Cats are fascinating creatures. They retain so much of their wild hunting abilities and instincts while being fully domesticated. They are incredible athletes and remarkable gymnasts. I admire them as creations of God. BUT, they do make your house smell awful. The do make my wife, dad, and many others unable to breath in a matter of minutes. And they have that nasty habit of treating their owners like pets instead of the other way around. I would NEVER willingly own a cat.

All that said, they still entertain me.

If you haven’t heard of LOLCATZ (For the clueless, that’s pronounced “lole-cats.”), what rock have you been living under?

I love the lolcat site I CAN HAZ CHEEZBURGER. Not every post makes me laugh, but many do. They are purrrfect (aha…) bite-sized humor kibbles for when I’m working hard, but have to wait a couple of minutes for a build or a script to finish (like right now, for instance).

With my proclivity for naps, this one really got me giggling.

Join me today in raising a 7-layer burrito in memory of Gidget, the Taco Bell Chihuahua. Gidget died yesterday at the age of 105 (in dog years). I know there’s some controversy over the discovery that Gidget was a female. But I’m willing to look beyond the tabloid sex scandals and just remember the good times.

My favorite was the Godzilla movie cross-promo where Gidget sat next to a box trap baited with tacos. “Heeeere leezard leezard leezard!” What’s yours?

I really like David Crowder Band. I really like internet memes. I really like Twitter (but I’m not addicted). I really really LOVE this video!! (And yes, I’m going to tweet it too.)

Considering that today is Embrace Your Geekness Day, what better time could there be for me to share my personal treatise on three oft confused terms.

Many people use these three terms interchangeably and, as someone who considers himself a geek, but not a nerd or dork, this is highly offensive. Allow me to expound.

Geek, nerd, and dork are titles that, while related, refer to different ends of a large spectrum. Yes, a spectrum! Like a rainbow of social ineptitude.

At the low end, you have the ineffectual dork. The dork has little or no social grace, making them uncomfortable company for even the shortest period of time. They have no concept of what normal people think is funny or even interesting. They tend to be loud and sometimes even rude. Many of them fail grasp basic grooming. (Your greasy mullet and mutton chops do not make you look like Wolverine. They make you look homeless.)

Dorks also have no marketable skills, making them useless to society. Notice I used “marketable.” Neither speaking fluent Klingon nor “pwning noobs” in Halo are “marketable.” (No one is going to call you up offering to pay you to pwn their noobs for them.)

If you move up the scale on the skills side, you will find the humble nerd. These poor souls toil in the background of our society, inventing and inovating, making our lives better, but never reaping the benefits. Even if the make a billion dollars, no one wants to come to their parties and hang out. (Reference Bill Gates!) These are the guys that multiple PhDs and are still taking night classes, not because they need to, but because they would rather spend Friday night doing homework that face the cruel social gauntlet of real life.

At the top of the spectrum you have the mighty geek. Thanks to the nerds of the past, on who’s shoulders we stand, geeks are able to master marketable skills and still have time to make friends, date and marry attractive women, and carry on successful lives away from the keyboard.

You’ll notice a conspicuous missing label from my graph. It is reserved for those of whom we geeks prefer not to speak. Those with no skills, but lots of schmooze. Out from this black hole of humanity crawl middle managers, politicians, sales and marketing. Necessary? Perhaps. Desirable? May it never be so.

July 13th is “Embrace Your Geekness Day!”

w00t!

I like Rob Cockerham‘s advice: “Always bring your camera.” Thanks to the wonders of technology, I have a fairly crappy camera on my cell phone, and so I do take pictures whenever I see something funny or stupid. The problem is that I don’t do anything with those pictures… Until now!

I love food. But I’m a little uncomfortable when my food is laughing. Why is it laughing? Is it laughing at me? Is it laughing because it knows something I don’t know? Is it planning to poison me? Ack! The pressure!!

Speaking of food (and poison), I love egg nog. It’s one of my favorite holiday treats. As soon as it goes on sale at the store, I must buy some. But last year, I was a little hesitant about this first batch.

While I was at the store, I needed some AAA batteries. Buying in bulk is always a good deal, right? Here’s 16 batteries for $9.74 (That’s 60.9¢ each.)

So, let’s compare this package of 8 that was right next to it on the same display and cost $4.34. (That’s 54.3¢ each.) Hmmm.

