Just a short, simple blog for Bob to share his thoughts.
22 October 2021 • by Bob • Humor, Microsoft
Back in my early days as a Technical Support Engineer at Microsoft, my boss had a dartboard outside her office, and several of our fellow team members would play darts on their breaks. I suck at darts, so I never joined them.
One day I happened to be walking by, and one of the guys asked, "Why don't you ever play with us?" I replied, "You wanna see why?," then I grabbed one of the darts and threw it with barely a look in the direction of the dartboard.
I fully expected to miss the board by several feet, and thereby demonstrate to everyone my complete lack of skills. However, by some miracle the dart landed dead center in the bull's-eye. Rather than show everyone my expression of dumbfounded surprise, I quickly collected myself, then I turned to the people gathered around and asked with a feigned air of superiority, "Do you REALLY want a piece of me?"
Then I walked off, leaving my stunned coworkers in awe while I basked in the glow of a victory that I could never have achieved if I had tried, and like any great athlete - I left the sport at the top of my game.
08 April 2021 • by Bob • Health, Humor, Science
I like making fun of anti-vaxxers because they tend to be rather silly people who usually act on their uneducated emotions and staunchly refuse to listen to actual science; they're much like the whackos in the Flat Earth Society.
And with that in mind, the following video contains some actual facts about vaccines for anti-vaxxers to blissfully ignore as they continue their respective crusades toward reinstating the Dark Ages.
😄
06 January 2021 • by Bob • Humor, Programming
wall += brick; if (!meat) { you = !pudding; }
26 December 2020 • by Bob • Humor
My wife and I spend a happy afternoon baking, decorating, and sharing Christmas sugar cookies with our family. That being said, can you guess which of these cookies was decorated by me?
PS - My granddaughter chose the cookie that I decorated, so I feel vindicated. Of course, that cookie spoiled her dinner, so... my work here as a grandparent is done.
25 December 2020 • by Bob • Humor, Programming
As we draw close to the end of this particularly difficult year, I think that most people's attitudes for 2020 can best be represented by the following shade of red...
rgb(239,32,32)
(If you don't understand the meaning, don't bother asking...)
09 October 2020 • by Bob • Military, Humor, Health
I posted the following image to a veteran's forum with the following caption: "Whenever I hear people whining and moaning about having to wear a mask, I remember days like this, and realize why I have zero F's to give them."
Believe me, there's nothing like putting on a full chemical protective suit over your regular uniform, complete with gas mask, rubber booties and gloves, and then working outside in the deserts of Fort Huachuca (in southern Arizona) to make you realize that the human body wasn't designed to work in 100+ temperatures while wearing multiple layers of non-breathable clothing.
With that in mind, I would like to reiterate to all of the people who still complain about having to wear a simple mask for 15 minutes or so while they're shopping in a supermarket: "Just Shut Up and Wear the Darn Mask." In other words, get over yourself. Think about someone else for a change. Wearing a mask is a small price to pay for keeping the people around you healthy, and things could be a lot worse.
UPDATE: As I mentioned earlier, I had originally posted the opening joke to a veteran's forum, because I thought my fellow veterans would appreciate the humor. However, shortly after I posted this information, it was removed by one of the forum's admins with no explanation. As you can see, there was nothing even remotely political in this post, so all I can assume was that one of the admins is an "anti-masker" who took offense to the suggestion that wearing a mask during a pandemic isn't that bad. Oh, well... there's nothing that I can do about that. I guess some people failed to pay attention in their grade school science classes.
08 October 2020 • by Bob • Military, Humor
At some point during my tenure with the 511th MI Company, I was requested by some high-ranking US military officials to help review the readiness of 11th ACR troops. The time was in the late 1980s, and a delegation could show up at any time for a surprise inspection during the drawdown of nuclear armaments in Germany. This was important work, and our senior leadership needed to know that our troops would do the right thing when the time came. On the other hand, they also needed to know that our troops would prevent bad things from happening, too.
With that mind, I was dressed in a Soviet Major's Uniform (from the Tank Corps), assigned a Russian "translator," and I was asked to pretend to be a particularly "difficult" guest during a faux inspection.
To be more specific, these high-ranking officials asked me to try getting into all sorts of mischief in order to evaluate how the unsuspecting 11th ACR troops would react. I'm the kind of guy that you don't have to ask twice - I could get into lots of trouble rather quickly, and my victims probably would have been seriously ticked off if they ever suspected that I wasn't who my official escorts said I was.
My translator was SPC Meyers, who was a good friend of mine from the 511th. We were both passably fluent in Russian, which was more than was necessary to fool our unsuspecting victims. All of our personal conversations in Russian were about what was going on, how much fun we were having, where to go for lunch after we were done, what we should do to mess with people, etc. However, whenever I would say something in Russian, my friend would "translate" something entirely different (and often exasperating) to our hosts.
Here's an example:
Me | [Saying something innocuous in Russian to my translator.] |
---|---|
Translator | "The major would like to see inside an Abrams tank." |
11th ACR dude | "No, that's off limits." |
Translator | [Saying something innocuous in Russian to me.] |
Me | [Saying something innocuous in Russian, but louder and angrier.] |
Translator | "The major is very upset; he says that's part of his inspection duties." |
11th ACR dude | "I'm really sorry, and uh - can someone help me? What do I do now?" |
Translator | [Apologetically in Russian to me: "He'd kick our butts if he knew we were so full of crap."] |
Me | [Angrily in Russian: "Yeah, but this is so much fun. Still, we'd better not show our faces around here for a few weeks."] |
Ah, good times.
11 September 2020 • by Bob • Humor, Military
I can't speak for the Navy, Air Force, or the Marines, but the Army was cursed with some truly awful food. As you can see in the image below, I have eaten actual green eggs on more than one occasion. (And unlike the photo below, they were usually served floating in a tepid pool of disgusting water...) With that in mind, when someone posted this photo, I thought that it deserved an appropriate ode in the style of Dr. Seuss...
24 July 2020 • by Bob • Health
Finally, a PSA that puts things in their proper perspective...
UPDATE: This post is one of several that I had written that I later discovered had never been set to "public."
05 July 2020 • by Bob • History, Humor
In honor of today's date - July 4th, 2020 - I posted the following meme to social media.
Most people appreciated the humor as it was intended. However, to understand the funniest part about that meme, you have to study American History. And by doing so, you learn that the early American colonists REALLY WERE a bunch of ungrateful colonials.
The "Taxation Without Representation" that the American Colonists were so quick to condemn was really England asking the colonists to pick up the financial burden for their recent freedom from French rule. The King of England had recently pushed the French out of the American colonies, but the average British citizen was sick of having to foot the bill for bailing out those pesky American colonials. So the King of England shifted the financial burden of freeing the American colonies back onto the American colonists, who resented the thought of having to pay for their own freedom, so they kicked the British out of America. The King of France, still licking his wounds from France's loss to England, gave the American colonists the money to do so. However, the average French citizen resented having to foot the bill for bailing out those pesky American colonials, so they overthrew their monarchy and killed the king.
And all of this was because the American colonists were a bunch of selfish jerks.
With that in mind, I say once again: "Happy Treason Day - You Ungrateful Colonials!"