I mean, what are the odds that a girl child would ask for *two* pink things?
How is that "speaking loosely"? It's not like it's an approximate version of anything more coherent. I don't really understand what you're getting at here, heebie. Maybe I'm taking you too literally.
A profound misunderstanding of the world in general and the way airplane routes work in particular might lead one to believe a two-hour layover before what is merely a thirty minute flight is a strangely incompetent thing for "them" to do.
I also got far too intense on my bookgroup because there had been a modest deviance from the hosting order, and they were extrapolating all kinds of nutty non-fixes, and I wrote a stern email about the nature of the original pattern-deviation and what would correct it and why these other things were ridiculous. Then I remembered that they aren't on Unfogged and I reigned it in a tad.
Because you're a feminist self-aware.
reigns
You do sound a trifle bossy.
You won't be surprised to learn that I stared at this for a while trying to figure out what the hell she meant by 'random'.
It seems pretty obvious. She meant "stereotypical".
We have a two-hour layover in Detroit, followed by a thirty minute flight to Indiana! Isn't that crazy? I just don't understand why they'd do it that way.
I know this one. It's a reflection of the way in which people don't think. At all.
It's like when people email to the shop to say, "You mailed the book 2 days ago, and it hasn't arrived yet! I paid for expedited shipping! Please ensure delivery by tomorrow."
I think I'll just leave it at that.
Also, my brother tried to sing the praises of The Great Stagnation to me, and I kind of tore into him inappropriately, forgetting that I wasn't on Unfogged.
Has anyone read it? He truly made it sound idiotic, but I especially hate arguments that we've reached some zenith and it's all downhill from here.
The first page or two on Amazon don't look very good, but I thought people generally liked Tyler Cowen. This post on Marginal Revolution seems pretty dumb, although I don't understand all of it.
but I thought people generally liked Tyler Cowen
What? Why?
We have a two-hour layover in Detroit, followed by a thirty minute flight to Indiana! Isn't that crazy? I just don't understand why they'd do it that way.
The current hub and spoke system is not really a necessary feature of airline travel, and I don't think was much used before deregulation. Perhaps this was her question.
She was also complaining about how, while she'd travelled a lot before, this was her first time travelling with a baby, so she called up the airline to ask them what she should do if she needed to change his diaper on the plane.
They told her "Change it." and she was pissed, or something. It was somehow a complicated story, and I was having trouble composing myself with Jammies right there.
11: I guess I hadn't really clicked through or paid attention. He seems incontrovertibly dumb, but I felt bad for not being more pleasant (pre-drama) to my brother.
When dealing with lay people, you need to remember three things.
1. "random" means not at all random because there is a pattern in what they are talking about even if it isn't a pattern that is easily classified.
2. "stochastic" means random.
3. Nobody knows what stochastic means.
Tyler Cowen is one of those people who I think is generally wrong, but I don't find contemptible. That's a fairly slim category.
15: once my mom was quite insistent that I couldn't possibly know what "stochastic" meant.
16: he seems like a nice guy. Always wrong in a pretty pernicious way, though.
I'm kind of starting to hate Cowen, the more I read. I should probably go back to prepping for tomorrow.
17: Probably heard about your stats class.
He's genial and seemingly intellectually honest, but creepy and unpleasant deep down - I think.
15 Did she know what it meant?
TC starts from free market but not libertarian premises, gathers lots of facts effectively, and reasons from there, usually dispassionately. His Great Stagnation argument isn't about a long-term peak, but about a short-term peak. I read him regularly, usually learning something, disagree or roll my eyes in maybe 30% of cases. I like him better for editorial choice than for argument, myself.
Was the woman talking about a plane that had a two-hour layover before taking off again? Because that would make sense, if she wasn't thinking about new passengers joining the plane during the layover. I mean, if someone booked me on a plane that left at 1 p.m., arrived at 3 p.m., then departed at 5 p.m. to arrive at 5:30 p.m., I'd probably be annoyed.
Especially if I didn't fly much (or at all) and didn't understand that the "same" flight was really two different flights in the airline's mind and they wanted to maximize revenue by pulling together as many random (ha) passengers from different locations as they could before the second flight took off.
24: It wasn't my impression, and she would have de-planed either way, but that's definitely a charitable possibility.
( she would have de-planed either way = I saw her get off the plane, which doesn't give any information)
I can't fucking believe you just used the word "de-plane" nonironically.
