Normally, my daily highlights are funny or at least I try to be. Today, it’s unmitigated arrogance. I finished my CIS 1055 final is 9 minutes. There were 72 questions, of which 3 where 5 part matching problems. Of the 144 possible points I got 140, and I’m pretty sure I was right on one of them but it doesn’t matter as the instructor said the exam was so hard she gave us 8 free points. I’m going to submit this with my 2009 Nerd License Renewal.
Dinner and a Show
I like to sing. Sometimes this has worked in my favor while other times it has not. Teejay Green, Val Green and I went out to dinner at La Fontana in Hatboro and after having chicken that made Gunnery Sgt. Hartman seem tender we walked back to my car and I was singing the opening few bars of Rhapsody in Blue, which has that pimp clarinet glissando in the beginning. I was getting louder and louder until I rounded the corner of the restaurant and ran into a member of the wait crew who I’m sure though I was drunk as I figured I may as well sing louder. On the way out, to prove that I may be an idiot, but at least a popular idiot, Teejay and I sang Petula Clark’s “Downtown†at the top of our lungs as we left the restaurant and raced through Hatboro.
Dinner and a Show
I like to sing. Sometimes this has worked in my favor while other times it has not. Teejay Green, Val Green and I went out to dinner at La Fontana in Hatboro and after having chicken that made Gunnery Sgt. Hartman seem tender we walked back to my car and I was singing the opening few bars of Rhapsody in Blue, which has that pimp clarinet glissando in the beginning. I was getting louder and louder until I rounded the corner of the restaurant and ran into a member of the wait crew who I’m sure though I was drunk as I figured I may as well sing louder. On the way out, to prove that I may be an idiot, but at least a popular idiot, Teejay and I sang Petula Clark’s “Downtown†at the top of our lungs as we left the restaurant and raced through Hatboro.
Rhyme and Reason, a new adventure
Anyone who saw my flummoxed attempt at adding my logic and discourse postings to this site know how… awkward it was. I’ve been stockpiling posts on the topic until I had a better venue and I’m working on a new project to make that happen. I’m looking for someone familiar with a GUI and subroutine friendly program language to help me with a new project to help create a new argument presentation interface. I’m also looking for anyone skilled in formal logic (SD, SD+ or any PL system, please not circuit logic) to help flesh out the project.
So I guess I’m saying two things.
- I’m working on a new site to compliment Suburban Adventure.
- That new site will have a new logical, skeptical and argumentative should I find the technical ability to do so.
So, I hope the Reason section will catch up to the Rhyme section.
Rhyme and Reason, a new adventure
Anyone who saw my flummoxed attempt at adding my logic and discourse postings to this site know how… awkward it was. I’ve been stockpiling posts on the topic until I had a better venue and I’m working on a new project to make that happen. I’m looking for someone familiar with a GUI and subroutine friendly program language to help me with a new project to help create a new argument presentation interface. I’m also looking for anyone skilled in formal logic (SD, SD+ or any PL system, please not circuit logic) to help flesh out the project.
So I guess I’m saying two things.
- I’m working on a new site to compliment Suburban Adventure.
- That new site will have a new logical, skeptical and argumentative should I find the technical ability to do so.
So, I hope the Reason section will catch up to the Rhyme section.
The God Damn Paper Shredder
There’s a paper shredder in work. An industrial paper shredder to be exact. It can take about 20 sheets at the same time and chews through both staples and paper clips, despite being clearly labeled to the contrary. But I can’t quite master its usage.  It can be clogged but seemingly only by putting in the feed paper incorrectly. If it’s cocked to the side, it’ll press against the side of the shredder and stop the machine. The slot’s 14″ wide, but somehow every God damn time I put paper in it, it’s invariably drawn as if by magic to the size of the entry slot and jams. People walk by and see the jammed thing and wonder how I could be so dumb as to fuck up putting a 8.5″ piece of paper into a 14″ slot. Invariably, regardless of my attention or intent, the paper will practically run to the wall for the express purpose of jamming. Other people, seemingly oblivious can put entire phone books through the shredder without an iota of effort or concentration. Rat bastards, maybe this is printard’s molevolent brother shredtard.
Today I jammed the shredder with only four sheets of paper, four!
As an aside, I think it’s funny that we have a shredder that could eat plate glass and grind up automotive steel but we have to use a special device to destroy CDs which perforates the surface with a little star pattern. Bad guys can apparently put CD shreds back together with the skill of an Iranian carpet weaver but can’t overcome star-shaped pockmarks.
Plagiarism
Temple requires that term papers be submitted through a service known as TurnItIn which purports to check for plagiarism not just with other papers but with THE ENTIRE INTERNET. A task that’s beyond even the best webspiders and the Internet Archive can apparently be done by a piddling plagiarism policeman. Laughable. Anyway, I submitted my term paper and received a note back two days later from the instructor that the paper had been flagged for plagiarism and that I needed to explain myself.
Me: I didn’t plagiarize anything.
Instructor: Well, large portions of your paper were highlighted in red, indicating that they were copied.
Me: Copied from where?
Instructor: It doesn’t matter, plagiarism is plagiarism. The Fox School stands for the highest standards of education. Don’t think you can slip one by us.
Me: I didn’t plagiarize, I’m too arrogant, what now?
Instructor: You need to explain this to the department head.
Me: Can you at least tell me what was apparently plagiarized?
Instructor: I’ll see if I can send a copy.
I received the copy, and you know what my plagiarism was? QUOTES, FUCKING QUOTES. Magazines, articles, surveys and webpages all meticulously cited in the end-notes showed up as plagiarized. How fucking dumb is that?
The irony is that being cited for plagiarism by using citations makes it more likely that students will take other people’s ideas without citation and simply modify them slightly to avoid being accused of plagiarism, which increases plagiarism. Two weeks folks, two weeks.
Font Snob
I’ve always been a bit of a font snob, and today it hit home. I’ve been working with a SPL who wants his troop to do some special activity while at camp. I’ve explained the safety concerns and he started whining. I could have met his requests, bent the rules and so on, but opted against it. Every message he sent me was in size 16 comic sans.  I don’t think I’d trust a person who writes like that with my camp’s mountain bikes.
Dedication
Sometimes I see something that’s almost Rockwellian in its depiction of American life. I wish I had a picture of this one: I was on the train, and saw a kid with a black eye and an arm in a cast replacing the grip tape on his lacrosse stick. Wow.
Lost in the Translation
I’ve been speaking with the Hispanic custodian around lunch every day, and most of our conversations center on trivial things as I really don’t know enough Spanish to ask him his opinions of Hegelian dialectics, but for about the last month, he’s brought up the same damn topic every day: Do I like the taste of cats. I haven’t been able to switch the topic so every day we’ve talked about various cat sandwich toppings as I’m conversant in Spanish food.
Until today, where he pointed at the window at a woman walking past a car. And asked “So, what do you think of my (word I couldn’t identify)?” I had no clue as to whether he was talking about the woman or the car. Both were quite… well… warn “played” in the vernacular of card condition so I had to find impartial responses that could apply to both, how long have you known each other, is it better than your last one and are you having fun with it. I hope we return to discussing eating cats shortly because I insult his girlfriend or more dangerously, his car.