Thursday, August 19, 2004

An open letter to Michael Phelps

Dear Michael,

Please pull up your pants. I don't know if you're aware, but you've been sporting a little bit of a plumber's crack for most of the Olympic games and I think you really need to address this fact. If not for the sake of decency (mooning a multinational TV audience is probably not all that diplomatic), perhaps for the sake of performance. In a sport where leg hair produces too much drag, I can only wonder how many precious milliseconds are lost to the drag created by water rushing into your exposed butt crack... So please, for the sake of your teammates and the world audience, pull up your pants.

Thank you.

olympic ponderings

I don't know if anyone else has noticed, but it seems like every time they do one of those little athlete bios, they mention that the person in question wanted to go to the Olympics as a young child and spent time practicing whatever sport in order to achieve that goal. Now I can't help but wonder if there are any children out there that don't, at some point, want to go to the Olympics? Are there really kids out there that are watching the games thinking, "Nah - I'd really rather be a mediocre swimmer and not get past JV on my high school swim team"?

Friday, August 13, 2004

NC is so silly!

Here's yet another example of why NC is very silly:

My friend at work forgot to pay his car insurance bill last December and was, therefore, uninsured for a period of about 20 days (in December). Apparently, his insurance company informed the City of Durham of this fact sometime in June or July of this year, prompting the city to send him a letter telling him that because he was an uninsured driver for a period of time, they are levying a $50 fine on him, which is due by August 1. Well, Ali didn't open the letter until yesterday, so obviously the deadline had passed. So he called the city to ask what he should do, expecting (like I imagine most people would) them to tell him he owes a late fee as well. Oddly enough, it turns out that the punishment for paying the fine late is you lose your license plates for 30 days. Yes, he is actually supposed to take his license plates off his car and turn them in to the city, then go back 30 days later and retrieve them. I just think this is very odd. He can drive OTHER cars during this time - he's not losing his license... he just can't drive his own...

Tuesday, August 03, 2004

prozac computer

Well, it seems my poor little sexually misunderstood computer has had a complete meltdown. It has become so upset and confused it refuses to even turn on now :( Actually, this first happened last Monday, so I sent it away to IBM to get it fixed and they sent it back saying it was because the time/date weren't set in the BIOS. Now, I admit I don't really know much about computers, but last time I checked, the computer actually had to power up to even get to the part where it discovers the time/date in the BIOS (which mine wasn't doing). Nonetheless, the little critter booted up when I brought it into work Thursday, so I did a little dance and thanked the IBM gods and went on with my life.

Today, however, the same thing happened and I would like to recount my conversation with my new friend Mohammed at IBM:
Mohammed: ..."the last time you sent it in, they determined the problem was your time/date weren't set in the bios. Are you still getting the time/date error message?"
Me: "The computer won't even turn on."
Mohammed: "Oh.... I think then you might have a bigger problem than the time and date."
Me (silently): "duh."
Me (out loud): "I think so too."
Mohammed: "I'll go ahead and send you a shipping carton today."
So now I have a bigger problem with my computer, but no one seems to be able to figure out what that might be. Hopefully, they will find it this time and I won't have to send it back again next week (though I will admit that having to spend part of the afternoon tomorrow at home waiting for the DHL man to pick it up isn't SO upsetting!)

Poor little laptop!

As an aside, HOORAY for IBM's warranty program!!! I don't have to pay for any of this!

Sunday, August 01, 2004

cookie woes

I went to a birthday party this weekend and thought I'd be nice and bring some cookies to share with the other guests. I had bought some cookie dough in a tub from one of my coworker's kids a while back as part of a school fund raiser and thought this would be the perfect opportunity to bust it out (and get it out of my fridge). I read the directions on the label of my chocolate chocolate chip cookies, preheated the oven and spooned the dough onto the cookie sheet for baking. Upon removing the cookies from the oven, I placed them on a paper towel for cooling and everything looked fine. I even tasted one and deemed it pretty good for pre-made cookie dough...

The problem came when I took the cookies off the paper towel and put them on a plate to take to the party. You see, chocolate chocolate chip cookies are a lovely dark brown color (like chocolate - duh), and when soft cookies are stacked on a plate to that color, they sort of melt into each other. Basically, I went to the door with what looked like a plate full of cow poo. :(

On the plus side, they did seem to taste good, so people ate them anyway! See? A happy story in the end!