutes to decide. My dad informs me, "We come here all the time. We know what we want without even looking at the menu. What takes so long to order?" I come to my senses before trying to explain it. Attempting to do so would be reminiscent of getting into a head butting contest with a boulder. I spend the remainder of the meal bad mouthing my three brothers and their wives or wives to be.

The holiday continued later that day with the family watching a couple of movies that my wife had brought. The pre-show entertainment consisted of:

Wife: Ok. The movie's in.
Mom (shouting): OK!!! IT'S IN!!!
Dad: What's in?
Mom: THE MOVIE!!!
Dad: Oh. Ok. The movie's in.
Wife: Go ahead and play it...
Dad: What am I doing?
Mom: THE REMOTE!!! YOU'RE SITTING ON THE REMOTE!!!
Dad: Where's what remote?
Mom: PLAY THE MOVIE!!!
Dad: Do I need to turn on the TV?
Wife (to me): Will you just start the movie?

The movie (Elf) starts and my dad says, "I like him. What's his name? Jim Carrey?" I toy briefly with the idea of telling him it's Colin Farrell before my wife informs him that it is actually Will Ferrell. After the movie starts, my dad sits briefly and laughs at the sheer hilarity of it all. He then gets up and wanders into the next room. My wife wonders out loud if we should pause the movie. I say we should just continue. Twenty minutes later or so he comes back in and sits down. He laughs at the movie again, appearing to enjoy it immensely. Then he starts doing a crossword puzzle. My wife looks at me with the "what the fuck" look. I just smile and nod. After the movie is over we watch The Terminal. The only fucking movie my parents have seen in the theater this year. They insist that it kicks much ass and they would love nothing more than to see it again. We start the movie and within the first five minutes my dad wanders off to the other side of the house to play some old person game on the internet.

I decide I'm hungry, pause the movie, and go into the kitchen to heat up some leftover fish/shrimp from Red Lobster. My dad is instantly out of the back room wondering where the movie went. Don't we like the movie? Why aren't we watching the movie. I try to tune him out and begin looking for ketchup in the refrigerator. There isn't any. I look for the ketchup in the pantry and find two bottles. One is the generic brand of a regional chain that closed in this area around 10 years ago. The other is called "Red Gold" and is covered in Russian writing. Both of them are brown. Say hello to the trashcan. I ask my mom about the ketchup situation. She says, "We've got picante sauce." Well, I don't want any fucking picante sauce. Fried fish and or shrimp demands ketchup. What the fuck are these barbarians smoking?

To wrap it up: They have no ice maker, there is never ice in the ice bin, it's currently 75 degrees in here and the heat is on, Photoshop seems to be broken on their computer again, my ears are still ringing from how fucking loud they keep the television, there's no alcohol here (something that would make the situation much more enjoyable), there's nothing to do but watch them play Crash Bandicoot on the PS2, and there's nothing to eat here (especially if I want to put some fucking ketchup on it). But on the plus side, we still have a combined total of roughly five pies left and all the frozen turkey you care to eat.

Paging Doctor Jellyfinger

2004-10-10T11:23:00.000-07:00

A few months back, I noticed that I seem to be losing more and more hair lately. Now, I'm sure this happens to quite a few people as they get older, but since I have been told there is absolutely no history of male pattern baldness in my family (either side) I thought I would go see a doctor just to be safe. I also needed to go because I had untreated hypertension (high blood pressure).

I get to the medical type place and I head back to the doctor's office. Several hours later (or so it seems) the doctor walks in. As soon as I see him, I'm thinking that I've gotten a bad random. He's bald. And I don't mean a little bald. I decide maybe it'll be fine.

We go through the various steps in the physical. Of course I've got the whole testicle / anal portion of the exam foremost in my mind. During the physical the doctor is non-stop chit chat. He runs through an entire routine of medical and personal banter that feels quite practiced and polished.

Finally, he says something like "...and that's why we do the testicular exam," and looks at me. I look at him. I decided about ten years ago that I was going to stop dropping my pants when people merely hinted at it. Too many instances where that's not what was being hinted at. Also, too low of a risk to reward ratio. He's finally forced to actually ask me to drop my pants. I drop them and stand in my classic Superman pose--hands on the hips, looking to the left, chin high, legs apart. I briefly toy with a "how long have I got" joke but decide against it. He finishes fondling my balls (and not nearly as well as I'm used to I might add) and I begin to pull my pants up. He then casually mentions that we probably don't need to do the rectal exam at my age. "Unless that's something you want," he says. He then gives me a look like I'm some sort of pervert that wants the doc to hook me up with some ass play. I don't really have to think about that one too long before I say, "no." However, I might have pointed out that he's the one that just had my balls in his hand then offered to stick one (possibly several?) of his fingers in MY ass for a $15 copay. Yeah, I'm the weirdo.

The doctor then heads off to do some doctor stuff. My wife joins me in the office. When the nurse comes back in I ask the nurse if this new person that came in works here (it's actually my wife). The nurse gets a paniced look for a second before I tell her I'm joking. Finally, the doctor comes back for the wrap up.

Doctor: So, are there any other concerns?
Me: I seem to be losing more hair lately...
Doctor: Male pattern baldness. I've got it, too.
Wife: Well, it's just that--
Doctor: I've lost all of this here, I'm starting lose it over here. It just started falling out. Nothing I can do about it.
Wife: --no one in his family is bald.
Doctor: It's probably from his mother's side.
Wife: No one, including his mother's side. None of his brothers, all of which are older, seem to be going bald.
Doctor: My brother has a full head of hair. Bastard. But not me. Oh no! I'm the lucky one that's going bald. Luckily, my girlfriend likes bald men. The whole Jean-Luc Piccard thing.
Me: Well, I know it can be other things. Hypothyroidism, environmental, parasitic, what have you...
Doctor: Nah. I don't have any of those things and I'm still bald. I mean, I could take Propecia or get a hair transplant, I suppose. But I figure why transplant it if it's going to fall out again. And as for Rogaine or Propecia, you have to keep taking it. It can get quite expensive. I finally decided I just had to live with it.
Me: Well, I'm not that concerned about being bald. I just want to make sure it's not related to some other health concer--
Doctor: Hell. I am. I hate being bald.
Wife: So it can't be anything else.
Doctor: No. He's going bald. Just like me.

There you have it. From a completely neutral third party. I'm losing my hair. Just like him.

Adventures at the Cabana of Tacos

2004-10-09T21:11:00.000-07:00

Since the weather was pleasantly cool today, the wife and I thought it might be nice to grab a quick bite to eat on the Taco Cabana patio.

Shortly after we sat down on the patio some family of six came out and sat down. A little while later the dad of the family comes out with a couple of sizzling fajita platters. He then heads back inside to grab napkins or forks or something. On his way back out he passes an empty table that hasn't been cleaned off yet. He looks it over, grabs two containers of gently used chips and heads back out to the patio.

Now, I'm all for recycling and avoiding unnecessary waste, but I think I draw the line several feet before eating the pre-trash food off of some stranger's abandoned table. But once he's made the leap to feed his family garbage, why did he leave the half eaten container of beans and the mostly empty container of fake cheese. The cheese cup looked like he could have gotten at least a lick or two worth of cheese out of it.

Too Much Mr. Nice Guy

2004-10-07T20:45:00.000-07:00

First, some background. I have three older brothers. They are ten years, nine years, and seven years older me. I've already talked about one of them, Carl. That is of course not his real name. To protect the stupid, I'll be changing their names in any of these blogs. I'll name them Andy, Brian, and Carl. A-B-C, oldest to youngest. Everybody got that? Ok.

Brian (he's the second oldest at nine years older than me) is the only brother with which I ever got along (how's that for avoiding ending a sentence in a preposition). We are definitely the most alike. In his younger days, he was quite crazy. Unfortunately, as he's aged, he's become too much of a tight ass. As a tight ass, he's not much fun. He reminds me of Bert of "Bert & Ernie." For those of you that don't remember, Bert is one tight assed muppet.

A long while back, the fun Brian was working at some place. One day, he brought a pizza to work for lunch. After eating his fill, he stuck the pizza in the fridge. When he gets off work, he finds out that his pizza is gone. Apparently, a bunch of people at work decided to help themselves to his pizza. Well, this pissed him off.

The next week, Brian baked up a batch of chocolate brownies. He melted several bars of chocolate Ex-Lax into the mix. Each brownie wound up containing five or six times the normal dose of Ex-Lax. He also included a few normal brownies in the batch. He took the brownies into work, ate a few of the normal brownies, then wrapped the rest in clear plastic wrap and stuck them in the fridge.

The plan of course was that those bastards would steal his brownies and get their just rewards. Ah! That's the Brian I used to like. Well, as is often the case, plans don't always work out according to, well, plan. He had told a few of the people he liked that they should not eat the brownies and why. One of his friends decided that it would be much more fun to tell some stoner at work that the reason Brian didn't want anyone eating his brownies was that they had pot in them. So, two of the pot heads at work ate all the brownies.

Well, they both had to go home "sick". One of them later called from his house and said he was shitting blood. Everyone wound up being fine. Nothing a few hours on the toilet, screaming in pain, wouldn't cure. Of course, it was a shitty thing to do (no pun intended) and I wouldn't advocate such an action. It's one of the many things Brian has done that he seems bothered by. Like someday he'll have to "pay for his sins" even though he's agnostic. I say once it's done just say "fuck it" and realize you have a good story to tell. Or in this case, that I have a good story to tell.

Enjoy

2004-10-04T20:31:00.000-07:00

Someone the wife knows sent her this pic:

It originally came from this page.

Follow the Yellow Brick Road

2004-10-04T18:53:00.001-07:00

I headed down to the parents' place this weekend (again) to hook up their DSL. This time, everything went pretty smoothly. On Saturday, we headed out to Jim's for some food. While we're eating, I notice one of the waitresses (not the one waiting on us) is either very short or is perhaps the world's tallest midget--oops. I meant to say little person. Of course, this doesn't phase me because I'm used to little people. I watch a lot of little person porn (just kidding). But if I did, I could now do it at the parents' place since they have DSL--BAM! Anyway, as we head out, my Dad's paying the check and that particular waitress winds up being the cashier. He heads up to the counter and says, "Hey short stuff," as a kind of greeting.

I was a tad bit shocked by this (although I guess at this point, nothing they say should really shock me). The waitress seemed very friendly, smiled, etc. On the way out of the door, I tell my wife what I thought I heard. She does the whole "no way / get out" type of thing. We get in the car, cracking up. I finally ask my Dad if he really said that. He says, "Oh sure, we come here all the time. I know her." My wife puts on the shocked face and whispers to me, "Yeah, she's the one that spits in my food all the time."

