July 2007 Archives

We have to take "Standards of Business Conduct" training - and I use the word training loosely here - about once a year. It consists of watching really horribly acted little skits and then answering whether we think it was a good or a bad thing (hint, the answer is always "you will be fired"). Thanks to this round of training I now know that I shouldn't

• Display hard core porn during a presentation to a customer - specifically kiddy porn. It is generally frowned upon to have porn on any company computer.
• Funnel money to a shell company under my name or a name of a relative.
• Use the company credit card to fund a night of wild debauchery.

Thank goodness for training or I'd never have known how to act in these ethically gray areas. Though I am still a little unclear on the whole "baby eating" subject, hopefully that will be addressed next year.

I can finally read the internet again! Having had book 6 of the harry potter series slightly tainted for me by jackasses on fark I'd decided to avoid anything where users post comments ever since the book was leaked online. Anyway, 24 hours and 750 pages later I decide to take a peak (don't worry, no spoilers). There's the usual praise and bitching that happens about everything, that was to be expected, but one guy had the most insightful comment I've ever read about the series: How come the great wizarding duels never involve any real imagination? You'd think one guy would have though to shout "Accio testicles" by now.

I almost fell off my ball when I read that - freaking brilliant, get that guy a wand.

I sit on a giant rubber ball when using my computer, I should probably clarify that lest the previous sentence make me look like a nutter. More like a nutter.

My last remaining grandmother (I started with a total of 4 so there have been a few) is starting to show some signs of her age - a little forgetful and not quite as energetic as back in the days of insisting on making giant 7 course meals for tuesdays. Naturally this lead conversation with my pop down the road of "I'm never going to be like that, I'll settle matters myself if I have to".

I told him that's probably really not going to be a concern since the guys in our family seem to do fine and the life expectancy of a 60 year old man who still snowboards (and his son who appears to enjoy being crushed by logs) is probably pretty low - nature will sort of take care of the problem for us. Ever the pragmatist (except when making purchase, it's pretty clear where I get that particular gene) my dad insists on planning and has come up with a rube-goldbergian method of ensuring he doesn't become a burden: he's going to build himself a nice long ramp with a little lip at the end leading to a lake, get himself a bottle of wine, a wheelchair and just let gravity and sleep do the rest.

There were a couple of other less elaborate plans but all of them seemed to involve falling asleep with heavy narcotics and never waking up. I'm convinced there are more exciting ways to go and had planed to either

1. Take a nice long flight with a faulty parachute - the most exciting 4 minutes of free fall I'll ever have. Added benefit of probably just having a heart attack midway through.
2. Die blissfully of exhaustion during a weekend in vegas with a dozen high priced call girls - obvious down side of probably not being able to properly participate when I'm 70.

but both of those lack the gadgeteer's touch of, say, being stalked by your own hand crafted, shotgun wielding robot angle of death. So now I've been thinking, what's the most elaborate, geeky, and entertaining (for the inevitable audience) way to go? The robo terminator is all I've gotten so far but I've also been asleep for 7 hours since having this conversation so cut me some slack.

Robo angle of death.. I like that, it's got a marketable ring to it.

Oh yes, and the little hairless guy below brought in a healthy half million hits yesterday. A stump compared to the duffman apocalypse that comes every october but respectable none the less. 90% of the comments sampled seem to mock his plight while the other 10 want to adopt his mangy little hippo butt. I realize this doesn't really count as "taxes" but "Death and Hairless Monstrosity" doesn't quite have the same ring to it.

Justyn forwarded me a picture today snapped from outside of an office building in the seattle area - we're both fairly convinced it's the missing link:

click to see it in its natural environs
Other slightly more realistic guesses as to the identity of said beastie include:

• kangahippopossumouse
• common pigmy hippo, native to the PNW
• diseased miniature baby hippopotamus
• la chupacabra
• diseased marmet
• Naked mole rat

Personally I find Chupacabra the most convincing. Thoughts?