Seen, Heard, Said

While I don’t live in New York, nor have I ever been east of the Rockies, this is still very humorous and most of these definitions could be used in Seattle…especially Crappacino and Patagroupie. Enjoy!

From: http://www.themorningnews.org/archives/new_york_new_york/guide_to_new_york_jargon.php

You’re probably familiar with ‘Fugget about it,’ ‘Assa matta pa you,’ or the timeless ‘Fuck Off.’ But the Editors felt it was time to update New York’s jargon, and have compiled a list for the contemporary dweller

Babel Whore (noun): A person who intersperses their anecdotes with phrases from another language, though he or she doesn’t speak that language. E.g., ‘Mike and I saw the new Woody Allen movie, which was, you know, comme ci, comme ça…’

Barbore (noun): A man or woman, often found on the Upper East Side, that a) wears a Barbour rain coat, and b) can only talk about their work in the financial sector.

Big Mama’d (adjective): Being slowed on your exit from the subway by a large woman in front of you having trouble on the stairs.

Bust-bust (verb): To be reprimanded by your partner for staring at passing breasts.

Buttcrack (noun): The last remaining seat on a subway bench during rush hour that you will occupy – at any cost.

Crappacino (noun): A coffee beverage that you spill on your pants or shirt five minutes before an important interview.

Dandystriper (noun): Men wearing Prada shoes or sandals with red stripes on the rear of the soles.

Deliglare (noun): What you get when you draw a blank after being asked for your order in a deli line.

Derelicked (verb): Being persuaded by a bum to pay a dollar for a kiss.

Ejectile Vomiting (noun): A type of illness that results in your being kicked out of a cab after soiling the footwell.

Goodwill Hunting (verb): Looking for the one, mythical thrift store in the tri-state area that hasn’t jacked up its prices in anticipation of city folks searching for vintage fashion.

Limoscene (noun): Outside the front door of Moomba at three a.m. on a Saturday.

Main-lawn (verb): What heroin addicts do in Central Park.

Metrotard (noun): A person in front of you at the subway turnstile who can’t figure out how to swipe his or her subway pass. Also: A person who tries to use a Metrocard to withdraw money from an ATM.

Patagroupie (noun): A city-dweller who wears mountaineering clothing for doing laundry or grocery shopping. See also: Patagucci: The same person, equipped with Gucci or Vuitton accessories.

Rag-hag (noun): A person whose kitchen or bathroom is outfitted entirely by Williams Sonoma, Ralph Lauren, or Pottery Barn. See also: Bag-hag: Person with multiple totes meant for the same purpose.

Remnick (verb): To claim an anecdote is out-of-bounds for group conversation, based on two or more people having read said anecdote in this week’s New Yorker. E.g., ‘Did you read that in the New Yorker?’ ‘Yeah. You did too?’ ‘Yup. Oh well, this conversation’s remnicked. See also: To Samelane (verb) a movie is to offer the same opinion on the film as New Yorker film critic Anthony Lane; To Pee B.S. (verb) is to retell a PBS episode without referring to the episode in question.

Safetypelt (noun): A faux fur coat worn by rich women for fear the real deal will be stolen or attacked by animal-rights activists.

Sevgala (noun): Any party attended by Chloe Sevigny, or DJ’d by her brother Paul. E.g., ‘Oh great, another sevgala.’

Stoopified (adjective): The feeling you have after being glared at for walking on the sidewalk that your neighbors have converted into their own personal patio.

Thug-muffin (noun): A child wearing a North Face puffa jacket, carpenter jeans, and Timberlands. See also: Corn-muffin: An attractive tourist from the Midwest.

Tiffed (adjective): Feeling miserable about your life and future prospects after walking past the Tiffany’s display windows.

Tunnel-neck (verb): The act of peering down a subway tunnel to see if your train is coming.

Twenty-somethings (noun): People who, when it’s time to pay for dinner, have nothing smaller than a twenty-dollar bill.

Velcrophilia (noun): A condition you can claim if you spent all your money on dot-com clothes in ’98 and now can’t afford a new pair of jeans.

Wienerwash (noun): The tub of warm water that hot-dog vendors use to store frankfurters.

Window-washed (adjective): The feeling of being conned after trying on an ill-fitting shirt at home that you rashly purchased after seeing it in a window display.

Wonderbrawn (noun): Men with chest implants.