I mean, as long as we're being judgmental.
15: Apparently sleep doctors talk about periodic breathing during sleep. This confused my friend the biophysicist, because he thought that that would mean that breathing patterns followed a periodic function. He never did tell me what they mean, but it's not that.
15: Oh, and what is a short definition of stochastic?
I can't fucking believe you just used the word "de-plane" nonironically.
Well la-di-da. You think you're so french.
We were planing, then we tarmacked, and then we deplaned.
"You mailed the book 2 days ago, and it hasn't arrived yet! I paid for expedited shipping! Please ensure delivery by tomorrow."
Wow. That's pretty great.
Back when I was doing telephone customer service a lot more, I developed a theory that some people make emotional declarations using factual language. Answering them on a factual level rarely addresses their underlying emotion, whereas making an emotional response before launching into the factual explanation has some chance of being heard. Or at least this is my semi-tested theory.
I can't fucking believe you just used the word "de-plane" nonironically.
This thread is at a high level of security. Please report any unattended irony or suspicious comments to the nearest law enforcement officer.
I think Tyler Cowen was very nice to Megan at one point and promoted her blog a lot. That makes me more sympathetic to him that I would be under other circumstances. His co-blogger (there may be many of them; I don't know) is one of those people who lies, gets very upset when called on his lies, lies some more, gets even more upset when called on the second set of lies, and so on. This is a type that I find truly infuriating, perhaps more so than any other type imaginable. I suppose serial killers, including Hitler, could be worse. But I don't have any direct experience with them, so I wouldn't want to speculate in a public forum like this one. If you'd like my thoughts on that issue, you'll have to e-mail me.
If you see something, de-unverbalize something.
e-mail VW for the secret evidence of his dalliances with serial killers!
stochastic |stəˈkastik|
adjective
randomly determined; having a random probability distribution or pattern that may be analyzed statistically but may not be predicted precisely.
I thought heebie used the hyphen in de-plane to signal that she knows it's airline-speak and not really word.
But really, the more egregious error (o where is Wolfson when we need him) is in 4: Reigned?!
I developed a theory that some people make emotional declarations using factual language. Answering them on a factual level rarely addresses their underlying emotion, whereas making an emotional response before launching into the factual explanation has some chance of being heard.
I just got a screamy email yesterday illustrating this, and replied on this very principle, and it seemed to work.
40: If you are Vin Diesel, yell really loud.
41: I don't dally. I wouldn't want to claim that I've never cavorted.
39: I read Marginal Revolution fairly often. I don't pay attention to who is writing which post, but I often learn newish things there and some of them are interesting.
45: Wow, really? Congrats! I saw the thread from last night and was thinking you'd want some breathing space without replying to the screamyness. Yay heebie!
You know, Vance Maverick addressed reigned in his comment in 6, but he switched it to present tense and I didn't get what he meant.
23 and 48 are basically my experiences with MR, I don't trust Cowen but he's not a moron and is consistently interesting.
some people make emotional declarations using factual language. Answering them on a factual level rarely addresses their underlying emotion, whereas making an emotional response before launching into the factual explanation has some chance of being heard.
Change "some people" to "all people, almost all of the time" and you're getting it about right.
51.last: You're only saying that because you're angry.
I think of Tyler Cowen sort of as a wannabe rightish Noam Chomsky with the science and the politics collapsed somewhat ineptly into one.
37: Answering them on a factual level rarely addresses their underlying emotion, whereas making an emotional response before launching into the factual explanation has some chance of being heard.
In all honesty, I inevitably begin with a factual explanation (i.e. "Unfortunately, once the book leaves our hands and is in the hands of the Post Office, we aren't able to speed up their delivery of it any further") then go on to make soothing noises about how it'll be arriving any day now, no doubt the USPS experiencing a backup due to the Thanksgiving national holiday, blah blah.
That seems to take care of the matter. I exercise great restraint, I'll tell you what.
Maybe we should go with "emplane" and "disemplane."
53 almost maybe could have in some ways had a few more modifiers, kinda sorta.
55: "disemplane" and "antidisemplane"
I should try to put together at least one slide per comment I write here.
59: I just sent 4 of the roughest and most cryptically-described slides to a co-worker and basically said "please fix". Because I'm tired and half-drunk from the least joyous holiday party in the history of the world and he was not there.
What's another word for deplane?
Not depeanut.
