Wanted- Doctor skilled in the art of funny bone repair, to help with the revitalization of my humor center. Applicant should have years of experience and an understanding of basic concepts of humor, such as comic timing, effective puns and be able to wedge in the phrase 'sticky buns' liberally.
Classified
The Great Geek To Do List
Ode To A Nose Picker
Both stopped at the light we are
But unlike me you seem distracted
As your brains you have extracted
How far up there can you go?
While watching this most vulgar show.
You keeping digging deeper still
Until you get your sticky fill
You seem not to notice us
As we gag and make a fuss
With your finger in your nose
Up to your knuckle now it goes
Now with your filthy quest complete
You turn to me and our eyes meet
Does my face betray the truth
That I just watched you finger sleuth?
You speed by me as on you drive
To forget your deep nose dive
I laugh and think with impish zeal
Will your hands stick to the wheel?
This ode to a nose picker
Oh nasty digging slicker
If more tales you would eschew
I would suggest using tissue
-Peter P. Brown 2008
20 Things I Learned On Vacation
Pushing Medications
It seems that I have become a medication pusher. I am helping to promote the use of chemicals though the traffic that I generate on my blog. Now don't look down on me, because of many of you are too! The Journey of JCrew has become the Den of Iniquity!It seems that JCrew has gone and deleted his blog. In doing so he left a gap wide open. A gap that about 10 other blogs link to. What dirty spammer couldn't resist such a lure? So they took the name, and started their blog. Which means for with no promoting at all this new blog was 10 instant links.
As a result I'm now peddling Cialis and Nexium to complete strangers. In addition I found myself reading this bizarre page. "Accidental falls are common in people who have slow CYPD activity, there is therefore a slightly bitter taste." It defies logic!
The only other alternative is the clergy isn't paying well enough and our very own expositor is now nothing better than a dirty pill pusher. I find this hard to believe, but you know what they say, it's always the nice quiet ones that do the unexpected...
Sticky Buns
There are a few phrases in the English language that are funny with out any context. 'Sticky buns' is one of those. There are jokes that need a lot of setup to be funny. You have to sit everyone down, spin this elaborate yarn and only then, once the pump is primed will the laughter flow. Not so with Sticky Buns. I would wager that I could walk into any room in the English speaking world, shout 'STICKY BUNS', run out and someone would start laughing. With the possible exception being mini-mart night hours attendees this is a gimme! But what are the odds an entire room would be filled with them?
Really, that would be kinda odd. It's not like there is a society for mini-mart night hours attendees. So unless there was some kind of Twinkie trade show I think my sticky bun experiment would still be viable.
Mini-mart night hours attendees are, in my opinion, required to get a frontal lobotomy in order to sign up for the job. I can not remember the last time I walked into a convenience store at night to anything other than a sigh.
"sigh..."
"I'm sorry, did I interrupt you starting off down the chewing gum isle?"
"sigh..."
"STICKY BUNS!"
"Over there. By the HoHo's"
And with a disinterested wave of the hand they go back to propping up their head with their fists.
I suppose it hard to get excited about selling ten dollar cans of tuna to desperate people in their pajamas, but you would think they could pretend to care.
Now that I say that, I don't like the fakers either. (Apparently it takes a lot to truly make me happy.) Generally these faker people are managers. They believe that by pretending to be cheery, it will in someway inspire others. There is a certain person at a certain mini-mart that drives me nuts.
"Is that all?!?"
"Yes. Thank you."
"Okay. Have a sparkling day!"
What? Have a sparkling day? Did I just get dunked in a vat of pink glittering insincerity? AHH...It's all over me! Hanging on like some vile yet cutesy sludge. I feel like a preschooler begging for a gold star.
"uhmm... Okay. Thanks...STICKY BUNS!"
So regardless of the bizarre path this post ended up on, the truth remains. Some things are just funny naturally, and some things are better left unsaid. I'll let you be the judge of which items go in which slots.
Vacation Expectation
Next week I will be going on vacation. I'm not even sure I believe it. I cannot recall the last time I took vacation hours with the intention of doing something relaxing.The last few times, have all centered around my daughters. I took off time for both of their births and then for my eldest heart surgery. As you can imagine this was not what I would call, 'vacation' time.
