Cried Wolf

Hey here's a tip, if you see a button under the desk at work and you don't know what it does, don't push it--certainly don't push it several times--because it might turn out to be a panic button and security will come to your office and you will have to explain to them why you pushed the panic button and it will be very, very embarrassing.

Busy Today

Today was actually astoundingly busy for me at work. I have busy times and slow times, but even the busy times usually afford me long, leisurely opportunities to sit around in the break room with my coworkers discussing just how busy we all are. Haha, kidding of course, I don't socialize with my coworkers. Sometimes I hear them having such conversations though over my cube wall though...as I sit here alone, emailing, chatting on IM and avoiding all direct human contact.

I had this long meeting today with the other web developers from around campus, ostensibly for the purpose of improving service and support, but the only meaningful conclusion we came to was that ND web sites need more bunnies. We're okay for flowers, we decided, but could use more bunnies. Unfortunately that is not one of my weird random made up throw away comments. I made it through about 40 minutes of talking about change control processes and internal service support structures and other random words people like to string together in meetings that don't really mean anything before I started breaking into fits of uncontrollable laughter. At dinner over the weekend, Lizett was telling about this episode of Ed where his friend offered him 10 bucks to go up to a produce manager in a grocery store and ask him where he could find the let-toose, and it changed my life.

It was definitely a had-to-be-there situation. Perhaps it was the way she said it. Perhaps it was the fact that I didn't get it at first--she had to explain to me it was not in fact a nonsense word, but a funny way of saying lettuce. Perhaps it was the fact that it ends in oose. Perhaps it was the concept of actually going up to a produce manager in real life and asking, my good man, where I might find the lettoose. Mostly it was the idea that some writer actually came up with this idea. The point is, I completely and totally flipped out. Minutes upon minutes of violent, uncontrollable laughter. Tears of hilarity. Near the end I wasn't even making any noise, just long silent full body shakes, maniacal grin pasted on my face, the servers are looking at me like I might need an ambulance, I'm slapping the table, trying to grasp at my steak knife that I might stab myself in the lung and get some air flowing. It was by far the hardest I've laughed in recent memory. Yes I know. Had to be there. It's almost as if I shouldn't have tried to relate it at all. I eventually recovered at dinner, but then at random points for the rest of the weekend, maybe once an hour or so, I'd just break out again. I thought I had recovered completely since coming back to the Bend, but then BAM, middle of a meeting, talking about MySQL, I lose it again. Thanks for nothing Tom Cavanagh, first you star in Love Monkey, and now you try to ruin my professional life? Hahaha, lettoose.

BO Training Day 2

So, this morning the first slide was a speed boat, and the second a masturbating koala bear. Weirder and weirder. I actually slept in pretty good this morning, until around 8:20, because training didn't start until 8:30 and I didn't so much feel like riding over to the office to sit around for 20 minutes beforehand. Suckaaaaaas! Of course my estimation of how long it will take me to actually get ready and ride to work is always wildly off, so I sauntered in around 8:45, further securing my role as the Bad Boy of Business Objects Training. Thank God girls like rebels.

This post brought to you by my extreme laziness, in that it is an exact copy of an email I wrote this morning. Efficiency!

I Try To Be Good Hard Worker Man, But Refrigimater So Messy--So, So Messy

This weekend was pretty great. Perhaps I will write about it later--for now, my time is limited. I'm in the middle of 16 hours of report writing training over a period of two days, and I have never had a more thrilling experience. The trainer was showing us some PowerPoint slides earlier, and one of them had a race car on it! Vroom, vrooom! Stab me in the eye. She tried to justify its presence with some spiel about how their report writing software is high performance...come on now, lady. Come on.

