Recursive: adj. see recursive

My recursive New Year's Resolution:

"My only New Year's resolution is to not break my New Year's resolution this year."

Math is why I'm a slacker

Brent: Maybe I need to put in a negative number.
Ed: put in nullity
Brent: Heh.
Brent: Thanks.
Ed: Anytime.

Damnit Jim, I'm an engineer, not a doctor!

I made the best gingerbread house ever! Annie worked with me for a while, but before we had the first floor walls completed, she had to quit because it was almost midnight. So I labored on and completed this masterpiece!

Note the red M&M above the door, welcoming visitors.

You can see some spare building supplies in the front right.

The back wall could use a little work, but that should be hidden most of the time.

All in all, a beautiful house.

Adventures in Anger

Ed: There is only one time I've been more angry, and that was in college when a girl I was totally disinterested in who was obsessed with me was telling her hot sorority sisters (and pretty much every girl she could find) to stay away from me, that I was her turf
Brent: Ha ha.
Brent: That's a great story.
Ed: great for you
Ed: not so great for Ed circa-2003

Mathematics at its Best

I was talking with Eric about turning age 18, and he said he bought lottery tickets.  I suggested it would've been awesome if he'd won a billion dollars. He stated that he had.

Eric: "But the zero sum amount was zero."
me: "Well of course it was. The zero-sum amount is always zero."

Not me

Walking to lunch with my coworkers, we passed a restaurant named "Whiskey's." One girl says "I love Whiskey's." A homeless person we were just passing responded: "Everyone loves whiskey!"

What's the captial of Singapore?

So my boss is named Ed too, which is interesting. As with anyone I ask for help/clarification at work, I try to figure out my problem and make sure I'm not missing the obvious before I actually ask. I also try to group a few requests together so as to save the other person time. After reading over my questions to make sure I didn't miss anything stupid (as I'm still pretty new here), I sent off the email. Here is my synopsis of the interaction, in graphical form:

(for those of you technically inclined, yes that is the SQL Server Query Analyzer.)
(Also, my boss, who is like a billion times better than my old boss, was not mean at all about it. I just felt like a retard.)

FoaD: Family Edition

Hello readers! With Thanksgiving 2006 firmly in the rear-view mirror, I want to bring you several funny moments brought to you by my family members (and maybe one or two from me). The first follows...

My Grandma came to Thanksgiving dinner this year (she's somewhat agoraphobic, so she didn't come last year), and we were all excited. My Grandma grew up in Germany, so her English isn't 100% (though I'd call her fluent). My sister suggested that Grandma should move into a house closer to our parents' house. Grandma's animated response?

"I don't want no new house!"

That's what she said!

I do not watch Ugly Betty. I do watch Grey's Anatomy, which comes on right after Ugly Betty. Last night, my fiance and I sat down to watch Grey's and we caught the last few minutes of Ugly Betty. My fiance remarked how ugly Betty actually was.

me: Well, it looks like someone crapped on her face... when she was a baby... and no one cleaned it up, so the face just grew around it.

Ed's Law #1

Reverse Murphy's Law: If you bring an umbrella, it will not rain.

Try it.

Transform and roll out

My cubicle has new guardians:







































(apologies for my crappy cameraphone pictures)

On the subject of Pigeonholing Chemicals

My fiance is very sick... she's got a nasty viral infection that resembles bronchitis. Nevertheless, she came out to vote with me last night. We had to park about 150 yards away and down the hill from the polling place, so we took the walk slowly. On the way back, we discussed the fact that I likely gave her this virus (as I was sick before her), but that it was much more mild in me.

Me: You need to get more iodine in your diet, you know, to help your immune system.
Annie: Isn't iodine salt? [She's thinking of iodised salt, invented for this very purpose.]
Me: No. Salt is salt.

At which point she laughed.

I love food

At a resturant, I was trying to decide between the quarter pounder and the 10-ounce sirloin. I finally decided:

"I'll have the quarter-ounce sirloin."

Large Quantities

Me: "That's a lot of truck!" (in reference to a double-trailer truck)

Paradoxical!

Me, to my fiance: "Well, I never heard you say that before I met you."

