re: 2007

Today is my mom's birthday! Yes, the 29th. Mom only recently hit her teenage years. :)

I love you Mom! I would be nothing without you. You're the best!


Absolutely unrelated, but fun... I got this in an email and loved it...



To all my friends who sent me best wishes in 2007, or promises of good luck if I forwarded something; it did NOT WORK.

For 2008, could you please just send either money, chocolate or gasoline vouchers. Thank you!

Microsoft Action Figures

Um... I mean... Well, it's... Just... Uh... Holy buckets.



You have to click into this one. The descriptions are just... I have no words.

I'm a programmer, so I guess I'm supposed to relate to Visual Studio Guy (upper left in the above pic). For the record, my hair has never once done that, not even in high humidity. But I was amused by his "Super-Power"...

"Morphs and transforms everyday objects into masterpieces."

Yeah, OK. I'll own that one. Why not? ;)

I Only Have Eyes For You

Yesterday, I finished work on a large-ish project for Cowboy. What you need to know about Cowboy is that he's got a great sense of humor and is nigh unflappable.

I went up to Cowboy's desk and showed off his new toy. He was pleased, and made a small humorous jab by saying, "... and you did this just for me!"

I took the bait. With mock sincerity plastered all over my face I said, "I did. It's because I care for you, man." Cowboy's grin never wavered. He nodded in his head, as if to say, "Yeah, I deserve this."

I poured it on a little thicker. "I think about you all the time." Cowboy's grin was cast in iron as he nodded his head. He remained silent, but his face was saying, "Of course you do, why wouldn't you?"

I went for the kill. "I have your middle name tattooed on my left buttock."

There was a slight pause... I nearly got him. His grin widened a little, and his body language said "All right, if that's what floats your boat."

One day I *will* make you guffaw, Cowboy! It's my new mission in life.

I think about it all the time.

Falling For You

Yesterday, I had one of the more bizarre experiences I've had at work. A guy almost fell face-first into my office.

He literally appeared in my doorway at a 45 degree angle. He would have hit the floor, but he caught himself on the frame. He quickly righted himself and scurried away.

It happened so fast, Big Dawg didn't look up in time. He heard the "bang!", though.

I'm perplexed... there's no slick surfaces right outside my door, no stairs, nothing to trip over. Oh, and I've never seen the guy before, either. Weird.

Anyway, this is a short post, so I'm giving you a bonus video. Probably half of you have seen this already, but it's worth another look. I absolutely *love* this rendition of Hey Jude. :)

Long Light

When I go to work, the parking lot is 5 blocks away. After I park my car, I frequently ride the shuttle-bus that is provided.

One day last week I got on the bus like normal. There was only one other guy riding with me.

The road that the bus normally takes was blocked by a train. The next road over was crazy-thick with road construction. We eventually wound up at an intersection, waiting to make a left turn.

The driver was staring at the traffic light. The light cycled down to green. The bus just sat there. The driver was still staring at the light, but somehow didn't notice that it was green.

I looked over at the other guy on the bus. He was near-asleep, eyes closed.

The light cycled back around to red. The bus driver's eyes never wavered. He was *still* staring right at it, watching it change. We sat in silence for a few moments after it turned red.

Suddenly, with a great burst of frustration, the driver shouted, "C'MON, LIGHT!!!"

I couldn't decide whether to laugh or to run screaming from the bus, so I just sat there. The light cycled back to green and I helpfully said, "Ah, there you go." The bus started to move again.

"Man!," the driver shouted. "That was a long light!"

Some days, I'm just glad to survive the trip into work. :)

For Dummies?

Saw this at a bookstore...



Er... why is there a "YouTube" book in this pile? Is YouTube really that complicated? If you need a book to tell you how to use YouTube, then maybe "Dummy" isn't quite the right adjective for you.

Just a thought.

"Traf" Button

Well, it's been almost three weeks, and I really like my car. I especially enjoyed it earlier this week, when the weather was much less icky and I wasn't terrified of ice and whatnot every time I went out.

That first weekend, I got to show it off to my parents. While poking around the radio, Dad asked, "What's this 'Traf' button do?" Being the smart-alek that I am, I replied, "It's for Traf. Obviously."

