what about funny?

Are there any comedy podcasts people like?

Anyone?...Anyone...Anyone

me and the kids at the park.

pod castin'

OK so I'm always a day or so late. I just found what pod casting is. I love it. duh right?

Yes ok I know you all have your favorite shows that you listen to regularly and you have also the time and obviously the inclination (although it is a mystery) to come here and read this dribble. That makes you a member of a dribble reading set.

With that in mind you have something in common with all the other dribble readers (maybe it's simply that you like to mock me. Maybe you have a whole email list of comments on this blog that you keep me off of because they are all very mocking. That's an interesting mix of egotistical paranoia huh?)

I only have 2 podcasts so far. I don't have much of a sample set. I don't have a favorite yet. I have science friday from NPR and living on Earth also on NPR.

I need more.

So the short of it is: Please comment on this post with your vary favorite podcast. The one you really love. Just one. OK two. come on.

Closure

So I'm closing down my corporation. It's not really a fun thing to do, but it happens. I mean I work full time so I don't have time to do it anyway. I had to physically go to the bank to close the account. I had called the 800 number and 1/2 of the people I talked to said I could do it over the phone, the other 1/2... that is the 1/2 the first 1/2 thought could do it told me no. Yes I spoke to two people I call them 1/2 one and 1/2 two. However 1/2 two looked up and told me I could still make the bank as they were open til 6:00 in the lobby. OK sweet, let's roll. They call it a lobby. You do business in a lobby? You do if it's slow, but I'm getting ahead of myself.

On arriving I spoke to 1/2 the people in the bank that I would talk to that day. Not that there weren't more people in the bank I just didn't talk to them. The other half of the people in the bank I didn't talk to I did listen in on their phone conversations. It's not eavesdropping people I was in the lobby they were in the lobby.

The first half of the half of the people in the bank that I spoke to was a nice lady who needed to beat traffic. She was all in can-I-help-you-with-something until I handed her my last statement and told her I needed to close the account. She looked all hurt and shit. Christ lady, it isn't your company going down the toilet. You still have you lobby desk and your phone so people and eavesdrop on you without it really be eavesdropping and shit. I on the other hand just want my money, k?

She looked that way because she wanted to leave and she knew what I was in for and she didn't want to take part in it. She made lots of noise about traffic and how she had to go or else.

She gave me to the other half of the half of the people in the bank. This, for those of you even trying to follow along, was the half 2 of the half of the people in the bank I spoke to. Let's call him Joe. I would call him not xxxxx where you replace xxxxx with his real name, but I don't remember it because he didn't talk on the phone for me to eavesdrop on and say something like, "Hello this xxxxxx" where xxxxx would be his real name and then I could call him, "Not xxxxxx." So it's Joe now.

Joe was slow. See Joe write. See Joe try to pull a signature card. See Joe fail to pull the signature card. See Joe wonder where the fuck my signature card was. "We lost it I guess!", was all he ended up with. Guess what? No signature card? No problem you can still have your money. You have ID and it matches the account name so we're still good. Joe then filled out some paperwork and had a blank signature card. I thought for a second he was going to have me fill out the signature card to replace the one they had lost. That would have been funny, but no. He recycled the blank signature card. Phew good thing he printed it out. Then he filled out another form and put the word "close" on it.

All the while he's trying to make small talk in a way only Joe can. It was like he took, "Advanced Knife Twisting During Small Talk" with his personal banker training. He said, "So are you folks branching out into other stuff?"

I wanted to answer, "No you fucker we went down the fucking tubes and we want our money, so shut your pie hole and make with the check!"

Instead I said, "I'm working full time." Which is the same as above. Also the kids were with me and I don't want them learning the words, "Pie Hole." K?

Next up was, "What work did you do?"

The answer I wanted to give was, "apparently not enough you fucker, we want our money, so shut your pie hole and make the check!"

Apparently I was hungry for pie. Do you ever go shopping for food hungry for pie? Do you boys and girls? I knew you did. I love pie. I could have brought a pie home that night. But I didn't.

Next up in the Joe Knife Twisting hit parade was a delay. He excelled at delays.

