JonAbad: by the way, there may be birds living in the garage.
mike d: Birds?!?!
JonAbad: yeah. like little finches.

Last night I was chatting in a chat room with a few Ultimate Bloggers, one of whom was from England (brittanie) another (daniel) was from Australia. Daniel mentioned that it was lunch time over there. I mentioned that it was nearly my bedtime.

Brittanie: It’s Wednesday here too.
mike d: wow, it’s only Tuesday here.
Daniel: It’s March here.
mike d: Whoooa. how’s the future look?
Daniel: it’s good.
Daniel: brb. I have to go check on my hover car.

Now that’s humor.

JonAbad while driving: Mike D’s hair is obstructing my view through the rear view mirror… It’s taking up a whole lane.

Upon returning to my computer the other day I was greeted with this message:

Nicole: Mike D! I have a request from the brotherhood
Nicole: as of late APO has be lacking in Big awesomeness
Nicole: It’s sad
Nicole: so many bigs dont do anything or they make wicked lame binders
Nicole: A certain Nick C. specifically requested you come teach the new bigs this semester how to make binders of amazingness
Nicole: Betsy D confirmed your binder making skills
Nicole: and a wave of hushed conversation swept the room “Mike D the legend?” “can he really be true?”
Nicole: then Ernie who showed up for the meeting stood up
Nicole: and everyone was silenced by his alumni power
Nicole: and his own legendry glowed from within him
Nicole: as he cleared his throat and said
Nicole: “yes, the legend of Mike D is true, as I have seen him. He is both strong and powerful, and could kick batman’s butt any day. We are all not worthy”
Nicole: then a chorus broke into song
Nicole: and a flock of snow white doves … fresh snow, not that yellow kind…. flew in from the windows and suddenly….
Nicole: Ice Ice Baby broke out and there was break dancing and chocolate cake for all!

that’s right. Chocolate cake for all.

Thanks Nicole for the hilarity.

teeth cleaning club exchange

mike d: Ed, I forgot to brush my teeth today
Ed: 50 LASHES!
mike d: I’m sorry
Ed: It’s okay, we’ve made progress this week.

Today during a meeting:

President: And that’s why we need you here Mike. Can you create this graph for us? we need an easy way to visualize what our current product line consists of and in what direction it is going.
mike d: Sure. i can do that.
President: It’s going to be a complicated graph, you may have to use Microsoft Paint.

It’s days like these when I love going to work.

Some say there’s no one cheaper than mike d, to that this blog replies “Nay!”
Scene: Christmas Morning Gift Unwrapping

Dad: “you got me Long Johns!”
Mom: “yes!”
Dad: “does this mean I have to throw out my other Long Johns?”
Mom: “yes!”
DiDonato Children: “are the old ones in bad shape?”
Mom: “they’re torn to pieces. he’s had them since High school.”

The Award for ‘Most Frugal’ goes to Dad DiDonato!

Jesse: Darn it. I wish the battery in my bass wasn’t dead.
mike d: your bass requires a battery?
Jesse: The active pickups need a source of energy to operate.
mike d: well, there’s the 9-volt in the smoke alarm upstairs
Jesse: Good thinking!

overheard:

guy #1: “I had to buy one of those hand’s free headsets for my phone because of the new law.”
guy #2: “oh yeah?”
guy #1: “I love it. now while I’m driving I can talk on the phone and hold my cup of coffee.”

The other day Sander and I, like any typical group of males, were throwing around some hypothetical Mortal Kombat situations, and a question came up about Rayden.

Rayden is, of course, a character in the hit 90′s video game “Mortal Kombat” that was based on the Japanese god of thunder and lightning “Raiden”.

The question was:
Does Rayden’s electricity zap in alternating or direct current?
If your answer to this question is DC, do you think he could zap people in AC if he wanted?

This was of course followed by the question:
Do you think Scorpion would be an expert spear fisherman if he wasn’t an undead hell spawned ninja?

It is only in retrospect that I realize we are extreme dorks.

Yes, the Topsites link is gone. That’s because the link results in a “Account is suspended” announcement and I figured I would spare all readers from having to discover this on their own. As soon as the owner of the Topsites website gets his stuff back in gear the voting will continue.

Sander and I were stopped at a traffic light on the way to work this morning when a kid walked in front of the car.

Sander: Could that kid walk any more awkwardly?
mike d: ha ha. that poor kid, here he is just walking in front of us and we’re making fun of him because he’s fat and walks funny.
Sander: well, maybe we wouldn’t make fun of him if he learned how to walk right and stopped eating so much.

I was chatting with the head of finance and happened to tell him about how the production manager sat me down for a quick how to on accounting so that I could better understand why they were throwing out a certain set of parts.

mike d: “I learned some accounting from Larry today.”
Jim: “oh no. what’d he teach you?”
mike d: “Just general stuff. perhaps I should just leave it at that.”
Jim: “that’s like my saying that I learned electrical engineering from my Bazooka gum comics.”

