So, I was watching some TV show the other day and a woman made some comment about how her baby was going to be named Tyler, which means ‘Gift from God’.  Seriously? 

It’s quite often people say their precious cherub is named whatever and such because it means “God’s gift” or ”A gift from God” or some variation thereof.  That got me wondering… can all of these names really mean that or are people just so enamored with their own DNA that they want to believe that’s what it means? Or maybe they tell their kid that to make them feel more special or… whatever. 

I suppose there’s no harm in that.  I just think it seems a little pretentious or self-important somehow.  Like, what?  Your neighbor’s kid Eunice isn’t a gift from God because her name means “good victory”?  (If you believe in the Christian God, which many don’t.  I don’t, but let’s not go there — I’ve not had nearly enough coffee.)

Of course, I mean no offense to any Dorothys, Matthews, Theos or Johns out there whose names actually do mean ”gift of God”.  Or… well, anyone else who thinks their name means Gift of God… maybe it does.

Why I care is beyond me, but pointless thoughts are what this blog is all about.

For the record, my names according to some website I grabbed in a Google search (so therefore, they are accurate and all-knowing) mean ”Gatherer” and ”The Lord is God”… of course. 

I did some overhauling to my office area this weekend.  It was high time I pulled the whole desk apart so I could dust and vacuum behind it and all that jazz.

I consider myself a tidy person. I blow the dust out of my computers and whatnot all the time. I vacuum and dust on a pretty regular basis, but I also leave my windows open a lot for the bay breeze.  I had no idea how much dust could accumulate behind a desk. Sweet moses!

To say there were dust bunnies would be a massive understatement.  It was more like a stampede of dust sheep.  Or maybe like… bison.  Lots of dust!  Huge dust! Live nude dust!  You could see the outline of where my desk and chair mat used to be and I was mortified to the point of almost running to Target to buy a carpet steamer.  I figured a good vacuuming and a little foaming carpet cleaner should do the trick.  It did!  Wow… aside from the usual traffic wear, it looks like new carpet! I’m totally doing this once a season instead of… uh… once a year. *looks shifty*

Oh, and that magical Conceal Surge Protector?  I was sorely disappointed. It really doesn’t fit anything much.  Almost all my plugs had big huge adapters on them, so out of the alleged 7 plugs available I could only fit 3 cords and then it wouldn’t close.  Not the most well-thought-out design. A good idea in theory, but the execution… c’mon, Belkin!  Use your noggin!  I’ll be returning that to Fry’s, thank you.  I guess I’m stuck with the Electrical Trash Heap for now… but at least it’s hidden.

Yesterday morning, I sat down to wrangle some projects into submission, but my computer said it needed to run a Windows Service Pack update. Fine, fine… I started it up and went to the gym.

When I came back, the computer was powered down and I figured it had just done that when it was finished.  But, when I started it up again, it would only get so far and power down.  I took the battery out, unplugged the power cord from the laptop and waited a few minutes until I was 100% totally sure there was no power to the laptop, in case perhaps it was stuck in some ‘hibernation power saving’ loop.  I’ve had that happen before…

After putting the battery back in, I plugged in the power cord, hit the “on” button and… nothing.  Not even a blip.  This, of course, makes my stomach seize and I call Fry’s since my laptop is under warranty.  I explained the situation… pretty calmly, I think, and he sounded as vexed as I was. He said that sometimes an interruption in an update can cause the operating system to disable, but not getting any power at all must be something else.  I should bring it in, he said.  Indeed.

As I was packing up my computer, it occurred to me, “Hey, Mensa, maybe it’s not plugged in!”

Apparently, the part of the power cord that runs from the wall to the adapter had just popped out and was sitting half-in, half-out of the adapter, which in turn made the computer sometimes power up, sometimes not, depending on how I was wiggling the cord.  Yeah.  I’m SO glad I didn’t pay some WoW-addicted tech kid to tell me to plug it in.  That would have been embarrassing.

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There are several terms and phrases that I feel should be dead and buried.  In fact, I sometimes say these phrases and when I do, it’s like the proverbial record scratch in my head.  I cringe when I hear them, even moreso when they come out of my own mouth. 

