12-28-07

Jim was all up in my face because I didn't know what a trivet was, yet he himself had never heard of the "not it" nose-touching game. Who is the bigger ignoramus, please?

12-27-07

"A girl would have to be very desperate to go out with you. No, I'm sorry -- extremely desperate."

-- Julie

12-26-07

My grandpa was born in Belarus.

12-25-07

"Do me a solid." This is officially the first piece of new slang I'm too old for.

12-24-07

The little stand that you put hot dishes on is called a trivet.

12-23-07

"Rumor is we've been infiltrated, so keep an eye out for anyone suspicious."

Candyland in other worlds.

12-22-07

Quack quack! Not to mention: Mieaw!

12-21-07

According to this review, the new Microsoft operating system is a great improvement.

12-20-07

What I want for Christmas.

12-19-07

Grapefruit is delicious.

12-18-07

Dave got me a new watch for Christmas! I've been carrying a watch in my pocket with a broken wristband for well over a year now.

12-17-07

Terry Pratchett has Alzheimer's.

12-16-07

This election, know who's really wrong for America.

12-15-07

The Foo Fighters were founded by the former drummer for Nirvana.

12-14-07

Rock Band rocks.

12-13-07

The Bagel

I stopped to pick up the bagel
rolling away in the wind,
annoyed with myself
for having dropped it
as if it were a portent.
Faster and faster it rolled,
with me running after it
bent low, gritting my teeth,
and I found myself doubled over
and rolling down the street
head over heels, one complete somersault
after another like a bagel
and strangely happy with myself.

-- David Ignatow

12-12-07

"If you wrote something for which someone sent you a check, if you cashed the check and it didn't bounce, and if you then paid the light bill with the money, I consider you talented."

-- Stephen King

12-11-07

Lansing is the capital of Michigan.

12-10-07

Tasseography.

12-9-07

First! Not to mention: Elderly Pwnage.

12-8-07

"There is no avoiding war; it can only be postponed to the advantage of others."

-- Niccolo Machiavelli

12-7-07

"According to the Arab News newspaper, the 19-year-old woman was gang-raped 14 times in an attack in the eastern province a year-and-a-half ago.

Seven men from the majority Sunni community were found guilty of the rape and sentenced to prison terms ranging from just under a year to five years.

But the victim was also punished for violating Saudi Arabia's laws on segregation that forbid unrelated men and women from associating with each other. She was initially sentenced to 90 lashes for being in the car of a strange man.

On appeal, the Arab News reported that the punishment was not reduced but increased to 200 lashes and a six-month prison sentence."

Gotta love Saudi Arabia.

12-6-07

Vector Runner.

12-5-07

Why on Earth would anyone go through all the trouble of owning a real pet when you can just get a fake one for $40?

12-4-07

"It's just a hard drive with games on it!"

Warning: extremely painful to watch.

12-3-07

Sudoku Toilet Paper. I'm not even kidding.

12-2-07

A majority, not a minority, of human beings are lactose intolerant. White people are the only exception, and they're the only people who make milk a regular part of their diet.

12-1-07

"Homeless people can't be dangerous. If they were criminals, they wouldn't be homeless."

-- Will

11-30-07

Evel Knievel died today. We all know he was badass, but apparently he was also a major toolbag.

11-29-07

Dave was at work till 2:00 AM last night.

11-28-07

Jerry Seinfeld stand-up.

11-27-07

Where Mandy got her Facebook quote.

11-26-07

"Work doesn't make you happy, but it can make you unhappy."

-- Penelope Trunk

===

"Computer programmers, in the Computers and Technology category, are listed as 30.1% very happy with their job. This ranks programmers in between Dress Makers (28.7%) and Waiters and Waitresses (31.5%)."

-- Some Blog, with the full results here.

Thanks to Marina for the links.

11-25-07

Lila has a staircase in her closet.

===

Marina: "Lila, I'm so uncivilized!"
Lila: "Shut the fuck up and eat your pie."

Marina: "He's homosexual."
Lila: "He's not homosexual, he's European."

11-24-07

This evening Andy and I played Twisted Metal 2, the last good game ever made for the Playstation series. It was awesome.

11-23-07

Ass muscles are the biggest muscles in the human body.

===

Babies have more bones than adults.

11-22-07

The worst person in the world. He kind of is a douche.

11-21-07

"Wise men talk because they have something to say; fools, because they have to say something."

-- Plato

The classic staple of Dave's Facebook profile.

11-20-07

Milquetoast.

11-19-07

Board game t-shirts.

11-18-07

According to the real rules of Monopoly, the game ends after one person goes bankrupt. The remaining players count up how much money they have and the player with the most wins.

11-17-07

www.ratemypoo.com.

I intentionally did not make that a hyperlink so that no one would even be tempted to click on it. I just need you to know that it exists.

11-16-07

Most addicting thing ever, ever. 44 is my peak. And I don't give a crap about the rice; it's just an awesome game.

===


Found on passiveaggressivenotes.com.

11-15-07

Dave and I started watching Lost a few days ago. I'm ashamed to say it's a good show. Do I need to start watching more TV?

11-14-07

Cheap corkscrews don't work.

11-13-07

The founder of BD's Mongolian Barbeque went to Paul's high school.

11-12-07

Backgammon is older than Go.

11-11-07

Kickin' babies.

11-10-07

Jimmy Kimmel holds the world record for longest distance traveled in one work week.

11-9-07

Strong Bad doesn't like web comics.

11-8-07

Hollywood writers have gone on strike. Now, if you know me, you know that I'd be the last person on the planet to care about derailed TV shows, but seriously. You people write for a fucking living. You ungrateful bitches.

11-7-07

Underage girl playing chess? Hot. Just ignore the caption, it's stupid.

11-6-07

Dogs cause cancer. (Source.)

===

Making your bed is bad for you. The extra humidity breeds more bugs.

11-5-07

Brett Favre is missing 30 inches of his small intestine.

11-4-07

Starcraft: The Board Game isn't nearly as bad as it sounds.

11-3-07

My mom liked the flowers I sent for her birthday.

11-2-07

I should really learn to stop clicking on links that Andy sends me.

11-1-07

Charlie Brown's dad was a barber.

10-31-07

Dave burned a pizza.

10-30-07

"As already said, however, de Selby provides some genuine mental sustenance if read objectively for what there is to read. In the Layman's Atlas he deals explicitly with bereavement, old age, love, sin, death and the other saliencies of existence. It is true that he allows them only some six lines but this is due to his devastating assertion that they are all 'unnecessary.'"

-- Flann O'Brien, The Last Policeman

10-29-07

"These cyclists are playing chess with each other. They are shuffling the cards even as we speak!"

-- Sportscaster for a bicycle race

10-28-07

Fluorescent bulbs contain mercury.

10-27-07

Washington.

10-26-07

Someone published a 600 page book of random numbers.

"To whom do I write to report typographical errors? I noticed that the first '7' on the third line page 48 should be a '3'. The '7' that's printed there now isn't random."

"Such a terrific reference work! But with so many terrific random digits, it's a shame they didn't sort them, to make it easier to find the one you're looking for."

Be sure to read the reviews.

10-25-07

Yuri Gagarin, the first person in space, was only 5'2". His short stature was an advantage in getting picked, as space inside the shuttle was very limited.

10-24-07

"[In Street Fighter,] you will not see a classic scrub throw his opponent five times in a row. But why not? What if doing so is strategically the sequence of moves that optimizes his chances of winning? Here we’ve encountered our first clash: the scrub is only willing to play to win within his own made-up mental set of rules. These rules can be staggeringly arbitrary. If you beat a scrub by throwing projectile attacks at him, keeping your distance and preventing him from getting near you—that’s cheap. If you throw him repeatedly, that’s cheap, too ... If you block for fifty seconds doing no moves, that’s cheap. Nearly anything you do that ends up making you win is a prime candidate for being called cheap ...