Perhaps only funny to me

I've been playing a lot of Dead Rising lately, though not as much as the compulsive-video-game-playing side of me would like. The past few days I've been stricken with a nasty cold, and my fiance has been trying to get me to take it easy. This was last night:

Annie: "Come on, you need to get your sleep!"
me: "But I want to kill more zombies!"

I'll take balloons for 400

Ed: alex trebek is trying to sell me life insurance
Ed: no sir
Eric: Wow
Eric: Did he give his sales pitch in the form of a question?
Ed: no it was an answer
Ed: he said "this will make sure your kids don't inherit debts"
Ed: and I shouted "WHAT IS COLONIAL PENN LIFE INSURANCE?!?!"
Ed: scared the cat half to death

Analogies R Us

Ed: proctor doctor served up a potato to pena
Ed: pena promptly baked it
Ed: put sour cream on it
Ed: and deposited it in the right field seats
Joe: what about bacon?
Ed: well, it was only a 1 run potato
Ed: you only get bacon on a 4 run potato

Not for the Faint of Heart

This past weekend I met up with my extended family for our annual family get-together/reunion. This was the first time I'd seen any of my family since getting engaged, so they threw us a mini party with an ice cream cake and champagne. My dad fired the cork off the deck and into the yard. My sister said I should go get it. I asked why. She said it was important. I said no. So she said, "What's up your butt?" I replied, "It's a cork!"

Yarrr, scurvy!

So at work we get bottled water delivered, but they also bring in these "Super C" powder vitamin supplements. You're supposed to put the powder in some water, mix, and drink your way to 1670% of your daily required vitamin C intake. I kinda like them, so I mixed in two to my large water bottle. My coworkers then convinced me to add another packet, and finally they snuck a fourth in there as well. So now I'm looking at a bottle of 6680% of my daily vitamin C intake.

A quick Yahoo search turned up the effects of vitamin C overdoses: upset stomach, nausea, and diarrhea. Nice.

Time to Get a Watch

After a particularly talkative lunchtime, I said to my coworkers, "Well, I think it's time to go back to bed."

Societal Observations

The other day the printer stopped working at my office. By the time I got physically to the printer, three coworkers had already gathered around it, poking and prodding it, trying to coax printed documents from it. By the time I power cycled the printer, four more coworkers had joined the fray. By the time I decided to reset the print spooler, all hell had broken loose. However, I managed to handle the problem and put it to rest.

At the next staff meeting when IT came up I said, "Well, we had a situation last week when the printer stopped working and everybody went all Lord of the Flies on me."

True Moments in Gaming History

I never played much GTA3... I never owned a PS2, so I never had easy access to the game. When it finally came out for the XBox, I had lost interest.

So one day, an aquaintance of mine spys me in the halls and asks for my help. Being the nice chap that I am, I agreed to help him. He's one of those psuedo-gamers; you know, those guys who never played Kid Icarus, who beat you up when you were showing your friend the map you drew of Norfair, but now that games are cool, he got a PS2 and plays Pa Rappa the Rappa all day long?

Anyway, he says "You're a gamer, right?" and asks me to help him with this mission in GTA3. My career GTA3 game time to-date was at about 2 minutes (one round of balls-out hotseat drive-til-you-die; I hit a 18-wheeler dead on).

Needless to say, I completed the mission my first try.

Self-aware

me: everyone has weaknesses
me: For example, I am disablingly attractive

Platelet Envy

Coworker: So our blood types are completely incompatable.
me: Sucks to be you!

Gee, I'm a tree!

me: I'm spending a ridiculous amount of time trying to get this yellow rectangle to not look like ass
Eric: Asses don't really resemble yellow rectangles, so it must be really difficult
me: it's amazing
me: I did "rectangle.draw" and it looks like an ass
me: maybe I need the optional parameter
me: rectangle.draw(ass=false)

Serious News

So you may have heard about Net Neutrality and the whole shebang going on. Well, if you haven't heard about it, here's the gist of it:

The Government is thinking about allowing your ISP to destroy the Internet!

