Somehow we got to discussing the types of treatments each of us issued to our turkeys and the condiment Worcestershire Sauce came up. Someone pronounced it “WHIS-tih-shear” and another said “WUSS-tih-shear” and asked me for the official pronunciation. My camp training kicked in and I responded with “War-Chester-Shire Sauce” and they both looked at each other with that “duh, why didn’t I think of that look”. I now have a class of actuaries saying “War-Chester-Shire Sauce”. Take that, the English.
I bought RAM to replace the RAM I was sending in that was busted. I but a large premium on having a continuously operating computer. So I figure I’d send back RAM B once RAM A was repaired and take the 8 dollar hit for having to send it back and pay the restocking fee. But today I found that RAM A was out of stock so I got my money back for RAM A which was more expensive than RAM B. Lazy Opulence: 1 Hardwork: 0
I could have woken up before 11:00 AM, I could have have gone home and done my homework and I could have done the camp work I set out to do that would prevent irate leaders from emailing me. Instead I woke up at noon, skipped homework and watched Transformers the movie adding a commentary track the entire way. While I wasn’t officially keeping score I think I got 5 points, not quite enough to win the movie but if I hadn’t taken two bathroom breaks I think I could have gotten the two remaining points. If you’ve never participated in competitive movie watching, it’s a wonderful way to improve a ho-hum movie. Points are awarded for predicting lines, plot twists, the end to rising action, plot events, romantic entanglements, jokes and surprise characters. I’m the current champion of Ockanickon’s Competitive Movie Watching League quickly seconded by Nick Lutz who tied me while watching Aspen Extreme. I strongly recommend practicing with the terrible movies of the mid to early 90s or other genre films. The rules are tweaked based on genre, such as properly predicting which characters die in a horror film and what laws of physics will be broken in Sci-Fi/Action movies.
Day 0 – Me: Bill, I think we should charge leaders a flat rate for the week that units can fill how ever they want.
Bill:Â I don’t think we can go quite that far, I think a half week limit would be a good starting point, that’d be good.
Day 1 – Me: Bill, I don’t think the rate makes sense with half-week leaders as that’s a significant rate cut compared to our previous day rates.
Day 2 – Tom: Terry, the day rate thing doesn’t make sense. What ever happened to the flat rate idea that AnnaMarie proposed?
Me:Â I told Bill that and he didn’t like it.
Day 3 – Bill: Terry, I think we should use a flat rate for leaders regardless of how long they stay that can be filled how ever a unit wants.
Me:Â Bill, I proposed…. can you hold on a second?
Bill: Yes.
Me *after hitting mute button*: GHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA! *mute off* That’s a good idea, Bill.
Bill:Â What’s that noise in the background?
Me *teeth grinding*: I think there’s a connection problem on my end. How about an overnight rate for leaders coming up Friday to Saturday and Sunday to Monday to help units get in?
Bill: Let me think about it.
Day 4 – Tom: I told Bill about your idea for leaders staying overnight to help units arrive and leave and he’s not sold on it. I think he wants to tweak it a bit.
Day 5 – Bill: Terry, I think we should have an overnight rate for leaders that want to help units settle in and leave. What do you think?
Me *vision begins to narrow, blood pools in chest, fist clench to uncomfortable degree, urge to kill rising*:Â That’s a good idea, I wish I had thought of it to clean up this leader fee mess.
Is imitation the sincerest form of flattery if it’s done by someone with the memory of a goldfish?
I enter the train at about 11:53 and the train is full except for a grumpy looking man sitting on the aisle and blocking the open space with a coat and Dunkin’ Donuts bag. I ask him to move in, which he refuses, I stand there blocking traffic and he stands, grabs his coat and leaves the empty donut bag. I sit, he sits down and pulls out a magazine and a Styrofoam coffee cup. After a few stops, he gets up and sits in a more open seat leaving behind his Dunkin’ Donuts bag. He then moves into another seat a few stops later and leaves his coffee cup behind. This trick is repeated a 3rd time when he leaves his magazine and another bag behind. I’m enraged. This prick is jaunting around the train making sour faces at the ticket-takers and avoiding sitting with anyone. I begin following him picking up the trash along the way and when he gets up at his final stop, I walk up behind him, tap him on the shoulder and say “sir, I think you forgot these”. I get a scowl that could start a brush fire and he walks out without taking anything. Dickweed.
