There was a time when I was all the rage.

I used to be… “the man.” I’m not sure if you understand how studly I was, so let me put it into perspective for you.

1. Women’s fertility rates would go sky high if someone said a word that rhymed with “Wayne”. Scientists have often speculated that the Baby Boomer generation was caused by the return of soldiers from WWII but in reality, it was the increased popularity of John Wayne.
2. I could impregnate a woman just by walking past them in the grocery store. That’s why I sent other people in my stead.
3. Offers for my DNA samples were in the six figures.
4. Chuck Norris sent in a SASE to me for my 12-part program, “How to increase your manliness” and flunked out, saying “that kind of manliness just isn’t possible.”
5. George Clooney, Tom Cruise, Mel Gibson, Sean Connery and Arnold Schwarzenegger each took stud lessons from me.  Each of them have fallen from stud graces and it’s not a coincidence that their fall started when they stopped paying me.
6. The term “Stud Poker” was originally inspired by my high school nickname.

After a time, I saw clues that indicated… maybe I wasn’t such a stud after all. The looks I would get from some people seemed to say “pshaw, he ain’t that hot.” At first, I pitied these poor souls who couldn’t understand the greatness standing right in front of them. It’s as if they could walk right by a Mona Lisa or ignore one of the Great Pyramids. Clearly they didn’t “Get it”.

But then this perception continued, and it happened with more people. I started to suspect that maybe, just maybe, all this greatness was concocted by none other than yours truly, and that it was all in my head.

Was it possible that I suffered from narcissicm? Was a self-deluded egotistical fool? Was *I* the poor soul that deserved such pity?

This gave me great pause.

(pause)

And then, while looking through old car repair receipts, I found the answer. I discovered the clue that poured insight into the change that happened with me.

Funny thing is – I’d easily pay 1.4 hrs of labor to get it replaced.

Last night was so funny.

Before our pool league, we were discussing “rumors” or “facts” about this teacher or that teacher at our daughter’s new high school.  She was saying what she heard about teacher X or teacher Y and we (my wife and I) challenged her on whether or not she should believe other students, or at least not completely believe everything she hears.

My 14yr old daughter cocked her head, put on a faux-insulted smirk and said “Dad, I’m not that gullible…” and our niece Kaili said “What’s ‘gullible’?“  And you KNOW that as soon as someone asks THAT QUESTION, they’re in for a little ride.

I was too slow to respond (yeah, I know! impossible, right?!!?).  Caitlin pointed up at a patch of ceiling right above our niece’s head and said “There’s a gullible right up there.” 

I was barely able to contain my shock that my daughter knew a NEW way of pulling “the gullible trick” on someone.  So we went along with it and looked, pushing Kaili to look as well.  And look she did.

“Wait, where?” Kaili inquired.

“Right up there.  There’s a gullible right above you,” Caitlin responded.  She was reveling in her enjoyment of verbally torturing Kaili with her superior vocabulary.  She glanced over at mom and me, with her all-knowing eyes saying “look at me, I can trick her!”

At this point I needed to chime in.  I told both of them in a severely matter-of-fact manner, “you know, they removed the word ‘gullible’ from the dictionary a couple of months ago…” and Caitlin, who had been the instigator and predator in this particular word battle, opened her eyes wiiiiide and said “they did?!?!  Why did they do that?!!!!”

Oh, we had some fun with that response for the three seconds it took for her to realize she had been had.  Her expression went from the look of sheer elitist contentment to awe and surprise at having a word removed, to indignant mock offense at being taken.  In the same way she was taking someone else just a moment ago.

A quick shout of “DAD!!!!” and a playful slap to the shoulder let me know she knew her place, and was appreciative of the lesson.  Then she looked over to Kaili and said “being gullible means you’ll believe anything” and smiled all the bigger, probably thinking to herself “yeah, even stuff your dad tells you.”

Speaking of gullible, I’m being anxiously impressed by the more recent spam comments.  They’re really starting to look real!  It seems they’re taking information from the blog article and submitting a comment that actually seems related to the content.

Take a look at this one, put on a post of mine about XP

The comment has decent english, is related to the post, has vernacular such as btw and a smiley, and the only thing that makes it suspicious is the name and email.  ARGH!  Why are they improving!

