I think it is...let's see, England is 5 hours off, right? That means it's also 19 hours off the other way. So if we ignore the spin of the earth, carry the 3, multiply by the average airspeed of an unladed swallow, divide by Ted Kennedy's liver...and we get... close enough to tomorrow for today to be April 1!*
Happy Birthday, Helen!
Your present is in the extended entry.
* Cold medication, after several days of heavy abuse, may cause loss of critical function and time disorientation.
[crickets chirping]
Yeah. Well, you see...um...
When the folks were down visiting I dug out a CD-ROM for them so they could install a perfectly legal copy of MS Office on their new computer. While searching for said CD-ROM I also came across my long lost CivIII and CivIII Play The World CDs*.
Sorry about that.
If you don't understand the connection between finding these CDs and the quietness of this blog ask Ilyka. She'll fill you in.
There will be one interview post per day as I interview the lucky five folks who responded the fastest in this post. Today's interviewee is Rob from XSet, the only man in the world who's spent considerable time in my templates and has tweaked my CSS:
1) What was your last brush with greatness?2) If you could have any superpower what would it be? How would you use it? How would you mis-use it?
3) What sport shouldn't be in the Olympics?
4) What was the last thing you were really looking forward to that ended up not being at all what you'd expected or hoped for?
5) What are the best and worst things about living on an island?
Rob, to continue the game you need to snag the rules from my original post and answer these at your place. I'll link to your post when you get it up.
UPDATE: Rob posted his answers!
My semi-whenever foray into some of the best stuff saved in the dark recesses of my newsreader.
Graphical Truth discloses the humorous side of a recent Intelligent Design / Creationism tussle.
You know what they say about free advice? Well ignore that while you check out generic's Helpful hints from somebody who's led a long life.
Paul has the wackiest adventures. Even furniture shopping takes on interesting twists when he's involved.
Kate (who's feeling much better though not completely better) recently had her second blogversary. In this post she explains how she learned to stop worrying and love her blog.
I always thought that PETA hated kids. Now I know they do. Joanne Jacobs hits an article showing that kids need meat to develop normally.
What kind of school ignores a specifically targetted murder threat by its students on another one of its students? Kimberly Swygert has the scoop.
The one who comes into the office with sickness oozing out of his pores. I didn't want to come in today. In fact I would happily (well, as happily as possible bearing in mind the sickness) have worked from home but I left all of my project notes at work. I did this on purpose so as to avoid the temptation of working over the weekend. I made a special effort not to work over the weekend because my dad and step-mom were visiting us for the weekend.
Incidentally, that's why there wasn't anything here on Friday. We were enjoying 80 degrees and sun as we traipsed all over Stone Mountain.
We had a great time with the visit. Bacon was attached to Papa's leg for close to 4 days straight. Bear taught him how to get pummeled in record time playing his favorite video game. Sunday's festivities included hunts for two baskets per child (I told them the Easter Bunny was overstocked so was liquidating some of his stock), egg decoration with Nana and Papa (I have no idea how they kept these three ruffians so clean during the dying phase), an egg hunt (Burger won hands down with 21 eggs), and dinner out at our favorite family restaurant the Golden Corral (when you have three kids, the buffet is your friend).
I've been battling the sickness all weekend. I think I'm past the contagious part but just in case I've taken steps to avoid infecting my coworkers. I have a spray bottle with bleach in it and any time somebody walks into my cube I squirt them. This works well not only to kill any germs they may have inadverdently picked up but also to discourage future visits.
(Snagged from Autumnal Fire)
Two instructors at Abraar Islamic school in Ottawa were suspended while the school investigates their part in inciting hatred and violence against Jews.
One teacher was apparently involved in the artistic production of the eight-page story of killing and martyrdom. Handwritten in Arabic and titled The Long Road, the cover page was illustrated by a drawing of a burning Star of David beside a machine-gun and Palestinian flag atop the Dome of the Rock, an ancient Muslim shrine in Jerusalem.The other teacher had written comments on the student's paper, praising the boy's story of revenge for the assassination by Israeli forces a year ago of Sheik Ahmed Yassin, a co-founder of Hamas, in retaliation for suicide bombings against Israeli civilians.
"God bless you, your efforts are good," the teacher wrote on the title page. "The story of the hero Ahmed and the hero Salah is still alive. The end will be soon when God unites us all in Jerusalem to pray there."
Holy jihadi, Batman! An actual Islamic institute doing internal investigation into terrorist incitement! I might have to turn off the Internet here so I don't ruin the moment.
UPDATE
Dammit, I knew I should have quit while I was ahead.
The students who have aired complaints claim that some professors in the department of Middle East and Asian Languages and Culture [at Columbian University] suppress opinion sympathetic of Israel and inappropriately substitute political activism for teaching.An assistant professor of modern Arab politics, Joseph Massad, is accused of threatening to expel a student from his classroom because she defended Israel's military actions. Mr. Massad denies the charge. Mr. Massad is undergoing his fifth-year review. According to a source, a committee within the Middle East studies department evaluating Mr. Massad has recommended that he continue teaching in the department.
Mr. Cole on Tuesday night cast Mr. Massad as an exemplary teacher who is under no obligation to give equal weight to student opinions expressed during class. Just as a Jewish history professor doesn't have to take seriously a student who denies the Holocaust, Mr. Massad is not required to give equal time to an argument denying the 1982 Shatila refugee camp massacre in Lebanon, he said.
Well, she was just 17, You know what I mean,
Earworms are nasty little buggers. Those snippets of songs that invade your conciousness and simply will not leave.
And the way she looked was way beyond compare.
I woke up with one today and no matter what I try it won't leave me alone.
So how could I dance with another (ooh)
That's not unusual though. There's really only one surefire method of getting rid of an earworm.
My company is a tad meeting heavy. I've been doing what I can to reduce the number of meetings and make them more productive. I myself have never had to schedule a meeting for my own needs. I'm a productive user of the phone, email and instant messaging and confident enough to do things under my own initiative without a group consensus. I also have more than ample time to acquire any group feedback in the many meetings I attend that are scheduled by other people.
