Stealer Wheel Screwed My Algorithm

Apparently, adding Stealer Wheel to your Pandora stations is equivalent to flipping the "please play some crazy crap" toggle.





    

No, Pandora I don't want to listen to TeddyBears or Butthole Surfers...

Wireless Installation

Working in a small IT shop affords many benefits. One of the best is being able to perform so many different jobs. Today I found myself installing new wireless access points in one of our buildings.
These are little square devices that connect to the metal frameworks that support false ceilings. It allowed me to learn a couple of things.

1. Ceiling tiles are evil
2. People love to watch other people work

I have enough ceiling tile dust in my eyes, hair, ears and collected in my shoes and open pockets to tile the ceiling of a new building. I also have a pretty fare idea that I don't like the way ceiling tile dust tastes. Who needs fiber cereal when you could ingest ceiling tile dust.

"CST- The REGULATOR!"

Plus the little buggers take a downright maniacal pleasure in not functioning as designed. You can pop one out but have you ever tried to get one to re-seat properly in the framework? Impossible. Not going to happen. You need pop out an adjacent tile in order to wrap your finger around to push down the first one. Now of course you have a different tile up. Give it a wiggle. Nothing. A tap. Nada. Then you pry it, push it, squeeze it, grab it, force it, jam it and curse it. All the while teetering back and forth on your ladder trying to get some leverage on this horrible little beast!

So you end up having to pop up some 20 odd tiles moving the wedged up corner from tile to tile hoping that the next one will be slightly loose and just fall back down in place. As it was, of course, designed to do.

Luckily though, you're not alone. No sir, you've got an audience. A whole building of workers who never say hello, but will watch you out of the corner of their eye. If you turn around to look their heads whip back and they pretend that they didn't notice you.

"What? A 230lb tech wrestling ceiling tiles for the last 20 minutes? In this building?!"

Not that I really want to chat with anyone when I'm busying playing Whack-A-Mole with the tiles.

"Whatcha you doing?"
"Installing stuff"
"What kinda stuff"
"Cisco 1400 Wireless Access Points."
"For what?"
"Wireless. It's even in the name..."
"Why do you have to plug them in if they're wireless?"
"..."

So, I was on my last one of the day with very few interruptions. I'd gotten through almost all of my ceiling tile madness when someone rounds the corner and looks up at me.

"Whatcha you doing?"
Sigh... Here we go.

And then out of nowhere it came to me and I spurted this off without missing a beat:

 "As part of the new green initiative we're installing these new collectors. They absorb negative thoughts from the employees and we turn that into energy to power the servers."

He looked at me, looked up at the wireless controller and said, "Wow. What will they think of next." And then he walked away.

Unbelievable. Or, apparently not.

Puns

Yes the second lowest form of humor (just over slapstick) is on KludgeSpot. Enjoy!

I changed my i Pod name to Titanic. It's syncing now.

When chemists die, they barium.

Jokes about German sausage are the wurst.

A soldier who survived mustard gas and pepper spray is now a seasoned veteran.

I know a guy who's addicted to brake fluid. He says he can stop any time.

How does Moses make his tea? Hebrews it.

I stayed up all night to see where the sun went. Then it dawned on me.

This girl said she recognized me from the vegetarian club, but I'd never met herbivore.

I'm reading a book about anti-gravity. I can't put it down.

I did a theatrical performance about puns. It was a play on words.

They told me I had type A blood, but it was a Type- O.

A dyslexic man walks into a bra.

PMS jokes aren't funny, period.

Why were the Indians here first? They had reservations.

Class trip to the Coca-Cola factory. I hope there's no pop quiz.

Energizer bunny arrested. Charged with battery.

I didn't like my beard at first. Then it grew on me.

How do you make holy water? Boil the hell out of it!

Did you hear about the cross eyed teacher who lost her job because she couldn't control her pupils?

When you get a bladder infection, urine trouble.

What does a clock do when it's hungry? It goes back four seconds.

I wondered why the baseball was getting bigger. Then it hit me!

Broken pencils are pointless.

I tried to catch some fog. I mist.

What do you call a dinosaur with a extensive vocabulary? A thesaurus.

England has no kidney bank, but it does have a Liverpool.

I used to be a banker, but then I lost interest.

I dropped out of communism class because of lousy Marx.

All the toilets in New York's police stations have been stolen. Police have nothing to go on.

I got a job at a bakery because I kneaded dough.

Haunted French pancakes give me the crepes.

