House Guest, Zoo

note: "Photoshop Jeff" replies will be posted Wednesday.

This past weekend, we had a house guest. My wife's old college friend Cat came down and spent the weekend with us. On Saturday, we joined up with Scruffy and some random friends of his and went to the Tulsa Zoo.

Being the rocket scientist that I am, I forgot sunscreen, and I forgot a hat. I stuck to the shade as much as I could, but even so, I'm all crispy red in places.

At one point, we passed by a glass-enclosed room that was supposed to hold a porcupine. There was no creature in the little enclosure. Then, a small hidden back door opened and one of the zookeepers walked in. Obviously, the animal was elsewhere and the zookeeper was doing some upkeep on the pen.

I turned to our group and said, "I've never seen a porcupine like that one! It walks upright."

I thought that this was a pretty obvious joke. Scruffy began to explain to me that it was, in fact, a zookeeper, not a porcupine. At least my wife laughed. :)

As we walked through the zoo, I heard somebody say my name. I turned around, and there was one of my old college roommates! I hadn't seen him in over 6 years.

I introduced him to the group. "We were college roommates, we were in the marching band together, ..." He interjected, "Yeah, and we used to work at [my previous employer] together, too."

At this point, a random stranger from the crowd in front of us turned around. "Did you just say [my previous employer]?" It was another guy I worked with at that old armpit of a job.

Even better? Guy 2's wife used to date a friend of Cat.

Small world.

The Broken Mower

From a forwarded email I received:

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When our lawn mower broke and wouldn't run, my wife kept hinting to me that I should get it fixed. But, somehow I always had something else to take care of first, the truck, the car, playing golf - always something more important to me.

Finally she thought of a clever way to make her point. When I arrived home one day, I found her seated in the tall grass, busily snipping away with a tiny pair of sewing scissors. I watched silently for a short time and then went into the house. I was gone only a minute, and when I came out again I handed her a toothbrush. I said, "When you finish cutting the grass, you might as well sweep the driveway." The doctors say I will walk again, but I will always have a limp.

Moral to this story: Marriage is a relationship in which one person is always right and the other is the husband.

Lego: 18-Wheeler

It's Lego time again! Enjoy my 18-Wheeler.

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The entire set can be viewed here.

In case you missed it (and if you're interested), here's:
 - A Lego Flat-Panel PC Monitor
 - A Lego Train

Special Delivery

Yesterday, my boss (the Golfer) came into the office with a confused look on his face. He was holding two envelopes.

"Guys," he explained, "These are for you. I have no idea why or what they are, and I don't know why I didn't get one."

The envelopes were addressed to the Farmer and to me. Both said "Special Delivery" on them.

Now, this isn't the first time I've gotten an inner-office bit of mail that said Special Delivery on it. The fact is, somewhere there's a big pile of these things, and they use them for inner-office mail rather than just throw them away.

It was a little curious that the Farmer and I got identical mailings, and the Golfer didn't. We quickly tore into the envelopes.

As the Golfer started to leave the office, I got my envelope open. In a moderately loud voice, I said, "Oh cool! We got invites to Spank Your Boss Day!".

It's a good thing he knows me well enough to know when I'm full of it.

The mailing, by the way, was just an updated parking permit.

Photoshop Jeff!

Last week, there was a conversation among friends that involved my amazing fishing exploits. See, I stink at fishing. I'm so bad at fishing, I actually "caught" a sunken canoe once. Which lead to a joking discussion of, "Hey, did you get a photo of you holding the canoe up next to you?", followed by, "If I had a picture of you, I could Photoshop in a canoe." It got me to thinkin'.

So, here's your chance, Photoshop nerds. It's a pic of me, pointing at nothing. I assume the theme to be "fishing trip", but if you see something else in this pic, then have at it. Gimmie a hat, gimmie a "catch", gimmie a fishing buddy. Email your pic to me, and I'll post what I get. Unless it's really seriously stupid. Even then, I might post it just to say, "This one came from [name], and it's seriously stupid!" 'Cause I'm mean like that, sometimes.



Click the photo to get a larger version - then on the Flickr page, click "All Sizes" to get the largest version of this pic.

Have fun!

We Got A Dog!... Well, Briefly

We live on the second story of a three-story apartment building. The folks in the apartment above us have a dog. It's a cute little-ish black thing with fuzzy fur and a long snout.

This past Saturday, my wife and I saw our upstairs neighbor outside, walking the dog. We thought nothing of it.

A few minutes later, we heard scratching and whining noises at our door. We also heard the footsteps of our neighbor up above us... she was vacuuming the floor, I think.