I'm in meetings pretty much the entire day today and I'm taking the battle to the next level. Last night I had double helpings of homemade split pea soup washed down by three beers. Lunch today is more split pea soup ammo.
Cry havoc, and let slip the peas of war!*
* Rob gets credit for this deliciously creative aliteration.
My First Babysitting Experience was a sham. The anecdote you read was inspired by my actual first babysitting experience but was given the sit-com treatment. The second and third paragraphs are pretty much the straight truth; the rest is complete tall tale. When I saw him chewing on something I asked him what it was. He told me it was a Dorito and dug another one out of the couch for me to share. I fished some more chip bits out and tossed them all into the garbage. I had him drink a glass of milk just in case but there was no panic or worry on my part. He was a bit stubborn about drinking the milk so the line about "If you don't drink this you are going to die!" was verbatim truth. The death I was speaking about was me pummeling him for disobeying the babysitter though, not a fear of poison Doritos.
9 out of 16 of you got this one correct. One point each to:
Holly
Helen
DeAnna
Paul
diamond dave
Denise
Rob
Wendy
Jeff
Clancy maintains his perfect record of never getting a Shamming/Sharing point and unfortunately Boudicca remains totally bereft of points. Don't worry, Bou. The season is yet young.
It seems that I'm not the only person offended by the frequent flushing violations in our 2nd floor mens room. Yesterday somebody printed out and posted the following sign on the inside of the bathroom door:
Way back in 1953, the U.S. Department of Health (now the CDC) determined that flushing toilets and urinals in public restrooms reduced the spread of disease by more than 88%. Today's society has acrimoniously decreed that flushing should be an automatic function (hence the many infrared toilets today). This company has determined that the use of a paltry 1.5 gallons of water per flush is worth the investment to keep its workforce healthy. So, the question to you is...Why Don't You
Flush?It's disgusting, rude and unsanitary.
Go back and flush.(and then wash your hands.)
...will have an emptisensometer. When the pot is empty it will automatically turn off the coffee pot so a layer of baked coffee residue stronger than space shuttle tiles is not left in the bottom of the pot. When there is coffee left in the pot it will not start brewing, thereby preventing coffee brew overflow from cascading down the electrical appliance itself as well as the counter, cabinets and floor.
The advanced model will have a voice synthesizer for the latter case that will say something along the lines of "Hey, dumb-ass! Empty the damned pot first!"
No, I'm not getting into this one. Not the meat and potatoes part, anyway. I did want to address two things that happened recently that are getting a fair share of hoopla and generating lots of righteous indignation.
Congress passed a law for one person.
Yes, they did. They do it all of the time. This is part of the normal course of business for our lawmakers. Although I find the practice reprehensible it is neither unusual nor (as clarified by the Supremes) unconstitutional. It is normally done to grant boons or give away money. It has been used to allow immigrant families to stay in the USA. It is used regularly to bail out industries. Need to give a couple billion in tax dollars to the airline industry? Just write a law. Easy pleasy mac and cheesy.
What these personalized laws cannot be used for is to target and harm individuals. I think that this particular law will fail the test because no matter who is right in the Shiavo case this law is specifically targeting and interfering with them. I don't think this law will pass constitutional muster.
As Ilyka pointed out so very well, stop barking at Congress for doing their job.
I've just got to get this off my chest right now: One bit of idiocy that needs to die is the ranting and raving about what an abuse of government power it is that Congress got involved**. Let's at least be clear about why Congress got involved: It's because people have been bothering the living daylights out of them. It's called representative government.
Links and fancy formatting over at Ilyka's. Go read, I'll wait for you.
The federal judge in Tampa did not follow the law - he didn't order Shiavo's feeding tube replaced.
Apples and oranges. The law isn't about Terry's feeding tube, it's about the overall case being heard in federal court.
The judge would have been breaking the law if he had ordered the tube replaced, based on the information provided to him in court. At the least he would have been trampling all over proper jurisprudence. In order to find immediately for Shiavo's parents (the requirement to replace the tube) their lawyers had to show they had an expectation of winning the federal court case. They couldn't show that they even had a minuscule case according to law. No precedents, no arguments, nothing. They have been working on this for years, there are 30,000 pages of court documents already filed, they have ostensibly been preparing for this exact case and they still didn't have squat ready for this court. Their argument boiled down to "We didn't prepare anything but you need to decide in our favor because we're right".
Don't blame the judge for following the precepts of law, blame the Shindler family's crappy lawyers.
That's it for today. Maybe tomorrow I'll do the meat and potatoes post. Then again, maybe not - I enjoy having readers.
The Showcase is a place for new blogs to show off their stuff. This week's edition features posts from nine fine young blogs.
GBfan of Spotted Horse brings us More fun with PBS and our tax dollars. Amtrak, our government subsidized rail company is a financial disaster requiring huge annual influxes of tax dollars. They are also the proud sponsors of PBS's Thomas the Tank Engine.From Tom at Pooklekufr: The Kafir Constitutionalist we have A Brief Criticism of the Iraqi Interim Constitution.
Atlas (aka Pamela) of Atlas Shrugged submits Pamela's Weekend Recap: The Chicken Came First. Pamela answers the age old question of what came first, the blog or the blogger (and why).
Next up at A Weekend Warrior On A Rant!, the Commanded Citizen relates a wonderful little story about a bright young couple: A Young, American Bride Celebrates Her FREEDOM!
Chris Byrne of The AnarchAngel talks about his beliefs as to what the legitimate form and purpose of government are in The Politics of Liberty.
The Squib is celebrating: Coming soon to a protest near you -- Klingon pain sticks!
Ward Churchill and Gloria Steinem -- separated at birth! Sounds fantastical but Nick Weber of Libertarian Librarian makes the case.
