This Too Shall Pass

Four days ago I didn't know it existed. Two days ago I was convinced I needed it. Now the fever is passing and reality has set it.

Like most males, my toys are relatively expensive and unnecessary. You see, I've got a lovely $80 strat-copy that I've painted neon green and it matches my electric guitar abilities.

But then I saw this lovely creature, on sale for a mere $250 and a bargain at that. Besides, we just got our property tax rebate!

The first time I suffered guitar lust was this dandy DanElectro Mod:

A bit goofy and retro, I still think this one fits me best but it was a mega-blowout discontinued $100 at a time when $100 was $100 more than I had. And so I let the opportunity pass and they are no longer available except on eBay.

The other guitar that has held my attention for some time is the Ibanez Artist line which I find asthetically pleasing.

But as I said, the fever has passed and I no longer am under the compulsion to OWN STUFF. That is until the next issue of Musician's Friend comes in the mail.

Christmas Spam

Good mornin' y'all! Hope all 1.28 of my regular readers had a fabbo Christmas, or a similar experience.

This morning I sliced into my annual can -o- Christmas SPAM. Carefully. With 150% of your daily fat (and probably 375% of your daily sodium) in each can this is not something to take lightly. Take the time to enjoy the process because once this stuff hits your heart it may be the last thing you see. Relish in the embryonic and mysterious SPAM jelly, immerse yourself in the sizzling on the skillet (NEVER microwave SPAM. Never taunt SPAM (or Happy Fun Ball).) (How's THAT for punctuation?). Savor each bit, pehaps enhances with a bit of scrambled egg or toast with your favorite jelly (although I don't recommend SPAM jelly... WAIT! Maybe that's what the stuff is for! But alas, I am not that brave to spread the gelatinous goo on my toast even though it may be nirvana and open up the secret of life). (Am I using too many of these? I've been up since 5:00.)

Um, that's it. No more. Go home. Drink some coffee. Nothing more to see here... move along.

Primiti Too Taa

One great thing about YouTube is that you can see great animations you remember from your past. So now I present the classic primative poem "Primiti Too Taa" animated one page at a time using a manual typewriter by some obviously manic fellow with too much time on his hands during the late eighties.

The Manly Man's Guide To Christmas Morning

Nothing is worse for the macho manly man than to be unprepared. Except being humiliated. By packaging. So, with Christmas morning a mere eight days away I, the ultimate manly machismo man, am here to help you prepare for the big day.

Assemble the following tools and you will surely be able to break into the toughest box, remove even the sturdiest product display/protection devices, and make sure your Christmas morning goes smoothly for you and your children.

Item 1: A box cutter or pocket knife. Today is the day to begin sharpening your knife using a whetstone or double-sided grinding stone with oil. Don't use scissors... think of the damage you would do to your children to have them seeing their manly father using dainty scissors to open a box. From China.

Item 2: Wire cutters. Many a toy is clamped in place with plastic bands. Again, scissors will buckle and your children will gasp in disappointment as their father is defeated by Chinese ingenuity. Wire cutters are the way to go. Or tin snips. Needle-nose pliers with a wire cutting edge also work. Especially macho men may opt for bolt cutters.

Item 3: Regular Philips Screwdriver. Sometimes the toys are actually screwed into the box or into special protective plastic pieces that make great gobs of poisonous black smoke when tossed into the Christmas fire.

Item 4: AA Philips Screwdriver. If you don't already have a set of tiny screwdrivers for opening the battery panels you need to get them TODAY. A manly man uses the right tool for the right job and though they are dainty, these tiny tools will not strip out a screw head, one of the ultimate shames for the manly man.

Item 5: Batteries. Lots of batteries. Even if none of the presents you are giving need batteries you will need to be prepared with lots of batteries. AA, AAA, and 9 volt. Sure, pick up some D and the increasingly scarce C size while you're out. Stop by Batteries Plus and get the mysterious N size to shock the kids.

Item 6: Flame Thrower. What? You're gonna leave all that paper and cardboard just laying around? There's FIRE to be had!

Family Secrets

Last night we made a variation on a Hoffman family favorite ~ Orange Julius. Hold onto your blenders kids 'cause it's PINEAPPLE JULIUS TIME!



1 Cup milk
1 Cup cold, cold water
1/2 Cup sugar
1 tsp vanilla or vanillin or your favorite synthetic imitation vanilla extract
A whole buncha pineapple (6 oz orange juice concentrate may be substituted for olde worlde taste)
10-12 ice cubes

Blenderize/ice crush the mess for 30 seconds. Enjoy!

* Baby shown for sake of comparison. The author of this web site does not condone, approve, or recommend the making, imbibing, or digesting of Baby Julius.

Taggers on the Public Pay

Ah... the daily morning walk into work. The crisp morning air, the nearly empty streets, the towering office buildings, the spray painted graffiti on the sidewalks and streets. No, Fort Wayne isn't home to an active group of taggers but for some reason utility employees find it necessary to mark out the paths of their pipes and wires with spray paint. I can understand if you're going to do some work under the street but lately it seems they're just spraying lines because they have five minutes left before a coffee break. If you look close you'll see the mysterious orange dots that run for six blocks and just stop... not sure where they lead or if I'm even following them in the correct order. These were all sprayed down six months ago or longer and I've yet to see a jackhammer or a backhoe digging around that would have needed to be warned about the dangerous pipes below.

My Crazy Employer

The place I work for, a web-based application, is in dire need of managerial direction. Here's the timeline:

Four months ago we put out a new version. It had an entirely new look and feel to it. It took three months to get the thing out, making our customers wait for minor bug fixes while we added some snazzy, exciting, non-essential features. We vowed that we would never again wait three months between releases.

Last month we put out a new version, the first since the one three months prior. It had an entirely new look and feel to it. Imagine going to eBay or Amazon and finding that they completely changed the look of their web site every three months, moving things around seemingly on a whim, disabling such non-essential functions like the ability to cut and paste and being able to search for something with fewer than five mouse clicks. They don't because they are real companies. This version, like previous versions, was full of bugs and errors and a complete disregard for usability. It's almost as if we are actively TRYING to irritate our customers, seeing how far we can go before they leave us. It surely has nothing to do with the lead application programmer slamming things into the system after it has been tested and approved by Quality Assurance. Certainly our clients appreciate that we are using the latest technology even if our system is as slow as a Vic 20 and, well, doesn't always exactly work on fundamental items. I mean, seriously, if you type in an account number in a search window do you really expect that hitting the ENTER key will make the application search for the account? That is SOOOOOO last year!

If you were such a company you could A) Listen to your employees who were telling you that there were problems with fuctionality and usability and fix these things before release or B) Put the thing in place anyway and after clients complained and threatened fly five or six of them to Chicago to personally air their grievances but make sure you put in another hurried release the weekend before so that you'll be surprised by additional bugs while face to face with your most important clients.

Guess which one we picked?