The Evil Prints

As some of you may be aware, I've been working for several years on an evil plan to take over the world.

If you're not aware of that now, don't worry, you soon will become painfully aware when I unleash my… oh, well, there will be time for that later (mwahahahhah, cough, er…). Anyway, I digress.

Typically I try to keep my evil secret plans, well, secret. Like the time I was able to insert a certain one of my minions into the head position of the ALL POWERFUL Kansas City Missouri Parks Board (and I would have gotten away with it if it weren't for those pesky kids and that dog!)

But again I digress.

What I was going to say is that I had a HUGELY Evil victory at the office this morning, and uncharacteristically I wanted to share it with you so that you can bask with me in my supreme evilness.

It all started as I sat at my Evil computer monitor studying some Evil spreadsheets and Evil quarterly plans. There were a few documents that I need to evilly send to the shared printer that all of the cube dwellers on my floor share.

So, with an evil, maniacal laugh which surely would have sent shivers of fear down the spines of my unwitting cube neighbors had any of the slackers bothered to show up on time for work, I hit the print button (with much evilness).

I gave the computers and printers a minute or two to crunch through my evil print job. I then headed over to the printer to pick up the documents as they came out, lest anyone find them and discover my nefarious plot.

When I arrived at the printer, I discovered that some unfortunate soul had incurred my wrath by leaving their print job unattended. It had created a printer error and backed up the entire print queue for about an hour and a half.

My evil documents were all at the end of the long queue, which wasn't even moving because of the printer error created by user THX1138.

Now, you lame do-gooders would have tried to help out poor, pathetic THX1138. You would have tried to find the 11x17 paper that he foolishly tried to print his documents on and placed it in Paper Tray 3 and pressed “C” to continue the print job as the error message suggested.

But that’s not how we Evil geniuses roll.

Instead, I did something completely Evil. I pressed the “Cancel” button, consigning THX1183’s print job to the depths of oblivion, never to be seen again.

MHWAHAHAHAHAAAAAAAA.

But I wasn't finished yet. Only now will the entire population of office workers (who were trying to print documents to that printer) see the true power of my Evilocity!

Because next I went through the backed up print queue and found my print jobs and PROMOTED THEM to a higher priority than all of the jobs in front of me!

So my Evil documents came out before the documents of the sucky saps who sat by and did nothing about the printer error!

And behold! My Evil documents were printed and I went back to my Evil cube to continue my Evil day’s work so I could get back to my evening hobby of TAKING OVER THE WORLD!!!!

MHWAHAHAHAHAAAAAAAA. AHHHHHAAHAHAHAA! HAAHAHHAAAAHAaaaaa.... (ouch, it hurts my throat when I laugh like that too much).

tagged: office, evil, printer, THX1138, Nazgul, Office Space, Sauron

Friday Blogthing: Gorilla my dreams

I knew this monkey business would finally catch up with me.

3oclockam.blogspot.com/

WANTED FOR THE VULGAR FRENCH-KISSING of a VULGAR GORILLA

$2300

What's Your Blog Wanted For?

tagged: Friday, blogthing, blog, wanted, vulgar, gorilla, quiz, meme

Life imitates art

News out of Newton, Kansas:

Kansas man arrested for killing 4 kittens
The Associated Press

NEWTON, Kan. | A 36-year-old Newton man has been arrested on felony animal cruelty charges for allegedly killing his ex-girlfriend’s four kittens with a hammer.

Police arrested Brandon Hayes on Monday for allegedly killing his ex-girlfriend’s four kittens in May. Lisa Stewart said she gave her kittens to Hayes to move to her garage, but she never saw her kittens alive again.

Hmm... Where have I heard of this before? Oh yeah...



tagged: Kansas, Newton, cat, The Office, Dwight Schrute, Angela Martin

Bag o'snake

It’s funny the kinds of things kids bring home from school.

Sure, you get the standard stuff like the day’s take of drawings and paintings. Sometimes you’ll find another child’s pen or brush or stuffed animal. And believe me, your typical five-year-old comes home daily with all manner of new and interesting germs to infect your upper respiratory system.

But on this particular day in early June, I was a bit surprised to see this particular five-year-old bring home a small plastic ziplock baggie from school. It was smaller than sandwich size, about the size some of you would use to carry your "herb" on your way to one of your hippie drum circles.

But there wasn't any Aunt Mary in the baggie (dammit!). Rather, the sole contents consisted of about the first four inches of a snake.

No, not that kind of snake. I'm talking about the kind that crawl around on their bellies scaring the crap out of people.