I’m just glad I have my blog set up to approve all new commenters.  You don’t get in unlessI approve, but once I approve you, you’re good to go from then on.  Not only does it help cut down on the annoying comments like the above, but it also lets me welcome new readers.

I’ve been told that I have great eyes. 

Technically they’re hazel, but they change from brown to green based on many things ranging from my mood, environment, clothing, financial state or presidential candidate’s economic policy.

Tribal knowledge tells me that when my eyes are green, I’m happier.  I have no scientific proof, log books, journals or tweets indicating a solid trend or causal effect.  But I have plenty of hyperbole and heresay that tell me when my eyes are green, it means I’m in a GREAT mood. 

Hmm, maybe I should make sure to wear sunglasses when playing poker.

My awesome eyes started their awesomeness when I was awesome as a young awesome child full of awesomeosity:

Oops, too young, and the picture is too fuzzy and doesn’t give enough detail.  Let me try again:

Ah, that’s better.

Sometimes I have my eyes tilted to the side:

Sometimes the eyes drift over to left for no reason:

Sometimes they’re protected in a silvery coating that reflects everything, from recording devices held up by a random appendage to a green trash container

And sometimes one eye decides to go off all on its own:

And if you REALLY wanted to look deep within my soul, now there’s a device that can do it.

(click for obscenely larger versions)

I know you *THOUGHT* these are from the Hubble Space Telescope, looking astronomically distant, beyond a distant galaxy and glimpsing the eye of God Himself while he peers into our Universe, but alas, it is only my own eyes.  But I repeat myself.

During my most recent trip to the optometrist (a new one we switched to), they have this Optomap thingy that takes a super high definition picture of the INSIDE of your eye. It supposedly helps them discover potential disease or maladies with your eyes better than just a visual examination by the doctor.

Either way, I found it quite cool.

More importantly, I’ve given you the above super obscenely large versions of the inside of my eye so you can finally have the computer wallpaper you’ve always dreamed of.

Some of you might want to MISC this week’s Stuff.  I’ll have to check my horoscope, but I bet something’s transiting that has me sluggish, tired, cranky and short with people.  Either that, or it was something I ate.  DON’T YOU JUDGE ME! Oh wait, that was me being cranky and short with people again. 

Happy 4th

We had a pretty darn decent Fourth of July.  Georgetown’s San Gabriel Park hosted the SERTOMA Fourth of July Celebration and we had a great time.

I have no idea who “SERTOMA” is other than it’s some creative mashup of “SERvice TO MANkind” but they put on a good show.  Hopefully it’s not, like, “To Serve Man.”

Did anyone else notice some “new” fireworks this year?  I’m talking about the ones that blow up like normal, turn colors like normal, and then fire off secondary pieces like normal… except for these new ones, the secondary pieces seem alive?  These secondary pieces look like tadpoles avoiding a predator, and it was COOL.

Here’s a 3min video of the Guinness Book of World Records Largest Fireworks show.

Caitlin turned 14

Yup, it’s my daughter’s second anniversary at being a teenager.  Smith and Wesson’s stock went up solely on this news alone.

Interesting Shortcut found on accident

Just now, I accidentally hit CTRL-ALT-LEFT ARROW on my keyboard.  All of a sudden, my entire desktop rotated 90 degrees.  At first I thought “WHOA, Not again! the World has tilted!” but then I realized it was just my laptop screen.  The fact that my drink didn’t spill was the first clue.

It took me a few tries, but then learned CTRL-ALT-UP ARROW fixed it to be normal portrait orientation.

Looks like this is a Vista thing vs a Video Driver thing.  I’m always thrilled to hear about more keyboard shortcuts.

SharePoint 2007 upgrade

Tonight we’re doing our upgrade from SharePoint 2003 to SharePoint (MOSS) 2007.  It’s a project many weeks in the making and I’m hoping it goes well.  For those of you who don’t know what MOSS is - it’s Microsoft’s Intranet platform.  It’s like a blog, wiki, online spreadsheet, collaboration headquarters and search engine for your company.  SharePoint 2003 was cool but 2007 is way cooler.

