Category: Laugh it up, fuzzball.

Today in the Book of Why

Friendzzzz, open our K&R to page 32, psalm 12. Today we shall recite from the Book of Why, wherein all manner of faults in life are exposed for cleansing…

Let us begin…

  • Why… did my MythTV primary volume kick the bucket just at the point where I’m ready to start working on some code to interract with it? We thank the powers at Maxtor for not taking the half a terabyte of other storage with it during it’s death throws. Amen.
  • Why… does the Linux kernel decide to number ethernet ports, particularly wireless ethernet ports, in a totally arbitrary way? Booting up may provide us with the mysteries of eth1, or perhaps today it’s eth2, or even something like eth1_someoddtext. Amen.
  • Why… is the Eclipse WTP project, such an awesomely wonderful and fantastic environment, be occasionally revealing itself as ‘not -quite- 100% stable’, particularly when I’m in the middle of convincing a client to use it? Amen.
  • Why… does the Bluetooth stack on the Treo 650 suck so bad? Simple requests for OBEX services cause the phone to crash and reboot. Connections to it are spotty at best, and it offers NO services up to a remote requestor. Makes it very hard to say “Please get my photos off my phone.” It is safe to note that almost every other Bluetooth phone on the market today at least provides a Bluetooth FTP service. The Treo doesn’t even have decency to say “no services”, it simply drops the connection. Amen, dammit.
  • Why… is there no easy way to hit the Tab key in Firefox in a textarea, and have it generate a Tab? Amen.

We shall ponder these life puzzles as we ommm around the coffeemaker and await enlightenment via it’s gurgly goodness.

And now, a word from the grocery store bagger girl…

In random clickingness, I came across ‘the best of craigslist‘, which offered up this particular rant from a grocery bagging girl in Portland…
A choice tidbit…

Paper or plastic- it’s not a difficult decision. Choose quickly, and please for the love of all that is good, do not change your mind mid-bagging. Not only is it a huge pain for me, but inconveniences others waiting in line.

Edit: Be sure to check Sinners in the Hands of an Angry Craig.

History of Medicine

Found on bash.org :
“I have a sore throat.”
2000 BC : “eat this root”
1200 AD : “That root is heathen, say this prayer.”
1500 AD : “That prayer is superstition, drink this elixir.”
1800 AD : “That elixir is snake oil, Take this pill.”
1900 AD : “That pill is ineffective, Take this antibiotic.”
2000 AD : “That antibiotic is artificial, Here why dont you eat this root.”

A bit of levity…

My wife and her family introduced me what apparently originated as a radio announcers test; the “One hen, two ducks, three squawking geese, four limericking oysters…” etc etc etc…
On a local list I’m on, a fellow has posted a version he remembers from some late night convention chitchatting. I thought it was enough of a hoot to post. He can’t remember the originators, but it came together ‘somewhere in the late 80’s or early 90’s’…

One Cat
Two Kittens
Three Rat Shack Salesmen
Four Blue Polyester Power Suits
Five Pairs of Pink Painted Plastic Chopsticks
Six Sets of Genuine Leather Seatcovers for Honda Civics
Seven Shrieking Skinhead Shoplifters, Shamelessly Shanghaiing Shiitake Mushrooms
Eight Inspective Dejected Detectives, Hurling Invective Receptive to Corruption AND
GRAFT
Nine GrecoRoman Endocrinologists, Detained in a Dark Alley for impersonating Clogged
Saxophones. BADLY.
Ten Bewitched and Befuddled Bobblers Blindly Babbling Blank Verse and Meaningless
Metaphors without regard for the US RDA.
Eleven Elements of Doubt, fiendishly induced by the exchange of syllables, (the introduction
of?) ex-ex-extra phonemes, and the addition of an entire consituent.

Small Life Tidbit – Offline for a few days.

