Friday Funnies

Tiny bits of wisdom from my email archive...

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Whatever hits the fan, will not be distributed evenly.

I have kleptomania, but when it gets bad, I take something for it.

FOLLOW YOUR DREAMS!
Except that one where you're naked in church.

My short-term memory is not as sharp as it used to be.
Also, my short-term memory's not as sharp as it used to be.

Welcome to Utah
Set your watch back 20 years.

I may be schizophrenic, but at least I have each other.

Dyslexics Have More Nuf.

I love cooking with wine.
Sometimes I even put it in the food.

Money isn't everything, but it sure keeps the kids in touch.

I like cats too. Let's exchange recipes.

Red meat is not bad for you. Fuzzy green meat is bad for you.

Wildly Inaccurate

Last week I wrote with great amazement about how my Father-In-Law was already putting up some of his smaller Christmas decorations. I wrote it early, and scheduled it for last Thursday.

Before the post was published, I learned that he didn't stop with the small decorations. He somehow got the Christmas tree out and put it up. He'd even gone so far as to put on all the lights, some of the ornaments, and then take them all off again when the strings of lights started to fail.

That shocking knowledge led to this I.M. exchange...

Jeff: I actually wrote a blog post last weekend about how he's already doing some of the minor decorating for Christmas. Obviously, it hasn't run yet.
Jeff: It's already wildly inaccurate.
P-Ziddy: Your blogging? Wildly inaccurate? Surely you jest
Jeff: Hey! I didn't ask for any facts from the peanut gallery.
P-Ziddy: LOL
P-Ziddy: Didn't I ever tell you my middle name was "Unsolicited"?
Jeff: Somehow, I think I've always known.

My blogging... wildly inaccurate. Hmpf. Just 'cause it's true doesn't mean anybody has to point it out.

While we're on the subject, here's a crazy headline I saw recently...

Britney Spears' youngest son Amanda wins Nobel Peace Prize Spends the one and a half million dollar award on cheep booze and easy women

 
You know it's true because you read it here.

Pseudo Celebrity - George Jefferson

OK, so his *real* name is Sherman Hemsley. Like you would have known that. I wouldn't have known it if not for the glory of Wikipedia.

Anyway, I saw an older version of George Jefferson on the walk between my office and the parking lot. He had a permanent smile, unlike his fictional counterpart. I nodded and said, "Hi."

"It's a beautiful day!", he shouted. Actually it was overcast and gloomy. Cold drizzle-rain was covering my glasses. Despite this evidence, I nodded. Nearly-George looked like his happiness might have been influenced by some kind of hallucinogenics, so logic and reason probably weren't going to affect his outlook much.

"It is," I lied. "Have a good day."

His face, already a temple of absolute joy, lit up even more. "Oh, I'm retired!", he yelled. "I'm gonna go have some fun!"

He was walking in the direction of a night club. It was 8:30 AM.

I don't know what kind of fun is available at a seedy night club on a rainy morning, but I hope he found it.

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History of sightings:

John Ratzenberger. John Belushi. Charlie Chaplin. Sammy Davis Jr. Sherlock Holmes. Carol O'Conner. Charles Barkley. Hurley. Al Sharpton, Hurley (again), Santa. Drew Barrymore, John Cleese, Richard Simmons, Amanda Plummer, Jack Black. Rainn Wilson.

Cousin Itt, Corpse Bride. Samuel L. Jackson, Dick Cheney. Emma Thompson. Selma Blair, Wolf Blitzer. Michelle Ryan Dr. Phil McGraw. Shrillery. John Voight. Don Rickles.

Walking In The Cold

We had a company lunch at Spaghetti Warehouse, which is about a 10-12 minute walk from the office. Most folks paired up into cars, but a few of us decided to walk despite the cool temperatures.

LadyPatsFan and I hit the door and began our journey. We walked about a half a block before she turned to me and said, "Wasn't OoRah going to walk with us?"

I couldn't remember. We debated it for a bit, but it was cold out and neither of us felt like slowing down. We were among the first to arrive. We had been seated for several minutes before OoRah showed up.