Simon Cowell on poetry? Nope, it's Nicholas Liu of Better Living Through Buttermilk waxing the poets with Waffled through the turgid wood and blurbled as they came.
melinama of Pratie Place is a young blogger but she's got some wise advice in her post Mutuality. Unfortunately, Blogger's comment system is pooched at the moment so I couldn't put a link to Kevin Aylward's Standalone Trackback on her post. Try it out, melinama, I think you'll like it.
Next week's host is our own Mookie. Do you have a weblog that's three months young or less and want to be a part of it? Just send an email to showcase.carnival@gmail.com with the following info:
- The name of your blog
- The title of the post
- The url of the post
- Your name
Alternate entry (and doesn't that sound deliciously naughty?) may be made at the Multi-Carnival Entry Form.
Catch previous Showcases and volunteer to host new ones at the Showcase Home.
Q: How can you tell if your roommate is gay?
This is the last interview for the lucky five folks who responded the fastest in this post. Today's interviewee is Sims addict and certified MILF Margi (that's a hard "G", like in "Legs") Lowry:
1) What would you host a cable tv program about?2) What movies do you know by heart?
3) When did you realize that life really isn't fair and when did you realize that that's okay?
4) The Sims - enlightened escapism or crack for non-druggies?
5) When did you first realize that you were in love?
Margi, to continue the game you need to snag the rules from my original post and answer these at your place. I'll link to your post when you get it up.
UPDATE: Margi's answers are up!
Just got a friendly "TO: Everybody" email about mailing things from the office. Item 1 reminded us that the deadline to drop mail in the mail room is 4:00 PM, M-F. Item 2 reminded us that the post office picks up from the mailbox out back at 4:30 PM, M-F. The third item dealt with personal mail:
Metering your PERSONAL mail is a COURTESY and not a company requirement. As always, your payment should accompany your personal mail unless you’ve communicated otherwise. With that being said, please place your mail in the appropriate outgoing tray before 4PM. NOTE: If your personal mail happens to include renewal subscriptions to any pornographic magazines, materials, and suchlike, please make sure you take care of that on your own personal time!
I really want to know what inspired that note but the receptionist isn't talking.
Da rules: I post an anecdote that may or may not be true. You guess which it is, based on your knowledge of me and my curious ways. Whoever gets it right gets a point when the contest closes. Here we go:
My first babysitting experienceI was a young teen and had managed to fool my parents into believing I was a young, responsible man. Boy, did they find out different.
My first stint at babysitting my little brother (he's seven years younger) was to be a two hour stretch while the parents went out to a fancy dinner. While they dressed to the nines I amused Lil Bro and everybody was in good humor by the time they were ready to leave. I managed to completely hide my incredible nervousness at the responsibility being placed in my hands.
About five minutes after they drove off I went to the bathroom. I re-entered the family room to see the couch cushions on the floor and Lil Bro happily chewing on something. I immediately panicked. What was he eating? A bug? A razor blade? Coins? Anything at all could have been stuck underneath those cushions!
I jumped at him and tackled him to the cushions and started yelling at him to spit it out. I realize in hindsight that this was not the optimal method to get food out of a little kid in a calm and effective manner. He started bawling and choking on what was in his mouth. I dug in with my fingers in the patented Rescusi-Ann preliminary lifesaving routine. I'd had CPR training with the Boy Scouts only a short while before so the half remembered techniques were dangerously effective. The mouth clear worked and I didn't even lose a finger.
The rules (now modified from the generic meme version because with issue #4 it becomes mine):
- In the extended entry are quotes from 13 movies. Your job is to identify the movie that each quote came from.
- Guess as many times as you want, just don't get silly about it.
- First person to correctly guess each entry gets a point. If there are any left after 24 hours they are worth 2 points.
- As people guess the films I will strike out those entries and note who got it first.
- NO cheating!!! That means NO: Google, IMDb, searching my archives etc.!
Well today was definitely interesting. I arrived at work to a message from my boss asking if I could join a meeting. He's remote and was having connectivity problems and there was too much visual going on for him to follow well over the phone. When I got into the meeting he dropped out.
So I was in a meeting with the execs from a new division of the company. The division is new because we just acquired their company. A morning and most of the early afternoon was spent helping them define their business objectives and doing business analysis and requirements for their web portal and consumer online presence.
Weird activities for a quality assurance specialist, eh?
Got a call from my boss during the meeting, asking me to call him back when I had a few minutes. Don't you hate messages like that? Ones that give you no clue why you're calling? I sure do.
So I called him and he explained that the very large project I am consulting on now was being reorganized. He was taking over management of the project himself. Problem being, he can't be on-site here to actually manage the project. So, could I help out by doing the business analysis and business requirements locally?
There's those words again. Business Analysis. Business Requirements. Not QA stuff. Program analysis and standards are QA things. But I love doing this stuff so I said of course I'd be happy to help. That's when he popped the question.
Would I consider leaving QA for a Project Management position? He wants me on the business side of the business, said I excelled there. Yes, QA is very important but he has a critical shortage on the BA side of his house. He reassured me that it wasn't a do or die thing. I was hired for QA, I am doing a fantastic job here, this job is secure if I want to stay in it. But, would I like to step to the next level under the executorium?
I said "Hell, yeah. What took you so long to offer it? I've been here waiting for five freaking months already! Hello?"
Well, maybe it was more along the lines of a gracious acceptance. The position switch will come about in the near future after we wrap me out of some QA projects.
Say hello to Jim Peacock, Project Manager elect.
I need a motto for the Nationalist Party of America. This is the political party I started up back in December to make a home for all of us who are either too right for the Dems, too left for the Reps, plain sick of partisan politics or think government needs to get its nose out of our personal areas.
It sort of fizzled out due to lack of participation and a very busy Jim but Michele's cry for help and a well timed comment by Ilyka have revived my fighting spirit. As everybody knows, the key to success in politics is to have a catchy slogan so that's my next order of business.
Here are a couple I thought of:
"Yes Virginia, there is a viable third party."
"Don't settle for the lesser of two evils, pick the least of three."
