beancounters

Friday dog-blogging: chivalry

<nightwolf> What are your thoughts on chivalry?  Do you hold the door open for women?
<nightwolf> Or do you rush through and let it close in her face?
<worrydream> I rush through and lock the door behind me.  If she's able to climb through the window, she's a keeper.
<nightwolf> Do you open the window for her?
<worrydream> Yes.  But it's the second-story window.
<nightwolf> Do you leave her a ladder?
<worrydream> No.  I expect her to lash together a ladder out of rope and wood.
<nightwolf> Do you leave her rope?
<worrydream> No.  I expect her to weave a rope out of natural available materials.
<worrydream> Grasses and vines and stuff.
<nightwolf> Do you leave her those materials?
<worrydream> I leave her seeds.

The Rise and Fall of Twitter - Der Fuehrer hated to see the fail whale, too.

And here's your dog link for the week: Dogs' high school yearbook pictures. Disturbing ...

Budget woes, pt. whatever

The budget standoff is nearing its second straight month. When will it end? Literally, nobody knows. I think this fact alone - that no one knows when our offices may be fully staffed again, or when contractors may be paid again - is the most demoralizing of the whole process.

A few weeks ago, as you'll recall, Arnold resolved to pay state workers at the federal minimum wage, effective immediately, if the budget is not signed.

John Chiang, our State Controller, replied, 'Um, not so much.' Even if it were legally defensible (which it isn't), there's a little problem with our payroll computer. It can't be reprogrammed for giant pay changes without a few months' notice. A legislator scoffed on the record. What about the times when the State pays cost of living adjustments? Chiang replied yes, but we always have a few months' notice, ya see.

Hmm, I can't figure why nobody buys COBOL operating systems anymore. Anyway, it's business as usual today. Paychecks this month will be normal.

Since this blackmail effort did not panic legislators and make them immediately pull a budget out of thin air, the Governor tried again.

Arnold: Until a budget is passed, I hereby pledge that I will sign no bills into law!

Legislature: OK by us. But your pet projects won't make the November ballot.

Arnold: ::ahem!:: As I was saying, I hereby pledge that I will sign some bills into law!

Save your receipt

Hello, blogfolk. I have an announcement to make. In light of the fact that Arnold is still trying to reduce my income to the federal minimum wage, I'm afraid I will have to start charging you to read this blog.

[OK, OK. Just for you, it's still on the house. Make your own cash register receipts here.]

Weekend-jones

Dark Vader caption contest on Flickr - Take some time to read all the caption suggestions. It's hilarious that the photographer himself was very confused why this one picture suddenly received so much attention. Oh, that wacky Web 2.0. (On Twitter, @darthvader chose the winning caption: "Leia... your eHarmony date is here... he's old enough to be your dad!!!")

Birthday greetings from Joe Cocker (YouTube) -OR- what that tie dye-lovin' fool was really singing. [Thanks, Karen]

In case you haven't read them yet, here are the Bulwer-Lytton Bad Fiction contest winners from 2008. [Thanks, Nancy] They're all great terrible, but there's a special place in my heart for Leslie Muir's:

He was a dark and stormy knight, and this excited Gwendolyn, but admittedly not as much as last night when he was Antonio Banderas in drag, or the night before that when he was a French Legionnaire who blindfolded her and fed her pommes frites from his kepi.

Quiz imitates life

Good quiz! [via]

I was a little put off by the results until I saw the picture. It's BB!

* * * * *

Your result for The Harry Potter Husband Test...

Mrs. Longbottom

Your perfect HP man is Neville Longbottom.

   

You like the nice guy.  You don't need the best looking guy, or the most talented, or the most popular, or the most powerful.  You want a guy who'll be there when you need him, who knows how to stick through the hard times, who isn't afraid to do what needs to be done, and who stands up to even his friends when necessary.  You can't go wrong with a guy like this.

 

 

(fanart by jeremia  http://jeremia.deviantart.com/  used with permission)

Take The Harry Potter Husband Test at HelloQuizzy

Stop the presses

What would you look like as a high school graduate from, say 1950? It's Saturday, so you have plenty of time to snap a quick photo and yearbook yourself.

Wow! I've had every straight-haired hairstyle known to woman, but I've never been blonde. I think I could frighten children with this look!

Friday dog-blogging: mangy manga

Dogs in L.A. know how to keep cool.

Have you made your own manga avatar yet, like I did? No? Well, get on it! Avatars don't make themselves, you know. It takes some elbow grease, mister! People are counting on you to stay abreast of internet memes of all kinds. Like these librarians did. (Heh. Manga librarians.)

Why on earth does the Boy Scout Store offer spoof merit badges? I don't know, but here they are. I think I'm going to need the pirate badge.

