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 . . .
“You learn to breathe with your whole body. So you breeeeathe in from the bottom of your feet up to the top of your head, and you breeeeathe out from the top of your head to the bottom of your feet . . .”
“Can’t you just use your nose or mouth?”
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.
“I wanna tell ya, this Bob Hope is really funny.”
“You are Bob Hope.”
“I am?! Am I still alive?”
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.
He sometimes abbreviates them as “WC?”, “WYP?” and “SYR.”
Another favorite — borrowed from Calvin and Hobbes/Spaceman Spiff — is you say something to him and he responds,”‘GLOP GLOP GLORP.’ The alien being is trying to say something.”
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
Before I got married I had six theories about bringing up children; now I have six children and no theories.
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.
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.
The hand that rocks the cradle
Is the hand that rules the world.
Motherhood meant I have written four fewer books, but I know more about life.
The joys of parents are secret, and so are their griefs and fears.
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 . . .
If I can’t understand it, the management probably doesn’t want me to understand it. And if management doesn’t want me to understand it, there is probably something wrong going on.
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 . . .
I found myself involved in a genealogy discussion the other night, and I guess I disappointed everyone by admitting that I don’t know the origin of the name Epps, nor am I all that curious about it.
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.
Possible responses:
Dr. Robert Atkins, creator of the high-fat, low-carb “Atkins Diet,” died today, not from a heart attack or stroke, as I’d hoped, but by slipping on a sidewalk outside his office.
Maybe that crazy diet affects your balance . . .
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.
The fashion designer Calvin Klein said yesterday that he was seeking professional help for substance abuse, nearly two weeks after his erratic behavior during a Knicks basketball game at Madison Square Garden briefly forced a halt in play.
Another blow to the theory that being rich and famous somehow makes it easier to live through the day, in case anyone other than my wife still believes it . . .
“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.”
Today’s email brings the following inquiry:
Would you like a larger penis? Or for your spouse to have a larger one?
Hmmm . . . neither, actually.
