Geeky Jack-O-Lanterns

Over at Wired.com, they have an amazing gallery of the nerdliest Jack-O-Lanterns one could ever see. Some of the detail work is absolutely amazing. I highly recommend heading over there and taking a look before Halloween's over.

clipped from wired.reddit.com

Thank God!

It's about freaking time. Seriously. Good riddance, Mike Sweeney. I hope some other team throws a crap ton of money at you and you give them your best ever performance of seventy five games played in a single season.
Good luck, Captain Popup.

clipped from mlb.mlb.com KANSAS CITY -- Designated hitter Mike Sweeney and pitcher David Riske, two players the Royals might be interested in retaining, filed for free agency on Tuesday.

Geewww!

Geewww!
Originally uploaded by fatalbush2002

While shopping for a halloween costume at the local thrift store, i saw this sign. I still don't know what to say about that...

Cylon?

Cylon?
Originally uploaded by fatalbush2002

Anyone care to guess what this toasterish looking object really is?

Best. Birthday. Prank. Ever.

So here's the best birthday prank, ever.

We received a tip from the boss man himself, Jason, that Jon's birthday was coming up on the 25th. Jon was rather hush-hush about his birthday, as he should be since he's the office prankster.

So after Jon left on Wednesday, his office was prepared. Here's what was done to it:

On the outside of the door, some random stuff to show we care.

But the real goods were hidden inside. Apparently, the USPS will deliver to your door a whole heck of a lot of flat rate boxes, absolutely for free. And, apparently, we had ordered a bunch of them a couple of months ago. So we put them into Jon's office.

Over 300 boxes were stacked from floor to ceiling, completely cutting him off from his desk.

And then we laughed as Jon cleared the boxes out of his office

Now this was pretty funny, to us, but it got even better when Jon took out his drivers license to show us his birthday was actually three weeks earlier.
And now, the rest of the story:

Jason had tricked us. And Jon. He tricked us into playing a prank on Jon, so he wouldn't have to. It was a very nicely played, well thought out prank. Multiple targets, multiple payoffs.
My hat is off to the boss man.

Who's coaching first?

The Kansas City Royals have a new manager, Trey Hillman. And along with Trey, they're getting some new coaches. One of them has a tough name. Poor guy.

clipped from kansascity.royals.mlb.com KANSAS CITY -- A day after Trey Hillman was introduced as the Royals' manager, his coaching staff was in place. The Royals announced Tuesday that third-base coach Luis Silverio and hitting coach Mike Barnett will join pitching coach Bob McClure as returning staff members. New staffers will be bench coach Dave Owen, first-base coach Rusty Kuntz and bullpen coach John Mizerock.

Dunh Dunhh, Duh-uh Duh Duh-uh Dunhhhhhh....

So Jim brought it up in his post awhile back, and I've been thinking about Law & Order ever since.
Awhile back I talked with some people who would bring a tear to the eye of any good card holding NRA member. The number one reason they had for "needing" a gun was for personal protection. They're under the impression that a serial killer lurks around every corner, knife in hand, face painted clown-white; that every bus is filled with rapists, ready to pounce on the next unarmed woman who happens to walk by; that every chat room is populated solely with pedophiles, intent on doing unthinkable things to their children.
And I'm convinced it's Law & Order's fault.
And right behind is CSI.
These shows seek to completely saturate the airwaves. This coming week 34 episodes of the original Law and Order will air on cable television. 24 for SVU, and 48 for CI. At an hour apiece, that's 106 hours of TV. That's almost four and a half days of crime each week. And then there's the twice monthly marathon of one flavor or another.
It gets easier and easier, I think, to believe in a world dominated by rapists, murderers and pedophiles.
Then throw in the Criminal Minds of the world, and you now we're entering the world of Serial Killers. It can be scary for some.
I'm just worried that some (before I had this conversation I would have said rational) people would think the answer to this problem is to carry a gun so that they, too, could partake in the taking of a life, should the need arise. Now, don't get me wrong, I believe I would do whatever it took to save myself, or the life of a loved one in the event of a violent, potentially deadly situation. But I think that the last way to go about it is to strap a gun on my hip like Hollywood's version of the cowboy and go about my day.