Velcro - what a rip off!

Cartoonist found dead in home. Details are sketchy.

Venison for dinner? Oh deer!

Earthquake in Washington obviously government's fault.

I used to think I was indecisive, but now I'm not so sure.

Be kind to your dentist. He has fillings, too.

Kludge Klassic: A Sneaker Suspicion

I was sitting comfortably at my desk, earning my living, when something tickled my ankle bone. This unknown then began to work its way down between my shoe and foot towards my sole. There was only the thin cotton of my sock protecting me from this unknown thing. I looked, very calmly down at my shoe, and didn’t see anything. There could be no real doubt about it though, there is something in my shoe.

I have an unnatural fear of bugs, and while some of you will not understand, the idea of an insect in my shoe makes me uneasy. I have visions of spiders, or ear wigs burrowing down into my canvas. Making themselves at home in my cross trainer, and dining on the only available meat when the urge hits them. Add to this the fact that these shoes are on thier last leg and there is a fairly large hole in the one sneaker I'm focused on. After a slight hesitation, I shoved my finger in between the shoe and sock.

“All clear Capitan”

“Proceed to Shoecom 4”

“Captain, what about the smell?”

“Move it soldier!”

I removed my shoe. Nothing. Nada. I shook the shoe violently; I know that there is something in my shoe!

“Peter…” The Boss!

“Hey Boss” I usually call him ‘boss’ especially when startled, “I was working on that TPS report you wanted for…”

“You okay?” He questioned, eying me with a slight suspicion.

“Oh… my foot hurt…that’s all.” I said, looking as nonchalant as possible. This is a little difficult with a shoe in hand.

Once the coast was clear I attacked my right sided smelly shell with a new ferver. There was something in my shoe. I was now looking for a nylon thread, or similar lifeless explanation. I've had this happen before and I was sure I would find something to explain the uncomfortable feeling from earlier. Nothing. Nada.

I left it off for a few minutes in case whatever was in there was hiding and I would soon catch with my well honed spy skills. I waited and it waited. I waited longer and it waited longer. This worked out much the way you would expect. I decided it was ridiculous.

So I put my shoe back on. It was not more than ten minutes later when something tickled my ankle bone. There is something in my shoe!

The Practice Of Dovetails

As everyone with half a brain knows, dovetail joints are the hardest joint to make in woodworking. People with whole brains however, dispute this fact and are generally more articulate at expressing their views.

I like power tools. They're fast, reliable and make for cuts that are highly repeatable. When it comes to working with hand tools, none of those things can be said about me. I'm slow, sloppy and highly erratic. Still, I'm also stubborn and pig headed, so that makes me want to continue trying something until I get it right.

Enter in the dovetails. This is a joint that proves that you have the skills required to be a craftsman. A good clean dovetail makes people want to get up a cheer. So that's the goal. cheering crowds of people when they see my joinery. I like to set reasonable expectations on all aspects of my life.

The trouble is it's actually hard. It's really hard. I don't know what I expected it to be, but hard wasn't on the list. Tricky, challenging, fun. Right fun was on the list.

Shrug. Where do we get these ideas from anyway? You see people doing this all the time.

(Some random day in May) "I want to run a marathon"
(Two minutes into marathon) "What the hell was I thinking!?"

(While watching DIY) "I want to repaint the kitchen. You know, liven things up"
(On third coat with paint in your eye) "What the hell was I thinking!?"

(Sitting comfortably at the office) "I should learn hand dovetails"
(45 minutes into chiseling out waste on a set of pins) "Don't I have a machine I could do this with?"

And in fact I do...

Lazy Thursday Blues: Magic Eyes 4

Lazy Thursday Blues!! It's been a while but here we go!

Anyone reading this that recalls the 90's craze that was Magic Eyes?! We had a giant poster sided one at my school that took me days to get. I stood there for what felt like hours trying to see anything other than a pretty blue pattern smeared on a printed sheet of paper. Even worse was standing there staring at the thing while fellow students "ooed and ahhed" at the wall. It drove me mad!

Once I finally figured it out, I felt like a treasure hunter who scored a giant pile of loot! Now, I can see them instantly. I suppose it's like riding a bike, once you conquer it, you never forget!

Be the first to post below what you see and be the first to win at being the first...

Three Short Months

Three months is a long time. It funny because it doesn't feel that long but it is. Three months ago I did something kinda crazy. I went on a juice diet. I drank my breakfast lunch and dinner for 10 days. 10 days sounded like a piece of cake when I started.

