Defenestrating Thoughts from the Bivouac

Sometimes I wish that there would be a tape recorder running when Crissy and I talk. We always end up cracking each other up and later can never remember what the joke was.

The other day, I was almost hit by another stupid Seattle driver and I swore rather profusely (years of playing hockey make me excellent at this). For some reason Crissy dislikes it when I swear, so in addition to giving me a very disapproving look, she asked me,

“Why don’t you use the Hindu gods’ names in vain instead? Wait, what’s Ganesha’s last name anyway?”

“Um, Ganesha doesn’t have a last name. He’s like Cher.”

<pause>

“Does he believe in life after love?” (referring, of course, to the very popular Cher song)

This of course devolved into us trying to decide the funniest Cher song that Ganesha could sing.

The whole “using God’s name in vain” thing is a little weird to Hindus. Our Gods love it when you say their name. In fact, our gods even have lots of names; the more names you use, the happier they are.

But I suppose if you said, “Parvarti! That soup is hot! I burned my mouth!”, even the easy-going Hindu gods wouldn’t be that happy. :-)

And some more geek humor to tickle your nerdy bone: I present a real engineer’s calculator:

(If you don’t get this joke, congrats! You’re normal!)

I’ve written before that I have problems typing smiley’s accurately. Lately, I’ve made some rather embarrassing smiley mistakes, so I thought I should spend some time on the problem. And by “spend time on the problem”, I don’t mean solve it. I mean, blog about it. After all, it’s 2008 and it’s all about the Web 2.0. Right… 8-|

(That’s the “rolling your eyes” smiley. Don’t feel bad if you didn’t know. I had to look it up.)

So after careful analysis, I realized that I make three types of smiley errors:

• Error of commission: using the wrong smiley. For example: I’m sorry for your loss. ;-P
  
• Error of inclusion: accidentally adding a smiley. For example: It’s too bad I can’t see you while I’m in town. :-)
• Error of omission: forgetting the smiley. For example: Who cares what you think?

That last one is a real doozy when you’re talking to customers.

I’m also really bad with IM and text message shorthand. In college, the first time someone sent me a message of brb (be right back), I responded with, excuse you, because I figured they burped.

More recently, someone IM’ed me qq. Not realizing this meant “quick question”, I responded with pp. I figured that they wanted to play the “send each other messages consisting of the same letter twice” game.

I know it’s a stupid game, but it would be rude not to play along. I may be stupid, but I’m not rude. :-P

(Hey! I got the smiley right that time!)

A while ago I wrote about Reality TV and how it could be interpreted as a sign of America’s rapidly decreasing cultural vitality. Now, with the studios running out of scripts due the writer’s strike, they are digging up any script they have and producing it. I guess they figure that we, the consumers, will watch anything if it’s on TV.

In addition to what’s likely to be more mind-numbing, IQ-lowering plots, they aren’t even trying hard to name these shows. Two shows coming out show have had huge advertising blitzes. They are knock-offs of Sex and the City, named “Lipstick Jungle” and “Cashmere Mafia“. I can just see the creative types in a room discussing the names: “Let’s take a word that has something to do with women and attach something tough sounding to it.”

Sheesh.

So the formula for “Lipstick Jungle” is “women’s toiletry” plus “some sort of climate”. May I humbly propose a show called, “Nose hair trimmer temperate rainforest”?

And the formula for “Cashmere Mafia” is “fabric” plus ” organization”. My alternative, “Linen Union Workers”.

You know that you’d watch shows called “Nose hair trimmer temperate rainforest” or “Linen Union Workers”. After all, they would be on TV; what else would you do, read a book? :-P

So I never get what I want for the Super Bowl: looking at my wishes last year, I went 0 for 3. I’d like this year to be better, but I’m not that confident.

We’re having a small Super Bowl get-together this year; turns out, no one coming actually likes football. So we’re planning to have lots of food, games to play, and craft projects to enjoy. And there will be a football game on, probably with the sound turned down. :-)

My wish for this Super Bowl is that both teams lose. Lose badly. (Yes, I’m setting myself up for failure.) If the cheater Patriots win, it’s just sad since it shows that bad guys finish first, and the NFL is truly about the bottom line and not the art of sport. If the Giants and Eli Manning win, the next 50 years of commercials will have one or both of the Manning brothers in it. Yuck.

Like most of our parties, the Evite was ridiculously long and may have contained humor-like substances. The Evite was sent at the start of the playoffs a month ago and I started by explaining how we should root for:

Who are we rooting for?
We don’t know who is playing yet, so here is the plan:
1) Root for Brett Favre (and the Green Bay Packers) because he’s one of the few true gentlemen in sports.
2) If Favre doesn’t make it, root for the Pittsburgh Steelers.
Note: These are pretty important rules. Even if the Steelers are playing against Team God, I expect you to root for the Steelers.
Note: If both the Packers and Steelers make it to the Super Bowl, Vijay will likely develop a split-personality disorder from having to root for both teams.
3) Root against the Patriots - because they are cheaters and whiners
4) Root against Peyton Manning - because if he wins, there will be even more commercials with him and that will likely cause a cosmic imbalance that will destroy the universe
Note: These are extremely important rules. Root against the Patriots and Peyton Manning even if they are playing Satan.
5) Else… I’ll come up with something.

Of course, the “something” is “let’s hope that both teams lose”.

