Just a fun quote

What is required now is a feat of linguistic legerdemain and a degree of intrepidity.

Thank you, neighbor

Dear Manager of Building Across the Street,

I know you can't do anything about the behavior of the world's loudest garbage collectors at 8:30 on a Saturday, but did you have to throw away half of glass bottles this side of the Mississippi yesterday?

It sounds like a glass factory being rolled over by Chuck Norris out there!

See what I mean?

So much to say

So, for starters, my wish that I could have the original Star Wars trilogy (Episodes IV-VI) without all of that crappy re-release special effects, subtle scene and plot changes, and general "CGI spiffyness" (read: stuff I hated) will be granted in September, in a limited edition re-release of the Star Wars Trilogy. I will take any of you mofos on in Star Wars trivia, and you better believe I'm buying these bad boys.

Something wicked this way comes in the NYT Business section. Does anyone actually care what the captions in the print edition say? Check out the photo accompanying this article. The article is titled, "Microsoft to Put More Money Into MSN" and the byline is Bloomberg News. But the caption on the photo of M$FT CEO Steve Ballmer is "Steven A. Ballmer, Microsoft's chief, gave a speech Thursday."

Did he? How great! "Yesterday, PDO ate lunch." Wow. All the news that's fit to print, huh? What a wonderful caption. There aren't many better papers than the NYTimes, but you're slipping, fellas. I'll be watching you.

This is why the slide IS meant for adults.

Some Times you gotta Hold Em

Sometimes you just have to stick to your guns. Like, for instance, our annual reunion wknd in the north country. Someone suggested that we should use sheet plastic instead of buying 4-6 Slip'n'Slides (I for one kind of like going to the Kay-Bee Toys in the Manhattan Mall once a year).

I'm fine with that substitution. But then the TODAY Show features this segment (how I managed to not vomit on the TV each time Matt Lauer got smug, I'll never fucking know) about playground safety.

Apparently, all the yuppies this year are getting birch or cedar swing sets for the kiddies. If the swing set is hung from a beam above six feet high, watch out! Here's the quote: "We find that once you get above six feet, the accident rate doubles!" Fucking true. I stick to my 5'11" guns, man.

So, after the fucking garbage about whether to use rubber chips, bark, or good ol' fine sand, and you get the high horse patrol telling us why Slip'n'Slides are so evil.

I'll post a pic of how non-evil/totally fucking awesome they are. Especially when used by adults, and linked together (imagine two tracks of 4 slides end to end) down a steep slope in the middle of summer. If you just got very envious of me, I am not surprised. But back to ye olde high and mighty:

Lauer the Tool:We need to do this quickily, because we only have 30 seconds.
Safety Slut: OK first rule: no parents- you're liable to break something coming in at a bad angle and with that much weight. Rules for kids: Parents must be watching. One person at a time. No one goes head first.
Lauer the Tool: Even though they show a kid head first on the box? [see this]
Safety Slut: Yes.

And that was it. Personally, I trust Wham-O with my life. I have for two years now and it hasn't been a disappointment.

Safe For Work, Unless You Work in the West Wing

In case any of you missed Stephen Colbert's awesome roast of the President and the Press at the White House Correspondents Association Dinner, here it is on Youtube. If you were gauging by the audience's reaction, he fell kind of flat. But those people don’t know funny. I know funny. And apparently the press is still hopelessly licking Bush's nuts. Part 1 embedded below, [Part 2] [Part 3]



PDO Salutes New Readers on this fine Wednesday.

I got free cupcakes at work...and I died a little inside

So, for one thing, the cupcakes were totally overdone. Not overcooked, overdone. It was like someone wanted to make the best looking cupcakes ever, but forgot about what made cupcakes good. I think it has probably been years, plural, since I have had a muffin, much less a cupcake.

The cupcake had this perfect little wrapper on it, and the chocolate cake was moist and tastless. But that could have been ok. What annoyed me was that the cupcake had this perfect squat cylinder shape, and the frosting looked like it was cast in a little perfect mold. What happened to the "tast good" cupcake of says of old with the Betty Crocker frosting applied by a knife, dripping slighly off of the cup and on to the wrapper? It was like someone in Teldar Paper's communications and marketing department made sure that the cupcakes were the pastry equivalent of a glossy investment brochure...all done up and primped.

Ooooh it just made me kind of mad. That, and cupcakes are a shitty way to make employees feel appreciated. But it's probably better than yelling.

