I Think Someone Added an Extra Zero When Ordering Business Cards for the Staff

IT people are strange.

I met a very interesting computer salesman over the weekend.  He had the standard short sleeved plaid with tie combo, and I think his face was made up entirely of 90 degree angles.  Which were covered up with a beard.  My computer salesman, we'll call him "Salesman", spent the beginning of the pitch asking what kind of computer I wanted.  After indicating what specific features I wanted on the computer and the price range I was looking at, he pointed me to a computer that had none of the features I wanted and was less than half the price of what I was looking for.  Now, don't get me wrong, I like a deal as much as the next guy, but when something costs 800 dollars and the suggestion is 500 dollars off, I think you should know that product is not exactly what the customer had in mind.  So I told Salesman that I would continue to shop around.  Then I figured I had narrowed down my choice to two different computers.  After asking for a recommendation, Salesman thought about the two computers, went on a two minute tangent about the way processors were made in 1997, and then suggested I buy the same computer he originally tried to sell me.  I think he just found one in a school dumpster and put it on the shelf at the store to try to pocket some cash when some sucker bought it.
While talking to me, he itched his beard.  Not once.  And not even a few times.  I mean while talking to me he itched his beard the entire time.  I was beginning to worry that his hand was going to pop out the other side of his head, like he was burrowing through his face.  The only time he seemed to stop was when a gnat flew up his nose.  Which was not mentioned, and I think he swallowed it after that happened.
After informing him I was going to get one of the two computers today, but needed a second alone to think about it, he shook my hand, gave me his card and left.  Apparently unaware that commission for his hard work was about to fall into his lap.  Still, I felt bad for the guy, and he was trying, so I made sure and told the cashier.


Later on, I heard a cashier say the refurbished computers at the store had a 50% chance of working.
I like those odds!!

WARNING! WARNING! DANGER!

Relationships are very funny.  I've written how frustrating it is that you can't tell a computer program something simple like "I want to use the printer that's sitting right behind me." and just have it work, but a lot of times people don't respond to that kind of thing either.  In fact, somehow the simplest things turn into ones that are more complicated.  "We're spending too much money on dinners, we're going to have to cut back." can somehow get taken as "You're not pulling your weight around here."  At least technology doesn't project its insecurities onto what you're telling it to do.  Or maybe it does and my computer thinks it's fat which is why it only cuts but refuses to paste.  It's also nice that after you yell at a computer because you've had a hard day it doesn't take offense.  It doesn't even know.  THAT'S the biggest reason we need to keep computers from becoming self-aware.  The Terminator had it all wrong.  It wasn't about those machines killing us, it really would be about the machines thinking it was their fault we were so upset the lean cuisine didn't get cooked right, and then them shooting cancer giving microwaves at our brains while we sleep.

So technology, consider this my most formal of apologies.












For now, you bumbling buckets of bolts.

So they had a robot that could sense danger somehow but they couldn't fix their spaceship?

Why Can't a Blanket be Broken?

And why do people like picking off their own scabs so much?  What is it about ripping off human flesh that is so appealing?

How much longer are we going to spend hours and hours sitting in traffic?

Who decided loaves of bread would be shaped the way they are, or that pizzas and doughnuts would be round?  I want to make a pizza, just smash the dough and leave it the way it is.  A crazy misshapen pizza.

Why do dogs bark over and over and over and over when they are left alone?  Do they have a thought process that if they bark enough something will change?  Do they remember that they have barked 3890 times before?  Or is it just "Hey!  I'm alone!  BARK!  ....hey, I'm alone!  BARK!...hey, I'm alone!  BARK!"?

Would the question mark look quizzical to us if we hadn't been taught that this "?" means "question"?

Why did we choose ink as the substance to put in our pens?  Was there a great octopus overpopulation scare the year they were invented?

Smart Talk with Art Krenshaw: Aug. 25

Hey everybody,
I thought we'd switch things up a little today and have a guest blogger.  Someone to keep you all on your toes.  So without further ado, I'd like to introduce Art Krenshaw, an expert in human behavior.  He's studied sociology and anthropology at Northern Kansas University and currently teaches on the side.  I'd like to start a sort of "Dear Abby" column periodically, only using Art's name instead of "Abby".  We'll start off with a question that was posed to me socially.

SMART TALK

with  Art Krenshaw

Art,

I have a problem.  My six year old son has just started 1st grade and my four year old is very jealous.  Every day, my six year old comes home with all sorts of interesting stories about his day and I can't help but give him my attention.  My four year old becomes furious at this and almost without fail starts a physical fight between him and the six year old.  I feel awful, what should I do? 

