People ask me, “Randy, what’s the best thing about having a recording studio in your home office?” And I reply, “Knowing that if I actually had more time, I could record stuff.” But people seldom ask, “Randy, what’s the worst thing about having a recording studio in your home office?” Which would of course be the problem of me coughing and having approximately 12 or more strings resonate with my cough behind me. That’s irritating! Of course the upside is that when I finally debug some code and shout out, “Whoooo!,” they also resonate like a choir of angels. OK, it doesn’t really sound like a choir of angels, it sounds like some guitar strings resonating quietly, but I have an over-active imagination.
Category Archives: The Obvious
Stupid Picture Face Disorder
There is a problem in our modern culture something that needs to be addressed: Stupid Picture Face Disorder (SPFD). If you’re not sure what I’m talking about I suggest that you take out some sort of picture taking device at the next social function you find yourself at, and you’ll learn what I’m talking about. Someone who looks perfectly normal will begin moving ten times more than they have the rest of the night. Or they might stick their tongues out. or they might make some other goofy face. These are examples of SPFD. This problem is probably bigger than America realizes. Just search Google for Stupid Face. At parties cameras come out and SPFD strikes the degreed astrophysicist so that he looks to have arrived on the short bus.
Imagine, if you will, the groom up at the altar. His bride walks down the aisle, the very picture of beauty and grace. The pastor has them facing him and begins, “Dearly beloved, we’re gathered here today to join these two…,” and it is at this moment that the pastor sees that the groom has SPFD due to the wedding photographer and is beggining to stick out his tongue, and it is also at this moment that the pastor involuntarily spits out the word, “Freaks!” instead of the normal, “people.” SPFD can strike anywhere and it needs to be stopped.
Fortunately there are some solutions to SPFD. It should be noted that the usual person strikes into SPFD as a deterrent. You see at some point in time, often in the teenage years, their mothers drag out pictures of them naked at two years of age in front of their girlfriends, or maybe someone takes a picture of them dancing at a party and instead of it looking like the super smooth moves of a brilliant dancer it looks like a poster for seizure awareness. Instead, when cameras come out people should stop doing goofy things like putting carrots in their nose (see exhibit a)
Or maybe sticking their tongues out (see exhibit b)
And definitely not trying to avoid the picture by moving out of the way (see exhibit c)
Instead people with SPFD should hold still and act normal. That way they can avoid the goofy pictures being pulled out by parents, weird relatives, or displayed on the Internet. Once you’ve seen that you can look normal in a picture, and by normal I don’t mean like the models who are photoshopped to death on magazine covers, you will discover that SPFD can be a thing of the past. Remember, only you can prevent forest fires.
So I went to the Mall…
And who lets these teenagers go out with their brains turned off? I went into Hollister, which is kind of like a clothing store, except that the first thing that you think when walking in is not, “Clothes!” Instead you think, “Must have air!,” because they have perfume all over the place stinking the store up to the point where you honestly consider buying things at Goodwill instead, because you’re sure the clothes look as bad, and that the air will smell musty instead of like the inside of a perfume bottle. Upon departing Hollister we walked about the mall attempting to get to various places to buy things. At one point in time two teenage girls exited the shop I was about to pass and slowed me (and all three frillion people behind me) down because they were walking in the gear right before reverse, with little gas. I don’t know what made them think, “Lets slow this whole mall down,” but whatever it was, I’d like to have it outlawed.
Whew! I know that sounds cranky but it was a day filled with shopping, and while I love shopping, I love shopping with efficiency even more. I’m an efficiency nut, which is why I drink water in glasses instead of from sieves, cullenders, funnels and firehoses. I also try to buy low emission vehicles that get good gas mileage. And, to reduce my shopping headache I shop for the holidays now. Which is not as good as shopping in July, except that sometimes people want to get gifts that are more recent. If I could pre-order more of life, I think I would.