Understanding Engineers

Example One: Two engineering students crossing the campus when one said, "Where did you get such a great bike?" The second engineer replied, "Well, I was walking along yesterday minding my own business when a beautiful woman rode up on this bike. She threw the bike to the ground, took off all her clothes and said, "Take what you want." "The second engineer nodded approvingly, "Good choice; the clothes probably wouldn’t have fit."

Example Two: To the optimist, the glass is half full. To the pessimist, the glass is half empty. To the engineer, the glass is twice as big as it needs to be.

Example Three: A pastor, a doctor and an engineer were waiting one morning for a particularly slow group of golfers. The engineer fumed, "What’s with these guys? We must have been waiting for 15 minutes!" The doctor chimed in, "I don’t know, but I’ve never seen such ineptitude!" The pastor said, "Hey, here comes the greens keeper. Let’s have a word with him." "Hi George! Say, what’s with that group ahead of us? They’re rather slow, aren’t they?" The greens keeper replied, "Oh, yes, that’s a group of blind firefighters. They lost their sight saving our clubhouse from a fire last year, so we always let them play for free anytime." The group was silent for a moment. The pastor said," That’s so sad. I think I will say a special prayer for them tonight." The doctor said, "Good idea. And I’m going to contact my ophthalmologist buddy and see if there’s anything he can do for them." The engineer said, "Why can’t these guys play at night?"

Example Four: What is the difference between Mechanical Engineers and Civil Engineers? Mechanical Engineers build weapons and Civil Engineers build targets.

Example Five: The graduate with a Science degree asks, "Why does it work?" The graduate with an Engineering degree asks, "How does it work?" The graduate with an Accounting degree asks, "How much will it cost?" The graduate with a Liberal Arts degree asks, "Do you want fries with that?"

Example Six: Three engineering students were gathered together discussing the possible designers of the human body. One said, "It was a mechanical engineer. Just look at all the joints." Another said, "No, it was an electrical engineer. The nervous system has many thousands of electrical connections. " The last one said, "Actually it was a civil engineer. Who else would run a toxic waste pipeline through a recreational area?"

Example Seven: "Normal people … believe that if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. Engineers believe that if it ain’t broke, it doesn’t have enough features yet."

From: an email, unknown origins.

The U.S. government has a new website, Ready.gov. It’s another attempt at scare mongering in the style of the old “duck and cover” advice after WWII.The fun thing is that these pictures are so ambiguous they could mean anything! Here are a few interpretations:

If you have set yourself on fire, do not run.

If you spot terrorism, blow your anti-terrorism whistle. If you are Vin Diesel, yell really loud.

If you spot a terrorist arrow, pin it against the wall with your shoulder.

If you are sprayed with an unknown substance, stand and think about it instead of seeing a doctor.

Use your flashlight to lift the walls right off of you!

The proper way to eliminate smallpox is to wash with soap, water and at least one (1) armless hand.

Michael Jackson is a terrorist. If you spot this smooth criminal with dead, dead eyes, run the fuck away.

Hurricanes, animal corpses and the biohazard symbol have a lot in common. Think about it.

Be on the lookout for terrorists with pinkeye and leprosy. Also, they tend to rub their hands together manically.

If a door is closed, karate chop it open.

If your building collapses, give yourself a blowjob while waiting to be rescued.

Try to absorb as much of the radiation as possible with your groin region. After 5 minutes and 12 seconds, however, you may become sterile.

After exposure to radiation it is important to consider that you may have mutated to gigantic dimensions: watch your head.

If you’ve become a radiation mutant with a deformed hand, remember to close the window. No one wants to see that shit.

If you hear the Backstreet Boys, Michael Bolton or Yanni on the radio, cower in the corner or run like hell.

If your lungs and stomach start talking, stand with your arms akimbo until they stop.

If you are trapped under falling debris, conserve oxygen by not farting.

If you lose a contact lens during a chemical attack, do not stop to look for it.

Do not drive a station wagon if a power pole is protruding from the hood.

A one-inch thick piece of plywood should be sufficient protection against radiation.

Always remember to carry food with you during a terrorist attack. At least you’ll be able to enjoy a nice coke and apple before you die.

List of company name etymologies:

This is a list of company names with their name origins explained. Some
origins are disputed.

• Adobe – came from name of
  the river Adobe Creek that ran behind the house of founder John Warnock.

