words

Political Science for Dummies

2008-04-19T12:18:00.001-07:00

DEMOCRAT
You have two cows.
Your neighbor has none.
You feel guilty for being successful.

REPUBLICAN
You have two cows.
Your neighbor has none.
So?

SOCIALIST
You have two cows.
The government takes one and gives it to your neighbor.
You form a cooperative to tell him how to manage his cow.

COMMUNIST
You have two cows.
The government seizes both and provides you with milk.
You wait in line for hours to get it.
It is expensive and sour.

CAPITALISM, AMERICAN STYLE
You have two cows.
You sell one, buy a bull, and build a herd of cows.

BUREAUCRACY, AMERICAN STYLE
You have two cows.
Under the new farm program the government pays you to shoot one, milk
the other, and then pours the milk down the drain.

AMERICAN CORPORATION
You have two cows.
You sell one, lease it back to yourself and do an IPO on the 2nd one.
You force the two cows to produce the milk of four cows. You are
surprised when one cow drops dead. You spin an announcement to the
analysts stating you have downsized and are reducing expenses.
Your stock goes up.

FRENCH CORPORATION
You have two cows.
You go on strike because you want three cows.
You go to lunch and drink wine.
Life is good.

JAPANESE CORPORATION
You have two cows.
You redesign them so they are one-tenth the size of an ordinary cow
and produce twenty times the milk.
They learn to travel on unbelievably crowded trains.
Most are at the top of their class at cow school.

GERMAN CORPORATION
You have two cows.
You engineer them so they are all blond, drink lots of beer, give
excellent quality milk, and run a hundred miles an hour.
Unfortunately they also demand 13 weeks of vacation per year.

ITALIAN CORPORATION
You have two cows but you don't know where they are.
You break for lunch.
Life is good.

RUSSIAN CORPORATION
You have two cows.
You have some vodka.
You count them and learn you have five cows.
You have some more vodka.
You count them again and learn you have 42 cows.
The Mafia shows up and takes over however many cows you really have.

TALIBAN CORPORATION
You have all the cows in Afghanistan , which are two.
You don't milk them because you cannot touch any creature's private parts.
You get a $40 million grant from the US government to find
alternatives to milk production but u se the money to buy weapons.

IRAQI CORPORATION
You have two cows.
They go into hiding.
They send radio tapes of their mooing.

POLISH CORPORATION
You have two bulls.
Employees are regularly maimed and killed attempting to milk them.

BELGIAN CORPORATION
You have one cow.
The cow is schizophrenic.
Sometimes the cow thinks he's French, other times he's Flemish.
The Flemish cow won't share with the French cow.
The French cow wants control of the Flemish cow's milk.
The cow asks permission to be cut in half.
The cow dies happy.

FLORIDA CORPORATION
You have a black cow and a brown cow.
Everyone votes for the best looking one.
Some of the people who actually like the brown one best accidentally
vote for the black one.
Some people vote for both.
Some people vote for neither.
Some people can't figure out how to vote at all.
Finally, a bunch of guys from out-of-state tell you which one you
think is the best-looking cow.

CALIFORNIA CORPORATION
You have millions of cows.
They make real California cheese.
Only five speak English.
Most are illegal.
Arnold likes the ones with the big udders.

22,994,227-ish seconds since last post

2007-09-15T14:16:00.000-07:00

The seconds have just flown by. It seems just yesterday that the time was under a 10 million seconds, but I digress...

The true motivation behind this is to see if it still works and also to inform you, my reading public that I have decided to briefly come out of retirement. You can all stop holding your breath, you're turning a neat shade of blue.

Here are some pictures of my recent trip to Chicago: pictures

I've recently changed jobs. I was laid off from American Equity Mortgage in early July and started working at Brown Shoe Company as a consultant in early August. It turns out it was a good thing for my career to leave my old job, but as anyone who I have talked about it with about it can tell you, I'm still a bit perturbed about how I was asked to leave. On the plus side, I no longer have to take support calls and I get to work with some really smart developers. --And I am officially a developer! I get to go to development team meetings and everything!

The main site is www.brownshoe.com but I have been working on www.famousfootwear.com pretty much exclusively. If you order shoes from Famous Footwear and track your FedEx shipment online, you can thank me for that feature :)

Well, since this is more words than I have posted in millions and millions of seconds, I don't want to over-exert myself.

