I Spent Some Time In The Mudville Nine

I saw something today that made me gag just looking at the package:

In case you can't tell from the crappy cell phone pic, those are HOT DOG FLAVORED POTATO CHIPS.

Bleeeargh.

Look For The Girl With The Sun In Her Eyes

My girlfriend & I were sitting on the couch - she was watching TV and I was playing on the computer.

GF: "Do you think he enjoys being such a douchebag?
Me: (looks up to see a Priceline.com commercial) "Who?"
GF: "William Shatner."
Me: "God, I hope so. He's certainly got the act down."

(Sorry, Bill).

My Homeboys Tried To Warn Me...

So, I work a lot of odd hours, including some overnights. Usually this is fine with me - a nice, uneventful shift, no traffic on the way in, no co-workers to hassle me about anything, etc.

That is, up until about a year ago.

Y'see, I work for a company that provides video & data services. At some point, we added a new state-of-the art videoconferencing center, and someone in management decided we needed a toll-free number for clients to call in on. Okay, that makes sense. The problems started when another company (who I won't promote here) misprinted their toll-free number on their catalog - they printed our number (and continue to print our number after many, many months). This company also provides a certain form of "video services" - although their products are of a much less, uh, savory nature than ours. Apparently they specialize in videos featuring African-American women, although it's a bit more specific than that. They specialize in videos featuring African-American women who are gifted in the, um, posterior region.


*Ahem*.


Don't get me wrong, I dig on a ghetto onion as much as the next red-blooded American male. And I'm sure all the actresses in these videos are lovely girls who are just earning money for grad school. But, as you can imagine, you have some pretty interesting conversations when someone calls at 4AM looking for their porn fix, and you have to tell them they have a wrong number. I've had everything from squeaky-voiced teenagers telling me "It's okay dude, you can sell to me, I'm not the cops!" to people cursing me out, to people who just plain refused to believe that I'm not sitting in a giant warehouse full of porno. But last night, I got a great one from a young woman:
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Me: "Good evening, (company name that doesn't sound remotely like a porn distributor)

Caller: "Yeah, I'm looking at this catalog you sent me.."

Me: "You have the wrong number, ma'am. The video company printed the wrong number on their catalog." (I've learned from experience to cut people off ASAP, before they say something embarrassing for us both.)

Caller: "Yeah, well, lemme ask you sumthin': How these girls get their booties so BIG!?"

Me: "...uh..."

Caller: "I mean, I don't see HOW it can natural!"

Me: "...I dunno..."

Caller: "I found a place up in New York City that says they can do it for eight hunnerd dollas, but I don't know how they do it!"

Me: "Um... implants, maybe?"

Caller: (laughs) "You a trip! I dunno dog, I'm afraid it wouldn't be healthy, y'know?"

Me: "I guess it wouldn't."

Caller: "So, what's the right number?"

Me: "I don't know - I think if you go to their website it has the right number." (info gleaned from previous callers)

Caller: "Ah, man, can you get on the website and look it up for me? Hook me up, dog!"

Me: I'm at work - I can't look up adult websites, I'd get fired."

Caller: "A'ight dog, I don't want you to get fired - you get back to work!" (laughs)

Me: "Allright, ma'am. Goodnight."
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So, how did your phone conversations at work go yesterday?

You Just Don't Get It, Keep It Copasetic

I saw on the news that someone robbed the main branch of the library in my city today. The library. The place where you go to get books for free. He got away with $40 (probably all the late fees for the past year). Way to go, genius. Maybe you should spend a little more time in the library actually reading the books, since this whole "crime" thing is obviously beyond your grasp...

Strangest Your Momma Joke Ever...

...from an actual conversation I had the other day:

"Your momma has qualities that are indicative of precipitation".

Call For Super Chicken

Met him over the weekend - He was a very friendly guy. For a chicken.

How To Spend $1300 Without Really Trying

My weekend:

The girlfriend calls me Friday morning and says, "I need to talk to you when you get home". Of course, my first thought was "Oh sh*t, she's pregnant". I jump in the car and race home, and she says, "I think something's wrong with the TV". I turn it on, and the screen is just green wavy lines. I get down on the floor and start taking the grille off the front to inspect it, and it's wet. Her dog (which, I was assured when she moved in, was impeccably housebroken) took a leak on my 52" HDTV. Directly into the gun array (it was a rear-projection TV). For the second time in a month. She's hysterical and crying, thinking I'm going to take the dog to the pound. I calm her down and send her to work and go to bed. That night, we go out and she buys me a new 37" LCD TV - or rather, we try to, but the store declines her credit card (we called & checked the balance before we left). So, she has to stand there at the cash register and call the credit card company - of course, it takes her half an hour to get a real person on the phone, and they tell her that since she never makes large purchases on her card, it was flagged as a "potential fraudulent purchase". Okay, whatever. Card gets re-swiped and goes through, we take the TV home, haul it inside, and go to bed.


