One Bad Random

Whenever we travel, the wife and I usually take an Airborne in hopes of fighting off a cold for vacation. Since we've been doing this we haven't been sick on vacation. Now there seems to be a lawsuit in the works against the makers of Airborne. I've heard that their "clinical trials" may not be all scientifically rigorous (to put it gently) and that it may not do much of anything at all. Maybe it's just an overpriced vitamin with potentially dangerous levels of vitamin A. My question is this: if it stops working for me, can I sue the lawyers bringing the class action suit for ruining my perfectly good placebo effect? With everybody suing everybody else I should be able to get some money too.

Turkey Day

I woke up on Thanksgiving day to find that the cooking was underway. My mother was already heating her week old frozen turkey and making way too many mashed potatoes. This last is the result of me once saying that I liked mashed potatoes. Ever since that slip she's been cooking up several quarts of the stuff for me each and every holiday. The rest of the meal consisted of gravy from a mix, corn, a salad, and cranberry sauce in the shape of a can. There weren't any rolls for some reason but I didn't really care. At nearly every meal I'm the last one done somehow. Today I was done in a record five minutes and left the table. After my dad was done eating he went after some of those off-limit pies (you know he's got the diabetes, don't you?), but just little pieces so I don't think they count.

Later, I wandered into the game room to borrow my parents' scanner. I had to make a quick copy of my proof of insurance and decided to use the free time rather than wait until I was back home. The day before I had had to reset my parents' computer wallpaper because they didn't know how. They had accidentally set it to a picture of a horse (rotated 90 degrees) and didn't know how to undo it. I mention this only because someone that had done such a thing should not try to instruct me on how to use the scanner and printer (both of which I set up for them in the first place). But, that's just what my dad started doing. He was very insistent about what I should be using on the computer to accomplish my task. In spite of his help I managed to finish my task and move on.

For some reason my mother later decided she needs bread for turkey sandwiches. Just in case anyone wants one later. I don't, Lisa doesn't, my dad doesn't eat white bread "what with the diabetes and all". I tell her she can go out and try to find some place to buy it if she wants to, but that I don't think it's necessary. She gets in a huff about it for some reason and my dad starts in with "Well, do you want me to go get some goddamn bread or not?" She responds with the ever helpful, "Nevermind! It's fine. Nevermind!" Ah, family.

Much like I did as a teenager, I retreat to my room and close the door. The main difference now is that I have an internet connection and a girl in there. Despite what I would have thought as a teenager I opt to use the internet connection. While catching up on my feeds I hear the omnipresent [cough][COUGH][HORK!!!] from the other room. My dad picked up a cough shortly before we had arrived. He's sure it's not contagious, but I'm somewhat doubtful. Then, I hear quite clearly (because he listens to the television at full volume) the sounds of a television show in Spanish blasting through the walls. I sneak out to find that he's watching a Mexican version of Family Feud. This is made more odd by the fact that he doesn't speak Spanish. He watches roughly ten minutes of it before moving on to something else. I sometimes feel like these people are aliens not so cleverly disguised to look like humans.

To round out the evening, the four of us have an impromptu bullshit session around the kitchen table. We spend the time catching up on family news and I get to hear about how my parents are going to die any day now. Despite that last mandatory discussion of everyone's mortality, it proves to be the most enjoyable part of the trip. There's no television blasting, almost everyone hears everything the first time it's said, and they seem so much like real people.

Epilogue

I wake up the next day eager to hit the road and get back to my own bed and my own internet connection. After she's done showering, Lisa sees my parents eating cereal for breakfast. This means we can hit the road without going to eat first. As I finish my shower I find out that they're still somehow ready to go eat lunch. They're machines! We get tricked into going to some cut rate Chinese-like buffet. The selection is poor and everything is either too sweet or has an extra "bonus" flavor added to it that makes it incredibly unappetizing.

When we get to the table my mother separates some broccoli onto another plate and sits it on the edge of the table. A waiter swoops in and takes it off to the back. "What the fuck was that about," I ask.

"He's going to rinse it off. I can't have any salt." She then sits there not eating. When asked she explains, "I'm waiting for them to bring me more of the shrimp sauce."

