I don't think so...

They say that beer and coffee are diuretics and will make you pee more fluid out than you take in by drinking the coffee/beer.

Now being the scientific type I simply follow where the data takes me. So I opine that this can not be true of coffee and beer. If it were true I would be a dessicated husk by now with bits flaking off and blowing away in the breeze by now.

Don'cha just love science?

Yeah, he's one!

Nerd, first class, reporting for duty sir.

(click to enlarge if you need too)

Apparently "Captain Kirk" is a little on the paranoid side. He saw some guy sitting behind him (trying) to take a photo and he was OFF! So it turned into a movie based car chase before he got stuck at a red light I got my picture. Yesssss!

Oh,  the things I do and the sacrifices I make for my three readers! 

Ahhhh, Good Marketing

A New Leaf

We are all trying to get a little greener! So from this point forward I vow this blog will only be printed on 100% recycled electrons!

Yes, I care that much!

Nerds Rock!

Note the following e-mail thread from here at work.

Names have been redacted to protect the guilty...

-------------------------------------------------
To :    Supportgroup@il.gov
From: XXXX

Subject: Hung processing this morning

Hey XXXXXXXX,


As a preemptive strike... XXXX told me the CRI.PROCESSNATMSINMSGS has run since 9:08. I'm guessing some user had a lock on something yet again. Would you please take a look? Also, could you let me know who the offender is.

What are your thoughts on providing scripts/privileges to whomever is on call to check to see if there are locks on this job and to kill the offender's session?

------------------------------------------------
 
Now knowing there is no way on Earth they were going to let the requester have the access needed to keep things running smooth (its a government thing) and knowing that this is the kinda of thing that starts wars I decided to throw a little levity in to defuse the situation and "replied all" with the following...
 
------------------------------------------------
 
To : Supportgroup@il.gov

From: Nerdyredneck
Subject: Hung processing this morning

What were you thinking! Mine gott man, do you have any idea how much whirling and twirling and knocking we have going on in this system here?

If they gave you the level of access you requested then it is possible, even probable that squirrels could collide on the exercise wheels, then fly off into space, fall through a black hole and travel back in time to a primordial earth. At some point it then becomes inevitable that squirrel DNA would be infused in the primordial ooze and all life on earth would become squirrel based. Humans would never have existed.

So seriously, do you want that kind of responsibility on your shoulders? DO YOU?

I did not think so.

Nerdyredneck

------------------------------------------------

So for the last 10 days or so since I sent that out I have been receiving nearly daily e-mails from team members with the subject of TOO LATE containing um, interesting photos, here is a sampling....

Avast thar maties and heave too fer a code walk through.

Kin ah go to da salt lick Pa? Kin I?

Die Infidel pig!









And now young Jedi, you. will. die!





Nerds are just sooooo awesome!

Then of course we have one from me from over three years ago... Former Pop Star Gunned Down
.
.
.

Sea Salt

So what the deal with sea salt grinders? Now pepper grinders I get. You release aromatics when you grind a peppercorn and you get more flavor. I don't think that applies to salt.

Now Erika has a couple of salt grinder that I like just 'cause they are mechanically cool. Plus when I am not in the mood to grind my own I can just use a real salt shaker!
So what has me whining about this is that now restaurants are starting to jump onto this faddish band wagon...

I go to a restaurant and pay 20 bucks to eat and I have to grind my own freaking salt? What did we just jump back in time 200 years. "Pa, why don you head on down to da salt lick wit a hammer and a bucket?"

Don't they have machines to do this shit?

At least put a real salt shaker on the table for those of us who don't have time for all the latest fads.

By gard, pre-ground salt was gud nuff fer me pappy and it's damn sho good nuff fo me!

Next time I eat at one of these place that makes me grind my own salt I am going to attach an invoice for my time spent grinding .0002 cents worth of salt to the bill and deduct it from my total.

Thus concludes Rob's bizarre rant of the day!

(Get off my yard you little bastards!)

Thanks for your support dear!

