Grueling weekend

Saturday.  Early AM.  Still dark.  Doing gruntwork restaurant job.  Noticing some cars in parking lot have snow on 'em.  Pondering having to drive a U-Haul through the Columbia River Gorge to pick up my brother-in-law and his stuff.  Ugh.

Yep, immediately after work I had to dash up to The Dalles and rent the truck and then head down US197 to the middle of B.F.E. to get BiL and his stuff.  The Gorge can be an amazingly scenic drive when the conditions are good.  But the canyon acts like a funnel.  Storms coming in from the coast get channeled into it and drastically amplified.  Turns out that the snowy cars were an omen and Saturday was a Storm Day.  Ugh.

Experienced the joy of driving a U-Haul in snow, rain, dust storm w/ about 50' of visibility, and STUPID winds.  After going down 197 and coming back to The Dalles we stopped for lunch.  Even the locals were griping about the wind, and they're supposedly used to it.  Driving the dang truck was like flying a kite.  Along about Cascade Locks there's a narrow, twisty bit on the interstate.  As we rounded the corner, there was a Dodge Dakota with a crunched front end, stalled sideways in the middle of the freeway.  He must've got crossed-up and hit the guardrail or something.  I *just* barely managed to get whoa'd up without center-punching the Dakota as its passengers scrambled out and hurried to the road shoulder.  Then the little voice in my head said "You're sitting dead still in the middle of a tight turn on the interstate during a wind and rainstorm.  This is going to be bad."  Thankfully we got around the truck and were able to help them push it out of the roadway.  Nobody was hurt, but we could have been one Inattentive Moron away from being in a dozen-car pileup.  Phew!

Finally got back to my place in Corvallis.  Spent the rest of my weekend rearranging the stuff to make room for BiL's stuff.  Remember that George Carlin bit about "Your house is just a place where you keep your stuff, while you go out and get... more stuff!"?  Yes, the inside of my house now looks like an overstuffed mini-storage unit.  But BiL is now out of a bad situation, so I guess there's that.

So...  Last night, wife and I get back from church.  There's a stack of scratch-off lotto tickets on the coffee table.  BiL says "I won a few bucks, but I saved one for you guys to scratch off."  I'm not into lotto games, but heck, if it's a gift I guess it's OK.  It was a poker kind of theme...

My wife scratched it off...  Holy Crap!!  "I just got a straight flush!  We just won $25,000!!!!"  BiL says "Are you sure!?  Check it carefully!  Read the back!"  On the reverse, the card reads "To redeem your winnings, take this ticket to any lotto retailer stupid enough to believe this is a valid lotto ticket."

Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha.

I am now taking suggestions on how to get BiL back for that little tee-hee that wasn't really all that funny.

Vid worth watching

She doesn't look like she's old enough to meet the Constitutional age requirement to be president.  Bummer.  Hopefully she makes it to that age without being strangled by some peaceful practitioner of the Religion of Peace ^TM

Five worst songs ever

Interesting conversation with a cow-orker this afternoon.  Topic?  Five most annoying songs of all time.  We came up with a list.  Of course, with a sample size of only two, it is likely inconclusive.  We desperately need your input in order to finalize this list.

Here's our starting point:

1.  Thomas Dolby - Blinded Me with Science
2.  Wham! - Wake Me Up Before You Go
3.  Toni Basil - Mickey
4.  Europe - Final Countdown
5.  Peter Gabriel - Sledgehammer

Lemme know what drives you most batcrap loco, and I'll try to compile the Ultimate List.  After that, dunno.  Maybe license it to the CIA for use in extracting information from terrorists.

Stuck inside these four walls

Yeesh, what a boring day.  Couple more hours of it, then I get to go home.  EXCEPT... We're My wife is babysitting 4 toddlers until tomorrow evening.  This is so some married couples can go to a church retreat this weekend, without their crumb crunchers tearing the hotel down.  Instead the crumb crunchers are tearing my house down and terrorizing my doggies.  If you don't hear from me after this, check the Benton County Jail inmate roster and look through the booking pics for the guy on a psych hold that pulled all his hair out.  That'll be me.

