Random Access

Friday – 21 April 2017
Another week comes to an end.
And, apparently, it’s been a month since I dusted off the trusty blog. I really need to get better about this…

In short: It’s been a good – and eventful – month. The highlights of the month include, but are not limited to:

• Going on a business trip.
• Surprising my parents by showing up on their doorstep on the first leg of the trip.
• Meeting some new coworkers on the trip.
• Getting to visit with my uncle towards the end of the trip.
• Coming down with some travel-related bug that had me down for almost a week.
• The start of baseball season and the O’s getting off to a great start. Hopefully, they’ll keep some of this momentum through the season.
• Meeting a Twitter and Facebook friend.
• TRAINS!  Well, getting to head up to the train.. museum(?)… and one of my favorite train shops.
• Traveling to Boise to visit family and friends over Easter.
  

  Sara, Team DiVa, and Grandmother – Easter 2017

• Watching Team DiVa hunt for Easter eggs while we were gone and seeing their surprise at discovering that the Easter Bunny had apparently left Easter baskets for them at our home while we were out of town.

I’m sure that I’m leaving more than “a couple” things out, but all-in-all, it really has been a good month.

Stray Toasters

• Free Posters Celebrating Mighty Women in Science
• The Cult of Ignorance in the United States: Anti-intellectualism and the “dumbing down” of America
• 11 Stereotypical Roles Offered to Black Men in Hollywood
• I’ve been doing (almost) daily coffee pictures on my Instagram feed for the past few months. Friday, I posted this picture:
  

  Fearless Defenders

  which was 100% inspired by the cover of The Fearless Defenders #1:
  

  

  Fearless Defenders Vol. 1 #1 (c) Marvel Comics

  I don’t think that I can really claim not to be a comics/action figure geek – as if that was possible – but I was rather pleased with how it turned out.

• Have An Airline Complaint? Don’t Call the Airline – Tell the Department of Transportation
  • Airline Quality Rating
• The Incomparable Difference Between Whitewashing and Racebending
• These Rare Color Photos from the Second World War Are Incredible
• 13 Things LEGO Bricks Taught Us About Life
• The KKK and Baseball History

And with that…

So Long, Farewell, Goodbye.
(Big Bad Voodoo Daddy, not “The Sound of Music”)

Tuesday – 21 March 2017
This entry can be filed under “Some People’s Children…”

While doing renovations last year, our company added a cafeteria to our facility. The company that ran it couldn’t always keep up with the demand, so they are no longer here. Yes, this means that we have a largely unused space, but that’s another story.

Our Facilities Manager has done an outstanding job of coordinating with a number of local food trucks to have them fill the void. Today, we had a new-to-our-location truck, Bandera Brisket. They had walk-ups not only from our company, but from some of the other firms in the building, as well.  They didn’t know what the turnout would be, so they didn’t come loaded for bear. And they got SLAMMED. They showed up a little before 11:00 AM and, by the time I went out (12:20 PM-ish), they were out of many meats and some sides; I was the 5th or 6th person in line when they announced this.

The guy in front of me turned to me started complaining about “I came out here for brisket, but if it’s all gone before I get there, I’m going to be upset.”

SIDEBAR:
I understand having your heart, mind and taste buds all set for “Food X.” Been there, done that. I also understand that if you wait too long to go and get something, you might find that it’s already gone.

After the people in front of us were gone, he went up to the window and asked whether there was brisket. There was about 1/3 lb, which he got…
AND THEN proceeded to go on a diatribe about “If there hadn’t been any left, and he’d wasted his lunch time waiting for nothing, that he’d be mad…” Blah. Blah. Blah.

Let’s set the record straight on a few things:

1. There is no requirement for us to have food trucks here.
2. There is no requirement stating that you have to eat at the food truck, if one is here.
3. The vendors didn’t know what to expect and it would have been foolish for them to come out here – for their first time – with a truck full of meat that didn’t sell.
4. Put on your big boy pants and be happy that you have SOMETHING/ANYTHING to eat. Find a meat, ask them to cook it, pay for it, move on.

