Niff.Dot

Phil S. (not the Phil of Haiku fame…this Phil is my Mad Libs buddy) sent me this image in an email. Knowing my love of art and of comic sans, he drew this picture of me and sent it post-haste in an email.

It’s almost as if he looked directly into my soul!

Click

here
for more information.

voulez-voulez-vous all hail the Queen.

So I was made aware of this recently:

click here for teh hawesomeness…

This was, oh so good to be true…

So I am posting our submittal email. It is long. It may be boring. It may be disregarded by most of you because of these facts. I say…uh, so?

Here you are:

“Dearest ThinkGeek:

(This may need a little history first…so I am going to copy and paste from a blog entry I did):
“Last week I started this new thing where I demanded that everyone in my section of cubicles write me a daily haiku. By 10:00 am. After explaining what exactly a haiku was, I discovered that my otherwise preoccupied peers actually did it…some were so enthusiastic they would write several in a day. Some would even write one without being prompted in the morning with my direct albeit threatening reminder emails…I suppose it was our substitute for smoke breaks.”

So, this began back on July 9th…my 6 coworkers and I. To my amazement this has reached astronomical proportions, completely by accident. To date there have been 427 haiku’s composed. (I’m not sure of the apostrophe protocol of Haiku(‘s) but I’m winging it here…). So when a friend noticed your contest, and knowing my love of your catalog (most notably for your pi merchandise) and the Collective’s Great Haiku Experiment…I did not see coincidence…I saw destiny!

Since as of yesterday we had no haiku’s composed that could really be considered “techie” or “geeky”, and since we have “haiku themes” on a regular basis, the theme was set, and haiku’s were produced.

There are several authors here, but as we see ourselves as a Collective, we felt we had to send them en masse. That and some of the haiku’s tended to become a back and forth conversation between us. So my deepest apologies if this is highly inconvenient, but I feel it would be a disservice to The Collective to not submit our work together.

So.

* Your First Name: Jennifer, David, Ed, Chris, Heather, Andrew, Phil
* Your location (City/State or City/Country) Seattle, WA
* Your Haiku(s)

Here you are, with the brief introduction provided in our 82-page (yes, 82) Word document of Haiku’s:

Then we learned that ThinkGeek was having their own haiku contest
where the requirements were:
Your Haiku MUST be geeky and/or infused with a technological bent.
(and this part we thought was especially awesome):
“You can submit as many original Haikus as you like, please keep them within a single email to make it easier on us though.”
(um, not sure if the “easier on us” statement, when applied to our submittal, is quite what you have in mind, but…this has great potential, we felt…)

Without further ado.

Doom 3 is my fave
Too bad that I have a Mac
my processor sucks.

Jennifer

I can recite Pi
Up to 200 digits.
Thus have no boyfriend.

Jennifer

Open tag close tag
I adore HTML
CSS hates me.

Jennifer

Touchscreen interface
+ kids with snotty fingers
= viral bomb

Philip

Please don’t overload
Flux Capacitor. Great Scott!
We’ll never get home

Chris

Robots we will be
A data input function
Slaves to computers

Chris

Blank stare at the screen
Instant gratification
Beware tech zombies!

Chris

Hail Jean-Luc Picard
Best, Starfleet Captain, Ever
Set Phasers to Stun

Chris

Indiana Jones
Now enjoy it in 3D!!!!!
George Lucas, you whore.

Philip

Demolition Man–
When they plucked out that guy’s eyes..
Let’s stay analog.

Philip

Online gaming: lame.
Screw that World of Warcraft junk
Give me Minesweeper

Jennifer

I’m out of practice
Haikus don’t roll off the tongue
Jenn only skilled for PONG

Andrew

Late night, eyes blurry,
Yelling out “More DOTS, More DOTS!!”
Gaming is stressful.

David

You’ll get sweet lovin’
Sugar…Baby…just gotta
Finish this level…

Jennifer

Dress up in costume
To role play in the forest
Just like Robin Hood

Heather Van

Once an episode…
Computer – tea, earl grey – hot…
Damn, tea is sexy…

Jennifer

Elf ears and cloak, check.
Perfect elvish dialect,
Here I am, ladies!

David

Or you could dress up
As a powerful Sith Lord
Stand in movie line

Chris

We are SG-1
Oooh! Richard Dean Anderson!
Teal’c is hotter bald.

Jennifer

Oh the poor Asgard
Beware the replicators!
Thor is worm-fodder

Jennifer

Stargate: Atlantis
Is such a lame-ass ripoff!
Hammond is cooler!!

