Blogger Q&A

Why choose one question to answer for your profile (very bottom when you edit your profile in here). I'll answer them all!

You have a red jar of cedar chips. Why do moths miss the forest?
This is irrelevant. The blind ghost crab is always in my glove compartment.

Whoops! Your tongue is now a magnet. Whatever will you use for silverware?
Who says I use silverware to begin with? If one must use tools to eat with, one could use plastic, wood, or aluminum.

Create a tagline for a new line of plastic bedsheets.
"When you wet the bed, you get to bathe in your own juices until you awaken!"

Why does the taste of pennies remind you of losing a tooth?
The taste of pennies only reminds me of the taste of pennies.

Your superpower is that you smell like dandelions whenever someone lies. How will you maintain your secret identity?
As long as no one lies near me, I should have no problem. Are you accusing my friends of lieng?????

The wicked backspin caught you off guard. How will you play it off without losing your footing?
I will summon the power of the ogre-beast. That alone will enable me to retort with a wonderful, back-antelope sidestep kick.

If you could peer far enough into the night sky, you'd see a star in any direction you looked. When would you sleep?
I would absorb the energy of Peadmont, the half-man goat warrior. My slumber would maintain through the loudest of supernovae.

Lionesses have no manes. How do they know when they've grown up?
They start exploring their feminine parts without feeling guilt.

The children are waiting! Please tell them the story about the bald frog with the wig:
He got shot with a BB gun. The End.

You can whistle and steam can whistle, so why do you sing in the shower?
Because of the echo. It makes you sound better than you really do.

You're going to the moon! What did you forget to pack?
Most likely my metal detector. Probably lots of unclaimed watches and necklaces up there.

Please come up with a more appropriate name for the ringtoe:
The Majestic Closed Arc of Foot Extremities.

Please describe how you could take the peel off an apple all in one go:
With fire.

Why do you think honeydew is the money melon?
I did not know this. Must be from an inheritance or divorce.

If you were a cannibal, what would you wear to dinner?
I would be naked of course.

What's the most amount of sand you've ever had in your swimming trunks?
I never measured it specifically, but I would guess 3 cups.

Your hand has been replaced by a rubber stamp. What does it say?
HELP!

All of the phone numbers have fallen out of your address book. Whose number do you look for first and why?
If the virtual digits started falling out of my computer, I would have more things to worry about than losing the phone numbers.

Why don't you ever wear a scarf? It doesn't need to be cold outside for your neck to feel naked.
If I wore a scarf, I may miss an opportunity to be assaulted by a vampire.

If you were a pirate, how would you avoid laughing when saying "poop deck"?
I would rename it to "diarrhea deck".

Describe the sound of a moist waffle falling onto a hot griddle.
AAAHHHHHH!!!!!

You're in the grocery store with a broken cart. How will you ever be that hungry?
I have never been to the grocery store and been unable to choose a different cart. The times that I go to the store are not the times when all carts are taken and you can't negotiate through the hordes of people.

In the dream where you show up to school naked, why do you never go swimming?
Because I was promptly escorted to the principal's office.

That can't really be a fish you're standing on, can it?
If it looks like a fish, then it probably is a fish.

When your science teacher smashed a frozen rose with a hammer, did you warm the petals to bring them back to life?
No, the hammer strike set me off on a rampage through the whole school. Violence begets violence.

What spells can you cast with magic markers?
The "you will soon regret passing out drunk with your shoes on" spell.

When you spilled the milk, did it look like the moon?
Only if the moon looks like a shapeless amoeba.

You've been entered in a shadow puppet contest. What's your best pose?
Playboy bunny.

When you've got water stuck in your ear, how do you get it out?
You have to lunge sideways really suddenly and super fast and the water should be caught off guard and maintain its geographic locale in mid air.

What reason do you have to believe the earth is flat?
Because my car doesn't roll away when I get out of it.

You laughed so hard you can't catch your breath. Stick out your tongue and show us what's funny:
I was told my raise this year would be substantial.

If mud is dirt plus water, what is clay?
Cooled lava.

You forgot your mom's birthday! What can you make out of super glue and olive pits?
A nice hat?

Try writing your name with your other hand. Where was that person raised?
The same place I was, except he was lied to a lot.