To me, these things all seem like easy concepts to grasp.
Maybe it’s me.
Maybe it’s Maybelline.

Either way, this comes under #firstworldproblems and it annoyed annoys me.

And, in the interest of full disclosure: I wanted brisket. I wound up getting their ribs – with a savory dry rub – and they were delicious.

Okay, rant over. We now return you to your regularly-scheduled Tuesday.

Thursday – 16 March 2017
Another Thursday begins here in the Land Behind the Zion Curtain.

Don’t nobody bring me…

Let the word go forth.

A month or so ago, I was introduced to a lovely/horrible game (read: “time sink”) called GeoGuessr by my friend, Denise. (Not sure whether to give her credit or blame for this…) Do you like pictures? Do you like maps? Do you like figuring out where on a map a picture is from? This is the game for you.

Thanks to this game, I have now discovered a place, in The Phillipines, where I either want to be buried or have my ashes spread:

C’mon, with a name like this, who wouldn’t want to be buried/have their ashes spread here!? No one. Well, maybe not “alt-right” supremecists, but that’s a discussion for another time and forum.

I think that the only thing that could possibly be better would be to either be buried with these or figure out a way to make them work with cremation/ash spreading:

I found them in a grocery store in southern Utah many years ago. Apparently, they still make me laugh.

Namaste.

Friday – 03 March 2017
I will preface this with a deep cleansing breath and by repeating “I love my job…”

Current mood:

I’m going slightly mad…

I received an email from a co-worker this morning that the thermostat in our server room was beeping. That’s our warning that there’s something “not so right” with the cooling in there. Oddly, we didn’t hear anything from our monitoring company – granted, we might not have hit the temperature threshold for them to start freaking out and calling us.

I called our HVAC maintenance company, informed them what was going on and asked to have someone dispatched. The two usual technicians were already out on calls, but there was another tech who was available and would head out. He got to the office before I arrived. He has (theoretically) been working on the system for the better part of the day.

I went looking for him about 30 minutes ago, to get an idea of an ETA for completion.  He was coming down the hall, another tech with him. His response:

“Four to five hours. I haven’t even [taken] that part out yet.”

My jaw almost hit the floor. Four to five HOURS.

I know that he needed to flush some gases from the system before he could get that part out and possibly even get the replacement part(s), but I don’t know that it takes almost EIGHT HOURS to do that.

So, I guess I’ll just… be here… on a Friday night… working… while he gets this completed.

Yay.

Thursday – 09 February 2017
I work in IT.

Granted it might not as grand an opening statement as ReBoot‘s “I come from the Net…,” but it  gets the point across.

I’ve been working on a server chassis and its resident blade servers for a while, getting it ready to move into production. I’ve been using wired keyboards and mice as the user interface. A week ago, I decided to bring one of my wireless keyboards from home – the keyboard has a built-in mouse and the space where I’m working on the chassis doesn’t have a lot of real estate that’s conducive to rolling a mouse around.

I brought the keyboard in last week and showed it to a coworker. It was at that point that I noticed the wireless dongle wasn’t in its storage slot in the battery compartment.

See that empty spot, just to the left of the left battery…?

I’ve spent the past week looking for it  – at the office, at our manufacturing facility, at home. No dice. This morning, I emptied out my work laptop case to make sure that it hadn’t somehow fallen into one of the pockets. I didn’t find the dongle, but I did find my library card, my membership card to Red Butte Garden, and a few other things. (Not really sure why I put them in my work bag…)

On a lark, I looked in the battery compartment again. You know, in case it had magically reappeared. Because that happens so often…

Still no dongle.

HOWEVER…

When I looked at the cover to the battery compartment

Oh, look.

Dongle. Clipped safely into the slot that holds it in place.

*braincramp*

That’s right, it’s been right there…for the past week. This includes the, at least, five times that I’ve had the keyboard in my hands and the at least three times that I’ve opened the battery compartment. Yet, I never thought to look at the cover. Despite the fact that at some level I knew that’s where it was supposed to be.

Super. Genius.

