Posts Tagged ‘Fun Stuff’

You all know I work at home and I was sitting here today (yeah, on a Sunday) catching up on some paperwork, when I see some squirrels outside. They are out there quite often, and like the birds in the Spring/Summer, I really look forward to them, watching them run up and down the tree, I’ve even caught them playing a couple of times. Or fighting. Well, I’ll pretend they were playing…

Anyway… I wanna see – what do you see at your desk? Just a screen? A pretty picture? What defines your day, what do you see just off to the side of your monitor? Show me!

I managed to grab a few shots today… My monitor sits a foot or so away from a window and the area between the screen and window frame, I can see this beautiful tree – and also when my kids are home from school and playing, I can watch them on the playscape… anyway…

So, here’s one of my little buddies…

You can see on the left the dark area there is actually the edge of the window frame, oops!

He’s a little out of focus, but at least you can see him up there… he perches there to store his loot and stare around waiting for a blade of grass to move so he can scurry away. Jittery little guys!

A gentleman in South Carolina recently tried to open a new bank account with a $1, 000,000 dollar bill. Yes, that number has exactly as many zeros as it should.

It was, obviously, a fake. The article I read, from accountingweb, mentioned the largest denominations of (legitimate) U.S. currency ever made and I got curious.

For more information on REAL high dollar value currency, generally only used to transfer money from one Federal Reserve Bank to another and not in circulation, check out the Wikipedia entry on the subject.

the largest U.S. currency ever printed

The genius “millionaire” was charged with forgery – since there is no such thing as a million dollar note they were unable to charge him with counterfeiting, which carries a bigger penalty.

We seem to pick on Microsoft a lot here at OffAssist, don’t we?

Well, I’m not gonna…

What If Gmail Had Been Designed by Microsoft?

I’ll just point you to someone else that is… seriously funny funny stuff!

I do have to wonder though… with the near disaster they are having with Vista (more on that later from Tom), what do the folks up there in Redmond need to do to get it right? They are losing market share and really mucking things up.

Sunday I had the great pleasure of attending Maker Faire here in Austin. What the heck is Maker Faire, you ask? It’s this festival of sorts where do-it-yourself types come out and show us what they got… and they got some cool stuff! Okay, and some really weird stuff too. My son got to make a transistor thingy (yes, the technical term) on a business card. We got to see the coolest new toy, Pleo, in person. We had a chance to paint a pumpkin, see robots – a lot of robots, play video games by jumping on a trampoline, finger paint on a touch screen, and yes folks, I got to see the EepyBird dudes do their Mentos and Diet Coke fountain show – and may I saw it’s awesome.

Okay, some of it was serious inventor type stuff, some of it was just downright silly. I mean, really, a robot thespian that sings “The Hills Are Alive With The Sound of Music”? Cool, but useful? I hated that movie the first time I saw it! But that robot was one of the coolest things I’ve ever seen. It’s a robot! That acts! Probably better than some actors out there Plus if I’m gonna get a robot, I want it to do my filing or laundry or fetch me a cup of coffee (with sugar and cream, darn it!)

But, you know, the first guy we saw when we came in probably made the biggest impact on me as far as work-related thoughts that swirl in my head… his name was John Funk and he is making a movie, folks. His movie is called Mary Lou Turbine and the Quest For the Dark Planet. Say that 10 times fast, I dare ya.

I’m not even 100% sure what the movie is about – and I even watched the trailer. But he has basically made or made use of old toys and stuff – I take it this is some sort of “no humans in this movie” thing – yeah, there’s a name for this, but whatever. Anyway… what struck me was this. This guy has been working on these elaborate scenes (seriously, I wish I had a picture of his city scape – amazing workmanship) for *YEARS*. How many people do you know that find a dream, a dream that probably makes his friends go, “Huh? You build toys in your garage for your movie? HUH?” and keeps following that dream after all this time?

Yeah. That many, I thought so. So, Mr. Funk, my hats off to you. Everyone should have a dream in their lives and in their businesses and follow it. I think your movie is sci-fi – not something I watch on a regular basis, but you know what? I’ll buy it when it comes out because darn it, I think you were a pretty cool dude and you made me smile.

