Four Months in Pictures

I haven’t posted any pics of my house or family lately, mostly because, well, I lost the little cable thingy that connects the camera to my computer. I still haven’t found it, but I bought a card reader from Best Buy, so now I can finally post some pics. I’ve got quite a backlog, so I thought I’d do a quick photo pictorial, catching you up on what’s been going on over the past few months.

We went to Seaworld for Christmas. That’s a story in itself, but for now I’ll just post this pic that demonstrates once again that I have the most beautiful children on the planet. I know, you think your kids are cute, but my kids are like BAM! PYCHOW! They’re all up in your grill with their cuteness.



We also went up into the mountains to play in the snow. This is what Mrs. Diesel and I look like a few minutes before I’m going to slam into her on a sled at thirty miles an hour and she doesn’t talk to me for the rest of the day.



These photos prove nothing except that I’m the BEST UNCLE EVER.





One time we went to the beach. I always get pensive at the beach. Here I’m thinking, “God must have a HUGE salt shaker.”



Here’s Mrs. Diesel looking sultry at the beach. Here she’s thinking, “I can’t believe you used that picture. I look so ugly in that picture.”



One time I took a bunch of meth and stayed up all night building the Sydney Opera House out of Legos™.



And Mount Rushmore.



And this walrus. I only had enough Legos™ for one tusk.



Our house progressed, largely due to the fact that rather than trying to help with the construction over the past few months, I stuck to my strengths: writing insanely large checks.









And that’s all I have for now.



See you on Friday for the caption contest.

Listed on humor-blogs.com.

Thursday Shout Out: God (A Thanksgiving Photo Essay)

Our front yard in August:


Our front yard today:


The house:


The urchins:


The urchins' mommy:


Thanksgiving reading material (and George):


Have you ordered your copy yet? I haven't read mine yet because Mrs. Diesel wouldn't let go of it. Judging from her chortling, I assume it's pretty gosh-darn funny.

Be sure to check back tomorrow for the caption contest results. And remember, Monday is the launch of Humor-Blogs.com 2.0. Feel the excitement.

This Thanksgiving, curl up with a nice warm cup of Humor-Blogs.com.

Sock Drawer: Picture Edition!

Once in a while I do what I call a "sock drawer" post, where I post a bunch of random jokes and musings that I haven't figured out how to stretch into a full post. Lately I haven't had a lot of time to write blog posts, as I've been working on my plumbing and my novel. So I decided to... what? Yes, plumbing and a novel. You have a problem with that? Ok, so anyway, I decided to do a post that was... No, I'm building a house. Well, an addition, actually, but it's bigger than the rest of the house, so... About 110 pages. Thanks. What? Well, the house, of course, but she's very understanding. And I've let her read the first 80 pages and she keeps bugging me to tell her what happens next, so... No, what's next in the novel. I think. Electrical. Then the roof, doors and windows, siding... Yes, a LOT of work. Pardon? Hmmm, probably the house. Well, I'm aiming for early spring, but who knows? Geez, I have no idea. I think I'm about halfway done, but I'm going to have to do a lot of editing and rewriting. And then there's the matter of trying to find a publisher... Well, it's actually my second book. You can order the first one here. Thanks, I'm very proud of it. Someone even said it was "the funniest book you will read this year." What? Yes, extremely expensive. I have enough money to finish the house, I think, but after that... well, if the novel sells really well... What, it's not that funny. Hey, shut up. Some people do make a living writing books, you know. Stop laughing. I'm serious. Ok, that's it. See if you get an autographed copy.

Where was I? Oh yeah, I decided to do a post of some random pics that I've been trying to work into a post for a while. So I present to you the first ever Sock Drawer Picture Edition.

First, don't you love the Windows auto-update feature that pops up every time another hacker finds a hole that Bill Gates forgot to plug up because he was too busy making money-castles and money-forts and money angels? Wouldn't it be great if someone applied that concept to elected officials?



Lately there have been some rumors about a Spice Girls reunion tour. Whatever your feelings about that possibility, I think we can all agree that this is definitely one of the signs of the apocalypse.



Are you tired of second rate actors and first rate dorks like Tom Cruise being interviewed on Inside the Actor's Studio? How about a REAL star for a change? An actor with some versatility. Maybe someone who can literally transform from one character to another? I present to you, Starscream on Inside the Actor's Studio:




And finally, thanks to Jeff and Microsoft's Live Search, I can now offer you an aerial view of the homestead. This one isn't a joke; this really is where I live. Click to enlarge the pic.



And if you think that looks like a big place, this is our full property. The red box is the area pictured in the photo above. The purple box is our entire lot. Most of it is orchard, as you can see.



Well, I feel better now that I've cleared out the sock drawer. I'll be back with something or other tomorrow, and I'll post the caption contest results on Friday.