Still not right. Think of the same level of creepiness but more natural. You know, the kind of snake that eats rodents and air travelers.

That's right. Except luckily, the snake we're talking about wasn't that big or poisonous.

It was a small grass snake, the head and about three and a half inches of snake jerky apparently chopped off of the rest of the reptile by a lawn mower blade.

I didn't get a photograph (I know you're bummed), but here's an artist's rendering:
Those of you who have been parents for a while know that now is the time when you have to put up a calm front to avoid freaking out the kid while you wonder if you have a budding Ozzy Osbourne on your hands.

"Hey, whatcha got in the bag?" I asked.

"I found it at school! I'm the only one who got one," came the excited reply. "I found it in the grass in the play area and my teachers said I could bring it home."

Ah, gotta love those teachers.

"So, what are you going to do with it," I asked, totally not concerned in the least.

"I'm going to cut it open to see what's on the inside. Can you help me?"

"I, uh, well, er..."

"I'll need some of those plastic gloves. You know? Those gloves? Do we have any of those gloves? We'll need them before we cut it open. And we should probably wear mask over our mouths, too."

She was very mater of fact and clinical about the whole idea. She was eager and curious to see the actual interior workings of your every day, garden variety grass snake.

Unfortunately, the baggie with snake therein found it's way to the trash can before we could acquire the instruments necessary for the postmortem.

She was, of course, disappointed. She really wanted to see the inside of the snake. But the disappointment was soon overcome by the next episode of SpongeBob SquarePants, and anyway we were having quesadillas for dinner which is one of her favorite meals.

Still, my Supermodel Wife and I had debated whether our daughter was too young to see the Bodies Revealed exhibition at Union Station and decided that she probably was. Now, maybe it's time to revisit that debate.

tagged: snake, Aunt Mary, postmortem, science, nature, curiosity, Bodies Revealed, Ozzy Osbourne

YouTube Tuesday: Ingsoc for Dummies

Today's edition of YouTube Tuesday is in honor of the supreme job Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton did of pulling the steel wool over the eyes of voters recently.

Our national delusion continues, HUZZAH!



tagged: Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, sock puppet, George Orwell, 1984, Ingsoc, satire

Dino night

We headed to KC’s bustling downtown Saturday night for the much anticipated (by our 5-year-old) Walking with the Dinosaurs show.

Thanks to a connection through A Friend of Ours, we had a choice view from about 15 rows up from the floor of the Sprint Center. We had just found our seats as the lights went down and the narrator began.

It was an impressive production. The narrator described, in upper grade-school level terms (which is good news for those of you in Arizona), the geographic and environmental forces that influenced the evolution of dinosaurs from Pangaea in the Triassic to the dino-killing meteor strike that hit Mexico at the end of the Cretaceous.

Not that a five-year-old cares about the scientific mumbo jumbo. We were there to see the dinosaurs. Or, as my five-year-old corrects me, the robots made up to look like dinosaurs.

The dinos lived up to their billing. Through a combination of clever puppetry and sophisticated animatronics, the production company brought out life-sized versions of all the characters made famous in your childhood reading: Stegosaurus, Triceratops, Raptor, Brontosaurus (well, in this case Brachiosaurus) and, of course, Tyrannosaurus Rex.

It was great entertainment and included a 20-minute intermission that allowed me to grab a lemonade and M&Ms for the kid and a Bud Light for myself (all for the low, low price of $15).

The show proper was appropriate for the elementary-age target audience.

That's not to say it was boring to adults. The dinos were indeed impressive... and loud.It's just to say that it was light on the blood and guts factor during the staged fights between carnivore and herbivore. So it wasn't scary as far as that goes.

In fact, the scariest dinosaur of the night was the Grandmasaurus we ran into after the show while standing on line for a souvenir. The great beast roared angrily at the harried booth-tender as he showed her t-shirt after t-shirt until she finally, after what seemed like 20 minutes, chose one for her grandkid.

Anyway, they don't allow professional quality or flash photography at the show, but here are some craptacular pics I got with the camera on my phone.









tagged: Kansas City, Walking With The Dinosaurs, Tyrannosaurus Rex, Triassic , Pangaea, Cretaceous, meteor, animatronics, Stegosaurus, Triceratops, Brachiosaurus, meteor

Friday Blogthing: Beee-ach!

I'm thinking it's time for an island vacation.

Unfortunately, given the landlocked character of my Overland Park domecile and the current high cost of gas and air travel, the only island I'm likely to visit in the near future is Nelson Island.

