Overheard at the Airport

Dramatis Personae:
*Anonymous Preteen Pepsquad Member (APPM), age approximately 13 years
*Nathan (At the Tap, prop.), age approximately 30 years

APPM (on cell phone, loudly): Hi Mom! Our flight got canceled and we've got to fly, like, through Chicago now.

Nathan: (waits to board)

APPM: Yeah. It sucks. It'll be like, another 5 hours before we can get home... Yeah, I will.

Nathan: (waits to board)

APPM: Yeah. Ok. See you later - oh wait!

Nathan: (waits to board)

APPM: Yeah, Mom: don't go to Walmart tonight.

Nathan: (waits to board)

APPM: No, I said DON'T GO TO WALMART TONIGHT. There's going to be, like, a gang initiation there.

Nathan: *blinks*

APPM: Yeah... You really don't want to go to Walmart tonight... Yeah, ok. Love you too. (sunnily) Bye!

Do You Suffer From Autonomous Brain Disorder?

Do you ever...

• intend to innocently greet your child's attractive new schoolteacher and end up with a lawsuit?
  
• walk into your kitchen to do the dishes and end up making lasagna?
• find yourself buying a 'work at home' kit from a 'reputable online dealer'?
• suffer from spells, fits, tremors, lackadaisicalness or the vapors?

If so, you may have Autonomous Brain Disorder (ABD).  Your brain is making decisions while your mind wanders. You're not alone: studies sponsored by the NOW Institute for Retributive Medicine indicate that over 95% of straight men have this condition.

But there is hope.  Never fear - your days of lurking in dark corners with your hands clapped over your mouth are over!  Doctor Synthia Starke of Berkeley has developed a pioneering new treatment that offers hope for the billions afflicted with this diease.  Clinical trials are open currently!

The Two Best Lines I've Had Recently

We've all had different experiences at work. But for those of you who have experience with big business, these stories are for you.

...

I was talking to an engineer who was troubleshooting a new software package. Lou looked up from his monitor and told me that he'd already fixed all of the bugs that he'd found. I smiled and said "That's great!"

I continued, "Unfortunately, it's not the bears that I can see that worry me - it's the bears I can't."

...

A few days later, I stopped by to talk to one of our mechanics who was bolting some angle iron to the floor as a backstop for forklift parking. He suggested painting the angle iron yellow so that the technicians would see it.

I nodded thoughtfully and said "That makes sense. Let's do it anyway."

I Like My Mixed Messages Shaken, Not Stirred

In my opinion, they really should have put the Back to School Candy display next to a rack of malt liquor or, at least, Boone's Farm if the store really wanted to increase sales.

Sometimes Life Doesn't Imitate Art

Thanks heavens, er, it's over.

Take the Challenge!

Find a meadow, preferably one that's at least an acre in size. Not sure where to find one? Idle housing projects are a good place to look.

Look for something like this:













Once you've found your meadow, stand on the downwind edge. Take out the Ipod earbuds. Listen. Take a few deep breaths.

Next, find yourself a really big lawn. Completed housing projects are a good place to look. Stand on the downwind edge of your chosen lawn and repeat.

You tell me which spread is beautiful and alive, and which one is sterile monoculture.

Did Mario and Luigi Work for Scale?

In the Japanese version of Midway, do you shoot down countless hordes of American fighter planes?

If Supermariokart were to be made today, would there be an airbag requirement?

If Ubisoft released Prince of Persia today, would it violate the Patriot Act?

Madden '94: would we have stopped it back then?

Is Grand Theft Auto any worse than Death Race?

Did George W Bush played too much Axis & Allies back in college? Me, I think he was more of a Risk fan.

You Might Be a Freegan If...

10. You boast about the amazing set of candlesticks that somebody just threw away.
9. You do most of your grocery shopping behind Safeway.
8. Your living room is furnished with items originally tagged 'free - haul away at own expense'.
7. When you offer to bring a dish to pass, friends and relatives tell you hastily "no, no - just yourself is fine".
6. You surreptitiously sort your neighbors' garbage into 'recycle', 'non-recycle', and 'Christmas presents'.
5. You claim that hand-knit socks are really the way to go.
4. Hot water is only for special occasions.
3. Your definition of "living" is cracking open a slightly used 11-pack of Sam's Club soda.
2. Car? What stinking car? You gots the bus, man!
1. "Extreme consumerism" is a contact sport.

