I've always been a fan of John Hodgeman ("I'm a PC"), but it has just been elevated to a whole new level. He wrote a book! And in that book is a section on hoboes, including SEVEN HUNDRED hobo names.
His website is maybe the greatest thing I've found on the Internet in years. The audio site (him reading ALL 700 names) is hysterical. (yes, I listened to the full hour, and am doing it again as I type). Plus, it turned into an internet-illustration project, and there are hundred of illustrations for all the hoboes now.
If you remain unconvinced, here are a few of my favorites:
#153: Slo-Mo Deuteronomy
#173: McGurk, Who May Be Found by the Card Catalogue
#399: Applebee O'Bennigan McFridays
#443: Hondo "Whatever That Lizard Is That Walks on Water"
#547: Myron Biscuitspear, the Dumpster Archeologist
Areas of my Expertise is definitely next on my reading list. In other news, I'm officially changing my name to "Packrat Red and and [her] Cart o' Sad Crap."
Stand by.
Sunday, March 18, 2007
Tuesday, March 6, 2007
The Nazis had pieces of flair they made the Jews wear...
I'm pretty lame.
So I thought it would be a good idea if maybe once a month signing out a company conference room and showing a movie on the projector would be a good idea. At least, it wouldn't be a BAD idea. We could order pizza, even. And since roughly half the company is about my age, and a lot of them are also new to the area it would be a nice way for the younger, unmarried/childless people to hang out.
We'll ignore the fact that a lot of them aren't people I really want to spend time with. But that's the beauty of watching a movie -- I can pretend to be social without actually having to talk to anyone.
Since this is the first real job for most of us younguns, obviously the most appropriate movie to wach is Office Space. Plus, Skunk Nut hasn't seen it!
So I mentioned the idea to Boss, who thought it was awesome, and promised to go ask HIS boss (Boss^2?) if it would be ok to "misappropriate company equipment to watch R-rated movies." Boss even got excited about having beer, too! I suggested checking ids at the door and not letting anyone over 40 in.
Boss^2 liked the idea. His major concern, however, was what movie we wanted to watch. This is extra funny because he probably embodies the management in Office Space better than anyone else I work for/with. But he generously offered to loan Boss and I a movie to watch if we hadn't picked one out already:
"Well, if you would like to borrow it, I just ordered a video from the Discovery Channel. It's a very interesting documentary on Destroyers."
Props to Boss for saving the situation with, "Uh, well, I think that people would want to get paid if we showed that one."
So I thought it would be a good idea if maybe once a month signing out a company conference room and showing a movie on the projector would be a good idea. At least, it wouldn't be a BAD idea. We could order pizza, even. And since roughly half the company is about my age, and a lot of them are also new to the area it would be a nice way for the younger, unmarried/childless people to hang out.
We'll ignore the fact that a lot of them aren't people I really want to spend time with. But that's the beauty of watching a movie -- I can pretend to be social without actually having to talk to anyone.
Since this is the first real job for most of us younguns, obviously the most appropriate movie to wach is Office Space. Plus, Skunk Nut hasn't seen it!
So I mentioned the idea to Boss, who thought it was awesome, and promised to go ask HIS boss (Boss^2?) if it would be ok to "misappropriate company equipment to watch R-rated movies." Boss even got excited about having beer, too! I suggested checking ids at the door and not letting anyone over 40 in.
Boss^2 liked the idea. His major concern, however, was what movie we wanted to watch. This is extra funny because he probably embodies the management in Office Space better than anyone else I work for/with. But he generously offered to loan Boss and I a movie to watch if we hadn't picked one out already:
"Well, if you would like to borrow it, I just ordered a video from the Discovery Channel. It's a very interesting documentary on Destroyers."
Props to Boss for saving the situation with, "Uh, well, I think that people would want to get paid if we showed that one."
Monday, March 5, 2007
Packaging Issues
When I was in California, I ordered the pirate badge holder from ThinkGeek.
It arrived last week....in a box roughly the size of the one my tiny jewelry chain came in last month. The badge holder was occupying one tiny section of one corner of the enormous, multi-document sized box.
Seriously? I don't remember what the shipping cost for this thing was, but....I'm pretty sure a padded envelope would have sufficed. Regardless, at the end of the day, I still love ThinkGeek and their stuff. I just wish their shipping division would ThinkGeek a little less and ThinkEconomical a little bit more.