Doing one move or sequence over and over and over is a tactic close to my heart that often elicits the call of the scrub. This goes right to the heart of the matter: why can the scrub not defeat something so obvious and telegraphed as a single move done over and over? Is he such a poor player that he can’t counter that move? And if the move is, for whatever reason, extremely difficult to counter, then wouldn’t I be a fool for not using that move? The first step in becoming a top player is the realization that playing to win means doing whatever most increases your chances of winning. That is true by definition of playing to win. The game knows no rules of 'honor' or of 'cheapness.' The game only knows winning and losing."

-- David Sirlin, Playing to Win

10-23-07

"Black, who had been better all along, decided the game here with the nice double decoy 38...Nd2+ White resigned, because on 39.Nxd2, there follows Qg1 mate, and on 39.Bxd2, there follows Qf2 mate.

Only, in the last variation, Qf2 is an impossible move."

Colossal chess blunders.

10-22-07

"'Friend' and 'who hates games' ought to be mutually exclusive."

-- Sam, after I'd said "friend who hates games coming in" to explain why I might not make Mafia on Friday

10-21-07

I beat Puzzle Quest!

It's still an awesome game, guys.

10-20-07

Befuddled Wizards.

10-19-07

The founder of Johns Hopkins was a morphine addict.

10-18-07

Bioware got bought out by EA.

10-17-07

Citrus Soldier. The guy takes photos off of Flickr and puts captions to them. The writing is hit or miss -- most of it being "miss" -- but occasionally he scores a good one.

10-16-07

Puzzle Quest finally came out for Xbox Live last week and, yep. It's awesome.

10-15-07

See? I told you. Nationalized health care sucks.

10-14-07

California invented the right turn on red.

10-13-07

Obscure internet slang:

IANAL -- "I am not a lawyer."

10-12-07

Jokes > Sex.

10-11-07

Violent Acres.

10-10-07

A story that the great chess player José Raúl Capablanca used to tell his friends:

"I was playing in a tournament in Germany one year when a man approached me. Thinking he just wanted an autograph, I reached for my pen, when the man made a startling announcement. 'I've solved chess!' I sensibly started to back away, in case the man was dangerous as well as insane, but the man continued: 'I'll bet you 50 marks that if you come back to my hotel room I can prove it to you.' Well, 50 marks was 50 marks, so I humored the fellow and accompanied him to his room."

"Back at the room, we sat down at his chess board. 'I've worked it all out, white mates in 12 no matter what.' I played with black perhaps a bit incautiously, but I found to my horror that white's pieces coordinated very strangely, and that I was going to be mated on the 12th move!"

"I tried again, and I played a completely different opening that couldn't possibly result in such a position, but after a series of very queer-looking moves, once again I found my king surrounded, with mate to fall on the 12th move. I asked the man to wait while I ran downstairs and fetched Emmanuel Lasker, who was world champion before me. He was extremely skeptical, but agreed to at least come and play. Along the way we snagged Alekhine, who was then world champion, and the three of us ran back up to the room."

"Lasker took no chances, but played as cautiously as could be, yet after a bizarre, pointless-looking series of maneuvers, found himself hemmed in a mating net from which there was no escape. Alekhine tried his hand, too, but all to no avail."

"It was awful! Here we were, the finest players in the world, men who had devoted our very lives to the game, and it was all over! The tournaments, the matches, everything - chess had been solved, white wins."

About this time Capa's friends would break in, saying, "Wait a minute, I never heard anything about all this! What happened?"

"Why, we killed him, of course."

10-9-07

Occam's Razor has some competition.

10-8-07

From an article:

"There's a lot of girls around," adds pro gamer Tom "Tsquared" Taylor. "I honestly find them annoying."

===

Compared to ordinary gamers, pro gamers have somehow managed to be even bigger losers.

10-7-07

Facebook lets you see a person's status on AIM and read their away message, if they have one up.

10-6-07

Age of Empires III. The computer game sucked, but the board game is solid.

10-5-07

Mafia with an assassin rocks.

10-4-07

Hitting alt+prnt scrn takes a screenshot of just the active window.

10-3-07

"No, he used to be a mathematician."

10-2-07

Excel 07 can't do basic math. Try this: =PRODUCT(77.1,850)

10-1-07

Some days, you just don't learn anything.

9-30-07

"Well, you can't have everything -- where would you put it?"

-- Steven Wright

9-29-07

Women account for almost a quarter of internet pornography traffic.

9-28-07

The U.S. dollar has dropped below the Canadian dollar.

9-27-07

A flock of crows is called a murder.

9-26-07

I hadn't eaten at Taco Bell in a while, and I forgot how cheap that place is. And it's not just cheap, it's cheap -- the kind of cheap that makes you wonder what the hell they're putting in there. A pound of food for two bucks? It can't all be food.

9-25-07

For those times when icanhascheezburger just isn't enough, consider the following:


lolsecretz.

9-24-07

9-23-07

Fucking Austria.

9-22-07

Being at work on Saturday does wonders for your productivity.

9-21-07

Stupid people in large numbers are not nearly as frightening as geeks.

9-20-07

"Many human beings say that they enjoy the winter, but what they really enjoy is feeling proof against it. For them there is no winter food problem. They have fires and warm clothes. The winter cannot hurt them and therefore increases their sense of cleverness and security. For birds and animals, as for poor men, winter is another matter."

-- Richard Adams, Watership Down

9-19-07

Some guy made a recording of the farting sound his board game box makes when it opens.

9-18-07

Apparently, one isn't enough.

9-17-07

Robert Jordan died yesterday. Jim's response to the sad news:

"I don't know if that's sad news. He can't churn out any more crappy books."

9-16-07

At 2:05, this video degrades to immense retardation. But up until 2:05 it's awesome.

9-15-07

X-boxes run on Windows. Maybe that's why they crash all the time.

9-14-07

"The longest one syllable word is screeched."

I always had a feeling that Snapple lids were full of crap, and now I have proof. At a paltry nine letters, screeched is no better than strengths or scrounged. To say it is the longest word is misleading, if not inaccurate.

9-13-07

Callipygian.

9-12-07

Auto Phone Sex.

9-11-07

Back when people were illiterate, an outhouse with a crescent was for men, while a star was for the ladies.

===

The Garfield Randomizer:

Sadly, it was taken down, but many of its finest creations are still on display in this thread.

9-10-07

From a forum on restaurant recommendations:

"I came in to get my takeout order from the Whitney Way location and before I said anything the guy goes 'Here for takeout?' I respond, 'Yeah. Do I look like a guy looking for takeout?' He then replies (not joking) , "You look like you're gonna rob me.'"

9-9-07

Garlic can go bad.

===

"I put [the CD] on random order. Eventually, track 1 came up, so I got a little excited. Clearly, this song was designed to be first on the CD, so it must be highly respected...

This got me thinking. I put this CD on random order, so instantly by placing no preference on the order of the songs, I'm giving preference to the later songs. These are the songs that the CD creator didn't think were as good (otherwise they'd appear earlier on the CD). Thus, random order is actual[ly] an insult to the creator of the CD and their taste of music."

-- Andy

9-8-07

In football, it is possible to score exactly one point.

9-7-07

Jerry Springer was once the mayor of Cincinnati.

9-6-07

Anna Kournikova wasn't total trash. At one point she was the No 1 ranked doubles tennis player in the world.

9-5-07

# is called an octothorpe.

9-4-07

Dice stacking.

9-3-07

I wish every weekend were a three-day weekend.

9-2-07

At the Minnesota State Fair, you could buy yogurt at a place called "Custard's Last Stand."

9-1-07

Brain Surgery.

8-31-07

Who Wants to be An Idiot?

8-30-07

Q: What kind of candy is never on time?

A: Choco-late!

Laffy Taffy jokes are an abomination.

8-29-07

The Dorks Behind Penny Arcade.

===

"Not failure, Utahraptor! Approximations of success!"

-- Dinosaur Comics

(Yeah, I know. I linked the same comic two days in a row. That just means it's really awesome.)

8-28-07

OGC.

===

Rats can't vomit.

8-27-07

Content Aware Image Resizing. Kickass video.

===

"I object to being called a chess genius, because I consider myself to be an all-around genius who just happens to play chess."

-- Bobby Fischer

One of the greatest chess players of all time was also a paranoid freaking nutcase.