Further to 7: I don't know but I've been told that "random" has in slangy teenage contexts been subject to semantic innovation along something like the following trajectory:
happens by chance
---> inexplicable, happens for no apparent reason
---> weird, quaint, idiosyncratic, novel, striking
The next step could easily be:
---> amusingly, strikingly typical, i.e. nonrandom
Whenever I come across "deplane" I feel like exclaiming "De-plane! De-plane!" like that guy from that show.
I had cousins who lived in Des Plaines and as a young child I assumed it had something to do with its location. And then I got older and learned that I was wrong. And then American Flight 191* sickeningly crashed in front of thousands of horrified commuters including my uncle. And then American Airlines filed for bankruptcy.
*I wonder if they quit using 191 for flights to Los Angeles after the Delta crash six years later.
67: Don't they say "dez plainz", though?
Disembark.
You mean "debark", I assume.
"Disembark" seems like it should have the very specific meaning of turning back while getting on a ship.
69: So why would "deplane" sound anything like that?
79: Disembark 1582, debark 1654.
72: You said, "I had cousins who lived in Des Plaines and as a young child I assumed it had something to do with its location."
I thought you meant you were, oh, never mind.
Disembark 1582, debark 1654.
Logic is eternal, so it can wait—in this case, though, it had only to wait some seventy-two years.
I remember being really confused by the title of Delacroix's "The Bark of Dante" for a while. What is he, a dog? Eventually I made the connection to the word "embark" and realized it meant a boat.
Now I have too many slides! And some of them are dumbed down to a degree that seems almost insulting to the audience, although I should probably leave them that way. People love hearing things they can follow and understand completely in real-time.
Larry Lessig gave a presentation at CERN that had something like 500 slides in less than 90 minutes. It was one of the best presentations I've seen - it's on the CERN site somewhere - but it wasn't on physics.
42 shows that this site can actually decrease the amount of ignorance in the world. Learn from her example, people!
I can't hear the word "deplane" without thinking about Mark Leyner's joke about Forensic Free Fall, the industry newsletter devoted exclusively to accidental in-flight deplanings.
It makes sense that they might stop using a flight number after a horrific accident, but it certainly smacks of retiring a player's number for outstanding achievement.
I just can't win the sleep thing. I went to bed at an absolutely reasonable hour and then woke at 1 with a headache, which I igonred, then woke up again ten minutes ago from one of those No-Country-for-Old-Men-meets-I-Pagliacci dreams with the same headache or perhaps one of its friends. Waiting for analgesic to work, going to be a zombie tomorrow.
Apparently, "random" is a Bill Gates insult:
http://blogcritics.org/culture/article/thats-so-random/
tyler cowen is a reasonable-seeming tr.ojan horse for doctrinaire, every asshole for himself libertarianism (not the good kind where you care about rights other than property rights, and recognize than non-governmental agents can be pervasive and coercive). he sucks you in with the (excellent!) restaurant reviews, addresses topics of low salience upon which he is able to appear genuinely open-minded and ready to change his thinking based on the facts, but actually is unwaveringly dogmatic on the issues that matter to libertarians. he is nonetheless interesting, but don't be fooled.
Tyler Cowen was always an asshat (and made great fun off by Aaron Hawkins back in the day) who for some inexplicable reason has been rehabilitated in the past few years by people who really should know better. See also Andrew Sullivan or Matt Welch.
he was made fun of in the world famous "and a pony" post, let's not forget.
to CSI:NY's credit they do, so far, seem to be spending resources on crimes with either multiple bodies, murdered rich people, bank robberies involving a lotta fatalities, and other things. but, the bank robbery here; federal jurisdiction much? right?
I've never read much of Cowen's stuff, even though Yglesias links to him frequently. I don't have any desire to start, either.
yglesias has a terrible weakness for bad links; he links to steve sailer sometimes. steve. fucking. old-school racist. sailer. I would be afraid I'd get KKK cooties off that shit.
Yeah, the Sailer/Yglesias relationship is really bizarre. That's the sort of thing that makes me not trust him on people like Cowen.
I'm not sure what the CSI:NY connection was (randomness?), but in any case: I read that NYTMag piece about DNA and false confessions, and it made me wonder: have there been any "Law & Order" (or L&O clone) episodes where the protagonists pressure a suspect into giving a false confession? If not, they really ought to make one. Or better yet: an episode where they convict based on such a confession, and only revisit it and reveal the truth ten seasons or so later.
86: the link between going to sleep with a headache and dreaming about Anton Chigurh is all too clear.
