Sep 13

Caves and onomatopoeia

So I was talking to my friend Logan, who is also a logophile (pronounced LOG-o-FILE).

“What’s your favorite onomatopoeia?” I asked him.

First, logophiles like words, and not logs, and second, in case you’ve forgotten your middle school English class, an onomatopoeia (ON-o-MOT-o-PEE-uh) is a word that is formed from a sound, like buzz, zip, or meow.

“I think my favorite is spelunk, because that’s the sound you make when you fall in a hole in a cave.”

I thought that was pretty funny. People who wander around in caves don’t find it funny, however; they prefer to be called cavers instead of spelunkers.

Maybe you could ask Jesse James.

Sep 08

Fixed HP P4015 and Xbox 360

Last weekend I fixed my Xbox 360 and a pair of HP LaserJet P4015s; interestingly enough, they had a similar problem.

The Xbox wouldn’t eject the optical drive. I thought the whole drive had failed, and disassembled the Xbox. However, the drive would eject fine once the case was off. I did some more research online, and found a YouTube tutorial that showed how to remove the little rubber band / drive belt that runs the eject function from the front of the drive, wash it, and replace it. Worked perfect.

The LaserJet P4015s were jamming as they were feeding labels from tray three through tray 2. The fix was to remove tray 2, and clean the rollers in the top of tray 3 with adhesive remover.

At any rate, both problems were caused by rubber components being covered in some sort of residue that was preventing proper movement.

Sep 03

Chili season has begun

Sunday I made the first batch of chili of autumn. I know it’s not properly autumn yet, but tell that to our pumpkins that have been orange for a month.

If you don’t know me, I like to cook. I specifically like to cook chili. I started making it 11 years ago, and when I started I had no idea what I was doing. I just followed a recipe from my mother-in-law’s cookbook. I made only one substitution: tomato sauce in place of nasty stewed tomatoes, which have the texture of what I imagine a bladder would feel like on your tongue.

Since then my chili has gone through 3 major revisions. It used to be open source, but after I hit 3.0 the code went proprietary. Sunday I made a major breakthrough which launched MadMan Dan’s Amazing Chili to version 4.o. I don’t know if it was a singular component, or a confluence of three, but it came out great.

My chili is spicy, but not ‘look-how-spicy-I-can-make-my-chili spicy.’ You get a good burn on your tongue and back of your throat, and you break out in a healthy sweat.

While the exact formula is a secret (except to Kaleb), my chili contains: hamburger, steak, onion, chili powder, cayenne pepper, beans, tomato sauce, and other wonderful things.

Yes, yes, some of you are going to tell me that real Texas chili doesn’t have beans in it; blah blah blee blah. Well, I don’t make Texas chili.

I’m sorry, but this is the most mature remark I can make on that subject:

dvd“What’s so great about dumb ‘ol Texas?”

Aug 28

Test of faith

A friend of mine from our Baptist church and I recently took at trip and we stayed the night at the house of a Baptist couple. By ‘night’ I mean ‘four hours.’

Anyway, we got up the next morning anxious to get back on the road. Our hostess was insistent on fixing us something for breakfast. I turned down the wonderful offer of bacon, eggs, and pancakes in lieu of quick-and-easy cold cereal.

“Do you want some coffee?” she asked.

“Yes, please,” I replied.

“No thank you,” said my friend. “I don’t drink coffee.”

She looked at him thoughtfully before she asked:

“Are you sure you’re saved?”

Aug 25

Put your John Henry on this

One malaprop that drives me crazy is when people say, “Put your John Henry on this.”

What they intend to say is, “Put your John Hancock on this.” This idiom comes from John Hancock, the last signer of the Declaration of Independence, who signed his name in a large, flourishing script.

John Henry, however, is a folk hero from 19th century America, contemporary with Pecos Bill and Paul Bunyan. He was a large black man with amazing strength who drove railroad spikes with a sledge hammer.

I’m just warning you: the next time I hear someone say, “Put your John Henry on this,” to someone who is not personally named “John Henry,” I’m busting out my hammer.

Aug 23

Swine Flue / H1N1

You can’t call it Swine Flu anymore. It’s H1N1, ever since U.S. pork producers lobbied to have it changed.

The difference between the terms ‘Swine Flu’ and ‘H1N1’ is that Swine Flu just rolls off the tongue, while Aitch One En One does not. I therefore propose the following pronunciation for the overhyped malady: pronounce the 1’s as i’s, and it comes out as Heinie Flu.

I’m sure it’s a clever compromise, and will work well until the National Proctological Association and/or Union of Thong Manufacturers releases their hordes of indignant lobbyists.

I know a lot of you out there are hoping I will take this opportunity to make a Sir Mix-A-Lot joke, but I will not. This is a serious matter.

Aug 23

JoeCon 2009

Last Saturday I went to JoeCon, the annual G.I. Joe convention, with my girls, one of my students, and Nooby.

It was pretty good, but (not to denigrate it), it was just a toy show. We got some sweet stuff and we got to meet Larry Hama, and he was pretty cool.

While JoeCon rates pretty high on the nerdcore scale, it was mostly just a crowd of normal-looking people sprinkled with a few stereotypical fanboy nerds (obese guys in cool T-shirts, unbuttoned plaid overshirt, glasses, long hair, shorts and sandals). We only saw two people in costume besides the fun-sized Sgt. Slaughter working the Hasbro booth.

So overall, a good time, but not the best ever. In the future, I wouldn’t pay that much to stand in line to gain entry to a place where I can then stand in more lines to buy stuff.

Aug 21

Overheard

“Upstairs noodles?”

Aug 20

New phone.

Okay, I needed a new phone because my phone was crapping out on me. I started looking at phones on the T-Mobile website a few weeks ago and I narrowed it down to about 6 that fit my criteria and that I liked the looks of. I then went to the T-Mobile store here in town and played with the models and decided to go with a BlackBerry Curve 8520.blackberry-curve-8900s1

First, I love the fact that I can now carry around my calendar to help me keep up with all the stuff my family and I have planned. Now that the girls are back in school this will help immensely. Plus having all the youth group things to plan around and doctors appointments I think I need a little help remembering. It also has all the things my old phone had plus some nifty stuff that it didn’t.

Secondly, I love the look of this phone. It is like when people wear glasses when they don’t need them. It makes me look smarter. (LOL) Now if I can only figure out all the do-dads that go along with it.

Anyone have this phone? Want to comment? Just leave it in the comment section. (Please be clean about it.)

Aug 19

woppyjarred

adjective, pronounced phonetically.

I learned this word from my wife, who I suppose coined it, as I haven’t seen it anywhere else. It means “at a wrong angle, misaligned, uneven, out of level, out of plumb, and/or out of square.”

UPDATE: one of my readers pointed out that woppyjarred appears to be a corruption of woppyjawed, a nice bit of southern slang.