"Did you ask for any?" She assures me that they "know." Sure enough her broccoli returns with a cup and a half of some sauce that looks like vanilla pudding. She stirs it into her rice and drenches her shrimp in it. My dad then eagerly takes the rest and spews it on his food as well. He offers some to Lisa and me. We decline and he happily uses the rest of it. Once again, my parents' newfound mysterious love of sauces over food (see the piña colada sauce from the previous entry) is further evidence that they're some sort of alien species. One that subsists on a diet primarily of sauce or sauce-like substances.

We finally make it out of there and have a white knuckle ride home thanks to my dad's crazy driving. I think he's hopped up on the sugar from the pineapple and chocolate pudding concoction he created from the dessert portion of the buffet. Lisa and I hit the ground running, pack, load the car, insist we must do it again some time, and get the hell out of dodge.

I spent Tuesday night tossing and turning because it's so goddamn hot in this house (the AC is broken). Sleeping with the window open isn't an option because it faces a noisy street and has no screen. It's amazing how hot an enclosed 10×10 room can get with two adults and three dogs.

After rolling out of bed at the crack of noon on Wednesday (a bit early for me on my days off) I started training the parents on the Wii. I got them Super Paper Mario because they seem to have enjoyed the whole Mario/Yoshi/Donkey Kong saga. As an aside, I highly recommend the game. It has some very clever level design and utilizes a good combination of 2D and 3D gaming. It also pokes fun at video games in general by tearing down the fourth wall a bit. Trying to teach the parents how to use a new controller and a new game at the same time is not a fun experience. It's not just the button placement, it's also the whole motion sensing with the Wiimote. Apparently when you throw in anything new, they forget everything they've ever learned. "Go left. Your other left. Press the 'A' button. The one with an 'A' on it. This one. That right there. Press it. PRESS IT!!!" I'm also not feeling particularly patient at the time.

We eventually head out to Red Lobster for lunch, a staple in my parents' diet. We get there and they're immediately pissed off because their usual array of waiters aren't working. They go through their usual routine of ordering and cap it off with numerous requests for lots of extra piña colada sauce for their shrimp. About 3 months or so ago they discovered this stuff and it must be like old people crack. They each get a mere 1/3 of a cup of this sauce with their meal. I watch as my mother dips her shrimp in this stuff trying to get as much as physically possible on and around the shrimp. She finally runs out with about half her shrimp left. She gets another one and when she's done with her shrimp she eats the rest with a fork. Yum. They recommend that I try it, but honestly its addictive powers scare me. I'm better off not knowing some things. I suggest next time they should see if they'll just bring them a soup bowl full of the stuff and they can forgo the rest of the meal.

After eating we have to go by Marie Callender's to pick up some pies. Since there's only four of us at Thanksgiving this year three pies should cover it. Traffic is backed up getting into the parking lot. I mention that I don't want a pie for me next year. This somehow baffles my dad who starts ranting, "Let's not get any pies next year then. He doesn't want a pie. I guess I can't have a pie." "Do you even eat any of these pies," I ask. "Me? No, I can't have any. You know I've got the diabetes." Of course, somehow they don't have my mother's pie order anywhere to be found. We wait a few minutes and they make it all right by stealing pies from some other poor bastard's order.

We get back to the house and my parents play with their new toy while I blog about yesterday. Their friend that was supposed to have fixed the air conditioner in the first place shows up and fixes it again. He then hauls ass out of there. I finally realize it's fixed and turn on the AC to find that it's as loud as a motherfucker (which I understand can be quite loud). I tell my parents it seems to still be broken and they decide to take the matter up after the holiday. In the meantime they're hungry again. Let's all go to Bill Miller's! Neither Lisa nor I are hungry, but I decide there's alway room for hash browns. I turn off the AC as we leave because I don't trust things that are so obviously broken to run in my absence without bursting into flames. Let the dogs pant.

We get to Bill Miller's and I just get a pint of hash browns. As I'm at the counter getting some of their BBQ sauce for my hash browns (that's just how I roll) my dad just walks behind the counter and starts grabbing "to go" boxes (he likes to get that out of the way early). As several employees exchange baffled looks with me, I mention that they probably don't want him back there and he just mutters, "I don't care." Later I find two bones that look like chicken ribs in my hash browns. I can only assume some angry employee spit them in there not realizing they didn't belong to that crazy old man that keeps coming behind the counter.

