Stump Vader

http://www.sithsense.com/flash.htm

I stumped him with rockchuck (he thought it was a capybara), but he got TV remote in 14 guesses.

Can you stump him?

I can't believe this is for real

I just received this email.

At noon today in front of H.C. White Hall, WKOW-TV (ABC) will be filming a performance by library school students who have created a Book Cart Drill Team.

It is, in fact, serious business.

They just won a national competition at the American Library Association Convention in Chicago this week. The nine library school students and a staff member acting as choreographer organized a Book Cart Drill Team in just six weeks this summer. They competed against more than a dozen other teams, some of which have been performing for years.

The choreography and gymnastic moves include break dancing, an Irish dance, and back flips in a precision four-minute drill with spinning book carts. The team is performing in an exclusive show for WKOW, and all are welcome.

It's good to be the king

I’ll probably regret using this title for this topic, but let’s hope not. My assistant is on vacation this week, and her absence is really cutting into my blog time. Actually, it’s preventing me from getting any of my regular work done, and I’m only worrying about ¾ of the work she does. Granted, she’s had more practice at doing her job than I have, but her efficiency still amazes me.

Our computer system is down today for an upgrade, which is the only reason I’m not doing her work right now. One of my predecessors would ignore the supervisee’s work while they were out. A day or too isn’t a big deal, but for a week? Hells bells, can you imagine if no one covered for a postal carrier for a week? It’d probably take three weeks just to get caught up. Although, it might discourage use of vacation in the future.

My predecessor wasn’t too savvy on some things. I’ve been told that in the handful of years before retirement, she would often go to the lounge and take 4-5 hour naps on the couch. I’m sure that did wonders for staff morale.

A couple of weeks ago, I nearly stuck my foot irretrievably down my throat. My supervisee has been working on this really painful project. Tedious and mind numbing are the first descriptors that come to mind. We had been given instructions from the ‘expert’ in another department. I had questioned the procedures at first, but regrettably I’m not enough of an expert myself to have realized there was a shortcut.

After two full weeks I finally figured out that the procedure could be cut down to about 1/3 of what my assistant was doing. This is where a thoughtful manager has to weigh the impact of such information. Do I tell her that she’s wasted 60 hours of her life, and teach her the shortcut for the remaining day or two worth of work, or let her live in ignorant bliss while the mind numbing continues 4-5 days?

I keep a bag of chocolate in my filing cabinet just for these occasions. I had to tell her. It was a painful task, but I figured it’d be better for her to hear it from me now than to figure it out on her own a year from now.

After it was all finished, I wanted to reiterate how much I appreciate the time she spent on this ugly project, so I told her she should feel appreciated. She looked at me and with a very displeased look said:

“M [husband] said that same thing to me last week.” Then she turned to walk away.

Bells a plenty went off, and the little Fire Chief in my head started screaming “Take it back, take it back, whatever you said take it back!” It's not really my fault, you see. I'm trained to work with people who actually don't have any social skills.

“Wait a minute, I don’t know how what I just said was received, but I was trying to convey that I really appreciate you getting this done, and I still feel awful that the original instructions dragged this out longer than what was necessary.”

After a brief pause I heard “That was not how your comment came across.”

“Does this mean I need to get another bag of chocolate?”

As my supervisee walked away, she smiled and held up two fingers, clearly expressing that one bag would not be sufficient.

S+K=E?

I had a bunch of crazy dreams last night, but I think I’m only going to write about the one that gave me the creeps. It was the kind of dream that makes you get up and make sure you locked the front door.

I was with my dad. He had just received a letter from my grand father. Grandpa died almost exactly 14 years ago, but apparently he still writes letters in dreamland. My dad is really upset and worried about this letter from his father, worried that he’s going to hurt himself, despite the fact that he’s no longer alive. He shows me the note, which reads:

I IN ARM, S+K=E
and
I Love You

Yeah, I got no clue what that means either. In the dream I didn’t read it like it was math, just some sort of shorthand. ‘S and K same as E.’ I love actually seeing signs or notes in dreams, cause they rarely make any sense.

So later we’re waiting for SB to meet up with us. She’s running late so I give her a call, and I get this weird automated message:

“This user cannot be reached because the Broadway show of “Cats” just let out, and all lines are busy.”

Now my dad’s worried about this note, and I’m worried about SB being late and neither one of us knows what any of this means.

I have never seen Cats, although I’ve heard some of the music, and I truly hated it. I do have two cats however, Kimber and Elvis.

