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Mike D: Ugh.
Sander: What’s up dude?
Mike D: Name three places you’d rather be right now. Go.
Sander:

1. Painful eye surgery
2. World’s ugliest woman contest.
3. Shoveling dung behind an elephant.

Mike D: Yeah, that sounds about right.

Professor Sisson: “Have we figured out how to raise the melting point of Aluminum yet?”
Professor Apelian: “Yes we have. You just use a different Thermocouple. It works every time.”

HA!

Ryan Schenk: Mike D, I just played the funniest joke!
Mike D: Do share.
Ryan: There is a command on the mac called “say.” If you type in the command followed by a sentence, the computer will actually say the sentence in a computer voice.
Mike D: Okay.
Ryan: It’s especially funny if you log into another user’s mac remotely with SSH, because then the audio will play over THEIR speakers
Mike D: ha ha
Ryan: example

say “Hey Neil, you sure know how to push my buttons, if you know what I’m sayin’”
(neil is my boss)

Excellent Job Ryan Schenk. Excellent Job.

RING RING RING

Mike D: Hello this is Mike D.
President of my company: Hi Mike.
Mike D: Hi, what can I do for you?
President of my company: I’m frightened that you got a B in your ethics class
Mike D: ha ha ha
President of my company: what happened?
Mike D: I was horribly bored with the subject matter and stopped putting effort into the class.
President of my company: Ha!

Colleague: I haven’t received that package you guys sent
Mike D: Really? We sent on Thursday next day air.
Colleague: uh oh.
Mike D: Hold on a sec
I open up UPS.com and check the tracking number. It says “Delivered. Porch.”
Mike D: The package is on your porch.
Colleague: What?
Mike D: check your porch. The package is on your porch.
…
Colleague: Wow. Yes it is. Well done.

Mike D: I think I have to come into work this weekend.
Sander: Bummer.
Mike D: yeah, I suppose it could be worse though.
Sander: that’s true. your office could be full of snakes.

We had a sales rep come up from Alabama yesterday.

Sales rep: “and I’m headed off to San Francisco tomorrow.”
Mike D: “oh man, that’ll be nice and warm!”
Sales rep: “yeah, but I came from Alabama. When I left it was 70 degrees”
Mike D: “ahh. well, I guess this is chilly for you then.”
Sales rep: “it is… although right now we have tornadoes in Alabama”
Mike D: “you have family there?”
Sales rep: “Wife and three girls. When I left I reminded them where the basement was and wished them luck.”

On the topic of environmental regulations.

Professor:
One particular interesting story is about a barge that was sent out of New York. It had hazardous waste in it and they wanted to dump it out at sea. This was before the laws completely prohibited the practice. So the barge goes out and New York says it can’t dump it within their waters. So the barge goes south. And as they go they keep meeting resistance. No one will let them dump the garbage. I mean, if it was solid waste? If it was solid waste they could have put it in a landfill. But obviously this was something atypical. They got all the way down to Costa Rica. And still… nothing. So what happened? Where did they have to go?

Classmate:
New Jersey?

Bryan arrives home at the House of Rock…

Bryan: Did someone cook fish?
Mike D: Whoa. Wow.
Bryan: What?
Mike D: Yeah we had fish but it was, like, four hours ago. That’s amazing!
Bryan lowers his head in shame, and points to himself
Bryan: Fat kid.

I call a customer back after our call is disconnected.

Mike D: Hi, this is Mike.
Important customer: Hi Mike. I’m sorry. This stupid cell phone disconnects my calls all the time
Mike D: Oh, no that was me.
Important customer: But you’re not on a cell, I called you at work.
Mike D: yeah… I turned around in my chair and it pulled the cord. The cord pulled the phone base which teetered on the edge of my desk… I grabbed for it but missed and hit the body instead of the edge thus pushing the phone base off the desk. It bounced across the room and the phone cable came undone. Sorry about that.
Important customer: wow.

As an impartial member of the DiDonato family, I got a great view of the wedding mayhem. Particularly fun were the deliberate things my mom and sister were doing to have ‘fun’ with one another.

a few days pre-wedding

Alicia: MIKE! don’t shave for a couple days. then, on the morning of the wedding come out with a mustache. Mom will freak out!!

day of wedding (before the mustache stunt)

Mom: Mike, see if you can time your shower downstairs so that it starts right when Alicia gets in the shower upstairs. You’ll steal all her hot water.

Awesome.

Professor: So why would demand increase?
Me: International business?
Professor: yes. good. what’s your name again?
Me: mike.
Professor: Mike D?
Me: that’s right.

On the phone…

Ryan Schenk: Do you here that in the background?

::faint whooshing sound in the background::

Mike D: Not really… what is it?
Ryan Schenk: It’s water pouring out of my faucet.
Mike D: You jerk! ha ha
Ryan Schenk: It’s just pouring down the drain.

Once again, the weekend was a fury of activity.

Highlights:

Friday night I hung out with Ernie, Keller, Joanna, and Bekah. Bekah wanted Keller’s help in recording a few tracks on the piano. I helped by sitting quietly in the background matching her left hand on bass. What fun. I haven’t played music with a group in quite some time, and it was a blast. We also had a really short, but really interesting, conversation about books. Bekah, it seems, has read every book ever written by mankind. She was able to fully converse about any book that any of us had read. This made me realize two things.
1. I need to read more books for pleasure.
2. I wish I had a better memory and could remember books more easily.

