Category: humor

Teh funny.

Posted on

urine my prayers

I don't know what even motivated me here...
There was no time to write yesterday, so I’m using some free minutes this morning to cobble together an entry. At least the weekend is here, in eight hours I can collapse into the welcoming arms of Saturday and Sunday.

Here I sit in Chinese class, having just completed the oral portion of my final exam. I think I did well. Last night I was up studying and working past midnight to prepare for what promises to be a packed day. A lot of things work the same, you know? When you’re grocery shopping and you’re not ready to checkout, the registers are always empty. Of course, as soon as you’re done and want to pay, every line is four heaping-baskets of people deep. It’s the same with work. You can have a few days of “coasting,” but then days like today come around. The customers are here, it’s the final exam in Mandarin, and I’ve got a huge deliverable (I know, what a dumb word) that’s due. What’s worse, I can’t stay late to get it all done because tonight is the annual office Christmas party. You’d think me wholly consumed by work, the way I talk… but I really wouldn’t classify myself as a wage-slave or burgeoning office-politico… just some dude who’d rather be camping but needs money.

The other day I was in the men’s room peeing out the coffee I had for breakfast, and I started thinking about the peeing process. Based on other dude’s behavior in the men’s room, it seems peeing is almost a ritual to some. It got me thinking about my process. I’m not too particular about it, but I do notice that I have some standard “motions” and “postures.”

I saunter up to the urinal with a cocksure gait ala John Wayne, staring it down with a menacing look, just to let it know that my pee means business. At about a pace-and-a-half from the wall I unleash the heat, ahem, unzip. As I arrive in the pee-position, I plant the feet squarely facing the wall, as if I were bracing for gale-force winds. Planted firmly, I then wrestle for roughly thirty seconds with the damn hide-the-hole flap in my boxers… struggling to pull back the overlapping layers of fabric and bring the stallion forth from his stable. At this point, the left-hand swoops in to ensure the pants stay clear of any stream-stray by holding the zippered opening wide. The right hand stabilizes the immense weight of my manhood, and for some strange reason the middle finger hooks itself under my right nut. I make sure I distribute my processed coffee evenly around the urinal, lest the powerful jet erode the ceramic and power through to the women’s room behind the wall. When all is done, there’s a little jiggle and then we step away and wash the hands.

Really, why? I apologize for writing that… I got carried away.

Should I be embarrassed that I watch the OC with the giddy enthusiasm of a teenage girl? I’ve even been known to shriek with joy when Summer and Seth flirtfight. I don’t even care.

I have no more time. Have a nice weekend people.

Posted on

a mac mac

Yaaawwwn....
You guys see that some armchair commenter laid down some pretty blasphemous comments on yesterday’s entry? How dare he call into question the official judging procedures? You have insulted the integrity of the ruling body. And, believe you me, this is one integrit body… that rules.

A while back my buddy Shaine sent me a raincoat as a gift. A strange gift, perhaps, but this raincoat was a little different. It’s a Bernie Mac Show raincoat, and one like it was given to all the cast and crew for the 3rd season. I’m not the biggest Bernie Mac Show fan, but I’ve seen it before and laughed, but the raincoat is nice – made by Columbia and heavy duty and stuff. If you remember, there’s no love lost between umbrellas and I, so when I awoke to a howling rain this morning I decided to pop the Bernie Mac Show raincoat’s cherry. It’s a super-nice raincoat, traditional raincoat-yellow with a snug hood and warm pockets. The emblazoned Bernie Mac Show logo is only on the left breast and isn’t overly garish.

Boy, you wouldn’t believe how many questions the Bernie Mac Show raincoat elicits. Upon getting to work, I hung it on the hanger near the front of my cube. Almost everyone that stopped in the cube asked about the Bernie Mac Show raincoat. “I know someone who knows someone who works for the show,” I’d say… not planning to brag about the Bernie Mac Show raincoat, but none-the-less kinda happy I’d worn the Bernie Mac Show raincoat. From now on I’ll wear the Bernie Mac Show raincoat more often… who knew it could make me cool…. -er… cooler.

