Cheddar or Swiss?

Graham, a friend of mine, had an XBox game called "Dead to Rights"; you may have heard of it. It used a checkpoint save system (for you non-gamers, that means the game will automatically save the game as you pass certain parts, or checkpoints, in it).

Well, as happens often, he reached a particularly hard bit of the game. He would walk down an alley, the bad guys would shout at him, and then he'd die. He played this part, oh, I don't know, a bajillion times (bajillion, n.: a large number that is 5.4 more than the largest number you just thought of).

But the strangest bit was what the bad guys would yell. The protagonist was named "Slade", and so the bad guys would yell, "<undecipherable>! It's Slade!" The undeciperable bit was just that: undecipherable. However, after hearing it roughly an infinite number of times, it started to sound like "Cheese it!", making the whole phrase, "Cheese it! It's Slade!"

I'm getting to the point of this story.

You know how social groups add certain words or phrases to their lexicon (I've been informed by Brent that these are called "locutions")? Well, we added "Cheese it! It's Slade" to ours. Now, years later and those friends living in the far off worlds of Long Island and California, I alone in Massachusetts remember this.

So every now and then I have this urge to shout "Cheese it! It's Slade!" This inevitably becomes a problem when I do shout it; some of my best weird looks have come from that.

Imagination Exaggeration

I often play my Nintendo DS on the way home from work. I'll start playing on the subway platform and continue if I can get a seat. I often don't know if I'll get a seat until I get on the train. If I don't get a seat, I'll have a powered-on DS in my hands. Normally I'll just save and quit, but yesterday I wasn't having any of that. I've been playing Final Fantasy VI, which has a "Music Player" feature where you can play any of the game music.

So I started with the main boss fight music. My "boss fight" was "trying to remain standing on the subway". When I slipped, it like like "Crap, Sabin is down! Cast Arise!" Then, when we went under the tunnel, I kicked it up a notch with the end boss music. "Shoot!" A sudden stop! My foot slips and I'm hanging on by one hand ("Quick, use a Phoenix Down on my feet!").

I exited the subway at my stop to face many weird looks.

Skillful Maneuvering

This morning Annie made me breakfast, so she was already up a few points. I asked her what the temperature was like outside, and she said she didn't know. She looked out the window...

Annie: I see a girl out there wearing a light jacket, so it can't be that bad.
Ed: Ok, no jacket for me then.
Annie: Well, she might just be wearing it to look cute.
Ed: Oh... is it working?
Annie: Yeah.

Then, as conspicuously as I could, I leaned over and looked out the window. Annie didn't notice! I was trying to be funny but she missed it! Then, like five minutes later, she's two rooms over, and I hear "HEY!"

On the Subject of Colors

Ben and I discussed shirts yesterday. Specifically, pink shirts. I said how I own two and wear them relatively frequently. I told him that ladies like it when men wear pink shirts because "it shows that he's comfortable with his masculinity."

Fast forward to this morning, when I put on a pink shirt for work. I mentioned that I had a conversation about pink shirts to Annie, and said something like "I told Ben that the ladies like pink shirts on men." She then says "Well, it shows that's he's comfortable with his masculinity." Word for word, what I had told Ben.

I was pretty stoked. I had my finger perfectly on the pulse of women (well, at least the one woman who matters to me). Then, on the subway, I had a stark realization: I'd been brainwashed! The game is afoot! Once more, we play our dangerous game, a game of chess, against our old adversery, women. Cry havoc, and let slip the dogs of war! Engage!

Edit: Man, this post blows. Sorry guys. I'll see what I can do later.

I stole the idea from Biggoron

Eric M.: what should I do for lunch today?
Eric M.: I have some deli meats in the fridge, though no bread.
Marcus F.: get bread
Eric M.: I could go buy some bread...
Marcus F.: make sandiwch
Marcus F.: you love bread
Marcus F.: go buy 2 loaves of bread
Marcus F.: put the deli meats between them
Eric M.: Hahaha!
Marcus F.: and have yourself a giant's sandwich

United Airlines: We Failed Geometry

I have to say I love connecting flights. For example, in my flight to Cincinnati (Sinsinnati?) this past weekend, I had a layover. I didn't expect it to be so far out of the way (red = actual flight, blue = straight line to destination):


I know most of the reasons for crazy detours like this, but as far as I can tell, I flew on a plane for almost twice the time I needed to. Also interesting is that United had a direct flight to Dayton Ohio, but did not offer a puddle-jumper flight to Cincinnati.

Due to All the Volcanoes

Ed: Not so much in Europe.
Eric: Well, I don't know about that anymore.
Ed: Yeah, Europe is getting pretty big.

I'm a dummy... but you knew that

Looking at Google Analytics for this site, I was so confused the past week... it showed no visitors! Now, I'm pretty sure I'm the only visitor to this site, but I know I visited it! I couldn't figure it out!