The Legend of Neil - (NSFW) webisodes from the makers of The Guild (SFW). It's a continuing story about a guy who is accidentally transported into a video game. Pretty cute, but in my opinion The Guild is much better.

Herding cats (Google video) - Do you remember this when it came out? Inspired!

Only democracy

[click the picture to biggify]

 

I liked this short treatise on democracy, posted by Bye Bye Blackboard, an art project from the University of Oxford.

For Anthony

(and Maya ...)

Scenes from Roland Emmerich's NY pad. Busy, busy, busy!

Bring forth the cheerful accused

Monday morning. What a terrible idea. Whose idea was this, anyway? Have that person brought before our tribunal immediately.

BTW, who wants to be on the Monday tribunal? I got two slots left.

All I did this weekend was sleep. This is almost literally true. Sleep, and shop for groceries at a warehouse store which was named "WinCo" but should have been named "Economies of Scale". I shopped, paid for the stuff, bagged my own stuff (which I hate because I always think the cashiers despise me for taking so long), brought it all home and put it away. And then went back to sleep.

If I took Mental Floss's What animal are you? quiz, I'd probably find out I'm a two-toed sloth. How did you rate? Your answer may help you secure a slot on the Monday tribunal.

Friday dog-blogging: no dogs were harmed in the making of this post

How talented are you at recognizing accents? Test your skills here. [via the Nag]

I give you Escape From Rehab, a little game based on the upcoming Disaster Movie (which I actually kind of want to see). But the game doesn't give you much help as you try to power Amy Winehouse past Hellboy and Angelina Jolie. I don't know. See what you can do with it.

I originally blogged this frustrating game back in 2005, but guess what? It's still around! And anonymous folks are still trying to compete for letters to spell naughty words like ANDY DICK, while others try and thwart them. It's true! Go and see!

McCain and Obama paper dolls. Just in time for the conventions. You know you want them.

Larry the language nerd (comic)

Nothing But Tears. Where else but The Onion?

And finally, in fairness after posting the Californian's map, I give you the New Yorker's map of America.

Change of guard, change of grade

I can't believe it's Friday already. Hasn't it been quiet on the blog this week? Mornings, when I normally post, have been hectic and fraught with drama.

For one thing, it's the first week of school for our seventh grader. That means three showers must be taken between 5:50 and 7:10 - and that means we must time the bathroom usage down to the minute. When I'm not using my allotted bathroom minutes, I'm resisting the urge to pack my baby's lunch, pick a cute li'l dress and matchy shoes for her to wear, and fuss with her schoolbag. She practically has to threaten bodily harm to keep me the hell out of her stuff.

This is also the week my new boss took command. Have I mentioned my new boss? No? We will start by naming her ... Newboss. Yesssss. Old boss - him what hired me originally, and gave me a false sense of optimism in a government gone mad with state budget fever - suddenly leaped up and applied for a lot of jobs at other agencies, then accepted the first offer he received, and transferred. Transferred so fast, not even Mr. Roark and Tattoo would've had time to wave good-bye.

Now, I'm in a weird position. First, old boss really trash-talked Newboss when they were coworkers. And though I reflexively ignored 99% of what he said, of course, that 1% that stuck inside my head is hard to shake. Secondly, everything about my job is exactly the same, except I have to meet all new criteria, and I'm not sure what that is yet.

All your goddess are

This timeline of internet memes will let you chart the evolution of some of your favorite web jokes. [via Pops] Use the zoom to get a high-level view, or to really drill down and get nostalgic.

I appreciated that somebody even included some references to Discordianism. Here's the best (1958): Malaclypse the Younger conspires with other Ur-Discordians to form the Discordian Society. No-one stops them.

Though Principia Discordia wasn't originally posted on an internet, its authors did mimeograph the living hell out of the original pages and fling those pages far and wide, to readers who did the same in their turn. Isn't that what you'd call an analog meme?

100 most common English words

It's Saturday, so you have at least five minutes in which to take this quiz: the 100 most common English words. [via verbatim] How many can you remember in five minutes? For me, it wasn't as easy as it first appeared. In a panic, I found myself running through Schoolhouse Rock songs, trying to come up with all the conjunctions on the train track and so forth. I only came up with 35. Oy.

Friday dog-blogging: the D-Files

Another Friday, another chance to regale you with random things I found online when I should have been working.

Fiscal conservative - Oh, now I get it.

JK Rowling to allow Beetle the Bard to be published for us plebes at last. I'm shocked. SHOCKED, I tell you. I understood this was a book meant for just a favored few. (My copy obviously got lost in the mail, but I'm completely over it.) The book is set to be released on December 4. What a bad date! That's right before Christmas! People will be too distracted by the holiday shopping season to pay much attention to the release of one little book.

