While Driving Through Beautiful Eastern North Carolina

While driving on the highway in Eastern North Carolina on Sunday, I passed a car with the words Redneck Hottie written on the back window in large purple letters. I'll pause for a second and let that sink in...


OK. I should clarify a few things now:

1. Yes, as far as I'm aware this could be the first time that this combination of words has been written on the back window of an automobile in purple letters.
2. I'm hopeful that regardless of whether or not this was the first time that the phrase Redneck Hottie ever appeared in large purple letters on a car window, this will be the first blog ever written about about the phrase Redneck Hottie appearing in large purple letters on a car window.
3. This was not a pickup truck. In fact, it was a Toyota Camry, a pretty non-redneck vehicle.
4. As it was not a pickup truck, a gun rack was not involved.

Looking back on it, in all likelihood this person was an ECU fan driving home from the ECU/NC State football game. For the record, I attended ECU when their football team was ranked 9th in the nation. I do not remember the term Redneck Hottie ever being used, in team colors or otherwise.

In summation let me say this: Once you have driven vehicle with the phrase Redneck Hottie written on it in large letters, you've pretty much assured that at least half of this phrase is true.

Reflections On How the 1980s Ran Together

Not literally... well maybe that happened too, but it really doesn't matter to me right now. Believe me, if I can figure out how to exploit that for a couple of cheap laughs, I'll do it. Right now I'm talking about how things in 1980s movies ran together. Or rather, how movie makers ran them together.

What do the movies Footloose, Better Off Dead, Real Genius, and Scarface all have in common? Copious amounts of violence? No. The footage of Kevin Bacon as a dancing teenager being chained to a bathtub and silenced by a chainsaw was (regrettably) left on the cutting room floor. Also most of the cocaine trade in Miami was pulled from Real Genius.

Footnote: I don't think the Real Genius clip is real. The Better Off Dead clip isn't actually the montage, but its a claymation hamburger playing Van Halen on a guitar that is almost correct - it doesn't get any better than this.
Footnote 2: I miss claymation. Someday I'll write about The California Raisins, The Noid, and something else. The way I remember it, all of 1986 was claymated, but those are all I can remember right now.
Footnote 3: Adam West beating The Noid to death was one of the greatest moments in television history.

What these movies all have in common is the 1980s style montage. This is where about two-thirds of the way through a ninety minute movie, music would play while we watched a collage of the good guy characters doing whatever they needed to do to achieve their goal, which always involved winning the girl, who was always Molly Ringwald. Lately, these have been spoofed in current television shows. For example, here is Family Guy's "1980s Style Fixin' Stuff Up Montage". I'm not sure it is necessary to include here, but it took me hours to find it, so it goes in.
Footnote 1: In the case of Scarface replace "good guy characters doing whatever they needed to do to achieve their goal, which always involved winning the girl" with "bad guys who were the main characters achieving their goal, which was selling large quantities of drugs". It ended poorly for them. Well the montage ended fine, but the movie itself ended badly.

These were everywhere in the 1980s. Inexplicably, they went away in somewhere early in the 1990s. I suppose it is because most art took a "deeper" turn in the 1990s. Out were movies like Footloose and Better Off Dead, in were deeper, more serious films like BASEketball and Booty Call. The same thing happened in music.

I'm no student of film, but it seems the montage served two basic purposes:

1. To show time passing while somebody is learning how to dance, in order to woo Molly Ringwald
2. To actually pass some time when a ninety-one minute script falls two minutes short because the whole film can be explained in a paragraph.

This begs the following question: Why did Scarface have one of these scenes? The movie nearly happens in real-time. The extended DVD version is nine and a half days long. I should know, I own it. But it is a little difficult to watch when you have to little kids and rarely have nine and a half days free after they go to bed.

I can't end this without mentioning Barney being chained to a bathtub in a Scarface-esque drug-deal-gone-wrong scene. Ever since I wrote the last paragraph I can't let it go. Is it dark? Sure. But its "funny dark".

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What Is Bothering Me on Election Night

What is bothering me this election night is a problem that is not specific to people here in the Southeast United States, or even the United States in general. I imagine this is an issue that affects people worldwide. Well it might just be an American issue, I'm really not certain. Unfortunately, it does not appear on a ballot here in the red states. Or the blue states, I can't remember which one we are. One thing is for sure: if you put me in charge I'll make the states red and green and color blind men everywhere will just see a map. But red, blue, yellow, or pink - this issue does not appear on a ballot anywhere in the country.

The issue is this: "Why are men the only ones who can operate a toilet seat?" If you saw the bathrooms in my college dormitory it would be obvious that a lot of men are actually incapable of operating one, or of managing to "aim through" one that is down.

As men, there a few things that are just expected of us. Things that go beyond equal rights. We generally deal with the bugs. We have to squish the yucky ones, we have to shuttle the more benign ones outside (I imagine that roaches really hate crickets and find the fact that they generally get a free ride outside arbitrary and unfair. Crickets make a lot of racket and roaches are quiet (except the hissing ones), and roaches don't realize that they are completely gross and that their ability to multiply strikes fear into the hearts of homeowners everywhere. Roaches merely think that they are "family oriented"). Basically anything pest oriented falls on us. Women aren't big on emptying a mousetrap. But when a man just throws one away rather than pry out a dead mouse, they will point out that it could have been reused.

A lot of things fall on us. The thing is we don't mind dealing with the pests, yard work, oil changes, tire rotation, barbecuing, light bulb changing, etc. There are a few reasons for this, not the least of which is that men like to see women naked, and will therefore do what they say most of the time. Here are some other less logical reasons:

• Pests - You can't claim to be grossed out by bugs when you spend as much time scratching as we do.
• Yard work - Men like things that allow us to use moderately dangerous machines and see what happens when we run things over with the mower.
• Oil changes - We like cars.
• Tire rotation - See "Oil changes"
• Barbecuing - We like fire, and to cook on fire makes us feel like we are in touch with our caveman roots.
• Light bulb changing - While we agree that men and women are equal - we are simply taller.

But for some reason I do not understand we are expected to raise the toilet seat when need be, and lower it when we are done. I feel that women are perfectly able to operate a toilet seat, and as it does not involve bugs, internal combustion engines, fire, or reaching over ones' head, I see no reason we should be the only ones who can handle this.

So I say politely, "Ladies, if it is up, put it down".

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It's Over...

...for this year. In what I'll just call "something of any upset", the St. Louis Cardinals defeated the Detroit Tigers 4 games to 1 to win the World Series. When asked for a comment Detroit Tiger's manager Jim Leyland said "I suppose it is odd that I smoke and manage a professional sports team, but I don't like chewing tobacco".

What a lot of people in the sports community seem to be latching onto is the fact that the Cardinals were 83-78 in the regular season. Just two games over .500. Fans in Philadelphia were so angered by this they coughed cheesesteak out of their nose. Why? Because the only other Philadelphia joke I can come up with involves the Rocky statue, but I can't make it work. Also because the Philadelphia Phillies had a better regular season record than the St. Louis Cardinals, but did not make the playoffs.

(Note to the Philadelphia Phillies:"The Philadelphia Phillies" is the best you could come up with? Why not just the "Philadelphia Philadelphians"? Nothing else noteworthy happens in Philadelphia? Milwaukee has The Brewers, a reference to the fact that they make quite a bit of beer in Milwaukee (this will end when some genius decides its a bad influence on our children), L.A. has The Dodgers, an obvious reference to avoiding gunfire, and Chicago has the Cubs - which I frankly don't understand, but at least its not the "Chicago ChiGuys". They almost have a theme going with The Bears, but then they also have The Bulls which doesn't make any sense... but at least they could pick an animal. Also [owner of Philadelphia Phillies name goes here], if you picked another team name, you could have a real mascot instead of whatever the hell the Philly Phanatic is. Maybe you could work in that bell with the crack in it)

So the good phans in the great sport city of Philadelphia are probably upset. And I really share the pain of the Detroit Tiger fans. We all thought they had it in the bag, but I like to say "that's why they play the games" (If they didn't "play the games" the Stanley Cup wouldn't have spent so much time in the Southeast lately, they'd leave it in Canada, or maybe occasionally New York. But it turns out you can have a winning hockey team anywhere you can manufacture ice and import Canadians - you can't raise a winning hockey team in the Southeast, but you can have a winning hockey team in the Southeast).

In the end a life long Cubs fan is left with this: "83-78, we could get there from here".

Think this was funny? Email me here. Didn't think it was funny? Use the same link.

