CafeChatNoir

I say Slinky Cat…

http://mfrost.typepad.com/cute_overload/2008/11/noodle-kitteh-i.html

Safe For Work.

So, I’m sitting here watching college hockey and enjoying a quiet Sunday afternoon when suddenly the dog goes NUTS barking at something.

I take a look outside - no dogs or cats or squirrels or moose.  Then I look up a bit and see it.

The neighbors directly across the street are on their roof cleaning out their gutters this afternoon.

Now, I’m not quite sure why this upsets my dog so greatly - I can only guess he’s concerned for their safety.  (He’s also a touch obsessed with them anyway, there is a fair amount of activity at the house in general and he likes to sit and watch through the window.)

Now, what I want to know is why he doesn’t really look out for ME?

– No!  Don’t try that recipe, it will be terrible!
– No!  Don’t answer the door, it’s political campaigners!
– No!  Don’t doze on the couch, you’ll get a crick in your neck!
– No!  Don’t wear that shirt, don’t you see where you spilled something on it earlier?

I got a tech on the phone at Cox Communications who…

– Had a sense of humor
– Wanted to be helpful (though there really wasn’t anything he could do)
– Saw no need to “pull up my account” just to give me info on the outage in my area

I called to see if I could get any info on the cable beyond the generic recording of “they’re working on it” and I got a very nice guy who explained that they didn’t have a timeline on when it would be done, because it was a fiber cut and they just didn’t know how long it would take to fix it.  Then he asked,

“It wasn’t you that did it, was it?”
“Um, no, pretty sure it wasn’t me.”
“Are you sure?  Because if it was, I am going to call all the other customers and send them to your house.”

Usually I get some cranky beeyotch who insists on pulling up my entire account history before she sees fit to give me any system status information.

XKCD.com on the eve of the potential end of the world…

Good Moms let you lick the beaters when they make cake.

Great Moms turn the mixer off first.

Happy Mother’s Day.

With something that made me smile. (I probably didn’t get enough sleep.)

Waltzing Cupcakes! (SFW)

A holiday I don’t really like, given that it seems that people can’t come up with something that is funny, clever and not mean-spirited.

Rickrolling is just kind of pathetic on any day of the week - you can’t come up with anything better than that today?

However - DCist passed on this joke pulled today, and I have to say - well done:

» Cleveland Park: A bulletin was sent out on a Cleveland Park listserv alerting residents to the escape of a loof lirpa from the National Zoo. Second-District police commander Andy Solberg responded on the listserv, noting police efforts to capture the animal. (Full report after the jump.)

Joke: All the more clever when you consider that Cleveland Park is the kind of place that people who will tremble in fear over zoo alerts call home.

From: Bill Adler Date: Tue, Apr 1, 2008 at 8:19 AM Subject: [Cleveland-Park] Escaped Animal from the Zoo — ALERT To: cleveland-park@yahoogroups.com
I want to alert all list members to a bulletin I just received: A loof lirpa has escaped from the National Zoo. The animal ran out of its enclosure about 10 minutes ago when the zookeeper on duty was texting while the enclosure was unlocked.

The lirpa was last spotted heading north on Connecticut Avenue, and is probably in the vicinity of Porter Street and Connecticut Avenue about now. It may have stopped to snack on the vegetables at the outdoor carts at Magruder’s.

DO NOT TRY AND CAPTURE THE LOOF LIRPA ON YOUR OWN. The lirpa stands about 4 feet tall, has a gazelle-like horns, weighs about 350 pounds, and comes from Patagonia. In other respects the lirpa resembles an alpaca. Normally the lirpa is gentle, but during its mating season (springtime, which is now), it can become aggressive. IF YOU HAVE A LARGE DOG, PLEASE KEEP YOUR DOG INSIDE. The naturally nearsighted lirpa may mistake your pet for its mate — and it was the male that escaped. German shepherds, golden retrievers, and dalmatians are especially at risk, but even smaller dogs like miniature poodles and dachshunds may be a mating target, too, if the lirpa’s sex desire is strong enough. Cats should be safe, unless they are abnormally large
and overweight.

The loof lirpa is a rare species and only about 12 zoos in the United States have one; half that number have a breeding pair, as the National Zoo does. Males in solo captivity lose their mating desire, but this male lirpa was planning to mate Friday or Saturday night (after dinner); its hormones are therefore likely to be at or near maximum.

If you’re driving, please keep a lookout and drive carefully. The lirpa is quite a leaper. When a lirpa escaped from the San Diego Zoo in 2003 it caused a 7-car pile-up. The lirpa makes a clop-clop sound when it runs. Also, it has an aroma that can best be described a smelling like “cheap cologne,” so you should be able to tell right
away if the lirpa is or has been nearby.

