Category Archives: Silly Shit

October 28, 2025 · 23:04

Silly Faces – October 28th

What did Bilbo say just before he gave up The Ring and went away to live with the elves? Something like, he felt “thin,” like too little butter scraped over too much toast? Yeah, I get that.

Facebook gave me a prompt today, a “before” picture from nine years ago…

A memorable day, this picture was taken just before I got murdered. (We were in Raleigh, NC for our neice’s wedding and we were doing a family cosplay murder mystery. I was the lying, cheating, evil bastard who soon was to be covered in blood on the kitchen floor. It was fun!)

Of course, for the “after” picture from today I needed something equally silly…

Maybe not QUITE as silly, but I was on a tight schedule. One of those things where you do the best you can and move on.

Stay silly, folks!

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Filed under Paul, Photography, Silly Shit

August 19, 2025 · 23:31

I’ve Had Another Vision!

In unpacking, I (of course) am keeping all of the old, used bubble wrap since “we might use it sometime in the indistinct future.” As one does.

But there’s soooooo much of it.

Tonight as I was nodding off towards a nap after cleaning up a bunch of this bubble wrap crap and I had “a vision”!!

We have a big, rectangular, walled-in back yard. We have a lot of this bubble wrap. We could fill up the back yard with the bubble wrap!

THEN!

We build a large trebuchet, take it two or three houses down the block into a neighbor’s back yard, and fling folks into the humongous bubble wrap filled back yard at our house!

It’s also a great way to meet the neighbors!

Take a number for your turn, it will require an “E” ticket!

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Filed under Farce, Forever Home, Photography, Silly Shit

June 6, 2025 · 23:54

Pudding Brain

As Senior Director of Finance & Administration I often have a very full plate. To say the least. At the top of the annual list, especially in terms of stress and “challenges,” is the audit. Our auditors are good and generally nice folks who I get along with, but to be done properly the audit process by its very nature is … “thorough.” Think of it as being a bit like a colonoscopy without benefit of anesthesia, but everyone’s smiling and cooperative.

This year’s audit starts on Monday, so the last two weeks have been prep, prep, and more prep. Pulling documents, finalizing the year-end accounting, and so on. Tons and tons and tons of details, numbers, schedules, reports, and extra brownie points if the figures are actually accurate. (We do pretty well on that score, actually.)

But it does leave one with a bit of a “pudding brain.” Remember that classic of camp cinema, “Flash Gordon!,” the one with Sam J. Jones, Melody Anderson, Max von Sydow, Brian Blessed, Topol, and Timothy Dalton? (An excellent film!) Remember the “scanners” working the consoles in the bowels of the war rooms of Ming the Merciless?

That’s me already… I’ve even got the haircut for it. (I have GOT to find me a pair of those glasses!)

However, I’m not so fried that I didn’t notice the date. Yes, 81 years ago our parents and grandparents and great grandparents stormed the beaches of Normandy. That’s important to remember. But more important personally, it was 25 years ago tonight that I went out on a first date with The Long-Suffering Wife. She says that her fear was that I would excuse myself to the restroom and then slip out the window and shimmy a couple stories down a drain pipe to abandon her there.

Obviously, I didn’t.

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Filed under Entertainment, Family, Farce, Paul, Ronnie, Science Fiction, Silly Shit

May 9, 2025 · 23:41

No Kosmos-482 Here

We’re about an hour into the ±4 hour window for the uncontrolled re-entry of the Russian Venus probe Kosmos-482. No doubt you’ve heard all of the frenzied hype about it – if you’ve been reading this site any time in the last 12+ years, you know my opinion of the mainstream media, their handling of science and fact, and the hysterical hype that they love to shovel over something inconsequential.

The final couple of orbits are over water the vast majority of the time:

Image: SatTrackCam.blogspot.com

and nowhere near the US. Excellent odds that it’s going to splash in the next hour or two.

But if we’re invoking chaos and gremlins and playful demigods such as Puck or Loki, hanging on just a little bit to make to take into that last orbit and then sailing a bit northwest puts it coming down near the Virginia and Maryland areas where there’s this huge White House occupied by an orange troll…

The gods could do the funniest thing!

Yeah, I know that orbital mechanics doesn’t work that way, and I’m a firm believer in science, engineering, reality, and so on. That’s why they would call it an “act of God,” am I right?

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Filed under Politics, Silly Shit, Space

October 26, 2024 · 23:54

Six-Year Anniversary Of My Murder

At least two separate “AI” driven social media algorithms reminded me that it was the six-year anniversary of my murder.

As noted at the time, I had it coming.