I'm Nuts about these Nuts

The good folks at Diamond Foods have been making smoked almonds for as long as I can remember. That was pretty much the end of it; they came in regular and smoked. This brings to mind the following questions:

• Why smoked, why not boiled, dry roasted, honey roasted, or one of the other more traditional nut cooking methods?


• Do they smoke these in some sort of giant tee-pee, at the same time they do some fish and a couple of pigs, or just use smoke flavoring?


• Bill just used a semi colon... did he do it properly?

I can answer the last question - there are only eleven people on earth that know how to use a semi colon properly. Even fewer understand the balk rule. The intersection of these sets is rather odd, there is exactly one person on earth who understands exactly when to use a semi-colon and the balk rule. Oddly enough it is Russian dancer Mikhail Baryshnikov (Russian: Михаил Николаевич Барышников). I know what you're thinking... "Bill my 8th grade English teacher knew how to use a semi-colon." I'm sure she did, but I was talking about people. Also you're probably wondering why I included the Cyrillic version of Baryshnikov's name... I just think it looks cool.

Anyway, we were talking about nuts, and I think that Diamond Foods has come up with the greatest advance in nuts since the invention of dry roasting. Dry roasting is a process that I know nothing about, but I assume that Mr. Peanut was somehow involved. I suppose it could be reseached easily enought. Get back to me on that ok?

What Diamond came up with is the "Wasabi and Soy Sauce Almond". Why, I don't know. I hate to think 0f the ideas that must have failed - poodles may have been involved. But these have a sudden burst of horseradish that just sorta goes away, followed by almond flavor (which I think may actually be natural). I highly recommend them.

I don't get money from Blue Diamond... or anybody else. Think this was funny? Email me here. Didn't think it was funny? Use the same link.

State Fair, Inc

Here at State Fair, Inc. we are dedicated to bringing fair goers the newest and most innovative fried foods in the world. We were the inspiration for both the cornballer and that "deep fry just like at the carnival in your home" kit on Bob and Tom. A few years ago we amazed the world when we offered the deep fried candy bar. People say that there is no pioneer spirit left in this country, but they must be wrong - because not since Orville and Wilbur Wright have people in North Carolina subjected themselves to such personal risk for the good of society. But thankfully fried food innovation did not stop on that fateful day of December 16, 1903 when Orville and Wilbur became the very first people to deep fry a candy cane. Pioneer spirit lives on(Unfortunately the deep fried candy cane is sometimes over looked because they did something the following day too.)

This year we are proud to offer fair goers Deep-fried Coca-Cola. Some people said it couldn't be done. Cardiologists and dentists world wide said it shouldn't be done. But we did it. You can't defeat the pioneer spirit. The real breakthrough came in the realization that it was impossible to actually deep fry Coca-Cola, you have to deep fry batter and flavor that with with Coca-Cola. Fred "Lefty","Nine-Finger","No-nose" Jenkins gave his life for this valuable information. Now he's talking shop with Rudolph Diesel. You can't kill pioneer spirit.

This year we are also proud to offer fried Oreos, fried Twinkies, fried Moon Pies, and fried cheeseburgers. The lucky residents of South Carolina will also be treated to deep fried Ho-Hos, as the legislation regarding the regulation of deep fried Ho-Hos is still pending in South Carolina.

http://www.wral.com/statefair/10052413/detail.html

If You're a Yankees Fan, Just Don't Read This...

...unless you're going to send the link to all your friends and increase my hits. My ego could use the boost. You were warned.

I try to be positive in life. I'd rather pull for a winner than hope somebody loses. This is how I would like to live my life. But in reality, if the New York Yankees lose, I'm generally pretty happy. And they did just that - again. At least they did it on a budget. That A-Rod guy seems like a bargain at $25 million for ten years.... what's that? Oh, its $25 million per year for ten years. Well, Howard Stern still makes more money, maybe A-Rod will work out. I do think it would be funny if until he comes through in the post season they make him answer to his middle name, Emmanuel.

Yankee fans think that people hate the Yankees because they win so much. Actually not true - we hate Yankee fans... you know who you are... and we do it for the following reasons:

• If you're going to say "we" when you refer to the Yankees, please be ready to tell me when you played for them. If you did, odds are you have the best pickup line in any bar (unless there happens to be an astronaut hanging out (kinda funny to picture them leaning against the bar talking to a girl while wearing the space suit)), but otherwise don't say "we" - because "you" didn't do anything. You didn't even spend Steinbrenner's money (which is another topic altogether).


• The Yankees have won 26 championships. Twenty of them were before I was born, and I don't care about them. You might as well stomp about talking about how many presidencies your political party won since 1789 (or whenever they invented political parties in this country).


• Don't go on about the Red Sox, or the Cubs, or whoever not making the post season. Steinbrenner spent nearly $200 million and won one playoff game. They lost to a team that hasn't seen a league championship series since 1984 managed by a career minor league chain smoker.


• Go ahead and blame Joe Torre - There's a home for you in Chicago, Joe.


• If you live in the Southeast and haven't been to a game in 5 years or more, don't go about acting as though you're super fan. Even with the disparity in coverage, you only have to watch about 12 games a year. But even in the age Fox Sports XXX the Cubs are still on WGN a couple of games a week.

As for me... I'll stay a Cubs fan. Just wait 'til next year - hopefully they aren't "The best team in baseball... on paper" next year. It didn't work out well this year.

Its Over Johnnie

I'm back (picture that Eminem song about "guess whose back" playing in the background while you contemplate the fact that I don't know the name of the song and must not actually like Eminem very much). I've explained before that Bill Daniels is my alter-ego. It turns out my actual ego had a rough couple of weeks and nothing seemed funny. What I'm trying to do here is more of a humor column than a traditional blog, so I tend not to force things when nothing seems funny. If anybody wants to pay me to write for their website/newspaper/[put something ridiculous and funny here] I will be happy to force it. I seem able to in my professional life.

Now on to the title - it will help if I explain a couple of things:

• Dusty Baker's real name is Johnnie
• I like the Opie and Anthony show, and they play the "its over Johnnie" sound clip sometimes
• The sound clip is from the end of First Blood
• In David Morrell's book First Blood Rambo dies, sparing us sequels.
• I think Morrell might have spelled "Johnnie" "Johnny", but I don't care enough to look it up
• I could look it up, I have the paperback I borrowed from my friend Sean just under 20 years ago (Sean - let me know if you want it back)
• I'm too lazy to come up with a name that rhymes with Sean, although sometimes I think it is funny to protect people's identity when it is clearly not necessary
• Even though Rambo died in the first book, David Morrell wrote the first sequel - losing any brownie points he may have gained by killing Rambo in the first book.
• The Chicago Cubs fired Dusty Baker today

I had the thought last week that the only comment I had on baseball season was that I was looking forward to the end - like somebody with a terminal disease. Then I realized that Bill Daniels' sense of humor isn't as dark as mine and decided against it. Boy am I glad I didn't write about that.

But the regular season is over, and the Chicago Cubs, called the "best team in the league - on paper" before the season started, finished a respectable 66-96, getting edged out by Tampa Bay and Kansas city overall, but still clinching the worst record in the National League by one game.

Hockey season starts Wednesday.

Hey, you could probably buy my vote

Ok, maybe not buy it, but you could get me to vote for you. Just run on an issue that's important to me.

But Bill, you say, I thought you were and imaginary alter-ego and therefore avoided all issues of politics and religion? Well that's true, unless I think it might be funny. And there is no shortage of funny issues regarding politics and religion. Maybe someday I'll create another alter-ego that doesn't pull any punches, talks about politics and nut-jobs and gets upset and swears... but not right now.

So you want me to vote for you? Here's what you do:

1. Promise that during your time in office that most popular media outlets will not play anything from the Lynyrd Skynyrd catalog. Or any version of the song Hotel California. Or anything by Led Zeppelin. Or any Pink Floyd song recorded after 1973. Nobody ever plays the ones recorded before then anyway.
2. Once again, I thought I needed a list, but actually that's it. Run on the "No more Lynyrd Skynyrd, any version of Hotel California, anything by Led Zeppeln, or any Pink Floyd song recorded after 1973"* platform, and you have Bill Daniels' vote.

* This included playing "Sweet Home Alabama" between plays at professional hockey games, which makes just slightly more sense than whatever the hell the chicken dance** is.

** According to Wikipedia, "It has become a staple dance at weddings and at Oktoberfests." This bascially means that something called the chicken dance is popular at affairs that serve a LOT of beer. I ask, does this even need to be written, or is sort of self-explanatory?