Jennifer

It’s the Chapa-ai!
Watch out for the goa’uld!
Wormholes are awesome

Jennifer

Sadly, SG-1’s
Richard Dean Anderson is
No Scott Bakula

Chris

Enter my Tardis
Come along! Don’t make a fuss!
Trapped with me in time…

Philip

Aw, no need to cry!
Care for a jelly baby?
Now, there’s a good girl.

Philip

You’ll never be free!
Now obey your new Time Lord–
Serve my robot dog!

Philip

I have to quote Phil…
“Ignorance is my weapon!”
That’s funny right there…

Jennifer

YES! Continuum!
The One I’ve Been Waiting For
Netflix Is My Friend

Ed

Oh we are the Borg
We will assimilate you
Our skin is nasty

Jennifer

We are perfection!
And resistance is futile!
You organic slime!!!

Jennifer

We are Locutus!
No tea earl grey hot for you!
Number one? Hello…?

Jennifer

Rejected CC
Wrong number? Three digit code?
Insufficient Funds?

Chris

Poor Lieutenant Yar.
Engulfed in a pool of goo.
So embarassing.

Jennifer

Commander Data
“Oh no, my emotion chip!”
Such a whiner now.

Jennifer

Q is Teh Hawesome!
He toys about with Picard.
Most enjoyable.

Jennifer

Picard to Riker!
On screen! Engage! On my mark!
Warp 2! So bossy!

Jennifer

You forgot Geordi
He works on the engines and
Hosts Reading Rainbow

Chris

And what about Worf
Always struggles with temper
That silly Klingon

Chris

These were pulled from the previous Collective’s Collection:

evolutionist
psuedointellectual
congratulations

Andrew

Dot, dot, dash, dash, dot
Dash,dot,dot, dash, dot, dash,dash.
Dot,dot, dot, dot, dash.

David

The Web under seige
Invading the blogosphere
Haiku’s will conquer

Chris

Plant energy source,
They cannot live without it.
Photosynthesis.

David

Photosynthesis
Lets just pick random words now
What a crock of poop

Philip

Photosynthesis
Makes plants Photosynthesize
As in the act of

Chris

Oh the green green leaves
Photosynthesis takes place
Yummy food from sun!

Jennifer

Photosynthesis?
Doesn’t happen at my house
My plants are all dead

Heather

Accursed sunlight!
Photosynthesis shall fall!
Methane sea Vents WIN!!!!!!!

Philip

Nothing grows in here
Darkness is all pervasive
No seeds will blossom

Andrew

In the dark I take
Pictures of plants, so why no
Photosynthesis?

Chris

I.T. just called me
seems that we crashed a server
Go team venture go!

Andrew

3.141
5926535
8979

Jennifer

Comic Sans, Woo-hoo!
I’m festive and appealing!
Use it everyday!

David

XBOX 360–
Finally it’s worth owning…
Fable 2 is near!

Philip

Got My Brand New Wii
Won’t Be Playing Much Else Now
Make Room And Fear Me

Ed

Forget Fable 2,
No other game but Lo tro,
Nothing else matters.

David

I’m still stuck playing
Guitar Hero III but can’t
Wait for Fable 2

Chris

Cry myself to sleep
Jacked up my home computer
No internet now

Cannot surf the web
World of Warcraft must now wait
Blankly stare at walls

Andrew

OUCH! My Worst Nightmare
To Not Have World Of Warcraft
Should Just Kill Me Now

Ed

Wikipedia
Random Article Button
Brain degredation.

Jennifer

finis

So, we might be disqualified by sheer overwhelming mass alone, but I’m just excited to send this out there somewhere. This is probably more haiku’s (again the apostrophe protocol disclaimer) than you planned on receiving for the entire contest, but if nothing else it might provide some relaxing light reading…

My humblest regards,

Jennifer and the Collective”

*fingers crossed*

voulez-voulez-vous…discarding humility for a moment…I can accomplish some damn cool things when I’m focused…long-live OCD!

