During the most recent Bush Administration, my doodles were all caricatures of GWB. I'm mildly proud of how good I got at drawing him.
My doodles are nonrepresentational curvilinear figures.
One of which was recently mistaken for a kidney bean.
I draw brick walls, carefully marking out each brick.
Linked capital Ls in cursive. And 2D representations of geodesic domes - pentagons and hexagons.
Wireframe tesseracts sometimes, and frond-like curvilinear shapes other times. Also stylized bunnies.
Stalin supposedly drew wolves a lot. And Hoover liked nonrepresentational curvilinear figures, perhaps a la neb. Or so the legend goes.
Abstract doodles, with a good chance of morphing into an "imaginary" map which can grow quite detailed.
I used to draw either stick-figures fighting, drawing-class solids (spheres, cylinders, cones, etc.) or elaborate, patternless borders around the area of the page occupied by notes.
Also, my last job I sat in so many long, pointless meetings, I got pretty good at drawing a map of the United States, Al Franken style.
I'll sometimes do blind contour drawings of the other people.
Faces, or sometimes semi-abstract spaceship-car type things. But my doodling has dropped off a surprising amount. Possibly because I feel goofy drawing doodles that will be recorded for posterity as a pdf, or possibly because now I just fuck around on an ipad.
Also, this post is useless without heebie sneaking into the dude's office, stealing a picture, scanning and posting it.
without heebie sneaking into the dude's office, stealing a picture, scanning and posting it.
This would be a possible endeavor.
Endeavor Possible would probably be a dull movie.
"Have you hacked into the system yet?"
"Not yet. Do you know his mother's maiden name or this favorite place to get breakfast?"
18: It could be a new installment in the Dirty Harry series, featuring an aged Harry Callahan.
"Do you feel lucky, punk? What's that? You do not? Well, then, I recommend against playing Bingo with me, as it's possible that I will win. Very, very possible."
I write out random words I hear in secretary hand. I used to do the alphabet in as many different hands as possible, but then I figured I might as well use that time to practice something vaguely relevant to my work.
I just felt the need to counter the assumption that this was some old Texan drawing other old west types.
I read The Iranian chair of my department to follow the semantic form of "The French doors of my living room", and got confused.
I generally doodle fractals, various other shapes, skulls, spaceships and stylized devil's heads.
When I'm bored in meetings I take notes, with a focus on quotes I find funny or unintentionally revealing. I editorialize and review the quality of the speaker.
I used to be kind of artistic in a sketching-and-other-visual-arts way, but I think I might have stopped just because I was too self-conscious about that kind of thing. Oh well.
Oh, I also do the number 5 a lot, plus other letters and numbers.
some old Texan
He lives in Texas, doesn't he?
My time is pretty expensive, and no one wants to pay me to be bored. So the meetings aren't bad, usually. But if they are, with what they're paying me, I have to pay rapt attention anyway.
When I'm not staring out of the window, I'm imagining the rest of the people in the room naked. When I'm staring out the window, I'm imagining the people in the parking lot naked.
He lives in Texas, doesn't he?
But other old Texans find his accent suspect and his eyes shifty. Or so I imagine.
How old was he when he left, and is he a faithful Muslim?
The religious proscription against representational art is ignored in many places, with the boundary between observation and not running through Iran. I keep meaning to ask the Iranians I know how casual drawings are viewed...
...with what they're paying me, I have to pay rapt attention anyway.
So pretty much the same as Apo.
He left when he was 20 or so, and is not religious whatsoever.
Sometimes I write out bits of poetry that I know, but this doesn't take very long, as I know very little poetry. Some of it is in Russian.
In high school I used to write out Jabberwocky in mirror script when I got really bored.
How nerdy was I? Very, very nerdy.
Iran endowed a chair at your school?
If I were in charge of endowing a chair at a university, I'd look into having it sponsored by Flock of Seagulls' "I Ran". Because who doesn't like that song?
My wife came to my office yesterday and hung two copies of a photograph she took. A beargrass in bloom. Copy in the pool.
That guy loves his double-crossings, though. Girl Genius has an excess--eventually I stopped reading because of them.
39: So impersonating a photograph is a capital crime?
My paralegal assures me that she is amused, and not offended.
I draw abstract shapes. Sometimes quite linear and geometric, sometimes more floral. If someone is reading verbatim, I'll sleep.
43: That's good, but you can't fire her now, or she'll have a harassment claim.
You can't do anything to make her unhappy at all, really.
Making coworkers unhappy is pretty much the high point of my job.
I tend to sketch designs for whatever I'm thinking about at the moment. Sometimes practical stuff like a laptop stand and sometimes impractical stuff like a home built submarine*.