The next morning I woke up early and left to take the Motorcycle Safety Foundation advanced rider course. Of course the last two hours of that are in the pouring rain, so I get soaked to the bone (it was still fun, though - much better instructors than the last time I took it). On the way home I stop to get gas. As I'm getting out of my car, my cell phone slips out of my hand and lands square in the tub of windshield-washer fluid mounted to the trash can next to the pump. My immediate thought was "You gotta be f@¢king kidding me". I fish out my phone and it's shot. Go to the cell-phone place and of course they won't give me a deal since I'm in the middle of a contract, chalk up $300 for a new phone.


The next day I go to move the old TV out of the house, and as I'm pushing it into the kitchen from the dining room, I rub up against the kitchen door slightly - which rips the door off the hinges. I take the door off and look at it, seems the previous owner must have done this before, and repaired the edge of the door with cut-down paint stirrers and wood glue, then painted over it so you couldn't tell. I throw the door in the dumpster and get ready to throw the TV in, of course as I was doing that I smashed my thumb between the TV and the edge of the steel dumpster.


After that I went to meet an old friend from out of town for lunch - I told him my story, and he said, "Well, I was gonna show you my new car, but you're not allowed anywhere near it". Oh well, nowhere to go but up from here I guess...

I Remember As If It Were A Meal Ago

Leaving Just A Memory

Something I noticed today: Every semester, for the past year and a half, I completely forget how to write batch files. I'm not retarded, I can write large chunks of code in various languages from memory, but for some damn reason I can never remember how to do a simple logon script.

On the other hand, I can listen to the metal station on satellite radio, hear a song I haven't so much as thought about since ninth grade (today it was Exodus' Toxic Waltz, last week it was Megadeth's In My Darkest Hour) and I remember every goddamn word. If I can ever cross-link the IT section of my brain to the hesher section of my brain, I'll be golden...

The Sunday Swap Meet Is A Battle Ground

For as long as I can remember, I've always been really good at "the swap". Ever since elementary school when I got Eric Frantz to give up a Sims skateboard (Jeff Phillips model), a skate key, an AM/FM walkman and a tabletop Frogger video game in exchange for a cheapie toy-store paintball gun, I usually come out with the better end of the deal whenever a trade is involved. My girlfriend recently mentioned my VW Bus to her father, and he told her that he had an old friend who was a VW nut that might be interested in buying it. I've been halfheartedly considering it for a while, since I haven't been able to find the time or space to work on it - diehard VW aficionados would rather see the vehicles go to use rather than rot in a yard. Seeing anyone put a VW to use is better than seeing it go to the crusher. (Except for dune buggy freaks, who only want to steal transmissions from buses. Screw those guys).

I wrote up a brief description of the Bus and sent it with some pictures to her Dad to forward to his friend. Since I already had the description and pictures ready to go, I decided to post an ad on The Samba. I included the words that always make the classifieds game much more entertaining - "Will consider trades". So far I have been offered:

-A set of 20" rims & tires (those would look great on my Honda)
-A 75 gallon fishtank (no, but I'm sure the cats would love it)
-A M1911 Colt .45 pistol (hmmm... neat, but I don't really need more guns)
-A 1978 MG Midget rally car (which I wouldn't even fit in)
-A custom-built guitar w/ Gibson body & Fender Jaguar neck (huh?)
-A 1985 Honda CR125 (too small)
-A 1960 VW Bus (cool, but an even bigger project than I have now)
-A Mexican Fender Jazz bass (might knock a couple hundred off for this)
...and a Bultaco Metralla 250 (very cool, but the last thing I need is another bike. Especially a dirt bike. Especially a dirt bike that hasn't been made for 20+ years from a long-defunct company).

Several people have looked so far, with the ever popular "I gotta ask my wife" and "I'll have the money next week" already making appearances. Several more are scheduled for the weekend, I'll let you know how it goes...

