My problem with snooze

Yes, I have a problem. I'll admit it. I hit snooze 2-3 times per morning. Yes, it doesn't really do any good, and it bugs Jenn, but I can't help myself. I can't set my alarm for the time I really need to get up. I need to be able to look at the clock and say, "Hey, I can sleep for another 10 (or 8, 0r 9, when ever the snooze goes off) minutes." Then I smack the snooze button and go back to sleep. This doesn't always work out so well for me.

There have been times when I hit the snooze in my sleep. Since I wasn't fully awake to calculate how much longer I can sleep, there have been times when I need to jump out of the bed and take the world's fastest shower. Yes, I timed it. It should be in the next edition of the Guinness Book of World Records. .

On our old clock the snooze and 'off' buttons were really close. Dangerously close, if you ask me. I have woken up at the time when I should be in the car driving. I think I skipped the shower that time. Luckily, it was a weekend with little traffic and few people at work.

Just the other day I had a new problem. The alarm went off, I hit the button to turn it off, and I got into the shower. When I went back into the bedroom I looked at the clock and swore. Somehow I managed to get up without hitting snooze at all. I was up about 20 minutes early. I came so close to getting back into bed that morning. It was probably best that I didn't. It was one of my more relaxing mornings, I have to say.

Then, the day after that happened I got even more confused. The alarm went off and I stared at it for what seemed like ten minutes. The time was all wrong, it was way too early, and I couldn't remember if I had to work that morning. Finally Jenn got up and I remembered it was set for her to go to her training session and I was off that day. It was really nice to go back to sleep, even if I was a little confused.

I need to design a new kind of snooze on an alarm clock. Maybe the alarm can go off, but a voice will come on to tell you that you can hit snooze two more times before you really need to get up. That could be a good idea! Hmm, I need to find a Billy Mays type person to get this thing going...

Time for surgery, Mr. Food.

Doesn't this setup make you think of some kind of strange food-type surgery is going to take place soon?















Is it just me?

Fun winter stats

Number of times I've used the snowblower: 2

Number of times I've launched a newspaper buried in the snow: 2

Average distance paper has been launched: 5 feet

Number of papers still legible after launching: 2


So, I guess I have a new tag line for Toro. Toro: You can launch your newspaper with our snow blowers and still read them. Just make sure you aim for your front porch.

What do you think? Yeah, a little long. I'll work on it.

Great, I wonder who else thinks I'm a woman

Have you tried the Gender Analyzer? You punch in your website and it tells you if it is written by a man or a woman. Obviously it doesn't work; why else would it think I was a woman? (66%).

Along the same lines, have you tried to seel what level of education your blog is written? Try out the Blog Readability Test. Mine is at the high school level; I thought it might be lower.

Last link. Have you seen Santa's Gmail account? It's good, but he may not be.

(Found on Mary Robinette Kowal, Paperback Writer, and Gizmodo blogs).

Another Quick Quiz

I just got home from the dentist. I have to eat a quick lunch then get the kids at school. So I ask you to think about this:

Which number is higher?

The distance (in millions of miles) from the sun to the earth? Or the number of times John Cougar Mellencamp says "small town" in the song, Small Town?

Kind of a Chrome-y, Random Tuesday

I started working on my Ten on Tuesday post at work today but I couldn't get into it. I don't know if it was because I was at work, or the topic. We were supposed to list 10 people you'd love to meet. I got a few down; Dave Barry, Stephen King, Robin Williams, all the members of Rush, and then I got stuck. See, I started thinking about celebrities that I'd like to meet then I thought, what would I say to them? What if they are jerks? Yes, I know, I'm looking at it too deeply, but I am deep, man. Real deep. (Make sure you say that with a hippie 70's vibe.). So I stopped and didn't post it, but you lucky people get to read about some of them here. All four of you.  Any special people you want to meet? (Heh, I just typed 'meat'. I must be tired...or hungry.)

Did you hear about Google Chrome? The new web browser from the owner (in due time) of the entire Internet? I'm using it right now! How exciting! So far I'll say this; it is stripped down. However, I haven't added any applications to it yet. It is supposed to be faster, so I'll keep playing. Hey, I only have Internet Explorer, Firefox, and an old version of Netscape on here, that isn't enough. Oh, I did have a version of Safari on here for a while, too. You know what they say, you can never have too many web browsers! 

I think my son is coming down with something. Today, after coming home from school, he told his sister that he can't watch Tom and Jerry because he had to concentrate on cleaning up. Yeah, he was cleaning up the living room. I think he may have been replace by a cyborg replica. I'll get back to you on that. 

Well , that is about all I have for today. Hope everyone had a great Labor Day! 

Some interesting things from the last week or so

Great title, huh? I think I'm trying to say that this is going to be a random sort of post, but you knew that I'm sure.

Yesterday after my daughter ate dinner she showed me how big her tummy was. Based on how much she ate I don't see how that could be the case. Anyway, she kept showing me it and said, "It's getting big because I have a baby in there." Yeah, she's four. And after that comment she is never going to leave the house again. At least not with out me, or a bodyguard. And I mean "body"guard. I had her talk to Jenn on the phone and tell her, Jenn found it funny. I figured I'd let her explain some things to her. Have I said that my daughter always says she wishes we had a real baby? I guess this is her way of making it happen. Ugh.