I was dating a girl last summer. She and her room mate got into a big fight and since i have a truck I helped her move out. My truck sits pretty high and I jumped off the tail gate. I landed a little wrong and hurt my foot. I was gimped out pretty bad for a while there

Now she was really nice and she went grocery shopping for me (since I hurt my foot helping her) but I needed to go to the bank. My bank in Texas has one and only one branch here in Springfield and its in the giant Wal-Mart. So anyway you slice it it a pretty good walk to go to the bank there. So I kept putting it off.

So this gal was saying,  "Just use one of the powered carts up front that is what they are there for."
"No they are there for old people, I just HATE it when I see young strong people using them, its the same as parking in the handicapped spot to me."
"Oh quit being such a baby, you need to go to the bank, your foot is injured so just use the cart!"
"No."
"Men!"

So she wheedled and cajoled (nice words for nagged) me into using the cart. No sooner than I sat on the seat the burn on my face and neck began! I was soooooo humiliated. I could feel every eye burning me with their glare!

I could hear ever single person thinking "Look at that lazy worthless bastard using the old peoples cart!"

It. was. horrible.

I wheeled up to the tellers window and was filling out my slip. You know how you "know" tellers and hair stylists and such? We make small talk every week or so. So I 'knew' these people at the bank so I was telling them how horrible I felt for using this cart and how my girlfriend "wheedled" me into it when my phone went off, I just got a text. It was from my girlfriend- it said:

"OMG! You should see this! It's horrible! There is this perfectly able bodied ASS in a powered chair at the bank in the Wal-mart! What a douche!"

She cracked me up but I don't care what the tape measure says, the trip out of Wal-Mart on that scooter was three times longer than the trip in.

NEVER AGAIN!

It's the law.

Oh, my once hot but ditzy wife was raised by a hard core west Texas gun loving redneck. (Whereas I as was raised as the Nebraska breed.)

So about a decade ago we ended up shooting in competitive couples matches on weekends. Oh amateur level to be sure but it was a lot of fun.

Now she was a good shooter but she was still not the mechanical type so I did all the break down and cleaning of the rifles.

During this time frame I had some customers in Chicago. One Sunday afternoon after a match I was sitting on the floor cleaning rifles on the towel covered coffee table watching football when the phone rang. It was one of my clients in Chicago.

"Hey Rob, I hate to bother you on a Sunday but we wanted to get a jump on Monday and wondered if you have time for some questions? Are you busy?"

"No, not at all I am just cleaning my wife's rifle, Just let me turn off the game..."
With an odd tone he said, "What? You mean your cleaning... your rifle"
Still a little oblivious here, "Nope, I'm all done with my rifle I am working on hers now."
Now the tone is disbelieving and hesitant, "Your wife has a rifle?"
"Yep"
"Why on earth does your wife have a rifle"

Now I am (finally) catching on that he thinks it is really bizarre that my wife shoots so I simply replied, "Well Jerry, it's Texas, it's the law."

Moments of silence then, "So about that meeting...."

How I hate Micheal Bay...

Seriously I don't know how this guy keeps getting work. Well I take that back, "Transformers" saved his career and yet the two transformers movies (so far) are pretty indicative of why he sucks so much.

You know movies/stories are supposed to manipulate your emotions to some degree but when done by a true artist you are never even aware you are being manipulated. Micheal Bay uses a sledgehammer and even puts a sign on the screen that says "Emotional manipulation technique 3A commencing NOW!" Then you are just setting there rolling your eyes going, "Really?"

In his film school efforts to manipulate our emotions he just WONT STOP! Action sequences are just waaay too long and just way too many things happen (that each last tool long). Eg In Armageddon it just went on and on and on and on and on; Space station blows up, (takes 20 minutes) shuttle crashes (takes 20 minutes to crash too!), burns up the drill,  show down over the bomb, FOUND A NEW DRILL!. space dementia  (eye roll!) and Steve Buscemi  goes nuts with the chain gun (Uh, BTW,  those were Mars rovers. Just what were they planning to shoot on MARS?)  Then remote detonator wont work, Shuttle engine wont start, then Bruce Willis cant even pull the trigger without yet ANOTHER "action" sequence! By the time Bruce Willis killed himself I was like "YES! FINALLY! Dear god thank you!! It's over.. or is it?! .... YES it really is!" and you break down weeping for joy in the theater. This is pretty much true of every film he makes. By the time it is over you are sick to death of the movie.

