I saw the new Jackie Chan movie today . . . it was pretty bad, but the thing that resonated with me was that the movie, like all movies of this type, had an evil villain, and the villain would gather his evil henchmen and say things like “Which one of you would like to explain this latest failure?” He sounded just like one of the managers I work with . . . Read more →
EppsNet Goes to the Movies
I was buying movie tickets with my 10-year-old boy when a woman with her 20-something daughter smiled at us and said, “When you get older, your kids will take you to the movies.” Later, in the snack bar line, I asked him, “So are you going to take me to a movie when I get older?” Read more →
Introducing a 10-Year-Old to Poetry
Me: (reading aloud from syllabus for UC Irvine Young Writers class, in which my kid is enrolled) “We are going to be doing a variety of activities, including a facade poem, a four season poem, journal writing, and a memory snapshot story.” Him: Poems blow. Read more →
Happy Birthday
We celebrated my son’s birthday yesterday by going to his favorite restaurant of all time, BD’s Mongolian Barbeque in Irvine, only to find that they’d gone out of business, finally beaten into submission by the ultra-popular BJ’s Restaurant & Brewery next door. Fortunately, 10-year-olds bounce back from these kinds of setbacks pretty quickly, especially when they get the Kung Fu Chaos game they really, really wanted . . . Read more →
2 Fast
Costa Mesa, CA. — Michael Allen Hanson was cruising at 100 mph in his new Porsche on the Costa Mesa (55) Freeway when a black car zoomed past Tuesday night. So Hanson, president of his mortgage company, hit the gas. Read more →
Overheard
You can’t beat that with a sharp stick! Why does the stick have to be sharp if you’re just going to beat something with it? Read more →
Another Reason I Let My Wife Handle the Grocery Shopping
IRVINE — A mentally disturbed man wielding a samurai-style sword killed two workers and slashed three other people at an Albertsons before police shot and killed him Sunday. — Orange County Register, June 30, 2003 Banzai! Read more →
Brain Teaser
This was posed to me in an interview. I don’t know if there’s a “right” answer, or whether it’s just intended to probe the thinking process of the applicant. You have 50 white marbles, 50 black marbles and two bags. Your task is to arrange the marbles in the bags so as to maximize the probability that a person making a blind selection from one of the bags will select a black marble. Read more →
First Library Card Discovered
Something I found around the house this weekend: my son’s first library card. It’s four or five years old now, it’s expired, but I still remember how proud I was when he got it. It’s hard to say why . . . I knew he could read a little bit, write his name — not very well, but still . . . I think at the time I was feeling that, for better or worse, he wasn’t a baby anymore, and here was the proof . . . Read more →
HW’s Video Game Reviews
NBA Street The most racially insensitive video game I’ve ever seen. Every black character is a prancing, jive-talking buffoon, there’s a 7-foot-6 Japanese guy with a four-word English vocabulary — “Not in my house” — delivered with an accent straight out of a Godzilla movie, and followed by inscrutable grunting and mumbling . . . And so on. My kid loves it. Read more →
Overheard at Bob Hope’s 100th Birthday Party
“I wanna tell ya, this Bob Hope is really funny.” “You are Bob Hope.” “I am?! Am I still alive?” Read more →
Good News, Bad News
After more than two months out of work, The Programmer lands a consulting job . . . Good news: I get paid and I need the cash. Bad news: I work for a guy who delivers insights like “See, now it’s not just about working better-faster-cheaper, it’s about working smarter!” in the tone of someone who just found a cure for cancer, or who thinks that without him, we’d all be actively seeking out ways to work stupider. More good news: He doesn’t micromanage my work, because he has no comprehension of what it is I actually do. Thus spoke The Programmer. Read more →
HW’s Book Reviews
Rich Dad, Poor Dad by Robert T. Kiyosaki with Sharon L. Lechter C.P.A. And I know a father who had a son He longed to tell him all the reasons for the things he’d done He came a long way just to explain He kissed his boy as he lay sleeping Then he turned around and he headed home again — Paul Simon, “Slip Sliding Away” Before I got married I had six theories about bringing up children; now I have six children and no theories. — John Wilmot, 2nd Earl of Rochester You might get the idea from reading this book that being rich is synonymous with being happy. I’ve never seen any indication that that’s true. Read more →
HW’s True Hollywood Stories
Clara “Auntie Em” Blandick Clara Blandick was born June 4, 1880, aboard an American ship in the harbor off Hong Kong. She appeared in over 100 films, most notably as Auntie Em in The Wizard of Oz (1939). In later years, she suffered from severe arthritis and failing eyesight. Read more →
Kill the Model Prisoners
Ohio executes man who killed woman with knife — Reuters His attorneys sought clemency on the grounds that he had been a “model prisoner.” I think if that’s the best thing you can say about someone, it’s time to go ahead and kill him. Footnote: That’s a terrible headline. Did he kill a woman who had a knife? Was he executed with a knife? Some people might argue that that’s cruel and unusual, although I wouldn’t oppose it personally . . . Read more →
Heat Miser
I saw a guy at lunch today who’d dyed his hair red and spiked it, making him look more like a real life Heat Miser than anyone I’ve ever seen . . . Read more →
Talking to Recruiters
The Programmer has been out of work for more than two months now . . . A recruiter called me the other day, and in the course of our conversation, he asked me which “business requirements methods” I’ve used. I said, “I’m not exactly sure what you mean by that.” After a pause, he said, “I’m not really sure what it means either. I’m kind of new at this.” “Well, go ahead and read the next question, then . . .” Thus spoke The Programmer. Read more →
Your Résumé is Quite Impressive
Possible responses: It should be. I wrote it. It’s the only thing more impressive than my actual accomplishments. Read more →
Three Ways to Find My House
I love living in Irvine but . . . the lots aren’t very big, the houses are close together, and they all look about the same anyway, so even after 2-1/2 years, I still have trouble picking out which house is mine as I’m driving down the street. I’ve devised a couple of methods for handling this. Read more →
Conversations With a 9-Year-Old
“That’s a good haircut. You look very handsome.” “Did you say ‘handsome’?” “Yeah.” “I don’t want to be handsome.” “What do you want to be?” “Cooool.” Read more →