I think it is...let's see, England is 5 hours off, right? That means it's also 19 hours off the other way. So if we ignore the spin of the earth, carry the 3, multiply by the average airspeed of an unladed swallow, divide by Ted Kennedy's liver...and we get... close enough to tomorrow for today to be April 1!*
Happy Birthday, Helen!
Your present is in the extended entry.
* Cold medication, after several days of heavy abuse, may cause loss of critical function and time disorientation.
[crickets chirping]
Yeah. Well, you see...um...
When the folks were down visiting I dug out a CD-ROM for them so they could install a perfectly legal copy of MS Office on their new computer. While searching for said CD-ROM I also came across my long lost CivIII and CivIII Play The World CDs*.
Sorry about that.
If you don't understand the connection between finding these CDs and the quietness of this blog ask Ilyka. She'll fill you in.
There will be one interview post per day as I interview the lucky five folks who responded the fastest in this post. Today's interviewee is Rob from XSet, the only man in the world who's spent considerable time in my templates and has tweaked my CSS:
1) What was your last brush with greatness?2) If you could have any superpower what would it be? How would you use it? How would you mis-use it?
3) What sport shouldn't be in the Olympics?
4) What was the last thing you were really looking forward to that ended up not being at all what you'd expected or hoped for?
5) What are the best and worst things about living on an island?
Rob, to continue the game you need to snag the rules from my original post and answer these at your place. I'll link to your post when you get it up.
UPDATE: Rob posted his answers!
My semi-whenever foray into some of the best stuff saved in the dark recesses of my newsreader.
Graphical Truth discloses the humorous side of a recent Intelligent Design / Creationism tussle.
You know what they say about free advice? Well ignore that while you check out generic's Helpful hints from somebody who's led a long life.
Paul has the wackiest adventures. Even furniture shopping takes on interesting twists when he's involved.
Kate (who's feeling much better though not completely better) recently had her second blogversary. In this post she explains how she learned to stop worrying and love her blog.
I always thought that PETA hated kids. Now I know they do. Joanne Jacobs hits an article showing that kids need meat to develop normally.
What kind of school ignores a specifically targetted murder threat by its students on another one of its students? Kimberly Swygert has the scoop.
The one who comes into the office with sickness oozing out of his pores. I didn't want to come in today. In fact I would happily (well, as happily as possible bearing in mind the sickness) have worked from home but I left all of my project notes at work. I did this on purpose so as to avoid the temptation of working over the weekend. I made a special effort not to work over the weekend because my dad and step-mom were visiting us for the weekend.
Incidentally, that's why there wasn't anything here on Friday. We were enjoying 80 degrees and sun as we traipsed all over Stone Mountain.
We had a great time with the visit. Bacon was attached to Papa's leg for close to 4 days straight. Bear taught him how to get pummeled in record time playing his favorite video game. Sunday's festivities included hunts for two baskets per child (I told them the Easter Bunny was overstocked so was liquidating some of his stock), egg decoration with Nana and Papa (I have no idea how they kept these three ruffians so clean during the dying phase), an egg hunt (Burger won hands down with 21 eggs), and dinner out at our favorite family restaurant the Golden Corral (when you have three kids, the buffet is your friend).
I've been battling the sickness all weekend. I think I'm past the contagious part but just in case I've taken steps to avoid infecting my coworkers. I have a spray bottle with bleach in it and any time somebody walks into my cube I squirt them. This works well not only to kill any germs they may have inadverdently picked up but also to discourage future visits.
(Snagged from Autumnal Fire)
Two instructors at Abraar Islamic school in Ottawa were suspended while the school investigates their part in inciting hatred and violence against Jews.
One teacher was apparently involved in the artistic production of the eight-page story of killing and martyrdom. Handwritten in Arabic and titled The Long Road, the cover page was illustrated by a drawing of a burning Star of David beside a machine-gun and Palestinian flag atop the Dome of the Rock, an ancient Muslim shrine in Jerusalem.The other teacher had written comments on the student's paper, praising the boy's story of revenge for the assassination by Israeli forces a year ago of Sheik Ahmed Yassin, a co-founder of Hamas, in retaliation for suicide bombings against Israeli civilians.