Till next time.

Quote of the day

2006-12-23T13:00:00.000-08:00

Me: "I've been up for 20 minutes -- and I'm blow-drying a wet cat"

Saint Louis - The most dangerous city in the US

2006-10-31T17:41:00.000-08:00

http://www.morganquitno.com/safecity13.htm

Another one

2006-10-29T18:44:00.000-08:00

I am now officially another year older than I was last year at this time. Yes, I realize the previous sentence works for every person on the planet who is at least one year old, at any time - but let me put it this way -

!EDITED 2006-10-30 08:46:04 for whiney content!

I was congratulated by my girlfriend saying "Happy birthday! Your life is a quarter over!" Now, there are a few ways that you could interpret this gem. I could have thought, "hey wow, i could live to be 100 years old. I've got a LOT of living left to do". However, when the age old glass half-full half-empty question comes along, I usually see it half broken on the floor. What would you do?

I am starting to feel old. When I say this around people older than myself, I get the "oh shut up, you haven't seen anything yet", and that makes it all better. I officially jumped on the aging train recently by buying and actually needing a nose hair trimmer. I win. But its ok, it can double as an ear hair trimmer :).

I've been told by several people that I now have a noticeable amount of grey hair. Elizabeth says they're hers and she's quite proud. Of this I have no doubt :)
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Just so this isn't all me whining:

Happy Halloween!

Chicago is big

2006-10-18T18:53:00.000-07:00

Yup. The title is still true.

I was in Chicago last week for a training class. I was learning about Business Object's product Data Integrator. I realize I'm writing this to a reading audience of 0, but Data Integrator is a program that allows me to move and transform data from one database to another. We've created a Data Warehouse at work and I'm now in charge of it. Thus the training ... nevermind.

My trip was actually mostly a disaster, but I got some good stories out of it. Ask me about it sometime.

For example:
I arrived in O'Hare around 9:45am and couldn't check in until 3:00pm so i decided to go into the city. I still had my luggage, but i was able to fit it into a backpack so it wasn't that bad. After walking around the city for a few hours, I decided to try to get back to my hotel. (At this point, anyone who's ever gone anywhere with me at any time should say, "oh man, he can't go anywhere without getting lost" - and you'd be right.)

Here's what I knew at the time. The piece of paper I had, said that my hotel was in Rosemont. I looked at the subway map and to my surprise, there was a Rosemont stop. Score! No expensive taxi ride for me, i'll just get off at Rosemont and walk to my hotel. Nothing to it.

I got off at Rosemont and started walking. At this point, my backpack was getting pretty heavy having carried it all day - but I'm tough (I told myself), I can do it. I knew that my hotel was 3190 RiverRoad and I was in the 6000s. I figured that this would go pretty quickly. I was wrong.

About 2 miles down the road, three policemen approached me with what looked like riot gear. I wasn't really sure what I was supposed to be doing, or what to stop doing. It turns out that they were helping me cross the 4 lane street. I didn't want to cross the street, but when three policemen tell you to do something, I do it. I had no idea why they did this for me, but I figured I could recross later after they couldn't see me. I soon figured out why they were there.

Soon after, the sidewalk on that side of the street ended. I thought: "Lucky me." However, I had not gone far before the sidewalk ended on my side too. I was now walking in the grass beside a large rural road, and feeling a bit discouraged. This was turning into more of an ordeal that I had hoped and now it was getting dark.

I was getting hungry and started looking for someplace to eat. Unfortunately I had wandered into an industrial area, so there wasn't much to find. The one restaurant that I did find was closed for renovation and next to it was a residence with a sign saying "Thursdays: Female domination! Sign up now!". Feeling glad that it was Monday, i pressed on. At this point I had walked around 5 miles and was in what looked like the middle of nowhere. Noticing the casing to a switchblade on the ground, I walked faster.

Finally after what seemed like 2 hours, mostly because it was - carrying a now very heavy backpack, I reached my destination. A dirty truck stop not in Rosemont ... Figures...

It wasn't all bad though. I met a lot of great people:

It was an 'adventure' to say the least. If nothing else, the next time I go on a business trip, I'll be able to say, "this is so much better than last time!".