"Don't worry," he waved. "I'll catch up."

Later in the meal, I lifted my glass and missed my mouth. The very vision of grace, I am. Ice cold water poured directly on my crotch. The department head was sitting right next to me. "Sorry," I said. "I have a drinking problem."

While he laughed, something else occurred to me. I looked down sadly. "This is gonna feel *great* once I step out in the cold."

Too bad we don't have those warm-air hand dryers in the bathrooms at work. *sigh*

Flu Shot

Last week, I got a flu shot. It was terrible.

I always knew medicine would be the death of me, I just didn't expect it to be so inconsiderate about the whole ordeal.

There wasn't much of a line when I arrived. I guess everybody else knew better. I told the stabbing lady, "I am one of God's purest needle-wimps." She pointed to a big bag of candy. "Would it make you feel better if I said you can have *two* suckers when we're done?"

"Not unless I can beat myself over the head with them before we start."

She didn't speak much after that. I think I worried her.

Suddenly, JAB! Waves of instant violent nausea hit, and I doubled over. My stomach was flopping like a fish on dry land and my head was so low I could see the last three flavors of bubble gum I'd stepped in. I whimpered.

"Hey Gumby!", somebody shouted. "You're holding up the line."

Ah, compassion.

Later, when my skin tone was a little less green, I sat down at my desk and tried to get to work. My left arm had gone cold and was flopping around uselessly. This wasn't too different than normal, though. I just used my nose when the heel of my hand wasn't precise enough. My typos per minute actually went down.

Maybe it would be different if I had a muscle or two in my arm. I wonder if I can pick up one on eBay...

Wedge

Sometimes Wheel Of Fortune is just hilarious. Check this puzzle out...



The answer is "A Little Piece Of Heaven." A very smug contestant grinned and said he'd like to solve the puzzle. Then he confidently announced...

"A Little Wedge Of Heaven."



Amazingly, he got a second chance. His competition was too brain-dead to do anything other than stare open-mouthed at the puzzle. "Gosh... I guess that second word isn't 'little' after all... I wonder if there's a 'Z'?..."

I love this show.

Christmas?!?

My wife's father has started decorating for Christmas.

Wow.

I tend to decorate early, I know. I usually have the lights out a couple of weeks in advance of when my wife will let me turn them on. I get the decorations out of the attic days before the weekend we've picked for putting up the tree. I 'accidentally' leave at least one decoration out year 'round.

But still. Wow.

He's dealing with a bad knee this season, so he was asking my wife's mom how they can get the tree down from the attic. He was clearly implying that she should climb the ladder and get the tree down for him.

She suggested a non-standard use for the ladder. Elevation might be a problem, but it *would* keep the ladder warm.

He now has more than half of his counter-top "knick-nack" items out. The next time his son (or me... *sigh*) is visiting, the tree will come down out of the attic.

With luck, he'll have the house ready for Christmas before Halloween.

Wow.

Danger

Now that the shuttle bus no longer runs from the parking lot to the office, I find myself exploring a bit, trying to find the best route to walk during my commute-after-the-commute.

One of the routes I walk is mostly flat (my other route takes me across a bridge). It avoids the "wind tunnel" effect caused by the tall buildings at a nearby intersection. It walks me near the new-ish BOK Center, which is kinda cool. However, it also crosses some railroad tracks, and walks me past a night club where people have been shot.

One morning I was walking that route and a train came through. I was standing and waiting for the train to finish crossing when there was a massive metallic crashing noise. The train stopped.

A few minutes passed. The train showed no signs of moving. There I was, on foot, in the somewhat disreputable northern extremes of downtown, with a train blocking me at the front and a seedy nightclub at my rear.

I suddenly realized that I am scrawny and white. Most annoying. Deep down I've always known, but suddenly it seemed like pretty important knowledge.

I quickly made my way back and took a different route into work, grateful that the nightclub didn't open for another 9 hours or so. Very kind of them.

I may not be cut out for urban life.

Unfair Comparison?...