Smell The Glove

A few weeks ago, I went to a charity auction put on by my girlfriend's employer. I actually won lots 'o stuff, but the one I was really gunning for was a new pair of Rocky Boots. I did win them, but they were four sizes too small - no matter, they came with a certificate stating they could be exchanged, and their factory outlet store was on the way home, so we swung by.

The store turned out to be incredibly cool - a huge, three story warehouse filled with all manner of outdoor clothing, camping gear, tools, etc. I actually drove by the store every few months while I was in college - I always meant to stop, but never did. Probably for the best, since I was perpetually broke back then (as opposed to "occasionally not broke" now). One of the items I picked up while I was there was a pair of fingerless gloves - I learned the value of these while I was working in an ice house in high school & college. I spent all day in a giant freezer with augers, conveyor belts, trap doors and automatic cutting machines. 80% of the time you want your hand to be completely covered to stay as warm as possible, but if you had to twiddle with the machinery, you would lose a finger if you try to do it while wearing winter gloves (I saw several people mangled in my tenure). I solved this problem by going across the street to the surplus store and buying cheap USAF glove liners, cutting the fingers off, and putting a pair of heavy canvas gardening gloves over them. The heavy canvas gloves held up better & dried out faster than winter gloves, and with a snap of your wrists your could shuck them off (think of a hockey player in a melee) and quickly manipulate whatever piece of equipment that was about to give out and back up the whole line. The fingerless gloves would then keep you warm enough until you got a second to retrieve your other gloves.

The thing that made the ones I bought different was that they had a flip-down mitten, that was secured by velcro when not being used:




















I thought this was pretty slick - I am still likely to need to twiddle with something, although nowadays it is usually my camera, MP3 player, or cell phone. Anyways, last week I headed out to class to take the last of my finals, and I got to try my new gloves out for the first time, as the temperature was rapidly approaching single digits. After class I decided to walk over to the campus bookstore to sell my textbooks, and get some extra cash to finish my Xmas shopping. Apparently the college was letting a local youth organization use the gymnasium that evening for some sort of awards ceremony, and I encountered lots of cold, confused people asking me for directions. That's when I learned an important lesson:

Nothing looks dumber than a guy trying to point while wearing mittens.

One Arm Wing Steve...

...was delicious!

Steve In The Bread Pan, Pickin' Out Dough...

Through a chain of events far too convoluted to recount here, I went from having Thanksgiving dinner at my Mom's house, to having it at my girlfriend's house with her family, to having it at my house with just me & her (which is just fine by me). We did the shopping for the dinner on Sunday and while we were putting the groceries away, she told me that we had to name the turkey. "What?" I asked. "You have to name the turkey before you cook it," she said. "Isn't that a bit macabre?" I asked. She assured me that it wasn't - it was a long-standing tradition in her family, and I better shut up and stop teasing her if I knew what was good for me (she might have implied that last part). "Fine", I told her, "I christen this turkey "Steve"". She told me that wasn't a proper name for a turkey, and I informed her that it was my turkey, I bought it, and since naming a dead bird carcass was approaching the high side of crazy anyways, it's name was Steve. "Fine", she sighed. She emailed me today and reminded me to take Steve out of the freezer, so I put him in the fridge to thaw before I went to class. I told one of my co-workers that I had Steve chillin' in the fridge (pun intended) so we would be ready to put him in the oven on Thursday. I guess since at least three of my co-workers are named Steve, the odd looks I received are understandable. Ah well, my brain is fried from building four custom databases and three Novell servers in a week, so I'm looking forward to eating Steve with all the trimmings. Have a good Thanksgiving, everybody...

Born To Be Wild?

Okay, this is just taking it too goddamn far.

Put The Lime In The Coconut

My former roommate went on a cruise last week, and we had the following conversation before he left:

Him: "You want anything from the Bahamas?"
Me: "Coconut monkey."

When I got to work tonight, this was sitting on my desk:



That fucking rules.

