You know this won't work without a picture, right?
One wonders whether this dedicated lurker cleared her plea being posted on the front page. (One notices that the email asks if the addressee or his "blog-mates" knows anyone answering that description, the latter term being ambiguous between readers of and posters at unfogged, and wonders furthermore if even this dedicated lurker's friend knew where his or her missive would end up, though the latter party really ought to have known.)
Of course it was cleared, you nitwit. Do you really think there's a situation in any possible universe where you would think to be more discreet than me?
I don't doubt that you cleared it with the person who wrote the email; I'm really more curious if the person who wrote it told the person it concerns about h/h plan.
If you performed this service for "nice, funny, very smart, thrifty, and attractive" women in the Bay Area (ahem), you would be minting money.
You know that they're going to go on a date and then get shot by cops, right?
It's my impression that Unfogged has not achieved significant penetration in the Northwest. So to speak.
re: 8
Going on an Unfogged-mediated blind-hookup is pretty much prima facie evidence of mental illness and therefore that they deserve to be shot.
Tell her to go hang out on the patio in front of Septieme on Capitol Hill and order from their summer drinks list. That's perfectly fun to do all by yourself.
10 - Oh, come on. I'd trust a randomly chosen Unfogged commenter over a stranger off of CL any day. And I suspect we'd have a better time.
Especially if you first stop at Bailey-Coy down the street and buy an armload of books.
By the way, lurkers are unappreciated. But then again, we aren't in it for the attention.
Belle Lettre, much as I'm willing to suffer for the blog, I'm not willing to give up right of first refusal on Bay Area women.
9. That's what we're trying to remedy here.
Which unfogged commenter would make for the most hilarious Becks date? cg?
I have a friend who's nerdy and interesting who lives in Seattle, whom this person could certainly meet and pass time with, though he probably wouldn't be interested in the torrid affair aspect. How important is that?
If she ends up drinking alone on the patio at Septieme with a stack of used books, will the Mineshaft swear off the dating business? Or will the Mineshaft declare victory?
I'm the one who emailed Ogged -- pseudonymous for just this thread.
To answer #2, my friend definitely knew (and cleared) my wording of her plea being posted on the front page.
As for #18: The sense I get is that "interesting" trumps "torrid affair," probably.
I guess there are two ways to get in contact with her -- someone can either leave a comment here and she might email you, or you can email me (John Tyler) at my brand new anonymous email address, and I can forward on any contact info that way.
20: Not used, it's a new book store. Independent. Very awesome. I miss it.
I forget the name of the used bookstore, but it's on the corner of John and Broadway, also just down the street from Septieme. Which is on Broadway. And is under new, and not-as-good ownership, but last time I was there the drinks menu hadn't changed.
They should do one for Chicago.
Last night, Bitch PhD wasn't on chat, and I almost wrote a "Dear Mineshaft" letter to Becks. That would've been disastrous.
20: don't assume the Mineshaft is monolithic. Certainly if she winds up there with a stack of books, Emerson will declare victory.
Dear Mineshaft:
I am a recovering misogynist, and I swear that if I see one more perky blonde cunt on the news, whether as newscaster or as Bush administration miscreant, I'm going to turn into a leftwing Kim duToit.
23: That must be the one I was thinking of. Such a great neighborhood.
Perhaps we should plan the date, just in case. I say start with late lunch at Salumi.
21: that's a pseudonymous email address, not an anonymous one.
That was a cry for help, you understand. I hate what I see myself becoming, but I can't help blaming the blonde cunts.
Is thriftiness supposed to be a point of attraction?
I always thought of it as something (arguably) tolerable, but irrelevant to whether or not one wanted to go out with someone.
Would you rather date someone profligate and wasteful, or someone who knows how to stretch a buck with ingenuity and style?
I wouldn't want to go out with someone who was excessively thrifty when they didn't need to be. It annoys me when people quibble over whether the appetizer cost $2 more than an extra glass of wine when it comes to splitting the check.
In this case, the thriftiness is a source of endless humor. Neither a point of attraction nor repulsion.
The situation seems to have resolved itself.
I would prefer to date someone who gracefully picks her moments to be profligate and wasteful or buck-stretchingly ingenious, but would not use "thrifty" to describe themselves.
In this case, someone else was using "thrifty" to describe this person. Comity!
The situation seems to have resolved itself.
Don't be passive, Kotsko. Create a new conflict.
28, 31: Stop watching the news, dummy.
Yes! Let's eschew any pretense of finding this anonymous lurker a date, and jump right ahead to mocking her. I'll contribute: those given to hyperbole are annoying.
I'm all right with people describing other people as thrifty. If a friend described someone they were trying to set me up with as thrifty, I'd still be confused.
Although now that I'm 30 I can imagine wanting to date women with more accessible benjamins than shoes.
Why aren't the lonely thrifty lurkers ever stuck in Albuquerque?
She sounds like a peach. Is the Unfogged community really going abandon her to w-lfs-n's "friend," who is no doubt simply a front for Little Rasputin's own sybaritic interest?
I thought the code for "cheap date" was "laid back"?
I thought it was a code for easy sex.
B's world is so much better than mine.
You should write that on a post it and stick it to the top of your monitor, Tim.
At the risk of sounding like a response to a CL ad:
M, feel free to drop me an email if you'd like to get together for a drink or dinner in the evenings.
I put the odds that sex results from this thread at no better than 10%.
Would you rather date someone profligate and wasteful, or someone who knows how to stretch a buck with ingenuity and style?
if you were a woman... Take me.
In emulation of the grand CL tradition, shouldn't all the responses include cock photos?
Re 53: That'd only work if I had one
They're easy to find, you can always just use someone else's.
54: You could probably borrow one. A photo, that is. Someone around here has a bunch of them.
I've photos galore: You want one, two or three participants? Of age, underage, or currently legal in North Carolina? Wait, nevermind, no I don't. (whistles, walks away)
Little Rasputin
Is this a new w-lfs-n designation? It's superb. Full points to Tim!
All the cock photos were "lost" (ogged downloaded them and deleted them from the server) when we moved to the new server.
All the cock photos are on Standpipe's blog.
Unfogged is now dickless? I'm not sure how to process that.
34: Exactly right. If you're in a position where the extra dollar is raising your blood pressure, eat somewhere more within your budget so you can tip properly (and so you can enjoy yourself.)
65: Oh, the low-hanging fruit... now?
Also, B is totally right about Ratatouille. The rats! The critic! The omelette!
Yay! I'm so glad you liked it! (Isn't the omelette a thing of beauty?)
The new Eedith Pie-af movie is good, though not amazing in any way (although the settings & costumes are very convincing). It reminded me of De-Lovely but without most of the elements that made that movie horrible. Also I respect the filmmakers a lot for not making Pie-af likeable in any way. I recommend it.
The new Eedith Pie-af movie is good
Seconded. And I say that as someone who doesn't generally like French movies.
According to the screenwriter, he wrote just a single draft of the (very time-jumping) screenplay. It shows -- in good ways and bad.
I have a dating site question. If someone tells me in a private message that people often ask him if he is "for real" and then says that he is, indeed, "for real," does that enable me to make an incisive epistemological joke that he may not get and may indeed find offensive? Because I did that.
No wonder I'm single.
It's a weeding-out mechanism, AWB. Incisive!
Would you really want to date a guy who didn't get jokes like that?
Hear, hear. It's about time this process got formalized.
71, yes, indeed you are. But you're not allowed to keep *fretting* about these things.
The used book store on Broadway is Twice Sold Tales. For sushi fans, Aoki's, on Broadway as well, north end, is very very good.