On the theme of long, crappy days, I had an especially delicious travel experience yesterday. The only flight I could get out of San Antonio was already a 6am 3-jump fiasco, so imagine my pleasure when I got to my second connection (Detroit) only to discover that, due to some sort of equipment problems, I only had 10 minutes to make my next flight. I used to find it amusing to see people sprinting through the airport with luggage dragging behind--not that I wished them ill or anything, I just think people running indoors in street clothes is funny. Well now I was the chump running indoors in street clothes. Street clothes to the max. Oh, the delicious and mildly arousing irony! Truly Lord, You have taught me humility. My flight was (of course) at the furthest gate away, in another terminal. I knew there was no possible way I could make it but by GOD I didn't get where I am today by bowing to the inevitable. So I sprinted, which is an infrequent experience for me. I run a little but I do not normally have occasion to sprint--it didn't go well. I don't have the words to describe the level of disappointment I felt when I arrived at the gate--red, temples pulsing, dripping sweat, feet screaming, knees throbbing, wholly unable to speak--only to look through the window as I was stumbling down the escalator to see my ride backing out. I could swear I saw the pilot give me the finger. I will say this--it was only 40% as soul-crushing as the disappointment of finding out that the next flight out was not for 7 hours. OH, GOD. Okay, actually that's pretty funny. You got me again, Northwest!

So for the next 7 hours, I paced. I guess a normal person would have bought a book or something, or hunkered down in front of one of their many big screen TVs. I just paced, around and around, over and over. I saw some good stuff. I saw a guy practicing his pop'n'lock, I saw a little girl singing "Yakety Yak", only the only lryics she knew were "Yakety Yak, don't talk back!" and she just repeated them over and over in succession until her father threw himself into a jet turbine, I saw a bird land next to some guy reading a book, and I saw him totally flip out as a result. It was pretty awesome. Anyway, I guess I'm not really used to sprinting for my life and then pacing around for 7 hours, because I appear to have suffered the world's first pacing related injury. I woke up this morning a little sore and thought, okay, not too weird, 14 hours of travel will get you. Then I hopped on my bike and my knee exploded into a glorious explosion of explosive pain. EXPLODE! It hurt.

I Think God Is Trying To Kill Me

Friday night, I'm just home from a delicious and satisfying meal at Hacienda, walk upstairs, flip on the bathroom light--BOOM!--one of my vanity lights explodes. What? Do light bulbs sometimes just explode and I never knew about it? I checked the box, but it doesn't say "beware, may explode" anywhere. I googled it too, and I didn't find much besides this guy. Don't bother clicking, it's not interesting. I just wanted some sort of proof that I'm not wholly insane. Most of the shards fell to the sink, and I think I got the rest, but no doubt 2 months from now I will step barefoot on one and scream like a woman, a la LB on a shattered Highlife bottle. Here's an interesting fact: those "natural light" bulbs, the blue ones...the glass isn't actually tinted, it turns out that blue stuff is a powder sprayed on the inside of the bulb--and when it gets wet it turns into a thick paste. Also, playing cards in India are round.

Saturday was good. We played some golf in the 95 degree heat. It was hot. Later Ball, Raul (who I call Ral because I find Raul too cumbersome) and I met Jani at Olive Garden for a little farewell dinner action. Jani got an HR job with Target and is moving to Kansas in short order, officially making her completely dead to me forever. But, might as well go out with a bang, so we got a few bottles of wine and feasted it up! Or at least, the guys did. Jani doesn't eat, which may have contributed to her getting stumbling wasted off a glass and a half of wine. Jani, once one of the great pillars of SMC drinking ability, amazes me anew every time I see her imbibe--you've never seen a 6 footer get so blitzed off of so little. After dinner Jani wasn't quite ready for the car, so we took a little stroll over to Macri's, where they have--get ready--$3.50 34oz of Guinness. My head asplode. It's like $5 a pint at Fiddler's. Macri's, once my most loathed enemy outside of the Bucket--I welcome you into my heart, and may your days be long upon the earth.

Sunday was just more hot, hot golf, with an extra helping of hot. Heat index was at 103. That is ludicrous for the Bend. Ball skipped out after the first round citing impending death, but I stuck it out for a second and found I rather enjoy the quiet and relative solitude of playing the course alone. Lizett mocked me extensively for playing by myself, but that's because she's a jerk.

Tra La La!