• Each and Every
  
  Ok, so it’s a bit pedantic of me, considering that anyone who knows me would not say I’m the Queen of Word Economy, but for some reason, this term just bugs.  Why each and every. If it’s each, then it’s every, is it not?  Pick one.
• At the end of the day…
  
  I’m guilty of this from time to time and yet, it bugs me still.
• I don’t have the bandwidth…
  
  Oh, this one sends me to the moon!  It said it yesterday and nearly flogged myself because it irks me that much. “Do you have the bandwidth to take on this project?” “Let’s see if my schedule has the bandwidth…” It’s called time, people. Time. You don’t have time, you don’t have room in your schedule, you’re booked. Your ISP has bandwidth, but you? You’ve just got time, dude.  Get over yourself.
• Ping me!
  
  When someone says this to me, I won’t lie. I want to throw canned goods at them.  PING me?  As in “I’ll be out of the office this afternoon, but I’ll ping you when I get back!” or “Ping me later and we’ll meet up!” No.  No, stop that. Shoosh!  I’m not determining if your IP is accessible, I’m not alerting you to a new blog entry, I’m just talking to you.  I will not ping you, but I will email or call you if you like.
• Out of pocket
  
  This has been a subject of great debate. When I was living in Texas, people used “out of pocket” to mean “I am busy or otherwise unavailable”.  As in, “I’m out of pocket until Thursday at a conference in Boise. Please leave a message.” What?  What does your pocket have to do with anything?  It is my belief that “out of pocket” applies to cash-money having to come out of your own pocket, as in, “My boss was supposed to cover my trip to the strip club, but they caught it on my expense report and now I’m out of pocket.” But at least now we know why you weren’t available. 
• Make it pop!
  
  This you get a lot in design fields, especially within marketing companies.  Every client wants their stuff to “pop!” Well… duh, right?  Except unfortunately their idea of making it “pop!” usually includes some kind of starburst or animated aardvark or something.  That pops alright…
• Going viral
  
  Do I really need to explain why this is irritating?  I don’t care of it’s an accurate term or inaccurate term… it’s just annoying.
• You feel me?
  
  No, I don’t feel you.  Shut up.  And if you add “Dawg” or “Yo” at the end without any hint of irony, everything you said before that was completely negated and you’ll have to start impressing me all over again.  Only this time… well, you won’t. But you can try.

You feel me? 

It’s been a really busy week and with this heat, it’s been difficult to get things done in a timely fashion.  My laptop can only run for a couple hours before it’s Africa hot and I can’t even rest my wrists on it.  The fans work and are clean, I have a cooling pad underneath, but even with the fan in the room pointing right at me, it needs a cool down.

So, I decided to stop work at a normal time on Friday and join Daniel, Richard, mikey, and a couple other guys from Twitter at Urban Mo’s for a cocktail.

Yeah, a gay bar on a Friday night during a Summer of (thus far) sweltering heat was an adventure.  We finally managed to carve ourselves a little niche and this drunk guy comes stumbling up mumbling something about how “there are SO many hot guys in here, right?” and he was wondering if he could put his mug of beer down where I was sitting, which happened to be in the middle of our little group.  I was too nice and Daniel had to usher him away.  Hey, I’m a sucker for a man who slurs.

Anyway, mikey and I bailed after that because it was hotter than Hell hit with a hammer and my car has air conditioning.  I was hungry so we hit the Wendy’s drive-thru over by mikey’s place. While I’m deciding between the salty burger and the greasy chicken sandwich, I overhear this woman in the minivan in front of me ordering her meal. She seemed like she was just ordering and ordering… and ordering, so I start to listen more intently.

“I’d like one baked potato… with butter ONLY.”

“Would you like anything else?”

“Yes, I’d like one baked potato with chives and one with butter ONLY.”

“So is that one with chives and two with butter only or one?”

“Yes and I’d like one with cheese.”

“Do you want anything else?”

“Yes, I’d like one baked potato with butter ONLY and one with chili, but NO cheese. One with cheese. And then one with chives and butter ONLY.”

“Wait. Uhhh… OK, so did you want…?”

And this went on for like 10 minutes.  She could have gotten a 5 lb. sack of potatoes for about 1/8th of what she paid at Wendy’s for her epic potatorama.  I couldn’t help but send this Tweet which was apparently enjoyed by all we’d just left at Mo’s.  They were speculating as much as we were about what this woman could possibly be doing with all these baked potatoes.

Spontaneous dinner party and she without side dish?  All starch diet?  Tuber fetish?  What?

Last night I decided to drag myself out of the house for some social interaction before I turned into one of those crazy shut-ins with a bunch of cats and her ass organically fused to the couch.  OK, the likelihood of that happening is slim; I’m allergic to cats. But I do have a new fish!  I named him Bill.  Anyway, what was I talking about?  Oh!

