beancounters

Just one more thing

"Yes, I would like to deposit ONE MEEELLION DOLLARS!"

Okay, I think it's out of my system now.

Sweeneyisms

So many December movies to look forward to! I'm getting ready for Sweeney Todd. BB, Anthony and I discuss it all the time. BB likes Len Cariou, who first held the title role, because he's such a lyric baritone. I prefer George Hearn because he was so damn frightening. He played in the award-winning Showtime version of ST. Rent it from Netflix, but to be fair, wait to order it until after you see the Johnny Depp version.

No ruddy pirates here!

Random Sweeney finds around the 'nets:

ST as directed by Ivan Reitman ("Ghostbusters"). Yes, it's a parody. Yes, I wrote it. Shut up.

Two other ST parodies, each more weird than the last!

ST Featuring Bryan Adams? WTF? Surely they don't mean this Bryan Adams.

ST: The Website. Never forget. Never forgive. Never turn down your speakers.

ST movie trailer done in the style of Harry Potter. Anthony, I'll just tell you since you don't watch You Tube videos - Sirius Black finally seems evil.

Johnny Depp is reunited with his razor. Voice-wise, the jury is still out ... we may yet be sorry they didn't cast Bryan Adams.

Pass it on

                        AIKEN, S.C. - A bank teller in Clearwater had a million reasons not to open an account for an Augusta, Ga., man Monday, authorities said. Alexander D. Smith, 31, was charged with disorderly conduct and two counts of forgery after he walked into the bank and tried to open an account by depositing a fake $1 million bill.

Was this a cry for help, or what? I think this guy must have wanted to be jailed. First of all, the government doesn't print $1 million bills. And secondly, look at the condition of the bill he passed. It's all torn up and smudged, as if it accidentally got put through the wash a time or two. Why would that be true of a bill worth a million? I bet somebody gave it to him. Jail might be a kindness.

Compliant Santa

Make Santa do whatever you want on Simon Sez Santa. Bunnylou, please stick with the kid-friendly version - don't make Santa kill an elf or anything. Thanks, honey.

Get your generator groove on

Just in time for Christmas! It's the definitive website for sign and caption generators. I don't know about you, but I don't take pretty enough photos to put on Christmas cards. But everybody loves teh funny on a home-printed card.

Second feast

Hope you had a great Thanksgiving, and that your weekend will be equally splendid. Here in Central California, fall has finally begun to show its beautiful colors. I hope there's time for a brisk walk today, when we may fill our eyes with the rusty reds and golden yellows of leaves in somebody else's yard.

On Thursday my little family went to my father in-law's house. The great thing was, for the price of bringing wine and hors d'or hor deov appetizers, we had a fantastic dinner with no cooking or clean-up hassles - it was all handled by young, cheerful, out of state houseguests.

But cooking and clean-up are in our blood. And the leftovers! So crucial! So we're having a second Thanksgiving feast today. My mom and brother and nephew are coming over. All work will be handled by not so young but very cheerful house owners - BB and me. And there'll be leftovers for everybody. Thus the balance of nature shall be restored.

Mom, we grew the salad here at home ...

It's a wonder we survived preschool

I'm curious. What did you make of this news? They produced the first seasons of Sesame Street on DVD, but the NYT is "warning" the parents who have the purchasing power that these pilot episodes aren't for children's consumption.

The slightly tongue-in-cheek article cites these non-PC violations, among others: Big Bird is delusional because only he can see Snuffleupagus; Oscar is such a grouch he seems rabid; Cookie Monster smokes a pipe; little kids have milk and cookies with strangers.

There wasn't anything perverse about Sesame Street's early years, was there? This is all just a carefully-written gimmick to get us intrigued enough to buy some random children's show DVD right before Christmas, wouldn't you say? Surely what we survived back then won't scar the children of today. I mean, I watched the first years of this show with my little brother and a roomful of preschoolers, and we all understood that Sesame Street was fiction. We knew better than to accept favors from strangers in the real world. None of us grew up to smoke pipes or be mortally afraid of garbage cans.

(I do eat way too many cookies, but I hardly think I can blame Cookie Monster for that. Even back in the day, we kids could all tell that Cookie Monster chewed but never swallowed.)

"Me eating fruit now. Keep Cookie Monster regular."

5 things you missed on del.icio.us this week

(because they were on my page. But you can change all that by joining my network here.)

1. Learn how to fold a towel elephant this weekend! Think how impressed your Thanksgiving guests (or your hosts) will be. Well, I think they're great. And so does Jackie.