...

And please, don't think I'm making this up. See here, and here. Is anyone surprised that this movement started in San Francisco?

Have You Seen That New Romantic Comedy, "The Shining"?

It sure looks great!

Real Players Do It Passively

Check out PMOG (Passive Multiplayer Online Game).

Recipe:
-a dash of roleplaying
-a pinch of whimsy
-a touch of free time
-a lot of fun!

It's a game that you can play whenever you're online, regardless of what you're doing.

How does it work? By surfing the web, that's how!

You have to rack up points to buy mines and all the other stuff that makes the site fun. Every unique domain that you visit gives you two points, so you get points just from surfing the web. You can also give gifts of mines and other tools to others by leaving “crates” around...

Gathering points and completing missions leads you to higher levels, where you eventually choose a character type. There are six characters in all - two are “chaotic” and leave a lot of mines and portals. The rest follow the “torch of order” and focus on protecting others or creating useful missions.

One note - you do need to use the Firefox web browser (another great reason to switch).

Digital Aphorisms

Aphorisms, adages, chestnuts and maxims: this is the verbal shorthand that allows us to communicate feelings and ideas in a few pithy words.

I was talking to a teen last week and told her to 'make hay while the sun was shining'; in return I got a 'what the hell?' look. After recalibrating for age and experience, I told her that you have to "sell out when your app is hot" and got an 'ahhh' of understanding.

Anyone else have a similar experience?

I hereby submit the following starter list of digital aphorisms for those wishing to communicate with the younger generation:

• People with public Facebook profiles shouldn't post under the same name at www.XXXhardcore dating.com.
• A single hacked terminal can infect the network.
• A bad coder always blames his programming language.
• A committed Bidder is worth two Watchers.
• Caught between a 404 error and a gateway timeout
• A watched modem never connects

If George Bush Were in a Famous Heavy Metal Band...

...it would be called the 'Military Industrial Complex',
...he'd be the drummer,
...it would (sigh) be a 'Christian Metal' band,
...George would do coke 'only if you've got it out already',
...4,041 American soldiers would still be alive,
...he'd be just as popular among middle age parents as he is now.

Catholic Beneath The Skin

According to a recent survey, more than a quarter of American adults have changed their faith to another religion or no religion.

I had a full Catholic upbringing: parochial school, alter boy, mass twice a week. Soup to nuts. I haven't changed my faith or left it behind; you could say instead that I've put it on a shelf.

Today, I found myself in church for the first time in a long time, attending the first communion of my goddaughter. I am aware of the irony of a nonpracticing Catholic being tasked with the proper religious upbringing of a completely respectable little girl.

The words and the rites all came back to me. I stated the confession of faith word for word with the rest of the parishioners, although if you'd asked me two seconds prior how it went I would have been at a loss for words. I knew when to genuflect and when to stand.

All of this is a roundabout way of getting to my central point. I was talking to a friend once about something completely unrelated to religion when he interrupted me, asking "you're Catholic, aren't you?"

We can leave our faiths behind, but that doesn't mean that our faiths leave us behind.

Religion, and other ideas too I suppose, change us in profound and unpredictable ways. Can we ever fully understand the scope of their influence?

The Sexual Component of the Hula Hoop

All right. I'm sure we've all done this: while wandering the highways and byways of this wonderful interweb, you suddenly come to a screeching halt somewhere you never would have anticipated.

Thus, "The Sexual Component of the Hula Hoop".

But like a driver at the scene of a particularly eye catching wreck, I couldn't help but slow down enough to take a gander.

What, you think Americans bought the Hula Hoop for entertainment reasons? On the surface, perhaps. Subconsciously, we bought the Hula Hoop to unlock our sexual hips. The Hula Hoop was a subliminal sex toy.

Huh. Well, there you go.

If Hedgehogs Are Outlawed...

...then only outlaws will have hedgehogs?

