Posts Tagged ‘silly’

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BART strike leads to train jokes

October 10, 2013

In an SF office email list, there was the warning that with a BART strike possible, people may want to make sure they can work from home.

Someone suggested working in a bar, I replied that a meeting there might help an ongoing problem. Another person piped up “I like this train of thought.”

Was the pun intended? (BART… train, see?) I don’t know but it reminded me of another train joke, once told me to over three days (an hour a day).

There was a guy who always wanted to drive trains, to be the railroad engineer. But he came of age in the 1960s, the job was dying out. Over the course of the next twenty years, he got laid off by Amtrak and then by Union Pacific. He moved his family to San Francisco and drove the trolleys, yelling “All aboard!” for the tourists. But, inevitably it seems, he was laid off of that job too.

His family was kicked out of their apartment and had nowhere to go. Our train enthusiast had no more options so he turned to a life of crime. He robbed a bank. The first one went ok. The second ended in disaster as an accomplice shot a police officer and then cut a plea deal with the district attorney.

Our engineer got the death sentence: the electric chair. He went through the standard appeals but felt so guilty he didn’t put much heart into it. It was terrible. On the night of his execution, he asked for his wife’s macaroni and cheese.

But when they pulled the lever, nothing happened. Back to his cell he went.

They tried again a week later. This time, as a final meal, he had his wife’s mac and cheese, with lobster bits.

The electrician had been to increase the juice to the chair. When they pulled the lever, a city block worth of lights went out, but nothing happened. Back to his cell he went.

A week later, he enjoyed his wife’s mac and cheese, with lobster bits and an excellent glass of red wine.

The electrician had been, and again increased the juice to the chair. When they pulled the lever, the whole city’s lights went out, but nothing happened. This time, the governor granted a stay of execution, releasing the man saved due to divine intervention.

When released, the press asked what had happened, how was this possible? He gave a simple press statement: I was never a very good conductor.

 

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Methode Champenoise

December 17, 2012

I thought today about doing a new twitter feed. To be clear, I kind of hate twitter, it is annoying to try to think of witty things to say all the time, feeling like I'm feeble at it, and listening to other people be at both their wittiest and whiniest.

Thus, it is a little odd for me to want to engage more with twitter. But last night I opened a terrible bottle of champange. It was such a colossal letdown. 90 points at BevMo… unlikely. I must have picked up the wrong bottle or something. Yuck. Just yuck.

I thought that this pic would be a good twitter pic along with a pithy “I've had sodas that weren't as teeth achingly sweet as this plonk.”

In fact, I could make that my profile pic. And I could promise to tweet once a day, always about sparkling wine. Usually sparkling wine under $20 because I'm too cheap to buy the expensive stuff. (But occasionally someone else buys so there are high end bubbles ocassionally.) I'd use twitter to chronicle the good and the bad.

I don't open a bottle every day. I'd need some filler material; I could share: “I find that drinking a whole bottle in a day is deleterious for working the next. Those rubber stoppers for wine bottles are suitable for retaining fizz for up to three days.”

I could take picture at Bev Mo and CostCo of the champange in a fluted bottle I keep seeing. I keep almost buying it but I want to spend money on the wine, not the bottle: “Bring that pretty bottle here to me! (Nods to @ballisticcats for their lyric).”

I could look up what the name of the wire wrapper on the cork is called. I knew it for a little while. But then I forgot. But, you know, it'd be a good tweet. And the opportunity for risqué comments about the shape of the corks… I could get a not-safe-for-work rating.

I could mention buying wine from woot: “Yay to @Woot for their Rack and Riddle fizz. Yes, it was a vertical four pack. I'm not sure why only two are pictured here. Except that they were delicious.” Because, really, they were delicious.

I really do love champagne. I'm not too picky. Or so I'd like to think. And I'd like to think that I wouldn't mention a friends almost water-like cava that she prefers. I love the friend. But I'm not letting her choose wines again.

On the other hand, here's a good pic and tweet: “Yeah, I drink champagne from a can. A pink can. What of it? I don't use the straw (usually)!”

Except for the embarrassment of having to ask “do you have champagne in a can?”, the Sofia champagne is one of my favorites. I know I'm paying for the additional packaging (a little hypocritical, maybe I will get the fluted bottle next time I see it) but the cans don't make me feel wasteful if I don't finish a bottle in under a week.