Humor (such as it is) couldn't hide my ignorance, though. I opened up the owner's manual and started investigating. Turns out, the "Traf" button on my radio is designed to seek through the available radio stations, and stop when it finds one that gives local Traffic Updates.

You know how some radio stations broadcast the name of the song being played, but some don't? That same text signal can also tell the radio that, "Hey, we do traffic reports, too."

I decided to play with this feature a bit. I hit the "Traf" button. The radio started scanning. About a 20-30 seconds later, I heard...

"... ciento uno punto cinco... aquí in Tulsa..."

One hundred and one point five... here in Tulsa... I'd found the Spanish radio station. I pushed the dial up to 101.7 and pressed "Traf" again. It scanned all the way back around to the same place.

Apparently, the only FM station in Tulsa who actively advertises that they do traffic reports is the Spanish language station.

I don't know the Spanish phrase for "3-car pile-up", but apparently I need to.

Insignificant Work Stories

Yesterday, the light above my desk started to annoy. It's one of those fluorescent panel lights with 4 bulbs in it. Two of the bulbs would go out. 15 minutes later, they would come back on. 15 minutes later, they would go out again. It was like sitting under a really lethargic disco ball.

Our facilities crew got that problem sorted out for me. In the meantime, I got a message from Switch. We were working on a project together... he'd finished his part and needed me to start on mine.

I worked my "crazy voodoo magic" (his words) on it, and then emailed him to let him know the project was ready for him again. His reply, word for word, was this:

"You are indeed kind and wise. I have ordered 2 cases of the finest and cheapest whiskey sent to your office."

I printed out Switch's email. I intend to hold him to his promise. Between his cheap whiskey and my disco-tech mosh office, we should be able to have one heck of a party.

Dare To Be Stupid

Forever ago I mentioned that I had reserved a copy of Weird Al Yankovic's "Dare To Be Stupid". I found it listed in the Tulsa County Library system, and geeked out.

Well, "forever ago" was back in August. At least twice during my wait, the album was in somebody's hands longer than the 2 weeks allowed. It may have actually gone missing at one point. And then, last week, I got it.

Ah, what to say, what to say? It was like hooking up with some almost-forgotten old friends. Bliss! Well, mostly. "Slime Creatures From Outer Space" is still a dumb song. They can't all be winners.

I know I could have easily just downloaded the whole thing, and been done with this in minutes instead of months. But it was much more amusing this way. :)

Birthday!

Last weekend, we helped celebrate a birthday. My oldest nephew is 8!

The festivities were held at a local (to them) pizza place. In addition to the family, Nephew had two of this friends come join us. It was pretty obvious pretty fast that these two were brothers. They walked in, grabbed a slice of pizza and started slapping each other. They never stopped grinning while they were doing it, either.

Nephew quickly got placed between them, in the hope that this would calm things down. Instead, they just started leaning around him in order to swat at each other. It wasn't long before Nephew (also with a permanent grin on his face) was shouting, "I don't wanna be in the middle any more!". In all of this, the boys never stopped giggling.

One of nephew's presents was a robot coin bank. When you push a button, the robot speaks and moves. I'm not sure what all of his actions are. I just know that when I hit the button, the robot hiked a leg and let out a massive ... well, let's call it a "ripping" noise. Then the robot announced, "Oh!, that's gonna linger a while."

I cried real tears laughing at that one.

Happy Birthday, Nephew!

Pickin' On iCanSpell

Well, *kinda* pickin' on iCanSpell. Not as bad as the time I was pickin' on V, though.

I was in Target recently, and wandered through the automotive section. This floor mat made me think of you, iCanSpell...



Let me know if you need a few, I can hook you up... :)

What Kind Of Toad?

I went to the break room during my lunch break. I had brought a frozen lunch that day, and just needed to microwave it.

I sat my lunch down on the counter and grabbed a plate. That was when "Large" walked by. He smiled real big, nodded toward the counter and said, "Blurry!-Toad!".

I smiled and nodded as he walked by. I had no idea what he was talking about. Blurry Toad? Why was he making jokes about fuzzy amphibians?

