Moblog: New dual monitor graphics cards at work

by Darren Halling

High school senior Brian Laugherty of Spicer, MN had a bright future ahead of him. As a stellar varsity quarterback, he was being actively wooed by the football programs at 7 Big Ten schools. Very few of his peers had an iota of doubt that he would eventually play in the NFL, a superstar bound for multimillion dollar contracts and a life of privilege. Then on one snowy evening in October, 2007, Laugherty got into a heated argument with an opposing player and impulsively punched him in his still-helmeted head. Brian broke his index finger and thumb with that punch, and in the ensuing scuffle, he tore a ligament and broke his radius and elbow, all in his throwing arm. He never recovered full mobility and had to give up his dreams of playing in the Big Ten and NFL.

Brian isn't alone in his dreams being ruined by a fleeting moment of poor judgment. Jeremy Q. Afterglide, who once pulled down dozens of dollars a year as a professional pooper, was at a crowded party early in July when he thought it would be funny to jump up onto a coffee table and put a hot curling iron up his butt. Unfortunately for the very drunken Afterglide, 90% of his butthole received third degree burns. The resulting scar tissue reduced the diameter of his butthole by nearly 75%, leaving him unable to poop anything thicker than a shoe string or more viscous than a Snickers bar left in a hot car over lunch.

"I did a stupid thing," said Afterglide. "I flew too close to the sun, and my butthole got burned. You try making a living on the pro shitting circuit with a permanent case of Freddy Kruger ass. All because I was drunk and stupid. And full of pride. Pride in my butthole and putting things into it."

Moblog: But thanks for the killer parking spot with no threat of towing or ticketing, Ikea!

Laminate kitchen countertop from Ikea.com: $150
Shipping and handling: $294
Total: $444

Living 10 minutes from Ikea, I can't think of a better way to spend my money.

Inquisitive doofus tolerated by judgmental superfox.

The problem with having a job where you actually have to get work done and having a social life involving friends you actually want to spend time with is that it cuts into your blogging time. It also cuts into the time you have to spend fixing up your house.

Yeah, I'm still in the middle of that fucking kitchen project. It's starting to suffer from what a project manager would call scope creep. The reason you lay out a specific plan and design the hell out of a project before starting any actual work on it is to do it right the first time. Spend that extra time in the design, thinking up front of any and all possible contingencies, and you probably save two or three times, if not significantly more than that, in having to go back later to track down the cause of problems, fixing careless mistakes, and cleaning up the shitty mess those mistakes left in their wake. If you don't have a meticulous plan mapped out, or if you jump the rails of that plan, the farther along in the project you get, the more likely it is that you and anyone else so much as peripherally involved will start adding shiny goo-gaws and whiz-bangs. These may seem like nice-to-have items, but they were not in the original scope of the project, weren't planned for in the original design, and unless you sit down and rethink everything from the ground up, it may negatively impact your timeline and end result in ways you couldn't possibly have predicted, regardless of how smart your smug ass thinks you are.

So there you have it. I've got shit creeping into my scope like an open bottle of mouthwash left behind the toilet. The original "Phase 1" kitchen plan was to just paint the cabinets and replace the hardware. I had no particular plan and didn't do a lick of research about the proper way to refinish cabinets. I mean, I've painted before for the Christ sake -- how hard can it possibly be? Answer: very. I had no fucking clue what I was getting myself into. Once I finished painting everything, I thought the home stretch was in sight. Not even close. For one thing, they were scuffing so damned easily. Ang had white painted kitchen cabinets, and hers stood up to normal wear and tear. Turns out I need to put a coat or two of polyurethane on everything. Wish I had known that before I put the new hardware on. Also, I realized half the shelves were cracked, warped, or in otherwise such poor condition that they needed to be replaced. Well no sense refinishing everything until I build the new shelves. Oh, but you know what would look cool to a buyer? Pantry shelves that roll out for easy access. Now I'm building shelves that slide on drawer rails. Oh, and you know what else I should do? Replace the rails on the actual drawers so they slide out more easily. Hmm... maybe before I touch up the cabinet paint and seal it I should go ahead and tear out this rotten counter top. Oh, and go ahead and take down this shitty fake plastic brick backsplash. Oops, looks like this grout they used for the brick won't come off. Now I have to tear out the drywall and replace that before putting up a tile backsplash and... AUGHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!

