olutfey – Page 54 – Lutfey.com

You have reached the end of the page, but don’t worry, here are some more random things to read!

Music Notes

December 16, 2002

Singer David Lee Roth is suing his former Van Halen band mates. The suit alleges members of the band robbed him of royalty money through a 1996 contract with Warner Bros. When asked about the legal proceedings, Roth said, “Woooo! I’m back in the spotlight, and ready to ROCK!!!”
To Tell The Truth

November 30, 2001

People who read the stories on my web site often times ask if I tell the truth when I write. What seems like a simple and fair question on the surface can easily turn into a nebulous concept where the notions of right and wrong become more intertwined than the drunken bodies at the local Fraternities Saturday night “Beer and Twister” celebration. Questions such as “Is one the atomic weight of Hydrogen?”, “Does a box of Hamburger Helper come with one of those cartoon gloves with the face on the palm?” and “Honey, did you go out drinking last night only to wake up naked in the back seat of a Mexican crossdresser’s car AGAIN?” can quite easily answered with the responses of “Yes,” “No,” or “HELLO! Isn’t it perfectly obvious that I’m still wearing my left sock?”

Unfortunately, the very nature of the Cosmos doesn’t always provide clear cut answers. Take for example the value of Pi. Defined to be the ratio of a circle’s circumference to its diameter, this simple mathematical concept has puzzled mankind since the beginning of time. Even with all of the world’s fancy computers and glamorous mathematicians working on the case, we will never know its exact value. No matter how accurately the value of Pi is calculated, there will always more digits at the end that have not been taken into consideration. It’s one of the most simple and elegant concepts of Euclidean Geometry, and yet we are forced to spend the rest of our lives agonizing over the beauty of their round supple perfection that teases us– forever out of reach.

Which brings me to my next topic: Britney Spears. As I write this I’m watching her televised concert on HBO. At the moment she is performing “I Love Rock and Roll” (originally recorded by Joan Jett and the Black Hearts) while seductively dancing around with a half dozen young dancers wearing revealing shiny spandex outfits on a small platform suspended thirty feet in the air off the main stage. There are so many ways to end this paragraph that I’ll let you, the reader, make up your own punch line or pick one of the following.

A) Of course that whole setup was stolen from Cher’s act in the mid 1980’s.
B) I heard they had to edit out the post show interview when Joan Jett drove to the arena and kicked Britney’s ass.
C) If her boobs really are fake, they sure stood up to the intense heat generated by the stage lights quite nicely.

So while a lot of people categorize Miss Spears as a fake, the truth is that she has some musical talent, a moderate amount of skill in moving her body in synch with the music, and an amazing ability to draw attention away from her deficiencies and focus the spotlight on her assets. Writing stories is remarkably similar– except in all honesty I generally forgo the silver sequin covered sports bra in favor of a baggy drab colored T-shirt. I’m not going to deny it brings out the curves of my upper body, but when I’m sitting at my desk for hours at a time it chafes me like there is no tomorrow.

To explain this concept using a different analogy, people realize that working in a cubical in an office isn’t a whole lot of fun most of the time. At my last job I worked in a cubical and gave customers highly specialized technical advice. Which, by any objective measurement is less interesting than watching paint dry. Given this information, I tend to stay away from the mundane aspects of what I did and focus on the relatively sparse but unusual events that I experienced. I’ve included two “real” things that happened at work to illustrate this point.

Example 1:

I was talking to a customer on the phone today at work. He seems like a nice enough fellow, but after conversing with him for a few minutes I realized that he was trying to pass an uninitialized character pointer object to a function. And he wonders why the compilier was producing a memory stack overflow error. I mean, really—he might as well have been trying to create a multithreading process without any shared memory mutex mechanisms.

Example 2:

I’m not sure how, but one of the customers I was helping had this uncanny ability to call me exactly one minute after I left my desk to go to the bathroom or stop by the kitchen to get another beverage. To make matters worse, he didn’t have the ability to receive incoming phone calls. Finally, the situation got to the point where my manager came into my cubical with a solution. She grabbed a roll of duct tape and quickly wrapped it around my chest and the back of the chair three or four times to ensure I would not leave the vicinity of my telephone until the customer called back. While her plan did work, I think she went a little too far with the idea when she came back to my desk an hour later with a catheter tube.

The first example isn’t funny at all because memory management in C++ programming IS NO LAUGHING MATTER! The second example is funny because it actually happened. Of course so did the first one—which is the whole point. It’s pretty easy to take ordinary events and make them look more exciting than they actually are. Just ask Britney.
Siri Snooping

September 22, 2013

I’ve peered into my 17-months-into-the-future crystal ball, and a disturbing development has come to light. An unnamed evil marketing company has developed a new interactive robo-calling computer with the objective of selling a specific product or service. This practice, known as “Siri Snooping,” can simultaneously interact with tens of thousands of humans using countless different voice patterns and vocabulary sets based on individual personal data. Authorities are trying to track down the physical location of this rogue computer system with their primary suspect being, of course, “Watson! The Jeopardy Winning Computer.”
Turning 40

April 4, 2014

So I finished turning 40 on Thursday. The biggest difference I’ve noticed is that when I deliver packages in the trailer park the trampy women aren’t throwing themselves at me like they did when I was 39 earlier in the week.
How’s That Going Anyways

July 25, 2010

Astronomers recently discovered the largest star in the Universe. Called R136a1, it is about 265 times more massive than our Sun. “To put this in perspective,” one scientists closely involved with the discovery explained, “it is the biggest ball of hot gas ever found in one place– even larger than the previous record set in the late 1990’s when leaders of the Republican party all gathered together to hammer out the ‘Contract With America.’”
Get Ducked

January 15, 2012

An older man is sitting in an over-sized chair. “My name is Steve, and I am the product manager here at the Select Comfort’s Sleep Number bed product line. While our product line has been an amazing success over the years, we are always looking for new ways to improve our customer’s sleep experience. I recently received a letter in the mail that pointed out a way in which we can improve our award-winning beds.”

My husband and I both love our sleep number bed. I keep my side at 25 and he sets his side at 85. We both sleep well all the time. The only problem is that sometimes at night we like to play some “adult” games, and having both sides set to the same number for a short time would really help. Can you help us out here?

“I understand your problem. Suppose you are playing a game of ‘duck, duck, goose.’”

Switches to a shot of a man and a woman on their bed in their pajamas. The husband is sitting in the middle of the bed and the wife is behind him touching him on the head saying “duck” each time. Suddenly she yells “goose” and starts running in a small circle on the bed. The husband gets up to chase her, but once he steps on the soft side of the bed he losses his balance and flies off the bed at a 45 degree angle.

“Now who wants that to happen to them when they are getting goosed?” The man in the chair asked.

“To solve this problem we have added additional buttons to the sleep number controllers which we have called the ‘duck’ buttons. Once configured, the ‘duck on’ button will bring both sides of the bed to the same preset pressure.”

The woman and man are in bed. The man is asleep. The woman reaches over and touches him gently on the shoulder. He wakes up and looks at her. She smiles and ever so slightly raises her eyebrow. He smiles back at her. She reaches for something under the covers and pulls out a game of Jenga. They both jump out from under the covers and start setting up the game in the middle of the bed. They are about to start playing, and then she remembers to hit the ‘duck on’ button.

A different woman is sleeping in her bed. A man comes into the room. He is unshaven, has a significant pot belly, and has just finished a can of beer. The throws the empty can in the corner of the room and gets into bed. He looks over at his wife and grabs his controller to hit the ‘duck on’ button. The wife wakes up and realizes what is going on in the bed. She reaches over to her controller and hits the ‘duck off’ button. The bed returns to the original settings.

“Hitting the ‘duck off’ button can be used to express an unwillingness to play games in bed, in addition to resetting the bed at the end of the game.” the man in the chair explained. “So from everyone here at Sleep Number, have a good night sleep after you get ducked.”
1996 Christmas Letter

December 25, 1996

The earth and the sun have once again completed another round of their cosmic tag team, no holds barred wrestling match which means it is time for the second annual publication of my Christmas letter. My goal for this year is to have at least three people (including myself) read this letter. I am sure that there are some people who are skeptical about this letter reaching such a vast audience. To you naysayers out there I would like to proudly introduce my new ally– exponential growth. In much the same way rabbits procreate and chain letters clog your mailbox, this plan revolves around my ability to harness this largely unexplored force of nature. After you read this, pass it on to two of your friends and then give $100 to the Mission Impossible guy who is outside posing as a garbage collector. Here is how the conversation will go:

IMF agent (a.k.a. “Garbage man”): “How much for the women?”
You: “My spleen is fine, thank you”
IMF agent “What the hell are you talking about? Just give me the damn money!”
(You give him the money and then he kills you)

Believe it or not, I managed to graduate from college. I received degrees in both Computer Science and Mathematics. When I tell people that I have a CS degree the usual response is “You won’t have any problem finding a good job.” And when I tell people that I have a degree in general Mathematics they say “So you’re going to grad school.” I guess getting the math part is like being on the game show “Jeopardy” and knowing the Final Jeopardy question only to realize that the guy next to you has three times as much money as you do.

I have very mixed feelings about graduating college. On one hand I don’t miss the “cultural anthropology” class I was required to take or the “Oh, but he does a lot of research” professors that are forced to teach classes. On the other hand, I liked being able to watch television until my eyes hurt and spend most of my time on campus with 10,000 women, most of whom were between the ages of eighteen and twenty-five.

