*making small talk with the woman ringing up my groceries, who is wearing a nametag that reads "Patrina"*
Me: "That's an interesting name." Her: "What?" Me: "Your name. It's unusual." Her: "Oh, the nametag. Yeah, I forgot mine today so I stole this one out of the employee locker room. I'm just plain old boring Molly."
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Sunday, July 5
Missed Connections
I had just left the mini-mart with my Coca-Cola (TM) and fudge round, and I saw you in your business attire. You startled me, possibly because I was high. I just wanted to say that I'm sorry for laughing in your face with my mouth full of chocolate. (m4w - 24)
I've decided to start reading the "Missed Connections" on Craig's List for the humor factor . . .
I gave my notice today. Things just weren't working out at work, between the random drug testing and them actually wanting me to do work. I know the economy is slow, but I'm sure it's not nearly as bad as the media makes it out to be. I expect I'll find a higher-paying job within a couple of weeks. Maybe in banking or real estate. Until then I can live off my 401(k) and my credit cards. If anyone knows of any jobs available that pay more than 70k (preferably with a company car), let me know.
And if that wasn't transparent enough, happy April Fools' Day. :)
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Thursday, February 26
The Life of a Clerk
Heard on the store intercom at Wal-Green's last night:
Woman: The store will be closing in 15 minutes. Please bring your selections to the front of the store and we'll be happy to ring them up for you. Thank you for shopping Wal-Greens.
*pause*
Man: John, we need more cowbell in aisle 2. More cowbell in aisle 2. Thank you.
Inspired by this site, my own take on chocolate arachnids: chocolate mini-cakes with pureed cherry filling (the "guts"), coated in hard chocolate and adorned with Pocky legs (32 pieces of Pocky individually cut and reglued at an angle), then decorated with eyes (and, for Lane's, fangs and a black widow decoration).
They only took two hours (partly because they have a lot of parts, and partly because I ruined an entire pan of melted chocolate and had to start the coating process over again).
The twins were thrilled (although Alec quizzed me very closely to make sure there weren't any *actual* spider parts in it). Lane about died in delight.
Shortly after that, Kyle thanked me by accidentally clocking me with a toy, leaving a hideous bruise the size of a 50-cent-piece in the middle of my forehead that everyone seems to find funny.
Courtesy of Cris, a somewhat-cheesy-at-first-but-it-gets-better homemade video to my favorite Daft Punk song (the version without the crappy rap lyrics over it). This also helps explain one of the scenes in the new Weezer video that I didn't get before.
This seems like an oddly specific Web banner. Are there a lot of people who read Web comics who happen to run fishing tournaments and who are also looking to start Web sites? The peculiarity is only enhanced by its placement as part of a triptych banner of unrelated ads; the other two were for an HDTV and a once-a-month birth control implant.
While enjoying the latest episode of "Top Chef" tonight (thanks to Cris for not spoiling it and yay to Richard for still being in), I saw a commercial for a company called "Finally Fast" that advertises a "free" computer scan (followed by a not-free "cleanup" of any problems it finds) for your PC. As a note unrelated to my amusement factor, what they're really selling is the same service that Spybot provides (except that Spybot is robust, highly recommended . . . and free), so what they're actually doing is cashing in on the computer-illiteracy of the average American.
What earned a laugh from me, though, was something completely unrelated in their ad. The opening and ending of the commercial, the "book ends," if you prefer, feature a young man first complaining that his computer (which "used to be so fast") is now crawling and then, after running Finally Fast, bragging in overly enthusiastic tones about how fast his PC is now. Except his "PC" is a 20-inch iMac (newer generation, either the last of the G5s or the first of the Intels). So the software the company is promoting wouldn't even install on his computer, let alone do anything to speed it up.
The infusion of amateur (read: unpaid) Web comic artists in the last five or so years has helped reinvigorate daily comics, at least for the Internet-savvy (who can now indulge in theme-specific and esoteric comics that would never make it in a newspaper world of "target demographics").
It also increases the competition. How much does it suck for a nationally syndicated 20-year veteran when his comic is done three days earlier by a Web comic artist?
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Thursday, April 17
Water, Water Everywhere
This "water in the basement" thing is becoming something of an annoying recurrence. The weather is supposed to be nice this weekend, so I imagine some new silicone caulking and gutter cleaning is in order, along with some surveying to see if pouring a small patch of concrete "sidewalk" along the northwest corner will (a) fix the problem and (b) not be a tremendous hassle. It probably wouldn't be *quite* the annoyance (since I don't have carpet in the basement and the water just puddles until I push it into the not-quite-as-low-as-the-lowest-spot-in-the-floor drain), except that my first warning of it every time is when I stumble into the basement to take my shower and step on the soaking wet and very cold door mat at the foot of the stairs (that and the fact that years of this have pretty severely damaged the plaster walls it "flows under" to get from the wall behind my furnace all the way to the lowest point of the floor).
