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I’ve often thought about what it would be like to have to learn English as a second language. Some of us who use it as a primary language still have a lot to learn. There are many tricky nuances to watch out for, and plenty of opportunities to botch a grammatical rule or two.
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While driving into work today, I got to thinking about what kinds of technologies that I have that have fundamentally changed the way I go about my day. You know, those little gadgets that you never leave at home. The kind that, if temporarily misplaced, have you frantically running around like an addict looking for a fix!
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There is a wide range of music on my iPod: everything from classical to ’90s alternative. When I put the playlist on shuffle, anything goes. I might hear the soothing strains of Mozart’s “Eine kleine Nachtmusik” or the raucous refrain of Chumbawamba’s “Tubthumping.” Um…everyone else has that on their iPods, right?
The other day, the song “Counting Blue Cars” by Dishwalla came on and I found myself singing along with the lyric: “We count only blue cars…”
Nerd that I am, I couldn’t help but immediately conjure up an Excel formula to help them out:
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There’s a joke by the late comedian Mitch Hedberg in which he recounts a transaction that he feels did not require any documentation: he got a receipt when buying a donut. As Mitch had stated in his trademark deadpan:
“I’ll just give you the money and you give me the donut…end of transaction. We do not need to bring ink and paper into this.”
This scenario might seem a bit ludicrous, even for those who prefer to document everything almost religiously. But with the increase in activity on social networking sites, the minutiae of everyone’s daily lives seems much more prevalent now than it was several years ago. Read the rest of this entry »
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On a recent trip to our one of our offices, I had the pleasure of flying out of the Cleveland Airport. Now, being a techy kind of guy, I travel with more devices than Inspector Gadget has in his hat.
With the holidays right around the corner, I wanted to give my listeners a few tips for the tech-savvy traveler.
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My friends and I all had jobs we hated while we were in high school. I worked the fast-food circuit, flipping burgers and trying to avoid burning myself while deep-frying chicken patties and french fries. I guess it taught me some basic cooking skills, so it wasn’t all that bad. I very much preferred it over one of my buddies’ jobs; he took a gig as a door-to-door salesman. He had to wander through neighborhoods, knock on strangers’ doors, and deliver a sales pitch for vacuum cleaners. I wasn’t much of a people person back in those days, so I would have taken the greasy kitchen over his job any day of the week.
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The holiday season is upon us once again, and with it comes the importance of remembering that which truly matters most: cookies. Lots and lots of cookies.
Chocolate chips, snickerdoodles, and gingerbread men by the dozen. We humans have a tendency to celebrate various occasions with food, and I am by no means opposed to this time-honored tradition.
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Welcome back to the podcast! This week’s edition: Another Case of Formula Frenzy.
It was a dry and brisk November evening when I got the call. Sitting at my desk with the blinds cracked just enough to allow the last rays of sunlight from the dying day to creep through, the ringing of the phone shattered the silence like a brick through a pane of glass. The dame was one-half shrill hysteria, two-thirds livid frustration, and just a splash of hopeless desperation. The recipe for a typical batch of Formula Frenzy. Combine and shake well; serve chilled and aggravated.
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Welcome back to the podcast! This week’s edition: Lovely Spam, Wonderful Spam!
In the world of geek, there are few things more humorous than a sketch by the famous British comedy team Monty Python. One of my favorites is the Spam sketch, in which a man and his wife go out to breakfast and nearly every item on the menu contains Spam. Most items contain Spam multiple times, such as “Spam, bacon, sausage, and Spam.”
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Welcome back to the podcast! This week’s edition: GPS For Your CPU.
One of the more thoughtful gifts I received recently was a GPS system. I am plagued by a complete lack of direction, so before acquiring this device, I had a keen ability to take two turns while driving and promptly find myself lost and very afraid.