LOLJeff - Caffeine

One for today;



... and because I wasn't quite happy with the one from last week, I tweaked it a little to make the test easier to read.



Happy Weekend!

Domino's

Like many, I have not been a fan of Domino's Pizza. Bad Pizza, many icky burpy, that sort of thing.

Well, Domino's has changed their pizza recipe, so I decided to give them another try.

Although it is slightly greasy, I can report that my first impression of the new Domino's pizza is WHOO-HOO YAY WHEE NOM NOM NOM. You can quote me on that.

As an added bonus, the D's in downtown Tulsa appears to now be staffed by actual intelligent friendly people, instead of the sloths and morons who've worked there the past three years. Granted, there were no future NASA engineers behind that counter, but complete sentences containing polysyllabic words were happening regularly. I was stunned.

Their main employee for the past several years has been a woman who so strongly resembles Jabba the Hut that I was always seriously tempted to take a picture for this blog. I'm not even sure she was capable of speech.

I kinda miss the visual oddity. Usually I have to look in a mirror if I want a visual oddity.

Cheap Date

My wife and I went out to dinner with our pal Scruffy. We had a gift card for the restaurant, so when the ticket came I insisted on picking it up.

"It's my turn to buy for you two," Scruffy claimed.

"Don't worry about it," I said. "With this gift card, you're a real cheap date."

Scruffy's eyes crossed briefly and he shuddered. "What did you say?"

"You're a cheap date!", I happily exclaimed.

My wife started to blush and shrink down into her seat.

Scruffy shook his head sadly and laughed. "I don't think I'm comfortable with this."

"I could say it louder if you think that would help," I volunteered.

"I'll pass."

My wife was glancing around wild-eyed at the other patrons. "I'm not with them," she mouthed to some nearby gawkers.

I'm such an embarrassment.

Psychoanaly-Nerd

Bear with me. This one's weird, even for me.

Remember Sally Jesse Raphael? I didn't think so. She was a talk show host, predated Jerry Springer somewhat. I never watched her show, but I remember seeing her commercials on the TV all the time. There was this crazy annoying tagline that was sung... "SalEEEEEE... She opens your ey-ah-eyes!"

OK, next subject.

Remember Bryan Adams? He wrote "(Everything I Do) I Do It For You", which was part of the "Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves" soundtrack. Every lonely pathetic high school nerd dreamed of singing that song to his pretty girlfriend, if only he actually had a pretty girlfriend and his voice would stop cracking. *ahem*... so I've heard, that is.

Anyway, I kinda liked the song until one day when I heard the Sally Jessie Rock-My-World tagline in my head where the guitar solo lives.

Try it out for yourself. Here's the tune. At the 2:48 mark, sing "SalEEEEEE... She opens your ey-ah-eyes!". It's a perfect fit. It's kinda creepy.



(Sorry, dang thing won't allow embedding... *grumble*)

OK, next subject.

I was in line at Subway last week, and they had one of those Easy-Pop radio stations playing lightly in the background. I wasn't even paying attention to the song that was playing, until I heard myself hum "SalEEEEEEE... She opens your ey-ah-eyes!"

It was the first time I'd heard "Everything I Do" in years. One minute I'm thinking about my impending chicken sammich, the next I've got a middle-aged trashy talk show she-host dancing around in my head. Most distressing. Dang you, Bryan Adams!

I don't know if nonsense like this is a cause of my insanity, or a symptom. It's hard to tell.

Brain Lapse

A day in the life of a Jeff.

My wife and I were in the kitchen, putting dinner together. She dumped some salad stuff in a bowl for me and asked, "Do you want croûtons?"

I stopped and blinked. "Croûtons," I thought. "Do I know that word?"

My wife stared at me, waiting for my response. "I think I should know what that word means," I said to myself.

I started to wrinkle my brow with the effort of cogitation. My bride tilted her head to one side, wondering what was wrong with me.

"Context," I thought, "That's what I need! What were we discussing? That will give me a clue."

My wife cleared her throat and started to glare.

"Is a croûton animal, vegetable, or mineral?", I wondered.

Many strange moments passed. Then, it hit me. "Yes!", I shouted, desperately wishing I sounded normal. "I would like croûtons, please."

"Did you just forget what croûtons are?"

"Yes. But it was only a quick lapse. No one ever has to know about this."

So, uh... let's just keep this between us, OK? Thanks.

The Importance of Walking...

From the email archive...

