Customer: I just arrived at my lake house for the summer, and the satellite TV isn’t working! Why is it off?!

Customer Service Rep.: Sir, please stay calm. It’s simple: we just need to reset your receiver since you’ve been away for a while.

C: How long will that take?

CSR: It’s easy, sir. Do you have a potato handy?

C: Um, let me see… (Pause) Yes, we just picked some up at the store on our way in — stocking up.

CSR: Great, sir. An apple would also work. Now, what I need you to do is to cut that potato in half. Then I need you place one half of the potato face-down on top of your receiver. Please make sure it’s dry.

C: What?

CSR: Trust me, sir, I’m a professional. We’ll have your service back on in no time.

C: Okay… (Long Pause) Alright, done. Now what?

CSR: Great, sir. The potato will act upon your receiver’s magnetic field and will bring the service back online momentarily. It’s a built-in security feature so that no one can use your dish while you’re away for most of the year.

CSR sends a reset request, satellite transmits ‘wake up’ signal to inactive receiver, TV comes on.

C: That’s amazing! Who’d have thought… a potato! Will this work every time?

CSR: Just give us a call if you have any problems in the future, and thank you for using this service.

(Rudely ripped from Overheard in the Office.)

Last Christmas, the world was traumatized by the hemorrhaging falsetto of this stirring rendition of “Oh Holy Night”.

In the tradition of annual one-up-manship, this year “Oh Holy Night” comes to you in un-living color, animated by Eric Maziade, creator of “Zombies”.

Behold and “Faaaaaall on yer kneeeeeeeez”. (Requires Flash)

(Pined from the Sneeze)

Just in time for the busy, holiday shipping season.

*Clicky Clicky*

Today, the Earth is very near to its position relative to the sun that it was on the day I was born. The Earth has mad thirty-three laps since then and to celebrate this occasion, I will be going home from work at a reasonable hour… for a change.

I was thinking about it this morning… at 12:30 AM… as I was driving home from work. “Happy Birthday! Wheeee.” For the last six weeks, I’ve been working retardedly long hours (~14 hours a day) and life is blurring all around me. I feel like the guy in that weird special effect, where he’s going in slow motion and all the people around him are buzzing around him at three times normal speed. Other than Sunday afternoon’s, I haven’t seen my wife for more than ten minutes at a time. I’ve missed numerous church events. And, having not exercised anything but my typing fingers in all that time, I’ve gained about 15 pounds. And, as an added bonus, half of the company is going to a funeral today so their all dressed in black and moping around.

But then, I got to thinking. This is definitely not my worst birthday ever. I’m financially comfortable. I’m relatively healthy. My wife is proving her metal by being very supportive even though she’s got lots of reasons to be grumpy (more on this later). And, even though it’s killing me, I really do enjoy my work.

On my fourth birthday, I got in the one and only fight I’ve ever had with my best friend Galyn. I ended up throwing a hot-wheels car at him for which I got spanked. That’ll but a damper on the party!

I spent my fifteenth birthday in I.S.S. (No, not the international space station. In school suspension.) for getting in a fight during Spanish class. That was pretty sucky.

But I’d have to say my absolute worst birthday ever was my thirteenth. Never mind the fact that I was thirteen, with all it’s acne and hormonal anguish. I was with my family visiting friends in Virginia. Those friends are very “granola”, if you know what I mean, and I spent the week suffering through Coca-Cola withdrawals and eating enough carrot sticks to make Bugs Bunny nauseous. Oh, and I came home with pneumonia! Bonus!!

What is your worst birthday memory?

I don’t see these kinds of things very often anymore. (Probably because, lately, I spend more time on .NET forums and CSS design sites than the “Joe’s WAV page” ilk.) But I needed a WAV file for a new tool and ended up here.

In FireFox (my browser of choice), the page’s title screams so loud you can’t even understand it. “AMA…” Whoa! Try some decaf Gunga Din!

But, if you check out the site in IE (ala FireFox: Right-click, “View This Page In IE“. Nice.) all is well with the world and “Amadeus” is a tame as a kitten.

“How could this be?!” you ask. Well, a quick perusal of the page source shows you what this page’s owner never saw. The WYSIWYG editor he/she used when a little nuts on the formatting.

<big> <big> <font color=”#ffffff” face=”Arial”> <big> <strong> <em> <big> <big> <big> <big> <big> <big>Amadeus</big> </big> </big> </big> </big> </big> </em> </strong> </big> </font> </big> </big>

IE sees all that silly over-formatting and ignores it. “Ha! Silly user. You must be using FrontPage®.” But FireFox faithfully answers the call and explodes your text all over the page.

If you’re thinking I’ve already talked about this, you’re right.

This year’s best pumpkin picture goes to this guy. I love it. See previous picks.

Dear Johnny Carino’s Waitress,

I’m sorry I can not be more personal in my greeting, but you never told us your name. You were the short one with the northeastern accent (New Jersey maybe?).

Thanks for the great service. Our food was terrific (so let the cooks know I said, “Muy bueno!”).

In particular, I wanted to thank you for offering to box up our left-overs for us. Your idea of putting my wife’s shrimp scampi into the *lid* of the box rather than the bottom, was really ingenious. This was the only way you could defeat the well engineered lip around the box that would have kept the olive oil and butter sauce *inside* the box. By putting the goods in the lid, you insured that we could enjoy the aroma of garlic and butter for days as it coated everything else in the doggie bag. Our refrigerator will remind us of our great dining experience for days to come.