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Andy has a very interesting post regarding internet anonymity.  It looks like a really long, tedious post, but that's only because Andy uses a big font.  So go read it.  As for me, I use a pseudonym mainly because my real-life first name is the very generic "John."  Not that there is anything wrong with that name, but...  Yell "Hey, John!" at my church and half the guys turn around and say "Yeah, what?"  And my last name, while seemingly simple, just confounds the heck out of people.  I tell people "it rhymes with Bonham" and they are like "Whoa!  John Bonham!  You're the drummer for Led Zeppelin!  I though you were dead!" Then I'm so annoyed that I have to punch them in the gut and take their skateboard.  It gets old after a while.  Hence the nom-de-blog.

It's also interesting to do the self-google...

In other words, I'm so screwed.  There are usenet (anybody remember usenet?) articles I posted back in the '80s in the rec.pyrotechnics newsgroup about blowing things up with homemade bombs.  Like melons.  And tree stumps.  And... Well... I'm sure that Big Sis ("ve haff detailed files") Napolitano already knows all those things about me.  But I s'pose it'd still be prudent to shut up right about, umm, now.

All that junk is still archived and shows up when I google myself.  Of course, Rick Santorum thinks it is a sin to google yourself, so maybe I should just knock it off.   What I'm getting at, is that there is already such a wealth of stuff about me on the 'net that could be cherry-picked to make me look really bad.  Or really good.  Or really ordinary.  No way to put that genie back in the bottle, so I don't worry too much about what people try to find.  Perhaps you, though, actually have a decent reputation and would like to keep it that way.  Start by reading Andy's post.

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Scary-good overhead image courtesy of Google Earth.
(Image of me standing in the parking lot flipping off Google's satellite photoshopped out)

Here's a view of where I do my early morning grunt job.  It is never so bright and cheerful when I am there before sunrise, but that isn't the point.  The point is stupid people doing stupid things stupidly.  The "corral" is what we call the walled-off area where we store non-valuable things like the garden hoses, snow shovels, etc.  It also has our dumpsters, which we also share with the Chevron station that is partially visible at the top of the pic.  I know, none of that is the least bit interesting but I felt a strange compulsion to include all those details.

So... A customer came through the drive-thru.  The customer pondered the offerings on the menu, placed an order, paid for the order, received the order, and proceeded to leave.  This may seem like a routine event.  But it you stop and think of it, it is quite amazing.  Someone from 500 years ago would think it miraculous that we could travel about in big shiny machines and get a greasy breakfast burrito and coffee for $3, with all this happening under the goal-time of about 140 seconds.  They would conclude that man had reached a level of Higher Intelligence.  Then the time traveler would marvel at the Low Intelligence of said customer driving RIGHT INTO THE CORRAL.  Tearing up the wall, goobering up the door so it no longer swings freely, and then DRIVING AWAY leaving behind a mess of broken headlight glass and bits of bumper cover and fender trim.  Since none of the stuff in there is valuable, there is no surveillance camera pointed at it.  We don't know who did it. 

So I say to the hit-n-run moron:  This moment of stupidity will haunt you all your days, like exaggerated boasting of blowing up melons on the rec.pyrotechnics newsgroup.  Because I talked about you on the internet.  And the internet is forever. 

Award time, Barry Dire Campaign Issues, and miscellanea

The urge to blog had pretty much departed...  Not feeling it...  Then...

Odie (Woodsterman) gives me something special...  (Thankfully, the nurse gave me a shot and said the burning sensation should subside over the next 36 to 48 hours...)  Naw, that's not it... He gave me an Award!

Liebster is Austrian for "beloved" or "favorite." Thank you, Odie!  With that in mind, I suppose that I should follow the rules and pick me out some Liebster Blogs but I'll save that for the next post, because unlike Madame Clinton who ain't in no ways tard*, I am in many ways tard.  'Cuz last night grandbaby #6 made her arrival.   At a little after midnight - which may not seem that late to some of you young 'uns, but for an old fart that has to get up early that is HARSH.  Daughter-in-law (and wife) wanted me to be present right there in the delivery room.  Unh?  "Birth is so beautiful."  "Birth is such a miracle."  Yadda, yadda, trying to convince me.

No.

Birth is not beautiful.  Birth is just like that scene in Alien.  Except that instead of a cool little kick-azz monster, you get a noisy little helpless monster.  I can do without all that.  " I'll be waiting down in the car..."

Then today the contractors are in grinding down the concrete floor in the store.  Gonna sand it smooth, fill the cracks and clear coat it.  No more carpet.  Next time we flood we can clean the place up with a big squeegee (or a hobo on a stick) and be done with it.  'Cept the process is noisy as bleep and dusty as bleep-bleep.  The whole scenario leaves me a little grouchy.  I mean, even more than normal.

