Bachelor Party

Yesterday I went to the first bachelor party I've been to in a very long time. Almost all of my friends are married, or on a break from being married, so it's been a long, quiet run. But Tall Brad decided to wait until he was in his 30's before tying the knot, so after half a dozen years of no bachelor parties, and an even longer period of bachelor parties that involved at the most nothing but cards and beer in the basement, I found myself in the back of zebra-striped school bus, rolling through Minneapolis and Saint Paul with the windows down on an almost 0 degrees F night, sometimes using the dancer's pole (no dancer) to keep myself from falling over.

The night started out horribly, before I even got to Brad's bachelor party. Feel free to ask about that in email if you're interested - I'm not blogging details. But I went anyway, determined not to let a bad day get me down. There were a couple of hours of a cash game of poker first, and it took me too long to figure out that I should just be throwing in my 50 cents on every hand almost like an ante, and before I knew it my $20 was down to $2.50. Then I quintuppled-plused up to $13.50, which got me through another 30 minutes until it was time to load into the bus and head to Minneapolis. I decided to consider not having to buy another $20 in chips a victory.

I think we started with a good 20-some people on the bus. We made three stops, and every time we stopped, we seemed to lose about 5 people. I heard rumors of fights with bouncers, being poured into cabs, and "went home with x who has a car..." Unfortunately, I saw very little of that and had to content myself with making fun of those who remained on the bus and couldn't figure out which way the bar was when they stepped off. I actually remained fairly sober, in part thanks to the price of drinks at the second stop (The Seville - I ponied up my drinking money to the best man instead so he could find the groom an appropriate lap dance. He was concerned about his lack of expertise in that area, and I figured with the extra money he couldn't go wrong, although I don't have a lot of experience in lap dance costs and etiquette myself. I find them somewhat disturbing, primarily because there are several sorts of lap dance recipients: the talker who is just out on a bachelor party/etc and not a regular and talks to the woman giving the dance about what it is she does other than strip, etc...I think Brad falls into this group. There's the guy who closes his eyes and has some sort of other fantasy. There's the all hands, can't restrain himself guy. And there's the get them to sit on your lap and talk as long as possible without actually buying a dance guy, who eventually falls into the all hands category when he finally has to purchase a dance or she'll go away. While it's questionable that I find the humor behavior more interesting than the dancers, I do have to say that my priority at a strip club, the few times I've gone, has been to drink, and when the drinks get expensive enough, then I have to find something else to do - people watching works. And if you don't believe the drinks get expensive enough to deter drinking, then you didn't get to hear Brad talk about his $7.50 glass of water. Sure...breasts are nice, but I'm not really a horndog, so I'd rather they had a good 2 for 1 special. I did drink my only hard alcohol of the night there - someone bought a round of Baileys and Guinness [drop a in b, so it looks like a Guinness in a Guinness - I think it's called a carbomb]), and the total inability to get to the counter for a drink because of the crush of people at the last stop (Williams). I actually stepped out of Williams after 10 minutes of trying to find a beer and just walked across the street to McDonalds for a late-night meal. More than one person on the ride home noted that that seemed like it was perhaps the wisest course. I did consider wandering another block down to grab a quick round of sushi at the sushi bar at Uptown Mall or a real meal at Chang Mai Thai, but I was worried I'd miss the bus.

The groom got enough to drink and made use of the big cardboard box with the trashbag in it, although that seemed to sober him up a bit and he got better as the night rolled on. The best man, however, wasn't used to drinking that much and spent the trip home trying to hold his head together. When we got back to Brad's I helped him sign all the paperwork ("I can't read that...") and get inside where it took him about six seconds (you could have timed it with a watch) to find a couch he could spend the night on. So while he may have beat me and Tweet at Big Game Hunter, I think I won the lack-of-hangover game.

There were the standard injuries. Brad W. noted how he'd managed to run into something and bruise his face. He was worried it was going to be worse the next day than he suspected. Then he rubbed beer in my hair. I think it worked well to make it stand up a bit, giving me the illusion of fuller, thicker hair. But the real injury resulted from a drunken attendee who thought it would be fun to throw the ball and chain (a bowling ball with a very large set of metal links) at other people's feet. I was trying to figure out how to insert myself between the ball and the intended victims so I could shut it down, but was really concerned that it would probably lead to a broken finger or three. I won't be coding much soon, but I still have to be able to use a computer keyboard and Blackberry.

