"Eleven. Exactly. One louder."

What Not To Wear

This is wrong on so many levels...



Saw this while tailgating a few weeks ago. Nice socks.

Deferential Equations

I have been reading an online discussion group for people who are preparing for the radiological physics board exams, and happened upon a post complaining about the physics educational requirements. Imagine that? They actually want you to have a physics background before they will certify you as a physicist. The nerve! Anyway, this person said that she is good in the clinic but doesn't think she would be able to pass a Quantum Physics or Deferential (sic) Equations class. Of course I could not resist the urge to mock this (for those who were not forced to take advanced math, the subject is Differential Equations). Instead of doing it on the public discussion group (because I am not a complete ass), I send PDM a snarky email quoting this comment. I knew he would be sure to appreciate the humor of it all. And indeed, he did. This is what he sent back:

"Well, wasn't that the most well-mannered 2nd order inhomogenous equation? Always saying 'no, sir' and 'yes, please'. So agreeable when I required it to have constant coefficients. And not the slightest peep of complaint when I changed the initial conditions of the problem."

"Oh, you're so right. Most inhomogeneous equations nowadays are so disrespectful, requiring you to use the Method of Frobenius--or even numerical integration, for Heaven's sake! But that equation was so courteous--it even offered to transform itself into an integral equation and solve itself using Green's function techniques. Talk about good upbringing!"

"No doubt, no doubt. I've never known an equation so willing to go out of its way on my behalf. Manners will show."

Dilbert or The Borg?

Things are changing at work, in ways that have nothing to do with the economy. Our new chairman is finally starting to put his unique stamp on the department. I'd describe our new direction as something between Dilbert and The Borg.

On the Dilberty side, we have a staggering number of meetings. The big boss, hair looking more pointy by the day, rambles through his agenda in random order. A question may lead to a side debate that quickly goes off topic and never seems to end. If anything physics related is covered at all, half the time it ends up badly for us. We are almost in the realm of having meetings to discuss other meetings. It has gotten to be a huge joke with us in the trenches. As if the constant stream of meetings wasn't bad enough, we get bombarded with lecture notices. Last week alone, we had ten hours of meetings and lectures spread across all five working days. I confess that about two hours into the one on Tuesday afternoon, I couldn't take it anymore and started quietly playing Sudoku on my iTouch. Other people were carrying on lively text message conversations or reading email.

As for the Borg, well, let me share an example with you. We were recently directed to use a specific font, size and color on all email messages, and told to use a particular format for our email signature. Yes, You Will Be Assimilated. Individuality is no longer tolerated. Since not everyone is savvy with the inner workings of Outlook, this has led to a hilarious variety of almost-but-not-quite-right email signatures. Logo replaced by the red "image not found" X, double spaced lines, four different shades of blue, an assortment of incorrect fonts. I was helping some nurses set theirs up and found out that they did not even have the required font installed on their PCs. Brilliant idea - doom them to failure from the outset.

Want more? OK. I was recently accused of "violating our logo policy" on an electronic form template I created (that looked exactly like the paper form we'd been using for years) and sent a 15-page PDF file from Marketing containing the complete set of rules for logo usage. My offense? The logo was in a table that had borders around all of the cells, so I had illegally placed a "box" around the logo.

Don't get me wrong. I know the economy sucks and I am very happy to have my relatively stable job. And I get what the new guy is trying to accomplish for the department and our reputation. It is important, and will be good for us. It just looks different down in the trenches (literally, the basement of the clinic) than it does in the lofty towers of academe. Generally, I like what I do. But these changes have increased the time I have to spend doing useless stuff at work, while continuing to produce as much or more of my real work output (patient load has been up lately). The only way to do this is to work more hours. No one notices that, but if you fail to show up at a meeting... watch out! I could get resentful, but I choose to deal with it by poking fun at the situation instead. We do it all the time, and laughing about it with my coworkers helps us get through the day -- meetings, lectures, mandatory fonts and all.

Backaches and Improbable Statements

The amount of work I get done around the house and yard on a given weekend is directly proportional to the intensity of the backache that inevitably results. I got a lot done this time. There is not enough naproxin sodium in the world to fix this. Now I'm sitting here with a hot pack wrapped around my lower back. I hadn't planned to work in the yard at all on Saturday, but the Tech game was such a crapfest that I went outside to burn off my frustration. For three hours. At top speed. *sigh* I was pretty mad.