OK, OK...  Alright, enough complainin'.  On with the story...


Barry Dire Campaign Issues

Obama, Messina, Plouffe, Axelrod and Jarrett are holding a strategy session.

[Obama] "Those danged Catholics sure are stirring up a lot of grief about some pills and rubbers.  Geez.  It's not like I'm making them bow towards Mecca or something."

[Jarrett] "I recommend you keep the ban.  Don't wanna tick off the mean-faced clipped-hair types at Planned Parenthood.  We just saw the other day how they react when they don't get their quota of dead babies."

[Obama] "No kidding.  I could strangle Pelosi for putting such controversial material in that giant bill I never read before signing."

[Axelrod] "I tried to strangle Pelosi once.  All I could get was a handful of loose skin.  Not worth the bother."

[Messina] "Thankfully the Republicans are still being republicany and screwing themselves over."

[Plouffe] "Well, there is some worry there.  Santorum could take a lot of midwest and rust-belt states we need.  And Romney is talking about using a 50-state strategy to flat-out clobber us.  He wants a strong mandate, so he has the political cover to keep doing exactly what we're doing.  Plus, they're rolling out these..."

[Obama] "What the heck?"

[Plouffe] "They're a bunch of cardboard cutouts of Romney.  They going to put them everywhere.  OmniRomney they're calling it."

[Obama] "But they're plain and boring.  Completely without life or personality."

[Plouffe] "Which means people will believe they're meeting the real Mitt Romney!"


[Obama] "Holy ****! You're right!"

[Plouffe] "Not only that, shake OmniRomney's hand"

[Obama] "Crap!" [shakes hand again] "That's totally believable.  Everybody's gonna think they've personally met with him.  We're in real trouble!"

[Biden enters] "Hey guys!  Whassup?"

[Obama, fearful] "OmniRomney has come to destroy us!"

[Biden] "Really?  Lemme check this out." [shakes OmniRomney's hand] "Whoa.  Creepy.  Did ya hear that Roseanne Barr is running for President?"

[Obama] "No.  Am I supposed to care?"

[Biden] "She's running on the Green Tea ticket.  No doubt it'll attract a lot of eco- types, weed-burnin' stoners, probably even a few drunk Tea Party people.  Since 'tea' rhymes with 'pee', she'll attract all the Occupy people, too.  A formidable coalition."

[Obama, panicking] "Get Roseanne on the phone!"

Later that afternoon, Roseanne arrives at the White House.

[Obama, sternly] "How dare you run for president!"

[Barr, sarcastically.  Between words, little cracking noises from her chewing gum] "Yeah, well, let's just say you've been a serious letdown there, champ.  If this country is every going to be transformed, it's gonna need somebody in charge who can get things done."

[Obama] "And now you think you're The One for the job?"

[Barr] "See, Sparky, the rethuglicans suck.  All their candidates suck.  Yet they all poll well against you.  You are losing to 'pure suck'! Which puts you somewhere, oh, I dunno, somewhere beneath 'pure suck', wherever that is."

[Obama, sadly] "But Michelle said not to worry and that everything will be OK."[wipes tear]

[Barr, loudly] "What the **** does it take to get a ******* Snicker bar around here?  Hello!?"

A White House intern dashes in, dutifully unwraps a Snicker bar and offers it to Roseanne.

[Obama] "They never move that fast for me!"

[Barr] "See what I mean?  Not only that, I can belt out a mean National Anthem.  Wanna hear it?"

[Obama] "No!  OK, here's the deal.  Drop your presidential bid, and I'll give you a high cabinet position.  Wanna take over State from Hillary?"

[Barr] "Isn't it, like, illegal to offer jobs or other compensation to influence a candidate to run/not run?"

[Obama] "Yeah, like Holder is actually going to do anything about it."

[Barr] "Good point.  I'll have my agent give you a call.  Maybe we can make this work." [stands and gracelessly departs]

[Obama] "Phoo! That was close.  Now, what to do about OmniRomney?"

Irritation of the day

I'm not telling you anything you haven't already heard time and again.  I know that spouting all this will accomplish nothing.