Another Million Dollar Idea

2004-09-27T19:06:00.000-07:00

Lately at work, I've been addicted to these little chicken flavored ramen cups of soup. They're the "Maruchan" brand instant things. After you eat the noodles, there's is a delightful chicken flavored liquid remaining. Many less adventurous diners would simply discard this treasure, citing that it has the salinity of sea water. But, I know better.

In a recent ride down the elevator (and, no that isn't a double-entendre), a co-worker (Matt R.) and I were discussing the next logical step in marketing this chickenly juice of the gods. I commented on the fact that I thought it could easily be sold as a sports drink. Its high salt content would surely be good for restoring lost minerals or nutrients or some-shit. Matt said they should color it blue and call it "C-Juice."

His joke got me to thinking. Why not? Hasn't the time come for some sort of poultry based sports drink? Of course I'd have to have different flavors, with whacky names. Like:

Chicky-Chicky Bang-Bang
Fire in C-Hole
Hot Chicken Blast
Deep Blue C
C-Plain C-Plain
Orange Chicken

Other less ambitious sports drinks are used in alcoholic drinks. Why not C-Juice? Why have a screw driver when you could substitute C-Juice and make a "screwed chicken?" Or add C-Juice to your favorite bloody Mary recipe to make a "bloody chicken." The potential revenue is endless.

DSL

2004-09-27T17:46:00.000-07:00

I've been trying for quite some time to convince my parents that they need to get high speed access. It's only in the last couple of years that I've managed to get them using a computer and accessing the internet. Now that they've discovered that the internet is an endless goldmine of racist jokes and free spam/gambling sites (spambling?) they're ready for more. Whenever they visit, they always comment on how fast my "computer" is versus theirs. I explain that it has nothing to do with their computer, simply that a temporal distortion exists between my house and theirs--I'm in the 21st century where my bandwidth is reminiscent of trying to drink from a firehose while they're way back in the early 1990's getting their online experience a thimble of data at a time.

Finally, after endless poking and prodding, they decided that it was worth the $10 / month to get DSL. So, on a recent trip to their house I filled out the order for them and noticed that it didn't give me an option to pick the install date. It would pick the first available date for them instead. There'd also be a self-install kit mailed to them. Whatever. Well, a few days later (mid-week) they tell my wife that it's hooked up but they don't have the install kit. I relay that I'll head down and install it whenever they get the kit.

The kit arrives late on a Friday, so I tell them that I'll drive down (2 hours) on Saturday and install it. I'll then have to drive back (you guessed it--2 hours) on Saturday night because I've got shit to do at home. Everybody is happy. I wake up early on Saturday (3pm) and throw together an old 486 with a couple of network cards and a copy of freesco to act as a router. I grab some cat-5, some RJ-45's, the crimpy thingy and head out. (I prefer this solution for a number of reasons I won't go into here.)

Two hours later, I arrive, grab the modem, run some cable, set up the router, plug in the DSL modem and BAM!!! Nothing. Bam? The fucking internet light on the modem doesn't come on. Step 1 on the troubleshooting list says I should make sure it's been hooked up at the main office. Well, surely...

Me:Hey, Dad...When did you say that this was hooked up?
Dad: The 29th.
Me: [Checking my watch] It's the 25th...
Dad: Oh. Does that need to be done first?
Me: Mom, I thought you told Lisa that it was hooked up.
Mom: Well, we got the email saying it would be hooked up at the first available date...
Me: ...
Mom: Should I call them and tell them to hook it up now?
Me: It doesn't work that way.

Well, needless to say, we all had a good laugh about that. I stayed pissed off for a couple of hours and finally got over it. I'll be headed down again next weekend. I'm sure there is a lesson in there somewhere. But on the bright side, maybe I can show them all of the free porn they've been missing out on with dial-up.

More Outsourcing Ideas

2004-08-25T20:27:00.000-07:00

I saw a funny article today about a company that uses outsourcing to accumulate virtual assets and sell them for real cash. This gave me the idea for another unique use for outsourced / offshored employees (besides doing tech support for my parents). When I come home at night, sometimes I don't really feel like interacting with anyone, including my wife. I just want to stop listening to anyone and zone out (usually playing some online poker).

That's where my idea of "out-spousing" comes into the picture. Apparently, for a hundred dollars a month I can get a stand-in from India, China, or Russia to listen to stories about new purses, talk about my day, and make decisions about dinner (as long as I don't mind eating food so spicy that it tastes like pain). Of course, I would still get to do all of the cool things like give the misses her recommended daily allowance of vitamin F.

Poker? I Hardly Know Her

2004-08-24T20:13:00.000-07:00

The wife and I hosted a little poker tournament this past weekend. Nothing huge, just a little no limit hold 'em $10 buy in with a maximum of 1 rebuy within the first four blind levels. The first three spots paid out with first getting $145. We've attended a couple of these and have hosted/attended quite a few low limit dealer's choice games as well.

Typically for any little get-together like this, we like to use evite to manage things. It is quite the handy little web app. We restricted this particular event to 20 people since we've never really had that many people in the house at the same time (except for that key party we hosted, but that was different). Providing food and beverages for 20 people seemed like it was going to be a pain in the ass, so I tried to phrase the evite so as to encourage people to bring their own refreshments. The text in question read:

I'll be providing some snacks (primarily chips and cake) and a couple of varieties of soda (no Dr. Pepper, since that's mine). However, you are encouraged to bring anything you want, particularly your own beverages.

Of course, someone inevitably asks, "So, what are you guys going to serve?" That, coupled with the fact that we had people on the waiting list, prompted me to send this email:

The tournament is this Saturday. If you have accepted and have changed your mind or are unable to attend, please change your reply to "No" and give someone else a chance to accept as there are people on the waiting list.

If you still plan on attending, please be reminded that there will be no buffet. I will be providing very little in the way of snacks (probably 1 Frito and 2 Doritos per person). While there will be a little soda, you are reminded that it will not be enough. When we run out, you are more than welcome to drink from the water hose out back.

I've edited the evite and added some items you may bring if you wish. I did this to help avoid too many duplicate items. You are more than welcome to bring whatever you like and are under no obligation to bring anything (other than your money) if you don't feel like it. You are also under to obligation to share.

Of course, two shitheads (one of which was the one that asked the original question) took it upon themselves to respond in this way:

Thanks for the reminder! We are planning to be there and looking forward to it! The pics of the poker table look totally fabulous! You & Lisa did a great job and are quite the craftsmen! Now, I know its hard to come across funny over email and I am sure that is what you were trying to do, but I wanted to say that I felt it sounded obnoxious and derogatory and I know you aren't like that.

Just letting you know that the email may have come across poorly. There are nicer ways to let folks know you aren't planning a big food shindig and want us to bring our own stuff. We are definitely planning to bring some sodas, maybe some alcholic beverages and some snacks. Would it be ok to bring an ice chest?

Huh? Of course, that pisses me off. Nevermind the fact that I find it inconceivable that someone could be too stupid to get that the reminder was intended to be a funny way of letting people know they need to bring their own food. Are there really people that live in some fantasy land where they're going to grade my email? And what better way to make your point eloquently than to toss out the words "obnoxious" and "derogatory"? Those aren't loaded at all. I'm further bothered by the fake ass nature of the email. Start with the ass kiss, stick a fuck you in the middle, and end in a question--you know, to show that we're still communicating.

This is exactly how people wind up in jail. Some well intentioned person like myself throws out the har har email to a group and some douche bags with shit for wits decide to pull my string. Then the Thunder Lizard comes to life and has to beat someone to death with a car jack. See you next Tuesday.

Reverse Parking Rebuttal

2004-08-24T19:52:00.000-07:00

Tim, at work, had this insightful rebuttal to my problem with people backing into parking spots:

The super hero theory is intriguing. But lets do the math. There are only an handful of super heroes. Lets exaggerate and say 100. Now the odds of you running into any one of them a single time would have to be pretty low. And running into more that one or the same one multiple times(presumably you have experienced this multiple times) would have to be way out there. Further I doubt that many(in any) drive(I don't think Batman is really a super hero - just a gadget freak). So you would have to be encountering a disproportionate number of these guys for the super hero theory to hold.

As for impressing women with their handling prowess, this requires a) spotting the woman to impress b)locating said woman near a convenient parking spot c) getting her to see the awesome stunt of a crisply executed backwards insertion d) said subject would have to be pretty shallow to be sufficiently impressed with all of this. Sounds implausible. Believe me--I've tried. Of course, the driver could be operating from the premise that one day some woman might just observe this incredible demonstration of handling agility from across the parking lot and be compelled to introduce herself to the driver(never happened to me). A friend's mom did once ask if I was a wanted man, but that's not the same thing.

Or... maybe since parking is basically a symmetrical operation(you have to throw it into R at some point - unless you plan to abandon the vehicle) it could be viewed as an investment in the future to go on and back it into the parking space now in exchange for the ease of leaving later(pay me now or pay me later). Its actually not completely symmetrical - the car's wheels track differently in reverse and insertion is actually easier than when pulling straight in.

Having said that, my first rule of traffic is never ever impede other's progress under any condition if you have a say in the matter(I think it is just shy of a mortal sin(a symbolic statement as I don't subscribe to the heaven and hell stuff)). So while I prefer to back in as a matter of convenience, I will take the hit and pull straight in if there is traffic behind me. I'm actually more impressed with the people that can execute this maneuver in a tight space - its actually harder than backing in...

Don't Be a Dumbass, Dumbass

2004-06-22T17:44:00.000-07:00

I should probably feel bad about picking on my parents in my recent posts. The only thing I can think of to make things right is to start picking on the rest of my family.

My next oldest brother, we'll call him Carl, is a pretty big dumbass. My parents have a house on the coast of the Gulf of Mexico. It's not really a "summer home" or anything, just a place they bought before they retired. They divided up the house and rented out subsections to make it pay for itself--quite the idea.

Anyway, my brother Carl (remember, that's what we're calling him) is coming up on 40 and he still lives with my parents. Nothing wrong with that of course, it's just that he never moved out. That's right. It's not that he's down on his luck and had to move back home because times are hard. It's that he is a dumbass with zero ambition. Now, he would dispute the fact that I say he lives with my parents. You see, technically, he's living at their other house--so it's not with them.

I guess the deal works out alright for my parents. He keeps an eye on the place while they're not there, eats all the food so it won't go bad, mows the grass, etc. Unfortunately Carl doesn't have a car, so he's limited to going places within walking or biking distance. Or at least he was until he got the bright idea to drive the riding lawn mower around town (yes, there was in fact a movie with the same concept). I assume that he somehow figured out how to raise the blade so he didn't leave a path of well cropped grass behind him. He eventually rode the lawn mower around so much that he wore it out well before its time. My parents wound up having to buy a new one (which he is not allowed to drive anymore).