I use "deplane" - also, rather more often, "debus". Not "detrain" though, or not yet.
88 is right. Some of his posts are interesting to read from the point of view of watching a mind refuse to grasp the obvious facts of the world around him.
95: I believe, but don't remember exactly, that The Practice did that. Maybe even wiith the revisiting too, but the show didn't last more than a few seasons. I could be mixing together multiple story arcs here.
85: It makes sense that they might stop using a flight number after a horrific accident
In this case it was two very bad Flight 191 accidents within 6 years, both bound for Los Angeles (American at O'Hare, Delta at Dallas-Fort Worth, originated at Fort Lauderdale--probably the most well-known microburst/wind shear crash). And it turns out that Flight 191 is a "thing" although [citation needed].
The acceptable English verbal phrases describing the acts of moving from the outside of an aircraft to the inside and vice versa are "get on" and "get off".
CSI:NY came up because I am sitting around watching the show while very ill.
The best part about flying in a helicopter is the chance to yell "Get to da choppa!" at one another, with a leavening of "What's da matta, Dillon? CIA got you pushing too many pencils?"
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Yves Smith had best slow down be just a little cautious here. Reputations on the Webs have been ruined over far less.
Shorter:Key 43-yr-old witness in Nevada mortgage fraud case, her testimony critical to 606 felony counts and a chance to move up the chain of crime, found dead in her apartment hours before her deal with prosecutor was to be finalized.
Nevada Attorney General Catherine Cortez Masto is a very courageous and dedicated public servant, who has been the target of incredible pressure.
147 comments in 12 hours, many of them vicious
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I saw a werewolf posting at Naked Capitalism, ... and his comments were vicious.
the bank robbery here; federal jurisdiction much?
Federal prison for sure and usually the investigation is a cooperative thing with feds and locals. If you're after a real shitbag then getting a federal charge makes you downright gleeful. Fed sentences are no joke.
103: I disagree. That is merely the second best part about flying in a helicopter. The best part about flying in a helicopter is the chance to offer your fellow passengers chewing gum on the grounds that it will MAKE YOU INTO A GODDAM SEXUAL TYRANNOSAURUS. LIKE ME!
Also, of course, "She's youah baggage. You fall behind, you on youah own."
Tyler is the thinking man's McMegan.
Actually, I think the person who was confused by their daughter's toy requests is having a problem with pattern recognition, not the meaning of the word random. The presence of the truck and the skateboard disrupt her ability to see the typically girlish pattern, even though both toys have been girlified by making them pink and princess-y, respectively. Basically, it is the power of the patriarchy. Even slight variations from gender-typical behavior cause mental meltdowns.
110: Agree! The bowl is fairly, uh, random, though.
(It is snowing a lot here in the Western Reserve and I plan to force the baby to be outside in his new snowsuit etc. mostly because it will be cute.)
111: I have decided, on the basis of no evidence whatsoever, that the Scandinavians are right, and cold air is good for babies.
Littler kids often get very attached to the things they eat from and with. Joey will often refuse food because it was not placed on his Cars(tm) placemat.
re: 112
I was talking to some crazy Norwegians from an academic institution way up on the edge of the Arctic circle. One of them was telling me about his hot tub, which is wood fired, and has to be dug out from under 20ft of snow when they go to his remote cabin in the wilderness.
'So, my little grandson, he was sitting naked in the snow, throwing snowballs into the hot tub, and we were all drinking. It's great.'
'How cold was it?'
'Oh, not too bad, only about -18C. It's fine as long as you don't stay out of the hot tub for more than 3 or 4 minutes.'
I've done that -- about 0 Farenheit? If you're in heated water, you're not cold, and you have a couple of minutes before the cold gets to you when you get out. It's really very pleasant.
here in the Western Reserve
Your townships are 5 miles x5 rather than 6x6. Weirdos!
Wood-fired hot tubs are so great. I want one of these
Maybe this got said already but it seems that the mom with the pink-loving child is using "random" to mean "weird" or "strange." Which, yes, her child is weird.
I've heard that used colloquially before. Like, you love peanut butter with marshmallows and pears? That's so random!
Maybe this got said already but it seems that the mom with the pink-loving child is using "random" to mean "weird" or "strange." Which, yes, her child is weird.
Her child is weird?
117.1: Yes, have heard this sense from my kids and their friends. Assume there is an urban dictionary definition along those lines, but I am blocked from that at work.