While I was contemplating my options, he lobbed it at D's leg. D. looked annoyed and kicked it back, and drunk guy (B.) chucked it at D.'s head. Oh yeah...chucked a bowling ball with a chain attached to it at someone's head. I think he was lucky D. was drunk, because if it had been the more sober me that was hit in the head with a bowling ball, I might have pounded him into the bus seat. There was no concussion or shattered bones or nose, but D. did get a huge welt on his face and a cut that thirty minutes later was still oozing blood, and he was pissed. There was a very uncomfortable bout of yelling on the bus, and ball-throwing drunk B. just didn't know to shut the fuck up. If you lob a bowling ball at someone's face, you don't spend a lot of time trying to explain how you said "sorry" and it should all be better and if it needs to go outside well, it sure can...you just apologize and shut the hell up and let other people defuse the situation. Of course, if you were sober enough to think it through, perhaps you wouldn't have lobbed the bowling ball at someone's head in the first place.

Hopefully D. woke up this morning without a concussion. If he's healthy, and he seemed like he wouldn't scar, it'll just be the story everyone remembers from the wee hours of the bachelor party twenty years from now.

I assume all those people crashing on the couches woke up this morning with some serious hangovers. My only real fall out was a bit of stuffiness from the smoke Ryan was generating at the back of the bus. Even with the no-smoking policy at the Minneapolis/St. Paul bars, you can still pick up a healthy dose traveling with smokers to and from the bar. By the way, thanks for the pizza Ryan, the Bella Pizza was pretty tasty during poker.

Lawyer Humor - Sexual Consent Form

Boing Boing has a link to Glumbert.com and a video about sexual consent. Very funny. Brad in the Boing Boing comments rightly points at that it's very reminiscent of an old Kids in the Hall skit.

The theme song for the video is by Leather Dynamite. "Beauty Queen" is off their album "Testicular Manslaughter" and is available on iTunes, although surprisingly it doesn't have the little explicit marker next to it.

Yellow Submarine

When I'm walking between my cube and Caribou coffee, I often find myself humming Yellow Submarine or Octopus' Garden. I always thought it was just because I was a Beatles fan until today when I noticed that there's actually a model of the yellow submarine from the movie. How very Tristram Shandy of me.

So, in honor of my impressionability, here are a number of YouTube videos...

Octopus' Garden with puppets:


Flash version of Octopus' Garden:


A different Octopus' Garden:


Henry the Octopus...oops, that's the Wiggles, not the Beatles!

Top 20 Replies

A little over-Digged, but I saw Luke's link and enjoyed it nonetheless...Top 20 Replies by Programmers to Testers When Their Programs Don't Work. I am amused that Luke's link actually says dev-to-qa in the link text. I'm not sure if he's implying that's the only place it happens, or if he has a completely different set for qa/qc to production.

Book Exchange

On Sunday we were at the Dunn Brothers coffee closest to us. I really like Dunn Brothers - good coffee, general focus on the customer with more than your average number of comfortable chairs, toys for the kids, books and magazines lying around, cheap refills...it's all good. This Dunn Brothers had a book exchange, a book shelf where you could just pick and book and walk off with it, for good. You were encouraged to leave books as well, but it wasn't a swap - it was a communistic take according to your need, give according to your ability, sort of system. Given the nature of the system, I was a bit confused that the top shelf contained no less than four Oliver North books (by Oliver, not about him). Seems at odds with the ideal. But maybe things all work a bit differently down in Lakeville.

Gay Subtext?

While we were at Half Price books, I noticed there was a "classical" kids clearance section: books that are really old and at a reduced price. The one that caught my eye was "That's Our Cleo! And Other Stories About Cats" (Amazon...ours has a different cover with a boy and his siamese) from 1966. I find it a little creepy that the boy on the cover looks slightly like me when I was a kid...(ut oh, guess that means I better take a picture)...but then I think he's meant to look like your average brown-haired late-60's kid. Then again, he doesn't have a big birthmark over his left eyebrow, so the resemblance is really rather limited.

