Schrödinger’s LOLCat

Just a quick post (still crazy school time). I like LOLCats a lot, but by far, the funniest, albeit geekiest, photo I’ve ever seen is:

Schrodinger’s LOLCat

It’s funny because of Schrodinger’s Cat Thought Experiment. Basically, quantum physics says a quantum particle, at any moment, may or may not exist. Honestly, there is still no “official” way for the things we know about quantum physics, and the things we know about general physics to jive. It’s very complicated, but nonetheless, this LOLCat is hilarious.

At any given moment, you may or may not find it funny. Hehehe.

Tinkled Toes

EiwThis week and next are insanely busy for me, so you’ll have to forgive my sparse posting.

As you probably know, last week we went camping. It was a great week, but one of the things you notice more when you’re away is how often you go to the restroom. I’m actually on a blood pressure medicine that causes me to be quite the tinkle fairy. I go at least once every 90 minutes. It’s pathetic. I’m also one of the few men in the planet that washes their hands when they use the toilet, and the tired old electric hand dryer made for a lengthy potty time. (That thing took FOREVER to dry hands, half the time I just wiped my hands on my pants after washing them…)

This post is not about the hand dryer though. That irritation is nothing compared to one old man in the urinal next to me.

First of all, all men understand the basic public restroom etiquette. It’s instilled into us genetically. There should never have been an old man in the urinal next to me.

The problem started while I was doing my business. The offending old person clearly knew I was there. I’m a 6 foot tall 190 pound man. I was wearing a bright orange SpongeBob t-shirt. I’m hard to miss. Well, I thought I was hard to miss…

This man rushes to the urinal right next to me, and begins making “I have to pee really bad” noises. This violates several men’s room rules by itself, but the old man begins to haphazardly urinate wildly about his urinal space, and actually begins to SPLASH MY LEGS with his own piddle!!!

I had no idea what to do. I scooched over as far as possible, and hurried as best I could. When splashy splasherton was finally finished, I just stood there in shock. In retrospect, I still don’t know how I could have made the situation any better. I mean, I couldn’t even kill the man, because that would have brought attention to my motive: Wet leg.

The only good news is that campground restrooms have showers built into them. I walked directly from the urinal to the shower (grabbing some hand soap from the dispenser along the way), and proceeded to shower my legs.

Eiw.

Most Days, I Don’t Even Shave…

badhaircat1.jpgOne of the joys of camping in a state park, is that everyone uses community showers. (No, not like that…) The park we stayed at only had 3 showers for the entire park. There are well over 100 campsites, and camping creates lots of reasons to bathe.

Every morning, as I walked to the restrooms, I’d see people waiting outside the showers for their turn. Many were like me, pondering the shower to camper ratio, but a few were mortified at the presence of others. Most noticeable were the ladies in their 20s. No, I wasn’t cruising the campground bathrooms for chicks, they were noticeable because they so desperately didn’t want to be seen before they showered and “prepped.” The irony is that the utter horror on their faces made them stick out like a sore thumb!

I considered taking a photo, just to post it here — but I thought I might actually cause some young woman to implode out of mortified embarrassment. It seemed a bit cruel for vacation, so I refrained. Plus, I didn’t want to be the guy taking photos of women at the community showers. I mean, I don’t want to be that guy. Eiw.

What the Junk?

We don’t have a junk drawer in our house. That saddens me immensely. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not a big fan of clutter, but it’s very strange to live without a junk drawer. At work, it’s not really been a problem, historically, because I’ve had at least one place for junk. For example:

Junk Drawer

But here at home, my wife is very much against junk drawers. I’m not sure why, and it just seems wrong to me. That leads me to a few questions…

  • If you don’t have a junk drawer, where do you put your super glue, scotch tape, spare batteries, dried up ink pens, scissors, playing cards, poster sticky-tack, coupons, eyeglass screwdrivers, and old wine corks?
  • Are junk drawers an American thing, or is the phenomenon international?
  • What room does your junk drawer live in?
  • What’s in your junk drawer?