This comes from a Facebook conversation I saw recently. I don't know most of the people who participated, but that last comment comes from a buddy of mine who I will not name. :)

[name] Is writing up a comedy bit comparing copy machines to women.
1. They always want the lid down before doing business.

[name] They take a minute to warm up.

[name] TLC goes a lot further than a hammer.

[name] Sometimes you can easily push the wrong buttons....

[name] Both can be high maintenance.

[name] Both go through a huge amount of paper goods.

[name] Both have drawers. Ok, that one was a stretch.

[name] both have photographic memories.

[name] Push the right buttons and they both reproduce.

Living Dangerously A few moments of brilliance; but most of the time; the light isn't on.

Ouch! Hilarious, unless of course my wife is asking, in which case it's a very mean hurtful comment from a friend who should know better, bless his tiny soul.

So, in the spirit of fairness, I'm going to throw out an unfair comparison of my own. Let's compare Men to Ice Cream Trucks. I'll start:

1) Both tend to be slow-moving and repetitive.

2) Both frequently have gas and pollute the environment.

3) I'd better stop. I have another, but it's just edgy enough that I think I'll save it for the comments. :)

Feel free to add your own!

8 Point Buck

My oldest nephew is 9, and he had Fall Break this past weekend. He went on a hunting trip with his dad and few other guys.

He and his dad were sitting and waiting, when suddenly Nephew had a coughing fit. He hacked for a minute or so and then his dad said, "Well, there's nothing out here now. You've scared them all off."

Nephew looked up at that moment and saw an 8-point buck. He shot it, then looked at his dad. "There you go," he said.

Simply amazing. My prowess with the insecticide bottle cannot compare.

Congrats, Nephew! Uncle Jeff is very proud of you.

Silly Pictures

This first one is a screen capture of my Google Reader. A long time ago I added the "Spanish Word Of The Day" to my reader. Most of the time I ignore it, and occasionally I'll try to memorize a word that seems interesting to me. Of course, with any Latin-influenced languages, some words are easier to translate than others.



That silent "H" makes a world of difference. Or, a continent of difference, at least. Call me crazy, but I don't think I'll have much problem memorizing that one.

This next one is from my cell phone camera. Somebody at work (from another department, I think) has decorated his car a bit, getting ready for Halloween.



I love it! I'm just glad I haven't found myself behind him in traffic.

Breakfast Club

One day last week I was in a hurry as I left the house. I still had breakfast at home, but it was only a single granola bar. I was hungry about 3 seconds after I finished it.

Once I got to work, I found an old sample box of "Fiber One" cereal. It was months old. I tore it open and started in on it anyway.

Halfway through the little box, Big Dawg came by my desk. "Did you know there's DONUTS?!?" He spoke like a man imparting the location of infinite treasure.

Well, of course I had to have a donut.

Then there were the free pancakes, the scrambled egg incident and the bacon truck that overturned. Paula Dean's unannounced visit was a big surprise, too.

That evening, I had lunch. At 9:45 PM.

Cute N' Clever + Failed Chicken

Two stories involving friends of my wife. Names omitted to spare the guilty. :)

Cute n' Clever

One of our many pregnant friends was talking to my wife and said that she didn't want to name her kiddo anything "ordinary". Mike, Jim, Ted, John... oh, no. "Ordinary" names weren't good enough for her little angel. She wanted to come up with something "cute and clever".

Then she told my wife her big idea. She wants to use Dad-In-Law's name, "Tim", along with her dad's name, "Allen".

Yup. "Tim Allen [lastname]".

I may not be the best judge of "cute", but I was pretty underwhelmed. They could have at least reversed the names so as not to invoke elderly celebrity. They could have used "Tyler Steven" and hoped for big lips, or "Chase Chevy" and packed their bags for a vacation. Since neither of them cook, they could even have gone with "Ray Rachael" with an eye to the future.

Speaking of cooking...

Failed Chicken

One of my wife's buddies is a notoriously bad cook. Some folks who are bad at cooking simply refuse to do it. But this dear lady keeps trying, despite all the blackened food (and walls), squawky smoke detectors and grievous injuries. She's also pretty sensitive about it, so those who know her make a point of only speaking about her rare successes.