Speaking of bad deals, one of these pairs of shoes is not on sale.

I love truth in advertising. And, thus, I think this is the smartest diaper bag ever. “Say mister! Whatcha got in that lovely pink diaper bag?” “Can’t ya read? It’s POO!”

And finally, Ghosty sent me this pic of a t-shirt someone’s selling. At first I was angry that anyone dare steal the same image I stole first, and use for my blog. But when I read the caption, I felt the kindred spirit and my anger melted away.

Ok, so if you follow me on Twitter or Facebook, you must know that we have been house shopping. And you know that we made an offer on a house yesterday. I’m sure you are on the edge of your seat waiting to hear what happened.

Frankly, so am I.

We toured about a half dozen houses last Friday night. Then about two dozen on Saturday. It was fun, but at the same time, it was a beating. By Saturday night we were exhausted. I had taken pictures of every house, inside and out, because I knew they would all run together in out minds. I ended up with over 100 pictures.

The market around here has been crazy. There are a ton of homes for sale, but the good ones, the real deals, are only on the market for a few days. We had several on our list to see that were contracted before we got to them. So we felt some urgency on picking one to make an offer. We finally decided and started the paper work.

Then I realized, there was a lot about our choice that I didn’t remember, so I asked for another tour. Monday, around lunch time, I met our realtor and went over the house with a fine-tooth comb. There are some little issues, but nothing we can’t deal with. So, I submitted the offer.

I asked our realtor when we should expect to hear back. She said she had talked to the selling realtor Sunday night and Monday morning. He asked her to send over our offer as soon as possible. He would be waiting for her email. Now, to an average human being, like you or me, that means the sellers were eager to get the offer and we should expect a prompt reply, right?

At 5:30 (PM!!), I left a message for my realtor. I apologized for bugging her, but we’re property virgins and overwhelmingly anxious. She called us back about an hour later. (She had been with a client.) As soon as she listened to our message, she had called the selling realtor. (He was also with a client.) Finally, he emailed her with this… (This is his entire email.)

Seller is on a cruise ship you most likely will not hear from them for 3-4
days.

GAAAHHH!!!!

Stay tuned for further updates as they develop… eventually.

I firmly believe that I could not survive in Japan. Tom Selleck made it work in Mr. Baseball, barely, but I’m pretty sure I’m just not tough enough.

I don’t like sea food (Especially when it’s not cooked!), I don’t like karaoke, and I don’t like anime.

In case you have any doubt about just how weird Japan is, check out this trailer for their latest video game release for the Wii. If you suffer from seizures, you may not want to watch this. I’ve never had one, but I felt like I had by the time this video was over!

Nope. I’d never survive.

Vice President Joe “Foot-In-Mouth” Biden leveled the playing field today. Don’t worry about his policies that put American lives at risk (weak border security, wrist-slapping terrorists, anti-military idiocy, etc.) because today, he put his own life at risk.

While shooting the breeze at a fancy-pants dinner with the “media elite”, he revealed the location of the top secret VP bunker (made famous when Dick Cheney spent 9/11 in it). So now any terrorist with internet access knows exactly where Diahrea-Mouth Joe will be during the next attack.

When the poo hit the fan about Joe spilling top secret info, his press secretary responded with a firm, “Nuh uh!”

Seriously. Read it all here.

Parting thought: If a lesser public servant had screwed up that bad, he’d be facing treason charges. Just sayin’.

I’ve had my head down, trying to get forward momentum on a project at work. That’s my excuse for letting Wednesday creep up on me without putting up a new whiteboard quip. I had a really good one in mind, too. But, to give it a fair shake, I have to wait for next Monday.

So, instead of giving you a quip, I’ll just tell you a funny story. How’s that?

Several months ago, Tammy and I were in an unfamiliar part of town. I was driving down a major street when Tammy suddenly gasped and exclaimed, “WHAT?!”

My heart jumped (the way it always does when I’m driving and someone in the car gasps suddenly). “Don’t DO that! It makes me think we’re about to crash or something.”

“Sorry, but did you see that restaurant back there?”

“You mean the ‘Lebanese Grill’? Yeah, that’s weird, but why the freakout?”

“OH! Lebanese! I thought it said, ‘Lesbian Grill’. What kind of restaurant is that?!”

I’ll let your imagination try and figure out exactly what a “Lesbian Grill” would serve.