Before things got this far out of control in the kitchen, I knew I needed some impartial expert advice on what actually did and did not need to be done to the house in order to sell it. That is why I asked Connie, aka Ranty, if she would be interested in being my selling agent and if she would be willing to come over for a walk-through of Maison d'Afterglide so I could make a more sensible list of projects and save myself from further self-fisting. Our walk-through surprised me in more ways than one. She pointed out small items, and even a few major ones, that I never would have noticed or thought of on my own (it's really hard to see your house with fresh eyes when you've lived there for 8 years), and she also emphatically dissuaded me from doing other projects which I would have thought for certain needed to be done. Others were pretty standard, however. Clean up the huge-ass pile of branches in the back yard left over from last years storm. Power wash the siding and windows. De-clutter and stage the inside of the house to make it more attractive.

I ended up writing notes throughout the walk-through and coming up with a 116-item to-do spreadsheet, which I categorized into low, medium, and high priority, and will later add specific deadlines, estimated costs, and whether I will do them myself or hire a pro. So thank you to Connie for assisting in getting my shit wired. Now the question is whether the wiring will fray and short something out.

Google search referral of the day: SPREAD MENS ASS

I'm sorry you initially didn't find what you were looking for, dear searcher. I hope this makes up for it.

From my favorite metal blog, Deciblog:


*shakes head* Gary won't like this.

Click for full image.

Moblog: Holiday station at the corner of Cliff Rd and Nicols in Eagan. This same dragon is on both sides of the vehicle.

Update: I forgot to mention when I posted this that I was not the only person who had pulled into the parking lot with the sole purpose of taking a photo of this rolling wonder. Right after I parked haphazardly in front of the store, another car parked right around the corner of the building. The pair of teenagers inside were laughing when one of them stumbled out of the passenger side, barely able to maintain composure long enough to aim his cell phone at the car.

Moblog: Buffalo Wild Wings in Savage

After a bit of a breather, I started again on remodeling my kitchen. I've painted my cabinets (still need to seal them though) and am building shelves that are essentially shallow drawers that will roll out on slides from the pantry and a few other cabinets. I still need to sand it and paint it, but the beer cans helped hold down the shelf onto the moulding I'm using for side rails. And it only took me 4 hours to make one shelf!!!

Enjoying some wine at Rich and Jen's house a few weekends ago.


Photo courtesy Coco

Has a lonely robot found a friend at long last?

Earlier tonight I attended WCCO's Bloginar, where there was a panel discussion of sorts with 'CCO's Jason DeRusha and MinnPost's Eric Black. After the festivities, they gave away prizes. I won this towel imbued with the essence of Jason DeRusha (because I went to great lengths to quite literally wipe the towel on his person). I'm now wearing the towel as a diaper.

In the last couple of weeks, Ang and I noticed a commercial for a new line of snacks called True North. In the commercial is the one of the most ill-advised, easily misheard tag lines I've heard in quite some time. The voice-over on the commercial ends with the line "An extraordinary nut snack." As if that line isn't terrible enough, the speed at which the voice actor rattles off the phrase make it nearly indistinguishable from "an extraordinary nutsack." You cannot tell me this script went through multiple revisions, the voice-over recording went through countless takes, and the commercial was edited down to a perfect 15 seconds without SOMEONE snickering out loud. "Tee hee! It's sounds like he's saying 'an extraordinary NUTSACK!' BWAAHHH HAAA HAAAAAAAAA!!!!"

And I assure you that I am not the only one. Google the phrase "extraordinary nut snack" or "extraordinary nutsack" and you'll find people buzzing over this a.) marketing blunder or b.) marketing tour de force.



7/31/2008 UPDATE: Ang and I were watching tv last night and noticed they changed the slogan to "a truly extraordinary snack." Perhaps they were embarrassed by the internet buzz about their wicked nutsacks--er, snacks??

New girl walks into the break room and tries to get coffee from the industrial-sized stainless steel coffee urn.

New Girl: [very upset] I think this coffee maker is broken.

IT Coworker: Uh... no, I think it's just empty. You see that indicator on the front? That tells you how many cups are left.

New Girl: [crestfallen] Oh. Well, can you make more?