So I just did a bunch of researching on Serial Killers. I'm sure I'll sleep really well tonight...
But I found a statistic that claimed there are, at any given time, 35 active, uncaptured, serial killers in America. Now lets, for example sake, say that there's a 1/3 turnover rate every year; 12 of the killers are caught, or end their career for one reason or another, but another 12 start their careers. At 22 episodes per season, that's just under three seasons before they get rid of all of the active serial killers. And then what? They'll only have half the business they did before. They're going to run themselves out of a job! That's not good for anyone.

This also reminds me of the time we were in an Improv show and Rocky Vaughan was a Cereal Killer, out to murder "that bastard, Captain Crunch."

How to get organized, but not really.

This is how you start your year off on the wrong foot. And with an awesome accent, too.

New Ride, Headache, Etc.

Thanks to a little help from my old lady and a few other friends, I finally have re-joined the ranks of people with functioning motor vehicles. I just purchased a 1994 Jeep Cherokee Sport. 2 door, 4 wheel drive, high output 4.0 litre engine. Big freaking crack in the windshield, but still passes inspection.
In fact, the mechanics I had look it over before I purchases said vehicle were very impressed, and would have paid about twice what I paid for the vehicle. They said it wouldn't take much to drive this beast another ten years. So now I can go places whenever I feel like it. Yep, I'm pretty cool, again.
On a side note, I have the worst headache ever.
My eyeballs feel like they've been inflated to four times their normal pressure.
It's bad.

Productivity, and the such...

I've always been terrible at personal productivity. I'm great at figuring out what I need to do, but never excel at the actual implementation. I'm a planner, not a doer. So lately I've decided to become a doer. It's just better that way.
I found something I already like: Getting Things Done, or GTD for short. So I've become obsessed with getting organized and all of the little tips and tricks others before me have utilized. LifeHacker has some great tips and tricks. Most beneficial to me of late has been Jott. Jott lets me make a call from my cellphone, and record up to thirty seconds of audio which will then be transcribed (funny story about this after the serious stuff) and delivered to any email or cellphone (as a text message) that I have already identified to Jott.
On the surface this seems like it's going to be a simple tool that will let me record my thoughts while it would otherwise be impossible or unwise to write them down. (In the car, walking the hyperactive 50 lb puppy, etc.) And thus far that has been the case. But a slew of tools from the good folk over at google has completely revolutionized the way I use this already impressive (and free) service.
My favorite is Grinn Productions' Jott2GCal link. I can now call up Jott on my cell, speak in an event, and it'll be recorded on my Google Calendar when I log in next. I can also call it up and request a text message detailing events or ranges of events. Good stuff.
I'm also reaping huge benefits from creating "shadow" gmail accounts (myemail+music@gmail.com, myemail+restaurants@gmail.com) coupled with filters and labels in gmail. I make a contact in Jott named for each of the shadow accounts. Then, when I'm driving in my car, and I hear a song I really want to (in some manner or another) acquire, I call up Jott, tell it to send a message to my music account, and remind myself what exactly it was that I wanted to hear again.

Ok, humorous story(es) about Jott's transcription woes.
There's really only one story to tell, just different versions. The story goes like this: A guy calls up Jott, leaves a message. Jott's computer's try to figure out what he said, and if they can't they ship it overseas to India, where medical transcriptionists polish up on their transcription skills by typing out whatever the guy said that the computer never picked up.
The first one happened a couple of days ago when I previewed the Jott service to Mr. S. Ryan Mills. I called him a "No-talent Ass Hat," which the transcription service considered to be "[unintelligible speech.] "
That I can understand. I'm sure it happens often, some censorship, especially when obscure combinations of 'profanity' are thrown about.
But the one that happened today has been my favorite thus far:
I was driving home, and wanted to leave myself a note to have a mechanic guy I know look at a Jeep I want to buy. So I left the message "Call Shane tomorrow about the Jeep." It was transcribed much, much differently.
It seems I need to call Shane about some 'Vergina.' Not sure what it is, but apparently Shane does.