• Apache –
  It got its name because its founders got started by applying patches to code
  written for NCSA’s httpd daemon. The result was ‘A PAtCHy’ server — thus, the
  name Apache.
• Apple – favourite fruit of
  founder Steve Jobs. He was three months late in filing a name for the business,
  and he threatened to call his company Apple Computers if his colleagues didn’t
  suggest a better name by 5pm. Apple’s Macintosh is named after a popular variety
  of apple sold in the US.
• Canon – from Kwanon the
  Buddhist god of mercy. The name was changed to Canon to avoid offending
  religious groups.

• Casio – from the name of its founder,
  Kashio Tadao who had set up the company Kashio Seisakujo as a subcontractor
  factory.
• Cisco – its not an
  acronymn but its the short for San Francisco.

• Compaq – using Comp, for computer, and
  paq to denote a small integral object.
• Corel – from the founder’s name Dr.
  Michael Cowpland. It stands for COwpland
  REsearch Laboratory.

• Daewoo – the company founder Kim Woo
  Chong called it Daewoo which means "Great Universe" in Korean.

• Exxon – a name contrived by Esso
  (Standard Oil of New Jersey) in the early 70s to create a neutral but
  distinctive label for the company. Within days of announcement of the name,
  Exxon was being called the "double cross company " but this eventually subsided.
• Fuji – from the highest Japanese mountain
  Mount Fuji

• Google – the name started as a jokey
  boast about the amount of information the search-engine would be able to search.
  It was originally named ‘Googol’, a word for the number represented by 1
  followed by 100 zeros. After founders – Stanford grad students Sergey Brin and
  Larry Page presented their project to an angel investor, they received a cheque
  made out to ‘Google’ !
• Haier – Chinese 海尔
• HP – Bill Hewlett and Dave
  Packard tossed a coin to decide whether the company they founded would be called
  Hewlett-Packard or Packard-Hewlett.
• Hitachi – stands for "sunrise" in
  Japanese.
• Honda – from the name of its founder,
  Soichiro Honda

• Honeywell – from the name of
  Mark Honeywell founder of Honeywell Heating Specialty Co. It later merged with
  Minneapolis Heat Regulator Company and was finally called Honeywell Inc. in
  1963.
• Hotmail – Founder Jack Smith got the
  idea of accessing e-mail via the web from a computer anywhere in the world. When
  Sabeer Bhatia came up with the business plan for the mail service, he tried all
  kinds of names ending in ‘mail’ and finally settled for hotmail as it included
  the letters "html" – the markup language used to write web pages. It was
  initially referred to as HoTMaiL with selective upper casing.

• Hyundai – means "present time" in
  Korean.
• IBM – started by an ex employee of National
  Cash Register. To one-up them in all respects he called his company
  International Business Machines.

• Intel – Bob Noyce and Gordon Moore
  wanted to name their new company ‘Moore Noyce’ but that was already trademarked
  by a hotel chain, so they had to settle for an acronym of
  INTegrated ELectronics.
• Kawasaki – from the name of its
  founder, Shozo Kawasaki

• Kodak – Both the Kodak camera
  and the name were the invention of founder George Eastman. The letter "K" was a
  favourite with Eastman; he felt it a strong and incisive letter. He tried out
  various combinations of words starting and ending with "K". He saw three
  advantages in the name. It had the merits of a trademark word, would not be
  mis-pronounced and the name did not resemble anything in the art. There is a
  misconception that the name was chosen because of its similarity to the sound
  produced by the shutter of the camera.

• Konica – it was earlier known as
  Konishiroku Kogaku. Konishiroku in turn is the
  short for Konishiya Rokubeiten which was the
  first name of the company established by Rokusaburo Sugiura in the 1850s.

• LG – combination of two popular Korean brands
  Lucky and Goldstar.
• Lotus – Mitch Kapor got the
  name for his company from ‘The Lotus Position’ or ‘Padmasana’. Kapor used to be
  a teacher of Transcendental Meditation technique as taught by Maharishi Mahesh
  Yogi.
• Microsoft – coined by Bill Gates
  to represent the company that was devoted to MICROcomputer SOFTware. Originally
  christened Micro-Soft, the ‘-‘ was removed later on.

• Mitsubishi – name coined by
  founder Yataro Iwasaki in 1870. It means "three diamonds" in Japanese. The three
  diamonds also make up the company’s logo.
• Motorola – Founder Paul Galvin
  came up with this name when his company started manufacturing radios for carss.
  Many audio equiptment makers of the era used the "ola" ending for their
  products, most famously the "Victrola" phonograph made by the Victor Talking
  Machine Company.

