Kentucky and Louisville play each other for the Governor’s Cup. Why the governor needs to wear a cup I don’t know, nor can I figure out why anybody else would want it. “Congratulations, boys!” the governor says, reaching into his trousers. “I’ve got a little something for you. And it ain’t fried chicken!” Read more →
August 2008
How I Met Your Mother
From Michelle “There is no safety net for anybody” Obama’s DNC speech: You know, what struck me when I first met Barack was that even though he had this funny name, even though he’d grown up all the way across the continent in Hawaii, his family was so much like mine. He was raised by grandparents who were working class folks just like my parents, and by a single mother who struggled to pay the bills just like we did. Well . . . if you take all that at face value — and why wouldn’t you? — it only goes to show how shallow I am, because what struck me when I first met my wife was what a nice ass she had. Hubba hubba! Read more →
Thoughts on the DNC
I never have been able to buy into the whole liberal worldview — as expressed by Michelle “Our souls are broken in this nation” Obama and James “We are an 80 percent wrong-track country” Carville — where nobody ever has a nice day, everything is always wrong, vote for us and we’ll fix it all immediately . . . then not only do they not fix anything, they actually make everything worse, taking away another batch of precious freedoms and hard-earned dollars in the process . . . Read more →
I Love Money
As my kid and I were watching Beverly Hills Cop on VH1 last night, we kept seeing ads for a show called I Love Money, in which fat, unattractive people are having a spitting contest for distance. Two questions: What is the target market for this — fat, ugly spitters and the people who love them? And a question I wonder about a lot: Were people this stupid before television? Read more →
How Not to Succeed in Business
Come to the office on a weekend — when you’re not allowed to be there — not to work, but to store some of your personal belongings. Fall down a flight of stairs. Then file a worker’s comp claim. I’m not saying I know someone who actually did this . . . Read more →
A Business Model for Selling Crack
My wife loves to keep bags from the grocery store. Why does she love to keep bags from the grocery store? Your guess is as good as mine. Probably better if you haven’t been drinking tequila all afternoon like I have. My son walks into the kitchen . . . He says, “We’ve got enough bags here to open our own store.” “Good idea!” I reply. “You know what we’re going to sell? All the crap laying around in your room.” “For a second,” he says, “I thought you said ‘crack.’” “Crack . . . hey, that’s a good idea too! Ordinarily, you want to buy crack, you’ve got to go hang out on a street corner in some undesirable location. We’ll bring upscale ambiance to the crack business. ‘Paper or plastic?’ Who would suspect you’re toting crack around in that Trader Joe’s bag?” Read more →
You Gotta Have Heart
My son’s going into 10th grade and he’s started to go out in boy-girl groups . . . “Whoever he has for a girlfriend,” my wife says, “has to have a good heart. Has to be very giving. Because he’s an only child so he’s used to it being all about him.” “Do you think you have a good heart?” I ask. “Yes.” “You don’t think you’re a little bit too aggressively angry pretty much every day?” “That’s not about heart.” “What is it?” “You don’t think you’re a little too annoying? Same thing.” Read more →
Watching Olympic Women’s Weightlifting with a 10th Grader
“These women look worse than the Australian basketball team,” the boy says. “Some of them would be cute,” I say, “if they lost about 150 pounds.” An eHarmony commercial comes on . . . We prescreen candidates for compatibility . . . “Good,” the boy says, “because I don’t want to date any women weightlifters.” Read more →
PostSecret
Watching Olympic Women’s Basketball with a 10th Grader
The Australian team has some rather unfortunate-looking women on the roster . . . “Crikey!” the boy says. “Wot an oy-sore!” Read more →
Watching Olympic Equestrian with a 10th Grader
“Dum dee dum dee dum. Let’s go for a pony ride!” Read more →
Peter Pan, Snow White Arrested at Disneyland
They’re having a labor dispute over at the Magic Kingdom — complete with costumed protestors — which resulted in Peter Pan, Snow White, Cinderella, Tinkerbell and others being handcuffed, frisked and stuffed into the paddy wagon yesterday . . . Read more →
Turn the Demands Around
Managers will often demand proof that questing for quality will have some measurable “return on investment.” That’s an easy one. Just agree to provide ROI numbers using the same system they currently use. No such system exists. When a manager demands that you justify your efforts, simply ask her the same in reverse. How does she justify her current methods? — Alan Cooper Read more →
Kingston the Pug
Planned Parenthood
My son’s a mixed kid — white and Asian . . . Last night, he said, “I should marry a black and Mexican girl. Our kids would be a mix of all races: white, Asian, Mexican and black. Those kids would be good at everything.” Read more →
You Have to Explain Something to a Computer
When you’re doing programming, you have to explain something to a computer, which is dumb. When you’re writing a document for a human being to understand, the human being will look at it and nod his head and say, “Yeah, this makes sense.” But there are all kinds of ambiguities and vagueness that you don’t realize until you try to put it into a computer. Then all of a sudden, almost every five minutes as you’re writing the code, a question comes up that wasn’t addressed in the specification. “What if this combination occurs?” It just didn’t occur to the person writing the design specification. When you’re faced with doing the implementation, a person who has been delegated the job of working from a design would have to say, “Well, hmm, I don’t know what the designer meant by this.” It’s so hard to do the design unless you’re faced… Read more →
The Most Famous Person I Ever Met
I was at Juice It Up again today and the same girl was at the register. “That was Sugar Ray Leonard yesterday,” she said. “How do you know,” I asked. “He came back in later. I asked him, ‘Are you famous?’ and he said, ‘I was.’ I said, ‘Do you mind if I ask your name?’ and he said ‘Sugar Ray Leonard.’” So Olympic gold medalist and American icon Sugar Ray Leonard is now officially the most famous person I ever “met” — even if college girls and suburban hausfraus have no idea who he is. (I saw Rod Stewart having dinner once at the Hotel Bel-Air but he’s not even a real American . . .) Read more →
Brush With Greatness: Postscript
I told my wife this story . . . it turns out she doesn’t know who Sugar Ray Leonard is either. “I know Muhammad Ali and Joe Foreman,” she says. Read more →
Brush With Greatness
You’ll never guess who I saw at the Juice It Up in Aliso Viejo: Sugar Ray Leonard, the famous boxer! He was in line in front of me with a couple of his kids. I wasn’t sure it was him at first, so I discreetly asked the college-age girl at the register, “Was that somebody famous?” “Who?” she asked. “The guy in front of me. That was Sugar Ray Leonard, right?” The name meant nothing to her, but another gentleman in the shop assured me that it was really him. Interesting fact: Leonard’s wife, who was waiting outside the shop, is not very attractive. You might think that the great Sugar Ray Leonard’s wife would be much hotter than, say, my wife, but such is not the case. Not even close. Is it possible that Roberto Duran had just caught a glimpse of Mrs. Leonard ringside when he uttered his… Read more →