Diesel out.

Listed on humor-blogs.com.

The Devil's Weed

It irritates me that marijuana is illegal. Not because I smoke pot, but because I think throwing people in jail for growing marijuana is a phenomenal waste of tax dollars, considering that there are so many other plants that I'd like to see outlawed.

There are many differing opinions on marijuana, but here's something we can all agree on: Poison ivy sucks ass. If we're going to outlaw plants, why don't we start with poison ivy? Is there a strong pro-poison ivy lobby that I'm not aware of? Who exactly is standing in the way of outlawing poison ivy? Is it Haliburton? It is, isn't it? Those greedy, rash-inducing bastards.

There is no poison ivy around my house, but my property is infested with plenty of other gratuitously cruel and ugly plants. I live in the California Central Valley, on a parcel of land that used to be an orchard. Yeah, I'm one of the people who's responsible for the disappearance of our precious farmland. Occasionally some wistful old crank will write a letter to the local paper complaining about how developers are destroying all of our farmland. "50 years ago this area was all orchards," they say. Which is true. On the other hand, why stop at 50 years? A hundred years ago, before we started moving rivers around, it was all desert. Why doesn't someone start a campaign to stop the destruction of our historic uninhabitable wastelands?

It is true, of course, that we need farmland. If we keep losing farmland, our nation's food production capabilities may decline to the point where our children are eating only six or seven meals per day. "Mommy, why don't we eat linner or snackfast any more?" little Susie will cry, clutching her growling tummy, now almost completely hidden by her extra-large t-shirt. What will we say then? That mommy needed a three stall garage so now there are no Cheetos farmers any more?

But as important as agriculture is to the cause of making sure America's children remain the largest in the world, it's not like the Central Valley has been farmland since the molten lava on earth's crust cooled over 800 years ago. Trust me, the greater Modesto area would not naturally revert to a scene on a salad dressing label if the pesky humans just stopped building stuff on it.

In fact, if I were to let my land revert to its "natural" state, it would look like this:



Pretty awful, huh? Instead, thanks to a lot of hard work and persistence, it now looks like this:



Yeah, I haven't had much time to work on the landscaping. Still, the trees look nice, don't they? I'm thinking some azaleas would really spruce the place up.

Here is a sampling of the "natural" vegetation around here:



We call this "puncture vine," or -- more affectionately -- "goat heads. " Doesn't look too bad, does it? Nice little yellow flowers, lovely greenery... but say, what are those little bumpy seed thingies?

A close-up of one of the "goat heads," also known as HOLY SHIT WHAT IS STICKING OUT OF MY FOOT?!?!



In case that's not clear enough, here's a magnified image:



Step on one of those things some time and then tell me that marijuana is really the problem we want to spend our resources on.


What the hell is that sticking out of my foot? Oh, it's just humor-blogs.com.

Continuity Test

Over the past few weeks -- while I've been busy on other projects -- my wife has been dropping hints that she'd like to see a little more progress on our house. One of her less subtle hints appeared in the mail the other day, in the form of a letter from the county building department telling me that my building permit will expire on July 30. I don't know how she did it, but somehow she has outsourced her nagging to the government.*

All it really means is that to keep my permit active, I have to get a framing inspection by July 30. I called the county and they're going to send an inspector out today to shake his head, sigh heavily to indicate that God must be punishing for something he did in a previous life, and tell me what I did wrong. He'll give me a "correction notice," and then I'll spend three days correcting some problem or other. Usually the problem is that the building inspector was teased a lot as a child.

If you think I.R.S. agents are mean, you should try getting a building inspection some time. You know what happens to someone who is too much of a jerkwad to work for the I.R.S.? He gets fired and fed to a rabid crocodile, which is then mated with that bitch from The Weakest Link, and then their unholy offspring is raised by hyenas until it's old enough to become a building inspector. That's what happens.**

My first unpleasant run-in with a building inspector occurred when I was setting up the mobile home that we were going to use as temporary lodging while we built our house. After I got the electricity hooked up, an inspector came out and asked if I had done a "continuity test." I asked him what a continuity test was.

"It's to make sure there's continuity," he said, obviously irritated to be dealing with someone of my unrivaled stupidity.

I wasn't sure how to respond. It seemed a little unfair of him to expect me to be able to ensure continuity on a 20 year old mobile home when Chris Carter couldn't even do it for more than three seasons of the X-Files, but I decided not to protest.

"Oh," I said. "And is that something I can do, or...."

"No, you can't do it. You need Special Equipment."

It was clear from his tone that he was certain that I had no special equipment. In point of fact, I once had a fortune cookie tell me that I "have an equipment for success," but I wasn't sure that was the same thing, so I let that go too.

"So is there a tool that I would need...?"

"You need Special Equipment!"

"So are you saying there's some kind of device...?"

