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What is a portmanteau word?

Posted on March 31, 2005 at 01:03 AM

We use these words every day, yet most probably don't realize that there is an actual term used to describe them, these "words" that have invaded our lexicon. Linguists refer to them as blend words, but words like brunch, smog, or fantabulous are also known as portmanteau words.

Here is a small sample of words contained in a list of portmanteau words found on wikipedia.

affluenza = affluent + influenza

chortle = chuckle + snort (first penned by Lewis Caroll in his famous nonsensical poem the Jabberwocky)

swatch = swiss + watch (we all had one at some point in time)

spork = spoon + fork (I've seen some sporks with a serrated knife-like edge. So would that make it a snorfk?)

fugly = fucking + ugly

blog = web + log (what you're reading right now)

turducken = turkey + duck + chicken (Madden made it famous)

shart = shit + fart (something everyone's done but wouldn't dare admit. If you have, be proud, and order yourself an "I think I just sharted" t-shirt)

Posted by joeschmidt at 01:03 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack | post to del.icio.us

How to destroy the earth (theoretically speaking of course)

Posted on March 30, 2005 at 12:08 AM

"Destroying the Earth is not as easy as pressing a big red button. It takes decades of hard work."

So, you've got your mind set on destroying the earth, or at least enslaving it's inhabitants to do your bidding. There's no changing your mind, no second guesses. It's apart of your five year plan. But where do you start? How does someone go about destroying the Earth?

Where to start?

First you need a plan, a mission statement, or if you will, a memo. Enter the Evil Plan Generator. What you do is simply fill out the form and use it as a rough outline of what you might envision your evil master plan to be. Or you can just scroll to the bottom of the page and hit the random button to automatically generate one. Here's the Evil Plan that I just threw together:

Congratulations on being the creator of a new Evil Plan (tm)!

Your objective is simple: Destroy the Earth.

Your motive is a little bit more complex: Power

Stage One

To begin your plan, you must first incapacitate a diplomat. This will cause the world to sign up for life insurance policies, bewildered by your arrival. Who is this despoiler of all that is good and nice and true? Where did they come from? And why do they look so good in a corporate suit?

Stage Two

Next, you must destroy the Moon (ooh, tides!). This will all be done from a underground secret headquarters of doom, a mysterious place of unrivaled dark glory. Upon seeing this, the world will wet their pants, as countless hordes of ninjas hasten to do your every bidding.

Stage Three

Finally, you must send forth your thermonuclear missiles, bringing about an unending cacophony of screams. Your name shall become synonymous with fuzzy bunnies, and no man will ever again dare interrupt your sentences. Everyone will bow before your mind-boggling insanity, and the world will have no choice but to give you control of the planet.

Research methodologies

OK, now we have a better idea of what our objective is and possible ways of achieving our goals. But the Earth, as we all know, is rather large. It will take vast amounts of economic resources, intelligence, and strategic planning to destroy it. Should you need assistance in this area I suggest you read the quintessential guide on How to destroy the Earth. This humorous yet interesting read is a filled with well thought-out hypotheses and facts to illustrate the likelyhood of Earth's demise. Pick a scenario that best suits your current situation, goals, and monetary status.

A few notes of interest I found throughout the article that would be quite helpful:

• "You should always, always, always have an escape route."
• "Take a camera. Most of the methods listed above are incredibly spectacular and witnessing them will probably be once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for you, so remember to capture the moment."

Another tip I think would be helpful for all you Earth destroyers out there is something I learned from watching the Incredibles which is "Don't monologue". I can see it now, there you are poised to destroy the Earth. Everything is going according to plan until you stop to deliver your monologue. Something along the lines about how powerful you are and how weak everyone else is and how you've been wronged in the past and now are going to seek your revenge. Just remember, if you feel the sudden urge to monologue, DON'T! Just try to block out the temptation and move forward with your plans. No need to let all your planning and resources go to waste on a worthless monologue. Only amateurs monologue.

Start a blog detailing your Earth destroying plans

With all the work and planning that would go into destroying the Earth you should at least attempt to document your efforts. So if for some reason you fail, an up-and-coming nerr do well will be able to benefit from the knowledge you've provided and might be able to learn from the mistakes you've made. Naming the blog would be easy. The guide on How to destroy the Earth is full of enigmatic, cool, hip, nonsensical, words and phrases that would be great for a blog detailing your Earth destroying plans. Just don't be a loser and use something stupid like your name as the title of the blog (oh dammit) I suggest the following:

would-be-earth-destroyer
stable strangelet
strange matter
media hoo-hah
pretty much zero
worryingly plausible
ripped asunder
total existence failure

Another tip would be to go with a free service like blogger to host your evil how-to. There's no sense wasting money on a blog when those funds could go to more practical things like Von Neumann machines, Relativistic Heavy Ion Colliders, antimatter or black holes. Those things can't be cheap.