One more thought… if two guys can make a name and business for themselves simply by dropping candy into a bottle of soda and letting themselves get soaked by all of that… anything really is possible. Go for it. Follow your dreams. I’ll show up next year to cheer you all on.

Okay, so the party is probably over now, since the official anniversary was two months ago.

What am I talking about? The 25th birthday of the compact disc (aka CD)! That’s right, 25th!

I had no idea CDs were that old. Of course I was *ahem* only 8 when the first one was made…

In all fairness to other forms of music media, the CD may be two and half decades old, but it has not been in common use that long. When I was in high school in the early 90s the cassette section at the music store was still 2-3x as large as the CD section and they were prohibitively expensive for a teenager selling popcorn at the movie theatre after school. Heck, when I was in college a couple years later you could still get current tracks on LP. You had to go to grungy stores in Houston’s museum district, but you could get them.

I didn’t even own a CD player til 1995…and had to get married to get it because it technically belonged to my now-husband!

Anywho… Happy birthday CD!

Philips’ official press release about the CDs birthday

Amusing post from NetworkWorld on the same.

Bonus points if you know the name of the artist recorded on that first CD without following the links!

I wish they hadn’t cut off the rest of the story, but this is really neat…

http://www.glumbert.com/embed/countpasses

Many of you know Dy, she’s the lady that wades through the information I send her and comes up with these nifty blog posts you see here…

What you may not know is that Dy is… well, we love her, but she’s a bit odd. For instance, her favorite holiday is not Halloween or Valentine’s Day or anything silly like that. Oh no! Her favorite holiday is…. Talk Like A Pirate Day!

So, in honor of that and a big big thank you for all that she does for us here… enjoy!

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZxC4pz9pO7c]

Chinese Couple Attempts to Name Baby “@”

All I can say is, wow. On the plus side, they probably would have spelled it right. Despite the non-traditional spelling of my own name, or perhaps because of it, unusually spelled names are my pet peeve.

“Kimber Lei” is not unique and special. They’re still gonna call the kid “Kimberly”, it will just be misspelled by people around her all the poor girl’s life–yes, this is the voice of experience.

I can spell “at” though. Candy calls it a sign of the times. I, well, what I call it is pretty non-PC, so let’s leave it at that.

If you read The Paperclip Rebellion, you are probably wondering what exactly DID happen to Penelope. Well, to answer your question, I’m going to share the email that went out to my friend.

====

Dear X,

We apologize for the delay in getting back to you on the status of Penelope. In her “delicate condition” we just could not bear the thought of her going through the hazards of the US Postal Service. You see, shortly after she arrived here, she had a liaison with one of our domestic paperclips name Louie. Louie has been a great help to us through the years, and it took us completely by surprise when Louie suddenly disappeared. It was at this time that Penelope came to us in tears and informed us that she was expecting.

Yes, Penelope was pregnant!

Since this happened while Penelope was in our care, we take full responsibility. We have taken the burden of her medical bills, and those of the child, upon ourselves. We would not even imagine asking you for any sort of compensation. The joy of having Penelope, and now little Claude, in our house has been recompense enough.

To add even more happiness to the tale: Louie has come home! He and Penelope have been through counseling together and have decided to make a go at being a real family. Louie is currently working on Candy’s desk. He recently got a promotion and is in charge of holding our contract to purchase our house together. Penelope is so proud, and little Claude is the spitting image of his Daddy!

So, as you can see, we just cannot see our way to break this new family up. Penelope has applied for citizenship in our household. We hope that you will not hold this against her, as she seemed very happy with your household but has found the love of her life in ours.

Penelope, Louie, and Little Claude send their best!

PS: Wow..you might want to start thinking about putting in place some immigration restrictions. Penelope has been preaching the glories of your household to many of the other paper clips on Candy’s desk. Looks like we might want to go into the paper clip tourist trade!

PSS: I’m enclosing a picture of Penelope with her new daughter for you.

says Kevin Larson (no relation that I know of), a researcher at Microsoft.

Check out the full accountingweb article here.

I don’t know how newsworthy it is, but, well, how often am I going to get to type something like, “… kittens are the wave of the future,”? It was too good an opportunity to pass up.

Enjoy & have a great weekend!