/heavy-handed sarcasm

Moving on ... Ah, here's something I liked: 10 things to scratch off your worry list. Only 10? Well, it's a start. I'm glad for an excuse to continue to run my car's A/C. But I was sort of looking forward to being sucked into a rogue wormhole.

Military humor - Soldiers really love their down time.

Annie Waits - a sweet fan video of one of our favorite Ben Folds songs.

Creative wall art [via Chasing Daisy] - they just get better and better. Cool.

Zzzzzone

I love Thursdays. Thursday is my favorite work day. By Thursday, I've completely forgotten last weekend, and the next weekend is a beautiful oasis on the distant horizon. In the meantime, I'm in a zone of serene productivity.

That is, until my Newboss comes back with a critique of the first paper I handed in to her yesterday. I can think of a wide variety of reactions she could have; none of them good. It's just that I was hired to write high-level, quick an' dirty informational papers that take, like, a week from start to finish. She normally manages people who are assigned to write long-term research papers that take months to develop and execute. I'm afraid she'll look at my work and say, "Six pages? No appendices and only eight footnotes? Is that the best you can do?" Then I'll have to carefully 'splain my duty statement without once mentioning the name of my former boss, with whom Newboss used to have a feud.

But I can handle it. I'm already laughing. I'm in the Thursday zone, people.

Posts now replete with Aussie slang

If I ever become a worse blog correspondent than I currently am, there'll be no worries, mate! I can always turn to the Lazy Blogger's Post Generator for help in updating.

OMFG! I just figured out I have not updated this since Hammertime was in the charts... You would not believe that I actually have a life. I prostrate myself in sorrow and beg thy forgiveness..

I am flat out like a lizard drinking with an awfully big adventure, learning to speak Japanese, just generally being a nuisance to society in general, my day is dreadfully busy from mid-morning to way past dusk. I am putting money aside so I can run away. it will be fun fun fun till they take my TBird away.

I absolutely, positively promise I will blog about it when I find my way home. You have my word! Don't hold your breath though, you're likely to turn blue..

[via Califmom]

As the budget turns

Some of you out-of-towners expressed some small interest in the doings of our Governor and the state's budget standoff. Here's what our heroes are up to now.

Last Thursday, Arnold did indeed sign the Executive Order. It directed the State Controller's Office to pay civil servants the federal minimum wage. (That's a gross of about $1048 [per month] for a full-timer.) In his speech, he assured Californians he won't back down until real change is made by the Legislature. Oh, and it also fired the student assistants and temp workers.

Next, he got the head of the Department of Finance to stand up and explain that some civil servants are better than others, particularly fire and police and prison guards.

Before the speeches were over, all our student assistants and temp workers got phone calls from Personnel and then cleared their desks. I don't even have a joke to make about that, because they're good kids and they keep our office running.

By close of business Thursday, our State Controller posted a copy of a letter [PDF] which he sent to the Governor's office. This is what it said:

a) No way, dude. I'm an elected official and you can't tell me what to do.

b) Our computer system is older than Windows 3.1, and it's nearly impossible to program such a huge change in 200,000 people's paychecks like this. Maybe you could play a nice game of chess, but otherwise forget it.

c) You keep referring to White v. Davis. I do not think it means what you think it means.

d) And even if it did, you can't just exempt firefighters, prison guards, etc. because you feel like it. It's all or nothing.

Over the weekend, the Legislature and the Governor met for about two hours, which is barely enough time to call roll and send up for danishes.

Meanwhile, the union protested to anyone who will listen. On Monday, they sent around a PDF which we were to print and send to the Governor. It was a pink slip, made out to Arnold, firing him for gross negligence. (I deleted it.)

Late Monday, Arnold proposed a "temporary" one-cent sales tax, probably because he was daunted by the sudden arrival of a few dozen pink slips.

You can't buy this quality of entertainment, folks. Well, actually you can ... but baby, is it expensive.

Do you feel lucky, Joker?

YAHOO! MOVIES: Though "The Dark Knight" has been a bona fide cultural event, boasting rave reviews and boffo box office, it hasn't been immune to criticism. Some have quibbled with its political undercurrents, and others have criticized a muddled theme.

But here's the critique most widely held: Why does Batman talk like the offspring of Clint Eastwood and a grizzly bear?

Batman's voice was also my one real gripe against The Dark Knight. Still, this made me laugh. I thought I was the only one ...

Also, do they dance like in Thriller?

It's Saturday afternoon, but you have plenty of time left in the day to take a 50+ question Zombie quiz. This comprehensive assessment will help you spot your areas of strength and weakness when it comes to surviving a zombie attack.

I was pleasantly surprised to get a "B" in physical strength. But I only rated a "D" in mental preparedness and "D" in experience. Also, I said I'd prefer a machete to a machine gun. Was that wrong? I don't watch zombie movies.