Funny, borderline offensive jokes are the best sorting mechanism known to humanity.
24: I've nearly done that so many times. You can chat with b and get the terrible relationship advice delivered real time? Do tell!
ZOMG! I just got asked for a date by a super-hot chick who was looking at the apt I was showing! I am really not looking my best tonight or anything! It is possible that she just wants to be friends, but there was ardor in her eyes. She's not taking the apt, but we are getting dinner sometime next week. W00t!
75: I could have gone for the ontology joke, but I opted for epistemology instead.
Ben it's no fun if you guess right off the bat.
78: I prefer Hana, which is also cheaper.
"Oh, you're for real. Real ugly!" Haha! Good one, AWB.
According to the screenwriter, he wrote just a single draft of the (very time-jumping) screenplay. It shows -- in good ways and bad.
I hate fuckers like that. In high school/college, it's that guy who insists he didn't study (despite spending his whole night with his nose in a book) in order to seem "naturally" brilliant. In grad school, it's those people who claim to read poststructuralist theory "for fun," and act as if Derrida isn't a (sometimes rewarding, often not) chore to read. 'Gads, these "I'm so brilliant admire me!" types piss me off. Give me an ol' fashioned "I busted four nuts to write this thing and it's still shit" anyday.
In high school/college, it's that guy who insists he didn't study (despite spending his whole night with his nose in a book) in order to seem "naturally" brilliant.
That was totally me, except for the bit in parentheses.
And except for the implied bit about effortlessly acing exams.
Yeah, I fail my classes in order to seem effortlessly brilliant. Much easier.
I still struggle with not doing that to myself, for which I blame my evil mother.
The funny thing with me is that I don't actually know how much work it would take for me to get an A in a truly challenging class, because I've never done it. I really can't skate to some degree because (a) most people are idiots and (b) I'm an undergrad, but really, the only times in my life I've worked as hard as I could was in pursuit of hobbies or otherwise personally valuable projects.
Rest assured, I work hard for y'all.
93: can't s/b can or possibly s/b think I can.
88: False dichotomy at the end there. Why can't we have more academics who say, "I worked hard on this, and I'm happy with it"? Why this constantly self-beratement? For the most part, I'm happy with the work I do. I would't be doing it if I didn't feel like I was good at it.
The new Eedith Pie-af movie is good
Yeah, I decided it was good when I realized I really cared about how her final performance was going to go. But it also has some typical biopic problems, like showing event's in the characters life simply because they happened and whether or not they're of any importance to the story or interesting in and of themselves. And the movie was too long, largely because of this. Also, I was frequently unsure of who characters were and how they related to other characters, but that might be my fault.
93 gets it exactly right. (Once emended per 95.)
Why can't we have more academics who say, "I worked hard on this, and I'm happy with it"? Why this constantly self-beratement? For the most part, I'm happy with the work I do.
Wait, aren't you at the University of Chicago? You can get a ticket for that kind of talk there.
I worked very hard to pass my prelims in grad school. That's the accomplishment I'm proudest of, I think.
I prefer Hana, which is also cheaper.
I haven't tried them, but now I will.
96: We can, and if more people did so, my ire'd be unraised. However, I rarely hear that. I hear (the laudable) "I busted four nuts" and (the despicable) "I rolled out bed and vomited this up in an hour." No middle ground.
That said, I am killing myself with this latest chapter and it will suck, and suck hard, in part because in the summer Interlibrary Loan is staffed with know-nothing interns from San Diego up to Davis.
Why can't we have more academics who say, "I worked hard on this, and I'm happy with it"? Why this constantly self-beratement?
Because we're more neurotic than even you, Adam.
I was very proud of myself for gutting through retaking the qualifying exam that I failed, which was probably the most terrifying thing I've ever refused to run away from.
93: You can do this for a while, and some people can pull it off right to grad school --- eventually it catches up with you, and then you're kind of screwed because you haven't developed the skills you need. At some point making it through the class isn't so relevant, it's the actual education part that will separate students. The dirty secret about this, even in undergrad courses is that grades are a pretty poor indicator of what you got out of a course. They're better at indicating what you didn't get ... so particularly at the high end there can be huge differences in understanding. This stuff is cumulative.
You know, every time I've been proud of something -- and had other people pay praise for it -- it's ended up like this. Complete and utter crap. The closest thing I've got to pride is the last chapter I finished, which took three years of stopping-and-starting to complete. It ain't the best thing in the world, but it's "publishable," and it's finished, so I'm happy. (Who wants to read it? I know you do! Admit it!)
102: Make sure and order the sweet shrimp--they'll give you the fried head as an accompaniment, and it's yummy.
they'll give you the fried head as an accompaniment,
Kinky!
105: what's funny about this is that I generally learn the material pretty well (or anyhow retain it pretty well), and that none of the skills I lacked throughout school affected in any way how good I was in a job setting. One of the things I liked about the high tech startup world was that, when I cranked through things at high speed without thinking too hard about how to be dilligent or organized, they loved it, because that was exactly the timescale they were dealing with. Eventually I realized that I was never going to learn a lot of skills (e.g. vector calculus) that you learn in grad school, and that would end up limiting my technical competence, so I went back to school. But boy, there's not a day I don't miss feeling like a star just because I'm able to pretty well bang through things at the last minute.
Also, I was frequently unsure of who characters were and how they related to other characters, but that might be my fault.
No, that was the characters' fault for all wearing the same clothes, having the same haircut and talking in the same tone of voice (all the men she knew as an adult, except the boxer).
109: grad school s/b college or possibly s/b elementary school with you goddamn nerds.
there's not a day I don't miss feeling like a star just because I'm able to pretty well bang through things at the last minute.
Yeah, well, I miss not knowing anything about computers, because I'm good at that crap and I wish I could figure out a way to make it pay money.
Sure, you can have my PhD. I'm not doing anything with it. But I warn you, my study habits are certainly no better than your own.
What study habits? I'm just tired of f'in' school, here.
A guy wants to be age appropriate, after a spell.
If you gave away your PhD, you'd just be Bitch, BS. Or maybe Bitch Master.
I ordered a Bitch Master because Sally Struthers said it would tone my Bitch, and now look at me! Toned and ferocious.
So that's her secret. Now how much would you pay?
Bitch Master, starring the Bitch formerly known as BitchPHD as the bitch, and Cesar Milan as...
Boy.
That went sideways in a hurry.
What are you guys talking about?
100/104: You know what I'm not proud of? I did skate, pretty much all the way through. I did a hard program in undergrad and always engaged just enough to not get killed by it, but that was enough to keep in `the group'. I went to a decent graduate program and played to my strengths. Sure, I had to do a bit of work for qualifying exams but by that point I already had one graduate degree and knew enough to slide by. I slacked on my thesis. It wasn't bad, but it's pretty mediocre stuff and I could have done a hell of a lot more in the same time. I know what I'm capable of when I'm actually focussed. So now I'm in the standard sort of academic stream and half the days I wake up and I don't even know if I want to do this. I like teaching well enough, but I'm not great at it. I like research well enough, but I'm not great at it. I see those rare young colleagues in the field who are really, really engaged with this stuff and doing good work. I have to ask myself why I'm not there too, and if I don't care enough to be there, what am I doing?
The reaction that SEK is giving above -- I've had something similar to that, a lot. Not because I was pretending not to work, but because I wasn't working much. You know what another sucky thing is? I never wanted to impress people by not doing work and still doing well. I just never really wanted to test myself, I guess. Not one that I'd have to accept, for myself, as a valid probing of my limitations.