---

Walking can add minutes to your life. This enables you at 85 years old to spend an additional 5 months in a nursing home at $7000 per month.

My grandpa started walking five miles a day when he was 60. Now he's 97 years old and we don't know where he is.

I like long walks, especially when they are taken by people who annoy me.

The only reason I would take up walking is so that I could hear heavy breathing again.

I have to walk early in the morning, before my brain figures out what I'm doing.

Every time I hear the dirty word 'exercise', I wash my mouth out with chocolate.

** Jeff's Favorite! **
I do have flabby thighs, but fortunately my stomach covers them.

We all get heavier as we get older, because there's a lot more information in our heads. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

... and ...

Every time I start thinking too much about how I look, I just find a Happy Hour, and by the time I leave, I look just fine.

Shopping

We went to Hobby Lobby a couple of weeks after Christmas. There were still a couple of sad Christmas aisles, mostly barren and lonely.

That's where we saw the Happy Santa Frog:



I can't believe no one bought the Happy Santa Frog for their tree. No one ever gives the Happy Santa Frog any love. You heartless people make the Happy Santa Frog sad.

Then we walked by the greeting cards. Now, I know that this happened because some customer put a card in the wrong spot. Still, I got a big kick out of this:



"Dearest Friend: Get well soon. God's bulldozer needs you."

LOLJeff - I'm A PC!

Panic!

My in-laws recently went to see Avatar, and managed to panic everyone they love in the process.

Their phone was off, which was a problem for the doctor trying to call. I obviously won't get into details, but he wasn't looking for anything even remotely important. But instead of leaving a message, he tried again. And again. Then he started moving down the "contacts" list. The home phone didn't work, so called my brother-in-law.

"Do you know where your dad is?" What a fun call *that* must have been. Bro-In-Law didn't have time to deal with it, so he called his wife. Sis-In-Law was calm at first, but after more than an hour with no answer, she started to freak out. She called my wife.

She didn't want to panic her, so she tried ease into it. "Soooooooo.... hiiiiiiii..." There was an awkward lengthy pause, followed by an exaggerated and bouncy, "How ya! dooo-in'?" There was another weird pause. "OHMYGOD YOUR PARENTS ARE GONE!!!"

My wife tried to calm down Sis-In-Law, then she took over the phone duties.

The movie finally ended an hour or so later, and the in-laws turned their phone back on. They saw missed calls from Doctor, Doctor, Son, D-in-law, Son, D-in-law, D-in-law, D-in-law, D-in-law, Daughter, D-in-law, Daughter, Daughter and Daughter. Just then, my wife called again and finally got through.

"Hi, what's going on?"
"Is something going on?"
"I don't know what's going on so I'm supposed to ask you what's going on."
"I didn't know anything was going on."
"Some doctor said something was going on."
"A doctor?!? What's going on?!?"
"That's what *I* need to know! Everybody's been trying to call you! What's going on?"
"Why's everyone calling? Nothing's going on, is it?"
"I don't know!"
"Third base!"

It took quite some time to establish that nothing had actually happened. After all, it was a very eventful "nothing".

Mailbox Follow-Up

You might remember that my grandfather ran over a neighbor's mailbox at Christmas. But wait! There's more.

My dad got a replacement mailbox for the neighbor pretty quickly, but it's been snowy and freezing and such for a long dang time. Last week, things cleared off just enough that Dad decided to wander across the street and see what he was up against.

Dad lugged a new mailbox across the street right as Grandpa showed up with ham.

I have to pause here for a second and wonder... do other families get to use sentences like that? Or is it just us?

Anyway, my grandparents are notorious for buying food in bulk. Especially meat. Then Grandpa will pile it all into a giant freezer in the garage. There's no telling what's in that thing. The top layer is usually vaguely safe, but the stuff in the middle strata could have been purchased as far back as the 80's. The lower third of the freezer is so frost-covered that it's impossible to break into without a pickax. There's no telling what kind of stuff is down there... steak, ham, bacon, mammoth, saber-tooth... anything is possible.

Anyway, Grandpa had been digging in that thing and found 5 hams. He was going to donate them to a local food bank, but on the way he decided that Mom and Dad needed one. So, he went in and gave my mom a ham.

Grandpa came out at the same time Dad returned. "What are you doin' over there?"

"Well Pop," Dad said. "When you left here after Christmas, you backed over Neighbor's mailbox there. I'm replacing it for him."

Grandpa considered this for a minute. "Huh," he said, clearly unimpressed. "I wondered if I did that."