Whelp, Hezbollah has totally lost all credibility as a fear-inspiring terrorist organization in my eyes. It happened in a bar! In a bar over a delicious pub burger. I chanced to look up and caught a clip on CNN of--I swear to God--a formation of Hezbollah militants engaged in what was very clearly Pete McCall style poop-in-the-pants marching. If you're not familiar with the technique it's pretty hard to explain without visual aids, but you kind of hold your instrument (or gun) out with both hands in front of you, angle your feet outward, and engage in a sort of sideways, hip swaying leg lift that looks, and pardon my graphic description, like you are trying to keep a load from tumbling down your pant leg. Or alternatively, if you're an insane babbling old southern man, like you're marching with wrenches in your pockets. The point is it's an enormously distinctive and outrageously foolish looking step already, and as an added bonus these fellows were doing it double time. Tra la la, just your average group of fatigue-wearing gun-toting religious fanatics prancing down the street like a bunch of happy trotting elves! I wasn't getting sound but there is every possibility they were singing a happy trotting song, possibly in a round. Fear us!

I Want To Punch Something

Beware, this way lies madness.

Pirates 2: Kiera Knightley Becomes A Huge Freaking Bitch

Back in the Bend once again, and ready to rumble with my 3 day work week. I'm halfway through hump day, it's almost the weekend already! I've been off in San Antonio enjoying the sun and heat and no cable or internet of Lizett's new digs since Friday, and brother, I have some tales to tell. Nah, I don't really. I do have some Mysterious Bruises however, as I always seem to after any combination of travel and drink. A big fatty on my right man-boobie, a nice donut shaped one on the back of my leg, and a lovely matching pair on my neck and shoulders. I know what you're thinking: Lizett beats me. And you're absolutely right, she DOES beat me, but what you're not taking into account is her weak womanly arms, which are far too pansy and frail to leave marks. No my friends, I'm not going to tell you exactly how I did get these, that's what makes them Mysterious. I'm not even sure myself. What I do know is that I did not get my ass whooped by a bouncer, nor was I forcibly removed from his downtown bar by my neck. And I'm CERTAINLY not saying this non-scenario played out in front of my girlfriend, oh my no, that would be just a little too embarrassing, wouldn't it? I'm just saying, were that wild little fabrication to have occurred, well then, it would certainly be a reasonable explanation for the savage ass-whooping one would have to conclude I received upon any kind of cursory visual examination of my bruised and battered body. It didn't though.

Other than that, good weekend. We launched directly into Standard Friday Night Arrival Procedure as soon as my flight got in, which is to drive home, pop some beers, and watch TV until we both fall asleep. It's like our version of slow-motion running through a field into each other's arms, but with more belching. Saturday was pretty action packed, once we both finally managed to wake up, which was sometime in the early afternoon. We headed to this new shopping/entertainment area called The Quarry which was pretty nice. We actually ended up going there three days in a row thanks to their plethora of fine dining establishments. But I'm getting ahead of myself. Trust me, you're going to want to savor each one of these super awesome and fascinating details of our Day At The Shopping Center. We ate, blah blah this, shopped, blah blah that, I had my first visit to the World Food Market, which smells very organic-y I must say, and a-blahbity-blah blah. On to Pirates! We went to see it early that evening, and I must say I'm deeply conflicted. I had been quite looking forward to it, and I think I actually enjoyed it while I was watching it, but then afterward I was just like good GOD that was long! Why were they ever on that cannibal island? That was like 16 hours ago! Was it really necessary? And the story left a wee bit to be desired as well, at least compared to the first. I don't want to ruin anything, but everything you need to know can be summed up in a single question Lizett posed directly after the movie: "How come every time special effects guys dream up a horrible monster, it looks like some sort of gigantic toothed vagina?" The answer, of course, is that I didn't think it looked like a vagina at all, you sicko. Also, my mom reads this. Enjoy.