Saturday, post class, I had my first real introduction to guitar hero. Holy Fun. My sister totally ruined it for me though as I excitedly told her of my guitar hero adventures…

Mike D (overly excited): I played GUITAR HERO last night for the first time
Alicia: oh yeah? my Friend Eran invented that game.
Mike D: wha.. huh?
Alicia: yeah. he helped develop Harmonix the company behind it. He’s a clarinet player.
Mike D: …
Alicia: in fact, just recently he was interviewed about the upcoming ROCK BAND game and…. really funny story… the interviewers brought clothes with them for him to wear so that during the interview he’d look “cooler.” Apparently he’s wearing a sequence Ozzy Osborn shirt. ha ha! Which is extra hilarious because normally he wears khakis and button up shirts.

Her story was so much better than mine.

Sunday I worked on a paper for a bit and then hit up ROLLER DERBY in CT. I think that this bout goes down as the most exciting ever. I can’t wait to write a review. It’ll probably be up in the next few days in the features section. Keep an eye out for it.

Jesse and Alicia stop by before heading out on the honeymoon.

Mike D: so wait… does that mean Alicia owns a quarter of this property now that you have a ring on your finger?
Jesse: well… since it’s premarital property… I guess I don’t really know the rules
Alicia: If Jesse dies I own his whole half.
Mike D: Jesse should we make our deal on the house before you leave?
Jesse: Alicia would you do the same deal with Mike for the House if I die on this trip?
Alicia: well, I’d probably just marry Mike and we’d live here together.
Mike D: That might be a problem. Because if Tony dies I promised to marry Paulette.
Alicia: I’m cool with that.

Ruth: i just rode my bike a short distance to the OTHER library, woods hole public library, in order to get Harry potter book 2 and my shame was twofold, one I couldn’t find it, so i had to ask a librarian where i could find “the harry potter books” and two, she took me to the very back corner of the children’s book room for them
Timothy: hahaha
Ruth: the shelves back there are only like three feet tall
Timothy: or wait! is it voldeMORTIFYING?

Regarding the passing of bad news on to one of our superiors:

Sander: “Ugggh… It’s like giving bad news to Darth Vader. There’s no way he’ll say, well… that’s no big deal”

Sander: That lunch bag is intense.
Mike D: Isn’t it? Check it out.
Ray: Wow
Mike D: I love this lunch bag. It’s Deluth
Ray: Deluth? Next thing you know you’ll own a Dyson vacuum cleaner.
Mike D: I do own a Dyson vacuum cleaner
Ray: haha

Classmate 1 (male): I woke up on Valentines day… my wife turned to me and said “Where’s my present.”

Classmate 2 (female): My husband didn’t get me anything for Valentines day. So I said “You didn’t get me anything!?” and he said “well you told me not to get flowers or anything for you anymore because they are too expensive.” and so I said “I didn’t MEAN it.”

Mike D: I figured out an extremely efficient way to make gradients in MSPaint
Jesse: oh?
Mike D: Normally, I choose a color that I want to blend and double click the pallet. This brings up the color edit menu. By clicking on “Define Custom Colors” I can then adjust the color by a small amount, return to my picture, and by repeating this process over and over I slowly work my way to the new color.
Jesse: and the new way?
Mike D: I open up a new MSPaint document and make my way to the same “define custom colors” screen. Then I just take a screen shot, paste the image of the color gradient into the second document, select and copy my ideal gradient, paste it into the new piece, and then use the eyedropper to select the color I want. Once the setup is done, I can zoom into my workpiece and never have to return to the edit colors screen. It’s probably ten times faster.
Jesse: Wow! I’m surprised you don’t get more women.

While out to eat with a few of the managers at work, I ordered a chicken ceaser wrap. The other guys ordered Reuben’s and Burgers.

When we got back to the office, I was paged by one of said managers. I entered his office.

mike d: What can I do for you?
Co-worker1: Well, first we need to talk about the chicken ceaser wrap.
mike d: It was delicious.
Co-worker1: It’s not a real meal.
mike d: what?
Co-worker1: If you’re going to be in our business you’ll probably want to order lunch with meat in it.
mike d: Chicken is meat.
Co-worker1: You need to eat red meat.
Co-worker2: Something that bleeds.

Thankfully, I was able to redeem myself by discussing Texan BBQ.

RING RING

mike d: hey Schenk!
Ryan: hey mike d!
mike d: what’s going on?
Ryan: I have a question for you.
mike d: okay.
Ryan: What time do you go to the dentist?
mike d: huh?
Ryan: What time do you go to the dentist?
mike d: me personally? I dunno. Usually either first thing in the morning or later in the afternoon.
Ryan: NOPE! you go at TOOTHIRTY!

Sander: hey dude, you got a nice pair of scissors over there?
mike d: nope. sorry man.
Sander: what happened to the pair with flames on them?
mike d: I haven’t put a clear coat on them yet.
Sander: ahh.

::pause::

Sander: “i haven’t put a clear coat on them yet.” what a ridiculous response to a question asking for scissors.

we pass a sign on the highway that says “gaylord rehab center”

mike d: Would you rather be a gay lord, or a straight peon.
Jesse: By gay lord do you mean homosexual lord? or lord of homosexuals.
mike d: we’ll say both.
Jesse: hmm.

::pause::

Jesse: I think I’d prefer to be the Gay Lord, because then I could make Man dates.