*People do make them, but I lack the resources and if I did have them I'd build an big rocket instead. Or an Autogyro. Or a hovercraft. Submarines are pretty far down the list.
My brother & I always planned on building a hovercraft but never did anything but buy the plans.
37: I used to write latin poetry in mirror script! I win the nerdlympics! actually if I was doing mirror writing I'd likely as not just do all the notes that way. it takes just enough thought to keep you listening. otherwise, complex patternless doodles of non-interesting lines, sometimes colored in, or colored in in alternating squares (graph paper!!) but mostly faces, people, hands, etc. faces.
I remember for a while thinking, god, if I get sent to a time-traveled Soviet gulag, I'm going to be so fucking bored, because everyone else has already memorized all their favorite poems and apparently a number of novels. I was honestly moved to attempt some memorization on this rationale. then I reflected that a) I would perish instantly of cold because I'm sickly and b) it's more fun to just sit around doing drugs. (c) you're not going to get sent back in time to a gulag, did surprisingly little work in my calculations, though on reflection it seems robust).
b) clarified: than memorize homer, say.
For pure doodles, I sketch things that might be Alexander Calder mockups--except of course less sparse and tactful.
Is anybody up for talking about the crazy Iranian plot to assassinate/explode the Saudi ambassador?
Obviously, we don't know much yet--except that the administration is willing to start a major diplomatic incident with the release of this news.
One angle I've seen that seems convincing is that the very public release is a warning. This plan may have been an effort by one branch of the Quds force, and so the public disclosure is a message to the general Iranian leadership: what's it gonna be?
Last: I've heard that the intermediary was an Iranian-American, which led a commenter at Gawker to link this, which surely ogged will have to reappear to disavow?
Also, JM, launching a plot to convince a renegade faction of the Quds force to attempt to use an Iranian-American plant to asplode the Saudi ambassador won't bring ogged back. You know that, don't you?
53:I have thought that the last three Saudi frontmen to the United States were really really fucking cute.
55.--They will blame for trying, won't they.
53: That's some seriously bizarre shit there.
You'd think people would have read enough news stories by now to realize that if your first major crime is murder for hire, the person you are trying to hire is a cop.
Well, I had to come back to campus late night tonight because both kids got sent home from daycare with diarrhea so I needed to get some work done and grab some stuff so that I can stay home with them tomorrow, and we all have master keys in this building, so the endeavor practically wrote itself.
As Stormcrow's attorney, heebie, I have to ask: you actually took that out of your chair's office and then posted it on the internet without his permission? I'm probably exaggerating the potential downside, or missing the upside entirely (I mean, it is pretty awesome), but that seems almost impossibly reckless to me. Then again, as anyone who knows me will surely tell you, I really, really don't understand the rules of the internet, so you should totally ignore me.
we all have master keys in this building
You should have let the mice into his room.
61: I feel like I should add that I'm not judging and that I do think the doodle is excellent. It just freaks me out to think of you in hot water over something like this. Okay, as ever, I should have shut up. Sorry.
In light of 65, I'd like to clarify that 66 should have included a warning not to leave your finger prints on the mice.
Honestly, I feel like I could post it to facebook, and he'd laugh. He would not be surprised that I saw him draw it, and if it had come up in conversation, that I had entered his office and snapped a photo, and put it up.
Don't pay a bit of attention to 65. As Von Wafer's attorney, I think it's incumbent on me to advise you that he's hopped up on goofballs.
Am I completely tone-deaf to pseudonymity concerns here? I thought I cropped the picture sufficiently to get rid of identifying details.
If you didn't move stuff, I don't see how he'd mind. I assume people don't dig in my files and drawers, but I know that nobody hesitates to go into my office if they have a reason.
72: I am usually pretty sensitive to these things, but I think it's fine.
70: like I said, ignore me. You know the guy; I don't. You know what flies in your department; I don't. You know the rules of the internet; I don't. Seriously, it just freaked me out to think of someone getting pissed at you -- which is absolutely what would happen in my department -- for this.
61 makes me happy.
I never doodle. Maybe I should doodle? I started drawing things constantly when I was 8 or so, got to be moderately good at it, then quit abruptly several years later. Never tried again except a brief interval in college involving an artist I was kind-of dating and wow was that stupid.
You should double ignore me if Tweety thinks it's fine. Seriously, he's waaaaaaay more paranoid than I am: dude buried Claymores all over his apartment.
This endeavor just got most serious.
Also, since I discovered the internet (right around the time I started commenting here), I spend most meetings screwing around online.