"Special Equipment!"

"Oh, so there's some sort of..."

"Special Equipment!"

That was pretty fun for a while, but eventually I had to let him go because he had a lot of dreams to crush that day.

I called my brother-in-law, who was an electrician. He had never heard of a doing a "continuity test" on a mobile home either. He said, "Look, if the outlets and fixtures all have power, then you've got continuity."

So I called for another inspection, and Mr. Special Equipment came out again. I demonstrated that the lights and outlets worked, and then said meaningfully, "See, continuity."

Mr. Special Equipment did not appreciate my little show one bit. "That doesn't mean anything! You have to do a continuity test. You need Special Equipment!"

I tried to get more information out of him, but he went all Robby the Robot on me with his "Special Equipment! Special Equipment!"

After he left I called the building inspection office and, after being shuffled from one person to another for twenty minutes, I was finally informed that it was a matter of making sure that the grounds of all the outlets were connected to each other. They told me I could buy a continuity tester at a hardware store.

I went to my local Ace hardware store, expecting to find the continuity testers behind chain link fence with giant warning signs reading "SPECIAL EQUIPMENT." I eventually found it: the fabled continuity tester. It was a little plastic tube with a light bulb on one end and a metal prong on the other. A wire with an alligator clip on the end dangled from it. Inside were two double A batteries.

It was essentially a flashlight, except that rather than using a switch to make the light bulb go on, you connect the alligator clip to the ground of one outlet and stick the prong into the ground of another outlet. If the light bulb goes on, voila! You have continuity. I think it cost about $3. With an old tampon tube and some aluminum foil, you could make one yourself in about a minute and a half. So much for Special Equipment.

I had my brother-in-law demonstrate how to use it, just in case I was retarded. There was almost nothing to it: Connect this to the ground of one outlet. Connect that to the ground of another outlet. Light goes on. Continuity. Move to the next outlet.

And no, I know what you're thinking, but this story does not end with me electrocuting myself. Thanks for the vote of confidence. I'm pretty dumb, but I do know the difference between a ground and a live wire. More or less. Anyway, I didn't electrocute myself. This time.

Once I was 100% certain that the mobile home had continuity, I called for another inspection.

Mr. Special Equipment showed up again, and he was not happy to see me. I could tell he was about to launch into one of his Special Equipment tirades, so I rushed to show him my $3 magical flashlight.

"Continuity tester," I said. I proceeded to demonstrate how it worked. He stared blankly at the device, and it dawned on me that he had never seen a continuity test performed before. "See, the light goes on," I offered. "That means it has continuity."

He nodded uncertainly. The fundamental dynamics of our relationship had suddenly changed. No longer was he the construction expert barking to the naive amateur about Special Equipment. Suddenly I was the Jedi Master of the Magical Tampon Flashlight and he was the guy who was desperate to conceal the fact that he had no f---ing clue what a continuity test was. I could have clipped the alligator clip to his nose and shoved the prong up his ass and called it continuity. And I'm willing to bet good money the light would have gone on, because that guy had excellent continuity between his head and his ass.

By the time I had tested three outlets he lost interest. "So you tested the whole thing?" he asked.

"Yep."

"Ok then," he said, and signed off the inspection.

And that was that. He didn't even bother to stick around for the rest of the test. It was all just a bunch of pointless chest-thumping.

So here's the moral of the story: If anybody ever asks you if you've done a continuity test, you look him straight in the eye and say, "What am I, an idiot? Of course I've done a continuity test!"

Then you show him your Special Equipment.



*She has actually been very understanding, and hasn't nagged me at all. Not only that, but... who am I kidding, I'm sleeping on the couch tonight.
**After I wrote this, the building inspector came by. Not one of the guys who's been out before. He was pretty much the nicest guy I've ever met. He called me "friend" about six times, shook my hand, and wrote his cell phone number on the back of his business card to make sure the "lines of communication are open." He failed me, of course, but man did I feel good about it. So thanks for making me a liar, you big jerk.


You can find all the Special Equipment you're looking for at humor-blogs.com.

A Cautionary Message for the Class of 2007

There are 86,423 high schools, 8,021 colleges and universities, and 14,319 trade and vocational schools in this country, and not once have I been invited to be the speaker at any of their graduation ceremonies. Why not? Is it because I'm not "famous" enough? Is it because the last time I gave a speech I tried to outdo Winston Churchill in brevity by simply yelling "FIRE!"? Is it because I shamelessly make up statistics that are often inaccurate by as much as three orders of magnitude? Probably. Whatever the reason, I have decided to impart some words of wisdom to the class of 2007 here on my blog, where I can reach potentially millions of unemployed recent graduates.

