The intellectual equivalent of a ham sandwich.

Posts tagged ‘Weekly Wacko’

Weekly Wacko (15)

Tee-niniest Bit of Fun

Today (1/21/2010), my Mom and I drove around a Houston suburb to look for an apartment. As part of my move, my work paid for a real estate agent of sorts. She does apartments though. This woman, S, also had another agent working with her, K, who was learning the area.

I can’t write well enough to capture their accents, and I can’t remember word-for-word what was said at any one apartment, but here’s a sampling.

The four of us saw four apartments today – who knew that could take so much time. The first two were cheaper apartments, in every sense of the word. Coming from a studio I was fine with a smaller apartment, but it was clear S did not like the cheaper places. My mom was not thrilled with them either.

At the second apartment complex my mom noticed a sign posted outside some of the doors. It was alerting people about an ‘incident’ that had recently occurred where three residents were robbed at gun point.

My mom told me, ‘this place is out.’

(I’m not in California anymore – a news report is on right now about a nut job who went and shot randomly at the state capital. A state Senator wants better security. But, get this, you’re allowed to carry guns there with the right permit. Not California.)

The third complex S was very excited about – it was more expensive and blah blah nicer, fancier. This is the one I ended up picking. The woman who saw us around there was … unique (of the six places total I’ve seen – five of them had females show us around, one was a guy). She was a sweet lady, but a bit chatty for me.

After my mom, S, K and I left, we had this (not exact, but same idea) talk:

S: Oh, gosh, I’d forgotten how she can go on.
K: I know it! That poor thing!
S: You think she has that ADD? Bless her heart. [Note, ADD is not something you catch like ‘that bug.’]
K: You think so? Bless her heart.
S: Maybe. I just wanted her to shut up.

As my mom said (somewhat tongue-in-cheek), bless her heart is a southern get of guilt free card that allows you to say whatever you want, as long as it’s followed by bless his/her heart. I wonder what the equivalent is when you write a blog poking fun at people? Bless everyone’s heart.

(Ok, not in California again – another news report about the KKK trying to RECRUIT, door-to-door, in a town near where I’ll be living. To be fair, when I moved to California one of the first reports I saw was Code Pink (a super liberal group) trying to get a Marine recruiting office kicked out of California. And they of course had ridiculously stupid quotes from them saying the Marines are this, that and the other.)

We ended up spending more time with the chatty woman because we went back for a second look. When she would tell a rather long story, the go-to response from S and K was, “aw, that’s so sweeeet.” Example: a young resident played chess with an older resident when most of the place had been evacuated for Ike. When the apartment held a get together the young resident sought out the old resident to say hello. This story took about 5 minutes though. But you know what, ya’ll, that’s so sweeeeet.

Another funny thing with the chatty woman was a clever move on K’s part. I asked about submitting a maintenance request, and the process for that. The chatty woman said you can come see me. A little bit later the chatty woman came up to me and said that K asked a great question – I can also submit a maintenance request ONLINE (i.e. not in person)! I looked to K and she and I smirked.

And possibly the best story with the chatty woman. Before we began a tour at any apartment we had to give our drivers’ licenses. When the chatty woman gave them back, she looked at each one and declared to the room that she was the oldest one there. And then, a true southerner, she called my mom her first and middle names.

The five of us were at one large apartment complex, so we of course couldn’t walk. The method of transportation of choice: golf carts. With five people this can be tough. At one location we left K behind, but at this location we decided to all pile in. S told me to take shotgun since I’d need to look around.

S: K, you sit in the back with us in the middle, since you’re the tee-niniest one.

At this location we were shown around by a very nice woman who apparently found out the ‘cool slang’ fifteen years ago and then decided to stick with her guns on those words.

“Ya’ll this faux-pond is the bomb.”

“I saw a possum and it made me all wiggy.”

Overall an amusing but tiring day. My work is 0.8 miles from my home, and not on the first floor (bugs and flooding). And I’m pretty close to where I saw a wild hog yesterday. Sweet! [Update, today 1/26 this bomb-diggity woman called me and had my name all wrong. My first, middle and last names could all be first or last names … she chose to call me my middle name, first name. Interesting.]