The presence of the truck and the skateboard disrupt her ability to see the typically girlish pattern, even though both toys have been girlified by making them pink and princess-y, respectively.
I'm curious as to what a princess skateboard is other than pink.
I've used and heard used 'random' as an adjective applied to people as meaning 'unpredictable' or 'prone to doing unexpected things' for a long time. Quirky people are 'random' in this sense.
The identified presents don't particularly look unpredictable to me -- the kid likes trucks and skateboards, and also values being gender-role-compliant, so she wants her trucks and skateboards pink.
OT: Now that Congress has made it legal to butcher horses, I suddenly find I don't really want to.
he identified presents don't particularly look unpredictable to me -- the kid likes trucks and skateboards, and also values being gender-role-compliant, so she wants her trucks and skateboards pink.
I think the "random" part might be the inclusion of the candy cane and the small bowl.
I'm curious as to what a princess skateboard is other than pink.
The princess skateboard isn't specified as pink. Apparently if she gets a pink truck and a pink bowl, she'll settle for a khaki skateboard.
I guess I think that would qualify as random from an adult, but not from a kid. It's Christmas, she wants a candy cane -- it's weird to us because it's not a 'present', it's something that sort of shows up in the course of the general Christmas celebration, but she's listing it to make sure it doesn't get skipped. And the bowl there's probably an explanation for, but it's just not that strange. She has something she uses a bowl for and she'd like it to be both hers, rather than the general family dishware, and pink.
124: I defy you to purchase a princess skateboard that is not either pink or pale purple.
Now you're just being difficult. Sure, it's a perfectly normal and kidlike list, but that is why people find the ways of children whimsical and humorous.
Oh, possibly. It just doesn't seem like it should set off anyone's 'Man, that's unpredictable of her!' radar unless they were fairly unfamiliar with how kids behave generally. Cute and whimsical I'll give you, but characterizing it as 'random' seems odd to me.
Or rather, "126, 128:". Add 131 for good measure.
It's not just the word "random". It's the particular sentence construction:
Could she ask for anything more random?
I mean, YES. Yes, she could ask for some tunnels to China and a job in a mailroom of Walmart, and that would be even more random.
127 would make some sense if the FB post had said something like: "my daughter asked for a sort-of random collection of Christmas gifts: ..." Or anything along those lines. But, even if you're using "random" in the sense of weird/unpredictable/quirky, "Could she ask for anything more random?" is just a bizarre thing to say about a completely and totally normal list of children's presents. She didn't ask for "a dead leaf, an alligator's toe, moondust, three ripe turnips and a new pony." That would be "random" in the of weird/unpredictable/quirky.
I dunno. Is her kid weird, as in different from other kids? Not much. But it is sort of peculiar that her child is so into the "girlie" mode that everything has to be pink, but she is requesting the "boy" stuff like trucks? It's kinda peculiar. Or at least funny, in that kind of "oh, kids, aren't they something," kinda way. Also, requesting a small pink bowl as a christmas present is weird. Not as is "no child ever does this" but like "oh, what will the kids do next" sense of things.
In conclusion, Heebie is a robot.
She didn't ask for "a dead leaf, an alligator's toe, moondust, three ripe turnips and a new pony."
Warning signs that your daughter is a Shakespearean witch.
Erm, wow, 134 got pwned pretty badly. Guess I should learn to preview someday.
When my oldest kid was just three, he told us that all he wanted for Christmas was "a purple Furby and one Christmas light".
136: "it might cost you the colour of your eyes. Or it might cost you all your memories before you were three."
But it is sort of peculiar that her child is so into the "girlie" mode that everything has to be pink, but she is requesting the "boy" stuff like trucks? It's kinda peculiar. Or at least funny, in that kind of "oh, kids, aren't they something," kinda way.
Additional info: this acquaintance is someone who I grew up playing soccer with. She was the "other girl" for years and years with me. She was distinctly not-feminine in middle school and high school, ie everyone would have made a huge fuss if she showed up with jewelry on or wearing a skirt. So being into "boy" stuff seems incredibly straightforward from where I'm sitting.
But it is sort of peculiar that her child is so into the "girlie" mode that everything has to be pink, but she is requesting the "boy" stuff like trucks? It's kinda peculiar.