*oh, my, there is the moststunning sunset right now…

So I climb aboard the #8 bus to Seattle Center via Cap Hill and as I sit down I notice an assortment of coinage on the floor. Being hot on the heels of The Great Seattle Times Penny Experiment, this was just too good. I stifled a giggle so as to not arouse any suspicions that yet another mad vagrant made it onto the bus. I look at the floor. I look at the pennies. I must photograph this, I think to myself.
Only problem was, there was someone sitting next to me.
It then occurred to me that someone sitting next to you on the bus taking pictures of the ground might arouse even more suspicion than the aforementioned giggling, so I paused. My seat-mate didn’t seem like the type to go postal if I tapped her on the arm, so I did so.
“Excuse me…”
She removes her earphones.
“Yeah?”
I was going to take a picture of the floor, and I noticed your foot was there, and wanted to see if you minded…”
She laughs.
“Oh, no i don”t mind…”
I smile.
“Awesome, thanks. I didn’t want you to think I was some creepy bus-perv with a foot fetish…”
She laughs again. Asks:
“Can I ask what you’re taking pictures of?
“The pennies on the floor…”
She clasps her hands over her mouth and gasps…
“Oh, I’m sorry…I dropped those earlier…”
I say,
“Oh, no no no please, this is perfect; i just need to blog about this…”
“yeah…” she says. “I dropped them all when I sat down, and was going to pick them up, but thought ‘fuck it’. ”
“You have no idea how perfect that is…” I say.

So, there is photo #1. i hope you enjoyed it.

Photo #2 and accompanying (albeit less entertaining) narrative:

Phil and I had decided to take the Great Penny Experiment one step further. We scattered the pennies on the floor between our cubes as usual, but Phil had other plans. He kidnapped David’s can of Mandarin oranges in light syrup (David had been trying to pawn them off on us for days; no one trusted them, so Phil thought he was justified in absconding with them) and strategically placed them alongside the discarded coinage to see if people would bend down to pick up the oranges, but not the pennies.
I must add that by now, most of the advertising floor is onto us with the whole penny business and as such they pretty much disregard any weirdness going on in our row of cubes. This proves challenging to our experimentation and we’re considering relocation.
So, nothing spectacular to report on the oranges vs pennies front. I was keeping a tally at one point. i think at last count it was oranges: 3, pennies: 0, since those who opted for the oranges didn’t actually get to keep them. (We told them it was for the good of science and mankind and if they really wanted oranges they needed to get their own).
Turns out we were doing them a favor.
As the day concluded we gave up and I opened the can to nosh on them a bit since I had forgotten my lunch. Shared with Phil. He got pissed. They tasted like ass.

Phil has now built up an arsenal of pennies in his desk and has resorted once again to using them as projectile weaponry (most notably at me) as the experiments seem to have become fruitless.

voulez-voulez vous find a penny pick it up, then all day you’ll have…mandarin oranges.  But not really.

When you can put it to good use?

I know I’ve posted pics of this damn thing before. And I know even though I’ve added quite a bit since I last posted update pics (in my eyes anyway)…I know to most everyone else it looks…well, the same.
Eh, it’s MY doodle. So ha.

voulez-voulez-vous rose windows are very teh.

Only because I just now noticed this.

I edit and process all of the obituary photos. Photoshop has a script set up where when the editing and conversion is complete, it automatically sends it to the printer. With my foot being incapacitated, I try and limit the number of trips back to the printer, so I let them accumulate over a period of time, then go and collect them in one felled swoop. So basically it is a giant stack of photos of dead people.

Today I noticed the following on the printer tray:

I’m betting it was Andrew…he’s the only one who calls me “Jenn”. I will have to investigate.

voulez-voulez-vous I see dead people.

You may want to bail now.
I try not to do those “oh poor me” blogs, but since I don’t really write in my journal anymore I’m throwing it in here. Deal.

So, a week ago Monday I discovered to my annoyance that the top of my foot had gone numb and I was also unable to lift my foot (as in a toe-tapping motion). As such, when I would walk, I was unable to control the movement of my foot in the “heel to toe” portion of the step and my foot was “kathunking” on the ground. Thought it was weird, told housemates, they ruled that I needed to go to the doctor NOW. Doctor closed. Kira ran me to the ER.

Now, the reason I wasn’t as worried as those around me was that I was also going through an epilepsy med transition which left me with dizziness, unsteadiness, and slurred speech for a few days. Epilepsy meds always make you a bit quirky so I wrote it off as one of the “quirks”. So, hung out at the Swedish ER for four hours with Kira at my side…which was really funny as she used to be a firefighter, trained in EMT-ish stuff, and as such she kept answering the doc’s questions for me since I was poo-paw-ing the whole thing. So, they shone lights in my eyes and whacked my knees and poked me with needles and shot electromagnets in my brain tested my hearing and balance and took blood and called my neurologist at 1 a.m. (which I’m sure he loved) after all this really had no answer except that it was probably foot drop and that if there was no improvement in two days to come back to the ER. Ok, whatever, went home.

Two days later, no improvement, but I didn’t want to go back, so, I didn’t go back. By day 3.5 I was once again told (mostly by my overly-worried mother) to run back to Swedish (at another $100 copay) where I saw a different doctor, who had no more answers than the first, but at least she gave me a brace to keep my toes from dragging on the ground when I walked. Just wish I could get it to fit in my clogs; all I can really wear with it are open back shoes and sandals. Meh.