The moral of the story boys and girls is "Don't let your boss book your hotel"

Stand up and be counted

2006-09-26T19:47:00.000-07:00

Newest addition: One free counter. It adds a certain 1997-ish tackiness.

I'm cheating by counting page loads instead of actual visits but don't tell anyone. I'm trying to be impressive.

Penguin Abuse

2006-09-13T20:35:00.000-07:00

I like penguins - so at first I was a little disturbed by this game. However I quickly realized the joy of smashing a penguin with a stick.

What's your best score?

Beard 1.0

2006-09-10T15:02:00.000-07:00

Now with more hair than the average face.

And just for good measure:

New Location

2006-09-10T13:25:00.000-07:00

I've moved to a new server. My site is now located at: http://www.sideproject.info

If you do not see a post for September 13th, please click on the link to be redirected to the new site.

Rafting is fun

2006-07-30T20:05:00.000-07:00

No, I don't have any pictures of that, but I do have pictures to share: Pictures

What did you do over Memorial Day?

2006-06-08T18:22:00.000-07:00

Ok Ok Ok

2006-05-10T19:08:00.000-07:00

I've been called out, so I suppose a post, or at least a short one is in order. I'm sure i'm down to a viewing audience of 1 1/3, so to you I apologize.

The work situation is a bit stranger now. A month ago, my department had 9 people. We're now down to three. One guy is on vacation tomorrow so, tomorrow we're down to 2. My 4th boss in 1 year left last friday, so currently we have no boss either. It's ... an experience.

I went to a concert on Saturday. If you don't have anything by these artists, I suggest you at least take a listen:
1. Avenged Sevenfold
2. Trapt

Shinedown played as well, I like the music, but the lead singer was really preachy and pretty much totally turned me off the band. That ever happen to you?

Remember, Y is sometimes a vowel. Who makes these decisions?

Bread is good

2006-03-11T11:56:00.000-08:00

It is 75 degrees today in St. Louis. We have the windows open and it is actually hot inside. This is not how I remember March growing up, but then again, I could be getting senile, so don’t trust me.

Things are going much better at work these days. My boss has assigned the dreaded ‘phone duty’ to someone in my group. I don’t know how she won that prize, but I suppose I should just be glad that it wasn’t me. I am finally getting to do some design work instead of always working on user issues. Over the past 2 weeks I have been working solely in ASP.NET with C#, SQL Server, and Active Directory. I like this significantly more than what I was doing. Could I actually be considered a developer now? Stay tuned for the exciting conclusion.

Just to confirm that I am becoming an old cat lady, we are adding another cat to our arsenal this week. She is a rescue cat. She’s black and tan and has long fur. Well, to be truthful, currently she has short fur – they had to shave her because she was so matted when they found her. There have been rumors that I have a thing for bald felines, but let me assure you, my reading audience that this is most assuredly false. I think we get to take her home on Wednesday.

I may be in the market for a new car pretty soon. I just got back from the mechanic who told me that my rotors are warped again. Since I’m now fixing the same problems more than once a year, I think it may be time for this car to go the way of old yeller. Does anyone have any ideas about what kind of car I should get? I’m fairly cheap, but considering what I’ve gone through with this one, I’m happy to pay for quality. Any advice for buying a new car?

Top 1 grocery store comment

2006-02-19T18:45:00.000-08:00

While at the grocery store yesterday, I overheard a woman say to her husband: "You really have to smell this cheese". Who says that?

Distractions are good

2006-02-16T18:52:00.000-08:00

No new amazing but true facts at this point. I do like anything that distracts me from work however. I assume you do as well since you're here reading this now. Bad for business, but thanks anyway!

Not much going on right now. My boss isn't happy with the quality of the 1st level support. (I'm 2nd level) The first level takes all the phone calls from users and then passes the difficult problems to my group (second level). Now, because she's not happy, we have to take all the calls and do our jobs too. It's my turn this week because I'm on call. In short: I can't wait for this week to be over.

"Applications Support, this is Chris, how may I disservice you today?"

I did watch the movie Seven this week. It was disturbing, but really good. I recommend it to anyone who hasn't seen it... or even if you have. Watch it again. It's one of those, "I'm still thinking about it" movies.