Sincerely,

Concerned

Well Concerned,

This is a common problem between boys that age, so don't feel too bad about them fighting.  As long as no one is breaking anything around the house, or each other, it's all part of growing up.  And I'm sure the guilt you feel is unnecessary.   The real problem I'm seeing here is your children's schooling.  As you know, children are our most precious resource.  Our most precious right behind crude oil.  So my advice to you, and to all parents out there, is to combine those resources and get our children to work in the oil fields.  Now, I'm no math whiz, but according to my calculations, resource x resource = resource squared.  And that's a good thing.  Just look how it turned out for the guy in "There Will be Blood".  Him and his son got along great, they even went and had milkshakes together.

Now I've had some parents come up to me after lectures absolutely furious, and that's understandable.  It's a lot to ask of a young child to mine the oil fields of the earth.  So if you're one of those parents who married a physical specimen as equally impressive as yourself for breeding purposes, go ahead and let the kids do what you had them to do- be it model, play basketball, or invent "softwebs" on the computer.  Kids are a lot like pokemon, there's no sense in having a well rounded kid when there's another one out there who specializes in fire attacks and can absolutely slaughter your child in one dragon rage.  With your army of athletes, nerds, and beautiful people, you'll be able to outduel anyone around and become a master.  One thing is for certain though, pull your kids out of school right now, you don't want them getting smarter than you- that's how those pigs pulled off that coup in "Animal Farm".  And out of all the animals in the animal kingdom, children have the closest genetic code to pigs.

So let's nip this one in the bud, and if you have any special little guys or girls running around, wake them up immediately and get them shooting some hoops, painting, experimenting with chemicals, or putting on moisturizer.  And don't let them stop until they're at least 18 and able to start bringing in some wages to pay for the expenses you've incurred raising them.

If they're not plowing the oil fields that is. 

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

If you have any questions for Art, please post them in the comments section and he'll do his best to get to them next time on....Smart Talk, with Art Krenshaw! 

It Was SO Hot, (famous overweight person) Was Too Hot to Eat!!

Humans like to tell other humans that it is hot.

Human 1: It's hot!
Human 2: I know, it's (state temperature outside.)
Human 3: (chiming in) It was so hot yesterday (thing someone does when it is hot)
Human 1: (feeling left out of the conversation they started) It's supposed to be (whatever crackpot temperature the weatherman came up with).

Is our need to be right about things that deep that we need to state something as obvious as the weather?  Or is it our need to connect with our fellow man?

For fun, let's try an experiment.  Next time someone bursts into the space you're occupying and proclaims to no one in particular that it is hot, say "My shirt is (the color of your shirt)."  Smile, and move on.

Oh, and it is really hot right now.

"I'll have a medium Mr. Pibb." "OK you want a drink with that?"

Went out and got me some Del Taco tonight.
Always a medium to low quality, fairly priced quick option requiring no dishwashing, Del Taco once again delivered the goods.
And by "the goods" I mean the "good enoughs".
I pulled up to the "drive-thru" menu, which was named without the "ogh" in "through" because people who use drive-thrus are so pressed for time that they simply can't afford to spend the time typing or writing out those extra three letters.  It's saved lives.  While there, I had a few thoughts,
-Every time I go to Del Taco, I wonder "Of the taco?"  My basic spanish understanding has confused me yet again.  Anyone with more than cursory knowledge, please explain or confirm this poorly translated restaurant name.

-I don't think the people who ask if I want to try the mega beef cheese extreme macho large combo are listening when I respond, because they never respond to what I say back.  Sometimes it's odd because their voice drops an octave or two.  Either that or it's a recording.  Probably not a recording.

-What is the person in front of me ordering that takes 5 minutes?  They only get one bag of food...I don't understand why the Del Taco employees don't discuss politics or religion with ME.

-Really- what are they talking about??  Given the choice between being able to hear those incredibly long conversations, what baseball players talk about on the pitcher's mound, what NBA players say (swear) to each other at the free throw line, and what football players are saying during those giant piles of humanity (besides "get off me...ow!") I would probably pick the baseball one.  But I still really want to know what's going on in those long conversations at the drive thru window.

And then after ordering, paying, dropping whatever change I'm giving them out the window, deciding whether or not to unbuckle my seat belt and get out of the car and pick it up, I always have the greatest internal struggle a human can have: whether or not to check the contents of the bag right in front of the person who just handed it to me.  I'm pretty much saying "thank you for completing this business transaction with me, you seem like a very nice person, however, I either think you are dumber than a 3 year-old, or as untrustworthy as a 3-year old with a black top hat, handlebar mustache, and shiny black cape."

I usually feel bad and just drive off, and usually my trust in humankind/irrational fear of an awkward situation is rewarded with a perfect order- sometimes even an extra fry or two gets thrown in at the bottom of the bag!

But in the end, everyone wins.  Except the fruit and vegetable industry.  And my health.