But that's not the point of this post. My wife and I used to like to head to the coast with my parents every now and then. It was a nice cheap and easy way to get away for a weekend. Of course, as with all good things in life, it had to be ruined by a dumbass. The last time we were there was around four or five years ago. Each time we had tried to spend a week or weekend there, things had gotten progressively worse.

This first problem is that every time we went down there, Carl had some new person living at my parents' house. These would always by typical coastal freeloaders. He would offer just about anyone down there a place to stay. Eventually most of the people wound up stealing something and getting kicked out by my parents. Why they allowed or tolerated this, I have no idea. So, when we showed up on Friday, there was of course someone living there. I don't like the company and most of these "coast people" bother me. Plus I have to be on guard all weekend about getting my stuff stolen.

No problem. Just a minor speed bump. I'll just go throw our stuff in the room we usually use. Oh my. What's that on the mattress? It's dog shit. Not a nice, tightly rolled dog turd but a smattering, nay, a splattering of the old canine dire-rear. The mattress was covered with it. And some of it had been there for quite some time. It's on the floor as well, but the mattress concerns me a bit more. My parents had not yet shown up and I knew that my brother was not supposed to have a dog. Furthermore, if my dad saw any of this, he would go absolutely ballistic. More than likely it would be a weekend of screaming, yelling, and the obligatory "You think you're man enough to kick your old man's ass?" question.

When confronted with the situation, my brother of course denied that there was ever a dog in the house, much less the room. After much puzzlement, he hypothesized that the veritable Hiroshima of fecal matter might be attributable to his roommate. Bullshit probably because it was dog shit definitely. Whatever.

I don't really like Carl, but I decided it was in my best interest to get that room presentable as quickly as I could. My wife and I got all of the cleaning supplies and stripped the room bare. Everything got thrown in the washing machine with tons of soap. The floor got mopped. The mattress was still nasty but we thought we could scrub it and flip it for the time being. Perhaps that would get us through the weekend at least. When we started to flip the mattress, we noticed that the other side was covered in even more dog shit than the first. My wife and I were somewhat perturbed by this. Okay. Time for a new plan. We'll drag the mattress out to the boat shed and hide it. Then, we'll sneak into one of the other apartments (remember the house is subdivided) and take a clean mattress. Of course, the boat shed is about a hundred yards away, the mattress needs to be put in the loft in order to hide it adequately, the other mattress is on the second floor, and my parents are due in a couple of minutes.

Carl, my wife, and I manage to get the whole place cleaned up, the mattress swapped out, and all of the washables done before my parents show up. Of course, when they do arrive, all three of us are sweating like pigs, but they didn't seem to notice. Carl is off the hook. That is, until he decides to be a dumbass.

The following day Carl decides to act like a complete jealous baby (even though he's coming up on 40). He starts bitching to my mom that he doesn't like us in his house, we're eating all of his food, and we're using all of his laundry soap. Ever helpful, I point out that it is neither his place, his food, nor his laundry soap--my parents paid for everything. He insists that he is going to "pay them back." I point out that paying them back would consist of approximately 15 to 20 years of rent, food, clothing, etc. His retort: "Robert...shut up." Kapow! I guess he showed me. I have nothing left. Except: "So, what did we use all of your laundry soap on?"

And that's when the fireworks begin.

Mom: What did you have to wash, dear?
Me: Oh, when we got here, the back room was covered in dog shit.
Carl: I told you, there ain't been no dog in this house.
Mom: You know you're not supposed to have a dog.
Carl: I told you, there ain't been no dog in this house.
Dad: Godammit!
Me: Yeah. One of your mattresses is completely ruined. It's in the boat shed. We had to break into one of the other apartments and steal another mattress.
Dad: Godammit!
Mom: You know you're not supposed to have a dog!!!
Carl: I told you, there ain't been no dog in this house.
Dad: You've been lying to us since the day you were born! All you've ever got to say about anything is, "Not me! Not me!" Nothing is ever your fault. You're 40 goddamn years old! When are you going to take some responsibility for your life!? Can you answer that?
Carl: There ain't been no dog in this house.
Me: Oh, and he's got someone else living here, again. I think they're a drug dealer.
Wife: Why do we even fucking coming here?
Me: Because it's relaxing?

I believe that was our last trip. We've been thinking it might be time to head down there again sometime...

Preview of Bustle

2004-06-21T17:29:00.000-07:00

Here's a quick imitation of a lady that works at the Taco Bell near my work:

My Parents and Fine Dining

2004-06-18T19:39:00.000-07:00

Don't get me wrong. Overall, I really like my parents. But they're just such a rich source of material that I can't help myself. Plus, they don't read this shit, so here goes:

I have never really like going out to eat with my parents. It's a painful experience for me on many levels. The first problem is that they don't know how to order. They can't communicate clearly with people.

Mom: I want the Caesar salad. I want a baked potato with no butter. I want ranch dressing.
Waitress: Ok. So you want ranch on the salad rather than the Caesar dressing?
Mom: NO! The ranch is for MY POTATO!!!
Dad: She wants the ranch dressing for her potato. On the side, you understand?
Waitress: Oh, ok. And what would you like to drink?
Mom: Soda.
Waitress: Alright. What kind of soda did you want?
Mom: DIET! (said in a "pull your head out of your ass" tone. My mom then looks around, bewildered at this moron of a waitress that stands before her.)

I guess the problem goes way beyond just ordering the food. It's a problem with all human interaction. Another example. I accompany my mom on an outing to grab some Church's fried chicken. She's ordered, and is paying for the food when the following mind-boggling exchange takes place:

Mom: I didn't get my jalapeño poppers last time.
Cashier: ...
Me: What?
Mom: (Gives me the "I wasn't talking to you" sideways glance and returns her attention to the cashier.) The last time I was in here, I ordered the jalapeño poppers. When I got home, they weren't there.
Cashier: ...
Me: Um, ok. Well, I don't think she cares and I doubt you're getting a free order this time. You probably should have addressed it last time, either with a phone call or a trip back to the store.
Mom: Well, I don't give a shit. I just thought she should know.
Cashier: ...

Then there's the racism. I guess they're from a different era and all, but I'm not a big fan of the hardcore racist attitudes of the previous generation. My dad loves to say "flied lice" and "egg lop" soup anytime we're in a Chinese restaurant. Now this has a tendency to make me a bit uncomfortable because, as you may or may not know, all Chinese people know Kung Fu--just kidding. Seriously though, you can't keep that shit in check until your next Klan meeting? Plus, asian chicks are hot--how can you be racist against that? You can't, any more than you can hate lesbians. Or asian lesbians having a tickle fight in little pink panties...I digress.

Once the food is on the table, my parents start their traditional "who can get more food on their face" contest. There's only so many times I can tell someone they've "got a little something, right there." After that, all I can do is look over at my wife and share a laugh with the only other normal person at the table. Throw in a couple of ill-timed burps from my dad, watch my parents grab way too many complimentary mints, stuff them in their pockets (along with some M&Ms from the dessert bar), and call it a night.

Greatest Hits (And Some Crap)

2004-06-17T20:39:00.000-07:00

Tonight I was looking through the crap CDs at Half Price books. I came across Cheap Trick's Greatest Hits. I looked over the songs on the back and couldn't help but get pissed off that they included a live version of one of the songs. Then I thought about the Police greatest hits CD I own. It's got some fucked up version of one of the songs. I'm not sure why bands (or whoever) insist on doing this. I like the version that was crammed down my throat on the radio. At least include both versions.

It's the same as if I see you in concert--I want to hear it basically like the single. I don't care that you play that song 200 days a year and are sick to death of it. Don't fucking "spice it up." Just play the song like I know it and put that version on your greatest hits CD. Quite honestly, most of these bands just get lucky on a few songs. If they breathe on it wrong, they'll turn it to shit. Now, there are exceptions, of course. I like both versions of You're Crazy by Guns N' Roses (although I like the Lies version much better). But these exceptions are pretty rare.

And, no, you can't include any of your latest material on there. You know why? Because that lame ass shit isn't a hit. If you were still any good, maybe you could release a full album of new material rather than trying to use yesterday's successes as a splint to support your recent tired attempt at creativity.

A Hand in the Bush is Worth Two on My Bird

2004-06-12T11:58:00.000-07:00

Almost a year ago, I found myself out of work. I'd left my rock solid job at an extremely stable company for a development job in a different language for a much less stable company. The new job was in an area in which I had always wanted to work and had a promise of much greater rewards--both emotionally and to a lesser extent financially. It was a very calculated risk. My wife and I went through as many of the possible scenarios as we could think of and determined that none of them would be catastrophic. Unfortunately, I got "laid off" after two months at the new job. I put that in quotes because I think I was actually a casualty of an internal power struggle between the owners/founders of the company. It wouldn't have mattered though, because the victors in the struggle wound up running the company into the ground anyway.

Luckily, my wife and I had enough savings to not have to worry too much about the next opportunity. I didn't start looking for a job immediately because I was waiting to see what happened with one of the deposed owners. He had the intention of starting up a new company and communicated the fact that he would like for me to come along. I stuck around for a while and then eventually thought it would be prudent to at least get a contract position to stop the bleeding of cash. No sense in spending my entire life savings waiting around. Eventually my contract position turned into a permanent position and I was once again back in the realm of (relatively) stable employment.

During the period of time that I was enjoying my unemployment and giving the opportunity at a possible new company a chance to develop, most of the people I know couldn't understand my apparent lack of initiative in finding another job. The problem was that I wasn't even looking for another job. I was pretty confident that I could find employment again in some form when push came to shove. Of course, if I had it to do over again, I probably would have tried to land the contract position immediately--a bird in the hand and all that. However, unemployment was pretty enjoyable to me. It gave me the chance to recharge my batteries and change my perspective on a few things.

But, the whole point of this post is to talk about my dad's reaction to my cavalier attitude about unemployment. My dad was born in the 1930's and grew up in a much different world than I did. Things were often a lot harder in his day than they are in mine. As a result, any time he discusses job related issues with me he often tries to apply his life experience to my situation. It doesn't always work. Case in point, he has an obsession with me digging ditches.

