My coworker was unwrapping a piece of trident gum, and for the briefest flash of a moment, I thought it was a tiny-tiny menstrual pad.

what does that mean?

Haven’t had a nice Newtie-pic in a while,so I figured a lovely shot of him lounging on my laundry pile was worth posting… 🙂

In the background, you can see my planet of the apes boxed set that he knocked aside to get onto the chair, and the laundry hamper I was sorting on, when little orange boy decided he wanted to curl up on my hawaiian shirts, plaids, and tie dyes.

[update 11:41 – he’s going to work with me today…. too sweet not to.]

Main Entry: pum ·per ·nick ·el
Pronunciation: ‘p&m-p&r-“ni-k&l
Function: noun
Etymology: German, from pumpern to break wind + Nickel goblin; from its
reputed
indigestibility
Date: 1756
: a dark coarse sourdough bread made of unbolted rye flour

The true origin of “pumpernickel” – “Pumpern”
was a
New High German word similar in meaning to the English “fart” (so chosen because, like the
word “achoo,” it imitated the sound it described), and “Nickel” was a form of the name Nicholas,
an appellation commonly associated with a goblin or devil (e.g., “Old Nick” is a familiar name for
Satan). Hence, pumpernickel is the “devil’s fart,” allegedly a reference to the bread’s indigestible
qualities and hence the effect it produced on those who consumed it. (www.snopes2.com/language/stories/pumper.htm) 

I dunno… I like it just fine. 🙂

Happy Birthday !

I hope you have a fantastic day!

Ah, back to normal.

Well, what passes for normal in this neck of the woods.

Tomorrow. Such a blessing tomorrow will be. Friday, Payday, the opening to the weekend, and best of all, good gab opportunites.

Client gave us incredibly dumb things to do with their program, resulting in 3 hours of useless programming time. Someday we’ll get a nice go-between for programmer / client relations, but as it stands, it’ll be a while before that kicks in. Upside of Dale’s vacation, a lot of process streamlining has been implemented by lazy me, saving him probably about an hour a day in processing. Dale’s a great guy, but his lack of complaint is a double edged sword… he’s been doing some IT stuff for about a year that was comfortably automated in about 15 minutes of thought. Something like this happens every time he comes back.

calling all the offices, and redoing the reports for all the goofed up data ate a big part of my day today…I’m so glad our Island Boy will be returning on Monday.

silly joke heard today –

Two penguins are sitting in the bathtub.
One penguin turns to the other and says, “Hey, hand me that soap.”
The other penguin says, “Holy Crap! A talking penguin!”

Oh! also on my walk today, I saw about 5 people walking the beach with metal detectors…the first I’ve seen in a a very long time. Are they getting trendy again? I know tourist season is back, maybe the odds of finding valuables in the sand has just gone up. I wonder what the more exotic sort of things they’ve found… a gold tooth? a brass monkey?

Flesh eating robots…. Really.

remunerate (rih-MYOO-nuh-rate), transitive verb:
1. To pay an equivalent to for any service, loss, or expense; to recompense.
2. To compensate for; to make payment for.

Remunerate comes from Latin remunerari, “to reward,” from re-, “back, again” + munerari, “to give, to present,” from munus, “a gift.”

capitonym (KAP-i-toh-NIM) noun

A word that changes pronunciation and meaning when it is capitalized.

As in the following poems:

Job’s Job
In August, an august patriarch
Was reading an ad in Reading, Mass.
Long-suffering Job secured a job
To polish piles of polish brass.

Herb’s Herbs
An herb store owner, name of Herb,
Moved to a rainier Mount Rainier.
It would have been so nice in Nice,
And even tangier in Tangier.

remunerate (rih-MYOO-nuh-rate), transitive verb:
1. To pay an equivalent to for any service, loss, or expense; to recompense.
2. To compensate for; to make payment for.

Remunerate comes from Latin remunerari, “to reward,” from re-, “back, again” + munerari, “to give, to present,” from munus, “a gift.”

capitonym (KAP-i-toh-NIM) noun

A word that changes pronunciation and meaning when it is capitalized.

As in the following poems:

Job’s Job
In August, an august patriarch
Was reading an ad in Reading, Mass.
Long-suffering Job secured a job
To polish piles of polish brass.

Herb’s Herbs
An herb store owner, name of Herb,
Moved to a rainier Mount Rainier.
It would have been so nice in Nice,
And even tangier in Tangier.

Refreshed and happy after seeing my sweetie… going to go to bed and read when I get home… comfy in a cocoon of blankets and Newt. 🙂

I think tonight is a good night for some Robert Frost.

Even though I don’t see myself buying one, there are at least three potential benefits to all, if the Segway takes off and gains full acceptance in this country:

• Whether or not it gets allowed on sidewalks, towns will be pressured to build more bike lanes. Getting more bike lanes isn’t easy so if we can gain some lanes due to the Kamen PR machine and funding, at least it will benefit others besides just segway owners.
• If it gets popular, it will reduce the number of cars in downtown areas and the all the associated parking hassles, exhaust, and danger that comes from mixing lots of cars in a small space with lots of people. Downtown areas could be safer to pedestrians and bicyclists.
• I didn’t see a demo of it climbing stairs, so if successful, the company behind it might also help and/or pressure urban areas to become friendlier to people with different mobility needs. If you couldn’t ride a wheelchair from one end of the city to the other in the year 2000, you might be able to in the year 2005.

So if you walk, ride a bike, or are disabled, you have a lot to gain if this new mode of transportation takes off.