The first story, about Cleo, is how Cleo is actually scamming three different sets of owners for food under different aliases, all the while getting fatter and fatter, so fat she can't even jump from garbage can to garbage can or off the footstool. I was amused to see that one set of owners were Joe and Bob, "young bachelors" who "cooked all kinds of good things" like whitefish in caper sauce, tuna fish with cream and crab-meat salad and who named Cleo "Juliet". A couple of pages later when Bob takes "Juliet" to the vet and the vet suspects he's seen Juliet/Cleo before, Bob replies, "Oh, no, I don't think so...My friend and I live together and this is our cat."

Damning evidence if you ask me. Not that I care. Joe and Bob could just as well be Wanda Wisdom and Miss Richfield and their cat, and I'd still read it to Eryn, it's just amusing to see what looks like it might be subtext in a kids '60's cat tales book.

Richard III - Again?

Coincidence is weird. I see what looks to be Clarence drowning in his butt of malmsey in our bathtub (that butt's for you, PrincessMax), and within a few hours of reading The Eyre Affair (alt, Amazon), the Swindon actors are putting on Richard III in what amounts to Rocky Horror Picture Show style. Now today, I'm reading the second Jasper Fforde Thursday Next novel, Lost in a Good Book (alt, Amazon), and much of it centers on coincidence and decreasing entropy fields. Must be one around here somewhere.

I bought The Eyre Affair at Uncle Hugo's bookstore at the same time I purchased The Blue Fairy book for Eryn just because it was on the staff recommendation shelf, and I'm a sucker for a book someone else recommends as long as I can be fairly certain that it isn't about a beseiged warrior queen who may have to choose between her kingdom or true love. That's not a real book, by the way, but the fact that it seems like a plot you may have read or read about assures you that it's a peril to be avoided. At the time I had no idea it was part of a series, but I enjoyed the first one enough to find the other two at Half Price books (there may be three, but only two were in the Half Price paperback section). It reads part science fiction, part fantasy, part literary snobbishness, and approaches its story more like Harry Potter or Discworld than anything else, just throwing out haphazzard story ideas and pulling them back in with abandon, many of them just to liven up the story and non-integral to the overall plot - rather, just crazy local color in a world that revolves around literature. Examples? Wales as a sort of communist, separatist state, the idea of Great Britain ceding a single town in Kent to the Russians as war reparations, and the aforementioned Rocky Horror-esque production, complete with the audience chanting litany responses at the stage.

As a particular, I liked this quote in chapter 16. For some reason it reminds me of Klund:

"...The finest criminal mind requires the finest accomplices to accompany him. Otherwise, what's the point? I always found that I could never apply my most deranged plans without someone to share and appreciate them. I'm like that. Very generous..." Acheron Hades, --Degeneracy for Pleasure and Profit

Thanksgiving Weekend

It's sad that our Thanksgiving weekend is coming to a close. Four days is just a lot of fun to hang out, and by the fourth day, the Scooter family begins to fully, completely relax and have no expectations for the day. Our day consisted of: 1.) going to the park, 2.) going to lunch, 3.) going to Dunn Brothers for a cup of coffee and to read...you can increment one if you include "sleep in". We did accomplish the minor task of picking up paperwork at the rental property...ooo.

Some pictures from the weekend...Eryn hanging out with great grandma Millie on Thanksgiving day.


Thanksgiving "dinner". Do I look hungry? We had at least seven fewer people eating this year...makes a big difference in how full the house feels. That's Lloyd in the foreground...he took all the poker money. Eryn is indeed in a change of clothes...potty training has its successes and its failures. But she's sporting the new outfit Grandma Ellen made for her. I'm not sure if this is before or after Pooteewheet figured out how to put the blouse on correctly.


Conner came later. He'd already eaten some turkey, but was feeling the need for a balanced diet. I picture Adam looking like this when Eve gave him the apple in the garden.


Non-turkey day video of Eryn just running around in a big circle at the park. We can't afford fancy exercise equipment like my friend Klund, so instead we make Eryn run laps.