Dad: Well, if you needed to put food on the table, you may need to dig ditches for a living. But you're probably too good for that, huh?
Me: I think they have machines to do that now.
Dad: If I had to, I'd march right in there and tell them, give me a shovel and $0.25 a day and I'll dig that damn ditch for you.
Me: Well, I think I could find something at a much higher pay rate. Oh...you're speaking metaphorically. "Digging ditches" refers to any job I should take in order to make ends meet but that pays less than my desired salary and may also be a job that I would consider beneath my station in life?
Dad: I mean you need to get a goddamn shovel and dig ditches for a living. I had to work two jobs for years.
Me: Oh. I assume you worked two jobs to give your kids a better life and now I've got a better life. You really shouldn't be bitter or resentful that I've got it "so good" because that's the reason for which you were working so hard. Wasn't it?
Dad: Goddamn kids.

We usually have that conversation once or twice a year. His "second job" was his own business that he started and eventually sold for a pretty good profit so he could retire 10 years ahead of schedule. And no, it wasn't a ditch digging business.

Whether it's what he intends or not, to me each time we have the conversation it's all about waking up one day and realizing your life is over. It's about being upset that you didn't do what you wanted to do with the time you had. You settle into the routine of life. Get up, go to work, come home, go to bed, repeat. Your new goals are to make ends meet, maybe retire early so you can enjoy life. Your goals become primarily financial while the things you really want to do become dreams. Goals are something you work toward. Dreams you just impotently wish for. If you're ever going to be happy, you need to turn your dreams into goals and take some chances on making them happen. That's the real reason I took that job.

Piss and/or Vinegar

2004-06-10T20:13:00.000-07:00

I've moved offices recently and, because of this, I'm now frequenting a different bathroom. The old bathroom was a company exclusive type of bathroom. The company I work for is the only tenant on that floor, so the urinals are kept "in the family." The new office is more of a communal bathroom that anyone can use--hitchhikers, neer do wells, lawyers, etc.

Anyway, I'm at stall 1 of 3 the other day when I notice that something smells like piss. Imagine that. A piss smell at a urinal. But this wasn't your normal bounced off a urinal cake type of piss smell. This was an old world, dehydrated, asparagus, dick rot type of smell. Like someone drank piss and then pissed it out again. And then let it sit there for a week and pissed on it some more.

I looked down (and around my massive member) and noticed that the tile grout had an acid wash look to it. Either that section of the floor is not being mopped regularly enough, or someone has a serious case of post-urinal drip. Something on the order of a pint a day. Well, fuck that. I'm guessing sniffing another man's urine can't be too healthy or there'd be a Hollywood diet built around the concept. I have now resolved to take the urinal less traveled and am going to pass water at the furthest urinal away--the handicapped urinal. As an added bonus (because it is set lower than the other urinals) I feel a full foot taller this way. It's like I'm Shaq, driving to the hole and laying some dunk-fu on some poor bastard right before I siphon the python all over a trough lolly in my new favorite urinal--number 3.

Look at me, I know how to drive in reverse

2004-06-09T18:35:00.000-07:00

I've noticed two things lately about parking lots. The spaces are getting more narrow as cars are getting bigger and a lot of jackasses like to back into their parking spots for no apparent reason.

I think every other car on the road in my area is either an SUV or a truck. How are these poor bastards supposed to park in a spot that is five feet wide? And on a row of parking spots, how many extra spots can you fit if you shrink each place by two feet? Somewhere between one and who fucking cares. I'd rather have room to park without fear of the retard next to me dinging my door. Barring that, I'll just park further away or circle the lot until a space opens up.

Now, about these fools that back into spots. The only theories I have on this are that they either have little dicks and think that their prowess at handling big machinery is going to score with the chicks OR they're actually superheros in disguise. They may need to back into the spot so that when the police commissioner shines the dumbass signal into the sky they can peel out. Well, as long as they have a good reason...

Random Thoughts

2004-06-08T21:10:00.000-07:00

Here's a bunch of random stuff floating around in my head that isn't quite worthy of a full, independent post:

If my last name was "German", I would name my son "Dan". You know...DangerMan!!!
There's really isn't a friendly way to honk at someone.
If you see a public toilet with shit already in it, don't flush it--that bitch is going to overflow on you.
Random dot stereograms are fake. Anyone who claims to see something is full of shit.
Spouses should have a vesting period like company 401k programs--she isn't entitled to half of my shit until she's been there at least 5 years.
Lingerie modeling "studios" should sell coupon books. They could include coupons for one "free moneyshot". Model: Oh, my eye!!!
The people who protested before the release of "The Passion of the Christ" are the same people who now, after having actually seen it, are praising it as they dance around with a handful of snakes.

Lightning Bolt!!

2004-06-08T21:08:00.000-07:00

Another of those stupid internet quizzes:

My Inner Hero - Wizard!

There are many types of magic, but all require a sharp mind and a cool head. There is no puzzle I can't solve, no problem I can't think my way out of. When you feel confused or uncertain, you can always rely on me to untangle the knots and put everything back in order for you.

How about you? Click here to find your own inner hero.

Whale of a Tale

2004-06-07T20:04:00.000-07:00

During the recent holiday weekend, a few people I know went to SeaWorld to enjoy the great weather, shows, and rides. I myself went to SeaWorld once. It's really bundles of fun. The rides are top notch and the shows are...well, the shows suck. You see, once you realize that killer whales have a terrible time in captivity, that some of the whales are caught using explosives, that still others are kept in horrible conditions, and that a few have even starred in incredibly shitty movies the water park is never the same.

Why just the other day I heard a story from a co-worker talking about getting to feed the sea lions at one of the parks. He said it was a lot of fun until you realized they were rescued animals. A number of them have missing limbs, scars from boat propellers, foul breath, the works. After noticing that (and the fact that his hands smelled like dead fish) it didn't seem fun any more.

Then, come to find out, chimps used as actors are apparently mistreated. Now I can't even enjoy Lancelot Link.

I'm all for the exploitation of animals for my enjoyment, I just don't want to know about the dirty little secrets. For instance, I don't want to know that they beat and refuse to feed a whale because it won't jump through a hoop. By all means, beat the shit out of that fucker until he obeys your every command--just don't let the press (and indirectly, me) find out.

With news of the many circus mishaps, whale mistreatment, and chimp beatings I long for the days when the multi-billion dollar corporations cared enough about my entertainment to make sure that I never found out about this kind of stuff. Excessive awareness of human and animal suffering is going to be the death of entertainment.

Nothing to do with Project Management

2004-06-07T19:09:00.000-07:00

As most people know, Roy Horn, of Siegfried and Roy was attacked during a show--and not by Siegfried this time. Anyway, he recently made his first video appearance since the attack.

The thing that struck me as funny (because something always seems to strike me as funny) was that they were interviewing other celebrities about the appearance. Everyone was going on and on about how good he looked. Once jackass even said that he "thought the footage was from before the attack." Oh, come on! I feel bad for the guy but after the stroke and the reconstructive surgery, he looks more like one of those Spitting Image puppets than an actual human being.

It reminds me of when Christopher Reeve (someone else that looks like a marionette) was paralyzed (or perhaps just had his strings cut). He had that whole positive-think thing going on. He talked about all of the advances in medicine and how he was going to walk by such and such date. Well, denial sure as hell isn't the best medicine, because the last time I looked he was still blowing in a straw to get from A to B. (Check this out for some really bitter/funny stuff).

This of course just reminds me of all of the athletes that won't even consider the possibility of losing. Nope. Ain't gonna happen. That's great until you believe your own bullshit and it all comes down around you. It seems like there are a lot of weak minded people out there that can't realistically deal with the possibility of defeat or failure without it influencing their performance.

However, I must admit that I am fascinated by the very notion of using one part of your brain to fool another part of your brain into giving its absolute peak performance in an endeavor (such as drawing). The problem I have with the above examples, is that these people seem to be ignoring reality with such intensity that they are bound to be crushed and disappointed in the very near future. If it serves a positive purpose, fine, but don't fail to plan for a highly probable and disappointing outcome because you can't handle the pain or the failure. I'd much rather manage the risks to increase my chances of success than tell ~~developers~~ people they have no other option than to succeed.

(pretty sneaky how I "accidentally" left the word "developer" in there, eh?)

Why Can't We Be Friends

2004-05-28T06:18:00.000-07:00

I've been poking around on Orkut which is an invite only friend network site. Briefly, you get invited by some friend and then create an account with all of your profile information. You then start linking to your friends or join communities. It seems like another short-lived diversion unless they can come up with a use for all of this end user data entry (besides of course the marketing potential of having ~400k users tell you everything about themselves).

The thing I found most interesting is that you can search for people by name. When you find someone, click their profile, and Orkut will tell you how you are linked to them. I think there is probably a limit to the number of levels because, as someone at work pointed out, nearly everyone should be linked in some way since the system is by invitation only.

The system also has another shortcoming. There is currently no way to designate someone as an enemy. This seems like it would be a particularly useful feature (well as useful as any of this shit is). I could show that I "know" someone but that I don't particularly like the motherfucker. This would then put me in touch with other people that hate them. The whole "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" idea. You could then change the display that shows how you know someone to be color coded--blue for friend, red for enemy. It'd be interesting to see how you know a lot of people. I hate so and so who likes such and such who despises so and so, etc.

It would also have the pleasant side effect of curing some minor Orkut-induced delusions. There are a lot of people on there that I know are worthless pieces of shit with a relatively high number of friends. I'm sure in their own minds this makes them feel good on some level. It'd be a good dose of reality to see how many people hate their guts.

The other possibility is to let the user enter a range of how much they like someone--anywhere from friend to enemy and everything in between. But somehow, I don't think most people can handle that sort of honesty from their acquaintances.

That's Mr. Potato Head to You

2004-05-22T22:48:00.000-07:00

"Disney World" is more than just the four theme parks. There are a shitload of water parks, hotels, shops, and even clubs. One part of Disney property is called Downtown Disney. It's accessible even if you didn't purchase a park ticket. It has quite a few Disney related stores and a couple of restaurants. It also has a big toy store named Once Upon a Toy.

Well, ever since they partnered with Pixar on the movie Toy Story, Disney has been pimping out some fine Mr. Potato Head related products. Someone got the brilliant idea to put together some Disney specific potato accessories. You can buy some of these in pre-made kits at Walmart, but there are some accessories you can only get at WDW (Walt Disney World). They still sell them in pre-made kits "on property" but the cool thing is that Once Upon a Toy has a special display set up.

At this store, you can purchase (for $16) your potato body and all of the accessories you want, provided you can squeeze everything into this flimsy cardboard box they give you. The only rule is that everything has to be in the box, and the box has to close. Sounds like a challenge to me...

Night 1: Sent the wife on a recon mission to determine exactly how much stuff we can cram into the box. She returns, quite excited. She assures me this will be the greatest accomplishment in Mr. Potato Head history. I remain skeptical.