Tasteless Joke

So the NYT on Sunday had yet another story about the guys from Goldman Sachs, and Merrill Lynch recently indicted on insider trading charges. All of them are children of eastern European or Russian immigrants, or immigrants themselves. They made about $6 million by trading in options and stocks [my favorite is when they bought Reebok options on inside information about its acquisition by Adidas/Salomon- and their actions tipped off federal regulators because the trades comprised 80% of the trading in Reebok options in one day]. It's kind of fun to read about how they did things like open accounts in the names of their relatives or stripper girlfriends.

The stripper in question alleges that she is too dumb to understand what was going on. Said a relative of hers:

“To expect her to know anything about the stock market is like expecting her to fly to the moon with a pole,”

Which I thought was awfully short sighted. She flew to the moon with a Russian, not a Pole.

The Original Crazy Inventor?

There's this ad running on ABC Family (yeah, I admit it, I was watching Mr. Destiny this afternoon) that advertises Willie Wonka is the original Wild Inventor. Roald Dahl's 1964 novel Charlie and the Chocolate Factory which was the basis for the 1971 film, was a long time ago- but THE ORIGINAL?

Yet, the original Wild Inventor? To say nothing of Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Edison, or George Washington Carver (you like peanut bitter, don't you, you commie?) what about The Absent Minded Professor (1961)! What a bunch of tiny-minded jerks.

Well, maybe the only inventor Gene Wilder ever played, but even that probably won't stand up to scrutiny, either.

Judas Priest Would be Proud of Us (pt. 1)

It was a terrific night. Adventure, friends, discovery, meat and beer. Sure wouldn't;t have been the same without meat and beer.

JGW and I wondered what we were gonna do last night. And drinking and watching deal or no deal or cops could have been fun, but I thought daiquiris on the lawn would have been more fun. Lacking a lawn, we decided to barbecue in the park. Enlisting BN and his friend N, we were on our way by 1pm to having a fun night.

Nevertheless, after picking up some quality ground sirloin and chicken snausages (not going to find quality shit like that in my neighborhood, though the park is pretty spectacular) we were racing against time. By the time the four of us made it into the base of the forest, daylight was fading fast and we still had a bit of a hike to the barbecue pits along the river.

It was past dusk as we walked along the trail, passing a couple of casual walkers, some stray dogs, and some crazy kids who took a nasty spill on a downhill trail when they saw the dogs. Morons.

We arrived at the park on the Hudson, and discovered that there weren't any grills! We had charcoal, we had fire, we had meat. And yet, we decided to push on, Down to the rocks along the river. Mountain Man as always, BN led a major wartime campbuilding exercise, and we created a makeshift grill out of rocks and sticks. To be honest, I was a little freaked out that either the cops would find us, or some paranoid tugboat operator delivering an oil barge up the river would call the department of homeland security on us.

But we beat the odds. We made do in spectacular fashion. And then the magic happened. After opening our first beer of the evening, the Mountain Man had his first of several brilliant MacGyver moments. We cut the top off of the Coors can and cooked the sausages in it! A Dutch oven!

The sausages turned out great. It was dark, but the whole time we had a great view, and we never looked at our watches. We sat out on the rocks, tried not to fall into the river, jumped out of the way of the wake created by the oil barge, all the while completely concealed from view of anyone in the park. It was glorious.

Don't Call it a Comeback!

I been here for years!

Well, actually, I should have done a first anniversary post or something. This makes something like 1 year, one month, of blogging with good ol' Pants Dispenser. Hopefully I won't have to write too many more posts on this shitbag computer. My new laptop should be here soon. MAN! it makes me sriously salivary just thinking about it.

It really does seem like crossroads time, though, you gotta admit. Job transition, seems like I'm finally doing a smart apartment search, but where has my head been?

It just seems like my creative side is suffering big time. So much to think about. So many balls in the air. Geez. And there are some shitty things happening I totally don't fucking need.

So I raise my glass and quote 311: Fuck the naysayers, they don't mean a thing!

Thoughts on the weekend

As I walked out of the office in the early evening of Friday with MH, we saw2 what looked like free beer. It was. Lots and lots of freee beer from the chemistry folks next door.

Dear diary,

JACKPOT.

Thanks to the dudes from Denmark, Klaus and Klaus, we had an awesome time.