Why Lynyrd Skynyrd? Are they the worst rock band ever? No - I'm sure they're not. In fact, I'm pretty sure that Styx is... I'll write about that another time. Actually I love all of the bands concerned here (except Styx). But frankly if I have to hear the Ballad of Curtis Lowe again, I could go into a homicidal rage. Or I might just learn to avoid classic rock stations. But that latter hasn't happened so far, so I'm a little concerned. Hotel California, Led Zeppelin and Pink Floyd are just along for the ride.

I was really hoping to get another couple of paragraphs out of this, but it looks like it ends right about here.

Interesting Quote Wednesday 9/13/2006

"It Was a Short Summer, Charlie Brown"

--Linus van Pelt

The Darn Chicago Cubs

Keep a couple of things in mind:

1. Bill Daniels is my pseudonym and alter ego. He's nicer than I am, uses nicer language, he's a nice guy.
2. I guess that's it... it seemed like I was going to need a list.

This weekend Bill Daniels and I - who are really the same person - flew from what we put in our profile as "Averagetown, Southeast, USA" to Atlanta, GA to visit my friend who I'll call "Strom". Besides visiting, I did this to see the Chicago Cubs play the Atlanta Braves, a baseball team I hate with every portion of my being. This brought up a number of issues for me:

1. Strom is a huge Braves fan, and a nice guy. He got us free tickets that were so good, I couldn't even manage to crack jokes about the seats being lousy.
2. I like Strom, so I almost felt a little guilty about hating the Braves so much.
3. Even though I have a wife and two children, I went alone.
4. I took an airline that once parked a DC-9 in the everglades. This isn't meant to be funny, just matter of fact. To be fair, they have changed names since then, and hopefully maintenance habits.
5. The only hope the Cubs have this season is a strike that lasts well into the winter months. Where are Gary Bettman and Bob Goodenow when you really need them?

So I went. And the Cubs lost. I got to see Matt Murton's home run, and things looked promising until the bottom of the third inning. Kinda like all those times you blew a 300 game in the second frame, y'know? I'm not nearly as nice as Bill Daniels, so the stream of obscenities, sometimes yelled at the umpire, rarely included the word "Darn". At least Strom got us good enough seats that the umpires may have heard me.

(actually I didn't use obscenities while yelling at the umpire, there were children in front of me. I find yelling at umpires therapeutic, I recommend it)

Interesting Quote Wednesday 9/6/2006

Normally I poke fun at myself for not writing things that are timely. I try to be current, but generally wind up writing things that are neutral at best (like I Love Coffee). Tonight, unfortunately, one doesn't have to think too hard to be current:

"The one thing I would want to be remembered for is passion and enthusiasm. Conservation is my life, my job, my whole persona."
-- Steve Irwin

I liked his show. Seemed like a good guy over all. Did a lot of good stuff for animals, and kids liked him. I'm kinda glad my kids aren't old enough to have watched the show.

Interesting Quote Wednesday 8/30/2006

"I fell asleep at the computer and never found a quote"

-Bill Daniels

Fear not, tomorrow it'll be Wednesday again, and I'll try to be better rested.

I Love Coffee

The title says it all - I love coffee. Do I need a cup or two to function properly in the morning? Am I addicted to caffeine?

Could be. I have actually quit drinking it once or twice, but always come back. Why? The answer is two-fold actually:

1. A coffee habit isn't exactly a big problem. As addictions go its legal, socially acceptable, and doesn't generally leave people on the street.
2. I love coffee.
3. It is really annoying me that I put this in as a numbered list, but the numbers are getting clipped by the picture of the caffeine molecule.
4. I want to keep the picture, I think its cool. Plus its public domain, and the first picture I found of coffee beans wasn't. I didn't feel like looking for a second coffee bean picture.
5. I think I ran this list out long enough now that you can actually see some numbered items and maybe now you can tell that "A coffee habit..." was number one and "I love coffee" was number two.
6. Ok, I guess the answer wasn't really two fold, it was six-fold. Or five-fold anyway - maybe this one doesn't count.
7. In its final published form, the numbers don't seem to be clipped, possibly leaving you somewhat bewildered about numbers 3-6.

As far as I knew until about 1992, coffee "beans" were the little ground pieces that I was so familiar with. But, probably thanks to Starbucks, at some point people decided it would be cooler to make actual coffee beans (which are bean shaped, not the individual ground pieces as I had thought) available to the normal man. I guess its is all because somebody invented a coffee grinder smaller than a Buick that could be sold to every household in America. This was neatly followed by the home espresso machine. The espresso machine is what you use if instead of spending three minutes making eight cups of coffee you want to make one cup of coffee in just under an hour - before cleaning time.

What prompted this rant against "fancy" coffee from somebody who loves coffee as much as myself? My office has a trick coffee grinder. It is a fancy, high-end, semi-industrial model with a dial you turn that allows you to specify how much coffee you want to grind. It then randomly grinds an amount between one pot's worth of beans, and one quarter teaspoon. We started getting ground coffee again, which I am incredibly thankful for. Believe it or not, when a ziploc bag of coffee is stored inside tupperware (or a non-copyrighted tupperware-like facsimile), it just doesn't matter - to me anyway. I find the trick grinder so irritating I am writing this even though we're back on "normal" coffee. Plus I wanted to write, and this was the only thing that came to mind.

So, a couple of words to the wise:

1. Just buy "coffee", not beans. At least for first thing in the morning. After your first cup you can better handle grinding, cleaning, etc.
2. Don't stand between Bill and the coffee, at least not before 10:00a.m.

The New Cars

I haven't been able to write much lately - I try to stick to funny things, and I guess nothing seems funny. I thought I would finally break through... I had this terrific rant about the price of tickets to see The New Cars, but it turns out I was simply wrong. I'd say they're still a little high, but in line with the other tours going on this summer - they all cost too much. But it turns out that the $199 tickets I saw on the official website are a special deal that includes a "meet and greet" with the band. I'd shake your hand in the parking lot for free, but then I never put a single in the top 40.

The only other funny thing that has happened is embarrassing. I thought - I was certain - that the word "significant" was "signifiGant". I didn't really think that the 'g' was capitalized, but I wanted it to stand out. Generally, I spell pretty well. There are words I have trouble with, but I tend to know what they are (barrel, tomorrow...) and pay special attention to them. This I was just wrong about, and clueless too. I wouldn't even have pronounced it right. This should probably explain why I haven't "made it" as a writer, and should not expect to anytime soon.

In sports news - I'm still a Cubs fan, and the Cubs are really, really, really, really bad this year. I'm not sure why I still check scores. I've never claimed to be an optimist, and I've certainly never been accused of being one, but I guess that one little part of me must hold out hope.

Interesting Quote Wednesday 8/24/2006

"I didn't have a scouting report on him. Obviously he can hit 65 mph fastballs."- Mark Grace

On September 2nd 2002 Mark Grace - a career first baseman - pitched the 9th inning as his team lost 19-1. The quote above was on giving up a home run to Dave Ross - the first of his major league career.

Its been a rough year to be a Cubs fan. Yeah, I know, Mark Grace played for Arizona in 2002, but he's still a Cub to me.

I can't get this to format correctly, but I am now well into "Tired at Work Thursday", so I'm going to have to let it go.

It Is "Interesting Quote Wednesday"

I recently voiced a number of ideas I've had to generate traffic. Most of them were stupid, ridiculous things that I made up to try to be funny. Also, it might be the first blog entry in history to mention both U2 and Cutting Crew. But I hinted at Interesting Quote Wednesday, which I've decided to try. For normal people, espcially those on the East coast of the United States, it will be Intersting Quote Thursday, because I stay up kind of late when I write.

Here is today's quote:

"Fantastic!"
- Michael Collins

This might bear a little bit of explanation. On July 20th, 1969, we landed men on the moon. As far as I know we did this just because it was there. Some amazing advancements we take for granted came out of the space program, and I was always told that Velcro was one of them, although I see no mention of it in my almost 30 seconds of research. Right this minute, I'm not sure the American spirit is one to go somewhere just to prove it can be done. I think we will again, but right now I'm not sure.

Anyway - we did it. At about 3:18 p.m. Neil Armstrong and Edwin E. "Buzz" Aldrin landed the lunar module on the surface of the moon, and Edwin E. "Buzz" Aldrin spoke the first words said on the moon: "Contact light." After which he began to contemplate who gave him the nickname "Buzz", and that it might not have been a compliment.