Saturday – 28 January 2017
Happy Chinese New Year!

Another week comes to a close. Between being sick earlier in the week, having a vmware host decide to go on break – and take a few servers with it – in the middle of a workday, and the political shenanigans that have been going on here in the U.S., I can honestly say that I’m glad to have it in the rear-view mirror (or back-up camera, for some of you).

This isn’t to say that the week hasn’t been without its bright spots. Thankfully, there have been a few.

Stray Toasters

• There’s a Wire Above Manhattan That You’ve Probably Never Noticed
• Everblock
  That’s right: Life-sized, LEGO-like building blocks. This could be both fun and dangerous…
• If You Have a Twisted Sense of Humor, It’s Probably Because You’re a Cool, Chill Genius
• Last weekend, Team DiVa spent the night at their grandparents’ house. On the way home the next day, they were telling us about some of the things they did. This included recounting one of the episodes of My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic that they watched. They told how a “dragon-chicken” (not to be confused with a dragonmouse™) had attacked the ponies’ village and “turned some of them a different color and made them freeze.” This struck a chord with me and I did a quick search on Google for “dragon chicken my little pony” and it returned this picture:
  

  The “dragon-chicken” in question.

  I showed it to the ladies and they confirmed that it was, in fact the creature from the cartoon. A cockatrice. Thank you, Magic: the Addiction Gathering.

  

  © Hasbro / Wizards of the Coast

  “Dragon-chicken,” by the way, became this week’s favorite new word.

• How Author Timothy Tyson Found the Woman at the Center of the Emmett Till Case
• I’m going to lump this next block of links together:
  • I was a “Terrorist B*tch”: Dispatch from Trump’s America
  • Comic Folk React to Trump’s Grabbing America by the Immigration Policy
  • Outraged about Trump’s executive order? Donate to these nine organizations.
  • Peter’s Choice
  • Trump Knows You Better Than You Know Yourself
• This Gaming Dice Soap Has Actual Dice Inside
• She turned her dad’s 50-year-old FBI file into a stunning work of art
• I learned new-to-me things about The Band’s The Weight this weekend.

And that’s all for now.

Namaste.

Wednesday – 11 January 2017
Yesterday was a troubled day. I was of ill humor for the better part of the day, thanks to external forces.

I resolved to bend. Not break.

I also had a seemingly all-too-rare John Stewart moment (1, 2):

Some bridges need to be burned.

Reflecting on that, I even carried the thought further: Some bridges need to be burned – not only to keep you from going backwards – to keep others from dragging you back.

I also realized that in some cases, I don’t just want or even need to burn the bridge, I want to do it so the bridge burns and those on it are purged in the cleansing fire.

I’m not looking back, but I want to look around me now.

Despite being overcast and rainy and this morning’s comedy of errors – I overslept, spilled a LOT of water on the floor while trying to change the water filter in the refrigerator, and spilled a bit of coffee on myself right before leaving home – today has been much better and I’ve solved a work-related problem that contributed to Tuesday’s irritation. These are wins and I’ll gladly take them.

Stray Toasters

• This weekend, I stumbled across the Wisconsin-Purdue basketball game and decided to watch it. About 1/3 of the way into the first half, Vanessa came in, sat down, asked what I was doing, and who I wanted to win the game. I explained that I wanted the Boilermakers to win and why – I went to school there. She was so surprised/excited by this, for some reason, she raced out of the room to tell Diana. Mission accomplished, she came back and watched most of the game. Enthusiastically cheering when Purdue scored, not-quite-booing when the Badgers scored. Diana came in for a fair portion of the second half. It was great. We might have to attend a local game and see if that holds their interest as much.
• Sometimes, working with  a view of the mountains and the airport’s take-off/approach path doesn’t totally suck.
  • Last week, I saw Southwest Airlines’ Maryland One landing. Sure, it’s not really a little slice of home, but it was close enough for me. It surprised me, though, as I didn’t know that SWA was still flying unique liveries like that. I’ll have to keep an eye out for others.
    