There were other funny things that took place at the mall such as watching the elevator doors nearly close on a baby stroller because the designer of the elevator figured that the moms and handicapped people who were going to ride in the elevator also were Olympic athletes in speed training. Fortunately the mother in charge of said stroller was a veteran and shoved the stroller further into the elevator causing the doors to relent. Relent Green is people [sorry, I just thought that since soylent and relent sounded similar…]. Once in the elevator the scary scene in the movie started. You know the one where the deep rumbling sound starts and then higher pitched dissonant sounds kick in and you really know something bad is going to happen? The nasty, nasty sounds from the thriller movies were coming from the mechanics of the elevator. Yippee! But as passengers we didn’t race out of the elevator once the rapidly opening (and don’t forget closing!) doors expanded to their open position, instead we slowly paced out so that those getting on would not know that they were getting into the scary elevator. We should have been screaming just to freak people out 🙂
One last brilliant thing happened in the mall. I saw a security guard pick up a pair of balloons that had lost their ‘float’ and slowly lower the ribbons from the balloons into the garbage can and then take a utility knife *cough* of the swiss variety *cough* and pop them. In the mall. In case you have missed out on the sound of balloons popping in your life let me gently remind you that they don’t just go, “phhhhhhhhh.” Popping balloons go BOOM! And since post 9/11 too much of America is still scared of being wiped out at the mall. By terrorists. Shame on the security guard who has the sense to get rid of the extremely dangerous “unattended items” in the mall, but in a way that scares the kaka out of a large group of trapped lemmings. By simply cutting the balloon by the thicker rubber at the knot he could have released the air in a slow and quiet way. But Lone Tree’s best apparently like a good laugh.
I guess I laughed, too. Inside, because I knew that laughing at all of the brainless teenagers and mindless adults would probably get me beat up. And I didn’t need to be beat up. If the security guard was as dump as it appeared/sounded he probably wouldn’t know how to break up a fight anyway. At least I might have smelled good when it was all over if the teens shopped at that one ‘clothes store.’
Questions for Randy: Britney/K-Fed Edition
I get asked by friends sometimes, “Randy what do you think about [insert some topic here]?” They ask because they know that I have an opinion about pretty much everything. I have an opinion about everything because I’m a collector. The Franklin Mint issued a series and I’m paying a monthly fee to collect opinions now. This morning my friend Robin asked, “So, what do you think about this britney/Kevin thing?” [editors note: this question was prompted] And since I figure that most of the internet cares about what I know, what I don’t know, and what is really happening in the lives of two famous personalities I thought I’d answer her here.
First we need to look at the facts. For example, Britney Spears used to be a hot property, but now that she’s had two kids she’s slightly less hot because people figure that Kevin had to actually involve himself with her in a way that removed the status of ‘sex icon’ and turned her into ‘mother of two.’ I will note that my wife is a mother of two and she’s still hot property, but she’s my hot property and you better keep your hands off. Another fact is that Kevin Federline, much like Ali-G is a fictitious character. How can we know this for sure? I believe that his middle name being ‘Earl’ is a dead giveaway. My grandpa’s name is Earl. I had one classmate in 6th grade who was named Earl, but otherwise, nobody is really named Earl. Secondly we know he’s fictitious because he doesn’t wear his hat correctly. Fake hat wearing is clearly a sign of fake people. Lastly its important ot recognize K-Fed as a fake person because K-Fed is blatantly a rip-off of the FedEx logo as witnessed by the graphic below:
The truth of the matter is that real people are involved here. People with real hearts, real feelings and a need for real love. unfortunately they’ve bought into the political agenda that I would call, “Hollywood.” That agenda tells them that love is purely a feeling and that money, sex, sex and more sex are the most important thing to a famous marriage. And sure, it sounds nice on cellophane, but its just sad. I hope that the miraculous will happen and both Britney and Kevin will wake up one morning and realize that they have to be real with themselves instead of worrying about how they’ll look on YouTube.
I’m Gonna Start a Beef Collection!