Graduating class of 2007, my life is no picnic. Why would you expect it to be a picnic? That doesn't even make any sense. Grow up, dipshit. This is the real world. Nobody cares about your propensity for metaphors and flowery, poetic language. All we care about is that you pull down on that sheet-metal stamping machine 8,600 times a day and occasionally unjam the machine with that bent coat-hanger we gave you. And what did we tell you about using your good hand for that? Exactly, it won't be your good hand for long.

As I was saying, my life is pretty rough. First of all, I'm unemployed. I have nothing to do all day but build fountains, take pictures of my house and blog about how miserable I am. Second, I have a wife who is way out of my league in pretty much every way. Can you even imagine what it's like to be constantly distracted from your own inadequacy by some hot chick who's always hugging on you and laughing at your jokes? Don't even get me started on my children, who are unreasonably beautiful and well-behaved. I'm constantly waiting for the other shoe to fall on that front (yeah, I mixed a metaphor there, metal-stamper, what are you gonna do about it?). And then there's my house, which is so big that I despair of ever filling it with enough material possessions to make me truly happy.

So my message to you is: Don't end up like me. Work hard in school, and get good grades. Find out what your teachers expect of you and do it unquestioningly. If they tell you that one letter is better than another letter, try to get the best letter you can. Memorize rote facts like multiplication tables and the names of all the states including unimportant ones like Delaware (no really, that's an actual state). Imagination and critical thinking are overrated, and anyway you'll have plenty of time to pick those skills up later.

Don't cheat in school, and don't always try to find the "easy way out." These tendencies will manifest themselves as creative problem solving later in life, and no good can come from that. Once, when working as a webmaster for a Fortune 500 company, I spent several months automating every aspect of my job. Eventually I was only going in to work 2 or 3 days a week, and while I was there I would spend all day downloading songs from Napster. Sure, that sounds like fun, but after a few months you start to wonder, "Why hasn't anybody noticed that I'm not doing anything? Surely someone will realize that I'm not doing any work eventually." But no one ever does, and ultimately you get bored and leave for a higher paying job. Do you want that to happen to you? I didn't think so.

Find out which of the standard personality classifications fits you best, and try your hardest to fit into that mold. Take personality tests that define you in some ridiculously simple way, say with a string of 4 letters like "ISFJ" or "ENTP". Claim your personality type and don't try to change. Learn the phrase "That's just how I am," and use it often. If you're an analytical thinker, don't waste your time on drawing pictures or writing stories. If you have a gift for using language, don't try to master computer programming. If you're an abstract thinker, don't try to build a house. Above all, know your limitations.

Be practical. Take only classes that have a direct practical application. If you go to college, major in business or welding or something. If you get a degree in computer science you can probably get a job doing technical support and gradually work your way into a programming job, whereas if you get your degree in philosophy.... well, you can do pretty much the same thing, but the nice thing about computer science is that 90% of what you learned will be obsolete in ten years. All that abstract analytical thinking you learned as a philosophy student will stick with you forever. While all the other programmers are driving around in their sports cars and buying condos in Sunnyvale, you'll be thinking, "Am I really doing any good at this job? Should I maybe be doing something more meaningful with my life?" Thoughts like that will just make you unhappy.

If you have a risky idea, listen to the warnings of people around you. For example, let's say that you have left your job to start your own web development company, but now the market has crashed and you're running out of money. You have a little equity in your house, but you can't get a loan because you have no job. You may be tempted to sell your house and negotiate a seller-financed deal on a ten acre piece of farmland with no house on it. If you're really creative, you might be able to give yourself some breathing room by negotiating a deal where you make a 10% down payment and then don't have to make any payments for two years. Then you could find a cheap place to live while you build a house, get another job once the market improves, and refinance the property after the real estate market skyrockets. You might, if all that stuff works out, have enough money to take a couple years off to build fountains and blog. But don't count on it. Listen to the people who tell you you're crazy.

If you follow all of these guidelines, you have a good chance of avoiding my fate. Because let me tell you, it's no picnic.


Everything I need to know I learned at humor-blogs.com.

House Update

It's time for another house update. Over the past few weeks we've almost finished the framing and the plywood sheeting. It took a little longer than expected because we added four dormers (you can see them sticking out on either side of the new construction in the pic below) to the second story. We figured it made sense to put them in, since it adds a lot of useable space and makes it possible to put windows in on the second floor. Now, of course, the house is going to be even bigger than planned, which was already bigger than we needed. I think we're going to rent out the upstairs. In fact, we may have to rent out the downstairs too with what this is costing us.



The other reason things are taking a little longer than planned is that I get bored with cutting 2x4s and find other fun projects to work on. A while back I decided to put in a circular driveway with some plants in the middle. Simple, right? But then I thought, what would be really cool is to use that old trailer as a planter. And maybe use that old well pump as a fountain. And hook up that old pool pump to make the water flow. And have a series of wine barrels for the water to cascade through. And end up in a little pond, with a nice little fountain. So the circular driveway project turns into this (note that there's still no actual driveway).



