Jeff Keen

This is what it’s like getting premature feedback on a thing you’re designing or developing.

“I’m not seeing any door handles.”

Right, I haven’t even gotten to the doors yet.

Have we thought about people potentially falling out of the side of the car?

We have. There will be doors.

“You were going to put wheels on, right? We’re going to need wheels.”

Right, yeah, wheels. This car will have wheels.

“The car we ordered was red. Why isn’t this red?”

RIGHT. First we build the car, then we paint the car.

Driving east this morning and shiiiiit, that is a bright star.

The three stages of driving east around dawn:

Stage 1: It’s so early! But so quiet and peaceful, I could fall right back asleep. Why am I doing this to myself? Did I really need to leave this early?

Stage 2: Oh, the sunrise! This is great. How often do I watch the sunrise? I should do this more often. Damn, that’s beautiful. Look at those colors. This world is amazing.

Stage 3: MY EYES! THIS IS THE WORST! FUCK THE SUNRISE.

It’s always nice when you feel like you can really be you with the people you work with. Earlier, I got this message from the development manager at this company that I regularly work for.

Team,

Charles and I were discussing paintball this morning and it occurred to me that paintball could be a fun team event in October! Charles is an avid paintballer, so he would of course be on my team. Let me know if you have any particular reason why you think paintball is for the birds, otherwise, I’m going to see if we can reserve a field.

Trent

And in an ongoing effort to be honest and authentic, I replied:

Hard pass for me.

Don’t let that stop everyone else, but I don’t do paintball primarily for reasons of being a huge target/wuss.

The truth hurts. But a little less than getting hit with paintballs.

I recently bought a pretty bad-ass sit/stand desk, and as a result am selling my old glass desk on Craigslist. I have it listed for $60.

As is customary for selling things Craigslist, no matter what the item is priced at, there’s always a negotiation. You could be selling a $500 item for $20, and there’s a 90% chance that the buyer will ask “will you take $10 for it”. (Lack of punctuation is also customary Craigslist behavior.)

Them: Do you still have desk a you posted on Craigslist

Me: Yes, do you want to come and see it?

Them: Yes please when are you available

Me: I work from home so any time today would work for me

Them: OK it would have to be until around 7pm is that fine

Me: Sure, sounds good. I’m in South Austin, do you think you’ll be here at 7?

Them: Yes or perhaps closer to 730 also would you be willing to take 40

Me: I would take $50. Deal?

Them: Well I would be driving all the way from parmer lane which is why I can’t be there till 7 so with driving the distance can you do 40 and it’s a deal

Which brings us to our topic. I want to sell this desk, but I also really want to send back a tasty zinger, which I realize could cost me this sale. This is a risk I’m willing to take, as I have faith the desk will eventually sell. But currently, I’m trying to figure out the best possible zinger I could send.

Option 1

“Sometimes I drive all the way up to Fry’s and buy things, and they don’t give me a discount for all my trouble. Nice attempt, but the lowest I’ll go is $50 right now.”

Option 2

“The price just went back up to $60.”

Option 3

“$50, and I’ll have a glass of water waiting here for you.”

Option 4

“Should I have the wambulance waiting for you when you arrive?”

Option 5

“Well I’m gonna have to stick around waiting for you tonight when I’d rather be doing other things so how about we do 50 and it’s a deal”

Option 6

No

Option 7

I think I made this in 2001. It was around the time prank calls using Arnold soundboards were really popular (I’ve got some of those, too), and I can’t remember if I made this at my parents place, or at the house I lived at for that one year in college.

Because, yes, in college, I mostly lived with my parents. Or as I liked to say at the time, “with an elderly couple”.

I’d tell people “I take the trash out, and do other things around the house for them, and they let me stay in their basement practically rent free. They’re really nice people. Sometimes they’ll even cook me dinner.”

It was a pretty good deal, and some people I told about it were amazed, and wished that they too could live with their parents an elderly couple.

And when that nice elderly couple found out what I was telling people, I feared the worst: that they’d be heartbroken, or angry. But they weren’t. They thought it was hilarious.

Because hey, you gotta do what you gotta do when you’re a nerdy 21-year-old Electrical Engineering major who works at a computer store and lives with his parents and still wants a hope in hell of meeting a lady who’d be willing to take her clothes off. So I lived with an elderly couple. I worked on campus. What major? Can we change the subject? Let me tell you about this elderly couple I live with.

Obviously this strategy worked wonders, and I had zero free time around the difficult and retrospectively useless classes I was taking to do silly creative projects such as this Who/Arnold mashup.

A friend of mine recently won a contest on Facebook by spotting a misidentified bird species in the March-April edition of Minnesota Conservation Volunteer Magazine. He was able to correctly identify the bird as a Dickcissel, which up until yesterday was a word I had never heard before.

I admire this, because this sort of nature knowledge is completely foreign to me.

Despite my admiration, the bylaws of our friendship require me to make at least one wisecrack about any achievement in a subject in which we do not share knowledge.

Me: CONGRATULATIONS MARK!!

Mark: Thanks! 💪

Me: What are you doing to celebrate?

Mark: Probably study up on native orchids

Me: Have you decided where you’re going to put your Wild Orchids calendar?
Seeing that notification just cracked me up. Imagine seeing me winning some programming trivia contest.

Mark: Haha. That’s the funny part–I don’t know why this is popping up on people’s feeds. You’re the second person to text me about it.

Me: Because it’s a momentous occasion and Facebook knows how much birds mean to you.

And while I know you and accept your interests and areas of expertise, that is the dorkiest/most unintentionally funny thing I’ve ever seen you do on Facebook. 🏆

Mark: Dickcissel.

I was working on getting an old project updated, and I stumbled upon this beautiful artifact. #TTYB, or expanded: “Take that, you bitch!”

In this new age of hashtags, I encourage you to use this gem. And don’t limit yourself to apps/sites that recognize hashtags. I find hashtags are used best in mediums where they serve no special purpose, like email, text messages, and hand-written notes.

Update: Here’s another example of a fine use of this hashtag, in my recent instagram post.

Repair shop couldn't fix my beautiful turntable, so I took it all apart and fixed it myself. #ttyb

A photo posted by Jeff Keen (@jeffkeen) on Mar 5, 2015 at 5:29pm PST

The last 5% of any canned/bottled beverage is junk. This is my truth.

Despite living with this truth my entire life, my good friend Sam has never accepted this about me, which made this video the perfect vehicle with which to obtain his goat.

The goat-getting attempt was successful.

In 2009, I emailed my friend Sam this 70 minute video review of the Phantom Menace. I figured if me, as a casual-sorta-fan thought it was real interesting, he’d love it.

I don’t think he ever watched it, but 5+ years later, he’s still replying to that email thread.

My favorite comment, 3.25 years later: “I really think I’m going to enjoy this”