humor
I opened the box containing the replacement shower drain cover, and its bag of screws — which is what I most wanted in the first place — fell to the ground. The cat grabbed it and ran off when I yelled at him to put it down. Now I’m back to having just 1 of the 2 screws needed to hold the cover in place.
In case you were wondering how my day was starting.
Far be it from me to tell anyone to clean their gutters, but if you have cattails growing in yours, it may be time.
A popular public transit app’s year end recap labeled me “Lord Tool, the Bus Punk”.
Uh, alright, I guess?
The dentist’s office has full-blown novels in the waiting room, which bodes ill for expected waiting times.
My coworker Secret Santa gets me.
A seasonal reminder that a “fun size” Twix bar would be roughly the size of my forearm, and anything less is false advertising.
When I see the HH logo on clothing, my first thought is Harter House, a local butcher shop where I grew up. My second thought is Hamburger Helper, and I think that’s probably the correct answer.
“Challenge: Name the worst possible TV show you can imagine.”
This is what a dare looks like.
This is a copy-paste of a conversation I just had with my kid.
Kid: Can I get a ride home at like 10:15
Me: Yeah
Kid: Never mind im gonna be here late
Me: Oh, OK
Kid: Okay like can u do 10:17?
That’s still within the margin of error of when I was going to be there in the first place.
Girl Scout outside the grocery: Sir, would you like to buy some cookies?
Me: I’ll catch you on the way out.
Scout: We’re about to leave.
Me: OK, you talked me into it. My wife told me I’m not allowed to bring a bunch of these home, though.
Scout: What kind does she like? Get some of those and then she won’t mind!
And that’s how they got me.
Wake up, little sunshine
I prompted ChatGPT with: “Write a song I can sing to my son to get him awake and moving to get ready for school.”
It replied with:
Verse 1
Wake up, little sunshine
There’s a new day dawning
You’ve got a big adventure
It’s time to get movingChorus
Rise and shine, let’s go to school
Time to learn, time to grow
Put on your shoes, grab your bag
You’re ready to goVerse 2
Stretch out your arms and legs
Take a deep breath and smile
You’ll make new friends today
And learn so much in a whileChorus
Rise and shine, let’s go to school
Time to learn, time to grow
Put on your shoes, grab your bag
You’re ready to goBridge
The world is waiting for you
To see all that you can do
So let’s start this day together
And make it great, no matter the weatherChorus
Rise and shine, let’s go to school
Time to learn, time to grow
Put on your shoes, grab your bag
You’re ready to goOutro
Wake up, little sunshine
It’s time to start your day
With a bright new adventure
You’ll find your own way.
Said son, who is 15, seemed to appreciate me waking him up by belting this out in full operatic tenor. I’m almost sure of it, despite any shouting to the contrary.
Wisdom of the ages
The iOS App Store recommended that I check out a meditation app named “Calm”, featuring “Wisdom from Shawn and Camila”. Shawn is 22 years old; Camila is 24.
With due respect, Apple, I’m not expecting a lot of wisdom from a couple younger than the sweater I’m wearing.
There are many wonderful things youth can bring. Experience of a life long-lived is not one of them. I don’t want to sound curmudgeonly, but they’re 22 and 24, and I expect they’ll have little to offer on mid-career thoughts, or watching one’s parents grow older, or coming to grips with mortality. Like, the guy’s been quarantined for the majority of the time it’s been legal for him to drink.
To Sell A Car
In the process of moving to another state, we decided to sell my car to some friends. This turned out to be much harder than anticipated.
I admit that this is entirely my fault and I deserve to be made fun of for it, but we couldn’t find the title. It could be that the bank which financed the loan never sent it to us. It could be that it’s in our safe deposit box in our last city and that I’ll find it next month when I go back for the rest of our stuff. Or maybe I’m just a bad document caretaker and I lost it along the way. I don’t know. But the end result is that we don’t have the title and needed to have a duplicate issued before we can sell the car.
Late May
I called the county clerk’s office to ask how to apply for a duplicate title. The clerk was very helpful and friendly, and offered to look up the necessary information while I was on the phone. I gave her my car’s VIN and my personal information, and she came back with the unwelcome news that the bank still had a collateral lien on the car. I pointed out that I bought it used in 2000 and didn’t have a 12-year loan on a used Oldsmobile, and that I hadn’t been arrested for chronic non-payment of the loan. She laughingly agreed that I’d clearly paid it off, but needed a notarized lien release from the financing bank before she could issue a new title.
When I tried to find contact information for that bank, I discovered they had been acquired by another bank in 2004 and no longer existed.
OK. So.
