Friends and Neighbors

You've heard of the things that go bump in the night, demons, werewolves, vampires? Yes, all very scary. But take a look at this collection of creatures living within just a few feet of you all the time! I stuck some sticky traps at two small holes in my garage door and here is what I collected over 6 months. How thick are the walls on your house? Wait a second, these things are probably already inside.

Time to rise and shine for the United Fruit Line

My Dad used to yell this at me in the morning to wake me up. I HATED it! Now, I have started doing it to my son. It's involuntary, I just say it and don't realize I've said it until it's too late. Hmmm, I don't think I'm going to try to stop, someone else needs to suffer like I did. MUHAHAHHAHAAA.

Anyway, I got to thinking, where the heck did that come from, "time to rise and shine for the United Fruit Line?" So, I looked it up, turns out there is a historical society that keeps the history of the United Fruit Company http://www.unitedfruit.org/index.htm. The United Fruit Company was born on March 30th 1899 with the merger of the Boston Fruit Company and a banana fruit grower in Costa Rica. When they first began operation they supplied 75% of the bananas to the U.S. They created Miss Chiquita Banana in 1944 as a post war marketing campaign and they changed the company name to Chiquita Brands International in 1989.

OH MY GOSH, the history of this company is ridiculously interesting, I wish I could write about all of it, but I'm sure no one would read it. I had no idea that the U.S. invaded South America, Honduras and Cuba multiple times in the late 1800s and early 1900s and that there was a "banana war" between the European Union and the U.S. between 1993 and 2001! I thought I had a good education!

Still, I could not find the exact origin of the saying "time to rise and shine for the United Fruit Line." I'm totally guessing, but I bet it has to do with people on the rail distribution lines in the U.S. I will investigate further and one day, when you least expect it, I will have the answer! I know, I know, you are super anxious.

Here is some Chiquita Bananna for you (Thanks CBro): http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=4922661044281754625&q=Chiquita+Banana&ei=4ANlSLnZA4Hk4AKh-bDFAg&hl=en

Mother's Milk

Today I have decided to dissect a quote I heard yesterday.

"I got my friend’s breast milk on my shirt."

Quick, what is the image that just popped into your head? That image alone was worth reading the post today, huh???

Here are some of the things I thought of:

Two cows in a cartoon waiting for a bus and one of them spontaneously lactates on the other.
A group of women in the office "Working Moms" room.

and best of all.

A warehouse full of lactating women pumping milk for sale to the general public. (Probably shouldn't post this, now someone is going to steal my idea and get rich).

Stinky, P.U!

Apparently, one of my latent super powers is being Super Stinky.

"I once heard of a SUPER STINKY POWER that lies within. They say it can hypnotize (or make one pass out). . . ." ~Anonymous

This comment was posted yesterday by someone that may actually know my secret identity! I have always wondered why people say P.U. when I go by and then I began to wonder why do we say P.U. at all????


Well, it turns out that the Latin word for stink is "puteo" and that in English there are a number of words that signal disgust, or discomfort, like "phew" and "pew." So it looks like "PU!!" came from emphatically saying "pew."

Not that you wanted to know, but now you do.

So, I was thinking, I have a rapper name, but I probably need a super hero name. Something with crazy and stinky.

Daffy Puteo! How's that sound?

Super Hero

I heard a great quote this weekend that I wanted to share with everyone.

"Otto, get your rectum off of my leg."

Also, I got a great comment on the Tornado post yesterday:

"This blog does not appear to be a tornado of craziness. Rather, it takes craziness and makes it very safe for us, which is nice. Then again, a tornado can stack two dimes. So perhaps we are so far deluded and we have not yet experienced the flurry." ~Anonymous

I had not realized this until Anonymous pointed it out , but I am a super hero. The world is blind to the craziness around them and if the veil was lifted from the eyes of the general public most would not be able to survive the shock. However, I am able to take the craziness and reveal it in a way that allows people to internalize it and actually laugh at it, rather than spontaneously combust. I mean, I knew I was special, but WOW a hero! I need a costume and I think it will have to have a cape.

Anonymous, you are very deluded and the craziness around you could still overwhelm you, but do not worry, I take my job very seriously and I assure you that I will not let that happen.

I wonder what other super powers lie latent within me that I have yet to discover!?

Storm Chasers

If your blog is named One Crazy Thing a Day and you see a tornado heading toward you what should you do? Chase it, of course! Fortunately, my wife is as adventurous as I and she was able to snap some pretty nice pics of the funnel cloud. Although we are not too smart, we are lucky. The thing went directly over our house, but by the time it got there it had broken up so all we got was a lot of wind. Here are Denise's of pictures of the tornado and some pics of me being blown away.

