Spoonerisms: Lap of Last Resort

The weather here is starting to feel a little more like fall, albeit Southern California-style. I have been getting bookended by cats in the bed as soon as I crawl in, and have to use a crowbar do dislodge them enough to get out of bed in the morning.

I was in the computer chair today. Dipity was in the electric lap. Spoon came up, got ready to jump up to the electric lap, saw it was occupied, looked sad, then came and got into my lap. A bit later, Dipity got up, and Spoon immediately vacated my lap, practically leaving skidmarks in the process, and claimed the electric lap.

When Dipity was done with whatever she had been doing, she returned, saw the electric lap was occupied, and got into mine.

So I went over to Graphjam to give form to my frustration. I would have added more variables for things like proximity to electric lap, amount of food in the cat dishes, quality of food in the cat dishes, average direction of quantum spin of subatomic particles in kitties' brains, etc., but, dude, it's Graphjam.

Knittin' Crap for the Whiteboard Jungle: The Zip-it Voodoo Doll

Anyone who has worked in a cubicle maze knows a major downside is having a cube near a perpetually-loud person. As in, louder-than-moose-in-heat loud. As in, booming-into-the-phone-so-loudly-they-could-hear-you-without-the-phone-even-if-they're-in-the-next-state loud. During one such sonic onslaught, I came up with the idea for the zip-it voodoo doll. So, when an engineer in our group who was also in the direct path of these skull-vibrating vocal reverberations announced he was leaving, I decided to make the zip-it voodoo doll prototype as a going away gift. It seemed to be a big hit. Let's face it, there's at least one inveterate loud-mouth wherever you go.



I plan to make a stop-motion demonstration video soon eventually maybe.

Whiteboard Jungle: What's In Those Chips?

They replaced the vending machines in the break rooms at work a couple of weeks ago. The new ones are pretty scary. They look like they're going to become sentient any day now and turn on the human race. Actually, there were a couple days last week when I was kind of wishing they would do it sooner rather than later, but anyway.

This is a photo of the actual picture on the snack machines. That guy looks seriously stoned to the extent where he has the major munchies. I mean, come on. It's the same picture on all the floors I've been on. Someone had to decide this was the best picture to put on the machines. The mind boggles.

Spoonerisms: Envy

Seriously, where can I get a human-sized electric lap? How much more relaxed can she get?

Other: New Word of the Day

I coined a new word today.

• shitany (n): a litany of shit.
  Example: A permanent entry in my shitany is the fact that Support Group X tends to provide as much support to our group as a 10-year-old bra with shot elastic.

ETA: I even managed to find a real-world use today.

I was having an unscheduled sync-up with my manager today, and after I went through a shitany of blocking issues (where issues == people) keeping me from getting stuff done, she asked if I had anything positive to mention.

"Um..."