Lucky for me I’m not one of those people who thinks that EVERY dream has to mean something. I do wish I knew why this creeped me out, though.

Fun with Shoes

Last night I had to walk to the convenience store for milk and such. On the way I saw these four little neighbor kids standing under this tree. They were all between 2.5 and three feet tall, and each one had one shoe off. They were taking turns throwing their shoes at something in the tree.

I figured I’d be a helpful neighbor and lend them a hand, so I walked over to ask. I looked up into the tree and saw... absolutely nothing. “Is there something up there you need to get down?”
“No, we’re just throwing shoes.”

“Oh-okay.”

As I went about my business an irate mother came onto the scene.

“Jamal, what the hell are you doing? You put that damn shoe back on your foot before you get it stuck in the tree.”

When I returned from the store there were still four little kids throwing shoes. This time one of them had two shoes on his feet and another had no shoes on at all.

Somebody needs to buy them kids a bouncy ball.

Google Censorship

This site used to be indexed in Google. Sparklestone can attest to this because he used to find my blog through somewhat questionable searches.

Perhaps they purged the cache of all my pages because I say fuck too often, or maybe it was the talk of sex problems or Emperor Palpatine. Maybe I’m not allowed to blog about shitty parents.

Maybe they just don’t like people with cerebral palsy. Unlikely I know, but the thought of someone just not liking me is pretty foreign.

Google owns blogger. I don’t get random hits any more either. I think they’re shutting me down. I'm feeling quite put upon.

Damn the man.

I’m still in Yahoo. WTF?

Update: As of July 1, 2005 my top page is now indexed in Google. The only explanation I could find is the following taken from the deep bowels of the Google Website http://www.google.com/webmasters/2a.html

Each time we update our database of webpages, our index shifts: we find new sites, we lose some sites, and sites' rankings change. If your site was dropped from Google and you haven't made major changes to it, we'll likely pick it up again soon. It's possible your site was temporarily inaccessible when our robots tried to crawl it.

The Blue Raja

I remembered a very embarrassing moment in my life this morning. Then I realized it’s actually a pretty funny story. My only hesitance in writing about it is that I won’t do justice to just how embarrassed I was when it happened.

My sophomore year of college I became an R.A. in a different dorm, so I didn’t know anyone I was going to be living with. I met this group of five people, who had all gone to high school together, at a volleyball game early in the semester. The next morning they invited me to go to breakfast with them, so outside of getting drunk with them the night before (I was a good RA), they really didn’t know anything about me. At breakfast we all sat at a big rectangular table, three on each side, and after our meals arrived I reached for my fork. That’s when it happened.

Have you ever seen footage of Bruce Lee’s one inch punch? He would hold his fist one inch away from an opponent’s chest. Then he would spasm his entire body and channel all of that force into the strictly forward movement of his fist. It was enough to throw an average sized man 5-10 feet away. It was so ridiculously counter-intuitive that many people refused to believe it was possible. I believe it.

As I picked up my fork, I twitched. It was a doozy. It’s a bonus from having spastic Cerebral Palsy. Every now and then a muscle or group of muscles will act on their own, and do something outrageously unexplainable.

In the twitch I also rattled my plate, which drew the attention of the entire table to the fact that my fork was airborne. It drifted. It lingered three feet above our heads for what seemed to be the painful duration of a levitra commercial. Then it gently descended to the place setting on the opposite end of the table; perfectly positioned, as if the waiter had actually wanted it there to begin with.

Silence. Not one word was uttered. After the fork stopped moving everyone at the table stared straight ahead. After a brief delay, the person at the far end of the table picked up the fork hesitantly. Flipped it over and back, inspecting it for wires or flotation devices, then moved it to his left hand. The next person took the fork, also inspecting for signs of foul play or general trickery, and finally held it up in his left hand for me to retrieve. Nothing more was said until we left the restaurant. In the parking lot the guy who had been sitting next to me walked up beside me and said:

“So dude, what the fuck was that?!”

Young Atari Geeks

With another weekly geekly on the way from the Captain, I thought we could all use some inspiration from a Geek Music Video.

http://www.santoalt.com/videos/149_Atari_Geeks.html

Phenomenon

I’ve only had my car 3 years. I managed to get through grad school telling myself it was an expense I could live without. Subconsciously, I was probably enamored with the fact that no one ever asked me to be the designated driver, but that might have been the case even if I had had a car.