The zoo has temporarily banned cell phone texting –for employees and visitors– in the wake of this incident.

Please be careful. Treat the loof lirpa with caution — it’s a wild animal, and you can’t tell how a wild animal will behave.

If you see the lirpa, please contact officials right away — contact information here: http://zooalert.notlong.com .

–Bill Adler

And, the response:

Mr. Adler and community,Thank you for this alert.

I would like to also alert the community that our officers are on the lookout for this animal. Our helicopter is up in the air right now, and we are responding to several lirpa sightings in the Cleveland Park community. Many of our officers who work near the Zoo are specially trained in animal capture and retention, and we feel confident that this
situation will be brought under control at some point today.

Please go inside if you smell the aroma mentioned in the previous email. Our officers are also releasing a chemical which imitates the odor of the female lirpa when in heat, in order to facilitate capture, so the male’s natural odors combined with the chemicals we are releasing produce an overwhelmingly interesting, and perhaps negative, smell.

We ask that pedestrians who may see or even encounter the animal avoid any sudden gestures which startle wild animals, and we ask that motorists who catch a glimpse of this lirpa please alert us by cell phone only after safely pulling to the curb.

We will continue to provide periodic updates and I want to say again that we are committed to a speedy apprehension. I understand the lirpa is normally subdued during evening hours, so if we are not successful in assisting the Zoo with finding the lirpa today, I have the utmost confidence we will probably get him tomorrow.

Andy Solberg
Commander, Second District

It’s time for Waffle Tetris.

“it’s a brain rot song”

But even better to SpongeBob:

Crank Dat, with SpongeBob SquarePants

Trying to get some alone time… (SFW)

There is certainly a lot of crap out on the internet. And some idiotic people. Oh, but the idiots can be SO amusing. Especially the paranoid ones.

Let’s say you post on a forum and you have made mention of your profession both in your posts, and in your profile, and then later realize that might not have been the best idea you ever had. Do you:

a) Remove the information from your profile and hope that no one goes post digging to find mention of what you do?
b) Create a new profile?
c) Create a new profile and then tell everyone, “Hi, it’s me.”?
d) Create a new profile and then tell everyone, “Hi, it’s me, and going forward, can you not mention that I am a member of Profession X?”?
e) Create a new profile and then tell everyone, “Hi, it’s me, and going forward, can you not mention that I am a member of Profession X?” and then go on in future posts to mention yes, you are in Profession X and how it would be bad if your clients found out who you were?

So, Apple is opening a new flagship store in Manhattan this evening. Now, I have no doubt that it will be a very cool store, with very cool toys and will be a fun place to wander around and look at shiny things. If I were to find myself walking in front of an Apple store, I’m quite sure I’d be sucked in to look around.

However, CNBC is reporting that people have been lining up since last night waiting for the opening. Now, there is no product launch going along with this - it is just the opening of one of their stores. Not the first store - another store. Bigger and shinier it seems, but nothing inherently new.

I have a hard enough time with the idea of camping out for video games - but a new store opening? A store you’ve been to in other locations? A store that will still be there next week? Just can’t get my head around it.

But, for those souls sitting out in the 34 degree weather - have fun, enjoy the new store and try not to spend all your rent money. I’ll stick with my warm couch, hot coffee, and Apple’s online store.

I have been having all sorts of off the wall dreams of late. Usually I can’t really remember much about them except that I wake up very confused and trying to make sense of something I can barely remember. Today’s stuck for whatever reason.

It kind of revolved around a party I am supposed to go to this evening - I was with all the same people I saw last night (who will also be there this evening) and there was all sorts of scurrying about in the morning to get ready for the party (which is actually at someone else’s house) but then I had to go to work. At work, I was begging management for some technical manuals for my team that they really needed to get their jobs done. I was fed some BS story about it being copyright infringement if they gave them out, so I said I’d just take it further up the chain to management. Another manager said it cost too much, I said that I’d pay out of pocket, but they said I couldn’t do that either. Then I found out the higest manager would be at the party - so I said I’d just corner him there and get my technical manuals.

Then I woke up. I can only assume my subconscious feels that the party will be weird and drama laden. I figured if that’s the case, I might as well contribute to it and managed to snag a slot at the hair salon for a long overdue haircut. That alone should confuse the hell out of most of my friends around here. The stylist was rather disappointed when all I wanted was a boring straight cut with no frills. But, he did it exactly the way I wanted and I walked out of there being one big bucket of awesome.

When you have this kind of fabulousness going on, the only thing you can do is top it off with Starbucks.

We shall see how the party goes and if anyone randomly offers me technical manuals.

