olutfey – Page 60 – Lutfey.com

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.

Announcer: Welcome to the premiere of Traveling Iron Chef. While Chiarman Kaga Takeshi’s “Kitchen Stadium” vision remains a fixture of Japanese culture, he recently gave a direct order to his younger brother, Lou. Instead of bumming around Kaga’s apartment watching television all day, Lou has been instructed to travel to the ends of the earth in an effort to discover more Iron Chefs. Moving through the countryside with an army of helpers and a scaled down “moderately equipped kitchen tent,” Lou searches for an answer to the eternal question, “Whose cuisine will reign supreme?”

Lou: We have traveled many moons from our homeland, and today we are broadcasting from the European country of Holland. Two local culinary artists will go in, but only one will come out with the title, “Iron Chef Amsterdam!” And now, the moment you have all been waiting for… today’s secret ingredient is… MARIJUANA!

Announcer: The marijuana plant, also known as hemp, cannabis, pot, grass, or weed, is one of the most rugged forms of flora known to mankind. Able to grow in almost any climate, marijuana has become a plant of choice for “amateur horticulturists” around the world. The non-flowering section can be used to produce cloth that is both durable and environmentally friendly. While using the bud of the plant as a cooking ingredient is not commonplace, a movement that can almost be described at underground has evolved to help promote marijuana consumption. Despite all this, the plant in question remains illegal in many parts of the world—due in large part to intensive tobacco company lobbying efforts.

Lou: To help judge the creations of our two Iron Chef candidates, we have three well-known members of Japanese society: Sumi, a young female actress from a popular soap opera, Typo, a fifty-five year old journalist, and Shooki, a new age psychic. They will be evaluating two highly respected Dutch chefs, Willhelm and Hansel. Chefs– you have one hour, starting now!

Sumi: I am very excited to be here. Hee hee hee.

Announcer: It appears that Chef Willhelm is preparing thinly-sliced duck breast for his first entrée.

Typo: I am an old, old man. And I am very good at complaining about things. This is why I am on the show so often.

Announcer: Well, this is quite amazing! Chef Willhelm is lighting a large pile of the marijuana on fire in order to SMOKE the duck breast. He is instructing one of the assistants to keep the smoke going at a constant rate. Chef Hansel is preparing chocolate and sugar. I think he is going to make some sort of a dessert.

Sumi: The tent is filling up with smoke. I kind of like it… I feel all tickly. Hee hee hee.

Shooki: Yes, I feel as though the spirits of 1000 dead relatives are inside my body dancing around and having a party.

Announcer: I’m not sure what the chefs are doing, but they are being very deliberate about their actions now. Perhaps they are contemplating their next dish. Someone had better tell them they only have one hour to complete the competition!

Typo: I find this smoke to be highly irregular. The secret ingredient should be in our tummies, and not in our lungs– very unusual. Am I talking too much? I feel as though the words are coming out of my mouth with much less effort than usual.

Shooki: I never found old, whiney Japanese men attractive until just now. Typo, can I touch your hand for a moment?

Typo: I am flattered, Shooki, but I must inform you that I called the front desk and had some hookers come up to my hotel room to pleasure me before the show. Did you know they can just add it to your room service bill? Are these thoughts in my head, or are they escaping out of my mouth?

Announcer: After spending the past five minutes staring at the top of the tent and smiling, chef Willhelm has sprung into action. He is getting something out of his pocket. It appears to be a cellular phone. Who could he be calling?

Shooki: I believe he is trying to get in touch with one of his deceased parents.

Typo: You are being foolish, Shooki. You can’t call dead people on a telephone. Where would the phone company send the bill?

Announcer: We have gotten more details from the cooking area. It appears Willhelm has called for pizza to be delivered to the tent. Extra pepperoni and bread sticks are the order. But will it get here fast enough? In the mean time, Hansel has finished baking brownies, and, if I’m not mistaken, just broke open a box of Hagelslag, or literally “chocolate hail.” This Dutch delicacy is generally used as a bread topping instead of cheese or jam.

Sumi: Chocolate hail? Is the tent going to hold up okay? Hee hee hee… snort! Snort! SNORT!

Announcer: Chef Hansel has just filled his mouth with Hagelslag. Now he is laughing uncontrollably and it appears the tiny pieces of chocolate are coming out his nose.

Lou: Competitors, your time is up!

Announcer: It has been quite an unsual hour. Chef Willhelm, please explain your dishes.

Chef Willhelm: I was planning on making a smoked duck dish, but my assistant got too high from the marijuana smoke and fell asleep under the table. So, as a backup plan, I had pizza delivered. Unless the delivery guy screwed up, it should be pepperoni. Unfortunately, I ate the bread sticks during the commercial.

Typo: I like the taste of the pizza, but if I am not mistaken, there is no direct connection with the special ingredient. Also, it feels as though the food getting larger in my mouth the more I chew it. Is that happening to anyone else?

Shooki: I see dead people! Get it? I’m being funny. It’s from that movie a few years ago– the one with the little kid.

Announcer: And now, Chef Hansel, tell us what you have done here.

Chef Hansel: Well, I don’t know about everyone else, but I got really stoned when what’s-his-name lit that big pile of pot on fire. But I’m used to it, so I made my favorite pot brownies. Oh yeah, and I’m sorry about the Hagelslag coming out my nose… it just seemed like a good idea at the time.

Typo: I think this dish truly enhances the flavor of the marijuana. Please do not be insulted that I didn’t try any of it– I’m saving it for the hookers in my hotel room.

Shooki: Can I go with you? I’ve never seen hookers before. How much do they cost?

Typo: It depends on what you want. You can ask them when we get back to the hotel.

Sumi: You are cute, so I’m going to give you a lot of points. Hee hee hee.

Announcer: The competition is complete. Who is going to be Iron Chef Amsterdam?

Lou: Sumi awarded Chef Hansel twenty points. Typo and Shooki seemed to have left without turning in their scorecards. So I guess the winner is… Iron Chef Hansel. Yeah, yeah, yeah, now hand me one of those brownies. And does anyone here have any Pink Floyd? I could really go for some Dark Side of the Moon right about now…

Author: olutfey