How Can You Have Any Pudding If You Don't Eat Your Meat

Although I have peers who have far greater dedication to pizza than I do, I was seriously craving a homemade pizza for the past week. When I went to the grocery store the other day I picked up some crusts, sauce, all the toppings, etc. The next day I got everything out and whipped up a masterpiece of a pizza, turned on the oven, and threw it in. 20 minutes later I came back and opened the oven door to see my creation... still uncooked?!? Hmmmm. The oven was on. I tried one of the burners - nothing. I called the gas company to see if I forgot to pay the bill, and she said the 'tards working on putting in new water mains across the street cut the line. So I had to come home from work in the morning and stay up waiting for the gas company to come out, turn the gas back on at the curb, and re-light all my appliances. On top of that, today was the first day of school in my neighborhood - meaning lots of kiddies (& parents) probably didn't have any hot water for their showers. Bet that went over big. They've also broken the water main twice, and have had the road in front of my house torn up for months with no end in sight. No real point here, I'm just frustrated and felt like bitching...

Get Off My Lawn!

Guns N' Roses is conspiring to make me feel old.

Really.

It all started last year, when I went to a club to see a FOAF's band that was coming to town. It was an 18-and-up show, and the girl working the door looked to be about nineteen. I noticed she was wearing a Guns N' Roses T-shirt - a shirt that I used to own. A shirt, in fact, that I bought after seeing them in Dayton, OH my junior year in high school - I remember it was right in the middle of mid-term exams, and due to what I can only assume was one of Axl Rose's trademark hissy fits, the show started about three hours late. I didn't get home until almost 4 o'clock in the morning, and I bombed my biology exam.

The problem was, this girl wasn't wearing the shirt in a "Hey-I-went-to-this-show" way - she was wearing it in a "I'm-so-retro-with-this-vintage-shirt-and-my-Hot-Topic- leopard-print-handbag" way. When I said, "Hey, I used to have that same shirt", she gave me a look that said "That's great, Gramps, try not to fall down and break your hip on our dance floor". Then, while flipping past MTV a few days later, I saw some snot-nosed punk wearing another G'N'R shirt I owned in high school - a shirt that was made when he was still in diapers.

Friday night I went out with a group of friends to celebrate one couple's tenth anniversary. That freaked me out a little, that I knew some people that had actually been married for ten whole years of their lives. Later that weekend I saw this article about Axl Rose and Tommy Hilfiger getting into a fight (I guess it's good to know that some things never change - namely, Axl Rose's ability to be a two-bit thug), and noticed it contained the following line:

"According to the 44-year-old singer..."

My first thought was, "Wait, that can't be right. That would mean the heyday of G'N'R was almost twenty years ago." So, I went to Wikipedia and looked it up. Appetite For Destruction came out in 1987.

Nineteen years ago.

Shit.

I bought that album the summer before I started high school. I vividly remember wearing my Walkman while mowing the lawn, listening to that album at full blast all summer.

Shit.

On top of all this, Axl Rose's appearance isn't helping matters any.

When She's Ten Feet Tall

I read in an article that Volkswagen will return to using the "Rabbit" badge on the (former) Golf:

"The reintroduction of the Rabbit represents Volkswagen's commitment to this market and is a nod to the passionate North American enthusiasts who have an emotional connection with the Rabbit name."

I found this amusing because, as much as I love Volkswagens, I only have two memories regarding the "Rabbit name":

-One of my friends had a brother-in-law with a disastrous history of Volkswagen ownership, from a Karmann Ghia that is probably still rusting into a pile of dust on his mother-in-laws patio to a silver Rabbit that was a gigantic shitbox. Unaffectionately referred to as "The Ribbit", It had to be pop-started every single time he wanted to go anywhere, passengers were sickened from the multiple exhaust leaks, and the odds of making it to the intended destination were about 50/50 at best. He quickly became the guy that, when he called your house, you had to coarsely whisper "Tell him I'm not here!" to whoever answered the phone - otherwise, you invariably wound up driving to BFE to rescue him from another breakdown.

-Another friend of mine tragically lost her mother at a young age after an extended illness. However, due to prudent planning by her father, as well as a generous life insurance policy from her employer, the family was left in a very good situation financially. After my friend graduated high school, she was excited to be attending Ohio State University in the fall. Her father gave her some good news: He was going to buy her a new car to take to college. She was thrilled; her head was filled with images of her tooling around campus in her new candy-apple-red convertible, getting looks from all the college hunks. Figuring that they would start car shopping soon, she was understandably surprised when her father, with no advanced warning, brought home her new car just a few days later: A brand new Rabbit. In turd brown. With no options - nothing. 4-speed, no A/C, vinyl seats, AM radio. To him, this was an immensely practical purchase (after all, this was at the height of the Carter's energy crisis). Trouble is, he forgot that "practical" is the last word in a 19-year-old-girl's vocabulary. Naturally, she hated the car, but cared about her father's feelings too much to say anything. She drove that fugly thing for years and, much later, admitted that it had actually been a pretty good car. But she still would have rather had a new Camaro.