TOP TEN REASONS TO SLEEP

10. It's like the sweet release of death- only temporary!
9. Because you miss your dinosaur bedsheets.
8. To continue mankind's lifelong quest of sleeping so tight, no bedbugs will bite.
7. The closest we'll ever get to time traveling.  One second it's 11:15pm, the next, 7:05am!
6. We all know the bogeyman only strikes when you're awake in bed.
5. Put chicken pot pie under your pillow: 30% chance you'll dream of chicken pot pie!
4. It's better than watching The Big Bang Theory.
3. It's the only way to get magical present-bringing beings to come, maybe they'll blow it and come tonight too!
2.  People always think you're a jerk if you snore while you're awake.
1. You're tired!

Spied her? I Didn't. Webface.

I like helping.





























I especially like helping children.  They're much weaker and dumber than I am, so it takes a lot less effort to help, yet the results are equally as helpful as if you'd helped, say, your brother, or a co-worker.  It's all about the bang for your buck.

So as a public service to all of the kids out there- and I'm not talking about goats, although they're welcome to benefit from this as well- I'm going to help out with some schoolwork, it being the end of summer and all.  I know there's probably nary a kid out there who wants to do work after they've spent a whole summer goofing off.  Since I have to work every day of my miserable fulfilling existence, I thought I would help do something basic, like write a report.  And with today's modern technology and search engines being what they are, I bet there's 3 kids plagiarizing this blog as you're reading it.

Spiders:  Known in some circles as man's best friend, but those circles are full of idiots.  Spiders don't have any friends, and that's why they're all out to get us.  They don't like us, and we don't like them.  Simple as that. 
But to really get inside the mind of a spider, you have to know what exactly a spider is, and what drives them to do what they do.  A spider is composed of 8 legs (or 4 legs and 4 arms.  or 2 legs, 4 arms, and 2 more legs.  or 6 legs and 2 arms.) a body, eyes that we can't see but look kind of like a honeycomb, and 2 pinchers.  The spider uses its legs to walk in as creepy a way as possible, and it needs 8 legs because if it had 4, it would have to move just like every other animal.  The spider's pinchers are used to bite the hell out of humans when they sleep, because the spider is the 5th biggest coward in the animal kingdom, right behind the beaver, the chinchilla, african bull moose, and of course, the whale.  Every spider has an exoskeleton, which is exactly what it sounds like, and means they have no skeleton whatsoever.  An ex-ol'-skeleton.
 
If a spider feels threatened by humans, it retreats to the darkest place possible, and after you leave to pick up some burgers, builds a web right where your face would be on your sidewalk.  This is nature's way of telling us "we spiders want to make you humans look like fools".  And they do.
The spider's web is one of the most miraculous things on this planet.  It can make a grown man spit and flail his arms about like a baby after being hit in the face with one.  It also has the ability to make you think there's a spider in your hair or on your neck well after you walk through its jerk-like substance.  Although some crackpots think the web has other uses, no scientific evidence to support this claim has been found.  Oh they also cause Gwen Stefani to screen her phone calls for some reason yet unknown to man.
Another defense mechanism the spider has is the crazy amount of itching their bite will cause us.  This makes us resent the spider for the major annoyance it has caused us, and so we want to kill every spider we see, thereby reducing its competition. 

In conclusion, should you see a spider, think about how amazing it is that a creature so different from us can live in this world, and the intricate part it plays in the food chain.  Then think about how any animal that isn't delicious should be seen on TVs and zoos but never in person, and then squish it.  Or get the manliest person around, and they'll do it.

THE END


Kids,  you're welcome.  Doubt you're going to find a better "How I spent my summer vacation" paper than that!

An Ode to Cheap Plastic Molded Into a Cartoon Character

Like gilded sun 'pon settled sea
There is no other meal for me
Than that of which was named "happy".

A better feast, I could not think
Than Burger, (or mcnugget) fries, and drink.

T'was nothing more important to me
Healthiness be damned!  Forget childhood obesity.

Though there was no thing that brought more joy
Than what came with your meal- the toy.

Be it figurine that did nothing
A boat that could only kinda float
Or a car that did not get too far
The happy meal toy was a glorious thing.

But alas!  Today they are much worse
I've seen them in my grandma's purse.
No one wants them anymore,
They're poorly made, they are a bore.
And we never had to compromise
For a cereal or cracker jack prize.

Like a death, or lovers gone astray,
No one will ever say hooray,
For the proof of purchase needed today

Though the toys of old were not the best,
The ones today make me depressed.

So here's to you, Grimace Bus/Truck thing,
Toucan Sam squirt gun,
Or decoder ring.

I wish I could pass you on your way,
to my children, or grandchildren someday,
too bad it took a week, 'fore you were thrown away.

Sure Didn't Know Where This Was Going

Tom sat at his desk, typing away, undaunted by the 12 new orders that were just heaped onto his "plate", as they say, by his boss, Steven.  He didn't mind working the orders because he didn't mind being a cog in a larger machine, or the fact that he was grossly underpaid, or the fact that he was the last person left from the "old regime" and everyone who had been hired since was much younger and vastly better looking than him.  Not that Tom was unattractive, he was a pretty normal looking guy with some nice features, and once you got to know him, there was a lot more to like.