Oh and what the hell is the deal with all the camera shaking?  Is the fact that I can't see any thing supposed to make me think it is more "real" Gah. It started in the "The Rock" with the car chase between Nick Cage and  Sean Connery.  Then it went completely overboard (like anything Micheal bay) in "Pearl Harbor"

I read this story I read in a pilots magazine. When Bay made Pearl Harbor he went to the owners of many actual WWII aircraft and rented their very expensive museum pieces from them. (Not cheap) then he broke them down and shipped them to Hawaii and had them reassembled there. (Not cheap) Then he filmed many action sequences with the plane at Pearl Harbor. Then broke the planes back down, shipped them back and reassembled them.

So he spent a LOT of money to use authentic aircraft in his action sequences. So I read about this before the movie released and I was thinking, "This is gonna be cool!!"

Then he did the "shaking camera" thing to such an extreme you can hardly tell they are airplanes let alone be able to tell they are authentic. What kind of moron spends all that money and does all that work then does not let you SEE what he spent all that money to film? It's just boggling. (and if the shaking is that violent how could anybody operate the plane? GAH!)

On top of that - how can you possibly make a movie about Pearl harbor and make it BORING? He pulled it off.

So what set off this rant? He offended my nerdy sensibilities this weekend, They are running a trailer for Transformers III. Watch this trailer for it on YouTube. Pay attention to Walter Cronkite, They are now on the far side of the moon. Far side of the moon? Once you land on a given spot of the moon You can't move to the far side! The moon is tidally locked, it does not rotate in relation to the earth. Throughout all of human history we have ALWAYS looked up to he same side of the moon.

I mean this is not rocket science; Can we at least get the 4th grade stuff right? Wow.

So to cap it off- Apparently Sean Green feels about the same way towards Micheal bay as I do- Micheal Bay Parody (very short)

Thus concludes Rob's bizarre rant of the day!

Obliviousness

When I was younger man and my son was still a toddler I had beautiful black fastback Mustang with a Sun roof and a hot but ditzy wife. (Picture of her if you care)

The sun roof was hinged at the front and had this latching mechanism where if you held a little locking tab with your thumb then pulled the handle the BACK part of the window would tilt up.

I smoked back then. Now even as a smoker I hated nasty ashtrays so I used to just flip the sunroof up then I could hold the cigarette up close to that opening and the low pressure area would just SUCK the ash right off the butt and out. Loved it!

The other really neat thing about that was when you parked a black car in the Dallas sun you could leave that sunroof tilted up and hot air could escape out the top and keep your interior temps in the barely human habitable zone.

One year we drove that car to a family reunion 600 miles from home. It was not a great traveling car especially with a little one but hey, I had to show off my Mustang ya know? You see, back then I had not come out of the closet yet and I not even admitted to myself let alone anyone else yet that I was a nerd; I was still desperately trying to prove that I was indeed cool! (see that opening paragraph again! :) )

So we are at the reunion 600 miles from home and my wife asks for the keys to the car.
"Where are your keys?", I asked
"In my purse! I locked it in the car so I would not have to carry it around."
"Oh", that made sense to me.
5 minutes later.
"Honey, I locked your keys in the car too."
Weeeeee! At least we were close to home!

Luckily since it was summer I had left that sunroof tilted up for the heat to escape so now I am breaking long skinny branches off the tree so I can slid them in through that little slot and try to hit the power lock button on the door.

My father walks out and sees me poking tree limbs into my sunroof and asks, "What in the hell are you doing boy?" you know in that gentle concerned way only a father can.
"Trying to unlock the door."
"Your kidding? You locked your keys in?", in that helpful concearned way only a father can.
"Well Julia did."
"So where are her keys?"
"In there too."
"Mmmm. Ya know, son if you opened that sunroof it would be a lot easier."
"What? It is open?"
"No Open-open?"
"Whaaa?"
"Here..."