The next sets of words spoken from the moon were spoken by Neil Armstrong who said:

Shutdown.

and then:

Houston, Tranquility Base here, the Eagle has landed

Which is pretty poignant considering he was busy contemplating why he was never given a nickname. Then Charlie Duke of mission control said:

Roger, Tranquility. We copy you on the ground. You've got a bunch of guys about to turn blue. We're breathing again. Thanks a lot.

And then Michael Collins, left orbiting the moon in the command module said "Fantastic!". He actually said he never felt lonely, that he knew his part of the mission was as important as the other two parts. But you'd have to agree that Edwin E. "Buzz" Aldrin and Neil "I don't have a nickname" Armstrong are pretty much household names - in the United States anyway. But Michael Collins doesn't come up that often, so he is honored with this week's "Interesting Quote Wednesday". Tune in again next week for "Interesting Quote Wednesday", which of course will really be on Thursday for most of you.

Thanks to skygod.com for a page full of great space program quotes.

If I Were On South Park...

• 
  If I ever "got on down to South Park", I might look like this. I actually look nothing like this, but I do have long hair and a goatee. The goatee is usually obscured by the fact that I don't shave as often as a responsible man in his mid-thirties should. Also, I have a lot of red t-shirts. I am thankful that the Eric Cartman body was not available.

So how did I come up with this? I came across the link below on a message board. I have to leave it "below" because it seems to becausing some trouble mixed in with regular text.

If you try it your first question will be "How Do I Save It?". That part is left as an exercise. That's what all the hard problems in computer science books say about the part you really need to know.

http://images.southparkstudios.com/games/create/index.html

Worthless Observations On Trying to Be Funny, and 1987 Trivia

I really try to be current here. I do try. Obviously, I have failed miserably since the Stanley Cup Finals. Why? Because I lead an incredibly boring life, and don't falter under the impression that it will be interesting to you. But I really do want to write. I went through all the trouble to pick out a pseudonym and fake names that rhyme with the real names of most of my friends.

I could stop trying to be funny and talk about what is in the news, but frankly I don't understand most of it. We're fighting a war, or I suppose dealing with an occupation at this point. I'm not sure how its going - but people don't like it - that's probably a good thing. If we ever fought a war that too many people really liked that might be scary. Israel has a ceasefire in a war that I don't really understand but I think they're fighting it in Lebanon, but they aren't fighting with Lebanon per se. People don't like the President much, but I think that's been covered. I hear the price of gas is high.... I hear that every ten minutes or so, so I don't think there is any point in me covering it here.

So I need something funny to talk about and since I can't think of anything current, I'll settle for something that happened in 1987. But we'll do that in a minute.

I also want to address how to get people here and how to get some feedback on exactly how bad my attempts are. I had a few thoughts:

• Do something controversial. Pick some group of people who annoy me, and verbally assault them. If people notice it might generate some traffic. So I did that with a group of people that I find truly annoying, those who imitate characters in Austin Powers movies. By and large the one person who read it didn't seem to get it. Perhaps I should have picked something more tangible, like a political group, or an orange (see, now you wonder what I'm talking about - you want to click that link - go ahead).
• Recurring features. It works for bad morning radio. So I was wondering how many people would tune in on a given day of a week to see something in a recurring theme. I had ideas for a couple of possible themes:
1. Quotes by Rudolph Diesel Wednesday
2. Reality TV wrapup Wednesday
3. Something on a day other than Wednesday
4. Random links to thing I already wrote Tuesday
5. I am not aware of any other quotes by Rudolph Diesel, hate reality television, and
   it really seems like I ought to start on Wednesday because its right in the middle of the week.
• If you use bullets instead of numbers, and say something vague like "I had a few thoughts", you don't have to keep changing the numbers around when you get a new idea (or forget one).

So please, if you think its worth reading, tell a friend. And if you don't, tell me. You only have to tell me once, it won't take much time.

In 1987 a song by Cutting Crew - (I Just) Died In Your Arms Tonight - was on the charts at roughly the same time as a song by a band called U2 - With or Without You. The two events are linked in my mind. I specifically remember sitting and talking to a friend who was a police officer at the guard shake of the Air Force base that I lived on while both of these songs played on the radio. That one thing linked the two songs in my mind.

(I Just) Died In Your Arms Tonight was one of the top hits of 1987. Cutting Crew were nominated for the Best New Artist Grammy, and sank into relative obscurity. Its not that there subsequent records were not good, but those are the rules: You get the Best New Artist Grammy, you've had your hit. Just ask these guys. Here in 2006, nearly twenty years later, a version of Cutting Crew with as many as one original band member have released a new album. I hope it does well.

As for that other band - I'm not sure whatever happened to them. I hope they saved some money.

Maybe I'll be Funny Tomorrow

It is a lot of pressure knowing that ones of people come to this very website everyday looking for a laugh. Unfortunately, I just can't come up with anything to write about tonight. I hope I'll be funny tomorrow.

All in all it was a good day - the Cubs won.

An interesting quote

With hindsite on our side, it is easy to quote a prediction that doesn't make the speaker look too bright. For example:

"Computers in the future may weigh no more than 1.5 tons."- Popular Mechanics, 1949

"I think there is a world market for maybe five computers."- Thomas Watson, chairman of IBM, 1943

I happened to trip upon a quote today that made speaker look pretty visionary. And that visionary man is Rudolf Diesel. I had always thought that Diesel died when one of his diesel motors exploded, but two sources say that nobody knows for sure.

Here's the quote:
"The use of vegetable oils for engine fuels may seem insignificant today, but such oils may become in the course of time as important as petroleum and the coal tar products of the present time." - Rudolf Diesel, Patent application, 1912

The X Games

The X Games were this past weekend... The X Games are what ultimately occured when a group of atheletes looked at film of Joe Theisman writhing in pain after his final play on the football field and said "heh, wuss". First there was "MTV Sports", which was hosted by Dan Cortese - who I like to think of as "the poor man's Keanu Reeves". Every week he would go out with a group of people who were riding mountain bikes down the side of mountains, bungee jumping, etc. It was the early 90s and Extreme sports were all the rage. In fact, everything became extreme. Soda, deodorant, toothpaste, paper plates. Pretty much anything you could sell got the word extreme plastered on it. I think when they came up with extreme programming that was the end of the line. Because it was sort of like saying "extreme geek" or "extremely uncool. Perhaps that's why just the 'X' stuck.

The X Games pretty much involve people taking bicycles, skateboards, and mortorcycles, riding them over jumps as high as they possibly can, and doing tricks while in the air. There used to be a few more games, but I imagine that bungee jumping on television just didn't hold the same alure after Fox's "When Bungee Jumping Goes Bad".

I love the X Games. I'm not sure why. I've always liked watching this sort of thing, and never seriously entertained doing any of it. You see, when I saw the replay of Joe Theisman's last play that Tuesday morning in 1985 I didn't go "heh, wuss" - I went "My God, he may never walk again", and since he did, I figure I might not - so don't tempt fate.

My favorite is watching the bikes. The greatest X Games althelte ever is bike rider Dave Mirra. I have a lot in common with Dave. He lives in Greenville, NC, and I used to live there. I had a bicycle as a child, he rides a bicycle professionally. He got Punk'd by Ashton Kutcher, and I have seen several episodes of both Punk'd and That 70s Show. So maybe that explains my love for the X Games, with Dave and I being so close and all. Dave Mirra suffered a lacerated liver during practice this year and was not able to compete.

The highlight of this years X Games seems to be Travis Pastrana doing a double backflip on a motorcycle. This marks the first time this trick has been performed succesfully in competition, yet he didn't receive a perfect 10 in the scoring. I just want to reiterate - this young man flipped a motorcycle that he was riding twice in the air - and didn't receive a 10. I was hoping for a Nadia Comaneci reference here, but I can't seem t0 make it work.

Snakes on a Plane

Snakes on a Plane is the next summer blockbuster coming out. It opens August 18, 2006 - and features the generally mild mannered Samuel L Jackson. I suspect it is about snakes on an airplane. But then again I'm not sure The Piano was really about a piano. Somebody told me it was supposed to be erotic, but after 20 minutes decided that no amount of sex could save that movie and gave up. So I don't really know for sure, and there was a piano there - but I had a feeling that the movie was about something deeper than the piano - if you were to watch the whole thing.

