(to the tune of "Iron Man"): I AM A TWINS FAN!

I came across a photo gallery of pictures that Jeff Bridges took while they were making Iron Man. This one I really liked:

It's hard to tell if that's an '87 or a '91 World Series t-shirt that Robert Downey Jr. is wearing, chillin' on the couch with Gwyneth Paltrow, but it's awesome either way.

Absolutely no point to this post.

Sometimes when I get coupons from Maplewood Toyota I get the munchies.

Ben vs. the Canon ImageRunner 5570

I have recently updated my list of enemies to include the office copier. This is not your average, wimpy home computer's printer. This bad boy is huge (I found a picture of it online, but it didn't quite capture how big this sucker is, so I drew a stick figure next to it to give you all a better idea). In theory this machine can do all sorts of neat copier shit. I have discovered two pretty amazing tricks so far.

Trick #1: The stapling feature. I have 3 dozen training guides to put together. Do I have to staple all of these myself? Hells no! Canon ImageRunner 5570 can do that for me! Please print me many copies and I will walk away and come back later and everything will be great! NOT! Here's how the stapling feature really works. The copier randomly SHOOTS paper out instead of just dropping it gently on the tray (pictured below).

Then it'll staple my training guides together, but of course the projectiled pages are lying on the floor and I have to pick those up, and unstaple the guides, and put them back in order, and re-staple them. A variation of this trick is that the machine will only sort of shoot random pages, and then prints a few more pages, and then somehow sucks the aforementioned sort-of-shot pages back into the pile (this is actually kinda cool to watch, because it makes a weird SHLURP sound to suck the paper back in), and then staples them. Yes, the machine has figured out how to SHUFFLE my documents before stapling them.

Trick #2: The paper jam 8x super multiplier. If and when this trick happens again I will grab my cellphone camera and document the explosive wonder. Not since right before my car blew up on the highway have I seen so many warning lights go off at the same time. The machine has a little screen on the console with a picture of itself and it lights up where the paper jam is. It's like if you went to the doctor with a picture of yourself and you used the picture to point out where you were hurting. Somehow I managed 8 paper jams on one machine and, with the exception of it actually saying "Ow", the screen looked like this:

You'd think that after one jam it'd shut down or something. Anyway, unclogging all these jams wasn't easy. That copy machine has a bunch compartments and drawers and panels and passageways, and inside each of those are more secret hidden compartments and drawers and panels and passageways. It's like Batman's house... if it was haunted and the kids from Scooby-Doo were investigating. I pulled a candelabra which rotated the bookcase to reveal the sixth paper jam.

Moral of the story- this reminded me that Batman was on Scooby-Doo!

Election Day

I was standing in line this morning to vote and behind me was a mom with her 1 year old. The kid had a little electronic music maker and kept pushing the button that played "If you're happy and you know it, clap your hands" over and over and over again. I practically skipped into the voting booth. Hooray for no more W!

I AM A TEAM TREASURE, OMG!

Today's fun workspace initiative is called "Teamwork is in the bag!" Everyone at work got a bag with some "team treasure" coupons. If you think someone at work is a team treasure then you take one of your team treasure coupons and give that person a coupon with their name, your name, and the reason why they're a team treasure. Then they put those coupons in their bag, and when they get three coupons then they go to their manager for a piece of candy. WOW!

This is a pretty stupid plan but at least it is also poorly timed. Since we just had Halloween there's like a thousand candy buckets all over the office and I can have all the candy I want without even being a team treasure. I've printed up a bunch of extra coupons and am giving them away to my friends for "outstanding achievement in the field of excellence." Hooray for worktime fun.