Computerjargon.com

It seems no matter where I work there is always a shortage of men’s bathrooms. When I worked in Plymouth the company was mostly women. I think the breakdown was something like 65-75% women. You would think with a smaller per-captia ratio that the men’s bathroom would be more readily available, but it wasn’t. Granted, the women were hurtin’ worse. They had it so bad they were forced to use men’s bathrooms when no one was looking (and when no men occupied it). And we all know how my gender tends to leave the state of bathrooms.

Businesses in the warehouse district have it tough. The old buildings were built in a time when a single shared bathroom per floor was common and the density of workers was light. I work now with twice as many men with the same amount of stalls as did Plymouth. It’s pretty much booked from 11am to 3pm during the day. Thus, we have to get creative sometimes.

I had a discussion this morning where we compared the quality of restrooms on the other floors versus our own. Although we couldn’t come to an agreement whether 5th floor was better than 8th floor, we did decide that anywhere was better than the one we have. The local repository invokes the same emotions as do the dank restrooms of St. Paul bars.

I chuckled a little bit after reading St. Paul’s Dubliner bar has a cameo in an upcoming film along with Nye’s in Minneapolis. The Dubliner has always been a favorite of mine, not too big, not too small. I can’t wait for it’s silver screen debut.

Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster - A satirical argument for teaching intelligent design in school. Somehow I don’t think this rationale will help the Intelligent Designers plight.

I broke the breadmaker this weekend. I decided to cleanup the kitchen a bit. I put away some clean dishes and put some dirty dishes in the dishwasher. I was left with the odds and ends to clean by hand. If there’s one thing I don’t do it’s dishes by hand. I will outright refuse to do them. I must have been in a good mood because I decided to do them anyway.

I cleaned some wine glasses, I cleaned the often-used popcorn popper. When it came time to clean out the breadmaker I was a little stumped. I wasn’t sure how I should clean it. It has only two movable and removable parts (the kneeding blade and bread bucket). I removed the pieces and dunked them in the water. Still, the innards of the maker had bread residue all over it. I knew better than to dunk the entire maker into a sink full of water so I did the next best thing.

I grabbed the sink hose, turned the maker on it’s side, and sprayed the inside of the maker. The pressure wash did a great job of getting all the gunk out of the tight corners at the bottom of the maker. I put it away and congratulated myself on a job well done. Courtney would be pleased.

At the grocery store I stopped and picked up some more bread mix. We don’t use our breadmaker very often but the last loaf of bread was excellent. I thought I should make more.

I plugged in the clean maker, threw all the ingredients into the bread bucket and pushed one of the 5 buttons on the maker. Nothing seemed to happen. So I tried pushing one of the other buttons. No luck. Figuring I was doing something wrong I had to get out the manual. The manual confirmed that all that was needed to start the baking was to push the button.

So I pushed it again. Nothing. Not even a blip on the display screen. So I did what any normal male would do when faced with a simple instrument that appears to be broken, I shook it. After a good shaking I noticed a large puddle of water underneath the maker. A flood of panic came over me. I had broken the breadmaker.

In hopes of a miracle I started fidgeting with it some more. I tipped it on it’s side, I tried to shake the water out, but nothing was going to make it work. I was pissed and I was hungry. I broke the bad news to Courtney. She didn’t seem as upset as I was. She calmed me down and suggested we replace it. I was defeated.

I continued with some other baking, making some cookies and fudge. I couldn’t get over that I had broken the breadmaker. I am such a careful person and a careless moment had now ruined by entire day. I kept the breadmaker on top of the oven in hopes of drying it out. By the end of the day water was condensing on the inside of the LCD display. I gave it one last try but it refused to work. By this time Courtney had already rescued the bread incredients and was baking the bread the old fashion way in the oven. She made some great cinnimon and raisin bread.

Courtney’s loaf is almost gone this morning. I’ve been having a few slices for breakfast each day this week. I was hit with the need for fresh bread again during breakfast. Refusing to give up, I took out the broken maker while my toast cooked and plugged it in. I started mashing the buttons one after another. BEEP BEEP BEEP The breadmaker sprang to life. “Oh my god, I’ve done it! I’ve fixed the breadmaker!” I ran into the bedroom and told Courtney that it was a Christmas miracle. The breadmaker works!

Delighted, I quickly threw together the ingredients for a loaf of honey wheat berry bread. I am tickled pink with anticipation to the smell of fresh bread when I get home this evening.

Even if you are adamantly opposed to podcasting I highly recoomend you give a listen to Ricky Gervais’ podcast. He is the original creator of the British comedy The Office . Its worth the listen just to hear Brits say things like “cheeky” and “bollocks” and “utter rubbish”.

This past Friday came the annual company holiday celebration. I have a tendency to switch jobs in the later part of the year, which creates for a somewhat awkward holiday party. I have met many people but I can’t say they completely grasp the full jason experience. The party was fun, food was great, the wine flowed like water.

The party was held at the recently rennovated Walker Art Center. The new building, added last year, looks a little odd. I’ve heard it referred to as the metal fish tail in Minneapolis. I think it looks like an angry man.