75 made me consider what would happen if I snuck into my department head's office and poked around for doodles. That would be so astoundingly, horribly bad! So bad it's hilarious. It would be absolutely ruinous for me personally, but I'm tempted to do it because it would be so beyond entertainingly bad.
Anyhow, this isn't like that at all. Don't you worry a bit, heebie.
77.last is entirely true. I post all of my comments from my perch on the far corner of the couch, which I know is safe.
There are many people for whom I wouldn't do it. But this guy in particular is very, very easy-going, and would mind about as much as I would, which is not at all.
TBH, I would still have done it if he were the type who would get really mad, though, just because it seems like fun.
I don't know the rules of the internet, and I will admit I am the kind of person who waits for the traffic light to turn green at 3am, but still... 61 does make me a little uncomfortable. Are you sure you wouldn't consider using some presidential pseudonymity? Or at least not writing 63 to document the endeavor?
What's the worst that could happen? The guy somehow finds the thread and finds that heebie shared his doodle for our amusement? And gets... mildly annoyed? I'm not getting the concern.
Couldn't I just say you all made me do it?
What's the worst that could happen?
A leaky diaper could bring diarrhea to the whole daycare and that would be unpleasant for a great number of people.
Nah, I'm not worried about that guy finding out. I'm worried about other people in the department finding out. And the issue isn't that heebie likes doodles, it's that she likes this blog.
Or not... what do I know? I will now re-lurk.
Or even better, I'll accuse him of snooping around on my internets. The best defense.
I think you're all discounting the possibility that C/lint E/astwood will discover this thread, hire a dodgy Hollywood lawyer, and sue us all.
Yep, totes that's what's gonna happen.
I'm worried about other people in the department finding out. And the issue isn't that heebie likes doodles, it's that she likes this blog.
But this photo isn't any more indentifying than the leaky sieve of pseudonymity I already operate under, right?
What if a gallery owner sees the doodle and then tries to find the guy so she can sell his art?
95: Don't be silly, Stanley, C/lint E/astwood has been commenting here for years under the name "Lizardbreath."
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Facebook friend (friend of ex) posts "14 years later, where's the next As Good As It Gets". Is it not general consensus that this is a horrible movie?
I don't want to ask him about this because I recently posted an exasperated thing about "look, there are five Saturdays, five Sundays, and five Mondays in October quite frequently and it isn't going to bring you luck" right after he had posted that thing, so I'm looking like some Kristen Wiig character who always has to try and be superior on fucking facebook. Anyway he zinged me back pretty good about the calendar thing.
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"14 years later, where's the next As Good As It Gets"
I refuse to believe that's a real movie.
99: Put up a status about how November 2011 has five Tuesdays and Wednesdays but only two Mondays and that this won't happen again for 956 years.
101: Googling turns up an article quoting Jodie Foster as saying of Mel Gibson in that movie "He really understood the character in a way that was extraordinary. He was willing to go to a very deep place and to expose himself."
I guess we should admire Jodie Foster for just grabbing the lowest-hanging fruit in film history and running with it.
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Grrrrr. Just got back from OccupyMN, where I had an extremely irritating conversation with some stupid peace police hippie about how she narc'd out some kids to the security guards because they were smoking on the plaza. [One of the county's rules for the occupation is that people aren't supposed to smoke on the actual HCGC plaza. The kids were sitting maybe 3 feet inside the plaza area, so the guards went over to hustle them along, which meant shifting 4 feet over so they were on the sidewalk instead.]
According to my companer@s there, the same woman has been frequently pulling this kind of authoritarian power trip the whole 4 days of the occupation. Obviously, as far as libs stabbing us in the back goes, this is a pretty venial sin, but it's the principle of the thing. If she'll narc out people for smoking, what's she going to do if she finds out about some actual action that's going to happen?
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fuck a bunch of narcing fucks and you guys stop trying to scare heebie. jesus. even in my newly paranoid state I think that's fine. in general people probably shouldn't listen to me, because I'm crazy, but this time it's different.
61: Cool--Clint has a little round-faced friend with a bow tie. It's like Eastwood and Helium, if Helium was sad.
105: The revolution won't be phlegmy.
Occupy Pittsburgh got a bit too non-authoritarian when it came to handing out passwords, so some huge troll got their facebook account.
seriously, let's all acknowledge that heebie is totally rockstar. that fucking ruled.
If I found out that someone snuck into my office and posted a picture of one of my doodles online, I would look them straight in the eye, put on a very dour face, and say "Please don't do that ever again." If they didn't do it ever again, I would never think about the incident again.
I think anyone who reacted more harshly would be being unreasonable. So the worst that can happen to HBGB is that she either has someone look at her sternly or she has an unreasonable department chair.
