notification comes that the final easter egg has been recovered from ultrahouse. the lingering scent of burnt chocolate and melting plastic led to a magnificent discovery.

every third electrical outlet in the ultrahouse is consumed by a wonderfully odiferous (that really should be a word) device. these devices use electricity to slow cook special oils. i think they are referred to as "plug in air fresheners". something i never encountered in my bachelor life.

the exceedingly handsome, 230 pound, six foot, three inch tall easter bunny realized these devices make clever holders for small, brightly colored plastic eggs containing chocolate. so clever as a hiding spot, the eggs may go completely unfound on easter day (or even weeks after the day).

the wife discovered one of these odiferous devices held an empty plastic egg shell with a large hole melted away from it's bottom.

i told the wife such great hiding abilities is proof the easter bunny is pure genius. in addition to being a great hiding place, it also included a time release notification if the egg went unclaimed. again, undeniable pure genius.

wife claims the easter bunny is an ass.

sometimes for lunch i'll get an egg salad sandwich with bacon, but i don't like egg salad. other days i'll get a b.l.t. but not for the lettuce or tomato. it's all about he bacon. got me wondering, why don't i forget all that other stuff and just get a bacon sandwich?

i'll tell you why, because if you eat too much bacon you will die. that is what THEY say. why bacon contain greater evil than ham or other pig meats?

you know what? i am an adult. i can eat anything i choose. i can eat cake before dinner. screw cabbage and beets. i can mix pixie stix into my pepsi if i desire. i want a triple bacon sandwich, dammit.

some guy here at the office recently had his 20 year anniversary party. the company provided a couple of jumbo fruit plates, cheese, crackers and cake. at my 20 year i'm having bacon. a tray of extra crispy, a tray of thick cut, a tray of canadian bacon, and a bowl of bacon bits to sprinkle on top of my bacon. oh, and a pitcher of bacon juice to wash it down.

now that's livin'.

ultranote - did you know there are 6 or less degrees of seperartion from any food and bacon? see the above graphic for proof.

remember the tinkle machine? above is the wife's latest acquisition, a digital tinkle machine. far superior to the analog tinkle machine, it generates SIX different bladder inducing sounds.

1. Spring Rain (otherwise known as despair springs eternal.)
2. Woodlands (also called angry squirrel orgy)
3. Summer Nights (or night of the locust)
4. Ocean Waves (or trucks on the highway, as i call it.)
5. White Noise (also known as AM radio static.)
6. Mountain Stream (other wise known as the big tinkle.)

at the paltry price point of 30 bucks, it hardly seems one could pack much more value into the plastic clam. Au contrair, mon frere! the digital tinkle machine also broadcasts in surround-a-smell. yep, as rob tyner once screamed, "kick out the stink mother #$%@ers" or something to that effect. the marketing propaganda describes the odors as:

1. Relaxation, composed of soothing lavender, chamomile and sage (smells like a blue haired grandmother)
2. Invigoration, composed of purifying eucalyptus, peppermint and lemongrass (koala bears go crazy for this one!)
3. Rejuvenation, composed of refreshing seaweed, orange and lemongrass (mmmmm, seaweed.)
4. Inhalation, composed of stimulating rosemary, lemongrass and jasmine (a pleasent mix rosemary clooney's ashes and sweat collected from the under arms of jasmine guy. i think.)

although it only comes with those four "aroma beads", i have been concocting a few of my own beads (spring morning breath, sweet scrotum sweat, and acrid cheese breeze).

the wife claims she bought the machine to drown out the sound of my nightly snoring. unfortunately, she informed me that she now knows what it sounds like when sleeping next to me on the beach (or highway for that matter). If the intent of the audio was to drown out the snoring, i must assume the intent of the aroma is to drown out any nocturnal gas emissions.

i have been watching and listening to the blame game (also known as the 9/11 commission hearings) over the past few days. again and again the finger seems to be pointing at the dysfunctional relationship between the cia, fbi, presidential advisors, and the president. many are complaining that there is little communication between agencies and that the agencies are not sharing information.

people are missing the boat on this. lack of communication and the sharing of information are not the problem. those issues are symptoms of an unusable system. the real problem is information architecture, taxonomy, and metadata.

i assume there is a grand data base of intelligence some where. i am certain the information architecture sucks, rebuild it. next, multiple taxonomies are essential to supports multiple users with different views of the data contained. finally the most important piece is metadata. good metadata can allow the users to transend the rigid architecture and taxonomies (and also hide any flaws in the ia or taxonomy). good metadata will allow the user to realize information relationships that have gone un-noticed.

if those elements were in place, the relationship between the cia and fbi becomes less important, they can continue to ignore each other but have access to each other's intelligence in a usable way. sharing becomes a non issue, as long as data is put into the system, it is available via many different paths to many different users.