I was a little nostalgic heading down there again. We used to live directly next to the Walker in an apartment complex. I used to walk through the sculpture gardens every morning on my way to work.

The inside of the Walker is beautiful and much like walking through Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory. When we exited the evalator from the parking ramp there were no signs to indicate where we were supposed to go. We weren’t in the main lobby of the Walker. We were in a wing of an exhibit. The only people available for questions were ticket agents. The ticket ladies kindly directed towards the main lobby by suggesting we follow the brick pathway. So we followed it directly into an exhibit on flight, not exactly the main lobby. We stumbled around, but eventually found the main lobby.

We took the elevator to the 8th floor for the reception. Suspciously we noted the elevator had no 5th floor stop. It went from 4th floor to 6th without a stop. Very John Malkovich if you ask me. We drank and drank until we were ushered out for dinner. At that point we were instructed to take the elavator to the 5th floor for dinner. But the elevator we were piling into had no 5th floor. So 20 individuals crammed into an elevator going nowhere began to hypothesize on just how to get to the 5th floor.

“Go to the 4th and walk up a flight!”

“Go to the lobby and take the other elevator!”

On and on they went while the elevator went nowhere. We ended up heading back down to the lobby, walking back through the Walker, to the original set of elevators, the set that brought us from the parking lot.

I saw much more of the Walker that night than I thought I would. If they wanted me to see everything they had to show off then the layout worked. I felt worse for the ladies wearing high heels. I know Courtney would have wore better shoes if she knew she’d be walking around on a brick road for a good portion of the night.

I mentioned to Courtney earlier this week that I was surprised my allergies hadn’t acted up yet. Typically by this time of the year I’m popping pills every morning and run the humidifier constantly. But this year I haven’t had to do any of that. Well, that was until yesterday.

I woke up with a scratchy throat and my sinuses were running ramptant. My allergies have arrived.

If you ask Courtney, she will tell you that it’s all in my head, which is sort of true. Did I cause the onset of sinus congestion? Maybe. Was I ignoring the early signs a month ago? Maybe. In any event, this year I have my trusty Allegra by my side, left over from a nasty sinus infection/brain tumor this summer.

I really question if any of this is real anyhow. I’m sure if you told me that a magical gray pill would clear my sinuses, grow hair, and make me socially adept I would pop it in a second and all would be right. I can’t really tell if the Allegra is working or not. I’m used to popping decongestants which dry me out and make me pee a lot. The Allegra doesn’t have any of those side effects. Not to mention it’s a 12-hour solution. What happens if it starts to wear off? Should I take more? From my estimates it lasts only 8. But then again, it’s all in my head anyways.

Courtney and I ate at the El Loro last night. As Court pointed out, El Loro will be “that place” we drag our kids to. The food and staff are great.

We were the first seated in an area near the front of the restaurant. We ordered our food and were enjoying our chips when two women were seated in the booth next to us. “We don’t want to sit by them,” one of the ladies said. I glanced her way to make sure she wasn’t talking about us. I looked over my shoulder. No one else was in the area. I concluded that, yes, she was talking about us.

“I hate sitting next to people. We’re going to be loud,” she told the waiter. They sat two booths away. I found her comments odd and a tad rude. After sitting down the two young women discussed, loudly, the appropriate size of margaritas to order. They determined the 60oz was too large and settled for the smaller 36oz mugs. The girl was right, they were going to be loud.

For the rest of our time there I couldn’t hear them much. As the restauant started to fill up other couples and families were seated around them. I considered it pennance for their demands.

Gannett, owner of KARE 11 here in the cities, is pursuing another avenue for cash by introducing Advertainment specials. This new type of television talkshow will feature paid-for product highlights. Gannett assures the line between news and advertising will be kept distinct. Product spots will be identified as sponsored. Consider advertainment the new form of infomercials. The only difference is these spots will be masquarading around as real news shows.

Sleezy if you ask me. If Gannett hopes to battle devices like Tivo with faux-news spots I hope they realize that I will just choose not to record these.

A City Pages’ columnist recently ranted about Best Buy’s holiday gift guide being more male focused. The editorial rags on the company for the lack of content for women in the audience. The article concludes that Best Buy thinks less of women because their fliers included very little content for women. And because of this Best Buy must believe that women are only good for buyin gadgets for men.

I quote, “The lesson here? According to Best Buy, women love shopping for and pleasing their man.”

I’m all for equality between genders. I think there are major issues society needs to address when it comes to gender-bias (equal pay, anyone?) But please people, this is ridiculous. The truth of the matter is the majority of shoppers at an electronics store will be male. Just like the majority of shoppers at a make-up store will be female.

The columnist’s rant focuses on the point that these fliers were not sent to a subset of existing Best Buy customers, but to the “CURRENT RESIDENT” that lives at every house. When I check my mail today I can almost gurantee that there will be something in it that I’m not interested in. Do you know what I’m going to do with it? I’m going to throw it away.