But they sort of don't really ring out too well. So I'm throwing open the floor to y'all. Come up with party slogans. There will be two categories: serious and seriously funny. Points will be awarded to the top three in each category.
I went out for a smoke break just a bit ago and realized I had left my lighter in the van. I retrieved said lighter and mid-way through my smoke I realized something. This was my second smoke break. I had already had a cigarette. Without a lighter.
There's only one logical explanation - I have superpowers. I unconsciously lit the first cigarette using my mental energies.
I'm currently trying to direct my newfound powers against Boman in the hopes that heat really does sterilize.
There will be one interview post per day as I interview the lucky five folks who responded the fastest in this post. Today's interviewee is my favorite ex-pat in Israel, Rachel Ann from Willowgreen:
1) What tasks would you most like to have an army of trained monkeys (not "The Monkey") do for you?2) What's the most bizarre thing to happen to you lately?
3) If you had one moment to do over, to either change the outcome or savor the moment again, which moment would it be?
4) What does Israel need to do to ensure its prosperity and security?
5) What's your idea of a romantic evening?
Rachel Ann, to continue the game you need to snag the rules from my original post and answer these at your place. I'll link to your post when you get it up.
Update: Rachel Ann has posted her answers.
The gross guy. The one who doesn't understand the social niceties of cleanliness. The guy with the black mouse that started as a white one and a keyboard that makes crunchy sounds when it's used due to the many cracker and chip bits lodged between the keys. The one with stained clothes featuring crusty cuffs from nose wipes and a greasy patch on each thigh from using pants as a napkin substitute.
At my last job this guy was infamous for his unsanitary habits. His cubicle smelled vaguely like a three week old roadkilled opossum dipped in urine. He eventually left us for a fantastic work from home opportunity. We celebrated for a week.
At this job he is known primarily for his personal odors. He has sparkling white teeth that starkly contrast with the brimstone and cabbage that he exhales. How can somebody who obviously brushes regularly have such a mouth odor problem? My theory is that he has no dental hygiene, rotted his teeth out and wears dentures.
He is also possessed of an unearthly stench about his person. It's an odor that says he fell in love with the Shower-to-Shower concept and has accepted talcum powder as his personal savior. He is a master at the Silent But Deadly. I've never heard him cut one loose but he is followed by the permanent aroma of juicy anal exhalation.
I have named him Boman* and he is my personal nemesis.
So, what's your guy like?
* B.O. Man
There will be one interview post per day as I interview the lucky five folks who responded the fastest in this post. Today's interviewee is my very own blogdaughter Tiffani from Breakfast With Tiffani:
1) Who's your daddy?2) What cartoon would you go live in for a week?
3) If you could create a new tradition, what would it be and why?
4) What do you do with your spare change?
5) What sense has the greatest sensual effect on you? We want details here.
Tiffani, to continue the game you need to snag the rules from my original post and answer these at your place. I'll link to your post when you get it up.
UDPATE: Tiffani has posted her answers. Warning - 18 and over only. Wakka wakka.
The caption contest is complete!
Grand Prize: 5 points
Bingo's twelve-step program wasn't going as well as he'd hoped.
LeeAnn
First runner up: 3 points (selected by Condi Rice's dominatrix boots)
You know, I bet this would be easier with a spoon...and thumbs...
Victor
Second runner up: 2 points (selected by an imaginary number)
Hello Ambition, my name is Lack of Forethought.
shank
Third runner up: 1 point (selected by the ginormous zit on my co-worker's forehead that sucks my eyes toward it like a suppurating black hole)
CANNED DOG MEAT WARNING: Do not shake before opening.
8ZERO8
Anybody out there care to design a site? My friend Amy from work is about to start a weblog. She knows basic html but little CSS and no MT and could definitely use some help from the magnificent talent that runs around here.
Rob is my go-to guy because of his mad design skillz but I've got him tied up pretty well already with a redesign for Zero Intelligence.*
She's looking for a simple, attractive design. Here's the skinny on the site focus (from the post linked above):
Her site will serve as a resource collection for abused kids and parents who need help. The blog posts will be news items and editorial/Op-ed pieces related to the same topic. Overall, very similar to Zero Intelligence so take a look over there to see what she's aiming for.
So who's volunteering?
* Then again, Amy wouldn't mind waiting a little bit if necessary. So Rob, if you want to queue her up feel free to jump on this fantastic offer too! No, wait. It's not a fantastic offer. It's more work. Let me rephrase that:
So Rob, if you want to prove beyond a doubt how masochistic you are, feel free to jump right on this and queue her up!
Yeah, that's a bit more realistic. ;-)
I'm hosting the New Blog Showcase the week of March 21. If you've got a blog that's three months old or younger, send me a link to your best post. It will appear in the Showcase where it will be seen by millions of people who will then fall in love with your writing and launch you to fame and glory.
Here's the info you should send:
- The name of your blog
- The title of the post
- The url of the post
- Your name
A brief description of the post or a narrative blurb is also a good idea. It makes my job easier and anything that makes my job easier is a good idea.
Another good idea is to use a subject like "New Blog Showcase submission" on the email so it's easier to separate from the mountains of spam.
Send your submission to showcase.carnival@gmail.com by Sunday, 7PM EST to be included in next week's edition of the showcase.
You can also use the handy dandy Carnival Submit Form in lieu of email. We're listed as the "Showcase Carnival" there.
You can find links to previous carnivals here.
Today marks the anniversary of one of the happiest days of my life.
It's March 15th and that means The Grande 2004 Peacock Invitational has come to a close. So, how did we do?
Of the five of us, two made it. Tiffany's breasts did not get bigger as planned but except for this small setback she made it through a smoke free year without a problem. Tig made it too and keeps his last unsmoken ciggarette as a war trophy.
I lost it sometime during my pain filled unemployment days. Ironic, eh? Lose a job and pick back up an expensive bad habit. Jeremy didn't make it either. Busy stress life brought this valiant warrior low. And what of Joey? He got busy with school and work and disappeared many moons ago. It's possible that he survived but signs point to no. If he ever resurfaces we'll ask him and collect cash if what we suspect is true.