8-26-07

Why I love reading YouTube comments:

Snorlaxxxrked as spam

This video would be a lot better without the gay music.

Gimpyfish62 Marked as spam

your user name would be a lot better without all the gay x's.

its too bad i cant mute those.

8-25-07

Mortal Kombat fatalities. 2:46 is my favorite. Needless to say, people who don't like violence should not watch this video.

8-24-07

QFT is internet slang for "quoted for truth." I thought it meant "quit fucking trying."

8-23-07

"Euchre was a cool game, even my favorite card game. As near as I can tell Euchre had one fault: it just wasn't gay enough.

Milking has changed that."

Milking in euchre is not as widespread as I thought. Check out my crusade to get this awesome shot by Mandy onto BoardGameGeek:

8-22-07

Wisconsin is Soda.

8-21-07

Oscar Mayer is based in Madison.

8-20-07

"I wanted to be the car because I could make car noises by vibrating my lips -- brrrrmmmmm! -- and drive the car around on the floor to amuse myself while waiting my turn, which is mainly what you do in Monopoly, which I always considered to be one of the most boring activities on the planet."

-- Dave Barry, Bored Games

8-19-07

If you had left Columbus, in a car, at around the same time my parents dropped me off at the airport, and driven to Madison, you would have beaten me home by two hours.

Airports: I take off my shoes for you and don't complain when you confiscate my cologne, so why can't you make three out of four of my god damn planes leave on fucking time?

8-18-07

There is a penalty tax for being married.

8-17-07

The phrase "it's all Greek to me" exists in French, but Chinese is used instead of Greek.

===

Marina's wedding is tomorrow! Flying to Columbus tonight; updates will be late this weekend.

8-16-07

How to spell "piranha."

===

Cyanide and Happiness.

8-15-07

We have two days to complete five ActiveX exercises. Several people were done before lunch, on the first day. I wish I were smart like that.

8-14-07

Hamster cuteness.

8-13-07

The phrase "ActiveX" has no underlying technical meaning. It's just a marketing word invented by Microsoft to brand their product. I always thought the "X" stood for something mysterious.

8-12-07

Angelina Jolie is the daughter of Jon Voight.

8-11-07

I finished Paper Mario 64 today. Not a bad role playing game overall, but the quality trails off considerably by the end.

8-10-07

I have thumb cancer.

Maybe not, but my left thumb has been perpetually chapped for the last few weeks.

8-9-07

Honey never spoils.

8-8-07

Strawberry banana orange juice is pretty good.

8-7-07

Almost all American cows are raised on corn even though a cow's stomach can't digest it without antibiotics.

8-6-07

Visual Basic is a little clunky, but it's not that bad.

8-5-07

On a billboard:

"Abortion: a baby can live without it."

Also on a billboard:

"Taco Bell: tastier tacos are nacho far away."

8-4-07

The Cleveland Indians have a shortstop named Jhonny Peralta. Not a typo.

8-3-07

Sorry for the late updates. Dave and I spent the weekend in Minnesota hanging out with his family.

The bonus stage in Super Smash Brothers sucks.

8-2-07

Test your thinking style. Here's mine:


(Made with MS Paint, the greatest image editing tool ever created.) If you want to know what the results mean, click here.

8-1-07

I learned a fun puzzle.

Find a five letter word that meets the following criteria:

1) If you remove the second letter of the word, the resulting four letter word has the same pronunciation.

2) If you remove the first letter of the word, the resulting four letter word also has the same pronunciation, AND it's not the same as the four letter word you got from removing the second letter. (In other words, "llama" is not correct.)

All three words are common, Scrabble-acceptable English words.

7-31-07

Woolloomooloo.

7-30-07

Nintendo was founded in 1889.

7-29-07

My tolerance for squalor is not infinite. (I vacuumed my room today.)

7-28-07

Julie's number one complaint about the fact that her heart palpitations have gotten so severe she needs to wear a heart monitor: "I can't wear any low-cut shirts."

7-27-07

Even if you don't like board games, take a look at some of these amazing board game pictures. My new desktop wallpaper:

(click to see the big and awesome version)

7-26-07

I broke down and got Firefox last week and, yeah, it's better.

7-25-07

Freecell kicks ass.

7-24-07

The plural of "mongoose" is "mongooses."

7-23-07

Thomas Edison electrocuted an elephant.

7-22-07

"Then a red light came on the dashboard and he said, 'What's that?' and I said, 'Don't worry about it, that's just to tell whether or not that bulb is working.'"

-- Steven Wright

7-21-07

If you eat lobster with your hands for lunch, your hands will smell like fish for the rest of the day no matter how many times you wash them with soap.

7-20-07

I can't tell if this is some kind of elaborate joke or what the hell is going on.

7-19-07

Golden Axe was released for Xbox Live!!

7-18-07

The world is a bitter, ugly piece of shit.

7-17-07

Goto statements are awesome.

7-16-07

Dr. Seuss never had kids.

7-15-07

The battery in my car is dead for no real reason.

7-14-07

Dave's mom rocks at Scattergories.

7-13-07

Kittens in the same litter can have different fathers.

7-12-07

Contrary to popular belief, driving a stick shift is very easy. Accelerating from rest, however, is FUCKING IMPOSSIBLE.

===

Today is my cat's ninth birthday.

7-11-07

Pressing Shift+6 yields a caret, not a carrot.

7-10-07

Velveeta mac and cheese is way better than Kraft. You actually get a giant bag of cheese sauce. None of this powder crap.

7-9-07

Wondermark. It's kind of like Married to the Sea, but funnier and more thought out.

7-8-07

Jim Carrey is not a fan of observational humor.

Seinfeld parody.

7-7-07

Pescetarianism is a less stupid form of vegetarianism in which you're allowed to eat seafood.

7-6-07

The famous Hampsterdance sound clip was not an original production but rather a sped up clip from the Roger Miller song "Whistle Stop," which appears in the opening credits of Disney's Robin Hood.

7-5-07

Jerry Seinfeld used to wrestle. He also owns upwards of 50 Porsches.

7-4-07

Michael Caine isn't Michael Caine's real name.

7-3-07

John Cleese was the first person to say 'shit' on British television.

7-2-07

I haven't been putting any real facts in here of late, have I?

7-1-07

Scarlett Johansson will star in a movie based on Monopoly.

===

"I made my cat drink bleach just so I could see my cute vet again."

"Anonymous said... to the lady with the bleach: honestly? I HOPE THAT VET THINKS YOU'RE AN UGLY B!TCH."

Allowing anonymous comments on PostSecret was a tremendously bad idea.

6-30-07

Fans of Guitar Hero need to see something very important.

6-29-07

Something to consider about global warming. By Orson Scott Card, of all people.

6-28-07

Credit card debt isn't as widespread as you might think.

===

Trainer: "Did you guys hear that the Middleton police station got robbed last night?"

Student: "Really? What'd they take?"

Trainer: "They took all the toilet seats. The police have nothing to go on."

We've got some awesome trainers at Epic, here.

6-27-07

"Somehow we ended up with a bag of X-13D superchips, some kind of mystery flavor, and if you want to know what they taste like imagine that a hamburger patty has fallen onto a cat, condiment side down. Believe me, it's worth buying a bag to verify this assertion."

-- Penny Arcade on Doritos

6-26-07

There's an online utility called Vischeck that transforms images to show you how a colorblind person would see them.

6-25-07

German Coast Guard.

6-24-07

p.s. You need to click on this one.

6-23-07

6-22-07

"So, how do you like being an intern?"

"It's okay, I guess. I get credit in some of my classes, but I'm not really interested in going into business."

"Oh, so you hope to be an unproductive drain on society, then?"

"No, I want to go to art school."

"That is what I said."

-- Ugly City

6-21-07

A person can be allergic to monkeys, as well as "monkey-derived products."

6-20-07

The people most likely to become serial killers are doctors, followed closely by nurses.

6-19-07

You can italicize text in Gmail chat by surrounding it with underscores.

6-18-07

Stress at work.

6-17-07

Evolution is a "fairy tale," incontrovertibly proven by peanut butter.