I figured I'd even do Friday haikus: “Methode champenoise / Here add seven syllables / You make me bubbly.” Ok, so that one isn't finished.

I could point out that the Etoile bottle makes an excellent Christmas or New Year's host gift. Lots of points and delicisousness. It will please the snobs and the happy lushes.

For that one, I could give my tasting notes: “This is to sweetness as freeze-dried strawberries are to spring.” One good thing about twitter is that the tweets don't have to make sense. Which is good for me. Really good, especially after a glass of champagne. Though I will admit that that tweet wasn't a compliment. But I did not pour that bottle down the sink so it wasn't a loss, just a “will not buy again”.

I could mention champagne and cupcakes. Probably on my birthday. Of course, I think I did that on my normal (@logicalelegance) twitter feed.

And champagne cocktails… I do occasionally doctor my drinks… “St. Germain's is an eidelflower liquor that tastes like the first golden light of a spring day after a week fo dark rain. Add half a shot to your flute to raise your spirits.” Punny! Plus, again, pretty bottle.

“If your champange is not chilled enough, I recommend adding a frozen strawberry.” I don't know who couldn't think up that pearl of wisdom on their own but it would totally fit into the twitterverse. (I already mentioned my disdain for twitter, right?)

I looked up the recipe for champagne simple syrup this weekend; I was considering putting it on sponge cake, ended up with raspberries and whip cream but the syrup recipe was simple… though it involves “leftover champagne”, a foreign concept. Anyway, I could send out the “heat champagne, add sugar, stir, cool, pour over steak” instructions. Again for people who couldn't figure it out on their own. And, yes, I'm kidding about the steak. I'd poor it over sponge cake. Or strawberries. Or raspberries. Add it to whip cream. Put it in truffles. Add it to jam. Put it in soda water. Oh heck, I'd pour it over steak and then lick it off.

If I doled these factoids out over a month or two, 140 characters at a time, I wouldn't seem like a drunkard. Probably.

I really do like champagne. I wonder what this one is going to taste like.

 

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Next you take 100k children

September 25, 2012

I’m working on a project that uses I2C sensors and there is an addressing problem with them that is kind of complicated. I sent out a whole-team status report and glossed over the problem figuring the engineers knew what I was talking about and the non-engineers wouldn’t care.

One of the team caught me later and, somewhat abashedly, clearly feeling feeble, asked for clarification.

Oh, no, the problem was entirely in my explanation. So I started explaining how the sensors each had two addresses and since I wanted to use five of the same sensor, I had to get ones with different base addresses, the only way to accomplish that currently is with different vendors though I had some progress this week…

Eyes started glazing over. This was going nowhere fast. But I really want people to ask questions (because I’m not always right) and I want them to understand the answer (or they won’t asked next time). So I switched gears, trying to build on something already known…

Say each sensor is a child. Each child has two hands (as children often do). I need five hands for my project. Therefore, I need three children. Nods, right?

If they all came from the same family, it would be easier, see? I’d know how to communicate with them and it would be the same for each child.

However, every family I know only has one child. Each child behaves slightly differently, speaks a different language at home. It is harder for me know how to keep them all happy. Also, each child is valued differently. It is a pain to deal with, making everything more complicated than it needs to be. It would be better if each child came from the same family and was nearly identical to the others in its family except for, say, hair color.

However, when I contact a family about having a few more children (with different hair), they want me to order in the 100k range. And that is a lot of children.

So… breaking that down… each sensor has two I2C addresses (each child, two addresses). I want to use five sensors, so I need three sensors from different families. The families here are usually vendors (Analog Devices, Freescale, Bosch, STMicroelectronics, etc.). Each one is slightly different than the others in the way they work though they each sense essentially the same thing.

If I talk to a vendor, they are willing to modify their manufacturing process to give me a different base I2C address (different hair color). However, they want me to order a bunch of them (100k of each hair color, err, I2C base address). I’m still building prototypes so that sort of financial commitment is beyond me.

 

 

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Lullaby and good night

August 23, 2012

Someone in the house has insomnia. And it isn’t me. For a change.

Since I stopped trying to run the world more efficiently and focused on trying to make myself happy and productive, I tend not to have insomnia (except for the occasional that-wasn’t-decaf issue). However, C’s gotten into the vicious cycle of waking up a few times a night, getting annoyed/anxious, and then repeating the next night, now even more sleep deprived.

