A (pointless in retrospect) Conversation With My Child

Me (calling from work, after my son texted me letting me know he was home safe from school): How was your day?

Son: Fine.

Me: Study for two hours. Math. Science.

Son: OK.

Me: Two more things.

Son: Yeah?

Me: Go to the big chest freezer, get out the whole chicken.

Son: uh…

Me: Whole frozen chicken. Says “Whole Chicken” on the label. It’s on top. Looks sort of like a big bowling ball at this point.  Get it.

Son: uh…

Me: (sigh) are you at the freezer?

Son: Yeah.

Me: Really?

Son: No.

Me: Go there now.

Son: (thump, bump, bang, slam, shuffle, shuffle [freezer is in the garage, it requires movement from the couch] bump bump thump [and I finally hear the correct door open over the phone]) OK.

Me: …

Son: …

Me: …

Son: …

Me: …

Son: …

Me: Open. The. Lid.

Son: OK.

Me: Do you see it?

Son: uh…

Me: (sigh) Chicken. Whole. Frozen. Chicken. On. Top. Looks. Like. A. Bowling. Ball.

Son: Oh…riiiight.

Me: Get it.

Son: OK.

Me: Go to the kitchen.

Son: OK.

Me: Wait!

Son: What?

Me: Close the freezer lid.

Son: It is!

Me: Really?

Son: …no.

Me: Close it.

Son: (Foomp!)

Me: Go to the kitchen.

Son: OK

Me: Wait!

Son: What?

Me: Take the chicken.

Son: …right.

Me: (with the patience of Job) Are you in the kitchen?

Son: uh huh.

Me: Really?

Son: No.

Me: Go there now. Don’t stop anywhere else. Try to concentrate. Kitchen

Son: OK

Me: Wait!

Son: What?

Me: Take the chicken.

Son: OK

Me: Are you there?

Son: Yes.

Me: Put the chicken in the microwave.

Son: OK…bye

Me: Wait!

Son: What?

Me: Push “Defrost”

Son: …

Me: Push. The. Button. Marked. “Defrost.”

Son: …

Me: …On the microwave.

Son: OK

Me: Set the timer for 30 minutes.

Son: …

Me: Push three. Zero. Zero. Zero.

Son: (Freep beep) OK

Me: Two more zeros

Son: (beep beep) OK

Me: Push “Start.”

Son: OK

Me: Is it started?

Son: uh huh.

Me: I can’t hear it. Are you sure?

Son: Yes.

Me: Good. Now go turn on the dishwasher. You forgot to run it last night. There are no clean plates for dinner. (It’s the boy’s job to clean up after dinner).

Son: OK.

Me: Did you start the dishwasher?

Son: Yes.

Me: Really?

Son: I’m doing it.

Me: Wait!

Son: What?

Me: Put a soap tablet in it.

Son: OK

Me: Did you do it?

Son: Yes.

Me: Really?

Son: I’m doing it now.

Me: I didn’t hear the dishwasher door open and close.

Son: (Whump!)

Me: I didn’t hear the cabinet door open and close (where the soap tablets are stored)

Son: (Thump!)

Me: Wrong order.

Son: What?

Me: PUT SOAP IN THE DISHWASHER NOW!

Son: OK (Thump! Whump!)

Me: Turn it on.

Son: It is.

Me: Turn. It. On.

Son: I meant I’m doing it now.

Me: Is it on?

Son: Yes.

Me: Remember, study. Math. Science. Two hours. Then you can go over to (friend)’s house. Study first.

Son: OK.

Me: Have a good afternoon. See you tonight.

Son: OK

 

 

I’m home now.

 

You know, I’ll bet he didn’t study either.

I Should Have Stayed In Bed

I am not having a good day.

We're in the middle of a winter storm here. School's out again today and I've got the kid underfoot.

It's 44, raining, icing, and the wind is doing about 60mph at the moment.

My power is in and out.

I have a howling cat with a bladder infection who has a catheter inserted in his little willie and he's dripping piss in a yellow trail behind him wherever he goes (he's locked in a basement storeroom at the moment for the sake of the carpets. This does not make him happy. The amount of money he's costing does not make me happy. And I have to risk life and limb on frictionless roads later today in order to take him back to the vet, who will then charge me more money.

My Gateway tablet is broken. The hinge failed last night. It's been getting wonky for a while now, but I just can't live without the damned thing. Last night the hinge failed completely. The screen still works, but won't stay positioned. It's like trying to prop up a dishrag. It's under extended warranty and this weekend it's going to the geeksquad at Best Buy, and I suppose I won't see it again for several months. Joy. I'll spend tomorrow peeling all my data off onto the network server and slicking anything personal on the drives. I've got a half dozen other things I need fixed on this machine too (It's not the manufacturer's fault, I tend to be hard on laptops, and this one is tougher than most - which is why I bought the extended warranty), I suspect that they'll just offer me a replacement but I don't want one. I want this machine. I love this tablet, it's the best damned computer I've ever owned and I'm very attached to it. Plus I have a lot of software loaded on it that would have to be replaced. Bestbuy would have to offer me one hell of a significant upgrade and some software for me to even think about a swapout. We'll see how it goes.