For a little more info, check out these links:
Save The Internet
Ask A Ninja
Isen.com

Order of Battle

I mentioned to a coworker that I brought in General Gao's chicken for lunch today, then made the obligatory comment, "General Gao, prepare the chicken!" Then we began discussing the other military Chinese culinary leaders, such as Corporal Dim Sum.

Coworker: "Come on, Dim Sum has gotta be higher than a corporal."
Me: "Well, General Gao's chicken is so good it needs a General to make it."

The Truth

Coworker: "Well, you're funny once a day."
Me: "Not anymore."

I haven't been that funny lately. More specifically, I haven't remembered it when I was funny. I need to get a better memory. I will do my best.

And now, for something completely different...

Lincoln Logs!

Not in a book

"I read somewhere that in Japan they only have like three umbrellas. People just keep stealing and using them."

Due Diligence

At lunch the other day, we came up with an idea to better utilize all the free things that are available (for example, free coffee at Peet's). You would install an application on your PDA or cell phone, and it would buzz when you were near a free thing.

Coworker: "Well, how would we get funding?"
Me: "First, it needs to be 1995."

Drive to the Hoop

At work today, I attempted to levy a compliment on a coworker, stating that he is always very chill and calm. He dismissed it, saying that I just haven't seen him when he's upset. We jovially went back forth on this until I gave up.

Me: "Well, I was just trying to give you a compliment."
Coworker: [in a chill manner] "Rejected."

The Life of George

(Note: this story isn't about me being funny, but it was too humorous to pass up telling.)

I was on the Cape this weekend with for Easter my family, my girlfriend, and her parents. After eating the big Easter meal, we went to a place where you can park and look out at the beach. It being the beach, we saw many seagulls. One particular seagull stood out though. We named him George.

George was standing on a "Don't walk on the bank! Use the stairs!" sign as we approached. Rather than fly off as most seagulls would, he hung around, hoping we might throw him some food. My dad got a half-eaten bagel from the car (no, not my car) and started throwing some to George. George grabbed a few mid air before many other seagulls descended on him to fight for the food. My dad started throwing chunks of bagel far away, and George and his friends would try to grab the food midair.

All that is pretty standard, but what happened next was the funny bit. We run out of bagel, but that won't stop George. We see him flying towards us with something in his beak. When he lands on the sign, we notice that the thing in his beak is not bagel, but a large chunk of wood. He seems to show it to us, as a trophy. For about three minutes, he just stood there, showing off his block of wood, then flew away. We watched him land and try to eat the wood.

Needless to say, he had little success.

Verbosity

Girlfriend: "You have something in your shoe."
Me: <looks at shoe>
Girlfriend: "No, no, tooth."
Me: "I have a tooth in my shoe?"

Pet peeves

"He was smacking me in the head. I hate it when people hit me in the head."

Alternative Medicine

A coworker stopped by my office as he was leaving and commented on how he was probably only going to get two or three hours of sleep that night. I suggested he instead spend the time playing his current video game, Kingdom Hearts 2.

Coworker: "Well, I need to catch up on my sleep."
Me: "Playing video games is as good as sleep."

On, of, or relating to Neighbors

The woman who rents the apartment above mine is a flight attendant. Her occupation doesn't really affect me one way or another, since even when she is home, she is pretty invisible.

We noticed a new Volkswagon Beetle parked around our apartment frequently. What's noticable about this Beetle is that it is painted like a ladybug. We were curious who owned the car.

Finally, my girlfriend saw the flight attendant get into the Beetle. She told me about it:

Girlfriend: "She's a little weird."
Me: "Well, of course she's weird. She's a flight attendant."

Projections of Reality

I was talking to a friend Joe over IM the other day. This friend is a Star Wars nut, and I has just gone to see the Star Wars exhibit at the Museum of Science. I was explaining it to him when he came back with this:

Joe: this sounds like science fiction

to which I responded

Me: ITS THE STAR WARS EXHIBIT

The Classics

A classic funny moment, brought to you by the letter D.

Watching the movie "The Brotherhood of The Wolf", I noticed that the characters slaughtered hundreds of wolves and simply threw their carcasses in a pile. I said to my fellow movie watchers that this seemed to be a big waste of meat, that the commoners were starving and wolf meat is better than no wolf meat. My friends thought that was hilarious, and badgered me about wolf meat for months.