• Mozilla Foundation –
  From the name of the web-browser that succeeded Netscape Navigator. When Marc
  Andreesen, founder of Netscape,
  created a browser to replace the Mosaic browser, it was internally named Mozilla
  (Mosaic-Killer, Godzilla).

• Nabisco – Formerly The National
  Biscuit Company, changed in 1971 to Nabisco.
• Nikon – the original name was
  Nippon Kogaku, meaning "Japanese Optical".

• Nintendo – Nintendo is composed of
  3 Japanese Kanji characters, Nin-ten-do which can be translated to "Heaven
  blesses hard work"

• Nissan – the company was earlier known
  by the name Nichon Sangio which means
  "Japanese industry".
• Nokia – started as a wood-pulp mill, the
  company expanded into producing rubber products in the Finnish city of Nokia.
  The company later adopted the city’s name.

• Novell – Novell, Inc. was
  earlier Novell Data Systems co-founded by George Canova. The name was suggested
  by George’s wife who mistakenly thought that "Novell" meant "new" in French.

• Oracle – Larry Ellison
  and Bob Oats were working on a consulting project for the CIA (Central
  Intelligence Agency). The code name for the project was called Oracle (the CIA
  saw this as the system to give answers to all questions or some such). The
  project was designed to help use the newly written SQL database language from
  IBM. The project eventually was terminated but Larry and Bob decided to finish
  what they started and bring it to the world. They kept the name Oracle and
  created the RDBMS engine. Later they kept the same name for the company.
• Red Hat – Company founder Marc
  Ewing was given the Cornell lacrosse team cap (with red and white stripes) while
  at college by his grandfather. People would turn to him to solve their problems,
  and he was referred to as ‘that guy in the red hat’. He lost the cap and had to
  search for it desperately. The manual of the beta version of Red Hat Linux had
  an appeal to readers to return his Red Hat if found by anyone.
• Sanyo – The Japanese translation is disputed,
  although the Chinese name is "三洋" (literally, "Three Oceans")

• SAP – "Systems, Applications,
  Productss in Data Processing", formed by 4 ex-IBM employees who used to work in
  the ‘Systems/Applications/Projects’ group of IBM.

• SCO – from Santa Cruz
  Operation. The company’s office was in Santa Cruz, California. It became the
  eventually licensor for Unix (via Unix Systems Labs and then Novell), and
  eventually went bankrupt. The assets were purchased by Caldera Inc (itself a
  spin off of Novell) and Caldera changed its own name back to SCO. It is this SCO
  which has sued IBM and others, asserting its ownership of the copyright to Unix
  source code.
• Siemens – founded in 1847 by
  Werner von Siemens.
• Sony – from the Latin word ‘sonus’ meaning
  sound, and ‘sonny’ a slang used by Americans to refer to a bright youngster.
• Subaru – from the Japanese name for
  the star cluster known to Westerners as Pleiades or the Seven Sisters. This star
  cluster features on the company’s logo.

• SUN – founded by 4 Stanford
  University buddies, SUN is the acronym for Stanford University Network.
• Suzuki – from the name of its founder,
  Michio Suzuki

• Tesco – Founder Jack Cohen, who from
  1919 sold groceries in the markets of the London East End, acquired a large
  shipment of tea from T. E. Stockwell and made new labels by using the first
  three letters of the supplier’s name and the first two letters of his surname
  forming the word "TESCO".
• Toshiba – was founded by the merger
  of consumer goods company Tokyo Denki (Tokyo Electric Co) and
  electrical firm Shibaura Seisaku-sho (Shibaura Engineering
  Works).

• Toyota – from the founder’s name
  Sakichi Toyoda. Initially called Toyeda, it was changed after a contest for a
  better-sounding name. The new name was written in eight Japanese letters, a
  number that is considered lucky in Japan.
• Xerox – The inventor, Chestor Carlson,
  named his product trying to say `dry’ (as it was dry copying, markedly different
  from the then prevailing wet copying). The Greek root `xer’ means dry.

• Yahoo – the word was invented by
  Jonathan Swift and used in his book Gulliver’s Travels. It represents a
  person who is repulsive in appearance and action and is barely human. Yahoo!
  founders Jerry Yang and David Filo selected the name because they considered
  themselves yahoos. However, Yahoo! today claims a sort of backformed acronym —
  Yet Another Hierarchical Officious Oracle.
• 3M – Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing
  Company started off by mining the material corundum used to make sandpaper.