Well, the Arcade Fire show was last night at the Bottom of the Hill. Oh my lord people, sold-out show, packed wall-to-wall with people ready to see this band. And my word did they rock tits. They sounded great, and had the energy and on-stage enthusiasm I love to see in bands. Seven people on stage running through the encyclopedia of musical instruments: steel drum, upright bass, violin, accordion, even then ventilation pipes made cameos as percussion. When the songs called chants of “ahhh-ahhh-ahhh” or “ohhhh” the whole band would rear back or lean open-mouthed into the audience, singing loud and happy – six people standing in a line playing music and howling their lungs out, it’s a sight to see. Aside from that, they sounded excellent, with the songs coming off pretty much standard to what I’m used to on the albums, and played a long set with a couple encores. I mean, I went to the show hoping to see what I think is this year’s best band – and the Arcade Fire did not disappoint me. Judging from the reaction from the crowd, the feeling was shared by more than a few last night. Go see this band, go buy this album. What more can I say? They rocked tits last night.

I make the bed every morning, and for some reason the activity it’s lined itself up in my routine right after the boxers go on. So I’m always making the bed in my boxers, before I continue getting dressed. Some mornings, as I throw back the comforter, the sheets are still warm where I had been sleeping just a few minutes ago. You’d think a shower would be enough time for the bed to go cold. It’s mornings like today when that lingering warm spot is so tempting. The show didn’t end until 1am, and I turn down the sheets until 3am. It was a real struggle to stay awake on the drive last night, with the two girls asleep in the car, I had to crank SMiLE and crack the windows so the combination of sunny harmonies and icy air could poke at my brain. More than a few times I found myself realizing I had unwillingly changed lanes on the deserted highway… scary. Now I’ve got my Starbucks crutch holding me up in this I-swear-I-just-went-to-bed morning hours. I have no room to complain though, Sharaun’s alarm goes off at 4:44am, less than two hours from when we’d finally retired.

Nothing more, too tired. Until tomorrow then.

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passing and gassing

Drool cleanup at the front register.
Sharaun‘s grandfather died on Saturday; I took the call from her mom, and broke the news when she returned from Christmas shopping. She took it well, as did I, because there’s really not much else you can do. It was until Sunday night that she really took some time to think about it. I was brushing my teeth and she had already crawled into bed. I called out to ask if she’d set the alarms for the morning, and could tell by her choked reply that something was wrong. I walked over, toothbrush in hand and mouth full of paste-spit, to find her crying. I knew why, so I just gave her a little hug and went to finish my teeth. After that we both lay in bed, crying about Papa. He took a turn for the worse the day we left Florida for our Thanksgiving visit. For some reason, we didn’t visit him this time while we were there. Maybe it was the three-hour drive, maybe a too-packed schedule, but I think that really upset Sharaun. We made it a point to see everyone, but missed Papa this time.

Last night, while passively watching television at Pat’s place, Ben and I noticed a McDonald’s commercial announcing the return of the McRib. Oh man, I haven’t had a McRib since high school… and I think they were 99 cents back then. Anyway, nostalgia took hold – and Ben and I decided we’d hit the Golden Arches for lunch at work Monday, to once again taste the McRib. Now, I can’t rightly remember the last time I went to a McDonald’s. I’m not measuring it in years or anything, but it has been quite a while. If I do go, it’s usually a road-trip pit-stop for a couple of those old-skool hamburgers, and I think the last time I did that was on the haul from Houston to my brother’s base in Killeen this summer. We rolled up to the local McD’s around noon, and walked right up to order our McRib Value Meals. Pat and Wes decided to accompany us, so between the four of us we ordered four of the rectangular sandwiches.