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Apparently snuck is still non-standard English. But honestly, "sneaked" just sounds wrong to me.
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111.last: you're just catching the wave.
re: 111.last
The general trend is from strong forms to weak forms, anyway. So I think you are out of luck if you think 'snuck' will ever make it in.
The one that annoys me is 'lighted'. I picked up a novel once where the first line was something like, 'He cupped the flame in his hands, shielding it from the wind, and lighted his cigarette.' Just fucking no.
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Did we already talk about the Topeka-decriminalizing-domestic-violence thing somewhere else? I didn't see it mentioned. Is this something where the Fibbies could step in on the pretext of not violating people's civil rights? This is such a weird country.
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113: So I think you are out of luck licked if you think 'snuck' will ever make it in.
I picked up a novel once where the first line was something like, 'He cupped the flame in his hands, shielding it from the wind, and lighted his cigarette.' Just fucking no.
Yeah! Smoking is bad!
It would be different if the doodles were being insulted. That's like making fun of someone behind their back on the very public internet. But the doodles are being praised! That is one hell of an Eastwood-esque doodle! Heebie can just say she couldn't bear to see them linger in relative obscurity any longer.
111: If I were the department chair, I'd be pissed. Unless I never found out, in which case I'd be fine with it.
The general trend is from strong forms to weak forms, anyway. So I think you are out of luck if you think 'snuck' will ever make it in.
True for uncommon words, but much less true for common words, I thought?
Well, words like 'light' and 'dream' are on the way from one to the other, and I'd have thought those are at least as common as 'sneak'.
119 cont'd: such as, for instance.
I'd be kind of freaked out by anyone taking anything from my office without permission -- what if I had secrets? It wouldn't be the mockery, it'd be the intrusion (that is, if I left a doodle in a meeting, and someone retrieved it and posted it, I might be a little miffed but not really).
I could imagine an employer treating the intrusion aspect of it as a huge scary deal, but if Heebie U isn't that kind of place, I wouldn't worry.
The way to test this theory is for someone to email links to 61 and 63 to Heebie's department chair, and ask if he is amused or irritated. I'd put my money on amused. Then, to square the circle, that email should be forwarded to heebie, to see if she is amused or irritated. I'd put my money on irritated.
120: they are, but I think "light" at least is going against the general trend. (Per 123.)
125 cont'd: I saw a lecture on this just recently, but I'm not going to tell you who delivered it because that would weaken my argument.
That ngram thing is odd, as my impression would absolutely have been that 'lighted' is replacing 'lit'. Maybe a British English thing? Or a false impression, I suppose.
Seems like my impression is wrong.
I get freaked out by anyone unexpectedly entering my office when I'm not there. I know people do it, but I want to kill them. Mostly, though, that's because they're usually looking for something (usually something they have a perfectly good reason to be looking for), and they touch things in the process, and when my things are touched by another person it can throw off my scent-memory and I may never be able to find them again in my disorganized piles.
I have a vague impression that some strong forms are much more 'attractive' (this is not really the right word -- I'm talking about how right they sound to me) than others. A past tense where the only difference from the weak form is the replacement of 'ed' with 't' (dreamed/dreamt, leaped/leapt) isn't very compelling -- I find myself perfectly happy to treat them as equally valid alternatives (ooh, except for sleeped/slept. 'Sleeped' is very wrong-sounding.)
Other strong forms, like snuck or dove, on the other hand, sound a whole lot better than the weak alternative.
That is weird. So no one literate used "snuck" until the 1920s? That seems so hard to believe. It feels like "snuck" should be the kind of good old Anglo-Saxon monosyllable that everyone would use except for uptight grammarians.
130: Yes, exactly. Don't even look at my piles of paper. If you want to know something that's in my office, ask me. If I'm not there, wait. This is not reasonable, but it's how I feel.
123, 128: Isn't the more disturbing trend a general decline in lighting? Does this indicate we are entering a Dark Age?
130: I've actually had to abandon staplers because they were touched so often by other people and I couldn't recognize them as mine any more.
I don't have my own office. Our place is semi-open plan and I share a cubicle with 2 other people. For 2 years it was mine, all mine. And then interloping bastards got moved in.
But yeah, I hate people touching my stuff, and I guard my computer like it contained nuclear launch codes or something. No fucker touches it. Ever. I don't actually do anything dubious on it, but it's mine, dammit.
I don't actually do anything dubious on it
Not true! We've all seen you swear on it!
Swearing, and listening to music. The latter, I think, technically contravenes some university IT policy.
