Knowledge I Learned from My Friends This Year

If there's something on the floor, don't stand in it. (January 2021 - It was a world of Warcraft statement, but it's really applicable everywhere.)

You'd think if you hadn't eaten all day, anything would taste good.  (January 2021)

People made of fluff should be last in the battle order.  (January 2021)

The octopus is judging you.  (February 2021)

We aggro'd the fucking world.  Why not drive off the cliff?  (February 2021)

Knob Creek immediately goes up your nose and burns your brain.  (March 2021)

Some nights, you'll need some help with a quest you shouldn't have gotten into.  (March 2021)

A really-nasty one-star review actually means you've touched the reader.  (April 2021)

Under normal circumstances, Urgent Care never tells you to come back the next day for a follow-up. (June 2021)

A case of shingles can feel like a midget trying to drive a spike through your ear for three weeks.  (August 2021)

Chickens are nasty.  That's why they are so tasty.  (October 2021)

Your child will be aghast that you know the lyrics to 'The Time Warp'.  (October 2021)

Do not hide bodies in the attic - that's the first place they look.  (December 2021)

It's been a long plague.

 

I wish I had thought of this line 20 years ago.

You can test any case you want
At analysis restaurant.

from the back files: data gnomes

An e-mail chain from Oct 2009.

UIM: Well, the morning full symbol database load should be happening soon, so maybe some magic will happen, and the suspiciously-merry data gnomes will carry the symbol into the editing interface.

Developer: Didn't anyone tell you? The IBDG Local 334 is on strike. We've been trying to hire scabs, but the gnomes hired bridge trolls to keep anyone from breaking the picket line.

UIM: I had wondered why a wav file of “Joe Hill” launched when I opened the editing interface this morning.  Apparently, we never loaded the reagan32.dll to prevent this sort of thing.

Bears and popes and such

Two different conversations within the last year.

---

(Sitting at home, while my wife, Frage, points out I may have gone too far with my humor.)
Frage: “But you just had to poke the bear with a short stick.”
Frage: (UIM voice) “Well, why did you bring a bear here to begin with?”
Frage: (different voice) “Well, there’s no sign saying bears aren’t allowed.”
(UIM cackles.)
UIM: “See?  Isn’t fun to do both sides of the argument?”
Frage: “When I do it, yes.  Not so much when you do it.”

---

(Riding in the car on the way up to the suburbs.)
Frage: “You’re wrong.”
UIM: “Wait? Am I in a forest?”
Frage: “I don’t know.  Do you see a pope sh*tting?”
UIM: “I see a bear in a pope hat.”



Note: The "If a man speaks in the forest" joke is one of the first jokes my wife told me after we started dating.  Hence, it's more "couple shorthand" and less "UIM really believes that crap."

People Should Not Ask UIM for Explanations.

(After UIM makes a passing mention in a work e-mail.)
Colleague: "Mutant Lobsters from Riverhead?"
UIM: "Once while bored on Chicago mass transit,I tried to imagine a cheesy horror movie set in the area where I grew up.  Riverhead is the county seat.  It was easy for me to imagine mutant lobsters (caused by the Navy testing something odd out at Calverton) rampaging up the Peconic River and leveling Riverhead, before swerving south to crush the Hamptons in their buttery oversized claws."

Bumper Sticker on a Chariot in Spain.

“If it wasn’t for us Romans, you’d all be speaking P-Celtic.”

My Poor Boss

(My boss stops by my desk to assign me a project.)
UIM: “Ok, I’ll work on that. How are you otherwise?”
Boss: “I am doing well. How are you?”
UIM: “Ticking along like a Timex strapped to the horn of a rhino, while John…” (pause) “..who was that newscaster who did those sorts of Timex commercials in the 50s? Anyway, ticking along like that.”
Boss: (that look) “I… I… I haven’t thought about those commercials… in decades..” (starts to get up from the chair)
UIM: “No one has had a sane reason to.” (mutters to self) “John… Cam…. Cameron….”
(My boss stands, and makes the turn around my cubicle to go back to his.)
UIM: “John Cameron Swayze. That’s it.”
(My boss stops briefly, intensifies the weird look, and shakes his head.)
(I dissolve into cackles and giggles while my boss walks back to his own cubicle.)

If you have a problem, if no one else can help, and if you can find them, maybe you can hire....

"I deeply enjoy it when a blueprint is properly executed."
....
"He's on the free-form extemporaneous improvisation."
...
"I feel deep sorrow for the weak-minded individual."

from the back files, 2010 - discussions after a comic convention.