I skipped Stat. to work on my group project for Act Sci. 3596, so started my day with some TF2. And didn’t stand up again for three hours. Good job, Terry gaining that edge by skipping school.
I met with my project group for Business Ethics and our topic was essentially “Do corporations influence or decisions on status symbols”. Short answer: duh. After about 20 minutes of talking, I quickly realized that no one in the group could actually come up with a reasonable argument that didn’t consider of “yes” so I resorted to intellectual bamboozlement. I opened up a project I did on Berkshire Hathaway and said I’d already done the background work and would email it out to everyone. Despite everyone looking at the project on BH no one disagreed that I’d truly done wondrous work. Thank God they’re dumb enough to let this slide but not so dumb to insist on helping.
For Nerds: I got my USB headset today so I can play Team Fortress 2 and make witty comments to my team-mates and hopefully, suck less. So I’m part of a strike force to take the enemy intel and my job was to sap the sentry guns that were stopping us. The coordinated strike is going well when 12 soldiers come out of nowhere and kill everyone but me. In my team’s death throws everyone and sentries die, leaving me with 2 hit points and a big empty base in front of the intel. I grab it, and gun back to the base to when I decide to use my headset for the first time and state I’m going through the enemy sewers to bring the intel back. Little did I know the server had open communication so everyone on both teams could hear what I’m saying.
Me: I’m returning to the base with the intel through the enemy sewers.
Enemy 1: Spy’s coming through the sewers with intel.
Enemy 2: What he say about our intel going through our sewers?
Enemy 3: Set up an sentry gun in the sewers to kill the spy with the intel.
Enemy 2: I’m setting up a sentry gun to kill the spy with the intel.
Teammate 1: Send a Scout to their sewer to pick up the intel when the spy dies.
Enemy 4: I’m ready to kill a spy.
So, I’m pretty sure I’m going to die when I see a force of impending doom approach me as a peek into the sewers. I gun across the main bridge dodging fire and missiles and shooting other spies that suck at cloaking. I narrowly make it back to drop the intel and die immediately to a sniper that had followed me the whole way. Immediately four people drop from the opposing comments like “you faggots, we lost and he even told us where he was going” and “12 of us couldn’t kill a single uncloaked spy”. BRA HA HA.Lesser Nerds: Pat Toye asked me a number of months ago about how firms buy insurance for stuff like the x-prize and hole in one insurance or anything else that’s essentially a random event. I did some investigation and found that those policies typically cost 10% of the face value past a given level of possibility. Pat asked about the 1 billion dollar prize and I he was skeptical about the 100 million price tag. I did some more investigating and found Pepsico had taken out a blanket policy with Berkshire Hathaway and probably pooled it with other risks and paid far less than 100 million.
Today, I finally decided to ask the CPCU ratemaker that teaches one of my classes and got this response: “100 million is absolute bullshit. I’ve worked with these people and there are three requirements to make a rate for these things. 1)Four people that have at least 7 letters after their names in titles and designations. 2)a bottle of Wild Turkey per person 3)a Ouija board. The ratemakers at BH sleep on mattresses stuffed with money and consider a rate of return of less than 20% to be abysmal. These people could have invested the tip from the lunch where this was discussed and have made enough on investments to pay the 1 billion by the time it’s due.” Wow, old actuaries are almost as crusty as the D-day veterans at the Claridge Black Jack tables.
We’re discussing sexual crimes in my Law in Society class and were discussing the finer points of rape pertaining to having sex with someone in the dark who one things is their spouse. Everyone has a specific term they used: I used “make woopie”, the instructor used “carnal knowledge” and one person made my heard smile by using “come to know her, in the Biblical sense. The climax, pardon the pun, occurred when a case about tricking someone into blowing you to get rid of an STD. The awkwardness what thick enough to drizzle on pancakes. In the course of this discussion, the following was said by the instructor, “speaking of mistaken identities in bed, what was that broadway play about two men sleeping together where the one guy thinks the other is a woman. Terry, you’d know.”
How am I supposed to take this?
Treadmill stand built, brother insults me for slow speed at which I walk while typing. Brother pulls muscle while sitting and playing Team Fortress 2. Screams of pain and irony. Hilarity ensues.