It wasn’t long after graduation that my parents expressed an interest in my time management skills. (“Get your ass of the couch and find a job or we will put you up for adoption”) After pounding the pavement for a while (until I got to my car) I drove to a building often referred to as “McDonalds.” I told them about my situation and they were very interested in giving me one of those legendary high paying cushy cashier jobs with my own personal secretary and limousine driver. This didn’t last very long, however, due to the fact that I have a very rare neurological disorder that I only found out about after my training. It seems that whenever I try and say “would you like fries with that?” my vocal chords take over and produce wildly inappropriate phases like “There are squirrels in my pants. Hee hee hee,” “I did it. I did it. I shot JR!”, and “Have you ever showered with Rush Limbaugh? It’s not as bad as people say.”

After the whole McDonalds episode, I ended up at a company called “Saxe Inc.” It is run by a guy named, strangely enough, Andrew Saxe. He spends half of his time in Denver and the other half in New York city. It turns out that he loves the legendary brown cloud found in Denver, but he just can’t tear himself away from the more traditional forms of pollution found in New York City. Talk about the best of both worlds.

Saxe Inc. is a very liberal company. So liberal, in fact, that all the employees are gay transvestites running around with pitchforks. No, wait a minute. I am thinking of the classic cult film “The Rocky Horror Picture Show.” To the best of my knowledge, nobody at Saxe Inc. is a gay transvestite, and we only run around with pitchforks when there aren’t any of our clients in the building.

Saxe Inc. is a somewhat liberal company. Everyone is allowed to run around in shorts and T-shirts. The only rule is that you can’t run with scissors. We also have a place to play ping pong when we get frustrated and feel like hitting stuff. Just to make it perfect, we also have a cappuccino machine. The front of the machine shows a picture of some great looking cappuccino with perfect looking whip cream with just the right amount of evenly distributed sprinkles. Unfortunately, when I went to get some cappuccino I realized that the machine is not equipped to dispense either whip cream or sprinkles. In an angry fit of rage I ripped the machine out of the wall, raised it up over my head, yelled “Where are the fucking sprinkles?”, and proceeded to throw the entire apparatus at a prospective client. He didn’t die or anything, but I don’t know if he is retaining our services. My lawyer advised my not to disclose the terms of the settlement.

As a software developer, I spent some time working on a project to answer the question “What is the meaning of life?” After several months, I came up with an elegant and efficient solution for producing an answer to the question that has eluded philosophers, theologians, and Douglas Adams, author of the book “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy,” for thousands of years. I started running the program only to discover to my dismay that the answer to the question “What is the meaning of life” cannot be answered by sitting inside a sterile office building at a desk with stale fluorescent lights and a 486 computer. It turns out I need a Pentium.

The other night I went out to an Avalanche game with some people I know, including a nose pierced, ex-stripper, bisexual Satan worshiper. No kidding. If I ever have kids I hope they never find out about this and use it to their advantage by saying stuff like “Come on Dad, I just want to go out and get drunk with this 24 year old guy I met at the bowling alley, it’s not like I’m going out with a nose pierced, ex-stripper, bisexual Satan worshiper or anything.” To be honest, we all had a reasonably good time and I can add her to the extensive list of women that I am too chicken to ever ask out.

Another highlight of this year was the condominium that I purchased in October. It came with two bedrooms, one bath, a huge loft, and a years supply of Spam. The biggest problem that I have right now is that I bought a couch that is too large to fit up the stairway. OOPS. All of my appliances are twenty years old and I say a prayer each night hoping that they don’t all die at once. It is a strange feeling to have a thirty year mortgage to think about. Saying that it will take thirty years to pay it off makes it seem like a huge deal. I just think of it as 358 more payments. Assuming that the postage rate for first class mail doesn’t go up in the next thirty years (hahahaha) I will be spending $114.56 on stamps alone. Sorry, I guess that the math-geek part of me is coming out.

While cleaning out all of my old college stuff, I came across a paper that I had written during my first year at CSU for a mathematics course. It started like this:

I can honestly say that I feel more complete as a human being now that I have written this paper. All my life I knew that there was some calling in my life that had remained, up until now, unanswered. Who knew that my calling would be to write a recursive algorithm for generating a lexicographical set of permutations from the set {1,2,3,…,N}? The Lord works in mysterious ways. Who am I to disagree with powers that I can hardly fathom?

Who says that science and religion can’t just get along? The best part of this paper, in my opinion, is the following passage:

After I finished the algorithm, I went home and showed it to my mother. I could go on about how my mother is an algorithm analysis expert and pulls in the big bucks at Hewlett Packard, but I will refrain from doing so because of the fact that it would be an outright lie. She is actually a registered nurse who really has absolutely no understanding of the world of computers, but she thought that it was wonderful and found space to display it on the refrigerator.

I am sure you will be happy to know that I received an “A” for my efforts.

I think that I have said enough for this year, so (insert cliché end of the year saying here) and remember folks– you don’t have to go home, but you can’t stay here.

Action Figure!

April 21, 2025

Everyone and their dog is making themselves into action figures on the Internet this week, so I thought I would give it a go! Full disclosure– I used ChatGPT and this isn’t even my dog!

Here is the starting photograph of me and said dog on Halloween:

And the prompt I used for ChatGPT was:

Use this image to create a picture of a action figure toy  in a blister package from head to toe with accessories which include a two gallon red and white round water cooler with a white handle, a container of sunscreen, and a pair of sunglasses.  The package should read "UPS Driver" and below that "summer edition" The background should be three shades of brown in an abstract swirling pattern.

Traffic Jams

January 4, 2002

Very few things in life test the strength of a family bond quite like getting stuck in a traffic jam with a sibling on route to the airport. The situation becomes even more intense when their plan centers around flying to Vegas and hooking up with a significant other for New Year’s Eve. I had plenty of time to realize this fact while sitting in my car with my sister the on the twenty-sixth of December.

In general I-25 does an adequate job of moving north and south bound traffic through the Denver metro area. Sometimes, however, the large eighteen wheeled trucks can really slow things down. Especially when they are positioned perpendicular to the normal flow of traffic. Being tipped over doesn’t seem to improve the situation much either.

Often times brother and sister do not require words to communicate thoughts and emotions to one another. I didn’t even have to turn my head to sense my sister thinking “I told you we should have taken E-470 to the airport, but you were too cheap to pay the three seventy five toll charge.” Of course I was busy thinking “Hello! How was I supposed to know a truck was going to tip over on I-25? Do I look like Miss Cleo?”

[EDITOR’S NOTE: Omar does not bear any resemblance to this black female Jamaican television psychic. Their voices, however, are remarkably similar.]

After about 10 minutes of barely creeping forward it became fairly obvious that no cars were getting past the accident. Eventually several police and fire trucks drove up along the shoulder and arrived at the accident site. Which was a good thing in most respects because their purpose is to clear up the situation and get traffic moving.

Some of the cars on the right hand side of the road came up with the idea that if the emergency equipment could make significant forward progress on the shoulder, they could too. Most drivers will do anything to safely get out of the way of a ten thousand pound fire truck with flashing lights and an eardrum splitting siren. The same respect is not given to beige late model Honda Accords.

Being in the middle of three lanes, we watched as the Accord drove on the shoulder and passed three cars before its driver realized the futility of this course. As the Accord tried to merge back into the right hand lane, nobody would let him get back off the shoulder. Eventually the guy in the Accord and guy in the car who wouldn’t let him in both laid on their horns as they inched closer towards one another. The fact that everyone was traveling, on average, zero miles an hour seemed to be lost on both of them. If massive tragedies in the world tend to bring out the best qualities in our society, minor traffic jams must be the audition stage for purgatory.

At that moment in time I realized people in cars don’t really have any good methods of communicating with each other. Honking a horn is really the only way to express an opinion in this type of situation. Which is a lot like dogs barking. Maybe the first bark is useful, but after that it is just annoying noise. And of course dogs barking at other dogs barking is a wonderful way to spend a hot summer’s night.

To make the world a slightly better place to live, I believe cars should be equipped with the “emotion icons” similar to those found in E-mail messages and Instant Messenger services. For example, when merging on to the highway, the driver could press the “smiley face” button on the dashboard. This would cause a display unit on top of the vehicle’s roof to light up briefly with a smiling face. The driver who let the car in would see this sign of gratitude and, if he happens to works for the United States Postal Service, might postpone his plans for a murderous workplace rampage.

Another useful icon would be a face with an “Oops, my bad—Sorry about that” look to be used when a driver does not take note of the car in the blind spot before changing lanes on the highway. An “I’m this close to going on a murderous rampage” symbol might prove useful. Even something along the lines of “I’m in the process of delivering a baby—please get out of my way so I can get to the hospital!” could come in handy on occasion.

