Humour?

I've seem variants of this joke in multiple places. I totally don't get it.

This guy walks into a doctors office and his head is big and orange. The doctor says "Good god man, you've got a big orange head! How did this happen?" Guy starts to tell his story.

Well doctor, the other day I was walking along the beach when I notice a piece of metal sticking out of the sand. I picked it up and it was a lamp. I brushed off the sand and *poof* out pops a genie who says he will grant me three wishes. I say genie for my first wish I want a bank account with 10 billion dollars. Genie says *poof* and hands the me a card with a account number and routing number to a bank account with 10 billion dollars. So then I said genie for my second wish I want to be married to the most beautiful woman in the world and I want her to be madly in love with me. All of a sudden *poof* I'm standing next to the most beautiful woman in the world, and in her hand she has a marriage certificate.

At this point in the story the guy turns to the doctor and says "Doctor, I think this is the point where I went wrong. I turned to the genie and said 'Genie for my third wish I want a big orange head!'"

What am I missing?
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In contrast, this one I do get.

Saint Peter is checking people in to Heaven, and he's getting a bit tired. After all, this never ends! He sees Jesus walking by and asks if he'd mind taking a turn while he goes off on a break. Jesus, being a nice guy, says sure, and so he settles into the chair and presses on, people from all the ages of history coming up, one by one. In a while, an elderly, apparently poor man comes up, and mentions that he is very glad to be there, because he wants to find his son, the light of his life. Jesus nods in sympathy, and, noticing the man's calloused hands, asks what he did in life.
I was sort of a carpenter, you might say, the man replies.
Your son, too? Jesus asks.
No, no -- he wasn't meant to do that. And he died so young. But I am sure he's here, and I want to see him just as soon as I can.
Jesus smiles. I'm sure you will, he says, but you know, Heaven is a very big place. It might take a bit to find him.
The man shakes his head. Oh, I don't think so. You see, my son is rather -- distinctive. He's got holes in his hands.
Jesus's eyes widen. Holes? In his hands?
Yes, the man says -- from the nails.
Nails? Excited, Jesus leaps to his feet. Nails? And you were - a carpenter? Oh my goodness -- Jesus runs around the desk and grasps the man. Dad! Dad!
The man stares, surprised:
Pinocchio?

Plans, Plans

My plan is to retire some time between December 31 of this year and June 30 of next year. It's contingent on how things are going at work. They're mostly going well, at the moment.

Today I got a mass mailing email that a group which supports a product I happen to like is looking for people to join their group. It'd be a remote assignment, as the group is located in Boulder, Colorado. If I applied and was accepted, I'd be working from home, most likely. I'd be installing the product at other locations. As I happen to think this product needs improvement in the way it gets installed, this would be an interesting assignment.

This might affect the plan. Might not.

Whats weird is that I don't like the thought of the plan changing. I mean: its the plan.

Cincinnati Kid

This is what we had for dinner tonight. I had it on corn chips, my wife on rice, and both of us sprinkled it with sour cream and cheddar cheese. Quite good, particularly with a salad.

Cincinnati Chili

2 1/2 pounds ground beef
2 large onions, diced
4 cups cold water
1 6-ounce can tomato paste
1 1/2 tablespoons vinegar
1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
1 clove garlic, crushed
2 tablespoons chili powder
5 bay leaves
2 teaspoons cinnamon
1 teaspoon allspice
2 teaspoons cayenne pepper
1 1/2 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa

salt & pepper, to taste

1. In a large pot, brown beef until brown, add onions and water and bring to a boil.
2. Reduce to a simmer and add tomato paste and remaining ingredients.
3. Simmer 1-1/2 to 2 hours.
4. Season with salt & pepper to taste.
5. Remove bay leaves before serving.

To serve, (1) eat plain (2) chili on spaghetti (3) chili on spaghetti with cheddar cheese (4) chili, spaghetti, cheddar, and onions or (5) chili, spaghetti, cheddar, onions, and kidney beans

Today's Agenda

a) Reset all the clocks. Didn't we just do that?

b) Pay taxes. Didn't we just do that?

c) Make rice pudding.


Guess which one is done?

Aging

I attended a color guard competition tonight in which my daughter was participating. I brought my mother. The woman at the desk said 'Two seniors?'