Steven sat at his desk, clicking away, trying to find the perfect bra on Victoria's Secret.com to post as his "team mascot" on his fantasy football league.  Steven never won, but that never stopped him from bragging about his team to anyone who would listen.  Like many things Steven did, the louder he was, the more convincing he was.  Not that he did it on purpose, it was just the only way he had known to get what he wanted.  It was still obnoxious as hell though.  The taller, best dressed man in the office, he probably could have gotten by on his looks alone.  But Steven wanted more.  He wanted the new car.  Or at least the awesome leased car that he thought could drive faster than most people could think. 

Tom got up to get a drink of water from the water cooler that somehow managed to look like it was from the 90's, and he made the mistake of getting into Steven's direct walking path.
"Yo Tommy Boy!!  Holy Schnikies!!"
Tom made a mental note, this was the 8th time this week that Steven called him that, and he didn't think anyone reacted to it once.  He nodded hello.
"Tommy Boy!  Where's Rob Schnieder??"
"You're thinking of David Spade."
"Ha!  No I'm not.  Rob Schnieder, that little wimpy dude, blonde hair!"
Tom blinked.  He hesitated before "That's David Spade." escaped from his mouth.
"We can look it up right now, it's Rob Thomas."
Steven didn't know this, but he was a blunt object.  He was often wrong, but he was so loud about it and insisted upon whatever he was wrong about so many times that most people chose not to bother. 

Not noticing the pause in the conversation, or needing any sort of confirmation from Tom that he agreed, Steven plowed ahead.  "What kind of trouble you getting into this weekend buddy?"

Tom didn't make the connection that Steven was asking him this on a Tuesday, and if he did, he wouldn't have minded, Tom thought "At least he's not asking about my-"

"How are your orders coming?"  Steven asked, smiling.

"Well, I'm having a little trouble with-"

"Trouble Tom?  "Trouble is for those who cannot hope to prevail."  Winston Churchill said that."

Winston Churchill did not say that.  Nobody said that.

"Look Tom, if you can't get this done, I'm going to have to be a little less awesome around you, and that's going to be a lot less awesome for us both."
Tom didn't know what to say to that, so he just nodded and told Steven he'd do better.

Steven started back to his desk, patting himself on the back for being such a good motivator, and thought about changing his outgoing voicemail to include his manager title when he remembered that he hadn't told Tom about what HE was doing over the weekend.  He immediately whirled around, and while still in motion shouted:

"Yo Tombo!  Guess what Steven's doing this weekend??"

Tom didn't guess that he was going to speak in the 3rd person until he thought someone ELSE named Steven was out-cooling him, but that would have been a great guess.

"What are you doing, Steven?"
"Heading on up to the lake.  Gonna cause some mischief."
For some reason, all of the bags (tool, D, and dirt) were very attracted to lakes.

"That's great, I've never been."
"Buddy!  You should come."
Tom didn't want to go, and Steven didn't want him to go, but unfortunately, Tom said
"OK."
Steven thought Tom would flake like everyone else and so he gave him directions and a time to be there, which Tom followed.


It would be the worst weekend of Tom's life.

During that weekend, Tom realized he would never love again.

And a mountain lion bit off his big toe.

And Steven wore some swim shorts that left nothing to the imagination, so Tom was scarred for the rest of his time at the company, but not scarred enough to do anything about it.

And Tom's cat died.
It was a really old cat, but it was still pretty sad for Tom.

And he ordered a taco supreme, but they just gave him a taco with tomatoes, but no sour cream.

Grin and Fozzie Bear It

Some nights I don't even have to think about what I'm going to write about.  It just happens in daily life.
This is yet another adventure in IT, so if you're tech. savvy at all, you may want to save yourself the eye-rolling and just move on.


At any rate, I wanted to set up a wireless router from an unnamed company for a relative of mine.  The router is brand new, and I figured there are so many people unwittingly broadcasting free wireless internet- if they can set it up, so can I.

So I open the box from this company who looks like they're trying really hard to look like they're from Sweeden, when in fact they're headquartered in Orange County.  I can tell because while looking for the instructions, instead I find this:

That's it.  Nothing else in the box.  Awesome, so I just plug it in, and it works, right?  Oooof course not.  (that looks like "oof" course not, but I'm just trying to draw out the "uh" sound of "of"...wow, that was way too complicated)

So after hooking everything up, what I can only assume is the correct way but probably wasn't, I start the program.  Everything is humming along nicely when the router starts to try and connect to the modem.  After having me unplug the modem about 2,005 times, the program decides to move on.  The reason for this is unplugging a device is like giving a 2 year old a time-out.  The device thinks about what it's done, and if it REALLY wants to live its life without electricity, so be it.  That way, after the 15 seconds, it's ready to work again

I get this picture next:

It says "We are working hard to establish an internet connection, but your modem will take a little longer." 
Don't blame the modem!  The modem was working just fine before you came along, pseudo-Sweedish router!

