My day-to-day comings and goings require the use of footwear but not much more as far as shoes go. A pair of Saucony Jazz sneakers tend to do the trick. You can see an example of these sneakers here.

However, on occasion, I'm called upon to don more formal footwear, and tomorrow is just such an event: a graduation ceremony for eekbeat. Huzzah!

I'm only too happy to pull out a pair of dress shoes for the festivities. After all, as the opera demands formal wear (cummerbund optional), so, too, does the granting of a degree occasion the attire, including footwear, commensurate with the accomplishment being honored.

But I'll be damned if I understand the whole shine-your-shoes thing. And the idea of having someone else shine my shoes seems...weird? uncomfortable? Something.

Possibly I'm just being lazy. Also: it's raining, so it won't matter anyway. But anyhow, congratulations all around to the folks receiving degrees this Spring. For the moment, I promise to remain oblivious to your shoe-maintenance choices and what those choices might say about you.

OK, I'll be honest with y'all. I've been trying to write something about the article by the financial writer for the Times who is facing foreclosure for about 15 minutes now but I'm too wiped by this week to put words together coherently and need to start my weekend. Just go read. Good article.

You know what's nuts? The number of my cow-orkers who arrange their office so that their computer screen is visible from the doorway. Who's that productive?! Even when I'm under the gun to finish something, I usually have a distraction pulled up on the screen, even if I don't have time to glance up at it. (Plus I make fun of my colleagues and students on a public forum. Seems diplomatic to angle the screen away from the doorway.)

Are there really people who diligently concentrate on their job all day? I'm sure asking this at the mineshaft will yield an unbiased sample against which I can compare my own slack-ass work ethic and conclude meaningfully that I'm totally normal.

A safe space for women computer users.

Also: Jon Stewart fan fiction.

Oh, and while I'm on the topic of music, Tinted Windows seems like a ridiculous attempt to write absurdly catchy music.

Having downloaded the album (legally! hola, RIAA!) I'm very much liking it, on first listen.

Hate me for it. Go ahead.

I have a bit of a hobby horse against the notion of a Christian punk band. (I mean, I get that historical Jesus was, as written about, no small amount rebellious, but really, modern day Christianity, in most of its iterations, is not Punk Fucking Rock in the rebellious and uppity sense that I understand the term. This is, of course, a debate about definitions. Whatever.)

This video is sort of hilarious to me in that vein.

The whole "it's Rock 'n' Roll not to fuck" thing just seems odd.

...You're a lot more likely to get it, if you've already done what you want to do."

That quote is attributable to Coach Carter, about whom I will now tell a funny story.

Coach Carter taught ninth grade geography, and I was not in this class. But a friend was. Every day in class, they did nothing except play cards and gossip, and Coach Carter loosely seemed to be grading them on the quality of their gossip.

One day when they came to class, Coach Carter had a big pile of paints and paintbrushes, and he announced, "Class! Today we are painting a map of The United States on the wall!" So everybody whooped and dove in. There was no stencil of the United States. Florida was gigantic, states were missing, the East and West coasts did not look like they were going to connect in the middle, etc.

My friend sidled over to Coach Carter and asked if they were allowed to paint a map of the United States, right there on the classroom wall. Coach Carter - memorably - said (all together now) - "Funny thing about permission. You're a lot more likely to get it, if you've already done what you want to do."

It's not like the teachers had fixed classrooms, even. I assume five other teachers used that room, and Coach Carter was generally down by the gym, anyway. I never saw the map; maybe the whole thing is apocryphal. But I think we've all learned a valuable lesson about permission.

(Cross-posted at my place. I originally wrote it there, and then thought maybe the mineshaft would have entertaining stories about times you all have deliberately waited on permission.)

Yesterday, NickS suggested that we have a thread where everyone links to their favorite Unfogged joke. I was content to let the suggestion die, until last night when, apropo of nothing, I found myself laughing yet again to the memory of this meditation on Doritos, from Will:

Dorito, light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul. Do-ree-to: the tip of the tongue taking a trip of three steps down the palate to tap, at three, on the teeth. Do. Ree. To.

and with that, I decided it was a great idea for a thread after all.

Rules of the thread: Cut and paste the quote or the exchange if it's not too cumbersome. Let's minimize the tiresome links.

The prodigal blogger has returned!!

No, not Ogged. Screw him.

Even better: Jackie Parker Posey Paisley.

Hawaiian Punch and I went to Jammies' soccer game on Saturday, (and I was only a little bitter to be on the sideline.)

Anyway, I discovered that nursing in public serves as the most wonderful douchebag repellent. My least favorite teammate (every single week for the past nine months: "Whoa, heebie! You need to cut back on the beer a little bit!" Yes. I've got a giant beer belly. That's a good one. Again.) did not venture near me for the entire 15 minutes he was sidelined. Did not even make eye-contact.

It's awesome.

In some regards, this has been a better than usual winter for me health-wise. One huge exception is that I have had an almost constant sinus infection/bronchitis for the last five months. I seem to go on 4-6 week cycles of getting a sinus infection that progresses to bronchitis and will only clear up once I break down and get a prescription for antibiotics. I'm tired of not being able to breathe and constantly taking to my sickbed like some Victorian lady with consumption.

I don't know what to do to prevent them or what it is that's causing them on such a frequent basis. Is it stress? The new climate? The dogs and/or dust of the Flophouse? There are too many confounding variables for me to identify exactly what and eliminate it.

Does anyone else have similar experiences and advice on how to avoid or treat them without resorting to antibiotics? I'm getting increasingly concerned about taking them, after hearing about physical complications (besides just resistance) from long-term antibiotic use.

This is probably beyond the Mineshaft's expertise but I'm not above folk wisdom at this point and this post is a good excuse for me to disguise some whining as a call for help.