Night 2: The wife returns to the toy store with me in tow. She carefully shows me her findings. I am impressed. At this point we're huddled in a corner, ramming as many items as we can into our potatoes. Her packing strategy is brilliant. We marvel at our genius, but agree that we should sleep on the issue.

Night 3: This is it. Back to the store, straight to the potato display. This isn't a dry run, this is finally it. First, the ass flap is removed. It only gets in the way. Next, you pack the large items into the potato. Then, you fill the nooks with progressively smaller items until its jam packed. Then, put the potato in the box, and begin filling all of the empty space around the potato with items of decreasing size. Finally, you strategically rip the box to create a little additional room. This is good for another few ears, maybe an arm. At this point, a "cast member" discovers us.

CM: Can I help y...Oh. Those have to be able to close in order for you to buy them.
Wife: Oh...I'll make it close.
Me: We've researched it.

I think in the final moments of packing, right before store closing, we jammed an additional fifteen or so ears/tongues into the two boxes (they're the smallest available item). "What are you going to do with fifteen ears?", you ask. That's not the point. Don't hate the player, hate the game.

As we leave the store, we snicker at the poor bastards that think they're getting a deal by buying the kit or by managing to get a hat, two arms, and a moustache into their pathetic little boxes. We have succeeded in beating the system, plus (by using the ear holes for arm holes) I can make a great Goro version of Mr. Potato Head.

Potatoes	2
Arms	8
Moustache	5
Ears	12
Flowers	4
Normal eyes	3
Eyes w/eyelids	2
Eyes w/ light blue eyebrows	2
Eyes w/ purple eyelids & eyelashes	2
Eyes w/ purple eyelashes	2
Character autograph book	5
Mickey camera	2
Mickey ice cream bars	7
Mickey balloon	3
Red bulbous nose	3
Regular oval red nose	4
Yellow nose	3
Glasses	2
Mickey glasses	2
Toothed mouth	2
Yellow mouth	2
Teeth	4
Tongues	4
Earrings	6
Gasmasks	2
Bowties	3
White flowered hat	1
Toupee	2
Mickey Mouse hat	2
Sorcerer Mickey w/ears hat	2
Black tophat	1
Green cap	1
Orange sailor hat	1
Green hair flattop	1
Teacup bottom	2
WDW Sandals	2
Red Mrs. Shoes	1

Coke and a Smile

2004-05-21T18:13:00.000-07:00

A number of years ago America found itself in the middle of a stress ball craze. It was during the Great IT Boom and companies were handing out swag at every opportunity. A lot of these goodies were stress balls with the company logo on them.

Now, your average stress ball is made of hardcore industrial rubber and filled with rice or sand or some other semi-squishy. My wife and I were sitting around one night when it dawned on us--you could make your own stress ball really easily. What could be more fun?

We grabbed a few round balloons, a funnel, an empty two liter soda bottle, and some flour. We used the funnel to put the flour in the empty soda bottle. We then blew up the balloon and quickly attached it to the bottle. We inverted the bottle, thus filling the semi-inflated balloon with flour. We then detached and purged the air, tied it off, and (just for good measure) put it in another balloon.

Boy did those stress balls feel great. I'd say they were more fun to play with than any other stress ball I've ever had before or since. Part of the pleasure was probably the deep satisfaction we had in creating such a work of art. Well, I took one of these to work and used it to relieve my stress for a few days.

Then, one day, as I was squeezing my cares away, that motherfucker popped, sending flour everywhere. So, there I am, sitting in my cubicle (which suddenly looks like Keith Richards' hotel room), finally realizing that making stress balls is a craft that should not be attempted by amateurs like me.

Lip Synching

2004-05-15T19:33:00.000-07:00

A year or so ago one of my wife's friends was having a birthday. A group of us decided to take her out to an Italian restaurant she likes. At the restaurant they have a guy walking around singing various songs. He takes requests and I was going through a phase where I really liked hearing Ava Maria. I blame Charlotte Church for this.

Well, he heard it was the girl's birthday, so he had her stand on a chair in the middle of the restaurant as he sang Ava Maria to her. Embarrassing as that is, I bet there wasn't a dry pussy in the house. Anyway, as he's singing, I notice my wife's friend has a relatively short skirt on. It then dawns on me that, with a little artistic license in the pronunciation department, Ava Maria can easily become "Oh those labia." Unfortunately, the song has never been the same for me since.

I Can't Hold It

2004-05-15T19:11:00.000-07:00

So, I actually did have a drug screen this week. They send you into a bathroom to pee in a cup (fill it up to the line) and tell you not to flush. Presumably this is so you can't flush away evidence that it's not your urine in the cup. They also check the temperature for the same reason.

Well, I filled it to the line, dropped the rest of its friends off at the pool, and sat the cup down. I turned to wash my hands, only to discover there was no paper towel dispenser in there. I thought for a minute about washing my hands anyway, but then I had this image of me handing a dripping cup of urine back to the nurse. Finally, I decided that normal rules didn't apply here and that I would wash them in the other room. After all, how grossed out is the nurse going to be that I didn't wash my hands if she's holding a cup of my piss?

That Goddamn Chicken Coop

2004-05-15T19:01:00.000-07:00

My dad was telling me a story a few months back, about how laid back he is, and how things don't bother him like they used to. That's bullshit of course, but I'll deal with that during some other post. For now, we'll talk about the story.

Back when he was younger, his brother-in-law convinced my dad's brother to buy a boat building kit. It was a standard do-it-yourself kit with wooden boards and plywood--that's what boats were made out of in the old days, I guess. The idea was that the brother-in-law would put the boat together in exchange for occasional use of the boat. What a great idea! The problem was apparently that the brother-in-law was a tad on the lazy side. The kit sat there for a couple of years before he finally used the wood in the kit for other purposes, namely to repair his chicken coop. My dad's brother was pissed off to no end because of this. He stopped talking to the brother-in-law, refused to visit, and just generally didn't want to talk to or about him. Then, whenever my dad and his brother would drive by the brother-in-law's house, my dad's brother would exclaim, "Well, there's my boat. Nailed onto the front of that goddamn chicken coop!" He apparently did this for years, holding a grudge until the brother-in-law finally died.

Bitterness, anger, and holding grudges are family traits I guess. My brother told me a story that when he was a kid, my dad had a truck hood in the back yard. He was going to put it on some truck he was working on. Anyway, one night the hood was stolen. According to my brother (my dad vehemently denies this), a few days later my dad loaded up his portable welder and went driving around the neighborhood. He was going to let whoever stole his hood just have it. In fact, he was going to be nice enough to weld it to their truck body, so no one could ever steal it from them.

Super Mario on Guitar

2004-05-13T22:15:00.000-07:00

Although you could find this on the ebaumsworld link I posted previously, I'm willing to bet a bunch of people are too lazy to hunt through all of those hilarious videos. So I'm posting one that I particularly like. This guy rocks.

I could put links in here all day long, but I won't. Just one more: skydiving granny. You really do owe it to yourself to check out that site, though.

The Fiendish Plot of the Indian Contractor

2004-05-13T21:55:00.000-07:00

In my job as a programmer I'm working with a handful of contractors from India. I had the following IM conversation with one them:

me: it's a funky tiles thing
IndianContractor: gotcha
me: in my examples you'll see how it's done
IndianContractor: i think list etc too have em
IndianContractor: i will be eating ur head for couple of minutes...if u dont mind..
me: sure
IndianContractor: i am very hungry BTW... :)
me: lol
me: might want to change 'eating your head' to 'picking your brain'
IndianContractor: no...i will be gobbling down ur brain ;)
me: hehe

He was just kidding, you say? Maybe...

Drug Test

2004-05-13T21:24:00.000-07:00

I had a drug test today. I think I did pretty good.

Nurse: Ok. Go.
Me: That's pot, that's crack, that's cocaine, that's PVC, that's--
Nurse: Whoa, whoa! PVC?
Me: Damn. That's not right, is it?
Nurse: Not unless you plan on getting high off of sewage pipes.
Me: Fuck. I knew I should have just called it 'Angel Dust.'
Nurse: I'd have given you credit for that. I also would have accepted phencyclidine, dust, crystal, crystal joint, hog, CJ, KJ, peace, peace weed, super grass, super weed, rocket fuel, elephant tranquilizer, tranks, sheets, surfer, snorts, scuffle, Cadillac, cyclones, soma, mist, goon, TIC, or TAC.

It's Coming Right at Us

2004-05-13T21:09:00.000-07:00

Disney World has a few attractions (they don't call them rides there) that are basically 3-D movies. They're the standard, run of the mill wear your glasses movie with Disney stories and characters. They have Honey, I Shrunk the Audience, MuppetVision 3-D, It's Tough to be a Bug, and Mickey's PhilharMagic. They're usually pretty cheesy as attractions go and I'd be willing to bet they're much cheaper to produce than the normal roller coaster (and rarely kill people) or live show. Unfortunately, they have very little replay value. Once you've seen the obligatory finger pointing at your face (watch out!) or bugs flying above your head the show is pretty much played out. One thing that never gets old for me, though, is watching the select group of people that actually reach up to try and touch these 3-D images. Oh, that's right. There are a group of people (adults even) to which the concept of a 3-D movie is so foreign, they have to actually reach up to make sure the stunning, in-your-face action is not actually in their faces. It makes me just want to kick one of them in the back of the head. When they turn around ready to beat the shit out of me I can just say, "Oh man! That giant finger just flicked you on the back of the head! This movie rocks!" And if that doesn't work I can just tell them that my wife did it then run.

Come On! Taste It!

2004-05-13T21:02:00.000-07:00

I've never really fully understood the concept of saying that something is "an acquired taste." It seems to be the defense people use when something tastes like shit, but they like it for some reason. Does saying, "Oh, it's an acquired taste," mean that I can't grasp the intricate flavors involved? Nothing makes me want to give something a try more than having someone say, "Sure, it tastes like hot garbage now, but wait until you've had a couple of hundred." Is it reverse psychology to get me to like the same things they do and in some way validate their choices? Might not everything be an acquired taste? My dog would say that his asshole is an acquired taste. I have no desire to find out if he's right though. Am I missing out on entire worlds of rectal tastiness because of my close mindedness? If you don't find any of this funny, maybe it's because I'm an acquired taste.

Read This Book, Dumbass

2004-05-13T20:49:00.000-07:00

With all the success of the "...for Dummies" and "...for Complete Idiots" lines of books, I see an opportunity. What about people that are either not insulted enough by the title or are just much more stupid than these titles allow for? What about:

...for People with Traumatic Head Wounds
...for People that Can't Wipe Their Own Ass
...for You, You Fucking Moron
...for You, You Fucking Moron. Yes, You!!!
...for People Who Drool Too Much

I could go on forever, but it still wouldn't be funny.