But sometimes ya just gotta lance the boil...  (Since this is all true, I'm keeping this vague to protect the guilty)
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There is a person in my immediate or "almost immediate" family, who works an entry-level job at or just above minimum wage.  This job is not quite full-time.  This person has one child out-of-wedlock.  This person receives food stamps.  This person receives state-subsidized daycare.  This person gets OHP (Oregon's version of low-income health coverage).  This person gets Section 8 housing, so this person's out-of-pocket monthly rent is about $130.  By government standards, this person is living in poverty.

This person lives unmarried with a Significant Other.  This SO works a similar entry-level job, and pays roughly half of the household expenses (not that there are many).  This SO, however, is not listed as any kind of resident or breadwinner or contributor to the household.  The State is aware of this ruse.  But like a honey badger, the State just doesn't give a ****.

Haven't heard yet what the SO's taxes look like this year, but this person in my family is getting a $5600 tax "refund" this year.  This person is DRIPPING WITH EXCITEMENT about how they're just days away from having a 72" HDTV, a brand new washer and dryer, and some brand new furniture.  By government standards, this person is living in poverty.


Meanwhile, I work at least 55 hours a week and have none of those things.  My couch is sprouting holes.  The boy doggie is overdue for a vet visit, but we can't afford it right now.  Keeping up with the bills has been extra challenging the last few months.  By government standards, I am a fair bit above median income.

...with liberty and justice for all.

Biden asks the important questions

Why is it, that no matter how thoroughly I pick my nose,
it is full again just a few minutes later?

Hey, inno? Where's the funny?

Hopefully I'll get back to normal soon.  But today ain't the day.  Mucho back pain and sore fingers from ripping out waterlogged carpet.  The flood was pretty damaging.  It only got a couple inches inside the store, but the whole place now smells like a hardboiled diaperload.

Oh yeah, and the computer...

Yesterday I fired it up.  OK, I fired it up AFTER I hooked it to a new surge protector.  The dirty water in the old surge protector seemed to be causing a bit of a problem.  It booted!  Yay!  That's about all it did.  Got to the desktop and just sat there.  Well, I could move the mouse pointer around but that got old pretty quickly.  Rebooted.  Got to the desktop a little quicker.  Tried to launch the CD burning software.  Hang.  Reboot.  Could hear the tick-tick-tick of a struggling hard drive.  Must've been a ton of read errors, 'cuz it took about 10 minutes to get to the desktop.  Another 20 minutes or so for the burning app to launch.  Finally was able to get an up-to-date copy of all the junk created since the last backup.  Rebooted again for the heck of it.  Everything started to work normally.  Woooo!  Check email, print, browse the web.  Heck, even QuickBooks worked normally, and the company .qbf file is like 300+ megs!

Today?

UNABLE TO FIND BOOTABLE DEVICE.  PRESS F2 TO ENTER SETUP

Ratfart!  Took the hard drive to the shop, they confirmed it wouldn't even spin.  New HD time.  Oh, the joy of setting up Windows again... and re-installing all the drivers... and re-installing all the applications...  and restoring all the data...  Note to self:  when the moron at the PC shop puts the little Windows sticker (with the serial number) on the bottom of the PC case where it'll GET FREAKIN' WET AND UNREADABLE AFTER A FLOOD, write that number down somewhere and store it somewhere where it can't GET FREAKIN' WET AND UNREADABLE AFTER A FLOOD.  (Or, just put the PC on a high shelf when there is risk of flooding?.  -ed.     Hey ed, how about you just shut up?)

There was a time (like, 7 years ago) when I was *super* diligent about all this stuff.  Used to have a swappable HD *AND* a pair of drives with a RAID running so everything was perfectly cloned - two copies in the machine, plus the removable drive, which would get taken off-site.  Eventually, since we never seemed to need the backups, that ceased to be the habit. Even copying crucial things to a CD-R became uncommon.  Belated New Year's Resolutions:  1.  Make the boss-man do his backups no matter what.  2.  Don't let the boss-man set up his PC on the floor.  3a.  Find the person who installed that hard drive in the bottom-most bay.  3b.  Take that person deep-sea fishing and push him/her/it over the handrail.