"Did she just lock her dog out?..." we pondered. Our bedroom window looks out over the front balcony, so we went in there to pull up the shades and look out at the dog.

When the dog saw us looking at him from our bedroom window, his first reaction was joy. This quickly changed as he got a good look at us. I'd never seen a dog's eyes bug out in shock, but his did. His face and his body language both screamed, "Yikes! You're not my big people!" Tail between his legs, he quickly fled.

So, we got a dog over the weekend. For a few minutes, anyway. Until we weirded him out.

Poor pup.

Give Them Something To Talk About

OK, I will share with you the amazing depth of knowledge I have about American Idol.

1) Simon Cowel is a pompous dork (but apparently that's OK)
2) Melinda Doolittle was a friend of a friend of mine
3) I really liked the goofy "hair kid" who couldn't sing!

Granted, I never watch the show, so I've never heard him sing. Supposedly he's bad at it. But the pics of him!... ah, they never fail to amuse.

I found out yesterday that His Hairness has been voted off the show. It makes me sad... now my favorite comedians are going to have to go back to jokes about politics (bleh).

Your hair was a constant source of amusement, Sanjaya! I wish you much success, because I need a laugh every now and then.

*sniff* I'm gonna miss the squirrely little guy.

Stories From My Past: The Wired Blood Donor

Yesterday I was talking to a co-worker about my long and tumultuous history with caffeine. It brought this story to mind. Since I have nothing else to talk about this week, I'll tell you a story about one of the many times I was an idiot.

It is no exaggeration to say that in college, I would drink anywhere from 4-6 soda pops each day. I would also drink a pot or so of coffee per day. I would get caffeine withdrawal headaches after 4 or 5 hours without the stuff. Looking back on it, I'm surprised my heart didn't explode.

I heard about the Stillwater Plasma Center. This was a place where you could donate blood plasma, and they would pay you. College campuses always spring up around places like this. I decided to go give it a try. But there was a catch... before donating, they recommended that you not have any caffeine for 24 hours.

This didn't sound possible. How would I exist? The human body wasn't made to function without the influence of the mighty bean. I decided that this just wasn't going to work. I would compromise. I would only have coffee that morning, and I would donate in the afternoon. Sounded workable.

Here's the good part. I forgot that soda pops have caffeine in them.

At the Plasma Center, the lady must have jabbed my arm 3 times, with absolutely no luck at getting the needle into a vein. I don't do well with needles, by the way. I'm always amazed that I voluntarily did this.

She asked me if I'd had any caffeine. "I had a little coffee this morning," I admitted. I left out that this was a relative term... "a little" for me meant that I didn't drink the whole pot. "Anything else?", she demanded. "No, no coffee since then. Just water and pop."

To her credit, she didn't actually verbally *say* the word "idiot". Then again, she didn't really have to. She took her revenge by going ahead with the procedure anyway. When I complained about the needle burning and hurting and such, she took great joy in explaining exactly how much my veins were constricted. This meant that the needle didn't fit in the vein. Her graphic description nearly made me pass out.

Amazingly, I went back. More than once! But not very many times. I like getting paid for doing basically nothing, but I really don't like needles. There's another story to be told regarding that, but I'll save it for another time.

Quite Possibly The Best Ever

A couple of "Quite Possibly" 's for you. First up is quite possibly the cutest puppy pic I've ever seen.



Then, there's quite possibly the best movie I've ever seen. "The Prestige". I was simply floored. I didn't expect to be shocked by this movie, but I was. Amazed. The description doesn't do it justice, but then again, it can't. Any more, and you're giving away plot points. Trust me, you won't be able to guess the ending until it's too late.

And that's all I've got. I'm boring today. I'll try to do better, I promise.

The Hawaii Bum

At work, there's this one particular guy. It's OK to despise him. It might even be OK to call him a bad name in a jealous sort of "no one should be so lucky" sort of way.

He recently put in his two weeks notice. He's leaving our newspaper to go do a similar job at another newspaper. In Hawaii. Even better, he's got a friend (relative?) who lives in Hawaii already. This friend is willing to let him stay at his house / apartment / grass hut / whatever on the cheap until he gets established.

That bum. He'd better be sending us some care packages, is all I'm sayin'. Postcards, Papaya, Hula Girls, *something*.

Boat

I don't have much of a history with boats. When I was a kid, my dad acquired a bass boat from a neighbor of ours. We went out in that boat as a family exactly once. My sister and I were in the front with fishing poles, ready to have a picnic and catch the big one. And once we got out into the middle of Lake Hudson, the engine died.

