Alan Bradford

 

@gruber - I believe the German word(s) you're looking for is widersprüchliche Kindheitserinnerungen

— There’s a German word that I’m looking for.

— Where you laugh at somebody else’s misfortune?

— No. But it’s along the lines of that. It’s a German word for when you’re running the vacuum, and you see a little, like, Star Wars figure gun or a Lego piece, something of that size, and the head of the vacuum is just inches away, and you go to stop, so as not to suck it up, no matter how many times you as a parent have warned the child whom the little piece belongs to to be careful about such things so that they don’t get vacuumed up, but you try to stop, because you have memories of being a child yourself and having been warned by your parents along similar lines and yet suspecting that your own parents were unsympathetic and purposefully vacuumed up such pieces, and that the emotional scarring and memory of such lost guns causes you, no matter how many times this has happened, to stop the vacuum cleaner and but even in your best efforts to stop, the suction of the vacuum and proximity to the head are such that the piece still gets sucked up and is lost forever. What is the German word for that?

— Yeah. I don’t know.

— It’s on the tip of my tongue.

via daringfireball.net

I love the German language. It's so perfect for situations like this.

Filed under  //   funny  
Posted April 16, 2011
 

Baby It's Not That Cold Out There

My brother and his wife have done it again. Last year, we Gathered Around for a Campfire Christmas. 

This year, it's a hilarious twist on an old favorite.
Kick back and turn up the volume on what will soon become your favorite story of a man who is trying desperately to rid himself of an awkward holiday date.

(download)

Filed under  //   funny   holidays   music  
Posted December 20, 2010
 

Wishing Everyone a Merry (Digital) Christmas

I'm glad (and not at all surprised) to see that the wisemen are using Gmail.

Filed under  //   funny   video  
Posted December 16, 2010
 

Of course we miss you, Dubya.

Just saw this tonight on the news. NPR reported it yesterday on their site. Kind of like having Santa Claus watching over you to make sure you're staying off the naughty list.

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Filed under  //   funny  
Posted February 9, 2010
 

Looks like my nephew found the clock app on my iPod

My nephew Brody is a sneaky little booger.

(download)

Even though I've installed several toddler-friendly games on my iPod Touch for him to enjoy, he always seems to stray.

It's always a joy to wipe his grubby fingerprints from the screen after he begrudgingly hands back "Uncle Alan's game." It's even more entertaining to find out what he has managed to discover while my back was turned.

I opened up the clock app last night to use the stopwatch. You can imagine my surprise to find that it had been running for over 1400 hours straight. No wonder my battery life sucked.

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Pesky little nephew. Love him to death.

Filed under  //   funny   iPod  
Posted October 18, 2009
 

Es tut mir Leid. Ich hab' keine Zeit

ALAN: Do you think your parents would let me borrow that piano keyboard they have?

JENNY: Why?

ALAN: Because I want to learn how to play the piano.

JENNY: No. You don't have time to learn how to play the piano.

ALAN: Sure I do.

JENNY: If you have time to play the piano, then you have time to mop the floor.

ALAN: I don't have time to mop the floor.

JENNY: Why?

ALAN: Because I'm too busy playing the piano.

Filed under  //   Jenny   funny   music  
Posted September 20, 2009
 

iPhoto '09 Facial Recognition Hates My Brother

The latest release of iPhoto from Apple includes facial recognition capabilities. Simply tell the program who is in your pictures with tags (similar to tagging people in your Facebook pictures), and eventually it will automatically recognize you and your friends.

 After tagging my brother in a photo, I laughed out loud at iPhoto's guesswork. Take a look:

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"He's not a troll, he's my brother!"

Filed under  //   apple   funny  
Posted July 26, 2009
 

Walmart + Twitter + Google Voice = Comedy

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No matter how many people complain about Walmart, the parking lot is always packed when I go there. I always seem to wait in line at the checkout. Their stores are popping up everywhere. So instead of complaining, I'd like to propose a social experiment.

My wife and I are a big fan of people watching. Not creepy people watching behind bushes aided by binoculars. It's entertaining to simply be aware of the diversity of humans that we encounter. A prime location for interesting specimens seems to be Walmart. Inspired by a recent tweet of mine that described someone I saw walking into Walmart as I was walking out, I would like to see other people get involved. Here is my proposal:

  1. For those of you on Twitter, I would like to propose a new hashtag: #wms When you experience a new Walmart Sighting, simply update your status, being sure to add #wms to the end of it. This will ensure that it shows up for others when they search for it.
  2. For those of you who fancy your feed reader, subscribe to the RSS feed I have created for the above Twitter search. Here's a link. After subscribing, you should begin to receive updates when people tweet with the Walmart Sighting hashtag.
  3. For those of you who cannot restrict your sighting report to a mere 140 characters, I would like you to call me. As a former Grand Central user, I am now the proud owner of a fancy new Google Voice account. Click the button below to leave me a voicemail describing what you've seen at Walmart. (Upon clicking the button, it will ask you to enter your name and phone number. I won't spam your number. Promise.) The best voicemail messages will be posted on this blog periodically.

So there you have it. My three-pronged approach to adding a little humor to the world. Stop being so depressed about the stock market, and start letting us know about the freak shows that you've spotted at Walmart.

Filed under  //   funny   google voice   shopping   twitter   walmart  
Posted April 4, 2009