BRAINPAN LEAKAGE

If you are looking for a stock to add to your portfolio, I would like to suggest that you look into any company that produces Raisin Bran.

Seriously.

It can be Kellogg’s, Post, General-Mills, Store Brand, or even Happy Fred’s Generic Cereal Company. The real deal here is that it doesn’t matter one iota who it is, just as long as they produce, package, and sell Raisin Bran, and are publicly traded on the exchange, you probably want to grab yourself a few shares.

Why?

Well, I’ll tell you. Because E K likes Raisin Bran. In point of fact, not only does The Evil Redhead like – nay, love – the shriveled-up-grape and flaky goodness of said cereal, I am fairly certain she is addicted to it… If not addicted, then damn close, because she goes through entire barge loads of the stuff, and on top of that, it is no less than number 2 on the hit parade for her daily routine.

THE E K DAILY MEANNESS AND EVILNESS SCHEDULE

1. Get out of bed and scare the hell out of Satan… Or, scare Satan right out of hell, whichever works. Then stand over him and giggle while he cowers in the corner.
2. Eat Raisin Bran while watching the morning news.
3. Feed and medicate cats.
4. Get ready for work.
5. Beat husband. Beat husband again if the mood strikes. Then stand over him and giggle while he cowers in the corner next to Satan.
6. Go to work and generally be evil. If necessary, and again if the mood strikes, be specifically evil as well as generally evil.
7. Come home and beat husband. Find where Satan is hiding and beat him too. Stand over both husband and Satan and giggle while they cower in the corner.
8. Lock husband and Satan in basement then go to bed.
9. Sleep with evil grin on face.
10. Wake up, start at item 1 and repeat ad infinitum.

See what I mean? I’m pretty sure number 2 would actually be number 1 if it weren’t for the fact that she takes such joy in scaring Satan senseless. I mean, she is after all, Evil Kat. But, if it weren’t for the amusement she gets from torturing the prince of darkness on a daily basis, I’m sure she’d just have me bring the Raisin Bran to her in bed so she could skip that annoying first step altogether. In fact, come to think of it, on Katsmas when she lets Satan slide for the day as a Katsmas present, she does in fact have me bring her Raisin Bran to her in bed, so there you go.

Oh, and BTW, she’s always quick remind Satan that he can be the prince of darkness all he wants, but she’s the Queen, so “neener neener”… Then Satan starts crying. Blubbering actually. It’s pretty sad to watch.

But, anyway, back to this whole Raisin Bran thing. One time when we ate the complimentary breakfast at a hotel where we stayed, I witnessed E K stab a desk clerk to death with a spork because all they had were Corn Flakes and generic Cheerios. You just don’t mess with her two scoops, as it were.

So, I’m sure you can see that E Kay’s schedule of events is pretty well set. And, if something causes her to deviate from that course, things tend to go awry. Take just the other morning for instance…

It started out just like any other day. Beelzebub was at the back of E Kay’s closet trying to hide under one of her shoe racks while crying for his mommy. The Evil One had enjoyed her morning giggle, and then traipsed into the kitchen so she could move along to number 2 on the list.

Now, I have to point out that even though she’s had her morning giggle, E K can be a bit on the glassy-eyed side for the first hour or so after her feet hit the floor. Hence the strict routine.

Well, for whatever reason, be it that she was wracking her brain to come up with a new husband torture, or maybe even that she was simply drunk with mirth from the horribleness she had already perpetrated upon the whimpering devil upstairs, E K deviated from her routine.

Yes. The Queen Bitch Of The Whole F*cking Universe made a left at Albuquerque.

She put number 2 on hold and moved number 3 up a half step on the ladder – meaning she elected to feed the cats first. Just so there’s no misunderstanding I want everyone to know I would have gently nudged her back onto the schedule had I been aware this was happening. Unfortunately, I was preoccupied with putting a spit shine on the shoes E K wanted to wear that day lest I be in even more trouble than normal.