"God bless you, your efforts are good," the teacher wrote on the title page. "The story of the hero Ahmed and the hero Salah is still alive. The end will be soon when God unites us all in Jerusalem to pray there."
Holy jihadi, Batman! An actual Islamic institute doing internal investigation into terrorist incitement! I might have to turn off the Internet here so I don't ruin the moment.
UPDATE
Dammit, I knew I should have quit while I was ahead.
The students who have aired complaints claim that some professors in the department of Middle East and Asian Languages and Culture [at Columbian University] suppress opinion sympathetic of Israel and inappropriately substitute political activism for teaching.An assistant professor of modern Arab politics, Joseph Massad, is accused of threatening to expel a student from his classroom because she defended Israel's military actions. Mr. Massad denies the charge. Mr. Massad is undergoing his fifth-year review. According to a source, a committee within the Middle East studies department evaluating Mr. Massad has recommended that he continue teaching in the department.
Mr. Cole on Tuesday night cast Mr. Massad as an exemplary teacher who is under no obligation to give equal weight to student opinions expressed during class. Just as a Jewish history professor doesn't have to take seriously a student who denies the Holocaust, Mr. Massad is not required to give equal time to an argument denying the 1982 Shatila refugee camp massacre in Lebanon, he said.
Well, she was just 17, You know what I mean,
Earworms are nasty little buggers. Those snippets of songs that invade your conciousness and simply will not leave.
And the way she looked was way beyond compare.
I woke up with one today and no matter what I try it won't leave me alone.
So how could I dance with another (ooh)
That's not unusual though. There's really only one surefire method of getting rid of an earworm.
My company is a tad meeting heavy. I've been doing what I can to reduce the number of meetings and make them more productive. I myself have never had to schedule a meeting for my own needs. I'm a productive user of the phone, email and instant messaging and confident enough to do things under my own initiative without a group consensus. I also have more than ample time to acquire any group feedback in the many meetings I attend that are scheduled by other people.
I'm in meetings pretty much the entire day today and I'm taking the battle to the next level. Last night I had double helpings of homemade split pea soup washed down by three beers. Lunch today is more split pea soup ammo.
Cry havoc, and let slip the peas of war!*
* Rob gets credit for this deliciously creative aliteration.
My First Babysitting Experience was a sham. The anecdote you read was inspired by my actual first babysitting experience but was given the sit-com treatment. The second and third paragraphs are pretty much the straight truth; the rest is complete tall tale. When I saw him chewing on something I asked him what it was. He told me it was a Dorito and dug another one out of the couch for me to share. I fished some more chip bits out and tossed them all into the garbage. I had him drink a glass of milk just in case but there was no panic or worry on my part. He was a bit stubborn about drinking the milk so the line about "If you don't drink this you are going to die!" was verbatim truth. The death I was speaking about was me pummeling him for disobeying the babysitter though, not a fear of poison Doritos.
9 out of 16 of you got this one correct. One point each to:
Holly
Helen
DeAnna
Paul
diamond dave
Denise
Rob
Wendy
Jeff
Clancy maintains his perfect record of never getting a Shamming/Sharing point and unfortunately Boudicca remains totally bereft of points. Don't worry, Bou. The season is yet young.
It seems that I'm not the only person offended by the frequent flushing violations in our 2nd floor mens room. Yesterday somebody printed out and posted the following sign on the inside of the bathroom door:
Way back in 1953, the U.S. Department of Health (now the CDC) determined that flushing toilets and urinals in public restrooms reduced the spread of disease by more than 88%. Today's society has acrimoniously decreed that flushing should be an automatic function (hence the many infrared toilets today). This company has determined that the use of a paltry 1.5 gallons of water per flush is worth the investment to keep its workforce healthy. So, the question to you is...Why Don't You
Flush?It's disgusting, rude and unsanitary.
Go back and flush.(and then wash your hands.)