In 1988 there was a hit movie called "Die Hard". It featured Bruce Willis as a New York cop who is in a building in Los Angeles when a group of European terrorists (in the 1980's these were technically reffered to by the term "Eurotrash") take over the building to steal a bunch of stuff and try to kill everybody. Bruce Willis kills all of them instead. Had Bruce Willis been killed by the bad guys the movie would have lasted twenty-eight minutes and had a sad ending. This version didn't do well in screen tests. So they went with the "sell out" ending, and not only did it do well, it spawned sequels - Die Hard 2, Die Hard Goes to College, Die Hard Meets Earnest, etc. As we speak, "Die Hard - Isn't Bruce Willis Getting Kinda Old For This Stuff, and is the Situation With Demi Moore, Ashton Kutcher, and Bruce Willis a Little Creepy?" is in pre-production.

I'm not a film expert, but I have seen some on television. It seems there was a period after the release of Die Hard where all the new action movie ideas were pitched relative to Die Hard. "Die Hard on a Bus", "Die Hard on a Boat", "Die Hard on the set of Regis and Kathy Lee where We're a Kinda Rooting for the Bad Guys". I guess Snakes on a Plane was pitched as "Die Hard on a Plane with Snakes".

So why am I writing about the movie Snakes on a Plane, which I frankly have no interest in? Well, I'm hoping if I mention Snakes on a Plane enough times, I might get some accidental traffic from search engines. Also - I wanted to share this link. You can set it up to have a pre-recorded version of Samuel L Jackson call a friend and tell them to go see Snakes on a Plane. Its very funny - certainly more fun than working.

A Funny Thing Happend at Sam's Club

Usually these stories are titled "A funny thing happened on the way to ...", but this is probably as witty as I'm going to be for tonight.

Sam's Club - a giant warehouse filled with the largest possible quantity of every known food item in the universe. For those of you unfamiliar with Sam's Club, its like Costco. For those of you unfamiliar with Costco, its like the price club where Kramer bought the Beef-A-Reeno (note to people who "don't get Seinfeld" - the rest of us "don't get" you).

I have often joked it would make a pretty good reality show to send hungry people into Sam's Club with $100 and see what they came out with. It wouldn't be any Tommy Lee Goes to College, but it might have a short run on the reality TV list. Why? Because hungry people love peanut butter, Sam's Club carries very large containers of peanut butter, and somebody eating peanut butter directly from a five gallon bucket is extremely funny.

So my wife and I stop by Sam's on the way home from work to get diapers and formula. Why, because there couldn't be anything more boring. I like to think that I used to be cool, but the truth is that I just didn't have kids and didn't have to stop at Sam's for these particular items.

No trip to Sam's is complete without a swing through the clearance section, and there it was - a 61" television marked down to less than half its original price. $1150 - it comes out to $18 per inch (diagonally of course, to measure a television horizontally would just be pandemonium). Long story short, we took home the diapers, formula, and the television. Special thanks to my friend "Terry" (whose identity I will protect by using a fake name that rhymes with his real name), and his wife who is also my friend but her name doesn't rhyme with anything...., wait a minute... his wife "Oksana". She'll be thrilled to know I made her a Russian figure skater. Well better that than to be left out I suppose.

And I guess there isn't much left to say, except that when I'm standing across the room - I never squint to see the television. It is maximum strength television. You can see the picture of course, but there isn't really anything to give a relative size. I could have stood next to it, but

1. You would see my face and I would give away my true identity, thus spoiling my pseudonym and bad jokes about protecting people's identity by using names that rhyme with their real names.
2. You would be able to see that I am fat
3. I'm really starting to question this whole pseudonym/fake name joke thing. I suppose it will make more sense if anybody I don't know personally ever reads this.

And as is the true test of any video device for a man in his mid-thirties - Star Wars looks great on it. Thank you, George Lucas, for releasing these on DVD. And profane insults for making Greedo shoot first and then re-releasing the original-originals again next year.

If you read this, please drop me a line with an honest comment, that way I know if anybody is paying attention. Although I guess I probably look like a guy who would ramble on when nobody is paying attention anyway.

I'll be back...

It's been a little while, but I'll be back. Too late to start something new tonight, but I have riveting commentary on how my new computer looks a lot like a new bed, a funny thing happening while picking up diapers and formula, loss of internet service, and the Chicago Cubs (for those who didn't catch the hi-lights, tonight's 15-4 loss was a lot closer than it looked).

The Practical Uses of the Pomegranate

I think that anybody caught imitating a Mike Myers character from the Austin Powers movies should be beaten with a pillow case full of ripe pomegranates. Its a joke, I would never imply that anybody should hit anybody else with anything I chose the pomegranate for several reasons:

• It is the most ridiculous fruit I could think of. As far as I know, I have never seen a pomegranate face to face. I actually had a hard time finding the link for it because I misspelled it so badly.
• When ripe, I would imagine it softens like most fruit does when it ripens.
• A pillow case full of ripe fruit shouldn't severely wound anybody Its a joke, I would never imply that anybody should hit anybody else with anything, merely teach them that going about saying "ghet in mah bhellly" is not only unfunny, but they could face corporal punishment. Quoting Monty Python and the Holy Grail is still funny. I don't know why, but as a software guy I would be terrified to ever imply that it wasn't funny.

I think Mike Myers is funny. I think most of his movies are funny on one level or another. I actually thought Austin Powers was funny. But I don't think I can stand to hear those characters imitated one more time.

I know what you're thinking... "Bill, I have a pillow case, but where can I obtain pomegranates?" Well Its a joke, I would never imply that anybody should hit anybody else with anything it turns out that the pomegranate was first grown in California in 1769 (and even then people bitched about the traffic in L.A.), so I would imagine you can buy them somewhere. I'd try a supermarket or other place where ridiculous Mediterranean fruits are grown.

So now your thinking, "Bill what if I'm in a fashionable New York restaurant and see somebody doing 'Its a maaannn, baabby' and it is actually Mike Myers?" Well, I would say Its a joke, I would never imply that anybody should hit anybody else with anything that while Mr. Myers did actually play the characters in the movies, he is not to be excluded.

Thoughts on the Wong-Baker Facial Grimmace Scale

I don't like going to the doctor. Most of the times my wife takes me to the doctor she would probably rather take an angry rotweiler to the vet. But everytime I go, the one thing that stands out to me is the "Wong-Baker Facial Grimmace Scale". It is a series of smily faces that progress from happy to sad. This is supposed to help somebody explain how much pain they are in. It must be a hoot when they use this in the delivery room.

I don't have a lot of funny things to say about this. When it is needed for children, or people who don't speak the doctor's language, it is probably really important. But the thing that always gets me is this:two doctors have their names attached to a scale that is a series of smily faces. I'm sure I'm simplifying things, but it seems to me like Wong or Baker could have handled it on their own.

If you read this, please drop me a line with an honest comment, that way I know if anybody is paying attention. Although I guess I probably look like a guy who would ramble on when nobody is paying attention anyway.

The All-Star Game, the Chicago Cubs, and Procrastination

The classic 1976 movie "Rocky" is a great American story about somebody who is too stupid to stop getting up when he's been beat. This may in fact be what America is all about. I'm not sure because people regularly claim America is "all about this" or "all about that", and there is usually no way to tell that they are right. In this movie the heavyweight champion Apollo Creed decides to fight an unknown boxer and give him a shot at the title, it is basically a publicity stunt. Buy the unknown boxer, Rocky Balboa, gives the champ a harder time than he expected. As the rounds tick past, Apollo's trainer Duke eventually tells him "He doesn't know it's a damn show! He thinks it's a damn fight!" (a lot of people thought that Duke stole the show, but to my knowledge Tony Burton has never been nominated for an Oscar).

All-star games are perhaps the most worthless thing in sports. The NFL's is held after the season, and just barely in the country. The NHL's is pretty much a normal game, provided you have ever seen an NHL game with a 14-12 score and no hitting. They are almost playing a different sport. I hear that basketball has an all-star game, but I really don't care. That brings me to baseball, whose all-star game is equally worthless as the others. A few years ago, the all-star game had to be ended in a tie because it ran too long. People were angry because there are not supposed to be ties in baseball. My thoughts:"They don't know it's a damn show! They think it's a damn baseball game" (try to picture Tony Burton's voice w/a different one overdubbed on the appropriate words).

So now to make the all-star game actually matter, the winner ("winner" is Latin for American League Team) gets home field advantage for the World Series. To quote Max Klinger, "I think it's the most stupidest thing in the world. You call it a police action back home, right ? Over here it's a war. A police action sounds like we're over here arresting people, handing out parking tickets. A war's just killing that's all." Ok, really only the first sentence applies, I just thought it might be funny to include all of it.