Minutes later, I get this message:

Again, blaming old Mody the Modem! If you can't read it it says "This modem is a tough one, Bear with us."- and that was the exact punctuation they used.  Which makes me wonder:  Why capitalize "bear"?  Are they referring to the animal?  Or a specific bear, like Yogi or Paddington?  Maybe it was because I wanted to go "Bear" on them and rip the thing to shreds with a Chewbaccaa-like roar.*

The rest of my wireless adventure was not interesting- the router could no longer use the modem as a scapegoat so it just gave up and asked me a bunch of information I had no access to and had no idea what it was. I did what any red-blooded American would do and quit!








*I know, I'm making fun of typos, and there's probably an average of 2 per post on this site.  I realize the hypocrisy, feel free to jab away at my mistakes.  However, in my defense, I am not a corporation. 

Don't Burn the Artichoke!

I was looking for a night light to use for the living room (and to ward off monsters) when I came across a "nite lite.".*  The light did not weigh any less than a normal night light, nor was was it smaller or containing less calories than the " 'gh' no 'e' " version.  Whoever stared the whole "I'm going to misspell things so they'll be cuter or more apealling to the illiterate" craze, you get a very big thumbs down from me.  And not in the "I would kill you if you were in a Roman Gladiator fight" kind of way, more like the "your movie sucks" way.


Also, I have an idea.  Since license plates are there to help us identify cars, mostly for wrongdoings, I'm thinking the current system needs to change.  "4HMF954" isn't incredibly easy to remember.  So instead, I propose we call everyone's mothers up and get them to tell us something embarrassing about them.  "Bedwetter" or "Wrote letters to Lisa Loeb until he was 16" is much easier to remember than a bunch of random numbers and letters shoved on a piece of metal.  And we all know it's not going to be hard to get moms to spill the beans about their children.

(Where the heck did "spill the beans" come from as an alternative to "telling a secret"??  The only thing I personally can think of right now, is someone put an engagement ring in a can of beans and was having someone else carry it over to their dinner table as a surprise.  The person carrying the can of beans then probably tripped and the beans flew into a great white shark's mouth and everyone died.) **


*The night light as a monster repellent is funny because apparently the slightest bit of man-made light causes them to cease to exist, which if you think about it makes them incredibly un-scary.

**Of course, google has an answer for "spill the beans origin" but it's not funny whatsoever, and it's also not really that interesting anyway.  Actually, it doesn't even really explain how it got to mean "spoiling a secret".  So we'll just go with my version, and whatever else you can come up with- and go on being amused by the fact that "spilling the beans" implies something so far off from its literal meaning.

THE ADVENTURES OF ROGER AND BERTHA Part 2

ROGER: Jeez!  Extinguish that lemonade.
(Bertha blows out her flaming lemonade like a child blowing out a birthday cake.)
Wait....pregnant?

BERTHA: Yes.  Pregnant with hunger.

ROGER:  ....I am not amused.  Besides, how would that even work?

BERTHA: I'm not sure, I just wanted to keep you on your toes. (smiles at Roger, who smiles back.)  Now why don't we talk about our plans for the weekend?

ROGER: Sounds great!  How about we head off to the pool.

BERTHA: Was that a question or a suggestion?

ROGER: What does it matter?

BERTHA: Well, it doesn't really.  I'm fine with the pool, however, you promised to take Mother to the park.

ROGER: I did?  ...That was a question, by the way.

BERTHA: Yes, you did.  Very funny.

ROGER: Which Mother?

BERTHA: The dog.

ROGER: You know, with both of our parents still alive, that was a confusing thing to name our pet.

BERTHA: Yes, but it did annoy both of our mothers to no end.  (Bertha and Roger chuckle lightly to themselves at this.)

ROGER: Fine, I'll take the dog.  Bertha, did I tell you how I ran into Dr. Malevolence the other day?

BERTHA: No, you did not.  And I don't know why you would tell me that, honestly Roger, you know most husbands don't like their wives talking about old boyfriends, I'd swear you enjoy hearing about our time together.  He broke my heart, you know.

ROGER: Was that a question?

BERTHA:  Definitely not.   ....Fine, what did Dr. Malevolence have to say?  And how annoying is it that he keeps the "Dr." in front of his name??  It's not like he's practicing.

ROGER: Well, he is practicing....

BOTH AT THE SAME TIME: .....evil.