So do tell! Inquiring minds want to know.
[audio:https://www.brainofshawn.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/08/whatthejunk.mp3]
Download me reading this post

My Pretty Peculiar Popsicle Problem

I love Pop-Ice. You know, those plastic tubes filled with flavored goodness, which are frozen, and eaten right out of the tube? My favorite flavors are pink and blue. I know, those are colors, not flavors, but really I don’t think they contain any natural flavors at all. I could say my favorite flavor is bimethylhexaflorimine, but really, isn’t it better to say I like pink and blue? I thought so.

The problem is that I LOVE Pop-Ice. I eat them all summer. I eat many of them at a sitting, and I go back for more. I ate 13 in one sitting today. Yeah, I know, that’s sad.

popice.jpg

I think my love for Pop-Ice stems from my youth. When I was little, we lived in the inner city of Detroit. It was the ghetto. The ice cream truck didn’t come to our neighborhood, both because it was scary where I lived, and because none of us could afford anything anyway! So we would scour the alleys for pop bottles. See, in Michigan, we have a 10¢ deposit on our pop cans. (Or soda cans, or coke cans, depending on where you hail from) Not coincidently, Pop-Ice at the corner store cost exactly 10¢. They were the BIG ones too. It was the highlight of the summer, really. The only thing better is when the teenagers would wrench the fire hydrants open and we’d play in the flooded streets — but that’s another story altogether!

What are your favorite summer memories from childhood? Do you like Pop-Ice? If not, can I have yours? 🙂

8 Things I do that annoy people.

clock.pngSometimes I do things for no other reason than being different. Maybe it’s because I like to do things that annoy people. Here’s a short list of 8 things I do off the top of my head.

1) I like to set my alarm clock to PM when it’s AM, and then set my alarm to go off in the PM. There’s no advantage to doing something silly like that, but I like it because it’s wrong and still works. For some reason, I like that.

2) Every time I’m outside at night, I point out stars or planets to whomever I’m with. Every member of my family can find Venus, and my kids race each other to locate the big dipper. My wife mockingly says, “look there’s Venus” whenever we get out of the van. 🙂 I love her.

3) I generally reformat our home computer a couple times a year. I think it’s because I like things to be “clean” when it comes to the operating system. My wife really doesn’t like this. Really really. I tend to be a backup Nazi, so I generally don’t lose any files, but I’m lucky my wife is awesome, or I’d likely be single. 🙂

4) I don’t like to shave. This wouldn’t be a big problem, except that I also can’t grow a beard to save my soul. I look like a bum. In fact, if my wife didn’t refuse to kiss me after a week or so, I’d most likely look like a homeless man with a laptop.

5)

(I also leave things half finished.)
[audio:https://www.brainofshawn.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/08/8thingsidothatannoypeople.mp3]
Click to download the audio file.

Givin’ Scalzi a Hand

John Scalzi (one of my favorite authors) is busy this weekend. Normally, he posts lots of things to entertain his fans, but is unable to do so now. So this inside joke won’t make sense to most, but ya know, anything to keep his fans entertained. (And no, he didn’t solicit help, it’s much more fun this way.)

Zucchini Cat

If you really wonder what on earth the inside joke might be, click here to read about Bacon Cat.

I own this as a shirt

I received the following on a t-shirt for my birthday:

sudo_shirt_thumb.png

And I love it. Really, it is hilarious, and when I first saw it, I almost spit coffee all over my laptop. But there is a problem. It’s really hard to explain what it means to anyone that’s not a Unix/Linux geek! I have a couple other t-shirts that are geeky, but none as difficult to explain as this one.

Unless you’re a geek, you probably don’t get it. Trust me, it’s great. 🙂

Happy Sysadmin Day!

Yep, today is the 8th annual Sysadmin Day. Every summer, the last Friday of July is the official Sysadmin Day. And every summer, here at the school, the entire staff works (4) 10 hour days, so they take off every Friday. You might think they do this to avoid buying me gifts and whatnot (the thought has crossed my mind), but I’m giving them all the benefit of the doubt. Plus, I have air conditioning, and a whole lotta unused bandwidth. So I’m fine. Really.

Best part of Sysadmin Day for me? This video:

As a note — I would normally host files locally, but this one specifically says not to, so I just embedded a YouTube video of somebody else breaking the rules. So you know, I’m only a second hand party to lawlessness. Leave me alone. It’s my day. 🙂