6-16-07

I had a dream that North Dakota was west of South Dakota, and that Montana bordered both of them to the north.

6-15-07

According to my trainer at Epic, the discovery that Vioxx causes heart attacks was made with Epic software.

6-14-07

A pearl necklace is a necklace made out of pearls, but it also has a naughty meaning.

6-13-07

"As we're headed home, I take a wrong turn. I'm trying to find my way, not paying attention to other important things, like how fast I'm going. I get pulled over, and issued a speeding ticket."

***

"My wife, Emma, and I met in '94 at a psychiatric hospital. She was doing rat experiments. I, mouse experiments."

***

"I met Lisa when a mutual friend invited us both over for a game of Space Marine. We both wanted to play Eldar..."

***

"Anyway, after we got to talking for a while, we discovered we both had a deep mutual appreciation for all things Tim Burton ... Somehow we got into a game of tossing M&Ms at each other so we could catch them with our mouths in mid air (don't ask me), and after hitting her directly in the eye with several sugar coated candies, ..."

***

"We agreed to meet at TGI Fridays. Of course, there are 2 of them, relatively close to each other by us, and we were waiting at different ones."

***

Geek first dates.

6-12-07

How babies are born.

6-11-07

The Perry Bible Fellowship.

===

Ocean's 13 is an excellent movie. Don't be discouraged from seeing it just because the 12th one sucked.

6-10-07

Flaming Monkey Games. They don't make anything cool, but it's good to know that someone likes flaming monkeys as much as I do.

6-9-07

The maker of my mattress requests that I "turn it end to end and upside down" every other week in order to "equalize body impressions."

6-8-07

Bethesda is making Fallout 3.

6-7-07

There's a board game club at Epic, and the guy who started it is even cooler than I am.

6-6-07

A good chunk of the new hires at Epic have played Settlers at least once and liked it.

6-5-07

Poker Odds Calculator. A pair of 2s is better than an off suit ace-king.

6-4-07

Because I live in the central time zone now, webcomics update an hour earlier!

6-3-07

On the way back from Chipotle this evening, Dave changed lanes into a motorcyclist and almost killed him.

6-2-07

I had a mental panic this morning and had to look up dictionary.com to see how Wednesday was spelled.

6-1-07

Geek Love.

5-31-07

Sorry for the late/lame updates -- been moving into my apartment.

===

My bed won't arrive until the 9th. I'll be sleeping on an air mattress for a week.

5-30-07

Senators tend not to win presidential elections.

5-29-07

Merlin.

5-28-07

Swans sing before they die; 'twere no bad thing
should certain persons die before they sing.

-- Coleridge

===

On the congratulatory card she gave me, Marina outlines some of the advantages and disadvantages of moving to Madison. Among the advantages:

possibility of        (HEAD)
realizing your dreams

Thanks, Marina. I love you too.

5-27-07

Electric cars are awesome.

5-26-07

Best Scattegories answer I have ever seen:

D, things that bounce: "D-cups"

5-25-07

A spiffed up version of Geometry Wars is coming out for the Wii.

===

The last time I mentioned Geometry Wars in this blog was November, to say that my new record was 2.1 million. Pshaw! I'd have to be drunk and missing one arm to score that low now! I was in the 3 millions for a while and a couple of weeks ago I scored 4.9 million.

===

I "bought" a new car today -- it's a Hyundai Sonata. I'm paying for a little under half of it.

5-24-07

The Relationship Terminator. I think this is my preferred way of getting dumped.

5-23-07

Torrent clients aren't all the same. If you want to download a torrent and not have it take a century, use Azureus.

===

eMule blows.

5-22-07

Lawyerbear. A lawyer who is also a bear.
===

Janet Reno is 6'3".

5-21-07

It is illegal to torture squid in Britain.

5-20-07

The word ambidextrous is twelve letters long. The first six letters (A, M, B, I, D, E) are all in the first half of the alphabet, while the last six letters (X, T, R, O, U, S) are all in the last half.

ambidextrous: Able to use both hands with equal facility.

===

Tassels are annoying.

5-19-07

Richard Lederer, the linguist and punster who will speak at my commencement, is the father of famous poker players Howard Lederer and Annie Duke.

5-18-07

Once the game is over, the King and the pawn go back in the same box.

Italian Proverb

5-17-07

A board game joke, compliments of BGG:

===

Einstein arrives in heaven. A gamer approaches him and says, "I have an IQ of 145."

Einstein replies, "I look forward to playing go with you."

Another gamer approaches Einstein and says, "I have an IQ of 115."

"I will enjoy playing Carcassonne with you," responds Einstein.

A third gamer comes over and says, "My IQ is only 65."

"Mind if I be the racecar?" says Einstein.

5-16-07

Team Fortress 2 is actually coming out!

5-15-07

Jerry Falwell is dead, finally.

5-14-07

Strawberries are the only fruit that has seeds on the outside.

5-13-07

In Wisconsin, it's illegal to operate a gas-powered grill inside of an apartment.

5-12-07

I've made a new blog for the purpose of hosting longer entries that would look really out of place in this one (e.g. Online Wisdom). This blog will only be updated on occasion and is called, fittingly, On Occasion.

The inaugural entry is a short story I wrote for the fiction workshop this semester.

===

If you like the ability to edit the HTML template of your blog, don't switch to WordPress. Installing my StatCounter code was a pain in the ass, and even then I could only use the Ultra Gimped version.

5-11-07

The SuPuzzle is impossible.

5-10-07

A "ponderosa" is a type of pine tree, which presumably explains the restaurant in Columbus of the same name, because most people would rather eat a large chunk of pine wood than any of the food there.

5-9-07

You've thirty girls at your command,
    and thirty slave-boys too,
but just one cock, which doesn't rise.
    What are you going to do?

-- Marcus Valerius Martialis

5-8-07

A truth that's told with bad intent
Beats all the lies you can invent.

-- William Blake

5-7-07

“The belief that logic will substantially reduce misunderstanding is widely and uncritically held, although, as a matter of common experience, we all know that people who pride themselves on their logic are usually, of all the people we know, the hardest to get along with.”

-- S.I. Hayakawa

5-6-07

People with college educatons, the student said, know more, and hence are better judges of people. But aren't you assuming, I asked, that a college education gives not only what we usually call "knowledge" but also what we usually call "shrewdness" or "wisdom"? Oh, he said, you mean that there isn't any use in going to college!

-- Francis Chisholm

5-5-07

The phrase "the exception proves the rule" does not mean what everybody thinks it means. The saying comes from Latin -- Exceptio probat regulum -- at a time when "prove" had a different meaning than it does today. The true meaning of the phrase is "the exception tests the rule."

5-4-07

Fun with obscure alternate definitions:

Mother: "a stringy, mucilaginous substance consisting of various bacteria ... that forms on the surface of a fermenting liquid."

5-3-07

Robert Browning (the poet who wrote My Last Duchess) had his voice recorded by Thomas Edison in 1889. Browning died later that year and the recording was played for the first time in 1890, making Browning the first person in history to have his voice heard after his death.

5-2-07

Jim is 21 years old and about to graduate from college, and he still doesn't have a driver's license.

5-1-07

My former roommate's middle name is "Bonar," pronounced "Bonner," though you are welcome to ignore one of the N's.

4-30-07

Marina's blog is pretty good.

4-29-07

Kurt Schilling is a longtime player of Advanced Squad Leader.

4-28-07

Boris Yeltsin died five days ago.

4-27-07

There can be a legitimate reason to stick a finger up your pet's butt.

4-26-07

The whole day today I was wearing a shirt that says "pass me the jargen sauce" and not one single person stopped to ask me what the hell that means.

4-25-07

Desktop Tower Defense.

4-24-07

"This article is about sin in the context of morality. For the trigonometric function, see Sine."

-- Wikipedia

4-23-07

"In the beginning the Universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and has been widely regarded as a bad move."

-- Douglas Adams

4-22-07

If you've never read it, check out the top definition of Case at the Urban Dictionary. It was written by our very own Jim.

4-21-07

After he quit professional tennis, Yevgeny Kafelnikov tried his hand at professional poker.