So, eventually we made our way past the accident, pausing only briefly to see the twisted wreckage that had delayed our journey. While slightly behind schedule, I dropped my sister off at the airport with enough time for her to get aboard her flight to Las Vegas. When I got back home I documented my proposed enhancements and sent them off to several major automobile manufacturers. I have not received any replies, but I remain optimistic 🙂
Houston

September 19, 2005

NASA unveiled plans on Monday to return humans to the moon by 2018 at a cost of $104 billion as recently demanded by President Bush. One anonymous member of congress commented, “I think we need to form a commission and find out who is responsible for, sometime during his latest vacation, letting our Commander-In-Chief watch Apollo 13 on DVD.”
Driving Me Up The Wall-E

October 5, 2013

So I’m watching Wall-e (again) and now I’m trying to figure out how exactly he hooked up a 1980’s VCR to a first generation iPod to watch “Hello Dolly.” I think it is safe to say that I’ve watched this movie about 100 times beyond the recommended lifetime allowance for any adult male human.
Force Of Nature

February 22, 2005

President Bush sent a message to European leaders who opposed the Iraq war saying that “no passing disagreement of governments, no power on Earth will ever divide us.” Shortly afterwards, a spokesperson for the Commander-in-Chief added, “with the exception of the tectonic plates under the Atlantic ocean that have been pushing apart the two continents for the past hundred million years or so.”
CNC Other Projects

September 22, 2024
2008 Christmas Letter

December 25, 2008

The days are getting cooler, the political issue rob-calling is winding down, and most stores are busy setting up extensive Valentine’s day promotional material– which means it must be time for me to write my annual Christmas letter. 2008 has been a crazy year with the economy, the presidential election, and, of course, the wonderfully crazy mid-season cliffhanger of Battlestar Galactica which led a shaky alliance between the Cylons and the fleet back to Earth only to see the crumbling remains of New York City. What the frack happened? We have to wait until January 2009 to how that’s going to play out.

The first project I tackled this year was cleaning up some of the loose ends on my entertainment center. A few years back I installed a projector and a large screen in my previously underused living room. This let me watch movies and television on a screen that’s about 10 feet across. Since I had become such an expert in cutting holes in drywall, I decided to add front and rear built in speakers to replace the speakers sitting on the floor. I also closed off the “projection room” with glass to cut down on the fan noise. Finally, I added a picture frame on hinges in front of the electronic equipment to give the room a more finished look. If I ever decide to to move the entertainment center is going to have to stay with the house– I’m pretty sure I don’t have the skills to repair all the drywall damage I’ve created.

My next Christmas-letter-worthy project was to file for a United States Patent. I’ve been kicking around this idea for a remote control holder that shuts off power to the television when not in use. (Many people don’t realize that any electronic device that uses a remote draws power when plugged in but turned off.) So I hired a lawyer who took my idea and transformed it into 30 pages of techno-patent-babble. We would sit at my kitchen table as he explained why he replaced the phrase “electrical switch” with “electronic control device” to make the patent as broad as possible. So now I’m in the process of promoting the idea to various companies. I put together a website at www.BlackRemote.com to explain the idea in more detail. If all goes well my 2009 Christmas Letter will describe production of a wacky remote control holder infomercial.

In August Katherine, my mom, and I went on a cruise to Alaska. Since water based transportation options in Colorado are somewhat limited (the canoe ferry down the Colorado river was booked months in advance), we chose to fly to Seattle and get on a boat from there. Coincidentally, we traveled aboard the same ship we were on during our trip to the Caribbean. When we picked our room this time around we decided NOT to be directly under the aerobics room where people gathered at way-too-early hours of the day to jump up and down in unison. Traveling through Alaska’s inside passage in a 14 story mega cruise ship took some getting used to (I’m still not sure exactly why the ship doesn’t tip right over, especially with the two pools, four hot tubs, and the food buffett on the very top), but I did enjoy eating a leisurely breakfast while watching various islands move in and out of my field of vision. We took a scenic train ride in Skagway. It is one thing to watch the History Channel and have them talk about some small foot path that prospectors used during the gold rush, it a much different experience to see it in person. Other highlights of the trip included the optional fire drill and mandatory midnight chocolate buffet.

This year saw the end of my ownership of my Saturn. Since 1996 I’ve driven a hunter green Saturn SC2 coupe. I’ve managed to put 131,000 miles on it, and I decided that if I didn’t sell it soon I would just end up driving it until the last of the plastic body panels decomposed. After looking at all my options, I decided I wanted an all wheel drive car. After looking at all kinds of Subarus, a few Ford Fusions, and even kicking the tires of a Dodge Challenger, I decided on a used 2004 Audi A4 quattro wagon. It is fun to drive, gets decent gas mileage, and, most importantly, the dog likes the big flat area in the back when we take him places. I listed my Saturn on Craigslist and had it sold in two weeks.

I’m still working at UPS. I’m now on year number seven and counting. I am still a driver who covers other driver’s routes when they are sick or on vacation. Each year I learn a few more of the fifty five or so routes covered by the Loveland center. This year’ highlight was when I spent a few weeks working way out in Milliken, Colorado to see what’s going on out there. Short answer: not much. Long answer: nothing, I was exaggerating when I said “not much” for the short answer. I’m not saying Milliken is small– just go to the main restaurant in town, “Jose’s Taco Factory,” and ask anyone there.

So that summarizes 2008 for me. My resolutions for 2009 include watching all the Battlestar Galactica that I can get my hands on, getting out to see the new “Star Trek” movie coming out in May, and, of course, spending a few minutes each day watching my dog race around the house like a maniac. So until next year remember what they keep singing in the “Smokey and the Bandit” movies: We’re going to do what they say can’t be done. We’ve got a long way to go, and a short time to get there.
Need For Speed

November 15, 2002

A supercomputer in Yokohama, Japan recently claimed the number one position in the Top 500 list of the most powerful computer systems in the world. The system, which simulates climate and other aspects of the earth, consists of 640 machines connected through a high-speed network. The machine performs more than 35 trillion operations per second and only needed minor hardware upgrades when installing the latest version of Microsoft Windows.
New Ad Campaign

January 4, 2011

Village Inn suggests you change your schedule:

Sunday: Shut your pie hole

Monday: Shut your pie hole

Tuesday: Shut your pie hole

Wednesday: Open your pie hole!

Thursday: Shut your pie hole

Friday: Shut your pie hole

Saturday: Shut your pie hole
Year In Review

February 28, 2002

I’ve been writing weekly stories for a year now on my website, so I thought now would be a good time to stop and examine what I’ve accomplished over the past year. To achieve this goal, I’ve chosen the standard “situation comedy flashback” idiom. Let the dog out, grab a soda, and get comfortable before the show starts.

The scene: Omar is sitting on the couch of the living room wrapped up in a warm blanket drinking hot chocolate. Behind the couch is a fake window with large quantities of fake snow falling. The television set it tuned to the weather channel.

Television Set: A cold front has moved in and stalled over the state of Colorado. They have already received 6 inches of snow, and the satellite images indicate the situation is only going to get worse. Schools, businesses, and taco stands across the state have all shut down until further notice. The best advise is to stay home and wait for the snow to stop falling. Preferably with a warm beverage.

Omar: Wow, that really sucks. I guess I can’t look for a job today.

Kathleen enters through the front door to mild applause.

Omar: I thought you were going skiing. How come you are back so soon?

Kathleen: They closed the highway because of the blizzard. We had to turn back and… hey, what’s going on here? First of all, we don’t live together. And this doesn’t look anything like your apartment. In fact, it reminds me of a bad UPN sit-com. And where is that clapping sound coming from?

Omar: Yeah, that darned snow. I guess we are stuck here for the night. Sit down on the couch—I’ll go make some more hot chocolate before I start rambling on endlessly about my web site.

Kathleen: What? I don’t want to hear about your stupid web site. I don’t know how I got here, but I want to leave.

Kathleen gets up and tries to open the front door. It won’t budge. She pulls frantically to get it open. Omar looks over from the couch and smiles.

Omar: Of course I’ll put extra marshmallows in your hot chocolate.

Omar walks into the kitchen and Kathleen reluctantly sits on the couch. Omar comes back out with another cup of hot chocolate.

Omar: This should warm you up. You know, this reminds me of the time I wrote about you entering the Kinetics race in the spring. Ah, those were the days.

Kathleen: Umm.. I suppose so. Look Omar, the only time we ever talk to each other is in the parking lot. You make it seem like we are best friends. I think its pretty creepy that you write about me so much on your stupid little web site.

Omar: Actually, its just the powder mix. I’m glad you like it though.

Kathleen: Are you even listening to what I’m saying?

Omar: Hopefully by tomorrow morning, according to the weather channel.

Ertok the Evil Alien Overlord comes walking in through the kitchen door covered in snow and quite irritated.

Omar: What’s the matter Ertok? Did you get snow in your ship’s plasma couplings?

Ertok: Be quiet little Earth mammal. Unless you know anything about cleaning plasma couplings I would suggest you… Wait a minute—how did you know what is wrong with my ship?

Omar: It’s been so long since we have sat down and just talked about things…. Like my web site. By the way, Ertok, this is Kathleen. Kathleen, meet Ertok.

Kathleen: So Ertok, does Omar follow you around writing strange stories about you too? Aren’t there laws against doing stuff like that?

Ertok: If that is all he did I would be damned lucky. Omar made me travel half way across the galaxy for some poorly thought out scheme where I take over the world. As if there is any logical reason for me to take over such a pitiful little planet in the first place. And if that wasn’t bad enough, he hasn’t written about me for the better part of a planetary rotation cycle. So instead of going home to my family back on Barrius 5, I am forced to endlessly orbit the planet waiting for Omar to make up his mind.

Omar: You are right Kathleen—Ertok is one wacky alien overlord. I just never know when he is going to next. It reminds me of the time he tried to take over the world. Ha ha ha.

Ertok: You idiot! You never got around to writing that episode!

Kathleen: Well, Ertok, I’m sorry to hear that Omar dragged you here from so far away. But it is good to know I’m not the only one who is suffering here. Can we do anything to stop all this?

Ertok: For reasons I don’t quite understand, I can only access objects he has written about on his web site. Omar stopped writing about me before he got to anything useful.

