Imagine the Germans Falling Out Of Trees

Whoops. I forgot to tell Ianqui the answer to the joke.

1: So, how to you get an elephant through the front doors of a Safeway?

2: I dunno.

1: You take the 'f' out of 'safe' and the 'f' out of 'way.'

2: Uhmmm, but there's no 'f' in way.

1: Exactly.

Greenery

Pilgrim/Heretic is planting a fig.

Such a wonderful thing reminds me of one of the coolest things that I ever heard about a particular part of my family. My aunt and hubby live in the boonies down in the South. Before they moved to where they are now, they had a trailer and a plot of land. They lived there for years and years. It was a nice comfy casual place.

They were forced out of their comfy causal place by the local government in a very sketchy eminent domain case - there entire neighborhood was leveled to build something neither necesary nor, in my opinion worthwhile. The wonderfulness of the whole little plot of land, and the sadness of its loss came out when my aunt talked about what made it hardest to leave. The trees. For the entire time they had lived there, they never gave each other gifts for birthdays and such. They gave each other trees. I don't even remember how many trees or years there had been, but you could see them in a row, each on taller than the next, showing the slow accumulation of love and years.

All this went under the bulldozer.

The place where they live now is better in every possible way. Uncle has designed and built a gorgeous huge house and the most incredible workshop/barn for themselves, all from the ground up and basically by himself. They have a little creek and some greenery. They've got trees, too.

Going even further back, we had a series of huge evergreens at the earlier home I remember. My sibs told me they were Christmas trees that we planted once Santa didn't need them anymore. What a wonderful idea.

Right now, I don't even have a fern.

So, good luck to you and your friendly fig Pilgrim/Heretic. You both made me smile this morning.

A Saturday Morning Clearing of the Tabs

I keep tabs open with very bizarre pages on them thinking that maybe I'll send the links to friends, or keep look at the pages again, but I rarely do, so I post them here for me to have them for later, and of course, for your edification.

1. The New Trailer for The Golden Compass. Interested? I am. Jayfish told me I needed to read those books and he was right. Fun funfun! Please don't be a bad movie!
2. One of my favorite comics has some of the best tshirts evar. I mean, seriously, look at the library science one. How could you not just giggle uncontrollably all day long if you wore that? The "everything is ruined forever" one is also mucho awesome.
3. I saw some scary things when I was in Japan. Things that damaged my very being at a metaphysical level. Now you can too!

There are a couple more tabs, but those are the entertaining ones. Have a loverly Saturday. (Does 'loverly' show up as correct in your spellcheck too? That's awesome.)

There's Also This

High quality editing. It won't be long until there is no practical way to tell the difference between what people really say and what a video editor wants them to say.

If They Cared, They Wouldn't Turn The Stuff In

In the 'talk to the new TAs' session thingie, one of the other TAs mentioned that it was her policy to work 8-5 and not bring any work home. Does anyone do that? Is that possible? It sound like a wonderful idea.

Today I was going to bring home a pile of grading to take care of and considered if I should or not. It would be very good of me to finish it all and hand it back to the students by tomorrow. It would certainly beat all of my previous records for returning homework. Some students might even look over the homework and end up doing better on the quiz coming up on Monday.

Then again, I would love to just come home and read a book, or play a video game or just zone out and try to make a dent in my netflix queue. That's to say nothing of the work I need to do on my research stuff.

I brought the grading home. Will I grade it?

Not Like Mick Jagger Big, But Still...

I've got a big mouth. It's a bit of a problem, seeing as how I don't like people that much. I guess it's just one of those 'likes to hear his own voice' kinda things.

What brought this to the front of my mind was when I was asked to join a panel of 'experienced TA's' to answer questions to the newer TA folk. The lesson learned is that when you give Overread an audience and tell people to ask him questions, he'll go on for. ever. I mean the others on the panel talked too, but I was quite the chatterer. Hopefully I didn't embarrass myself too badly.

PS - joke from a student:

Q: How do you get an elephant through the front door of a Safeway?
A: You take the 'f' out of 'safe' and the 'f' out of 'way' (think about this one out loud)

PPS - Oh, there is draaaaaama in gradland.

No Cheese with this Whine

I've been told that I need to get off my tush and write more here. Well, not in so many words, but there it is. Frankly I wan't too sure I had any readers left but if you are there still... umm... Hi there! Thanks for keeping me in your reader. I shall endeavor to write more.

Unfortunately today's happenings aren't the stuff of much joy or entertainment.

I did get to go to meet up with the nieces (how is it that I still have trouble spelling that word?) and their hangers-on (that's sis and bro-in-law along with a couple of other tykes and parentals). And I know I've said this before, but it is simply undeniable that these are the two most wonderful children that ever there were. I'd go into detail, but I'm sure you would gag with the fawning and such.

Also, it turns out that my sister and her hubby did a real good job deciding to be parents. They happen to be very good at it.

Of course it could be all different when I'm not around :)

Anyway, the frustration of the post is that I'm sick. It's a cold/flu thing, and I blame Bro-in-law. Actually, he got it from his friend who got it from his wife, so maybe I should blame them. Anyway, the upshot is that I've got a departmental reception (snacks and food and schmoozing) and a dinner (food and booze and schmoozing) invite from a prof that I'm not going to be able to go to because I'm just snotting the place up and nobody needs to see that. (seriously, you guys don't know how close you are to seeing my wadded up kleenex on my 365 photo page)

That wouldn't be so bad, but I'm just awful at being social anyway that I bet nobody even knows I'm in the department. Ick. And my advisor is there. If he remembers me, he'll probably think I'm ducking him. Gah.

Sniff.

I want soup.