4-20-07

The Burgg. It's kind of like massively multiplayer online Pictionary, with a movie theme.

4-19-07

The guy who shot up Virginia Tech was an English major.

4-18-07

Koalas have unique fingerprints.

4-17-07

Amanuensis.

4-16-07

As a youth, Kevin tried out for Teen Jeopardy and didn't make it.

4-15-07

I thought for sure that absolutely nothing could be dumber than the Kenya video. And then Andy found this.

Make sure you watch it all the way. Don't get me wrong -- it doesn't get any better. But it's not a math video, I'll tell you that.

4-14-07

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

4-13-07

The German word for birth control pills is antibabypillen.

4-12-07

Kurt Vonnegut died yesterday.

4-11-07

There are gay monkeys.

4-10-07

Today is Dave's 22nd birthday! His mom sent him a delicious cake and some birthday candles that we couldn't light because there is absolutely no firestarting equipment in our suite.

4-9-07

William Blake was an artist as well as a poet.

4-8-07

Klaus Teuber, the inventor of Settlers, has a son named Guido.

4-7-07

Whoopi Goldberg had a role on Star Trek.

4-6-07

"You guys are frickin' idiots."

From the maker of Toothpaste For Dinner. His comic sucks, but the videos are funny.

4-5-07

"Ah, it's gonna be the ol'...spinning-ball spare conversion."

I love bowling.

4-4-07

Large pictures of disturbingly unattractive dogs.

4-3-07

Zeugma.

4-2-07

From Wikipedia:

In 1994, Apple Computer began developing the Power Macintosh 7100. They chose the internal code name "Carl Sagan", the in-joke being that the mid-range PowerMac 7100 would make Apple "billions and billions" ... when Sagan learned of this internal usage he sued Apple ... Sagan lost the suit, [but] Apple engineers complied with his demands anyway, renaming the project "BHA" (for Butt-Head Astronomer).

4-1-07

Conservapedia: like Wikipedia, except everything is made up.

3-31-07

Martinis (gin + vermouth) are disgusting, even if you drink them out of an official martini glass from Walmart.

3-30-07

Her comics may be retarded, but Natalie Dee is kind of hot.

3-29-07

The new theater professor does not acknowledge the existence of time.

3-28-07

"I did not understand that, neither accoustically nor by content."

-- Professor Kotelenez, to a mumbling student

3-27-07

The document camera is better than PowerPoint, but the chalkboard is still far superior.

Note to professors everywhere: write on the god damn chalkboard.

3-26-07

Vin Diesel plays D&D.

3-25-07

Puzzle Quest. It's a puzzle game and an RPG all in one! Only a demo, but it kicks ass. Try it.

P.S.: Don't think you're done when the storyline ends. There's a ton of crap you can do at your Citadel. Save up some money and do it.

3-24-07

Uncyclopedia: like Wikipedia, except everything is made up.

3-23-07

www.time.gov is a handy place to go if the daylight savings mess screwed up one of your clocks but not the other one and you need to figure out in a hurry what the freakin' time is.

3-22-07

Dave Barry dodged the Vietnam War by registering as a conscientious objector even though he's an atheist.

3-21-07

The Romans would sometimes flood the Coliseum and do mock naval battles. They would freakin' do that.

3-20-07

It is possible to write a short story in under twelve hours. It just won't be very good.

3-19-07

Leutner chicken isn't half bad as long as they don't do anything stupid to it.

3-18-07

Garden Salsa Sunchips are delicious.

3-17-07

In the Columbus area, there is a critical shortage of competent barbers.

===

It is ironic that AIM calls "idle" those people who are away from their computer doing something interesting.

3-16-07

Milwaukee is in Wisconsin, not Minnesota.

3-15-07

"People who want to share their religious views with you almost never want you to share yours with them."

-- Dave Barry

3-14-07

Today I learned a number of important things about ordering breakfast room service at the Hilton.

First of all, when you check the "6:30-7:00" box on the card, it does not eliminate the possibility that your breakfast will arrive at, say, 6:27.

Second, the breakfast is not delivered (as I had naively hoped) Fed-Ex style. They do not knock on your door, put the tray down, and walk away. They keep knocking -- once, twice, three times if necessary -- until you answer.

Third, your breakfast will be personally handed to you by an extremely well-dressed, extremely professional-looking woman. It is therefore inadvisable to answer the door in your underwear.

Fourth, it is really hard to print your name, sign your name, calculate a tip, and add the tip to the original amount, in your underwear, having just woken up, with an extremely well-dressed, extremely professional-looking woman watching you.

On the plus side, you don't know if she's hot or not. She's kind of blurry all around because you're not wearing any glasses.

3-13-07

It is no longer legal to carry bottled water on an airplane.

3-12-07

Country Fair
by Charles Simic

If you didn't see the six-legged dog,
It doesn't matter.
We did, and he mostly lay in the corner.
As for the extra legs,

One got used to them quickly
And thought of other things.
Like, what a cold, dark night
To be out at the fair.

Then the keeper threw a stick
And the dog went after it
On four legs, the other two flapping behind,
Which made one girl shriek with laughter.

She was drunk and so was the man
Who kept kissing her neck.
The dog got the stick and looked back at us.
And that was the whole show.

===

If you are wondering why I put poetry in this blog:

1) Some days, you don't learn anything more than a cool new poem.

2) It has bothered me for some time that people don't like poetry and then quote song lyrics in their profiles and web sites. Song lyrics -- which are poetry -- and the shittiest poetry ever written. So I figure I'll do the world a favor and put some good poetry on display.

And yes, I've come to terms with free verse.

3-11-07

Pythons aren't venomous.

3-10-07

Veronika Zemanova used to be a photographer. She only got into softcore porn because her equipment got stolen and she needed the money.

3-9-07

Online games have been garbage for a while, but here's an awesome one:

Show Jumping

and a few others that are pretty good:

Bot Arena 3
Elite Base Jump
Line Game

3-8-07

38% of video gamers are women, and that figure rises to 42% if you exclude non-online games.

The research credit for this piece of information goes to Danielle, my Communication for Engineers professor. She's an English grad student who plays WoW.

3-7-07

[Awesome critique from Chloe:]

Boris --

Damn, how do you have the stamina to write a three page (rhymed!) poem about chess? I think my rendition of this poem would have been,

"watch out kid if you play chess
a Russian Loch Ness monster will eat you"
The end.

Look! It rhymes! Sort of.

-- Chloe

3-6-07

"Our self-image plays a more important role in our lives than we like to admit. Even those who deny any interest in how others view them actually do care, if only by making sure that everyone else understands that they don't."

-- Donald Norman, Emotional Design

3-5-07

Sweet link, compliments of Sarah.

3-4-07

Ezra Pound was an anti-semite.

3-3-07

"You know what's really gay? Football. Instead of watching it, just have sex with another dude once a year. Get it all out of your system at once."

-- Jenna Fischer

3-2-07

I am not a true artist.

===

"'Don't touch it any more' cries the amateur. It is then that the true artist takes his chance."

-- Jean Cocteau

3-1-07

My dad watches CSI.

2-28-07

Comment
by Dorothy Parker

Oh, life is a glorious cycle of song,
A medley of extemporanea;
And love is a thing that can never go wrong;
And I am Marie of Roumania.

2-27-07

There are like fifty bazillion web pages titled "What I Learned Today." The hunt for a new blog title begins. I'm sure I'll think of something myself but submissions are welcome if you are so inclined.

2-26-07

Getting the most basic things done in relational algebra is tedious and a bitch.

2-25-07

The play I had to see for theater class today was about an uncle getting it on with his busty teenage niece.

2-24-07

"The need to be observed and understood was once satisfied by God. Now we can implement the same functionality wth data-mining algorithms."

-- Deus Ex

2-23-07

Today I lost two rubbers of bridge in six hands: one rubber in two hands, and the one right after it in four.

2-22-07

Kevin and Dave agreed to play Die Macher with me today. Awesome game, even though I didn't win a single election.

2-21-07

"I would really appreciate if everybody paid attention over here. Sleeping is okay, but no other activities."