Eat Me

2004-05-13T20:37:00.000-07:00

I was watching a show on cable the other night about the disease named Kuru, or Laughing Death. It's thought to be related to mad cow disease. The thing that struck me as funny was that the show mentioned that the doctors studying the disease had a breakthrough as to the manner in which the disease is transmitted. They were able to link the disease to the practice of cannibalism. This was hailed as a great breakthrough/discovery according to the show.

Now, I realize hindsight is 20/20 and that the disease has an abnormally long incubation period, but I would have to think that when you're faced with some mysterious illness it wouldn't be that difficult to start looking at unusual behavior or practices.

Doctor: Fascinating. So you're all dying from this degenerative disease. Have you been doing anything unusual?
Tribe Member: Well, I've been eating people a little...do you think that could be it?
Doctor: Nah.

Now that's Entertainment

2004-05-12T23:58:00.000-07:00

Plenty of good stuff at this site.

Stonehenge, Freeways, and Panties

2004-05-10T23:54:00.000-07:00

The other day I was driving by some new highway construction project and got to thinking. Modern man accomplishes some pretty awesome stuff. I realize we have the advantage of advanced construction machinery, we're standing on the shoulders of giants, etc etc. That being said, the Roman system of roads is pretty pathetic next to the interstate highway system. To me, the great pyramid loses something when compared to the skyscrapers that make up a cities skyline. And Stonehenge looks like a house of popsicle sticks next to a freeway interchange. Not a big deal? Well, go outside and look up at the moon--people have actually walked on it. It's a stunning thing to think about the sheer magnificence of man. Of course, we also came up with selling the used panties of underage girls in vending machines.

Pleased to Meat You

2004-05-10T21:50:00.000-07:00

A good number of years ago (we don't need to talk about how many) my brother, our friend, and I were sitting in a restaurant about to order our lunch. The waitress came over and asked if we were ready to order yet. "Are the burgers pretty good?" I asked. She scoffed/sneered and said, "I really wouldn't know. I'm a vegetarian." Well, obviously she wanted to have sex with me. But, I kept my cool, looked down at her feet and asked, "Aren't those leather shoes?" She said, "Yes," and walked off. My brother and our friend immediately started kicking me under the table, called me a dick, and pointed out that while it may have been a rude thing to say, the more important thing was she had not yet brought our food. That probably wasn't the last human spit I've ever eaten. I seem to be a natural at stirring shit up.

Well, years later, I have a good friend who is a vegetarian. One day, I'm riding in his car and I notice it's got leather seats. "What the fuck? Your car has leather seats," I say. "Yeah. I really like this model, and it only comes with leather," he replied.

I'm sure not all herbivores are such beautiful dichotomies as these and other vegetarians I have known in the past. The funny thing is, there are enough militant vegetarians out there that wear leather or use animal products and yet rabidly oppose the eating of meat. The idea that leather is more comfortable, is all that is available on certain models, or just plain looks fabulous seems to be justification enough. We all have our vices, weaknesses, or outright hypocrisies. Mine is that I firmly believe in defending the rights of all animals, unless of course they're roasted to tasty perfection. Then the carnivore in me kicks in, and I'm in for a long night of the "meat sweats."

Dog Day Afternoon

2004-05-10T21:13:00.000-07:00

My wife and I have two dogs--a miniature daschund and a tiny little chihuahua. Like most women, my wife is puppy crazy. She never misses an opportunity to go puppy shopping, either with a friend, or because she just "wants to look." That's how we wound up with the chihuahua. She was just looking and then had to have her. Not that it helps much, but every time she's about to go puppy shopping I emphasize that she CANNOT have another dog. In order for her to have another dog, one of the other two (or I) must go. Once she's attached to one of those puppies this becomes a real Sophie's choice (a boring movie?).

So of course when she recently made the rounds to the local puppy mills my defenses kicked in. She found another perfect dog, she claims. Luckily for me, she was able to convince her aunt (previously an owner of four dogs, now five) that SHE just had to have the puppy. My wife bought the dog, a female (insert bitch joke here), and kept her overnight until her aunt and uncle could drive 3 1/2 hours here to pick up their new purchase.

Here are some pictures for all of you dog lovers to enjoy:

And, yes, my wife puts clothes on dogs. But if you think that's bad, check out these two sample shots from the 2004 calendar. We both did the sets / costumes ourselves:

Tech Support

2004-05-09T12:09:00.000-07:00

For me, the sequence of computer hand-me-downs goes like this: I get a new computer, the wife gets my old computer, my parents get her old computer, and I get my parents' old computer back. Since I "do computers" for a living as some people put it, I'm one of the people they call when they need help with anything computer related. Most other non-technical people I know usually try and rope me in for some free tech support every now and then. It's usually pretty easy to avoid their snares. You just listen to their problem, scratch your head, and mumble/shrug/shake head, "Huh, computers." Unfortunately with my parents, I feel an obligation of sorts. I don't mind so much, but there are a couple of issues that always bother me.

The first is that they let other pseudo-technical people "help" them with their computer. My parents are completely non-technical. I think they still dodge out of the way when trains come at the movie screen. So, to a non-technical person these people seem to know what they're doing. When any of these pseudo-techs helps them out, inevitably they do things like make extra disk space by clearing out all those pesky files from the Windows directory or install the latest and greatest CPU hogging spyware for them. Then I get to bat cleanup for these shitwits. Know your limits.

The other problem is that they won't follow directions. You start to tell them something, they THINK they know what the right course of action is halfway through the instructions, so they just start randomly clicking things.

Exchange 1

Me: Ok. You see where it says "format harddrive"...
Parents: Yes!!! We see it!! I pressed it and hit "Ok". It says formatting. Thanks for all of your help.
Me: ...you want the button right below...What!?

The other endearing thing they do is fail miserably at helping me diagnose any problems over the phone. I'm not really sure why, but the computer has two states to them: working and not working. There's no in between. This means I usually have to either drive two hours to them or have them bring the computer to me to fix.

Parents: The computer doesn't work again.
Me: What does it do?
Parents: Nothing.
Me: Nothing at all?
Parents: Nope. It doesn't come on.
Me: Does it beep or anything?
Parents: Beep?
Me: You know...like the road runner on that magical box in your living room. Beep beep.
Parents: The magic box scares us. We don't use it any more.
Me: Ok. I'll drive two hours to fix your computer.

...Drive two hours...

Me: There's a non-bootable disk in your floppy drive. The computer actually does come on and it prints an error message to the screen.
Parents: There's a whosit in the whatsit?
Me: This little thingee was in that thingee. Very bad mojo. Make fire gods very angry!
Parents: Hey! It works now. Now I can get those racist jokes your cousin emails to me.
Me: What were my real parents like?

Ok. So I'm paraphrasing a little. However, the event itself actually happened. They also printed (in low quality mode) a picture my wife emailed them and then scanned it back into the computer so they could email it to someone else. Oddly, the scanned image didn't look so good. This became, "The scanner doesn't work." They then had one of the pseudo-techs buy them a digital camera. Of course the camera was such low resolution people looked like stick figures in its photos. Translation: "Our new camera doesn't work."

I'm sure there are plenty of people in this same situation. You work in the computer industry in some way, shape, or form so everyone hits you up for some free tech support. This bleeds away your precious time. Why can't we use offshore stuff for situations like this? Improve my quality of life. I'd be willing to pay some sort of programming industry tax or fee to get a toll free number I could give to my parents. Then they could call up and say, "The computer is broken again. By the way, my nephew emailed me this joke about a wacky Paki, a Chinaman, and a Mexican..."

Run Away!

2004-05-08T14:00:00.000-07:00

The other day my wife and I were at the store. On the same aisle as we were there was a mother and her toddler. Some toy that another kid had made a police siren sound and the mother of the toddler got an exaggerated playful alarmed look on her face. "Run, or the police are going to get you," she exclaimed. The toddler smiled and did his playful little run away from the police dance. Ah, yes. It's never too early to start training the next generation of criminals.

What Utter Crap

2004-05-07T23:21:00.000-07:00

I took this quiz and didn't do so well.

Heart of Stone

What is Your Heart REALLY Made of?
brought to you by Quizilla

Of course it is meant for women so the results might not be accurate. Some of the "right" answers were pretty much "Curl up with a chocolate dildo and eat my cares away." I think I am pretty much one of the most sensitive and caring guys you'll meet. Why, just the other day this group of women were gathered around some baby. The owner was basically showing it off. You know, the old, "look what I fit through my vagina" routine. Anyway, I can relate to that. I mean, if I was able to shit an eight or nine pound turd, I'd fucking build a display case for it. Heart of stone? I'm practically oozing with sensitivity.

The Next Big Thing

2004-05-07T21:27:00.000-07:00

That last post got me to thinking about what the point of something like that is. There's no effort, there's no creativity. It's just an easy blog for me. Sure it was fun, but like anonymous sex through a glory hole in the bathroom, it ultimately left me unsatisfied because it was too easy (and I think Matt backed up the toilet in there again). So I'll come up with my own that is equally pointless but requires more work. What could be better?

1. Write the dirtiest sounding phrase you can think of that is not actually dirty.
2. Make up a Chinese porn star name.
3. Name a phrase that sounds like Klingon but isn't.
4. Combine two buzz words to make the dumbest fake company name you can.
5. Post your answers in your journal along with these instructions.

I'll go first of course.

1. Shagging balls
2. My Wang Now
3. Cock block
4. Stability + Integrity = Stabigrity

Of course I don't expect anyone to do it, but you never know--it could be the next big thing.

Genius!

2004-05-07T21:17:00.000-07:00

From mr chippy:

1. Grab the nearest book.
2. Open the book to page 23.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the text of the sentence in your journal along with these instructions.

"Once you have learned how to cope with him, apply the same principles to other players with the same general style." -- The Psychology of Poker

New Furniture in the Office

2004-05-06T17:16:00.000-07:00

We got some new chairs in the lobby / waiting area of our office today. They look pretty cool and are pretty darn comfortable. They look like this. Oh yeah, nothing says 'rebel' like a tattoo. Unless of course it's a tattoo of furniture. Like a chair with an ottoman, or a weird rocking chair, or a this wild number. Born to be mild, baby!

Corny Idea

2004-05-05T21:04:00.000-07:00

All this writing about the homeless reminded me of another solution to the homeless problem I thought of a few years ago. I know a few people that live out in the country who have deer on and around their property. A few of these people have deer feeders set up. The motivation for this is either you like to have deer in the area so you can watch them and marvel at nature or you realize it's much easier to shoot deer while they're eating.

