“Not only must Justice be done; it must also be seen to be done.” from Rex v. Sussex, though I first heard it in the 1985 movie The Black Arrow, based on the Robert Louis Stevenson novel of the same name.
Feb 04
Seamus
Recently I was checking my blog stats and saw some of the search terms that drove people to my site. I thought this search term was rather curious:
At first I assumed that they had misheard the name of Billy Joel’s Shameless, which Garth Brooks covered on his album Ropin’ the Wind.
But maybe they meant this:
Jan 29
Quotable: Jerry Seinfeld
Questioner: “How do you deal with writers block?
Seinfeld: “Writer’s block is a phony, made up, BS excuse for not doing your work.”
from a recent AMA at Reddit.com
Jan 26
That’s a spicy email
CUSTOMER: I need some more space on my system because I’m trying to send some attachments and it says they are too big.
ME: How big are the attachments?
CUSTOMER: They are eight
ME: Eight…
CUSTOMER: Eight…BTUs
ME: …(stifling laughter)
CUSTOMER: Wait–eight MBs
ME: Oh, OK.
I increased the customer’s mailbox size so that she could send the attachments.
Jan 21
A happy kind of pain
A few years ago while I was mourning over a recent death I went out to see my friend and mentor, The Bob. As we kicked around the farm doing random chores we took cover from the frigid January rain inside one of his many out-buildings.
Very seriously he said, “I wish I could hurt for ya, brother, but I can’t. But you will get over this.”
“Yeah,” I said non-commitally.
Then quite jovially he said, “But not as fast as I will!”
And then he burst out in big, booming laughter.
If you didn’t know The Bob, or if you didn’t know our sense of humor, you might think that to be rather cruel. In fact it was quite the opposite–it was really quite a relief.
Few things are as hurtful and angering to someone in pain as to minimize what they are experiencing. Instead of saying something like, “It’s not that bad,” The Bob’s statement was a brilliant (and morbidly hilarious) affirmation that yes, it really was that bad, yes, this was a really painful experience, and yes, it was going to be painful for a long time. Plus, he acknowledge a very simple truth: I really would eventually get past it, and he really would get over it before I would.
That kind of honesty and acknowledgement of pain was really refreshing.
Jan 20
Knowing is half the battle
There is only one G.I. Joe figure from the classic 1980’s toy line whose underwear preference is listed on the toy packaging: Snake Eyes. I don’t know why they did that–probably because as a wolf-owning ninja Snake Eyes is so awesome that they had to have something (apart from his inability to speak) to bring him down to earth to make it seem like he isn’t vastly cooler than every other figure except Zartan. Reminds me of how Bram Stoker did the same thing to Abraham Van Helsing, sticking him with that ridiculous Dutch accent.
Still don’t believe me about the underwear thing?
Read it and weep:
Too bad the choice of ‘commando’ just made a wolf-owning ninja even cooler.
Jan 13
Rozzers
n., British slang term for the police. If you watch Top Gear U.K., you have likely heard James May use this term several times, as in ‘The rozzers are behind me.’
“From ‘Robert’, after Sir Robert Peel (1788–1850), commonly considered the father of modern policing, and who established the Metropolitan Police Force in London (1829). More commonly used in comedy TV and Film.”
Definition taken from this surprisingly thorough list of Wikipedia’s List of Police Related Slang Terms.
Jan 07
HP LaserJet 50.32.11 Fuser Error or 50.72.11 Fuser Error
If you have an HP LaserJet M600 / M603 and you are getting a “50.32.11 Fuser Error” or “50.72.11 Fuser Error,” you will probably find that there isn’t any info on how to fix this error on HP’s site, and replacing the fuser may not work either.
Each time I was inserting the fuser the tab closest to the power supply wasn’t catching properly. What fixed it in my case was removing the fuser, then reinstalling it, being very particular to ensure that the blue tab on each side was seating correctly. If you install the fuser and you are still able to pull one side away from the printer, it isn’t seated properly.