Pretty lame, huh?
Don't worry, Warren G. To a first approximation, everyone feels that way. It's perfectly normal.
Not one that I'd have to accept, for myself, as a valid probing of my limitations.
Yes, this. Knowing this is part of where the temptation to go do something like that hike through the desert with no water thing comes from.
120: I didn't used to feel this way. I even remember when I broke.
Without a PhD I'd still be an awesome bitch. Which at this point is my main achievement, really.
119 is something i can totally empathize with. I'm sure this is terrifying to Mr. Harding.
Did I mention the guilt part? I've been given, oh lets say the equivalent to a really nice house (NY, I'm not looking at you) of other peoples money because various people decided I was good at this sort of thing, and my education was worth investing in. I'm starting to feel pretty bad about that, actually.
Feeling guilty about how other people choose to allot their money is silly. Anyway, you obviously *are* good at it, and that was the grounds for the decision.
These are some pretty middling comments, Harding.
It's funny, just tonight I was talking to my doctor along lines overlapping and intersecting with those of 119.
125: Do you really think that the people who did that either regret it, or are likely to regret it in the future, or would regret it if they better understood the level of effort you've put in to achieve your current status?
Obviously, I can't tell you the answers to that compound question, but I think it's likely to be in the negative.
127: well, he didn't spend very much time on them.
I don't really have to deal with the issue in 125 tho.
Did I mention the guilt part? I've been given, oh lets say the equivalent to a really nice house (NY, I'm not looking at you) of other peoples money because various people decided I was good at this sort of thing, and my education was worth investing in. I'm starting to feel pretty bad about that, actually.
Now you're just starting to sound maudlin. Would it make you feel better if I came over and beat the shite out of you or something?
129 pwned by 126, except I said it better.
126: Ach, I know it's silly. Doesn't mean it isn't there. Sure, I'm good at this. I'm good at a lot of things. I'm just not very engaged with this and I'm not anywhere close to realizing potential, so I have to ask at what point I'm just taking up space and resources that could be put to better use ... all to make myself kind of miserable. Or at best not happy.
It's that last bit that makes it crazy, not that someone gave me scholarships, etc.
119: I have no problem with that, but I wonder -- and this is largely me talking to myself here -- could I be satisfied without having passed through any refining fires? I don't think I could be, but this may be because I've never been able to skate by. I've had to out-work people my entire life, so it's what I do, and what I take pride in.
That said, I sometimes wonder what I could've been had I been blessed with Joe Kugelmass' brain. Damn, that would've been sweet.
Pseud slippage! The bane of anonymous commenters the world over!
I think this is called "the drama of the gifted child" and there's a self-help book on it.
bah, outed myself. Oh well, screw anonymity.
132: only if we can get drunk afterward.
sorry, 125 did come off way more whiny than I was thinking, I was aiming for something else. Sorry, I'll stop now, it's been a bad day.
I assume 119 is pretty much the self-image of about 75% of the people commenting here, with varying details for us non-academic types.
The working title for my gazillion-selling self-help book is "Dare To Be Mediocre." If I ever get around to writing it.
But, all this is helping Tyler's friend not a whit. I don't really know anyone currently in the Pac Northwest (well my friend Aaron from Jr. High School I think has a business selling hemp clothing around there but I haven't seen him for years and years). But I can offer two songs that would be good to carry with you around the streets of Seattle: Viva Sea-Tac, and Belltown Ramble (sorry no performance tapes at archive.org, except one in FLAC, which is lossless and huge and will take a long time to download).
I hearbye retract *both* apologies in 138, and summarily ban myself.
bitchphd: you're probably right.
All I'll add is that it's okay, you know, to leave academia. And it's also okay to do a job you do well even if you're not Perfectly Fulfilled by it.
Yay! President UNVEILED!
134: no doubt, no doubt. Perhaps I will take up some kind of craft, or move to the desert and sell trinkets, or work full time digging ditches for the Burning Man organization, and then I will be happy. But really, what bugged me about my job, back in the day? I wasn't making a difference.
What a stupid goddamn thing to be worried about! What difference do I make now, exactly? How exalted is my self-opinion that I would obsess this way?
Yay, neurosis!
Edit the comment!
Anyhow, President Harding, seriously, try taking your talents seriously for a few months. The exhaustion's ... exhausting, but the gratification's beyond what you could imagine. (I say this as a man of meager talents. Were I worth a flip, I'm sure the payoff would be tenfold.)
You guys can't underachieve better than that? Feh. Pikers.
I'd like to live in Seattle. Any time I've been there I've had a great time. Unfortunately, it ain't gonna happen.
SEK's not wrong. There's a lot to be said for a leave of absence.
137: hey, fuck a self help book. Kid can't ask the mineshaft about being a neurotic former (allegedly) gifted child, what can he ask about?
148: All I meant was this isn't uncommon. Being reminded that my neuroses are pretty standard stuff usually makes me feel better, and 'twas offered in that spirit.
147: Not to found a mutual admiration society or anything, but B's not wrong saying I'm not wrong: dedicating your life and/or time to something for a few months is a life-changing experience, so long as you remove all distractions ... beginning with this place, time-vamp that it is.
What I meant was that you're not wrong about the exhaustion. So what I was recommending wasn't dedicating one's life to work that one's grown exhausted by, but perhaps taking a break from it.
Of course, I *would* say that.
Jesus, people -- and lurkers, as I've learned recently that far more people lurk here than I imagined, which fact sort of freaks me out -- I hope to Christ you don't think me a picture of mental health. I'm talking about coping mechanisms, ways of dealing with the doubts, not championing some sort of Tony Robbins-esque program of ego-fulfillment.
I mean, really, have you read my blog? Is it the work of a sound individual?
But really, what bugged me about my job, back in the day? I wasn't making a difference.
This bugged me, and I left, and found a better job. And now I'm happy.
So, there is that.
/earnestness
No, wait: Sometimes the kind of feelings described in 119 are not merely neurotic. They can be a really valuable warning flag for yourself. Nobody else can tell you which is which, though.
It's true, SEK is crazy and fucked up.
I mean, really, have you read my blog? Is it the work of a sound individual?
I used to think I was up there with the most neurotic of neurotobloggers, but now I can't face posting anymore.
Not to go disturb everything by going back to the original post, but "only in Seattle for two more weeks or so" is the very recipe for a torrid affair. People who are about to leave an area are in liberated experimental travel mode, fantastic for a fling. Any single male Seattle-ite reading should jump all over this opportunity.
You're both saying sensible things.
But SEK's point about lurkers reminds me: about the pseud slippage, I don't care much, but. The only reason I did it this way was out of a slight concern that there are convoluted connections back to people who I'd rather talk about this stuff directly. That's still true, so if any behind-the scenes edits restored the veil, that wouldn't be a bad thing. I'm not too worried about it.
Of course the other reason was to have the safety of getting all maudlin with less chance of teasing about it.
Also, W.G, seriously: math is boring. It's wading through tons and tons of notation. There's nothing wrong with being a 6 on the passion scale, if it pays the bills.
try taking your talents seriously for a few months.
Ok, to get more specific, if taking my academic-type talents were something I wanted or was capable of doing do it would involve more or less the following steps, listed in the order I'm thinking of them:
1) Not spend any (or much, much less) time reading or commenting on blogs, or following current events/politics in an alternative manner
2) Being more likely to tell friends I can't socialize with them when they ask, and being less likely to make plans to socialize with friends
3) Stop attempting to have a (healthy or otherwise) sex life
4) Not drinking (or less so)
5) Watch fewer movies/don't follow any television shows
6) Stop reading for non-talent enhancing purposes
7) Not letting some other distraction crop up to replace these
Doing some of these things might increase my long term well-being. Doing all of them almost certainly would not, in fact, they sound terrible. Also, two through four rise and fall together, I think.