We get back to the house and the air conditioner doesn't work. It won't even come on now. It's a bit of a mixed blessing since the cool front has now come through the area. It's down to 75 in the house and my parents are wishing the central air worked so they could turn on the heat. Unfortunately they won't get the benefit of peripheral oven heat from the turkey cooking because my mother cooked it, carved it, and froze it a week ago to "save time." If you've never had week old previously frozen turkey for Thanksgiving I don't want to spoil the surprise for you, but it really is as good as it sounds.

One more day to go. I think I just might make it out of here alive.

As always, the wife and I headed to my parents' house for Thanksgiving. We missed last year as some of you regular readers may recall. This year we headed down on Tuesday evening. It's always good to get in a few days before the event so I can re-convince myself that I'm really adopted. It also makes it easier to haul ass out of there on either Thursday night or Friday morning.

This year it would just be my parents and me and my wife. The fun began as soon as we arrived. My mother informed me that the air conditioner was broken. They had discovered this on Sunday when they tried to use the heater to take the chill off. If memory serves it was a wintry 80-ish this past Sunday. When they hit the heat it didn't come on. They called some family friend to fix it. Whenever I need some work done, I love relying on friends to do the work for free. I find that I get my money's worth that way. He got it fixed on Monday and they discovered on Tuesday (the first time they tried to turn it on) that it didn't work again. The friend said he'd take a look at it as soon as he could, which meant it was broken on Tuesday night when we arrived.

The part that pisses me off most is that once again my parents felt the need to lie by omission. If they had told us of this fact we could have delayed the trip by a day or so. Another alternative would be for them to come up and see us. The last time I checked it was the same distance either way…

While I'm boggling at the complete lack of consideration about this air conditioning bullshit Lisa takes the dogs outside. While out there with our two chihuahuas and miniature dachshund (small dogs for those of you not in the know) she sees that the renters in the house next door (my parents are slum lords) have three pit bulls chained to various trees in their backyard (large dogs for those of you not in the know). I'm not a fan of any kenneling situation that involves chains and trees–too Sanford and Son for me–but that's a discussion for another time.

When all the dogs see each other it sets off a frenzy of barking and posturing by big dogs that like to eat little dogs and by little dogs that think they're big dogs. As she's trying to restore order Lisa sees that one of the dogs has discovered some delicious cat shit. People who don't own dogs may not be aware that all dogs are hardwired to devour cat shit on sight. They can't help themselves. The cat shit is strewn throughout the yard because my parents have taken to feeding the stray cats in the neighborhood. I've tried to tell them to fight the stereotype of old people and cats but they just won't listen. The added bonus is we both wind up stepping in cat shit, which is no worse than stepping in dog shit unless of course you don't own a cat. Then it just makes you develop an unreasonable hatred of cats–which makes you a lot like dogs with the exception that you (I assume) don't find cat shit tasty.

Moving on. I bought my parents a Wii recently to try and get them back on a Nintendo platform–they're hardcore gamers and I like having a huge supply of $20-$50 gifts to guy them. In preparation I bought myself a new wireless router. It's 802.11n capable even though I don't have an 802.11n adapter. I thought the supposed increase in range would be nice and this gives me a reason to buy a new laptop. I had set up the new router on Monday at my place and packed up my old WAP to take to the parents. They don't have wireless and I thought it would be grand to have the Wii use its built in WiFi adapter. As an added bonus the wife and I wouldn't have to drag 40 foot ethernet umbilicals around the house.

I get the access point up and running complete with a static DHCP lease off of their Freesco box, set up both laptops with the huge shared key, and nearly break arm patting myself on the back. I then turn my attention to the Wii only to discover that the television set my parents have in "the game room" has one coaxial input that already has an SNES and PS2 hooked up to it through a myriad of boxes that no doubt came from that slum of all electronics stores–Radio Shack. I thought all single input coaxial televisions were in the former Soviet Union, but I guess I was wrong. This in combination with the dripping sweat, sweaty sticky hair, sweat, and fucking sweat make me finally snap.