He asked for malmsey

Lest there be any doubt that I was originally an English Lit./English History dual major, this scene Eryn staged in the bathtub reminded me of the Duke of Clarence's death in a vat of malmsey in Richard III. I realize that gives Richard III two humps instead of just one, but that just makes him seem all the more evil.

Thanksgiving, Job, Birthday

It's Thanksgiving, so happy Thanksgiving to everyone. We'll have a few less guests than last year but, on a positive note, that means we cook one turkey, not two. It's "have Thanksgiving with the other side of the family" for many of Pooteewheet's relatives. I don't think we'll get through all that gravy and I wonder if I have to regift my Uncle-in-law's corporate turkey (he works with me, we get a Thankgiving turkey for life if we retire) back to him. Maybe I'll just cook it in a few weeks and make him have lunch with me on the leftovers.

It's been a little over a week now, but I'm 95% of the way to 40. Pooteewheet got me a very cool thermal coffeemaker a little early. I use the thing obsessively and have started making coffee to share at work every other week, which is easier now that half of it doesn't leak out the bottom of the coffeemaker and all over the white countertop. And I make coffee and just take the thermal pot with me to the rental property when I'm painting and cleaning and doing yardwork. It tends to stay hot and drinkable for about 24 hours.

Almost on top of the change in age, but unrelated, I have a new job. She Says should take comfort in the fact that it's an internal move, not a job at a whole new company, and a lateral move, I poked around at promotion opportunities, but eventually picked the job where I thought I'd do the most good for the company (which includes making me happy, a happy Scooter is a very productive Scooter). I did have to do a lot of interviewing, but I had an advantage in that I have access to documentation and wikis and a willingness to absolutely consume information. It is a big change in that I won't be coding anymore except as a hobby (that's not a commitment to code CDFFL, Mean Mr. Mustard). Instead I'll be working with a variety of company groups to make sure they get the functionality they need. Sounds sort of project manager-ish when I put it that way, but that's not quite the truth of it - there's training and maybe some travel. Friends and family are invited to contact me about details if they're interested.

And I'd like to show you my favorite birthday card, which I got from Sandy, my old project lead. The punchline is, of course, "I can't run again."

Two Inappropriate Work Experiences

Yesterday, as I was headed to my cube, walking across the skyway, there was a woman in front of me with a jean jacket on that hung just below her belt line. All around the bottom, where there's an elastic edge, it said, "B.U.M." B.U.M. on the left, B.U.M. on the right, B.U.M. directly over her BUM. All I could think was "yes it is."

Today, a woman in a cube near mine was cleaning her keyboard wrist guard. A mostly clear gel keyboard wrist guard. It was kind of floppy, and she had a cloth, and she just kept wiping it up, and letting it droop. And wiping it up, and letting it droop. And wiping it up, and letting it droop. It looked like she was clutching the world's largest dildo.

Ya Know Those Videos of Terrified Kids...?

I'm not going to subject you to the video of me giving Eryn wedgies in her new Dora underwear. She's been working on potty training now that the whole constipation thing is past, and we put her in her Dora underwear for practice now and then. This weekend I announced, "Wedgie time!" which is usually the cue for her to respond, "Dad...I'm wearing a diaper.", but this time she was wearing panties. So instead, she exclaimed, "Give me a wedgie!" and ran over and pointed herself butt-first at me. Wanting my child to be wise in the ways of the world, I told her, "You know honey, wedgies are supposed to be uncomfortable. No one really wants a wedgie. It doesn't feel good to have your underpants up your butt." And Eryn assured me that she did indeed still want one. So I (on video, thanks Pooteewheet) grabbed her underpants and gave her the wedgie she so desparately craved. She laughed, and then chastised me for giving her a two-handed wedgie instead of a single-handed wedgie. I tried to explain that at least I hadn't given her an atomic wedgie (as threatened), but my kindness fell on deaf ears.

So much for what I'm not going to make you watch. Today we took Eryn to the Mall of America so she could try the rides that were for kids taller than 42". Yes...she's 3. Seriously annoying. Even though she now has a season pass courtesy of my brother, we have to pay more to go so that we can take her on the older kid rides. Her new favorite? Bumper cars. She can't drive at 42", but she can be a rider, and she loves them. Here's a pic of her and Pooteewheet and a video of me and her. We're hoping her cousin Ollie gets old enough soon that he can go with her so our role goes away. We're not holding out hope for her other cousin (my sister's daughter), A...she's going to be sub-42" for the next 8 years.


