6th Floor blog Plans a Trip

Welcome to the 6^th floor.

Today's contributors are: Ann, Sara, Tabitha, Frank, Billy and Scott.

Subject: 6^th Floor Blog plans a trip

Scott gets a plate and a fork out of the cabinets and walks over to the chocolate cake sitting on the counter to have a slice when Tabitha walks up behind him and snatches the fork from him.

“You can't eat Sara's cake before she gets home!”

“Did I hear cake?” Billy asks, strolling out of his room with his nose in the air. “Smells good.”

“Have you been home this entire time? We just assumed you were working when you didn't show up when the apartment started smelling like chocolate cake.”

“Nope, working tonight. I just assumed I was having a chocolate cake craving, I didn't really think you were baking on a Monday!”

“Is Monday a non-baking day?”

“Isn't that why most bakeries are closed on Mondays? It must be a bad day for baking.”

“This cake smells good at least, so maybe Tabitha's the exception to the rule.”

“Why is it Sara's cake, and why can't I have any?”

“We're celebrating that she found a new job. She's off getting her physical and drug screen right now.”

She'll be back in time for dinner though right? We were going to watch the Mets game tonight since the Yankees are off.”

“Probably, it's just a physical. She had to go to Jersey City for it though.”

Sara walks in just then.

“She's early! Surprise Sara! Cake!”

“I thought something smelled good.”

“So you got a new job? Where? Doing what? Are you going to start paying for coffee again?”

“It's in Jersey City, so I'll have to play on the Path train everyday. It's ..well I don't really know what my job would be. Sorta tech support for some of their applications. Not a perfect job, but good enough for now. Well it'll be at least three weeks before I get my first paycheck, so don't expect me to pay for coffee before that!”

“Sara's here now. Can we eat the cake?”

“Shouldn't we have dinner first?”

“You made me dinner too?”

“No..I forgot all about making dinner. Pizza delivery anyone?”

“Cake!”

Scott and Billy start chanting “Cake! Cake! Cake!” and pretty soon Frank and Sara join in too.

“I guess we're having the cake for dinner. We could order pizza for dessert?”

“Good idea. And some garlic knots. Gotta love the knots.”

“So when do you start Sara?”

“Two weeks.”

“Wanna pre-spend your first paycheck and go to Cooperstown?”

“Cooperstown huh? I've never been..sure!”

“Anyone else want to come?”

“I'll come. Can we go to Howe's Caverns too?”

“Sure, that's one of the quintessential upstate New York tourist destinations I hear...have you been?”

“Years ago with my family.”

“This sounds like fun! When do you want to go?”

“You've got the physical and everything you need for work out of the way right? How about tomorrow?”

“Tomorrow? Not like I have anything to do..Can you get off work Ann? Anyone else?”

“I can, yes.”

“Nope.”

Scott and Tabitha shake their heads.

“Just us then. Good, we can all fit in my car.”

“Shotgun!”

“Doh!”

Warning Labels

Welcome to the 6^th floor.

Today's contributors are: Ann, Sara, Tabitha, Frank, Billy and Scott.

Subject: Warning

“This bottle of Coke says be careful when opening, cap may explode...blah blah. Has anyone actually seen a cap blow off a soda bottle, much less injure someone?”

“Nope. I guess it's always possible though.”

“Remember that time I tried to make root beer in a two liter bottle and added two much yeast? Even then the cap didn't fly off.”

“Yeah, the bottle expanded so much that it cracked and the pressure from the fermentation pushed all of the liquid out, but the bottle was still pressurized and hard as a rock!”

“Then I opened it up and filled it with water to see where the leak was, but I couldn't find it.”

“Once you let the air out to put the water in, it depressurized and contracted back down and hid the cracks. Simple physics. Cool though.”

“Even with all that, the cap never blew off.”

“See? So it's a pointless warning.”

“The world's full of pointless warnings.”

“It's too bad friends don't come with warnings.”

“Warning: Geeky Caffeine-addict. May hyper-actively talk about newest video card model.”

“Hey, you didn't have to listen!”

“Warning: Narcoleptic Gambler. May decide to cook very aromatically seasoned steak at 5:30 am.”

“Hey, when you've got a hankering for steak..”

“It's not a very pleasing smell for a vegetarian to wake up to in the morning though.”

“I could buy a spinach air freshener for you if you like?”

Scott bursts out laughing.

“As long as you don't buy, and wear, that bacon cologne you showed me..”

“Warning: Anal-Retentive brunette is modern day Big Brother.”

“Anal-Retentive? I'm anal-retentive?” Tabitha yells, and starts hitting Scott.

“Ow! Ow! Did I mention you're very pretty?” Scott interjects, trying to duck Tabitha's blows..”

“Only very?” Tabitha queries, rearing her fist back as if to punch him again.