McRibs are bad, guys. I mean, they are not good. Sure, they’re swimming in BBQ sauce, and loaded with little onions and pickles, but they’re not really meat. I mean, they are probably meat-based, but they sure aren’t off any bones that I know of. This tiny little rack of ribs, which, if you think about it, is kinda gross. What little animal’s ribs are this size? A kitten? A squirrel? The meat is reminiscent of the little glued-together strands of wood in a sheet of OSB… pressed together with some unholy glue into little rib molds. It tastes meaty enough, and barbecuey enough, and even kinda yummy if you can remove yourself from the notion of its origin. At $2.50, the thing is hardly a steal… so I don’t think I’ll be going back again soon. But it was at least fun to tell everyone we were going to get McRibs for lunch…

Quarter to eleven on Monday night. I’m sitting here listening to an illegally-downloaded copy of U2’s new LP, while I refresh the indie group looking for more tunes to steal. I don’t care. Just got back from a nice get-together at Anthony’s, where we had some chili, beers, and made new friends. The wind is howling outside the window, making my newly-hung Christmas lights sway back and forth from the eaves. I can hear the gusts in the exhaust vents on the roof, echoing in the attic above. It’s only raining a little, but it’s cold. The wind makes it seem colder when you step outside. I like it. I sat and watched the gray skies at work today. Sure, I was in a meeting, but I can stare and think at the same time. What’s important, anyway? Trying to figure out the deep undercurrents of office politics, or watching gray clouds roll in for an evening storm? That’s what I thought.

So the indie group produced a hit, and now I’m happily listening to the new Iron & Wine EP to close down the evening. About time to hit the sack with my book and relax. Shaine’s promised me more scanned correspondence from the 6th grade, and I’m waiting anxiously to see what other whale-tales I may have spun to impress him. For now it’s time to call it a night though. Work comes in the morning, and I want to be ready for it, y’know? Like, ready to trudge in under the cold morning sun, resigning my day to sitting a’fore a CRT with a boom-mic hanging from my ear, talking of bits and bytes and current and loads and pins and bandwidths and spreadsheets and margins and deliverables and milestones and customers and ROIs. Argh… send me to the woods, where I can sleep on the ground.

I’m kinda tired of the whole “Dave out” thing. Goodnight, good morning.

Posted on

ashes to pheonix

A small crowd... read on and you'll see.
The problem with burritos is the non-homogenized nature of the ingredients. You inevitably end up with uniform strata of the varied component parts. This effect is particularly bad when the layers are arranged vertically down the length of the tortilla-tube. Horizontal layers aren’t as bad, as you still stand a fair chance of getting a wee taste of the sum parts in a single chomp (the likelihood of which varies as an inversely proportional relation to the diameter of the burrito). Vertical layers, however, are wholly unacceptable. Taco Bell’s 7-Layer Burrito is almost always layered vertically. This means I may go several bites and taste nothing but tortilla and sour cream, or tortilla and refried beans. It’s just not good. I would like to open a burrito joint where the would-be burrito eater chooses their ingredients, all of which are then placed into a rock-tumbler for thirty seconds before being emptied back into the tortilla and rolled up for consumption. I could call it La Casa del Burrito Uniformemente Distribuida, or something equally catchy.

I’m going to talk music now, you can skip ahead four paragraphs if you’d like.

Several times over the years, I’ve read about Brian Wilson’s “lost” masterpiece – SMiLE. Conceived as a follow-up to the much-acclaimed Pet Sounds album, it was never properly released back in the day. Over time, I’ve read so much about the legendary album, the mystery and tragedy and brilliance of the whole affair. A few years back, I downloaded what was said to be the “definitive” bootleg assemblage of the album, and wasn’t terribly impressed. Then again, I really didn’t give it much of a fighting chance. See, I’ve never been a Beach Boys fan. Like any good music-lover, I can appreciate the songwriting, masterful harmonies, and clever arrangements… I guess I’m just not a “surf music” fan (unless we’re talking Ventures and Dick Dale type guitar stuff). Anyway, I shelved the Smile bootleg fairly quickly and didn’t really revisit it.

Then this year, Brian Wilson re-recorded, or re-assembled, or re0something’d the entire project. Flowery praise flowed in heaps from the critic-collective: finally the masterpiece as Mr. Wilson and Mr. Parks had intended it, as it would have been had he not had a complete breakdown back in ’67. Some even dared to compare to the unequivocal best album of all time, the more swoon-prone of the lot even going so far as to say SMiLE may in fact best said sergeant and his band.

The album was entirely “rebuilt”, largely by recreating existing bootleg versions of his original tapes (which he lost long ago), with re-recorded vocals. That alone is interesting to me, since it’s then fair to say that had not the criminal bootleggers been so diligent in stealing and preserving every snippet of the original tapes – Mr. Wilson may have not been able to complete this project. That’s another thing altogether though, but I guess we know where I stand on archival music (bootleg or no).