Then came the carpet yanking.  Too bad it wasn't the stuff you'd put in your house that's just tacked down around the perimeter.  No, it had to be that commercial junk that is glued down solid.  Well, "solid" in the sense of "halfway unglued and all stretched out and wrinkled and muddy and smelling like a hardboiled diaperload."  Just enough glue, however, remained intact such that when the carpet came up, so did all the floor-leveling compound that was under it.  Ugh.  Did I mention that big logs of soggy carpet are kinda heavy?  Dang it Jim!  I'm an engraver, not a forklift!  Also, the particle-board junk in the toe-kick area under all the showroom displays was warping and falling apart.  And smelling like a hardboiled diaperload.  So everything is torn up.  The dumpster is overflowing and the "showroom" looks like the set of a cheesy disaster movie.

At least we don't have to re-key a ton of junk into QuickBooks, right?

I hate floodwater!!

Photo from KGW

Remember when Biff said "I HATE MANURE!!!"? 

Yeah.  Edit Menu > Find "MANURE" > Replace with "FLOODWATER".  File Menu > Save As > "AnnoyingBS.docx"

It isn't Minot or anything like that, but it is irritating.  Last week we had a fair bit of snow.  Our neighbors to the north up in Washington are still getting it.  But here, it suddenly turned to warm rain.  We got over 4" and it was 51^o this morning.  Can you say "rapid snowmelt?"  Sure you can.  Parts of town are cut off.  Couple of mudslides.  Stepdaughter can't get to her house.  Water came up about 2" inside the signs-n-engraving shop.  Nothing really hurt by it.  Just messy.

Except...

The newest freakin' computer that we've only had since the end of December.  I wanted to go to Fry's and build a PC.  But boss man thought sending me to Fry's with the company Visa card might be, oh, just a bit of a risk.  So we bought one off-the-shelf from a place here in town.  We thought the water had peaked before it made it inside the shop, so no effort was made to lift the new PC from its place ON THE [BLEEP]ing FLOOR!  Came in this morning, and could tell from the ring-around-the-bathbub high water mark that water did indeed make it to the PC.  Took the cover off the side, and was saddened to find that THE MORON WHO ASSEMBLED IT PUT THE HARD DRIVE IN THE VERY LOWEST BAY.  No other components got wet.  If the HD had been in ANY of the other half-dozen or so bays, it too would have stayed dry.  BUT NO.  Since we've only had it a couple weeks, we haven't even done a FREEKIN' BACKUP.   All we have is the klunky old HD out of the old PC with QuickBooks files that are now nearly a month out-of-date.

I HATE FLOODWATER!!

"Pissgate" and a theory.

It's old news now, that some Marines widdled on a dead taliban thug.  I'm firmly in the "don't care" camp on that one.  It doesn't bother me.  I don't want to institutionalize that behavior as acceptable, but neither do I think it is bad enough to warrant any kind of meaningful consequence.  To me, it should be like driving 70mph in a 65 zone - technically a violation, but generally ignored.

The outrage brought on by "pissgate" - both feigned and genuine - prompted me to do some thinking, though, and now I want to bounce that thought off you:

Compared to veterans of other wars, veterans coming home from the War on Terror seem to have a higher incidence of PTSD and/or troubles re-integrating into daily life.  I could be wrong about this.  That might not be the case at all.  But it certainly *seems* that way.  If it is true, the next question should be "why?"  Why are today's veterans more likely to come home with emotional problems?

In previous conflicts, the enemy was clearly depicted as enemy.  Check the propaganda of the time - the enemy was made worse than merely "enemy."  The enemy was made bestial, barbarous and barely human.  The enemy was given unflattering names like "Jap" and "Kraut" and "Gook" and "Hun bastard" whose entrails would make a "good lube for our tank tracks."  American society believed our troops to be better than the enemy's, and our cause greater than the enemy's cause.  Firebombing (or, gasp, nuking!) a city was acceptable.  If an American disrespected an enemy corpse, there wasn't outrage.  Because it was the corpse of a enemy!  Corpse of a quasi-human devil of an enemy! Americans lost in battle were mourned, and victors given a Hero's Welcome upon coming home.  The veteran comes home knowing he did right.

Contrast that with today.  Today is tolerance.  Today is diversity.  Today is moral equivalence.  Today it is unacceptable to much of America to assert one's culture is superior to the enemy's other's culture.  Today it is "proportionate response" instead of using martial skill and superior arms to the utmost. Kids are taught that all cultures and all religions are equally good.  And equally bad.  We are told that they are "just like us" and that their customs (however deviant or downright evil) should be respected.