...will have an emptisensometer. When the pot is empty it will automatically turn off the coffee pot so a layer of baked coffee residue stronger than space shuttle tiles is not left in the bottom of the pot. When there is coffee left in the pot it will not start brewing, thereby preventing coffee brew overflow from cascading down the electrical appliance itself as well as the counter, cabinets and floor.
The advanced model will have a voice synthesizer for the latter case that will say something along the lines of "Hey, dumb-ass! Empty the damned pot first!"
No, I'm not getting into this one. Not the meat and potatoes part, anyway. I did want to address two things that happened recently that are getting a fair share of hoopla and generating lots of righteous indignation.
Congress passed a law for one person.
Yes, they did. They do it all of the time. This is part of the normal course of business for our lawmakers. Although I find the practice reprehensible it is neither unusual nor (as clarified by the Supremes) unconstitutional. It is normally done to grant boons or give away money. It has been used to allow immigrant families to stay in the USA. It is used regularly to bail out industries. Need to give a couple billion in tax dollars to the airline industry? Just write a law. Easy pleasy mac and cheesy.
What these personalized laws cannot be used for is to target and harm individuals. I think that this particular law will fail the test because no matter who is right in the Shiavo case this law is specifically targeting and interfering with them. I don't think this law will pass constitutional muster.
As Ilyka pointed out so very well, stop barking at Congress for doing their job.
I've just got to get this off my chest right now: One bit of idiocy that needs to die is the ranting and raving about what an abuse of government power it is that Congress got involved**. Let's at least be clear about why Congress got involved: It's because people have been bothering the living daylights out of them. It's called representative government.
Links and fancy formatting over at Ilyka's. Go read, I'll wait for you.
The federal judge in Tampa did not follow the law - he didn't order Shiavo's feeding tube replaced.
Apples and oranges. The law isn't about Terry's feeding tube, it's about the overall case being heard in federal court.
The judge would have been breaking the law if he had ordered the tube replaced, based on the information provided to him in court. At the least he would have been trampling all over proper jurisprudence. In order to find immediately for Shiavo's parents (the requirement to replace the tube) their lawyers had to show they had an expectation of winning the federal court case. They couldn't show that they even had a minuscule case according to law. No precedents, no arguments, nothing. They have been working on this for years, there are 30,000 pages of court documents already filed, they have ostensibly been preparing for this exact case and they still didn't have squat ready for this court. Their argument boiled down to "We didn't prepare anything but you need to decide in our favor because we're right".
Don't blame the judge for following the precepts of law, blame the Shindler family's crappy lawyers.
That's it for today. Maybe tomorrow I'll do the meat and potatoes post. Then again, maybe not - I enjoy having readers.
The Showcase is a place for new blogs to show off their stuff. This week's edition features posts from nine fine young blogs.
GBfan of Spotted Horse brings us More fun with PBS and our tax dollars. Amtrak, our government subsidized rail company is a financial disaster requiring huge annual influxes of tax dollars. They are also the proud sponsors of PBS's Thomas the Tank Engine.From Tom at Pooklekufr: The Kafir Constitutionalist we have A Brief Criticism of the Iraqi Interim Constitution.
Atlas (aka Pamela) of Atlas Shrugged submits Pamela's Weekend Recap: The Chicken Came First. Pamela answers the age old question of what came first, the blog or the blogger (and why).
Next up at A Weekend Warrior On A Rant!, the Commanded Citizen relates a wonderful little story about a bright young couple: A Young, American Bride Celebrates Her FREEDOM!
Chris Byrne of The AnarchAngel talks about his beliefs as to what the legitimate form and purpose of government are in The Politics of Liberty.
The Squib is celebrating: Coming soon to a protest near you -- Klingon pain sticks!
Ward Churchill and Gloria Steinem -- separated at birth! Sounds fantastical but Nick Weber of Libertarian Librarian makes the case.
Simon Cowell on poetry? Nope, it's Nicholas Liu of Better Living Through Buttermilk waxing the poets with Waffled through the turgid wood and blurbled as they came.
melinama of Pratie Place is a young blogger but she's got some wise advice in her post Mutuality. Unfortunately, Blogger's comment system is pooched at the moment so I couldn't put a link to Kevin Aylward's Standalone Trackback on her post. Try it out, melinama, I think you'll like it.