Anyway, I'm shutting down all my electronics for a while now, before a power surge or a sag fries my gear.

So sorry. See you later, Internet.

Busy

Folks, I do have a post today, half done and likely to remain that way for a while.

I had a couple of phone calls to deal with - that consulting thing that I occasionally do - and it's set me back significantly. So, posting today is delayed for a couple of hours while I take care of some business.

If you're looking for me online - I'm not here.

Back this evening.

Where is Jim today?

Busy.

I have a large production run to finish, hopefully the last one of the summer. I'm behind, as usual. Beastly and I are pushing to get it done.

So, no time for the internets today. So sorry.



However here's something I'd like you all to weigh in on:

Have you heard of this service? It's called Hit Me Later. Say you get an email, it's important and you need to deal with it - just not right now. You wish you would have gotten the email later, say in a couple of hours or so, when you had time to address whatever issues it contains. So, what you do is you forward it to XX@HitMeLater.com (where XX is any number between 1 and 24, indicating the number of hours before HitMeLater sends the email back to you).

Um, OK. I get a moderate amount of email, not nearly as much as I did when I was working for the government, but I can't see any situation where I'd need this service. Really. If I get an email, like the one simmering in my inbox from a certain UCFer at the moment, and I don't have time to deal with it, I flag it "unread" and come back to it later, or I move it into a hi-pri subfolder. If I'm feeling really organized I dump it to MS One-note, or Project, set a reminder and keep snoozing it until it goes away.

Here's the thing, apparently a lot of folks use this service. Business folks. HitMeLater's disclaimer says that your email is stored on a secure server and nobody reads it. OK, I have no reason not to take them at their word, and there's no reports of chicanery at HitMeLater.com, but if I was your employer I'd be just a tad peeved to find that you're forwarding company email to an unknown (read non-bonded and secured) email site.

My first impression was that this would be the ultimate identity theft honey trap. My second thought was that this would be a great way to perform corporate espionage, and do it legally - after all, people are willingly forwarding their email to this site.

I don't see anything on the site or on the web that give me a warm and fuzzy about this.

What do you think, tech and legally savvy people?

Beaten to the Punch

Well, The Whatever stole my thunder this morning.

I was going to post on the subject of gay marriage in California, but that bastard John Scalzi pretty much summed up my feelings on the matter.  This pisses me off as I had a good rant on the subject all worked out in my head.  The man is obviously reading my thoughts and stealing my ideas, he is nefarious, Scalzi is.

Anyway, it's a great post and if you haven't read it, you should.

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Now, since I've got to get out to the shop (big production run this week) and I had to flush my rant down the drain and don't have time to work up another one, I'll leave you with a little music.

Gorillaz, Fire coming out of the Monkey's head.

A Truly Excellent Idea, truly

The satirical web 'newspaper' NewsBiscuit cracks me up.

Sports Cars to display drivers' penis size - now there's an interesting idea.



Did you ever try to pass a middle-aged guy in a Camero?

Seriously.

Ever been tooling up the highway and come upon a Camaro, or a Mach 1, or a Mustang, or some other 70's muscle car doing about 50 in the fast lane? And you swing right on cruise-control into the slow lane (grumbling under your breath about idiots that can't seem to grasp the basic left lane fast/right lane slow concept), and as you sail past you realize that the other driver is not some kid, but well into prime middle-aged crisis territory? (yeah, your age). And as you lock eyes over the rap music playing so painfully loud you can hear it through your closed window, you can see the outrage and the personal effrontery on their face?

That's right, I said effrontery - arrogant, audacious behavior that someone really isn't entitled to. You can see it on their botoxed faces, right above the chin implant and below the hair plugs - it's an expression similar to indignation. An expression that screams, "Hey! You can't pass me, I'm driving a Chevy Camaro here!" Then they slam down the gas pedal and roar away in a cloud of 4-barrel carbureted fumes, leaving you humiliated and humbled by their virile manliness.

And 20 minutes later, what do you come upon? Why the same guy, doing about 50 in the fast lane - yeah, 70's muscle cars didn't come with cruise control, and Viagra does exactly dick for long-term concentration (or so I'm told).

It would be just so much easier if we just made them put their age and the length of their, uh, muscle car on the fender.

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Note: Yes, today I am deliberately ignoring the Iowa Caucus (because, really, it's like going to McDonalds at 2AM and getting a stale, cold, 6-hour old fillet-O-fish and some soggy fries - you know what you're going to get, but it's the only thing open), Huckabee's pathetic guitar playing on Leno (though I'm pretty sure I've seen him on the road in a Camaro), and Britney's lawyerly abandonment (because, apparently even the lawyers attached lamprey-like to her coke-dusted, booze-farting ass have had enough of her silly stupid shit).