A different group of friends (separated by geography) got word of this incident, and ended up inventing a phrase that I said: "I need more meat in my wolf nuggets." I have never said that, nor will I ever, but it still comes up when I see anyone I know.

Scheduling conflict

I had a conference call/meeting today with a few people. This kind of meeting hadn't happened in months, and one of the parties involved said they'd like to make the meeting semi-regular. I wasn't terribly excited about the prospect; this particular type of meeting is somewhat tedious.

Coworker: "Well, we could make this a monthly meeting."
Me: "Uh, I'm busy then."

It got a good laugh. Reading it now, though, I don't think it's that funny. Oh well. You live by the funny, you die by the funny.

Sensual overload

My XBox 360 arrived at work today. It was pretty anti-climactic, since I couldn't really set it up at work... and I didn't buy any games for it yet either, so even if I could set it up, it would've been pretty boring. So I opened the box and smelled it.

Damn, it smelled good.

(Edit: fixed the title)

Unfortunate Circumstances

My girlfriend and I were visiting her friend who lives directly below us. The two girls got to talking about another friend's bachelorette party that was coming up. My girlfriend said, "I gotta set up the pin-the-penis-on-the-sexy-man game."

Me: "Wow... that's a bummer for that guy."

Please visit our sponsors

Walking to work every morning, I would hear these people yelling "Free Harold! Free Harold!" I assumed that this "Harold" had been imprisoned for some unmentionable offense. Finally one day, leaving work, I heard a different person yelling "Harold is free! Harold is free!" I had the urge to get caught up in the moment and shout "Everybody celebrate! Harold has been freed!"

At which point I noticed a man handing out newspapers. Turns out the Boston Herald is frequently distributed free of charge.

You may have noticed I changed the Blogger header from blue to black. You may also have noticed the changes I made to the right sidebar. If not, please notice that I changed the Blogger header from blue to black and the changes I made to the right sidebar.

Welcome to the Twilight Zone

Something I said yesterday to my girlfriend in all honestly:

"Ok, I'll try to be a little more jealous."

It was well received.

City morgue, you kill 'em, we chill 'em

I was at a friend's place for much of St. Patrick's Day evening. We hung out and drank and had a good time. My girlfriend asked where the friend's roommate was.

Drunk Friend: "He's probably out."

Me: "Or dead."

Everyone nodded as if this was an actual possibility.

...

So I just haven't really been that funny lately. It's kind of depressing.

I have said some mildly humorous things on my friends' and my "work spam" email list. About five of us (though it's expanding) send each other emails during the work day about the randomest crap.

For example, one of my friends is politically active and lives in Minnesota. He asked us all to vote on this online poll for who the next democratic candidate should be. He told us who to vote for but there was a candidate on the list named "Ole Savior". We all voted for Ole Savior instead, then we got to talking about how awesome Ole Savior is. Some of the lines were somewhat (or entirely) stolen from the Vin Diesel random facts page, but some are hilarious. Here:

ole savior invented the spear
Premier of Venezuela = Ole Savior
ole savior invented penecillin. Twice.
ole savior once ate an entire telephone just because he didn't like the way it rang at him.
ole savior's middle name is ole savior.
Ole Savior makes up 80% of the matter in the universe.

And the longest:
ole savior created a programming language called Bologna. It was such an amazing programming language that he decided he was the only person who should know how to write in Bologna. He wrote a programming language called C and massacred everyone who knew Bologna. a random person walked by after the massacre and saw lots of slaughtered bodies and a torn sheet of paper, stained with blood and the word 'Bologna' at the top. This random person happened to own a meat-packing plant that had fallen on tough times. He gathered up all of the bodies, put them into the plant, and called his new meat 'Bologna'.

So I guess I should tell you...

I started my old new job last week. I worked a week, and it just wasn't a job that interested me at all. Meanwhile, my old company contacted me and wanted me back. So I jumped ship.

(Sidenote: if you can avoid quitting a job after 1 week, please do. It sucks on many levels. Not funny.)