“Magnificantly, Very very! Most hotest!” Scott says quickly.

“Most hotest?”

“Sounds like something you would say about a stove..”

“Then it might apply best to the flame-haired one over there.” Billy says, indicating Ann.

“My hair's been blond for months!”

“Billy looks more closely. So it is..You changed it again!”

“Months ago! Last year!”

“No..”

“Yeah, no way. I would've noticed.”

“Had to be this week. Definitely.”

Tabitha rolls her eyes. “Guys! No wonder you can never describe to us what girls you meet look like.”

Coffee Intervention

Welcome to the 6^th floor.

Today's contributors are: Sara, Tabitha, Frank

Subject: Sara and her Joe

Sara's sitting at the table with her laptop and a cup of coffee, tapping away at the keys. Frank's watching television, and Tabitha is making herself a sandwich in the kitchen.

“So Sara, how's Joe?”

“Joe? Who's Joe? Are you dating someone new and didn't tell me?”

“I have no idea what he's talking about. I'm not dating anyone that I know of.”

“I meant your coffee. It seems like I never see you without that coffee mug or Starbucks cup anymore.”

“That's not true! Yesterday I had a Juan Valdez cup!”

“Have you tried..and I know this will sound odd, a good night's sleep? It's not like you have work to get up for.”

“Good night's sleep? That's so 1920s.”

“1920s? Did they historically sleep more in the 1920s?”

“I don't know. Maybe?”

“I guess it was during prohibition. If they couldn't stay out until four drinking, I guess they could get to bed early.”

“Either way. It's a problem when you go to bed after Frank does.”

“Is there something inherently wrong with going to bed at 5am? You know, I wouldn't get this kind of criticism of my schedule in Las Vegas.”

“Well can't you even go to the dentist at 3am in Vegas? But this isn't Vegas, this is New York.”

“It's the city that never sleeps!”

“If it laid off the coffee, it'd be able to sleep!”

“Did you know that the first Starbucks opened in New York in 1994, the same year Friends started?”

“I think I did hear that actually.”

“Very telling.”

“So I'm keeping my coffee then. Besides, It's almost a sin for a programmer to give up things like coffee.”

“Well, the first web cam was created to see if the coffee pot was full so they didn't have to get up.”

“I've always wondered about that. I mean, if everyone could check the coffee pot, and no one got up if it was empty, how'd they ever get coffee?”

“I'm sure the secretary probably started filling it up.”

“Exactly.”

“We're moving towards that culture right? Soon we'll be able to query are fridge contents from a web browser, probably even turn on the oven too. We'll be able to cook dinner from our computer.”

“That would be excellent!”

“Lazy bums! There is some benefit to not sitting on the couch all day you know.”

“There is?”

“Blasphemy.”

Tabitha just rolls her eyes, and takes her sandwich into her room.

Fantasy Baseball

Welcome to the 6^th floor.

Today's contributors are: Sara, Frank.

Subject: SimYard

“You have any fantasy baseball teams this year Sara?”

“Don't I always? I've got the one we're in together on Yahoo, and another Yahoo one.”

“I went overboard. I've got four Yahoo teams, and a Sporting News team. The Sporting News team is cool though because it's a salary cap league, so you have to buy and sell players as they increase or decrease in value.”

“That's neat. A little more strategy than just hoping you get to draft early to take A-Rod or Reyes.”

“Reyes? You have to take Hanley Ramirez over him don't you?”

“Reyes had a bad year, Ramirez had a good year, and they were still very close in fantasy points in most leagues.” Sara says, sticking her tongue out at Frank.

“I actually agree, I think Reyes will do better than Hanley this year.”

“Speaking of fantasy baseball, you should check out SimYard. It's a fantasy baseball management sim.”

“Management sim? Like Sim City sim?”

“Kind of, yeah. You got a roster full of randomly generated players, and then you play pick-up games in the park against other teams, and you can add to your roster. Every year, which is a month of real time, you can train your players and they get better and stuff. There are even playoffs. It's kind of addicting.”

“So the games play themselves or something?”

“Well, you can micro-manage a little, but yeah. If you join a league and buy a stadium, you don't even have to set up games, they start automatically on schedule.”

“Buy a stadium? So what, it schedules a 162 game season or something? Can I be the Yankees?”

“Screw the Yankees! It's not supposed to be real world teams anyway. Some of the names are kind of funny. Killer Dust Bunnies, No Talent Ass Clowns, Humanity Annihilatng Choloroflorocarbons.”

“Ass Clowns? Like Office Space?”

“Yeah. Their icon is actually Michael Bolton.”

“Ha! That's awesome. So maybe I'll check it out.”

“You should.”

“Okay. I will.”

“Sounds good.”

“It does.”

“Okay then.”

“Okay.”