Here be video...


While the bumper cars were appreciated...the froghopper was not. What's a froghopper? It's this ride that goes up and then sort of jerk-bounces down giving the rider some jolts. It's designed for kids just over the 42" mark. When we walked up, three boys had just gotten on, each of them separated by one seat - clearly practicing their bathroom ettiquette. Eryn, with some help from Pooteewheet, found herself a seat...



And then the trouble started. This is 15 seconds of video, after which I quit taping so that I could engage my whole attention upon assuring her that after 5...no 6...no 7...um....soon...the ride would stop....seriously honey, it's going to be over. I know it's hurting your butt, but it'll be over... Yeah...one of those not sure whether to laugh or tell the ride guy to shut it the f*** down. But she lived...so it must have been character building. It did convince her that the Screaming Yellow Eagle and Ripsaw Roller Coaster might be best left for a later excursion...see...smart girl.



Finally, to the guy running the carousel who looks hispanic, but was lipsyncing all the words that were playing over the pa by some obviously anglo female (seriously, she sounded blond), that was damn funny. As funny as you seemed to think it was.

You'll Get No Spoilers From Me

Today I went to the new James Bond movie, Casino Royale. It went something like this...

Big chase scene, other big chase scene, casino (women with lots of cleavage mixed in)...pager call from the group I haven't been with for over a year (don't worry, no ringing, I had it on vibrate), application issues, "can you call?", no name or number. As far as I'm concerned, you never let a pager call go unresolved, even if it's not your project, so I left the theater while Bond was playing poker and called Pooteewheet and had her look up phone numbers on dexonline for a few people on the old project. When she finally found one I was sure was correct (say what you will about me, but the fact I know that their project lead lives in St. Paul and I had an idea of what street, tells you I pay attention when people are talking about themselves) I had her dial and act as a verbal gobetween while I related second hand to the tech lead what I knew, which was damn little. He was going to talk to operations and I figured it was all resolved. So I walked back in the theater to see the female lead crying in the shower and Bond comforting her. I'd obviously missed something important.

Gambling...more gambling...TallBrad would obviously enjoy this movie. Some exciting stuff. Some more gambling...some more exciting stuff...Bond is in trouble and he's just been put in his enemy's hands. Thirty minutes have passed. Pager (my phone) vibrates again. Alert again, this time with numbers. So back out of the theater. I call one of the numbers and catch P* from "the other building" (i.e. hardware and installed software - IIS, SQL, that sort of thing) who says he hasn't heard from anyone yet. I give him information that I'm no longer with the project, but that I called the tech lead earlier and put him on to the fact and he can find the tech lead by looking up this name+street combination in dexonline. He's happy to know someone is at least aware of the issue. To follow up, I find a theater employee with a pen. I call Pooteewheet who gives me the tech lead's number, and I write it and the two numbers on the pager down on a napkin from the concession counter. I call the tech lead, who's not home and leave the pager numbers. I call P* back and give him tech lead's number and my firm belief that tech lead is probably not at home now because he's on his way into the building (work, not movie theater) to help resolve the problem.

I walk back into the theater. Bond has escaped (seriously, that's not a spoiler) and something completely different is going on and I have no ideas how he got there. It's much closer to the end of the movie and though I suspect there's a good twist left, I have a feeling it hinges upon the bit I missed. I pack it in, head home, and call the tech lead at the office just to make sure he's there and knows who I talked to and the numbers.

On the bright side, he had to go to work and I didn't, but he also didn't have to waste a bunch of money missing the important parts of a movie.

Turkey Gravy

Pooteewheet bought us turkey gravy for our Thanksgiving feast. This would have been fine, except the turkey I get from work comes with a gravy packet in it. The last two years I forgot about the built-in gravy and bought packets. This year she forgot. It's starting to add up, particularly when some of the gravy has 25% more! (5 servings of gravy, instead of 4). We now have gravy for 29 Thanksgiving visitors if you don't count what comes with the turkey. If nuclear apocalypse comes and disrupts the food supply, I think it will help make the dog and cat a bit more edible (insert you own A Boy and His Dog joke here if you know the ending).

