The Pipes Are Leaking

altidude:

“The teens’ friends told police that the car was having engine trouble, and they had probably left it running so that they wouldn’t get stuck with a car that wouldn’t start, police spokesman Carl Zogby said.”

—

Family: 5 dead in Fla. motel were like brothers

(Followup to my earlier post in which I wondered if the boys might have overreacted to over-dramatic news coverage of the Florida cold snap. Perhaps not. Senseless and sad either way.)

One article specified they were having battery trouble and had jumped the car an hour before checking into the motel. They were trying to keep the battery charged by leaving the car running. Whether the original battery was just not holding a charge or earlier they had left some lights on or something, this was still completely unnecessary.

The car was lent to the five guys by a friend of theirs — they were going on a trip to celebrate the birthday of one of the guys in the group.

Happy birthday…Merry Christmas…Happy effin’ New Year…

smutandeggs:

So, I work at this crazy popular restaurant and today we were PACKED. I’m talking to our hostess about what tables we now have available when we hear a loud … well, I’m gonna say commotion. I heard a woman calling out, then I heard a bang/thud/boom and it all came from the bar area. I look over there and one of our food runners is looking at the floor kinda stunned.

Now, it’s SUPER FUCKING BUSY and we all just wanna punch people’s faces in, so when I see the food runner’s face, I think that look is of utter exhaustion and frustration that she dropped a bunch of food on the floor.

Nope.

Turns out … a woman was at the bar holding a beer … and her baby.

And she dropped …

her baby.

That baby made THE LOUDEST thud I have ever heard. I thought it was a plate of food. Honestly, I can’t believe it was a teeny, tiny little baby.

The baby is fine, the mother is traumatized. She proved it by chugging her drink with a shaky hand.

(In all honesty and fairness, the woman wasn’t drunk at all when she dropped her baby. She WAS taking good care of it, she merely lost her grip. Truly.)

Note to all mothers: If it’s busy at the restaurant and you have to stand at the bar until your table is ready and you order a beer and your baby starts crying … PUT A FUCKING STRAW IN YOUR BEER and keep both hands firmly around your child.

Thank you.

How’s that old adage go? If a baby’s dropped to the floor in a crowded restaurant, does it a make a sound?

Guess we’ve figured that one out.

So it’s GPOYTu now.

Among other things, today I went 15 miles on the freeway in the absolute wrong direction before realizing I was supposed to be driving to Madison, not Milwaukee.

The only reason I noticed when I did? I was thinking about where I was going to stop for breakfast when it dawned on me that all of the places I normally went to while on my way to Madison were not at all on the way to Milwaukee — go figure.

My passions for art, working in live entertainment, understanding the human mind and emotion, and navigating the world as a productive member of society — and every other passion of mine have gotten me in trouble at some point.

It’s the rare situation that I regret, although in many cases I feel some burden of shame. Most of the time I just wish that my words, actions, and intentions had been better understood.

Every bridge I’ve ever burned, I’ve burned with no malice intent. In fact, every bridge worth taking the time to burn is because my passion tells me it’s for some amount of “greater good” for “the cause.” I don’t set fires because I enjoy watching things be destroyed — I set fires because when old things burn down, new things sprout up.

I start conversations and say things nobody is thinking or caring about because I think it’s worth their time to for them to start thinking about something in a different light.

Sometimes they disagree, but at least the resulting discussion is interesting. Actually, it’s more interesting and engaging if they disagree.

True shame and dejection results not when someone disagrees with me or my thoughts about the things which I have passion for, but when they become genuinely afraid of participating in the discussion for whatever the reason — when the batter won’t step up to the plate because they think the sole intent of the pitcher is to throw a ball that hits them and more importantly hurts them.

Upsetting someone on the internet isn’t something I’m afraid of doing. If someone on the internet disagrees with me, big deal. I have the same attitude if someone standing a few feet from me disagrees with me — but attempting to engage them in discussion only to have them fear it’s some sort of trap — that they would think that I’m genuinely out to get them — yea, that actually does make it a little harder for me to sleep at night.

It is actually possible for it to be drier, but I’m pretty certain there’s a better chance of finding moisture on Mars.

Possible, but it’d take an army of brilliant people with a $17billion/year budget to produce results.

boston:

Remember the Apple engineer who left the iPhone 4G prototype in a bar?  » more mistakes

This shouldn’t really be considered a mistake. It should be something that he should’ve done sooner and more often:

March 23. Inevitable Joe Biden mistake of the year:

Vice President Joe Biden, failing to note his proximity to a microphone, announces to the world that health care reform is a ”big f______ deal.”