Since buying my 9 year old car with 32,000 miles on it three years ago, the Colonel has been in the shop four times. The first time was because some dipshit made an illegal left turn which left his car parked in the Colonel’s way. The dipshit got arrested for disorderly conduct while his piece of shit ride got towed away. The Colonel and I limped home, and dipshit’s insurance company paid for 70% of the repair work so this vehicle phenomenon didn’t really show up that time.

Every time since then, there’s this thing that happens. For the life of me I can’t decide if it’s good luck or bad. So here are two examples. First, Last December I needed new brake rotors. Mine were rusted out. So I dropped the Colonel off at the shop. Two hours later I get a call “Mr. Sylow, uh your battery is completely dead.”

“Excuse me? I just drove my car to your shop.”

“Yeah, I’ve been trying to recharge it but it’s not taking a charge.”

So I go in for new brakes and end up with a new battery too. There seems to always be this extra thing that needs fixin, urgently. Was I lucky that the mechanic left my ignition key on and killed my battery? Better for it to happen there than somewhere else, right?

So a couple weeks ago the wife and I took a drive to the Mustard Museum, because we’re secretly very boring. It was the first time the Colonel had driven any further than across town in over a year. On the way back we got to the stoplight two blocks from home and all of the sudden I’ve got no acceleration. I floored it, and we still couldn’t go above 5 mph.

My brother, the mechanical engineer, said I just needed to get my transmission fluid flushed. It works out well. He calls me when his computer randomly malfunctions, and I call him when my car does the same. That longer than normal trip in the car had sufficiently heated my transmission fluid to expose the fact that it didn’t get flushed at 30,000 miles as directed.

So I waited a couple weeks to get it done, so it’d be on the next credit card billing cycle. Saturday I got in the car to take it in, and guess what? The battery was so dead that no amount jumping (not to mention cursing) was going to get that thing started. Roadside Rescue towed it to the nearest dealer, which is not where I got the original battery.

In addition to my transmission fluid flush, they gave me a shiny new alternator, well, I assume it’s shiny, I didn’t actually look at it. This of course has nothing to do with the transmission fluid but everything to do with a dead battery in December. Then I took it back in this morning so they could determine that somehow this whole fiasco blew a fuse to the radio, which they replaced for FREE. Thanks, guys.

Add to the bill that the dealership finally figured out why the power windows wouldn’t work (this inability was the reason why the brakes and battery were found elsewhere in December), $700 when all I wanted was a $100 transmission fluid thing.

Every time I plan to fix one thing, something else falls apart at the same time. Good fortune, or bad luck? You decide.

Bloggers Block

I've written some pretty good stuff in my blog, but mostly in the begining. December and January were very theraputic. Just having Who's to Blame out there made me feel so much better. I guess there's a smattering of stuff I'm happy with each month after that, but especially after the letter to my parents, I'm just not producing anything I'm really impressed with.

So now I'm stuck. I've got nothing worthy of a blog rant. I thought about writing about my new computer or how much I hated my old one, but it just doesn't drive me to the keyboard.

So I need help. I want ideas for things to write about. Those of you who know me might come up with blogable memories you're sure I've supressed. Those of you who don't know me can help me make up memories that should be supressed (whatever that means).

Maybe I can turn this into a contest. Let's see who can come up with the best theme for Sylow's next post.

Hopefully, I'll at least find out who all is still reading this thing.

What is he talking about?

Okay, I may feel really dumb later, but I need help deciphering this song, Who Pumped the Wind in my Doughnut. We originally heard if from Washboard Chaz in New Orleans. So we figured he was talking about those plastic air cushions people sit on when they've bruised their tailbones.

But then we heard Washboard Sam's version from the 1930's:
washboard_sam-who_pumped_the_wind_in_my_doughnut.mp3

And now I'm wondering if they even had doughnut shaped cushions back then. Sam's version sounds more like someone's pumping his girlfriend. If it's indeed sexually oriented I'm sure MaryBishop will figure it out, but I'd like to hear what everyone thinks. I'm not sure which interpretation is actually funnier, but both of these could be wrong. Who calls their girlfriend a doughnut, and why wouldn't that resemble him?

Emperor Palpatine

We watched a program on PBS Monday that just had me fuming. It was so discouraging, SB couldn’t bear to watch it all. Their website must have been bombarded by users yesterday because I could never bring it up. The show is called In This Life . Usually they focus on LBGT issues, but one of the topics Monday was simply about our corrupt government; an issue the media tends to avoid covering.

From the website:

Counterfeit News
The traditional role of a journalist has been to act as an objective observer of our culture using a standard set of ethical guidelines in their effort to report the most factual information possible. Recent controversies have highlighted journalists with right-leaning agendas and the current U.S. government’s packaging of Video News Releases as actual news, calling into question the ethical practices of journalists, today. In this segment, In the Life explores the effects of government propaganda and its influence on headline news, ...