-- Professor Kotelenez

2-20-07

Almost half of the people in my intermediate fiction writing workshop don't know how to write a grammatically correct sentence.

2-19-07

It's illegal to kill swans in Ireland.

===

One of the girls in the poetry workshop wrote a poem about female masturbation. We critiqued that poem in class today, and everyone -- professor included -- discussed in great detail its manifold masturbatory implications.

The girl later said the poem wasn't about masturbation; it was about food.

2-18-07

Stephen Root, the guy who plays Milton in "Office Space" (i.e., the guy who sets everything on fire) was trained as a Shakespearean actor.

2-17-07

Whiskey tastes better if you drink it while wearing a plaid bathrobe.

2-16-07

After finding out that nobody else knew what the whole "Nantucket" thing was about, either, I did some research. My findings are a little bit too vulgar even for this blog, so you'll have to content yourself with a link.

2-15-07

"Attached is my psychopomp poem. It's about hookers, so it's gotta be good, right? I mean, right?"

-- Jon Vesey

2-14-07

All my friends are anti-fairy bigots.

2-27-07 Clarification: the word "fairy" here denotes little pink women in fantasy stories who have wings and flit around. Not gay people. As far as I know, my friends have nothing against gay people.

2-13-07

You can't copyright a recipe.

===

Tomorrow is a snow day!

2-12-07

Oscar Wilde was gay.

(I really feel like I should have known this.)

2-11-07

Someone who makes clocks or watches is called a horologist.

2-10-07

Julie: "Did your parents really buy you all that alcohol?"
Jim: "My parents love me. And they want me to die. Soon."

2-9-07

The "Game of the Year Edition" of Deus Ex includes a CD with all the songs. Finally I have the Deus Ex music on my computer!

(Hey. If you played the game, you'd know how awesome the music was.)

2-8-07

Anna Nicole Smith died today.

2-7-07

"Before we start today, could someone please explain to me why my next-door neighbor was snowblowing his driveway at 2:30 in the morning?"

-- Professor Bernd

2-6-07

Mormons believe that half of the Native Americans were good, and the other half were evil, and that the evil ones killed all the good ones before we got here; and that therefore, our annihilating them was a good and just thing.

2-5-07

Kevin thinks it's odd that people from the Soviet Union would move to America, since the two countries were technically enemies. I had to explain to him that most intelligent people in the USSR considered communism to be the real enemy, not America. Still, Kevin's point makes sense in a weird way. I hadn't thought of it before.

2-4-07

Board2Pieces. It's a webcomic about board games.

2-3-07

Puerto Rico cake. I'm so jealous, I don't even know how to begin describing it.

2-2-07

The term "suspension of disbelief" was coined by Coleridge.

2-1-07

Andy Warhol made several paintings by having his friends piss on copper paint.

1-31-07

It really sucks when you've got the beginning of a poem written and the ending and you know exactly what needs to go in the middle but the rhyme just isn't working.

1-30-07

MyDeathSpace. I'm not sure what's better:

"Jordan Chiovarelli (23) died when he rode his motorcycle into a bus,"

or

"Jordan Henshaw (15) was killed when his go-Kart was hit by a truck."

1-29-07

WOW! The Pillow Fight Game (for girls).

1-28-07

Lusaka is the capital of Zambia.

1-27-07

Delivery service at Jimmy Johns is terrible.

1-26-07

Tony the Tiger is dead.

1-25-07

My theater professor, Lisa Bernd, says "okay" a hell of a lot. I kept count today and she said it 183 times. Given the fifty minute class, that's almost one "okay" every fifteen seconds.

1-24-07

"Would you be taking [Java] 131 if it were optional?"

"Yes": 5
"Sure": 1
"Probably": 2
"Maybe": 3
"No": 9

1-23-07

A group of British gamers podcasted an entire D&D campaign, running just a few months shy of two (real-life) years. Listen to the whole thing here.

1-22-07

Some jackass gold-plated a bunch of his poop and sold it for $500,000.

“I love money,” says Koh. “Having money is the grease that helps me run my other crazy projects, like my magazine and my Website and the new porn production company I am setting up in my basement.”

Sigh.

1-21-07

The one-year anniversary of this blog was yesterday.

1-20-07

Almost a year after I preordered it, I finally got to play Taj Mahal. Excellent game.

1-19-07

It has not always been the case that audiences must keep quiet during theatrical performances.

1-18-07

Benzene mixed with styrofoam makes a flammable jelly.

1-17-07

"I have a lot of bad things to say about Oklahoma and sometimes I say them."

-- Professor Bernd

1-16-07

Lithium is the lightest metal.

1-15-07

You need a special license to sell liquor on Sunday.

1-14-07

One of the walls in all the Village dorm rooms (including mine) is painted a different color.

1-13-07

George Washington and Abraham Lincoln both liked cricket.

1-12-07

Sarah's cat:


hates the world.

1-11-07

"Once upon a time, many years ago, there was a chieftain in a remote tropical village who owned an old and battered throne of which he was very fond. One day, a visiting dignitary gave him a brand new and ornate throne, which the chieftain had to adopt immediately out of politeness. However, he could not bear to part with the old throne which had served him so well, so he stowed it away in the roof area of his grass hut, in case it should be useful in the future. Unfortunately the interior structure of his hut was too flimsy to support the weight of the large object, and it crashed through the grass ceiling, falling on the chieftain and killing him.

The moral of this story is: people in grass houses shouldn't stow thrones."

===

"If you don't know Keira Knightley, she's kind of a slightly more mannish version of Orlando Bloom." -- Ask a Ninja

1-10-07

"Television won't be able to hold onto any market it captures after the first six months. People will soon get tired of staring at a plywood box every night."
-- Darryl F Zanuck, 1946.

1-9-07

Board games! And cats! Don't forget to click on the thumbnails to enlarge them.

My favorite.

1-8-07

Cervantes and Shakespeare died ten days apart, but because the English calendar was at that time still unreformed, they both technically died on April 23.

1-7-07

Breast implants can now be done by inserting silicon through the bellybutton all the way up into the boobs.

Details.

1-6-07

"Life isn't fair. It's just fairer than death." -- William Goldman

1-5-07

Body butter.

"Is an excellent moisturizer that melts at body temperature, leaving the skin feeling soft and silky smooth. Enables the development of community projects such as schools and village wells."

That's pretty potent stuff.

===

The Princess Bride. It's a book!

1-4-07

"When I split an infinitive, god damn it, I split it so it stays split." -- Raymond Chandler

1-3-07

Apparently I missed the fad by about three years, but here it is anyway.

And the lyrics, if you're interested.

1-2-07 Special Update: Online Wisdom Part 7!

My newer readers might be wondering: Part 7? Whatever happened to Parts 1, 2, …, 6? Those are in the old blog and they’re pretty funny (or so I’ve heard), so you may want to look them up. Not having read any of the previous Wisdoms will not, however, hinder your enjoyment of the current one.

As always, for maximum comedic firepower, I have edited many of the entries (sometimes heavily) without indicating when or where the edits have been made. You have my utmost assurances, however, that I edit solely for the benefit of clarity, and will never knowingly compromise the intended meaning of the speaker. Thus, the phrase

Timur: if i had money i would invest it in the yuan

might be edited to,

Timur: if I had money I would invest it in the yuan

— notice the newly capitalized personal pronouns — but not,

Timur: if I had money I would invest it in your mom

So here it is, two years after its predecessor to the day: the new Online Wisdom. Enjoy!

===

Mandy: I can feel my stomach as it begins to eat itself.

Lila: girls don't seem to be working for you

Marina: you send the email, then
Marina: just don’t try to be funny
Marina: they won’t appreciate your wit
Me: I know
Me: I will try to be short and to the point
Me: though I am always sad when my wit is unappreciated
Marina: eg - you are always sad.
Me: thanks

Me: well, then that sounds dandiriffic
Marina: is that related to dandruff in some way?