What does all this PC junk do to our troops?  Instead of having confidence that the fight is just and the cause is noble, how does that Soldier or Marine not ask himself "What kind of person am I?  I've traveled halfway around the world to kill somebody whom I've been told over and over is just like me!  What kind of a monster am I becoming?"  The veteran comes home but there is no tickertape parade.  Instead there is doubt and angst and uncertainty that he did right.

Little wonder that today's veterans are more apt to suffer emotional problems, and that the (mostly harmless) act of urinating on a dead terrorist would prompt so much outrage.

Been diddlin' with the template

Don't think I'm done yet, but good enough for now.  Feedback appreciated.  Especially if it is too wide for your display.  It is too big for my old-school CRT at home, but I'm sure it'll be fine on my too-cool-for-you LCD at work.

Not a blogiversary, but getting close

No AM "grunt" job today, and it is the middle of the post-Christmas dead period at my "real" job.  Boredom overload.  Which leaves me too much time to wander the political blogs.  Depression overload.  Gingrich, Perry, and to whomever else this may apply:  When you are finished curb-stomping your own dingleschnitzels, lemme know. 'Cuz I'd like a turn.

So then I started trying to write something funny about the Iranian nuke-sci guys getting themselves mysteriously blowed up.  Not really coming together, unfortunately.  I can hardly think of a more enjoyable topic, but it just isn't translating into good blog fodder.  Dead end.

But a comment Max left in the previous thread brought to mind one of the funniest things I've seen: I was in about 5th grade, and I was with my family was on a jet-boat excursion on the Rogue River.  The boats are big and fast and POWERFUL.  They're about the size of a bus and have multiple big-block V8s.  They have a driver and a guide who says things like "on your left you'll see an eagle snacking on a steelhead."

Anyway, as we were tooling down the river, there were a bunch of hippies skinny-dipping.  One was standing on a rock, naked as a jaybird, struggling to put on his wet socks.  The guide said over the PA "This is a family tour!  Put some clothes on, hippie!"  Rather than take the guide's suggestion, the hippie chose to elevate a finger.  (Thankfully, that's all he elevated.) This made the boat driver a bit irate.  He swung the boat around and mashed the gas, creating a GIANT roostertail which blasted the hippie right off the rock!  I've always dreamed of seeing a hippie get nailed with a fire hose or water cannon.  This was the closest I'll likely come to realizing that dream, and it was hilarious.  I will cherish this memory for all of my days.

Speaking of these boats, I love 'em.  I've been on their excursions a few times and look forward to doing it again.  Maybe this summer.  There are some spots where it gets really shallow.  Especially in summer.  Like maybe a foot or so deep.  Here, the boats have to go really fast and stay on-plane to keep from dragging hull on the rocks below.  Of course the river is twisty, so the driver has to drift sideways through the corners to keep his speed up.  Lotta fun.  They also do this maneuver where they do a panic-stop kind of thing and flip a quick u-turn.  This causes a big wave to come over the side and "dampen" the riders.  Nothing like seeing some little old tourist lady from Pasadena getting nailed in the face with river water.  Below is a YouTube clip.  I wasn't on this trip, and don't know any of the people on board, but it gives you a sense of what the rides are like.  (skip to about :25) (video now below the fold since youtube is taking forever to load the preview)

Most *disgusting* moment and other various and sundry stuff

The Not Romneys are gangin' up, makin' the Mittster look like Richard Gere's character in Pretty Woman.  Dunno how that will all turn out.  But it doesn't matter whether we're talking leveraged buyouts, prostitution or politics:  First, money changes hands... and then somebody gets screwed.

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At the early AM grunt job this morning, we were one person shorthanded.  May not seem like a biggie, but that was a third of the staff.  So the Manager Girl was trying really hard to do the work of two people for a couple hours.  "How un-gentlemanly!" you say to yourself.  Well, I have assigned duties I'm not supposed to deviate from.  Plus, they've intentionally left me untrained for any of those other things just so they won't be tempted to steal me away from those assigned duties when problems like this arise.  Later in the morning, more crew begin to arrive on time and things get closer to normal.

Another Manager Girl arrives.  (Yes, ya pretty much gotta have boobs to get a promotion at this place.)  We'll call her "Cindy" for the sake of protecting the guilty.  She's about 5-foot-nothing and about 100 lbs with her coat on.  That famous short guy Napoleon didn't have a Napoleon Complex, he had a Cindy Complex.  Cindy is blonde and green eyed and quite cute.  And frequently meaner than a hung-over honey badger that just got off the phone with a bill collector.  We get along quite well.  Did I mention she's preggers?  Imagine a hung-over honey badger with hormonal issues and occasional abdominal pains. The joy, it is overwhelming...

