Yesterday through a series of events brought on by my sheer stupidity, my keyboard drank some apple juice. The irony of my mac keyboard drinking apple juice isn’t lost on me.

The prospect of cannibalism caused my keyboard to turn up its toes and die.

Yesterday morning I was working with a keyboard that didn’t do spaces or makes Ns or Bs. Have you ever tried to type a sentence without an N? It’s hard, ok. Then last night, Stephen disassembled the keyboard to see if he could dry it out enough to make it work. Since last night I was just using a mouse. It wasn’t as hard as I thought it would be until I attempted to send an email. Oops!

I just returned from the local mac retailer with a spiffy new keyboard. It’s tiny and flat and likely to increase my carpel tunnel by about 900% but dang, it’s shiny, shiny.

Stephen will be posting on his attempts to resurrect the old keyboard (with photos!) sometime soon, I’m guessing. Meanwhile, I’m off to answer some emails.

Liza has developed her superpower early. She has the uncanny ability to sense an open door or drawer, rush to it, and find the most dangerous thing to try to eat. If you leave the pantry door open in the kitchen, she crawls in and begins chewing on the metalized sack of coffee beans. If you leave the guest bathroom door open, in minutes she’s pulled up on the toilet and licking it^[1].

This is especially troubling in our bathroom, which has some twenty-seven doors and sixty drawers. In the morning, we usually put her in the middle of the bathroom while we shower and primp in front of the mirror. She plays happily with her toys until she grows bored and starts following her danger sense. I left the shower door open the other day and she crawled in, splashing happily while her diaper grew fat from the left-over water.

Today was the worst. While I was showering, Liza discovered that Misty had left her closet door open. I came out to find her eating Misty’s shoes. When I went into my closet to dress, I left my cabinet door open and she grabbed my pack of razors to chew on. I pulled it out of her hands and closed the cabinet, only to find she’d crawled behind me, gone into my closet, and buried her face in a plastic bag. I moved her out of the closet and finished dressing, and she’d pulled up on the cabinet drawers and had opened the top drawer into her forehead.

Closing doors works for now, but that’s a stop-gap measure. Already she’s figured out how to slide open the shower door. She is now smarter than a dog. Fortunately we’re soon going to put her on a leash and restore her to pet-hood.

[1] In terms of grossness, that’s nothing. On one trip back to Arkansas, we stopped at a truck stop in West Memphis. Misty took Eli into the bathroom to change his diaper and to go herself. When put down, Eli instantly fell to hands and knees and licked the floor. (back)

I’ve been thinking about my doorbell.

When you gonna ring it?

WHEN YOU GONNA RING IT?

What’s stuck in your head?

Steven Brust wrote a Firefly fanfic novel and has released it for free under a Creative Commons license. And, wow, is that a sentence I’d never thought I’d type.

I have voted, despite Alabama’s attempt to make things as confusing as possible. The ballot has you vote for a candidate and then vote for delegates, and you’re only allowed to vote for delegates pledged to your choice of candidates. The Republican ballot at least has delegate competitions in groups of two, so you’re only making a choice between two people at any given time. The Democratic ballot has you pick “not more than four (4) women and not more than four (4) men”.

As long as the delegates are pledged to my candidate, I don’t really care which specific delegates are seated. It’s like the Project Runway of politics: It’s a competition for the models as well as the designers, but in reality no one cares about the models and their competition gets all of two minutes screen time.

Does racism eat away at the part of your brain responsible for being funny? I’m beginning to think it might, in which case I’m clearly beginning a never-ending series of posts. This time around, it’s SalesGenie’s “Ramesh the Indian salesman” ad that aired during the first quarter of the Super Bowl.

Perhaps you missed that Ramesh Chakrapani, an Indian with an Apu-like accent, has seven kids. Don’t worry! There’s the shot at the end with Mrs. Chakrapani and the seven small Chakrapanis to refresh your memory.

The ad’s defenders have trotted out the usual litany of excuses: it’s humor! You’re just being politically correct! And besides, it’s not really racist!

Let’s do a quick experiment. Swap Ramesh out for a black man and give him over-the-top dialogue.

Hank: DeShawn! You’re my worst salesman! If you don’t double your sales, you’re outta here!
DeShawn: Dawg, I gots seven moufs to feed!

Still feel good about that ad? But that’s not why I’m here. I’m here because the ad, written by Vin Gupta, CEO of the company that owns SalesGenie, just isn’t funny.

Vin, one danger in comedy is coming up with a concept but forgetting to make it funny. That’s this ad’s main comedic sin. Where are the punchlines? What, exactly, is supposed to be funny in this ad?

Comedy in part arises from the unexpected. There are only two things in this ad that are unexpected and not generic set-pieces: the boss’s name and Ramesh’s being an Indian with seven kids. The boss’s name, Hank Bulleymonger, is komedy. It’s not real humor, it’s humor lite. It’s a concept without a joke, and is lazy writing.

Then there’s Ramesh. You counter-sink the “he has lots of kids!” non-joke by referencing it twice, and worst of all, you have the wrong stereotype! Everyone knows that Indians work at call centers or Quik-E-Marts, not as widget salesmen! “Has a lot of kids” is the generic stereotype for poor people, especially minorities, as a whole. It’s not the specific marker for Indian — witness how I was able to swap out “generic Indian” for “generic black man” above without changing the thrust of the commercial.

I’m hoping you’re not unteachable, Vin. I’m guessing this is a one-off mistake that you won’t make again.

Wait, you wrote a second ad for the Super Bowl?

Whoops. Never mind.

Eli got Lincoln Logs for Christmas. He and Stephen spent one whole evening putting all the houses together and then Eli added little lights to his huts and turned out the lights. Stephen snapped this funny photo.

OBU sends babies of alumni a Future Tiger shirt and an admission letter for some stupid future date like 2021. Sheesh. Here’s Liza sporting her tiger shirt and appropriately enough for OBU, seemingly looking toward the angels.