"Motherless Van Halen!"

My dad didn't swear or curse when I was growing up.

Well, that's not true. He'd curse, but not with "bad words." His favorite line was "Judas Priest!" For a long time, I had no idea what that was, and then later I found out it was the name of a rock band. I'd have preferred if he had yelled "Led Zeppelin!" when angered, but perhaps that would have made too many people duck for cover.

I mention this because today he called me with a computer question. Getting a 64-year-old techno-phobe a Dell/ Windows XP system for Xmas last year might not have been the smartest move my mother and I ever made, but at least he keeps trying. It's a pain in the ass for anyone else in the family to work on his computer though -- he's our only lefty, and has reversed his mouse buttons to better suit clicking with his index finger.

His question this morning was actually my fault -- last time out there, I was desparately trying to network my parents' two computers so Dad could print to Mom's printer (it was a simple software firewall preventing the signal... something I've run into enough times here at home that I should have caught it long before I started wasted the time. I'm the idiot that installed the firewall, after all). One of the things I tried was setting up a "user account" on dad's system, thinking Mom's Windows ME system needed to log into it...

Yes, I write about networks for a living... and I have no idea what I'm doing. I hope other occupations, like, oh, firemen or hazmat cleaners or neuro-surgeons don't fake it as much as I do.

To make a short story long: I got both computers printing, but forgot to turn off the user account login on Dad's PC. So now he's faced with having to click on his own name everytime the computer starts. This is hardly the trickest security system in the world, but today is the second time he has called me about it. Here's the conversation:

DAD: Hi, Eric. I've got some shit up on my screen, I don't know what to do.

ME: [Wondering why he didn't say "Def Leopard" instead to spare my virgin ears] What's it say?

DAD: I just turned it on, and now it comes up, and it says to click on an user or something, and it has my name there, but I can't click on it.

ME: Huh, well you should be able to --

DAD: Wait a minute, maybe I'm clicking on.... yes, there is goes. I was clicking on the wrong side of the mouse.

There's a punch line here, perhaps involve Alzheimer's Disease and left-handed people, but I can't think of it... I'm still recovering from his potty mouth.

Sometimes a Frog is Just a Frog

As mentioned before, my old home-made Squished Frog Productions logo featured a frog that's head some said looked like a penis. In discussing the redesign today with Joe, he said:

"Your new tagline should be: "Now, with no more subtle phallic undertones!""

Your Eyes Do Not Deceive

It's a slightly new look for the site. I fixed the search, and the ads for the store, and even put the new logo on all the stuff available in the story, so no more frog that looks like a penis. He's gone for good. And I added new stuff to the store -- including a great "wife-beater" t-shirt. Go nutz people. You deserve it.

She's Dead, Jim

A new tactic I came up with for telemarketers today just out of the blue:

The call came in and the caller ID said "Out of area," a guaranteed sign. I answered and said "Hello." (I usually say "Eric speaking" out of habit, but I think that causes more hang-ups when people make wrong number calls or just want to sell the Wife something.)

After the momentary pause during which the telemarker was connected to me after his system automatically dialed the number, he said, "Is Bonny there?"

I pause, inhaled, and found a very, very dark place inside myself from which sprang:

"Bonny died a few days ago in a car accident."

"Oh, oh dear," said the caller, sounding genuinely upset. "I didn't know." Because he calls to sell useless crap to a lot of other dead people, apparently.

"Yes, well thanks for nothing," I told him, and hung up.

Still, it doesn't matter... I forgot to tell him to take the number out of their system, so they'll be back. Next time, I plan to tell them she (or me, whatever) was killed in a horrible accident involving a meat grinder.

Another Baby

It just occured to me that I never mentioned here that my brother and sister-in-law are on the way to child #2. I made such a big deal out of the first kid, I should not give the second baby short-shrift. That's the kind of things that scars them for life, and he's got parents to do the scarring. I'm the cool uncle who will give him loud toys and will tell him how much worse his father was than he is when he's older. (I'm nervous, however, that my wife is going to be "the aunt who buys underwear and socks as presents" and I'm constantly harping on her about it.)

Notice I only use the male pronouns when mentioning the future papoose.... it's pretty much a given. We Griffith boys don't throw many double-X chromosomes; I doubt we'll start now. Which sucks, because my brother refuses to even consider naming the tyke Eric, not even for a middle name, which is just mean and makes me cry.