Here's another pic of my glorious accomplishment. Sure, it doesn't really serve any useful purpose, but that bubbling sound is so soothing, and it sure looks good. In fact, the same could be said of the fountain. The other interesting thing about this pic is that Climber is hiding in it somewhere. Can you find him?



Here's one of Mrs. Diesel, expressing how she feels about me taking pictures from our roof. Have you ever seen someone express disdain so effectively from a range of 200 yards?



And another one of the fountain. Dammit, how did those loafers get in the pic again? I need to invest in some leg irons.



And finally one of the infamous treehouse. I decided it wasn't quite dangerous enough, so I added a slide.



That's all I've got for now. Remember to vote in the caption contest, if you haven't already. I'll be announcing the winners tomorrow!


Humor-blogs.com is dangerous enough even without a slide.

Did Someone Say "House"?

Recently I've done a treehouse post and a Dr. House post, so I thought it was about time I did a plain old house post. Here's some pics of the addition we're building. "Addition" is kind of a misnomer, since we're adding about 2,000 square feet to a 1,200 square foot house.




Here's a view from another angle. That's the palm tree oasis I just planted in the front. Neat, huh? To the left you can just see the driveway that we just poured that leads to our faux garage door. It's like one of those "drawers" in front of your sink that doesn't actually open. Except that people probably don't sleep in your sink.




This one is just a fabulous shot of the mobile home and above-ground pool next to our house. Also, I thought the sky was kind of cool.




Did I mention that we get some way cool evening skies around these parts in the spring? This was taken facing the opposite direction, toward the orchard behind our house.




And another one of the same cool sky, nicely framed by the opening of a future window. Too bad those troublemakers got in the way again.




I'll be back with more of the usual nonsense on Wednesday. And don't forget, this Friday I'll post the next caption contest pic!

Construction and Deconstruction

I've been framing walls for my house this week.

That makes it sound like I know what I'm doing, when in fact I generally just shoot nails or cut boards where my contractor has drawn a line for me. I'm entrusted with dangerous power tools, but not with a pencil. Essentially I'm in the position of being my contractor's boss as well as his least competent employee. Occasionally he'll see me executing a task incorrectly and say something like, "You know, you're really supposed to use galvanized nails on the bottom plate." And I'll shout, "Oh yeah? My house, my rules!"

Then I pull the shiny nails out and put in the un-shiny ones.

Because working for me isn't enough of a caustic experience in itself, I've been slowly burning a pile of brush next to the work site, so the whole crew goes home smelling like smoke. It's a service I provide, free of charge. Come work for me, and smell like camping! The nice thing is that I can throw the scrap construction lumber into the fire. I let the guys think that I intentionally screw up most of my cuts so that I can make a bigger fire. Little do they know that I really am just that incompetent.

"Do you have a permit to burn that brush?" asked one of the guys.

"I have a de facto permit," I said.

"A de facto permit?"

"If they don't catch me, it's de facto permitted." Then I threw in a "Q.E.D." for good measure.

The guys like it when I tend to the fire, because I'm better at burning wood than assembling it into anything that might be of help in building a house. People like me really shouldn't be allowed to build a people house until we've managed to build a bird house that isn't immediately condemned as uninhabitable by the avian building department.

Technically what I'm doing is building an addition, since I'm adding onto an existing house -- although the addition just about triples the size of the house. Of course, adding 2 to 1 is still addition. But then, adding 1 to 0 is also addition, so couldn't you say that any house is an addition? "We're building a house, in addition to the nothing we have now."

"Are you trying to keep up with the neighbors?" asked one of the guys. The neighbor's house has been sprouting additions at the rate of about one per year for the past four years. Currently it's in the process of spawning twin tool sheds. Scientists have not yet plumbed the mystery of exactly how the house produces offspring. The process seems to be asexual, as none of the other houses in the area have gotten close enough to pollinate it.

"That's the idea," I said.

"Their house is still going to be taller."

"Nah, I'm putting on a steeple. Helps keep the Jehovah's Witnesses away."

Actually, having a steeple would probably just attract lightning -- for a couple of reasons -- and not really help with the Jehovah's Witnesses. I don't think there is anything that keeps Jehovah's Witnesses away -- although I bet a nicely timed lightning strike would spook them. My house is on a dead end street, at the end of a 300 foot gravel driveway, behind another house. I even put the front door on the back side of the house for good measure, and the Watchtower folks still find me.

"We just wanted to check whether you had any questions about that literature that we left last time."

"Yeah," I say. "I've got a question for you: what kind of ink do you use? Cuz that stuff gave off some godawful smoke."

