“Dum dee dum dee dum. Let’s go for a pony ride!” Read more →
Author Archive: Paul Epps
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 →
Worst Book Ever Written?
Apparently this is the worst book ever written . . . I looked at the Amazon page for the book . . . out of 76 reviews, 70 give the book one star. And they’re coming in so fast, you can actually refresh the page and watch the one-star reviews arrive in real time! Hang on a sec — ok, I just checked again . . . there are now nine more reviews posted — all one-star — so we’re up to 79 out of 85. That’s even worse than the abysmal 9 percent approval rating currently enjoyed by the U.S. Congress. Read more →
Cheech and Chong Reunion
Cheech and Chong plan reunion tour — UPI.com When you’ve only got one joke — and that one joke isn’t funny — maybe it’s best to stay retired. Who’s their opening act? Foster Brooks? Read more →
Milestones
Today is my son’s 15th birthday. He’s six feet tall, same as me. I actually have to look up at him a little bit . . . his eyes are higher than mine but I make up the difference with an improbably large forehead, so the tops of our heads are at the same height . . . Read more →
Father-Son Wisdom
I tell my son, “If people see you as being arrogant or kind of an a-hole, it’s going to be hard for you to accomplish things that you want to accomplish in life.” “How did you accomplish anything?” the boy replies. “It was hard.” Read more →
Why I Don’t Tell Jokes to My Wife
I say to my wife, “I saw a cartoon today . . . a husband and wife are standing in their living room looking at a huge painting on the wall, a portrait of an elderly man in an armchair, and the wife says to the husband, ‘I thought he was your grandfather.’” My wife says, “Who was the guy?” “The wife thought he was the husband’s grandfather and the husband thought he was the wife’s grandfather.” “So why was his picture in the house?” Read more →
Mother-Son Advice
. . . and one thing you don’t want to be is annoying like Dad. Read more →
Eliminate Unnecessary Paperwork
If you need to explain something, try mocking it up and prototyping it rather than writing a longwinded document. An actual interface or prototype is on its way to becoming a real product. A piece of paper, on the other hand, is only on its way to the garbage can. — Getting Real, 37Signals Read more →
Depression 2.0
Mr. Obama is proposing to raise taxes on capital gains and dividends by a staggering two-thirds, moving the rate up 10 percentage points to 25%, which could curtail investment and business on Wall Street, a backbone of the city’s and state’s economy. — New York Sun OK, let me get this straight . . . the stock market’s dropping, banks are failing from lack of liquidity, no one wants to invest in American companies, and Obama’s solution is to raise the capital gains tax?! In the event of an Obama presidency, I will taking a long position in blankets, canned goods and shotgun shells . . . Read more →
Me Too!
From PostSecret: Read more →
The Forgotten Man, Ted Kennedy and Warren Buffett
As Ted Kennedy has spent virtually all of his personal wealth on personal consumption of mansions, private jets, women, booze, etc., any help that he has provided to Americans has come at the expense of the “forgotten man” paying taxes. Ted’s own contributions to charity have been minimal (source). Let’s compare to Warren Buffett. . . . Buffett has spent a negligible portion of his $60+ billion in personal wealth on personal consumption, giving almost all of it away to charity. Perhaps Buffet is “the forgotten man.” He creates jobs by the thousands. He pays taxes by the $billions. He consumes very modestly considering his means. Yet Buffett is not considered a hero here in Massachusetts, at least. — Philip Greenspun Read more →