Terrible Analogies

Much like relationships, we go though several emotional stages with each new bit of technology we purchase.

Take my new iPad, for instance.

After lusting for an iPad for the better part of a year, I finally broke down and picked one up this past Friday. I was instantly enamoured by this new magical piece of hardware, and for the better part of a day I couldn’t keep my hands off of it. Playing with it. Whispering sweeting nothings to it.  Configuring it to my liking.

But I wanted to improve  on it.  To make it better than it currently was.  In short, I wanted to stream media to it, so I purchased a Western Digital external hard drive and placed it on my network. I fiddled with this thing for hours, trying to get my iPad’s iTunes to recognize the new drive. After wasting several hours I went on a run to think about it. Six miles later I get back to the house and began to work on this problem some more. After a couple more fruitless hours I abandoned the project and returned the hard drive.

Sure, I could get third party apps to recognize and stream data, but I couldn’t get iTunes to see it and stream directly from the networked hard drive.

Sunday night, and I believe I’ve moved into the final phase of the honeymoon. Acceptance. This iPad is now just a tool to be used at work and at home. The glossy sheen has worn away, replaced with familiarity and acceptance.

Sure, the iPad is still a fantastic toy, but now that I’ve had time to settle down with it, there are no more secrets between us.

And just like a relationship, we’ve accepted each other and have settled down into a routine. But hey, I’ll take it like that. At least there’s no more running upstairs to the desktop computer each time Karin and I want to quickly look something up on imdb.com while watching a movie.

And in case you missed the partial solar eclipse yesterday, here are a few pictures I managed to grab of the event.  Luckily I have a super heavy filter meant for long exposure times for my Nikon D200 (I love this camera!).  The first picture was captured at 6:40m during the peak of the eclipse.  The second picture was taken at 6:37pm, where you can see the shadow of power lines overhead (I know, not as dramatic as, say, the Eiffel Tower, but whatcanyoudo?).

While pouring herself a glass of juice last night, Karin made a horrific discovery:

“Real juice from real people”? No thanks. I think I’ll skip my daily serving of people juice…

Karin and I found ourselves traversing the isles of our local Toys R Us curious to see if they stocked any interesting board games.  …Okay, that’s a lie.  I wanted to check out the action figures (they’re not dolls!).

Sorry, I couldn’t lie to you.

[HermanTurnip takes in a slow, deep breath...]

*Whew*  That felt good to get off my chest.

Anyway, we were wandering the isles like a pair of overwhelmed Communist-era Russians airdropped into the middle of a modern day grocery store, dumbstruck and staring wild-eyed at the sheer amount of food freely available to absolutely anybody stumbling in from the street, taking in as much as we could while trying not to trip over our own feet when we first saw it.

I’m not sure why it stuck out the way it did, drawing our attention away from every other gleaming, hyper-packaged toy on the shelves.  It just didn’t seem real.  It didn’t seem…right.

Is this a joke?  Was I really looking at a pink Ouija board, the very object employed by spiritualists and mediums worldwide to contact the dead, openly targeting the pre-teen set?  Is this an attempt to indoctrinate an impressionable segment of our society into the questionable ways of the occult and the paranormal?  The blatant color scheme given this product makes it painfully obvious who Toys R Us has their sharpened, brightly packaged claws aimed at.

If Toys R Us is so keen at exposing children to the mystical art of divination and transcendentalism then I have to ask, “Why stop there?”  This target demographic is far to valuable to stop at mere baubles and parlor tricks.  Why not hook them to a real habit early on to ensure a consistent source of valuable revenue for many years to come?

After giving it much thought, I think I’ve come up with a fool-proof way to market my favorite vice of choice to the youth of today:

All I need is a heartless corporation to back me.  Come on.  We’ll make a grip of cash…

Noticed this sign in the company restroom today:

Apparently there are certain individuals who are unsure if two flushes are required, or they feel the need to seek approval before flushing twice, but I guess there’s enough of an outstanding issue to warrant such a sign in the men’s room.

I’m not sure if I want to be working with people who are mentally incapable of determining whether or not a secondary swirl is required.  Being in the IT field, I thought I was working with some bright bulbs, but this sign seems to confirm otherwise.

I wonder if the mystery man that this sign is aimed at has as much trouble flushing at home as he does at work?

Ah well.  Probably best not to dwell on such unsettling thoughts.

Happy Friday!

Am I going to hell for laughing at this?

One ticket, please.

Hope you have a relaxing weekend, and I’ll see you again on Monday when we’ll hopefully find out who that third dentist is. Ya know, that one dentist who never agrees with the other two…

Which reminds me. I once had a dentist named “Michael Meyers”, and another named “Dr. Grim”. Trust me, you never wanted them to find out that you weren’t flossing.