A few Friday Funnies to end this week

A conversation between me and my Husband.

Scene: We're laying in bed watching GhostHunters in silence.

Me: You know, I think my favorite kind of Jelly Belly is the hot buttered popcorn.
Hubby: *face palm*
Me: What?
Hubby: That is so random.
Me: It's not random. I was sitting here thinking about it before I said something to you.
Hubby: Again, what's not random about that?

Tis my life, y'all.

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When I was in grad school I was a teaching assistant. There were about eight of us who entered into indentured servitude for up to two years. In return, we got what equaled out to be $2 an hour, paid tuition and our own office. Which we had to share. Usually only two to three of us had office hours each day. One semester I had office hours with my friend Ali and another grad student whose name I will never forget but I am going to call him E.

E was just a little weird. He was a terrible teacher and just plain mean to his students. The rest of us were all, Whelp! you tried! here is a B for your efforts! But he was hardCORE. I think he gave his whole class Cs just out of pure spite. He held back his thinly veiled hatred of the human race just enough for us to not outwardly hate him, but he let that hate all hang out with his kids. It was truly tragic. For them. And for Ali and I when he was in a particularly bad mood during office hours.

Anyway. One day during office hours, Ali wasn't able to be there, so it was just E and I hanging out. I got the short end of the stick and taught 8 am classes. I skipped breakfast and was existing solely on the breakfast of champions -- coffee.

I said to E, "I sure could use some breakfast right about now. They should provide a continental breakfast for us! ahahah! LOLZ!"

E replied...and I will never till the end of my days forget the way he said it..."I hate continental breakfasts. I hate them."

*record scratches* Me: E, what do you mean you hate continental breakfasts? What is there to hate?
E: I just do not like them. They are never good. It's always just coffee and donuts and that's it.
Me: That's not ALWAYS true. Sometimes they have awesome breakfasts. You've never had a continental breakfast that has, like biscuits and gravy and those waffle machines?
E: Never. I hate continental breakfasts.

This just made me increasingly angry. Like who hates free food? Rich people maybe, and he certainly wasn't rich or he wouldn't be participating in the slave labor that was the teaching assistant program.

I thought, maybe he doesn't realize it's free.

Me: E, it's FREE though. I mean, even if it's nothing but pastries and coffee, you didn't have to *pay* for them. It's included in the price of your hotel.
E: I don't care. I hate it. I would rather pay.
Me: You'd turn down a free meal?
E: Yes. I hate continental breakfasts.
Me:  I have to walk away right now.

I am 90% sure he was just trying to instigate because he hated the world, but to this day, every time I see a continental breakfast I say to my Hubby, "Remember E!? And how he HATE continental breakfasts? Well I'm going to take extra pastries JUST TO PROVE HIM WRONG."

I made some graphs to prove how awesome continental breakfasts are:

Therefore:

See how my anger increases as the price goes up?


Happy Weekend, y'all. Enjoy it and give your Mommy's extra love on Mother's Day!

I don't have a door on my office, so I use these pictures instead

I work in a cube farm. It's not bad because the walls are tall enough that I cant' see anybody when I'm sitting down. However, I sit in the back corner cube and see everyone that walks around the corner.

Here is what our layout is like. I designed this with my rockin' Photoshop skills.

For almost two years, I had my computer situated to where people could see exactly what I was doing as they walked by -- not cool. Another problem is that I really like to talk to my coworkers and they know that, so there would be times when people would just pop on over and I'd say, "sit down and chat a spell!" and pour them a glass of lemonade or sweet tea, and we'd rock on our rockers and next thing you know, 45 minutes have gone by and I'd have to rush and finish something.

So I re-arranged my cubicle so I'm facing the opening, but it didn't change the fact that I'm just too darn chatty and nice. When my cubicle neighbor left, he bequeathed me some pretty kick-ass laminated signs with 1990's stock photography that used to be on some client display. He thought I could hold them up when I was busy, in a meeting, or wanted to chat. Basically, they were my Moody Moose Buttons (a candy cane for the person who actually gets that reference).

I took it one step farther by adding post it notes, for those who can't read non-verbal signals in stock photography.

"I'm on my old school corded touch-tone phone and ready to talk for hours!" 

I put this one up when I'm working, but can be interrupted for a little casual conversation, gossip or shenanigans.

"I'm telecommuting! Webinars haven't been invented yet! Like my perm?"

Who likes to attend webinars and has two thumbs? This girl! *points at self* And sometimes people don't realize that I'm in a meeting while sitting at my desk. IS just authorized us to use Skype here last week so.....TECHNOLOGY!