Mark: Carlos supposedly got the scar on his nose from being hit by a bat.
Jesse: That doesn’t suprise me.
Mark: Yeah, Carlos is a rough character.
Jesse: Though, he seems kind of fluffy. Do you know what I mean?
Mark: yeah, he does seem fluffy. but he’s definitely not fluffy.
Jesse: he’s got fluffy hair.
Mark: he grew up in the hood. he’s not fluffy underneath it all.
Jesse: well, it’s the kind of fluffy hair that you could hide a switchblade in.

2:13 AM

ring.ring.
ring.ring.

ugh… hello?

MIKE D! it’s Sander!

hey Sander… what’s up?

DUDE, I’m here with JACLYN. she wants to mother your CHILD

awesome.

SERIOUSLY. SHE WANTS TO HAVE SEX WITH YOU, LIKE, EVERY MINUTE.

of course she does.

I mean: EVERY MINUTE

i’m sure. I think I’m going to go back to bed now

Were you SLEEPING!?!?

yup.

Alright MIKE D. You Should go back to BED! Maybe in the morning you’ll forgive this DRUNKEN phone call. WOOO!

bye Sander.

LATER MIKE D!

Boss (looking out window): Did you see my new car?
mike d: which one is it?
Boss: The one in the far corner.
mike d: whoa, did you get a good deal?
Boss: yeah, the guy tried to screw me at first. . . but then I pulled out my programmable calculator.

mike d: Wow, it’s a beautiful day.
Galecki: yeah, I’d rather be doing something else today
mike d: Anything else.
Galecki: pretty much. Except maybe walking on broken glass shards.

mike d: Today the boss came into my office to ask me a question
Jesse: Bruce Springsteen?

Jill and I were standing in the checkout line at a Mens Clothing store. Jill noticed a cologne on the rack named Pi.

Jill: ooh look. Pi cologne.
mike d: neat. That’s about as geeky as a cologne can get. I like it.
Jill: I wonder what it smells like. numbers? Calculators?

I finally put together all my finances and handed in a HUGE packet of receipts, print outs, and forms to my boss.

mike d: “Tom, I’ve finally put my expense reports together.” (pulls out huge stack of papers and throws them on desk)
Tom: “oh God!”
mike d: “this one’s from Kentucky, this one’s from Georgia, this is another one from Georgia, and these two are phone bills from last October and August respectively.”
Doug (from adjacent cube): “tell him that you were planning on investing in gas futures with the money before the explosion in Texas and that for every day that passes until he gets your refund, you are demanding 500% interest to compensate for lost profits”

mike d: did you see my mikedidonato.com wallpaper?
jill: yeah. you have no mouth
mike d: I put the mouth in, and decided it looked weird. so I took it out.
jill: you also look weirdly fat.
mike d: I was suppose to look muscular.
jill: nope. fat.

mike d: the weather is really nice. the sun is shining and there’s a light breeze.
mom: wow, that sounds great! It’s freezing here and there’s 4 feet of snow on the ground.
mike d: hey! a butterfly just flew by!
mom: hey! a frozen bird just fell from the tree!

I just sneezed twice in rapid succession.

Voice from over the cubes: Gazuntite! (sp)
mike d: (recovering) whew. Thank you very much.
Voice from over the cubes: Was that a sneeze?
mike d: yes, it was two actually.
Voice from over the cubes: is that a cold? or are you allergic to something?
mike d: Actually, I have no idea why I just sneezed.
Voice from over the cubes: That’s really interesting, because there used to be a guy who worked in your cube who would sneeze twice every day at 2 o’clock. you could set your watch to it… Although you’re a few minutes early.
mike d: I’ll work to fix that.

For the past few days I’ve spent my time working on the manufacturing floor learning about some of the errors that I had incorporated into my most recent mechanical design. I went up to check on the welder. Larry and Rich were there. Recently we determined that my reinforced steel frame supported by M12 (huge bolts) design was WAY over engineered, now it seems they were concerned about my frame covers.

(paraphrased)
Rich: have you taken a look at your frame covers?
(aside: frame covers are thin pieces of aluminum that protect the operator from harmful magnetic fields generated in the cabinet)
mike d: where are they?

rich points me to the table were the covers are.
mike d: they look good.
Larry: If you want to bulletproof the welder, then yes.

(aside: the plates are about 9.5mm thick. Normal thickness is 3mm. The jokes begin.)

Larry: We also usually try to contour the edges of extension frames to match the welder.
mike d: well, I was going for a more boxy modern look.
Larry: like that of a tank? do you want to support these with M12s too?
mike d: nah, let’s use M14s. those old ones were flimsy anyway.
Rich: One of them doesn’t fit either. So I think we’ll have to make new ones anyway.
mike d: we can send these old ones out to Iraq to help armor the vehicles
Rich: good idea. let’s send them to the troops.
mike d: Go America!

There’s something special about engineering humor.

while discussing one of the more conservative priests at my local parish

mom: and some people don’t like how strict he is with his refusal to marry couples that live together. now, I think it’s important to stand by your convictions. If you start letting one or two things slip the next thing you know, you’re Episcopalian!