I actually kind of love the kid for that. I'm projecting here but I'm taking it as "Yes, I'm a girl, and like most children and adults of both sexes I value being perceived as gender appropriate. But screw you if you think that being gender-appropriate is going to keep me off my rightful skateboard; girlie is what I say it is, and next year you're going to be buying me my sparkly-pink shurikens and crossbow. You don't get to make me choose between being a gender outlaw and actually sitting quietly playing with my tea set; I'm going to perform femininity while doing what I want."
She didn't ask for "a dead leaf, an alligator's toe, moondust, three ripe turnips and a new pony." Warning signs that your daughter is a Shakespearean witch.
Or is reading the Urple Cookbook.
http://www.unfogged.com/archives/comments_11085.html#1280643
141, 142: Yes, of course both these things are true. But here's where you guys are robots! It seems obvious (to me, anyway) what the mom is expressing is not "I am completely befuddled by these choices and don't see how they relate to one another." But "oh, isn't my kid funny. She's so particular!" Of course kids are like that. But it's still funny to the parent, and of course funny to non-parents. Maybe that's why you guys don't get it. As a non-parent, my reaction is "Kids are weird. Funny! But weird."
144: No, no. It's because they are robots. RFTS (and you!) are right on the money.
It seems obvious (to me, anyway) what the mom is expressing is not "I am completely befuddled by these choices and don't see how they relate to one another." But "oh, isn't my kid funny. She's so particular!""I actually have no idea what the word 'random' means!"
Well, we're picking at her word choice, not on her repeating the list of presents as adorably noteworthy at all. And of course most people don't pick their words carefully at all, making this sort of nitpicking completely pointless.
146: Nor does anyone else who uses it in that colloquial sense? You're not the word use boss of me.
I'd argue that she's using it oddly even in the colloquial sense -- the list is cute and whimsical, but not even slightly surprising. Even colloquially, I think 'random' requires some level of surprisingness.
148: the point of 146 is that she seems to be misusing the word even in its colloquial sense (see 133/134). But sure, this whole post is basically trivial little-bitchery.
The requested presents are ill-assorted functionally, in terms of concrete practical activities, but coherent in terms of abstract (and rather ideological) categories. That the mother finds them puzzling and "random" is thus the Flynn effect in action.
Also, 88, 109 and 110 are dead on.
(I am coming to think that the three things I dislike most about my job are grading, applying for grants, and writing letters of recommendation. Unless I'm doing that wrong, and they should read: "X is great. She could do much better than your school/company, but for some reason she's willing to settle.")
I get the sentiment, and I totally agree that it merits a facebook status. It's cute and sweet and all the rest of it.
All I'm saying is that I stared and stared at the last sentence, trying to figure out how on earth it made sense, before concluding that I should not get all Unfoggy on civilians.
Urple, your pwnages could not be more random.
Shorter 144: It's not puzzlement, it's semi-bragging chatter.
Somewhat tangential to the topic of Christmas gifts, I recently came across this list of unintentionally disturbing children's toys, and while reading through the list I was thinking, "Yeah, that one's kinda creepy . . . Ha ha, that's funny. . . Yeah. . . OK. . . Yeah. . . HOLY HELL! I HAD ONE OF THOSE AS A KID! I HAVEN'T THOUGHT ABOUT THAT THING IN THIRTY YEARS. AND LOOKING BACK AT IT NOW, THAT THING IS SERIOUSLY CREEPY. I REALLY ASKED MY PARENTS FOR THAT?? AND THEY ACTUALLY GOT IT FOR ME??? JESUS!!!!"
I think Tyler Cowen was very nice to Megan at one point and promoted her blog a lot.
He was consistently personally nice to me (and my blog), to no benefit for himself that I could see.
I wonder if they quit using 191 for flights to Los Angeles
My friend is an airline scheduler (Frontier, Virgin America, now Jazeera) and from what he tells me, the fight numbering system is entirely up to his whim. That's probably not true at larger established airlines and maybe there are industry-wide superstitions, but from what he said, he just picked the flight numbers he felt like using.
Actually, 155 gets it rightest.
156: Was it Struts the stripper-pony?
159: How did you know???
Actually it was #2 on the list, "Hugo - Man of a Thousand Faces," aptly described as being "like a Ted Bundy Potato Head."
I either had one of those weird face banks or knew somebody that had one or wanted one, or something.
now CSI:NY is pulling out all the stops because a mounted cop got shot in the back in broad daylight. this, I buy. the subplot with the random schmuck...not so much. maybe I'm jaded because I lived in NYC during the 3 murders a day era. oh god, it's some animal rights bullshit...