And the next time you think AI is going to save us all, or even give you a correct answer to a simple question (“How many ‘r’s’ in ‘Strawberry?’), consider how stupid it is to be reminded of the anniversary of your own murder. Unless a lot of crows are involved, that doesn’t make much sense.

 

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Filed under Paul, Photography, Silly Shit

September 28, 2024 · 22:55

Spoiler Alert!

Not the best joke, and not original, but some days you just have to go with what you have.

Related, how do you make a Cybertruck even uglier? You put a spoiler on it! I’ve seen one, very near here, about two weeks ago. Believe me, as butt ugly as those wannabe dumpsters are to begin with, putting a HUGE spoiler on the back makes it worse. No pictures, it flashed by in crossing traffic while I was waiting at a red light, so you’re going to have to trust me on this one.

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Filed under Paul, Photography, Silly Shit

August 29, 2024 · 21:19

What??!! No Mini-Oreos!!??

It’s been eight weeks and change (okay, nine weeks and a day or two, it’s tough getting the calendars to sync) but we were back at the Red Cross for our next whole blood donations tonight.

All’s well, easy peasy. But to my shock and horror, when I got to the waiting/recovery/snack area I couldn’t find any of the mini-Oreo cookies!

They had a nice selection of boxed juices, and I managed to get the straw in without squeezing the box and spraying high-velocity grape punch or apple juice all over myself. Winner! The Blueberry & Pomegranate Granola Bar was excellent, but it wasn’t mini-Oreos.

Finally the guy in the pink T-shirt left and we checked his table – that’s where the mini-Oreos were all hidden, so the day was saved.

It’s the little victories that keep you going.

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Filed under Health, Paul, Photography, Silly Shit

February 28, 2024 · 23:23

Who Is In Charge Of Emojis?

Every now and then I see that there are new emojis being released and upgrades to the existing emojis. For example, a couple years ago all of the emojis showing hands or faces were upgraded so they could be black, white, brown, yellow, etc for different ethnic backgrounds. 👍🏻

Who’s in charge of this? Who approves the new emojis to be added? I need them to give me a call ASAP.

We need an emoji for “a can of worms.” In fact, we need three of them, small, medium, and large, just like the thumbs up with the different skin tones.

We can start text messages to our bosses and supervisors with the “small can of worms” emoji when they need to be aware of something, but we’re handling it, it’s probably going to be just fine, but just in case it comes back around and we don’t want them to be surprised or blindsided, we’re going to give them a couple of details.

Messages that start with the “medium can of worms” would indicate that they probably need to pay attention and you need some help. You might be playing outside of your weight class on this one and could use some immediate help.

Then there’s the “large can of worms” emoji. This would be for when the IRS or police are at the office door with some unpleasant paperwork, or the pregnant woman from accounting took a tumble on a wet floor and went ass over tea kettle down a flight of stairs. This emoji might need a sound effect to go along with it, perhaps something of a siren or the Robot from “Lost In Space” shouting, “Danger! Danger, Will Robinson! Danger!” (Okay, how many of you read that in the Robot’s voice and flailed your arms up and down while doing so?)

I guess the level beyond that could be an emoji for a single huge sandworm from “Dune,” which could be a great tie in to the movie that opens this weekend. (Yes, I have tickets already.) For a sound effect you could have a legion of Fremen shouting, “Shai Halud!” It would be up to your boss to figure if the proper response would be to get out the hooks and ropes and mount up, or run like a bat out of hell for a rock outcropping.

Can someone get on that? And while they’re at it, maybe add an emoji for “a barrel of monkeys.” Memos to your boss shouldn’t ALL be bad news!

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Filed under Farce, Silly Shit

February 20, 2023 · 23:06

Inquiring Minds – February 20th

On all of my PC’s running both Windows 10 and Windows 11 the volume goes from 0 to 100 in steps of 2. Even numbers only. No way to set it to 17, for example.

Why?

Why don’t they set it to go from 0 to 50 in increments of one?

[Image - 198362] | These go to 11 / Spinal Tap | Know Your Meme

Does Microsoft think that their amps should go to 22?

Seriously, is there some bizarre limitation to the OS or programming reason that prevents there from being any prime number other than 2 being used?

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Filed under Deep Thoughts, Silly Shit

January 13, 2023 · 23:35

NASA Engineering Humor

Late. Tired. Keep It Short, Stupid!

I may have posted this at the time (I can’t imagine that I would have passed up the opportunity) but I don’t see where, so let’s go with it.

From back when I could go to NASA Socials, i.e. 2015, here’s a picture of an unpowered drone that would carry instruments and be pulled behind an aircraft at the end of a long rope or cable.

Obviously…

…it’s a toad drone.

I’ll be here all weekend. Tip your waitress!

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Filed under Photography, Silly Shit