Anyway, the point of this what-was-to-be single-paragraph discussion of SMiLE is simply to say: now I know what all the fuss was about. Listening to this recent release, it’s clear this album is amazing. Re-recorded or not… it’s an outstanding effort, complex and lighthearted. It makes me want to bust out that old bootleg version, and hear it as it would’ve sounded back then – when Brian’s voice was still 24 years old and not all funky-slurry sounding like it is now. But still, as a mind-bendingly time-stretched effort, conceived in the halcyon days of the summer of love, and finally recorded in 2004, it manages to triumph despite the odds. Four paragraphs again where there was to be one… it’s just the topic of music… close to my heart. And if you could only hear “Surf’s Up” from this album… you’d know why. Thanks for listening.

OK, I’m done talking music. Back to the other-kinda-stuff talk.

Tonight I finished up digitizing the prank phone calls for the “box set” project. I have a few more random cassettes to encode, but for the most part it’s done. Now I have to split the 45min-long WAVs into individual tracks… which will be tedious. The participating members of the prank call collective and I hashed out details for the eventual production of the long-planned box set. We’re going all out: pro silkscreened CDs, a real “box” of slick glossy cardboard, professional graphics and production, and a collection of period-piece photos and mementos included in the extensive “liner notes.” We’ll each be contributing to a “background” writeup on the calls and music, so when the thing’s done it’ll look like it came off the shelf at Best Buy (at least, that’s the pipe dream right now). Why, you ask, when we’ll only make perhaps 5 or 10 copies? Because to us, the material is worth of the care. Dumb as it may be, I love those tapes… and have always wanted to give them a proper place in my music collection.

Also tonight, I watched bits and pieces of Control Room, a documentary that follows the Al Jazeera and their coverage of the war in Iraq. The main point of the film is to focus on the perception of the war, and the differences in the way different media organizations report things that ultimately effect that perception. From what I saw (I was running back and forth to the back room flipping cassettes over and building a new MAME hard drive for the Pac Man cabinet upgrade project, the latter being something I don’t think I’ve mentioned here yet), the movie looked really interesting. Anyway, a buddy of mine had it at work today so I borrowed it for the 30min it took to rip and burn a copy. Eventually I’ll sit down and watch the whole thing, but definitely check it out if you’re interested in the whole western/eastern viewpoint gig.

Tonight is the Dears show downtown. Glad to see Sacramento pulling a few more good shows of late, I like it a lot better than driving to the city. The last time the Dears were in town, we caught them at a very small club where the audience turnout was absolutely pathetic. A generous estimate would put the entire crowd at about 30 people… so we figured that would be the Dears’ last visit to Sac. For whatever reasons, they are trying their luck again. Hopefully the turnout will be better tonight (Friday), and hopefully they’ll play some stuff of their forthcoming new album (which hasn’t leaked yet… ahem… mp3 pirates… I’m waiting).

Wow, lotta writing today… and you know it’s gonna be a good entry when the 1st sentence is, “The problem with burritos is…” I think it’s time to hit the sack though, 11:30pm here and I’m pretty much hooked on this read-a-few-chapters before bed plan.

Dave out.

Posted on

my kingdom for a pagerank

Damn... this heart burns for you baby.
Work continues to be relentless, what a week. It’s 10ish on Wednesday night and the dirty dishes from our dinner of tomato soup and grilled cheese sandwiches are still sitting on the coffee table where we supped. Sharaun’s left the kitchen cabinet open again, and I keep glancing up at it, getting more disgusted each time. I can see a pile of trash (a pizza box, an empty Diet Coke “fridge pack,” and a plastic bag) on the kitchen counter, and although I haven’t actually gone in there to look – I know there’s a pot on the stove with a thin red film of dried tomato soup clinging to the inside. Who’m I to complain though, I’m just sitting here talking about it and looking at it.