Argh.........

At least I got to see about a hundred enthusiastic kids doing the Cha Cha Slide. Very cool.

The Piano

This is a lovely video.

AQ Mgmt

This is not an original thought with me -- I believe I read it someplace, or possibly inferred it from a comedian's routine -- but I like it, anyway.

Whenever someone says that they've captured, killed, or otherwise negated the 'number two man' in AQ, it never seems to throw that organization into disarray. You don't see a spokesterrorist on Al Jazzy saying that they'll be having a board meeting to designate a replacement, and in the meanwhile the negated person's deputy will stand in for them. Now, thats silly, of course, but the underlying concept -- I believe that. It makes sense, in a federation like AQ, where cells align and divest fluidly, that losing one person, or even several, is not going to jam up the organization -- because, in a strict sense, there is no organization, just a group of allied teams, all with the same general goals (dare I say: mission statement?) and their own methods of achieving them. I don't know if it'd be fair to call this a masterpiece of decentralization -- perhaps more a manifestation of flocking theory -- but it's useful, either way.

What does this suggest for the effectiveness of tightly coupled organizations?

Posting

I was just moseying through sites, when I came across one with a lovely picture of a quesadilla, complete with what appears to be strawberry jam. Yum, I thought, and started to read the article. "I can't believe I haven't posted about quesadillas before", the post started. Okay, fine, whatever, tell me about them! I skipped down a couple of lines and found this memorable phrase "..except for the ones at DelTacos, which taste like crap boogers to me." Next site, please! I mean, really. I know that coarse talk proves that you're one of the people, salt of the earth, not taken in by the shiny gimcrackery of the marketing world. Or at least I know thats what I'm supposed to think. But crap boogers?

One of the magazines we subscribe to is Kiplingers Personal Finance, which we regard as a pretty good mix -- not so dry as Barrons and the Wall Street Journal (except for the lead page center column, and the commentary columns, in the WSJ -- I always like that ), and not so much Gee! Wow! fluff as Money magazine. Over the last few issues, I found my enthusiasm waning, as the articles seemed to be aimed at people with way much more money than me, or incredible control over their finances. There's some of that in this issue, too: one family with three children already has over seven thousand dollars socked away for their youngest's college education (the kid is five years old) -- and my personal give me a BREAK article, the guy who won a Powerball lottery payout of $125 million dollars, took the lump sum payment of $85 million, and his goal is to turn that into two. billion. dollars. Oh, yeah, they're talking to me, for sure.
But this issue turns out to be substantially better than that, with a whole bunch of doable ways to increase savings, decrease costs, and generally enhance your financial life style. Which is so very important when you're planning on devastating it by major dental surgery, possibly buying a Mac, definitely buying a new car, and, oh yes, retiring at the end of the year (maybe). So, I'm glad we subscribe.

Speaking of the surgery (which has STILL not started, got to go put the jumper cables to the people scheduling this stuff): there is a faint possibility that my new health (not dental) plan may cover the bone grafting part of the procedure. Thats about a third of the cost, and they'd likely pay less than half -- but as I said to my wife, any amount greater than zero would be a Good Thing. We'll see. I don't have my hopes up, but wouldn't it be nice?

Time change this weekend. Can't wait to see all those timers go berserk!

NonPerson

I am apparently a non person.

In order to be allowed to participate in a mentoring program at my daughter's school, I had to get a criminal records background check and a child-abuse-history background check. Neither one turned up anything. Granted, they don't put it in glowing terms - more like 'we looked up the probably fake name you gave us, and didn't find squat -- but still: nothing.

I'm a non-person - can you see me?

WinLiMac

I would like a new desktop PC. I do not have a good reason for this. I have a little bit of a reason, which is that the desktop we have, which is all of three years old, is for some reason getting really slow. I don't think its just perception; I think it truly is. Not as slow as my Win2K PC was, or Win98, but still: slow.

So, which one?

I am emotionally against getting Vista, because it sounds like they've sold their souls for DRM. Which is odd, because I don't download music, and few videos, so the odds of me being affected by this are slim. But still: there is a fair amount of press that makes me think (shudder) when I think of it. Plus, I hate the idea of having to get a gihugic machine just to get Vista to run at all, plus, to get all of the niftiness that they advertise, you need the top of the line Vista, and a TRULY big machine -- say, eight to ten thousand megawatts of power, and thats just the screensaver. Neither of these is all that appealing, and in concert, as appealing as congealed lard.