Omar: That’s a good question, Ertok. Investigating obscure but unsolved mathematical problems has always been a hobby of mine. I guess I figure one day I’ll wake up and magically come up with a polynomial time solution to the NP-complete set of algorithms. When I go to bed each night I try and convince myself to dream about them.

Ertok: Wait a minute, that gives me an idea.

Kathleen: What, about the “Traveling Salesman” problem?

Ertok: You amuse me, Earth female. That math problem is a trivial homework assignment for young offspring on my home planet. I was actually thinking about the XR-2300 neural interface.

Kathleen: Isn’t that muffler bracket for a 79 pinto?

Ertok: Silence! This is no time to steal jokes from “Airplane 2.” Besides, it wasn’t even very funny the first time around. If I remember correctly, I might be able to make Omar’s head explode.

Omar: I have to agree with you there Kathleen—a lot of people think I am just too funny. But the “toofunny.com” domain name was already registered. How can I make so many jokes when millions of children in the world don’t even know how to make a simple “Three’s Company” joke about Chrissy being pregnant, much less understand the political and sociological ramifications? Which reminds me of episode 49 of “The A Team” where Murdoch and Face go on about….

Kathleen: The sooner Omar’s head explodes, the better.

Ertok: I found the remote detonation device. Lets see if it works.

Ertok presses the button. Omar’s head blows up leaving blood and brain matter all over the room. The lights slowly fade out and polite clapping can be heard along with the theme music.
Chronic Pain

August 20, 2003

Hundreds of people in England are being recruited to take Cannabis after operations. In the clinical study, 400 patients will test a Cannabis-based prototype produced by GW Pharmaceuticals to determine the drug’s effectiveness in reducing post-operative pain. The announcement of this study sent the companies stock up 7.5 percent to a two-month high. The stock then put on “Dark Side of the Moon,” ate an entire bag of nacho-flavored Doritos, and spent several hours contemplating the contours on the palm of its hand.
Having Kids Ruined My Netflix Account

November 26, 2012

This is really more of a problem with Netflix than my kids. While I go off to work my kids like to watch stuff like “The Cat in the Hat” and “The Mickey Mouse Fun House.” Which is fine, but then we put the kids to bed, come downstairs, and fire up Netflix only to have it recommend movies that only a three year old would enjoy. I’m not sure exactly how their search engine can find valid recommendations when the last two shows watched were “Team Unizoomi” and “Battlestar Gallactica.” So if anyone at Netflix is reading this, maybe you should figure how to deal with kids and adults watching content from the same account. Heck, it might even help your stock price.
Kitchen Project

January 20, 2026

So here was my contribution to the Santa Breakfast for the Loveland High School Marching Band in December 2025. The Oreo cookie is a Lazy Susan, the Hershey bars are for hot pots, and the KitKat bars are for glasses. I made all of these on my CNC machine. As my skills as a woodworker evolve, I have come to realize that while sanding projects properly is a big pain in the ass, it does make for a much better looking finished project.
Trip To Pennsylvania

December 15, 2001

They say getting there is half the fun. While I am not sure exactly how that phrase came into existence, I seriously doubt it applies to excursions involving airline travel. If it does, however, I can only expect to enjoy the rest of my trip the equivalent of receiving a full body pat down by a 45 year old bald man wearing purple latex gloves. But eventually the driver let us get into the taxi cab and took us to the airport.

Getting through the security in the airport was no cake walk either. In retrospect, I shouldn’t have eaten that second bowl of Total cereal before leaving for the airport. It turns out that having 200 percent of the recommended daily allowance of iron was more than enough to set off the metal detectors. For reasons that I honestly do not understand, my request to be examined by a nearby perky attractive young female security guard was not well received.

Just to keep everyone on the same page here, I recently traveled to Taylor, Pennsylvania to spend time visiting relatives I haven’t seen in more than five years. My mom and I found a good deal on airplane tickets back to the east coast, so we flew from Denver right into the Scranton / Wilkes Berre airport. I suppose a more accurate way of describing the situation would be to say our plane gently landed on the runway next to the airport.

We didn’t plan this ahead of time, but we arrived in town the day before my cousin’s oldest daughter’s birthday party. Seeing Ted really put the amount of time since my last visit into perspective. Here is the main gist of our conversation:

Ted: Hi Omar, I haven’t seen you in forever! What have you been up to since we saw each other last?

Me: Well, not too much lately– I’m working on being a writer. Oh yeah, and I have built a new web site. What about you?

Ted: I got married and have three kids.

While I generally don’t get invited to many birthday parties for four year old girls, the big screen television equipped with satellite cable and complete NFL game coverage made sure that all age groups were equally entertained. The older males at the party were preoccupied with determining how the outcomes of the games would effect the playoff prospects of their favorite teams. The small girls at the party amused themselves after all the presents were unwrapped and examined by everyone. The amusement, of course, was derived almost exclusively from a large cardboard box.

The largest box was about three feet high and two feet square at the base. The girls, who where dressed up as their favorite Disney heroines, wanted nothing more than to get inside the box. Not being able to think of any good reasons why they shouldn’t be inside the box, I picked them up one at a time and placed them inside. The next thing I know I am rolling them around on the floor inside the box. Their experience seemed quite disorienting and nauseating, which is exactly why they found it entertaining beyond description.

After ten minutes, the box gave up and burst open, causing the girls to pour out onto the floor. After one final round of exuberant giggling, the girls moved on to a slightly more high tech entertainment device: the karaoke machine. I had one of those “life isn’t fair” realizations while witnessing the girls completely mangle Lee Greenwood’s song “God Bless the USA.” Everyone at the party thought they were cute and adorable, but when I do the exact same thing in a seedy college town bar after a downing a couple shots of tequila none of the nearby perky attractive young females seem to have similar feelings of admiration.

Everyone knows that the fine art of residential use lamp repair has fallen out of favor over the years. During my stay in Taylor, I got a glimpse into this rare electrical experience as my three uncles worked to fix two of my grandmother’s broken lamps. My rough calculations led me to the conclusion that the replacement plugs and wire consisted of less than one percent of the total cost of the project. The rest of the budget included the beer that was consumed during the repair process.

Over all I had a great time in Pennsylvania. I really enjoyed playing with some of my younger relatives, some of whom I haven’t seen since they were negative two. While I can’t predict the future, I am going to try and get back there in less than five years from now. I’ll bring my extensive karaoke skills and a much, much bigger cardboard box.
Monkey Business

May 22, 2003

Michael Jackson was briefly hospitalized after suffering what a Jackson family lawyer called a “reaction to lawsuits.” A Jackson family doctor, speaking on the condition of anonymity, reclassified the condition as a “reaction to monkey feces.”
One Large French Fry

August 14, 2003

The continuing heat wave in Europe has reportedly led to 3,000 deaths in France. While neighboring countries called on military forces to help deal with the problem, France has been busy drafting a United Nations proposal asking the local climate to refrain from being so hot.
Berlin

September 3, 2001

August 20

I’m sitting on a train I am moderately convinced is heading towards Berlin. I think the uncertainty of getting on a train in another country where they don’t speak English makes the experience just a bit more exciting. I could just imagine getting off the train only to realize we somehow managed to end up in western Canada. In case you aren’t familiar with the events of my life, I’m in the middle of a ten day vacation trip in Germany with my longtime friend Scott.

Growing up in Colorado I have developed a resistance to using public transportation. One thing I’ve been noticing is that trains in Germany can go really fast. In addition to numerous messages in German, the electronic message board at the front of the passenger car would occasionally say how fast the train was moving. During the trip the speed of the train would reach 250 kilometers an hour. To put that into perspective for anyone not familiar with the metric system, that speed is 108 times faster than any form of public transportation moves in the state of Colorado.

After watching the German country side for an hour or so I eventually dozed off. I’m not exactly sure how my brain works, but my overactive imagination doesn’t seem to sleep when the rest of my body is recharging itself. I started dreaming about my apartment back in Boulder. I suppose I need to preface this by saying I’m not the best at keeping my apartment as clean as I possibly could. In my shower I have a circle of rust from a shaving cream can that has been there for, well, a lot longer than I really want to admit. It’s there, and I know it’s there, and it knows I know, but it doesn’t smell funny or seem to be growing, so I generally don’t spend much time worrying about it or attempting to get rid of it. But in my dream, the ring of rust penetrated all the way through the material of the tub and a perfect circle fell through to the floor as I was shampooing my hair. Mental note to self-clean shower upon returning to apartment.

Our hotel room, which Scott picked out, is quite clean and spacious. And it is right across the street from the “Erotik Museum.”

August 21

We started the day traveling to the east side of Berlin. Until 1989 this section of the city was controlled by Communist forces where the general population was forced to wear funny hats and dance the mamushka every night. We took the subway to one of the main squares in East Berlin to get a better idea of what life would have been like under such an oppressive regime. As we walked up the subway stairs one of the first things I saw was a man wearing brightly colored clothes, a large rainbow umbrella, and a strange mechanical contraption around his torso. Upon closer inspection, the equipment was a completely self-contained grill designed for cooking sausages. Say what you want about communism, but they are light years ahead of us in personal hot dog vending devices.

Despite several navigational errors on the local subway system, we are still in Berlin. Due to a massive misunderstanding in the scale of our map, we decided to walk the entire length of a park located in the center of the city. On the map the park was roughly the width of my thumb. In reality it is much, much bigger. By the time we got to the exact middle of the park we realized the magnitude of our miscalculation. Of course by then we didn’t have any choice but to walk the rest of the way out of the park.