Right, and when you fix the slip mentioned in 158, if you could clean up my indiscretion, too, that'd be great.
Not to change the subject or anything, but at least we all have the satisfaction of not being this person. Whose comeuppance, btw, I relish like it was made of sweet pickles.
Once again I find myself thinking that all the guys I know who are single are men I would not feel comfortable setting up with a perfect stranger. For the sake of said perfect stranger.
I'm also not an academic, rather someone very soon to start working at BigLaw, so the relevant comparison would be doing the best job I'm capable of at BigLaw, though I'm not sure that's a relevant difference.
160: It's not a permanent thing, really. Granted, I've been a hermit for the past two years, but I'm generally a sociable guy, despite my neuroses, as B. and others will attest. But these last two years of sacrificing a little of this and a little of that have brought me, if not more joy, at least a sense of fulfillment, that I've never had before. It makes my thrice-monthly commenting sprees here all the more enjoyable, actually.
I am the world's worst setter upper. I know lots of great women, but don't know any single men that I would pair with a nice woman.
Plus, I dont know anyone in Seattle.
Yeah, I've never been able to give up the Big Crazy Constant Party Time Fun in order to buckle down, except when the buckling down was in the service of something completely useless to me or my long-term life goals.
Does this make me happier? Take it, mineshaft!
168: don't destroy her illusions; she doesn't know computers.
167:
Maybe your long term goal should be to enjoy your short term goals.
166: presuming that you must know a lot of single men, ouch.
170: yeah, done that. It gets fairly old after about a decade. But definitely fun for a while.
Sifu:
The only thing to remember as an undergrad is that the earlier you get behind, the more time you have to catch back up.
Dude, I'm an undergrad in my 30s. Cast your lessons accordingly, for goodness sake. You really think I haven't learned to procrastinate effectively?
168, 169: But it's so awesome! Crap.
Also, get on the stick with that LA meetup, Mr. Productivity.
I am the most skating-by-est, doing shit at the last minute, under-achieving-est smart person of all time. I blame the trust fund.*
*a modest trust fund. tasteful, even.
Feeling guilty about how other people choose to allot their money is silly.
At what point does this cease to hold?
177: bring. It. On.
That is, I don't want to hear it, Ms. Sober, lives in a delightful foreign autocracy, has managed to bear children, blogs at least as often as I do. I got you dead to rights, skating-wise.
Wait, am I Mr. Productivity? I just did a podcast by hand, damn it, I'm not that productive ... oh, wait, we're having the other kind of contest? Alright then, yes, B., all you other LA types, we need to have a meet-up, at which I can castigate B. for never replying to my email about Kevin Drum wanting to have a big LA blogger bash.
I am the most skating-by-est, doing shit at the last minute, under-achieving-est smart person of all time.
I don't know, babe, I might wrestle you for this one. I'll grant that you're smarter than I am, and so need to do less less to win, but you've got sweet, precocious kids, and that's really going to hurt you.
Whoah would Drum show up? He does read unfogged, doesn't he?
Gosh, I'd feel like Yoko Ono at a Stones concert at one of these things.
181: I don't remember that email.
Can we have it at my house? You guys can crash if you want. I'm serious.
I dont even have a blog. well, actually, I do, but I don't write anything there. I comment at someone else's blog.
That makes me less productive! HA! I Win.
Great, move it another two hours from my house.
Hm.
Becks has a style, no?
I love this thing!
Yeah, that's my worry about having it here, that no one would show up b/c it's too far. Still, koi pond! And tiki torches!
186: I don't have a blog. I just ride the coattails of a vastly more popular, funnier blogger than myself. How did I achieve this honor? I was friends with him years ago.
Skating-est!
188: both rare treats in SoCal, I must admit.
Yeah, but you decided you were unhappy with your educational situation and actually went back to college as an undergrad in your thirties. That weighs against you heavily.
I just did a podcast by hand, damn it
What does that even mean?
You pretenders. I started skating in sixth grade, dropped out of college, and my career currently consists of walking the fine line between freelancing and unemployment. Sure, I have two fabulous daughters, but that's it, baby. I am your master.
It means that SEK's search for ever more creative methods of not writing his dissertation is going very well.
I was all set to skate on a trust fund but then my dad went a bit mad.
192:
Exactly. If you had continuously attended college from 18 until your thirties, you might have a claim.
195: you'd think we'd be able to help more.
ogged, you have an actual job. that's like, minus infinity. sifu: kevin drum is exactly in real life what you imagine based on his internet persona. also, I want to come to an LA meetup. wah. if we coud tow S-EAC-SX to where hawaii is it would be perfect.
197: hey, I got you one better: I dropped out of college to make easy internet money I could fritter away on hookers and blow (euphemism). Then, when that got hard, I went back to undergrad. Van Wilder never had it so good.
185: I don't remember that email.
I'm not surprised, as it was when I was emailing you about ... other things. I'll resend it in the morning. I think he wanted to do it at his place, which is in Irvine, but I'm sure he'd be amenable to compromise.
(And Sifu, I don't know that he reads Unfogged, but I know that he and I have lunch and we talk about it, which is why I mention it here.)
I just did a podcast by hand, damn it
It means I animated it ... with, like, five frames and a vox that makes HAL sound like Olivier.
ogged, you have an actual job
But I fell into it, and I'm winging it, every day. I haven't tried to learn anything! And I blog all day. I am totally skating by.
It means I animated it ... with, like, five frames and a vox that makes HAL sound like Olivier.
Yeah, I just listened to the first two minutes, but then my ears began bleeding and I had to turn it off.
if we coud tow S-EAC-SX to where hawaii is it would be perfect.
Why would you need to do that when Hawaii is already here and airplanes exist?
Irvine. Good call.
Irvine is fun. Let's do Irvine.
Visions of not driving forever dance in my head.
198: I haven't seen you contribute to my caption contest, slacker.
203: You missed the best part, which is the end. (SPOILER: I dance.)
But I fell into it, and I'm winging it, every day. I haven't tried to learn anything! And I blog all day. I am totally skating by.
That's barely even the ante. There's been a bet and a couple of raises.
I'll go to an LA meetup if Alameida does.
205: Well, where the hell do you live? Santa Monica sounds like BFE to me, esp. considering the state of Ramona.* (She needs new breaks, so that she mightn't kill me.)
*My car, as named by the previous owner.
Ooh, I hate it when I miss an anonymity slipup! But god knows I am every bit as much a procrastinating poser as anyone.
206.1: I have a reputation to maintain. A reputation for never doing anything ever. You think that's so easy?
ogged swims ever day. Plus, he has successfully avoided being sent to Gitmo. Not a slacker.
God, you fuckers, this is big part of my self-image you're destroying here.
209: less than 2 hours from Irvine, 2 hours or more from anyplace else a SoCal meetup would be held.
How about NYC in August. I've just arrogated myself the power to call meetups. Just act as though nothing happened.
208: Fundaraiser?
Anyway, all you people are posers. I have a fucking PhD in a fucking *humanities* subject, people, and I quit my t-t job to be a housewife who posts on a porn site's newswire. I sit in the house all day and comment on Unfogged. Also, despite having given birth, I neglect my child horribly--why I don't even cut his hair.
214: Plus, you run an interesting blog. Which takes work. You also probably got good grades in college.
214: The trick is to insist swimming is not work, Ogged. Like blogging.
First you got your PhD and your tenure-track job, though.
I'm going to end up trying, and failing, to meet up with Emerson in August, I just know it.
215: Huntington?
216: See you in August.
It means that SEK's search for ever more creative methods of not writing his dissertation is going very well.
On a related note, if anyone is having serious dissertation-procrastination issues in the NYC area, I'd love to enter into a mutual "I promise to yell at you if you start looking at Unfogged when you should be writing" partnership. My department is starting to realize that potential has a shelf-life, I'm afraid.
Okay, everyone, back to the levity!
214: You've personally assembled one of the all-time great collections of lazy smart people and now you're surprised that you don't get to be the very last guy out on the end of the curve?
220: True, but surely throwing away the hard things one's done has to count for something. Plus the PhD took me ten full years.
Swimming and blogging are clearly manifestations of slacking, as Gonerill notes. And I actually failed a class in college. How many of you did that, huh?
("Huntington" is not a guess at where you live. I'm just trying to figure out how you could be in a place less than 2 hours from Irvine but more than 2 hours from anywhere else in Southern CA.)
I dropped the classes I was failing. I did get a D- in h.s. religion, though, which totally has to trump failing a college class.
I'd love to enter into a mutual "I promise to yell at you if you start looking at Unfogged when you should be writing" partnership.
You should definitely do this, whether through Unfogged or elsewhere. I bet Craigslist would be helpful for this, too. The Ex was totally bogged down until she got a dissertation buddy. Also helpful was working in 45-minute chunks, and trying to work for 3-5 chunks a day, rather than X hours.
222: Fantastic. I didn't think it would be this easy.
226: 15-312: "Programming Languages". Required to graduate, more or less. Dropped it twice, failed it once (on the principle of "if I do really well on the final, it's theoretically possible to pass, so why not give it a shot"), passed with a "C" spring semester of my senior year.
So should we take this SoCal meetup to the sanctity of off-blog communications?
How many of you did that, huh?
I did! Not only failed it, but failed to even show up for the exam.
Ogged's right about the chunks. It's helpful to have a baby, because doing so kind of forces you to do the chunk thing, but might be a little too much commitment for some people.
Still, though, dissertations are hard to write.
So should we take this SoCal meetup to the sanctity of off-blog communications?
How many of you did that, huh?
I did! Not only failed it, but failed to even show up for the exam.
So should we take this SoCal meetup to the sanctity of off-blog communications?
I got a D in high-school English. Suck it, B.
Christ, that all timed out. Swear I'm not yelling at anyone.
OK, SEK, you're in the inner circle. We know.
failed to even show up for the exam
Yeah, that's how I managed mine.
Ogged, I graduate high school with a 1.7 GPA. I win!
I'll be in Irvine in late August.
Anyone with a PhD is totally disqualified from this contest. That's a lot of work, you did it, you lose.
244 -- bad timing -- that's when everybody's going to be in NYC.
I didn't show up for a final once in college, but the professor let me take it at the beginning of the next quarter. Phew.
I also skipped a class so many times, that when I got back from spring break, I forgot I was enrolled. I only discovered this when I was cleaning out my desk on the last day of classes at about 4:15 pm and found a syllabus for Intermediate Microeconomics, and asked my roommate if it was his.
I was able to run across campus to my advisor's office in time to drop it, but just barely. He did not resist the urge to make snide comments at my expense.
Ain't finished it yet. I can't lose until December. Ha!
The weird thing was that there were only about 12-14 people in the class and three "ABS" on the grade list. First-year professor, possibly didn't have his target audience quite dialed in.
you all are pathetic slackers. You cannot even slack properly. You don't win by working hard at something.
248: You do realize that most of us have that scenario as a recurring dream, right?
This thread is making me feel really good about myself.
(I am considering hosting an epic NYC-area Unfogg'd potluck & barbecue meetup in late August. If anybody's interested in that kind of thing. I'm about 45 minutes by train from midtown Manhattan.)
256: I'll just tell after the meetup. You might as well dish.
252: It was more laughable than scary. Not required, got to retake it.
Spring semester my senior year was a lot tougher - I was getting scared that I was not going to pass the required class and would get my job offer revoked and end up having to finish my degree at Duke or some shit.
Graduating high school with a 1.7 is quite impressive, on the other hand, and might take the bad grades prize.
255: well, I am swimming more frequently than ever in my life; but that is not saying much. I'm enjoying the feeling of really leaning into the stroke with my shoulders and chest, and am getting much better on my left side, which is weaker than my right; but not much is happening as yet with my hips or with my kick.
You do realize that most of us have that scenario as a recurring dream, right?
20 years after school, I have this dream all the time. Easily my no. 1 recurring dream.
I had to drop college Russian because it was too hard to do that and intensive ancient greek? wait, that's not very convincing. I failed the "seen" portion of my latin phd exam the first time? shit. still, I don't have a job, and I have a live-in maid.
238 *is* truly impressive, I have to admit.
224 -- I didn't just fail a class in college. Two. In my final quarter. Required classes. And I didn't find out for months -- not that the non-existence of my then non-existent degree meant anything. So it ended up not being the final quarter after all.
Unfogged's the most motley lot of hyper-intellectual could've-beens ever, ain't it?
Hey, I graduate HS with a 1.7, just like SEK! I didn't show up at all for my senior year. I refer to it as the year I dropped out of school, although technically speaking that isn't right. I stopped going to class, and then is a masterstroke of passive aggressive parenting, my mom signed me up for community college, including a course on poly sci, and a course in philosophy "because it seems like that's what you are interested in." The credits from community college transfered back to HS and I graduated on time.
Also, I'd like to formally praise St. John's College, also the alma mater of Teo, for taking in a fuck up like me.
To add to 263, not long after graduation, I moved into the in-laws house, and, after a while, got a job washing UPS trucks.
I retired from slackerdom, though, at that point, having pretty much taken it as far as it would go.
I admire those of you who've been able to keep it up.
My college GPA was, like, abominable.
I'll let him confirm that, or not. But I was under the impression that he went to SJC SF.
Some of us abominate anything over a 3.9. You'll have to be more specific than that.
266: Sadly, I had to keep attending, lest they kick me off the baseball team. I just sat in the back of class, read Gravity's Rainbow and went willingly to the principle's office anytime someone called me on it. All in all, an awesome year.
268: Nothing to admire, as it's inertia plain and simple. If I'd had to make a choice, maybe I wouldn't have kept schooling. I didn't, so I haven't.
269: I don't believe it for a second.
You guys are such slackers you can't even manage to get our poor Seattle-visiting commenter laid. You're all equally guilty on that front.
If anyone wants to send me to Seattle, I'd be glad to go.
Here ye, here ye, all who want to come to a SoCal meetup email me at scotterickaufman (at) gmail (dot) com. Give this address to others, and I swear, there be dragons all up in your shit.
266/273/etc fwiw, I dropped out of school, after 10th grade. I probably had more fun that I would have with Gravity's Rainbow in the back of class.
I think that was a relation of Teo's. He went to school in more northerly climes.
I failed 2 and a half years of college, but I'm a little weird.
277: My junior year of HS, I had never taken drugs and never kissed a girl. Within a month of leaving HS, I had taken acid and had sex with a woman I had known for five minutes.
277: I doubt it. That's what I did during class. After school ... I went to baseball and/or soccer practice, depending on the season, then trudged home to an empty house and read books the rest of the day. Hey, wait a second! You're tying to make me feel like crap, but I lived a damn fine life, thank you very much.*
*Just don't listen to my podcast, as it contains all three of the terrible things that happened to me, and might give you the wrong impression of a time which was Completely And Totally Infused With Supreme Happiness.
279: see, I just got a couple years head-start on all my classmates.
It may have been a relation of Teo's, all I remember is that he recognized the location when I mentioned it.
It is definitely the alma mater of a relation of Lizardbreath.
280: Seriously though I would probably have had more fun on average your way, so not really knocking it. I wouldn't give up the couple years that followed, but I wouldn't wish them on anyone either. Nothing if not intense.
TJ: Don't Google "nice breasts," please. It'll only make me look bad.
279 is pretty impressive, but not on the "who slacks more than whom" front, I'm sorry.
On an unrelated note, I am surprisingly lightheaded right now. I made myself a broccoli and cheese omelet for dinner, because it eggs, broccoli and cheese was all I had in the fridge. Then I drank this 24 oz Trappist beer, with unusually high alcohol content, because that was all I had in the fridge. Now it is only 6:30 here, and I feel surprisingly garrulous.
270, 274: Speaking of Teo, for about 20 bucks each we could send him to Seattle if someone could find him a place to crash.
283: Misery's our lot, no matter what road we choose. Pain or damage don't end the world, or despair or fucking beatings. The world ends when you're dead. Until then, you got more punishment in store.
Or something.
286: Having sex with strangers is definitely something you should ease into, even for guys.
286: I agree. I'm halfway through this bottle of Absolute and I feel uncouthly talkative!
289: Eh, figure a week to get acquainted and a week to get laid. It's doable. And if you skip Part B, it's still something.
Wait, the 286 in 289 was supposed to be 285, not 287?
I don't see how either 289 or 290 is a response to 286.
Yes, it was to 285. I was talking about me, not Teo.
290's obviously drunken camaraderie with 286. I mean, dude. (And with that, Good Night!)
Irvine is fun.
I understand all the individual words in that sentence. I just can't make sense of them together.
I figured. 293 was just homage to the long ago days when numbers were still fun, before I encountered pre-meds. As mediated through one measly beer on an empty stomach.
Dude, did you know that the guy who first posted Goatse is from Kansas City, close to where I grew up? Awesome!
Right up there with "I slept with Henry Kissinger" on the close encounters with fame scale.
Ah, a thread I can get into. Seattle, procrastination, torrid affairs. B is right, Hana is better than Aoki, and I love the kasuzuke there. But the owner of Aoki is supercool and I live about a half a block from the place so it's easier to get to. The Twice Sold Books has the most enormous cat I've ever seen in my life and Bailey Coy Books is cool, even if it is a little neighborhood-oriented (read gay). They just opened up a cool bar on 15th called Smith; the poutine is tasty.
Also, like SEK I am embarrased about how much more I should have worked in graduate school and at my current tenure-track job. But sometimes it's important to do what you want, not what everyone expects you to do.
even if it is a little neighborhood-oriented (read gay)
I think you mean, "in part because it's neighborhood-oriented and has a good selection of gay and gender studies stuff."
I have no objection, else I would not live here and I'm glad it exists; I just have no personal interest.
More sillyhead you, then. It's one of the things I've really learned to miss--so few bookstores in other places even realize that gender is something people write about.
Indeed. It's refreshing that I can walk by that storefront and see that almost all of the books are ones you wouldn't see in a Barnes& Noble. And neighborhood bookstores are so much friendlier. Too bad they're so hard to find.
I may have to take on "sillyhead" as my new pseudonym, since so many here have objected to my single letter choice.
I had a friend at KU who stumbled through a drug-and-D&D-fueled semester in the mid-'70s with 4 Fs and an A. Thanks to someone hacking the computer system, his grade card finished this litany of failure with the words "honor roll."
I once got busy in a Burger King bathroom, and I didn't even climax.
308: You know, people are too focussed on the climax. Isn't it enough that you got busy at the BK?
B: Are you a sashimi person? I have a *blush* new girlfriend that really likes raw tuna, but she's from Santa Cruz and very very picky, and I don't eat it myself, so I don't know any places that I can vouch for in Seattle.
308: You know, people are too focussed on the climax. Isn't it enough that you got busy at the BK?
Also, Aoki has super cheap, really really nice miso soup. And miso soup is one of the reasons to go on breathing.
I just had the sashimi from Hana and it was good, but not the best I've ever had. Wasabi Bistro is surprisingly good, but the best is at Shiro's in Belltown.
308: You know, people are too focussed on the climax. Isn't it enough that you got busy at the BK?
I happen to be finishing up the Seattle restaurant listings for a Pacific Northwest travel guide tonight, and my God, the place is food heaven. I crave oysters more than Truth right now.
310: there's an Ahi shortage. Apparently deer meat is just as good!
310: I Heart Sushi down on Lake Union is supposed to be extremely good (and pricey). Hana is certainly worth a try; their albacore was pretty consistently amazing imho. I don't know, though, if I'm picky enough to really be super reliable on this. Musashi in Wallingford is quite popular, but I found it disappointing. Also, though it's not a sushi joint, Wild Ginger really is quite awesome.
I'll try to remember to ask my friend JP the next time I see him around--he's in China now so he's online at odd hours. But he knows restaurants in the I District much better than I do, and I'm willing to bet there's some damn good sushi there.
315: It's true. Seattle is heaven in a lot of ways, actually. Whyn't you recommend some highly-rated sushi places to NBarnes?
Oooh, thanks for reminding me. I Love Sushi, despite the cheesy name, is awesome. Especially the omakase. But I think it's only open for lunch But Musashi's sucks, imho. The only thing it's got going for it is size, but from what I've been told, size doesn't matter.
318: I just did the listing for Shiro's, in fact, and that's the place I'd recommend, though I've heard the same as you about I Heart Sushi. But really, I Heart Sushi? I couldn't eat there until they changed the name.
"I Stomach Sushi" would be far more accurate, at least.
Glad someone else thinks Musashi's sucks. Anyway, big sushi is just wrong; even my beloved Hana pushes that envelope a little too much. I didn't know about Shiro's; must try it whenever I'm back up north.
'I Fucking Want Sushi Now.' I would totally eat there.
I didn't go to St. John's, but my mother, father, aunt, and uncle did, and my sister does right now. Sorry for the confusion.
Wow, I'm surprised with all that Johnny in your background you weren't simply forced to go.
Johnnies aren't really the sorts of people who force their kids to do stuff.
I'm here! Ok, sushi in Seattle...
(Disclaimer: I am one of those people that think fancy rolls are for white sorority girls. And I WALK OUT if they squirt dressing on my sushi. You get me? I WALK OUT.)
I am a huge fan of Musashi. I have eaten there so much, I know exactly the size of Mitsuko-san's rice balls, and other people's is either way too much or way too little. Order sashimi by the dollar amount, or the bento. Teriyaki there is a steal, and it's the best in town.
Fuji in the ID reminds me of Tokyo. There's also Maneki, which is nice. Aoki was fine, I don't like Hana on Broadway anymore. There's a place in Tangletown I also poked my head into, but it was so fancy it started to annoy me. Same with Nishino.
It's all about the fish, baby.
Dude, if you like Musashi I gotta say your Asian cred is seriously compromised.
Or at least your foodie cred. I have to admit that my own "authentically Asian" cred is pretty slim.
But at least you're down with the gente.
At Musashi's, it's not the size of the balls, it's the size of the meat. I prefer not to stuff that much into my mouth at once.
Especially when it's not all that.
I actually flunked out of *college*, which is harder than flunking a single course.
It looks as if there just aren't many Seattle dwellers, or if there are, they contacted Mr Tyler privately.
337: I hope so. I once had the asolute worst blind date in Seattle some years back while I was there on a project. Long story short: she ditched me at a party. Literally left me there in a strange apartment in a strange city. Then again, she worked for Amazon at the time, so what did I expect, really?
Better luck to you, M!
I thought about dropping out of college, but youthful rebellion takes so much energy. Much easier to continue to go through classes if that's what you've been doing for a long time and can do it without too much trouble. Unfortunately, right at the end of college I got really interested in research and stuff, and a year later applied to grad school. Huge mistake.
337 -- one or two have emailed off-blog.
(My friend only has internet connectivity once or twice a day, so we'll have to see what she thinks when she gets back online later this afternoon.)
But that's not too bad. A couple leads is a couple more than she had a few days ago. Thanks, Mineshaft!
(And of course, if anyone is still interested, comment here (especially if you were also a college-slacker, I guess) or email me directly.)
yah, I order sashimi, I don't order nagiri or *cough* rolls.
But if the slice is too big, I do it in two bites. And enjoy all the fish in my mouth.
Bitch, I don't think you're the Asian Cred police. I think I can take you in any angry Asian dance-off, cook-off, sing-off... any angry Asian anything-off you can name.
Why? Do you think the people who are eating at Nishino's know how to measure rice water with their fingers? Do you think they can tell Vietamese rice from Chinese rice in a blind taste test? Do you think there is a karaoke catalog in the Greater Seattle Area I haven't already mastered?
Bitch, quit trying to question my brownness. Go order some cali-rolls with your sorority sisters... after rush practice is over.
Bleah. It's funny, my reaction to other people talking about being useless slackers is to sympathize and belive that they're actually very hard workers who are selling themselves short. Then I start considering the fact that I actually am a useless slacker, and feel the need to hide under my desk and whimper in self-loathing.
And on sushi, I know nothing about authenticity, but I like bite-sized things to be bite-sized. If I wanted two bites, I'd eat two pieces.
LB, if it's bite-size you're after, you'd love mini-shredded-wheat. Or grapes. Or Hershey's kisses. I do.
I'll never understand this thing people have against using their incisors.
I am fond of all of those things.
I don't mind eating non-bitesized food -- I just don't like things that were designed to be popped into your mouth whole, that are then 'generously' sized so you can't. (Yeah, yeah. Sushi chefs across America are reading this and quailing.)
I don't like eating soup with long noodles in it, either, because I don't really know what to do. Or dishes with a lot of sauce that come with shrimp throughout it, but the shrimp are still in the shells. I like my food to be self-explanatory.
Do you think the people who are eating at Nishino's know how to measure rice water with their fingers?
I do! This is one of the most useful kitchen skills I have.
I don't really know what to do
Slurp, Heebie! Slurp as if your life depended on it!
In a perfect world, LB would be right, because her reasoning is sound. But in this fallen world, spider maki is deliciousness defined, and it doesn't come in bite-sized pieces.* So we must compromise our principles.
* At least not politely bite-sized.
But I don't like when the noodle whiplashes and sends a spray of soup on my clothes.
So, slurp with finesse.
I failed my year 1 exams at (English) university. Passed the resits. I failed year 2 maths, passed the resit, passed 1 out of 3 year 2 major exams. Didn't attend any practicals or project meetings in final year, failed finals. 2 years later re-sat finals. failed again.
After 4 years of working I started lying on my resume that I'd passed. 32 years later haven't been found out.
Boy, am I right there with 342.
341: Ohh, you want to throw down?
You'll win on Asianness. Dammit. But you're still wrong about Musashi's. I suspect you of deliberately giving misleading sashimi recommendations just so that you can keep all the good places to yourself.
I apologize in advance for (a) going back on-topic after the thread was threadjacked and (b) not reading the whole thread before commenting, but:
She asked me if I knew anyone sufficiently nerdy and interesting in Seattle who she could meet and pass the time with (she may have phrased it as, "have a torrid affair with," but she's also given to hyperbole). ...
I can tell you that my friend, who I might call 'M', is in her mid-20s. She's nice, funny, very smart, thrifty, and attractive. Also, quite single.
Seriously? I'm in Vermont and I'm half-tempted. Only half-tempted, mind you, because plane tickets are expensive and it would be very short notice to ask for time off work and the e-mail is not totally serious, but still. Well, just read this as an expression of surprise that John Tyler has not already commented to say that "M" has received a response.
Fakers, all of you sushi-snob people. I like sushi rolls. I'm not afraid of admitting it.
I'm all about chirashi. That's just how I, um, roll.
Choke on my Japanese ancestry, losers!
Is it shameful to like chirashi? I don't know enough about sushi to understand how this would work. Chirashi is one of the best rice dishes around, the fish is icing on the cake so to speak.
I can't believe you fuckers are so slack you just leave 332 hanging there with nary an ATM amongst you.
I dropped out of college three times, failed multiple courses and was eventually shoveled through a departmental diploma mill frequently employed to keep athletes eligible. That it was actually a fun topic and I enjoyed myself was entirely unrelated. I got credit for an independent study building a website, my last semester, because my professor was too computer-illiterate to ever know I hadn't done it.
363:
Plus, that was at Carolina, right? How hard can it be to fail a class at UNC???
Ah, I guess I should have kept reading until I got to 340. Oh well.
"Performance Studies." Thank you, thank you.
365: It's not very hard at all if approached in the right way. It helps to be extremely boozed up 90% of the time.
Rocks for Jocks?
Hey, that is partially how I fulfilled my Science requirements. The other class was "Beaches, Coasts, and Rivers."
"That'd be 'What are things that are damp?' Alex."
To be honest, my last semester of Perf. Studies was actually really difficult. Lots and lots and lots of work. There were people who took it all really seriously and were good at it and for whom it was not a diploma mill but every class I was in had at least one just pitiably dumb jock who was in it for a passing grade. I actually dropped a really interesting Rhetorical Studies class in that department because I was so fed up with the back row being full of wise-ass football players and the professor having no ability to handle them.
"That'd be 'What are things that are damp?' Alex."
Hey, speaking of which, isn't this the month we're supposed to be watching Jeopardy?
369:
"That is what your mother said last night, Trebeck."
When does Jeopardy come on? Is there a secret Unfogged signal that he is going to flash?
370: Not so "wise" that they can figure out how to win many football games, though. The worst of both worlds.
And as for 359 -- yeah, probably flying out to Seattle just for this would be a bit much. I think M is looking for something "light" and "carefree", not necessarily in the "I just flew 3000 miles for a blind-date" category. Although I bet she'll still be flattered by your comment.
Anyway, I know the thread has been hijacked, and we're talking about sushi or NC public schools or something and I'm just shouting into the wind here, but: if there are any latecomers to the thread who live in Seattle, or even have a nice single friend in Seattle... email me.
If he gets a question and doesn't know the answer, he'll just say "who wants to sex Mutombo, Alex?".
I'll take "Therapists" for $100, Alex.
Isn't John Patrick a Seattle-ite? I have no idea if he's single, but he must have single friends.
JP?
if there are any latecomers to the thread who live in Seattle, or even have a nice single friend in Seattle... email me.
Nobody said anything about "single" the first time around.
I thought JP was differently-oriented, if you'll pardon the expression.
379 -- commenters not fitting the profile should preface their e-mails by asking whether Tyler's friend is up for a threesome.
Rocks for Jocks?