One of my work colleagues was asking me about C2E2, and then opining that as the father of a small daughter himself, taking pictures of the cosplayers was even more fraught with peril.
At which point I wrote the following fictional conversation....

Her: “A-HEM.”
Him: “Yeah, hon?”
Her: “Who are all these women on your digital camera?”
Him: “It’s not just women. There’s pictures of the Batmobile and the Delorean, too. And this is the 501rst Legion. And there’s Jack Sparrow.”
Her: “Captain Jack Sparrow.”
Him: “Right, hon.”
Her: “And why is SHE holding our daughter?”
Him: “Well, it’s a thematic thing, hon. Our daughter is wearing a Supergirl costume, and that woman is dressed up like Power Girl, who is actually Supergirl’s Earth-Two version…”
Her: “You mean someone designed that top deliberately for a superhero? And published it?”
Him: “A bunch of dirty old men in the 70’s. I believe.”
Her: “And this poster you bought?” (http://www.dccomics.com/dcdirect/?dcd=11401 )
Him: “Adam Hughes draws really well, and he signed it for her right here.”
Her: “And you think it’s going up in our daughter’s room?”
Him: “These are all positive role models – well, okay, except for Catwoman, Harley Quinn and Poison Ivy…”
Her: “You’re sleeping on the couch this week.”

from the back files: I don't understand the world, but I don't understand my own brain, either. So, I guess it all evens out.

From: UIM

Sent: Wednesday, October 23, 2013 8:07 AM

Subject: I don't understand the world, but I don't understand my own brain, either. So, I guess it all evens out.

So, my subconscious burped up a gag from the first season of Growing Pains, where Mike is trying to con his dad into paying for karate lessons.

So, I searched for it on the internet.

And the only link I found with it was a site that apparently helps teach English via old sitcom scripts.

http://www.wwenglish.com/en/club/gp/5384.htm

106. Jason: That's important to you, is it?

107. Mike: Oh, yeah dad. I mean without discipline dad, each one of us is like a waterless craft in the sea of conflicting desires. And you know what, Dad? I need the rudder that karate will give me.

108. Jason: I see. So what you're saying is that you're taking karate to reach the spiritual state of...Don Ho.

109. Mike: Right, Don Ho.

110. Jason: Mike. Don Ho is the Hawaiian singer who recorded " Tiny bubbles".

111. Mike: Right. Very spiritual guy.

Para-Nerds

Frage: “Well, you know me.  I’m paranoid.”

UIM: “As am I.  Taking a moment to nail down concrete evidence helps diminish the paranoia.”

Frage: “But the evidence suggests that They Really Are Out to Get Us.”

UIM: “In which case, concrete evidence helps us survive, and plan our counter-attack.”

from the back files: -tbstone head and a graveyard mind‏

From: UIM
Sent: Wednesday, January 06, 2010 6:39 AM
Subject: RE: excel spreadsheet - seemingly wrong symbols

When I got in this morning, the bogus symbols again had ISIN values.  I have blanked those ISIN values out again.
=================================================

From: {Cow-orker}
Sent: Wednesday, January 06, 2010 7:33 AM
Subject: RE: excel spreadsheet - seemingly wrong symbols

When _I_ woke up this morning, I had myself a beer.
=================================================

From: UIM
Sent: Wednesday, January 06, 2010 7:34 AM
Subject: RE: excel spreadsheet - seemingly wrong symbols

Well, the future roots are uncertain, and the end is always near.
=================================================

From: UIM
Sent: Wednesday, January 06, 2010 8:19 AM
Subject: derail -tbstone head and a graveyard mind

{Cow-orker} does make the excellent subtle point that most of my work-related e-mails take the general attitude of blues song, like:

“Boom Boom Boom Boom, gonna shoot book quotes right down.”

“Vendor files don’t do me no good.  Drop their bogus symbols, I wish they would.”

“Last night in the Ops Room, sitting round with my mates, I fixed daily futures charts, because settles came in late.  Now, weren’t that a man?”

“I write forty-seven miles of e-mails, wear a CAT-5 cable for a necktie.  Got a brand new house on the roadside made of discarded monitor boxes.”

-UIM

As Jedi RobMo said once, “Scuse me, while I kill this guy.”
=================================================

From: Frage
Sent:     Friday, November 05, 2010
Subject:               from the back files: -tbstone head and a graveyard mind
You rock.
=================================================

From:    UIM
Sent:     Friday, November 05, 2010 3:34 PM
To:          Frage
Subject:               from the back files: -tbstone head and a graveyard mind
Well, as Muddy Waters once sang, “I want you to rock me, baby, like my SQL database got no primary key.”
-UIM
Blues scholars were puzzled for years about the meaning of this.