She is an accomplished Complainer, and has a complete mastery of every variation of every four-letter word.  This morning, whilst standing inertly and doing nothing, she goes on a tirade about how everybody is standing around doing nothing and complaining about being shorthanded.  "Instead of [bleep]ing b*tching and bringing everybody down, why don't we just [bleep]ing get to [bleep]ing work and stop with the [bleep]ing complaining!" 

This event crossed the Maximum Irony threshold and I could no longer stifle my laughter.  Laughing at her when she's PO'd (in other words "laughing, ever") is like snapping Darth Vader with a damp gym towel.  Not recommended.  I think I still have the job...

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The "Check Engine" light in my car came on yesterday.  Now the debate is whether to spend $69 bucks on a code reader to cancel the light, or to do the ol' "disconnect the battery 'til the car forgets that it is stupid" trick.  Which would mean re-learning how to set the clock and the radio presets.  Leaning towards getting the code reader.

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We've done the "funniest" and "most embarrassing" things here, so what about "most disgusting?"  Yay, that'll be fun!  First, a little background...

In my old hometown, Memorial Day weekend is the big deal.  Parade, carnival, hydroplane races, stuff like that.  They call it "Boatnik" and it attracts every gap-toothed tweeker, weed-addled hippie and shirtless beer-sopped redneck in the area.  And I'm not just talking about the carnies.  The people-watching is almost as fun as the boat races.  It was Memorial Day 1990, back when I was Young-n-Stupid^TM (Give-or-take a year.  Gimme a break, I'm getting old) and a bunch of my homies and I took the weekend off from college to make the trip back home.  We had a bunch of pickups parked in a shape like a star, tailgate-to-tailgate and were beerbonging.  If you park your pickups in a ring and beerbong before the hydroplane races, you might... be a redneck.  There are two classes of boats...

Fast and agile hydroplanes
with outboard motors that
race against each other.

And larger two-man boats with gnarly inboard V8s
that race against the clock.

It was suggested that maybe we should climb down the rocks to the water's edge and get a good view, as shown in the pic above.

It's called Hellsgate Canyon for a *reason*, you moron!

I immediately said "no way!" because I'm not so fond of heights.  Nor am I real fond of plunging to a stony death.  I protested.  "People die trying to do that!" (true!)  Couple beerbongs later, I was quite full of beer and confidence: "Hey, I gotta idea!  Let's climb down the rocks and get a better view!!"  Suddenly we all thought that was just an awesome plan.  Except for this one kid named Lester.  He was looking kinda green and complaining about drinking the beer way too fast.

Cue dramatic music and brace for the disgusting...

Most embarrassing moment and other various and sundry stuff

Yo, yo!  Last night was a good one for hoops fans.  OSU beat Cal solidly.  The Beavs are now 4-0 at games I've attended.  Only one game left in our cheap tix package - hopefully the Beavers can go Undefeated While in the Presence of Innominatus.  When the Beavs make a three, the guys on the cheer squad throw rolled-up t-shirts into the stands.  One of 'em came our way and my wife beat the crap out of the nearby fifth grader who caught it and stole it out of his trembing hands retrieved it as it rolled down the stairs.  Yay for aisle seats!  Then we got home and learned that the Blazers beat the L.A. Lakurds.  Whoo!

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This is cool.  It is optimized for Chrome but seems to mostly work in FF, too.  Haven't tried other browsers.  Type in the address of your childhood home or some other place you have a sentimental attachment, that also has a high likelihood of having been covered by Google Street View.

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Strong, dark coffee + Cool Ranch Doritos = MAJOR YUCK.  If you made a New Year's resolution to lose weight, try this combo.

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Pastor's kids getting mini-donut maker + Pastor's kids bring mini-donuts to church = OPPOSITE OF MAJOR YUCK.