Then, it hit me. I had brought a frozen burrito for lunch. Burrito = Blurry-Toad. It was Large's idea of a Spanish accent.

¡Arriba!

A Stupid Milestone!

Yesterday, I hit the big time. I have arrived! The pinnacle is under my feet, baby! I get a mild rush just thinking about it.

When I started this job a little less than 2 years ago, there was a massive pile of papers on my desk. The guy I replaced had left them behind. I started to go through them, carefully picking some items to keep, and then throwing away most of the others.

When I had the pile down to "known junk", it became my scrap paper pile. I'd pull off a page, scribble stuff, then toss it.

Yesterday, I realized that there was only one piece of paper left. I have officially cleaned out my desk, removing all remnants of the guy I replaced!

Took me less than 2 years to do it, too. Aw yeah. What's that sensation you can practically *feel* radiating off me? Yeah... it's excellence.

Whoo-Hoo!

Library

About a month ago, my wife and I went through our modest bookshelves at home and decided there were several items in our collection that we didn't need or want. We made a pile, and then took those books down to the local library.

There were some pretty unimpressive books in this pile, lemmie tell ya. I've forgotten what most of them were, but I do remember at least one book of "magic tricks". They wern't all stinkers, though. Several were good books, but we decided to get rid of them because we didn't expect to read them a second time. For example, there was a Barbara Bush book, a 9/11 book, and "Seabiscuit".

Anyway, last week my wife went to the library. She walked past the shelves of Bargain Books For Sale, then she did a double take and turned around. One whole shelf of the Bargain Books area was McClung-books.

On the one hand, I'm pleased. If they can make some money from my old books, then great. Libraries need money, after all. At the same time, I'm a little hurt. Even the library didn't want my old books.

I'm not quite sure how to take that.

Some Kinda Special

My MIL (Mother-In-Law) has a friend who is SomeKindaSpecial. She lives in her own little world, largely oblivious to what's going on around her.

Last week MIL went out to Wendy's for lunch with SomeKindaSpecial. SomeKindaSpecial was wearing a new red jacket which she was eager to show off.

"I got it for Christmas!" she loudly proclaimed. SomeKindaSpecial is rarely quiet, and Wendy's is not a spacious place. Every customer was hearing every word, no matter how hard they tried not to.

"Here, I'll show it to you!" SomeKindaSpecial stood up from their table and put the jacket on. She's about as coordinated as an epileptic monkey. She flapped her jacket in the faces of the people around her, not even realizing that she was the center of attention.

"Isn't it *cute*?" She pirouetted happily. At this point I should mention that SomeKindaSpecial is a short, round woman. Spinning around in her new jacket, she looked like a tomato in a gyroscope.

"It's very nice," MIL agreed. "It'd be even nicer if you cut the price tag off of it."

SomeKindaSpecial howled in shock. "Where?!? Oh, no!" As she located the tag hanging from one of her sleeves, MIL asked, "Is this the first time you've worn that jacket?"

"No, I've worn it to work lots of times! Nobody mentioned that I still had a price tag on it!"

Unable to keep quiet any longer, an older man sitting nearby said, "Someone should have told you by now, Honey!"

You don't usually get dinner *and* a show from Wendy's. It must have been fun.

What's In A Name?

My littlest nephew (2 years old in March!) is incredibly cute. He's learning to talk, which naturally means that you get all sorts of cute mispronunciations. My favorites are the names of Gramma and Grampa's dogs. Instead of "Gus" and "Penny", we get "Us" and "Pendley".

Not too long ago, my parents saw the little guy running through their living room. He was holding Penny (a chihuahua) upside down and shouting "Pennnnnd-ley! Pennnnnd-ley! Pennnnnd-ley!".

Now, for your moment of sweet, sweet symetry. I was cleaning out my wallet last weekend, and found a stack of business cards that I hadn't looked at in years. I was about to throw them all away when one caught my eye. It was for a Chrysler-Plymouth dealership. The salesman's name was "Jeff Pendley".

Now I've got a mental picture of a car salesman being carried around upside-down by a toddler. It makes me smile.