August 22

After seeing a few more sights in the morning, we headed back to the station to catch the train back to Stuttgart. I’m not sure why, but the train stations in Germany have a noticeable lack of seats. I guess they decided the trains are so punctual that there isn’t any need to wait for a train-it’s just there when they say it is. Scott and I were sitting on the ground waiting for the train to arrive when what looked like a homeless man started talking to us in German. Being that I can’t even pretend to speak German, I just kind of nodded. When he realized I didn’t know German he got all annoyed and started saying things I can’t repeat here. Not because they were profane and inappropriate, but because we was yelling at me in German which we have already established is not my language of choice for optimal communication. After a few minutes he got bored and walked away, possibly to yell at someone else who doesn’t speak his language.

These are the highlights from Berlin. Stay tuned next week for the last part of my vacation involving a road trip to the countries of Austria, Switzerland, and, most important, Liechtenstein.
Road Trip

September 6, 2001

August 24

For the last two full days of our vacation, we decided to take a road trip with Scott’s parents. The original plan was to drive Scott’s parent’s Volvo, but the word from the repair shop was a cracked cylinder head caused the explosion on the trip home from the airport. While I’m admittedly no automotive mechanic, I think fairly highly of Volvos made in 1988 that have been driven 176,000 miles. But all good things must come to an end, and this was no exception. After a brief discussion, we all agreed the only logical course of action was to break into the local mortuary, steal two cadavers, situate the bodies in the front seat of the Volvo, and roll the vehicle on to the autobahn during the middle of the night.

While Scott and I were taking in the sights in Berlin, his father was busy trading in the Volvo for something else. After a series of intense negotiations he exchanged the car for a very nice cup of coffee to enjoy while looking for a new vehicle. He eventually agreed to buy another slightly less broken Volvo. I assumed we were going to take the car on our weekend excursion, but in Germany it takes roughly two weeks to buy a used car. I’m not sure what is involved in the whole process, but it starts with multiple signatures, continues with an extensive paperwork trail, and somewhere along the line requires a complete DNA sequencing analysis from all parties involved in the transaction.

Fortunately, Scott’s father was able to secure a rental car for the weekend. Given the extensive presence of the German automobile industry around Stuttgart, I was expecting to spend the next two days driving around in a Mercedes or BMW. But since the reservation was placed less than the customary thirty weeks in advance, we ended up with an Imbizu. Yes, it’s the best four-door compact diesel that Spain has ever designed and manufactured. Ever.

August 25

As much as it pains me to do so, I must admit that the Imbizu is doing a pretty good job of getting us around. It doesn’t do much to make me feel cool, but it does manage to get us around the steep mountain roads. To the best of my knowledge none of the cylinder heads have cracked. That is, of course, if diesel engines have any.

That is enough about cars. After spending the past eight days with Scott, I can’t help but to notice that he likes to walk a noticeable distance in front of everyone. At first I thought it was just me walking too slow, but now that we are with Scott’s parents I’ve decided he walks faster than everyone in the group. I’ve mentioned it a few times, but he still does it. I don’t really mind except for the fact he is out of earshot, so it makes any kind of conversation rather impractical. I’ve been entertaining myself by calling him “Scout” and envisioning him getting snared in a trap involving a net concealed under a bunch of leaves and attached to a nearby tree. Perhaps I’ve watched a few too many episodes of “Xena Warrior Princess.”

We have spent the day visiting various castles and their surrounding towns in Germany and Austria. While castles come in many shapes and sizes, the one thing they all seem to have in common is that they are all built on ground that is a lot higher than the rest of the area. The only exception to this rule seems to be the “White Castle” hamburger franchise which generally settles in the crappy part of town all across the Midwestern United States.

While getting to these structures requires a moderate amount of uphill hiking, seeing them close up is worth the effort. In one village in Austria, we walked up to the ruins of a 12th century defensive outpost. Despite the fact that many of the upper levels had collapsed, you can still see the general design of the building. I kept thinking this is what my apartment is going to look like a few years down the road.

August 26

Today we drove through Liechtenstein. Proportionally, I’ve already spent too much time writing about it. I’m not sure how they managed it, but this country is a four mile wide sliver of land sandwiched between Austria and Switzerland. The most notable quality of this country I’ve discovered is they charge you to stamp your passport.

We rather briefly drove through Switzerland, but most of the time was spent driving on a road next to a large lake. While visually stimulating, I don’t really feel as though I got to experience the true Swiss culture. I didn’t even see a single person drinking hot chocolate. So even though I can add it to the list of countries I’ve been to, I think sometime in the future I’ll come back to get a better look around.

August 27

Well, that wraps things up for my trip to Germany and neighboring countries. After spending ten days here I’m definitely ready to be back in Colorado. The public transportation isn’t as good and we don’t have quaint little villas in Colorado, but at least we never had to worry about evil oppressive forces occupying parts of our state. Unless, of course you count Colorado Springs.
In Political News

August 15, 2002

Speaking at the foot of Mount Rushmore, President Bush took time out of his four-week working vacation to criticize congress on the issue of Homeland Security. “The Democrats in the Senate are intentionally limiting… [LOOKS AT TV MONITOR] Whoa, hey, look at this– my head is the same size as those up on the side of the mountain! [LOOKS UP AT MOUNTAIN] But my head is smaller, and they are made out of rocks! Get Cheney over here– he has to see this… I don’t care, get him out of the bunker. He has to see this.”
The War On Drugs

June 12, 2002

The Bush administration today announced a new tool to help fight the war on drugs. The “Say No To Drugs” slogan currently printed on urinal cake holders will soon be replaced with a voice recording of John Ashcroft yelling “say no to drugs RIGHT NOW, or DEA agents will be dispatched to this location. You have ten seconds to comply.”
Alien Speak

January 1, 2001

Thanks for subscribing to the newfunny.com newsletter. I created this site as a moderated showcase for the talents of up-and-coming comedy writers. So if you like to write and believe that you are the next Dave Berry or Douglas Adams, please feel free to submit your work. If you can’t write, but like to read what other people write when they are trying to be funny, please enjoy this site. If you can’t read or write and for some strange reason have e-mail, have someone read the newsletter out loud every issue.

Newfunny.com is the first web site to officially acknowledge being run by Evil Alien Overlords in an attempt to distract humanity from their future invasion and enslavement plans. My name is Omar and I host the site and shamelessly bow down to our future masters in a “Locutus Of Borg” capacity. I am controlled by one of the Evil Alien Overlords via a XR-2300 neural interface. Everyone else has the less painful option of submitting material through the newfunny.com web site [ERTOK: we can’t go around equipping every humanoid with an XR-2300 BEFORE the mass landing of the replicator vessels, now can we? HA HA HA]

Oh yes, I forgot to mention Ertok the Evil Alien Overlord who oversees this web site. He has a keen– if somewhat twisted– interest in humanity and occasionally likes to add his own thoughts to the web site. It is in my best interest to indulge Ertok since he has led me to believe that one of the features of the XR-2300 is the ability to make my head explode.
Home Sweet Home

July 5, 2004

Have you ever had one of those days when you come home from the movies on a Sunday evening only to have your longtime friend/roommate/landlord tell you that he is moving in with his girlfriend to a brand new place ten miles away? Welcome to my world.

As if I didn’t have enough to keep me busy between not getting fired at work and arranging my Netflix movie queue on the Internet (OK, maybe that last one doesn’t sound that difficult, but if I don’t keep a constant eye on it, Kristin will fill up the list with her silly choices like the complete cartoon collection of “Jem and the Holograms” while showing absolutely no respect for my culturally enlightening selections such as “Shakes the Clown.” I mean, come on, how can Bob Goldthwait playing (“playing”) a depressed alcoholic clown not be an important social commentary?

Back to the “me getting kicked out of the house” thread, Scott assured me that I could live in the house until it was sold to someone else. This meant that I had somewhere between two weeks and six months to find a new place to call home. Before I started looking for a place I needed to answer several important questions: Do I want to rent or own? What part of town do I want to live in? Could I just sleep at the UPS center and avoid the extensive cost of shelter altogether?

After considering all my options, I decided to buy a place of my own. That way, I reasoned, if I got kicked out it would most likely be due to: A: a freak meteorite hitting my place or B: a complete and long-term finical irresponsibility on my part. In either case, I would only tangentially blame Scott for having to move again.

My search for personal residential real estate began, like any good search, on the Internet. I entered what I wanted in a house and how much I could afford to spend. In roughly 1/10th of a second I got a response back from Google. It offered me, in this exact order, books on houses from Amazon.com, doll houses for sale on Ebay.com, and finally every single piece of real estate, commercial and residential, for sale and not for sale, on the entire planet. Since this didn’t provide me with much useful information, I decided to take a more realistic approach to my dilemma– I drove around parts of town where I wanted to live and looked for “For Sale” signs on houses.

After a surprisingly short search, I found a place I liked and made an offer. For everyone who hasn’t purchased real estate, the negotiation process goes something like this:

Buyer: I will pay you X dollars for this house.

Seller: Well, I don’t know, I think it is worth 2X to the right buyer.

Buyer: How about 1.5X?

Seller: I might be able to swing that. Of course I would have to keep the washer, dryer, and all the windows and doors.

Buyer: If I have to buy all that stuff I would need to take my dying mother off dialysis. Would that make you happy?

And so on.