And then he simply left. He seemed pretty secure in the knowledge that it wasn't his problem.

Besides, he had more ham to deliver.

White Lies

It's Friday! Here's one from the email archive. I'm reposting this from "Anastasia's Corner".

---

Have you ever told a white lie? You are going to love this, especially all you ladies who bake for church events.

Alice was to bake a cake for the her church's Ladies' Group in Tuscaloosa, but forgot to do it until the last minute. She remembered it the morning of the bake sale and after rummaging through cabinets, found an angel food cake mix, quickly made it while drying her hair, dressing, and helping her son pack up for Scout camp.

When she took the cake from the oven, the center had dropped flat and the cake was horribly disfigured. There was no time to bake another cake. This cake was important to Alice because she did so want to fit in at her new church, and in her new community of friends.

So, being inventive, she looked around the house for something to build up the center of the cake... She found it in the bathroom - a roll of toilet paper. She plunked it in and then covered it with icing. The finished product looked perfect.

Before she left the house to drop the cake by the church and head for work, Alice woke her daughter, gave her some money and specific instructions to be at the bake sale the moment it opened at 9:30 and to buy the cake and bring it home.

When the daughter arrived at the sale, she found the attractive, perfect cake had already been sold. Amanda grabbed her cell phone and called her mom.

Alice was horrified-she was beside herself! Everyone would know! What would they think?

All night, Alice lay awake in bed thinking about people pointing fingers at her and talking about her behind her back.

The next day, Alice promised herself she would try not to think about the cake and would attend the fancy bridal shower at the home of a fellow church member and try to have a good time.

She did not really want to attend because the hostess more than once had looked down her nose at the fact that Alice was a single parent and not from the founding families of Tuscaloosa, but having already RSVP'd, she couldn't think of a believable excuse to stay home.

The meal was elegant, the company was definitely upper crust Old South, and to Alice’s horror, the cake she had baked was presented for dessert!

Alice started out of her chair to tell the hostess all about it, but before she could get to her feet, the Mayor's wife said, "What a beautiful cake!"

Alice, still stunned, sat back in her chair when she heard the hostess say, "Thank you, I baked it myself."

God is good.

Experience

I'd had enough. I walked over to Big Dawg's desk and picked up his phone.

"Hello. This isn't Big Dawg. Sorry to dissapoint. He's not here."

"As a matter of fact, a minute ago when you called, he wasn't here either."

"And I'm pretty sure that two minutes ago when you called, he wasn't here then."

"The minute before that, when you called? He was gone then too."

"Would you like to learn from experience and leave a message, or would you rather just wait a minute and try to call him a fifth time?"

I learned that people don't like to learn from experience. It explains a lot, really.

Fire Alarm

We're getting new fire alarms at work. At first you might think this is a good thing. But take a look at this picture of my desk...



Look at that alarm... it's less than 5 feet from my head. If that alarm ever actually goes off, I will wet the underside of my desk.

Honestly, I don't need a fire alarm. Just show a panicy person the smoke and let them run around screaming for a few minutes. I'll get the message.

Of course, I might choose to mock the alarmist, rather than flee. He'd be shouting "FIRE!", and I'd run along beside him shouting, "EARTH! WIND!".

It's probably best to just let me burn.

Tea Monster

SWoaN came up to me the other day, holding a mug. "You like tea, right?", she asked. Then she showed me her mug.

There was a monster in the water.

I literally yelped and jumped backward.

A multi-tentacled BEAST lurked in the murky depths of the mug.

Thus, Jeff was introduced to the concept of "Flowering Tea". It's a type of tea that looks like a fractured nut when dry, and expands out to the basic shape of a Pirates Of The Caribbean sea monster when plunked down in boiling water.

Side Note: "Fractured Nut" is also the National Mental Health Information Center's official classification for me. It's also a kickin' name for a rock n' roll band. It is a multi-purpose descriptive phrase.

Anyway, despite appearances the tea smelled lovely. I couldn't sample it, though. There way no way I could bring myself to expose any of my soft fleshy matter to the beast.

I wasn't alone in my fear. SWoaN fished the creature out with a spoon before she drank the tea. The monster, in its anger, bent the spoon.

Say what you will about Lipton, but at least its passive.

Metal Tubing

Recently some guys came into our office to replace the fire alarms and sprinkler system.

Functionally, this meant that I had a guy on a ladder over my desk with his head up in the ceiling. He was rubbing metal tubes. A lot. He really seemed to enjoy his job.