So, I have an appointment with my new neurologist on Tuesday, where we’re going to discuss increasing my med levels since I’m still having seizures, daily, as well as making a laundry list of what’s been making me so pissy this week. (Here’s where the extreme whining comes in).

So far I’ve got:

– Foot is numb from the base of my toes to about 6 inches up the front of my shin (only on the top and along the inside of the arch, which is why I can still “walk”

– Unable to lift foot (hence the toe-dragging)

– Feelings of heat shooting down my thigh – it’s more like dragging an uber-hot spoon down my leg.

– Hands, feet, parts of my face, top of my head “falling” asleep, tingling, pins & needles.

– Hands, feet, ALWAYS cold.

– Headaches

– Hands occasionally weak

– Knees hurt (but that’s from walking all wonky)

– My spelling and typing is for SHIT (prolly the meds)

– Back pain along spine

– Blurry eyes that come and go

– Insomnia

– Occasional breathing issues…feels like a mild version of the asthma I had as a kid…

– Muscle tremors in legs and eyelids (yeah, I know…weird)…kinda twitches under the skin…a la “Aliens”. Waiting for something to burst out. Hope it’s cool.

Anyway, not being an attention whore. Mostly writing this down so I have a record (because they want to know EVERY TINY THING because it can mean SOME BIG THING). Neurologists are anal like that.

Yesterday I did have a small tantrum however. I was waiting for the #8 bus that goes to MLK because it drops me off only 5 blocks from my house unlike the OTHER #8 that only goes to 15th which drops me off 10 blocks from my house). It arrives, I’m waiting to get on, this asshole shoves his way in front of me, hops on, then the bus driver won’t let me on because the bus was full. The next MLK #8 wasn’t due for a half an hour. So, I was forced to take the 15th ave #8 ten minutes later.

Walking the ten blocks home (SO wanted a cab…but broke because of goddamn medical bills), tripped on uneven sidewalk twice because of my damn toes and almost fell on my face. Get home, found out the car I was going to use to go to my babysitting gig (8 blocks away) had been lent to my housemate’s sister. And then…I just lost it. I didn’t mean to, I felt like such a fucking baby, but I hate being so damn dependent on people. I hate not being able to walk everywhere. I mean, I usually walk everywhere. Now I have to ask for rides or borrow cars and I hate it. I feel so fucking crippled. It’s been almost two weeks now. This has to go away. It absolutely has to.

So, Tuesday: neuro, tests (they mentioned possible spinal tap…I said aw hell no…) questions, questions…blah blah blah.

Ok, there’s my whining blog. Share and enjoy.

My co-worker Phil and I conducted a bit of an experiment.

Jenni, who once occupied the cubicle across from me, moved to another section and as such her desk has been left vacant. She took everything with her save for a collection of business cards and a tray of pennies in her desk drawer. I’m guessing there was about $1.25 worth of them.

“Hey, don’t you want all of these pennies?” I asked her.

“Uh, no, not really…”

“There’s gotta be almost a dollar’s worth in here…”

“Nah, nowhere to put ’em. They’re a pain in the ass. You can have them.”

I didn’t want them. Phil didn’t want them. Nor David. Completely viable currency and nobody wanted them.

It was a slow Monday and Phil and I had the brilliant idea of using the unwanted coin-age as projectile weaponry. (Boss is on vacation for two weeks, and it was more of a stealthy assault anyway, albeit painful.  Did you know pennies frickin’ hurt? They do.)

My marksmanship was pathetic.

Post-slaughter there were pennies scattered throughout the 6-foot span of carpet between our cubes. (He and I are diagonally across from each other). We thought about cleaning them up, but neither of us wanted them and we were lazy. So there they sat.

This is where the experiment comes in.

We wanted to see if anyone would pick them up. There were about fifteen of them, roughly a dime and a nickel’s worth. Valuable enough, or so we thought, to warrant collection.

During the next hour or so approximately 3 people passed by, and nary a one was interested.

Later in the day, a couple of people walked by and asked, “why are all these pennies on the floor?”

“Don’t you want them?” We would ask.

“Uh, no, not really…”

“But there’s at least fifteen cents down there…”

“What the hell am I going to do with fifteen pennies? You pick them up.”

Phil and I would snicker at them while a look of irritation crossed their faces that we were having a giggle at their expense. Fifteen cents worth of irritation.

Hours went by. The pennies remained.

Allow me to pause for a “Did you Know?” interlude about the penny:

– Because of the soaring price of zinc, it now costs nearly a penny-and-a-half to produce a penny.

