Month: January 2004

Night of The Living Dead (Pigeon)

Posted on by nolageek

Dan and I have had a few new roomies for the last few weeks in the form a flight of pigeons in our attic. The drama culminated yesterday morning when I found Lydia sitting on top of the microwave, which sits high atop our refrigerator. She had this deer-in-the-headlights look on her face, and she was staring at the ceiling. Whatcha looking at, sweetie?” I said to her. I looked up and heard, quite loudly, the floor of the attic creaking, and the flight of pigeons cooing. (In case you didn’t figure it out, I just found out what you call a group of pigeons.)

So I called my landlord while I was at work and told him about his new aviary. I can only imagine what the attic looks like, not to mention my stuff that’s IN the attic.

So after work I checked our voicemail and this is the message he left more or less intact, but condensed and slightly exaggerated for humor:

quote.gif Hey Vince, this is Jean Paul, I wanted to let you know that I couldn’t get into the attic to check on the bird situation because when I went to lower the ladder, there was a bunch of birds sitting on it and I didn’t want to let them loose in the house. So, anyway, I put a screen over the hole in the gutter, so at least no more can get in and I went ahead and mixed some rat poison with some bird seed and stuck it up there. I’ll come by in a week or so and pick up any pigeon corpses. If you hear any thuds, it’s probably just a pigeon falling to it’s death. Bye.” *beep*

So in my minds eye I immediately flash to some possible pigeon horror movie they’ll be making in the future about me and Dan, as well as the fate of any future occupants of the apartment. Of course, it’ll be a pigeon zombie movie, and they’ll be hordes of force-poisoned undead pigeons swooping down from the attic, pecking out our brains with their creepy little zombified pigeon beaks: coooooo! cooooooo! braaaaains!

I have to get back to work.

Beggars Can’t Be Choosers (But Can Be Chosen)

Posted on by nolageek

During lunch I broke my long standing policy of not giving money to the miscellaneous human debris that walk among us in the CBD. After giving him my dollar (and after he scurried away to buy his Mad Dog) I thought about what made him so different:

  1. He had a non-offensive Odor | Although he didn’t smell bad, he smelled like something. I don’t know what that something was but something is better than bad. Something didn’t make me want to jump in front of a bus to escape it’s scent.
  2. He had a prop | He launched into the usual mumbo jumbo about how he’s not homeless, he’s just collecting money for charity name. This time he was collecting money for battered women. Lightly battered, like tempura. He had a brown box with a hole kicked in on top that had “battred woman” scrawled on the least filthy side with a sharpie. must have chopped her up to put her in the box and that displayed determination. A+ for effort.
  3. He stuttered | We stutterers must stick together. What can I say, he had me at h-h-he-he-he-hello.
  4. He opened with a joke | When he walked up to me, I was drinking the last of my diet coke and he said “Go’d Damn! Dat drinks gosta make you colder than al’ready is! which lowered my defenses and made me smile in his direction. This created eye contact which everyone knows is the homeless’ version of the Death Star’s tractor beam. If he had made me laugh I would have probably given him my car keys.

Pope Blesses Break-dancers

Posted on by nolageek

CNN.com – Papal blessing for break-dancers

I can picture it now:

Break-dancer: Bless me Father for my windmill was not fresh and my Boston Crab was totally wack. Like, totally. I’m maxin’ though, so don’t bug out.

Pope: That’s chill, your Two Legged Applejacks were most dope, but your Windmills and Munchmills are indeed not fresh. Two Hail Mary Marys, one Axel F.

This makes me wonder if there’s going to be a Patron Saint of break-dancers now. St. Special K?

For whom it may concern

Posted on by nolageek

I was working on a medical program at work today, and while proofreading spotted the following passage:

INTRACTABLE PRIAPISM ASSOCIATED WITH HERBAL STIMULANTS. Tuckler VE, Barton C, Litner J, Matinez J, Section of Emergency Medicine, Medical Center of Louisiana, New Orleans, Louisiana.

Background: A wide variety of herbal supplements are available to the public over-the-counter without any restrictions and are often advertised as a safe ?natural? alternative to prescription medications.

Case Report: A 43 y/o white male without any past medical history presented to the ED complaining of approximately 60 hours of sustained erection. He had used an over the counter sexual enhancement drug with the trade name ?All Night Long? which contain 16 ingredients including niacin and horny goat weed standardized extract. He took no prescription medications but was taking niacin and ginseng supplements. After taking the supplements, he achieved an erection, but the erection failed to subside and became associated with significant pain. [.. painful sounding medical procedures on his wang removed …]

Conclusion: Herbal supplements are provided over the counter without restriction and are thought by many people to be without risk. However they can be associated with significant negative effects and morbidity.