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I have just been asked to spend the summer in Narnia, at Narnia Management University.
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Asked by Very Senior Department Member, I mean, the guy who runs the data mining center which is a joint venture of the school in Narnia and us here at Robberbaron Bloodmoney University.
awesome!! you should come! narnia is wonderful, and I will feed you lots of delicious food. they pay good, usually, too. and you could come visit my beautiful island paradise.
mildly relevant to CSI: girl y has got 200 bucks because we sold her old trike* in the store. she wants to buy a phone, but I said no one can have phones till they're 12. anyway, I said, you can't have a number anyway. she said "I'll just buy a burner and then get minutes at 7-11." a burner, yet.
*typo corrected, and yes, it was one fucking amazing tricycle. we sold it at 375 but gave her 200 to teach an important lesson about inventory costs, since we had it for2 years while she refused to sell. also we have to pay rent, salespeople, etc.
also it's really easy to go to, say, hanoi or phuket for the weekend.
really, though, come to narnia; it's the bomb. I have friends at nsu. you can ask my husband and neil the ethical werewolf about its charms.
OK, I guess it's time to stop watching gary sinise solve crimes with SCIENCE11!!1 (I slept from 8pm-1am, so I'n not a total moron.) plus I went to the doctor and weigh 142, so I may deserve to live [n.b.: this is idiotic and crazy).
but do I really need a bacterial sinus infection, viral asthmatic bronchitis, and some fucked up back problem at the same time? it's like my sister, my ligaments are lax and not holding my sacro-iliac together properly. which they kinda can't fix. I think husband x is more upset about it than me. so much so I thought he was mad at me, but he was just stressed out. I told him truthfully our household was in much better shape this week because the death rate for suicidal depression is waaaay higher than that of tearing muscles and stuff in your back.
I'm much happier now, still, I feel like...a real person. hopefully the "crisis stage" has passed and I can do the rest of my oprah-esque workbook without a nervous breakdown. but I'll eventually have to talk to my sister and she'll feel so stupidly guilty, like she can control her dad backwards in time? as a 4-year-old? no. maybe she'll be reasonable. LOL srsly. (my favorite o rly owl). and mom and my bro. fuck that. I'll get on it after i rite a letter to my inner chiid.
the charms of singapore generally, husband x and neil teach at the national university of narnia.
I know where Narnia is, but Phuket is a euphemism for what? What are the recreational activities there?
What are the recreational activities there?
I'm much happier now, still, I feel like...a real person.
Yay! It's almost like you are a real person! I hope the structural integrity of your physical infrastructure tightens up soon.
A friend of mine now works at a Narnian Technische Universität, but I don't know how he's liking Narnia. I think he likes it?
Is it crazy that I'm hesitating because I don't know what I'll do with the cat? Or is it crazy that I'm inclined to do it, despite not knowing what I'll do with the cat?
Just open the box, look at the cat, and you'll know what you just did.
Robberbaron Bloodmoney University
There's so many of these that this is far more effective than google-proofing.
Just freeze the cat if you can't eat it all before you go.
174: ok john, that was great
cosma: someone will cat-sit for you for a nominal sum. there are broke grad students in the world, you know. in fact, you can probably just get some broke grad student to live in your house al summer and pay her in cat food. you'll need to lock up all the good booze and xanax but otherwise it'll probably be fine, especially if you pick a giant nerd who seems like she has no friends. or someone who needs you to sign their dissertation.
My dad was a prof at Narnia Tech U and he loved it there. So much so that despite promises that he'd return to the US right after retiring, he continued living there for years after retirement.
I've only been there a couple weeks at a time, but I loved everything about it* except the heat/humidity. But I'm sure I would've acclimated to that with more time.
*Another Exception: during my first visit there as a teenager while at a mall by myself, a friendly stranger offered out of nowhere to be my personal tour guide around Narnia and gave me his phone number. Having grown up with "Never Talk To Strangers!" rules, this freaked me right out and I got away as politely as possible to go hide between shelves in a bookstore.
I love the way the little kids in my neighborhood line up for the school bus. Its so random!
On the couple of occasions I've been to Narnia, I enjoyed it quite a bit. People claim it's dull, but it's never struck me as convincing, although perhaps it kicks in after a while. Just the sort of place for a TU, as well.
Robberbaron Bloodmoney University
Well, I went to Quackremedy Huckster, but..