Of course I never actually think of anything that clever to say. There is a question that I want answered, but I never have the courage to ask. See, what I wonder about the Jehovah's Witnesses is this: Basically, it's a religion based on the susceptibility of its adherents to door-to-door sales, right? So I always wonder, if you went to the house of a Jehovah's Witness, would you find boxes of girl scout cookies, Shaklee vitamins and a Kirby vacuum cleaner? I bet you would. Although you probably have no more reason to go to their house than I do, because we're normal people who don't sell a worldview as if it were cookies.

I have nothing against Jehovah's Witnesses, of course. I would feel exactly the same way about any group that bases their identity on an English mistransliteration of a Hebrew word, hates holidays and birthdays, has falsely predicted the apocalypse like eighteen times, denies the divinity of Christ and won't leave me the hell alone.

Anyway, while I am surprised that the JWs manage to find my door, in truth I didn't put it on the back to stymie them. It just ended up there as a result of my phased approach to home construction. We are now engaged in Phase 2, during which we will be building the actual front of the house, among other things.

Yesterday a guy was pulling a trim board off the existing house so that we could tie the new construction into the wall. "We could throw this board into the fire," he said.

This started me thinking. I wonder if that's what the pioneers did when they ran out of wood, I pondered. Maybe they would get really desperate and pull their houses apart for firewood. And then the next summer they would swear that this time they would cut enough firewood, so they wouldn't have to cannibalize their house again. But they would be so busy rebuilding their house that once again they would run out of firewood in February and have to start pulling their house apart.

"Break the cycle!" I yelled to no one in particular.

"You know, those are supposed to be galvanized nails."

"Yeah, yeah." I don't have the appropriate attention span for construction work.




I think I originally had a point, but I got distracted by humor-blogs.com.

Building, Blogging and Blabbing

Hi all. Things are heating up with the house-building so I'm probably not going to have quite as much time for blogging. I'll try to stick to my MWF schedule, but my posts are more likely to be of the random musings variety than the more ambitious and/or amphibious satire and/or Photoshop entries. I may not be stopping by your blogs quite as much either for a while, although I'll be there in spirit.

I also wanted to let you know about Mad Kane's Spring Limerick Contest. She's giving away cash money for the best limericks about spring! I'd write one, but as I told Mad Kane, I'm lousy with limericks. I think I may need to fumigate.

I'll be back tomorrow with a post that will moisturize curly and wavy hair to tame frizz.

6 More Weeks of What?

For Neva and Gawpo. Some pictures of my "backyard" and my beautiful new concrete slab. Click to enlarge.

Don't you wish you lived here? Well too bad, you can't.





A view of the house from the orchard. Facing west.




The slab. Facing southeast.




A view of the orchard from the slab at sunrise. That's the water tower and the Flying J sign in the background.




Basically the same view during the day.




A view of the orchard, facing east/southeast (turned just slightly left from the last two pics). That's water tower #2 in the distance. Ripon loves water towers.




A view of the orchard and water tower #2 from the slab. Facing east.




Same view. Cool rain in the distance.




How'd that one get in there? Get those loafers out of the frame!

Dumber than a Post

Regular readers will know that I am building a house. Irregular readers, unless they deliberately skipped that first sentence, are now caught up as well.

I'm building a house. It's impossible these days to build a house without making regular trips to one of two places: Lowe's or Home Depot. Or, as I call them, "Slowe's" and "Home Despot." Yes, that's how damned clever I am. Add a letter to make a wry commentary on the store. Friggin' brilliant.

I hate both of those places. Don't get me wrong; I love the acres and acres of stuff that I need. But somewhere in South America there's a rain forest that's missing a lot of retarded apron-wearing monkeys. Because seriously, could they find any less helpful people to work at these places? And it's not bad enough that they don't know anything about what they're selling; you can't even get a dumb look from these people because they have been conditioned from day one to avoid eye contact with anyone who isn't also wearing an orange apron.

You know what I'm talking about. It's how I used to get free meals at the cafeteria in college. While all the sheep are waiting in line, mealcards in hand, you stride boldly past, your eyes affixed on something in the distance. Your body language says, "I am supposed to be over THERE. Not here. Here does not concern me. The only thing that matters is that I get over THERE, as quickly as possible." And the nice old lady or Canadian sliding cards through the scanner lets you past without raising an eyebrow, because it's pretty clear from the way you're striding boldly and actively ignoring her that you have serious business to attend to in THERE, and even if you don't, she's a food service worker getting minimum wage for sliding plastic cards through a slot, not the friggin' Secret Service.

Slowe Despot employees (see what I did there?) have made the Walk of Purposefulness into an art form. These people must train by running a gauntlet of customers trying to flag them down.

"What did Billy do wrong, people?"

"He made eye contact."

"And...?"

"He asked if they needed help."

"What should he have said?"

"This isn't my deparment."