At one point, I had to go get PDM and ask "Hey honey, can you move this toilet so I can get to the lawnmower?" Then I cracked up. Never thought I'd have to say something like that. That ranks right up there with the redneck classic: "Can you move this transmission so I can take a bath?" The bathroom construction project is still going on, and we have bath fixtures all over the place. Including the carport storage room, right in front of the lawnmower.

It wasn't all drudgery, although our fun plans for today were scuttled by my waking up with a sore throat -- we were supposed to spend the day on the lake in a friend's boat. That didn't seem like a great idea given the cool temps and my possible cold or whatever this is. We stayed home and painted the wainscoting in the new bathroom instead. But I did get to see my sister. She spent last night with us during an Atlanta layover. We went out to dinner, then watched Clerks II and drank the bottle of Bordeaux she brought back from Paris. Classy, no? Nothing goes with "ass to mouth" dialog like fancy French wine.

Large Hadron Collider

The Large Hadron Collider is online today. It may be the end of the world, but I feel fine.

For some reason, whenever I try to type "hadron", I accidentally switch the D and the R. Hilarity ensues. I mean, what's not funny about a "large hardon collider"?

Still Raw

If this is your kind of humor, you'll find more here.

It works, bitches.

Like my new t-shirt?

The back has a graph of the background microwave radiation of the universe, showing data from the COBE mission plotted over the theoretical curve (equation included at no extra charge). The perfect match is a beautiful thing. Science works!

The cats gave it to me for my birthday. Those kids really know how to shop.

Cracking Up

This post contains crude, silly, juvenile humor. I've already admitted that I have a weakness for this kind of stuff. I understand that not everyone is so easily amused. If you are not, or you happen have a monkey butt, please accept my apologies.

I haven't been doing enough laughing lately, so it was excellent timing when I opened a group email last night from a friend. These are people I knew from my Massachusetts days and we all still keep in touch even though some of us have moved away. Lots of times the subject is bizarre-o stuff we've found on the internet and want to share. Friends don't let friends miss funny stuff on the internets!

Last night's email was titled "Anti WHAT?" and contained a link to this product:

Heh heh heh.... That, plus the responses to it, had me laughing hard enough to hurt. After a few exchanges, she sent around another product link for this:


Gack!! Can you imagine approaching the register with this stuff? The first two reminded me of another product I have run across somewhere (maybe one of your blogs, who knows?). So I sent around the link for Crack Creme.


And as an added bonus, when I searched the drugstore site for "crack", I also found this beauty!


By this time, I was laughing uncontrollably, like Beavis and Butthead in a sex-ed class. Sadly, I was at work and had to knock it off. But assembling the photos for this admittedly very juvenile post got me going again. Laughing feels good. And is easy to induce in people like me, who have a decidedly low-brow sense of humor. PDM doesn't understand it. But sometimes there is nothing funnier than a good butt joke. Except maybe a good fart joke...

Playboy Bun-Cat?

Happy Valentine's Day from Silvio. This is him doing his best imitation of the iconic playboy bunny logo. He's got the ear position just right. All he needs is a tiny bow tie.

I shudder to think what this post is gonna do to my search terms...

2 Quarts Will Drive You Kooky

Looking up the "Keep On Truckin'" logo for the last post made me think of wacky packages, another of my 1970s childhood memories. These were trading cards that had parodies of common product logos on them. Not sure why that particular memory should surface, but I had a Kook-Aid tee shirt that was a favorite. I didn't realize that Topps started making wacky packages again a few years ago. If you remember the 70s editions fondly, they are set to release a series of "Flashback" wacky packs this month. Hmmm, maybe I'll have to get a new Kook-Aid tee shirt...

Not The Same, But Still Funny

I stayed up late last night to watch The Daily Show and Colbert Report. Or "A Daily Show", as Stewart renamed the interim writer-free shows. Both shows were different than they were before the strike. Stripped down, for one thing. But what I like the most about them was still there, only more of it - the opening monologues and the interviews. I enjoyed seeing Andrew Sullivan on Colbert, but laughed more during Jon Stewart's monologue (or "improv" opening statement, or whatever we should call it when it technically cannot be scripted in advance - even by Colbert or Stewart). Although Colbert did note that Stewart's monologue (or whatever) seemed alarmingly well prepared:



I've missed these shows, especially The/A Daily Show, and am glad they are back because there is so much to poke fun at. If you missed it, Stewart's bit on the Writers' Strike was hilarious!