So over the course of a year we had a 40% success rate. That's hella better than any professional system out there. Think I should pattent this?
There will be one interview post per day as I interview the lucky five folks who responded the fastest to this post. Today's interviewee is the lovely and talented Holly from RavenRose Yawns:
1) What was it about blogging that first attracted you to the milieu? What kept you?
2) What words do people commonly misuse that drive you crazy?
3) What is the best and most uplifting story you've read recently?
4) If you had two weeks of free time with no responsibilities and no cash-flow issues, what would you do?
5) What event would you have most liked to have witnessed first hand?
Holly, you can answer these here or at your place. If you do it over there make sure to send me a trackback or comment so I'll know where to find it.
Update: Holly has posted her answers. You go now!
Over the weekend I received an email from a phisher trying to get my eBay log-in information. I'm not exactly sure why my eBay log-in information would be of any value to anybody. It's a buy-as-you-go type of place so it's not like they would have gotten any of my money or anything.
But it really pissed me off. It pissed me off enough that I went through the email headers to find the originator domain and sent this email to their abuse address:
One of your customers is a motherfucking, cock sucking, phishing bastard. I sincerely hope he dies with his severed cock shoved up his ass as he gags on his own vomit.Just thought you'd like to know. Headers below, followed by the phishing email:
[headers]
[original email]
You can tell I was really angry because I never say "gag" unless I'm seriously burnt.
Unbelievably, I got an actual answer back, from an actual email address, from what (if I close my eyes and click my heels together three times) could be confused with an actual person!
Hello,We are currently investigating who sent that message.
Kind regards,
Vlad Georgiev
Technical Support
Sure, it's an auto-response and yeah, it's probably from the same group that is doing the phishing. Still, through an alcohol induced haze it appeared like I was making a difference, and isn't that really what it's all about?
Appearances, yeah.
Yet another reason why I do so seriously kick ass. When the zombie invasion comes I'll be a survivor.
Flock to me children, I will lead you to salvation. Or at least a relatively brain-free diet.
Official Survivor!
You scored 65%!Whether through ferocity or quickness, you made it out. You made the right choice most of the time, but you probably screwed up somewhere. Nobody's perfect, at least you're alive.
My test tracked 1 variable How you compared to other people your age and gender:
You scored higher than 90% on survivalpoints.
(Hat tip to A Small Victory)
Rob wants to know what five things in your office you must have in order to function.
Take a look at your desk or workspace. If you’re anything like me then it’s a carefully crafted piece of chaos theory in action.Everything on there is useful or has purpose but of all the clutter (apologies if you’re one of these uber tidy people for whom a desk is a sacred, set square perfect place) which 5 things can’t you live without?
Hmmm...
My laptop is definitely number one. Without it I can do nothing constructive and instead must fill my time with useless fillers such as coffee breaks, trips to the bathroom and meetings.
Number two is a combo of the red pen of doom and the highlighter of death. These weapons are used to disembowel substandard documentation that is given to me as sacrifice. I return the carcasses to the petitioners for disposal and occasionally grant them my blessing.
My phone is annoyingly required and comes in at number three. Not for regular phone calls - I never make those and receive a stunningly low amount of them (thanks to IM and email) - but for the increasingly frequent online meetings that I dial into.
My fourth required item is my Blue Power Ranger action figure. It was given to me by Bear and it guards my cube 24x7.
My fifth is pretty much the same as Rob's. I have a business card pinned to the wall next to my monitor because I am apparently incapable of remembering where I work or what my phone number is.
Yesterday's stank source has been identified. I was more correct with the stink bomb theory, except the perpetrators were our IT guys.
We have a large server farm located downtown (production) and a smaller farm locally (development). The server room is protected by an advanced fire retardant system. If fire is detected it floods the room with a gas that eliminates all oxygen therefor extinguishing the fire. The gas is harmless to electrical components and is odorless.
Odorless, that is, until a chemical is added to it to produce a strong odor. This is done to give an olfactory notification that the system was used and the room is compromised and possibly dangerous until completely ventilated. A very good idea.
Unfortunately the chemical used produces a smell like burning sulfur or Zeus's own gaseous expulsion. Why in the world would they choose such an obnoxious odor for the telltale? What's wrong with cinnamon or vanilla? Maybe a fresh pine scent would give just as much notice that something happened and yet allow everybody within the building work without constantly fighting their gag reflex. Hell, I'd settle for new car smell.
Personally I think it has something to do with the fact that the corporate IT guys work downtown. I bet their system smells like roses when it goes off.
Da rules:
- Leave me a comment saying "interview me". The first five commenters will be the participants.
- I will respond by asking you five questions.
- You will update your blog/site with the answers to the questions.
- You will include this explanation and an offer to interview someone else in the same post.
- When others comment asking to be interviewed, you will ask them five questions. (Write your own questions or borrow some.)
My questions come from Nick Queen of Patriot Paradox fame.
How would you describe yourself, and how would this differ from your wife's description of you?
Mild mannered, geekish, a bit anal retentive and possessed of an excellent sense of humor. Lovely Wife would probably agree with that but might stress the anal retentive aspect a bit. She'd also mention my "magic fingers".
What is your favorite joke?
Congress.
What is the worst job you've ever held?
I was stock boy at the bookstore of the University of Buffalo for the better part of a year. Combine tediousness, lack of pay, zero benefits and stultifying boredom interrupted with periods of unrelenting stress. I got a parking ticket once for parking at work during book rush one semester. During this period of incredibly heavy business, students can only park in the bookstore parking lot for one hour at a time. I was there all day and had a student parking tag so they gave me a ticket. I complained, saying I worked there and had been at work the entire time. Employees who were not students parked at work with no problem. The response was basically "Eat the ticket and don't park at work during book rush if you're a student".
Do you believe in anything paranormal (ufo's, Bigfoot)?