Also, our Evites have discussion topics. These lists are mocking the “Table Topics” product (little cards with questions to get the conversation started). Honestly, what happened to our society when we can’t even have pleasant discourse without “conversation starters”. Here’s a conversation starter: “If you have this product, you’re an idiot. Discuss.”

Anyway, here’s the list for the Super Bowl:

1) For Team God, everyone agrees that Vishnu should be playing quarterback, but do you agree with Jesus taking Moses’ place as running back?
2) Isn’t Ganesha the best offensive linemen ever?
3) Who would coach Team God? I personally nominate Richard Dawkins.
4) How can the halftime show previews/ads look so much like the “live event” which hasn’t happened yet?
5) Is football more militaristic then baseball? Would you agree that football is a game that is reflective of a post-industrialization society and baseball is reflective of a time before the industrial revolution?
6) A lot of religions have the concept of a large never ending cycle (e.g. “all this has happened before and will happen again”). So, could someone look up who is going to win the game?
7) What does a vegetarian cocktail wiener dipped in nacho cheese taste like?
8) If Vijay does develop a split personality from rooting for two teams, what should his other self’s name be?
9) Can Vijay’s other self also have FDIC deposit at the same institution as Vijay?
10) What do the Big 12, gun racks, Missouri, Oklahoma, and Little 12 have to do with this party? (Note: this is a reference to one of our other parties)
Bonus question: What if we pronounced it “Pooper Bowl”?
Second Bonus Question: What do they serve at that event?

Lastly, everyone needs to agree to boycott companies with bad commercials for at least one month. I hope Microsoft has a bad commercial; that way most of our guests can’t go to work. :-)

Another weird art idea that would work as a standalone piece or in a short comic: bowls with capes.

Why? They are decorations for a Super Bowl Party!

Ha ha ha! <groan>

If I had any skill in painting or illustration, I think I’d love to make a series of ironic art. It would probably be similar to what Gary Larson did with the Far Side; but probably not anywhere as good. :-)

I had a random idea tonight: it would be a picture of a guy who was sitting at a table, drinking milk, and about to read a book. But he’d be crying since he spilled milk all over his new, unread book. The title of the book: “Don’t cry over spilled milk.”

Though given my luck recently, this probably already exists and I just remembered it and figured it was my idea. :-(

Q: Why can’t programmers tell Christmas from Halloween?

A: Because DEC 25 = OCT 31!

Ha ha ha! Oh wait, I’m a dork. :-(

To finish the riddle story (or to “close the loop” as they say in the biz), Crissy had no problems with either riddle. I mean, no problem at all.

The second riddle she solved way too quickly by coming up with “teddy bear,” ignoring the rest of the puzzle, and looking under my Winnie-the-Pooh stuffed animal. It wasn’t right underneath Pooh, but once she got on a chair to reach the shelf, she saw the cookie on top of my Ender’s Series books.

That proved to be no fun. :-) That’s what I get for marrying someone smarter than me. Oh well, I’ll get to trick my kids one day. I should be smarter than my kids — at least until they are 5 years old and pass their cookie-hiding old man on the intelligence scale.

Crissy and I are trying to cut down on junk food, so we try not to buy any (if it’s not in the apartment, we can’t eat it). Occasionally, we end up with junk food though. For my birthday, Crissy made a fantastic cookie cake. We tried to give as much of it as possible to our guests, but still ended up with leftovers.

To prevent us from eating too many of them, I hid them. It’s the whole “out of sight, out of mind” thing; but for us, it’s more of an “out of sight, still on your mind, but you can’t find them” thing.

This week, though, I’m in the Bay Area. How’s Crissy supposed to get her fix? We decided that I could create 4 “cookie caches” and give her the location of one per day. But I’m weird, I decided to turn them into riddle form: if you solve the riddle, you can find the cookie.

Unfortunately, I thought of doing the riddles after I hid the cookies, so I have to work really hard to make this work. I hid three, but Crissy accidentally found one, so I had to come up with two riddles. Here’s what I had:

• “If a delectable sweet you seek, under the kingly, crimson headpiece you must peek.”
  • Notice the clever use of rhymes and half-rhymes :-P
  • Answer - the cookie was under my red Monarchs hat (crimson = red, kingly = Monarchs, headpiece = hat)

• “Seek under the descendants of a trapped bear hunted by #26, yet above the musings of a man of whom a deck would consist of 52, and you will find your heart’s desire.”
  • This one was painful to make since I hid it in a hard to describe place; plus I wasn’t feeling that creative when I made it up.
  • #26 is Teddy Roosevelt. The trapped bear refers to the origin of the “Teddy Bear”. Descendants of Teddy Bears? Well, that’s a horribly bad way to allude to stuffed animals (teddy bears are the precursors to stuffed animals). So the first part of the clue is, “Look under the stuffed animals.”
  • “of whom a deck would consist of 52″ - the key word here is “card” (there are 52 cards in a deck). The “musings” refer to “writings”, so you need to look above the books written by Card -> Orson Scott Card.
  • Basically, the cookie is on top of my Orson Scott Card books, which happen to be on the shelf under all the stuffed animals.

Crissy got the first riddle really fast despite hearing “tingly, crimson headpiece” over the phone (instead of “kingly, crimson headpiece”).

The second one, I barely understand it. And I wrote it. We’ll find out how she does.

Yeah, I’m a nerd, I know. :-)