The best T-shirt - ever

My officemate is pregnant. She wore this shirt last week and I thought it was the funniest thing I'd seen in a long time!

Well, when she wore it again today, I just HAD to have a picture!

Awesomeness...

Lost pictures from 2008

My April Fool's Day joke at work (before):


After:

Whenever I saw the original, I always thought it said, "Mother Goose". Took some folks awhile to "get it", but when they did, it was pretty funny. The sign remained until the fake S wore off, just a few months ago.


My fake "bobcat scratching". I told people for weeks that a Bobcat scratched me when I was mountain biking. :o) In reality: my bike fell over when I was standing on the side of the trail eating and my chain ring slashed my leg. It bled really good...

The "sleeping squirrel". You decide. Asleep? Crawled up under the car tire and died? Or was ran over and killed? I won't release the name of the person who's tire this is (to protect the innocent), but it was hilarious! Look at it - poor little squirrel...


The ugliest birds on the planet... They are called "Turkey Geese". Someone didn't bother hitting them with an ugly stick - they used the whole forest. These were pointed out to me at Christmas when I was in Texas. They have that weird red "waddle" or whatever its called that turkeys have on their beaks, and the black and white feathers. But they seem to have mates, so I guess there really IS someone for everyone...


Too bad this one isn't clearer, but I can't retake the picture, because I've already thrown it away. I'm including it as a lost 2008 picture because it was actually PURCHASED in 2008. Okay, so I didn't find it till yesterday, so technically it's 2009. But not. It took me awhile to figure out what it was, so I made sure to take a picture of the label:

Honestly, I thought it was a walnut. But it was curiously sparkly, like it was crystallized. I was scratching my head and then I saw the label. A cutie (tangerine). I bought a boatload of those last year. May, to be exact. I had a bona-fide science project fossilizing in the vegetable drawer of my refrigerator. BLEAH!!!

I'm glad it's 2009...

Just needed some inspiration!

Blogging sporadically. Been busy doing nothing. Very little riding. I've touched my bike a few times, mostly to move it when I'm vacuuming. A clean house is a... yeah. I miss riding, actually. Guess I'll start up again really soon. Tomorrow, I think.

Anyway, as I was leaving one of the cafe's at work today, I noticed this car... I can't believe I hadn't seen it before (obviously, it's been there AWHILE)! And I thought MY car was dirty! Guess not... The writing on the windshield is pretty funny too.


Just needs a "help me", "wash me" or "free to good home" write-in, and it would be perfect. At least the owner has a good sense of humor: "Batt dead - will move soon"...

White Trash day at lunch and Day 2 of my social experiments

We have these different themed cafe's at work. The one I generally eat at has a Spanish-style tapas menu, which gives me the chance to have a nice green salad, PLUS something else really tasty. I always create a little "bowl" of tasty stuff, usually with a bit of rice or something. The chefs tease me about it and "is it a rice bowl today? or a pasta bowl?" This week has been really confusing. Corn-dogs, garlic fries, lasagne, etc. Today was the kicker. Green bean casserole, buffalo wings, potato skins, little cheeseburgers. It may be obvious to others, but since I'm not much of a football fan, the week's menu items were lost on me. I was laughing, thinking, "Surely this must be White Trash Week in the Spanish cafe!". Nope. All week was in honor of football starting, so the theme was: Tailgate Food. My favorite chef, Jason, was all fired up to see me today. "Have I got a bowl for you!!! We'll get you some potato skins, add a little chili, some cheese and jalapenos! It'll be the best!" Gad, he talked me into it, sans jalapenos. The heartburn-inducing creation is below:
As much as I hate to admit it: it was really good! Not long after I snapped the picture, it was gone. I'll probably regret it later, but a very tasty treat, and unlike anything I ordinarily eat.

The social experiment is something else. Although it does tie in nicely with today's lunch menu. I work with a lot of social retards. I think that a lot of engineers are pretty introverted anyway, and my work environment seems to accept it and expound on it, creating more introverted introverts than any other high tech company I've ever worked for. And I really thought the old-time mainframe programmers I used to work with at Boeing with were the geekiest of the lot. I was soooo wrong. The nerd of 2008 is more socially retarded than anyone I've ever worked with in the 24 years I've been in high-tech. Seriously. I also seem to have a lot of social retards where I live. Won't make eye contact, won't say hi, even if they live across from you. It's crazy. So my social experiment is to start saying "HI" to all of these socially-retarded folks. Even if I don't get answers in return. The experiment part is to see if the more I do it, the more people might be coaxed out of their shells.

I started yesterday with a neighbor. I was out with my dog and stepped out of her way, making direct eye contact and chirped, "Good morning!". I think she greeted me with a quiet grunt, although I'm not really sure about that. I did a bit of it in the lunch line yesterday, but it seemed most folks were in a good mood, and there were only like 3 people in line.

Today was different. There were definitely more folks in line at lunch, and when I was joking with the chefs about the white trash menu and they were flipping it all back at me, it seemed to engage those around me. The people on both sides of me were listening, laughing and asking questions, and even talking to me. CRAZY! Could it really be that simple?

Experiments to continue indefinitely...

There are no words...

Our President, at the Olympics. Lovely representation...

We have TWO butt gasket bandits!

I was sort of glad to have caught the one last week, but on Friday, I caught a 2nd one. God. Both women have kids. And homes. And husbands. And the 2nd one, even has a cook, so I presume she thinks that someone should just pick up after her.

Wrong idea, sistah!