Freedom!

Just a quick little nugget of joy for you today.

Last week, I overheard this from Big Dawg's desk (just a few feet away from mine).

"Wait a minute... does that say Freedom Ho, Space?!?"

There was a brief horrified pause, followed by;

"Oh... it says Freedom Hospice."

Boy, and I thought *my* little dyslexic moments were bad.

By the way... I went with a flag pic for this one 'cause there's no *way* I'm gonna type "Freedom Ho" into Google Images. ;)

Expiration Dates

Big Dawg and I were at Subway recently, plodding through the line like normal. The manager of the restaurant was working the register, and Little Ditz (a trainee) was working alongside her. There was a vendor off to the side refilling the big cabinet where they keep the bottled waters, teas, and energy drinks.

Vendor saw something that amused him. He turned to Manager and asked her, "What's the expiration date on these bottles of water, usually?"

Manager chuckled a bit and replied, "They generally give those a year."

This is where it got weird. Little Ditz's eyes bugged out like a fly in a bug zapper. Manager and Vendor were amused that some of the water bottles had sat there so long, but Little Ditz came at it from a whole different perspective. "Whooooaaaaa!!!...." she droned, clearly impressed that *anything* could last that long in a bottle.

Here's the exceptionally fun part. Remember my story about the Ditz at Subway who kept trying to put my pizza in a carry-out sack that was too small? I'm 90% sure this was the same Ditz. A full month later, and Manager is still having to keep constant watch over her.

Insanity.

This Kiss

A story that's just too silly not to tell...

At church on Sunday, I saw my pal Scruffy. I was in the row of seats right in front of him. We both leaned across the seats to the do the "Man-Hug".

The Man-Hug is a safe way for men to show affection without... well, I don't have to spell it out, do I? It works like this: The men grab each other's right hands in a classic "handshake" maneuver. Then, they pull toward each other, and put their left arms out over the shoulders as in a normal hug. The right arms form a protective barrier, thus preserving the illusion of personal space.

It gets a bit tricky when there are obstacles, however. In this case, we were leaning across a row of seats. I misread where Scruffy was goin' with his face. We both moved our heads in the same direction and BONK.

I rubbed my nose. Scruffy looked down. It was a classic "SO! How 'bout 'dem Bears?!?" moment. We were probably only 2 seconds away from being able to pretend it didn't happen. But... I just couldn't keep my mouth shut.

"I don't usually go that far on a first date."

Ah yes. Captain Sensitivity, that's me. ;)

Vibe Owner

I did it!

I'm a Pontiac Vibe owner. Here's my car (actual pic):



We picked it up Saturday. I'm still getting used to it, but I love it. It's a 2005 model, low mileage, great condition.

I was talking about the car later in the day with my Dad, who knows how (not) mechanically inclined I am. I mentioned that the car came with floor mats, but that I had some nicer ones I bought for the old car that I was going to put in the Vibe. I smiled and quipped, "Yeah, that'll be my first 'mod."

It took Dad a moment or two to recover from that one.

And so, gratefully, I say goodbye to "Old Blue". As crazy as it sounds, the most annoying thing by far about that rental car was the seat belt alarm. It sounded like Tinker-Bell's alarm clock.

I still can't quite believe that my old faithful steed is history. I still look for it in the parking lot. The poor thing deserved a much better owner than me. :(

Great Tupperwear

A recent conversation about foreign languages and translations got me thinking about something that I learned way back in college. I learned how to say "Super Bowl" in Russian.

I had a couple of Russian-language classes in college, and one semester a guy asked the professor how to say "Super Bowl". The professor looked at him like he'd sprouted another set of ears. "They say, 'Super Bowl'", he explained. "It's a proper name. You don't translate it. I mean, you could, but then any Russian speaker would look at you like you're crazy and say, 'Great Tupperware? I don't get it.'".

I always think about that around this time of year. Very soon, Great Tupperware Sunday will be upon us. I'm all excited, even if it's probably not going to be much of a game.

Of course, literally speaking, the "Great Tupperware" will be the one that holds the queso dip. I'll be near that one, if you need me.