Situational Leadership II

It was noted in class that of the four types of tasks, there is one that works two different ways. The individual with much knowledge, but little motivation. You may be R3 developmental as regards a task - meaning that you're just worried about your capabilities, even though they're there. You may be R3 regressive as regards a task, meaning you've done it so many times, or don't see the benefit to yourself, so you're not interested in doing it, or doing it "one more time."

One archetype suggested for an R3 was Lance Armstrong, which led me to realize that I may be the Lance Armstrong of my project. No, I don't have only one testicle...I meant there's an appropriate metaphor.

Situational Leadership

I have two days of Situational Leadership class this week. The short version...there are four kinds of leadership that are mixtures of motivation and direction (teaching). There are four kinds of following, that are mixtures of ability and motivation/desire. Put them on opposite axes of a grid and the intersection shows the appropriate leading style for the appropriate following style and also points out where you're overleading and underleading.

So what have I learned? I was a pretty good assessor before I started the course. I never delegate to someone who shouldn't be delegated to, yet still delegate to someone who's competent and motivated. I seldom underlead, but tend to overlead just a little, particularly with followers who already have good skills. I believe that - I have a tendency to like good programmers and smart people and I take time to make sure I talk to them about their opportunities, ways to further their knowledge, and how that can be applied to their career, even when I know they have opinions and tracks of their own.

The funniest example today, however, was a question about how to apply your skills on your wife. Seems she's doing all the shopping (food shopping, she volunteered), but she's not buying enough of the basics and the bill is really high. So, lots of motivation, not good skills. How do you best handle it? Talk to her about it? Not quite. Apparently you should explain the problem, and then next time the grocery list is put together, validate the list to make sure it stays within budget. Hmm... Seems to me that's a good way to end up doing all the shopping yourself. Hey baby, I appreciate you're doing the shopping, but I don't think you know how to do it right. Reminds me of when Snewby's girlfriend told him to just stop and think in the grocery store one time. That was the definitive end of their relationship. If they're not going to advocate grocery shopping together, or working on a list together, I think they should add the word "secretly" in front of "check the grocery list" so at least there's no confusion about what it is you're answering.

Moviemania

I had Monday off, and Eryn was gone on Sunday and most of Monday. I spent some time working both days, but managed to sneak in not one, but two movies, with Pooteewheet. Two at the theater that is, we also watched two at home via Netflix:

The Prestige - amazingly good. We watched The Illusionist a few months ago, and when we did, I thought I was going to this movie as I'd seen the previews already and it looked suspenseful. The Illusionist was not suspenseful. This movie was. They really pushed the rivalry between the magicians and how it is almost unnatural in its intensity, until it actually becomes unnatural. Really a wild tale.

Deliver Us From Evil - worthy of the 100% it got on Rottentomatoes. Mean Mr. Mustard might remember all the issues the Catholics diocese in L.A. was having in the '80's, and this documentary follows the path of a pedophile priest as he's transferred from church to church to keep him away from the law and smooth the path for the priests in power. It's amazing, because this priest, who's free and living in Ireland (for a while with a family with children, unaware of his history as a pedophile), has a history of abusing so many children, and in his demeanor he doesn't seem repentant at all. You expect him to give more than lip service in his apologies, but instead you get the feeling that his apologies are only a way to force his victims to have to forgive him in an attempt to victimize them all over again.

The Future of Food - a little boring because I already knew so much of this, and because it parallels Fast Food Nation (which I read) in some ways. I find the idea of suicide/terminator seeds terrifying, and the fact that bioengineered plants spread like the dinosaurs on Jurrasic Park and the patent infringement falls on the farmer whose field has been contaminated is something that only seed companies can understand, because it makes no f-ing logical sense. How the hell can you throw your crap on someone else's property and then accuse them of keeping it in violation of patent law when they can't tell it apart from their own crap without a plant-by-plant genetic test? You might as well claim a patent on a kind of dirt, throw it in their yard, and claim patent infringement.

