Thursday, June 25, 2009

Nerd Word(s): The Tuck and Roll

The Tuck and Roll
- technique

1. Literally: A method of egress from a moving vehicle.
2. Figuratively: Dropping a friend off without turning the car off, and using a very quick stop.

[ Origin: Unknown. ]

- usage
1. I need to drop him off at his girlfriend's house. That woman scares me though, so I'm just giving him the tuck and roll.
2. That's a busy street. I can't just stop in the middle.
No worries man. I'll just tuck and roll.

My Partner in Crime

Part Four: The Heist

This is part four of a multi-part story. If you'd like to read the whole thing, click here and read from the bottom up.

Saturday morning Jo and I woke up and quickly set out in search of adventure. There was much to do, and the Jo-cathalon 2009 was already half over! The day would include the following activites(both planned and unplanned):
  • A trip to the Tempe Center for the Arts
  • Lunch at the Fatburger
  • Discussion of designer jeans with a store clerk(Jo discussed. I mostly just stood there looking like a lump on a log)
  • A walk by Tempe Town Lake
  • A picture(Or two) with a cactus for Jo
  • A Harley Davidson store visit for dad gifts
  • Scooter shopping
  • Dinner with Jo's friend Christine and my sister
Dinner finished up, and by nine we were back on the road to my house feeling both full and extremely tired from the day's events. I was out of planned events, and beginning to worry.

Is this the moment she finally figures out how lame I really am?

Just as the panic began to set in, it was Jo to the rescue.

"You know," she began with a bit of mischief in her voice, "We could go steal Dave's trophy and take pictures with it all over town."

If I had a ring with me, I might have considered proposing on the spot.

"You can print out the pictures and decorate Dave's office with them after I leave."

We grabbed the trophy and took a few pictures before calling it a night. Back at my house we took turns making each other laugh with ridiculous stories and even played a couple of games of wii bowling. The very first email I had ever sent Jo included a wii bowling challenge, so despite the fact that we were quite tired, at least one game had to be played.

The following morning Jo and I walked through downtown Phoenix taking pictures of Jo with the trophy in front of anything that seemed even remotely interesting. As we did, people would stare and ask questions.

"What's your trophy for?"

"Oh this?" Jo would say cooly and motion to the boxer on top of the trophy, "Boxing."

She's got a trophy. That means it has to be true, right?

"She's a feather weight" I'd add. "Best in her class."

After breakfast and a ton of photos, I reluctantly took Jo to catch her flight. When dropping people off at the airport, I normally give them the tuck-and-roll, but this was sort of a special occasion so I parked and walked her to the gate where we shared a goodbye hug and parted ways.

The next week Dave(AKA "The Safety Dance Developer") came to work to find his office very Jo-tastic. I even made a little slide show out of it so he'd never forget. I recommend pressing the "Full Screen" button for the full effect.

Special note for mom: If the video is all jittery, hit the pause button and wait for it to fully load. You can tell by the little red bar at the bottom.

My Partner in Crime

The Epilogue

Part four was supposed to be the ending to this story, but last week Jo and I had the following conversation via text(Because I'm afraid to talk to girls on the phone). I thought this made a fitting ending to the story.

For those wondering, yeah, I'm wordy in text messages too.


Me: I've had like 10 people ask me about me and you now. I didn't even know 10 people read my blog. Everyone wants to know how this story ends. I think you're the Sesquipedalis ringer

Jo: We need a better ending. Something with jazz hands.

Me: Next time I see you, I'll get drunk for the first time ever and hit on you. You can throw a drink in my face, plant a big kiss on my sister, and then I "Never heard from her again"
Either that, or we could drive to Vegas and get Married. I'm good either way.

Jo: You're on to something there. She's totally my type

Tuesday, June 23, 2009

Nerd Games: Hide and Go Trophy

If you've been keeping up with the blog for a while, you'll remember that back in March Sean and I threw the St. Patty's day party to end all St. Patty's day parties. If you don't remember, feel free to click here and read all about it.

The party was a huge success. There was beer pong, rock band, and boxing. I even took a little time out for some Photo-Bombing:

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I myself had no intention of participating in the boxing, but once I was challenged by a few women, my hands were tied. I'm pretty sure that I ended the night with the best record, but when it came down to it, everyone had been beaten by the most unlikely person.

My co-worker Dave(AKA "Valley D", AKA "The Safety Dance Developer") destroyed everyone in the ring. It's odd because Dave is basically the real life version of Shaggy from the Scooby-Doo cartoons. He's a peace loving hippie who's famous quote is, "It's cool man". Unfortunately for the rest of us, after he had downed a few beers and crawled in to the ring, it was not cool. It was very not cool, man.

DSC00428


The next day Valley D brought his trophy in to the office, and set it out for all to see. Sean and I decided that this was unacceptable and when Dave's back was turned, we stole it and hid it. Dave eventually found it, it mysteriously disappeared again. This soon turned in to a new way to pass the time at work, and I'd guess that at this point the trophy has spent more time lost than it has found.

Monday, June 15, 2009

My Partner in Crime

Part Three: The Arrival

This is part three of a multi-part story. If you'd like to read the whole thing, go here and read from the bottom up.

They say you don't get a second chance to make a first impression, and with that in mind I planned a little something extra for Jo's arrival. She had once given a very accurate description on her blog of what kind of man she was after(click here to read). I'm about as close to the description of starting center for the Phoenix Suns as I am to Jo's description of the perfect man, but a quick trip to Easley's costume shop would fix that.

Beard


While I found the costume amusing and knew that Jo would get the reference, what didn't occur to me until I arrived at the airport was that security wouldn't be in on the joke. At first the stares and pointing were amusing, but my mind quickly started imagining scenarios where I end up in a windowless room explaining why I'm dressed in a disguise as a South American. The last thing I needed was to be detained, so I wussed out and took the hat and beard off.