She had several friends over, and tried to cook a chicken meal for them that she'd done well with before. Unfortunately, the glaze / dressing concoction didn't work out. Once the flames were taken care of, what remained was scorched to the bottom of the pan so fiercely that her husband had to scrape it off with a chisel.

There were tears. Her friends consoled her and eventually calmed her down. They all sat down to eat their 100% unadorned chicken. And then somebody said, ...

"It's OK. At least the salad is really good. Who brought the salad?"

There were more tears. :)

Feedback

The other day OoRah came over to my desk. I couldn't tell if he was going to ask me something, or if he was just stretching his legs a bit. "What's up?", I asked.

"I'm just waiting for feedback on something."

Here's the context, for those of you not familiar with office environments. OoRah had emailed or called somebody to ask a question about the project he was working on. He had a few minutes to wait before his question would be answered, so he decided to get up and take a break from staring at his computer screen.

So, there he was, leaning over my cubical wall and staring at me. "I'm just waiting for feedback," he said. I knew he meant somebody else's feedback, but I decided to give him some of my own anyway.

"Yes, the odor *is* noticeable."

I've said it before, and I'll say it again. I can't believe I get away with saying these things to a Marine. OoRah tolerates me the same way a large dog tolerates a tiny yappy dog. "What, are you still there? Still yipping? Whatever, dude."

OoRah began to laugh. "Not *that* kind of feedback!", he protested.

I glared up at him in mock distress. "I can't be all things to all people!"

OoRah shook his head and walked away, laughing.

Yip! Yip! Yip!

Kid's Soccer Games

Kid's soccer games are AWESOME.

I got to see my nephew play this past weekend. It had been raining the previous 36 hours or so, but there was just enough bare soggy ground visible between the puddles for the kids to play.

We were greeted in the stands almost immediately by a cute little toddler boy with an unhealthy interest in bird poop. Every time he'd see a little white speck on the seats, he'd pick it up. "Momma, it's bird POOP!", he'd squeal. His mom was not impressed. "Put that down! I can't take you anywhere!"

Cute little toddler boy had no idea he was in trouble. He happily plopped down the bird poop with one hand and offered his sucker to my wife with the other. "Wanna lick?"

Also in the stands, my niece was a lot of fun. She pulled a stocking cap over her face and announced, "Uncle Jeff! Look! I'm a [whopper]!"

I put that last word in brackets because I have no idea what she actually said. But it sounded a little like "Whopper", so I rolled with it. "You're a Whopper?", I asked. She laughed and loudly denied being a food item. "Does that mean you've got pickles?" "Yes!", she agreed, "In my hat!" Her little friend sitting next to her started calling her "Pickle-Head", a nickname that she didn't seem to mind in the least.

Of course the big star of the show was my nephew, who was mostly vertical out on the soccer field. He's getting pretty good... he even scored two goals! One of his teammates fell down untouched after the start of the second half. While the other players kept running up and down the field, he got up and looked at his parents. "There's a hole in the field," he calmly explained. "Get your head in the game!", his mother retorted.

There must have been lots of "holes in the field", because nobody came out of the game with a mudless hinder.

After the game we all got up to leave. I stood next to my wife while the mother of the cute little toddler boy grabbed his hand and said her goodbyes. Cute little toddler boy look up and pointed at me. "That one's tall!," he began and then moved his focus over to my wife, "And that one's [grunt]." He squatted down and made a sound that meant "short" in his little mind.

While walking to the car, my nephew told us that he's one of just two boys on his team to have nicknames. One of his friends is nicknamed "Nose Counter", apparently because of a nose-picking habit. "And *my* nickname,..." he happily shared, "Is Skinny-Legs!"

My sister tried to be nice. "Honey, I'm not sure those are compliments."

Nephew just shrugged. He didn't mind.

Nose Counter and Skinny Legs. Sounds like a super-hero crime-fighting duo to me!

Creating Work

Conversations with Big Dawg can get silly pretty fast.