Tonight I began serious work on a long outstanding project I’ve been kicking around for a couple years. I’ve talked about it before, but back in high school we (a motley group of ragtag drunks and stoners) made some recordings. Mostly we spent our time tape-recording prank phone calls, but we also managed to lay down a fair amount of “musical” material. Anyway, I’ve collected every bit of our stuff, a pile of five tapes, and I’ve been meaning to compile it all into one grand “box set” covering our recorded career. Meeting up with members of the prank-call-crew again while in Florida last week made me want to pick up the torch again. So I downloaded some great audio-editing freeware and started capturing. I’m working with Andy and Kyle to get pictures of the prank sessions, which will serve as liner art for the CDs; and we’re all gonna do a little writeup to serve as liner notes. Anyway, I got three of five tapes encoded and cleaned up just tonight… amazing what you can do when you get down to business.

Last night I was awaken in the middle of the night. Know what woke me up? Old age, that’s what. Old age by way of heartburn and indigestion. Worse than I’ve ever experienced before… bad enough to wake me from my sleep. So as I stumbled from bed at 3am and chewed four chalky generic Wal Mart Tums, I found myself cursing the bizarre combo of apple-flavored hookah smoke, beer, and the creamy shrimp pasta that was dinner. I guess I’m thinking about age lately… stands to reason.

Another curious piece to the “hairy clits” puzzle I wrote about last week… just go to Google or MSN and search for the phrase “hairy clits,” just do it. Can you believe this website is the #1 return for “hairy clits?” I don’t get it. I mean, I realize it’s the #1 return simply because of my entry about the fact that it was one of the funny search terms that had led people to my site. See, this very paragraph… the one I’m writing right now about hairy clits… will further bubble my site to the top of the search engines for said query. Strange, but increasingly hilarious.

Saw another awesome open-source app on /. the other day, who needs a Windows Media Center PC when you can have the same for free? I really have nothing more to write, and I’m surprised I got this much anyway. Time to climb wake up my wife and move her from the couch to the bed, climb under the covers and fire up the booklight for a few chapters before hitting the hay.

Goodnight y’allz. Dave out.

Posted on

300 babies


Tuesday night and, as promised, I’ll post some pictures of the evening’s goings-on. I did however, fix the images I posted of last night’s thang, making the clicky ones bigger for your viewing pleasure. Nothing exciting mind you, but I gotta stay true to the project. And tonight, the project is good, because I don’t have much to write. So, let’s to it then.

Today I got the new dance pads for the DDR part of the console emulator, so I hooked them up and messed around with Stepmania and DWI. I got pretty decent results, but plan to ask my DDR-freak buddy at work if there are any “tweaks” to getting the pads to register better. It’s not that the steps and beats don’t match up, but there’s a small perception of the timing being just a tad “off.” Oh man, I’m such a terrible nerd… when did I get this bad? Help me… As promised, here are the pictures from this evening. Some descriptions, right-to-left, top-to-bottom: cookies (read below for the full story); me, writing this; testing out the new dance pads; how evening’s here usually end up, with Sharaun asleep on the couch. Yeah, here they go:


In one of the pictures, you can see the cookies Sharaun got mad at me for eating. See, every year, I buy a huge tin of Danish butter cookies from whatever warehouse store I happen to be in. Sharaun hates them, won’t even eat them; I love them, with a glass of milk especially. She always chastises me for buying them, and eating them. So, tonight, when I sat down for an after-dinner cookies and milk dessert – she looked at the three or four “soakers” half-floating in my glass of milk (you sink ’em at the beginning and then get a few extra-soggy treats at the end), and with a level stare called me “disgusting.” Then, her gaze shifted to the enormous cookie-tin itself, and a shocked “Oh my God…” slipped past her lips.

See, that tin, the huge one, is almost empty. Being that she doesn’t eat them, I guess she immediately realized I must be the sole party responsible. She picks up the near-empty tin, turning it around, looking for something. “Three hundred cookies,” she says, glaring at me as if I had eaten 300 babies rather than delicious butter cookies. “Three hundred, David. At four cookies per serving, and 160 calories per serving, that’s like… 12,000 calories.”

In my ears, I hear a steady buzzing, but can’t quite make it out over the loud crunch of yummy butter cookies in my mouth. “You bought that like, last week,” she accuses. “Nuh-uh!,” I retort, “I totally bought these like over a month ago!” The timeline doesn’t really matter, of course, I can’t win. So I just down my last slurp of disintegrated cookie-milk with a smile.