Chamillionaire

I figured that since I had Chamillionaire listed on my profile as one of my favorite music groups it would be a good idea to listen to some of their songs. Easy enough, just YouTube it. In case you are like me and they are one of your favorite groups that you have never actually listened to here you go http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QKnJg1PlIEI. Go ahead, click on the link, expand your mind.


Looks to me like the only thing I am missing is the Cadillac and then people would mistake me for Hakeem (he's the guy driving)! I guess I need some lyrics too.

First the rules of rap:

1. The person rapping is a bad ass. In this case the rapper is me so, no problem, I am a bad ass.

2. Denigrate women. No problem, women are good for .

3. Street Cred. I have plenty of street cred. One night when I was drunk I told my friends that I beat up 20 guys at the same time. Another night, when I was drunk, I cleaned an entire bathroom of regurgitated alcohol with only a knife and a spoon. All of this was nearly 20 years ago and I'm not sure it's true, but who's going to argue with a bad ass?

4. Sagging pants. Ok, I just can't, really, I can't.



So, here we go. Hard core rap!


I'm a rootin tootin bad boy



suckin on my sucker



I'll give you a kiss lady



all you have to do is pucker.



You look gosh darn pretty in



your pin strip suit.



Come watch movies at my place,



it'll be a hoot.





By the way, my rapper name, Hot Diggity.

The most random thing I could think of

I decided that today I should post the most random thing I could think of. Hence, I started thinking of random things. I thought of the magnetic field of the earth reversing and then I realized that my uncle had told me of that possibility as a kid and I must have been reminded by my friend telling me that space ships can be shielded from cosmic rays using a magnetic field. Not random. Next I was wondering why Monopoly has such strange game tokens. I mean a thimble and a hat?! But the thought process that brought me to these game pieces was seeing a story about some Bear Stearns financial managers getting busted by the FBI and the fact that my son, Neal, taps his head every time he sees a hat. Again, not random. However, it is an interesting question; I mean where did these tokens come from? So, I looked it up. The going theory is that the tokens were designs stolen from Cracker Jack toys and that they are representations of both wealth and poverty. There is a Car for wealth, a thimble for poverty and so on. Apparently, tokens have been added and subtracted over the years. I bet an original, mint condition, Monopoly lamp token would be worth a lot of money. Anyone have one for me? Maybe I'll start collecting these things..... I digress; I am supposed to be writing about random things. You know, as I sit here typing this I am beginning to realize that trying to thing about the most random thing I can and writing about it is pretty darn random. In fact, I think that the most random thing I am going to be able to think of today is coming up with the idea to write about the most random thing I could think of. Actually, that's kind of lame. Maybe I’ll try again tomorrow.

Taking quotes out of context

The press takes quotes out of context all the time. They do it to make someone look evil, or silly, or stupid. I find that if you take quotes out of context they can be rather funny. I have a big list of out of context quotes from people around the office. Here are a few.

“I’m not an outlier”

“Civil engineers are neither”

“Shower doesn't work for me”

“I want to go back to the way of programming where I am unbound”

Smoky Brown

One of my little cousins got into his hometown newspaper today holding a cock roach. I am a big fan of roaches. They are a good source of protein for many cool animals, like lizards and birds. Also, since there are no dragons or ogres left they are one of the few things left that a man can slay and look like a hero to his beautiful maiden. I have done some research with the Texas Smoky Browns that got me in a little trouble at work. See emails below.

To the department:


It was brought to my attention on last Friday afternoon that the break room on the research/South side of the building was left extremely messy after lunch (coffee grounds all over floor, etc). If you spill something please clean it up.
Let's all help each other out and take ownership to these common areas and ensure they are kept clean daily.
Thank you!

From Me:

Dear Office Manager,
I am attempting to do a very valuable scientific experiment that requires the collection of hundreds of roaches. In particular I am collecting the Smokybrown Cockroach (Periplaneta fuliginosa). I am attempting to prove that digesting the Smokybrown will cure many diseases of the foot. The Smokybrown loves coffee grounds hence I will be spilling coffee grounds all over the research kitchen floor. Since I am using the research kitchen for research (as the title implies I should), please refrain from encouraging people to clean up my mess.
Thank you for contributing to this valuable research!