Also if you followed my advice and plan on taking some pictures of your follies, be sure to put them up on Flickr so the rest of us can see your progress.

Practice, Practice, Practice!

So hopefully by now you have a good idea of what needs to be accomplished to achieve your evil plans. Since the average person probably doesn't have experience with things like meteors or nuclear weapons, I recommend practicing your skills using Netdisaster. It allows you to get practical hands-on experience in a virtual environment. This is a great tool because, let's face it, if you were out in the real world hurtling asteroids at the Earth someone might notice.

At your disposal are meteors, nuclear bombs, alien attacks, or gigantic cups of hot coffee just to name a few. You can get started by entering a website name, select your method, set the repair level to massive (if available), set the control to mouse (which will allow you to hone your aiming skills) and hit go. I took the liberty of documenting one of my attempts so you the reader can get a glimpse of what this great tool has to offer. Here are some before, during, and after screen shots. (No Kadavys were harmed during course of this exercise)

Caveat: This website allegedly does not work on browsers made for the Mac (something about transparency yadda-yadda...) Since I do not own a Mac I am not able to try it. If anyone could confirm this I would greatly appreciate it.

Conclusion and some final thoughts

I hope to have given you some insight on how to destroy the Earth. It appears to be somewhat of a daunting task, but if you put your mind to it you can accomplish anything. Don't let 5,973,600,000,000,000,000,000 metric tons of dirt and metal intimidate you.

Disclaimer: The JoeSchmidt.com legal department won't even touch this one so the usual the "Don't try this at home" disclaimers apply. I accept no responsibility for the destruction of the Earth or any other celestial body. If you plan on using the above information to destroy the Earth just give me some advanced notice so I can make preparations to leave the planet. Or if time becomes an issue, at least appoint me to a position within your post-apocolyptic cabinet. (It would be the least you could do)

Posted by joeschmidt at 12:08 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack | post to del.icio.us

April fools computer pranks to liven up the cube farm

Posted on March 29, 2005 at 12:37 AM

With April Fools Day fast approaching I thought I would enlighten you on the age old tradition of computer pranks. While working in field of information technology, I have been privy to the existence of computer pranks for as long as I can remember. While I can neither confirm or deny my involvement with any computer related pranks at work, I would like to offer you, the reader, some general observations on performing a computer prank. First I'll start with reconnaissance, then I will give you a few examples of classic pranks.

Know your target

Monitor their habits. Notice when they go to lunch, refill their coffee, or if they have a tendency to walk around and gab to other cow-orkers for inordinate periods of time. Also, depending on the difficulty of the prank, it may be good to know what kind of operating system they have. It is easier to perform a gag on someone's computer if you are familiar with their OS. So if you aren't sure what OS they're running, pay attention the next time the target's computer boots up or sneak over to their computer sometime and do the following:

• Click on the start button, then click run. This will open the Run dialog box.


• In the blank type "winver" (without the quotes dummy). A window will open with information about the OS.

Know the temperament of your target. Tread lightly if you are going to pull a prank on someone who can tend to be a little high strung. A good rule of thumb would be to pull a prank on someone you are friends with and who will appreciate your special kind of twisted humor.

Speed Kills

There is nothing worse then getting caught in the act of setting up a prank on someone's computer. I would first advise you to practice performing the prank on your own computer. This will allow you to become more familiar with what needs to be done and possibly develop some shortcuts, allowing you to reduce the amount of time necessary to carry out the prank.

Use An Accomplice

Sometimes it is helpful to work in pairs. You may need more time in some situations, so having a partner distract the target can be helpful. Have your accomplice stop the target by the water cooler or the coffee pot and ask them about their weekend or other boorish questions. This should allow you enough time to get in and get out safely. Utilize some sort of signal between you and your partner to signify that the target is returning back to their desk sooner then planned. So be discreet, a loud cough or having them start whistling an obnoxious tune works much better than having them yell out "Abort! Abort!"