Some of the NEW features we’re most looking forward to are:

• Recycle Bin
• Workflow abilities
• Per-item security settings

Best of LOLcats

No, this is not one of those Internet Quizzes that you take and then you get a badge for your blog telling you your coolness rating.  Although… that would be cool.

I’ve mentioned a couple of times my wife’s Patella injury, but not too often.  She’s private and I respect that.  That said, here’s a picture of her insides:

Many have asked for an update and the short update is that she’s been mostly off crutches for the last few weeks, which means she only needs them a little bit during the day.  She does her 2-4 hours of daily rehab and has her hands full with kids home from school and our new puppy Luna.

During the last 5 months, we’ve gone through some rehab equipment - knee braces, immobilizer, stationary pedeler, etc and now I’m ready to sell them on craigslist.  Thing is - I have NO idea what they’re worth.  I definitely don’t want to keep it around in storage and I gotz billz ta pay, yo.

I start googling some of it and one description in particular caught my eye.

When would you NOT choose the cool version?!?!?!!

And why aren’t they advertising the “lightweight rigid posterier” more?  Seems there would be a WAY bigger market for that!

Maybe I should have a flash animation at the beginning of the blog so visitors can choose Standard or Cool Wayne.  (insert smart comments here).

A nephew of ours turned 8 this last Saturday, and part of our gift was the following 30-stanza self-describing haiku.  He’s a smart kid and loves wordplay.  We figured it apropos.

(The gift the haiku mentions is Lego Indiana Jones for the DS, which came out today.  The game wasn’t available on Saturday, so the haiku references that as well.)

Follow along, won’t you?   Feel free to add to his haiku in the comments, and be sure to end the last line in “oo”.  Bonus points if you don’t re-use one of the words I’ve already used (*evil grin*).

We thought we would share
This eighth birthday gift for you,
Our favorite Nephew!

And wouldn’t you know,
it would only be fitting
that it be haiku.

You might be wond’ring
“what is haiku, exactly?”
Here, I’ll ‘splain to you.

First, you make three lines
of any words together.
Wait! There’s more to do!

Also, you must count.
And count, by golly, you will!
(now you got a clue?)

(the rest is in the extended entry)

(more…)

Janna has been in my “Round 2″ of feed reading since I added her to my feed reader long ago.  Time for a promotion.  I really need to bump her up to “Round 1,” because I’m never disappointed in her posts.  They’re a little wacky, very cerebral, and I connect with them on various levels. 

Maybe its because Janna “does Band” for a living and I completely and totally miss band.  I miss high school band, I miss Army band, I miss dreaming about being in a band.   I’m currently living vicariously through my awesome daughter, who is in the best middle school band around, is about to be in the best high school band around and is pretty darn good herself (she was 1st chair flute, 1st band last year at UT’s Middle School Band Camp as a 7th grader).

One of the more recent Janna posts I connected with was her “janku” post, where she invented her own style of poetry, namely, a “janku” which she defined as a 3-line poem following a 4-6-8 rule of vowel usage instead of a 5-7-5 rule of syllables.  It was a great follow-up to her Haiku of Melancholy.  I’m especially proud of my work on her Thirteen Things the Letters TCB Could Stand For (check the comments for a story made entirely of 3 word TCB lines).

I submitted my own collection of janku’s in her post’s comments.  I find it only fitting that I completely copy her idea and make up my own form of poetry, and I need to name it “whallku”. 

There are several reasons I want to name it this:

1. It’s a fantastic greeting response.  When someone tells you “hi, whall!” you can say “whall, ku” and it won’t sound so awkward, like if you hadn’t said it at all.
2. You can use it after someone sneezes, because “whallku” is actually swahili for “gesundheit,” which is actually German for “hi, did you read the blog of whall today? haha of course you did, I only ask because it is custom!”
3. If there were a martial art made entirely of the expert use of a guitar hero controller and a euphonium, delivered with an unfaltering stream of perfect LOLcat references, it would be called “whallku“.  What am I saying, “if”?  Pshaw.
4. whallku.com isn’t taken.  Yet.

So, now for the rules of what a whallku is.