The term "Irish twins" is bandied about a lot when people hear that she's pregnant again, but by my calculations these two youngsters are going to be 14 or more months apart. Apparently, to be true Irish twins, the two children have to be born within one year of each other.

My brother and I are only 10 months and two weeks apart.

(The universal exclamation when I say that is generally, "Your poor mother.")

See Picture ID

I was at the post office today, and was paying to send out some crap I sold on eBay (I once again have enough money in my PayPal account to buy some video games I'll seldom if ever play!) and the clerk of course asked the age old question: debit or credit? Ages here being measured in months, I guess.

I like to pay by debit to place I like, because they don't incur extra fees (that only happens at the ATMs, which I don't use... I get cash back when buying candy in the aisles at grocery stores). Places I don't like I pay as if the card is a Mastercard charge, because they have to kick a little over to Mastercard. I do that mostly at overpriced gas stations.

Anyway, he looked at the card and said, "Just so you know, you should sign this card... if it was a credit tranaction, we can't take the card unless it's signed."

He said this, because instead of signing my cards, for the last few years I've just written in block letters "SEE PICTURE I.D." in the strip in the back. It's supposed to defend against identy theft and overall theft -- someone steals my card, there's (in theory) no way they could use it since they couldn't match my (admittedly inimitable) scrawl.

I just spent a grand total of five minutes Googling "see picture ID" and found two different sites that mention using the phrase on a credit card. One said it's smart, the other said it's illegal. I'd look up some more about this, but, well, I don't really care.

Consistency being the bugaboo of small minds, I don't think I'll worry about it, since most of the minimum-wage-slaves at retail don't bother to check for a signature at all, let alone ask to see my picture ID. (Tho some of the robots ask even if its an ATM transaction even tho then they don't need to.)

(FYI, I was going to try and provide the source of the "consistency is the bugaboo" quote via Google, but saw it attributed to both Emerson and TV doctor Ben Casey. Hell, this very site is the number seven result when you look it up, so I'm guessing I'm one of the few people on earth who uses it or gives a damn.)

Bovine Boy

The whole thing with my teeth this last couple of weeks has been big fun.

As I previously recounted, I had swallowed a crown I'd had for ten years just prior to my least favorite dental visit since I'd had it put in. Turned out I had to go last week to see a periodontist (gum specialist) and get a little surgery.

The crown I had was mounted on a post, and that post was attached to what was left of my former bicuspid's natural root, which was still in the gum. That root, said the doc upon examination that required cutting into my gums to make flaps like on a tent door, was bad. As in, decayed. No wonder the crown fell out.

What he did was this: he took out the root and packed my gum, all the way up to my maxilla, with some kind of cow bone graft. Then he sewed up my gum flaps over it. This bovine bone material will, eventually, have its cells replaced by my beloved human cells, resulting in newly formed bone under the gum that can be used to implant a new post for a new crown which I will no doubt swallow sometime in 2014. Or maybe I'll get Mad Cow disease long before that (Googling "cow bone graft" seems to return as much on that madness as it does on what I had done.)

After a week of pure annoyance with stitches that kept coming loose, I'm now free of the string in my teeth and can go back to putting what I want between them, like bits of steak and that little skin off of popcorn kernels.

In a few months, once I'm no longer a bovine/human hybrid, I can consider the new tooth, probably to the tune of 2000 simoleons. Maybe by then I'll be so used to the hole in my smile I'll just leave it out.

Who am I kidding?

The Math of Trash

My parents make me feel guilty every time I take the garbage out.

When I was a kid, my parents bought a trash compactor. They still have the same one. It’s broken down many times (once found with a dead mouse in the mechanics… my parents called him “the engineer”), even sat unused for a time, but ultimately, the sturdy little unit gets the part needed and comes back to life. They’ll never have another one like it, for for they don’t they make ‘em like they used to, not only in terms of working for ever but also in size. Compactors today seem barely capable of holding a crushed milk carton. So my parents will never give that unit up.

Compacting trash is all about saving space (or it should be… occasionally it’s about smushing stuff for the fun of it). And I remember with crystal clarity an evening not long after my parents go the compactor, where they had sat down and crunched some numbers and had come up with a figure that astonished me: they said that in the first couple of years of owning the compactor, they’d saved $124 dollars in purchases of garbage bags. They figured that based on the prices of Hefty’s, cut it in half or a third and base it on how many bags they used to carry the curb vs. how many they used now, carry the three, square root of the hypotenuse of an isosceles triangle, and that was it. Money saved.

