Denuo - denuology.com

Bienvenido “Benny” Torres and Christian Kugel struck their fists to their flat hands in a rock-paper-scissor “coin toss” to see who would get the opportunity to strike first in the inaugural Denuo Paper Football Championship Game. There was tepid anticipation in the air as their various vanquished opponents from the previous three rounds surrounded them to watch. Once players, they were now witnesses to desktop sports history. Only one of them (Albert Kim) had predicted that Torres and Kugel would meet in the finals. At the end of the count of three, Torres threw two fingers into a V shape, proclaiming scissors. The tension in the cold room was only matched by that of Kugel’s fingers. The maintained fist of rock signified the first victory of the day, and Kugel would receive the Torres kickoff to start the game.

Kickoffs are routine in just about every paper football game. But whenever Torres puts the edge of the paper football off his end of the table, preparing to slide the ball across the forboding black desktop, the crowd always sits with bated breath; each of them wondering if lightening would strike a second time.

So my sister and I have a running debate on what the proper pronunciation of certain foreign foods and words should be…do we pronounce them as they would in their home country?  Or do we say it with our natural American (and Californian, nonetheless) accents?  It started when she simply said “I made some homemade bruschetta!” but pronounced it “bru-sket-ta.”  I stared her in the face for a good 10 seconds until it finally occurred to me that she was pronouncing the dish the way Italians do; although authentic, it was foreign to my ears.  Who did she think she was?  Giada De Laurentiis?

This article started with a conundrum. After a year of saving soda can tabs at my desk, I’d managed to fill a small cereal bowl to the brim. I transferred them to a Ziploc and stowed them in my desk to later give to Ronald McDonald House Charities (RMHC), for their Pop Tab Collection drive that’s been going on for at least 10 years. When talk of a jelly-bean-in-a-jar-counting-contest came up later that day, I busted out my baggie of tabs as an alternative to jelly beans and the flabbergasting began.

Several times a day, over the past several weeks, I’ve come across this friendly reminder while on-site at a client’s office complex on the east coast; I must however admit, I didn’t actually read it until just this week. While I’m a chronic hand washer and often carry my own hand sanitizer, it was with shock that I read the instructions, looked at myself in the mirror, reread the instructions and realized that I needed to brush up on my hand washing skills. And I dare say you might need to as well. Pay particular attention to step 3 and try it for yourself; there might be something to the idea of relearning skills you thought one had long ago mastered.

I really love unintended references to the movie Spinal Tap.
In our Chicago office, we have the Flavia coffee machines – the kind that make one cup of coffee at a time. Like all of those type of machines, this one uses little individual coffee packets. I really like it – the coffee is good and it provides lots of choices, including tea, hot cocoa, etc.