Dead Programmer's Cafe

Month: December 2003

  • But Is It Kosher for Passover? or Only In Brooklyn

  • TT : Thought Tally : Dude, Where’s My Biochemistry Degree? or Kinky Crew Superstar

    is going to like this. As I learned from TV Guide Magazine, Ashton Kutcher majored in Biochemistry.

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    According to one of the most annoying things a customer can do at the checkout line is to say “He heh. I guess it must be free” when the scanner beeps and refuses to scan the code. See, I could never come up with that stupid and apparently common joke. A Null is not a zero.

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    This kind of reminded me about a dude who was playing an electronic one arm bandit in Moscow when the machine crashed with 999999 rubles in the payout window. He stayed at the gaming parlor for days guarding the machine, but in the end the machine was rebooted and he wasn’t given any money. Or so I heard.

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    Coca cola definitely tastes better when it’s sold in those glass bottles. You know the ones that are probably based on the shape of the cacao pod (which was mistaken for the kola nut by the designer or something). They still make those in Mexico and sometimes they are sold in a few bodegas in NYC. I always thought it tasted better because of the glass, but finally found out the true reason:

    “She told me that they were bottled in Mexico and I nodded since I already knew that and said, “I think it is because they use real sugar.”
    She shook her head, “No, no, not the sugar. It’s the water.”
    She leaned in like she was telling me a secret, “Mexican water is the BEST water in the entire world.”
    Just then a smaller woman leaned in beside her grinning with a single eyebrow raised and whispered.
    “It’s MAGIC water!”

    Apparently it is not Montezuma’s revenge that assails unsuspecting tourists, but the magic waters that sour in the bellies of the unimaginative, somewhere South of the border.”

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    Many big corporations in order to retain employees use powerful “cult team building” techniques. One thing that I noticed is that worker ants usually have very peculiar job titles. For instance at Kinko’s the official title is “Co-worker”. At McDonald’s – “Crew Member”. From Gig I learned that Kinko employees unofficially use “Kinkoid” instead of “Co-worker”. And from an lj user in I learned that a McDonalds crew member who has formidable years of experience, but isn’t a manager is called “Crew Superstar”. I guess it’s kind of like “Research Fellow” at Microsoft :)

  • Ach! Bonjurrrrrrrrr! Ya Call That Onion Soup Ya Cheese Eating Surrender Monkeys?

    My wife’s parents’ friends visited France. One of their huge disappointments was the French Onion Soup. They went into an expensive restaurant and ordered the soup. After the first taste they called a waiter (who apparently spoke English) and asked if he was sure that it was the famous French Onion Soup. After being assured that it was the classic, traditional onion soup prepared by a chef with many years of experience they were very disappointed. They told the waiter about an Irish tavern in Brooklyn that serves French Onion Soup that tastes ten times better than what they were brought. Like dish water the French version tasted, they said.

    I’ve had the onion soup at Buckley’s, and I’ve got to tell you that it’s very, very tasty.

  • Unrussian Profession or Dig Me My Grave Long Wide and Deep

    Thanks to a recommendation from I bought “Gig: Americans Talk About Their Jobs“. It’s really a tribute to an older book called “Working: People Talk About What They Do All Day and How They Feel About What They Do”.

    Gig consists of monologues of a wide cross section of working people. There’s a porn star, a software developer, prison guard, a prisoner (don’t know if that’s technically a job), an air force general, a high school teacher, a journalist and enough representatives of other professions to make a thousand “x y and z walk into a bar” jokes.

    My favorite little story was about a single mom who had a gig as a psychological warfare specialist. She ended up getting my dream job when an Army recruiter asked her about her specialization preference. Since “spy” was not an option she took the next best thing.
    Modern psywarriors, like this girl, sometimes hail from rather somewhat rural places, so they get a lot of multicultural sensitivity training. One point brought home to them is that it is very important to never refuse native food or drink that is offered to them by friendlies, even if it’s gross. In training they even have a mock dinner during which they have to down “weird” drinks and eat “weird” food. That training kind of came in handy to our protagonist, as she was offered “gruel goat” meal in Africa which you had to eat with your hands. She handled that well.

    Turkish coffee turned out to be a stumbling block for her : ” … Turkish coffee. It’s got like a half an inch of grounds on the bottom. Well, I didn’t know if I was supposed to eat the grounds or not …”

    What to do, what to do? Of course she decided to ask one of the guys. Guess what kind of advice he gave her. Riiight. I’d do the same thing.

    Anyway, you can read her story here tanks to the guy at Amazon who sneaked full text search past the lawyers.

    touched upon the most fascinating topic of what professions “Russian” immigrants never choose. Police officer appeared rather often on the list of professions suggested by her readers. Well, a guy who’s desk was right next to mine in a High School pre-calculus class finished the Police Academy here in New York. I am not sure if he actually became a cop though.

    One story that he told me was kind of funny (I can’t judge it’s truthfulness though) . He smokes a lot. And once he was caught smoking right next to what he described as an “ammo dump”. The instructor who caught him came up with a creative punishment. My friend was forced to dig a proper human size grave and then bury the cigarette butt in it. Yeah, being an NYPD cadet is tough.

    Another “Russian” classmate of mine became a US Marine. I wonder where he is right now. “Semper Fi” means the same thing even with a Russian accent. Yeah. By the way, the motto of NYPD is “Fidelis Ad Mortem”.