Archive for the 'Funny Bits' Category

Complain all you want, we’ll sing more.

nerkles May 15th, 2008

Look everybody, my first real live Ruby on Rails app!

The Chicago Complaints Choir was looking for a good way to collect new complaints so we can write a new song or two. I’ve been meaning to learn Rails, but couldn’t scrape up the motivation without something “real” to work on. And thus a giant robot was born…

Announcing the Complain-O-Tron 3000™: Complain Here!

Please send in your complaints about anything, one by one, whenever you think of one, and get them off your chest!

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Grampa Simpson and Kent Brockman Need to Calm Down

nerkles July 11th, 2007

Share the Road

I like biking to work. Obviously, it’s good exercise. It’s cheap, faster than the train (in my case, at least) and it’s not killing Mother Earth much. I’m sure the production and transportation of new bikes and tires does a little damage–you always have to consider the whole process–but not nearly as much as a city-dweller’s usually-unjustifiable SUV.

On the way to work, I was going through an underpass that has no bike lane. See, Chicago claims to be oh-so-bike-friendly, except for all the places where the bike lanes just disappear for a few blocks, usually in the kind of busy places where you’d need one the most (I do appreciate the gains made on this front in recent years, but there is much more to do). So this guy in a van is inconvenienced by my presence for literally 8 or 9 seconds, but he can’t handle it gracefully. As we emerged from the underpass, I moved to the side, and he swerved around me and squawked nasally, “eeeee-Yaaa, I’m thinkin’ maybe the sidewalk?”

This type of situation is where my near total lack of machismo really pays off.

I caught up to him at the next light and stopped at his window. If I were a macho manly man I might have shouted at him, insulted his genitals, made fun of his uncanny resemblance to Grampa Simpson, and perhaps even kicked a noteworthy dent into his door. But no, I turned to him and said, “You’re not allowed to ride bikes on the sidewalks here,” and rode along.

Sometimes, I’m too nice. Or am I? That sentence totally stumped the guy. His jaw dropped and he couldn’t think of anything to say back. So maybe it was the right thing to say, and maybe got him thinking about how crazy he was acting.

Later, on the way home, I was again on a street with no bike lane. As the bike safety rules included on the official 2007 Chicago Bike Map recommend, I was riding just to the left of a right turn-only lane (since I was not planning to bike on the highway). A guy with an uncanny resemblance to Kent Brockman rolled up in some kind of Canyonero and boomed, “nice spot!”

I just kept riding, but couldn’t resist flippin’ him the bird as he turned onto the highway.

Sigh…

I just wonder what’s so damn difficult about slowing down briefly to allow a biker to ride safely and without undue stress? Are you in such a hurry to reach the next red light? Is your love for traffic jams so great that you can’t wait an extra 5 seconds to get into that line of cars stuck in the on-ramp?

People in cars, please calm down. And get over yourselves, OK?

(And stop looking like Simpsons characters, while you’re at it.)

Related Reading

My Early “‘L33T H4X0R” days

nerkles April 21st, 2007

So I was just listening to Ben Folds’ iTunes Originals interviews today. In one of the tracks he talks about how he’d write obnoxious songs and put them on a tape to see how people would react. Then he’d go to JC Penney and put it on a stereo and play it in the store. So all of a sudden memories of one of my old favorite pastimes came back.

My first computer was the venerable Commodore 64, and I quickly taught myself to program by typing code out of magazines and then seeing what happened, and then trying out my own ideas.

I got to be pretty good at it. And like most kids, I had to go to various department stores with my parents or grandparents and they’d often leave me in the computer section while they were off getting socks and cat food.

The little impromptu program I’d write would:

  • disable the “Run/Stop” key
  • start a countdown timer for 1 minute
  • put an obnoxious message on the screen
  • start the screen flashing through every possible combination of text & background colors
  • play a terrible siren-like noise

Then I’d turn the volume all the way up, run the program, and get far enough away that I wouldn’t be seen, sometimes I’d go down the escalator, just close enough to hear.

