The Sparrow Nest

Here is a slice of a conversation I had with a co-worker (well, the client):

co-worker:	“That’s a whole nuther thing.”
me:	“What did you just say?”
co-worker:	“Huh? What do you mean?”
me:	“What did you just say about the other thing?”
co-worker:	“Oh. I said that’s a whole nuther thing.”
me:	“You do realize that ‘nuther’ isn’t a word.”
co-worker:	“It sure is!”
me (in my head):	“This can’t be happening.”
me:	“I think you meant to say ‘That’s another whole thing.’ or ‘That’s another thing.’”
co-worker:	“No. I meant to say ‘That’s whole nuther thing.’”
me (in my head):	“And to think, I had you on my ‘Smart People’ list.”
me:	“You can’t be serious.”

He then presented me with this site.

The co-worker that never gives in: 1
JC: 0

The AQ Test: 31 (Of course 31 is definitely not 32. Definitely 31. Bang! 97-X!)
The Brain Speed: 44ms (1^st try), 34ms (2^nd try), 25ms (3^rd try)
The Nerd Test: 98%

Ever since the crash, I’ve been living in a world without Quake. A month without Quake is tough. I found myself mentally firing rockets at various people in the real world.

Shortly after my Linux box crashed I got a new computer. Unfortunately, I haven’t been able to get Quake to run on it. Running the game resulted in a unresponsive white screen. Well, it wasn’t entirely unresponsive. If I pressed the Enter key the game (white screen) would exit. Beautiful.

For weeks I’ve been trying to use the power of the interweb to solve my white screen of death. The gaming forums were uninformative and infuriating. If you’ve ever tried to solve a problem this way, you know the routine:

person #1:
subject: Help! Getting white screen trying to run quake3 on OSX.
I installed the latest patch of quake3 on my new mac…person #2:
subject: re: Help! Getting white screen trying to run quake3 on …
Did you install the latest patch?

person #1:
subject: re: re: Help! Getting white screen trying to run quake3 …
Yes I did. argh!!

person #2:
subject: re: re: re: Help! Getting white screen trying to run …
hummmm…works fine on my new mac.

completely random jackass:
subject: re: re: re: re: Help! Getting white screen trying to …
I just installed quake. It’s awesome! I’m getting 500 frames per second. Yeah!

person #1:
subject: re: re: re: re: re: Help! Getting white screen trying …
Never mind. I found my problem.

sparrowlegs:
subject: re: re: re: re: re: re: Help! Getting white screen …
Can you post your solution?

—— [end of thread] ——

OMFG! Shoot me.

I finally got Quake to run of my new computer¹. Sigh. Now I can uninstall the Methadone Quake replacement games: Cube, Sauerbraten, and Unreal Tournament 2004 (yawn).

I’m sure I’ll get complaints from my wife about the speed of our internet connection as I download all of the maps and mods.

¹ I doubt anyone cares…but here is the solution.

Please don’t trust me. Chances are — I don’t trust you.

Why? There are so many reasons. Ummmm…how about…war. Here is a list of all of the wars started by those distrustful Atheists.

I updated the formatting of the comments. I hope you like the new look. Deppen kept complaining about the comments being difficult to read.

Deppen, with your approval, I’d like to update the status of this bug to “closed.”

I don’t completely understand the sport of baseball, nor am I good with children. So you can imagine my surprise when I was asked to be an assistant coach for my son’s Little League baseball team.

At the last practice I was told to operate the artillery pitching machine. I was also told that I should use a speed setting no greater than 6. Yawn.

After the entire team had a chance to bat, I turned the pitching machine around to face the outfield and pointed it toward the sky. The idea was to have the kids catch fly balls. They were excited. I was excited too, because I turned the speed up to 11. The machine made a sound kind of like a jet engine spinning up. Cool.

I dropped the first ball in machine. I’ve been to a few major league games…I have to tell you…I don’t think I’ve ever seen baseball fly so high. The first kid to field one of these pop-flies wasn’t that strong of a player. He was standing in center field waiting patiently for the ball to come down. I was kind of bored by the hang-time so without any thought, I dropped another ball in. I knew immediately that I had made a mistake.

Most of the players knew about the other ball in the air. Unfortunately the kid who was fielding the first ball was completely clueless. I started to get a sinking feeling in my stomach.

The boy was unable to catch the first ball, which is good, because I think it would have blown the webbing out of his glove. He walked around looking for the missed ball. Meanwhile in reality-ville, the rest of the team yelling “Watch out for the second ball! There’s a second ball!”. I held my breath as I was watched the ball accelerate toward Mr. Oblivious. The screaming seemed to intensify as the ball approached. Just as he bent over to pick up is missed ball, ball #2 hit the ground two feet from where he was standing.

Wow. That was close.

Just as I was about drop another ball in the machine, the head coach unplugged the machine. What a wet blanket.

My son received his team assignment for Little League baseball. The team is sponsored by the <name omitted>¹ club.

I’m a little concerned. I asked around about them, but very few people knew anything about them. One person, the head of the local Little League, said it was a club for white supremacists. Interesting. My son is playing for Hitler’s army.