Ang as a kid


+ Ang as an adult



= ???

Click the image for full size view.

This started out as a simple intro to a different video then quickly spiraled out of control. I fear this will only get worse as I learn more.

Today I'd like to recognize a few milestones. First, Ang is 30 years old today. Happy birthday, cuddle-tits. Much love. [throws several awkward gang signs]. And a couple of days ago marked a year since she and I first met.

Today is also the 3rd anniversary of the first post on a blog that would soon come to be known as afterglide. At the time, I still didn't quite have a grasp on the possibilities of the whole blogging thing (I'm guessing some of you would argue that I still don't). And there's no way I could have foreseen the wonderful friends I've made online and off both directly and indirectly as a result of blogging. This includes meeting Ang.

So everyone, raise a glass, touch a boobie, or slap a wang in honor of the birthday girl, to friends, and to love. C'mon, you can do one of those things. I'm doing all three at once right this very second.

There are forgivable offenses in relationships. For example, when your girlfriend, likely extraordinarily excited and distracted by thoughts of her 30th birthday party that night, goes grocery shopping while you are out buying her a special birthday cake. Then two days later, you discover she did not buy toilet paper, you've run out, you haven't shit in those two days, and now you have to. Badly. What is a boy to do? Hold it. Hold it. Holllllld iiiit. Holidit! HOLLLLLLDIIIIIIIIIIT. Hold. It. MMMrrrrrrrraaaagghhh... I can't fucking take this anymore!! [unsheaths a shit sword the size of severed thoroughbred horse leg that breaks in two like the Titanic on the way down] And, hey! How about that. The toilet valve is broken and the tank is on the verge of overflowing. [turns water off]. I will fix that later. Much later. Right now, I'm getting in the shower to clean out my ass. Alrighty, turn the shower head to "External Enema" mode, and we're off to the races. Ahhhhhhhhh... Yeahhh, that's--AUGH! Is that a chunk of beef jerky that just fell out? Oh well, might as well take a full shower while I'm in here. Good stuff. Towel off, fill the tub with gasoline and burn the building to the ground. There. That tub is clean again.

Uh oh. I don't think I got it all out.

Actually her birthday isn't until Tuesday (the 15th), but tonight we're celebrating her 30th with friends. On Tuesday, I've made plans for just the two of us. Sushi will be involved. You can't go wrong with sushi, particularly in Ang's eyes. So happy motherfuckin' birfday, Ang! I can't tell you how wonderful it is to share this milestone with you. And get drunk. That's wonderful, too.

You didn't ask, but here is what I gave her for her birthday a couple weeks early. I had known for quite some time that my gift would involve this photo of her grandparents on their wedding day. She discovered it after her grandmother died this past spring, and it was clear that it meant a great deal to her. So I had an 11" x 11" canvas print of the photo made, then purchased an intricately detailed frame that I felt matched Ang's sense of style, painted it glossy black, matted the photo, and framed it. It now hangs prominently in her living room. I'm not trying to toot my own horn, but I think it's the best gift I've given to anyone in my entire life. I put a lot of thought, love, and sweat into it. Then again, Ang and her reaction were worth it. For serious and for true.

For the most part, MySpace has pretty much fallen off my radar lately. I follow a couple of blogs hosted there, and that's usually about it. Recently I posted an event invitation there just to cover my bases in reminding people to attend and checked out the other upcoming events. Plenty going on this coming week. See anything unusual* in the list?


*Not funny unusual, just unexpected.

Moblog: Ang's place

Moblog: Dairy Queen at 4th St and Earl in St Paul

Incident reconstruction animation. No sound available.

Moblog: MOA

Moblog: MOA

In the process of looking for an address in the Highland Park area of St Paul, I noticed a curious gap in Google's Street View coverage of that part of St Paul. You'll notice that nearby suburbs like Sunfish Lake don't have much coverage either, but zoom out farther, and all of St Paul is pretty well covered from block to block except Highland Park and other areas near the Ford Plant. I find it rather strange that in one of the two major cities comprising the urban metro area has such a huge gap, particularly in one of the more prominent neighborhoods of St Paul.