Kinky Boots - Just another version of all those movies where someone turns their business around with something "different"...like growing pot, or selling your cheese as a new hockey rink surface...in this case it's turning a men's shoe factory into a boot factory for cross dressers. You know that during the transition an important life lesson is learned...like pot is really evil, or cheese makes a shitty substitute for ice, or cross dressers are people too. If you've seen one of those other movies, you've seen this one, and the one you saw was probably better.

Heroes of Might and Magic V

I've been playing Heroes of Might and Magic V (that's right, it's wikiable) a little, usually with my friend Dan'l, and I swear, that every once in a while it breaks into a riff from Lionel Richie's "Penny Lover". Not only is that just not at all appropriate for computer gaming, but it gives me flash backs to slow dancing in the basements of high school girl friends in my pre-driving-license days. There's no way to break you out of the immersion of a fantasy game faster than that.

A Burrito is NOT a Sandwich

So sayeth the court, and they do their research, " Superior Court Judge Jeffrey Locke cited Webster's Dictionary as well as testimony from a chef and a former high-ranking federal agriculture official."

"A sandwich is not commonly understood to include burritos, tacos and quesadillas, which are typically made with a single tortilla and stuffed with a choice filling of meat, rice, and beans," Locke wrote in a decision released last week.

What if you take two burritos and stick a bunch of meat between them, and then eat the whole thing?

Friends Have Been Posting

So there have been elections, Rummy's resigned, and all sorts of goings on, and what have I been blogging about? Pooping, chess matches in Australia, big rats in the parking lot, and rental property. Just to make sure no one is worried, Pooteewheet, Eryn and I did go to vote. Eryn couldn't vote, but she was interested in watching the process and took very seriously her orders not to talk about individual candidates while in the polling place.

Fortunately, the bloggers on my "friends, not family" list are really busy and have some good posts this week. I summarize a few of my favorites (before I sadly go back to working on the code for release that is keeping me out of code camp today).

Unblague wishes everyone a Happy Veteran's Day. A shout out to vets everywhere, particularly my friend Dan'l. Hope he gets some quiet time to himself today to blow up things on the computer.

Speaking of Dan'l, Joe the Povert notes that robots think we taste like bacon. Based on the amount of bacon Dan'l has consumed in his life, there's probably some validity to this. I think it's amusing someone else tasted like prosciutto...what's that about, you taste like bacon with a little bit of b.o. funk?

Robots apparently have jokes of their own they tell to each other about themselves. Fimoculous links to McSweeney's. I like the one about knock knock, who's there, a robot, oh, shit. Reminds me of Eryn's "spooky man" joke which just ends with maniacal laughter.

Boing Boing points out that someone is trying to create Elvish Esperanto. Yeah, Boing Boing can't possibly be my "friend" (although in MySpace parlance, everyone can be my friend - so...well...there), but Kyle is, and he once tried to teach himself runes (actually, I think he succeeded, it wasn't just trying), so that link is for him. He can whip out his mad elvish esperanto skillz at the next boardgaming day.

Steve Eck blogs about Ms. Dewey, the search engine with video interaction. That's a lot of waiting for a search - but certainly amusing the first several times. I liked it when she made the intern drink from a beaker during a physics question and the riding crop that came out for S&M. I figure they'll strap that damn BK chicken to an engine soon based on this, although I prefer attractive and exotic women answering my questions.

Planet Dan takes on some Minnesotan's feelings about the election of Michele Bachmann. Sure, the big picture is brighter and rosier, but we still have to face the fact that we have a lunatic speaking for us. While he's at it, he photoshops a very nice picture of her, questions the independent vote (if only all 42% of you had voted for this other candidate, Bachmann wouldn't have been elected!), and posts that wonderful picture of the Santorum family with the little girl dressed just like her doll. Pooteewheet once dressed up in her Mrs. Beasley's clothes, so she probably feels for her.

And Pharyngula links to a UTI mockumentary about prunes and fiber being the devil. Speaking of which, Eryn is not-so-firmly (punny) in the throes of getting rid of all that backed up evil that had me taking her to the doctor this week. She actually looks thinner she's gone so much, and her cheerfulness level is off the scale.