On to the Chicago Cubs... They're bad. Really bad. I would like to thank the Pittsburgh Pirates for somehow managing to be worse. The Cubs have been plagued by injuries to key players, and the fact that, apparently, they just aren't very good at baseball. However, leading up to the all-star break they had won three games in a row. I understand this is called a "streak", and it was tied with their other best streak of the season. I thought about writing about this, but I didn't. If you see how terrific my last couple of posts are you will probably understand why I waited.

Today the Cubs played their first game after the all-star break and lost to the New York Mets. I should have written about that streak while I had the chance.

Almost Cut My Hair

Almost cut my hair

Happened just the other day

It's gettin' kind of long

I could've said it was in my way

Warning: I'm not funny tonight (could be I never am, but tonight I'm not even trying much)

The above hippie dribble was written by David Crosby around 1969. Believe it or not, when I refer to this as "hippie dribble", I don't really mean for that to be insulting, just honest. Also I guess for this to make sense to anybody other than my friends/family that read this I have to mention that I'm one of the oddball thirty-something guys in the world with hair well past my shoulders.

Nothing really funny happened today. Work is a little frustrating right now, and a family emergency led me to skip tonight's concert activities - rather than rock I had to visit a sick relative. I don't mind - its the right thing to do. Besides, I didn't feel like going alone and I'm pretty sure my friend who I'll call "Gil" to protect his identity was going to bail out anyway (ok, everybody who reads this knows who it is, I called him "Gil" because it was funny).

Every weekday, my wife and I drop our kids off at daycare. This makes me feel a little old because it is one of the only places people have ever referred to me as "Mr. (my real name)" and I felt comfortable with it. Usually I'm a first-name kind of guy, but when you're dropping your child off at "school" (sometimes we call it "daycare", sometimes "school", and sometimes "the baby kennel"), it feels appropriate to be addressed as "Mr".

This morning, for the second time, a boy of about five years I would guess asked me why I have long hair. The first time the answer was "Its just cheaper that way", and today I believe it was "It just worked out that way buddy". It sure did make me feel old. When I was that young man's age it was 1975 and a man my age with long hair did not stand out.

I don't remember too much about 1975, but I was there. From what I've seen in movies I gather that the Rolling Stones "Gimme Shelter" played pretty much non-stop, except in Vietnam where Doors songs could be heard playing even in the jungle.

Thirty-odd years from now when they're making movies about today's political climate, and today's war, I wonder what music will play in the background. The odds are pretty good that:

1. My hair is longer than the members of those bands
2. Those bands enjoyed most of their success after 11:59pm December 31, 1989, and therefore I never quite felt like I understood them.

If you got this far and you're wondering what the point was... I guess I didn't have one.

At 35, "Rock" is Just a Noun

I like the Opie and Anthony show. I try to keep my blog pretty clean, their radio show is not. But it is funny if you enjoy a "no-hold-barred" type of humor where you never say "you can't joke about that". If you are, to pick a random example, my parents, you might be convinced that the un-censored half is one of the signs that the decline of Western civilization is complete.

A while back, Gregg "Opie" Hughes mentioned the Night Ranger song "(You Can Still) Rock In America," questioning exactly what the hell that means. Were we ever in danger of not being able to Rock? Were there other countries where Rock had been outlawed, but it was still legal in America? Were they just pointing out that after 30-odd years (at the time) that Rock was still available? Nobody knows. Perhaps if you knew more of the lyrics than:

You can still rock in America!

Ah yeah, s'alright"

it would shed some light on it, but probably not. That was the 1980's for you though, the lyrics just weren't that deep. Ten years later the grunge movement would be in full swing and more intellectual lyrics like

A mulatto,

An albino,

A mosquito,

My libido,

Yea!

would cause the music in the 1990s to seem more thoughtful and well-read.

In 1984 Twisted Sister released the "Stay Hungry" album, which scared a lot of parents, probably mine included, but the truth is that they were far from the scariest thing out there. I have a hunch I might have been a pain in the ass if I never heard a Twisted Sister album. Anyway, the album contained the song "I Wanna Rock". Not a song about one's longing for granite countertops, "Rock" is a verb once again:

I wanna rock! (Rock)

I wanna rock! (Rock)

I want to rock (Rock)

I wanna rock! (Rock)

The subtle use of the word "to" in the third line disambiguates the whole thing and proves Rock is in fact used as a verb. In 1984, this made sense to me. In 2006, it pretty much goes on the same shelf with a hippie talking about the oil companies keeping a genius from releasing an engine that gets 200mpg. I still like the song, but I'm not sure whether or not I have time to rock right now. And if I do have time, I'm not sure what the hell it means. I'm pretty sure people who prefer jazz enjoy their music just as much. I'm not sure if they're rocking, or jazzing, or they just don't address it.

Later on in the week, I'm going to a concert. A rock concert. Perhaps I'll rock, I'm not really sure. Could be I'll rock and won't even know it. But one thing is for sure - I'll bitch about paying for parking.

Thoughts on World Cup Soccer

Its been almost a week since I wrote something here. I'm afraid that not too much seemed funny. My goal here is to be funny. Not 'knee-slapping laugh-out-loud" funny. But kind of "crack-a-smile-while-sitting-at-the-computer" funny. I'm trying to be tell your friends funny. And I do have kind of a funny story about I set out to buy a computer last weekend and wound up with a new bed, nightstand, some sort of end-of-the-bed bench, media cabinet, and picture of horses.

But for one reason or another, that story doesn't seem quite funny enough. So I figure this is the time to tear down World Cup Soccer. Radio's Lazlow, whose short updates on XM radio I enjoy, pointed out that if you want to attract people to your blog you should say something controversial. I currently have a "no-way" policy about discussing politics or religion in this forum, but I figure attacking a sport that is popular in pretty much every country in the world might be enough to upset people. Thankfully everything I know about soccer will fit into a couple of paragraphs.

Soccer - from the Latin soc which is Latin for "the most popular sport ever", and the Latin cer, which means "except in the United States". Soccer is what occurred when somebody asked "what would happen if we took ice-hockey, changed the puck to a ball, got rid of the sticks, made the goals a little bigger, and instead of ice - played on a grassy field the size of Rhode Island?". What happened is Soccer. If only that person - who I am going to call Fred (for no particular reason) - if only Fred had asked "what would happen if we took ice hockey and allowed one player to wear a rocket like Wile E. Coyote?", I would be writing another entry about how terrific hockey is. Instead I'm saying this - If you make the above changes (the ones to make it into soccer, not the Wile E. Coyote ones), hockey becomes boring.

Every four years we have the Olympics, where all the countries of the world come together and play every sport known, and pick a gold, silver, and bronze medal winner for each one in about 15 days. Also every four years (but not the same year), we have World Cup Soccer. The only sport played is soccer. No Acme products are used to make it more interesting, its just soccer. Yet even though it is just one sport, as far as I can tell the World Cup runs for about a year, or at least the entire summer. The United States is out before the competition actually begins. There is one good thing about this, the United States players are allowed to quietly return to their jobs washing dishes in peace. In other countries where people care about soccer these people are occasionally killed - and there really isn't anything funny about that.

So why is soccer popular everywhere but here? I'm not sure. I think a lot of it is because the TV coverage usually involves one camera mounted on top of a skyscraper about a half mile away. It doesn't make for exciting television - and I'm a baseball fan.

I'm sure the "powers that be" will keep pushing soccer here. And we still won't care. We have the MLB, the NBA, the NFL, the NHL, NASCAR, the NCAA, and probably a few other acronyms that I'm forgetting. We just have too much going on.

Now that's out of my system. I wanted to do a World Cup article before it was over. Next time maybe I'll get around to complaining about the Cubs. I have a hunch they won't bounce back between now and then.

If you read this, please drop me a line with an honest comment, that way I know if anybody is paying attention. Although I guess I probably look like a guy who would ramble on when nobody is paying attention anyway.

Note: I found a picture of a Wile E. Coyote toy somehwere on the interent. I hope putting it here was legal.

I'm a Software Guy

(Alternate title:Making a Short Story Long)

I'm a software guy. My official title is "Software Engineer", but "programmer" is almost perfectly descriptive. There are differences, but I digress (digress - Latin for "will stop talking now"). Normally it might come up like this:

Non-technical co-worker:Something is wrong with my computer.

Me:What does it do.?

