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While I’m somewhat certain of whom I back in national elections I’m much less certain for local ones.  Candidates blow at giving information about both their platform and government epistomology so have been searching for a voting algorithm for a few years, I think I’ve found one.

In a two candidate race, vote for the guy whose opponent sends the dumbest attack literature.  For instance, a candidate for state rep sent the following:

Chris King, is in favor of nationalizing healthcare (which he can’t do as a state rep), liberal supreme court justices (which are direct elections in PA and appointed at the national level) and wants to raise the crippling sales tax (crippling, really?  If you can’t pay six percent, I’d reconsider the purchase).

Mind you, there’s one exception.   Our local tax officer gets paid $60,000 a year and their office is open 12 hours a week.  If actuarial science doesn’t work out I’m going to run for that position on the “I’ll be open when you can actually get to my office” platform.

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While campmastering this weekend, I did the cooking while the rest of the crew did campsite inspections, check-in/out and garbage detail.  Apparently, this was suboptimal.

Bill (Camp Director): So, why no atlatls this weekend?
Me: Because I was doing the cooking.
Bill: So because your crew wants to eat my program has to suffer?

Fiddler On the Roof:

In one scene, the town beggar goes to Tevya and asks for a handout. Tevya gives him one kopec. The beggar protests, “Only one kopec? Last year, you gave me two kopecs!”

Tevya explains, “I had a bad year this year.”

The beggar responds, “So? You had a bad year so I should suffer?”

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Me: Ma’am, do you know where I can find canned blueberries or a berry compote?
Genuardi’s Attendant: Hm… I think they’re in party supplies, they go in birthday pies.  If they’re not their, I’m pretty sure it’s in with the pastas in the Ethnic Food Aisle.  If that doesn’t work, try condiments with other crushed vegetables.
(20 minutes of searching her stupid red herrings)
Me: Ma’am, I found them.  In the canned food aisle.
Genuardi’s Attendant: Where?
Me: In the canned fruit section.  Specifically, canned berries.

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Kyle:  Wow, I think I know why Max goes after Amanda’s iradescent green sock.  He sees in black and white, and what ever that hideous color is.  You must get tired of that crap being left around by your brother’s girlfriend.
Me: That’s my sock, and don’t bad mouth them until you know their glory.

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I went food shopping the other day and came home to a bag of chocolate morsels on the counter top.

Ryan: We found the chocolate you were hiding.
Me: I wasn’t hiding anything.  I used those the last time I made cookies.
Ryan: You mean the ones for my birthday?
Me: Yeah (his birthday’s in May), they’ve probably been in there open ever since.
Ryan: Hm… That would explain the texture.  And why I have to go so bad.
Me: 6 months of a heavily sugared food left open in a dank cabinet frequented by fearless mice, I bet you do.

caveat eater

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I just bought Adobe Lightroom 2 as I really like it for simple post processing and with my now waning student discount I can get it for just shy of a benjamin.  I buy from a student software site that just changed their UI and it has the intuitive qualities of the Quantum Holographic Principle.  Each page in checkout has the “continue” button in a different place and where the “Buy” button would normally be in the lower right hand corner of the center frame there’s a rotating sequence of “subscribe”, “verify student identity” (which is even displayed on the screen that tells you that your student ID has been verified” and my favorite: recommend.  Yes, I’d like to write a review on a student software site frequented by kids who have to buy this stuff for a product I’m in the process of buying.  If only supermarkets asked about the quality of their fruit as you were packing it into your car.

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Scavanging is a well tested past time of both the R&D and CAD group and having moved from one to the other I’m noting the differences in methodologies.  In R&D we walked around the building a lot and saw meetings in progress, we’d pass this information on and everytime someone got a drink or used the rest room the target room would be checked until it evacuated and much like the muezzin of a medieval mosque the returning person would issue a call to the congregants to find sustenance.

The CAD group is much more ant-like with each member monitoring a specific area of the building as part of their normal duties.  The smoker checks the area between the offices and the front desk, the always-on-cellphone guy monitors the bathrooms to the secret room in the stairwell, the businessy guy monitors the secretaries’ desks and the mad designer checks everything as he storms about talking to people.  When one returned with the food the rest of the group knew their covered region and would keep circling until they found it.  Once someone returned without food, that person would emit a pheramone that would signal the other ants that the supply was exhausted.

Today, the smoker returned with pizza and based on the plate it was from a marketing meeting which is usually held in a specific room.  I went to the conference room and the kitchen manager was there reclaiming paper plates and unconsumed singles like drink cans and bags of chips, but he stopped me from taking pizza.

He told me he was going to bring it back to the kitchen to “prevent waste”.  Really?  Have we really be reduced to re-heating pizza?  I mean, he’s the kitchen manager, if he really wanted pizza he could just have pizza, he wouldn’t have to deprive us of it to get it.  How do you recycle pizza?  Is he going to make pizza cream soup just like one time he made “fish” chowder followed by cream of starch soup?  If he slices them up to create the delightfully ambiguous “cheesy fiesta strips” I’m going to picket.

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Scavanging is a well tested past time of both the R&D and CAD group and having moved from one to the other I’m noting the differences in methodologies.  In R&D we walked around the building a lot and saw meetings in progress, we’d pass this information on and everytime someone got a drink or used the rest room the target room would be checked until it evacuated and much like the muezzin of a medieval mosque the returning person would issue a call to the congregants to find sustenance.

The CAD group is much more ant-like with each member monitoring a specific area of the building as part of their normal duties.  The smoker checks the area between the offices and the front desk, the always-on-cellphone guy monitors the bathrooms to the secret room in the stairwell, the businessy guy monitors the secretaries’ desks and the mad designer checks everything as he storms about talking to people.  When one returned with the food the rest of the group knew their covered region and would keep circling until they found it.  Once someone returned without food, that person would emit a pheramone that would signal the other ants that the supply was exhausted.

Today, the smoker returned with pizza and based on the plate it was from a marketing meeting which is usually held in a specific room.  I went to the conference room and the kitchen manager was there reclaiming paper plates and unconsumed singles like drink cans and bags of chips, but he stopped me from taking pizza.

He told me he was going to bring it back to the kitchen to “prevent waste”.  Really?  Have we really be reduced to re-heating pizza?  I mean, he’s the kitchen manager, if he really wanted pizza he could just have pizza, he wouldn’t have to deprive us of it to get it.  How do you recycle pizza?  Is he going to make pizza cream soup just like one time he made “fish” chowder followed by cream of starch soup?  If he slices them up to create the delightfully ambiguous “cheesy fiesta strips” I’m going to picket.

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I hate needy technology.  My microwave beeps every 60 seconds until you take its contents out. I checked to see how long this would go by setting the microwave for a few seconds and then going to bed and checking it in the morning.  Still going.

Some WordPress plugins are equally insistent being updated every few days.  When an app goes from ver. 1.00.1.00.98 to 1.00.1.00.99 there really shouldn’t be a giant red marquee on the top of the page telling me to get the vital update or my Flickr feed could be viewed by communists.  Unless failing to update will cause nothing less than the distruction of Western Civilization, I don’t care until it at least hits 1.00.1.01.

Something more appropriate would be my car’s parking brake light.  I’ve driven for hundreds of feet with the parking brake on after someone drove it without telling me they activated/engaged it, turfing grass, destroying stone walkways and abbrating woodland creatures without treating me like an idiot.  It lets me look like an idiot, but at least it gives me the option.