Profile for cox2inhibitor:
I'll put my credit card number and expiry date here soon.
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- a member for 19 years, 4 months and 10 days
- has posted 79 messages on the main board
- has posted 7 messages on the talk board
- has posted 8 messages on the links board
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- has posted 15 stories and 0 replies on question of the week
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I'll put my credit card number and expiry date here soon.
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Best answers to questions:
» Being told off as an adult
You're a bit old for this kind of thing, aren't you?
One fine sunny morning, the parks department poured some fresh concrete slabs for mounting picnic tables and park benches.
I looked at the one nearest the kiddie playground and thought of the possibilities. I plunked my 2 year old's foot into the wet cement, leaving a mark for the ages.
"Thanks. Thanks a lot, sir", calls a man with a trowel. He charges over and spends five minutes obsessively troweling, eradicating any evidence of my childish prank, refinishing an area of the pad about 20 times larger than the size of my daughter's foot.
"Sorry, I thought it would be cute. I didn't think it was that serious", I said.
"Yeah, you and everybody else thinks it's fun to leave marks in the cement. My boss doesn't think so", grumbled the tradesman.
Shamed, I slunk away with my daughter back to the swings and slides and then went home, across the street from the park.
I looked out my window from time to time and the guy stayed on a bench the entire day, monitoring the fresh concrete. As far as I could tell, nobody else tried to sully his handiwork, so he got paid to spend a nice summer day in the park doing nothing. Must have gotten boring after the first hour or three.
At least my vandalism had given him something to do.
There is a nice new picnic bench anchored to the concrete pad, which is pristine except for a square of mismatched cement in one corner where the guy erased my daughter's footprint.
(Sun 23rd Sep 2007, 15:02, More)
You're a bit old for this kind of thing, aren't you?
One fine sunny morning, the parks department poured some fresh concrete slabs for mounting picnic tables and park benches.
I looked at the one nearest the kiddie playground and thought of the possibilities. I plunked my 2 year old's foot into the wet cement, leaving a mark for the ages.
"Thanks. Thanks a lot, sir", calls a man with a trowel. He charges over and spends five minutes obsessively troweling, eradicating any evidence of my childish prank, refinishing an area of the pad about 20 times larger than the size of my daughter's foot.
"Sorry, I thought it would be cute. I didn't think it was that serious", I said.
"Yeah, you and everybody else thinks it's fun to leave marks in the cement. My boss doesn't think so", grumbled the tradesman.
Shamed, I slunk away with my daughter back to the swings and slides and then went home, across the street from the park.
I looked out my window from time to time and the guy stayed on a bench the entire day, monitoring the fresh concrete. As far as I could tell, nobody else tried to sully his handiwork, so he got paid to spend a nice summer day in the park doing nothing. Must have gotten boring after the first hour or three.
At least my vandalism had given him something to do.
There is a nice new picnic bench anchored to the concrete pad, which is pristine except for a square of mismatched cement in one corner where the guy erased my daughter's footprint.
(Sun 23rd Sep 2007, 15:02, More)
» Terrible Parenting
Terrible? Edge of the seat, at least.
Time to return home from the stay at the summer cottage. Load the car up, me and my little brother and my dad in the front seat because the car is full of stuff.
Dad stops and picks up a hitchiker, which pisses me off as there isn't room and four in the front seat is a) a crowd and b) illegal. And it's a guy, not a buxom female. Friendly enough, and pretty quiet. Dad drops him off an hour later and we continue.
Another hour and a half later, we arrive home to meet mom, who is not pleased. Dad's still so drunk he can't remotely fake being sober, staggering up the driveway and slurring his words as he pretends to be just fine.
(Tue 21st Aug 2007, 23:06, More)
Terrible? Edge of the seat, at least.
Time to return home from the stay at the summer cottage. Load the car up, me and my little brother and my dad in the front seat because the car is full of stuff.
Dad stops and picks up a hitchiker, which pisses me off as there isn't room and four in the front seat is a) a crowd and b) illegal. And it's a guy, not a buxom female. Friendly enough, and pretty quiet. Dad drops him off an hour later and we continue.
Another hour and a half later, we arrive home to meet mom, who is not pleased. Dad's still so drunk he can't remotely fake being sober, staggering up the driveway and slurring his words as he pretends to be just fine.
(Tue 21st Aug 2007, 23:06, More)
» Useless advice
Useless Advice, Song Department
The Gambler, by Kenny Rogers.
"You got to know when to hold them, know when to fold them."
Yes, that is right, you do.
And the song doesn't tell you.
If I knew when to fucking hold them and when to fucking fold them, I wouldn't fucking lose every fucking hand of poker I've ever played!
And your fucking friend on the train just says "You got to know" and then kicks off!
That's not even advice, Kenny! That's a goddam truism!
That's like an investment advisor telling you you have to know when to buy, when to hold, and when to sell!
Oh, wait. That's what they all do, and they still make commissions.