Non-technical co-worker:Its been smoking and making sizzling noises... since I spilled a cup of coffee from Starbuck's on it.

Me:Did you bring me any coffee?

Non-technical co-worker:No

Me:Sorry, smoking and sizzling sounds like a hardware problem. I'm a software guy.

The real lesson here is not to spill coffee on your computer. Because even had "Non-technical co-worker" brought me coffee, I could do little about it except point at the smoke and say "well there's your problem"... I'm a software guy. And the truth is as software guys go, I'm not that geeky. I've never read a Lord of the Rings book, only made it through about 40 pages of The Hitchikers' Guide to the Galaxy, and I've never seen a Monty Python movie all the way through (I am well versed in dropping in quotes from them though, if I weren't I could lose my job). My main hobbies are guitars and this blog... ok, maybe the blog isn't a great argument for me not being a geek, but I grew up in the 1980s, and I am sure of one thing - guitars are cool. As for me being stuck in 1987, that's another issue not related to my job, but at least I got rid of the mullet which:

• I did not know there was a name for at the time
• Did not stand out at the time
• Was probably the worst one in the history of the Northern Hemisphere
  

Most computer guys, even software guys, have really cool "bleeding edge", very fast computers. And I do too, if you live in the year 2000. Now I pretty much own an 1.1GHz boat anchor (and the new boat anchors are up to 3GHz). It is time for a new computer. Unfortunately my wife decided, I mean we decided, that we should have a so called "second child", and it turns out they're expensive to operate.

So I came upstairs tonight all ready to write a really original piece about how the Chicago Cubs seem to be in a slump for the last couple of generations, and as soon as I get into the room I can see that all of the lights on the front panel are on. I have been through this once before. The machine won't respond, I reboot it, and 5 second into the reboot, it freezes up with all the lights on. Fortunately I learned how to fix this last time:

• Take side panels off
• Start unhooking peripherals and rebooting after each one is removed. No change.
• Go to box of random electronic junk, get the multi-meter I was given for free at a trade show by a hardware guy. Use the leads to check the power supply (WARNING - DON'T EVER PLUG ANYTHING INTO ANYTHING ELECTRICAL UNLESS YOU KNOW WHAT YOU ARE DOING - YOU COULD BE KILLED - in fact, just forget it, let's say I really didn't do that part, yeah, I didn't do it, I just thought about it, its really immaterial to the story (immaterial - word I hope means "unrelated", but sounds more "writer-guyish").
• Turn the computer on. It works.
• Unplug multi-meter... no, wait, I never actually plugged it into anything, its dangerous. Skip this step.
• Put computer back together.
• Put meter back - I did actually get it out, I just didn't really use it as far as any readers who might hurt themselves and sue me later are concerned.

The act of plugging in, I mean merely getting out, the multi-meter convinces the computer that I mean business, and it will operate without flaw (and by "without flaw" I mean "with occasional spontaneous reboots") for a month or two.

So tomorrow, in my most serious tough guy voice, I'm going to my wife and ask "may I please buy a new computer?" And by "new", I mean refurbished. sitemeter.com now says that my blog attracts as many as four readers per day, so obviously it is important that I have one. Otherwise my current computer may realize that while I can write software, I don't even know what the hell a multi-meter is used for. I'm a software guy.

Wow, now I can wait and write about the Cubs another time.... it'll be a hoot.

Little Too Busy

It seems my so called "job" is keeping me busy at night so I don't have time to write anyting good. But I'm stockpiling ideas and sometime in the next week or so I'll be back with lots of worthless ramblings about the plight of being a Cubs fan, reality television, and why is it that the electric company advertises.

Its a shame I don't have time to write when I'm having such original ideas.

A Great Quote From George Will

"All I remember about my wedding day in 1967 is that the Cubs lost a double-header." - George Will - source

I don't really have anything else of my own to say tonight, but I saw the above quote earlier tonight, and thought it was worth sharing.

Thoughts on Lawn Darts

As best I can tell, the lawn dart was invented in the late 1970s or early 1980s. Some engineer was forced to go to a Saturday afternoon picnic and realized around 11am "an oversized, cartoon-like, horseshoe is actually not designed for flight, its no wonder it is hard to get around that post". By 4:30pm, the lawn dart was born. And by 11:17pm the local news was reporting that "a heavy, finned, metal object - sort of like a missile - should really not be thrown into the air, especially in a populated area, by somebody who had been drinking beer".

Here is the part that gets me: lawn darts were banned by Consumer Product Safety Commission on December 19th, 1988. I realize some people were hurt, even killed, but let's examine some of the things that were never banned:

• Horseshoes - I don't have any proof to back this up, but I would be shocked if somebody wasn't, at the very least, knocked out cold by a horseshoe thrown in a game. Horseshoes remain legal in the eyes of the Consumer Product Safety Commision.
• Horseshoes - I am absolutely certain that horseshoes have caused serious injury when attached to a horse's foot and kicked into a person's head. I suppose the actual problem is:
• Horses - the horse is pretty much a recreational item in our society. Horses are beautiful, sturdy animals (with incredibly soft noses, I don't know why, but that sticks with me). They are also just a little smarter gerbils, and getting kicked by one is a little bit like getting kicked by a Buick. Yet horses remain legal in the eyes of the Consumer Product Safety Commision.
• Vending machines - people are killed every year while rocking vending machines back and forth, eventually tipping them over. Late one Saturday night when I was in a college dormitory I gave somebody I had never met before a bag of microwave popcorn because I could hear he was trying to tip a vending machine that took his money while he was trying to buy popcorn. I may have saved his life that night, but one thing is for sure - I fell asleep sooner because I gave him the popcorn and he went away. Yet vending machines remain legal in the eyes of the Consumer Product Safety Commision.
• Archery Equipment - If you take a lawn dart, make it longer, sharper, and make it a projectile that is launched from a mechanized device horizontal to ground, you get a bow and arrow, which Ted Nugent uses to exercise birth control on the deer population. Yet archery equipment.... may actually be regulated by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. I'm really not sure. And yes, I have been to a family picnic where archery was involved

So what am I trying to say? Am I trying to get lawn darts un-banned? No. There are a couple of reasons - first, I simply don't care. I've never found myself at a backyard barbecue really upset that there were no lawn darts - it is a vaguely athletic endeavor and I am almost certainly bad at it. Secondly, there was a booming market for pre-ban lawn darts on eBay, but it looks like they too may have banned them now (but there is actually a lot of funny t-shirts and bumper stickers about them being banned, which just points out that nothing I do is actually original). I have a policy that when people can actually make money selling really stupid things on the internet, I don't fool around with that.

Am I trying to ban Horseshoes, Horseshoes, Horses, Vending Machines, and Archery Equipment? No. Life is dangerous, and you just have to use your best judgment, weigh risks carefully, blah, blah, blah....

Am I trying to gently point out that almost any household item used in a careless fashion could be harmful? Yes (Note: for more benign objects you may have to replace "careless fashion" with "stupid fashion" or even "stupid, idiotic fashion"- for example you can hurt yourself with a knife just being careless - but to hurt yourself with a CD case you would have to be stupid, perhaps idiotic).

Mostly, I'm just trying to be funny. If you read this please click here to and drop me an honest comment so I at least know somebody was paying attention.

"...and hey, be careful out there."

No, I Wouldn't Jump of a Bridge Because Everybody Else Did

When I was a teenager, if you had to do something you didn't want to in order to prove you were a man (which you obviously weren't), you would probably try out for the football team. I didn't do that. Come to think of it, nobody I know did. Nonetheless, I maintain that this scenario makes sense, and probably right now a teenager is trying out for a high school football team that he doesn't wish to be a member of. And if he is lucky he will gain the respect of his friends, or father, or whomever it was that he wanted to impress. If he is really lucky, he will impress girls. If he is smart, that is who he was trying to impress in the first place.