I honestly had no clue whatsoever that anything was wrong until I heard a loud, exasperated groan followed by E Kay’s voice exclaiming, “DAMMIT!”

(As an aside, I think she might have picked that whole “dammit” thing up from a friend of ours we call “Helga”. She’s been schooling “Helga” in the ways of evil and husband torture, so they’ve hung out together a bit and, well, ya’know what I mean?)

At any rate, I stopped what I was doing and rushed to the kitchen to see what might possibly be the problem. Things were going through my head like perhaps I had set out the wrong color cereal bowl, or the spoon wasn’t shiny enough, or the milk wasn’t cold enough, or any of the hundreds of other things that would upset the E K.

My heart was stuck in my throat and fear of an impending beating was already welling in my stomach as I rounded the corner. However, instead of seeing blue fire shooting out of the redhead’s eyes, I found myself gazing upon 4 cats – well, actually 1 grumbling Kat and 3 quite obviously confused four-legged felines. I looked at the furry threesome as they cocked their heads side to side, then looked up, down, and all around. Then I looked at The Evil One. In her hand was an open box of Raisin Bran.

The problem was, that’s also exactly what was in the feline’s dishes on the floor.

Of course, as I am sure you already guessed, this deviation from the canonical list of the day was somehow my fault. Honestly, I never really understand the logic behind how I get blamed, but I’ve learned better than to object. I just take my beating, and then go cower in the corner with Satan.

It seems to be quite a bit safer there.

More to come…

Murv

We have a server based LAN in our house. I suppose it stemmed from being a computer guy for so many years, but since we have several systems, both desktop and notebook, it seemed logical to keep all of the shared files in one place. Over the years of remodeling, etc, CAT-5E has been threaded through the walls, high-speed switches mounted, wireless access points added for convenience, and the whole nine yards. Because of this, the computing power and peripheral device integration in our home has increased exponentially over the years, thereby becoming an important part of our lives where household management and even personal management of my profession is concerned.

Still, no matter how much computing, printing, scanning, or communications power all these electronic devices have, they are still nothing more than machines.

Then something happened that made me question that notion…

“Dammit…” E K muttered.

Her exclamation was followed by several angry sounding beeps, all punctuated by the staccato clicking of something patently plastic in sound. Several more beeps filled the air, then came a hard, bass chord that seemed to say, “stop right there!”

A frustrated yowl – much the same as one would hear coming from an angry Siamese feline – caught in The Evil Redhead’s throat, rumbling back at the noise as if a cat fight were about to ensue. Given the sound, my guess is that possibility was only off by a single letter, that being a K instead of a C followed by an at.

“DAMMIT!” she hissed, this time with far more feeling.

All of this was occurring behind my back – literally…

I was seated at my desk, answering email and generally enjoying my five minute break from being E Kay’s personal lackey. She’s occasionally generous like that. On Christm… I mean Katsmas, she even lets me have a whole 15 minute break, though usually not all at once. There are after all her needs to be considered, and they greatly outweigh my need for a break, or so I am told.

But anyway, I was just entering minute 2 of my serendipitous 5 minute break – the first one I’d been granted since Katsmas, mind you – and her grumbling started. I considered remaining quiet in hopes that she would forget that I was even in the room, but I knew it was a lost cause. E K misses nothing.

Resigning myself to the fact that I had no choice but the forfeit the remaining 3 minutes of my break, I spoke up.

“Oh High Exalted Queen Of All that Is,” I began – that’s what she makes me call her, you see – “What seems to be the problem?”

She let out an extremely frustrated sigh, then hissed back at me, “The network won’t let me access anything. It says I’m a threat.”

It was at this moment I realized our network was more than just a bunch of machines strung together by wires and high frequency signals. It had somehow become the thing computer scientists have been striving to create since the first faint glow of UNIVAC’s vacuum tubes.

I mean, just think about it for a minute… A pile of circuitry and wiring recognized the fact that E K is… well…evil… and it considers her a threat to the network. I don’t know about you, but I’d call that some pretty sophisticated Artificial Intelligence.

More to come…

Murv