My sister and I didn't know anything was wrong. Mom and Dad had discussions in the front of the boat, which were dutifully ignored by us. Every now and then, one of us would ask, "Can we start fishing now?" The answer was always "NoSitDown."

After a few hours of being stranded in the middle of the lake with no oars, Dad got somebody's attention, and we were rescued. The boat was given to a more nautical extended family member. That was when I was somewhere around 10 years old, I think.

That was the first time I'd been out on a lake. The second time was yesterday.

Actually, it's a bit of a stretch to say I was *out* on the lake. My wife and I went to Lake Skiatook with Scruffy to his new (to him) boat. We helped him clean it up a bit. It hadn't been used in a couple of years, so the mildew was thick.

Shortly after getting on the boat, I grabbed a rag and a spray-bottle of something near-toxic, and sat down. I happily volunteered to work on the low parts. The only way I could get my sea legs was to get off them. I am such a pathetic landlubber.

Because it was a work day and not a play day (and because of a couple of lingering concerns about the engine), we didn't leave the dock. Sometime here in the next few weeks, we'll see about venturing out further.

Think About It

From a forwarded email I received:

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Think about it the next time someone complains that the rich people get the lion's share of a tax cut.

Let's put tax cuts in terms everyone can understand.

Suppose that every day, ten men go out for beer and the bill for all ten comes to $100. If they paid their bill the way we pay our taxes, it would go something like this:

The first four men (the poorest) would pay nothing.
The fifth would pay $1.
The sixth would pay $3.
The seventh would pay $7.
The eighth would pay $12.
The ninth would pay $18.
The tenth man (the richest) would pay $59.

So, that's what they decided to do.

The ten men drank in the bar every day and seemed quite happy with the arrangement, until one day, the owner threw them a curve. "Since you are all such good customers," he said, "I'm going to reduce the cost of your daily beer by $20."Drinks for the ten now cost just $80.

The group still wanted to pay their bill the way we pay our taxes so the first four men were unaffected. They would still drink for free. But what about the other six men - the paying customers? How could they divide the $20 windfall so that everyone would get his 'fair share?'

They realized that $20 divided by six is $3.33. But if they subtracted that from everybody's share, then the fifth man and the sixth man would each end up being paid to drink his beer.

So, the bar owner suggested that it would be fair to reduce each man's bill by roughly the same amount, and he proceeded to work out the amounts each should pay.

And so:

The fifth man, like the first four, now paid nothing (100% savings).
The sixth now paid $2 instead of $3 (33%savings).
The seventh now pay $5 instead of $7 (28%savings).
The eighth now paid $9 instead of $12 (25% savings).
The ninth now paid $14 instead of $18 (22% savings).
The tenth now paid $49 instead of $59 (16% savings).

Each of the six was better off than before. And the first four continued to drink for free. But once outside the restaurant, the men began to compare their savings.

"I only got a dollar out of the $20,"declared the sixth man. He pointed to the tenth man," but he got $10!"

"Yeah, that's right," exclaimed the fifth man "I only saved a dollar, too. It's unfair that he got ten times more than I!"

"That's true!!" shouted the seventh man. "Why should he get $10 back when I got only two? The wealthy get all the breaks!"

"Wait a minute," yelled the first four men in unison. "We didn't get anything at all. The system exploits the poor!"

The nine men surrounded the tenth and beat him up.

The next night the tenth man didn't show up for drinks, so the nine sat down and had beers without him. But when it came time to pay the bill, they discovered something important. They didn't have enough money between all of them for even half of the bill!

And that, boys and girls, journalists and college professors, is how our tax system works. The people who pay the highest taxes get the most benefit from a tax reduction. Tax them too much, attack them for being wealthy, and they just may not show up anymore. In fact, they might start drinking overseas where the atmosphere is somewhat friendlier.

David R. Kamerschen, Ph.D.
Professor of Economics
University of Georgia

Other Uses For Greek Food

A couple of days ago, I got lunch from a local Greek restaurant. I took it back to my desk to eat.

While I was eating, Slim came by the office. Slim is one of our Advertising types. When he comes by, he usually has about 4 minutes worth of business that he uses to take up a half-hour's worth of time.

Slim said, "Gentlemen, I just wanted to talk to you about hey what's that smell?"

I looked down at my desk. "Er... it's just some Greek food."

Slim's face contorted grotesquely. It was as if I'd said I was eating old dead puppy. "Oh, man!" he shrieked. "That explains the smell! Man! I really can't... Oh! I don't... Eh! I just can't... I mean... Wow! I gotta go."

And he left.

I think this is the greatest trick in the world. Greek food = Slim Repellent. I shall have to remember this.