For your birthday, your aunt gave you a maple syrup dispenser shaped like a rooster. Please write her a thank-you note:
"Thank you for the very interesting breakfast rooster. It looks nice on our mantle."

Which do you prefer and why: whittling with soap or whistling with wood?
They have a name for these types of people, and it is "Satan".

This is a colon : and this is a semi-colon ; - what's a semi-truck?
----------
| |--
| | |
-O---------O-
(This looked wonderful before Blogger removed all the spacing. To hell with using the non-breaking-space HTML code)

Foxes are clever and tigers are cunning. So, what's your cat's safety school?
I am totally lost on this one. If I had to pick something, I guess it would be oat bran.

What would you wear for camouflage if you were hiding in a gingerbread house?
My naked, ginger-colored skin?

What would you name your ballet inspired by the sight of children leaping through a garden sprinkler?
"Fountain of Acid and Suffering"

You've got to make contact with the alien leader. How will you tell when the conversation is finished?
When they no longer respond to my voice, whether because of distance or indifference.

Try making up the rules to a game where you tie knots in a yo-yo string just to see if you can get them out:
It is called "Thanks Asshole". The rules will be simple, the yo-yo must not be your own. Each knot that is removed must be replaced with 3 more.

The squish of mud between your toes; how would you live your life as a frog?
My frog brain would lose all ability to describe life. I would survive and eat bugs.

Sponges and tongues are frequently misspelled. Is it because both are thirsty?
No it is because people are stupid and lazy. YOU are stupid and lazy and must be purged from.....ooops, sorry. Yeah, they must be thirsty.

You've rented a sky-writer to propose to your significant other, but it's completely overcast. What will you do?
Attach a cloud eraser on the back of the plane. He can erase the message into the sky.

You moved the pot before the coffee stopped brewing. Do you smell the mountains or the burro?
I would smell the coffee dripping onto the hot plate. The sizzling sounds of the drips would also incite rage and cause me to pummel myself through the floor into the basement where I would begin digging until I passed out. I would awaken and remember nothing.

Come up with some possible band names for your group that features a washboard and a styrofoam tuba.
"The Goobers" & "Toiletry Monkeys"

When you hesitate before hitting snooze on your alarm clock, are you being lazy?
No, you are fighting productivity.

Which is more important to you and why: flexibility or expandability?
In a woman? Definitely flexibility. :)

Your bow is not broken but you've run out of arrows. How can you fake being a bard?
Is this Dungeons and Dragons 2nd or 3rd Edition?

The hair from your last haircut ... what would it say about your new style?
Rockin dude!

Aren't papier mache cuts the worst?
Anyone feeble enough to get cut by paper mache is of no concern to me.

What's the earliest you've gotten up to watch cartoons and what did you see?
Probably 5:30 AM when I was little. After the US Farm Report, Underdog came on. There was also no need to fear.

How tall would you be if you had never cut your fingernails?
6'2" standing straight up, 5'10" slouching to the weight of my fingernails and lack of muscle by being prohibited from forming due to my poor choice of lifestyle.

What did you dream when you ate a spider while sleeping?
Goodbye, Charlotte!

Your pajamas have duckies on them. Why did you switch from choo-choos?
This question makes me want to slap somebody.

Your people want to make a statue in your honor. What will it be made out of and what victory will it commemorate?
Who are you calling "my people"? HUH????? The statue would be of my foot standing on your neck, you racist bastard.

Why does the color blue mean raspberry-flavored?
I have no idea. Whoever marketed that did a disservice to us all.

Well, maybe they don't need them, but don't you think that some fish might like a bicycle?
They don't like to wear bike helmets and there are stiff laws for those in the underwater world.

You're trapped in a well with a goat and a slinky. Describe how you will escape.
I will distract the goat with the slinky long enough for him to fall into a trance. Then I will escape his evil hooved clutches with my climbing skills and leave him stranded.

The first time you had your shoes taken off - how surprised were you to see that you still had toes?
This would have been around the time where I was fascinated by clear glass. I would say I was quite surprised.

What's the best time you've ever had licking stamps?
Probably the time I had finished counting my high school graduation money and was sending the thank you notes.

