Dogs do not have problems expressing affection in public.
Dogs miss you when you're gone.
Dogs never wonder whether your dog is good enough for you.
Dogs feel guilt when they've done something wrong.
Dogs don't brag about whom they have slept with.
Dogs don't criticize your friends.
Dogs admit when they're jealous.
Dogs are very direct about wanting to go out.
Dogs do not play games with you -- except fetch (and they never laugh at how you throw).
Dogs are happy with any video you choose to rent because they know the most important thing is that you are together.
Dogs don't feel threatened by your intelligence.
No dog ever voted to confirm Clarence Thomas.
You can train a dog.
Dogs are easy to buy for.
Dogs are good with kids.
Dogs are already in touch with their inner puppies.
You are never suspicious of your dog's dreams.
Gorgeous dogs don't know they are gorgeous.
The worst social disease you can get from your dog is fleas. (okay...the *really* worst disease you can get from them is rabies, but there's a vaccine for it, and you get to kill the one that gives it to you.)
Dogs understand what no means.
Dogs don't need therapy to undo their bad socialization.
Dogs don't make a practice of killing their own species.
Dogs understand if some of their friends can not come inside.
Dogs do not read at the table.
Dogs think you are a culinary genius.
You can house train a dog.
Middle-aged dogs don't feel the need to abandon you for a younger owner.
Dogs aren't threatened by a woman with short hair.
Dogs aren't threatened by two women with short hair.
Dogs don't mind if you do all the driving.
Dogs admit it when they are lost.
Dogs don't weigh down your purse with their stuff.
Dogs look at your eyes.
Dogs like your size.
Dogs do not care whether or not you shave your legs.
Dogs are color blind.
Dogs aren't threatened if you earn more than they do.
Dogs are nice to your relatives.
Dogs obsess about you as much as you obsess about them.
Both take up too much space on the bed.
Both have irrational fears about vacuum cleaning.
Both are threatened by their own kind.
Both like to chew wood.
Both mark their territory.
Both are bad at asking you questions.
Neither tells you what's bothering them.
Both tend to smell riper with age.
Both have an inordinate fascination with women's crotches.
Neither does dishes.
Both fart shamelessly.
Neither of them notice when you get your hair cut.
Both like dominance games.
Both are suspicious of the postman.
Neither knows how to talk on the telephone.
Neither understands what you see in cats.
Men have only two feet that track in mud.
Men can buy you presents.
Men don't play with every man they see when you take them around the block.
Men are a little more subtle.
Men don't eat cat turds on the sly.
Men open their own cans.
Dogs have dog-breath all the time.
Men can do math stuff.
Holiday Inns accept men.
The following recipie for chocolate chip cookies recently appeared in Chemical & Engineering News (C&EN, Jun 19, 1995, p. 100). It was attributed to Jeannene Ackerman of Witco Corp.
To a 2-L jacketed round reactor vessel (reactor #1) with an overall heat-transfer coefficient of about 100 Btu/F-ft2-hr add one, two, and three with constant agitation.
In a second 2-L reactor vessel with a radial flow impeller operating at 100 rpm add four, five, six, and seven until the mixture is homogeneous.
To reactor #2 add eight followed by three equal portions of the homogeneous mixture in reactor #1. Additionally, add nine and ten slowly with constant agitation. Care must be taken at this point in the reaction to control any temperature rise that may be the result of an exothermic reaction.
Using a screw extrude attached to a #4 nodulizer place the mixture piece-meal on a 316SS sheet (300 x 600 mm). Heat in a 460K oven for a period of time that is in agreement with Frank & Johnston's first order rate expression (see JACOS, 21, 55), or until golden brown.
Once the reaction is complete, place the sheet on a 25 deg. C heat-transfer table allowing the product to come to equilibrium.
Nov. 28, 1997:
Moved in to my new digitally-maxed out Hermosa Beach house at last. Finally, we live in the smartest house in the neighborhood. Everything's networked. The cable TV is connected to our phone, which is connected to my personal computer, which is connected to the pow er lines, all the appliances and the security system. Everything runs off a universal remote with the friendliest interface I've ever used. Programming is a snap. I'm like, totally wired.
Nov. 30:
Hot Stuff! Programmed my VCR from the office, turned up the thermostat and switched on the lights with the car phone, remotely tweaked the oven a few degrees for my pizza. Everything nice & cozy when I arrived. Maybe I should get the universal remote surgically attached.