He had me sign a form. He then took the form and got in line. What you say? He got in the mutherfucking line to see a teller. He has a soft cushy desk from which to make calls that are easily eavesdropped on and the tellers have to stand at the window and count stuff. They would call them counters but that's taken by the thing they stand at. So I guess they tell you stuff like, "You can't have your money", and other fun things to say at parties. So my boy Joe got in the line and waited.

He waited in line. I can't get over that. Guy is a banker. Desk, phone and eavesdropping, but he has to wait in the god damn line. He got my check and they have to like check this and that before they'll print it. All the while I'm eavesdropping on the 2nd half of the people I didn't talk to in the bank who was talking on the phone. She was the manager. I could tell. How you ask? Because Joe came up to her after waiting in line and got out his pen and clicked it and put my check down and waited for her to sign it. She's yacking away. I'm the only person in the lobby. Joe is standing there with the pen and the check for this... 1/2 ... to sign and she won't sign it til she's off the phone. You could tell Joe just wanted her to sign the mutherfucker so he could get me out of here. Ya so she got off the phone and then without a word she looked at the check and signed the mutherfucker. She didn't say anything. Eavesdropping over.

He brings is over to me and says, "Well if you guys start up anything else come on back."

Come on back? After the line waiting and the eavesdropping and the whole, "oh my god I can't help you I have to commute" woman. I think not.

So I bid goodbye to 1/2 number two of the half of the people who I spoke to at the bank that day. And so ends our fractional banking lesson in lobby side manner.

Bring your child to work day

I brought the kids into work today. It was pretty fun, but conicidentally it was a really rough day at work. A deadline was set for that day and of course everything was fine up until Friday and then it all went to shit. Despite some work I did on Sunday to try and alleviate it, it was still really bad today.

I felt sorry for the kids, it was boring for them some and we bickered a little bit, but it came out ok in the end. I took them to Aikido and then made them some mac and cheese when we got home.

We also had a fun tour of the "house of the future" and it was a little weird. A lot of stuff they showed didn't seem practical to me even if the technology behind it was working because it seemed like it would be hard to configure. The kids loved it and the media was stunning.

The kids enjoyed eating the cafe almost as much as I abhore it. They loved it.

It was also great having carpool coming *and* going... That was so nice.

dinner

I love Tandori Fire in Bothell. I tried to get the kids to try some, but they just wouldn't go for it. Max tried the naan a little bit. He said it was ok but didn't eat much.

infinitely long

I finally finished "Everything and More" a compact history of infinity by David Foster Wallace.

it was a tough read and I didn't get it all, but I got some of it and that was cool.

It was one of those books that I can only read like two pages a day. I'm glad I slugged through it all though including all of the footnotes which I think outweigh the text by a bit.

What's up next on the geek read parade you ask? No you didn't? well I'm gonna tell you anyways.

It's called Perfectly Reasonable Deviations from the Beaten Track The Letters of Richard P. Feynman. Edited by Michelle Feynman.

I've only read the introduction and I'm really excited about this book. She talks about how much different it is from other books about/by Feynman.

It's also in small chunks so picking it up and putting it down will be easy.

dumb ass car thing

Last night on my drive home. Well it wasn't really night it was more on the order of evening. I saw a young woman driving an expensive SUV and it had a sticker on the back that said "FUCK Terrorism" but the U in Fuck was a star that was made to look like the US flag.

What does that mean? It's like saying, "The sky is up." It's taking the obvious to the absolute maximum. "Mean People Suck", makes much more sense to me although it is on the same line.

What does this twenty-something girl mean when she says that. Let's take a second and acknowlege that it might not be her car, but then maybe her father lets her drive around in a truck that says "fuck terrorism", on the back so that might make it worse. I don't know.

What does it mean to fuck terrorism? It's just a stupid sticker to put on the back of your car. Like denouncing evolution with the jesus fish killing and eating the darwin fish. Violent...

I realize this isn't funny, it's just stupid.

Imagine something you can't imagine

People often say "I can't imagine that." I don't think they really mean it. It is a figure of speech. Can you think of anything you can't actually imagine? I mean really. As soon as you imagine imagining it there it is...