as an example, in a company like nike, many different people need the exact same information to do their job well. the marketing team, the advertising team, the board of directors, and the ceo all need access to sales reports, but may need the reports for different reasons and/or presented with a specific spin to be useful. each group will also have it's own lexicon, assumptions, and understanding of sales reports. it is essential they are provided with the data requested regardless of how they ask for the reports.

the users of the system just need the information, they shouldn't have to know how to ask for it and be denied because they did not ask the system for it properly.

over at airbag, greg has a great post with similar thinking but focused on the visual design of pdb documents. go check out his pdb redesign. it is an amazing improvement (done with no user value investigation, mind you!). in his comments, greg ponders the possibility of a grass roots, open source, movement to get the government's shit together. interesting.

all that being said, i could be wrong. my expertise clearly lies in poo humor.

I could tell by the way the phone message indicator was flashing that it contained an angry message.

nowadays, clients rarely jump off their wallet to pay for custom photography. i warn clients of potential pitfalls and dangers of using stock photography. unfortunately, the attractive price tag of stock renders the client temporarily deaf. so, we sift through the same stock image CD's we did on the 20 project previous which are the same 20 cds all the other creative agencies, corporate creatives, and power point jockys all around the globe sifted through for their last 20 projects.

the voice mail from the client was so angry, it was nearly incoherent. after listening to the message six times in super slow mode, i concluded the client was upset about the photo of a woman we used (and they approved) on the client's home page. the client claimed the woman was a sleazy sex therapist or some thing to that affect. after much research and googling, i discovered a full page men's health magazine advertisement disguised as a sexual advice column written by a supposed sex therapist. the "therapist" photo was the exact same stock photo used on the client home page. the "therapist" advised men to purchase a product that would greatly enhance the size and endurance of their floppy bits.

making matters worse, the client is in the healthcare industry, and on occasion may partner with subject matter experts. a connection to such a person may seem odd but not out of the question.

the client failed to see the advertisement's fine print explaining the advice column was actually advertising. the client was convinced we had purposely used the photo of a nationally noted sex therapist and syndicated sex columnist. again i reminded the client of the dangers of stock photography. later that morning we uploaded a new image. an image from a different but very common stock photography cd.

every day i wait for my message indicator to blink angrily again.

i was greeted by this sign as i drove into the parking lot.

i'm thinking; strippers, cocaine, techno dance music, wrestling midgets, flamable farts, bacon, and inflatable bounce houses.

come to find out my employer and i have very different definitions of "fun day". their definition is more similar to my definition of "hell".

when i heard the scream from the bathroom, i immediately assumed son one (6) had caught his head in the drain or perhaps he decided to bring the radio in the shower with him. i raced into the bathroom to find him standing naked with hair half towel dried. he held a towel with pinched thumb and forefinger as far from himself as possible. the towel was mostly white except for a three inch wide, six inch long swath of brown.

"there's poop on this towel!" he screamed at me. an impromptu family meeting ensued.

currently the poo commission is unable to determine the origins or history of the poo towel. all potential suspects (mother, father, brother and even the victim) were interviewed but no one cracked under the questioning. it remains an open investigation. the poo towel is only one in a streak of crimes against the household. other open cases include the juice stained carpet, the cracker crumb trail, the missing shoe, and the great toilet clogging of 2004 (which the commission believes may be linked to the poo towel incident).

i live in a house of mystery and deceit.

home depot is a manly place. so much so, it can be very intimidating for some one like me who does not own a circular saw. saturday afternoon the isles are jammed with posers, of which i am one. i stop shaving thursday. saturday morning i don my worst t-shirt and my sweat stained ball cap. i load my pockets with broken doo-hickies to ponder as i walk the isles looking for perfect matches.

this particular saturday, a rugged looking manly man before me at the check out pushed a cart containing track lighting, pvc tubing, and patio bricks. the contents of his cart successfully completed the trifecta of manlyness; electrical, plumbing and landscaping. i was no match with a cart full of flowers. or at least i thought.

as the line moved, he moved to the side of his cart revealing some thing i had not originally noticed. lining the child seat of the cart was a soft and fuzzy pink and blue baby blanked. the blanket comforted a black poodle barely bigger than a cat. manly man made a clicking noise that prompted the fancy pants poodle to stand on his hind legs. the poodle's front paws rested on manly man's chest, they were nose to nose. in falsetto baby talk, the man asked the poodle if she would be helping him work in the yard today. the poodle responded licking his face and climbing up to perch itself atop manly man's broad shoulders. there the dog sat for the entire check out process.

i am confused. i am quite sure this is the first time i have seen a poodle ride a human around home depot.