Sitting at my desk today, it came to me that we’ll be aboard a plane bound for the other side of the USA in less than a week. I’m ready. I’m big-time ready. There are a couple things I’d like to do when I go home, aside from the usual family-time and kicking back. I want to try and make my way down to what’s left of Astro, and snap some pictures. I’d like to do the same for Rinker. I think it’d be cool to do “follow-up” stories to a few of my entries… like a “where are they now?” for past post topics.

See how I artfully padded out what is essentially one decent paragraph to create the semblance of a multi-paragraph entry? Yup. Artfully.

Dave out.

Posted on

commercial tendancies

No idea.
As a “blogger,” I think I’m supposed to have a huge list of other blogs I read frequently. I didn’t read this anywhere or anything, it’s just something I’ve noticed about other “blog” sites on the internet. They all have links to another ten or fifteen blogs, and they all cross-link and refer to each other. Not me, I don’t read any blogs. I wonder if that makes me some kinda blog-snob elitist or something? All I do is write and post, and then do it again the next day. Anyway, your blog sucks.

Whatever the impetus is, I’m in that state of writing again where I end up with pages and pages of backlogged, pre-written stuff. I have a Word doc filled with blocks of three and four paragraphs on certain subjects, and on any given day I cobble them together to make an entry. I actually like being in that situation, because I can essentially “take a day off” from writing, not that I don’t enjoy it. I mean, I love writing, or else I wouldn’t have this stupid website, but it is kinda nice to be able to just press “upload” and not have to think up new ideas. Thing is, when stuff keeps happening, I feel compelled to write about it – and then it becomes the entries, leaving the backlogged stuff to go stale. Maybe this week I’ll just work on “cleaning house.”

I’ve talked about daytime TV commercials before, but last Friday I was at home for lunch and I decided to try take it one step further. Usually when I go home for lunch, I check the TiVo and see if there’s something worthwhile watching while I eat my sandwich. Finding nothing this time, however, I decided to go with the default back-to-back hour of COPS that runs simultaneously on Fox and FX. Usually, if you time it right, you can pretty much avoid commercials by switching back and forth between the episodes. This time, however, the commercials were actually what I was interested in. I decided to document the contents of each commercial break during an hour of COPS on daytime TV, noon-to-one, what I would assume is the equivalent of prime-time for the daytime audience. Here’s what I found:

Aladdin Bail Bonds
NFL Sunday on Fox promo ad
Personal injury attorney
Get a degree in criminal justice (stick with what you know?)
Cheap auto insurance (as low as $29 a month!)
Check ‘n’ Go (paycheck loans, not a scam at all)

Valtrex (genital herpes drug)
Gun show at the local expo this weekend (with a banjo music soundtrack)
1-800-DENTIST (“… good dental health may change your life! Maybe get a better job or even an exciting new relationship!”)
Quick & easy auto financing (even with bad credit!)
Public Service Announcement (eat 5-9 servings of colorful fruits and vegetables a day, because X% of the state’s population is overweight)
Cost-U-Less auto insurance

Kentucky Fried Chicken (extra-crispy meal deal, now with a half-gallon Pepsi “mega-jug”)
entucky Fried Chicken (new chicken breast salads)
Carmax (sell your car)
Carmax (buy a car)
Heald College (be a dental assistant)
Kaiser-Permanente affordable healthcare

X-Men video game
Advil Liqui-gels
ITT Technical Institute
Diabetes testing supplies by mail (I think it was the Quaker Oats guy, on horseback, in a canyon)

Hmm… you think that commercial lineup is in any way indicative of what the station sees as their target 12pm-1pm audience? I think, from the information above, we can do some detective work and construct a pretty good idea of the type of person Fox thinks is likely watching COPS during lunch. From my analysis, their target demo contains overweight, uneducated, out of work (probably due to injury), oft-arrested, herpes- and diabetes-afflicted, destitute yet money-lusting folks with poor credit and no insurance.

Did you guys know that Costco sells coffins? Kinda weird, right? Dave out.