"Very good. We also would have accepted, 'Let me see if I can find someone to help you,' or 'I'm on my break.'"

I thought about doing a post comparing the relative merits of the employees of each of the home improvement mammoths, but that would probably be about as interesting as a cricket match between Hellen Keller and Jabba the Hutt. So I decided to do a comparison between a typical home improvement store employee and an inanimate object. Shopping cars, in particular.


Availability

Unless you're shopping at 10 am on the Saturday before the 4th of July, the odds are that you're going to find a cart. Maybe not one of the big heavy lumber carts, but hey, it's not going to kill the kids to get a little exercise this time.

In contrast, unless you've got a taser gun, your odds of bagging an employee are far worse. And again, even if you do have a taser gun, the odds of getting one of the big heavy ones are pretty poor.

Winner: Carts.


Appearance

At older stores, many of the carts are pretty beat up. Still, they generally retain their overall pleasant orangey appearance.

Even at newer stores, the employees are pretty beat up, and have long since lost any orangey demeanor.

Winner: Carts.


Subject Matter Knowledge

The carts don't know much except how to go straight, and some of them can't even manage that.

Most employees can walk straight and answer simple questions in their area of expertise, be it TomKat, Brangelina or their stupid jerk boss who won't give them next Thursday off.

Winner: Employees.


Politeness

Both carts and employees tend to ignore you until you give them a little shove. The cart will then respond by moving a little in the direction you shoved it. The employee will generally glare at you and possibly shove back.

Winner: Carts.


Intangibles

Defective carts and employees both sometimes making whiny or rubby noises as they move. Often a cart will offer you a brochure of expired coupons and a half-empty cup of Mountain Dew. Often an employee will offer you a "Have a nice day" when you're buying a new hot water heater at 9:45 pm on a Sunday.

Winner: Tie.


Overall

Carts, though slightly dumber than the typical employee, are the clear winner. Avoid the ones that squeak and veer unexpectedly to the left and you should be fine. The same is true for employees.


UPDATE: Thanks to Jennifer for sending me this link confirming my feelings about Home Depot: Is Home Depot shafting shoppers?


Humor-blogs.com can be found on aisle 14. Unless we're out of it. That's really not my department.

Ripon Man Discovers New Dinosaur Species

RIPON, January 18 — Paleontologists stunned the world today by announcing the discovery of a new species of dinosaur. The first known specimen of akathasaurus was found on a ten acre parcel of land owned by Ripon resident Rob Kroese. Kroese found the perfectly preserved fossil while excavating for an addition to his house.

"I was trenching for the septic lines when I found it," Kroese said. "At first I thought it was just a mound of dirt, but when I took a closer look it definitely resembled some sort of reptilian creature."



Kroese wasn't sure what to make of the odd looking specimen, so he called the Sacramento Paleontology Hotline. Dr. Simon Halbertson was there to take the call.

"It was a slow day," Halbertson called. "I had just gotten back from my only other call of the day. A farmer in Lodi thought he had found the knuckle of a pterodactyl, but it turned out to be the badly bleached head of Boba Fett. The guy was charging $20 a head to see it." When Halbertson told the man that carbon dating indicated that Boba Fett was younger than Barney, he had to cut his admission fee in half.

"You ruin a lot of lives in a this job," Halbertson said, obviously still troubled by the experience.

Halberston is convinced that the akathasaurus is the real deal.

"Akathasaurus means 'dirt lizard' in Latin," he said, to the chagrin of a reporter for the Vatican Times and a nearby vagrant who had majored in classical languages. Upon being corrected, Halbertson added, "And by Latin, I of course mean Greek."

He theorizes that akathasaurus subsisted on a meager diet of dirt and water, and perhaps mud when it was available. "Mud," Halbertson said, "was a luxury that few akathasauri could afford." When prompted, Halbertson conceded that he was pretty much making that last part up.



Despite Halbertson's stern warnings, Kroese insisted on poking the specimen with a stick.

"I think it's made of dirt," Kroese said. "I'm wondering if one of my kids built it."

Halbertson sneered at this suggestion. "Unless your kids were around six billion years ago, I highly doubt it," he sneered.

Kroese mentioned to Halbertson that he was pretty sure dinosaurs weren't around six billion years ago either.

Halbertson sneered once again. "I think carbon dating will settle this," he said.

"I doubt it," Kroese replied. "As I recall, carbon dating only works on things that are up to about 60,000 years old. After that, all the carbon-14 has disintegrated."

After hemming and hawing for a bit, Halbertson sheepishly admitted that he was just trying to pick up carbon-based life forms.

"Are you even a real paleontologist?" Kroese asked.

"Of course I am," Halbertson replied. "Paleontologist is Latin for 'appliance salesman', right?"


UPDATE 1/27/07: Shocking Truth Behind Dinosaur Hoax Revealed!