I can’t thank you enough for granting me the slippery sensation on my fingers when I discovered that my to-go box of steak had a wonderful sheen of olive oil all over it. I wish you could have shared our laughter as we found that the olive oil wouldn’t even rinse out of the sink (where I placed said box after dripping oil across the kitchen floor) without a good dose of dishwashing soap. Ha ha haaa wheeeee

Thanks again,

Trint

Update: In November 2006, just days before the start of the holiday shopping season (Coincidence? I think not.) Wal-Mart issued a statement saying that they have chosen to “remain neutral” in social matters and will not give money to organizations with political motives. The AFA has lifted its boycott, but I’m still not spending my money there. It is possible to not shop there. Trust me.

Since dear old Sam Walton died, Wal-Mart has gone from a “Made in the U.S.A”, grass roots, apple pie company to the most (deservedly) vilified corporation in America. 1) Wal-Mart pumps billions of dollars into the sweat-shop industries of the worlds largest human rights violator (China). 2) Wal-Mart unashamedly destroys small town economies. And now, as if conservative Christian Americans needed any more reason to hate the company, 3) Wal-Mart jumped on the homosexual band wagon.

“In an unprecedented push, Wal-Mart Stores has hired a gay-marketing shop, joined the National Gay & Lesbian Chamber of Commerce and begun discussions with activist groups about extending domestic-partnership benefits to its employees.”

According to an article in Advertising Age, Wal-Mart has jumped in with both feet wanting to cash in on the lucrative gay market.

“The steps being taken by Wal-Mart are the strongest signal yet that the company may be taking a permanent stand on the side of gay rights, despite the inevitable lambasting from right-wing conservative groups, such as the Family Research Council and the American Family Association.”

In other words, Wal-Mart is shouting from the roof tops, “Hey middle America! We don’t care what you think. We’re going to make our money any way we can. And we are confident that you will continue to buy our cheap Chinese crap because you’ve already proven to be a bunch of ignorant cattle. So screw you, America! Have a nice day and come again!”

So, have you had enough yet? I have. Until now, I’ve “avoided” Wal-Mart, which is to say, I only shop there when I’m not sure where else to go to find what I need. (Where else do you go when you want to buy a Frisbee or a 50 gallon trash can?) Well, no more. I’m done. (My wife’s going to hate me for this.)

You might be thinking, “How can you not shop at Wal-Mart?” Well, if that’s true, then Wal-Mart is right and we really are a bunch of ignorant cattle. The reason Wal-Mart is what it is today is because we’ve all been to lazy and cheap to face up to their crappy business practices. “Moo!” I say! “Moo!” I will moo no more!

Join me! Let Wal-Mart know that you will moo no more! Contact your local Wal-Mart and the Wal-Mart corporate office:

Rob Walton, Chairman
Wal-Mart Stores, Inc.
702 Southwest 8th Street
Bentonville, AR 72716
Primary Phone: 1-800-925-6278
Fax: 479-277-2473
E-Mail: Rob Walton, Wal-Mart Stores, Inc.

Can I just tell you, I hate Microsoft! I know that I work in an MS shop. I know that I develop software in an MS language that runs on an MS server. I know that a lot of MS stuff is really cool and makes my life easier. But I still hate it!! (And I always discourage people from using the word “hate”, but I really do hate it.)

Here I am, minding my own business, a relatively intelligent guy, smart enough to know that if I get an exe file emailed to me from free@porn.viagra.com that I should not open said exe file. I am also smart enough to know that if my colleague sends me an exe file (related to my job) that he just told me in person that he was sending me, I can trust that it is not a malicious file and I should be able to open it.

But just in case I’m too stupid to know the difference, MS Outlook refuses to give me access to the file. Oh, it’s there. The file exists on my hard drive. It’s just that MS; being the high and mighty, omnipotent and omniscient big brother that it is; says, “Ah ah ah! You can’t touch that file. It might be dangerous.”

So what’s a guy to do? Google it, of course. And high on the list of search returns is an article from Microsoft’s own knowledge base that explains how to hack the registry in order to overcome this “security feature”.

*Long, angry, migraine inducing sigh*

If you know how to edit your registry, then you are probably safe in reading this article in which MS tells you how to hack MS in order to get around MS’s *%^$%#!@? draconian iron curtain “feature”.

I’d better stop writing before I compromise my Christian witness.

It’s been almost nine months since I posted “Who’s Your Favorite MythBuster” and that post is still responsible for the most inbound search engine links to my site. So far this year, I’ve had almost 300 hits from people searching for “Scottie Chapman” alone, not to mention all the variations of “Kari Byron” and “Silver Paint”. (Hee hee. You noticed how I just threw all those top search terms into this post to boost my traffic? Sly, man. Sly.)

Well, I’m still a huge MythBusters fan. I am painfully jealous of Steve at “The Sneeze” who has personally interviewed Adam Savage and seems to keep in touch with him.

I wasted a few minutes today over at the MythBusters official web site taking a few of the MythBusters’ Quizzes. I only got a 60 on the sports quiz and eeked out a 70 on the word myths, but nearly aced the candy quiz with a 90/100. Imagine that. Can you believe I know more about food than about sports.(</sarcasm>)

Anyway. Head over there and take some quizzes. Then come back here and let me know how you did!