In addition we used to go camping every year. It's no family secret that I'm not the big outdoors man type. I picked sitting inside, staring at a computer for 40 hours a week as my vocation. Clearly I'm a fan of electricity, regulated temperatures, comfortable seating and indoor plumbing. These items are hard to find in the wilds of "Mt. Lot-a-dust Mosquito" campgrounds.
The other point is simply, that I never stay in one place long enough to take vacation time. I have been employed here now for 2 and 1/2 years. For me, that is a new record. The longest I had ever stayed in one job before was about 2 years, and the shortest was under 6 weeks.
Food service I didn't get along:
"Peter, as a waiter, you need to make the customers happy."
"But I hate the customers!. They never know what they want, they ask me for things that aren't on the menu, and then leave me a rotten tip because the kitchen is out of fresh fruit!"
"That what happens when you work with people for a living. They aren't like computers, you know."
Hummmm...
"An excellent point."
"Thanks-"
"I quit!"
So imagine my surprise when I looked at my last time sheet and I had over a hundred hours of vacation time in the hopper. I decided it was time to use it!
So next week Patricia and I will be vacationing it up. Following through on whatever bizarre notion occurs to us.
"Want to drive to Mountain View and have lunch?"
"Deal!"
Living it up for a week. For no other reason then the best one of all. Because we can!
It's Five days 'till Christmas
It's five days 'till Christmas
The dates almost here
With presents and carols
celebration and cheer
I feel like I've missed it
As if already gone by
I'm not feeling festive
I can't tell you why
I saw a strange woman
In line at this place
With bright Christmas sweater
and a frown on her face
If a bedazzled sweater
with real bells and a wreath
can't make you feel merry
Then you're mush underneath
There's just so much to do
With shopping and working
An election year coming
Who knew Christmas was lurking
So it's five days away
The window is prime
I mean look what Scrooge did
In a much smaller time
It's just five days aways
When we all remember
The birth of our Saviour
At the end of December
With thanks unto God
We should be rejoicing
For his gift of a Son
We should be voicing
So say "Merry Christmas"
And then smile as you do
It's just five days away
Let Christs joy shine through you
-Peter P. Brown 2007
Encoded For Security
I code. I'm a coder. I have coded. Up until yesterday this would not be true. I spent 3 hours yesterday writing a 10 line Perl script to do a job that manually would have taken me about 30 minutes. It was a fun challenge, but I could not imagine doing it for a living.I get paid to be a network engineer. This means that I spend 60% of my time with hardware, 40% of my time with software, and 0% of my time writing code. Code scares me. Coders scare me too.
They can spend 10 hours each day about 3 inches away from a computer monitor for close to 3 months. Their co-workers pass by their cube to hear only the constant clicking of keys, rifling of paper and the incoherent mutterings and tortured moans of defeat. In the end after twenty-seven management revisions and user upgrades they barely squeak their program out with two days before the deadline.
It's not until after coding is complete when debugging begins. Now the pale cave dwelling coder must try to fix all the problems in their code. Because to produce a product that is free of bugs is an impossibility. They know this. So no matter how hard the devoted code masher tries, they will fail. Not can fail or might fail, will fail. I mean really, is that any way to live?!
In addition to that they must devote a huge amount of free time on staying current with this bizarre language that they speak. That's right, it changes and pretty frequently. Could you imagine that holding true with any other language?
So you spent three years in college learning French. You speak it very well, and use it everyday. Well guess what, the French have just released French 2.0. That's right, the sentence structure is completely changed around and even a number of words have been revised. They keep saying it's new, improved and works better than French 1.9, but you have yet to see any real benefit. It's not like you have any option though, everyone else is now using French 2.0 so you'll have to learn the new version.
What you called the restroom in French 1.9 is now the word for apple. In fact there is no word for restroom any more, you now have to say "The room where the bath is". If you don't like it, don't worry they'll probably change it again with the next release due out in 6 months!
This is what a coder goes through every few years. No thanks. The principles of networking were established close to 40 years ago, and while speed and the medium changes every few years, the concept of networking is the same as it was in the 70's. So when I say I code, I don't mean to say I'm looking for a career change.
No sir, I'd rather do it at my leisure than have it a requirement for living.
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