Interesting facts

2006-02-07T08:43:00.000-08:00

Many years ago in Scotland, a new game was invented. It was ruled "Gentlemen Only..Ladies Forbidden"...and thus the word GOLF entered into the English language.

In the 1400's a law was set forth that a man was not allowed to beat his wife with a stick no thicker than his thumb. Hence we have "the rule of thumb"

The first couple to be shown in bed together on prime time TV were Fred and Wilma Flintstone.

Every day more money is printed for Monopoly than the US Treasury.

Men can read smaller print than women can; women can hear better.

Coca-Cola was originally green.

It is impossible to lick your elbow.

The State with the highest percentage of people who walk to work: Alaska

The percentage of Africa that is wilderness: 28% (now get this...)

The percentage of North America that is wilderness: 38%

The cost of raising a medium-size dog to the age of eleven: $6,400

The average number of people airborne over the US any given hour: 61,000

Intelligent people have more zinc and copper in their hair.

The first novel ever written on a typewriter: Tom Sawyer.

The San Francisco Cable cars are the only mobile National Monuments.

Each king in a deck of playing cards represents a great king from history:
Spades - King David
Hearts - Charlemagne
Clubs -Alexander, the Great
Diamonds - Julius Caesar

111,111,111 x 111,111,111 = 12,345,678,987,654,321

If a statue in the park of a person on a horse has both front legs in the air, the person died in battle. If the horse has one front leg in the air the person died as a result of wounds received in battle. If the horse has all four legs on the ground, the person died of natural causes.

Only two people signed the Declaration of Independence on July 4th, John Hancock and CharlesThomson. Most of the rest signed on August 2, but the last signature wasn't added until 5 years later.

Q. Half of all Americans live within 50 miles of what?
A. Their birthplace

Q. Most boat owners name their boats. What is the most popular boat name requested?
A. Obsession

Q. If you were to spell out numbers, how far would you have to go until you would find the letter "A"?
A. One thousand

Q. What do bulletproof vests, fire escapes, windshield wipers, and laser printers all have in common?
A. All invented by women.

Q. What is the only food that doesn't spoil?
A. Honey

Q. Which day are there more collect calls than any other day of the year?
A. Father's Day

In Shakespeare's time, mattresses were secured on bed frames by ropes. When you pulled on the ropes the mattress tightened, making the bed firmer to sleep on. Hence the phrase......... "goodnight, sleep tight."

It was the accepted practice in Babylon 4,000 years ago that for a month after the wedding, the bride's father would supply his son-in-law with all the mead he could drink. Mead is a honey beer and because their calendar was lunar based, this period was called the honey month. which we know today as the honeymoon.

In English pubs, ale is ordered by pints and quarts... So in old England, when customers got unruly, the bartender would yell at them "Mind your pints and quarts, and settle down." It's where we get the phrase "mind your P's and Q's"

