Category Archives: Humor

Security in Light of Comedy

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I have a friend who went through security holding onto a Mountain Dew soda beverage.  Security at the airport.  The airport where congress in the United States has made that illegal.  So my friend was told by security, “You cannot take that drink through security, sir.”  His curt reply was, “What?  Am I going to make a bomb out of Mountain Dew?”

They really made the rest of his stay at the airport exciting and irritating.  Security, whose purpose is to make sure we’re all safe, was not a joke.  While traveling through the security checkpoint at the Denver International Airport, around the same time, I discovered I had accidentally left my pocket knife in my pocket (where it belongs).  I quickly slipped it into my computer bag with my keys and wallet and let it go through x-ray.  If they find it, I want them to find it and remove it from my bag and I’ll blush for having forgotten to put it on my night stand.  Security didn’t catch my knife on the x-ray screen.  I got to keep it, hidden, and then when I arrived in Grapevine, TX, I put it in my luggage that was checked so as to not get it confiscated by the DFW screeners who are effective at finding knives in bags… I’ve lost two to them.

Last night I watched Spaceballs at the movie theater with my brother-in-law.  In that movie there are a few really, really good bits on security holes that often exist in real-life security situations.  The combination number for the planet Druidia’s security system was 1-2-3-4-5 [as was the president’s luggage combination]. The security guards protecting the self-destruct mechanism inside of Spaceball One (the extra-long battleship) help foil the security.  Mel Brookes, the genius behind Spaceballs, saw the idiotic nature of much of our security in the world and cried foul, and nearly made me cry because it was so funny.

This morning I watched Pinky & the Brain with my daughters.  Again, they bring to light the comedy of lax security in what should be important situations.  Comedy makes us laugh about what is really important.  What is so often funny in the comedy is that we all know that the human error involved in the scenarios is quite probable.  Worse, we can laugh because we see the horrible catastrophe playing out before our eyes.  Even more we see in books like Dave Barry’s Big Trouble has a great section at the end of the book where terrorists jump through security with guns as if its no problem simply because they can time the system and game it.  The writing is hilarious (as is most of Dave’s work) but the problem is real.

Does the staff at the TSA, FBI, CIA, BMW or AT&T [that was a little comedy right there.  Very little.] ever watch comedy movies or television shows?  Because when they make choices about security it isn’t always obvious?  Bruce Schneier, a respected security expert and security blogger, has written on many occasions about the bumbling choices that get made in the name of security.  I would laugh if it wasn’t so irritating to have so many good examples.  I hear you loud and clear from here, Bruce, there’s very little that we won’t try in the name of security, except for the stuff that works, because that’s just ridiculous.

My Children are Insane with a Capital N

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Warning: this post contains lots of non sequiturs, I’m tired, and non sequiturs make me chuckle when I’m tired.  I’d ask if you follow what I”m saying except that that’s what a non sequitur is.  Elephants wander through the African planes and such.

Both girls have been in a mild to extreme melt-down mode since coming home from Indiana. I’m pretty sure this is due to the fact that Jessica and I have also been in punt mode. We’ve had a lot going on and when that happens we end up punting a lot. If you’re not familiar with the punt analogy it ties in with the popular American sport called American Football. Its called American Football because the rest of the world calls it American Football because they had a sport called football long before the Americans who took Rugby, Football, Sumo Wrestling and the Civil War and combined them together so that only very fast, large men (and now, apparently fast, large women) can mash into one another like two over-loaded sports cars while one smaller, but still huge man attempts to throw the ball to another smaller, not as huge man who runs even faster than the other fast runners in an attempt to not be killed by oncoming fast, large men. This is, in short, American Football.

In American Football there’s a really nice thing that happens: the teams share the ball and take turns having ‘possession’ of the ball. Possession is a loose term because each team could find themselves running with the ball, in fear of being creamed by the other team, lose the ball and then do what’s called fumbling the ball and then recovering the dropped ball, which means that they might still have possession even though they temporarily did not have possession. After enough time lapses where the team who had possession didn’t do anything useful with the ball, they might have what’s called a fourth down. The fourth down follows the first through third down. The number of downs you have depends on the number of severely injured fowl you have as well as fouls that may have been committed by players added together with the number of yards the football has traveled in a subjectively positive direction. Upon the fourth down, if the team who has possession of the ball decides that they’re too close to the scoring end-zone of the opposing team they can do what’s called punting. Punting is to kick the ball to the other end of the field but not into the scoring end-zone, just up close to it. The returning, opposing team then catches the ball and the player who catches the ball hopefully runs a long, long way so that they get back closer to the original end-zone so that they can get a touchdown. A touchdown has nothing to do with the downs mentioned earlier. So the punt is a scrambled maneuver that is only done to prevent the other team from scoring and is generally looked at as a last resort maneuver.

Since Jessica and I have been resorting to the punt for the last couple weeks due to some unforeseen circumstances, work, and a general sense of being whelmed (not over or under, but relatively pegged) the girls have probably felt like the football being kicked from one end of the field as we play American Football with each day.  This is why Evelyn threw a screaming temper tantrum as we were entering the fine Costco store this evening to collect small, specific bits of food for Father’s Day this weekend. Food that will keep us going in our punting, punting that will keep us from scoring, but keep the other team from scoring. Scoring which makes us like John Williams, who does not play American Football.

A Kids Song In the Making

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Tonight, to relieve some stress and to do something I haven’t done in far too long I began working on a song. A kids song. An alphabet oriented kids song. I wanted to post what I’ve recorded so far and wanted to get some feedback.