Once the terms of the sale are agreed upon, the next stage in the process is to arrange financing. Most people don’t have enough money to write a check for the total cost of the house. This is why mortgage companies were invented. In exchange for giving people lots of money to buy a house, the mortgage company has the right to put people through a complex and deeply humiliating loan approval process. This includes, but is not limited to, financial information from the past three generations of relatives, a complete pantry inventory, and, at the sole discretion of the mortgage company managerial staff, a complete urine analysis. “I’m sorry, but the sample you provided us was a bit too dark for our taste. You will never own a house. Have a nice day.”

Once financing has been arranged, the final step in the process is the closing. In addition to having to sign 8000 pieces of confusing yet legally binding documents, the soon-to-be homeowner needs to check for any forms clerical and typographical errors in the loan documents. This included making sure names are spelled correctly, dates more or less correspond to when events actually happened, and that the title company isn’t under the impression that you are buying a used muffler bracket assembly from a 1978 Pinto.

The title company’s main responsibility is to say everything is going smoothly, and then, two days before the closing, inform the buyer that six crucial documents have been mysteriously removed from the closing file. This is exactly what happened during my closing. Imagine this: I’m driving on the east side of Fort Collins delivering packages trying not to fall behind schedule when my cell phone rings. “Hello, this is so-and-so from your friendly neighborhood title company. Look, we just now realized that your place is a ‘pud’. Now that doesn’t mean anything to you, but since it is a pud, we need additional information from your employer regarding your pay from two years ago. If you could just fax that to me in the next half an hour or so, that would be great.” First of all, I’m in a big brown UPS truck, which does not have any type of onboard fax machine. Second, I’m 20 miles away from my computer and still have 4 hours of work to get done before I can get home. And finally, getting any kind of useful information from a company as large as UPS cannot be completed in less than four to six weeks.

Despite all these difficulties, I did manage to complete the process of buying a townhouse (or ‘pud,’ if you will). With that accomplished, I now get to move on to a whole new set of challenges such as moving all my stuff, landscaping the front yard, and putting up window coverings. I was planning on getting some of that done this afternoon, but I just noticed that my “Shakes the Clown” DVD just came in the mail from Netflix.
1997 Christmas Letter

December 25, 1997

Well folks, it’s that time of year again– the days are getting shorter, annoying Christmas music is playing at the mall, the political forces that run our nation are gearing up for the next presidential election, and, of course, it’s time to publish my third annual Christmas letter. This brings up the question of whether I should even try to construct a letter that surpasses the high standard that I set for myself when writing the first two Christmas letters. Consider the world of movies for a moment. By the time they get to making a third movie in a series it pretty much just sucks. I am sure they meant well when they made “Superman 3”, but putting Christopher Reeves, Richard Prior, and a wacky evil computer together isn’t something to be proud of. Even “Return of the Jedi” wasn’t as good as its predecessors. Oh no, they built ANOTHER Death Star for the good guys to blow up at the very end. On the other hand, I listened to the School House Rock CD (which I own, of course) and learned that three is a magic number. I don’t think they would have made a number magical if there was an inherent problem with it. In conclusion (of the introduction), I know the risks but I am none the less going to give it a shot. If you are not completely satisfied with this product, just send any unused portion to the address provided for a full refund.

In case you didn’t already know, I left my job at Saxe, Inc. Among other things, the thought of developing software to help companies send out more junk mail slowly wore down my will to live. After a while I would wake up in the morning and stare at the ceiling thinking the world would be a better place if I just called in sick for the day. Even the lure of the cappuccino machine and the ping pong table (see last year’s Christmas letter) wasn’t enough to convince me to stay. My departure was civil and professional, considering the fact that several of the upper level managers were (and to the best of my knowledge still are) minions of Satan.

One of the last things I did before leaving Saxe was use up all of my vacation time on a road trip to see the Indianapolis 500. My friend Tina and I drove a total of 2,048 miles to watch thirty-three men drive around a big loop 200 times. Of course not all of them made it all the way through to finish the race. I don’t have exact numbers, but quite a few of the racers stopped themselves by smashing into the outside walls, a few just ran into each other, and then there was one guy who was driving along minding his own business when his car just caught on fire. I felt bad for the guy, but then a bunch of people came along and extinguished him.

The sheer magnitude of the Indianapolis 500 is impressive. Hundreds of thousands of people converge to the Indianapolis Motor Speedway one day a year to see the big race. The planning required to pull something like this off is extensive– roads are blocked off, businesses are closed down, and special busses are brought in to move the masses more efficiently. Every effort is made to ensure the audience enjoys the race. Having taken all of this into consideration, I don’t understand why they built one of the world’s largest racing facilities in a climate that on average receives more precipitation during the last weekend in May than the entire Amazon Basin gets all year. I guess I am still a little bitter about the fact that we were forced to go to the race track three different days before the race track was dry enough to get the race finished.

I really should have had a new job lined up BEFORE I left my old job at Saxe, but then it would have been a lot harder to take the entire summer off. After a few weeks of doing no productive work, I realized my summer needed a little more structure. Applying the theory that there cannot be light without darkness, good without evil, and “tastes great” without “less filling” to my otherwise unproductive summer free time, I decided to go back to school to start working toward my Masters Degree. After a rather flimsy search, I decided to take a graduate level mathematics class at the University of Colorado at Denver. It was rough, but twice a week all summer I got up, shaved, showered, and made my way to downtown Denver in time for my 4 PM class– even if it was raining. A lesser person might have just stayed home and watched that old episode of “The A Team” where George Peppard and company save the defenseless workers from the evil bad guy while narrowly eluding the military forces that are relentlessly pursuing them for the crime they didn’t commit. You know the one. Anyway, I got through summer school with only minor bruises and am planning on receiving my Masters degree sometime in the next 8 to 10 years.

All good things must come to an end, and my “summer of unemployment” was no exception. After evaluating my bank account, I begrudgingly realized that an “autumn of unemployment” was not a financial option. I started sending my resume out to companies and eventually was hired at company called Rogue Wave Software. Rogue Wave’s current focus involves brokering brides of the Philippines to wealthy but socially underdeveloped gentlemen. Of course it’s all a front to hide the fact they are really developing, marketing, and supporting digital dynamic reusable hierarchical multi-platform modularized procedural language libraries.

I am currently working in the Technical Support division of Rogue Wave Software. We have constructed an international array of computers connected through a highly evolved network of PPP, ISDN, and T1 telecommunication lines that allow for the fast, efficient, and reliable movement of information allowing us to seamlessly communicate in our ever increasing global community. Does this investment in time and money improve our relationship with our customers? I don’t know, but it runs Quake really well.

One of the more interesting aspects of this job, besides, of course, playing Quake, involves the notion that part of our responsibility involves helping the customers so they don’t have to call us in the first place. To achieve this goal we are constantly reporting bugs in our software, finding problems with our documentation, and publishing helpful hints on the Internet. The more successful we become at this venture the more people get fired due to a decrease in the number of customer calls. But, since most of us in technical support were just recently hired, we are only performing our jobs at a level where our wages are garnished.

With the possible exception of leaving a bunch of store bought tortillas in my refrigerator for an entire year just to see what would happen (they shattered when I tried to move them), I believe that my crowning accomplishment of the year would have to be the day that I completed all the levels on the “Duke Nukem 3D” CD that I bought for my computer in January. Anyone can get through a few levels and then give up, but I had what it takes to get through all 30 levels (and one of the secret levels that I am not allowed to talk about) without getting burned out. Sure, I could have stopped half way through and gone outside or read a book, but that would have been a cop out. I stuck by my guns– knowing that I made it down a path where so few see any value whatsoever.

I am sending this letter by E-mail as much as possible in an effort to promote living environmentally friendly lifestyles. Remember to recycle folks, because if you don’t all of us will have to live with the garbage until the sun runs out of fuel and collapses on itself with the resulting explosion enveloping the planet Earth as we know it– instantaneously converting countless generations of accomplishments back into the basic building blocks of matter from which we were created. And that’s a long time.

That about wraps things up here. If you ever question how to live your life, just remember what everyone tells John Cusack in the movie “Better Off Dead”– “Go that way really fast. If something gets in your way, turn.”
Come On Holmes

February 15, 2010

I watched “Holmes on Homes” on HGTV last night. Mike Holmes travels to people’s houses to repair shady contractor projects gone awry. Now he can finally quit his part time job working security detail for that Dexy’s Midnight Runners tribute band.
Eye Of Newt

November 18, 2012

Newt Gingrich slammed Mitt Romney’s assertion last week that he lost the 2012 presidential election because of “gifts” President Barack Obama gave to blacks, Hispanics and younger voters during his first term in the White House. “It’s nuts,” Gingrich explained. “The job of a political leader in part is to understand the people. If we can’t offer a better future that is believable to more people, we’re not going to win.” Gingrich paused for a moment and then added, “If I was nominated by the Republican Party, my sole focus of the campaign would have been topics that resonate with the American population such as building moon colonies, encouraging all males to have up to seven wives in their lifetimes, and promoting the emerging Republican platform that nobody has been raped, ever.”
2021 Christmas Letter

December 25, 2021
No time for the usual introduction as I smash through the fourth wall like the Kool-Aid Man after his latest parole hearing! WILLFUL DESTRUCTION OF PROPERTY– OH YEAH!

You! Yes YOU! The one reading this letter– somehow I can communicate with you while you are reading this. You can write your very own Christmas letter! No permits, licensing deals, or shady backroom arrangements required. Start with some objective events of the past year, sprinkle in a few things that you really wanted to have happened, and finally top it off with some quasi-random pop culture references. Once complete, send it to your printer, upload it to your website, and, if your time and budget permits, have it incorporated into an elaborate car wrap for your daily driver.