Well, one of the people I know was restocking their deer feeder one weekend and they commented on how cheap the deer feed is. It's like a nickel per ton or some bullshit. Anyway, it occurred to me that with this cheap food supply that could be left in these feeders for whole seasons, you could easily solve the hunger problem of the homeless. You just need to put up homeless feeders around the areas with more homeless people. You stock it with this dirt cheap deer corn and BAM! No more hungry homeless people. Now they're just homeless. Admittedly we still have a problem but now it's half as big as it used to be. Oh, I know some people will wind up thinking they can shoot the homeless because they're eating out of deer feeders. And certainly some people that have amassed their own personal work force of "will work for food" employees off of the cost of a bag of Jumbo Jacks will be pissed off. But it's a small price to pay to restore peoples' dignity.

Who's going to pay for this? Well, the way I see it, there are enough big drug companies bitching about the high cost of drug research. So, you slip a little Olean into the deer corn. Yeah you've got homeless people running around with the occasional bought of explosive diarrhea, but who really gets hurt?

Completely Bummed Out

2004-05-05T20:26:00.000-07:00

As always, let me assure you, I am sensitive to the plight of the homeless person. As a programmer, I realize that I could be joining their ranks any day now. While my parents assure me that every bum has a Rolls Royce parked just around the corner that they drive back to their mansion at the end of the day I like to think many of these people are genuinely needy and I'd like to help. With that in mind, now on to the show:

Today on her way to meet me for lunch, the wife sees a guy holding up a sign for one of those quick oil change places. In case you are unfamiliar, this is a form of advertising one sometimes sees. On the opposite corner, she tells me there's a homeless guy with his own sign which explains how he's down on his luck, etc, etc.

This gives me an idea of sorts. Why not combine these two concepts? If NASCAR drivers can sew patches on their uniforms advertising products, why not do the same with the homeless? This would supply the homeless with free clothes while giving businesses a cheap and easy way to get the word out about their products. At most, it's going to cost you a set of coveralls and any one or two items off of the value menu at a fast food place. I think the homeless would be willing. Most of the signs I read say they will work for food. This would just be standing around, hardly work at all. Also, it shouldn't interfere with their side business of begging for cash. It completely win/win.

Now admittedly, some advertising products/slogans would not be very effective. Seeing a homeless guy with a "This bum fueled by Taco Cabana" patch on his back will not make me run to the nearest TC for a burrito ultimo. Especially considering I imagine his breath smells like he just ate a bowl full of assholes covered in shit gravy. However, I think with some thought this could turn out to be bigger for marketing than that whole internet thing.

Leftovers

2004-05-05T17:43:00.000-07:00

Here's some leftover pictures from the last couple of Halloween's. These are pumpkins that my wife and I carved mostly based on patterns we found for free on the internet (when she wasn't surfing for porn). These are some of the early ones. Mostly straight pumpkin cutting. Cat and house were done by the wife, the other is mine.

Here are a couple of our sophomore efforts. Again, still typical pumpkin sawing scene/action. Yoda was done by the wife, the other two are me. The Indiana Jones look-a-like is on a fake pumpkin. Apparently we bought a real camera between these and the first group.

These are the first attempts at the cutting / shaving techniques. If I remember correctly, the Stitch is the very first attempt. It was done by my wife. I did the Batman.

Nemo and Snow White are the wife's, the other two are mine. The 626 Stitch was a pattern we made ourselves in photoshop from an image I found on the web.

Group shot!

My First Trip to Disney World

2004-05-03T18:31:00.000-07:00

The following is neither funny nor fascinating. I have no real point, and unfortunately no punch line. Feel free to skip it as it will not be on the final exam. I just like to ramble about baseless paranoia/fear and the long arm of the law.

My wife went through a phase where she really loved gorillas. I'm talking about the kind of gorilla loving you find in a Tijuana sex show or anything, just a fascination with them. To her, as with most anyone who has ACTUALLY watched them for hours on end, they're no different than people. She's been to all of the major nearby zoos with gorillas. She knows all of their names, who their parents are, whether or not they were born in captivity or caught in the wild (founder animal is the name given to wild caught by the way). She has copies of gorilla studbooks with anything and everything you would ever want to know about gorillas. She has gorilla T-shirts, plates, stuffed animals, figurines, coins, medallions, back scratchers, original oil paintings, the whole nine yards. Are you getting the idea?

The gorilla thing reached its zenith around 1998. She is also a pretty avid Disney fan. In recent years, the Disney thing has really started to take over. With the gorillas, the usual news you get is that someone had a kid or (more likely) that someone died. It got a little depressing for her to get so close only to hear about one of them dying from an abdominal abscess or getting shot after escaping. However, back to 1998.

Disney opened Animal Kingdom in 1998. It is also the year that we took our first trip to Disney World. Before that my wife had been with her family somewhere in the neighborhood of twelve times. I was quite convinced that Disney was the evil Empire and that the Epcot geodesic sphere (or big golf ball as mathematicians refer to it) was some version of a death star that was going to destroy Tampa. She assured me that I was wrong. Well, the cool thing about Animal Kingdom is that they have gorillas. They have two troupes of gorillas--a family group and a bachelor group. Both of these groups occupy two natural enclosures that are among the best in the world. Disney and gorillas? She's sold. We head off to Florida in a car with her parents for a glorious week (5 days) of hardcore Disney and gorilla action. Her parents and I get along like Lincoln and Booth so I think it's a particularly big gesture on my part. Anyhow, she goes into Animal Kingdom armed with a pertinent excerpt of her studbook. All of the names, lineage, birthdays, etc.

So there we are. Looking at gorillas. Every now and then a "cast member" (aka Stormtrooper) strolls by and pretends to be researching the gorillas. Disney World is very big on fake bullshit to make everyone have the same experience at the park. Most people stomp up and point or hoot exclaiming, "Monkey!!!" or remark on how they're so funny. This is great because they're not monkeys, they're apes. For one thing, monkeys have tails. The remark about how funny they are is usually an uncomfortable reaction to how human they are. Why, it's almost like they have feelings. I won't go into the whole 'soul' argument. After about a minute of soaking up the atmosphere the people move on only to be replaced by a fresh crop of budding zoologists.

Given the high turnover rate of "guests" as Disney likes to call them, my wife and I stick out like sore thumbs. That and her incessant snapping of pictures, leafing through her studbook, conversing with the keepers about the gorillas, and referring to the gorillas by name starts to make a few of the cast members pretty uncomfortable. Referring to them by name is a big no-no. They're pretending we're on a reserve in Africa and the gorillas don't have names in the wild. Never mind that Dian Fossey named all of the gorillas she was studying.

I buy the argument that having 1,500 people scream your name at you to get your attention all day isn't fun. But the argument they typically use is that it will interfere with their training or that it will distract them from being normal gorillas. Normal trained gorillas, I guess. The training refers to different behaviors like female gorillas presenting for artificial insemination, targeting for getting injections, having wounds cleaned or checked, etc. Most trainers have a good enough relationship with their gorillas that they don't need the name trick. Besides, you knowing my name isn't going to make me back my ass up so you can stick a turkey baster in my no-no hole. Another interesting point is that the names of the gorillas appears in a book published by Disney for sale at one of their gift shops in the same park--a fact we didn't discover until much later.

But that's not what got Disney security sniffing around. My wife knew their birthdays. That's right--their birthdays. After about an hour of our nefarious behavior, a few of the researchers begin circling and glancing at "the list", trying to get a better look. Eventually, security shows up and takes a peek.

Security: What are you doing with that list?
Wife: Um, it's a copy of the international studbook.
Security: And what are you doing with it?
Wife: I like to watch gorillas.
Security: I hear you have all of their birthdays in there?
Wife: Yes.
Security: And what exactly are you going to do with that information?
Wife: I'm not sure what I could do with it...it's from an international studbook. It's maintained by the SSP (species survival plan).
Security: (looks at the trail guide) Does that sound right?
Trail Guide: Maybe. What's she planning on doing with it?
Security: What are you planning on doing with it?
Wife: Um, I like gorillas?
...10 minutes more of this...
Security: (to trail guide) I don't think we can prove she's planning on anything. (to wife) Don't say their names out loud anymore and don't let anyone see that book.

Now that was an odd experience. This of course reinforced my notion that Disney is a group of rotten bastards that will doubtless smoke turds in hell for all eternity. I was mere inches away from getting Rodney King'ed by a band of Mickey's finest and having my lifeless corpse dumped at Universal Studios. It truly is the happiest place on earth.

A Database Joke and a Fraction Joke

2004-05-02T02:01:00.000-07:00

I know many of you are often hard pressed to come up with something when someone asks, "Heard any good database jokes lately?" Well, I'm here to help:

I used to work with a database administrator (DBA) from another country. English was not her first language and she had a little bit of trouble pronouncing the 'th' in words. Instead of three she would often say 'tree'. In the database world, when you perform a backup of all of the data, it is commonly referred to as a database dump. On a previous job, she was in the middle of performing a backup of the database when one of her co-workers asked, "How's that dump coming?" She responded, "It's about two turds done."

Gun Safety

2004-04-24T21:56:00.000-07:00

In recent years, I've realized, my parents have a lot of funny stories. One of the stories my dad told me was about when he was in the military. The MPs on guard duty used to put pencils into the gun barrels of their .45s and then dry fire the gun. This would cause the pencil to shoot out.

So, one night, the MPs are on duty and some nurses are coming back onto the base. One of the MPs sticks a pencil in his gun and asks, "Have you ever been shot in the ass with a .45?" After she says, "No", he then points the gun at her ass and pulls the trigger. The only problem is, apparently the gun is still loaded. I'm sure everyone had a good laugh about that one.

Next Time, Bring Your Sister Ya Hump

2004-04-22T23:26:00.000-07:00

Don't get me wrong, I love technology and the internet so much it makes my dick hard just thinking about it. I think everyone having a voice to openly discuss things without fear of (non-textual) reprisal is great. I look forward to the day when we all have locale chips implanted in our skulls and all signs in public places have resource bundle keys instead of hardcoded localized text. And I love bloggers and puppies and warm spring days and a portion of my fellow human beings that is rapidly approaching 15%.

That being said, I am amazed that, with the number of creative outlets available to people today, over half the blogs I've read (and the only one I've written) look like an excerpt from John Doe's diary:

On the subway today, a man came up to me to start a conversation. He made small talk, a lonely man talking about the weather and other things. I tried to be pleasant and accommodating, but my head hurt from his banality. I almost didn't notice it had happened, but I suddenly threw up all over him. He was not pleased, and I couldn't stop laughing.

