There’s a lot of music on The Funny Music Project’s web site which is dumb, off-color, way-too-geeky for even me or, in many instances, some combination of the three. But every so often, somebody will post a song that you can’t help liking.
I think “Noah” falls into that category. And as one commenter said, now I have something besides “Yoda” to think of the next time I hear “Lola” on the radio.
Category Archives: Silliness
That Coulda Been Me…
Back in October, there were zombies at Whole Foods. (I maintain that the other shoppers’ failure to notice anything unusual is proof that I wasn’t the only zombie in the store that night.)
Last Friday, the Seattle Police Department arrested a zombie. True, it was a misunderstanding involving a promotion for a horror convention, but it’s worth bearing in mind:
More Fun with Software Licenses
I took a few moments out of my evening tonight in order to update to the most recent version of the Mozy Home backup software. The dense legalese on these click-through licenses is almost impossible for us mere mortals to understand (I can’t find the citation, but evidently the courts have ruled some of them to unenforceable), but I’ve fallen into the habit of skimming them just in case something leaps out at me. And sure enough, every so often I find evidence that the lawyers are out of control.
Mozy’s terms of use include this paragraph (Unnecessary capitalization is theirs. Red and bold is mine.):
THE FOREGOING LIMITATIONS OF LIABILITY SHALL APPLY WHETHER THE DAMAGES ARISE FROM USE OR MISUSE OF AND RELIANCE ON THE SOFTWARE OR SERVICE, FROM INABILITY TO USE THE SOFTWARE OR SERVICE, OR FROM THE INTERRUPTION, SUSPENSION, OR TERMINATION OF THE SOFTWARE OR SERVICE (INCLUDING SUCH DAMAGES INCURRED BY THIRD PARTIES). DO NOT TAUNT HAPPY FUN BALL. SUCH LIMITATION SHALL APPLY NOTWITHSTANDING A FAILURE OF ESSENTIAL PURPOSE OF ANY LIMITED REMEDY AND TO THE FULLEST EXTENT PERMITTED BY LAW.
The paragraph before that states: “FURTHERMORE, YOU AGREE TO USE THE SOFTWARE OR SERVICE EXCLUSIVELY FOR GOOD AND FOR AWESOME.”
And then we’re back to the usual idiocy:
THE SOFTWARE AND SERVICE ARE NOT INTENDED FOR USE IN CONNECTION WITH ANY NUCLEAR, AVIATION, MASS TRANSIT, OR MEDICAL APPLICATION OR ANY OTHER INHERENTLY DANGEROUS APPLICATION THAT COULD RESULT IN DEATH, PERSONAL INJURY, CATASTROPHIC DAMAGE, OR MASS DESTRUCTION, AND LICENSEE AGREES THAT LICENSOR WILL HAVE NO LIABILITY OF ANY NATURE AS A RESULT OF ANY SUCH USE OF THE SOFTWARE.
Endangered Species
The North American letterbox once ranged across the continent in herds so large as to darken the plains from horizon to horizon. These gentle beasts had no fear of humans and would frequently wander into population centers. It was once common to find clusters of letterboxes on street corners in urban areas.
By the beginning of the 21st century, overgrazing and invasion of their habitats by other communication media had resulted in a massive decline of the wild letterbox population. Today the largest populations of North American letterboxes are found in zoos such as the one below.
The letterboxes shown here are part of a herd being kept at a postal center in Rockville where scientists are attempting to repopulate the species through a captive breeding program.
Caution
Things have been a bit stressful at work lately. Not quite six weeks ago, I completed a very high profile project. There were a few minor glitches, but things overall went fairly well.
Before that project was even complete, I was already being pulled onto another project, also very important, and also with a very high profile. We’re evaluating several complex software packages to replace a highly customized mission critical application, we’re doing it on a very short schedule, and it turns out that there were some bad assumptions early on about the level of effort required for the evaluations.
This past week, the inevitable happened.
No, no, no. Nobody died. Just a case of a sense of humor coming into play.
Friday a week ago, I was intensely working on the project and to minimize distractions had kept the office door closed most of the day. (Interestingly, most people assumed it was my officemate who didn’t want to be disturbed. Either way, the effect was the same.) Around 5:30, I noticed the silhouette of someone standing outside my office door and upon opening it, discovered my boss taping a piece of yellow Caution tape across the doorway.
I laughed and even obliged by collapsing on the floor. As my boss snapped a photo, a passerby commented on my performance, “He dies well.”
The caution tape stayed up over the weekend confusing both the cleaning staff and several co-workers. By the end of the day Monday though, the boss hadn’t done anything with the photos and then sent out an email saying he would be out for the next few days.
When he returned on Thursday morning, he laughed to find the caution tape across his door. When he found the “chalk” outline (actually done with masking tape) he needed several minutes to stop laughing. His favorite part was a touch an accomplice had added (it’s difficult to mark an outline of yourself) where the outline ran over (and fastened to the floor) an envelope which had been slipped under the door. He even laid down on the floor for a photo of himself in the outline.
Inevitably, somebody who hears this story will comment that I have too much spare time. To me, this seems like a fairly reasonable use of five minutes. It certainly beats letting the stress get to the point where someone in a more “official” role is drawing outlines.