I am intellectually for getting Linux, because it isn't Windows, until I read a site where a guy talked about all he had to do to get a Linux machine working, the bottom line of which was, it was a freakin' LOT of work, but he really really enjoyed it, and if you like going deep into the innards of an operating system, you would, too.

I am emotionally for getting a Mac, because I have been seduced by the image of Macs as cool and sleek and all of that, though I am sure they are not THAT amazingly good, and I am sure they have their own why the hell did they do it THAT way??? moments. Plus, there'd be the learning curve, and the question of connecting it to our home network. Doable, but at what cost? And lets not forget the gihugic price of Macs, too -- three or four times the cost of a WinBox (though, if you're talking Vista Deathstar version, maybe only twice). And what of the sunk monies in our existing software -- how much Apple-specific stuff would be needed? Of course, we could get the Parallels package to let us run Windows appls under the Mac....Argh, another money pit...

So I dunno. But this going to take some thinking.... Fortunately, we have time. Sites like this one help.

Lonely B

My daughter got her mid-term grades today. She got a lonely B.

Lonely because it was the only B in the whole pack.

Those A's can be so snobby....
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Terry Tate, Office Linebacker

An earlier version of this commercial was one of the Super Bowl Ads last year. Its still quite funny, and there is a sly reference to the TPS report, as well.

Observations

...after fixing the daughter's jammed shaver.

Not everything that is battery operated is intended to be opened up.

Just because kids have no fear about taking things apart doesn't mean that they know how to put them back together.

Try the WD-40 first.

Chaired

I don't actually need a chair -- but if I was in the market, this might be just the thing to get.

Cabaret

Remember the Money song from Cabaret? Money money money money money money money.... It was going through my mind a little bit ago as I dipped into a paperback that I'd picked up for some light reading -- The Number: A Completely Different Way to Think About the Rest of your Life. Like others my age, I've been thinking about how much money we have, and how much we need for a comfortable, not lavish, retirement. I don't obsess about it (others might disagree), but I do think about it a fair amount. I've got a spreadsheet that I started keeping about five years ago which lists all of the money we get, all that we have, all that we can expect to get, both incoming and outgoing. As a result of that spreadsheet, I feel that we have a pretty good grasp of what's required, but there is always that Yeah, But.... As in, what if there's a financial crash, and the two thirds of your money that's in stocks and bonds vanishes or becomes a shell of its former self? What if you get very sick, and you are found to have too much money to get any kind of governmental assistance, but not enough to be able to fund your illness and retirement at the same time? What if...and so on, and so on, and so on. What I really wanted, of course, is someone to tell me what the most likely number is that I'll need -- and by most likely, I really mean The most likely given the vast majority of potential outcomes. If you tell me that there's a seventy five percent chance that I'll need four hundred thousand in the bank now, I'll think 'gee, thats only three out of four, which seems like it leaves a large loophole'. If you tell me there's an eighty five percent chance I'll need seven hundred thousand now, I'll still think that remaining fifteen percent is a large loophole, though its approaching bearable. I am looking for something in the ninety percent or so range -- sort of a 'not quite worst case, but in that ballpark'. And no one will give you that without so many caveats and disclaimers that its essentially useless.

I thought that a different approach might be useful, and so I picked the book up. Anything offering a completely different approach might be just the ticket I need to understand not just the components of financial security (I think I've got that) but the logic, the sociology of it (regarding which, I'm fairly naive). It might say too many Age of Love concepts (go with the flow, ride with the tide, what you have is what you need, don't worry about it) ; it might be too mechanistic (fill in the following spreadsheets, make the following assumptions, indicate your priorities in this list...) ; it might be totally useless -- but heck, it's an inexpensive book, so, sure, give it a shot. And thus far, only two chapters into it, I'm finding it to be a good read. The guy has a nice, comfortable writing style, he touches on the things you think about but don't discuss with anyone except your life partner, and sometimes not even them, and he manages to not mince words without being so scary that you throw the book down, shuddering. I'm still reading the Roosevelt book (and liking it; just finished his writing about San Juan Hill, which was not nearly as romantic as I recall from school), but this makes good casual reading for when I want something serious, written well, in a comfortable style.

