Lonk-o-rama

• Blogging for dollars!
• How is it possible that I never read Twain's version of Eve's Diary? This is wonderful! (also bonus cool points to the Gutenberg Project for including the illustrations)
• Non-link. DVDs are way too expensive. No wonder people pirate.
  
• Completely random, but I love old photos. I could spend hours here, and perhaps only a little less time here.
  

Lessons Learning

Wisdom from the land of the online dating sites:

• Photos:
• Ok, I'm superficial. Fine, I can handle that. I need pictures, plural. (and eHarmony, I really don't want to pay you for the pleasure. grrr...)
  
• I know, I'm a camera geek, but surely you can see that the quality of the picture you uploaded is bad, right?
  
• Half face covered in shadow
• 16 pixels total
• blurry because the camera didn't focus or blurry because you blurred it?
• Red eyes? ix-nay on the demonic irlfriend-gay
• Dark hair? Dark clothes? Dark background? bad photo? Ah! Floating HEAD!
  
• Where are you? Disneyword? Cute. Paris? Cool. The bathroom? Awkward. Also, is that a rifle in the background?
• Why are you clutching lovingly at the guy there? If that's a brother or friend or something, a note would be nice.
  
• related - Disturbing crops. Who or what did you crop out of that photo. Are you leaning on a photogenically ugly wall or Bin Laden?
  
• I know that you are trying to show that you are active and all, but if you are in mortal danger in each of your photos, perhaps you ain't for me.
• Cute picture of you at the bar with friends? cool, shows you are sociable and what you do for fun.
• Several photos of you completely sloshed and slightly drooling? Not so cool. Shows you are sociable and what you do for fun.
• Glamor shots. Ok, this may be just me, but a woman who can dress up or down for anything is very attractive. A woman who wears an inch and a half of pancake, chisel-proof hair, tilts her head at a 45 degree angle and looks back over her head with a runaway bride look in her eyes - not so much.
• Cleavage. Now don't get me wrong, I'm a huge fan of cleavage, and there's nothing wrong with showing it in your pictures, but c'mon cameraman, the eyes are up here. If the photo is focused on your boobs, and I can see more than your plastic surgeon could, I'm going to assume that's all you have to offer.
• Animals. Again, I get it. You love animals. I do too. But if there are significantly more pictures of your beloved Bingo then of you, I'm curious if there's room in your world for anyone else.

I'm learning more and more every day :)

Earworm of the Morning Plus Bonus Funky Dream!

Cool Change by the Little River Band (had to look that one up too. See? I would have failed all of my own quizzes)

Funky Dream - I'm running a D&D game with an old friend from many schools ago - we're going to make money at this by charging the people who play - genius! Odder is that the people seem to be willing to pay. We play in a barn on a campus near the sea. Seriously, like a big red barn that maybe needs only a silo. My friend (who actually runs the game) leaves early and then later I drive home apparently drunk (did I drink there? maybe some tumblers of red stuff?). Several times, the road veers left and I try to turn the wheel left but my arms turn the wheel right - stupid arms. One time I'm impressed that I don't go over the guardrail off the cliff over there into the sea. Is this Hawaii? Looks a lot like Hawaii. Now I'm on raised overpasses, but I still don't go over the railings. Eventually I pass some place I seem to remember from other dreams. Then I finally go off the road and onto some kind of latticed girder work (construction? Still raised high over the ground). I stop the car (it's an SUV! Good god - I'm driving an SUV! The shame of it all!) and a car pulls up behind me. It's not a cop, but he asks me to hand over my keys and I do.

Oh, B* - Pandas are on the way!

Looking For Love In All The Wrong Places

I've discovered that I follow through on things more when I make them slightly more public, so I'm going to try to do that a little more here on the blog, and maybe I'll be able to actually have a social life this year - believe in miracles, friends and neighbors.

This spring I promised myself that I would, so I've been surfing the dating sites almost all day today. Ach, depressing. So far the results are... limited and confusing - much like my love life in general, I suppose.

I actually like the eHarmony system quite a lot, but either I'm a bigger freak than I assumed (quite possible), or everyone who wasn't hyper-Christian already left eHarmony after all the bad press they got. I think I ended up with two results within my state. And I like in a big state. And I think dating someone in Germany or Turkey would be cool, but perhaps not right now - The first date at a coffee shop might be... expensive.

The other two I've tried so far are Match.com (which I've heard has had some quality successes :P) and Chemistry.com. Match.com looks good - plenty of people - but a little overwhelming, and I'm not sure how well they match up with me. Anyway, that's where I've spent the most time today, and I might have screwed up the questionnaire on Chemistry, because their summary of my personality is a bit odd. Either that or I don't know myself as well as I thought. Also possible.