2. John Scalzi was asked by all his readers to visit the Creation Museum which just opened in his town, and to write a full report. They got so strident about it, he finally put up a Paypal link and said okay I'll do it, if you bastids pay my way, and anything above that will be donated to a secular charity. Well, the readers came through, big time! So he went. And the report is screamingly funny. So is the photo page.

3. Play Counterfeit, a maddening flash game where you have to find the difference between two versions of the same painting. If there are any differences, which I am beginning to doubt. I need to find my new "reading glasses" (proto-bifocals) for this game.

4. Good Luck to our Atheist Friends. Yeah. Okay. Ha-ha. Keep your signs - we got John Scalzi inside the Creation Museum.

5. Sci-Fi Inventions That Would Actually Suck. Good ol' Cracked, with their lists that make me compulsively come back for more.  They do have a good point about the flying car, though.

What's your cyber personality type?

Take the Pew Internet Project quiz and see.

My result? Omnivore

Omnivores make up 8% of the American public.

Basic Description
Members of this group use their extensive suite of technology tools to do an enormous range of things online, on the go, and with their cell phones. Omnivores are highly engaged with video online and digital content. Between blogging, maintaining their Web pages, remixing digital content, or posting their creations to their websites, they are creative participants in cyberspace.

Ha! makes me sound way more plugged-in than I really am. I do watch news videos online, and blog of course, but the quiz didn't ask how often I do certain cyber tasks such as texting (hardly ever) or posting dog tricks on YouTube (never - but it looks like fun).

Well, obviously, Pew just wanted to know what we're capable of. The other categories in this quiz appear after the jump. What'd you get?

Beancounta kitteh iz not amused

OMG Beancounters has been LOLINATED ... and your blog can be, too. [Thanks, Karen!]

Another commute option

So, on Friday I drove downtown rather than take the commuter train. But in the evening I took the #142 bus from my office to the parking garage. There was a comforting number of fellow civil servants in the vicinity, but I took no chances - I held my keys in my grip, a la Wolverine, swung my purse in a vicious arc, and made loud gobble-gobble noises as I ran all the way to my car.

Life! So many choices for the privileged!

Must be all the pictures

Earlier this week, it was Junior High School level. I've regressed! I should have posted while I was ahead. [Thanks, e!]

We don't use the word 'pelt' enough

There's been a major setback in the patent-pending Forced to Walk Ten Blocks To Your Office Weight Loss Plan.

It's effin' dark after 5!

By the time I get to my car, I've walked past a park next to a high school, pelted across W Street, which is an unlit three lane road with no traffic light, and stepped into a parking lot right under the freeway that's utterly dark, deserted, and too noisy for my voice to carry, if you know what I mean. Red flag time.

So I'm probably going to speak sternly to Dept. of General Services about their so-called secure parking structure, and then switch to taking the light-rail for the winter.

When I started working downtown again, I thought I'd need my car for emergencies. But light-rail gets me home in 40 minutes, which is the same time as the commute by car. And there's one added benefit which I don't need to explain ...

Just call me the zombie's breakfast

22%

[via]

What's with all the cubicle games?

Has everybody played Cubicle Freakout except me? Well, it's Saturday, so you have plenty of time to improve your freakout score. Get some stress in your life, ya damn hippy.

When you're good and jittery, choose your weapon and play Cubicle Warfare. Gotta love the screaming ...

And last but certainly not least, here's Office Block, a Tetris-style game using cubicle furniture! There goes my morning.

Try more office distractions at Chaos Theory.

A mystery from afar

Remember the book of fairy tales Dumbledore gave Hermione in HP7? Well, look at this!

LONDON (AP) — J.K. Rowling has completed her first book after her wildly popular series on teen wizard Harry Potter — an illustrated collection of magical fairy stories titled "The Tales of Beedle the Bard."

Only seven copies of the handwritten book have been made, Rowling said Thursday. One will be auctioned next month to raise money for a children's charity, while the others have been given away as gifts.

"'The Tales of Beedle the Bard' is really a distillation of the themes found in the Harry Potter books, and writing it has been the most wonderful way to say goodbye to a world I have loved and lived in for 17 years," Rowling said.

Yeah, yeah, we know, she's sentimental. Cut to the chase!  All I need to know is, Is my gift copy arriving by air mail, or is JKR delivering it personally? Because if she's on her way, I'm going to need to steam-clean the carpets and stuff. Just wondering. Well, I'm sure she'll call ahead. I can't wait!