One guy’s word isn’t good enough for me. So, I checked on the inter-web. Nothing. There is not a single website containing any information about them. That’s strange. What kind of business/club would have no information about themselves available in the inter-web?

The next day I called the borough administration office for my home town. I’m not a quitter.

woman #1:	“Borough administration office. How can I help you?”
me:	“Hi. I was wondering if you could help me track down some information about a local business or organization?”
woman #1:	“We sure can. What is the business name?”
me:	“It’s the <name omitted> club.”
woman #1:	“…What kind of information were you looking for?”
filter catch:	“Are they a bunch of racists?”
me:	“They’re the sponsor of my son’s baseball team, and I just want to know a little more about them.”
woman #1:	“I’m sorry. I can’t help you with that.”
filter catch:	“No you can’t because they’ll burn your house down.”
me:	“Is there someone else there I can speak to about this?”
woman #1:	“Just give me a moment. I’ll find someone to help you.”
(muffled sounds — as she holds her hand over the receiver.)
woman #2:	“Sir? You how can I help you?”
filter catch:	“Sure, just act like the first woman told you nothing.”
me:	“I’m looking for any information you might have about the <name omiitted> club.”
woman #2:	“They’re a service organization sir. They do charitable things for the community.”
filter catch:	“Charitable things like…I don’t know…rid our town of minorities?”
me:	“OK. Who’s in this club?”
woman #2:	“They have an exclusive membership. You have to be sponsored by a member to become a member.”
filter catch:	“It also helps if you have a shaved head and spider web tattoo on your elbow.”
me:	“Do you have any other information?”
woman #2:	“They’re a service organization sir. They do charitable things for the community.”
me:	“Right, you said that already. Do you have any other information?”
woman #2:	“…We haven’t had any complaints about them… What were you interested in?”
filter catch:	“No? No complaints about lynchings?”
me:	“Anything. I have a name, an address, and brief generic description of what they do. Can I call them?”
(awkward silence)
woman #2:	“…ah…You…can do that.”
me:	“…OK, thanks for your help.”
woman #2:	“You’re welcome.”

Weird.

The uniforms haven’t been delivered yet. I wonder if we’ll get white hoods instead of hats.

¹ Yes. I’m a total coward and don’t like burning crosses on my front lawn. I will say that the name of the club contains the word “White” and the name of a 2D shape with only one edge.

On Sunday morning my son and I were watching the first Formula 1 race of the season. I had missed the first part of the race and when I started watching I was surprised to see Michael Schumacher¹ in second place. I wondered out loud where Ralph Schumacher² was.

son:	“…ummmm…he’s in 13th place.”
me:	“…ok…”
son:	“…I wonder which one their dad favors…”

Ignoring the subconscious sibling rivalry occurring at my house, my son and I started acting out (that’s what we do at the Mann household) the various awkward Schumacher family gatherings. This is what we came up with:

mom:	“Oh Michael! Merry Christmas! You’re early. We weren’t expecting you for another 30 minutes.”
Michael:	“Well, I can’t help it.”
dad:	“That’s my boy. Where is Ralph?”
Michael:	“Oh, he called me and said that he was running a little late. Flat tire.”
dad:	“Figures. That’s what you get when you let the French make your tires.”
mom:	“Honey, don’t be so hard on him.”
(the gift exchange)
Michael:	“Dinner was excellent mom. Here, this is for you and dad. Merry Christmas.”
mom:	“Oh my goodness. Our own Italian villa on a private island?! Michael, you shouldn’t have.”
Michael:	“It’s the least I could do.”
mom:	“How could you possibly afford this?”
Michael:	“Mom, remember, I’m the highest paid athlete in the world.”
dad:	“Thanks son. Fantastic.”
Ralph:	“I got you a little something too.”
dad:	“A gift certificate to have our driveway sealed?”
Ralph:	“Yeah, that company is great. They did my driveway. They wash…”
dad:	“Michael, does our new villa have a driveway?”
Michael:	“No, its only accessible by boat or helicopter.”
Ralph:	“Well, you can seal the helipad…”
dad:	“Is the helipad made of asphalt?”
Michael:	“Concrete.”
dad:	“The helipad is made of concrete Ralph. What the hell were you thinking?”
Ralph:	“Well, I didn’t know that Michael was gonna…”
dad:	“No you didn’t, because you never talk to your brother do you? Maybe if you spoke to him from time to time, you’d learn a few things.”
Ralph:	“But, I…”
dad:	“Shut up Ralph.”
Michael:	“Your new neighbor, George Clooney, is looking forward to meeting you. He’s a great guy, you’ll love him.”

¹ Michael the six-time world champion. Last year was a bad year for him. I thought he lost his edge…so this year…you can just imagine my surprise.

² Ralph is the brother of the six-time world champion. I don’t remember Ralph ever winning a race. But he tries. God bless him, he tries.

OK. I know I’m wrong to say that. I guess I’m supposed to say “I hate The System.”

This person could possibly win a lawsuit with a payout of $40,000 per bug bite.

I used to be a kick-ass guitarist. Now look at me. I haven’t had a decent shit in two years.