    picture (c) Smithsonian Institution

• Stan Lee – and other guests whom I wouldn’t mind seeing – was just announced as coming to Salt Lake Comic Con FanX in March…
• #AlwaysForward
• Everything really is awesome: The Daily LEGO Project finds the whimsy in everyday objects
• The Jackal
• I’m almost done with Dragonflight, the first book in the “Dragonriders of Pern” series. I’ve been enjoying it, despite a few questions I’m sure that almost any Pern-related wiki could answer… but I’m hoping that they play out in the story.
• 5%
• I can find music by Yoko Kanno and/or “a band called The Seatbelts” on Spotify, but neither of them are Cowboy Bebop-related, unfortunately.
• I might play with my trains a bit this evening…
• …there might even be whiskey involved.

.eof

Friday – 06 January 2017
Not that this really comes as a surprise to anyone, but I love my kids.

Taking over one of my coworker’s desk…

Last night, after nearly freezing to death in the arctic tundra snowblowing the driveway and sidewalks, I talked with Team DiVa about their day and school and if they had any homework. “Fine.” “Good.” “This friend…” “We read…” You get the idea.

As they were getting ready to do their reading – and it still kind of blows my mind at how well both of them are reading – Vanessa commented that she couldn’t find one of her homework sheets. Being kids and not always the most keen detectives, I asked her had she looked in a couple of places: her backpack, the living room, the dining room. She said that she had and still couldn’t find it.

::: face begins contorting into a mask of despair :::

I told her that I’d help her look, and I did. And, she was right: Nowhere to be found. For the sake of clarity on my part, I juxtaposed Vanessa’s homework sheets with Diana’s. Lo and behold, Vanessa was missing one. Well, damn.

* cue: “MY WORLD IS ENDING” crying jag *

I looked at the sheet in question and had a minor epiphany. I told Vanessa not to worry, we’d make sure that she had her homework. I took a couple pictures of Diana’s homework, then I headed downstairs. I fired up PhotoShop and imported the pictures, did some (rough and crude) edits to remove Diana’s answers, and printed the pages. Triumphant, I returned upstairs!

Vanessa looked at the sheets, looked up, and said – as only a kid could or would: “The sheets aren’t supposed to be purple!” (Because I didn’t worry about color-correcting the pictures, there was a bit of purple tint to one of the pages.) This, too, almost led to tears. Sara and I assured her that her teacher would still accept i – even if it was the “wrong” color – she just needed to do the work.

Begrudgingly, she accepted this answer and did her homework… but she still had doubts that we actually knew what we were talking about.

Kids. Go figure.

Thursday – 05 January 2017
Welcome to 2017 (five days after the fact…)! So far, my fingers have cooperated in correctly typing/writing “2017,” when writing the date.

Long story, short version: Christmas and New Year were good…

…even though I had to come in to work on the last day of my break to – literally – flip a switch. Twice.

At ridiculous o’clock on 02 Jan, I got a call from our NOC saying that they’d lost the heartbeat for our fax server. (Yes, fax. Yes, 21st Century. *shrug* Don’t ask me.) I said that I’d try to access it remotely… at a reasonable hour. After the sun was up. And the office was closed on the second, anyway.

Sometime later in the morning, I logged in and tried to access the server. No go, Flight. That meant that I had two courses of action:

1. Go in and reset it,
2. Let it swing until Tuesday morning.

The problem with Option 2 (which would have been my preference) was that our finance department actually receives invoices via fax. So… Option 1 it was. I somehow managed to convince Sara and Team DiVa to make an excursion out of it. (This turned out to be a “good” thing.)

Went to the office. Went into server room. Flipped switch. Flipped switch again. Left server room. Called the NOC to confirm that the alert had actually cleared. Got ready to leave.

Got the building lobby and realized I’d apparently left my house and car keys upstairs in the office. *sigh*  Fine. I asked Sara to get the girls in the car while I ran upstairs to retrieve them…

…only to find, once I’d gotten to my office’s elevator lobby, that I’d left my badge in the office, as well.

