1000 Awful Things

#978 This guy

admin — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 14:55:22 +0000

“Sometimes I go to my roof and shoot my pellet gun at senior citizens. I’m like that.”
–Novemenber 15th, 2009

#979 Waking up without coffee

admin — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 16:36:31 +0000

I know what you’re thinking, you probably think I mean waking up without coffee at my beckoning call in bed. No, I actually make my coffee sometimes, and not having any in the cupboard is downright evil. So here’s the deal, in order to fix this situation I have a couple options.

I can walk to closet deli known to be open early and by made coffee. The problem here is that they don’t have any beans or ground coffee, so I’m stuck with the same problem tomorrow or later in the day. Plus, I’m still on crutches and carrying coffee is a pain in the balls.
I can walk about 100 feet further to another deli that has both ground coffee/beans and made coffee. The downside, of course, being I have to cross 2nd avenue — i.e. possibly wait at a light.
Wait for the deli at the corner to open. Now, I’m not exactly sure wen it opens, probably around 10am. So, if I get up before then I can tough it out, or, if it does actually open at 10am, and I get up after that I’m golden. They, like #2, have made and packaged coffee, but the former sucks, so I’ll still with beans from them.

It is possible of course to combine the possibilities — e.g. get made coffee from one of the delis to the west until the closer one opens, but that’s too much planning. Too bad seamless doesn’t get coffee for you.

#980 Blasting Jane’s Addiction at 8:00am

admin — Wed, 27 May 2009 13:25:35 +0000

Blasting Jane’s Addiction at any time certainly has the potential of getting on my nerves, but when my neighbor does it 8:00am (even if not sleeping), it’s definitely unerving.

That’s all.

#981 Leeching from a flaky wifi signal

admin — Fri, 22 May 2009 12:25:51 +0000

I’ve been ‘borrowing’ my neighbor’s (well, really multiple neighbors’) wifi signal, and it really busts my balls when it’s not reliable. It’s reliable at night, late at night; it’s reliable in my bedroom, but I just wish it would be strong and constant in my living room. Arg.

#982 People who wander into your house

admin — Sun, 26 Apr 2009 15:31:49 +0000

I was sitting at my living room table this morning, reducing a maximum pairing problem from a longest path problem (that’s NP-complete) into a shortest path via Bellman-Ford when a girl walks into my apartment with a comforter wrapped around her (she had something underneath, also). I guess I left my door open after going downstairs to get some coffee. I asked if I could help her, and she just asked to use the bathroom. I was completely confused (as was she!), and mentioned that after taking a mega-dump that morning I was out of toilet paper — she didn’t care — so I said OK. So, she went in the bathroom, without closing the door, did the deed, and then tried to leave my apartment. I had anticipated there being some difficulty in this, so kept my front door propped open. So, leaving my bathroom she walked into my bedroom and tried to exit through my closet, which didn’t end in an exit. Next, she tried my front room closet; again, to no avail. Then finally I asked if she was OK with no answer that seemed to resemble English. Then, asked whether she knew where she was; this time an answer, but is was “NO.” Finally, I asked whether she knew where she was going with the same response. So, I helped her to my neighbor’s apartment, where the door was open. Needless to say, I think this young woman is going to be in for a surprise if she has a drug-test to take anytime in the near future.

#983 Time Warner Cable

admin — Fri, 10 Apr 2009 04:33:58 +0000

I have this great feature, where at night and in the morning none of my laptops (not my phone) can connect to my wi-fi either because

A connection cannot be made
It doesn’t recognize the password (that hasn’t changed in two years)
The signal is low

I’m surprised I was able to even publish this — I’m probably on my neighbors network. Gooooooooooooooooooo Time Warner Cable and Internet!

#984 Phones that require you to dial 91 to call out

admin — Mon, 06 Apr 2009 12:11:24 +0000

Seriously, what is a better way to get people to accidentally dial 911 then have a phone where, in order to dial out, you have to dial 91? Who ever came up with this scheme is probably the same person who came up with the pet rock or drive in daquiri shop. Granted, since you only get a dial tone after you dial 91 it’s not that bad, but still, getting someone in the habit of dialing 91 before calling is just probably not the best idea.

#985 Bag pipes

admin — Fri, 03 Apr 2009 03:11:44 +0000

The pipes in my building suck, hence there is now standing water in my tub and the sinks are stopped up. I hate bad pipes.

#986 Oddball screws

admin — Sat, 21 Feb 2009 11:31:52 +0000

This title could be misleading, but we
assure you it’s completely benign and has nothing to do with regretful, drunken nights or malformed body parts; it has to do with design decisions. Namely, when something is built with primarily one type of connector — like a screw — so that you need one (often commonly-owned) tool, why put one or two others. In particular, I was replacing the keyboard on a macbook pro ,and for the most part, all the screws are phillips, and so I’m going to town taking the thing apart. Then I get to a part that requires a teen-weeny torx — and I don’t have one. I really don’t see the see for it, why not just a phillips? This probably exposes multitudes of mechanical ignorance; well, sobeit.

On not so much a similar note, but a related one, I’m fully certain that my laziness will prolong the installation of this keyboard for another five months. So, my goal is to have this thing installed by no later then Fall of 2012, or at least by the Super Bowl of the following year.

#987 Turning an age that can be divided by a fairly large number

admin — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 15:45:33 +0000

So, birthdays were usually fun when you were a kid, really fun. You’d get clowns, ponies, pools, hookers, presents… what a blast. But as you get older some of things start to fade away (some, of course stay), and birthdays start to become more of a chore then a pleasure. And the real kick in the balls is when there are somewhat large numbers that evenly divide your new age. By large number I mean a number that at that age you can distinctly remember, and you weren’t a tiny kid. So dividing a number is one of the most (if not the most) basic concepts. It says the following:

For integers J and I, J divides I iff there exists an integer K , where K is neither 1 nor I and JK = I.

A simple example, 2 divides 6 because 2×3 = 6. But, keeping with the elementary number theory theme, it’s no better, necessarily to have a prime age — especially a Mersenne Prime age, which is an integer of the form 2ⁿ-1 for some n>0. I’d say after n=4, birthday’s start to resemble bowl movements.