I believe in two things: Occam's Razor and the infinite ability of people to invent things. Sure, there have been unidentified flying objects but aliens are way down on the razor's list of explanations. I can't imagine a race that is scientifically advanced enough to cross the infinite vastness of space would do so in order to feed their hillbilly butthole fetish. Bigfoot? It's certainly possible that there's a big monkey out there that hasn't been tagged and bagged yet. New species are being discovered all the time. Far more likely is a mixture of misunderstanding, imagination and hoax. I guess you could safely label me as a skeptic.
What is the most embarrassing moment in your life thus far?
Going to a beach party in San Diego and waking up naked on a beach in Los Angeles. Not only was I never able to definitively discover what had happened at the party but the adventure of getting back to San Diego threatened to leave my face in a permanent reddened state.
Leaving work the other day I ran into Luka, of ER fame.
Okay, so he wasn't really Goran Visnjic, he's a programmer from a group I don't usually deal with. But he could be Goran's long lost twin.
He's from Athens (Georgia, not Greece) and has one of the most phenomenal southern drawls I've ever encountered. It was seriously weird looking at this guy who looks just like Luka and hearing Boss Hogg.
When I told Lovely Wife she responded with "He looks like Luka? When do I get to meet him?". Something tells me this guy is swimming in women.
As long as he keeps his mouth shut, anyway.
Interesting... Spellcheck had a problem with "Luka" but "Goran Visnjic" sailed right through. Who's making the dictionaries for these things?
Got on the elevator this morning and was immediately assaulted. Somebody had fouled the beast.
Got off of the elevator and was met with a stronger version of the same odor. Apparently somebody had done a preliminary attack in the elevator and then launched the atomic blast in the atrium.
Walked to my cube and found no lessening of the odoriferous monstrosity. The terrorist must be somebody in my department.
Went to the break room for coffee. Stank present. Now I began to worry.
In amazement I made a full tour of the floor. The smell of anal exhalation was everywhere.
Either we've been stink bombed or somebody's guts have turned feral.
Congress is investigating the Major League Baseball steroid abuse scandal. Say what?
Just what the hell gives Congress the power to investigate a private enterprise in this manner? Does steroids in baseball compromise national security? Is a drug free baseball league some sort of little known right of the American people?
Lemme check...
Nope. Nothing at all in the Constitution says that Congress is the regulatory body for private sports organizations. Understandably, the League has an opinion similar to my own.
Stanley Brand, a lawyer for the baseball commissioner's office, said the committee had no jurisdiction, was trying to violate baseball's first amendment privacy rights, and was attempting to "satisfy their prurient interest into who may and may not have engaged in this activity."
This isn't just any Congressional panel either. It's the "Government Reform Committee". What is the purpose of the Government Reform Committee? According to their website, they don't have one. There is no overall guiding focus noted for this committee anywhere in their literature. Isn't that wonderful?
The subcommittees are a bit more forthcoming. The subcommittee for Criminal Justice, Drug Policy and Human Resources has this little "About us" blurb:
The Subcommittee is responsible for authorizing legislation for the Office of National Drug Control Policy and its programs as well as general oversight for all U.S. government drug control efforts (including international and interdiction programs, law enforcement, and prevention and treatment initiatives). It also has oversight jurisdiction for several cabinet departments, including the Department of Justice, certain activities of the Department of Health and Human Services, the Department of Education, the Department of Commerce, and other agencies including the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives and the federal court system. In addition to its ongoing work on drug policy matters, the Subcommittee has most recently completed an intensive review of U.S. border agencies and policies and the impact of enhanced homeland security requirements on federal law enforcement.
So it sets and authorizes legislation on drugs and has oversight power over a bunch of government departments. This would seem to give them the power to subpoena and question people in those departments. Where in this mass of gobbledygook do they invent an authorization to directly investigate a private enterprise? According to the Committee this sweeping power comes from "House Rules":
Reacting to Brand's comments, committee spokesman David Marin said: "Mr. Brand has his facts wrong. He failed to recognize that House rules give this committee the authority to investigate any matter at any time, and we are authorized to request or compel testimony and document production related to any investigation. It's a shame that Major League Baseball has resorted to hiding behind 'legalese' -- and inaccurate 'legalese' at that."
Hiding behind 'legalese'? How about improper use of unregulated and illegally appropriated power?
These people make me ill. I sincerely hope we see Major League Baseball v. Associated Congressional Fucktards in the courts soon.
It started innocuously enough. On an ostensibly cooperative "humanitarian" mission to the tsunami ravaged Far East, the senior George Bush connived to get ex-President Bill Clinton, a post-operative heart surgery patient, to sleep on the cold, hard floor.
The next morning, Bush said he peeked in and saw Clinton sound asleep on the plane's floor. [The article does not mention how Bill then slept through Bush's cackling, maniacal laughter. - ed]
Now we learn that Clinton must undergo another round of surgery to attempt to repair damage to his lungs.
Former President Clinton will undergo a medical procedure this week to remove an unusual buildup of fluid and scar tissue from his chest, six months after he underwent quadruple bypass surgery [And just a few weeks after being forced to sleep on the cold, hard floor. - ed], his office said Tuesday.
You don't have to take your tin foil hat off to connect the dots here, people. You can almost taste the taint of Karl Rove on this plot. This is obviously an attempt by the Bush Monarchy to head off the Hillary Clinton presidential run in 2008. If they succeed in killing off Mr.Clinton they will send poor Hillary into a trough of despair from which her broken heart will never recover. Even if they have a near miss and only turn Bill into a bed-ridden differently-abled individual they know that Hillary will immediately resign her Senate seat and forgo all political ambitions to nurse him and be constantly by his side.
Now the truth is revealed. Who has the guts to brave the stormtroopers of Halliburton to do something about it? The first step is obvious. Everybody needs to link to this post and spread news of the plot. Eventually, if we all do our part, somebody at Reuters who isn't compromised by the jackbooted government thugs will pick it up and spread the truth to the world.