Although I Would be Fine if They Were Named "Failbugs"

I know I like to break down sayings and ignore the agreed-upon meaning or slang, but one I completely understand is "they wouldn't hurt a fly".  For someone to not want to hurt a fly they must be the most tolerant, peaceful person one could meet.  If I was a fly, I would swat myself.  No wonder flies are such jerks.  They probably have so much self-loathing and a lack of self-confidence they take it out by irritating the hell out of everyone and everything else as a defense mechanism.  If they're doing it on purpose they can deal with how horrible they are.  It's sad really.  But not sad enough for me to not hope they all explode midair like a spaceship in Star Wars.  They do have great names though.  I would definitely add them to this list.
(Everyone congratulate me on my first self-re-direction!  It's very special in a man's life after he links himself for the first time.)

Is a "Gurl" something like a "Ghoul" and a "Girl" combined?

-Sometimes time passes by so slowly at work I expect to walk outside and see flying cars and giant squid men whipping a herd of malnourished humans to pull their wagons faster.

-That's a funny cliche- the aliens taking over the Earth and forcing humans to do beast of burden slave labor.  These aliens have the technology to traverse the stars and enslave all mankind but they can't move rocks around or plow their own fields?

-Sometimes I worry that when I die every bug I've ever killed will be waiting for me.  And they'll all be 15x their normal size.

-Don't worry America.  Katy Perry has "got it on lock".

-The design of the human body/evolution is an amazing thing.  The fact that our bodies process things that grow here on this planet into energy, our ability to think, the complexity and efficiency of our immune systems given the number of germs we come in contact with.  But there's a few major design flaws/evolutionary failures in each of our bodies:
-The food that is the best for your health tastes the worst and the most delicious food is the worst for you- the taste buds could have been made/evolved a little better there.
-You sweat when you are hot, but also when you're nervous, and that sweating can easily make a person hotter and more nervous.  It's a vicious cycle.
-men's nipples.  gross.

-I'd rather watch 10 people who suck at dancing go crazy trying to breakdance than 100 of the most technically sound dancers do some routine.

-I can definitely relate to George Costanza when he refers to his wallet as an "old friend". Except instead of being morbidly obese mine has leprosy. 
 

My Brother Once Set Some on Fire in a Microwave

Let's hear it for macaroni & cheese.  Oh, that's right, I can't hear what you're doing.  Well, let everyone who's around you hear it for macaroni & cheese.  No, I don't know what "it" is, just yell or something.  Seriously though everyone- seriously- macaroni & cheese is a great treat.  Macaroni by itself?  Please.  Might as well pass the boring sauce to go with it.  Although it does have a fun shape.  And cheese all by itself?  Well, cheese is pretty good on its own.  But it's kinda gooey, and you have to put it on stuff to make it easier to eat. 
Macaroni & cheese is also great because it is a meal that can be enjoyed by all ages.  I think only it and applesauce can make that bold claim.  Not only that, but what other foods beg for the ampersand in the middle of its name?  PB&J?  That's about it.  And that is commonly known as peanut butter and jelly.  Cookies and cream uses the word "and", macaroni & cheese, is a slam dunk.  It's fun to say too.  Try it.  Go ahead I'll give you some time.  (pause)
Pretty fun.  You can even shorten it to "Mac&Cheese" if you don't have the time to say "macaroni" because you're too busy shoving macaroni & cheese into your mouth.  This I am not going to give you time to say because if you need to say "Mac&Cheese" clearly you are strapped for time already.
Plus!  I know after running the 20+ miles that I do every day, I need those carbs gained from eating pasta.

Macaroni & cheese,

I owe you one.

TOP TEN THINGS I'VE HEARD THE LOCAL NEWS PROMOTE

"Tonight at eleven....."


10. Your house is an "Indiana Jones" style deathtrap!
9. Harry Potter books teach children how to knife fight?
8. The FDA has pulled SOMETHING you ate today from the shelves because of mind-attacking parasites!
7. The Sky is literally falling.
6. 3 out of 4 doctors that recommend toothpaste found guilty of bank fraud!
5. One of your pets is planning to murder you tonight while you sleep- but which one?
4. Studies show running with scissors is good for your health?
3. Whales: Friend, or Foe?
2. EVERYTHING YOU DO IS KILLING YOU.
1. Fritz has the weather!  Possible showers tomorrow.

THE ADVENTURES OF ROGER AND BERTHA Part 1

A married couple, ROGER and BERTHA are sitting around in the living room.

ROGER:  What's on the tube tonight?

BERTHA:(looks up from her newspaper): Hmm?

ROGER: Christmas.  WHAT'S ON TV??

BERTHA: Right now?  I don't know, why don't you read a book?

ROGER: Because I don't want to.  I'd rather see if the Count is on.

BERTHA: This again?

ROGER: What?  He's hilarious.  Always countin' stuff.

BERTHA: You have a PhD in physics you know.

ROGER: Your point being?

BERTHA: My point being, you already know how to count.

ROGER: You don't know that.

BERTHA: Roger, how could you possibly get a PhD in physics if you don't know how to count?