Try to imagine not imagining something for real. Go on try it.

You can't.

long walk

I took a long walk around at work today. The weather is so nice a ton of people were on the trail. I got to feel all snooty because I walk the trail in the rain. I love the trail there are ponds and thus pond scum and ducks who swim in the pond scum who likely don't think of it as scum at all. More likely to them it is that lovely green stuff that shows up on the pond in the right conditions and should be swam through in search of food. We call it scum and look how we think of it. It's really a very bright green and is churning out lovely oxygen.

People were walking/jogging and annoying me. How you ask? Well two runners coming at me (see that sounds so much more antagonistic than, "going the other way") refused to go single file and about ran me, literally I do believe in this case, off of the trail. I also hate walkers who are behind me. If I stop then I look like a freak so I have to just keep out pacing them. Bastards. I didn't even see them I just hear them behind me. Maybe it was a pond scum sucking duck. Maybe not.

welcome congress...

so someone from the house of representatives just passed by the old blog front...

welcome law makers. See the first ammendment in fucking action right here right fucking now...

boo ya.

Healthy Note

So they just send the note they say that I have too much crap in my blood, but they don't say anything to do about it.

I'm just a touch high in the bad cholesterol. 30 points-ish. Does this mean I got a cheese free diet now? Maybe I should cut back on the red meat down to once a week? I don't know.

Maybe I should shove warm lindseed oil up my ass whenever there is a new or full moon. Maybe I should just stop doing that. I'm kidding. I only do that on the new moon.

I guess my point is they call the level I'm not at a "goal." Is that a stretch goal to bring it down 30 points? Am I just fine and I should shit a brick if I hit like 400 or something crazy like that. I'm saying that my healthy note didn't make me feel too healthy.

Now I'm not as high as last time. I was 50-60 high last time (3 years ago) and I have dropped 25 lbs since then too. I was lifting the dogfood bag (40lbs.) and I thought... fuck I lost over half this bag off myself. I know it's not much, but still seems like a lot to me.

This is pointless and not funny (except for maybe the warm lindseed oil) so I'll stop.

What is that for?

So in a politically stupid move yesterday I'm kinda sorta maybe pretty fucking sure that I totally pissed off my boss. This isn't the subject of this post. I mean it sets the tone and shit but it isn't what it's about. If you're scratching your head and wondering how I pissed off my boss be sure that it had to do with not fully reading an email thread that I forwarded to him with a little 'fyi' at the top. That always gets me into trouble. I think I'm better off with the fuck the status leave me alone and keep paying me attitude that has worked so well in the past. OK I saw a small chunk of "Office Space" last night.

I digress. Have you noticed that I can digress before I even fucking start? Have I raised digressing to the level of an art form? um... no. But It is funny to make jokes about it especially when I'm doing it again even now. You got that didn't you? Self-referential and all. I love it.

OK so I was unhappy because of my political lack of savy. Or my total lack of savy and this just showed up in the political/work area of my life -- quite a possiblity.

I was unhappy about work. That's really all the above has to accomplish. It's true I felt like shit taking my dog into meet with a trainer so the trainer could tell me if he is a social moron still or not or if I managed to knock it out of him. For the record he passed and is allowed to socialize with other dogs now. It's like a doggy party permit, but isn't very useful because he has no balls. I mean that literally not figurativly of course. I mean he doesn't have balls because a vet (presumably) somewhere cut them off. I presume it was a vet and not a hobbiest dog nueterer.

I was unhappy at work. And I fixed it. Did I fix my fuck up? yes but that's not what I mean to write about. I fixed it after this part. I asked myself, "what is work for?"

I replied, as I often do alone or with dog(s) in the car, "I keep going and they keep paying me"

I moved forward with my socratic style with myself, "Are they still paying you?"

"yes" (I'm so clever when I'm be socratic with myself)

I lead myself to the conclusion, "So what's the problem?"

oh ya. I'm not getting canned over this. I keep going they keep paying me. Problem solved.

So solved in fact I slept well...

a guy in the lunch line...

had a chin so pronounced that it could have been a tumor...

Is that mean? yes.