And who knows? Maybe I'll learn not to obsess about the number.

Oh, yeah, the TPS report....

Belief

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Which Umbrella Are You?

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I do not BELIEVE it....

Yesterday, a prediction of 1 - 3 inches.

Today, a prediction of 2 - 4.

Two hour delay when we got up.

Now, an hour later: Closed.

And somehow, the daughter who said that she did not want a snow day because it'd be tacked on as another school day to the end of the year -- somehow, she's keeping her sorrow well hidden.

Who's Speaking?

I've been watching the current furor over the state of the Walter Reed hospital with interest, trying to understand how it happened, and trying to extrapolate from it. These are our shattered sons and destroyed daughters who have been in that fetid pit, after all. How did it happen? Where will it end?

We are both horrified that it could have happened, and angry that it did. Part of that anger is a reflection of changing attitudes toward the war, and part of it is realization of how squalid things have become here at home, when even the wounded can't automatically expect compassion and effective treatment. This wouldn't have come to light had not the Washington Post publicized it, apparently. In response, the Bush Administration has reacted, and though there is a measured, almost predictable cadence to their responses, they are doing the right things. They’ve promised quick action. They’ve fired people. They’ve instituted a bipartisan commission to review the entire military health care system. Like FEMA, and its hyper awareness after Katrina that it had better get the next one right, they’re scrambling to fix this mess and to put it behind them. Part of the reactions of the politicians and the generals is undoubtedly Kabuki, but it is action in the right direction.

What brought us here?

I always wince a bit when I have to confront being an adult about issues such as this. When the Ford Motor Company was shown to have done cost-benefit analyses to determine how much they should spend to improve their cars, relative to how much they could expect to have to pay out in damages to people injured in their cars, I wasn’t yet an adult, but I was pretty sure that this was not common. People simply didn’t do things like that, even when, obviously, it was being done. Now, as an adult, I am sure that people do not behave in the manner that they appear to have behaved in this case. People do not simply accept that their sons and daughters are being treated shabbily, or the sons and daughters of others, entrusted to them. Yet they have. Why?

I think we’ve gotten tired. We're not thinking clearly. The Army chief of staff was quoted as saying that working in the military bureaucracy was a morass, and it was like walking in hip boots through mud. It drained you, he said slowly, emphatically, and it did it every single day. Its a good image, and I suggest that it's more generally applicable than just here. I think that we’ve all been walking in muck for the last two years, and it's slowed us down, made us tired, and cranky.

We've seen whole groups of people hated because of who they are, or what their ancestors did, not because of what they've personally done or are very likely to do. It surprised us, at first, but we've gotten used to it. We've seen people at religious services blown up. It surprised us, too, but we've gotten used to it. We’ve seen politicians acting like spoiled, petulant children, but we’ve gotten used to it. We’ve seen our military doing things that we would have scorned and loathed if done by the henchmen of a dictator, but we’ve gotten used to it. We’ve seen a president floundering, a vice president lying, congressmen caught in unethical and immoral actions, but we’ve gotten used to it. And now we see an institution of healing being, to some degree, nothing of the sort. And pretty soon, we’re going to get used to that, too. We don't want to, just as we didn't want to get used to any of the other atrocities and abominations. We don't like any of it, but its all too big for us to handle, too intense, too overwhelming. We've hunkered down, and waited with fading hope for it to get better, or to stabilize. But it hasn't. It gets worse, and the contagion spreads.

I have a suggestion. Several, really, but they all come down to one.

Most of us cannot change the world, the country, the state, our company. We're doing good just to be able to change our immediate area, or ourselves. So -- capitalize on that.

Think globally, act locally. No matter how global, no matter how local. Find something you care about, and watch it, follow it. If you can fix something, fix it; if you can't, get someone else to fix it. Speak up. Make your voice heard. And work with people, not against them. We are together in this against the forces of apathy and greed. They've got the money, we have the numbers.

It sounds lame, I know. The fixers and the professional lobbyists don’t even know you exist, and the professional politicians don’t, either – until something shakes them up. So – shake them up. Speak. Act. Vote.

Take your country, and your planet, back.

Speak up.