There's a funny story of a (very bold) associate at my firm who snuck* into the managing partner's office one night and replaced all of MP's family photographs with family photos of VBA. These are photographs on the walls and littered around the desk. The funny part of the story is that MP didn't even notice--it stayed like that for weeks, and a client visiting the office was the first to finally point it out. ("Who are all the people in these pictures?")
*Given the other discussion, "sneaked" was considered, but to me sounds 100% wrong.
If I didn't know better, I'd think you work at Cotton Mather State.
or she has an unreasonable department chair
Something that never happens.
That's awesome. I wanted to hide a toy rat in the rodent-phobic Bond-villain partner's desk when I quit my last job, but decided against it. I should have done it.
Or a real rat, come to think.
I share an office with my partner, and she does 99% of the paperwork, plus it is filled with fabric and metal letters and lights that don't work and knobs and and and. you can barely walk in there. it's our next organizational project. if someone come in I wouldn't care, but my partner would. well, we have sensitive documents in there we don't want people to read, I suppose.
139 is so great, if true.
I had a good relationship with a senior partner who was an OCD freak about his desk (but otherwise a very nice and smart and reasonable guy) and would occasionally sneak into his office and move his stapler slightly, as a prank. It was that kind of firm.
Rereading 145 kinda makes me think I've wasted my life.
I should say that VBA had the blessing of MP's secretary, which, of course she didn't have any actual authority to approve a family-photo switcharoo, but it gave the whole thing more of the favor of a good-natured prank than just an unauthorized intrusion by VBA.
Please ignore me. I'm an utter moron with nothing to say.
The general trend is from strong forms to weak forms, anyway. So I think you are out of luck if you think 'snuck' will ever make it in.
True for uncommon words, but much less true for common words, I thought?
some strong forms are much more 'attractive'
I think it's not so much about common vs uncommon words, as common vs uncommon templates. Although my memory of this is sort of vague and I can't remember what it's called. But regular forms with infinitives that fit a general sound pattern seem sometimes to go the opposite way, becoming irregular to match other similar words.
the [i] → [ÊŒ] pattern for past tense is pretty well-established in English so you might get an eventual situation where everybody says "snuck" and no one says "sneaked".
I think I would find 139 really intimidating in a kind of hollywood-stalker-movie way.
152: I can understand that, but I'd find a boss who notices that sort of thing even creepier (OCD-y Ebeneezer Scrooge).
130,133,135,136: you are all nutty.
In other news, I'm home with the kids today and man it's tiring. I don't get how SAHMs do it. By 10:30 I wanted to go to work.
Also I can't really tell "tiring" and "boring" apart, but god I wish this baby would nap.
I only worked a half week last week because of dealing with new-kids stuff and I'll have to be off after today because the five-year-old's school is closed and I'm dreading it even though much of it will be good. At least they're old enough that I can safely take a shower and have my own peace and comfort for that time.
I don't see why being a superannuated hell-monster is supposed to be so difficult.
There's a joke in my head that nicely ties 154.2 back to the recent thread on academic workloads, but in the interest of politeness I'm not going to write it down.
159: because my job is interesting and you don't want to impugn SAHPs?
160: ???
Why must you be such a super-annuated hell monster?
Why must you brandish sticks and scream at Henry Miller?
Ah, you have to stick it out until they are old enough to do interesting things! Today I waved 3 of them off (2 to school, one to an all day thing) and Kid D and I went to London. Saw a chemistry lecture at the Royal Institution, had a picnic lunch, then went back into the Ri and down to the museum, where I spent about 45 minutes watching a couple of 1978 Christmas lectures about maths whilst Kid D wandered round with an audio guide. One day I'm going to have to get a job, I know, but thank god it's not yet.
That's true. I would enjoy staying home with hawaiian punch. Just super active cranky non-napping nonverbal baby is driving me nuts. Bellowing in his crib now.
Bellowing in his crib now.
Huh, me too.
157: I'm glad your five year-old is better behaved than I was when I was five. Mostly, I just annoyed the younger kids until they made enough noise than an adult came and stopped me.
If he turns out to have an ear infection or something I'm going to feel like the world's biggest asshole.
Not that I have a very good idea of what to look for if you are looking for an ear infection.
I really want to acquire one of those ear-o-scopes. Every time I meet a doctor I ask them if they think I could figure out whether an ear was infected and they say no, it takes a trained eye. But man do I wish you could determine at home if you needed to haul the kid in to the doctor.
I can't remember if infected ears get red or swollen or what.
OTOH, if he turns out to have an ass infection, you won't feel like the world's biggest earhole. So that's a decent compromise, anyhow.
He was probably just upset about the patriarchy.
I'm less worried about the ass infection because it's been draining steadily all day.