So, I sent a last-minute tweet saying I was going to be at the Lamplighter last night, and Daniel (who may consider having his iPhone surgically affixed – hee!) sent me a text that he and Richard were going to “get cute” and meet me there. That was a nice surprise! 

I’d arrived just a few minutes before they did and had really only intended to go out for an hour or two, but we ended up staying until like 1am! I had no idea it was so late, but we were having a good time. I sang a bunch of times, though it wasn’t my finest night of song choices.  I did “A Fine Romance”, but it was a duet version, which threw me, so I stumbled and lost the melody. I bailed out about half way through.  Thank god you can do that in karaoke! Song sucks?  You can easily be replaced by some schmo gyrating to “Livin’ on a Prayer”.  No worries.

Because it was so noisy in there, my throat is shot today.  I sound like Kathleen Turner. That seems to happen every time I go out to sing now, which tells me I need to practice at home a bit more, even warm up. I feel so hoity toity saying that about karaoke, but I don’t want to end up one of those people you hear sing and you think, “Wow, she sounds like she had a really good voice once…”

I sang a few other tunes which were feh.  I don’t think I was really feeling it last night, nor was the crowd, really. Not for me, really. Except for this one girl… she was enthusiastic.  When I got off the stage and sat down, she shoved the book in my face, “Sing another one! Sing another one! Sing it! Go on! Put it up there!  Sing this one! Sing that one! Wow, you can really sing. I wish I had your talent!” And on and on and on and on… It was really sweet and I was very flattered, but holy hell, woman!  Step away from the Red Bull and vodka. 

Then she got up there and belted out “At a Medium Pace” by Adam Sandler.  With feeling.

I had such a good time with Daniel and Richard. They’re so much fun.   And I got to see chickrawker a bit, too, which was nice. I’ve not seen her in forever… she sang a few songs as well. It was Monster Ballad Monday.  Had I known, I would have dug up something from my junior high days.  Extreme?  Sheriff?  Maybe next week…

I was just in the kitchen making myself an omelette.  Omelet? Omelett?  I say the first, but I digress…

I don’t fancy myself a chef, but I love to cook and am trying to get better at my overall culinary skills.  I decided this morning’s breakfast would be devoted to the “egg flip”.  So, I got my little 6-inch omelette pan and my Reddi-Egg (seriously, the best cholesterol-free eggs I’ve ever had… better than Egg Beaters and half the price. Trader Joe is my secret lover.). I added a teaspoon of extra virgin olive oil and off I went!

While my eggs set up, I dug around in the fridge for something to put in my omelette.  I grabbed some cilantro, some chile verde sauce and a lone slice of pepper jack cheese, which was hidden between the soy milk and the econo-jar of minced garlic. 

I checked my eggs and gave it a little zshush to see if it would release from the bottom of the skillet.  This is why I love cooking omelettes with olive oil instead of butter, because it never ever sticks and it rarely burns.  I decided to go ahead and give it a flip. 

Alas, I didn’t notice that there was one pocket on top that wasn’t quite ready to be flipped; it was still a bit too liquidy and the next thing I knew, it was raining eggs.  Eggs on the stove, eggs in my hair, eggs on the wall… but dammit, my omelette, what was left of it, landed in the pan!  *applause* I let out a little “Yes!”, did a little dance and then wiped Reddi-Egg out of my cleavage.

The bulk of the omelette was fine, there was just about 3 tablespoons that went akimbo, so as the other side sizzled, I added a bit of torn cilantro (coriander for my English friends ), my slice of cheese and a couple teaspoons of the chile verde, folded it over and after a few minutes, risked another flip.

After a few practice zshushes, I gave it a go. I had no idea eggs were so aerodynamic.  That omelette got some height!  I was afraid it was going to hit my vent in the ceiling or land on my bar shelf or something, but no, it did a triple Lindy and landed right back in my skillet, unharmed.  And the crowd went wild!

Yeah, so I’ll spare you the rest. Let’s just say it was a tasty breakfast.  Next up: chopping an onion without bringing up issues from my childhood.

This is my favorite photo of me and my dad. It was taken in our house in Northern California when I was probably two or three.  It’s actually in color, but the photo is so old and discolored, it scanned much better in black and white.  I have it sitting in a frame on top of my television, but I think I may try to have it restored. It’s beyond my level Photoshop patience and I’d rather leave it to a professional.  Remember when I was talking about Dressy Betsy?  I’m holding her in that photo.

Happy Father’s Day, Dad. I miss you.