Then I realized changing the blog template wiped out the HTML changes I made. Oops. Google analytics is back.

Evolution of a Movie Trailer

John L.: Assault with intent to kill
Marcus F.: Assault with intent to Mill
Marcus F.: Kill Mill?
Marcus F.: a new movie by James Cameron
John L.: THIS OCTOBER, EDWARD WILL KILL MILL
Marcus F.: about an enthusiastic rails developer
Marcus F.: who finds a deep secret
Marcus F.: "Oh my god... so that means.... Rails is written in Cobol!"
Marcus F.: in his journey, he learns more about himself than he thought possible
Marcus F.: "Hmmm... I don't like chocolate crepes as much as I expected."
John L.: You didn't really think Capistrano was going to be easy, did you?
Marcus F.: He faces the greatest evil of this generation
Marcus F.: "Damnit, my FTP server is down."
John L.: Just type in everything by hand! If you want to transfer files like a dog, I'll make you live like a dog!

Growth Opportunities

I was at a wedding in Cincinnati (a beautiful city) this weekend, so I have plenty of funny moments from there. However, I can't remember most of them :(. Here's one I do remember.

Sitting at a table with three of the bride's friends from college, Annie and I listened to them debate what was in the soup. That conversation itself was hilarious ("I think it has a touch of orange zest." "No, I smell lime."), but the following was my contribution:

Sean: You know, this soup is starting to grow on me.
Ed: Generally speaking, soup is not something you want to grow on you.

Not returned, per se, but...

Ed: why do we return false?
Eric: You could return true, the return code actually doesn't matter
Eric: you just want to return there
Ed: I'm gonna return true
Eric: technically, in this method, you don't need to, because there won't be any code following
Eric: but if there was any, you'd have to
Ed: I just returned true

Return to the Ed Dictionary

I realized I have a whole new class of words to add to the Ed Dictionary: words that end in "-zilla". Sure, I may have borrowed this convention, but I have put it to good use:

Mark: Hey Ed.
Ed: Markzilla! What's up?

Ed: Hey Matt, can you help me with my codezilla?

So the formal definition:

-zilla: suffix; it modifies the word to mean more of or more intense.

Blog Template Update

So I finally succumbed and adopted the new Blogger layout system. I think it's a fair bit cleaner. I also changed the comment system to allow anonymous comments. I hope this will encourage more people to comment (though since I might still be the only reader of this blog, I think I'll just save myself time when commenting from another computer).

Hey, me, enjoy!

Perhaps a bit too specific

Working on Rails with Eric's help, I wondered how params[:user] worked...

Ed: yeah... well I figured it used some automagic to know what parameters it gets, but now I see the automagic as just autosmoke and automirrors

Unified Theory of Cheese

So Brent walks by my cube heading to the minifridge which lives directly in front of my cube. He was carrying a bag of shredded sharp cheddar cheese. I was drinking a soda (Diet Coke to be precise). He says "Mmmm, cheese is good." I say "Yes, cheese is good." Then I look at my soda, at the cheese, and say something about how it'd be nice if we could combine cheese and soda. Brent says that sound horrible, but we start debating which type of cheese to use.

Ed: Well, it doesn't matter what kind of cheese you use as long as it tastes good. It could even be cheese extract.
Brent: That's not cheese.
Ed: Yes it is. If you take something that's a part of something else, that part you took is a part of cheese.

This is about you!

A rare weekend glimpse of the funny man! Well, I recently installed Google Analytics on this site, basically because I was bored. A week later, I noticed some interesting bits on the Geo Map Overlay... check it out:
Some of you guys are literally on the other side of the world! I never knew anybody but myself actually read this stuff. I guess I better keep cracking out the funny!

Protestors are Traders!

Brent N.: Yeah. I gotta get out.
Brent N.: Wish me luck.
Marcus F.: yeah go now
Marcus F.: come my way
Marcus F.: fewer people
Brent N. has left the room
Marcus F.: lol our boss is right here

Tada!

It's somewhat difficult to use your phone when you can't read any of it...

Management 101

John: this is something the client just happened upon a bug in code that's existed since 2004
Ed: damn, that's annoying... a 2-year old bug that's all of a sudden URGENT
John: I know. Ridiculous
Ed: HOLY FUCKNUTS THE CODE IS BORKED QUICK FIX IT YESTERDAY ARGH /aneurysm

For the Children

John L.: making the world a better place
John L.: for you and for me and the entire human race
Marcus F.: yep
Marcus F.: world += 1

5) XP was taken

Marcus F.: I'm trying a new naming convention on this screen
Marcus F.: I read it online somewhere
Marcus F.: prefacing all controls with "ux"
Marcus F.: for user experience
Marcus F.: two reasons
Marcus F.: one: you know what they are
Marcus F.: but more importantly, 2) they appear together in intellisense
John L.: 3.) Uxbridge, MA
Marcus F.: sure
John L.: 4.) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xuxa
Marcus F.: stop