Anyway, with some input from some nice people who left comments, I'm doing the following: I've created a funny checklist, which I'm going to hang up in each stall. It's printed and all official, and not hand-written (since my hand-writing sucks). And this way, if someone gets pissy and tries to take them down, I'm just a button click away from printing 1 more for each stall.

I tried to be realistic, cover ALL the bases and still have a sense of humor about it, so that it can be fun to learn. Jeez. Now if that doesn't work, the founder's admin is going to help me out and the both of us are going to go talk to both of these butt gasket bandits.

Here's the note, in case someone else needs a copy for their own work-place bathrooms (note: here at work, they hang up official notices in the bathrooms called "Testing on the Toilet". Since I'm not interested in working while I'm taking care of bizness, I pretty much ignore them. But I lifted the title for my own signage):

TESTING ON THE TOILET
Before you walk out of the stall, do the following:

1) IF the toilet an Auto-flush toilet, did it flush?
IF YES
good, proceed to step 2
ELSE
push the button and flush it
IF NO
surely you remember how to flush a normal toilet. do it.

2) Did everything get flushed?
IF YES
good, proceed to step 3
ELSE
go back to step 1

3) Is your seat liner still on the toilet seat?
IF YES
for God's sake, push it into the toilet bowl and go back to step 1
ELSE
good, proceed to step 4

4) One last check of the seat, did you leave any drops of "bodily fluids" behind?
IF YES
Does your Mother work here?
IF YES
don't burden your Mother! you're old enough to clean up after yourself
ELSE
wipe off the seat
IF NO
Do you see a full-time attendant in the bathroom who'll clean up after you?
IF YES
clearly, you're lost and in the wrong building
ELSE
wipe off the seat
ELSE
all of the women of 1055 Joaquin thank you - you may now exit

So I'm not a jerk, my co-workers are just lazy slobs

This time, I taped it to the top of the mirror, since all of the big paper clips have mysteriously gone missing. The worst part, in using the long piece of tape to grab the butt gasket off the toilet, the end of the butt gasket dipped into the toilet. EEEEEEWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW!!! Too bad the picture didn't come out better...

If I can catch this person, I think the funnier thing would be not to confront them, but to silently put a butt gasket on their desk chair. This was suggested by a co-worker and I think it would be awesome!

I'm on a mission now...

Sometimes I can be a jerk

A funny jerk, mind you. But a jerk. I have this pet peeve at work: women who don't bother to see if the auto-flush toilet actually flushes their junk down the toilet, women who drip all things unholy on the toilet seat and then leave it for some unlucky bloke, and women who leave the butt gasket on the toilet seat. Jesus. I work at Google for crissakes. Some of the brightest minds work here. Supposedly. Yet these women (I've been trying to catch the culprits for months, because I can shame them like no other... and I've been bleakly disappointed to not catch a one of them) expect someone else to clean up after them.

A few months ago, someone left a butt gasket on the toilet. Incensed, I went and got a sticky note and a red Sharpie and left a note, with a brand-new butt gasket taped to the mirror. "You left this behind. I thought you might want it." I ran out of the bathroom trying not to laugh. A few hours later I went back in and it was gone. Bummer.

Earlier today, I went in, and there was a butt gasket left on my favorite heated toilet seat. UGGGGH! So I used a different stall. Tonight, when I went into the bathroom to change for my ride, there it was. The used butt gasket was back in my favorite stall. Even though I had to use the "big stall" to change in and go to the bathroom - I couldn't help it. I found myself digging through my backpack for a Sharpie and scrap of paper. I left a note: "Please take this with you next time. Nobody wants to sit on a USED seat liner. Gross!!". The cleaning staff leaves a couple of gigantic paper clips in the bathroom to use to prop the door open, so I grabbed one and used it to grab the butt gasket off the toilet. I then grabbed the note and somehow got part of the butt gasket in the sink, setting off the automatic water faucet, which washed away part of the used butt gasket. By this time, I was almost crying from stifling the laughter. Using the end of the clip, I attached the entire thing to the tampon dispenser, took a picture, changed my clothes and got the hell out of there before I got an aneurysm from holding back the laughter...



I sure hope it's still up in the morning, although I'm afraid to go look!

Wow, I guess I got my wish

That's the last time I gripe about the lack of hot weather. My bad...

Cracking me up (pun intended)

Last Friday, we had a little TGIF celebration at Google. It was kind of a big deal, since they were basically introducing us (Postini) as a whole to the rest of the Google TGIF'ers. (Boy, that's a whole other blog post, let me tell you. I've worked with some geeky people in my 20+ years in high tech, but dammmmmmmmmmmmn. I saw some sh*t Friday that just takes the cake.)

We celebrated Google accomplishments (lots of polite clapping), and more Google accomplishments, blah, blah, blah. There was free food, and free beer (heyyyyy, that's what I'm talking about!) and free water. Oh, wait. Water IS free. Mostly. Anyway, all the water and beer and on the way back to the shuttle bus, I realized: I'm not going to make it back to San Carlos. I gotta pee! I stopped at a building and it was off to find the restroom. Found it, with the help of a fellow Googler! And jeez. What the hell? The toilet seat looked weird. Surgical-like hoses coming out of it, a weird little control panel on the wall next to the toilet. What is this? When I sat down, I found that the seat was HEATED! As I was examining the control panel, I realized that the funny toilet seat was actually a bidet! It even had pictures on the buttons. Ha, ha, ha.



Okay, I've never seen a bidet. I admit it. But an OFFICE building was the last place on Earth (next to my parents place) that I ever expected to see one! The worst part: I was on the verge of cracking up, but I couldn't, because someone else was in there!!! I was afraid to test it out, in case it reacted badly and I didn't want to explain why the back of my shirt was all wet...