I did that to every department store Commodore 64 that crossed my path for quite a few years.

So to all you department store computer salesmen (they were always men) who had to figure out how to make it stop… well, you got what you deserved. I did it because every one of you would treat me like an idiot if I had any questions or wanted to chat with you about computers. I laughed my ass off every time, and you never caught me. Sometimes it took you a long time to figure out where the volume knob was.

Remember this story next time you’re busy underestimating a 12 year old.

Emergency IT Hologram

nerkles April 21st, 2007

I’ve been catching up on old episodes of Voyager lately. So I had this dumb idea… If I were the Emergency IT Hologram, I’d appear and say:

“Please state the nature of the computational emergency.”

(And there have been many of them the last few days, so I kinda feel a little robotic.)

Dilbert Vista

nerkles April 19th, 2007

If there were an Operating System equivalent of the Dilbert Mission Statement Generator, it would surely have spewn Windows Vista.

Raised Collar 80s Alert!

nerkles August 30th, 2005

WARNING! Humans have been spotted wearing izod shirts with the collars flipped up and F’n docksiders! In NYC of all places!

People. This. Has. To. Stop.

The 80s are over for a good reason, and I’m not just talking about the passage of time here.

Here are a just a few reasons the 80’s need to stay over:

  • Ronnie Ray-gun. ‘Nuff said.
  • Most of the worst. music. ever. happened in the 80s, and almost none of the best music did.
  • more vapid movies than ever
  • worst. clothes. evar.
  • worst. hair. evar.
  • gummy bracelets

OK, I don’t have time right now to work on this list, but feel free to help complete it in the comments.

Official Position on Leg Warmers

nerkles July 31st, 2005

  • Leg warmers always look stupid on everyone.
  • If you own leg warmers and you are not a dancer, you must burn them immediately. You are advised to remove them from your legs first.
  • Fellow humans should tolerate leg warmers for the well-being of dancers, while the dancers are working in a dance-related environment, but under no other circumstances.
  • Non-dancers must wear pants or other suitable non-leg warmer garb to keep their legs warm.
  • If you are not actually a dancer, you have no excuse, and by the way, you look like a total buffoon in those things.

Addendum

  • The burning of leg warmers acquired for non-dance purposes is an essential step. If you give them away or donate them to a resale shop, they may fall into the hands of a non-dancer who is unaware of the few legitimate uses for leg warmers.

You Shouldn’t Make a Web Site for a Good Cause or for Money If…

nerkles June 30th, 2005

  • You say to yourself, “it looks good in Internet Explorer on Windows, now my work is done.”
  • You are unaware that certain color text on certain color backgrounds is literally unreadable to a noteworthy section of humanity.
  • It never occurred to you to think about how your site is experienced by people with disabilities.
  • You think closing an open tag is just too much darn hassle.
  • You think the <blockquote> tag is for indenting stuff.
  • You think that what comes out of Microsoft Word or Front Page actually counts as HTML.
  • You’re waiting for a rainy day to learn CSS.
  • You honestly believe that people who don’t already love you will stick around to read your content, no matter how wonderful or important it may actually be, even though your site is hideous.
  • You are so enamored with Flash that you only learned enough HTML to slap your Flash content onto a page.
  • You think <h1>, <h2>, etc. are for making text big & bold… or you think using the <font> tag to make stuff big and bold counts as a section heading.
  • You don’t read A List Apart and the blogs and books of its contributors and other web smarty-pantses all the time, and joyously learn all you can from them.
  • You expose your clients to more of the gory details of what you do than is necessary (unless they wanna know).
  • You don’t “do nuance”—like learn the difference between <i> and <em>, and why it matters.
  • You don’t update your methods when they are proven obsolete (or worse).
  • You get all offended by lists that poke you in your shortcomings instead of seeing them as an opportunity to improve your work and learn something.

Feel free to contribute to this list, including links to where people can learn to do better.

I’m trying to give a friendly kick to the butt of complacency, not be a total jerkface. In keeping with that spirit, anything mean in the comments will be deleted.