Now that you are ready for everyone read your work of art, here are some suggestions on who may want to read it:
- Friends and relatives.
- People whose jobs require them to interact with you socially.
- Small, furry woodland creatures.
- And, it kind of goes without saying, aliens.
To help illustrate my point, I started ad libbing letters in my brain-area for people on my route based solely on our limited social interactions. Here are two examples.

KARA: This morning my UPS driver told me I needed to write a Christmas Letter. Who am I to argue? Well, I guess I have to argue a little bit that Christmas was a few weeks ago now. So I would like to welcome everyone to my “Commemorating 2020 Right Before I Toss It In A Boat, Push It In The Lake, and Light It On Fire” letter.

JEN: So, it turns out that when you change jobs you don’t necessarily get to keep the same UPS driver. I miss Todd. A lot. All I have left are my memories and a random video on my phone of Todd coming into the store room. I like to think of it as my own game of “human Pokemon.” But seriously everyone, if you are considering changing jobs please take this into consideration.

Also keep in mind this expression of individuality can be based around ANY generally recognized annual celebration such as Arbor day (“I am Groot”) All Hallows Eve (“My Zombie Life– A Musical!”) or Festivus (“Let the Airing of Grievances begin!”).

OK, enough of the public service announcement– back to me for a while.

I remember when I first built my website he was always ready to jump up and race off to handle every HTTP request in a fraction of a second. Twenty some years later I took a closer look and realized that he mostly was just sitting on the couch, eating Cheetos, and passing gas. I did a little research and found out that “website obesity” is a real problem. I started writing back in the mid 1990s so some of my stories have gotten around to some rather unsavory hosting platforms over the years where they undoubtedly picked up extraneous HTML code. I spent an entire weekend doing [INSERT WEBSITE TECHO MUMBO JUMBO HERE] and now my website spends his time eating celery, working out to retro Richard Simmons videos, and asking me why I don’t get more traffic coming to my site anymore. If you haven’t already visited my website, you can check it out at Lutfey.com. Pretty much everything I’ve written for the past quarter century is uploaded. I was blessed with a short but uncommon last name and relatives who didn’t have much interest in the Internet revolution.

Despite an extensive internet search, I am no closer to understanding why I spent the entire month of March with the theme song of “WKRP In Cincinnati” stuck in my head. “Maybe you and me were never meant to be, but baby, think of me once in a while.”

On my birthday I decided to ride my age in miles on my bicycle. Then I looked outside and realized the beginning of April is not really the best time of the year for this type of activity, so I slightly modified my goal to ride my age sometime during the year. After riding around the bike trail in Loveland twice I was a mile short so I rode around my neighborhood until my odometer displayed the correct number. My goal now is to make this an annual event until I’m old enough to not remember I made the commitment. Anyone considering such an endeavor but is concerned with their physical abilities might consider using a different unit of measurement such as kilometers, city blocks, or feet.

Since the “random future predictions” section has been trending well with focus groups over the past few letters, I thought I would change things up a bit this year and make a list of environmentally themed predictions:
- A new mutual fund called “Short Florida” will be rolled out in an effort to benefit financially from rising sea levels.
- Southern California will solve water shortages by covertly building tall fences along mountain peaks on the continental divide in Colorado in order to keep more snow on the western slope.
- Scientists will confirm that global warming can be avoided if everyone takes all the unused CDs, DVDs, and “free AOL trial discs” and hot glues them to their roof shiny side up.
- Florida is going to fund efforts to fight climate change in the state by investing heavily in the “Short Florida” mutual fund.
In fun number news, I realized that I now have written letters for more years of my life than I haven’t. (25 to 23) Being 47 years old, I am also bracing myself for having to spend the next six years not being a prime number. And before you say anything, everyone seems to forget that 51=3*17. I mean, really, how hard is that to remember? I’ll just have to make the best of it and look forward to my next prime number birthday in 2027.

While I would like to think I will die in some Star Trek-esque manner that will leave my atoms scattered through neighboring corners of the multiverse, I am preparing for the contingency of dying a bland, pedestrian death. In such a case here are some quotes that can be read at a memorial service, recorded on my cell phone’s voicemail, or affixed to my “head jar” (in case I live through into “Futurama” times).
- I’ll be waiting for all eternity for the next season of “Wayward Pines.”
- That which doesn’t kill you brings you one step closer to that which does.
- I was immortal right up until the end.
If I Had A Million Dollars…

May 10, 2021

If I had a million dollars

I would want a million more

(why not two million more?)

Good point… wait, what are you getting at?

(I think you are missing the point of the song.)

Oh, all right, let me start over.

If I had a million dollars

I’d buy us some time.

(that’s better)

But only good times.

(I think that goes without saying)

If I had a million dollars

We wouldn’t have to sleep on the floor.

If I had a million dollars

We’d buy a bed cause it costs more

If I had a million dollars

I’d buy us a brand new game of “Life”

And I would let you be the travel agent

(but I don’t think the new version has that job anymore)

So if I had a million dollars,

I’d go online and buy a vintage version of “Life”

And let you be the travel agent

If I had a million dollars

I’d buy you a real Bob Ross painting

(With happy trees?)

Extra happy trees!

If I had a million dollars

I’d buy the top tier of cable TV

Then cancel it since we’d have so much to go out and see

If I had a million dollars I’d buy your love

(Or at least your lust. I’m not sure how much your love goes for these days)

If I had a million dollars

I’d buy you a Model X

(But not a red one cause that’s crude)

If I had a million dollars

I’d buy you the world
The B Team

May 8, 2010

A woman drives up to a gas station, gets out of her car, and starts pumping gas. A ringing noise is heard coming from her pocket. She pulls out a cell phone and starts talking.

“Hello? Yes. Yes. No. That’s not what he told me. I don’t know why he said that. I know. Yes, this is going to be a problem. Don’t worry, I’ll figure something out. I’m not sure what I’ll do right now.”

A group of four men quietly walk up behind the woman.

The leader of the group solidly rests his hand on the woman’s shoulder and announces, “Congratulations, ma’am, you just hired ‘The B-Team.’”

“Who are you freaks, and why are you sneaking up behind total strangers at the local Loaf ‘n Jug?” the woman asked after she sprayed a healthy does of concentrated pepper spray in their general direction.

“The name is Melvin,” the man said as he curled up into the fetal position while clutching his face in agony. “Gary, the pepper spray is constricting my throat–how about you finish the introductions?”

“Don’t blow your big chance,” Gary said quietly to himself as he stepped to the front of the group. “In 1998 a group of four total strangers was arrested for jaywalking in Bismarck, North Dakota. After paying a nominal fine, these men promptly left town while muttering profanities under their breath. Today, not really wanted by anyone in particular, and not having any extraordinary skills, these men attempt to eek out a living imitating their favorite 1980’s television series. If you have a problem, and can’t outrun them, you are pretty much stuck with the B-Team.”

Gary looks back at the rest of his team and whispers, “HELLO! You two were supposed to hum the theme song during that part.”

“HELLO! We were busy helping Melvin breathe-— is that OK, Mr., ummm, In Charge Wizard Guy?”

Gary, not sure what to do next, compliments them on saving Melvin, and then turns back to the woman. “So does that clear things up?”

The woman cautiously puts down the spray. “OK, suppose for a minute I believe your story, Gary. Why are you standing here in your underwear?”

“Oh, that.” Gary clears his throat and continues, “I want to get into the modeling business, so I figured I’ll display myself until we save the life of a perky young lady who just happens to work for the underwear department of Sears. Then she will have to give me a shot in their catalog. It all works out pretty well since I’m the team pretty boy.”

The woman looks Gary over and tries to conceal a puzzled look. “Well, I maybe if you lost some weight and worked on your complexion…”

Melvin gets back up and regains his composure. “Good thinking there, Vance, and Band-Aid– you really came through for me. Look here lady, we can pummel Gary’s self esteem all day, but that isn’t going to solve your problem. Wait a minute, you haven’t told us your problem yet. That pepper spray disrupted our usual routine. Does your situation involve the Mafia? Or maybe drug lords taking over your family farm?”

“Nothing that exciting– I ordered a new cell phone, but I’ve waited two weeks and it has yet to show up. I’m getting to the point where I’m going to call the phone company and complain.”

Melvin shook his head and smiled. “Young lady, you have a lot to learn about how the phone company works. Here is what you are going to do. Gary– put on some clothes and start dating Catherine Zeta-Jones. Vance, I need you to find out everything you can about cellular phones. And finally, Band-Aid, I need you to modify the van somehow.”

“I threw away all my clothes when I decided to be an underwear model.” Gary said.

“No hablas inglés.” Vance pronounced.

“You Fool! Our van broke down in Nebraska, and we couldn’t afford the repair bill.” Band-Aid yelled out.

“And look,” Gary pointed to a Greyhound Bus. “Our ride to Chicago is about to leave! If we don’t get on, we are going to be stuck at this gas station until tomorrow afternoon. And all our stuff is on the bus too!”

Melvin turns to the woman apologetically. “I’m sorry we couldn’t get to the bottom of this, but we are a team on the run– for our bus, in this case.”

“That’s OK. At least I know my pepper spray works,” the woman replied sympathetically.

The four men start running for the bus as it heads out of the gas station. Melvin gets on last, and stops for a moment at the door. He pulls out a container of chewing tobacco and puts a large wad in his mouth. He takes one last look at the woman at the gas station, and proclaims, “I love it when a plan comes together enough that we don’t get arrested.”