With recon out of the way let's discuss the pranks. Here are some basic examples to get you started. But first, a word from the legal department here at JoeSchmidt.com:

Disclaimer: The following computer pranks may not work for those of you whose office computing environment resembles that of a Gulag. The author cannot be held responsible in the event you are terminated for violating some computer usage rules in your company's employee hand book, nor is the aforementioned party responsible for your actions causing a cow-orker to go postal. Use with discretion. Your experience may vary. Consult a physician before use.

Unplug their computer's power cord

The easiest and fastest prank you could possibly pull. Show up before the target arrives at work and unplug their computer. The beauty of this prank is that most people who work on desktop computers usually have it tucked away under their desk. Generally the target wouldn't expect someone to pull the power plug on their computer and wouldn't think to check if their computer had power. Plus the prank could be easily blamed on the cleaning crew being a bit too reckless with the vacuum.

Replace their desktop wallpaper with something obnoxious

This trick requires you to be able to change the background wallpaper on a computer. Easy, right? Good choices would be for a new background would be:

Ed. Note The teletubbie image previously listed in this post has been removed due to severe leeching. Please feel free to do Google image search to find a similar picture.

teletubbies, care bears, smurfs, or that tool from the greatest american hero tv show. Stretch, tile, or center the image as needed. For bonus points, you could add something sarcastic to the picture like "I love care bears".

Take a screen shot of their desktop and set it as their wallpaper

Good for a few laughs, this one never gets old. While your target is away from their desk sneak over to their computer and take a snapshot of their desktop by hitting the "Print Scrn" button. This copies an image of their entire desktop to the clip board. Now open a graphics editing software (MS paint will do in a pinch) and paste the image from the clip board to the screen. Give the image an easy to remember name and save it to their c: drive. Open the display properties and set the image you created as their wallpaper. Next get rid of all the icons on their screen. You can just drag all the icons off the edge of the screen (make sure they do not have the icons set to auto arrange) Finally, set their task bar to autohide. You can do this by right clicking on an open space on the task bar, then click on properties. Check the box next to "auto-hide the task bar" and click OK to apply the settings.

This prank is best performed when they have applications open on their screen as they will come back to their desk and find that they apparently are unable to click on the applications in which they were working.

Reverse the left and right mouse buttons

Always a classic. Being exposed to this prank for just a few seconds is bound to drive any one insane.

Go to their control panel and double click on the mouse icon. This will open the properties for their mouse. You should already be in the tab labeled "Buttons". In the section labeled "Button configuration" check the box next to where it says "Switch primary and secondary buttons". Click OK to finish.

You should now notice that the left click on your mouse is now set to right click and vice versa. Insanity will soon ensue.

The mother of all computer pranks. The Blue Screen of Death Screensaver

Every windows user knows about the dreaded Blue Screen of Death and the absolute terror it can cause. That's why this prank is so insidious as it mimics the blue screen of death (BSOD) phenomenon almost exactly. When running, it will appear to be rebooting the computer. But rest assured, no harm is being done because it is only a screen saver.

First, download the BSOD screen saver from SysInterals by clicking here.

Save the file to the desktop. Using Zip software, unzip the files.

Copy the file named "SysInternals Bluescreen.scr" to the system32 folder in the windows root directory. Look at the readme file for further instructions and delete when finished.

The system32 folder exists in the following locations:

• For windows 2000, copy the file into the C:\winnt\system32\ folder.


• For windows XP, copy the file into the c:\windows\system32\ folder.

Go into the desktop settings and click on the screen savers tab. If you scroll through the selections you will find one labeled "SysInternal Bluescreen". Select it and set the wait time to 1 or 2 minutes. Click Ok to apply the settings.

Now, sit back and wait for the magic to happen. Remember, the only way to exit the screen saver and return to windows is to hit the ESC key. Clicking on the screen or hitting the keys will not awaken this screen saver.

Word of caution: Hang around the targets desk while executing this prank. The screensaver realistically mimics that of an actual bluescreen. To the tech un-savy, they may actually think that this is an actual BSOD and try to restart their computer, possibly causing a loss of data. (Read: this may not bear well for you)

Happy April Fools day!

Posted by joeschmidt at 12:37 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack | post to del.icio.us

Corporate branding invades your brain

Posted on March 22, 2005 at 12:20 AM

It's interesting to note how branding invades our psyche. If the sinister Madison Avenue ad people do their job right, their clients logo will be branded (pun intended) into our subconscious so well, that by even glimpsing a portion of said logo we will instantly recall their product. I mention this because I ran across a fun exercise called the retail alphabet game a few weeks ago. My first attempt at guessing the logos yielded only a handful of correct answers. But as I later returned to the site, more of the brands started jumping out of my memory. Truly bizarre.