Please Call for Assistance

Dear Diary,

I wish AH knew how to make photocopies properly instead of sending me into a shame spiral.

More tomorrow.

Truly yours,

Xerox DC 265 PS

The Official "Deal or No Deal" Drinking Game

You read it here first!

Set up:
Beer. There, you're done.

Preparation:
Each player, before beginning, must pick “evens” or “odds”.


1 Drink
The home state of the contestant is mentioned

Even Case picked –if you picked evens

Odd case is picked- if you picked odds

The banker’s offer is lower than his previous offer

The family/friends of the contestant shouts, “NO DEAL!”

Howie lies and says, “There’s a good chance” or “The odds are good”

One of the models holding a case speaks.

The contestant’s mother or father is on camera

The phone rings

2 drinks
The player rejects the banker’s buyout offer (NO DEAL)

Any case with more than $50,000 is opened.

3 drinks
The banker’s offer is larger than his previous offer

The $750,000 case is opened

4 drinks
The player accepts the banker’s offer (DEAL!)

Any member of the contestant’s entourage introduces himself as Aunt/Uncle [Firstname]

The $1,000,000 case is opened

Optional: Chug whenever the banker is talking or when Howie talks to the banker

iPod status

Screen seems to be working again. Thank the maker!

Was reminded this weekend of something else

This movie RULES.

Ice-T as a black man being literally hunted by some crazy white folks, headed up by Dr. Crazy himself, Gary Busey. Rutger Hauer and Charles Dutton are entertaining too. I edited, below, the IMDB plot summary for Surviving the Game (1994)

Mason, who lives on the streets, wants to cease his life when on the same day his two best friends die: His dog and an older man with whom he shared his food and roof. Just in time, Cole, from a charity organization, arrives and offers him a quite well paid job as servant for a hunting party in the Rocky Mountains. Mason accepts the job and flies with them to a chalet in the wilderness where they prepare everything for the four rich businessmen who want to hunt something "special." Mason eventually deduces that he is the quarry in question, and does what most of us would-a combination of running like hell and fighting back.

Bombardment!!!

What I did Friday:
Bombardment!

What I did Saturday:
Bombardment!

Plans for the week:
Bombardment!

No, seriously, it seems like last night was frickin crazy. Usually my nights out in the town are with 3-4 other people, with 8 people being "kind of a lot." we had, by my unofficial count, a total of about 18 with a peak at any given time of 14 or so.

Also, last night BLM's girlfriend kicked me in the balls. That was teh SUCK. And we made hockey jokes. And I wrote down some hilarious shit in my notebook- some good material in the making. Also, I am the king of analogies, specifically the Darth Vader analogy and the Castle analogy.

We had lots of laughs, and drank a hefty amount- note to self: for some reason, no amount of sugar seems to make bottled lime juice a suitable mixer. Next time we're using limeade concentrate, or whatever we used for the home-made margaritas a couple weeks ago. So, the list of things which taste bad/worse mixed with lime juice from a bottle:

1. Southern Comfort
   
2. Absolut Citron
   
3. cow manure
   
4. cadavers

BOMBARDMENT!

Peanut Butter Feder Time!!!!!

E!'s Talk Soup had this on right before the Academy Awards. Thanks, MHB, for making sure we watched every single Pre-Show.

But this was Awesome.

Weirdest SPAM subject line

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Message:
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Nice try at a limerick, fellas.

The Simpson's My Fair Laddy Awesomeness

Totally nonsensical out of context quote alert: Bombardment! [episode recap via TVSquad]

The most depressing page in the known universe

Is most definitely this page: the Apple - Support - iPod - Service FAQ. To summarize: U B FUCKED.

I know a lot of people have written in major publications about how apple is like screwing people because their devices are fragile and after trivial stuff happens to them you are shit out of luck. At that point it is more or less a better idea to just buy a new goddam iPod than try to get yours fixed. I listened to their furor and smugly tempted fate- my 20GB iPod has worked pretty well, despite a 3 month period where it wouldn't sync with my iBook, and when I accidentally stepped on it. The display is a little scratched but it was still working after almost 2 years.

Until last week. Now, it syncs with the iBook, and allows me to access the files I have stored on it, and it plays music.


The screen just doesan't work- though the backlight does. So now I have a 20GB iPod shuffle with some really cool playlists and Adobe Photoshop CS and Diablo II: Lord of Destruction on it.

Fuck.