Next week's host is our own Mookie. Do you have a weblog that's three months young or less and want to be a part of it? Just send an email to showcase.carnival@gmail.com with the following info:
- The name of your blog
- The title of the post
- The url of the post
- Your name
Alternate entry (and doesn't that sound deliciously naughty?) may be made at the Multi-Carnival Entry Form.
Catch previous Showcases and volunteer to host new ones at the Showcase Home.
Q: How can you tell if your roommate is gay?
This is the last interview for the lucky five folks who responded the fastest in this post. Today's interviewee is Sims addict and certified MILF Margi (that's a hard "G", like in "Legs") Lowry:
1) What would you host a cable tv program about?2) What movies do you know by heart?
3) When did you realize that life really isn't fair and when did you realize that that's okay?
4) The Sims - enlightened escapism or crack for non-druggies?
5) When did you first realize that you were in love?
Margi, to continue the game you need to snag the rules from my original post and answer these at your place. I'll link to your post when you get it up.
UPDATE: Margi's answers are up!
Just got a friendly "TO: Everybody" email about mailing things from the office. Item 1 reminded us that the deadline to drop mail in the mail room is 4:00 PM, M-F. Item 2 reminded us that the post office picks up from the mailbox out back at 4:30 PM, M-F. The third item dealt with personal mail:
Metering your PERSONAL mail is a COURTESY and not a company requirement. As always, your payment should accompany your personal mail unless you’ve communicated otherwise. With that being said, please place your mail in the appropriate outgoing tray before 4PM. NOTE: If your personal mail happens to include renewal subscriptions to any pornographic magazines, materials, and suchlike, please make sure you take care of that on your own personal time!
I really want to know what inspired that note but the receptionist isn't talking.
Da rules: I post an anecdote that may or may not be true. You guess which it is, based on your knowledge of me and my curious ways. Whoever gets it right gets a point when the contest closes. Here we go:
My first babysitting experienceI was a young teen and had managed to fool my parents into believing I was a young, responsible man. Boy, did they find out different.
My first stint at babysitting my little brother (he's seven years younger) was to be a two hour stretch while the parents went out to a fancy dinner. While they dressed to the nines I amused Lil Bro and everybody was in good humor by the time they were ready to leave. I managed to completely hide my incredible nervousness at the responsibility being placed in my hands.
About five minutes after they drove off I went to the bathroom. I re-entered the family room to see the couch cushions on the floor and Lil Bro happily chewing on something. I immediately panicked. What was he eating? A bug? A razor blade? Coins? Anything at all could have been stuck underneath those cushions!
I jumped at him and tackled him to the cushions and started yelling at him to spit it out. I realize in hindsight that this was not the optimal method to get food out of a little kid in a calm and effective manner. He started bawling and choking on what was in his mouth. I dug in with my fingers in the patented Rescusi-Ann preliminary lifesaving routine. I'd had CPR training with the Boy Scouts only a short while before so the half remembered techniques were dangerously effective. The mouth clear worked and I didn't even lose a finger.
The rules (now modified from the generic meme version because with issue #4 it becomes mine):
- In the extended entry are quotes from 13 movies. Your job is to identify the movie that each quote came from.
- Guess as many times as you want, just don't get silly about it.
- First person to correctly guess each entry gets a point. If there are any left after 24 hours they are worth 2 points.
- As people guess the films I will strike out those entries and note who got it first.
- NO cheating!!! That means NO: Google, IMDb, searching my archives etc.!
Well today was definitely interesting. I arrived at work to a message from my boss asking if I could join a meeting. He's remote and was having connectivity problems and there was too much visual going on for him to follow well over the phone. When I got into the meeting he dropped out.
So I was in a meeting with the execs from a new division of the company. The division is new because we just acquired their company. A morning and most of the early afternoon was spent helping them define their business objectives and doing business analysis and requirements for their web portal and consumer online presence.
Weird activities for a quality assurance specialist, eh?
Got a call from my boss during the meeting, asking me to call him back when I had a few minutes. Don't you hate messages like that? Ones that give you no clue why you're calling? I sure do.