Church of the Terminator
When I first spotted this card, I noticed a model sailing ship, a stack of books, and a computer keyboard. What really got my attention though was the metallic-looking skull, like something from The Terminator movies. Add in the bit at the bottom where it mentions a theater and I thought for sure it was a promotion for the new Terminator film which opens next weekend.
Looking at the back of the card, it turns out to be a promotion for a new ministry of a local Mega-Church. Along with their multiple locations and frequent radio ads, it turns out they’re also branching out into holding services in area movie theaters.
It’s entirely possible that they’re making a subtle tie to the new movie, Terminator Salvation. Unfortunately, once I figured out what the card was about, the message which crossed my mind was, “Give your life to Christ, or else he’s going to send a killer robot after you.”
Pillowtalk
More Grocery Store Mischief!
I had to make a mid-evening run to the grocery store or else breakfast was going to be nothing but toast. (Now I’ll be able to have a pear. Plus, lunch won’t have to come from the deli.)
Going through the checkout, the cashier was making small talk and asked, “Any big plans for the evening?”
Since it was already past 9:00, I just shook my head and answered, “No, just this, and then I have a heavy date with my pillow.”
The woman behind me in line overheard this and added, “I have one too.”
I turned to her and in my most surprised voice exclaimed, “With my pillow?! I’m going to have to have a word with that pillow! It’s really getting around!”
A few minutes later as I paid for the groceries, gathered my bags, and started to walk away, the woman called after me, “Give my regards to the pillow!”
Swine Flu
As a public service, I’d like to present the following list of Swine Flu symptoms (aka H1N1). The CDC provides a far more comprehensive repository of Swine Flu information.
Swine Flu Symptoms
- High fever (100 degrees).
- Body aches.
- Lack of appetite.
- Nausea.
- Vomiting.
- Diarrhea.
- Strong urge to roll in the mud.*
*The urge to roll in mud may also be a sign that you’re overly involved in politics. Medical supervision is strongly recommended.
Time to Invest
Starting on Monday, it will cost 44¢ to send a letter. So just like last time, this is a good time to stock up on Forever stamps (also like before, Costco is selling 100 stamps for $41.75).
This time around, the price increase is 2¢, putting the return on investment at 4.5%. Better yet, the Forever stamps I’m currently using were purchased at the 41¢ rate, meaning that I’m saving 6.8%.
But I’m going to need a lot of stamps to make up for what my 401(k) has been doing lately.
Watering the Deer
(As a side note, or, at very least, a quick digression, after writing that title, it occurs to me to wonder whether Dave might think “watering the deer” is some sort of euphemism.)
After losing most of last year’s tomato crop to deer, I’ve been looking into ways to discourage the critters from coming into my yard. It turns out the most obvious approach – a fence – isn’t terribly effective. Anything less than eight feet high and the deer will jump right over it. And who wants an eight foot fence blocking their view? (It’s not a great view, but it certainly beats the parking lot views I’ve had at various apartments.)
One solution is a liquid deer repellent that you spray on your plants at grazing height. There are a few catches though. For starters, you have to reapply the stuff every time it rains. You have to apply it consistently across all the plants or else the untreated vegetation will mask the taste of the treated plants. And, of course, the way this stuff works is it makes the plants taste bad; so you don’t want to get any of it on the stuff you plan to eat.
One of the possibilities I ran across is a motion-activated sprinkler. The idea is that a deer wandering into the yard will trigger the sprinkler and get pelted with a few cups of cold water. This startles the deer and it goes running. Once a deer is scared out of an area, it’s not likely to come back. (By some accounts, these devices are also effective at deterring one’s neighbors from stealing tomatoes; though I haven’t had that particular problem.)
Mom and Dad gave me such a sprinkler back in February. I’m sure it’s not the most requested item on most people’s birthday lists, but most of the “toys” on my wish list (e.g. a decent point-and-shoot camera) were a bit on the pricey side, so this seemed like a reasonable alternative.
I came home on Wednesday to find a deer standing in my front yard. The deer stood its ground as I backed the car into the driveway, and didn’t even seem to take any particular notice as I got out and closed the car door behind me. It didn’t seem perturbed by anything until I started running toward it, yelling. (Hopefully the neighbors had their windows closed, otherwise they may be wondering about me a bit more than usual.
Sensing that this might be a good time to start trying to scare the deer away, I spent some time on Sunday afternoon getting the sprinkler set up.
One of the steps for setting up the sprinkler is to test it by standing behind the sprinkler and trigger the motion sensor by waving a hand in front of it. One detail I wasn’t entirely clear on though was how to set the sprinkler head’s range of motion. I’d set it to spray the area of the garden, but when I waved my hand in front of the sensor, first it spun to the right and sprayed me from that side. An instant later, it spun nearly 360 degrees and sprayed me again. At that point it paused for eight seconds before looking for more deer.
My next-door neighbors were out working in their garden and must have thought I’d lost my mind. The entire incident had taken place too quickly for them to have seen it, but at that point I started laughing uncontrollably. I’m not sure whether I stood up too quickly or perhaps just lost my balance, but either way the world went all wibbly-wobbly and I fell into the flower bed. I got up a moment later; unscathed, but still laughing manically.
My insomnia kicked in on Sunday evening, preventing me from getting more than a few moments sleep. But it was worth it. Around 4:30 I heard the sprinkler activate as the first deer got soaked.