The bigger question is: why do I keep getting mailed tiny things in huge boxes? I ordered Quicken2007 from Amazon this weekend....will it arrive in a refrigerator box? Actually, that'd be neat. Then I could build a fort in my living room.
My living room isn't much bigger than a refrigerator box. [I'm exaggerating a bit.]
I miss the days of refrigerator box forts/submarines/spaceships, though. I should turn my whole apartment into a giant box-fort-tribute. I can paint my living room a dull brown, with faint stripes to make it look corrugated, and use crayola markers to draw dials and guages and buttons. And I could stick things in the drywall to approximate levers and steering wheels, etc. That would be pretty neat, except the living room is too well lit to be a TRUE box fort. Back then, it didn't really matter what awesome controls and panels you drew inside, because really, you couldn't see them anyway.
A box fort apartment would be fun. And it would make all the jokes I used to make about living in a cardboard box after graduation a lot funnier.
It arrived last week....in a box roughly the size of the one my tiny jewelry chain came in last month. The badge holder was occupying one tiny section of one corner of the enormous, multi-document sized box.
Seriously? I don't remember what the shipping cost for this thing was, but....I'm pretty sure a padded envelope would have sufficed. Regardless, at the end of the day, I still love ThinkGeek and their stuff. I just wish their shipping division would ThinkGeek a little less and ThinkEconomical a little bit more.
The bigger question is: why do I keep getting mailed tiny things in huge boxes? I ordered Quicken2007 from Amazon this weekend....will it arrive in a refrigerator box? Actually, that'd be neat. Then I could build a fort in my living room.
My living room isn't much bigger than a refrigerator box. [I'm exaggerating a bit.]
I miss the days of refrigerator box forts/submarines/spaceships, though. I should turn my whole apartment into a giant box-fort-tribute. I can paint my living room a dull brown, with faint stripes to make it look corrugated, and use crayola markers to draw dials and guages and buttons. And I could stick things in the drywall to approximate levers and steering wheels, etc. That would be pretty neat, except the living room is too well lit to be a TRUE box fort. Back then, it didn't really matter what awesome controls and panels you drew inside, because really, you couldn't see them anyway.
A box fort apartment would be fun. And it would make all the jokes I used to make about living in a cardboard box after graduation a lot funnier.
Monday, February 19, 2007
crooning raccoons
Jon and I played a version of the Google Snake Game last night. Here are the strings we found that return absolutely no results....until my blog gets linked to something and this page is returned. But: WHY did it take that many weird words to get no results?? And why are there so many websites with just thousands of dictionary words?
Mostly we just thought the search strings were frickin hilarious. Enjoy.
area51 secret tortoise alien yogurt book swingset california beer anchovies mug paint basement bodies saxaphone fuck savings holdings utterance admonishment
freeman fern fez fermentation foley fantastic fabulous fricassee fenestration froude freud feet fart fiji frink falmouth penis
croon raccoon racketeer monsoon sooners husk preparatory hemorrhoid allometric viscoelastic frontier pretense privations libations masturbation dessication
abracadabra boundless cacophony deciduous effervescent futile gargantuan hermetically indigo jerusalem kringle lozenge megan nanotechnology octopus pluralistic quagmire redundancy stalin totalitarianism uppity vulva wombat xylum
Your search - puma olfactory seakeeping reductant recalcitrant rectilinear deliverance twinkie - did not match any documents.
Mostly we just thought the search strings were frickin hilarious. Enjoy.
area51 secret tortoise alien yogurt book swingset california beer anchovies mug paint basement bodies saxaphone fuck savings holdings utterance admonishment
freeman fern fez fermentation foley fantastic fabulous fricassee fenestration froude freud feet fart fiji frink falmouth penis
croon raccoon racketeer monsoon sooners husk preparatory hemorrhoid allometric viscoelastic frontier pretense privations libations masturbation dessication
abracadabra boundless cacophony deciduous effervescent futile gargantuan hermetically indigo jerusalem kringle lozenge megan nanotechnology octopus pluralistic quagmire redundancy stalin totalitarianism uppity vulva wombat xylum
Your search - puma olfactory seakeeping reductant recalcitrant rectilinear deliverance twinkie - did not match any documents.
Tuesday, February 13, 2007
Thoughts
1) Watching movies with sex scenes while sitting next to elderly male strangers on a bus is awkward.