Me: Wow. It sure is pretty hot in here.
Mom: Yes. We may need a fan tonight.
Me: I thought you didn't have any other fans.
Mom: Do you think we should buy one?
Dad: What?
Mom: HE SAYS WE SHOULD BUY A FAN!
Dad: What for?
Me: It's 90 degrees in here.
Dad: Huh?
Mom: HE SAYS IT'S HOT IN HERE!
Dad: Well why don't we go get a fan.
Me: I need another cable for the Wii anyway. I'm going to fucking Walmart.
Mom: WE'RE GOING TO WALMART!
Dad: We are?
Me: No, I'm going to Walmart. Alone.
Mom: WAIT! HE SAID HE'S GOING TO WALMART!
Dad: Let me get my shoes. I'll drive.
Lisa: I'll go.
Me: Whatever. Hurry up.
Dad: What?
Mom: NEVERMIND! THEY'RE GOING TO WALMART!
Me: Stay here and watch the dogs or something.
Mom: WE'RE STAYING TO WATCH THE DOGS!

The wife and I drive angrily over to Walmart. We get there to find it surprisingly crowded for the Tuesday night before Thanksgiving at 11:00 at night. People aren't even buying Thanksgiving supplies. I see people with pillows and baby clothes in their baskets. It all very surreal. I get the electronic component I need and we find the fan department. They don't sell fans because it's winter. I can however buy a space heater. Fuck you, blue vest. I storm over to frozen foods and pick out a few things to eat. There's never any food in my parents' house because they eat out every meal. At checkout we find four registers open each with 10-15 people in line. It's now midnight. The cashier is moving like her job depends on it–her crappy job at Walmart, which is to say she's not in a hurry. To add to the strangeness, everyone pays in cash, typically with a $100 bill in there. Twenty minutes after getting in line we're headed out the door with our own bag of odd items: an RCA to coaxial converter box, a bag of Doritos, and 8 frozen TV dinners.

When we get back I set up the Wii, once again input the 63 character shared key, and begin the system update. Of course it's moving at a snail's pace because Lisa's on motherfucking Second Life (now with voice chat) utterly dominating the meager bandwidth my parents' piece of shit DSL connection has to offer. Over an hour later it completes and the new console is ready to go. Of course, my parents have long since gone to bed.

I decide I'm hungry and whip up a Hungry Man meatloaf and mashed potato TV dinner. My parents' underpowered microwave oven (with no turntable) takes a full 50% longer to get the meal to luke warm status than the instructions recommend. When I finally eat it, it tastes "brown." No real food-like flavor, just a nebulous brown-ness to everything. That's the only way I can describe it. We take the dogs out one last time, get barked at incessantly, both step in cat shit one last time and call it a night.

Man was not meant to live like this. Thus ends day one.

I have digital cable through Time Warner cable, which means I have a Scientific Atlantic box. Last night I was changing channels rapidly up in the HD range and the box just locked up. It sat there for 30 seconds or so then powered off. After 5 seconds it came back on for another 10 seconds or so. Then it powered off. After that I couldn't get it to power on at all. It was bricked. How mysterious! Is rapid changing of HD channels outside of the valid use cases? Is it all just a big coincidence? I may never know.

Our neighbor must have been doing some bathroom remodeling, because two days before "trash day" there was a toilet sitting by the street. My first thought was that I should drop my pants and get a picture of myself sitting on the street-side toilet. Of course, that'd be silly, idiotic, and just plain stupid. And then, I got a couple of drinks in me:

My parents would be so proud.

So Easy, Your Parents Can Use It

In order to consider something truly usable, it should be so easy to use that your parents can use it. I've heard this bit of bullshit numerous times. While I didn't participate directly in the following eBay use case study, I do know the players quite well. What follows is a summary of events that occurred in 2007 that I call simply "The eBay Fiasco."

My mother calls up my wife and says she needs some help with something.

