My mind is just way too literal sometimes…
Category: Overseen
Leaving the house this AM I saw a smoking truck parked across the street, but the smoke wasn’t what drew my attention, it was the sound. The small delivery van was idling fast and didn’t sound the least bit healthy. The van had smoking coming out the tailpipe, but not much worse than you’d expect from a diesel. It didn’t, however, look or sound like it was going to make it very far at all.
Here’s what made stand and stare: The driver got out, walked around back and looked at the smoking tailpipe. Satisfied it was okay he left van running, locked it and walked off. Here’s the thing… it sounded like the accelerator was stuck half-way down (at least), it was smoking badly and the guy just locks the van and goes (presumably) to find help… with the van still running! It wasn’t the brightest move. The van continued to run at high idle… smoking more and more. It got to the point that it looked like a James Bond smokescreen and cars had to stop for fear of driving through the dense cloud and hitting something.
The driver was gone for several minutes before there was a bang and smoke started coming out from under the hood as well as from the tailpipe. When he came hurrying back with someone in tow and the driver decided it would now be a good time to turn off the truck. Genius.
Pop quiz hot shot: turn off the van or leave it running and walk away?
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I think baby-wipes are a better product…
… but I suppose some parents may need the extra cleaning power of the “scrape it clean” for their child changing.
Overseen in the baby products aisle at our local super store.
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Rude snowman?
I was going to the Developer One web site to download an update and I noticed this snowman on their page… is it flipping me off?
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Here’s a killer postal route…
I feel sorry for the US postal worker who has to hike up the hill to this house… in Salzburg Austria.
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Here’s a niche market
Do you think they publish fortnightly or monthly?
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Clowns are scary
But clown vans are even more scary.
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It’s all been said…
Bug Bash started life as an internal MS comic strip by cartoonist and program manager, Hans Bjordahl. It has a ton of great commentary on the software development process and has also been available outside MS for a while now. My favorite series of strips is a set of “Meeting Busters – Surefire ways to sink your meeting”. Within that series, there is this beautiful cell:
Some more back story: when we lived in Colorado my wife (well… girlfriend at the time) and I loved Hans Bjordahl’s comics in the University of Colorado school paper (I wasn’t going to college there, Paula was). When I started work for Microsoft I noticed the “Bug Bash” comic in our internal newspaper had the same character style (which led me to dig up the old clippings I had… and lo!). When Hans left Microsoft this year I worried we’d loose the regular dose of laughing at the software development industry but Hans has continued to write and publish Bug Bash (this was the only sentence without a parenthetical).
I was reminded of it this morning when I came across a CNet article (from February) on how the Internet is changing the business of cartoonists. Tag line:
“See you in the funny pages” takes on a new meaning for cartoon artists who are making a home on the Web.
Here are direct links to the Meeting Busters strips:
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A little bit of irony to start the week…
Fire extinguishers…
… housed in an old fireplace.