Not that there's anything wrong with that, it's just not long on beach front property (maybe birch front property, but that's not really the same thing).

So, I guess I'll have to settle for a little online blog beach quiz...

What the Beach Test Says About You

You like people, but you're careful about who you get close to. Friendship is important to you... so important that you aren't just friends with anyone. You fall in love with ease and confidence. Even if you've had bad experiences in the past, each new love is a reason to start completely over. You are deeply passionate about several things in your life. You're not passionate about much... and the few passions you have are truly obsessions. Your sense of humor is intellectual and obscure. Only really well educated people get your jokes.

The Beach Test

tagged: Friday, blogthing, Franklin Island, vacation,, beach, blog, quiz, meme

Probing thoughts

Some local bloggers have been having a nerdgasm about the recent trip of the Pheonix probe (heh) to our nearest planetary neighbor, Mars.

It's all very exciting, the prospect of finding the building blocks of life on another planet, the achievement of sending our technology across the solar system to do our bidding, the thought of Americans colonizing another world.

But, lost in all of the hype we forgot about one very important group. I mean, don't get me wrong, I applaud our efforts to bring democracy to Mars. I'm just not so sure how keen the Martians are on the idea.

What might their feeling be about us probing their planet, acting all big and dusting off their ice and all?

How would you feel if a powerful nation shoved a thinly veiled metaphor in the shape of a robot arm into your polar ice cap?

Like I said, I support our invasion. I'm just sayin' we should let the Martians know what they're in for. And I think a good ambassador would be deep thinker Jack Handey.

A couple of years ago, Mr. Handey penned (keyboarded?) a piece for The New Yorker letting us know just what he would say to the Martians. It is cleverly titled, What I'd Say to the Martians.

Here's a snippet of audio taken from a recent episode of PRI's Studio 360. You can hear the entire essay there.



tagged: Mars, Pheonix, ice, planet, Martians

YouTube Tuesday: numbnuts?

num ● nah
–noun
1) a pad that goes under the saddle to keep the saddle clean and to cushion the horse's or pony's back.



tagged: numnah, spelling, spelling bee, humor, Sameer Mishra

In which I get punked by identity thieves

It was the damnedest thing.

When I received a mysterious package from BOMC2, I just kind of chalked it up to some kind of marketing gimmick. When I want a book, my first stop is Half Price Books on Metcalf. If I can't find it there, I hit up Amazon.

But a book club? Hmmm, I don't think so. But feel free to send me a comp copy.

Like I said, I sort of dismissed the book as an unsolicited marketing ploy to try to get me to join the club, that is until a few days later when another mysterious package arrived for me.

This time, it contained a selection of Gevalia coffees along with a note reading "Here is your first order. Your credit card has been charged $9.95. We hope you enjoy this selection of delicious Gevalia Gourmet blah blah blah..."

So now I'm thinking something strange is afoot. Two mysterious, unsolicited packages arrive at my door in less than a week? Something smells fishy, and this time it's not Meesha's nipples.

I call the customer service number listed on the Gevalia shipping invoice and say, "Yo, what up biotch! I di'int order this sheeeat!"

We discuss the matter for a few minutes and I learn that the order was charged to one of my credit cards. I make it clear, in no uncertain terms, that I don't want the coffee subscription and please cancel the account and any future orders.

Next I call my credit card company and, after navigating the IVR menu for a few minutes, I get the fraud department. I learn that the book and the coffee are two of three unauthorized charges to my account, the third being a $10 charge to Blockbuster.com.

I get everything straightened out with Credit Card Co. They suspend the account, lock down the number and order me up a couple of new cards (one for me, one for the missus). We rarely use the cards, which really is what allowed us to catch these recent charges as the red flags that they are.

But I do have some lingering questions, like just what the hell is going on here? I hardly ever use the card, so how did the perpetrator(s) get the number? If this is some kind of credit card theft, why buy only three items, each of which is only ten bucks or less? And why have the items shipped to my address?

So I concluded that I've either been hit by retarded identity thieves, or I'm being punked by some joker who thought it would be funny send me goofy stuff that I didn't really want. Thing is, books and coffee aren't as funny as, oh, I don't know, a new iPod.

Whatever the case, let this be a warning to you kids to keep an eye on your credit card statements. Check your balances regularly and if you find anything suspicious in your mailbox, be sure to panic first and ask questions later.

And that's... One to Grow On^®

tagged: credit card, fraud, BOMC2, Gevalia, Blockbuster, Half Price Books