ROGER: Your name is Bertha, what do you know.

BERTHA: I know not to put my hand inside a live Triceratops beak.

ROGER: He was HUNGRY!!  You would have done the same had you been there!

BERTHA: Well, thankfully for all of us, I wasn't.  Lord knows I hate those things.

ROGER: Yeah yeah, you and your horns.

BERTHA: I find them to be very off-putting.  They're quite pointy you know.

(ROGER gets up and puts on his jet pack.): Do you want anything?  I'm going to the market.

BERTHA: Sure, lemonade sounds good.

(ROGER blasts off)

BERTHA: Him and his Count.  That man.  (goes back to reading the paper)  Lookit that, Daisy Dukes are on sale down at the General Goods Depot.
(half a minute goes by)
(ROGER comes crashing through the roof.)
ROGER: Got your lemonade! (dusting himself off)

BERTHA: Thanks darling.  (opens it and takes a sip)  Hmm.  Extra phosphorus in this batch.

ROGER: Yeah, Earl had them all marked down, he must've ordered an extra shipment.

BERTHA: Roger, I think I'm pregnant.  (BERTHA puts down her lemonade which promptly bursts into flames, then explodes.)

(Upside Down Question Mark)Juego Baloncesto?

For recreational/competitive/but mostly health reasons I joined a rec basketball league.  I made sure and joined the C/D league, which was the worst one available to ensure my being able to still run to the same side of the court everyone else was running to before I had to slow down the ol' body train and change directions.
Still, however, this is a pretty competitive league, and I'm playing with guys who played college basketball in the NCAA tournament.
Now, not to give too much away about myself here, but I am not what one would consider "college ball" material when it comes to basketball.  Let's just say I played football in high school, not basketball (overweight and built to run for 5 seconds then take a 20 second break).  And, as chronicled in earlier posts, jumping must have been forbidden in my ancestry because I couldn't be more tied to the Earth than a rock that has a rope around it and is tied to a brick that someone glued to a piece of metal somewhere.  And an elephant is standing on the metal.  And the elephant has a 80lb. dumbbell in its trunk.
So needless to say, I'm not the best person on the floor at any given time.
But that's another story I'll write more about later.

This blog's more about going to play street basketball at an entirely new place.  I'm talking 100 miles+ from where you're used to playing.  It's always an interesting experience.  I get to the court today and there are 2 separate courts; one that had players who would be in an A league- were we giving them rankings based on the rec league I'm in, (I think Kobe was playing there today...) and the other one....would probably go somewhere into the number system, opposite the way mario's lives would if you got more than 99.
Out of the 30 or so people there, I was probably the 3rd tallest, and one of the fittest as well.  Again, if you've been reading any of these posts, I don't consider myself to be at the apex of physical fitness. So I started playing, and I was dominating for a few baskets- out running, out shooting, even out jumping everyone, until I realized one thing:  home court advantage.  For those of you who never play basketball at parks, let me explain this to you- there was no concrete where I was.  I'm pretty sure the ground was covered in butter, and whenever we would get to a point where I thought my team had won, more points were being added to the game.  I think we played until 34 one time.  (11 is the norm where I come from)  And there was some sort of language I couldn't understand.  People were talking about "slow jams", someone called a "keep two" at one point, and I think someone on the other team yelled at me to stop with the "hoofsies".  Not sure about that last one though.  Everyone there spoke Spanish so it was the whole "I think they're making fun of me" thing- I tried to just smile and play on.
One thing that translated though, that I love about playing basketball on a public court, is the guy that's always there who thinks he's way better than he is, and invariably chucks up a 3-point air ball, then proceeds to swear at himself and blame the wind/other guy/Zeus for the next 5 minutes.
All-in-all it was fun experience, we won "ocho" to "siete" after 20 minutes of playing (not quite sure how that math worked) and I ended up letting everyone know that I "leche y frio" and went home.

I Hope He Was at Least Put in Bro Jail

I think it's time for a little Q&A!

Q: Why?
A: Because I don't feel like writing a whole blog about the jerk who tried to drive OVER me today on the freeway.

Q: Oh no, a jerk!  Tell us what happened.
A: Well!  I was going 80 in the fast lane (unless my Mom is reading this then I was going 65) and this brute in a giant SUV decided to drive within inches of my bumper, flash his lights and honk his horn.

Q: That's terrible.  What did you do?
A: I kept going 80!  The whole thing was pretty ridiculous.  Unless he was trying to warn me of a giant bee in my backseat like in that FarSide cartoon.

Q: That's probably what he was doing.
A: What?  How dare you.  And that's not even a question.

Q: You're right?
A: Yes I'm right.

Q: No, I was just saying that you were right, but phrasing it in the form of a question so you wouldn't yell or drive like a Grandma in the fast lane on me.  So tell us: what happened after you caused this poor guy to be multiple seconds late to wherever he was going?
A: Well after about a minute of gating my tail, he drove around me, got in front of me, then slammed on HIS breaks before speeding off into the sunset.  And by "sunset" I mean: "hopefully county jail".