To cheer me up in advance (as if he knew my basement was going to be wet today . . .), Cris sent me this.
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Tuesday, March 25
Slice of Life
Miscellany of the random sort (as opposed to the rarer organized variety):
- Cris has a hilarious Easter set in his Flickr. All that's missing was for Cris and Mark to do a live podcast as they made the eggs.
- I saw a newer Dodge Ram (or some similar monstrosity with four doors and "dually" tires), brightly emblazoned in maroon and silver colors, drive past my house last evening . . . with a Domino's Pizza Delivery light on top of the cab. The ridiculousness of the image aside, your fuel economy is going to really cut into your profit margins there, pal.
- Lane is playing the new "Super Smash Brothers" on her Wii. I've been content to watch (because she kicks my butt at it), but I have been amused that the game features an assortment of "classic" characters Lane has never seen (such as the protagonist from "Kid Icarus" from the original NES, suitably upgraded from 8-bit graphics).
Spell check, in general, is a good thing, helping to sand off the rough corners of written language. As a basic standard, however, one should at least look at the suggested replacement word before approving it:
"As of today, more than 4 million people have given me their vote for president, that's of course, less than Senator moccasin's 4.7 million, but quite a statement nonetheless. Eleven states have given me their nod, compared to his 13. Of course, because size does matter, he's doing quite a bit better with the number of delegates he's got," Romney said. [Italics mine.]
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Sunday, December 9
Be Prepared
If Costco is selling caskets now, can Sam's Club be far behind? What do you do with your discount-chain casket until you're ready for it? Use it as a coffee table? Put books in it in the attic? Try to figure out how to explain to your dates why you have a coffin in your spare bedroom?
For future reference, you may have better luck selling something if you don't start off threatening legal action if the buyer doesn't follow your rules exactly . . .
I've been collecting a few choice trinkets from friends over the last few weeks:
From Mull comes this fantastic artist who creates sculptures representing mathematical constructs and etchings of DNA and other biological components. Make sure you click a couple of the links (the Sculpture and Math Models ones, at least). Wow.
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Sunday, April 15
Catching Up
To contrast with the monstrosity of the post antecedent to this one, I present a tidy collection of random events, each as special as a tinfoil-wrapped chocolate egg, minus the whole tooth-decay thing . . .
- I received my baby sister's graduation announcement. Family jokes aside, there was of course never any question about whether she would graduate, but I do find it amusing that their "class song" is Bon Jovi's "It's My Life," a song that was initially released when she was 11. I will refrain from further examination, however, as (a) it's not a country song and (b) if I remember correctly, I suggested Queen's "Princes of the Universe" when I was a senior and was shot down in flames (my proposal to use the "Imperial March" in lieu of "Pomp and Circumstance" was likewise dismissed with rolling eyes).
- Apple has officially postponed Leopard, and hence my iMac purchase, to October. Stupid iPhone.
- I read a couple of science articles over the last couple of days that are, to me, at least, very interesting. The first is about a quark-gluon plasma generated at Brookhaven National Laboratory that has the same mathematical signature as five-dimension microscopic black holes. The other involves the hendecatope, which I don't fully understand so I'm not even going to try to explain it. Let's just say it's really interesting.
- The latest abstinence education study, commissioned this time by Congress, has found that they're completely ineffectual. To be fair, they also don't increase the rate of unprotected sex, as some critics have maintained. But that's really not a good reason to keep funding them.
- I snapped a photo of the billboard I mentioned in the previous post. In the process (which involved some swearing as I'm not familiar with that part of town, especially after dark), I noticed that the backside of that billboard has the otherbillboard that has made my blog lately; I thought they'd taken it down, but it turns out they just moved it (both billboards are together in this composite picture). I'm curious if there was coordination of if they ended up together by chance.
- Being third in the nation on the list of music piracy means you should just expect the lawsuits.
- I've been meaning to link to this page for awhile. There's some good stuff there. This is my favorite.
We also have a preview of an upcoming episode of "Blue's Clues" (entitled "Blue finds the third clue and discovers the Necronomicon buried in the backyard . . ."). "Blue's Clues" is Kyle's new favorite show (she'll look longingly at the tv and say "Coos coos?"), so I bought the twins some plushies from the show. Lisa vetoed giving them a plush Cthulhu or Nyarlathotep. (The shoggoths are kind of cute, though. Maybe I can sneak one of those in.)
This is one of the chairs that has been sitting outside my office for the last week (a candidate for replacement chairs for the secretaries, I think). I've never seen a chair that reminds me of lingerie before.
And finally, courtesy of Lane, proof that America is destined to fall from its superpower status. In the words of Lane, Oh. My. God.
Despite their similarities, it is important to understand the functional differences between restrooms and ATMs.
This is just incredible. I'm sure the "after" photo was nearly as entertaining. (Not that I'm advocating participating in anything like this, mind you. Really.)
And finally . . . I'm sure there's some sort of naughty comment inherent in this picture, but I'm not going there.