Lyrics:
W I Need U
I had to ask O Y
R U coming back
I think I’m gonna die

Xs are the hardest N
This life which is OK
You flew away
Like some distant blue J

W I need U
I had to ask O Y
R U coming back
I think I’m gonna die

MP3

That’s The Fork Calling the Knife Cutlery

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In what is an ironic twist of science meets computers meets religion a “scientist” used a “computer program” to determine the origins of “religion” in “Michigan”. You can read an article about it here if you want to. I’ll pick some excerpts to poke holes in or poke fun of below in case out of context quotes are your thing:

The model assumes, in other words, that a small number of people have a genetic predisposition to communicate unverifiable information to others.

I got confused when I read this line because I was pretty sure this was the definition of journalism. Clearly the journalist who wrote this has the intellect to determine that because no time machine has been invented and mass produced and marketed yet that one of the clear issues this concept faces is that a computer program does not equal verifiable information. It also indicates that when you use the word assume, and the author does, that you’re not using facts, you’re using assumptions. I’m going to assume the author is a chimpanzee, though this is not a fact, it is merely an assumption. Or the author has a religious gene, but its being portrayed in the temple of the media.

The model looks at the reproductive success of the two sorts of people – those who pass on real information, and those who pass on unreal information.

Here the author is clearly implying things about people with marketing degrees and those who blog. Marketing bunks and bloggers debunk, right?! Don’t sell them what they need, sell them what they want. Or maybe this is a typo and he meant ‘reel information’ and ‘unreal information’ as a euphemism to fishing stories involving fish that get bigger and bigger. I can’t tell.

“[Now] you can be a Lutheran one week and decide the following week you are going to become a Buddhist.”

Ah, the classic argument about the issue of ‘being’. Philosophy at its finest. If you’re being a doctor and then the next week you are being a mechanic you better not force your co-workers to call you doctor when you’re tinkering with transmissions. And if you get sweaty on your brow asking bubba to come over and wipe your forehead like you might request a nurse to do is just out of the question 😉 But seriously, being a Lutheran and then being a Buddhist the next week is improbable if you’re truly being something. The change will more than likely be gradual and involve a disinterest rather than be this quick. A quote of generalization about religious attitudes from a less religious professional does not a good article make. Unless of course you want to pass along unverifiable information to people because of a genetic disposition. In which case those pants make you look fat, Mr. Callaway. I can’t prove it, but I’m willing to publish it on the internet for religious reasons – its in your jeans.

More Barns In More Places

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We’re in Kansas any more. We entered the state in the AM and will finally be out of it in the PM. It is a sad state to drive the width of because the only things to break the horizon are grain silohs and barns. Periodically a town will dot highway 70 with overpriced gas and pornography for Roman people who are 30 (XXX).

The girls are being mostly good and my iPhone is getting mostly good reception. I just want the wind to stop blowing so that the car doesn’t feel like we’re going to Oz Oh, and Kansas is the boyhood home of Bob Dole, who became a congressman and got out of Kansas to represent the state in Washington DC, a much more populous place, but you can drive through it just as slowly due to traffic and construction.

Hicks

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My grandparents have a pond on ther farm in Northern California.  A mere thirty miles from the rocky cliffs of Mendocino.  I think that Mendocino is a Spanish word for hippies and liberals, but since I only took two first year courses in Spanish you should probably look that up.  Yes, I took the first year course twice.  Es muy bueno.  El queso es viejo y tiene molde.  Anyway, my grandparents pond supplies the water that comes out of their faucets.  The water tastes like fish swim in it.  The fish do swim in that water, so I feel good about it tasting like pond water.

The problem is that I’m on a business trip down to Grapevine, TX.  The water here tastes like fish swim in it.  After being filtered by a multi-dollar filtration system that I’m sure the city paid good money to have put in incorrectly.  The water has probably been filtered with a fish net and a pair of used pantyhose.  I know that sounds cruel, but you’ll find that they have signs that indicate that the water is ‘Superior’ by some random test that is performed by drunk people who have had their tongues cut out.  The drunk tongueless people find the water superior to the toilets that they were reversing into the last time they stepped past drunk and into vomiting mode.

The upside is that our friends the Mason’s gave us several bottles of contraband.  I believe we have several bottles of bottled water that has been filtered to the point of tasting like nothing.  Nothing is exactly what water should taste like.  It shouldn’t taste like fish, kool-aide, teriyaki or Coors.  Oh , or perier.   But God has grace so that when we defile the water with labels like ‘Coors’ or Naive ‘Evian’ the water doesn’t just turn into air through an instant evaporation process so that we’re smitten for suggesting that God’s creation wasn’t good enough.

I just wanted to let you know that I like water… I just like it to taste like water and not sushimi gone awry.

Oh, and I’m thankful for the Mason’s giving us water that you can drink and be proud of.

Funniest Cruise Story Ever!

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My old boss (and sort of boss now that I’m a contractor for the same company) wrote about his latest cruise – he’s still on it – but its been painfully stupid.  You can read about it here.

I would encourage you to leave a comment of your own cruise experience if you’ve been on one because it’ll surely be read by others who find this post amusing!

Slight Site Tweak

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For the few of you that read this blog within a browser and not through RSS, I’ve made a small number of changes that should hopefully help you.

  • I’ve set the categories to indent so that its easier to find categories that are of the sub nature
  • I’ve added a small blog-roll. I’ve got more sites that I track, but these come recommended for general readership (more will be added over time)
  • I’ve removed the archives. I have archives dating back to about the time that Cortez was sailing around looking for West Indians to kill with disease, swords and social networks.

A lesser known fact is that the Pordcast has moved to https://randypeterman.com/thepordcast/. Since its not active at the moment that’s not a huge loss. I do plan to resurrect it in the next few months with a new series on finances. Something that I know far too little about but plan on exploring and sharing with you what I find. As long as its not West Indians with socialized medicine and a penchant for corn roasted over bat guano.