Many years ago in England, pub frequenters had a whistle baked into the rim, or handle, of their ceramic cups. When they needed a refill, they used the whistle to get some service. "Wet your whistle" is the phrase inspired by this practice.

~~~~~~~~~~~AND FINALLY~~~~~~~~~~~~

At least 75% of people who read this will try to lick their elbow

....................................

Don't delete this just because it looks weird. Believe it or not, you can read it.

I cdnuolt blveiee taht I cluod aulaclty uesdnatnrd waht I was rdgnieg.

The phaonmneal pweor of the hmuan mnid Aoccdrnig to rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoatnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be in the rghit pclae.

The rset can be a taotl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit a porbelm.

Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe.

Amzanig huh?

Hiatus is over

2006-01-21T17:05:00.001-08:00

It's been approximately 1/12 of a year since I last posted. My bad.

My Christmas was good. I'm sorry that I wasn't able to see all of you. Anytime you're in the St. Louis area, please let me know. I have an airbed that better than my real bed.

To clear up any confusion, here, with reference to the entire United States is where I live:

Not much else is going on. Elizabeth found a cheap-as-free gym. It's technically a student only thing, but technically I'm a student of life so it's all good.

I'll try and not go another 1/12 before I post again. Thanks for staying with me.

Near Christmas Update

2005-12-17T18:48:00.000-08:00

It’s almost Christmas, but it doesn’t really feel like it. We don’t have a tree in my apartment because we won’t be here for Christmas and the cat would probably eat it and die. We do have some colorful icicle lights and a candle that smells like a Christmas tree, but it’s just not the same. Both Elizabeth and I are looking forward to flying up to Maine and spending Christmas with my family. I’ve been assured that both my parents have Christmas trees and there is in fact snow on the ground. This will be slightly different than last year when I went for a bike ride in shorts on January 1st in St. Louis -- Incidentally, that was also the first and only time that I’ve ever been pooped on by a bird. And I wasn’t going slowly so it splattered EVERYWHERE. I’ll spare you the rest, but I brushed my teeth extra hard when I got home.

Elizabeth and I are going to try and make the same new years resolution that just about everyone else in America makes – lose weight and get more (or in my case ‘more than none’) exercise. We went to look at gyms to join today, but the more we look into them, the more of a scam they appear to be. The one we liked so far forces you to give a credit card number even if you pay upfront with cash. They also automatically renew your membership and to cancel you have to give them 3 months notice. Not something I'd really like to get myself into -- at least currently.

Happy Holidays!

Christmas Party

2005-12-11T16:56:00.000-08:00

How was your office Christmas party? Mine was 15 days before Christmas, but besides that it was actually pretty nice. I got to rent a tux and such. I haven't dressed up like this really since my junior year of high school which was to my surprise - 7 years ago. I'm well on my way to middle age. Elizabeth and I took loads of pictures of ourselves all dressed up but unfortunately none of them came out the way we wanted them to. We have decided that neither of us is particularly photogenic.

Nevertheless (in case you couldn't tell) this is me in my tuxedo.
Dressed up - yes.
Stunning - no.

The evening was pretty enjoyable. There was an awards ceremony sprinkled amidst the eating. This was pretty smart. They'd hand out some awards and then give you another course of your meal. I felt slightly like a pet being trained not to pee on the carpet (or something). The awards ceremony was pretty tolerable except for the price-is-right announcer and the cheesy "you've won a brand new dinette set" music.

After the dinner Kevin Pollack did a stand up act. In case you didn't know, he was the short guy from The Usual Suspects. This is quite possibly the first and last star I'll ever see. When they were introducing him, they welcomed the star of the Usual Suspects -- KEVIN -- (I totally though SPACY!!) but this one was good too.

All in all, a good experience.

Nothing -- really

2005-11-29T20:36:00.000-08:00

I don't really have much to say so I leave you with some inspirational words spoken by the TV:

"I think a pillow should be the peace symbol, not the dove. The pillow has more feathers than the dove, and it doesn't have a beak to peck you with."

"The face of a child can say it all, especially the mouth part of the face."

"Too bad you can't buy a voodoo globe so that you could make the earth spin real fast and freak everybody out."

"Probably the saddest thing you'll ever see is a mosquito sucking on a mummy. Forget it, little friend."

"Sometimes life seems like a dream, especially when I look down and see that I forgot to put on my pants."

The cat

2005-11-17T18:38:00.000-08:00

Yes, I realize that I talk more about my cat than anything else, but after I graduated from college, my life's excitement level kinda plummeted. I'm going to be an old cat lady someday, I can feel it.

I've gotten many perplexed looks and some pretty unique questions in reference to my cat's new haircut. No, we didn't do it just because it was funny, that's just a side benefit. His long fluffy hair was getting quite matted, and he HATES to be brushed. Then we realized that you have to brush long haired cats backwards -- I'm still healing. You never heard such sounds come out of a small furry(less) beast! So, we took the easy way out and had his sweater removed. Bad timing though, it was in the 30s today and we now realize that this apartment wasn't really built for warm.

And as I'm sure you're glad to know, this post is over. You can stop reading now. Really.

Fall in Missouri makes a comeback

2005-11-09T19:53:00.000-08:00

I was pretty disappointed with the fall colors last year, but it turned out much better this year:

These were taken in a park close to my house.

This is why cats aren't in the military

2005-11-09T19:45:00.000-08:00

Before: (notice the hair)

After: Notice that he looks slightly like a bobblehead

Pumpkin

2005-11-09T19:36:00.000-08:00

Here are the long awaited pictures of my pumpkin.

As you can see, it has fire in it (i did that). You can also see a bat-shaped figure. (Eliz did that)