12 Angry Days of Birth

There are some moments when a cheap foam Hawaiian shirt and giant cup of java are enough to help a person regain some clarity and focus on the impending day.

Never challenge a personage big enough to reach all the push buttons to a fighting game that requires reaching and pushing all of those same River's Edge lip hue blue buttons within a short period of time.

Never mix wine with Yoo-Hoo, pink flavor. How does a color have a flavor, you ask? You'll know by the aftertaste. Or more precisely, how it tastes after you throw it all back up. On someone. Probably someone nice. Like that lady that brought the tasty pastries with the frosting that wasn't pink, more of a rouge color really, sort of ruddy like a sweaty diabetic in a cake walk competition. Sorry about your sweater.

Also, never mix Mai Tais with corn flakes near an openly flaming BBQ pit (the fire kind, not the discoteque kind) regardless to what Mr. Wizard said.

No. Wait. Got that wrong. Mr. Wizard did caution that breakfast cereal could be explosive. Another cautionary tale tragically misrecalled. Sorry about your so fine sofa. Not so fine anymore. Unless you count what the rental place will charge when you try to return that smoke damaged big screen television set. The one with the head in it. I didn't have a hand with that aspect, though.

LAMENT OF YELLOW IMAGING UNIT NEAR END OF LIFE

While trying to print a PLAYwrite email today, got this error message above. Promptly lodged a ticket with IT, as follows...

Issue: 7th floor south east phaser 7400DX won't print
Status: Request
Description: Entered on 07/08/2008 at 13:52:48

According to the pop up message where usually job status would appear, instead I'm seeing "Yellow Imaging Unit Near End of Line", haven't heard "End of Line" since Tron, but I digress. The message goes on to announce "Imaging Unit is Near the End of Its Life" which means better alert the Imaging Unit's grandkids in Toledo.

My print job is thus stuck somewhere on the back burner of this stalled machine, and I could use some help as I don't know how to resurrect Imaging Units or replace color cartridges which is another name for Imaging Units, or so my friend Copy Toner Unit tells me. Thanks!

IT replied:
Hi,I'll bring up a new toner right away.
Cheers, Larry

Followed up a moment later with:
correction make that imaging unit.

I love an IT department with a sense of humor! I sent this thread around to the usual culprits, and got some even funnier replies...

Jed replied:
I would had done something about the 5 faces of death, and how the printer seems to be stuck in denial. Which isn't particularly funny, but is a good use of 8th grade health class knowledge...

Eric replied:
We had an intervention back in February but South-E kept hitting the black toner pretty hard (nobody calls him by his full name except Mrs 7400DX). We all said it would kill him in the end, but he kept going through 4-5 cartridges a month, walkin around with his feed tray out, and just going through reams of paper of varying weights and sizes without any regard for their feelings.

Sad to see such a life fade, band, and then halt due to a physical toner dependency, but we are in the Downtown East side after all. Maybe if we’re lucky iTeam will patch him up, he’ll clean up his act after this close call, and we’ll see him printing 24 or Metro at the Skytrain station in a couple months.

Malcolm replied:
Hey! That's my line! ...

A pox on both your houses.Probably small, but given the context it was written in, pox is likely just a catch-all for contagious disease. The biggest problem I had is that I’m so used to hitting LT for targeting, because of Proto, that I kept accidentally wasting my special ammo.

I still have no idea what Malcolm was on about, but I'm sure it had something to do with pirates and dry patches.

12AI