Suddenly Melvin starts chocking and chunks of moist chewing tobacco are seen flying out of his mouth. He loses his balance and falls off the bus—-which just keeps going.
Eight: Moderately Annoying Sins

January 10, 2002

I sat down on my couch the other day wanting to avoid reality for an hour or two and escape all the senseless, random violence in the world. When I turned on my television set the movie “Seven” was just starting. Well, at least the film features senseless highly focused violence. Kevin Spacey plays John Doe: an adorable, bald, deranged religious zealot who kills people that exhibit one of the seven deadly sins (envy, rage, greed, apathy, misdirection, and poor math skills). Given the financial success of this movie, I suspect a sequel is in the works.

It’s too bad Brad Pitt’s character shoots and kills John Doe at the end of the movie. Oops– anyone planning to see this movie for the first time might want to ignore that last sentence. While bringing Kevin Spacey back might involve some crafty script work (one possible write up: John Doe receives a sharp blow to the head and develops a bad case of amnesia. He completely forgets how the original movie ends), the real challenge is to come up with more sins.

Here is a rough outline for “Eight: Moderately Annoying Sins”:

Division: John Doe gets hired on as the produce manager at a local grocery store. Keeping a close eye on the banana display, John springs into action when customers tear off one banana from the bunch and put the lone piece of fruit back on the display. Grabbing the stray banana, John sneaks up behind the customer, presses the end of the fruit into their back, and calmly states, “Yes, this is a banana, but I’m not happy to see you.” John then takes the customer back to their apartment, ties them to the couch, and forces the offender to watch a continuos loop of Sally Strothers commercials until they go crazy and gouge their own eyes out.

Waste: People who ask for hot sauce at Taco Bell knowing full well they will not use it and just throw the packets away when the meal is finished are the next target of John Doe. The punishment is to go back and eat the discarded packets of sauce. More often than not, this causes massive digestive tract irregularities.

Hype: John Doe travels around to area malls and kills people who put up Christmas decorations before Labor Day. Anyone who starts up before Halloween receives a sternly worded letter in the mail.

Sponsorship: After watching a certain Dr. Pepper commercial, John Doe steals a beverage delivery vehicle and runs over Garth Brooks when he is crossing the street. A note found at the scene of the crime explained that “If God wanted Garth Brooks to wear lame ass clothes while singing a soda jingle with a forced smile He wouldn’t have created Britney Spears.” While investigating the crime scene, Morgan Freeman’s character comments “I have to agree with our John Doe on this one.”

Promotion: Web site developers who put endless pop up advertisements on the Internet become the target of John’s rage. Fearful of their lives, this practice is completely abandoned. As a result, traffic on pornography web sites sky rockets.

Gadgetry: People who leave their cell phones on at the movie are John’s next target. Offenders suddenly find a quiet bald man sitting behind them quietly throwing milk duds at the back of their head at random intervals for the duration of the movie.

First Date Lies: John joins the dating circuit in search of a meaningful relationship. The women who promise to call him back but never do are kidnapped and forced to spend a day in the same room with the Taco Bell sinners.

Sequels: The movie ends when John Doe leads the detectives into a supposedly empty missile silo. John Doe approaches with a small remote control device. With a slight smile on his face, John states “Just like in the original film, I know you will enjoy the irony the ending. God wants me to show the world how poorly thought out movie sequels are destroying His planet.” John presses a button on the remote which triggers a massive nuclear explosion. Roll credits.

The dramatic ending raises the question “Did the detectives, realizing the trap John Doe had set, send their robot duplicates instead of going in on their own?” Stay tuned for “Nine: John’s Minor Pet Peeves.”
Getting Jerked Around

November 20, 2002

The Supreme Court recently refused to hear the case brought by William Reno Gerber. Currently serving a life sentence in a California prison, Gerber fought for the right to ship sperm to his wife. California’s state Attorney General commented about the decision, “The law recognizes that individuals who commit serious crimes forfeit many rights that law-abiding citizens enjoy. That, and none of the Supreme Court justices would touch the physical evidence presented to the court.”
Stephen Colbert Title Sequence

November 10, 2012

“Mi-partison”, “My-partison”, and/or “Mypartison” are my submissions for the next word in Stephen Colbert’s “The Colbert Report.” I’m not sure exactly how to spell it since I just made up the word, but that is besides the point. For those who aren’t up on Comedy Central’s talk shows, every now and then a new phrase is put on the screen right as Colbert grabs the American flag and starts falling into the giant letter C. A few of my favorite past words have been: Smartyr, Freedominant, Uptrodden, WinLaden, Downtrickler, and Fundit.
A Room With A View

December 6, 2009

Condemned killer Kenneth Biros could become the first person in the country put to death with a single dose of an intravenous anesthetic instead of the usual — and faster-acting — process if his execution proceeds Tuesday. This new process is believed to be more humane than the previous method of strapping the individual into a chair and forcing them to watch old episodes of “The View” until they became bored to death.
In High Technology

January 9, 2003

Microsoft Corporation recently announced plans to enhance everyday objects such as watches and refrigerator magnets. These devices will provide users with up-to-date information regarding sports scores, traffic reports, and, somewhere down the road, home power outages and threats at your children’s school. When asked about this new technology, Microsoft founder Bill Gates commented, “While I’m not a psychologist, I think I wouldn’t be trying to take over the world right now if my parents received real-time text messages every time I got a wedgie in the eighth grade.”
Tick Tick Tick Tick

January 6, 2013

Photograph sharing website Instagram created an uproar after announcing sweeping changes to their terms of service. The wave of negative publicity has forced the company to change their plans, with one high ranking company official stating off the record that “this ranks up there with one of the most blatant abuses of technology since CBS started broadcasting ’60 Minutes’ in high definition.”
In Television News

January 20, 2003

Fox announced plans today for yet another high-profile reality show. Twenty teenage female contestants will compete against each other for a year long contract to help promote maxi pads, tampons, and other feminine hygiene products. When asked how long this reality show theme can go on, one high ranking network official replied, “While the general public has several options with this genre, we strongly believe we have a hit concept with ‘American Midol.’”
Rest Room Question

April 4, 2009

I realized something while eating lunch as Wok ‘n Roll this afternoon. After drinking 3 large Diet Pepsi’s I had to answer the call of nature. I was forced to put the call on hold, however, when the door to the mens’ bathroom was occupied. Now when a place of business only has only one bathroom it isn’t for a specific gender– it is just “the bathroom.” When a place is large enough, there is a “Mens’ Room” and a “Womens’ Room” each with multiple stalls. But what happens, as in the case of the moderately small Wok ‘n Roll, when there is just enough room for two single rooms with a single toilet in each room? Does it really make any sense to assign a specific gender to each of them? I didn’t really want to go into the empty womens’ room for some psychological reason I don’t completely understand.

This all leads up to, obviously, how things work on the SciFi series Battlestar Galactica. There are large common rooms where men and women, at the very same time, go about all their personal hygiene needs. Unspeakable Act or Sign Of Things To Come?
Crunch Time

October 1, 2010

AOL said on Tuesday that it was buying the influential technology news blog TechCrunch for a reported $25 million dollars in order to bolster its growing online editorial business. When asked about plans for their latest purchase, a high ranking AOL official replied, “Based on our previous acquisitions, we plan on throwing away everything useful in this new company and putting the company for sale on Ebay. Oh look, it is already listed, and someone just bid $10!”
In Exotic Motorcycle News

January 8, 2003

Dodge recently unveiled a new prototype motorcycle. Sitting on four wheels and sporting a 10 cylinder Viper engine, the machine can accelerate from 0 to 60 in 2.5 seconds and has an estimated top speed of 400 miles per hour. A slightly less impressive statistic was recorded, however, when the vehicle had to stop for refueling midway through the quarter mile.
Energy Bar

April 17, 2003

The Bush administration has taken an unusual step of asking a federal appeals court to stop a lawsuit investigating Vice President Dick Cheney’s relationship with energy industry executives and lobbyists. During the proceedings one of the lawyers explained, “this is the same government that investigated Clinton for years and couldn’t come through with the money shot. We did a much better job of covering our tracks– any further investigation would just make you look like a dumbass, your Honor.”
Skyrocketing Ambitions

July 23, 2005

The House Friday overwhelmingly endorsed President Bush’s vision to send man back to the lunar surface as it passed a bill to set NASA policy for the next two years. Speaking anonymously, one Democratic congressman commented, “Maybe, just maybe, things will get better down here if we let the President focus on invading the moon.”
X Marks The Spot

March 11, 2021

Starship will land successfully once SpaceX creates enough footage for their “How Not To Land A Starship” montage video.
Expanding Horizons

December 3, 2002

A police investigation is underway into a pornographic movie shot on campus at Indiana University. A film crew from Shane Enterprises had 20 to 30 students sign model release forms before shooting erotic footage for “Shane’s World 32: Campus Invasion.” The resident manager at Teter Quadrangle who brought the matter to the police commented, “I don’t want to see anyone taking advantage of students. And don’t get me started on the lack of character development and poor lighting. Anyone else who has seen the first 31 movies in the series knows what I’m talking about.”
Output Error

May 2, 2010

I’m not going to name names, but SOMEONE decided to make a big mess, and I mean really, really unpleasant stuff, in her diaper RIGHT AFTER she spit up all over my favorite Battlestar Galactica shirt while I was trying to watch the season finale of Caprica. OK, it was Isabel.

Author: olutfey