"Let's study!" "Let's go to $5 dollars all-you-can-drink at Rum Jungle!"

This is the poster I use most often. Amazingly enough, it works. I've had lots of people say to me, "Oh, sorry, should I come back?" and a few say "I'm ignoring your sign because I'm way too important for this nonsense."

And last but not least...

"I will cut you."

Luckily (for them or me, I'm not sure yet), I don't have to pull this bad boy out very much. But you know, there are just days where you don't want to be bothered, and what conveys that better than "brooding teenage girl"? I'd know, I used to be one.

So there y'all go, my own system for cubicle working. Anybody have a good cubicle stories?

If watching brain surgery isn't blogworthy, I don't know what is

I had to decide this morning which topic I'd blog about first: how my husband lost a jar of peanut butter or my story about how I watched a brain surgery for two hours. Brain surgery wins. For today; y'all will have something to look forward to tomorrow.

My day job is a web editor for a health system. I'm also pitching in with handling media calls when they come in, like requests for photography or interviews, etc. until they hire a new media person. So Tuesday, one of my co-workers (also pitching in) asked me to escort a photographer during a surgery. Uncharacteristically, I said yes immediately. I'd like to think it was was Lady Luck and her good friend Fate that made me say yes. They wanted me to see someone's brain, I guess.

This escort was the first time I had been in a surgical suite while I was awake and not under anesthesia. I met the photographer, we put on our gauzy jumpsuits (which are called bunny suits -- when my coworker told me to ask for bunny suits, I had to make sure he wasn't trying to make me look foolish, but that's their for real name), our little gauzy hats and gauzy booties and walked to the suite. I'm like, cool, what kind of surgery and then I see a big 'ol brain up on the screen. OK, cool, you guys, I'm witnessing brain surgery.

It was a very specific type of brain surgery called Deep Brain Stimulation (DBS), used to treat lots of things, including several types of movement disorders (just call me "the Science Channel" if you want). It starts out while the person is asleep, then they drill a hole in their skull and open that sucker right up. Then, the neurologist sticks lots of electrodes into the brain to find the right spot to stimulate. Actually, lots might be stretching the truth a little. I don't know, everything I know about DBS I learned from Wikipedia, so it may not be accurate at all.

Here is how I explained it to Hubby:

Me: So, they open up the person's skull, and then they stick these big long things in, they are electrical things, and then it makes all this crackling noise, and do you know what that noise is? YOUR BRAIN. It's like, those things that connect in your brain? What are they called?* You know...
Hubby: I'm not sure I do...
Me: Ok, well anyway, the things that fire and make your brain work. Not real fire, like electrical signals. That's how your brain works. IT'S HAPPENING IN YOUR BRAIN RIGHT NOW!!! AND I GOT TO HEAR IT ON A COMPUTER!!!
Hubby: But, how was it on a computer?
Me: Oh yeah. Well the neurologist puts these electrical things...what would I call them? Like electrodes. He puts them on the patient's brain and the electrode is connected to this computer -- a regular computer! -- and it comes across as sound. And then they listen for certain sounds that the brain cells make and those brain cells are the ones that are giving the patient trouble, so those are the ones they stttiimmuullatttee.
Hubby: They can't do an MRI or something to find the bad cells?
Me: NO, it doesn't work that way.
Hubby: Why?
Me: Because it doesn't. Anyway, then they put this other electrode on the bad cell part and send electrical currents through it, and the patient has to be awake for this part. CAN YOU IMAGINE BEING AWAKE WHEN YOUR SKULL IS OPEN?
Hubby: Sure can't.
Me: ANYWAY. They have to be awake so that when the neurologist stttiimmuullatttees those cells, he can ask the patient what she's feeling. Like, once he asked if she saw wavy lines. Why would she be seeing wavy lines, I wonder?
Hubby: Why are you saying stimulate like that?
Me: I don't know. It's like I can't say it any other way. Stttiimmuullatttee.
Hubby: Was there much blood?
Me: Not much, THANK GOD!

I'm sure I left him with more questions than answers.

I think the most remarkable thing about the experience was how chilled out the surgeons were. You know how on TV, the surgeons are always just joking and talking and listening to music? All of that is true. I had no idea. But you know, they do this every day of their lives. Of course it's old hat to them. It's like someone who doesn't know Web coding watching me work, and they are like, OH MY GOD, I can't believe all these random letters, numbers and symbols, how do you make sense of it all and still listen to music!?!?

Ok, that's not the same as brain surgery at all.

It was still freakin' awesome. I love my job.