::: braincramp :::

Fortunately, there were a few people from our finance department in the office; one of them let me in. I went to my desk to get my badge and keys, only to find them suspisciously not… there…

*grblsnrkx*

Yep, I’d locked them – badge-locked, of course – in the server room. Resigned, I headed back downstairs. Fortunately, we’d taken Sara’s car and she had her keys – my car and the key to it were still at home.

Ridiculous, but it makes for a good “At least you didn’t…,” laugh-at-yourself kind of story.

Other than that, things have been kind of quiet. I’m good with that.

Oh, and it snowed last night. About four-ish inches in the valley. It made this morning’s commute “fun.” And by “fun,” I mean “slow and annoying.” On the plus side, it did make the air a little less chewy.

Stray Toasters

• By way of Mike (and supported by the Council for Better Driving): How America Got Addicted to Road Salt – And Why It’s Become a Problem
• After a fitful first attempt many years ago, I’m currently reading the Dragonriders of Pern series.
• #LifeInIT
• I’ve been on a bit of a Crüxshadows kick the past few days. This is not a complaint.
• SR-71s were made to go fast, right…?
  

  • 

    SR-71 “Blackbird” at Hill Aerospace Museum

• It looks as though The Magic School Bus will be returning to screens, via Netflix. Team DiVa will be happy to learn of this.
  • I might have known this at one point, but was recently reminded of it: Little Richard did the theme song for The Magic School Bus.
• Speaking of Team DiVa…
  

  #TeamDiVa2011, doing their best @originalfunko impressions. #Batgirl #WonderWoman #popfigures

  A photo posted by Rob (@shadorunr) on Jan 4, 2017 at 6:06pm PST

• moider
• Watch Justin Lin’s Live-Action ‘Jetsons‘-Inspired Commercial

And, that’s a wrap for now.

Namaste.

Wednesday – 26 October 2016
Today marked my successful completion of another orbit of the sun while, simultaneously, eluding the grasp of The Dark Lady. In accordance with International Robert Neal Days past, I took today off from work. I also took the rest of the week off… because.

The past week was full. I don’t mean that in the sense of “I had so many things going on,” although, that’s not untrue. I mean it in the sense that I got to spend much of the week in the company of some rather fantastic people. The week started with breakfast with my high school classmate, James, and his family…

Breakfast with the Leventhals

…then there was stuff and things in the middle of the week (mostly work)…

…capped off with a co-birthday celebration on Saturday with Alex and some of our friends. And if I want to extrapolate a bit and add this past Sunday, there was dinner with the in-laws AND Sara’s grandmother.

It was a good week. The only thing that could have made it better would have been if there had been members of my side of the family involved. (There’s a tentative “something” in the works for Thanksgiving along those lines…)

Today was a quiet day; Sara and the girls let me sleep in. And I did. Then, I proceeded to spend a leisurely day full of… well… a lot of nothing. And it was perfect. Later, Sara and the girls came home and took me to dinner at the local Outback Steakhouse. We then came home for cake and presents. The ladies got me a humidor and a box of RubySnap cookies. Win-Win!  I wound up the evening (so far) with a cigar, some whiskey, and an episode of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. There may even be some videogaming to close out the day.

Hello, 46. I look forward to getting to know more about you.

Stray Toasters

• This doesn’t really need an introduction:
  
• Dad Turns His 6-Year-Old Son’s Drawings Into Reality
• The Chicago Cubs won the NL pennant on Saturday, for the first time since 1945. Alex (mentioned above) is from Chicago and a Cubs fan; watching her watch Saturday night’s game was interesting. The win was a wonderful early birthday present for her. But, there are a lot of things that have happened since the Cubs last won the pennant:
  
• Tech’s gender gap is getting worse, not better, report says
• I voted last week. I can officially stop paying attention to campaign pablum.
  • I just confirmed that my ballot has been received.
• Titanfall 2 drops (no pun intended) on Friday. That might be another birthday present to myself. Now, I just need to figure out PC or console…
• Skateboarding in an abandoned nuclear missile silo

Namaste.

Friday – 14 October 2016
This morning, I came into work a couple hours early, so I could leave early and check out a ballet rehearsal. There were… issues… so, the ballet became a non-factor in my day.