So let me elaborate, first off the GOP hired a bunch of phony journalist to go to White House press conferences and ask George W questions already approved (written) by the White House. I forget the name of the imaginary news service the guy would say he was from, but it doesn’t exist in any form.

Next, the White House uses tax money to create ‘News Clips’ that actually finish with the ‘reporter’ saying “ This is Jill so-and-so reporting, [imaginary] News. The major networks actually use these clips because they’re CHEAPER than investigating the lead themselves.

They showed a clip of George W being asked about these tax funded news clips in light of the fact that it is strictly forbidden for tax money to be used like this. His response, “Well, the Justice Department has concluded that this is legal.”

Forget about what is moral, ethical, or just plain right. This guy thinks having same sex parents on TV will turn our children into guiltless barbarians, but bending the rules for some fascist programming is perfectly fine. The SS may put me under surveillance for saying this, but this guy is pure evil.

Klein Four Group

The Dartmouth Mathematician found this first, but it's simply hilarious. Anyone with a math background can verify that every single line in this song is referring to some geeky math term. It's beautiful.

Get your headphones on.

http://www.collegehumor.com/?movie_id=149448

The Group Website:
http://www.math.northwestern.edu/~matt/kleinfour/

Zen Airlines

So, Sparklestone and I are waiting in line at the airport for a flight to Israel on Zen Airlines. I ask if we need different money, and he gives me that typical NY ‘fuggetaboutit’ shoulder shrug. Once we get past security everyone has to sit in these ratty old recliners and watch a video about international air travel, where I promptly fall asleep... in my dream.

Allow me to explain why this dream is actually interesting despite its boring façade. First off, I have virtually no desire to visit Israel. I suppose however, that if I ever did visit, Sparklestone would somehow be involved. I remember he once told me that if he discovered he was terminally ill, he would promptly fly to Israel and just wander off into the desert. Since I don’t believe every friggin dream has to have a prophetic meaning, I have no fear that Sparky has become ill.

SB and I are flying to Tampa Friday for a wedding. I really like flying. I’m not an aviation nut like my friend Emerald Stone (no direct relation to Sparkle). His office window faces the direction of the local airport. At any time of day you can point at a plane in the sky and Emerald can tell you the airline, the flight number and where it’s going/coming from. I’m not that devoted. Flying just reminds me of a very important flight I took once. It was only the second time I had flown, and it was the first time I had flown alone. It was a flight from Idaho to Louisiana, and even though I had booked a return flight, I had no intention of ever using it. Part of me was hoping to lose some nightmares that had started following me around. I remember that day very well. I remember what I was wearing. I remember what song kept playing in my head the entire day. I even remember that the air smelled like being inside the Pirates of the Caribbean at Disneyland.

As I stood in line at the single gate airport waiting to check two bags containing every possession I valued, a small gray-haired woman in line started a conversation with me. Considering the shade of green I had no doubt started turning, she probably thought I was afraid to fly.

“Where are you going today?”
“Baton Rouge.”
“Oh, to LSU?”
“Yes, for graduate school.”
“I was accepted to graduate school at LSU for English. Well, that must have been before you were born. I wasn’t able to go though.” There was an awkward moment while she stared at the floor. When her gaze returned to me she said with a bright smile “You’ll have to have enough fun for both of us.”
“I’ll do my best.”

Random events certainly happen, but the statistical probability of someone with this connection standing behind me in line to get on the same plane (going just to a hub) and feeling a need to strike up a conversation has to be miniscule. I’ve had less than a handful of days where I’ve been persuaded to think some greater force is guiding or even encouraging me. This was definitely one of those days. That plane didn't just take me to a different place geographically, it took me to a completely different place in my life. I still have those nightmares now and then, but I can’t even begin to wonder what things would be like if I hadn’t gotten on that plane. I wouldn’t have met my wife, or half a dozen other very important people. And I definitely wouldn’t be dreaming of flying to Israel with Sparklestone.

It was a good day to fly.

Zen Airlines - Prologue

I apologize for being a blog-slacker. I've been busy with end of the semester wrap-up. Plus I'm just not as pissed off as when I started this blog, so I've got very little to vent about.

I got a good idea today though. I had a strange dream with Sparklestone in it last night, but I won't have time to write it up until this afternoon. No, it's not the first time he's been in my dreams, but we definitely had all of our clothes on in this one.

Stay tuned.