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.