1. It shall have 3 lines, like a haiku and janku
2. The numeric phrase to remember is “3-5-7″.
3. First line has three (3) words
4. Second line has five (5) syllables
5. Third line has seven (7) vowels
   (”y” does not count as a vowel)

Here are my submissions.  Give me some whallku lovin’, won’t you?  Submit yours in the comments!

What The Hell?
Does he really think
this a good idea?

Obama, Obama, Obama…
All we ever hear.
Well, better him than Hillary!

Guitar Hero IV
A.K.A. “World Tour”.
Guaranteed addict.

blog of whall:
Insommnia cure
if ever I saw one.

Cabbage Patch Dolls.
Innocent toy trend,
or evil spawn of Satan?

CPS wrong re: 
Polygamist sect.
Yoda: “Much power they have.”

For double extra credit, see if you can create a haiwhallku, which means you satisfy BOTH requirements: 5-7-5 for syllables and 3-5-7 for words/syllables/vowels.  You might be asking yourself, “how in the world can a line have both 5 syllables AND 7 syllables for line 2? Have you gone crazy, Wayne?”

Yes, I’ve gone crazy.  But that’s beside the point.  There is an answer, and the answer is - use words that can be pronounced in multi-syllabic ways.  Like Hyundai can be pronounced “Hi-un-die” or “Hun-Day”.  The word “actually” can actually be pronounced “act-you-al-lee” or “actch-yule-lee”.  Some leniency is granted, but it’s mob rule.

I don’ recommen’
Hyundai, actually.
dey be too darn cheap.

US building first
Nuclear athlete man.
Noose at eleven.

Today I was called a dork by email. 

I’m usually called a dork, and it happens multiple times a day.  Less often by email, but it occurs nonetheless.  Mostly I’m called a dork to my face (my preference).  Sometimes they say “dork!” lovingly, with a smirk or a smile, and other times they say DORK! as in “SMART ASS!”  In High School I was Supreme Ultra Powerful Almighty Dork (SUPA-Dork for short).

You might not believe me when I claim my dorktitude.  Well, I’ll have you know, I’m wearing a shirt that proves it.  Imagine coming to work and meeting someone wearing a shirt like this:

Still not convinced?  Ok, how about this.  I took a picture of my friend’s trip odometer reading when it turned 1111.

There seems to be no limit to my dorkosity.

I’ll even use my own blog to brag about ALMOST getting 100% on a Guitar Hero II Expert song - just missing a couple demon notes at the end.

Join in the fun, won’t you?  Here are some terms used to describe my dorkiness - I’d love it if you could add more: 

1. Wayne is the DorkMaster. 
2. Wayne suffers from a massive Dorkoma.
3. Everyone else suffers from Wayne’s massive Dorkoma.
4. DORKWAD stands for “Dork, Wayne A Dork”
5. Wayne is dorkalicious.
6. All hail the dorktastic Wayner!

Ooops, I mistyped the above.

What I meant was, Have you Senior Photo?

Some of the bloggers I read have been posting photos of their younger selves.  So I went a diggin’ for my own photos and once I found a few, I thought to myself - my, my my, I suuuuuure did look good back in high school.  In order to distract the world from how I look now, I surmised I would post one of the better photos and ask everyone to join in the fun.

Here’s how it works:

• Try not to laugh at me OR my photo.
• Try harder, please.
• Find your favorite high school photo of yourself.  Blog about it if you have one and link back to this post, or you can send it to me at whall at the name of my blog and I’ll post it in the comments for you.
• Comment amongst yourselves on how good we all look(ed).

Enjoy!

You might not know it, but I’m a pretty big Michael Jackson fan, as I’ve publically and shamefully confessed before.  In one of his biggest hits, he sings about how some kid is not his even though the mom says he’s the dad. 

I don’t think I have this problem.  And I have “proof”:

Yeah, I’m thinking the resemblance is there.

We just need to get the guy to learn how to grow a beard.  I guess now I know why they call it a “proof”.

I will now bring out my crystal ball and predict that someone with an affinity for pig rabbit combinations will say something about Hawaiian Shirts and likely lobby their senator to introduce a bill to ban them from all people with the middle name of Wayne.

Oh, and speaking of bragging about my kids, look at the Thank You letter Jaden wrote for his awesome Kindergarten teacher.

(click to enlarge)