JonBart.com ™

Rarely a day goes by when I’m not stuffing my eternal thirst of knowledge with the best website on the internet. They are currently raising funds to “give the gift of knowledge”, and I myself made a small donation to this great effort to keep this great website alive and informative. If you’re a Wikipedia junkie, I would encourage you to do the same.

And if you’re not a Wikipedia junkie… Why not? It’s a great place to spend some time, and time spent learning is never wasted. Trust me, I’ve learned more from this single website than I have from combined years of actual schoolwork. The world’s knowledge is at your fingertips. Dig in.

When the smoke of Christmas cleared…. What… You didn’t have smoke at your Christmas?

As I was saying… When the smoke of Christmas cleared, a video emerged revealing the true nature of southern dwellers. Enjoy!

I’m here. I made it. Home for the Holiday (singular).

The President, in his great mercy, saw fit to bestow a vehicular mode of transportation to myself, in lieu of my situation with the whole… busted car thing.

I present you…. a Honda Odyssey, and a nice one at that. Had a comfortable ride home after work today.
The roads were pretty bad, and I almost got smacked when a Mack jacked. Before I could react for the impact, he got the back back intact and that’s a fact.

A lot of rain and fog out there. But I’m home, I’m happy to be with family, I’m grateful for Christmas. I plan to goof off as much as possible this weekend. Merry Christmas to you all!

I’m sure you’ve all been asking yourself this for months now… What do I buy a man who owns everyone.. Well, it’s difficult. But should you continue to be stumped, refer to the picture.

Yes. It’s all wood. In fact, the whole set with monitor/mouse/keyboard is all made from a single piece of wood. Nothing says “Merry Christmas” like flammable electronics.

Happy holidays, you infectiously-materialistic viewers.

P.S. I’M GOING HOME!! More detailed post soon. And Rufus is gone! R.I.P. (Rats in Peace) Guess that means I can return this rat-sized Christmas tree, huh…

You know, I’ve had a lot of debates about copyright law lately. And I think it’s gotten way out of hand. But maybe they’re not so bad after all. I mean, before there were copyright laws, there were book curses:

“For him that stealeth, or borroweth and returneth not, this book from its owner, let it change into a serpent in his hand and rend him. Let him be struck with palsy, and all his members blasted. Let him languish in pain crying out for mercy, & let there be no surcease to his agony till he sing in dissolution. Let bookworms gnaw his entrails … when at last he goeth to his final punishment, let the flames of Hell consume him forever.”

That’s from a volume in the monastery of San Pedro in Barcelona, but similar curses were used widely throughout the medieval period.

…that don’t quite equal a real update. Math is flawed.

Ok. Rufus. Umm… more talks with maintenance people who think this is just FUN-N-N-Y. Asked them to come and look today. They might have, but I don’t see any changes. I haven’t heard him tonight, and he’s too fat to be dead yet… Now I’m wondering if he can get in and out. Shoved some aluminum foil into his habitat, hoping it would repel him. Hey, I know what you’re thinking but someone recommended it, and it’s worked wonders for keeping the government out of my head.

And, um… No car window yet. I found some good prices on used windows, but lack the sweet skills or intelligent slaves to complete the window replacement. So I’ll have to pay out the whazoo, so I’m dreading that. I’ll make more calls tomorrow. Sigh.

At least I didn’t get any boxes in the mail today. Don’t ever ship me compressed air. Don’t even think about it.

Update: The problem continues. Heard again this morning. Read on.
So, I was sitting at my desk in my apartment, typing an email. Suddenly I hear..

*scritch

No big deal. The neighbors make weird noises. I go back to typing.

*SCRITCH

“Ah. I hope I don’t have a mouse.” So I jump up, grab a magazine, (what was I thinking) and go over to the cabinet, open it to discover the same boring food collection I always have. Nothing there. Back to typing.

*THUMP. SCRATCH SCRITCH SCRATCH!

This time, I had to find out what it was… So I look over the cabinet, don’t really see anything. I get on a chair. I look over the cabinet, still don’t see anything. I was just about to get down when I notice something moving. It was a RAT!

Apparently, he had chewed through the ceiling and dropped into a section behind a metal pipe, to an area of about 2 feet where he could go back and forth behind the pipe, but was stuck, because there was a concrete shelf keeping him in there. And he was too fat to get out behind of the pipes, with only a two-inch gap to see him moving around.

So now the dilemma. Do I kill the rat? If I do, it’ll stink because I can’t get it out. If I don’t, the scratching noises will annoy me to death. And I don’t want a pet…

That was probably the strangest conversation I’ve ever had with our campus Maintenance guys… “Well, we could kill it, then chop it up, and clean up the pieces” and “Get a stick, put two-sided tape on it, and go to the apartment above, and fish it out” and “just scare it and see if it’ll leave”. (They got sillier, trust me)

I told them to be creative. I have no idea what happened after that. It may still be around, but I haven’t heard it since I’ve been back tonight. I don’t know what happened, but Rufus has disappeared. So long, ol’ Rat.

This is the story of air costing $2.50 per ounce, and you thought it was cheap to breathe.

I get a lot of phone calls in my job. Some need help. Some think they need help. And then there are those who want to sell me things. There was a company who wanted to sell me things.

It started with a phone call in August with “Frank”. Frank said that he was going to send me a free sample pack of cleaning products. I said “great!”. Then Frank said he was going to send me a free NFL shirt and hat, and I said “great!”. And as the months went on, I got anti-static wipes, starbucks cards, some compressed air, some printer cleaner… Each time they’d call and confirm I wanted their free product, and I’d say… “Sure, great, maybe I’ll do business with you some point”. I’d occasionally ask, “So, no charge for this, right?” and they’d always respond, “No, of course not, we just want to buy your business down the road”.
Then our story turns. 24 cans of compressed air had been received over a month ago, along with some little individually-packed anti-static wipe. I was so happy to get them. I was so proud of getting free things. I gave them out like candy. Everyone wins.
Billing office emails: “Bart, we’re not paying this. What did you order? Who is “———”?” I had a sudden connect of thoughts. They charged me for some of those free boxes and didn’t say how much.

So here we go.. I’ve been had. They duped me. The bill was, are you ready for this….

$1000!

So what am I to do? We can’t pay it. (More after the jump, including pictures of the Air of Gold)

(more…)

Updated: This was a test of the video capabilities of my camera phone, the Samsung T809, hence the quality level. Comments welcomed. Yes, we’re crazy. No, he’s never killed anyone.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=7718891477350393061