– The Federal Reserve, banks, retailers and customers lose millions more because of the costs of toting around and handling these nearly worthless coins. Time is money, and conservative estimates of the value of our time lost using pennies exceed $300 million per year.

– Breaking stride to pick up a penny, if it takes more than 6.15 seconds, pays less than the federal minimum wage.

– Since the Mint currently manufactures more than seven billion pennies a year and “sells” them to the Federal Reserve at their face value, the Treasury incurs an annual penny deficit of about fifty million dollars.

The “time spent picking up the penny not being worth enough to equal minimum wage” was the main argument for our blatant abandonment of them. It just wasn’t fiscally viable.

Hours went by, the end of the day arrived, everyone left for home…the pennies remained where they were. We were strong in our resolve.

The next morning the pennies were gone, more than likely due to the fact that they would choke up the vacuum cleaners when the housekeeping staff came through. We wondered if they kept them. Maybe they argued amongst themselves as to who was going to pick them up. Perhaps they flipped a coin.

We have been doing this daily for about a week. One day we decided to establish a control case and left a nickel on the floor. Gail walked by…”oh, hey, a nickel!”

The pennies remained untouched.

“Hey, you missed the pennies…”

“No I didn’t. Don’t want ’em.”

“Why not?”

“What the hell am I going to do with a handful of pennies?”

You see, the vending machines in the break room will accept nickels. It will not, however, have any pennies. Pennies will not buy you M&M’s.

Eventually the drawer will be empty, we will run out of pennies and the experiment will be over. But I mean seriously, how many of us have “change jars” at home full of pennies? How many of us have actually thrown one away and thought nothing of it? You give nothing but pennies to some panhandlers and they actually scowl at you. You pay for a loaf of bread at the grocery store, you are met with groaning and exasperated sighs from the patrons in line behind you. We pick the quarters out of the change jars like the bits of chocolate out of trail mix, leaving the pennies and peanuts for last.

I’m tempted to bring in my own change jar and pave the aisle with them. I know I’d have Phil’s support. Maybe throw some quarters in there for good measure. Maybe super-glue the quarters to the floor. Definitely. Super-gluing them to the floor would be brilliant. Very teh hawesome indeed. However, there may be repercussions for damaging company property. It would definitely be more than fifteen cents worth.

voulez-voulez-vous “find a penny pick it up all day long you’ll have 1.5 cents worth of zinc…?”

>So.

I have this thing with the Comic Sans font.
In certain, and I mean VERY specific circumstances it may be acceptable. But in professional corresponcene and inter-office communications it is positively abhorrent.

But the worst – and I mean worst – is the

Comic Sans Email Signature

Never, ever, send me anything in comic sans. Even sans magenta. because once you do, I have immediately generated this image of a 45-year old cat lady with poofy teased out hair who has little goofy plastic toy figures all over her cubicle walls which also reeks of potpourri. She will be a scrapbooker. She will have a pink cell phone with Fur Elise as it’s ringtone. She will participate excessively in ALL departmental potlucks.

Worst-case scenario…her signature will also contain an animated gif. Emergency services may be contacted in these circumstances.

I learned through non-exhaustive research that I am not the only one who loathes this “spawned from the depths of hell” typographic nightmare. There is a group of those who fight the good fight for millions everywhere to bring justice to those who are oppressed by the bubbly font-ness that plagues their existence and haunts their dreams:

Ban Comic Sans

I regrettably have not found a local chapter…thinking of starting my own. I will march the streets day and night seeking supporters of my cause.

I will not look to my coworkers when forming my anti-comic sans cult. Why? Learning of my phobia they have now joined forces and are sending me ALL correspondances in

magenta comic sans…

There’s just too many of them! …can’t…fight…them…all…fading…faaaaading….

voulez-voulez-vous magenta damages credibility. Comic Sans destroys it.

>
I can understand how Scissors can beat Paper.
I can also understand how Rock can beat scissors.
But there is no f*ing way that Paper can beat Rock. I mean, what, is Paper supposed to magically wrap itself around Rock rendering it immobile? Why the hell can’t Paper do that to Scissors? Actually, screw Scissors…why can’t Paper do this to people? Why aren’t students being constantly suffocated by random sheets of 8.5X11″ wide-ruled notebook paper while they’re taking notes in class? I’ll tell you why: because Paper can’t beat anybody…a rock would tear that shit up in two seconds. When I play Rock/Paper/Scissors, I always choose Rock. Then when somebody claims to beat me with their Paper I can punch them in the face with my already clenched fist and say, “Oh shit, I’m sorry. I thought Paper would protect you, you asshole!”

voulez-voulez-vous i win.