Only the truth, shouted loud and proud, can save Hillary and Bill from this diabolical threat. And as we all know, only Hillary can end the neocon threat, restore us to a life of liberty, and deliver the holy grail of free medical.
I think I'm addicted to this meme. For those of you who missed the first two versions, here's the rules:
- Pick 13 movies that you enjoy.
- Pick a line of dialog that you like.
- As people guess the film, strike out that entry.
- NO cheating!!! That means NO: Google, IMDb, searching my archives etc.!
- First person to correctly guess each entry gets a point. If there are any left after 24 hours they are worth 2 points.
Quotey bits are in the extended entry. Game on!
Write a caption for the picture. Win fabulous prizes!*
The contest will be open until some time next week.
* Best caption gets 5 points with another handful thrown around to the rest of the best.
Lovely Wife is a huge U2 fan. She even likes the crap that came out after The Joshua Tree. Now THAT'S dedication.
Anyway, they're currently touring and there's a decent chance they'll be coming through Atlanta. They're continual teasing about it anyway. Lovely Wife went online to find out how much U2 tickets are running at their other venues on the tour.
Here's a serious question for y'all. What flavor of stupid do you need to be to pay $4,800+ for a ticket to see a band? Any band. Led Zeppelin reunited - not worth it. The Beatles in their prime - not worth it. Lynrd Skynrd's Back From The Dead Tour - with an intermission show where they "Go Southern" on the Dixie Chicks - not worth it. Well, maybe. Depending on what I meant by "Go Southern".
The point is that if I'm paying $4,800 to see U2 the concert better end with Bono giving me a blowjob while The Edge juggles my jewels. Whoever else is in the band can serve drinks and pastries and provide towels as needed.
I'm just saying.
The tombstone contest is complete. There were four entries and four finishers so everybody wins! Putting them in 'best' order was hard enough with just four. There's just something about grave markers that makes me smile. Must be my rampant morbidity.
Anywho, on to the results:
First place, with a prize of 5 points, goes to Jen. The beautifully morbid self reference put me in mind of the classic stones at Tombstone. She really stole the show with this one:
(Click for big size)
Second place, with a 3 point prize goes to Frick. Frick went rebel with this one, profaning the ease of the tombstone generator to photoshop a message for the cockroaches of the internet:
(Click for big size)
Third place, for 2 points, is VW with a line from my favorite Monty Python skit:
(Click for big size)
Fourth place, for an additional point, is Frick again. This one came in last because it has far too great a chance of actually happening in the real world:
(Click for big size)
Congrats, y'all! The point board will be updated around lunchtime.
I've written a short essay on the fundamental problem in our current public school systems. You can find it at Zero Intelligence.
RP's post here is what sparked it and his post is a good read as well.
The first issue of the Vacant Funhouse, an online webzine featuring short stories and poetry of a horrific and macabre nature, is up. Issue #1 features the short story Hunting Todd by everybody's favorite blogger with an alarm clock themed weblog title.
Spread the word. Do links and things to the Funhouse. Make them ubersuccessful so they'll buy lots more of my stories and make me rich so I can retire to a tropic isle and blog full time.
1. The Author grants permission to include his/her story entitled ___”Hunting Todd_," a work of approximately _2726____words, hereinafter referred to as the Work, in THE VACANT FUNHOUSE...
What's that about? Well, I've just sold my first story! The Vacant Funhouse is "A Webzine of horror, mystery, suspense and crime short fiction and poetry." More importantly, they've recognized my genius and purchased one of my light horror short stories for their debut issue.
Said issue will be up later today at which point I will link it prominently. Y'all should do likewise so they become amazingly successful and continue to buy my short stories.
Had a busy day yesterday burning stuff and the shots knocked me for a loop. Slept bad, got up late, walked around like a zombie, farted a lot, pooped 3 times.
In other words, I didn't do any blogging this morning.
But fear not, there is something for everyone over at The Bestofme Symphony.
There's still a point contest open too. Last chance to submit your gravestone humor. Winner gets selected later today.
Dopple-G mentioned how much he enjoys a certain type of my stories. Ones like this, or this, or maybe even this. I always aim to please, so...
The other night we had finished with the washing up and sent the boys to put their pajamas on. Burger sometimes has a difficult time with his. He can put on a two-piece with no problem but the one-piece jammies with the footies are a pain. On this occasion he had the footie jammies and he called me in to help him out. I got him dressed and then a problem surfaced.
Burger: Daddy, there's a rock in my foot.Me: A rock? In your foot?
Burger: Yeah. In my sock.
[Side Note: All three boys smuggle rocks into the house and they turn up constantly in the oddest places. A rock in the freshly laundered pajamas wouldn't be an altogether impossible scenario.]
Me: Let me see.
Anita's son is having a problem in math class. He does complex division problems correctly in his head but his teacher isn't looking for the answer, she's looking for long division. She wants to see the work between the question and the answer.
This is a touchy subject for me. I was exactly the same as her son with long division. I did it in my head lickety split and got the correct answer in a fraction of the time. My teacher enlisted my mother and forced me to go through long division, the very same situation that Anita and her son are in right now.
Why use long division?
The rote answer is "you need to know the process". Why? We use a process that works. We get the correct answer faster. We also get the correct answer more reliably. Long division is only a regressive loop of simple division problems. An error at any step yields a wrong answer. What is wrong with our process?
Absolutely nothing. It is superior to long division in efficiency and accuracy. The problem is that only a fraction of students can do division this way so it is not permitted in school. This is lowest-common-denominator instruction at its worst. Hold back the advanced students to the limits of the generic lesson plan. It is incredibly frustrating to somebody who is being thrashed with it.
I despised my math teacher after the long division debacle and my opinion of my mother went down several notches as well. My "math sense" went way down and I started hating math class, formerly my favorite subject. I got fed up to the point where I forcibly rejected long division. I spent months unlearning the method that had been hammered into my brain and relearning my method. Once I'd removed the taint and returned to my method the problems went away and I enjoyed math class again.
