Year: 2014

The Internet has literally gotten out of control

/ Shane / 1 Comment

You know how literally everybody on the Internet literally misuses the word literally? Well, no worries, this will soon be a thing of the past. Someone has written an app you install directly in your browser so you literally never have to be bothered with this again.

…a free browser plug-in called Literally, which replaces the word “literally” with “figuratively” in all online text. As the website explains, that’s literally all it does.

Of course, the plug-in is not smart enough to differentiate when people actually use literally correctly, but let’s be honest; on the Internet that’s literally never going to happen. So I wouldn’t lose too much sleep over it.

Link via Sara.

(By the way, a quick google turns up lots of news outlets having fun titling their articles, from “Browser Plug-in Figuratively Kills the Word Literally” to “New Browser Plug-in Would Literally Annihilate this Headline“.)

Why you should not change your own watch battery

/ Shane / 2 Comments

When my watch ran out of batteries, I didn’t think much of it. We have a smattering of loose watch batteries, but of course none matched what I needed. It took about 4 days to get to a store to buy a replacement, and in those 4 days I probably looked at my blank wrist about 7 billion times.

Needless to say, by the time I got the battery, I was ready to get that watch fixed.

There was a little tab on the back, which I obviously needed to use to pry the back open. No matter what I did, I could not get it open. I tried all sorts of tools, but the back was so tight I couldn’t fit anything under the tab to pry with. I was having so much trouble that I actually looked up tutorials on the Internet to see if there was some mystical step that I had missed somehow. Finally I found a knife that was both thin enough to get under the tab, but strong enough to not break when I pried and got it open, but not before scratching  the back of the watch all to hell.

No worries though, it was off now, just need to switch the battery and I’m home free.

Little did I know, that the hardest part was still ahead of me. After replacing the battery the watch was working fine, but the back wouldn’t snap back on for anything. I used my fingers, my elbows, my knees. I stood on it. I tried backing it with various hard surfaces. Nothing.

Again I turned to the web, returning to my tutorial on how to change your battery. Pop the back off, replace, the battery, so far so good, then take your watch in to a jewelry store and have them replace the back. What? If I have to take my watch in, why did I go to so much trouble in the first place? They could have just done the whole thing! More furious googling. “How to change a watch battery without tools” returned hundreds of results, and they all said, “Push really hard. If that doesn’t work, go get a tool.” Thanks for that helpful tip, Internet.

At this point, I started to get a little desperate. If I couldn’t get the back on my watch, it was as good as useless anyway, so I didn’t hold back. I squeezed it with pliers. I pounded on it with a hammer. No dice, and I scratched the front of the watch all to hell.

“Why don’t you just take it in somewhere?” asked Sara. “You already changed the battery, maybe someone would just put the back on for you.”

There is some small possibility that she was right, but I can only imagine the look I would get from the bored goth at the  jewelry counter when I came to them and said, “Will you do me a solid and just find this tool and put my watch back together at no charge? Pretty please with sugar on top?” Besides, I had come this far.

After a lot of trial and error, I finally managed to put it back together with a combination of Sara holding the channel locks and me using 2 sets of needle nose pliers. Success!! Now all I have to do is…

The watch wasn’t working.

The battery wasn’t held very tight, so I figured maybe it slipped out during all the squeezing, banging, poking, and prodding. So at this point I was back to square one: open up the watch. Fortunately, I was older and wiser, and I knew just how to pop it open this time. Unfortunately, I discovered that the battery was fine; I had broken the watch.

So now I’m out the money for the battery, not to mention the stress and hassle, and I still don’t have a watch. The worst part is, if I put together my list of requirements for a new watch, they would essentially read, “My old watch”.

Next time I will do the smart thing and listen to my wife.

Mauricio

/ Shane / Leave a comment

I got a call from an unknown number the other day. Since I was trying to navigate my way out of a parking garage at the moment, I let it go to voicemail. When I had a chance to listen, I had a voicemail all in Spanish. I couldn’t make heads or tails of most of it; the only words I understood were, “Mauriiiiiicio!” and “byyyye!” at the end.

Now, there’s nothing wrong with getting a wrong number. However, it seems to me that my voicemail message should have made it pretty clear that I was not, in fact, Mauricio. It’s pretty definitely in English. Anyway, I scratched my head a little bit and deleted the message.

A few days later, I received another call. I recognized the area code (I don’t get a lot of calls from California), so I dumped it to voicemail thinking, “Okay, when he hears my voicemail again he’ll have to realize I’m not Mauricio.” No such luck. He didn’t leave a message, but instead immediately called back.

I was just staring down at my phone. “You have to answer it, or he’ll just keep calling,” said Sara. “Hello?” I said. “Mauricioooo,” said a voice that will haunt my dreams. “Mauriiiiiciooooo!” “Uh..I think you have the wrong number,” I brilliantly replied.

The next day he called again. “Mauricio?” This time I was more prepared (and a bit more annoyed). “You have the wrong number. There is no Mauricio at this number.” The man was quiet for a bit. “No Mauricio?” he asked. “Nope!” I crowed. He chuckled. “Then this is the 4th time I’ve tried this number!”

Yeah, no kidding.

Before he got off the phone I made him give me the number he was trying to call. Sure enough, his area code was off by one number. Now let me ask you; after you’ve not gotten through to old Mauricio the first 3 times, why not just double check the number? You know, see if maybe you typed it in wrong.

It certainly seems more plausible than Mauricio having someone else record his voicemail message in English.

Quote Monday deserves it

/ Shane / Leave a comment

Ollie: “If you drop an orange on the ground, and then someone pukes on it, you can still eat it because it has a skin.”

Ollie: “My toots are saying, “Sunriiise, sunset! Sunriiise, sunset!”

Ollie: “[My friend] is Black Batman and I’m White Batman. So he goes in the dark and I eat snow.”
Me: “So his special power is going in the dark and your special power is eating snow?”
Ollie: “No, after I eat snow I go in the dark and then he eats snow. And we’re both black, because bats are black.”
Me: “Wait, so what’s the difference between Black Batman and White Batman?”
Ollie: “Well, if you say Black Batman he comes, if you say White Batman, I come.”

Sara: “Just leave them. This is how he gets stronger.”
Me: “This is how he punches his sister out.”
Sara: “This is how she deserves it.”