Lila: it means, “crouching tiger, giant ass”
Lila: which is a bet we've got going on about the size of one of our friends’ asses

(A conversation stolen from Lila and one of her friends)
Lila: b/c otherwise you'd be WRONG
SCMan9000: true
Lila: like wronger than a west virginia family portrait
Lila: but not quite as wrong as your mom
SCMan9000: hey what’s wrong with my mom
Lila: she birthed you didn't she?
SCMan9000: oh i thought you were just jealous because she is 50 and hotter than you
[True fact. — Ed.]
Lila: you think your mom is hot?!
Lila: eewwwww!
SCMan9000: SO IM TOLD
SCMan9000: .........
SCMan9000: DAMN

Me: did you die?
Mandy: No, but my computer did. So yes, half of me died.

Timur: if I had money I would invest it in the yuan

Sarah: wanna know what I did for my informative speech?
Me: I'm afraid to ask
Me: Chernobyl?
Sarah: no...but close
Sarah: Disney

Me: speaking of Ron, how is he?
Yana: um now I can understand why he is a woman
(That’s not quite what I was asking, but ok.)

Me: Ron is a sad soul
Yana: he is not a sad soul...he is a female soul

Mandy: If I were a girl I would have barely any parts
(Hey, I never said anything about contextual mutilation.)

(Mandy reveals her secret ambition:)
Mandy: Right now, lacking anyone I love to marry, I plan to marry for money

Timur: I like to go to movies to hear black people scream at the screen

Marina: ok, brb, must finish pluckage of eyebrows

Lila: you're by no means a good book

Auto response from Lila: prove:
I am awesome
proof:
I got a toy car in my cheerios.
I played with it.
q.e.d.
(But really though, QED will prove just about anything.)

Jeff: I like tangents
Jeff: except cotangents

Marina: haha. will you ever feel you have enough boardgames?
(haha. Will you ever stop asking idiotic questions?)

Andy: there is no story, so there's nothing to pasta

Jeff: then again, box is another name for vagoo

Me: but, at least a bit of the screwage trickled all the way down
Dave: that's a pleasant image
(Dave should get online more often)

Me: well, AIM got a new feature recently that lets you talk behind away messages
Me: thus making my life complete, because I'd always wanted that
Dave: so your life is now complete?
Me: well.......I guess not entirely
Me: that won't happen until either I've had sex or AIM introduces buddy aliasing
Me: either one will do
Dave: which ever comes first?
Me: yeah, pretty much
Dave: so to speak
(Oh, Dave. That wry wit of yours.)

(No online quote list is complete without a few delectable typos:)
Mandy: In a shoebox with a bunch of other pictures. :-P
Mandy: I rbough tit back with me.
Me: heheh
Mandy: And it is now in a photo album
Mandy: Oh be qwuiet
Mandy: Ahhh
Mandy: Typing...

(The first true piece of wisdom in this episode: )
Mandy: A man should always be in good control of his balls.

Auto response from Jeff: Your mama's so stupid, she tried to use the Pythagorean Theroem to solve an obtuse triangle!

Roger: you need an internment-er- ship
(THANK YOU ROGER THAT WAS HILARIOUS)

Roger: he was at the Einstein Miracle Century Celebration, EMC^2, har har
(Sigh.)

(Lila’s offers her expert opinion on why things aren’t working: )
Lila: you just fail all over the place

Jeff: I get off 6 times

(Second tidbit of wisdom comes from Andy:)
Andy: It'd be funny to have jury duty just to rule in cases against people who threw away their jury duty letters

Marina: you know when you meet someone who goes to a school and you're like "oh, I have a friend who goes there. do you know ___
Marina: and they're always like um no
Marina: well, she was like yeeah, I dated him

Andy: I'm never disappointed seeing a girl
Andy: I was hitting on a 14 year old at the pool

Andy: Her name is Dora?
Me: yes
Andy: How aDORAble
(Dora was not the aforementioned girl at the pool, I thought I should clarify)

Kenny: I wanna see the kitty break its neck damnit
(We all do, Kenny, we all do, just be patient)

Yana: he was trying to dance with me
Yana: but if I said he was sleazy that would be an understatement
Yana: so I said I was in a relationship and that dancing with someone else would make my boyfriend uncomfortable (totally false of course)
Yana: and he was like "but I can see in your eyes that this relationship means nothing to you"
Yana: and then he spit

(Marina worked there:)
Marina: this is AOL
Marina: they might not get it without the smiley

Mandy: I think it might be because we have different skin and hair types, and that mine is long.
Me: you have long skin?
Mandy: I knew you were going to say that.
(The only thing worse than a bad joke is a predictable joke. Oh god, I’m even worse than Roger.)

(Marina brings candy to work:)
Marina: so everyone has been super-politely taking one
Marina: max 2
Marina: for kid
Marina: the guy in the cubicle next to me shamelessly took 5
Marina: (he has no kids)
(Is he fat?)
Marina: no, he's not fat
Marina: just totally nuts

Jim: cancerous lesions. mmm, tasty? good day.
(Hello again, Jim.)

(You guys remember that one time I held a vote in my blog to see which of two utterly random girls was hotter?)
Jim: hmm. I'm going to have to say links three and four. The botox-injected lips, "I'm easy" visible underwear, and lack of a smile in link four make her the clear choice. Although considering pictures of high school teenagers in this manner as a college junior makes me feel a little dirty... oh, well.

Me: I guess I'm just utterly shameless, then
Jim: it's a good way to be. maybe someday I will be able to say the same. Then we'll be lecherous old men and everyone will hate us.
(Most of the time I don’t really know what he’s talking about.)

Mandy: You will be *such* a grumpy grandpa
(Don’t forget lecherous.)

(Don’t know who “Yaron” is or where I got this)
Yaron: Some people are like slinkies....they are really quite useless, but they still bring a smile to your face when you throw them down a flight of stairs

(Fun with typing!)
Steve: oksy
Steve: oksy
Steve: okay!
Steve: kisfgojifjasoinj

(Yana on Family Guy:)
Yana: I don't think I get the jokes
Yana: like, I do if someone is telling me
Yana: otherwise they fly by
Me: what isn't there to get?
Me: that clip, for instance, is just a bunch of people puking
Yana: there is no underlying meaning?

Kenny: u welcome
Kenny: ur*
(I can’t even begin to explain the depth of the intensity of the atrocity which has just been committed here.)

Regina: I'm just trying to find holes in your argument
Me: you were getting close
Regina: what do you mean, "close"? From my point of view, I found those holes and won the argument ;-)
Regina: you just didn't want to admit it
Me: um, excuse me!
Me: from MY point of view, you should have won easily, but you went down the wrong path
Regina: what path was that? Disagreeing with you?

(More excellent jokery, talking about the excellent Case network:)
Me: it depends on what you're trying to get
Me: here, at least, people tend not to have some of the more obscure things
Mandy: Yeah
Me: lots and lots of porn, though
Me: Case is a school that has its priorities well in order
Mandy: Hah
Mandy: Handy for you :-P
Mandy: haha, get it?
Mandy: handy?
Me: HAH.
Me: ohhhhhhh goodness
Mandy: :-D
Me: ohhhhhhhh goodness
Me: that made my day
Mandy: haha

Lila: and your hanging out probably doesn't smell a whole lot better than dead trout

Marina: true
Marina: well, I mean
Marina: not at all

Me: I like chocolate
Me: as long as it's not Hershey
Julie: I love Hershey!
Me: oh, well then you are a disgrace to the planet.
Me: because basically, Hershey is the worst chocolate ever made.
Julie: it tastes good
Me: only if you've never had decent chocolate
Julie: I've had very good chocolate, and I still like Hershey's
Me: well, okay
Me: I suppose you're lucky then
Me: Hershey's is cheap and available everywhere
Julie: exactly, cheap and easy like me
Julie: jk jk jk jk
Me: really? I wouldn't have known you were joking if you hadn't said "jk" four times afterward
Julie: shut up
Me: in fact, if you had only said "jk" three times, I would not have been convinced that your statement was a joke
Julie: shut up
Me: it just sounded so true, that a great deal of convincing was necessary to persuade me otherwise
Julie: shut up
Me: fine, I'm done

Marina: bor, I'll cut your ass in half and leave you with a semi-colon...