My mom told S and K that I might write about them on my blog – if either of you was dedicated/bored enough to check this out, thank you for a fun, amusing and helpful day!

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Weekly Wacko (14)

I’m a Dummy

If you’re a girl I know, you’re probably better off if I don’t find you attractive. My freshman year I was, at the very least, six kinds of googly eyed for a close female friend.

One day we were walking back to our dorm after lunch. A pretty commonplace thing. We reached the door and she put her hand on the door handle, waiting for me to scan my ID to unlock the door.

Suddenly – a thought came to me. This is the same exact thing that happens with me and my dog. My dog will go to the door and stare at it, and then if I don’t open the door soon enough she’ll look over at me. At that point I would always move my hand like I was about to open the door – seeing this my dog would again look straight at the door, waiting for it to open. Eventually she’d look slowly in my direction, giving me a look that said, ‘you are such a child.’

I wondered if my friend would do the same – would she keep her hand on the door, staring at it, waiting for me to unlock it?

She did. Eventually she looked slowly toward me, I couldn’t help but laugh.

“What?,” she said, wondering what was so funny.

Why do I lie when I don’t need to, and tell the truth when I really don’t need to?

I answered, with a heartfelt smile, “you remind me of my dog.”

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Weekly Wacko (13)

Do You Speak Crazy Smart?
When you’re a programmer (like I was/am), you work with very smart, very odd people. I was cleaning out my apartment today in preparation for my move, and I found a few notes where I had written down some gems I overheard co-workers saying.

My supervisor: I’m running the [blah] test … What would cause the [blah] to be different?
A super smart guy I called The Robot: Shitty programming?

From a normally normal person (happily): You know there are times when I want to be just a mythical person! Haha!

A super, super smart mathematical guy who looked like someone who’d been living alone in the woods for 40 years (bumping into someone): Oops. I’m sorry. Glad we’re not riding motorcycles.

Yet another kooky guy: You realize in the future every time a computer breaks down we’ll be penalized. It’ll be considered genocide.

Same guy as above: I’m an old guy … [x years old] … But what I’d like to do is go to Israel and pop [pop meaning punch in the face] a few. Pop! Pop! And if I die, I die.

Same guy (happily telling a story): Went out shooting with [Joe] and some other guys this morning.
The robot (completely uninterested): Sounds lethal.

[This same co-worker also tried to convince a Chinese-American co-worker that China is, essentially, the devil.]

A co-worker with a nerdy/cynical sense of humor: So you’re taking your training? … Has anyone gone to jail yet? … Well, there’s still hope, maybe the plot will get more involved.

[I would run some tests that this co-worker put together and I would have to double check some numbers. So I’d look and see ‘8.675309,’ then I’d look at my work to verify, ‘8.675309.’ Eventually that stupid song stuck would be stuck in my head all day.]

Not a direct quote here, but a memory. During a meeting we learned that a co-workers house had been burnt down. Everyone sat thinking that is very sad for [Joe]. A co-worker brought this up, and brought a picture of the burnt down house, to try and get us to donate supplies for [Joe]. One co-worker (a brilliant math guy) looked at the picture and noticed that some specific material had burnt. He pulled a calculator out of his pocket, punched in a few numbers and then said something along the lines of, ‘the temperature must have gotten above [x] degrees if [x material] burnt!’ He and the motorcycle guy then debated the temperature.

And my absolute favorite! I was told I would be ’steering’ a meeting, and it was my first time to do this. I put together some slides and began presenting in front of three guys. One of the guys was the same is the motorcycle comment guy from above.

During the presentation the super smart guy asked a few questions and I would sort of answer them, sort of say, ‘I’ll get to that with slide [x].’ Eventually the super smart guy said:

I don’t quite get this yet … Is there something later that will help me understand this? (I nod yes.) Ok. It’s like you’re the director and I just have to trust you because you’re the director. I wouldn’t go to “King Kong” and five minutes in say what is this? Why are we in New York City? Everyone knows gorillas come from Africa. So I’ll just have to trust that you’ll explain it later.

Amazing. My presentation, naturally, had nothing that would in any way make any normal brain think of gorillas, or King Kong, or NYC, or movies. But this is the kind of logic a magically brilliant mathematical mind like his thinks in.

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