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A while back I had a post about the funniest thing I've seen with my own 2 4 eyes.  Commenters added good stuff, too.  As a variation on that theme, I now offer the most embarrassing thing I've ever endured.  I had done a good job of erecting mental walls around that event and forgetting about it, but Manhattan Infidel had to go and bring it back to mind.  It goes like this:

Mid '80s.  I was a teenager.  My friend's parents took him (and me, and a couple other of his friends) out to a fancy dinner for his birthday.  It was one of those expensive steaks/dinner theater kind of places.  The actors were performing a comedic melodrama with a western theme. An Oklahoma! meets bad-guy-tying-the-girl-to-the-railroad-tracks kind of deal.  Friend's parents had arranged beforehand for the actors to come out in the audience and grab my friend and "include" him in a scene.  Unfortunately, he was supposed to be sitting in a certain seat since the actors didn't know which of us was birthday boy.

You know where this is headed...

Turns out, I was the one sitting in that seat.  I got shanghai'd into the play!  I had to roll up my pant legs and put on a skirt.  Which was doubly difficult because the 501 jeans that were de regueur at the time are kinda narrow around the ankles.  Anyway...  Had to dance a can-can Rocketts kind of thing in a paisley skirt with rolled-up jeans cutting off the circulation to my lower extremities.  To the hoots and jowls of everybody.  HUMILIATION!

Your turn...

PS - if this is the last post I ever put up, blame Manhattan Infidel for evoking this troubling memory - the mere recollection of this event makes me want to flee to Nepal and hide in the Himalayas where the Sherpas don't have internet access and know nothing about this.

Barry scary plane ride

Air Force 1 en route to campaign stop official business stop.  Obama, Plouffe, Jarrett and Axelrod discussing campaign strategy.

[Jarrett] "We need to ditch Biden.  The guy's a loon.  Get Hillary on the ticket.  That'll give us a thin veneer of centrism while we continue with radical redistributionism.  Might be enough to fool some of the rust-belt union types."

[Plouffe] "Agreed."

Obama's phone rings

[Obama] " Hello.  Commander in Chief speaking."

[Biden, on other end of phone call] "Hey, boss!  Joe here.  Just wanted to talk to you about the elections this year."

[Obama] "Joe, I told you not to call unless there is an emergency.  Is this an emergency?"

[Biden] "Is a frog's butt watertight?"

[Obama] "What?"

[Biden] "Is a pig's butt pork?"

[Obama] "Joe!"

[Biden] "Sorry.  I'm working on some folksy, down-home kind of stuff that'll endear us to the stupid southerners.  We're going to need to win at least a few of those states."

[Obama] "Joe, we're concentrating on getting the rust-belt voters, rather than those dumb southern racist crackers."

[Biden] "But the rust-belt people hate us."

[Obama] "That's why we're putting Hillary on the ticket to replace you.  You embody the rust-belt way too much.  So, uh, we're getting rid of you and putting another Chicago thug on the ticket."

[Jarrett nods in approval]

[Biden] "Sir!  I do NOT recommend that!"

[Obama] "I know you're just trying to preserve you job."

[Biden] "Naw, it's not that.  It's just that I saw Hillary practicing throwing stars, ninja-style.  She took down a bigleaf maple tree in three throws.  With Hillary one 'accident' away from the Presidency, I'd put the over/under on your continued existence at about, oh, let's put it this way:  Yo-Yo Ma wouldn't even be done playing Allah Save the King at your Coronation before Hill would be waving your head around on the end of a spike."

[Obama] "You exaggerate."

A disturbance is heard outside the plane.  All aboard look out the portside windows and witness a terrible scene...

[Obama, like a little girl] "Gaaahh! What it that?"

[Hillary cackles and throws a chunk of the Constitution into the jet intake.  The plane shudders as the engine begins to fail.]

[Hillary] "Barack!  You stole my destiny!  But I will steal it back!  This plane will be mine!  Mwaa-hah-hah-hah-hah!  I will paint that blue stripe on it pink and I will rule forever!"

[Jarrett] "Quick!  Recite the mantra!"

[Obama, Jarrett, Plouffe, Axelrod, in unison] "Whitewater, Whitewater, Rose Law Firm Billing Records, Travelgate, FBI files!  Whitewater, Whitewater, Rose Law Firm Billing Records, Travelgate, FBI file!"

[Hillary, in apparent pain] "Nreeee!  I'll be back for you!  Be sure of it!" [flys off, over the horizon]

[Obama] "Joe, you still there?"

[Biden] "Does a rattlesnake butt taste like chicken?"

[Obama] "Keep working on that charming down-home thing you're working on.  We'll be needing you on the campaign trail!"