The love potion you made tastes terrible. How will you drink it?
Suck it up and DRINK ROMEO!

What was the stage name of your favorite actress before she was born?
Blue raspberry.

You're wearing a sweater that stretches down to your feet. What color belt do you put on?
Who needs a belt when you aren't wearing pants?

OK, that's enough. Do these go on forever? Even through multiple repeats when refreshing (in the Edit Profile screen for those of you who are lost), a new one would still pop up every now and then.

Man am I cynical! Oh well.

Superfrustration

I have been supervising close to two dozen people for about two and a half years now. I would say the following things are what bug me the most about this job:

1. When people are unreliable.

2. When people do not pay attention to detail.

3. When people do not care about their job.

The first group, unreliables, are people who do not seem to grasp the notion of a schedule. Unfortunately, the nature of our work requires a specific starting and end time. It is technical phone support. These people do not have flex-hours to negotiate forty hours somewhere within the confines of seven days. We have devised a highly intricate schedule to accommodate 24/7 coverage and maintain adequate staffing per shift based on call volumes. This is called "work", not "leisure time". If you want to collect a paycheck, please show up to work on time and do not leave early. Wandering around frequently while at work also places further strain on those who are trying to earn their money.

The second group, those who have a wind tunnel located directly between their ear drums, are workers who like to "cut corners". Their ticket documentation usually consists of vague, indecipherable gibberish. One three word sentence will often sum up a thirty minute phone support call. These are also the type of people who routinely have to be reminded of procedure. It may sound as trivial as including a cover sheet on their TPS reports (watch Office Space for those who do not get this one), but there is usually a good reason behind each procedure. When you have to get two dozen people to consistently operate within a loose set of standards, you always have those that cannot keep the ball in bounds. It is understandable that people will forget things, or mess up, I have no problem with this. It is when the same people need weekly, sometimes daily reminders about the same issue, you begin to wonder as to their mental capacity. Or, they may also be drifting into our third category...

People who just plain don't give a shit. These are usually the type of people who have the potential to be star performers, but for whatever reason have given up on being productive. Most are disgruntled and would jump at the chance for a new position. They usually do the bare minimum, attempting to slip just under the radar to avoid notice. They also fit well into the above two categories, which is also why they often CANNOT get a new position, at least within the company. These individuals are usually the ones who seem to complain the most, aiding in lowering morale among their more eager peers.

It is a frustrating dilemma. If we could just reduce the amount of behavior that falls into the above three categories, we could probably spend more time fixing what makes people slump to begin with. More time and energy is spent trying to correct these types of issues, that we are unable to concentrate on more productive directions for our group. This may sound like an excuse, who knows. All I know is that it is very perplexing how some people can take no pride in their work or themselves. The ones who evade this type of behavior have almost unlimited potential to progress. Your career is what you make of it. The worst thing you can do is give up and become an administrative headache for those who manage you.

Magic Wallet

Let's say you are given a "magic wallet". You have to make a decision from the following choices and can never change your mine.

Choice 1: Every hour, a $10 bill will appear in the magic wallet. A new $10 bill will only appear if the previous one has been removed. If removed regularly, the bills will appear at a set interval of one hour. If a bill is not removed before the next scheduled appearance of a new bill, a new bill will not appear until one hour after the current one is removed, thus resetting the interval as well.

Choice 2: Every 24 hours, a $100 bill will appear in the magic wallet. The same rules apply based on this 24 hour interval.

Will you choose the $10 bill, with the potential payout of $240 a day? Or the $100 bill which will yield only $100 a day? The $10 bill requires removal once an hour to get $240 a day, while you only need to remove the $100 bill once a day.

Most people I have presented this with have opted for the $100 bill, since it requires far less attention. However consider this: In one year, you can only make $36,500 from the $100 bill choice. With the $10 bill choice, you have the potential of making $87,600 in a year (yet you would get no sleep)....quite a difference!

Think about it.

Big Dog, Little Dog

I am at home right now, feels strange to be posting from here. I guess I mostly post at work, though a lot of my posts have nothing to do with actual work, or my working environment. Anyway, I am looking out my front window at the house across the street. The have a corner lot. The way the street at the end of ours angles, even though our driveways line up, we still have a couple houses on our side towards the corner. Are the visuals helping?

