ever since we moved here it seems like anytime someone asks the question “do you have [insert scourge here] in your [house/yard]?”

the answer is always “if you live in the south you have [said scourge].”

apparently there is more than one matthew feldt family carnival…

in many large corporations when a nasty technical problem occurs one of the first things to happen is a teleconference bridge line is established so everyone can keep up with the situation.

the tragedy of this solution is that the bridge line rapidly digresses to a who’s who in management and pretty soon the folks who should actually be working to resolve the problem are fielding questions and countering hail marys that four levels of management are chucking at them in an attempt to be the one scores the winning touchdown.

every time i’ve witnessed one of these calls i’m baffled by the irony that this many supposedly bright people can gather in one spot yet no one suggests abolishing the call to let the people who every other day of the week are considered the subject matter experts do what they are paid to do…

a friend of mine has a theory that “everyone born into this world is given one gift. that is, one thing they can do better than the vast majority of folks with little to no effort.”

yesterday as i was completing new hire orientation i knew my one gift is the job interview.

my two favorite medicine acronyms:

a.m.a. – against medical advice, for example if your grinding up your oxycodone and snorting it…

a.d.l. – activities of daily living, physicians measure of whether or not you can feed and bathe yourself…

some random four year old: does your son have crocs?

me: no.

s.r.f.y.o.: you should buy him some.

me: why?

s.r.f.y.o.: because i only like people with crocs.

before this conversation i would have told you that materialism was learned and not wired in at birth…

a recent npr story about usb turntables made me blush for my fellow geeks when the record store owner said his customers had gone from “djs with baggy pants and bomber jackets” to “the guys with the khakis, you know with the white button-up t-shirts, with the pants all the way up, the belts, the penny loafers, you know the older guys”

obviously, it never has been and certainly is not now hip to be square…

the first office successory i’ve seen hung in someone’s cube i felt was worthy of a frame:

to be is to do.
to do is to be.
do be do be do.

the movie fargo begins with the caption:

“this is a true story. the events depicted in this film took place in minnesota in 1987. at the request of the survivors, the names have been changed. out of respect for the dead, the rest has been told exactly as it occurred.”

it ends with the standard disclaimer:

“any resemblance between real people living or dead is purely coincidental”

on more than one occasion tld and i have debated whether this ruse was total crap (my view) or an excellent stylistic device (his view).

a new release reminded me of our discussion and i would have carried on the debate in the movie review section of tld’s web site but like the title of the movie, tld’s promise for that feature has been a hoax…

don’t sweat it being friday the 13th today, turns out monday the 27th is far more unlucky…

apparently none of the news executives read frank rich’s article ‘where were you that summer of 2001′ because when i tuned in to cnn for a mere seven minutes this morning all i got was the national weather and stories of anna nicole smith and don imus mixed in with teasers about the duke lacrosse scandal…

none of which, save the weather, actually qualifies as news.

i like the moxy of a 52 year old guy who finishes swimming the 5,265 kilometers of the amazon river in 65 days (never mind the alligators, piranha and bloodsucking toothpick fish) and then says:

“i am not going to do the nile. it’s long but not challenging enough, it is just a small creek. the amazon is much more mighty.”

entire story here