Early June
I called the new bank, Regions, and explained the situation. They were more pleasant and easier to work with than I’d feared, but couldn’t find any information about my paid-off-9-years-ago loan from their subsidiary. They took all my information, though, and agreed to send a lien release if they couldn’t find proof that I still owed them money. That seemed perfectly fair and reasonable — from a bank! — and I sat back to wait for the letter to arrive.
It didn’t arrive.
Late June
I called Regions again. They were missing some information from the lien release application form (but weren’t sure exactly which information) and needed to re-file it. Given how nice they were and that I wasn’t even their customer any more, I didn’t protest or complain too much.
July
A couple of week later, the official, notarized lien release came in the mail. The VIN wasn’t quite identical to the one I gave them, but I hoped the county clerk would call it “good enough” and accept the note.
Now we were ready to apply for the replacement title. The state’s form required that Jen and I both have our signatures notarized, so on a sunny Saturday, we drove to a nearby UPS Store and paid up. We stuffed the lien release letter, the application, and a check for $14 in an envelope and mailed it to the county clerk’s office.
August
Not a peep from the county clerk. I didn’t rush things because, well, government office… But after a few weeks of silence, I called to check on the application.
The county clerk never received it.
The notarized application? The check? The necessary, certified original copy of the lien release? Lost forever to the mail system.
I asked the clerk if I could just take the car out back and burn it, as that might be the easiest way to dispose of it. She asked me to please not to.
I sheepishly called Regions again to explain the situation, apologize profusely, and to ask them to please send me yet another copy of the lien release. They cheerfully agreed to and collected all my information to fill out the request form.
I called US Bank to cancel my lost check and they told me there was a $30 change to stop payment on a $14 note. I told them not to bother and that I’d take my chances.
Now
And that’s where it stands. All I wanted to do is sell my car, and it’s involved the county clerk, three banks (one of them out of business), a UPS Store, and the post office. As of today, I’m no closer to the goal than I was two months ago.
As a side note: yeah, it was my fault for losing the original title (if I ever even had it). But I wouldn’t have been able to transfer the title to the new owners without the lien release anyway, so this was destined to be a pain in the butt in any case.
Guest Post By Gabby Crazy Squirrel
I was at grandma’s house last weekend, and there was a power outage.Turns out, it was a squirrel chewing on the power lines, and got electrocuted.We found out when my Uncle Brian came in saying,“There’s a dead squirrel that was chewing on the power lines.“When I heard that I fell on the floor laughing!That squirrel is nuts!Or at least was nuts…
You Want How Many?
I used to work near a little restaurant called “Rasta Grill”. It was this weird fusion of Italian and Jamaican food, and everything was absolutely delicious. We’d walk down to Rasta at least once a week or so and have giant plates of spaghetti with jerk chicken in the wonderfully bizarre atmosphere.
Well, we always suspected that some of the employees perhaps took the Rasta theme a little far, and occasionally partook of Jamaica’s other famous export. Our suspicions grew one day:
Us, ordering: …and an order of garlic bread.
Cashier: [writes “GBR” on the ticket, but draws the “G” almost like a “6”]
Cook, taking ticket: OK…. hey, what’s “6 B R”?
Cashier: That’s a “G”. It’s garlic bread.
Cook: [long, confused pause] And they want 6 of ’em?
Don't Bump That Flash Drive
From the manual of an Asus Eee PC:
The solid-state disk drive’s head retracts when the power is turned OFF to prevent scratching of the solid-state disk drive surface during transport.
I think someone got a little zealous with the find-and-replace.
Guest Post By Gabby Dad Is Funny
Dad is funny.He played a trick on my sister.He says somthing like “Guess
what?“Ari would say"what?“Dad would say"Chickenbut!”
Winning By Any Means
I was walking through our house when I saw Jake. He was watching me stone-faced with eyes open wide and bugged out. In our house, that means one thing — staring contest. I returned the stare as I walked nearer and bent closer to his level.
Closer.
Closer.
Until he reached up and poked me in the eyeball and yelled, “you blinked! I win!”
Yeah, he got me: I definitely blinked. I think I can still see his fingerprint on my cornea.
Becoming Unrooted
So, I forgot my root password. For non-technical types, that’s pretty much the key to the kingdom when you need to get full access to a computer, or install new software, or to make backups, or to fix something in an emergency. I use this little program called “sudo” all the time that lets you do most of the same things except with your own password. I guess it’d been so long since I’d actually needed that root password that it just slipped my mind. Still, I felt pretty dumb and resigned myself to coming up with a new one and resetting it on all the computers I use.
So, this morning something came up where I really needed that password, and without thinking I picked up a keyboard and mashed it out. It worked. “Oh joy,” I though. “I’ll just do it again and pay attention to what I’m typing.” Except that try as I might, I just can’t type that password if I’m consciously thinking about it.
This has not improved my outlook on an upcoming birthday in the slightest.