Lisa: What's up?
Mom: Well, we bought something on the eBay and now we can't pay for it. It wants some electronic thing.
Lisa: Oh, it's probably PayPal. I can just pay for you and you can pay me back. What's your eBay account?
Mom: Oh my. I don't know that.
Lisa: Um, what account were you using when you bought it?
Mom: DOUG!?!? WHAT'S THE ACCOUNT WITH THE EBAY!? He doesn't know. We made it last night.
Lisa: I'll check your HotMail for the confirmation e-mail. Here we go. There are two. Which one did you use?
Mom: DOUG!?! WHICH ACCOUNT DID WE USE? … FOR THE EBAY! … ON THE COMPUTER! … He doesn't know.
Lisa: Okay. What's the password for the accounts?
Mom: DOUG!?! WHAT'S THE PASSWORD!? … FOR THE EBAY! … He doesn't know.
Lisa: Well, I don't want to reset both passwords. I'll just find the auction by searching for closed auctions listing the item you bought. What is it?
Mom: Oh, we bought some panties.
Lisa: Panties?
Mom: Panties.
Lisa: Oh. Okay. Well, there are a few closed auctions, oddly, for panties. I'll list off the account names.
Mom: That's it. The last one.
Lisa: I'll have it reset the password for that account. The security question is "What was the first street you lived on?"
Mom: Oh, we put a different answer for that. It's my mom's dad's mom's maiden name. Marion.
Lisa: That didn't work.
Mom: Well, Doug misspelled it. It's M-A-R-Y-A-N-N.
Lisa: Nope.
Mom: M-A-R-I-O-N.
Lisa: We tried that one.
Mom: M-A-R-Y-A-N-N-E.
Lisa: Nope.
Mom: M-A-R-I-A-N-N-E.
Lisa: Okay, that's it. I'm in. Well, it's not PayPal, it's BidPay. I don't have one of those. You can pay by money order.
Mom: That's fine.
Lisa: I sent the seller an e-mail. I also sent you an e-mail with all the details. Just print that out and send that address the money order. Put the printout in the letter. It has the details for the auction and your address information.
Mom: Thanks so much, dear.
Lisa: Oh, it's no problem.

Conclusion

I cannot design a site so simple that my parents can use it–I would go insane. I shudder at the security implications. I can't. I won't. Fuck you.

The internet is so pervasive that people like my parents are now buying their underwear online. I'm not sleeping so well lately, for a number of reasons. Did I mention they were edible? Okay, I made that part up.

Today I had installed FireFox in a VM just because I hate not having FF on any machine, virtual or otherwise, that I use. I decided to add my quickie Google and Google Image searches to the bookmarks (keyword "g" and "i" respectively). After adding the image bookmark I did my usual Ctrl+L to get to the address bar, typed "i" followed by some random garbage keystrokes–you know, as a test. The random string was "tekj". BAM! The first image is some hot Asian girl dressed as a "devil/succubus/Wyscan seducing/Robert juicing/I'd like to be caboosing" temptress.

I don't even need to actively search for this stuff! It's finding me now. The post containing the original picture has additional photos of Asian girls in various costumes at some sort of party. They're dressed as pirates, cats, witches, zombies, and school girls full of Nyquil or Tylenol PM (aka the future Mrs. Wyscan). It's like my sick fetishes burst out of my head and created their own web page. One where all the pics are of Asian women flashing peace / V signs while they try to appear as doll-like as possible. Oh, and while dressing as fairy tale creatures while consuming large amounts of judgment impairing substances. How can anyone not acknowledge the awesomeness of the internet. Grr!

As I mentioned before, I keep finding dead things on the sidewalk outside of the building where I work. Well, it has done it again. This time it's a bird that has mysteriously died in roughly the same location as several other small creatures. While not as spectacular as the impact spray from the possibly suicidal frog that appeared to have jumped off of the roof, it is still worth documenting here. You know, for science:

So, I'm driving home (actually to Fry's) at around 3:15pm on a Monday afternoon. There's a telephone company repair truck ahead of me and one ahead and to the left. Suddenly, (gasp!) I see some sort of brown paper bag blowing around. It goes from under the truck ahead of me, out the left side, up the right side of the other truck, and then finally below the truck in front of me.

I hate hitting bags for fear of some plastic bag somehow causing a weird technical failure in my car and killing me semi-instantly, so I try to figure out how I'm going to avoid it. There, sitting right in front of my car is a barely post-kitten cat. That motherfucker is staring right at me. I tap the brakes a little thinking, "I can't swerve and I'm not stomping on these brakes, you little piece of shit." Suddenly it bolts off the only direction that I think it could and actually survive. It made it off the road before I drove past.

Now, I don't know that the cat wasn't all fucked up, but it made it off the road at least. Holy shit! I'm not a cat person, but I want that fucking cat! I'd buy it a leather collar with "Bad Motherfucker" on it. I like my dogs, but they can't do that. Um, the end.