Dec. 1:
Had to call the SmartHouse people today about bandwidth problems. The TV drops to about 2 frames/second when I'm talking on the phone. They insist it's a problem with the cable company's compression algorithms. How do they expect me to order things from the Home Shopping Channel?
Dec. 2:
Got my first SmartHouse invoice today and was unpleasantly surprised. I suspect the cleaning woman of reading Usenet from the washing machine interface when I'm not here. She must be downloading one hell of a lot of GIFs from the binary groups, because packet charges were through the roof on the invoice.
Dec. 3:
Yesterday, the kitchen CRASHED. Freak event. As I opened the refrigerator door, the light bulb blew. Immediately, everything else electrical shut down -- lights, microwave, coffee maker -- everything. Carefully unplugged and replugged all the appliances. Nothing.
Call the cable company (but not from the kitchen phone). They refer me to the utility. The utility insists that the problem is in the software. So the software company runs some remote telediagnostics via my house processor. Their expert system claims it has to be the utility's fault.
I don't care, I just want my kitchen back. More phone calls; more remote diag's.
Turns out the problem was "unanticipated failure mode": The network had never seen a refrigerator bulb failure while the door was open. So the fuzzy logic interpreted the burnout as a power surge and shut down the entire kitchen. But because sensor memory confirmed that there hadn't actually been a power surge, the kitchen logic sequence was confused and it couldn't do a standard restart. The utility guy swears this was the first time this has ever happened. Rebooting the kitchen took over an hour.
Dec. 7:
The police are not happy. Our house keeps calling them for help. We discover that whenever we play the TV or stereo above 25 decibels, it creates patterns of micr o-vibrations that get amplified when they hit the window. When these vibrations mix with a gust of wind, the security sensors are actuated, and the police computer concludes that someone is trying to break in. Go figure.
Another glitch: Whenever the basement is in self-diagnostic mode, the universal remote won't let me change the channels on my TV. That means I actually have to get up off the couch and change the channels by hand. The software and the utility people say this flaw will be fixed in the next upgrade -- SmartHouse 2.1. But it's not ready yet.
Finally, I'm starting to suspect that the microwave is secretly tuning into the cable system to watch Bay Watch. The unit is completely inoperable during that same hour. I guess I can live with that. At least the blender is not tuning in to old I Love Lucy episodes.
Dec. 9:
I just bought the new Microsoft Home. Took 93 gigabytes of storage, but it will be worth it, I think. The house should be much easier to use and should really do everything. I had to sign a second mortgage over to Microsoft, but I don't mind: I don't really own my house now--it's really the bank. Let them deal with Microsoft.
Dec. 10:
I'm beginning to have doubts about Microsoft House. I keep getting an hour glass symbol showing up when I want to run the dishwasher.
Dec. 12:
This is a nightmare. There's a virus in the house. My personal computer caught it while browsing on the public access network. I come home and the living room is a sauna, the bedroom windows are covered with ice, the refrigerator has defrosted, the washing machine has flooded the basement, the garage door is cycle up and down and the TV is stuck on the home shopping channel. Throughout the house, lights flicker like stroboscopes until they explode from the strain. Broken glass is everywhere. Of course, the security sensors detect nothing.
I look at a message slowly throbbing on my personal computer screen: WELCOME TO HomeWrecker!!! NOW THE FUN BEGINS ... (Be it ever so humble, there's no virus like the HomeWrecker...).
Dec. 18:
They think they've digitally disinfected the house, but the place is a shambles. Pipes have burst and we're not completely sure we've got the part of the virus that attacks toilets.
Nevertheless, the Exorcists (as the anti-virus SWAT team members like to call themselves) are confident the worst is over. "HomeWrecker is pretty bad" one he tells me, "but consider yourself lucky you didn't get PolterGeist. That one is really evil."
Dec. 19:
Apparently, our house isn't insured for viruses. "Fires and mudslides , yes," says the claims adjuster. "Viruses, no." My agreement with the SmartHouse people explicitly states that all claims and warranties are null and void if any appliance or computer in my house networks in any way, shape or form with a non-certified on-line service. Everybody's very, very, sorry, but they can't be expected to anticipate every virus that might be created.
We call our lawyer. He laughs. He's excited!
Dec. 21:
I get a call from a SmartHouse sales rep. As a special holiday offer, we get the free opportunity to become a beta site for the company's new SmartHouse 2.1 upgrade.
He says I'll be able to meet the programmers personally. "Sure," I tell him.
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