2) Despite making it from NYC to Bethesda in 3.5 hours while the bus driver yakked away on her cell phone (not hands-free, either), I didn't fear for my life at all. Although, she did talk louder than the movie we were watching.
3) Skunk Nut and I realized that the Important Daily Conference Call at three o'clock is a GREAT time to goof off, since Boss, Boss Jr., and their bosses all have to participate. Therefore, we're guaranteed to be unsupervised for at least half an hour. Today he threw food at me and I tried to catch it in my mouth (goldfish work much better than pretzel sticks). Yesterday we threw a squishy ball from some vendor at the wall between us and TweedleDee and TweedleDum.
4) When we get our new office mate at the end of the week, we're going to have to start behaving. :(
Quote of the Week: "I'm not down with squeezing them and sucking the heads." - Boss, on eating crawdads.
2) Despite making it from NYC to Bethesda in 3.5 hours while the bus driver yakked away on her cell phone (not hands-free, either), I didn't fear for my life at all. Although, she did talk louder than the movie we were watching.
3) Skunk Nut and I realized that the Important Daily Conference Call at three o'clock is a GREAT time to goof off, since Boss, Boss Jr., and their bosses all have to participate. Therefore, we're guaranteed to be unsupervised for at least half an hour. Today he threw food at me and I tried to catch it in my mouth (goldfish work much better than pretzel sticks). Yesterday we threw a squishy ball from some vendor at the wall between us and TweedleDee and TweedleDum.
4) When we get our new office mate at the end of the week, we're going to have to start behaving. :(
Quote of the Week: "I'm not down with squeezing them and sucking the heads." - Boss, on eating crawdads.
Monday, February 5, 2007
Autobiography Forward
MRod The Former Roommate has graciously begun writing the forward to my book I promised would be his.
"There are some people that you will never be able to forget, and if you're as lucky as I am, it's because their stories wake you up in the middle of the night in fits of furious laughter about stories involving "facial rug burn caused by a goatee" and stories that begin with the words "...so I totally didn't mean for this to happen, but..."
He also suggested that my book be titled, Oh God! I swear it's not my fault!
Hahahaha. I wish I had a dollar for every time he heard me utter one of those phrases in the four short months we lived together. I bet HE wishes he had a dollar for every time, too. ;)
"There are some people that you will never be able to forget, and if you're as lucky as I am, it's because their stories wake you up in the middle of the night in fits of furious laughter about stories involving "facial rug burn caused by a goatee" and stories that begin with the words "...so I totally didn't mean for this to happen, but..."
He also suggested that my book be titled, Oh God! I swear it's not my fault!
Hahahaha. I wish I had a dollar for every time he heard me utter one of those phrases in the four short months we lived together. I bet HE wishes he had a dollar for every time, too. ;)
yap yap yap
Setting: my office, last week.
Characters: Enjanerd, Boss, Boss Jr., Skunk Nut, and by default, me.
Background: Everyone but me is discussing whether or not Skunk Nut needs to participate on the Important Daily Conference Call that afternoon.
Boss: Well, it's not a bad idea. You could just come with us at 3 and sit through it.
Boss Jr: But it'll last forever, and he doesn't need to sit through very much of it.
Boss: True. You could just dial in from your desk, if you want. If you use headphones because it's sensitive. (Read: I can't hear any of this. I had gotten kicked out of said meeting the day before)
Boss Jr: That's a good idea. He can sit at his desk and work that way.
Boss: Yeah. Well, as long as he doesn't mind people yapping away all afternoon.
Boss Jr: What? He sits next to Nutmeg!
Characters: Enjanerd, Boss, Boss Jr., Skunk Nut, and by default, me.
Background: Everyone but me is discussing whether or not Skunk Nut needs to participate on the Important Daily Conference Call that afternoon.
Boss: Well, it's not a bad idea. You could just come with us at 3 and sit through it.
Boss Jr: But it'll last forever, and he doesn't need to sit through very much of it.
Boss: True. You could just dial in from your desk, if you want. If you use headphones because it's sensitive. (Read: I can't hear any of this. I had gotten kicked out of said meeting the day before)
Boss Jr: That's a good idea. He can sit at his desk and work that way.
Boss: Yeah. Well, as long as he doesn't mind people yapping away all afternoon.
Boss Jr: What? He sits next to Nutmeg!
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