Also, I found this totally pimp ride:

Two additional Stall Two poop sludge scenarios suggested by readers. Both plausible but disgusting and very unlikely:

Shitter grabs his turd and flings it fu manchu style at the back of the bowl. If someone is willing to do that, I'm also guessing he'll refuse to wash his hands when he's done. And I guarantee he'll end up being one of those guys that likes to go around giving everyone inappropriate shoulder rubs and chin massages.


Similarly, the subject could grab his seeping log, kneel down in front of the throne, and press his squeezings firmly against the porcelain gardener style. Maybe a geranium will grow out of it. Pretty!


Have additional suggestions? Fire 'em over (sans turd).

First, you will notice that I am now capitalizing "Stall Two" because that particular bathroom stall, which has been the scene of countless ceramic homicides, has become a living, steaming entity. For a short time, all was quiet in Stall Two. The person we suspected of perpetrating the daily clutter of ass peanuts littering the toilet seat and floor left the company. And suddenly the ass peanuts were gone. Mystery solved. Lately, however, someone has been pressure washing the back of the toilet bowl with an inch thick layer of explosive adobe. Oh, and 90% of it sticks to the back of the bowl ABOVE the water line. Since this started happening around the time a few new people started, the list of suspects is short. Nonetheless, we must continue to hold ourselves to the high standards of the scientific method. Understand how the shitter thinks and operates, and you will catch the culprit.

So how does one superdook above the water line? Well, the most logical answer is that the shitter simply leans forward with their back parallel to the floor and unclenches their 8-inch wide leaf shutter, leaving the rear, upper portion of the bowl caked in the tears of a clown.


One can disprove other positions quite easily. One theory had the shitter bracing his torso with lengths of strong rope and unabashedly cleaning his grease trap. In this diagram, however, we can see that the shit, assuming it was of equally high pressure, would hurtle nearly straight into the air at the speed of sound.


"Ah," you say, "but if he were clever enough to rig up that rope contraption, couldn't he also have a steel deflector strapped to his back to redirect the fountains of shame back into the toilet?" Technically, this is possible, but balancing on the rope while carrying a deflector heavy enough to withstand a 500 psi stream of ass filling would require the abdominal strength of a highly trained gay French Canadian acrobat. We can discard that theory by referencing Occam's razor.


Another highly unlikely scenario -- though admittedly more likely than the shit deflector -- is the shitter filling a super soaker with rank poo and manually firing it against the topquarters of the bowl. Even discounting Occam's razor, this theory can be eliminated by remembering that this crap is still the consistency wet sand. The cuplrit would have to have biceps the size of a VW Rabbit to pump the super soaker full of enough pressure to get its contents to that kind of velocity. And that is assuming the toy-grade seams of the plastic squirt gun don't fail, leaving the poor prick covered in his own chocolate thunder. But, for the sake of science, here is how that scenario would look.


Addendum: 2 additional scenarios

by Teddy Baumgardner, age 4

i saw dadde polling on a snayk and the snayk wuz byting him wher his pee pee kumz owt. daddee kepped tring to poll that snayk off butt it woodent kum off!!! i dint noe wat it wuz at ferst. i sed daddee why r yoo polling on the snayk and he sed uh he bitted me wher my tinkle kumz owt son and uh I trie to git him off me and I sed oh! He must nottuv got it off kuz layter i saw mommee byitng the snyak and the snayk got mad an slappt her in the face an the snayk spitted on her mowth yukkky an the snayk stopt movin can i have apple juice ?

Pardon me, Miss. I know I've already bothered you a couple of times over the last few years, but I swear this will be the last favor I ask of you. I was just standing here behind you in line but whenever you move around, I can't help but catch whiffs of various odors emanating from your person. Not bad smells, mind you. But good smells. Like that wonderful floral shampoo you use and the ever-so-subtle perfume you've dabbed onto your neck. And by the way, thank you so much for not overwhelming my senses by bathing in your perfume by the gallon. But I thought I should check if you mind if I'm smelling those smells. Is that alright with you? I promise I won't say a word. I'll just smell you very quietly.