I have to admit, I’m getting a little tired too.

When I was little and had trouble going to sleep (always Sunday nights, even today it is Sunday nights that are the hardest), my mom tried to tell me that there was a spell for going to sleep, just like the spells we’d read about in Witch World and Xanth books. She said that I had to concentrate for the spell to work.

First, I had to find a comfortable position, so comfortable that I could take ten deep breaths without wiggling (in fact, if I wiggled at all, I had to start the whole spell over again).

Next, there was a song I had to recite in my head, taking the same breaths I’d take if I was singing it very slowly, like chanting it. The song:

Twinkle, twinkle little star, how I wonder what you are,
Up above the world so high, like a diamond in the sky.
Twinkle, twinkle little star, how I wonder what you are,
You’ll be sparkling through the night, I’ll be snuggled up so tight.
While you’re smiling at moonbeams, I will see you in my dreams.
Twinkle, twinkle little star, how I wonder what you are,
Up above the world so high, like a diamond in the sky.
When the light of day is near, you just seem to disappear.
Why do you hide and where do you go? There’s so much that I don’t know.
Twinkle, twinkle little star, how I wonder what you are,
Up above the world so high, like a diamond in the sky.

Ok, that isn’t the song. I forgot the song long ago. But that is the song from the Soother I worked on at LeapFrog and it is the song I mentally sing to myself now. Though there are a few other songs too. And poems.

Anyway, back to the spell: concentrating on a song, remembering it is a good way to fall asleep. It is hard to worry about all the things I worry about and think about breathing and remember a song.

But wait, there is more to the spell after the song. If you are still awake. I don’t remember what it was… maybe think of ten things… For example, think of ten red things or ten things that puppies play with. No wiggling. This is all mental.

Ten is a funny number. Most brains hold six items easily. Ten is harder, especially when you are sleepy. This definitely drives out all the other things to stay awake to think about.

Sometimes I change this up and multiply 2 x 2 x … 2 x 2 until I get to a new number, ideally not just through my arithmetic errors. Bonus points if I can simultaneously count how many twos this is (as in the N in 2^N).

Still awake? That isn’t so good. You can do this spell three times, switching out poems and mental exercises (or not). But if you are still awake after the third time, just get up. Sit quietly and accept that sleep isn’t going to happen. Maybe get a drink or a snack but don’t force it. Read a book, listen to music. Just don’t try to sleep for an hour.

Finally, not every spell works for everyone every time.

But this one worked pretty well for me.

Sweet dreams.

 

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Since

August 3, 2012

Dragging myself to the shower and standing there, bemoaning my aching head and extreme tiredness, I thought “I haven’t felt this bad since the end of getting over mono.” The thought made me feel a little better, I got from that stage to feeling pretty good in not too long. Clearly this stupid summer cold is not going to last much longer: I’m sure I’ll feel better before my head gives up containment and explodes.

Jarringly, it hit me that the thought wasn’t true. Between the time I had mono as a senior in high school and now, I have felt far (far^25) worse. “I haven’t felt this bad since three weeks after I got out of the hospital last time” doesn’t have the same ring of hope. Catastrophes ripple through the fabric of life, taking away the small quiet comforts as well as the large obvious ones.

I like the shape and feel of the mono metaphor but I don’t know how to reconstruct it into something that is true without glossing over the other things I have survived.

“I feel like I’m in week three of a four week course of mono” sounds like maybe I’ve had too much of the kissing disease (it was only the once!).

“I feel like a truck ran over my head” is a somewhat exaggerated. Plus, I’d feel the need to describe the size, weight, contents, and color of the truck for better verisimilitude. And, let’s face it, that seems like a lot of work given my brain is attempting a jailbreak of my skull, using a dull spoon to dig its way out.

“I have a headache and I’m going back to bed even though I spent all of yesterday sleeping, reading stupid sci-fi, and watching Olympic soccer” represents what I’m really trying to say. Well, I’m going to work for an hour or two first since yesterday was a total loss. Probably.

But I miss my comforting metaphor. The plan for the day brings me no joy, no comfort that tomorrow will be better (though today is better than yesterday).

I’m going to quit whining now. Really. Probably.

 

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