184: That might make me inclined to scream.
178: I think the membrane thingy on the inside is opaque (rather than translucent).
*No lie: I originally typed "insane" rather than "inside." Was this membrane-determined?
The thing that is crazy-making about bigger children is that they can be unreasonable. Babies can keep you up longer and in general demand more work from you, but you can never say that a baby is being unreasonable.
My six and eight year olds are unreasonable all the time. It drives me nuts.
Grabbing the ear is a tell for the ear infection, or at least is for my kid.
My six and eight year olds are unreasonable all the time.
It's why hanging out here is good parenting training.
Grabbing the ear is a tell for the ear infection
My six-year-old must have a penis infection.
If you get a reasonable six year-old, that means you or the kid needs to go to the doctor.
Apo, we do the thing where you say "it's fine to touch your vulva/penis (as appropriate) if you do it in your room and wash your hands after." That last step is a major deterrent to most boys, I'm told.
I'm actually holding up okay at parenting, though three kids within an 18-month age range is just rough, but I wish we'd held out for teenagers. I'd been saying all I wanted was school-aged kids so we wouldn't have more car seats and indeed the back seat full of car seats is awful, but teens are unreasonable in more entertaining ways. Oh well. I'm sure I'd get the non-stop whining I hate so much in that demographic too.
excuse me, sorry to interfere, but my god, a baby crying in his CRIB and mom commenting on blogs is an inacceptable situation
if he's having diarrhea he has a perfect right to be wailing and instead of complaining one should try to replace fluids orally, hold the sick maybe baby in your arms and try to calm it
i just say so, because oftentimes people do not realize a situation at hand until told
if it's not diarrhea then it's okay, but leaving a baby in cribs or empty rooms for long periods not paying attention to their needs, might be a reason they grow up afterwards with some personality deviations
read!
I am not a parent, but my sense is that most parents that I know would disagree with this.
a baby crying in his CRIB and mom commenting on blogs is an inacceptable situation
Not that extended absence is good, but that it's perfectly okay to leave a baby (close by) for a sanity break.
Again, all second-hand.
You're making an awfully large number of assumptions in 194.
You're just saying that because you have a personality deviation.
Suddenly, I feel that this is the ideal thread in which to brag about how healthy my dentist thinks my gums are. My gums are apparently so vibrantly healthy that the only worry is that they may make my teeth look drab and wan by comparison.
Having great gums is suppose to protect against heart disease, so score for LB.
Suddenly, I feel like flossing my teeth.
There are two dentists in my building, so I could probably get somebody else to floss my teeth for me.
202: Don't fall for it, they're giving you the old snow job. Soon, you'll be convinced you need whitening or some inlayed jewelry to bring those teeth up to par.
Also, I'm dying to hear all the details of Herman Cain's new 9-9-9 plan. It reminds me of back in the day when you could save money on long distance calls by dialing things like 1-800-999-9999 before the number you were trying to call.
207: That was my last dentist. Every goddamn cleaning was something about how my teeth were fine structurally, but he'd be happy to do something about their unfortunate yellowness, crookedness, and slight tendency to be serrated like steak knives. I had to repeatedly explain that I don't have a TV career, and until he started maligning the poor things, I'd thought they looked just fine.
I like my new dentist much better.
yellowness, crookedness, and slight tendency to be serrated like steak knives
Seems like this would be an advantage in your profession.
Well, yes. It makes baring them menacingly much more effective.
My dentist and his assistant have some kind of passive-aggressive way of relating to each other that would be really amusing if I wasn't concerned about them getting into a fight and ripping my gums in half to make a point in an argument. Whenever he asks for anything, she rolls her eyes and gets him something else.
Back to 193: I'm actually holding up okay at parenting, though three kids within an 18-month age range is just rough, but I wish we'd held out for teenagers.
Man, I'm sure it'll settle down, but this first couple of weeks with three kids instead of one has got to be brutal. I wish I lived close enough to offer to do anything actually helpful.
214: I love those moments where I'm clearly an extra in someone else's sitcom.
I'm still seething but exercising supreme self-control. Also I can't do the housekeeping above on this device.
I'd assumed they were married to each other before one of them asked about the spouse of the other.
Maybe they were married to each other before one of them developed a new spouse.
Like Sunset Boulevard, only with a dentist instead of a silent film star.
I suppose I could ask before one of them gets a hand in my mouth.
216: I don't really wish that in some I-wish-these-particular-kids-were-gone way, just I really don't like the preschool/kindergarten age range experience and here I am with three doses of it. Lee is stepping up more and I think we'll have a babysitter briefly this weekend for all three kids. I'm hoping we can get someone to take them out of the house so we can take a nap, which is not even a euphemism.
Local people are being sympathetic, at least, and I'm not really sure how much I could subcontract to helpers at this point. If someone could dole out cheese and grapes while I got to sit in the bathtub for half an hour with earplugs in, that would be perfect, but it's not going to happen. (Well, Lee will do it. And sometimes I have enough energy once they all stop popping out of bed to tell me one more thing, which I haven't yet been able to stop since that thing is usually something like a reassurance that yes, there will be breakfast tomorrow.)
Oh, and heebie, obviously these kids all came into foster care because their parents let them cry in cribs to chat online. Normally I wouldn't share such personal information about their cases, but I wanted you to see that you're history's greatest monster and that if your state wants to nab the H-Ps and ship them cross-country to me I will say no because I can't take any more crying or car seats.
223: At least if they put on a show for you, then they aren't trying to make conversation when they have a hand in your mouth and you can't talk back.
that you're history's greatest monster and that if your state wants to nab the H-Ps and ship them cross-country to me I will say no because I can't take any more crying or car seats.
Well, I'm sure read will volunteer.
I'm history's greatest attenuated hell monster!
I really don't like the preschool/kindergarten age range experience and here I am with three doses of it.
Good thing for me you're far away or my wife might get wind of this. Our girls are both in jr. high and she's dying to babysit smaller ones who think the greatest things in life are popsicles and trips to the park.
excuse me, sorry to interfere, but my god, a baby crying in his CRIB and mom commenting on blogs is an inacceptable situation
I love "in his CRIB", with the special emphasis on CRIB, as if that were an especially bad place for a baby to be crying. In reality, I think, it's hard to substitute any other location that would be a better place for a baby to be crying by himself.
"My god, a baby crying ON THE KITCHEN COUNTER and mom commenting on blogs is an inacceptable situation".
"My god, a baby crying IN THE STREET and mom commenting on blogs is an inacceptable situation".
"My god, a baby crying IN THE FREEZER and mom commenting on blogs is an inacceptable situation".
You can't take your kids to the park until they get to 23 pounds. Below 23 pounds, a hawk can carry them away.
At least in the freezer you might not be able to hear the screams.
Talking of hawks, twice in the last month I have seen men (different men) with birds of prey on the streets of Reading. First one was a buzzard, couldn't tell what today's was. Reading is so not the sort of place I expect to see such things, unless birds of prey are the new Staffies.
And there was an eagle owl loose in a town in Devon recently. It was reported in one paper that eagle owls have a 6 foot wingspan, so the Daily Shitbag Mail reported it as "Giant 6 foot Eagle Owl!" which makes it sound rather more exciting and dsquared-worthy than it possibly was.
Devon has leash laws for eagle owls?
thanks for shoutouts and sure shouldn't have commented here
well, i wanted to say sorry to DK if she still holds any grudge against me, life is too short for hostility even among strangers on internets
about kitchen counters and etc, you should have though "in your arms, on your laps etc" if it was not that clear, because babies are not that hard to soothe imo
and peep, i am not a babysitter by that, default, as my race would suggest perhaps, so please keep your guesses to yourself, sorry to say so, of course
so that is all
Hey! I'm ignoring a baby crying (in a CRIB!) now, too!
The patriarchy says crying babies are not my problem.
Can someone please email Emerson? If read's back, maybe he'll come back too.
about kitchen counters and etc, you should have though "in your arms, on your laps etc" if it was not that clear, because babies are not that hard to soothe imo
No, your intent was clear, your horror at CRIB was just funny.
IME, babies are sometimes very, very, very hard to soothe. Both of mine were most of the time. And that was in arms and laps. So.
237: Did you get a new racism and nobody else noticed?
239: Until now I didn't even know I stereotyped Mongolians as babysitters. I have a whole new reason to feel guilty.
New racisms really stick out when you first get them -- just too white. You gotta scuff 'em up a little.
yeah, should have written "would suggest to you" cz surely the race itself wouldn't be that, default for one to think so automatically, but if you haven't thought so, good for you, again sorry, i mean i don't want to multiply offences
ok, now
240: Peep, don't feel guilty. We all cut you slack because of your coma (#50).
242: It was just quite an abrupt return.
232 - well, I think they're usually with someone. The article I read said it was probably a mislaid pet.
242 - I'm sure this is explained on Standpipe's blog, but the reason peep suggested you could look after the HPs is because you always know best. And so would obviously be an excellent caregiver.
And yes, babies are FAMOUSLY easy to soothe. Of course!
Below 23 pounds, a hawk José Greco de Muertos can carry them away.
