Joey Gibson’s Blog

I love Dilbert, but some are better than others. This one is great.

I’ve worked in companies with managers who want status updates on status updates.

I’ve been a fan of the show 24 for a few years now. This video is hilarious.

… but it does.

Last night I dined at my absolute favorite restaurant, Lavender Asian Bistro, where I had my usual meal of Thai spring rolls and unbelievably good Szechuan beef. After the meal, I cracked open my fortune cookie to find this

which made me chuckle.

I’ve been a happy customer of DirecTV for about six years now. Even though my DirecTV Tivo knock-off DVR went completely pear-shaped on us and we had to replace it, I’m still a happy customer.

The phone rang last night, and the caller-id just said “800 Number”. I answered and was greeted by a recording of a chipper woman saying, “Hello! This is Diane calling from DirecTV. This is not a sales call. If you are responsible for making decisions about your DirecTV account, please press 1.” I figured it was a follow-up to my service call that had resulted in replacing my DVR, so I pressed 1. I don’t remember the exact wording of what came next, but here’s a paraphrase

You are currently on our “Do Not Call” list. From time to time, we would like to contact you with “special offers” from DirecTV, but since you are on our “Do Not Call” list, we can’t call you. Would you like to be removed from our “Do Not Call” list so we can call you about these offers? If you would like to be removed from our “Do Not Call” list, press 1, now.

I just hung up.

Do you believe that? They called to tell us that they can’t call us, and would we like to let them call us sometime? I don’t think so.

After I hung up, it occurred to me that I probably didn’t hear all of the recording. It probably ended like this

… If you would like to be removed from our “Do Not Call” list, press 1, now.
…pause…
…pause…
…pause…
…pause…
or you can just hang up to be removed from our “Do Not Call” list. If you really want to stay on our “Do Not Call” list, you must press 6-5-1-2-6-3-4-5-#-#-# now.

I was at Borders the other day, and I happened to see a book called Learn the Bible in 24 Hours. Yeah, I’m sure that’s possible.

Anyway, I was discussing it with my friend Fred and we started coming up with other funny “learn the Bible” book titles, such as

• The Bible for Dummies, Evangelical Edition: The Book of Romans, Throw the Rest Away
• The Jehovah’s Witness Edition: It’s All About John 1:1c
• The Mormon Edition: Read the Sequel
• The Catholic Edition: All Your Saint Are Belong To Us
• The Muslim Edition: The Bible, That Work of Fiction by Jews and Christians

I especially like the Catholic one, of course, that was one that I came up with…

If you don’t like things that mix religion and humor, then don’t watch the video below. If you do have a sense of humor, then press on. It’s hilarious.

Someone has finally come up with the answer to Q vs. Markan Priority regarding the Synoptic Gospels. Are you ready for it? Here it is.

Well, I thought it was funny…

Avast! Today be “Talk Like a Pirate” day and it almost slipped me ol’ mind. Arrrr!

Tonight we were doing my son’s Bible homework. This involved my reading a scripture passage and them having him answer some questions about it. The scripture in question was Acts 3.

I couldn’t help but laugh. He wasn’t amused because he thought I was laughing at him, but I was able to convince him that I wasn’t.

My 7 year old son’s favorite GameCube game right now is Lego Star Wars. Yep, a video game of the Star Wars prequel trilogy, with everything made of Lego blocks. It’s quite cute and fun and he loves it. Anyway, he discovered a few weeks ago that if you control any of the Storm Trooper characters, move him to the window inside Dexter’s Diner and try to slowly walk through the glass, the movement looks like a funny little dance. So funny, in fact, that we cackle like hyaenas whenever he does it.

The other night I brought my digital camera down and filmed a few seconds of one of these dancing troopers. Click on the trooper image to see it. You’ll need QuickTime or something that can play that format. YMMV, but I thought it was quite funny.

For lunch today I had a frozen entr

Everyone knows that 666 is, according to the Bible, the number of the beast. But this list of other numbers of the beast cracked me up.

My favorites

• $769.95 — Price of the Beast with all accessories and replacement soul
• DSM-666 (revised) — Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of the Beast
• 668 — Next-door neighbor of the Beast
• 333 — The semi-Christ

So the other night we were finishing up the decking of the halls here at Chez Gibson when my seven-year-old son Thomas asked the following question

Mom, when are we gonna get out that thing? You know… the thing with the Jesus action figures?

He meant our Nativity scene…

I was half asleep in my luxurious leather chair when he said it, but I did hear it. I got a good chuckle out of that because he meant it so seriously and honestly.

Tuesday night my wife, son and I were coming home from a lovely dinner out. I was talking about stuff going on at work when Thomas (my wonderful 7-year-old boy) began the following conversation with me. (I’ve changed some of the names.)

I just love how simple his world view is at this point.

I have news.google.com as my browser start page, and this morning I saw something funny. Unfortunately the humor was contained in the blurb of a story about the death of Rosa Parks. The humor came in because when Google pulled the story from the Indianapolis Star, the text of an advertisement got munged into the story. Check out this screen shot to see for yourself. (I highlighted the ad in yellow.)

My Unitarian Jihad Name is: Brother Nunchuku of Sweet Reason.

Get yours.

Go read Unitarian Jihad first. Once you have stopped laughing, then go get your name.

We went to a wedding last night not too far from where we live. It was supposed to be an outdoor wedding, but the weather being mighty blustery, it got moved indoors. It was held at the groom’s parents’ home, which was a fairly large house. Until you cram 150 people into it. We were told by the bride’s mother, our neighbor, that 150 people were expected to come, and I have to say, I believe they all showed up, bringing additional friends with them.

Anyway, so there we are, crammed in like sardines into this very lovely home when the wedding proper began. The only music they had was a lone fiddler who was quite good. He began playing and the wedding party starts processing to the lovely antique arbor they had setup in the living room for the vows. Just as the bride comes down the stairs, I realize what the fiddler is playing. It’s a gorgeous tune, but the name and sentiment are what make it an odd choice. The tune? “Neil Gow’s Lament for the Death of this Second Wife” (emphasis mine). Now, I absolutely love that tune. It’s a beautiful slow air that brings tears to your eyes. I can play it on the low whistle and mandolin (not at the same time, of course) and each imparts it’s own beauty. But where it is most at home is on the fiddle. This makes since because Gow was a fiddler. The only recording I’ve heard of this is by Dougie MacLean on his Tribute record. Dougie really knows how to coax the beauty out of that tune on the fiddle. I’m listening to him play it now. Ahh…

That’s great. I love it.