Alanis Thinks It's Ironic

I'm all for figures of speech, but this "literally" thing has gone too far.  Not to sound like the curmudgeon captain of the grammar police, but it's gotten to the point where people have started using "literally" instead of "very" or "extremely" whenever they can.  Example:  today at work I hear about how my coworker's vacation was "So amazing, (her) brain was literally fried."  So she was telling me that someone took her brain and cooked it in a frying pan?  This sort of thing happens all the time.  Literally.

No!  Wait!  I can see why people do it- it's pretty catchy.  And easy to add on after the end of a sentence.  Literally. OK, that one actually worked, but you get what I'm trying to say here.  And what are you supposed to do?  You come off like the biggest nerdloser ever (see?  it's not like I don't use hyperbole) and no one is going to be grateful- why don't people like being corrected more?  I love being told when I'm wrong.

(pause to let everyone who knows me stop crying from laughter)

I also had an undisclosed family member tell me that since something happened in a book, that made it literal, as in- it was a literary reference.  I told them that was a superlative mistake, which means "great" because it has the word "super" in it.

Microsoft Word. And Giant Dot After That Word.

Computers are great, don't get me wrong.  Clearly, they have made any and all information readily available, communication greater, and entertainment easier to steal.
HOWEVER-
Sometimes (see: Frequently) I would like to PUNCH technology.  In the throat.  Mostly when it won't do something simple.  Something that I can express in two sentences.  Something like don't put a dot between every word I type in my Microsoft Word document.  (forgive the bold underline.  I didn't want to all caps you to death.  Even though that probably would have been more appropriate there.  But hopefully you get the gist.)  But you can't say "don't put a dot in between every word I type please" to Microsoft Word.  You have to try and find the "dot between words" command and check it or uncheck it.
Where, by chance, would this command be?  Well, I think the "Format" menu would be a good place to start, seeing as how they do not have an "Obvious things you don't want in your word document" menu.  Seriously- why would they have that stupid dot?  I'm not talking about a period dot.  I'm talking about a dot as big as this "o", only floating in midair and-in-between-every-word-like-this.--only-with-a-dot-instead-of-a-dash.  And why would they have it as the option you start your document with?  The only thing you should have mandatory to start whatever type of writing you're going to be doing is the alphabet.  And numbers I guess.  Everything else just gets in the way.  Well, we should probably have punctuation too.  Hopefully you understand the point I was trying to make and I can move on.  So yes, here we are in the "Format" menu.  I'll go into "font" because I don't think this is an issue with shading or columns.  (Heaven forbid I have to go into those though because that's when my document somehow becomes diagonal and every "r" gets changed into a "q" and the only way to change it back is to delete everything I've worked on for the past 20 minutes.)  Great: font.  After looking through this option, I can "shadow" effect everything I've written, do strikethough, which is really great stupid, or make my font sparkle.  This, I know how to do.  Not having my spacebar send dots onto the screen?  No. 

Great, after looking through multiple other tabs and menus I will try to "reveal formatting", why not?  I didn't know it was hidden from me in the first place, but what the hey. I've found the "paragraph, allignment, and indentation" links.  I'll click on them and see what's what.  Here's something: "Pagination".  A tab after clicking "indentation".  Wait a minute- "Pagination"?  That must be what people who program letter writing document programs for a PC have instead of imaginations.  While I'm in Pagination land, let's see what they have to offer:  A bunch of blank boxes except for one:  "Windows/Orphan Control".  Since I have no idea what this does, except preventing someone like Oliver or Annie from escaping, possibly with bars(?) I will uncheck it and see what it does.  There's nothing else I've found in my adventures through this program that I'm unfamiliar with, so this must be it.  (checking)  .....
I will now show you what I typed as a test:

Does-this-work?-Alskdjglsdkjglsjk-COME-ON-YOU-STUPID-JAIOSTDUSAPASOUDG

(only again I have added dashes instead of giant dots)

At this point, I've pretty much given up using my college educated I-take-pride-in-being-a-semi-intelligent-person brains to figure this out and do what every person does when they have any sort of problem whatsoever:  Type the question into google in a poorly formed ill-formatted "question".

 "stop ms word from putting dots in between every word i type"

Beauty.  

This, of course, answers my question instantly.  And is why Bill Gates should be very, very afraid of google.

(By the way, for those curious how to solve this problem, read on.  For those who are not, have a nice day.

Apparently you open your "reveal formatting" then click on the giant weird extra lined "P" next to your sentences, then unclick "show all formatting marks" then you're good to go!  It's as simple as that!!!!!!! (angry face))

EDIT ONE DAY LATER:  The different font at the end of this entry is not a joke.  It seems to be my computer's way of getting back at me.