Also, dang! These things ain't cheap! Free versions for me for now.

iAm Sick Of It All

I'm geeky - that's obvious. I'm also often opposed to whatever is popular, for no other reason than its popularity, even when it's to my detriment. Thus, I was horrified and tickled at the same time when I heard that Apple dropped the price of the iPhone from $599 to $399 this morning. Bear in mind that all the early adopters and hardcore Apple fanboys lined up to buy those things when they were released, what, a little over two months ago? I guarantee that there are folks who just got together enough money to get one just last week. Oh, so ouch. I wonder if the stores will honor the price change if they come in to argue.

Not A Natural Man

Almost every morning I wake up with a song in my head. I don't know why, I don't know how. Often it's a song I haven't heard in years. For example, this morning: Pusherman by Steppenwolf (had to look that up). Does this reflect on my sanity or lack thereof?

Smoooth. Real Smooooth

• Two Japanese young women get on a very crowded bus and end up standing next to that guy. You know that guy. The overly-friendly, overly-loud guy who never really says anything horribly offensive, but makes everyone on the bus uncomfortable anyway. The women don't have a very good command of English, but the guy is trying his best to tell women number one how much he really loves her. Welcome to the US.
• (sidenote) After the women get off (he kisses their hands), a couple of sk8r bois (with boards) take their place in front of the guy. Said bois are quite young. That guy proceeds to tell a, um... rather blue joke and then explain that marijuana is ok, they'd better not do crack, 'cause he did that for seventeen years and it just about killed him.
  
• After the bois leave he announces that he is going to learn Japanese next so he can talk to all the sexy Japanese women. Then he announces his departure and lets everyone know that he'll be riding again next week, same time same bus. Good to know.
  
• In the grocery store, there's a older very skeezy looking guy following around a cute young stocker who looks to be taking him to some other aisle. The only part of the conversation I catch is the guy saying "... You don't know what that means? That means 'beautiful little one.' That's what you are." This followed by an exasperated sigh and a quickened pace from the stocker.
• Elsewhere in the grocery store, geeky-looking but large and imposing man has stunning women backed up against the diet sodas. She: arms folded across chest glancing from him to her shopping cart a few times. Him: one hand casually leaning against the display next to her, the other gesturing as he talks. As I pass by, she starts suddenly and, interrupting him, says that it was nice to meet him and starts to push away her cart, stopping only briefly to half-heartedly shake his proffered hand. As she moves away with a quickness, he makes no effort to hide the fact that he's staring right at her butt.

Gah. What a day for love. Does cupid have a hangover or something?

Crosstown Traffic

Also, Labor Day bus schedules suck. Boooo.

It Slices, It Dices, It Makes Julianne Classes

Oh, dear. This is going to be ugly.

Classes don't start for me for a little bit yet, so I'm just finding out how things are going to go down. Hoo-boy. So, I found out that I'm TAing the same course I did last year, which is good - it's probably my best fit here, and it's steady for the whole year. So, good.

But there's bad, too. There's real bad. Budget Cuts. The class is an intro class. A pretty big intro class. Think mid-low three digits. So, anywhoo, I just found out our class size got cut by about a third for this year because we can't afford to teach all the students who want to learn. Absolutely infuriating.

So while I'm really happy to see that I'm one of the few TAs who are still, um, employed, I am really not looking forward to the first day of class where I get to tell several dozens of students that I'd would love to have them in my class, but I can't let them in.

Usually, I have no problem telling students that there's no room in the inn, because, generally, they're the ones who never got their act together, didn't really want or need the class in the first place, and generally perform badly if I let them in anyway. That's the thing, too. If I feel there's just cause, the department usually gives me the final call if I want to let a latecomer in. And beyond that, there's generally only a handful that we can't get in one section or another.

This time, there are going to be majors and minors who need the class, freshmen who the department needs to court into becoming majors, and all sorts of quality folks that I'm going to have to turn away. And I'm going to probably have no call about letting in exceptional case beyond that.

Nearly Forgotten Scatological Airplane Gems

#1

Kid: "Mommy, I pooped. Smells bad, doesn't it?"
Mommy [tired, resigned]: "Yes, yes, it stinks."

#2

If, say, you are on a double digit hour long flight, and the person next to you (say, me) has purposefully avoided conversation the entire time, why on (or above) this good green earth do you think that as we begin landing procedures, that it might be appropriate to expound thusly:

"So, it makes sense, I mean. When I was I kid I got praised for using the toilet. I grew up in Japan, and they'd all say 'Jim-san, oh, you made such a big potty!' Jim's my name, see. But my brother, man they just said, 'Man, you're a stinky boy!" And, now, see I'm the artist, and he's man, he's just completely destructive."

How would you respond, friends and neighbors?

A: Mumble incoherently and turn to stare out the window
B: Gawp back in slack-jawed amazement
C: Recline his chair and ask him how he felt toward his mother
D: Other (write in your own)

Also, and loosely related, there is this (and its 'explanation'):