::: fast forward a few hours :::

While on call with my manager and my east coast counterpart, a question about a maintenance repair on a server came up: We contacted our support company a couple of days ago to schedule service a server and drive array (Aw yeah, Titans! warranty repair!). The parts arrived today, but there was no word about the tech who was supposed to facilitate the repair.

For the rest of the story, please deposit 25¢ , I will copy the email I just sent to my coworker and boss:

1. Called [provider] to follow-up on tech dispatch – he was assigned the Incident, but waiting for the parts to be delivered. I asked to have the appointment sceheduled for Monday morning and hung up the phone.

2. Got a call from the receptionist’s desk… telling me that [tech] was here now.

3. [Tech] went in to start working on the server and arrays… only to find that they sent the wrong drives.
a. He changed the battery in the server
b. He’s shipping back the SSDs and requesting the proper SAS drives.

WHEEE!

And that’s how my day has gone, so far. Good thing it’s (almost) over.

#LifeInIT #ajobaintnuthinbutwork #TGIF

Namaste.

Tuesday – 09 August 2016
Have you ever had one of those moments when you read something and it seems perfectly logical in your head – for a few seconds, at least – and then you have to retrace all of the steps to make sure that you really read it properly?

Yeah, okay… that makes sense.

You have?

Good.

How about one of those moments when you read something AND it seems perfectly logical in your head AND you retrace all of your mental steps… yet it still seems a little off?

But… that… doesn’t even make good crazy peoples’ sense…

That happened to me a short while ago.
And it proved to me that I’ve been in Utah too long.
Naturally, it came by way of Facebook…

A friend’s wife posted something about a family they know who is moving. She added:

“Thank you to all the First Pres worship team who came to celebrate…”

And the first thing in my head was: “The First Presidency¹?!”

Nope. She meant “First Presbyterian.”

*derp*

¹ – For those of you who either: A) don’t live in Utah or B) not Mormon, the First Presidency is the presiding or governing body of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Monday – 18 July 2016
It’s the day after National Ice Cream Day and, for my sin of gluttony, I think I’m going to Hell.

Okay, that’s not entirely true.

Yes, yesterday was National Ice Cream Day.
Yes, I did eat ice cream.
Yes, I ate “quite a bit” of ice cream.
(And, yes, there’s still a lot of ice cream in our freezer.)

But, those are not the reasons I probably have an eTicket to Hell reserved in my name. Like so many others, my road to Hell was paved with good intentions. And it even started so innocuously. Need proof? Here it is:

Earlier, I received an email with a link to this article: Incredibly Epic Statue of Ancient Chinese Warrior God Unveiled. And they weren’t just whistling Dixie (or any other song, for that matter); this statue is rather epic. Bonus points for truth in advertising. Seriously, check out this statue:

Guan Yu – photo (c) CCTV News China

So, I’m looking at this statue when, out of the blue, a thought pops into my head:

Battle of the Titans: Guan Yu vs. Big Butter Jesus!

It proceeded to go downhill from there. Rapidly.

For the unfamiliar, here’s some information about Big Butter Jesus and here’s a look at His Oleo Holiness:

Big Butter Jesus – photo (c) The Huffington Post

I know what you’re thinking: “That’s, quite obviously, a statue of Jesus… and it’s not made of butter.” You’re right. It is and it isn’t, in that order. So, how did it wind up with the sobriquet “Big Butter Jesus?” Because of Heywood Banks and this song:

So, yes, thanks to a couple of giant statues, Heywood Banks, and the way my mind is wired, I’m going to Hell. Handbasket. Gasoline draws. At least I’ll have something to listen to on the way there:

Namaste.

Tuesday – 28 June 2016
Over the past few years, Sara and I have talked – mostly idly – about replacing some of the appliances in our home. One that we knew was on the long-range forecast was the refrigerator. It has, in the last three weeks, vaulted to the lead – something about having to defrost the bloody thing three times in less than two months kind of gets your attention. We hadn’t really discussed the type of replacement fridge we wanted; we just knew that we needed something “not as old” as our current fridge. Last night, we packed up Team DiVa and headed to the local Home-Away-from-Home Depot to check out the options.