From a BBC story:

"A man in New Zealand has been charged with using a hedgehog as a weapon, the New Zealand Herald has reported. Police said William Singalargh, 27, had hurled the hedgehog about 5m (16ft) at a 15-year-old boy. "It hit the victim in the leg, causing a large, red welt and several puncture marks," said Senior Sgt Bruce Jenkins, in the North Island town of Whakatane."

Please sir, next time use a rock, or a bat or something. There's no need to bring an innocent hedgehog into your fight. After all, the other guy might grab a wallaby.

This Is Why Radio Is A Dying Medium

Overheard during a morning "talk/music" program.

Host: So Madonna is meeting with film executives: she wants to re-make the movie Casablanca [pronounced "cassa-blankuh"].

Dude: Oh God, no!

Host: Yeah, except she wants to place the movie in a modern war zone. Iraq.

Gal: I hate Madonna. She is, like, you know, so self-involved.

Dude: Where was the movie set originally?

Host: Uh, Casablanca. Cassa-blankuh

Gal: That's why I never saw Evita!

Dude: Oh.

Dude: Uh, where is Casablanca?

Host: Oh Casablanca Cassa-blankuh that's, like, Europe.

Dude: Europe?

Gal: Oh I loved that movie, but it's been, like, so long since I've seen it...

Host: Yeah. It's not Spain... Uh-

*click*

Study Shows Women Are From Venus, Men Clueless

The following is from the abstract of a study due to be published in the April '08 edition of Psychological Science. Researchers studied the differences between men and women being able to differentiate female sexual advances, normal friendliness, normal sadness and rejection.

According to the study,

"gender differences were captured by a relative perceptual insensitivity among men. Just as in previous studies, men were more likely than women to misperceive friendliness as sexual interest, but they also were quite likely to misperceive sexual interest as friendliness."

Science has successfully proven, yet again, that men have no idea what women are thinking.

Men seem to make these decisions based on clothing - they are more likely to perceive that women dressed provocatively are displaying sexual interest when they are not. They are also less likely to perceive that a women is flirting when she is dressed conservatively (the researchers cut a picture of Margaret Thatcher from an old lad mag).

Women, on the other hand, were more likely to correctly perceive sexual interest regardless of clothing style. In other words, it's not that men are always more likely to assume that women are flirting; rather, men and women may be responding to different sets of cues.

The bottom line?
Gals: men are crude and clueless. You need to be direct and to the point with us.
Guys: face it, we're clueless. When you want to flirt with someone, bring along another gal as your wingman. Have her clue you in to what's really going on. And watch out for those Margaret Thatcher types; underneath that frumpy red dress might be their 'dating bloomers'.

You never know.

I Would Be A Cheap Fortune Teller Indeed

...if I were to prognosticate some of today's headlines:

"Democrats, Republicans Differ on Whom Economic Aid Should Help"

"Violence Grips Iraq"

"North Korea Test-Fires Missiles"

"Critics Cite Fraud In Zimbabwe"

"Palestinians Fear Marginalization"

You could find the same stories in the NY Times last week. Or last month. Or last year.

In fact, you could go back 100 years and find much the same headlines, except you'd find articles about Teddy Roosevelt shooting large quadrupeds instead of Cheney shooting bipeds. And they call this progress!

Beware Of Hackers Wearing Ski Masks!

At least I think that's what Pandasoft is trying to tell us.


The image of a leather-clad ski-masked man sitting in a dark room while using the internet suggests several possibilities, none of which includes the concept 'hacking', unless thats what kids are calling it nowadays.

Regardless, I get the message: beware!

The Jail That Can Hold Him Hasn't Been Built

I bet you thought this post was going to be about Elliot Spitzer. Well, we here At the Tap are taking the high road on that story; after all, they jail the hooker not the john. That's called 'justice'.

No, instead we're highlighting the sad story of Salvatore Ferranti, a convicted Italian mafioso, who is being sent to house arrest because he's too fat.

From the story:

Guards at the first two prisons said they constantly needed to help Ferranti, 36, get dressed and undressed, move about and go to the bathroom.

I wonder if he tried to "make a break for it" when they came to arrest him?