Fun with Forwards

Early today, I was sent this joke:

On their wedding night, the young bride approached her new husband and asked for $20.00 for their first lovemaking encounter.

In his highly aroused state, her husband readily agreed. This scenario was repeated each time they made love, for more than 30 years, with him thinking that it was a cute way for her to afford new clothes and other incidentals that she needed.

Arriving home around noon one day, she was surprised to find her husband in a very drunken state. During the next few minutes, he explained that his employer was going through a process of corporate downsizing, and he had been let go. It was unlikely that, at the age of 59, he'd be able to find another position that paid anywhere near what he'd been earning, and therefore, they were financially ruined.

Calmly, his wife handed him a bank book which showed more than thirty years of steady deposits and interest totaling nearly $1 million. Then she showed him certificates of deposits issued by the bank which were worth over $2 million, and informed him that they were one of the largest depositors in the bank. She explained that for the more than three decades she had "charged" him for sex, these holdings had multiplied and these were the results of her savings and investments.

Faced with evidence of cash and investments worth over $3 million, her husband was so astounded he could barely speak, but finally he found his voice and blurted out, "If I'd had any idea what you were doing, I would have given you all my business!"

That's when she shot him.

Sometimes it's better to keep your mouth shut!

Ignoring the awkward grammatical construction ("...each time they made love, for more than 30 years" -- assuming you can do that, is it likely to happen more than once?), the math didn't seem right to me.

Here's my reply:

Not to be a spoilsport... but if she made $1 million, that means that they had sex 50,000 times, which averages out to 1667 times per year, or approximately 4.5 times per day.

Assuming the average session lasts 20 minutes, that means, out of the last 30 years of marriage, nearly 2 years has been spent just having sex.

It's no wonder he got fired.

Quote of the Day

"Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect." -- Mark Twain.

And that's... one to grow on.

Line from a Movie I'll Never Write

"Now I know why they call it a 'bowel movement,' because that was like a symphony."

Windows Wireless Nightmare

So when I started at my job, they gave me a nice little IBM Thinkpad laptop, which, although a few years out of date, was still light years ahead of my home computer, an Apple G3 that is chugging along, but can only handle OS 9. Still, the IBM came with the requisite headaches that come with all Windows machines, like nearly impenetrable settings, convoluted system components, and so on. Not to say I wasn't appreciative, but every once in a while...

I've had my eye on some handy little upgrades lately, like adding external storage and DVD burning capability, all of which has gotten considerably cheaper than when I last looked into them. However, this requires USB 2.0 capability. The IT guys at work (who, admittedly, have a lot to keep track of) insisted I had at least one 2.0 port on the laptop. I tried every possible combination, but had no luck. (My first hint of this was my iPod's repeated -- and intensely annoying -- warning that "this device could perform faster connected to a USB 2.0 port" every time I plugged it in.)

My next step was to check for driver updates. As it happens, IBM (or, rather, the company that bought their hardware production lines -- Lenovo, I think) created a handy utility that scans your computer for out-of-date drivers and system software. "Awesome," I thought, and ran it. In addition to the drivers, it installed all sorts of neat-looking software that I probably won't use.

So, after all that, it turns out I don't have a 2.0 port. At least not near as I can tell, even though the system profiler tells me I do. (Regardless, I can't get any of them to work in this capacity, so it's a moot point.) I bought a PCMCIA card, and the problem was solved.

Unfortunately, right about then, my wireless connection went really wobbly. If I tried to load more than two websites at once or download a file bigger than 3 megs, it would drop, sometimes taking the browser with it. (Fortunately, I have SessionSaver installed on Firefox, which usually manages to restore everything to working order with a minimum of fuss. It's awesome. I love it more than any other extension going. Sadly, though, with the wobbly wireless connection, that usually meant that the connection dropped and every page had to be manually reloaded when the connection came back up.)

I searched high and low for a solution. It had to be one of the "upgrades" performed by the Thinkpad utility, but being someone who is not a Windows expert (like, oh, I don't know, 98% of the users out there), I had no idea what I could safely uninstall... I tried rolling things back to their previous state, and even looking for old drivers online, but had no luck. It seemed like I was stuck with what I had.

Then, almost by accident, I discovered Intel's own wireless hardware controller on their website. I installed it, but it didn't seem to do much good (although it did make Windows crazy for a while -- telling me that a non-Windows piece of software was running the wireless connection... dear God, call the Pope!), so I forgot about it. I did some more reading and found that the Windows wireless controller, called Wireless Config Zero, was a piece of crap and needed to be disabled for the Intel one to work. I guess WCZ is always on the lookout for a better connection, and drops at the slightest sign of distress. Like, you know, making more than two connections, I guess.

So, with that helpful utility disabled, I (somewhat shakily, I have to admit; this is a work computer after all) set up a new connection with the Intel controller and, wonder of wonders, got a rock-solid wireless connection.

Now, this isn't meant to be a complete bash of Windows. They've improved by leaps and bounds since I last used it regularly (in W95 days). But in my brief search for an answer, I found endless webpages detailing the issue and, frighteningly, no clear solution to the problem. Knowing as little as I do, I'm surprised I got it figured out at all. I was this close to backing everything up and begging the IT guy for mercy (i.e., having him reset the system to factory). I got lucky, really.

Surely, the guys in Redmond must know of the issue, and it should be a lot easier to fix than going through everything I did...

Separated at Birth: Super Bowl Edition

I'm not much of a sports fan, so when I watched the Super Bowl this weekend, some of the surely more familiar faces in the game were fairly foreign to me. I had a number of "Hey, that guy looks like..." moments, including:

The Seahawks coach and his twin, the "Jump to Conclusions" guy in Office Space (and just about every high school industrial arts teacher ever).

For his part, the Steelers coach looked an awful lot like that one guy from Baywatch. Coach! Hobie's drowning in the Gatorade!

And, finally...

The Steelers owner, and TV mogul Aaron Spelling. Ever seen them in a room together?

I also have a strong suspicion that Steelers receiver Troy Polamalu is, in reality, a Muppet: