I like the spots -- it's a teeny, teeny little leopard. Actually bears rather a resemblance to Newt's beloved Baby Jaguar, also known as 'Mrow Mrow'.
Baby Jaguar's super-secret blog name is "Worm Worm"?
Great. Now if Baby Jaguar starts posting, everyone will know who he is.
Domo-Kun! Seems I learn something every day.
This looks like as good a place as any to confirm that it's tonight, at 6:30, at O'Reilly's on 35th between 5th and 6th?
Do you know what would have been really fun, but that it's too late for?
If at the first meetup we had made each other guess who we were.
Not so! He can just post as Ybab Raugaj.
Sounds Persian. Wait a minute—
11: What? I thought it was next Wednesday, not this Wednesday.
Whichever Wednesday it is, will somebody take a laptop and post once in a while, for the benefit of those of us in windswept prairies and gloomy forests?
Oh, I just looked at the original thread. It does appear to be next Wednesday. I even tried to make my hair look nice for you people. Sheesh.
The post says the 29th. Today is the 22d. Stop freaking me out. And there will be a full recap for the non-NY types, although probably it will be a pack of lies.
And now I must go away -- if I don't get this brief written, I'm going to get fired.
Oh well, Jackmormon, if we had both showed up, we could have still had a beer.
OMG - my blood pressure just spiked. It's NEXT Wednesday, right?
It is next Wednesday. JM and I were confused.
Next Wedneday in Boston
Hey what is this, Pesach?
"If I forget thee, oh Boston, may my right hand..."
There you go, apo.
*Whoops!*
(Guess who doesn't have one of those responsible-type jobs?)
Also, for future reference, my handy Palm Pilot direction-giver says that the closest subways to O'Reilly's are:
34th Street B/D/F/Q/W/V/N/R
33rd Street 6
Penn Station 1/2/3
That kitten is objectively pro-white-collar crime. Also, shameless. Also, I wish to say again, I'm going to be in New York some other week than next one, and I fie! fie on all of you for not meeting my requirements for a meetup. Fie!
Yes. Of all the bars on 35th, O'Reilly's is the one closest to 5th Ave. before you hit a big'n'tall store and a toy store. It's pretty clearly marked.
I may get there a little earlier to reserve an area. Do we know how many of us there are?
Oh, and it's on the north side of the street (which will be obvious).
Jasmine tea contains very little actual tea, doesn't it? I've been drinking it all morning and am still barely awake.
I actually missed the first two and a half, so without having seen Bucky, I can't really predict. Since the meetup isn't tonight, maybe I'll make it home tonight to catch the tape and then make a prediction. Katherine is so gorgeous. I want to be a boy so I can be her boyfriend. I think I've realized that I'm not in love with her singing--so nasal in the upper registers--but I just want to gaze at her all day long.
Slol -- if the week you are going to be in the city includes the 4th of April (a Tuesday evening), Idealist and I were going to get dinner at La Espiga then. You'd be welcome to join us. (This goes for people who are not Slol as well.)
People that were great:
Chris
Kat
Elliott
People that were beyond awesome:
Paris (finally)
Mandisa (as usual, but even more than ever before)
That kitten shows all the signs of sexual abuse.
I watched some of American Idol last night and ye gods, was it bad! Did you guys have any ideas for how the existence of that "I Walk the Line" performance could be made to fit in with a meaningful universe? Or does this just prove what the Dadaists have been saying all along? Was that performance itself Dada?
A-and, never again will I be able to listen to "I Go Out Walking After Midnight" (previously one of my favorite songs, at least among the subset of songs that I do not know the title of) without hearing some kinda dreadful southern-but-not-really drawl. Thanks Kelly, thanks a lot. I should have watched the E! profile of Tori Spelling instead.
Wow, Mandisa was better than ever before? I have to see that. I walked in in the middle of Paris. She was sounding good and looking fantastic. I just can't get excited about Chris. He always sounds the same. And for me to really enjoy rock music, it has to actually rock in a way that the singer can't provide on his own. I never feel moved by him.
My man Taylor chose a bad song last night. He was fun, but the song was repetitive and unmelodic.
TMK, American Idol is not the show for you.
The less said about Taylor's performance, the better.
Also, it should be noted that that version of "Walk The Line" could be a number one hit in this meaningful universe. Not saying it was good or bad or whatever, but that seems to be the general consensus among my music-industry friends who watched last night.
40 -- okay well I gotta ask since I was not paying 'tension to people's names: was the author of that execrable "I Walk the Line" one of the people you listed above as "great"? Cause that would beg into question the very foundations of my reality.
The kitten is adorable! How dare some of you defile the adorableness of the kitten with your perverted sex jokes?
(The breed is called Bengal, by the way.)
I liked Kellie singing "I Go Out Walkin' After Midnight." But every week her person depresses me more and more. I about cried when Ryan asked her if she's learned anything new this week, she scratched her head, and he said, "I'll let you think about that for a while."
Joe, Taylor was fine. He just chose a bad song. Don't be a hater. Stevie Wonder and Barry Manilow both think he's great.
Stevie Wonder doesn't have to watch him.
Yeah, I'm less enchanted with Kellie every time I see her.
Perhaps I'm just irritable in the early morning over here, but that kitten? Decidedly not adorable. In fact, the way the shot is framed, it's not clear it's even a kitten at all. It could be a full-grown cat, and enthusing about the cuteness of a full-grown cat is perverted.
I'm not really down with the decoration of its fur, either.
If you want cute, but don't want to bend knee to Cute Overlord, I recommend the baaaaaby animals livejournal group. Or, you could just approximate Dantean heaven on earth by contemplating the face of bubees for eternity.
Cause that would beg into question
Double-you Tee Eff to the max, man.
Hey, Cute Overlord is my reading error!
enthusing about the cuteness of a full-grown cat is perverted
I am going to KICK YOUR ASS.
This is what artists and liars do. Sorry.
I'm not making a normative claim, Weiner. I'm just saying, that's a perverted thing to do.
Bitch, that adorable kitten would kill every mouse in the world if it could. PK would wake up in a house full of little dead-mouse "gifts".
Except for rodent-Americans, people don't understand how vicious those cute little things are.
enthusing about the cuteness of a full-grown cat is perverted
I've always felt this way about some of the cats sent in to Kitten War. It's really sad that people with full-grown not-cute cats are entering their sweetums into battle with invincible kitties.
Weiner, no matter how many times you mention it or how many pictures you link to, I still can't get over the idea that you have a cat. It just doesn't fit somehow.
You think I mess up all those hyperlinks all by myself?
58 - I wish I could elaborate but I can't even wrap my mind around the idea of why it seems incongruous, let alone articulate it.
When I look at each of you, all I see is 1's and 0's. No pets.
I know what Becks means. It seems wrong to me too.
60 -- clearly it's because a Wiener is a dog.
Weiner, you give off more of a "gotta dog named Rusty who wears a bandanna and fetches the Frisbee at th epark and oh look there's a hot chick maybe she'll talk to me or marry this other person" vibe.
Part of it may just be the generalization that straight single men don't typically have cats.
I, having met Weiner, do not think his having a cat is incongruous.
This is completely bizarre. A dog? Fetching Frisbee at the park? A freaking bandanna? Do you guys even know me? In a sense, I guess, not.
It doesn't take a lot to broadcast virile masculinity around here.
(I have always pictured Weiner with a parrot perched on his shoulder and/or a ferret.)
No, the dog/frisbee scenario seems off, too. Perhaps a dachshund or a beagle?
Or a big, elaborate fishtank to stare at instead of your "I don't own a TV".
Straight single men don't have cats? Is that really a widespread perception? Every lonely guy in my family has a cat, or several. The house my grandfather built for the family in Amherst N.S., which he hated because the workmanship rebuked his sense of himself every time he came home to it, reeked of cats. My uncle Garn was killed when the place burned down in the '80s; God knows how many cats went with him. My uncle Gerald had a whole cat language he solemnly pronounced. My dad was such a Johnson buff he named our cat "Hodge."
55: Yes, our cat is a great hunter. Nonetheless, I love cats in their catness and mice in their mouseness, though never the twain shall (hopefully) meet.
Also, Ben is wrong. Adult cats can be adorable, though obviously they can't, as a class, compete with kittens. But Ben's statement clearly smacks of kittenism, and should not be tolerated.
Weiner is totally a cat kinda guy. Which is a compliment, she says, to forestall the inevitable jokes. While, come to think of it, simply inviting other ones. Oh well.
I've always wanted to get a pug and name him "Boswell." When people ask to meet him, I'd say, "This is my biographer."
But I'm a lame 18th-century nerd.
It's true. My sister's cats are cute, as have some iterations of my dad's.
I had plans to get two cats and give each of them three names, but now I can't remember all of them.
One cat was to be called Hermes Trismegistus, aka something else, aka Jacques (I think); the other was to have been named Finn MacCool, aka Finn, aka Marcel (I think?).
It is a mistake to own cats simply for the naming priveleges -- you can as easily name a Chia pet, and they are lower maintenance.
I've mentioned my father's imaginary cats -- Ceremony, Umbrage, and Nostalgic? Their only function is to yowl when, respectively, stood upon, taken, or waxed.
He used to have an actual cat, passed on from my sister. A beautiful but incredibly stupid Abyssinian -- the Derek Zoolander of cats.
w-lfs-n, you're the authentic face of teh lame.
It is necessary, TMK (why the pseudonym, btw?) that these be the names of cats.
Plus, I like cats in their own right.
Maybe I can name them "Hermes Trismegistus" and "Herman Dreiwenigstens".
Count me among those who think Matt and Catt make perfect sense.
76: My students once said that Boswell reminded them of some little cartoon dog, always jumping up and down and yapping "let's play! let's play!" and humping Johnson's leg.
84: Agree. Weiner seems like a total cat guy.
73: what, you mean I'm not the only one here? (erm, don't have a fish tank either)
Unfortunately for this thread, Johnson's response was "You dogs, I'll have a romp with you."
why the pseudonym, btw?
I could ask the same of you. If you recall, back when the crowd were discussing Alameida's relationship with her asshole high school art teacher, ac and LizardBreath (IIRC) had a side conversation about a girl in their school who had had an affair with one of their teachers -- she went by "the Modesto kid", though I know not why; perhaps she came from the same town as I -- I decided then and there, that would be my pseudonym henceforth.
84: so counted, as long as you allow that Hatt is much more appropriate than a bandana, also.
Oh dear. No, Jeremy, the teacher went by (or rather, was known among the students as) The Modesto Kid. Now, that story is the only one I know of his molesting students, and he was otherwise a perfectly pleasant fellow, but I wouldn't have neamed myself for him.
Would have been better if Johnson had said "You cats..." with a Sammy Davis Jr. impression.
#84:
The cat sat on the Matt. Practical Criticism by I. A. Richards.
LB -- I'm happy with it. It doesn't really make me think about your molesting teacher so much as about my home town. I'll probably drop it in a little while anyway, every day I think of a pseudonym I would like better.
Catt in a Hatt with a Matt!
My cat is kittenish-cute. Grew up to be a small delicate batshit insane but friendly two year old cat.
If cats had scales, however, we would see them for the vicious predators they are. It's cute when a fluffball stalks your toes. If it looked like a lizard, I'd shoot it.
All right, but changing your name is going to affect your placement in the "most prolific commenter' awards.
Matt, I was totally making shit up. I do that sometimes.
I was a single guy with a cat. I also lived with the same male roommate for five years. Come, join me as an ex-ghey(TM).
97 -- I'm not even in there yet. My alter/ego is though. (As is My Alter Ego.)
Only had the same male roommate for three years, but we had two cats.
You nailed "oh look there's a hot chick maybe she'll talk to me or marry this other person," anyway.
Out of curiosity, why did you call your teacher by my pseudonym?
I picture Weiner with a small dog. One of those white curly-haired breeds.
I also picture Weiner as resembling exactly a fellow I knew in my youth by the name of Matt Weiner.
(except with parrot and/or ferret, neither of which the Matt Weiner of my youth possessed.)
OK, you're all missing the point here. Weiner may be a cat person instead of a dog person but what I can't fathom is that he would be the type of person to wake up one day, decide "I need to procure myself a cat", go to the pound/breeder/classifieds, evaluate suitable candidates, and bring one home. I can possibly envision a scenario where he adopts a friendly stray that takes a liking to him and starts hanging around his dwelling or a kitten that gets pawned off on him by a well meaning friend but the former scenario is the one that baffles.
How did you come into possession of this cat, Weiner?
I am thinking he was taken in by an Internet kitten-spam.
I picture Weiner with a small dog. One of those white curly-haired breeds.
Tia, it is OVER between us. I used to live above such a dog. Cute if stuffed, but annoyingly yappy as all hell.
105, on the other hand, nails it. Some well-meaning friends were having a baby and decided that the cat was incompatible with that, so they pawned off the cat (and, eventually, a stray who was hanging around) on me and my roommate. I was extremely enthusiastic about getting a cat, and glad I didn't have to go through the process you describe, which would probably have defeated me.
WE HAD A FOREIGN CUSTOMER WHO BOARDED A HUGE NUMBER OF KITTENS AT OUR PET CARE FACILITY, WHO LATER DIED AS A RESULT OF A PLANE CRASH. BEFORE HIS DEATH, HE ARRANGED FOR THE KITTENS TO BE ADOPTED BY THE HEIR TO THE NIGERIAN THRONE.
SINCE THE DEATH OF THIS CUSTOMER, I PERSONALLY HAVE WATCHED WITH KEEN INTEREST TO SEE WHAT WILL HAPPEN TO THE KITTENS. THE NIGERIAN ROYAL FAMILY HAS SHOWN NO INTEREST IN FOLLOWING THROUGH ON THEIR COMMITMENT. ON THIS NOTE I DECIDED TO SEEK FOR WHOSE NAME SHALL BE USED AS NEXT OF KIN AS NO ONE HAS COME FORWARD TO BE NEXT OF KIN.
IN VIEW OF THIS I GOT YOUR CONTACT THROUGH MY COUNTRY'S FOREIGN TRADE MINISTER AFTER I WAS CONVINCED BY PROVIDENCE YOU COULD PROVIDE A HOME FOR THESE KITTENS. YOU SHOULD CONTACT ME IMMEDIATELY YOU RECEIVE THIS EMAIL OR CALL ME ON MY NUMBER +87-332-990-1286, PLEASE DO NOT CALL ME ON MY OFFICE NUMBER.
TRUSTING TO HEAR FROM YOU.
RESPECTFULLY,
Mr. GARRINGTON MCCLEWES
Thanks to 107, the world makes a little more sense than it did this morning. Thank you, Weiner.
Although your "extreme enthusiasm" still gives me a little bit of pause.
the teacher went by (or rather, was known among the students as) The Modesto Kid. Now, that story is the only one I know of his molesting students…
After which he was known as "The Molesto Kid"?
Wow cool, it got through the comment-spam filter. I had my doubts it would.
Weiner, I meant no offence. I myself once fell madly in love with a chihuahua I dogsat named Peanut. I cried when I had to give him back.
w-lfs-n's witticism in 111 was at the heart of a cheer used by fans of teams playing football against Modesto High.
(I have always pictured Weiner with a parrot perched on his shoulder and/or a ferret.)
and a carrot. in a garret.
I guess I can trust you to share it, JD
I can't bear it.
I won't stop now even if I tear it.
If I had an apple, I would pare it
but if I had a number, I would square it
That is all the action it would merit.
(Ben makes sweet love each night to Tom Skerrit)
Chopper, I bet Ben would give you a chance if you promised to wear the sombrero.
96 - boh? having a little predator around who is much, much smaller than you - about foot-size - is super-cute.
smart, canny cats who are good hunters are awesome -- they're good at what they do.
especially when some of us, ahem, live in old apartment buildings with mice and the occasional roach. (boston, joyous somerville, new york).
i miss cats...
Jealous, Chopper?
Mmmmm. Tom Skerrit has the most manly shouldrs...
Ooo. I've often stood outside the snow leopard cage at the Bronx Zoo, and wondered what the injury rate was to zookeepers who just couldn't resist trying to snuggle with the big kitties, and then got et. I'm a mature, responsible adult, but something about big cats just makes me go "Oooo, fluffy."
me too. it is so hard to resist putting my hand between the zoo cage bars...
Did you guys read "The Life of Pi"?
I brought ny 15-month-old to the zoo on Saturday--she absolutely loved the cougars. One was pacing right in front of (behind a chain-link fence) and Audrey was ecstatically shouting "ditty! ditty!" (her version of "kitty") over and over.
Those fuckers are big.
133 -- I didn't love it but thought it was fun to read. I got reminded of it by those guys talking about cuddling with leopards and such like.
132 -- kids at the zoo are way fun.
While the spam comment is still around, "Please smile" is verboten.
But after the spam comment is gone, it's fine to say "please smile"? Also, what if the person you're saying it to is posing for a photograph?
I fear that 135 was a disguised biscuit conditional. Help me!
Weatherson is coming to give a talk at stanford, d'ya think I should go to dinner with him?
Yes. Always go to dinner with visiting speakers, particularly if you might have something to say to them. It's in the manual.
I'm not sure I do have anything to say to him.
You can talk about blogs. Or me.
Always go to dinner with visiting speakers, particularly if you might have something to say to them.
Does the second clause of this sentence indicate that the first shouldn't be taken at face value?
When I was a kid, I was charged by some large, vicious mammal while at the zoo. I don't remember it at all - maybe it was a tiger? - but it freaked out everyone involved since the animal came right up to the edge of the cage. My parents said the trainer came out and scolded it and apologized to us for its behavior.
Go. It's helpful to be known as the grad student who is always willing to chat with visting faculty. And, dude. Free food.
Plus, it's basic networking. If you don't have anything interesting to say, attend the talk, make a note, and think of a good question.
Oh, we're talking about something else now? If you go to dinner with a speaker, you probably should have at least one thing to say. The few times I've been to dinner with speakers - always as part of a group - I've felt pressure to do something that shows you're making use of the speaker's knowledge/expertise/connections/ability to get the department to pay for better food.
126: But I maintain that you only value the playful antics of the cute, adorable foot-long predator, good as it is at chasing mice & roaches, because its predatory skills are encased in a purring, fluffy shell. I might value a predatory lizard for chasing down mice, but if it wrapped its scaly body around my leg, as my cat often does, and pretended to disbowel it, and gnawed on my ankle, I'd freak right the fuck out.
Lesson: If you are going to be deadly, be cute about it.
142 wasn't primarily intended as snark, but I had neglected the term I meant to invoke. Does what 142 describes count as implication cancelling, or no, because what's being cancelled is textual, rather than implied?
My sister had a lizard before she got a cat, but the lizard was pretty much always in a cage except for its last few trips to a vet. I think she's much happier with the cat.
126: I disagree. The fact that they, like us, are mammals no doubt invokes the "cute" response, but all predators are very interesting to watch.
Interesting, sure. In a cage. Play stalking another lizard. If it gnaws on my hand, I freak right the fuck out.
Probably not (and I think that what you mean is "Implicature" (and did you know that My Paper on implicature canceling is about to come out, which I celebrated by taking it down from my website (and this and a few other comments on this thread indicate that I have a Big Ego, yes))), because what is seemingly canceled is part of the literal meaning of the first clause. IOW what you said. It's an interesting question because I'm not sure what 'particularly' means; if it's an intensifier it need not cancel the first clause, as in something like "It is good for you to go to dinner with speakers, and it is very good to do so when you have something to say to them."
Ben, I don't know what he's speaking on, but you should have at least one thing to say to him; "I too have a blog" would be something. He's not difficult to draw out. Maybe you can talk about truth in fiction. Cala in 144 also speaks Teh True.
I can't wait until 'Teh True' replaces 'Truth' in a philosophy journal.
Yeah, I'm not going to be saying I have a blog in front of other department members, actually. Though I recall that in the earlier iteration of my blog, I posted a lengthy if rambling and incoherent criticism of his paper "My Favorite Puzzle" to which he linked in a favorable way, and then the following schoolyear one of my classmates said she found out about it (=my blog in its earlier incarnation) from Weatherson's.
It's certainly true that I should have used the word implicature, but that's not to definetly say that I meant implicature, just that my comment would have made more sense if I used it.
Also, I'm not currently writing anything (nor have in the past, so it's unclear why I used currently), but I am lead editing a really good piece called "No/vel Crim/inal Fra/ud" by Sam/uel Bue/ll. However, the link to the internet accessible version of it, last I checked, opens a .pdf of it with the correct number of pages, but all of them after the abstract are blank.
If he's mentioned favorably something you wrote about him, you definitely have something to say to him.
144 gets it exactly right.
The primary concern is to demonstrate that you're not freaking out and hiding under your bed, en route to dropping out of the profession, as has happened to approximately 20% of my PhD class.
Chin up!
lizards can be pretty. like the house geckos we had all over the walls of our house in the equatorial country i lived with my family around age 12. jewel green and delicate.
my cat at the time made short work of all the bigger lizards... including one species twice her size (though they were mostly tail) and suddenly we had no more big orange-tailed lizards in the garden anymore. she had to move on to the tinier species of poisonous snakes, which she would lay out in rows on the terrace but knew enough not to eat. so cats win at predatorhood as well as fluffiness...
[end of storytime!]
w-lfs-n, I can't imagine you not having anything to say. So Weiner's "always" is correct. Go. But for heaven's sake, dress properly.
My Mom's house here had bats and a nest of hibernating snakes awhile back, but no lizards.
When w-lfs-n meets Weatherson he can very subtly dangle Teh Hip in front of him, without ever saying in so many words that some other sites are in continual risk of Teh Stuffy.
w-lfs-n should go to the talk, note all grammatical errors and infelicities, and in his inimitable manner politely point them out after the talk, in lieu of asking a question. If he does not do this, he is not really a grammar bitch.