Take A Cha-Cha-Cha-Chance

Sorry for the lack of content folks, it's my birthday this week and I've been enjoying spending time & catching up with friends & family in the real world (something I don't get to do often enough). Plus, I haven't paid for a dinner all week - bonus! I order all of you to go out and have some fun of your own, dammit!

With A Bocephus Sticker On His 442

Coop had a great post the other day on being a child of the 70's and America's fascination with all things motorized during that era - it seemed to resonate with a lot of people, myself included. It brought back one memory in particular: You see, when I was a kid, I took things apart. I mean, I took everything apart - my toys, old appliances, my bike, you name it. I vividly remember being yelled at for taking apart the blender when I was eight years old. My parents, to their credit, understood that I was simply trying to understand how things worked, and proceeded to buy me toys that addressed these urges - Lego, Robotix, Capsella, Erector Sets, Radio Shack project kits - you name it, I had it. Every year for Christmas I could count on getting one of the giant deluxe Lego sets, which was the coolest thing ever. (I still remember my Dad cursing when he would step on one of the small Lego bits when he was barefoot - those tiny 1 x 2 blocks were easily obscured in the long, avocado-green shag carpeting that came standard in every middle class suburban house back then). Still, these were only toys, and I wanted the real stuff - my Mom took to buying almost-certainly-broken small appliances for a quarter apiece at garage sales solely for me to take apart, since it was cheaper & easier than replacing her own. The flip side of this affliction was that I liked to build things - after I took the appliances apart, I would strip any usable motors, lengths of wire, switches, etc. and put them aside for later projects. I wouldn't have access to stuff like project boxes, soldering irons and two-stage epoxy until years later, so most of my breadboarding was done on slabs of cardboard cut from old boxes, and everything was held together with copious amounts of tape - to this day, one of my family's affectionate nicknames for me is "Dr. Tape".

Anyways, I remember seeing top-fuel dragsters on TV one weekend during summer vacation, and it was the coolest thing ever. The cars looked liked the fantasy-series Hot Wheels I had in my prized fold-up Hot Wheels City playset (thanks Grandma!) And the coolest thing: drouge chutes! On a car! I instantly knew that that was the most awesome part, so I set out to do the only reasonable thing I could do, given my penchant for tinkering: put a parachute on my bicycle.

The first stage was to gather materials: The body of the parachute was easier than I thought - after considering how severe my punishment would be if one of the good umbrellas went missing, I happened to notice a large rubber ball that had been floating around the house/garage/basement - it was one of those big cheap ones, close to 3 feet around, that they sell in the huge wire cage in the toy section of the discount store for a couple of bucks. It had a slow leak and was going flat, so nobody would miss it. I cut it neatly in half, and bingo - there was the chute. The lines were provided by another important staple in my bag of tricks - a length of Mom's spare clothesline. (Mom took to buying lots of extra clothesline too, since I used most of it). I carefully cut holes around the perimeter of the ball and tied lines through the holes, then tied all the lines together. Voila! Now I only had to deal with the problem of deployment. After considering various complicated ways to attach my new parachute to my banana seat, I decided to go for simplicity: I tied it around my belt, and crammed the chute in my back pocket. When the time arrived, I would simply reach back and yank the chute free.

I got up a head of steam on my Huffy on the sidewalk in front of my house. When I was sure I was going roughly close to 300+ MPH, I reached back, grabbed the corner of the chute that was sticking out of my pocket, and flung it out behind me. I heard the satisfying *whoomph*! of a parachute rapidly filling with air. It worked! In fact, it worked a little too well - I stopped instantly, and the bike was yanked out of my hands and kept going. It felt like I hovered in the air for a full second before I came crashing to the sidewalk, incurring one of the many full-body "concrete exfoliation treatments" I was to receive in the course of my youth. I particularly remember hurting my left hand during this episode, and 20+ years later, when having the same hand X-rayed after an injury, the doctor commented "So, you've broken this hand before". I told him no, not to my knowledge. He said "Oh yes, at least once before, a long time ago". My mind instantly flashed back to the parachute episode, and I couldn't help but think "Damn, I bet that was a cool-looking crash".