911

I have had to call 911 three times in the last 4 or 5 months. That is not a good sign, but fortunately none of the calls were for me or my family. The first time a drunk driver rear ended someone at a stop sign, pulled around them and drove his car into a ditch, smashing it against a pole causing it to catch fire. The second time three women, YES WOMEN, where in a car and one of them in the front turned around and started punching the crap out of the woman in the back seat. Finally, today, a guy was making a left turn and he was going too fast, jumped on the median, broke his axle and smashed the side of the car. Air bags deployed and he banged his head against the driver side window, he was bleeding pretty bad. When I talked to him he was out of it, not sure if it was from his head bump or from the beer bottles in the passenger seat. This was at 7:45 in the morning! I'm hoping not to have to dial 911 again for a LONG time.

Cloverfield, well, sort of.

Star Spangled Pup

Otto, the dog, loves to sing. Here are a couple of videos of this perfect pitch puppy.

Fun with Accessibility Options

Sorry for the late post. I have not tried this yet, but it looks like it could be loads of fun. There is a whole slew of potential pranks in the accessibility options for Windows XP and even more with Windows Vista. To find these options you go to the control panel, in XP they are called "Accessibility Options" and in Vista they are under the "Ease of Access Center." I see a bunch of nifty pranks here, but one particularly interesting one is the "Filter Keys" option. The options are a little different in XP and Vista, but you can set the computer to ignore repeated key strokes for a certain period of time. To find these you go to the "Keyboard" tab in XP and the "Make the Keyboard Easier to Use" in Vista. If you set it so that it will take 2 seconds between repeated key strokes you will cause a TON of headaches. I set at 2 seconds to test it when I started typing this post. You can't hit multiple spaces, can't hit the backspace key multiple times and even when you type words like "accessibility," it freezes on the second 'c.' HA! Love it......

Exception Log

Got an email at work today. The office has an exception log for clocking in and out. If you forget to use the time clock you have to fill out the exception log. Someone stole it today and we got an email asking for its return. Here is the email and my response.


Department,
Currently the exception log has been missing from the break room the entire day. If you have removed the exception log, please return the log to its rightful place. Please do not remove and leave the exception log to await your supervisor's signature as there are other employees that need to document their exceptions.

Thank you


I have created an entry on the exception log stating that the exception log must stay in the kitchen with the exception that George can take it wherever he likes. Since I am exceptional, I believe that I should probably get other exceptions. For instance, all employees must dress professionally with an exception for George who can wear pajamas. Or, employees must show up to work during scheduled hours, with the exception of George who can show up whenever he pleases. Don't you think that is a good idea?

Motivating Co Workers To Bring Canned Food

As is common among many workplaces, there is an annual canned food drive. My office is big enough that we split into teams and compete for who can bring in the most cans. I was in charge of one of the teams and needed a motivational tool. So, I offered my face, well a pie in my face. The winner brought in over 150 cans. Here's a video of my pie in the face day. Note: whipped cream is very greasy, GROSS!

Computer Pranks

There are a ton of pranks you can play on your officemates just by messing with your computer. I'm just going to post one of them now because I don't want to give all my best ones away. This one is especially good if people are able to log out of their desktop because you don't need to be logged in to do it.

Adjust the monitor contrast to 0% and the brightness to 100%. It makes the screen go blank! Impossible to figure out what happens. You'll have a real laugh when your co worker is crawling around on the floor trying to figure out what the heck is wrong. MUHAHAHAHAHAAH!

Unofficial Disiplinary Pop Up Messages

At work we have access to a utility that allows you to send a pop up message to anyone on the network. However, no one knows about it. This can make for some good fun because as people are working an official looking message can just mysteriously pop up on their screen telling them that they have been breaking office protocol.
Here are some examples:
"Your recent internet activity has been flagged. Due to excessive and innapropriate web browsing you are scheduled to be disciplined. An email will follow with details and your disciplinary appointment."
"You have been reported to be in dress code violation. We ask that you use Personal Time Off and go home to change into more appropriate work attire."

Responding to Office Wide Email

Everyone gets office wide email, you know the stuff I'm talking about, announcements, events ect. Normally, you just delete them. But, If you are bored, you may as well respond to them. Here is an email that was sent out yesterday and my response.

Office email for lost and found:
The Minutes/Notes to the Psychosocial Council Meeting dated 06/05/08 and 05/15/08 were left in the Ladies Restroom. If belonging to you, please retrieve from front desk. Thank you. Have a great day and enjoy your evening!
Thanks,

My Response:
I have been receiving Psychosocial Counseling because I have a hard time remembering to use the Men's instead of the Lady's room. Obviously, my counseling is a failure, so I will have to search out a new therapist. However, I would like to get my notes back so that I can use them in my malpractice lawsuit.
Thank you.