A few years later I was placed in an advanced self-paced math program. The guide/teacher not only acknowledged fragmented division (the name he gave to my particular method) but promoted it. Do a Google search for "long division in my head" and you'll see just how common this is.
My advice to Anita? Don't force your son to lose his process. Educate the educator. If she can't be brought around to the fact that there is more than one way to do division then you face a very tough choice. Maybe he can use his method to get the answer and then use long division to provide the proof. That will frustrate him too, but not as much as having to abandon his method.
When it all comes down to it though it's about education and not grades. He has the education part covered and it's superior to what the teacher is trying to impose. I'd rather have that and an "F" than to go through what I went through.
It's one of those mornings...
It was very cold this morning. Cold enough that I cranked the heater in the van up all the way. As such things go it eventually got too hot.
So I turned the radio down. Amazingly it was still too hot.
I turned the radio down some more. Still too hot.
In exasperation I turned the radio off. The heat did not diminish.
Great, I thought, now I have to replace my radio.
Where's my coffee?
Update: We have a nice coffee set-up here. For creamer we have those little half-and-half containers that you peel the top off of. The first creamer went into the coffee cup normally. The second one emptied successfully. The third one caused a spill. It took me several seconds to realize that container two and three had been poured into container one.
Now you see why I need a secretary.
- Sucked on the teat of a giant cow.
- Electrocuted myself twice while fixing a single lamp.
- Taken a one month working vacation to Virginia Beach, courtesy of the Navy.
- Been paid to not do karaoke.
- Recorded a duet.
- Been paid not to play the tape of said duet.
- Lived with three women, all single, and not related to me. Two of them were hot, too.
- Snorted vodka up my nose until black stuff started coming out.
- Attacked a snow drift. (With admittedly limited success. #8 played a pivotal role in this adventure.)
- Gone to a beach party in San Diego and woken up naked on a beach in Los Angeles.
(Found at LeeAnn's House of Cheesy Goodness)
Awesome blog title: Pith and Vinegar
Adding to the awesomeness, pithandvinegar.com is available.
First one to take it wins, but you have to promise to blogroll me there.
If you sue the Supreme Court, who hears the case?
10:30
The power is out. Apparently the construction workers putting up a building across the street did something bad. Georgia Power has advised that it will be about a half hour before power is restored. In the words of our receptionist who relayed the message "...but you know how that goes."
The handful of us with laptops are good until our batteries go down, so I've launched every program on the PC and turned the screen brightness up to max.
12:15
The network finally went down. UPS units on the web servers are only good for so long. This means I no longer have anything productive to do. It also means I'm typing this in Notepad and will be uploading it later.
12:45
Lights are back on. Still no cube power so nobody with desktops can do anything. No network means I'm still playing FreeCell.
1:05
The network lives! No cube power. Two hours remaining on my laptop battery.
Time for blogreading? Heh.
1:10
People keep coming by my cube staring at my laptop covetously. It is dangerous to be among a hundred nerds who are cut off from the internet. I keep getting visions of Lord of the Flies where I'm Piggy and they want my glasses.
(Continued in the Extended Entry)
Somehow I pooched a recent post and lost my liveblogging of the power outage at work. Uncharacteristically I don't have a notepad file for it because it was all short updates.
My misfortune is your good fortune!
Here's what you need to do:
In Internet Explorer go to File in the menu bar and select "Work Offline". Other browsers will be similar.Open the problem child post.
If you see a full and beautiful post with time marks on the individual entries you are looking at my lost baby. Copy the text and send it to me.
Those of you with newsreaders may also have the full post in your readers.
First person who retrieves the post gets 5 points!
This will only work if you happen to be one of the 30 or so people who saw the full post before I mangled it. Hopefully it still exists in one of your caches.
Update: dafyd wins! Yay!
Remember the Tombstone Generator?
This looks like the perfect opportunity for a points contest. The bumpersticker one didn't work too well because you had to do a lot of picture manipulation to save it. This one pops up as a jpg you can save directly. So here's the dealy-o:
Make a tombstone (or multiple ones if you want - hell, it's a free country) and post it on your blog. Trackback to this post to enter. If you don't have a workable trackback, use the standalone trackback or comment here with the url of your post. If you don't have a blog of your own just make a tombstone and email it to me.
This contest will be open until next Monday. Multi-points will be awarded, like in a caption contest.
(Reminded of this wondrous toy by 21st Century Paladin, whose site I can no longer comment at because it thinks I'm a spammer and this makes me very sad. If all of the real spammers were dead I wouldn't run into these problems all over the damn place from people trying to protect themselves from spammers. So kill a spammer to make me happy. I'll even give you 5 points.)
We just had a hailstorm here. It was beautiful but short. You wouldn't think frozen precipitation would delight an old Buffalo son but I think this was the first real hail storm I've ever seen.
The granules were very small, maybe a millimeter, and came down strong and steady. Looking out through the hail was a curious mixture of snowstorm and rain shower. They fell like rain but had the luminescence of snow. The tiny balls of ice bounced through the leaves of the trees like the disks in a Kerplunk game. Just beautiful.
It's been over for a couple of minutes now and the accumulation is already melted. Ah, nature's wonders are ever transitory.
Remember that little inquisition interview of Frank's that I did? Well he's gone and posted links to the interviews of bloggers that participated. And over in this second post he linked to all of the ones who participated who he really doesn't like missed the first time.
There's some fun stuff there. Sarcasm is candy to the well fed blogger.
Incidentally, did you notice how Frank linked my entry? Here, let me quote it for you: "Jim Peacock, fellow intemperate humorist, takes a stab." Yeah, that's right. Frank said I was a fellow intemperate humorist. I've been elevated to the peerage. In Frankspeak he's saying that I'm as good or better than he is and is asking all of his readers to switch over to my blog.
Of course now I'll be forced to wade through hundreds of comments on every post with readers fighting to say "First" for every entry. No such thing as a free lunch and all that. I can handle it though - I'm intemperate, after all.