This article is from Wikipedia. All text is available under the
terms of the GNU Free Documentation License.

Update: Fixed misformed URLs

Some of the best things you would give your left nut to say at work…

• I can see your point, but I still think you’re full of shit.
• I don’t know what your problem is, but I’ll bet it’s hard to pronounce.
• How about never? Is never good for you?
• I see you’ve set aside this special time to humiliate yourself in public.
• I’m really easy to get along with once you people learn to see it my way.
• I’ll try being nicer if you’ll try being smarter.
• I’m out of my mind, but feel free to leave a message.
• I don’t work here. I’m a consultant.
• It sounds like English, but I can’t understand a damn word you’re saying.
• Ahhh…I see the screw-up fairy has visited us again…
• I like you. You remind me of myself when I was young and stupid.
• You are validating my inherent mistrust of strangers.
• I have plenty of talent and vision; I just don’t give a damn.
• I’m already visualizing the duct tape over your mouth.
• I will always cherish the initial misconceptions I had about you. Thank you. We’re all refreshed and challenged by your unique point of view.
• The fact that no one understands you doesn’t mean you’re an artist.
• Any connection between your reality and mine is purely coincidental.
• What am I? Flypaper for freaks!?
• I’m not being rude. You’re just insignificant.
• It’s a thankless job, but I’ve got a lot of Karma to burn off.
• Yes, I am an agent of Satan, but my duties are largely ceremonial.
• And your crybaby whiny-assed opinion would be…?
• Do I look like a people person?
• This isn’t an office. It’s Hell with fluorescent lighting.
• I started out with nothing &still have most of it left.
• Sarcasm is just one more service we offer.
• If I throw a stick, will you leave?
• Errors have been made. Others will be blamed.
• Whatever kind of look you were going for, you missed.
• I’m trying to imagine you with a personality.
• A cubicle is just a padded cell without a door.
• Can I trade this job for what’s behind door #1?
• Too many freaks, not enough circuses.
• Nice perfume. Must you marinate in it?
• Chaos, panic, &disorder-my work here is done.
• How do I set a laser printer to stun?
• I thought I wanted a career; turns out I just wanted a salary.
• Who lit the fuse on your tampon?
• Oh I get it… like humor… but different

And that’s that.

The white smoke was pouring out of the stack for some time before the bells tolled, indicating that a new Pope has been selected. More details to follow as they develop.

Paramount announced it was cancelling Star Trek: Enterprise at the end of this season. Upon hearing this, Save Enterprise and TrekUnited.com launced a campaign to keep Star Trek on the air. It included the obligatory write in campaign, but TrekUnited.com has also managed to over three million dollars to help fund an additional season of Star Trek: Enterprise, of which I contributed $10. Three days ago, Paramount released a statement originally sent to Tim Brazeal, founder and campaign leader of Save Enterprise:

Dear Mr. Brazeal,

Paramount Network Television and the producers of Star Trek: Enterprise are very flattered and impressed by the fans’ passionate outpouring of attention for the show and their efforts to raise funds to continue the show’s production.

We share your love for the series and the entire Star Trek franchise, which the studio has fostered and developed over four decades. However, the recent decision to conclude the show’s run on UPN is final.

We can not and will not be able to accept funds from viewers to produce Star Trek: Enterprise or any other series.

Paramount Network Television is extremely proud of Star Trek: Enterprise and the accomplishments of its actors and producers and the entire crew, but we must bid farewell to the show. We believe the franchise is still very vital as evidenced by the fans’ demand for books, DVDs and all sorts of related merchandise.

We are grateful for the fans’ rich history of unwavering enthusiasm for all things Trek, and we hope they’ll join us in looking forward to the next chapter of this enduring series in the future.

Sincerely,

John Wentworth

It seemed as if Enterprise was not going to be back, and that was that. Pehaps not. Slashdot had an article posted earlier today titled "Is Enterprise Heading to Canada?" that seems to indicate that "Viacom executives are considering the proposal, despite another branch of Paramount saying the cancellation was final just a few days ago."

In any event, tonights Enterprise episode was awesome and I can’t wait for next weeks show where the Mirror Universe is visited. It’s going to be awesome!