So on Friday, what would turn out to be my last day, I was waiting around at 5:30 for the day to end. Suddenly, a coworker comes out of nowhere and invites me to grab a drink at the local pub. I try to politely refuse, stating that my girlfriend was coming to pick me up at 6. He insisted to inaugurate my joining by having at least one drink. No choice left, so I go.

We get there, order drinking, and he raises his glass, saying "Here's to your first week!" And I thought, "And my last."

What is slightly more funny is that I owed my boss $3 and I never paid her. Oops.

Two short stories

I just decided not to tell the first story because it's not appropriate. Sorry guys.

Second short story: After a lunch meeting at work today, I was talking to a few coworkers. I had to sneeze, so I turned away and sneezed, covering my mouth with my hand/forearm. I looked back at my friends and said, "I've got sneeze on my arm."

In unrelated news, I have taken a new new job (technically, a new old new job). So I'm back at the first job. Yay craziness.

Power of Mind

Today was my fantasy baseball draft. The members of my league have drifted to the far corners of the continential US (is "continental" supposed to be capitalized in this case?), so our live drafts are now online. That doesn't stop most of us from drinking much booze during the event. I proceeded to join the festivities, and before I knew it, I was pretty tanked. After the draft, I laid down on the bed and started watching TV.

My girlfriend came in a few minutes later and said something to me along the lines of "oh you're so cute laying there in your drunken stupor" and went to give me a hug. Well, as soon as she placed her arm on my stomach, I felt a desire to expel the entire contents of said stomach. I'm not sure if I've ever been clearer:

"Please watch the stomach. It's full of stuff."

Oops

I turned off the surge protector in my room over Christmas vacation so I wouldn't waste electricity. This caused the CMOS battery to drain, and I had to reset all of my BIOS. I'd done some moderate overclocking before for about a 5-10% gain, so I wanted to reinstitute that.

I set it all up, but then my computer would crash after about 1 minute of running any game. I was flipping out, changing all sorts of settings. It finally dawned on me that I had acccidentally set my FSB speed about twice of its maximum speed. Oops.

That's not really that funny, but it drove me nuts. I was swearing and throwing stuff everywhere. I'm glad I didn't break anything.

Classic: This time, with feeling

Classic funny moment (though it's pretty nerdy):

At marching band practice one October afternoon senior year of high school, the assistant director (AD) asked what our dynamic (i.e. how loud we should play, e.g. forte, piano, mezzo-piano) was. A few people muttered something, but the AD couldn't hear, so he asked again. A few people spoke up louder, but the AD shouted "What is your dynamic?!"

I thought this was one of those games music directors sometimes play; when you're supposed to play loud they want you to yell back the dynamic so that you understand what loud means. Then I decide to be a leader and shout back a dynamic. "Forte!" (means loud).

He shouts back, "NO!! It's mezzo-forte!" (literally "medium-loud", softer than forte). I shrunk to about two feet and didn't say anything for the rest of the day.

Yay for employment

So I'm back. I got a job. WOO. That means I can afford to pay to do my blog.

Wait, this is a free blog.

Well, whatever, I'm sticking to my guns.

So, with that, I bring you the latest funny moment, plus a classic funny moment or two.

I was laying in bed with my girlfriend after a midafternoon nap (we had had to get up early that morning) and she says she's going to get up to see her friend who lives on the floor below us.

Annie: "But first I'm gonna change my pants."
Ed: "Why, did you pee in them?"

Not funny

So, bad news. I got laid off on Friday. BOO! That explains the recent lack of funnyness. Oh well. I've already got an interview and a few recruiters lined up, so I feel good.

Good news: I had a funny moment. I was out to dinner with my girlfriend and my roommate on Friday evening. She mentioned how she had dated this guy for five years and that if she had stayed with him, she'd have four babies and live in a trailer park. My roommate said "Well, he lost his job, he's on the way." Ouch. Good thing I have a good sense of humor.

What now, another Schwehm? I had originally wanted this to be an anonymous blog, but a few of my friends decided to use my name in it, so I guess I'm out there. In fact, I'm on the first page of Google. Cool, eh?

I hope I didn't scare anyone off.