Not surprisingly, they had many options.

One of the first ones we saw was a petite – no, really, we’re talking 9 cubic feet – fridge. I commented that we had found our fridge and that we could call it a night. I even suggested that we could get two for less than the price of one full-sized refrigerator – at almost the same storage capacity. I don’t think that Sara actually vocalized her thoughts, but the eye roll spoke volumes.

We looked up and down the aisles at the various models and prices: top-freezer, bottom-freezer, french door, four-door, ranging from $300 – $4500 (I’ll come back to this one in a minute). Team DiVa took advantage of this opportunity to open the doors that they could… and were shocked that some of them were “brr-coldy inside!” Shocked, I tell you!

I’d mentioned before that we weren’t sure what model we wanted. While walking around, we decided that a side-by-side model would be best, as it would allow the little ladies better access to both fridge and freezer – a prospect that excited both of them.

And, although they didn’t say anything, I’m pretty sure that the built-in ice and water dispenser will be a hit as well, given how fond they are of the one on their grandparents’ refrigerator.

About that $4500 refrigerator that I mentioned earlier: It’s a four-door, 27.9 cubic foot appliance. With a touchscreen. And cameras. Just let that sink in. Ladies and gentlemen, say “Hello” to a fridge that costs many times more than a mortgage payment: The Samsung Family Hub 4-Door Flex French Door Refrigerator

The lower-right door? It can be either a fridge or a freezer. It has three (3) cooling zones – top, bottom-left, and bottom-right. The touchscreen? It’s wifi-enabled AND you can stream music to it or mirror your TV output to it (as long as it’s a qualifying model). Don’t want to open the door to look in? It has cameras to look at what’s inside. Yeah. Someone needs to drop a mic and walk off-stage…

…but for that kind of money, we could get a new air conditioner and keep the whole house cool. Granted, probably not “ice cream and frozen meat” cool, but you get the idea.

The new addition to the kitchen family will be delivered next week.

Tuesday – 21 June 2016
Excerpted from a conversation:

[11:48 AM] Dave1: Dave2, interesting. You said earlier “guessing another breaker needs replaced”, and that use of “needs + past participle” is quite localized to western PA. http://microsyntax.sites.yale.edu/needs-washed

[11:49 AM] Rob: Dave1: It’s not that localized. I hear it here all the time.

[11:50 AM] Dave1: uhoh, it’s spreading.

[11:50 AM] Rob: It’s fostered my “Whatever happened to transitive verbs?” question

[11:50 AM] Steve: dear god. we must stop it.

[11:50 AM] Dave2: oh….more likely is my shitty typing…I would have vocalized “needs to be replaced” or “needs replacing”

[11:50 AM] Dave1: There might be an Oregon branch of it: http://www.quickanddirtytips.com/education/grammar/needs-washed

[11:51 AM] Dave1: “You’ll see that although it’s concentrated in the areas I just mentioned, it’s certainly not limited to them. For example, I was surprised by the number of people in southern Oregon and southern Idaho who reported hearing “needs washed” kind of sentences.”

[11:51 AM] Rob: Yeah. That.

[11:51 AM] Dave1: (red means ‘not heard’)

[11:51 AM] Steve: looks like the Dakotas are the only safe place left.

[11:52 AM] Dave1: isn’t that because there’s nobody there? 🙂

[11:52 AM] Steve: probably.

[11:52 AM] Steve: oh. and Maine

[11:52 AM] Dave1: the lobstahs kill anyone who says ‘needs washed’ in Maine.

[11:53 AM] dga: DFWTL.

[11:58 AM] Rob:Old furry lobsters.

[11:58 AM] Steve: Fury Lobsters.

[11:59 AM] Rob:Nick Fury Lobsters!

[11:59 AM] Steve: Fast and the Nick Furious.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to go write a fan-fic about one-eyed, secret agent lobsters in obscenely fast cars….