I absolutely adore the little ones that don’t really quite know what’s going on yet, but they do know there is candy and dressing up involved, and HOW COOL IS THAT?!! Had 2 dinosaurs, Yoda & Princess Leia, a character from Half-Life (the kid said I was the only one that recognized who he was.), 2 Jack Sparrows, and the usual smattering of zombies, ghosts and other undead.

Nice weather tonight, and we had a decent amount of kids come along, which is somewhat unusual - we live at the bottom of two hills, so lots of times the kids turn around before they hit our place.

Will be getting dolled up for SportsCenter at the pub - past 2 years I’ve gone as a beach bum, which is basically just being me. :)  Tonight I am going to go dressed up as a girl.  Let’s face it - I go there for sports and unwinding and pretty much never give a crap about how I look.  Skirt, heels, makeup, hair, the works. :-D

Leona Helmsley leaves $12 million to her dog.

Moxley does not seem to have a problem with this type of estate planning.

I wasn’t sure the US version would be as good as the UK version, but they’ve done a fine job. Now I’m just wondering how on earth this actually made the 8PM time slot for the following three reasons:

- The ice luge (why you have to watch what is going on in the background)
- “soft porn”
- “Go fuck yourself” (appropriately silenceed, but still…)

They’re doing a segment on Dad’s day gifts. So far we have…

a $2,400 jacket
a $5,000 bottle of cognac
a $12,750 watch
a $3,300 briefcase

We usually got my dad a pair of shorts and a new polo shirt.

Courtesy gerg:

IF YOUR LIFE WAS A MOVIE, WHAT WOULD THE SOUNDTRACK BE?

So, here’s how it works:
1. Open your library (iTunes, Winamp, Media Player, iPod, etc)
2. Put it on shuffle
3. Press play
4. For every question, type the song that’s playing
5. When you go to a new question, press the next button
6. Don’t lie and try to pretend you’re cool

Opening Credits: Mysterious Ways - U2
Waking Up: Jenny Says - Cowboy Mouth
First Day At School: Separala Tambien - Tito Puente (I suppose if I was going to school quite some time ago…)
Falling In Love: It Had to Be You - Harry Connick, Jr. (Yes, it really came up next.)
Fight Song: Satisfaction - The Rolling Stones
Breaking Up: Nostalgia - Cracker
Prom: Sway - Dean Martin (Again, if I had gone to prom oh, 40+ years ago)
Life’s OK: Don’t Stand So Close to Me - The Police
Mental Breakdown: Inside Out - Eve 6
Driving: Just a Girl - No Doubt
Flashback: Shine - Meat Puppets
Getting Back Together: Talent Show - The Replacements
Wedding: Dancing with Myself - Billy Idol (Given the chances of my ever getting married again, pretty appropriate)
Birth of Child: Hoodoo Voodoo Doll - Brian Setzer Orchestra (damn I will have some screwed up kids)
Final Battle: Different Drummer - Black 47
Death Scene: Best of You - Foo Fighters
Funeral Song: In My Mind - Yamakazi
End Credits: Kiss It All Goodbye - Garageland

My cat Snoopy has always had a thing for boxes. When he was a tiny kitten, he could fit perfectly in the little shoebox that my Keds came in. However, he grew up into a big and super fluffy cat who couldn’t quite fit into those particular boxes anymore, but developed a penchant for the shirt/sweater boxes that are so prevalent at Christmas time…

After this past Christmas, he had no fewer than 3 boxes to choose from. However, cleanup must eventually happen and the 3 were culled to a single box. Which yes, is still sitting on the hearth of the fireplace, complete with red tissue paper. He still loves to cram himself into it - and tonight I noticed one of the pieces of tissue paper had managed to make its way across the room. So - given the choice between chucking out this piece of red tissue paper or carefully placing it back inside the sweater box in front of the fireplace, what to do?

Those with pets arleady know the answer. And Snoopy seems to be quite content with having the full complement of tissue paper back in his box this evening.

I’m fairly confident that I am the only person I know that goes to the bar to have a beer, watch some baseball, and analyze 31 stock charts.

And I’m OK with that.

I find it highly amusing that after my realtor told me what we’re pricing the townhouse at, and I was all nice and composed and said, “That certainly works.” while doing the “Hells YEAH that’s a fine price!” dance on the inside, that the first song that iTunes would queue up for me this evening would be Madonna’s “Material Girl”…

Yeah, I’m kinda shallow. But hey, cash is cash.

You have to just love a gal who has an entire vehicle - just for her hats.

Drunk man parks horse in German bank - An early-morning German bank customer had a bit of a shock when he found a horse already in line at the automatic teller machine in front of him.

courtesy Desperate Housewives:

“I’m in between disappointments right now.”