He came by my desk recently with a mournful look in his eyes. "I just sent an email that is going to create more work for me," he said.

He went on to explain that he had emailed one of "The Big Bosses" to make a suggestion. It was a good suggestion that would improve one of our processes, but it was also something that Big Dawg would have to create.

"I just know he's going to love the suggestion," Big Dawg lamented, "but I don't *want* him to love the suggestion."

It was time for some helpful Jeff-wisdom. "You need to spin it so that there are pitfalls as well as benefits," I said. "Tell him it'll be great, and it'll do wonderful things, but it will also makes spiders fall on his head. For days."

Big Dawg nodded. "Days," he agreed. Then, he flashed an evil grin. "Don't mind me over here on the ladder."

He leaned over, as if he was looking down on something. Then, he pantomimed dropping something very small, and thrust his arms up into the air with glee.

"Bulls-eye!"

Who knew dropping virtual spiders on phantom heads could be so much fun?

The Reference

I have a friend who is looking for a job. I told her that she could use me as a reference.

Most of the time when I do that, I don't get called. It's like employers are simply taking my word for it. "Jeff says this one is OK. Set up an interview."

That's why I was so surprised to be contacted this time. Since my outrageous mystique wasn't having its usual effect, I decided to try honesty.

"She was great to work with," I began. "Always on time, almost always dressed."

There was a gasping noise on the other end of the phone. I pressed my advantage.

"You could always tell when she was about to get violent, so it was easy to avoid injury. That kind of courtesy is rare, as I'm sure you already know."

There was a stuttering plea for clarification, but I ignored it. I was on a roll.

"She loved to throw things, but her aim was so bad that I was never in any real danger." I paused. "Well, I guess I *was* in danger if she was aiming at somebody else. But nobody's perfect."

The vast sucking sounds on the other end of the line told me that the caller was at a loss for words. Clearly I was making an impression. I went for the big finish.

"She always had a flair for the dramatic. None of us will ever forget the time she ate that cat. Good times."

The line went dead.

Anyone else need a reference?

Dad's Birthday

I'm going to share the birthday card my wife picked out for my Dad this year. There's a certain sweet spot we always aim for with Dad... the card must be *just* innapropriate enough that you can show it to a small child along with a warning that "Uncle Jeff isn't being very nice."

I think she nailed it.



The caption in the picture above is a little hard to read... it says, "Welcome to the Dung Beetle Cafe. Today's catch of the day is - uhh... looks like zebra."

The caption inside the card requires no translation.

Milestone

Those of us who work on web sites for a living know that there is certain milestone nearly all of us reach at some point. It's called "Crashing the Website".

It's just one of those things. You make a change, test the change, then upload the wrong file. Or forget an essential step. Or accidentally delete a critical thing. I've done it several times. All you can do is keep your cool and be ready to troubleshoot in a hurry.

One morning last week I walked into the office and stopped to say "hi" to the Golfer. We didn't get very far in our conversation before SWoAN (She Without A Nickname) ran up and shouted, "OoRah just crashed the website!"

It's always fun when there's a full-scale crisis and I haven't even made it to my desk yet. I wandered into the main part of the office where SWoAN, Merik and OoRah were scrambling and shouting.

Together, we got the problem sorted out pretty quickly and fixed. As the website churned back to life I looked over at OoRah and said, "Is this the first time you've ever crashed our website?" OoRah looked concerned. "Yes?..." he replied. "Congratulations!", I shouted. "You're a real boy now!"

Sometimes I look back on the things that I say to our former Marine, and I'm amazed that he lets me live.

Anyway, it was 5 or 10 minutes later when Big Dawg came into the office. "You missed all the fun!", I told him. "OoRah is a real boy now!"

"What?", Big Dawg asked. "Did he crash the entire web site?"

"Yes!"

There were several loud noises from SWoAN's direction. She was valiantly attempting to contain choking laughter while trying not to fall out of her chair. "You knew!", she shouted, amazed. "Big Dawg, how did you know?"

Big Dawg grinned. "It's just one of those things."