In my mid 30s I found that I felt very left out of a sporting trend, and took up a game that I really don't care that much about just because everybody else did. Golf? No - the pressure to play golf in my 30s could not possibly overcome the hatred I had for it in my teenage years. Pickup hockey? I wish, but I can only skate in a counter-clockwise circle, and I think that would probably be a disadvantage (insert NASCAR joke here). No, the feeling of being left out caused me to take up poker, which at some point became a spectator sport. Sometimes I actually find myself watching poker on television. You have to consider the following issues:

• Poker is on television nearly 24 hours a day. World Poker Tour, Poker World Series, Celebrity Poker, Speed Poker, Homeless Poker, Inmate Poker, the list goes on and on.
• I like to watch sports, because it makes me feel like I'm not just wrecking my mind watching television. I don't like basketball, football hasn't started, hockey is over for the season... and I am a Cubs fan - and the Cubs seem to be losing quite a few baseball games this season - almost 61% of them as I write this.
• But Bill, you ask, what about Soccer? What about the World Cup? Well, I'm American, so I don't really "get it". As long as I can remember, it seems like the sports media has tried to get soccer to catch on in this country, and it just doesn't happen. I have an idea, shrink the field to about 1/3 of its current size, shrink the nets too. Instead of grass, play on ice, make the players wear ice skates, change the ball from a sphere to a disc, and shrink to about 1/3 of its normal size too. There, throw in a cool trophy and you would probably have a sport I'll watch.

I don't even go to an actual poker game. You sort of picture a sitcom scene with people sitting around a kitchen table joking and playing cards, maybe somebody who takes the game a little too seriously is wearing one of those visor hats and has a cigar (I'm picturing Jack Klugman, but he rarely drops by... ok, he's never dropped by, but he is alive so its possible... I guess in the interest of honesty I have to admit that I was pretty certain he was dead until I looked him up, it really worked out better this way because the joke was really turning too morbid if he was dead. Jack - come by for dinner anytime - I'm sorry I thought you were dead). Anyway, it isn't like the sitcom scene. I just play online at a poker website. They're easy to find. Just bring up your favorite web browser, type in "www.", then randomly bash your hand against the keyboard until some letters are typed, and then follow that up by typing "poker.net". More likely than not, you will find a poker site. This is is the method I used.

Tonight I lost $400 imaginary dollars. The word imaginary is key here, because I can lose $400 imaginary dollars, and tomorrow at work when poker conversation comes up (sometimes it can take until 9:14am before the subject is broached) I can explain how I lost $400 and be part of the conversation (although the truth about tonight is just that I lost every hand I played). Had I lost $400 real dollars I would be trying to decide if it made more sense to find a part-time job or a divorce lawyer. Now I had better wrap this up before I cause myself trouble staying up to late being an imaginary writer.

If you read this, please drop me a line with an honest comment, that way I know if anybody is paying attention. Although I guess I probably look like a guy who would ramble on when nobody is paying attention anyway.

Still Joy in Mudville

OK, here is one of the pictures my camera, sans me, took at the hockey game last night. Today the web is full of pictures of the cup, blocked shots, good shots, people drinking gatorade like sports beverages out of the cup, referees skating into each other and breaking their orange tipped canes, etc. (I thought about going with a George W Bush/Sunglasses joke here, but that sentence was already too long - and why am I making fun of the refs after a win anyway? It was the hooking call actually). So here is one I haven't seen anywhere else that a co-worker I will just call "Matt" took ("Matt" is his actual name, I've yet to come up with a believable sounding rhyming fake name - and why bother? I'm pretty sure his wife knows he was at the game).

Eventually I will have to drop hockey as my main topic and go back to trying to be funny. There is very little pressure since nobody is actually reading. But for now, I'm still on the hockey kick.

When you fire a gun, it is very important to know what is behind your target. You can't just set a paper target on a box, set it in a field, and start shooting. You could accidentally eliminate some poor soul miles away - who would be operating some sort of large piece of farm equipment, and then drive it through several houses and across a highway. Which isn't normally humorous because of the tragedy of the accidental shooting. In this case however, the person operating the farm equipment lives and makes a full recovery... in fact the conversation he has with the insurance adjuster is a hoot. See - its funny now, right? I don't know what happens after that because I picture it as an 80's style sitcom where the credits roll right after a funny line between the farm equipment driver and the insurance adjuster.

Why do I bring this up? During game one of the Stanley Cup Finals, defenseman Marc-Andre Bergeron of the Edmonton Oilers hit Arron Ladd of the Carolina Hurricanes. Had he hit Ladd against the boards, it would have been a really hard hit that would have left Ladd rattled for a few minutes and a little sore the next day. Unfortunately what was behind him was Edmonton's number-one goalie Dwayne Roloson. Roloson was injured and unable to play the rest of the finals. Jussi Markkanen did a terrific job, eventually gaining a shutout. But the Oilers lost in seven games, and right now they're examining everything that went wrong.

Today Bergeron received several boxes - they contained all of the "Edmonton Oilers 2006 Stanley Cup Champion" hats, t-shirts, commemorative pucks, placemats, urinal screens, etc. that had been printed already. Also, there was a note "Please sell these items on eBay and buy everybody enough golf balls for the summer".

If you read this please leave an honest comment so I know somebody is paying attention - I might try harder next time.

There is Joy in Mudville...

...and I'm watching from home. At this point the game is over, I'm just watching the joy. I'm not sure why the kind of "joy" that ensues after somebody wins a sports championship usually involves a car that will never move under its own power again.

I could have gone. I had my jersey, I had the camera. All I had to do was be the first one to tell the person with the left over ticket "I'd like to go", but for some reason I just couldn't do it. I wasn't sure why - I thought it might be too "tense". So a co-worker I'll just call "Matt" (because that's his name and I'm not protecting the innocent) took the ticket. "Matt" is such a good guy he re-offered me the ticket if I wanted to go, but I wouldn't have done that. He's a good guy to ask though. I gave him my camera, so maybe tomorrow I'll have pictures of actual hockey players instead of my nine-month-old. But this picture was necessary, I'll get to that in a minute.

So I watched the game at home, with my wife and three-year-old (who I will call my wife and three-year-old because I'm not sure I want to publish their real names and I'm too tired to come up with good rhymes), who absolutely would not go to sleep. Thankfully, the adorable guy pictured above did. Anyway, with about four minutes left in the game, it dawned on us that this was something the three-year-old should see. So he came out on the couch with us, watched the end of the game, and they won. As a Cubs fan, I wasn't sure I'd ever pull for a champion, so this was a big deal for me. My first thought, "I'm glad I didn't go, it might have been tense". But I didn't really feel bad for watching it on TV. I remembered my folks letting me stay up when the Cubs won the National League East Division in 1984 (by the next time the Cubs won a division, I was old enough to be drafted and could pretty much stay up if I wanted).

We had explained to three-year-old that if the "red guys" won, they got a big cup. They brought it out, skated it around, just like every other year (except last year), but this year my team won. Very exciting. Lots of high fives sitting on my couch. I threw in a video tape to get the post game hoopla - I didn't dare get one ready ahead of time.

I got three-year-old to bed, and couldn't wait to write this. I was excited to use my line about "Joy in Mudville" (read the description on the left, it says right there I'm a hack).

Somewhere around there it dawned on me, I watched the game exactly where I wanted to watch it, with exactly who I wanted to watch it with, I was just too stupid to realize it until half an hour after it was over. And there's a lesson in there, I'll try not to forget it.

So, the fat lady sang. And she sang "Carolina In My Mind". Or maybe it was "Tobacco Road". Or maybe that "C'mon C'mon C'mon, Let's Go Canes!" song.

Now - on to the funny stuff - theories why the Carolina Hurricanes won the Stanley Cup in seven games:

• See the picture above. This adorable, innocent, little guy wore this outfit all day without having to have it changed due to some sort of biological incident. What could be better?
• My friend who I will call "Barry" (because that rhymes with his real name) did not find himself face-to-face with a scary looking black cat while he urinated in the woods (well, I don't think he did, I honestly haven't talked to him)
• The Hurricanes "Played their game"
• The Hurricanes "Put the puck in the net"
• It had to go seven games so I could watch it at home with my family
• That empty net goal at the end pretty much sealed it
• I didn't put a tape in the VCR until the game was over
• Cam Ward stopped pretty much everything that came his way
• Erik Cole came back from a fractured vertebrae (this is a nice way of saying broken neck)
• My friend who I'll call "Dennis", because that is his name and I can't come up with anything that rhymes with it, grilled the good hot Italian sausage while tailgating. The hot Italian sausage is now 2-0 when it is game 7
• Peter Laviolette is some sort of hockey genius
• The home team has won game 7 the last 19 times there has been a game 7
• Glen Wesley - A guy who is so willing to lay down in front of a [fast] moving puck deserves to win eventually.
• We sang "O Canada" at the arena in Raleigh - this one probably isn't why the 'Canes won, they sang The Star Spangled Banner in Edmonton. But it is nice to see.

The Carolina Hurricanes are the 2006 Stanley Cup Champions!!!

As always, for actual intelligent hockey coverage, I recommend Ron Francis' Blog.