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