JT Blog

Quitting Facebook

How to quit facebook. I don't like the tone of the article - it almost seems to take itself seriously.

Misfortunes

Conversation over fortune cookies at lunch today:

Coworker #1: "Mine says, 'You will die a slow and painful death.'"
Me: "Mine says, 'You will die a slow or painful death.'"
Coworker #2: "Mine says, 'You will inflict a slow and painful death upon someone.'"

Single-digit temps

Walking, freshly showered, from the company gym to my office (about a 10-minute walk outdoors), I discovered upon arrival that my hair had frozen. Why did I move here again?

Hey Starbucks, what do you believe?

Ok so I just thought this was funny. My Starbucks cup has a quote from Jimmy Carter on it:

"Peace is more than just the absence of war. People everywhere seek an inner peace that comes from the human rights to voice their views, choose their leaders, feed their families and raise healthy children."

I think pretty much everyone can dig that, no? But wait, what's this below the quote?

"This is the author's opinion, not necessarily that of Starbucks."

Seriously, do you need a disclaimer for a quote like that?

Yep, I'm back from London. Hoping to post pictures tonight!

Outlook doesn't want me to remember your birthday

I recently discovered that by switching timezones from Eastern to Central, Outlook has punished me by moving all my stored birthdays/anniversaries two days earlier than their correct dates. Why would it do this, you ask? Here is the support article that explains the bug in all of its absurdity. Note that there is no quick fix to the problem other than a) forcing my computer to think it's in the wrong time zone or b) manually fixing all the events myself. So if I send you a card/present/email wishing you a happy birthday, and it is totally not your birthday, just humor me, thanks.

Sprint divides by zero

So I tried to change my antiquated plan on Sprint PCS to a more hip, with-it kind of plan that gives me more minutes for the same money. I went through the steps online and eventually got this:

You see, "NaN" is computer/calculator parlance for "Not a Number", the result you get when you try to divide by zero. I don't know why Sprint would need to divide by zero, or turn off my phone service because of it, but I bailed out of this process damned quick.  I then called them on my cell, where the voice quality of the call was not good enough for the automated voice system to understand me. I finally fell back to a human voice, who thankfully did not encounter a single not-a-number in handling my request.

Wendy's chili...

...is people!!!

Bird family

For most of the summer there have been mourning doves nesting in one of the flower boxes on our balcony. The current residents are the second family to set up shop there - the first family had two babies, raised them for a few weeks, then everyone flew away. The current family has been cursed with what we can only describe as a "deadbeat mom". The father diligently takes care of the two babies at night, but during the day the mother is nowhere to be found. Unfortunately, the babies are only about a week old and this probably isn't good for them.

Two nights ago, I discovered that one of the babies had left the nest and was squirming around the flower box. The father was sitting on the other one and seemed to be making no effort to help it (a parental lesson in self-reliance?). A dead stalk of what used to be a snapdragon was between baby and nest. To clear the way for the baby's return, I yanked out the stalk. Unfortunately, the baby was holding onto the stalk and was lifted out of the box with it before falling to the floor. I quickly ran to the kitchen, slipped on a dish glove, and returned to find the baby near the edge of our 3rd floor balcony. Picking it up, I placed it on the edge of the nest. Thankfully, it was able to crawl back under the daddy bird.

Given the difficulties of this current single-parent bird family, I'm unsure as to whether I should keep the nest around for the next family.