If Rupert Murdoch Owned The Weather Channel

I saw in today's news that The Weather Channel may be for sale. What would happen if Rupert Murdoch's News Corp buys it? Here are just a few of the changes you could expect:

1. Red states consistently given rosier forecasts than blue states.
2. Hurricane coverage eliminated due to confusion about “No Spin Zone”.
3. Local traffic will continue to be covered on the eights, but “obstruction tactics of Democrats” will be listed as the cause for each jam.
4. O'Reilly to interview disaster victims and yell at them for not evacuating.
5. Every report on snow or ice to include mandatory joke about global warming.

Yes, it was a slow day at work today. Why do you ask?

What a hassle...

In the spirit of Jim's Handy Visual Guides, I bring you this mini field guide to "hassels/hassles".


Hasselblad - a very fine camera, popular with photographers worldwide





David Hasselhoff - somewhat of a camera hog, inexplicably popular in Germany





Odd Hassel (yes that is his real name) - a Norwegian physical chemist, super duper popular with the 1969 Nobel Prize Committee





Plain, old-fashioned hassle - rush hour in Atlanta, popular with no one

lolcats

It didn't occur to me that some people wouldn't recognize the "art form" I used in the last post until I found out that PDM had no clue what I was riffing on (or ripping off). I am usually the last to hear about stuff like that. But just in case you live under a rock or just don't run into these weird internet trends, it was a "lolcat". Maybe not the best example, but hey - it was my first. If you like this sort of thing "u can has mor funnyz kats" here. They are strangely addictive. You cannot resist lolcats.

Bored Today...

Can you tell?

Hope you enjoyed your "cat scan".

Job Opening

Male? Unemployed? Willing to relocate? Have I found the job for you!

India (yes, the country) is looking for just the right guy to be their very own Mr. Condom. You should have a dynamic personality, enjoy talking about sex, and have a passion for promoting condom use. Having a taste for curry is a plus. Any takers?

Stealth Spam Attack!

I sent an email to my sister this morning asking for some travel advice about a possible trip to San Diego. She lives in a beach town north of there and I knew she would be full of ideas. I checked my mail a few hours later and she had sent a series of replies with blurbs and links about that area. All the new messages in my In Box were from her (or so I thought). So as I finished each message, I clicked "next" to get the next one on the list. It was all good stuff - cool places to stay and some things we might like to do. Finally, I opened the last one and it said:

"If you are in need for information dealing with which way you may foster some more mass for your rod, you've got to see our site."

Huh?!? What? Oh. It's an email with info and a link, but this one's not from my sister. I laughed so loud I had to get up and shut my door. "Foster some more mass for your rod" just cracked me up for some reason.

It doesn't seem quite as funny now. But imagine reading that sentence with its oddly formal choice of words to describe something crude, while fully expecting it to be about things to do in the San Diego area, and imagine the awkward, sudden shifting of mental gears as it becomes clear what has occurred. Yeah, it was damn funny at the time. I laughed myself silly.

Wilfing?

Apparently, lots of lost productivity at work can be blamed on something called "wilfing", short for "what was I looking for?" Aside: Shouldn't this be called "wwilfing"? This is a web surfing phenomenon where a worker supposedly gets distracted by the information overload available on the internet and begins aimlessly surfing. A study claims that two thirds of british web users spend large amounts of time wilfing at work. My initial thought was "Only two thirds? What's wrong with that third guy?" Ironically, I ran across this article while wilfing at work.

In The News: 'Bad Idea' Edition

Generally, it's a bad idea to:

1. Open a "Hooters" restaurant in the middle east. They have a cow about women driving and showing any skin that doesn't have eyelashes attached. What are they going to do about women waiting tables in orange silk short-shorts? And are they still going to offer the ham and cheese or pulled pork BBQ sandwiches?

2. Use your cell phone to send someone a photo of your naked breasts popping out of your unbuttoned police uniform, complete with clearly visible name badge. Like that's NOT going to end up on the internet. Riiiiggghht.

3. Stash a dead passenger in first class.