Or that’s what I heard. Instead on Abby’s educational television show the hippo said it was going to start a ‘leaf’ collection. Which is quite different from beef. Except that maybe its a carbon based molecular structure. The upside of starting a beef collection is that you could really wow people with your exotic cow types. “This is a filet mignon from a Guernsey – you don’t see those in a lot of places. I don’t have very much pork in my collection because its not bovine but because of the filet…” [editors note: you won’t find Guernsey filet mignon for good reason, they’re dairy cows].
Daylight Shavings Time
Say, this weekend will be a time to fall back on your clocks and sleep in [somewhere between Saturday and Sunday in the nether-regions of time]. Unless you have kids. Or a dog. Or are an insomniac. Or your neighbor is a real jerkwad and revs their Hemi engine really loud outside of your house, or within a block of your house for that matter. You could get up and take the time to get ready for the day – but I’m skeptical any readers of this blog besides my dad actually does this.
So, however your Carpe Diem philosephy works out – remember that you have to do it at a different time.
Strawberry Short-Circuit
So yesterday we went to a mall that is opening not too far from our house (15-20 minutes I guess) where they had advertised as having a “live” Strawberry Shortcake show. When we arrived, along with about 600 of our closest friends (we actully knew one family there, which was amazing by itself) they started the show with a live ‘MC’ who was going to lead the Strawberry Shortcake ‘show’ along with a CD of Strawberry Shortcake and her diabetes inducing cohorts. Except that the CD had a scratch on it (or the player was severely busted). So the MC guy would say, “Hey, everybody! Are you ready to meet Strawberry Shortcake!?” The audience would go wild and then the Strawberry Shortcake music would start to play in that CD skipping fashion, “Doo-doo-d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d”. Then it came time for Strawberry to say something. And by say something at a live action show they mean a CD plays a pre-recorded Strawberry Shortcake bit. What they really should have had happen was get someone next to the mixer board to just say the silly parts. It was ten minutes or so of completely silliness. But in the end the kids were happy because they got to meet/hug/wipe snot on Strawberry Shortcake.
On the up side only 6 kids got speparated from their parents and had to be taken by ‘officials’ to the D.A.R.E. truck that costs more than most Aurora Police make in a year. Another up side was that I got slightly sunburned from having to walk from the outskirts of the packed parking lots into the place where they were doing the show. I guess its good preparation for when I have to go Christmas shopping.
Big Week Ahead
This week is going to be rather fun, Evie turns one on Tuesday. I’m so thrilled that she’s developing into a little toddler girl. My baby girl won’t be a baby much longer. Abby ages a year every month it seems as her vocabulary, her clothes and her body change. Wow. I have two beautiful girls, a gorgeous wife and a lovely chance to be a husband and dad.
Good times!
The Marines Called…
and I’m one of the chosen few. They want me to go out and be one of the few, the proud, the Marines. The “re-crew-ter” wanted to schedule a time for me to come down and talk with him about my goals and future. I was touched that at least one agent of my government wanted to know me on such a personal level. No politician has ever wanted that.
But then I realized that this guy just wanted me for my body. That made me feel dirty because I’ve not had any other guy proposition me like that. I’m just a number to him – I think number 5,269. But whatever number I might have been it was nice of him to call. I told him that I have a lovely career and that I have two little girls that I’m not going to leave behind. They can draft me if they need me that bad, but I think that right now they’re using the NASCAR drafters instead. Not to mention I have a wife who would be sad if I was gone on a tour of duty in Iraq that has been extended every time I’m just about to go home like so many of the soldiers have had happen. We have one couple that we are aware of from church (the daughter of some folks at church and her husband) who have been delayed in being back together for several years now. Years.
No thanks, I’ll stick with my zero minute commute and getting to see my family as needed.
Shopping for a One Year Old’s Birthday
Tonight we picked up a few small presents for Evelyn’s birthday. With her in the cart. Holding the presents as we walked through the store. I love shopping with her because the surprise will still be on her face when she turns one on the 24th. Its good stuff 🙂
She loves puppies and dogs for those who are wondering.