So, Pirates was a little disappointing, but I guess overall I did like it. After that, we headed downtown to stroll the riverwalk. I enjoy the riverwalk quite a bit. Lots of people, lots of restaurants, a river of course, live entertainment if one is interested in such things, and it gets lit up pretty nice at night. We ate dinner at some delicious steak place of awesomeness, not one of those where you get a steak and slather it in sauce to eat with your tall beer and enormous potato, but one of those places where you eat your steak with wine and they look at you like you're throttling a child if you even think the words A1 sauce. It was both delicious and awesome. After that we strolled around some more and finally ended up at this bar called Pat O'Brien's, apparently famous for their Hurricanes, which I must say were quite delicious. Wow, I'm really using "I must say" a lot. What's going on with that? And FINE, it did look like a vagina, okay? GOSH! Anyway, we sat at a table next to Hottie VonUberCurves and her date Sloppy Mc...well, it would be less than polite to describe him, but suffice it to say you do not normally see a woman like HER with a guy like HIM. I inclined my head to communicate this fact to Lizett, and she immediately launched into something about seeing beneath the surface and not being superficial and whatnot, which made me feel pretty bad about what I was about to say, which was "c-note says she's an escort." Ha ha ha, I'm a jerk. Although in my defense, she was wearing a transparent blouse over a black bra, so I'm pretty sure I was right.

Hmmmm, there were more adventures to be had Sunday and Monday, but this is getting mighty long. Sunday we did some stuff, Monday I exploded a Heineken everywhere, and Tuesday I flew home, le end.

One more note if you enjoy wreckings and/or baby stories, I just got this bad boy from my brother:

Quick story Laura just told us about Natalie. She and Natalie were over at Lisa's mom's house today so Laura could pick up some school material. Laura was looking through a stack of papers and heard her keys jingling. Then she heard the quick "thump thump thump thump" of Natalie running in a cadance that Laura refers to as "the Devil's Feet", which is how Natalie runs when she wants to do something and knows you're going to try to stop her. Laura got up, ran after her, and caught up with Natalie just in time to see her flushing the toilet. Bye bye keys.

My God, my niece is an evil genius.

Wa-PAHHH!

Four Day Weekend

One would think I'd be refreshed after a four day weekend, but it turns out I am wickedly tired. Not that it was in any way strenuous. I actually got so much sleep between sleeping in every morning and napping every evening that my body apparently decided to rebel against it, and I was awake for most of last night. Disastrously, even when I actually managed a little sleep I dreamt of uncomfortably lying awake on the floor, because in Dream Land my old roommate PT Cruiser was in town and commandeered my bed. There are no couches in Dream Land. Anyway, Tribble? Where the hell did you come from? I was only vaguely aware of your existence when we lived together.

So the weekend was relaxing and good. Saturday I went to a fish fry, which I am enormously proud of. A FISH FRY! I realize this is not particularly impressive to the average person, but to attend a fish fry and there engage in the actual eating of fish was, for me, a substantial foray into normal human behavior. What's next, vegetables? Hmmmmm, probably no.

The weather Sunday and Monday kept me planted in front of the TV pretty much straight, but thankfully it cleared up for the actual fourth and I was able to peel myself off the La-Z-Boy to actually go do something. I woke up around one to discover that Ball had snagged a tee time despite the supposedly busy holiday schedule, and further that there was not a cloud in the sky, so that worked out well. I played my best round yet, 10 strokes under my previous low. It was still not good. It was, in fact, still pretty bad. BUT, I can say with authority that I do not suck quite so much as I did. After that it was a couple sets of tennis where I sucked pretty much exactly quite so much as I did. I am just not good anymore. I finally stopped going for winners and just started lobbing everything up hoping Ball would screw up the return, which I can testify is just EXTREMELY irritating to the opponent, and a strategy employed only by the most heartless and evil of classless, unsportsmanlike savages. Suckaaaaaaaa!

We meant to cook out, 4th style, but we got lazy and decided someone bringing us beer sounded better than getting it ourselves. To Hooters! I amused myself, for reasons that are still not clear to me, by trying to convince our waitress that I was gay in increasingly unsubtle ways, culminating in a very hand-motion and jumpy-up-and-downy intensive conversation about our favorite Madonna songs, while Ball sat back and shook his head in sadness for all men everywhere. I don't even care man, Express Yourself is the bomb-diggity, or whatever it is The Kids say these days. I think it's still bomb-diggity. I saw a guy say it on a Wal*Mart commercial.