My sister called me the other day. Well not really. See, the phone rang and I saw it was her on the caller ID, but when we picked up the phone (Jenn and I picked up at the same time) nobody was there. Well, that's not right either. We could hear talking, but none of it was directed at us. After listening harder we could hear my brother and sister-in-law talking to my sister. I kept yelling in the phone trying to get her to hear me, but it was no use. I tried hanging up, but since she initiated the call I couldn't disconnect. Finally I called my brother from my cell phone and told him that we could hear all them talking. It took me a minute to explain to him what I was talking about, then I heard them all laugh and the phone disconnected.

My sister has a small problem with her cell phones. I get many text messages not meant for me; so far nothing weird thank goodness. I've received calls from her that she meant to call someone else, too. Part of the problem is her new phone. She got a Balckberry Pearl and she hates it. The buttons are too small to e-mail, not to mention using the phone normally. My wife has one too and hates it as well. So there is a tip for you, don't get the Pearl, get the regular Blackberry; unless you have tiny fingers.

Oh, the best used to be when my sister would call the house, leave a message, and then you would hear her drive around town for 15 minutes. Good thing we had voice mail through AT&T and not a tape machine. We'd only have one message a day!

(How's that Lori?)

The last thing. Go check out Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along-Blog. It's a really fun story from Joss Whedon and company. I'm not sure where I heard about it first, it was either through Phil Plait's Bad Astronomy blog, or Mary Robinette Kowal's blog. Either way, I'm glad I did. It's fun! Really go see for yourself.

Cleaning tip

I have a cleaning tip for you that I thought of while vacuuming the other day.

Have you heard the tip of using a two-by-four and making lines instead of vacuuming? Don't do that. It's stupid and probably more work than actually vacuuming. Instead vacuum, trust me you need it, but then walk all over the place. Make foot prints, try to cover most of the vacuum tracks. Also, leave a couple of crumbs and maybe one dust bunny floating in a corner.

Now, when company comes over, make sure you point out the crumbs and dust bunny and apologize for not having time to clean up. See, they will think this is how your house always looks. They will think you are neat and clean even if you are a total slob. Try it, and let me know how it works.

For the bachelor, this can work well too. Leave a dish or two in the sink. Maybe one pair of pants folded over a chair neatly. Not too neatly though; no need to keep the pleats. Now, when your special lady comes to visit for the first time she can see that, while you have a few things out, you will be easy to fix.

However, if you go too clean you look like a neat freak. Women don't want their men to be neater than them. Usually this is not a problem for guys but, for you super neat guys, you need to relax it a little bit. It's OK to leave a dish in the sink for longer than 30 seconds. Also, there is nothing wrong with putting your clothes on the floor when you go to bed. They are not going to cause your world to collapse around you. Trust me, I know.

So next time you clean remember; there is no need to be spotless.

Quick question

As I was driving home from dropping the kids off at school I noticed all the garbage cans lining the street. Obviously none were going to be picked up today because of Memorial day on Monday, so this week garbage will be picked up on Friday. That got me thinking, when there is a holiday where no garbage is picked up, how do they catch up the following week? Do they work a double shift? An extra day on the weekend? I'd rather work my regular shift on a holiday and not have to work a double later. I work holidays all the time, though. Other people may hove other opinions.

Way behind

I'm way behind in posting this week. The holiday and work messed me up. I haven't done Karen's weekend assignment, and I haven't done Ten on Tuesday. But, to day is Wednesday, I'm going to do my usual random post.

A few days ago I was trying to get on to Technorati, at least I think that is what I was trying to get on to, and en error message came up saying it was 'borked' right now and to come back later. I like that word, bork. It makes me think of the Swedish Chef from the muppets, which reminds me of a good story.

When I went back to college I had to take a physics class, actually I had to take two, but this story is about a certain one. It was one of those large classes with 200 people in it and there was a separate lab day that was cut to about 30. On the first day in lab we got paired up with partners based on where we were sitting. The group of four for the fist day was me, two other guys, and a girl who happened to be from Sweden. She was really nice and was a very good lab partner to have; she was very smart. So, we are all talking a little and asking her about Sweden and one guy is obviously trying to hit on her. What does he ask her? Yep, he asked her what she thought of the Swedish Chef from the Muppets. She totally shot him down by saying that she didn't know the chef was supposed to be Swedish since he made no sense. I laughed to myself because I know the guy thought he had a good line. I don't think she ever talked to him again since we were all changed around the next week.

This is for Jenn; she wanted me to post about this. My brother is very handy. He can fix nearly anything, and helps me out quite a bit. He and his wife have a big closet that they were fixing up; organizers, a hardwood floor, crown molding. Yeah, I said crown molding. Yes, in their closet. We all gave him crap for that. They said there is a crack in the wall near the ceiling that they have tried to patch a few times, but it keeps coming back. My response? It's a closet. Who is going to see it? There closet looks nicer than my living room now.

You know what commercials bother me the most? The commercials on the radio where they pretend they are a radio show interviewing someone who is selling something. Sometimes they will pretend it is a radio show and they are doing a live read, when it is really a guy doing a commercial. They do the same thing on TV. I have a guy in mind who does it all the time, but I don't want to name names. He is always in trouble with the FTC because of his shady practices. You know who I mean. The products are usually lame, or their claims are highly suspect. That is why they can't get any real radio personalities to interview them.

That is all for now. Happy Wednesday!

Is it just me?

When I need to use the phone book to find a plumber, electrician, or any thing along those lines, I purposely avoid the companies that put several A's in front of their name. I just feel that is the weakest attempt to drum up business. 'Call AAAA - Ralph's plumbing!' I saw a truck on the street today that was A-AAAservice, or something like that. I know it is not cheap to do marketing, but it doesn't make me think you are a good company. It does just the opposite. Am I the only one?