Mild Amusement

I have a friend who is a very good business analyst, and we naturally tease each other about whether or not the other one actually does any work  (note that the explanation for the post title is also in the linked blog post). It's a running joke between us, and neither one of us really means anything by it. The more time passes, though, the more I'm starting to think that the universe really is trying to mess with me as a result of some of this banter. You see, I fancy myself a software developer. That means that all of the skills I value are about solving technical problems. Sure, I understand full well that you need to actually solve problems for users otherwise no one will use your software; I've had conversations at work with people that included me saying, "sometimes you need less code, not more." Still, there are plenty of situations that require code. That's where I come in, and that's where I earn my paycheck. However, judging by my LinkedIn pr...

I was hanging out with a bunch of old friends, and an innocent comment about someone being a good wife kicked off a conversation about relationships in general. The initial premise was that this woman was a good wife because she was willing to watch sports with her husband, even though she didn't necessarily like sports quite as much as her husband. Inevitably, someone cracked a joke about how that must be nice, and he didn't know what that felt like. Soon enough, everyone was laughing, and everyone was chiming in with what they thought was a fair way to handle this particular situation. Suddenly, though, the conversation took a sharp left turn: seeing as how we were talking about relationships, someone decided to ask me for an update on my relationship status. Now, I generally don't go blabbing my business to everyone. I've said before that my life is an open book (er, tri-fold ) to just about anyone who asks, and I meant it. But that doesn't mean that I will vol...

Whenever the family and I go out, things are bound to get interesting. Most of the time, that's because my siblings and I will get creative with the banter . And when there are three people goofing off, parents tend to get in on the fun, too. All in all, it works out to a very interesting time. However, every now and again, someone else will manage to surprise us and inject some fun in to the evening. This is a story of one of those times. The family and I decided to go out to dinner, so we drove out to one of the nearby shopping areas to try out a new restaurant. There were jokes a-plenty, and a good time was had by all. It was more or less what I expected: a good time, but hardly worthy of a blog post. However, the night didn't end with dinner. For whatever reason, my brother remembered that he had to pick up a new pair of slacks. We happened to be within walking distance of a store that sold some, so we all moseyed on over to said store. My brother knew more or less what...

Remember how my friends seem to always think that waitresses are hitting on me and I think that it's all a fairly normal part of the dining experience? Apparently, the last time I wrote about it was not the last time when it would come up. Better yet, there's a new twist to the whole story worthy of quite a few laughs. To begin with, let's add in another couple of anecdotes to the story. I met up with a friend for drinks after work, and she happened to get there first. That meant that when I got there, the waitress had to take my drink order separately. I ordered a beer, and all was well in the world. A few minutes later, the same waitress came back and asked us if we wanted to order any appetizers. According to my friend, the waitress didn't look at her, and pretty much focused on me the whole time. I didn't really notice this, but my companion insisted that this was the case. The restaurant effect was back in play again, it seemed. Mind you, this was the ...