I still had about 10 minutes before Jo arrived, and the nerves quickly spiked to an all time high.

Would I recognize her? What if she was just kidding and isn't actually coming? What if she's actually a 300 pound dude? What was I thinking? Did I have the right time? Was I at the right terminal? What if...

And then she came out of the gate...

I'm really only afraid of three things in this world: Smart Girls, Funny Girls, and Pretty Girls. Jo happens to be all three. While my first instinct was to run and hide, I decided to stick it out.

I called out to her, and after a brief hello we were soon on the road to my house.

Jo had previously joked that after months of talking on the Internet, we'd find ourselves in person with nothing but uncomfortable silence, but fortunately that wasn't the case. In fact, it was almost dissapointing how not weird it was.

How can I blog normal? I can't do anything with "good"

We had dinner, and then stayed up late, talking and gossiping like two girls at a slumber party.

The next day we went to see my one true love in the world: Steve Nash. Despite not being an NBA fan, Jo was a good sport. She even wore the Nash jersey I had bought for her and cheered for the Suns.

IMG_1661


After the game we met Mory and her boyfriend Anew on the West side for a late night snack. Miranda is always a good judge of character, so I often find myself deferring to her opinions. She has a way of pointing out things that I never would have noticed. I also figured that after hanging out with me for a day straight it was time to call in some backup to keep Jo entertained. It had only been 24 hours, I couldn't let her figure out how lame I really am. Not yet anyhow. With a little help from my sis, I could keep the illusion up a little longer.

Jo and Mory immediately hit it off. Jo even invited Mo out on Saturday for our dinner plans. We got home late, and stayed up even later gabbing again. Later in the night I would receive a text message from Miranda.

I like her. She's fun


Monday, June 08, 2009

My Partner in Crime

Part Two: The Realization

When we last left our hero, he was happier than Kirstie Alley after Luby's opened an all you can eat buffet near her house. His current e-crush Jo had recently agreed not just to meet him, but to stay with him for an entire weekend. It was like Christmas in April, and his mind was naturally racing. We now return to this week's episode already in progress

"Wait wait wait. The redhead? The one you showed me the picture of?" my sister attempted to make sense of my ramblings from the other side of the phone.

It was too early in the morning for a real explanation, but I had to talk about it with someone. The only person in the office at this hour was Liang, and I just wasn't ready for that yet.

"Yes, that one. Jo."

"Oh. No, she's too hot to even be talking to you. You sure this isn't just some elaborate set up to steal your crap?"

"Well. I mean... no. But it seems like a lot of effort for a couple of video game consoles and a bean bag."

"I tell you what. If I don't hear from you by Sunday I'll head on over, untie you from the bed, and take the ball gag out of your mouth."

In my family, we show we care by making fun of each other. Right now Miranda was caring a lot.

She continued her support, "Let's assume for a second that this turns out to be legit, and this girl actually wants to hang out with you. What the hell are you going to do with a cute, smart, funny girl for four days?"

Shit

I hadn't really thought this through. Much like a one handed Luke hanging from cloud city, I quickly realized that a little more planning was in order. Luckily for me, I realized it before it was too late.

I figured if I hadn't scared the girl off yet, it was time to up the ante. I soon had a to do list of considerable size that included the following:
1. Purchase two Sun's tickets.
2. Clean the car.
3. Get a fake, grey beard.
4. Make a dinner reservation for that Saturday at a place in north Scottsdale.
5. Clean the house.
6. Purchase one sombrero.
7. Purchase one child's large size Steve Nash jersey.

Two weeks later the date had arrived. I found myself driving towards the airport to pick Jo up. Internally I was a wreck, but on the outside I did my best to keep it cool.

Thursday, June 04, 2009

Chair Building

Back in August of last year I made a silly video about a chair. That story can be found here.

Well, last night my friend Adam suggested I submit it to iReport. They were looking for Tetris related content for the 25th anniversary of Tetris. I followed Adam's advice, and awoke to an email from someone at turner.com.

My video was tagged with an "On CNN" mark, and I later found it here on the cnn video site:

http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/ireports/2009/06/04/irpt.tetris.chair.build.cnn

I haven't gotten any other feedback from them, so I don't know if it's airing on TV or not. I find the whole thing fairly amusing, because without any explanation the video makes no sense. Hell, it makes no sense even with explanation.

Wednesday, June 03, 2009

The results are in!

You'll have to forgive me a bit for dragging my feet on determining a winner to the free lunch contest. The past few weeks have been a bit hectic, and just as I went to finish this off, my laptop died. For me that's a kick in the junk the size of which you wouldn't believe.

Just like last year, we'll take a look at the guesses before we get to the answer:

$41.38 - Exzavier
$65.87 - Anna
$68.43 - Servant
$83.17 - Dave
$87.53 - Ghedoicy
$95.96 - TR
$104.00 - Matt
$110.50 - Liang
$111.38 - Motz
$111.69 - Nikki
$122.12 - Miranda
$136.00 - Jo
$141.67 - Adam
$152.37 - Jesse
$158.00 - Megan
$169.69 - Beadle
$191.43 - Rose
$202.00 - Andrew
$212.00 - Stacy

And the grand total was....
$140.13

Just like I predicted, a cute girl who is in to short nerds won it all. Everyone congratulate Adam on his win. I'll get with you later on how we manage to get you a free lunch from 5600 miles away(That's 9100 Kilometers for you Adam).

One

A black Jetta pulled up outside my house and I jumped in without a moment's hesitation. Hopping in a near stranger's car didn't...