I’ll be hopping a plane down to Tampa this evening to spend a few days with mom, who is going in for surgery tomorrow to repair an aortic aneurysm. I’ll be gone until Friday, but should be available off and through the next few days, either from the hotel or maybe from a hospital room? Dunno 🙂
The replacement Treo should be here this morning, so I’ll have plenty of connectivity and entertainment that way. Might be time to test out that moblogging functionality I’ve been considering.

Jon Stewart rocks my world.

Courtesy of the Wall Street Journal roundup of the late night comedy commentary:

Jon Stewart: “I’m joined now by our own vice-presidential firearms mishap analyst, Rob Corddry. Rob, obviously a very unfortunate situation. How is the vice president handling it?
Rob Corddry: “Jon, tonight the vice president is standing by his decision to shoot Harry Wittington. According to the best intelligence available, there were quail hidden in the brush. Everyone believed at the time there were quail in the brush.
“And while the quail turned out to be a 78-year-old man, even knowing that today, Mr. Cheney insists he still would have shot Mr. Whittington in the face. He believes the world is a better place for his spreading buckshot throughout the entire region of Mr. Whittington’s face.”
Jon Stewart: “But why, Rob? If he had known Mr. Whittington was not a bird, why would he still have shot him?”
Rob Corddry: “Jon, in a post-9-11 world, the American people expect their leaders to be decisive. To not have shot his friend in the face would have sent a message to the quail that America is weak.”
Jon Stewart: “That’s horrible.”
Rob Corddry: “Look, the mere fact that we’re even talking about how the vice president drives up with his rich friends in cars to shoot farm-raised wingless quail-tards is letting the quail know ‘how’ we’re hunting them. I’m sure right now those birds are laughing at us in that little ‘covey’ of theirs.
Jon Stewart: “I’m not sure birds can laugh, Rob.”
Rob Corddry: “Well, whatever it is they do … coo .. they’re cooing at us right now, Jon, because here we are talking openly about our plans to hunt them. Jig is up. Quails one, America zero.
Jon Stewart: “Okay, well, on a purely human level, is the vice president at least sorry?”
Rob Corddry: “Jon, what difference does it make? The bullets are already in this man’s face. Let’s move forward across party lines as a people … to get him some sort of mask.”

Thanks to aqeldroma for the pointer.

Improv group arrested on NY Subway for not wearing pants!

As reported on their website Improv Everywhere staged an event and… :

Today’s No Pants was halted by the cops about halfway through. One frustrated cop freaked out and called in 25 more. 8 were ticketed and summonsed to court, 6 of the 8 were handcuffed and traveled in a police van to a precinct. Everyone has been released and is fine. More info as it develops. Keep checking this page, and the comments below for updates from everyone involved.

There’s a wonderful Flickr photo set available.
I’m still wondering what they were actually arrested for.

CounterfeitMini.org!

Consumer watch alert!
Unscrupulous dealers are trying to foist unofficial Mini Cooper lookalikes on an uninformed public! If you’re considering purchasing a new or used Mini, it’s important to review this site to make sure you don’t fall victim to this scam!
Thanks to Adam and mort for the pointer.

The Fake Dr. Pepper Collection

This is just too funny. A fellow has, in full and complete detail, documented all the Dr. Pepper clones he could find. Sample cans and pictures and taste-tests and everything.
As a long time Dr Pepper fan, I was shocked to hear that he ranked Mr. Pibb (the most popular Dr Pepper clone) only 2 out of 5 pepper points. It’s one of the few that is regularly on tap around here in the northeast.
Anyway, check out FakeDrPepper.com.

Carl and Phil – Monkey Ninjas!

Okay, okay, I admit it. I like going to Chuck E. Cheeses with Zach on occasion. It helps that there’s an open access point nearby. I get to geek on the laptop, Zach gets to play skee ball and run around in the hamster tubes.
I chanced to catch site of a video on their ubiquitous monitors. A very silly and somehwat simplistic animated piece called “Carl and Phil – Monkey Ninjas!. It was silly enough for me to remember to look it up when I got home.
Well worth watching a couple of these.