WHEEE!hoo WHEEE!hoo WHEEE!hoo WHEEE!hoo WHEEE!hoo WHEEE!hoo WHEEE!hoo ...

He paused and panted. "Do you need some privacy?", I asked, trying not to make eye contact.

"No," he confided, grinning. "I like having an audience."

His smile was kinda creepy, so I hid in the break room until he went away.

Yoda!

Target is AWESOME

Hot Dog Expert

I had a "People Of Walmart" experience last weekend. I was walking down the lunch-meat aisle when I saw a very large woman in one of those motorized scooters. She didn't appear to have any specific medical problem other than her tremendous hinder.

Along beside her was a man I assume to be her husband. He looked to be in his 60's, slightly bent over and walking with a cane. Completing the tri-defect-a was a woman with a shopping cart who appeared to be part of the herd. I'm not sure how she was related.

The wide load lady pulled up next to the hot dog section. She pointed and barked, "Get those Armour hot dogs! I won't eat Bar S!"

This spurred some conversation from the apparently "normal" lady. "What's the difference in those hot dogs? I can't ever tell a difference."

"They're not the same!", roared the scooter sloth. "I won't eat Bar S!"

The other lady was unable to take the hint. She looked at the packaging. "There's no difference in the ingredients on these. I never can taste a difference."

"I CAN!", shrieked Lardy Lucy. Nearby, her husband nodded sadly. "Trust me, she can."

I had to leave before my choking laughter was noticed. I am truly sorry I couldn't get a picture.

Sew Nice

I'm teaching myself how to sew.

If you can't already hear the screams in your mind, then you just haven't been paying attention.

I have no particular project in mind. I'm going to try and mend a couple of minor seems on some sweatpants without bleeding.

I called my mom to tell her the news. "Mom, I bought a sewing machine!"

Silence.

"It actually fits in my hand, it's so small. It's a tiny little thing, portable, meant for light use, arts n' crafts, that sort of thing."

Silence.

"I've been running some test fabric though it, learning how to thread it and such. I never knew there could be so many bits on a single machine called 'bobbin'."

Then my mom said a very wise thing.

"Don't get hurt."

I'll try.

Emailing Yourself

A couple of years ago, a developer where I work wrote a program. It wasn't a very exciting program... it got some information from a database, wrote it to a file, and put the file out where our web site could use it.

The thing is, that particular project was cancelled about halfway through. The program still faithfully made its files, but the web site never used them. The program was not disabled, but forgotten.

Fast forward to modern times. I found the program. It was on a schedule, running automatically once every half-hour. I opened it up to see what it was doing. I'll leave out the really techie details, and just say that for the past year and a half, the program had been failing.

You'd think that a program failing every half-hour for a year and a half would be noticed. Not this one! The developer set it up so that on failure, it would send an email notification. The email was labeled as being FROM the developer's email address, TO his email address.

Unfortunately, the developer in question had left the company several months before the program starting failing. His email address with the company had been removed.

This program was running every half-hour for a year and a half, failing every time, and sending a notification email FROM a ghost, TO that same ghost.

The elegant uselessness of it all made me weep with laughter.

Heh.

I guess you kinda had to be there.

Let's See How Long It Takes OoRah To Notice

I was blessed with some Cotton Candy in my Christmas stocking this year. It came in a handy little cup thinger.



Once I completed my snack, I decided to re-use the cup. I'd hate to see it go to waste, after all.



These are the toys on OoRah's desk. Cute, aren't they? I decided to cage his giraffe.



After all, he's much bigger than me and he's combat trained. Why would I pick on anybody else?

He gets into the office about an hour earlier than I do. I wonder if he'll notice before I arrive? :)

Short Christmas Stories 4: Santa, Coffee

SANTA

The Oklahoma Christmas Eve Blizzard of '09 took a toll on everybody's inflatables. Our Santa was buried under 8 inches of snow and ice.

My dad also has a Santa inflatable, but his has a little reindeer standing next to him. Dad told me that he had to unplug his inflatable because he got waterlogged and was sagging so much that, "... it looked like Santa was doing naughty things to Rudolf."

Poor Rudolf.

COFFEE

My in-laws got me a BUNCH of coffee for Christmas. They forget that I'm the only coffee-drinker in the house, and I only have one cup per day at home.

There are 17 coffee packages in that picture. I'll be drinking holiday-themed coffee well into April.

Outstanding. :)