So I called him and he explained that the very large project I am consulting on now was being reorganized. He was taking over management of the project himself. Problem being, he can't be on-site here to actually manage the project. So, could I help out by doing the business analysis and business requirements locally?
There's those words again. Business Analysis. Business Requirements. Not QA stuff. Program analysis and standards are QA things. But I love doing this stuff so I said of course I'd be happy to help. That's when he popped the question.
Would I consider leaving QA for a Project Management position? He wants me on the business side of the business, said I excelled there. Yes, QA is very important but he has a critical shortage on the BA side of his house. He reassured me that it wasn't a do or die thing. I was hired for QA, I am doing a fantastic job here, this job is secure if I want to stay in it. But, would I like to step to the next level under the executorium?
I said "Hell, yeah. What took you so long to offer it? I've been here waiting for five freaking months already! Hello?"
Well, maybe it was more along the lines of a gracious acceptance. The position switch will come about in the near future after we wrap me out of some QA projects.
Say hello to Jim Peacock, Project Manager elect.
I need a motto for the Nationalist Party of America. This is the political party I started up back in December to make a home for all of us who are either too right for the Dems, too left for the Reps, plain sick of partisan politics or think government needs to get its nose out of our personal areas.
It sort of fizzled out due to lack of participation and a very busy Jim but Michele's cry for help and a well timed comment by Ilyka have revived my fighting spirit. As everybody knows, the key to success in politics is to have a catchy slogan so that's my next order of business.
Here are a couple I thought of:
"Yes Virginia, there is a viable third party."
"Don't settle for the lesser of two evils, pick the least of three."
But they sort of don't really ring out too well. So I'm throwing open the floor to y'all. Come up with party slogans. There will be two categories: serious and seriously funny. Points will be awarded to the top three in each category.
I went out for a smoke break just a bit ago and realized I had left my lighter in the van. I retrieved said lighter and mid-way through my smoke I realized something. This was my second smoke break. I had already had a cigarette. Without a lighter.
There's only one logical explanation - I have superpowers. I unconsciously lit the first cigarette using my mental energies.
I'm currently trying to direct my newfound powers against Boman in the hopes that heat really does sterilize.
There will be one interview post per day as I interview the lucky five folks who responded the fastest in this post. Today's interviewee is my favorite ex-pat in Israel, Rachel Ann from Willowgreen:
1) What tasks would you most like to have an army of trained monkeys (not "The Monkey") do for you?2) What's the most bizarre thing to happen to you lately?
3) If you had one moment to do over, to either change the outcome or savor the moment again, which moment would it be?
4) What does Israel need to do to ensure its prosperity and security?
5) What's your idea of a romantic evening?
Rachel Ann, to continue the game you need to snag the rules from my original post and answer these at your place. I'll link to your post when you get it up.
Update: Rachel Ann has posted her answers.
The gross guy. The one who doesn't understand the social niceties of cleanliness. The guy with the black mouse that started as a white one and a keyboard that makes crunchy sounds when it's used due to the many cracker and chip bits lodged between the keys. The one with stained clothes featuring crusty cuffs from nose wipes and a greasy patch on each thigh from using pants as a napkin substitute.
At my last job this guy was infamous for his unsanitary habits. His cubicle smelled vaguely like a three week old roadkilled opossum dipped in urine. He eventually left us for a fantastic work from home opportunity. We celebrated for a week.
At this job he is known primarily for his personal odors. He has sparkling white teeth that starkly contrast with the brimstone and cabbage that he exhales. How can somebody who obviously brushes regularly have such a mouth odor problem? My theory is that he has no dental hygiene, rotted his teeth out and wears dentures.
He is also possessed of an unearthly stench about his person. It's an odor that says he fell in love with the Shower-to-Shower concept and has accepted talcum powder as his personal savior. He is a master at the Silent But Deadly. I've never heard him cut one loose but he is followed by the permanent aroma of juicy anal exhalation.
I have named him Boman* and he is my personal nemesis.
So, what's your guy like?
* B.O. Man