I don’t have a trash compactor. And I take the garbage out about three times a week, even when the bag isn’t full, just to avoid give bugs time to breed or for smells to start to fester. And every time I do it, I think of my parents saving money with a trash compactor.

Luckily, I don’t think they were very good with math.

The Economy! It's Back! Oh, wait, that's not it...

Something happened to me today that hasn't happened since the glory days of the Internet boom: an HR person called me to see if I was interested in a job opening.

He'd seen my resume up on HotJobs.com, saw I was a good fit, showed it to the editor-in-chief and she liked my background, and so on. It's nice to be loved.

Of course, the job pays what I already make and it's in the middle of Long Island, so chances are I'm not interested. I suppose that the position is covering one of the all time most boring things in the world (business and financial news about and for computer resellers... I'm sleepy just thinking about it) helps solidify that.

Where are the six figure offers for my dream jobs? When they start coming in, then I'll declare the world as nice as it was in 1997-2000. Not a momemt sooner.

Silver Lining

Life is much nicer since I bought a new (overprice) battery for my cordless phone. I can actually talk on it for longer than 15 minutes now.

It's the little things.

Thoughts for the Day

There are few things worse than being up and around and having started your day, when suddenly your wife pokes you in the back and says "Get up" and you realize you're still in bed, dreaming of having already begun your day.

It was easier to get started in the dream, believe me.

Also: Rick Dees is the devil. Since hearing his "Disco Duck" on some 70's radio show this weekend, I can't get the tune out of my head. (I wonder if Disney every considered suing him over that voice...)

Dental Malevolence

There was a time when I liked going to the dentist.

Then I moved back to the state of New York.

I got a dentist appointment in Ithaca almost immediately upon moving back (one year ago this week). Took a while to get in which was annoying, they wouldn't just submit to my insurance so I had to take in a check which I found irksome, and the hygienist was of the type to constantly give me lecture after lecture as she had her fingers in my mouth, which I found exasperating beyond measure. I determined that 1) I would not go back for a while (I know twice a year is good, but sometimes also seems like overkill) and 2) that I would get new hygienist.

Then, the crown swallowing incident took place. Mind you, I called the dentist in late July but they couldn't get me in until today. When I told the receptionist (who, amazingly, is named Bonny with a "Y") that my crown was loose, she asked if it was out. I said no. So she said it would have to wait. I was on the cancellation list in case an opening came up, but none did.

So, here I am today at the dentist. My crown is gone down my own gullet. The hygienist -- the same one who lectures, because I wasn't smart enough to remember to ask for a new one -- tells me I should have called in when it came loose. Then the doctor himself comes in and says the same thing. I'm no snitch, I'm no rat... oh, hell, yes I am. I blamed it all on Bonny the receptionist without hesitation. (Bonny the receptionist at least had the smarts to seem contrite about it as I left.)

So what's the damage? I was told that the crown with its post had been affixed to what was left of the root of the tooth that used to occupy what is now empty space in my face. The left over root seems cracked, and there's not enough to work with to make a new crown apparently. So I get to go see a gum specialist for 'gum lengthening' procedure for a new crown. Assuming he can even do that. So I might pay $600 for a new fake tooth, or just a couple hundred to be told I can't have a tooth in there at all.

And none of this will take place until October 14. (Yes, I'm on the cancellation list. But I doubt that will make much difference.)

What really pissed me off? Getting a lecture from the hygienist that I drink too much soda.

She: Do you drink a lot of soda?

Me: Just diet.

She: You shouldn't. Just drink water. Water's good for you.

Me: (Stern stoic silence coupled with what must have been a look of sheer malevolence.)

She: Not to say you can't have some soda! Maybe one glass a day. So by say, Wednesday, you'd have three glasses. That's a lot.

Me: [More silence. I don't give a rat's arse what she says. As a former Coke addict (the kind with caffeine), just moving to diet soda was a major move on my part... Diet Sierra Mist for christ's sake. Hardly the worst vice ever. I decide to direct my gaze to the ceiling to indicate she no longer holds my attention.]

She: The soda companies want people to think Nutrasweet doesn't cause cavities but it does. I just have to tell you. You know, that's me doing my job. And I like what I do. I have to educate people to do my job.

Me: (Continued silence as I contemplate the psychology of an individual who's chosen profession is cleaning the gunk out of other people's orifices.)

She: Blah blah blah.

Oh, and I have a cavity.

All this before 9am. Yippee. Summer's over. Let the fun begin.