I think three people live there, a mom, dad, and seemingly old son (maybe too old to be living with mom and dad?). Well the mom, we'll call her "June", is always outside working around the yard. She mows, she washes cars, she trims bushes....I just saw her with a drill in her hand walking down the sidewalk (no idea). The husband, "Frank", makes an appearance every now and then, but it is rare to see him lift a finger. Sometimes he sits on their stoop and watches June work. Now Frank is seldom seen without his 1980's style headphones...the ones with the built in AM/FM radio mounted to the ear pieces. Frank likes to dance in his driveway at times too. I'm not sure if he is line dancing or what, but something's just not right with this picture. Frank also sports a very beautiful, curly mullet. He gets picked up to go to "work" (I assume), and never drives. This leads to endless speculation, but I will leave that for another day.

The son, "Scott", seems to be in his late 20's, occasionally has some friends over, sometimes sporting instrument cases of some sort.

They have two dogs, "Big Dog" and "Little Dog". Big Dog is a Doberman. He likes to be outside and runs the interior of their picket fence tirelessly. Little Dog, a small....mutt?...does his business and then sits on the stoop and barks until let inside.

One time this little girl on a bike was taunting Big Dog and Little Dog through the fence. The barking seemed to last 15 minutes at least. I was washing my truck up by my garage and finally yelled an anonymous "Hey!" hoping the girl would leave. Nope. And the son was home alone...or at least sans parents. I think he had a girl over and was "preoccupied" and didn't investigate the barking. Either that or he is reclusivley scared of the neighborhood kids.

Technical difficulties have caused me to lose the rest of what I had written. Must not have been too important, I can't remember what it may have been. Oh well, bottom line is that the family across the street is strange. But then again, to the outside observer, we all probably look pretty strange.

I'm Not Lazy

Hey out there in cyberland. What's happening? Not much here, just waiting to get off work for the weekend. I have our group pager (rotated weekly between the manager and us supervisors for emergency issues), wasn't supposed to get it until Monday. My manager is going camping and turned it over to me early. Now I have to lug the archaic piece of plastic and circuitry around for the next 10 days. Oh well, our group doesn't need to call the number much anyway in the off hours. And if they do, I get paid overtime. If I get woke up at 8AM (that would be like the normal person getting woke up at 3AM since I work different hours*), I will charge 30 minutes OT even if the issue only takes me 5 minutes to address. You keep me on the phone 15-20 minutes, that's 1 hour OT I am charging, by the time I am able to relax and fall back asleep. BRING IT ON!

Sorry, I go off on rants sometimes. But getting to my asterisk...

*I am not lazy. I get 6-7 hours at the most sleep every night. I get home from work right before midnight, I am not able to just go get in bed just to wake up early in the morning. I am the type of person that needs this cycle: Wake up, go to work, come home, freetime, go to bed. My freetime happens to be during the WAY early hours of the AM. I cannot stand people who try and give me a hard time for sleeping until noon. It is not like I get home from work and just go hit the bed for 12 hours. You better BACK off on this one. I am in no mood. It also sucks to get up early, start getting into some project and then BAM, time to go to work. Getting into a project after work, I am able to say "I don't feel like quitting now, I can survive with an hour or two less sleep tonight to finish." But when I have to go to work, there is no, "I guess I'll be an hour or two late to work so I can finish this project." NO WAY! So you can stick your "hey lazy sleeping in until noon" comment right up your ass. Let me show you how someone gets work done. Bastard. Now you've pissed me off, I am going now.

P.S. And no I will not split up my only available free time during the week even further by taking a couple hours before and after work. Life is too short to work away for someone else (one day I will be my own boss but it isn't now), so splitting my time up is not an acceptable answer. I think I'll go set the lake on fire now.

Meat Bucket

I left the meat bucket outside last night without taking the usual precautions. Sometimes I feel adventurous and daring. I was awakened around 5:50 AM this morning to the howls of the twin sister raccoons, Vinegar and Cobra making a ruckus. It had nothing to do with the meat bucket, in fact this entire post is a lie. But let me continue this much by saying...better yet spraying, the fact that I hate white porcelain. Who made the extreme judgement call that all urinals have to be white porcelain?