I haven't correctly answered all 26 yet. I figured while driving around or shopping in stores I would easily come up with the rest, but alas I am stuck. As it stands, I have 18 19 20 21 24 out of 26 logos correctly answered. I thought of using Google image search to aid in finding the logos I can't recall. But what do you search for? Logos with red cursive letters? Black and yellow logos? I also looked at brands of the world, but who has the time to sort through tens of thousands of images?

For those of you who's curiosity is so great the letters are beginning to taunt you, the creator of the game Joey Katzen will let you buy a hint or a solution for a nominal fee. Which is hard to believe that people would actually fork over money to figure this thing out. I mean come on Joey, it's just a game. People can't be paying for the answers. There's no way I'd pay for the answer to a letter. (A hint maybe, but definitely not an answer)

Which got me thinking, why not enlist your help in trying to figure out the final 8 7 6 5 2 logos. Listed below you will find those letters of the 4th edition of the retail alphabet game that I do not have so far, along with some of the guesses I have tried. See if you can figure some of these out.

A: Ameritrade? Samsung? A is Saturn

D: Doritos? Budweiser? Dr. Pepper? D is Glad

E: no clue E has been identified as Zales

F: nadda It just came to me, F is Ruffles.

I: Looks like a letter from the Incredibles, but this is retail branding not movie branding. Meineke? Midas? I is Bic

O: I know this one but can't recall it. Looks like part of some donut chain logo, kind of like a saggy donut just dipped into coffee. O is from an old Kinko's logo.

R: I tried Krispy Kreme, but no go. R has correctly been identified as Walgreens.

W: no clue W is Mountain Dew.

If you know the answer to one of the above letters, leave a comment to this post and I will add it to the list. Gmail invites to those who contribute.

Spoiler Alert: The following is a link to an image of my correct answers thus far. If you want to guess the logos on your own, do not click here. (right click on link, and select "save as" to download)

Posted by joeschmidt at 12:20 AM | Comments (14) | post to del.icio.us

Happy Birthday Mr. Rogers

Posted on March 20, 2005 at 11:41 AM

An icon of children's television for more than 30 years, Fred Rogers was born on this day back in 1928. While having taped his last epsisode of Mr. Rogers Neighborhood back in 2000, his passing in 2003 was a loss felt by fans of his show both young and old.

Everyone rembers his charismatic smile and warm presence as he changed into his singnature zip-up cardigan and slipped into his loafers all the while signing "Won't you be my neighbor".

As a child I have fond memories of watching his show. I always enjoyed it when he would visit factories and would show you how things were made like tricycles, footballs, or candybars for example. But I couldn't help but think that some of the puppets in the land of make believe were a little creepy. Like that damn cat Henrietta (meow meow), Prince Tuesday, or Lady Elaine Fairchilde. Lady Elaine still gives me the willies.

Mr. Rogers may be gone, but he will never be forgotten.

Posted by joeschmidt at 11:41 AM | Comments (1) | post to del.icio.us

Gmail randomly going public

Posted on March 15, 2005 at 12:25 PM

Let me preface this post by saying that I'm breaking a cardinal rule of mine which is "Thou shalt not blog during work hours", but technically it is my lunch break so I'm fine with a little rule bending.

I just had to comment on something I saw this morning on Google.com. To my amazement was this, which I was somewhat shocked to see as it appears that Google is randomly going public with their Gmail service. I say randomly because I used a different computer to view Google.com and found that the Gmail invite link wasn't there.

So I wondered if I copied the public Gmail invite link from that one lucky computer to a different computer to see if it would still open the invite page? I tried it and it works fine, it takes you directly to the Gmail sign up page.

So now I'm thinking, "Do I post the invite link on my blog, or do I let fate decide who gets the link to the Gmail sign-up page?" I decided on the latter, but with a little twist of my own. I have had 50 Gmail invites burning a hole in my pocket, just waiting to be given away to you, the loyal reader of this blog. So if you've been longing to be just like the cool kids and have your very own Gmail account but haven't been able to rustle up an invite, try going to Google.com and see if the Gmail invite link is there. If not, leave a comment on this post with your email address and I will send you an invite. I only have 50, so first come, first served.

If you're wondering what this Gmail thing is all about, you can read more by going to Gmail's about page".

Posted by joeschmidt at 12:25 PM | Comments (0) | post to del.icio.us