I'm in the wrong business.
(Wed 25th Oct 2006, 3:04, More)
Useless Advice, Song Department
The Gambler, by Kenny Rogers.
"You got to know when to hold them, know when to fold them."
Yes, that is right, you do.
And the song doesn't tell you.
If I knew when to fucking hold them and when to fucking fold them, I wouldn't fucking lose every fucking hand of poker I've ever played!
And your fucking friend on the train just says "You got to know" and then kicks off!
That's not even advice, Kenny! That's a goddam truism!
That's like an investment advisor telling you you have to know when to buy, when to hold, and when to sell!
Oh, wait. That's what they all do, and they still make commissions.
I'm in the wrong business.
(Wed 25th Oct 2006, 3:04, More)
» Worst Nicknames Ever
Shit job, high turnover
We needed strong stupid people to do really hard work in a hot, stinking, dangerous environment, with no job security, lousy pay and miniscule benefits.
We used the services of an employment agency who skimmed 30% off the top of what were already pretty lousy wages. I found out later that several of the people we had hired had serious criminal records. I felt bad that the rapist had been on the night shift with a young, pretty, female engineer. She assured me he left her alone.
One of the more serious losers who lasted only a month was known by the others as Gipetto. A toy of the character from the Disney film Pinnochio (I'm not spell checking either name. You pedants can do it for me.) appeared in the control room, on top of the computer monitor.
It was only after he quit (which, like many others from the agency pool meant he simply stopped showing up for work and we cancelled his pass and stopped paying him and ordered a replacement) that I discovered that Gipetto was short for "Joe Paedophile".
(Wed 24th May 2006, 17:38, More)
Shit job, high turnover
We needed strong stupid people to do really hard work in a hot, stinking, dangerous environment, with no job security, lousy pay and miniscule benefits.
We used the services of an employment agency who skimmed 30% off the top of what were already pretty lousy wages. I found out later that several of the people we had hired had serious criminal records. I felt bad that the rapist had been on the night shift with a young, pretty, female engineer. She assured me he left her alone.
One of the more serious losers who lasted only a month was known by the others as Gipetto. A toy of the character from the Disney film Pinnochio (I'm not spell checking either name. You pedants can do it for me.) appeared in the control room, on top of the computer monitor.
It was only after he quit (which, like many others from the agency pool meant he simply stopped showing up for work and we cancelled his pass and stopped paying him and ordered a replacement) that I discovered that Gipetto was short for "Joe Paedophile".
(Wed 24th May 2006, 17:38, More)
» Airport Stories
Fun with medical research
Two stories: (This was long ago. I wouldn't try it after Sept 11, 2001 even with a letter from the pope, who probably wouldn't approve of the work anyway.)
On our honeymoon, wife picks up some blood samples from a collaborator's lab. "Pack them in dry ice for the flight home", she says. The tech who packed it must have thought "dry ice" means "towel off some frozen water", because the box was dripping when we got off the plane. Water, thank god, not blood. I hold it behind my back as we go through customs. We have no documentation for this stuff, but we have declared a teapot we bought, and customs must have figured that's what was in the box.
A decade later, we fly to Italy for a visit with wife's former colleague, and bring some DNA for her to play with. She's faxed a bunch of documents to us so we have it all explained in Italian. "Oh and can you bring me a bag of those nice corn chips from Consett? We don't have them here in Italy yet." Fly in to Florence and the DNA passes with the briefest of glances at the paperwork and the dismissive wave of a hand. But the corn chips! Four Italian guys in uniform looking the bag over carefully and discussing the contents in great detail. I spy our friend through the glass wall and she seems to be having a fit of giggles. No rubber glove treatment, and they let us keep the chips.
(Fri 3rd Mar 2006, 18:15, More)
Fun with medical research
Two stories: (This was long ago. I wouldn't try it after Sept 11, 2001 even with a letter from the pope, who probably wouldn't approve of the work anyway.)
On our honeymoon, wife picks up some blood samples from a collaborator's lab. "Pack them in dry ice for the flight home", she says. The tech who packed it must have thought "dry ice" means "towel off some frozen water", because the box was dripping when we got off the plane. Water, thank god, not blood. I hold it behind my back as we go through customs. We have no documentation for this stuff, but we have declared a teapot we bought, and customs must have figured that's what was in the box.
A decade later, we fly to Italy for a visit with wife's former colleague, and bring some DNA for her to play with. She's faxed a bunch of documents to us so we have it all explained in Italian. "Oh and can you bring me a bag of those nice corn chips from Consett? We don't have them here in Italy yet." Fly in to Florence and the DNA passes with the briefest of glances at the paperwork and the dismissive wave of a hand. But the corn chips! Four Italian guys in uniform looking the bag over carefully and discussing the contents in great detail. I spy our friend through the glass wall and she seems to be having a fit of giggles. No rubber glove treatment, and they let us keep the chips.
(Fri 3rd Mar 2006, 18:15, More)