Also, would it be too much if I got down on my knees behind you and -- again, very quietly -- put my head up your skirt to sniff at your crotch? It's OK. My girlfriend is right here, and she says it's cool. I do apologize, however, for her not asking permission on the panty smelling thing before she got up in your cooter a moment ago. She's just a very eager and enthusiastic person. It's not so much that she likes smelling other women like that. She just likes to compare and contrast, then write lengthy essays to post on her Facebook profile. Me, I just like to smell for smelling's sake. What's that you say? You wish me to leave you alone? Oh, yes. Of course, of course. I didn't mean any disrespect. But before we part, I best check your oil. Yes... looks like you're full up to my wrist bones. You should be good for another thousand miles. I would have that muffler looked at though. Good day to you, Miss.

With a crucial cameo by Coco, Jen, and Ang.

I also posted this over at MNspeak, since that is the source of the original dancing Jason DeRusha animation, but here is what the 4th of July is all about. Fireworks and Dancin' DeRusha kicking ninjas in the nuts. Don't come back to work Monday too hungover now, hear?

"So, Coco suggested we have a 'video-off'. Like a dance off, but with videos."

"Oh? Um."

"Yeah. I made a comment on her fictional story about Francis Fencepickle saying, "SUCK IT UP TURDBURGLAR" so we decided to film us dressed in black, stealing turds from yards."

"You do know that 'turdburglar' is a bad euphemism for a gay man, right"?

"What? Are you kidding me? It doesn't make any sense."

"Yeah, I don't know. Something to do with poop, I suppose."

"Okay, but it's not like anyone is burgling turds. My mind is blown."

So, I looked it up on the internets. The Urban Dictionary also gives me a few alternate definitions:

1. an annoying person who rudely interrupts you while taking a dump by either knocking on the stall door or attempting to open it.

This is just the sort of thing I imagine Francis is capable of doing.

The act of trespassing into an anus and snatching one's turd in an unsuspecting manner.

Can you really trespass long enough to snatch a turd before someone discovers what you're up to, and puts a stop to it? I don't think so!

Even in my sleep-deprived state this morning, I found myself doing some mental math on the drive to work (I tend to try to do most simple math, like calculating the tip at a restaurant, in my head to keep my brain from withering). The question that popped into my head was, "How many ounces of jizz I've shot out since I bought my house?" Why pick the move-in date of my house? Who knows, though I have been thinking about the house a lot lately given my remodeling stint.

So let's say that spread out over the entire 8 years (well, technically 7 years, 11 months, but let's just tack on that extra month), including masturbation and the full spectrum of sexual activities with a partner, that I shot a load a couple times a day on average. This would include dry spells of a few days where I didn't have time to raise my flag, periods where I've been in a relationship and was sexually active but didn't wack it all that much, and also those years of long, boring weekends single and alone, painting the ceilings with thick eggshell (and don't forget the glossy enamel finish).

8 years x 365 days/year = 2,920 days

2,920 days x 2 angry yanks/day = 5,840 angry yanks

[admittedly this is where my estimation gets hazy, as I have never measured the volume of my espoogens, but lets say 1.2 tablespoons on average, or 0.6 fluid ounces]

5,820 angry yanks x 0.6 fluid ounces/angry yank = 3,492 fluid ounces

Let's break 3,492 fluid ounces (US fluid ounces, mind you) down into a few different measurements. And no, these I didn't do in my head. I would have had to drive all the way down to Iowa to have enough time to calculate these conversions in my head.

In England, you could have bellied up to the bar and ordered 181.7 steaming Imperial pints of my wazz.

In the United States, that's 218.3 of our weak-ass little tiny pints. Bitches be cheated!

You could have filled up your gas tank with 27.3 gallons of my thick and creamy swimmer salad. If I charged you $4 a gallon, I could have made $109! And your car would run like a rocket from Hell. Ladies, if it ever gets too expensive for you, stop by and I'll top off your face and rack for free.

And on the subject of fuel, I could have filled 0.65 petroleum barrels with sack sauce. Oh, and I tried so hard to fill it to the brim, too. [frowns for all]

According to the Bible, that would be 4.55 baths, 27.3 hins, and 327.4 logs (tee hee!)

You could have walked down to the local farmers' market and haggled for 2.9 bushel baskets full of freshly squeezed Minnesota Jeremy juice.

0.4 hogsheads. I probably couldn't fill it all the way because staring at that severed piggy head while I spanked away probably wilted my stiffy.

11.7 pecks of pecker juice!

Just testing some changes I made to our electronic signature system.