Dad reaches in front of me, holds down a little catch on the side of the latching mechanism, I heard a "Tooonk! " and he lifted the whole glass plate off the roof! Then he picks up my son, lowered him through the now gaping hole in the roof and says "Press the button!"

"That's cool Dad, I never knew it did that!"
"How long you had this car son?", you know in that gentle concerned way a father has.

"Well..."
"Here look at this.", he opens the hatchback and there is this shelf at the top with an elastic strap, "That is where your store the glass when it's out."
"OOOOoooooh! I wondered about that."
"Don't you know anything about your own car son?", he said in that gentle concerned way only a father can.

Well I can make it go vroom! :(

Yup, oblivious!

Fire pot

Ever seen one of these? I never had. Erica brought it home and it sat for awhile before I realized it was not just yet another useless vase! (so ladies, what is it with you and vases anyway? ;) )

Unlike vases though this is cool! It's called a fire pot! Bet ya can't guess why!

It makes FIRE! Fire GOOD! Rob Like FIRE! Hmmmm.

The vase part has a metal cylinder in the center you fill with fire pot fuel and then light her off. It has a "lid" that will snuff the flame when you put it on. As you can see it's a nice flame! It even crackles and pops nicely.

Like most people I find an open flame comforting and like to fire up candles on occasion but hey guys, let's face it; Candles are a little effeminate. Ok, they are pretty gay so here is the solution...

This here is a MAN candle! Yeah buddy!

Gub'ment Propaganda ;)

Alright ladies, you told me about laps dogs. and I already knew that if I looked like a girl that would help but you NEVER TOLD ME about this secret!

Ok, it's kinda cute, they rotate these and put up a fresh one every month. They are all about equally as cute.

Seriously though, this state is running a HUGE deficit! This state is either the second or third most financially screwed up state in the union (California is #1 of course. At least we have electricity here! ;)  )  yet they have money to print and distribute cutsie little reminders about basic hygiene every month.

This state is also PSA crazy. (Public service announcement)  Drunk driving, slow down in construction zones, wear your seat belts. These ads are on TV every night.  Of course I realize they don't spend any money to RUN them ( I think) but the production costs of dozens of television commercials are not inconsequential.

The politicians here say they can not find ANYTHING to cut to solve the budget problems. :) Nothing at all!

Well, I could tell some "inside" stories but won't as long as I work here. :) ;) (which will only be another couple of months) but this stuff should be obvious.

-----------------------------

Correction: According to this Bloomberg Story. This is THE most financially screwed up state in the union. This year the budget is 26 Billion with 13 Billion of it deficit spending. Wow. Just WOW!

Road trip shorties

I already posted the Redneck sign but I thought I would share other short thoughts from my recent road trip with y'all.

I saw an old man peeing on the side of I-44. He made NO effort to hide. I laughed. I could hear his thought process: "I'm old, I have to pee and I mean NOW and I am not stumbling around in the mud to "hide" on the shoulder side of the truck. So deal with it puritans! lol!

Ok, so how do you know you did NOT stop for food and fuel at a "classy joint"?

Now really, are FOUR big master Padlocks needed? If you have the means to get one BIG master lock off (Bolt cutters) is having three more going to matter? Uh, no. That's just bad engineering. Well perhaps it's just good marketing to idiots who think "horny goat weed" is a good revenue stream. 

So who buys this stuff anyway? "Hell Bubba! My dates a shore thing! I gots me some horny goat weed at the truck stop!"

I drove through two tornado generating fronts in one day. This is the first one.

This picture is NOT blurry! See how the dash is in focus? Note the light levels? It is 10 AM. The wipers are on high,  emergency flashers are on and we are driving s-l-o-w! I found out later 3 people were killed about 20 miles from where this picture was taken. About 6 hours later as I was punching through the second front and keeping my Mark IV eye balls tracking the clouds and potential places to stop and take cover my internal I-Pod pulled up and loaded a seriously old tune!

I started singing "Duck and Cover" (Youtube link)  Wow, I was really dredging the depths of the wet ware for that one huh? I can't believe they were still showing that one in 1971 or so when I saw it. It was 20 years old then. I can't believe I still remember it!

Weird how the mind works huh?