(This is how exciting life at Case is:)
Julie: I forgot to give Dave his rubber band back
Julie: if he needs it back, I'll give it to him Monday morning

ErinsPole: Hey, you know how I have like 19 minutes to send you this program before you own the life of my firstborn child?
(I’m a strict TA. Strict, but fair.)

(And this is how exciting life at CMU is:)
Auto response from Marina: it's spring break!
I'm home.
doing work.

Julie: how'd you meet Marina?
Me: family friends
Me: we actually share a common relative
Me: for years I thought she was a distant cousin of mine
Julie: lol
Julie: and you felt her legs?
(Do you ever save a little snippet and then later wonder what the hell the rest of the conversation had been about?)

(Wisdom, from Jim for once:)
Jim: Graphic man on she/man encounters are definitely needless

Jim: The other women were clothed
Jim: So what if the cloth was transparent?
Me: visible nipples = not clothed enough
Jim: They had lots of transparent cloth back in the day.

Michelle: friends don't need to take me out drinking, I can take myself.

Mandy: back. Sorry, the naked girls finally cleared out of the bathroom, so I thought I'd take advantage of the moment
Me: naked girls?
Mandy: These girls on my floor turned the bathroom into a sauna using the showers, and were sort of all naked in there
(I swear, some people go to the best universities)

Mandy: imdb.com says it, so it must be true

Alison: And hey, I like shooting myself in the shin with a nail gun.
Alison: Don't knock it.

Jeff: Boris, your opinion really matters to me
Jeff: *snicker cough laugh wheeze*

Julie: lol, that was really funny
Me: really? You mean that?
Me: if there was an emoticon for a heart swelling with pride, I'd use it
Julie: no, I don't mean you, I mean the situation

Jim: it brought back memories of working at the Cleveland food bank for national honors society credit. There was indeed much rat poop on the cans.
Me: wait, so it's actually true?
Me: that's depressing
Jim: sometimes there were even dead rats in the boxes by the cans. A few live mice, too
Jim: pretty gross
Jim: and then all the food went to homeless shelters

Julie: and I'm like, well.... actually... he's a nerd
Julie: and he didn't know what nerd meant

(Unmistakable proof that Lila, despite all outward appearances, is in fact 75 years old:)
Lila: not a whole lot. it's going to rain soon and I can feel it in my left eyeball

(Regarding a recent spate of penis-related blog entries:)
Andy: Alright Boris...
Andy: An enlightening update for today
Andy: However...
Andy: I feel it would only be fair
Andy: ...
Andy: If you had another update about (pretty) boobies, complete with pictures as well.

Andy: damn, she's 14?
Andy: I was thinking she's 15, in which case I would've been worried that she was a little too old for you

Andy: you'r stupid

Marina: "It's like committing suicide in Buffalo. It's redundant."

Alison: If homosexuality is a disease, let's all call in queer to work.
"Hello. Can't work today. Still queer."

Auto response from Jim: I knew trying to bake something after 22 hours without sleep was a bad idea. Good thing my dad was around, or my house might be a charred cinder. But I had a good nap at the kitchen table while the food was burning.

(Andy’s farewell before I left for work:)
Andy: Well hey good luck
Me: thank you!
Andy: I hope everything's going well and the other TAs are douches

Julie: apparently, when I was sleeping I was really anxious about a polyhedron

Julie: my grandma isn't liberal of course, she just is ok with moderate drinking, and she's acceptant of everyone except for blacks

Lila: en pee
Me: what?
Lila: np
(It’s…I can’t even…death…aurhg.)

(In response to a thong-related blog entry:)
Alison: I raise my eyebrow wondering why you know so much about thongs.
(And:)
Amy: how on earth do you know about the difference between cotton and lace thongs?
(You might be interested to note that there is actually very little about women that I do not know. Just keep that in mind. Ladies.)

Auto response from Jim: Hmm. Matt, Joe, and Leela are over. I am drunk.
I have a wedding reception to go to tomorrow. This is bad? Good night.

Me: speaking of Becca, what is her IM?
Me: if she's ever on
Julie: she's always on
Julie: ummm... she's not on now

(Another one of those “I wish I’d saved the rest of the conversation” moments:)
Julie: so then I guess if you had a vagina, it would be healthy

Me: putting something like that on my resume would most likely lead people to assume that I’m fat and ugly
Me: I'll take my chances without it
Jeff: well
Jeff: you're not fat

Julie: I wonder if we should start calling Kyle Box "Kyle Vagina" or "Kyle Pussy"

Marina: he told me he met my research team and thought I had the best 'communication skills' out of any of us
Marina: i.e. I'm the best bullshitter
Marina: I was so proud.

(I make a joke…)
Auto response from Andy: helping move my dad.
Me: ba-dum CHING!
Me: get it?
Me: like, physically moving your dad's body, not moving his stuff to a new place
Me: oh, I kill myself

(and then it turns out…)
Auto response from Andy: holy crap you all suck. I was helping move my dad's stuff. I wasn't physically moving my dad the person, but his stuff.
(I lose.)

Jim: they're really pointy. Like he could open a can with them. Or your jugular if he was pissed at you
Jim: what if I killed a prized sea slug by accident?
(Like I said, I don’t know.)

Lila: my friend Andres got typhoid. I think it's funny. Oregon Trail diseases are always funny.
Lila: (like when I had scarlet fever junior year)

Julie: well... you're subtle when you're not blatant

(Me helping Jeff with his Java homework:)
Me: so the guy who wrote PetUser is using the Pet class to do his thang
Jeff: cough
Jeff: you misspelled thing, Boris
Me: did I?
Jeff: grossly
Jeff: like, puke
Me: whoops, my apologies
Me: those letters are so close on the keyboard
Jeff: indeed they are

Julie: boy asks me out on a date yesterday for today and then calls today and cancels
Julie: I read on his away message that he is playing poker

(And this is how exciting Northwestern is:)
Lila: anyway, I gotta go. My roommate resents me because it's her turn to buy milk and she waited till today to do it despite having run out of milk two days ago and she wanted to wait till tomorrow and I said no
Lila: so I'm going to try to leave before she gets back

K9guy15716: FLAMING GOAT TESTICLES!!

Marina: the company to whom I was an utter bitch
Marina: was an even more utter bitch back!
Marina: I mean, on one hand, I gotta respect a company that can out-bitch me
Marina: but on the other hand, I'm not sure I want to work at it

Auto Response from Me: "People in bamboo houses should not throw pandas. Jesus said that." — Ask a Ninja
Julie: somehow I don't see Jesus saying that...

Me: really though, what's the point of putting pictures on FaceBook?
Me: the only purpose it serves that I know of is it allows random people who stalk you to find out whether your friends are hot or not
Julie: that's pretty much the reason

(The conversation was not going well…)
Julie: one of these times I'm going to drive up to Columbus kick you in the balls and then drive back to Cincinnati
(Then, later:)
Julie: ok, I'm grabbing my keys, I'm leaving for Columbus to kick you in the balls

Julie: I love this song
Julie: I'm listening to shake your money maker

Jim: I'm nice to some people
Jim: just not the people who disagree with me. Besides, Grace is a whore

(How Mandy spent her new year’s eve:)
Auto Response from Mandy: Well, Brad's gone. Now I'm polyurethaning doorways with my Dad, then going to take a nap.

===

At the end of the last Online Wisdom, I naively wrote, "See you in a couple of months!" Since that turned out to be a couple of years, I won't make the same mistake again. However, somewhere around the time I graduate, keep your eyes peeled for a "Best Of" Online Wisdom entry. It will be a spectacular culmination of the greatest moments in four years of online blogging and online wisdom.

1-1-07

That felt weird. After typing [month]-[day]-06 for nearly a year, I don't know if I can handle this 07 business.

I forgot to change my away message before the ball fell, so my AIM profile, coming into the new year, read "I bought floss."

Cheers, 2006.

12-31-06

Chocolate and vanilla both originated in Mexico.

12-30-06

Sperm take about 75 days to produce.

===

"I believe that the process of rendering from language to language is better conceived as a "transposition" than as a "translation," for "translation" implies a series of word-for-word equivalents that do not exist across language boundaries any more than piano sounds exist in the violin." -- John Ciardi