At my school, one of the courses was called--honestly--"Woody plants and shrubs." It involved walking around campus with a botany prof identifying the local flora.
379 -- I'm pretty sure someone said something about being single the first time around, though. See the original post: "Perhaps some of them are even single, and wouldn't mind meeting a nice girl for a drink or something?" The them, of course, is all of you. Or maybe your friends.
Reading through the "seething neurosis" section of this thread was pretty depressing. I think my background or life experience must be way different from any of yours (meaning the people who feel so terribly guilty for not taking advantage of their opportunities).
For instance, I am the first male on my dad's side to have anything even close to an "aspiration." One uncle is an unemployed alcoholic who survives solely on his wife's mercy and union seniority, another is still living with his parents and has been divorced multiple times from the same woman (with whom he had three children out of wedlock, on the in-between times), and the third is homeless and (I'm pretty sure) a drug addict.
Sometimes people talk about how it would be so nice and generous to invite a homeless person over for Thanksgiving dinner -- few of them have actually participated in such a thing.
My only male cousin who has reached adulthood wanted to join the army, but couldn't get in -- though he did lose an amazing amount of weight in the attempt, such that he looks like a completely different person.
By contrast, my dad's three sisters were apparently all horrified by the spectacle of their older brothers (they went in that order -- four brothers, three sisters) and all went to college and got good professional jobs. It's kind of like the family reunion on the Simpsons.
My sister has taken a similar path to them -- got a degree in college in something that would guarantee her a job. Now she's talking about spending five years doing that, then going to law school. We're conspiring to kill off the family line.
342: LB, you gotta get out of private practice. I struggled with feeling like that for Way. Too. Long., but when you take the timesheet out of the mix you start to realize how much gets accomplished in those flurries of productivity and how useful even intermittent competence can be to an organization. It's just that law firms are pretty much the organized revenge of all those people who spent their law school years in the library 24/7, resenting the hell out of those of us who weren't.
380: Doesn't mean he doesn't have single hetero friends.
385: I'm working on it. Unfortunately, the self-loathing and existential despair involved in working here is a difficult mental state to go job hunting with. I'm also a little terrified of the pay cut, which is extreme at everything I'm looking at seriously -- half of what I'm making now would do me all right, but the government jobs I'm looking at aren't paying even that much.
386: That sucks. My experience was somewhat similar, albeit with a smaller pay cut because I wasn't making NYC biglaw money in the first place. It's taken several months to put most of the angst behind me, and the income reduction is sometimes a drag, but my life is a whole lot better nonetheless.
FWIW, I have absolutely no doubt that you'd be an extraordinarily good hire for anything litigation-related and a lot of things that aren't, and there are a lot of jobs that fit that description. The pay thing is an issue, but it just ain't worth going through life beating yourself up, especially when you're as talented as you obviously are.
Aww, LB. That feeling is truly teh suck.
I'm such a slacker that I completely missed that part of the thread. Top that, bitches.
386: Been there, done that. After six years in the consulting industry (where I went straight out of law school), I realized that I wanted my life to be about more than making corporations a bit more money. For me, the answer was painful but obvious -- leave NYC and move back home to NC, take the bar exam, and get a job as a prosecutor.
Anyway, food for thought. North Carolina needs good prosecutors, LB! And the cost of living -- fuggedaboutit.
But if I got a job as a prosecutor in NY, I'd instantly be ten years younger, three inches taller, and a stunningly beautiful straight-haired brunette, unless L&O has been lying to me all these years. Can NC promise that sort of personal upgrade?
386: Oh, LB. That really sucks. I took an 75-80% pay cut to go back to school once, but I was single and fairly young at the time. It was still hard. Being at a bit of an impasse myself right now, i don't know what to say other than good luck.
391: I dunno, the one I know is an entirely normal looking chubby dude. Is that what you're aiming for?
391: Hmm. No, I reckon we can't. But I can promise that you'll have longer than 60 seconds to deliver your closing argument in a capital case.
And barbeque! And sweet tea! And charming Southern accents! Except me, of course. My accent died sometime around 1991.
Oh, I'm okay, I just have to suck it up and make the move. Comments like 387 are really helpful -- what I'm really afraid of is that I don't hate law firms, I just hate work, so that I'll be miserable anyplace and the pay cut won't do me any good. People saying they gave up the law firm money and were happier for it are immensely reassuring.
395: In the short time I've interacted with you here, you've shown yourself to be a passionate advocate for that which you firmly believe. That's a truly marketable skill -- even if the market prices it rather less dearly than within the NYC law firm economy.
Oh, and as for giving up the NYC rat race? Seriously, and without exaggeration, it saved my life. I'd stopped wanting to get out of bed in the morning, and even I know that's a really bad sign. When you love your job, life is so much better. After all, think about how much time you spend doing it every day!
Thank you, particularly given that I was awfully snippy to you yesterday. Yeah, I need to get out of the rat race. I'm staying in NYC until the oceans rise enough that the subway stops working, but there's a lot of NYC that's not quite so ratty.
397. Neighbor, please. You are so welcome! And *did* we get snippy yesterday? I can't hardly recall... :)
PS -- When the oceans do rise, don't count on those parts of NYC staying not quite so ratty.
Eh, what's a rat here and there among friends.
Say, do you know why some bio labs are doing research on lawyers, rather than rats, these days?
First, there are more lawyers out there. Second, the grad students have a tendency to get attached to rats. And finally, there are some things a rat just won't do.
398 -- of course, NC has its own Natural Disaster problems. Like being smack dab in the path of a hurricane, at least once every five years.
400: Bah. The beach is for visiting, not for living. At least in hurricane-prone NC.
401 -- I've almost been killed by a hurricane while driving through Chapel Hill. It ain't just the beach...
what I'm really afraid of is that I don't hate law firms, I just hate work, so that I'll be miserable anyplace and the pay cut won't do me any good
My wife had that concern. I can't say that I love every part of my job every day, but now the range is from tolerable to pretty damn good instead of from horrible to tolerable, and it no longer seems unthinkable to keep doing this for another 25 years or so.
LB, have you considered consumer law? A lot less money than big firm work, to be sure, but probably more than government work, and it's a way to use your mad litigation skillz for good rather than evil. Just a thought.
See, to me 387 is soul-crushing, in that it reaffirms that there are wonderful options out there that I know I'm not going to be pursuing. I'd rather pretend that everyone we're all forever miserable, together.
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I feel so ashamed for laughing at that.
I feel more ashamed for not getting it the first time around.
I'm afraid I hate work, too. I know I've done it, before, and didn't mind doing it, but nothing seems very appealing, now.
I think I'm just particularly embittered now because I haven't left my desk since I got here on Monday.
LB:
Become a divorce lawyer. Your clients are generally insane and you get to listen to fabulous stories.
Then I start considering the fact that I actually am a useless slacker, and feel the need to hide under my desk and whimper in self-loathing
dealing with self loathing is easy. Just make a list of all the people that you interact with every day on a reasonably civil basis despite loathing them. Then add yourself to the list. Usually you will not even be in the worst five.
412: See, in this firm, the competition's really kind of unfair. There are genocidal dictators that might have trouble cracking my top five.
LB, on my way to work today, I saw this sticker on a car and thought of you. I'm thinking of getting one -- seriously!
414:
The one about following too close/pulling hair makes for an excellent practical joke.
BTW, not that anyone is reading this thread anymore but: thank you all.
M got more than one lead for a date (or just a friendly meetup, in one case).
In other words, Mineshaft-as-Craig's List was a huge success. I never would have guessed it, but it's true. You can all go back to cockblocking w-lfs-n now.