I have more publishing power on my desk than entire societies in history. With the internet, I could potentially distribute my rantings to millions of people across the globe. Unfortunately, it's just too easy and too accessible and I'm just too enamored with shiny objects. So, the best I can manage is to put pussies on the backs of mice.

Name Statistics

2004-04-21T22:52:00.000-07:00

While poking around on other blogs, I found one that put up some stats from a name statistics site. A nice way to kill a couple of seconds when you're not too busy googlewhacking.

Hi-Yo Silver! Away!

2004-04-21T22:02:00.000-07:00

At a place I used to work, there was this guy that was a "programmer." I don't think he did any real programming. More of an expert user for some application that could be seen as programming by a non-technical person (no offense to any non-technical people, but at least I managed not to use my normal savage and the boomstick analogy). I used to sit within earshot of his cubicle. The thing that amazed me on a daily basis, was that he was constantly making personal calls on the company phone / company time. I have no idea how he never got fired, especially given the fact that we had gone through a couple of rounds of layoffs. What shocked me even more was the subject of most of his calls. I think he was running a business on the side selling the equivalent of snake oil. Something called colloidal silver.

Again, no offense to anyone who has had this stuff work. And also, no offense if you have been anally probed by aliens, married bigfoot, or still believe in Santa Claus. I'm sure the results are backed by tons of pseudo-scientific research. Anyway, to hear him talk about this stuff, it would cause cancer to go into remission, cure AIDS, grow hair (presumably in desirable places), and probably grow you a new kidney. Hemorrhoids? Silver suppository. Taking a trip to Haiti to have sex with HIV positive underaged prostitutes? Take a couple of bottles of colloidal silver to pour down their throats, shake gently, and start perpetratin' the penetratin'. Is it safe? Hell, your grandmother used to put silver dollars in buttermilk for the same reasons. And if you can't believe dear old granny, just ask this lady. I promise to have some more fart and pussy jokes soon.

And I Thought Bananas Were Bad...

2004-04-20T20:45:00.000-07:00

There's nothing like sucking on some delicious fruit on a hot summer day.

I really wish I could give proper credit, but I got this from my wife, who got it from some friends, who got it from...and, no, I don't know how big they get or where you can get them.

Dollah Bills, Y'all

2004-04-20T20:26:00.000-07:00

If you're an office worker like me, you probably have one of those retractable badge thingees. You may also have a dollar bill, some scotch tape, and a low threshold for amusement.

This gag will provide you seconds, if not minutes of pure joy and glee. Just tape a dollar bill to your badge. Make sure you hide that nipple thing.

Pull the cord all the way out and lock it into place between your thumb and index finger.

Next, find some unsuspecting, money grubbing programmer (shouldn't be too hard). Casually put that long green in place. Wait for the inevitable grab move and for their eyes to turn into currency symbols ($$). Then, open your thumb and forefinger, releasing the cord.

Old George never moved so fast. YOINK! Oh, man. Is there anything more amusing than that? Why yes, there is. Try stuffing that same dollar in a stripper's--er, exotic dancer's g-string.

On a Very Special Episode of ER

2004-04-18T03:35:00.000-07:00

I know a few people that work in emergency rooms. They always have great stories about the people coming in. One of the most recent stories shared with me was of a guy coming in with a broken whiskey bottle on his dick. Apparently, the guy had the brilliant idea of sticking his crank in the teeny tiny opening of an empty whiskey bottle. I guess the idea was pretty exciting, because soon, he was stuck. I'm sure he must have consumed all of that whiskey himself shortly before all of this, because his next idea was to simply break it off--the bottle that is. I imagine a few panicked minutes trying to get himself out of this...um...predicament before realizing two things: 1) cocks and broken glass don't mix and 2) it was time to bite the bullet and head to the emergency room. Is there anything more embarrassing than having to explain to a complete stranger the chain of events that leads to that moment?

Why yes, there is. The other story, which seems to have happened numerous times to different people, is of the guy and his girlfriend showing up to the emergency room. The guy has a vibrator stuck in his ass (which is still on). Apparently, in the midst of pleading cries of, "Deeper!! Deeper!!" someone just lost their grip. Again, I'm sure there were some ill-conceived ideas on how they could get themselves out of this situation before resigning themselves to a trip to the emergency room. Unfortunately for the guy, it is apparently not very easy to extricate a fully lubed, still running vibrator from the human anus. I have heard comparisons to salmon swimming upstream. So what is a poor EMT to do? Let's just say: "The speculum. It's not just for vaginas any more!"

As always, these stories give me plenty of ideas for new inventions. Besides the new improved larger throat liquor bottle, there's the idea of the T-bar dildo or vibrator. This would be a simple crossbar attached to the non-business end of the vibrator. In addition to providing an improved jackhammer-like gripping surface, the crossbar would also avoid any accidental (or intentional) loss of the device. Patent office, here I come!

House of Whacks

2004-04-18T02:11:00.000-07:00

There's a little adult video / magazine store close to where I used to work. I often wonder if there is a higher instance of traffic accidents near there due to all of the patrons' hands slipping off the steering wheel as they're turning out of the parking lot.

Motivational Tool

2004-04-16T23:00:00.000-07:00

Well, I find things like this mildly amusing, so I'll share it, even though it may not be side-splittingly funny. Although I haven't mentioned it yet, I am a programmer. Several years ago I was on a team that was under a high amount pressure to deliver some product (web interface for a flux capacitor or somesuch). A few of us used to joke around about it a lot to ease the tension...okay, to ease the tension and because we're a bunch of cut ups that don't take anything too seriously. Standard stuff I suppose, we've all been there. We'd joke about management, layoffs, getting pink slips with our checks, about firings continuing until morale improves, having blamestorming meetings, etc.

It was during one of these sessions that the phrase blamestorming reminded me of the fictional sword Stormbringer. It just seems natural that you could have an artifact named Blamestormer. This artifact would be responsible for handing out blame, of course. The natural physical manifestation for this artifact would be a big finger--so you can point it at your victims. But wait! Such power can't come without a drawback. Blamestormer has to be cursed in true D&D fashion. (As a side note, since I'm a programmer that played D&D as a kid you can probably deduce that I was tapping some serious ass when I was a teenager.) I guess if I were fully working up the background, I'd have it discovered sticking out of some manager's ass. It could only be pulled out by the true heir of blah blah blah.

Ok. To recap. We've got a name (Blamestormer), a prop idea (giant pointing finger), and a set of rules (the curse). That's our design, time to implement.

Rules of Blamestormer:

1) Once drawn, Blamestormer must assign blame--even if it is to the wielder.
2) With each use the wielder becomes more obsessed with assigning blame.
3) Dealing out blame makes the wielder appear taller.
4) Store in a cool, dark place when not in use.

After a quick trip to Michael's for some supplies, I give you:

BLAMESTORMER (v1.0)

A Vegan's Dilemma (Could be gross)

2004-04-16T00:16:00.000-07:00

First, don't get me wrong. I have nothing against vegans. I just think that if a person's reasons for being a vegan are strictly because they don't won't to torture poor little animals, then I may have an interesting dilemma for them. What if no animals were hurt in order for you to get your meat on? No, I'm not talking about anything weird like making vegan friendly refried beans by using liposuction waste instead of animal lard or even about grilling up amputated arms. That would be sick.

But what about placenta? "Placenta? Isn't that some Brazilian fruit that can only be picked by trained monkeys?", you ask. Now you're just being silly. Incidentally, before you label me the sick fucker that came up with this, you should take a peek here. While there are plenty of things you can do with it rather than just toss it out, why not cook up some vegan friendly lasagna or pizza? Or maybe just some good old fashioned placenta surprise. It's placenta--SURPRISE!!!

GO VEGAN!

Some People Really Can't Say "No"

2004-04-15T22:34:00.003-07:00

I'm in the Disney Store the other day (it's actually like a year ago, but since I'm horny for blog content, we'll make believe it was yesterday) and I go through the typical routine of trying to avoid the cast members. "Cast member" is the name for employee in Disney-ese. "Guest" is what they call customers by the way. Anyhoo...they do their typical routine of going into high-gear pimp-the-merchandise mode and start asking if 1) they can help me, 2) did I see the new kid's T-shirts, 3) did I know that you could eat ice cream out of the coffee cups, 4) the Hercules backpack will make my dick bigger and allow me to refinance my home--oh wait, I'm confusing that with some spam I got earlier. As I try hard to give off that "I'm anti-social, please leave me alone" vibe, I hear my wife having this conversation:

Wife: Did you ever get the Stitch cousins with badass skittering action back in stock?
CM: We've got the Stitch lunchbox.
Wife: So that's no?
CM: Did you see we have the movie on DVD?
Wife: Yeah, got it. So are you going to get the figures in anytime soon?
CM: Wouldn't these make a lovely gift?
Wife: Is that so? I guess the answer is no, but you can't say that?
CM: [smiles nervously like she's being watched and shakes her head, ever so slightly]

Then, two days later (which is tomorrow I think) we're in Pizza Hut getting our buffet ticket signed. This is where you eat there five times and get one free or somesuch. My wife hands the cashier OUR card (my wife handles the social interaction in case you haven't noticed) to be signed when we have this exchange:

Cashier: I'll just get you another card for him.
Me: ...
Wife: Can't you just put both on the single card?
Cashier: [Can't see you]
Wife: Because it all works out the same in the end, doesn't it?
Cashier: [Man, this is some hard fucking scribbling I've got on my hands]
Wife: Hello?
Casher: [whispers] I can't.

I can deduce from this, that somewhere, research departments have determined that 1) if I think that your employees are characters in a show and not really worker ants I'll be happier, 2) hounding me will improve my shopping experience and leave me with a positive image of the store, 3) I'm stupid and the word "no" will make me wet myself, and 4) your employees possess the Jedi mind trick and can make me forget all about Stitch's skittering action by hypnotizing me into believing I can look this good in that Peter Pan or Tinkerbell outfit.

My Million Dollar Idea (may be offensive)

2004-04-14T22:25:00.000-07:00

Some background first.

1) Scientist can grow a human ear on the back of a mouse,

2) We've finally mastered the concept of "self destructing" DVDs,

3) We can irradiate our food to increase its shelf life...

Now all we need to do is start growing human vaginas on the back of mice, zap them with radiation, and package them up in a convenient, ready to hump, blister pack.

I know what you're saying: "I'm not going to stick my dick in a room temperature vagina (ever again). And microwaves? Pardon my skepticism, but while an afternoon of having sex with molten lava may be fun occasionally, I don't think this will solve our long term vagina shortage."

That's where "boil-in-bag" and pop-up turkey thermometers come into play. Just flash boil that pre-packaged pouch of vaginal goodness until the little clitoris pops up, indicating the correct temperature, rip open that package, and let the good times roll.