Mattress Tags: Ripon Dinosaur Humor
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Is Anyone Here a Widgetologist?

"I sell air."

- Mitch Robbins (Billy Crystal) in City Slickers

Since my recent post regarding my retirement, many of you have asked what it is that Galactic Invertebrates does exactly.

That's a lie. Nobody asked. Nobody cares what Galactic Invertebrates does. I don't even care, and I worked there for three years.

You know what GI does? In a word, nothing.

You know how most companies make widgets or widget holders or widget accessories or anti-widget cream? Well, those companies need someone to market those widgets and widget-related products, right? And they need somebody to ship them to far-away widget-deprived (or widget-infested, as the case may be) regions of the globe. And they need someone to assist them with meeting the federal guidelines for widget calibration, of course. In short, there is a lot more to widget-related product manufacture than just making the widget-related products.

Unfortunately, GI doesn't do any of those things either.

So what do they do? Well, let's say Company A and Company C both make widgets.

"Wait," you say. "What happened to Company B?"

Exactly! That's exactly my point. What did happen to company B? Nobody really knows for sure, because the only place companies line up in alphabetical order besides the phone book is Red China, and they don't even use the same friggin' alphabet, so good luck sorting that out.

So you've got Company A and Company C, not necessarily in that order, each doing their own thing. Except they both coincidentally decide to make widgets, and not just because every fictitious company makes widgets. In this example it's very important that they are both making widgets. Why? Well, because with all those widgets you're going to need a widget holder, right? Right. But now you're screwed, because the widget holder made by Company Q only holds widgets made by Company A, but you've got both kinds of widgets. And you have to buy a special cable from Company H and an adapter from Company 7 just to get your A and C widgets to talk to each other, not to mention the fact that the anti-widget cream you just bought apparently only works on widgets made by company Epsilon, and you don't even have any of those and you lost the receipt and you don't think the store will take back a half-used tube of anti-widget cream anyway, because ewww.

Now wouldn't it be nice if all those companies could get along and talk to each other so that all your widgets and widget-related products would work together? No, because that's how things work in Red China, you big Commie. I thought we covered that.

So short of that, wouldn't it be great if these companies could get together in a friendly non-monopolistic sort of way, you know, just over coffee or whatever, and agree that all widgets and widget-related products should use the 3428b interface, so that Sally Widget Consumer (not her real name) wouldn't have to get a PhD. in Widgetology just to get her friggin' widgets to work together? Yes, that would be nice. You could call it the Widget Consortium (W.C.). And the W.C. would have big member meetings in Prague and send out press releases about how just yesterday they came really close to agreeing on something and have a website where people with nothing better to do could learn fascinating facts about the W.C.

But wait a minute. Who is going to do all this stuff? Who is going to organize the meeting in Prague and send out the press release about almost agreeing and build the scintillating website? Oh, sure, Company C would love to do it, but then the meeting would be in Trenton, New Jersey and the press release would be all about how unreasonable those bastards at Company A are, and the website would be in the shape of a giant letter C. No, you need someone who can claim with a straight face to be impartial, while at the same time kowtowing to the demands of Company C, because everybody knows that if Company C leaves, the W.C. is going straight down the toilet.

That's where Galactic Invertebrates comes in. The very name of the company heralds its commitment to going to unprecedented lengths to seek out new life forms and civilizations and bend over for them. You remember when scientists found water on Mars and there was a buzz about how Mars might once have supported life? Well, GI immediately put together an expedition which traveled to Mars, went back in time ten million years, scoured the surface of the planet until they found a small patch of primitive lichens, and bent over for them. That's how good they are.

So basically GI runs a set of fictitious companies that don't earn any profits and don't make any products. And, of course, it's very difficult to do that kind of volume of nothing without some special software that makes nothing easier to do. And that, my friends, is where I came in. Yes, I was the guy who wrote the software that was used by nonexistent companies to share vast amounts of misinformation that might some day be used in generating a specification that could conceivably be released in the distant future, at which time there would be a genuine possibility that actual companies making actual products would accuse each other of not complying with it.

Now I dig trenches.

I'm a Homemaker!

For those of you who don't believe I'm really building a house, here's some proof. Almost none of the photos have been doctored in any way. Click on the pic for a larger version.



A view of our property from the street. That's the barn to the right and Opa's house to the left. Our house is way back behind Opa's house.


Opa's house, from the driveway.


Further down the driveway. Our house is behind the trampoline and the P.O.S. Ford.


A closer look at our house. Our bedrooms are in the part that looks like a garage. Yes, that's a faux garage door. Convincing, no? That's why our cars are outside.


The addition site.


Front view. The left half is already built.


First floor plan.


2nd floor plan.


Maddie "helping."


Me and the boss.


I included this one because of the UFO in the distance.