Day 1 -"Shoot," I mused. "This is going to be nothing. I can do 10 days easy."

I was such a fool back then.

Day 3 - My headaches were so bad I had to take 2 Aleve just to get through the day. "Oh well," starving Peter muttered. "It's the price of eating poorly for so long."

Day 5 - I ditched veggie drinks in a wild fit of rebellion. "I cannot gag down another carrot juice. I'm only juicing fruit from now on."

Day 7 - I was sick of drinking juice. I hated it with such venom that it couldn't be suppressed. In contrast though, I loved the results. "I hate drinking slime for lunch," I gagged. "But my pants feel pretty good!"

Day 10 - I had somehow convinced myself that it was all worth it. "Done! I'm down and feel great." Maybe it was the lack of calories I was ingesting...

It's been almost three months since my first juicing diet. (Jan 8th 2012) Since I started I've lost a total of 31lbs. It's a great start, and I feel good, but I'm a big guy and still have another 30-40 lbs to go.

So, I started another 10 day juice fast last Saturday. It's amazing how you can tend to forget how horrible something really was with just a few short months of time.

Day 5 - "What the hell was I thinking..."

Trackballs and the Promise of the Future

Trackballs look like the future. They are sleek, odd and different. They do exactly what mice do, but do it while looking awesome. Trackballs are a vision of tomorrow. Except...

...they don't quite live up to that hope. They don't work any better than mice, in fact in some ways they are less useful. They tend to gum up pretty easily, and require frequent cleaning. In addition to that, they're kinda gross. Rolling your hand over nasty germs, dirt and all those dead cells from other people who might have rolled your trackball.

But...the ball is really fun to play with. Sometime you want to take it out and just roll it in your hand. You sit there playing with it and rolling it around and start to think to yourself, "I wonder if I do that thing that the Goblin King did in Labyrinth, and roll it up and over my fingers?" You then think about David Bowie in really tight leather pants. After you force breakfast back down your throat, you grab tightly to your trackball ball and give it a try. Surprise, surprise...

...it drops. With a loud THUD and rolls across the ground and under a metal filing cabinet and there you are. Metal filing cabinets are NOT anything like the future. They are the past.

They hold the relics of a part remembered memory. Those sections of your your mind that you printed out in hope of preserving knowledge. Knowledge that got edged out of your brain in desire to retain more useful information. Information like the all the dialogue in Star Wars: A New Hope, and every IP addresses of DNS servers from companies that have long since been dismantled. (216.174.194.53) There is nothing new to be learned from a filing cabinet except what you might have already forgotten.

So you find yourself down on all fours; face to the ground, on your dirty office floor peering under a filthy filing cabinet searching for your future. How is this anything like the promise you were offered not mere moments ago? See the overly simplified analogy? The future is like a trackball, and if you're not careful you'll find yourself stuck in the past wondering what happened to your hope.

Things That Are Impossible

#54 - Looking tough playing the flute


#78 - Understanding the lyrics to Come Together by the Beatles


#12 - Having any good reason for skipping

#32 - Re-reading a mystery novel with any enthusiasm

#33 - Reading Moby Dick with any enthusiasm


#6 - Believing someone who has to use the phrase, "Trust me"

#15 - Playing Super Mario Bros. without humming or whistling the theme song.

The Book Parade

My wife loves is when the local library has their book sale. She spends hours perusing and then comes home with a load of grocery bags full of books we never read.

The Outdated Western Farms Garden- How to maintain your garden in bell bottoms and leisure suits.

The Router Handbook- 100 completely unsafe things to do with your 1/2 hp fixed base router in a series of poorly drawn diagrams.

The Jello Book - A disturbing collage of chiffon dresses, pipe smoking dads and lobster shaped jello molds.

The English Breakfast Book- Jellied Eels and everything else you never wanted to know about what British people will put on toast.

The Whispers of Tarnis- Book 25 of a 85 book fantasy series, that you will never understand without the 24 previous books.

Discovering Inner Failings- A self help book written to show you why you need another self help book.

Silicon Valley in 1979- How boring people can take a boring subject and craft it into the definitively useless coffee table book.

How To Clean Practically Anything- Whisk aways hours you could be spending with your kids or spouse agonizing over a stain that no one ever even noticed.

Anything by Charles Dickens- Why even your worst childhood memories are better that anything that ever happened to people in a Dickens novel.

The next one is coming in April. I'll try to contain myself...