Read! Good times. Anyhow, crying babies are hard to soothe and nothing wrong with some crib time but those RIE method freaks . . . Uhhh no.
243: I'm in a coma? Does that mean this is all a dream?
Babies are easy to soothe if you're willing to use whiskey. But so few parents are.
Babies are easy to smoothe if you use a hot enough setting on the iron.
Talking of hawks, twice in the last month I have seen men (different men) with birds of prey on the streets of Reading. First one was a buzzard, couldn't tell what today's was. Reading is so not the sort of place I expect to see such things, unless birds of prey are the new Staffies.
I suppose I'm the only one here that watches TV enough to have seen this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kXgkkjlQtyM
RIE method freaks
I had never heard of this before! You wacky Californians . . .
||
Sooo I switched PIs and diss topics & subfield (sort of) after getting the probably -doomed diss proposal through quals. What should go in a CV in a new grant proposal?
|>
What should go in a CV in a new grant proposal?
A whole bunch of publications and other accomplishments.
MDs always think they know better. They don't. Lawyers know better.
Philosophers know "know" better.
255: Thanks, Red Queen!
Should I mention previous PI at all? "Grant for such-and-so in X lab"? It's not as though it's Google-hideable. Also, consumed years.
Should I mention previous PI at all?
I would assume so.
I don't know what the format is in your field and what your organization is like, but my CV doesn't actually list by name the individuals I've worked for and the grants I've worked on. You can tell the PI from the publications, but as the grants are not my own and I don't even have them on the CV.
On second thought, I looked at my NIH biosketch, which is probably closer to what you want. The grant numbers are on there. I have no idea how they get there.
Every time I meet a doctor I ask them if they think I could figure out whether an ear was infected and they say no, it takes a trained eye. But man do I wish you could determine at home if you needed to haul the kid in to the doctor.
"Trained eye" just means a lot of experience looking at non-infected ears so you can know what an abnormal one is. If you can commit to using the otoscope to look in the kid's ear every couple of days, you'll probably get an idea of what normal looks like, and be able to notice when it gets inflamed or whatever.
Also the good thing about ears is most people have two of them, making it easier to tell if there's a problem with one ear by comparing it to the healthy other ear.
I just made popcorn and there are three kids laughing and romping in the back yard. Thanks for putting up with my whining and just that I generally belong on the STFU, Parents site these days. I really appreciate being able to talk.
Below 23 pounds, a hawk can carry them away.
That's why you put them in the freezer.
261: The grant numbers are on there. I have no idea how they get there.
Hardworking secretaries, most likely. Ask Frowner.
"Trained eye" just means a lot of experience looking at non-infected ears so you can know what an abnormal one is.
That's why I do it: I like to help!
In meetings I draw stuff like this. If the meetings are long I usually end up spoiling them, but I like this.
Wow. And I defended read the last time. Don't I feel like an asshole.
Oh, it's a different feeling from "knowing some asshole thinks you're an asshole."
(Not you of course, Moby. You've a perfectly lovely way about you.)
194 is the best return after a long commenting hiatus ... ever. The cry of an unsoothed baby digitally transformed and transmitted to the eyes of a person ready and willing with the proper corrective action; Al Gore's dream fulfilled.
We may not know how to bring ogged back, but it's pretty clear how to conjure read.
And buried reasonably deeply in a comment thread at that! Maybe we need to conduct some experiments to confirm the hypothesis.
Sorry for piling on with the making-explicitness, but I'm simply gobsmacked. If my searching has not deceived me, on the order of 270,000 intervening comments and suddenly voila! Here's one that needs immediate intervention.
Confirm the theory, that is. Test the hypothesis. Shit. Science is hard.
270,000 intervening comments
Jesus you guys talk a lot.
61 is outstanding. The superimposition on the meeting agenda sheet ("this model keeps our current dimensions but ... each dimension. This is similar to the greater choice/less depth model but ... dimension set. .... please indicate your concerns. ... feel bad, there is a lot of information to digest") is great.
Not to make it explicit or anything. I'm reminded of something my cow-orker told me today about having heard Gen. Petraeus make reference at some point to 'the geo-tactical threat stream' in marking progress toward objectives in Afghanistan.
270: it's different when you're the asshole who thinks you're an asshole? That seems fair.
"Doc, uh, my brother's crazy; he thinks he's an asshole." And, uh, the doctor says, "Well, you can't turn him in for just that." The guy says, "Yeah, but who needs the shit?"
I saw a show about a company that made flower pots out of shit. It was cow shit but maybe they can be flexible.
The superimposition on the meeting agenda sheet ("this model keeps our current dimensions but ... each dimension. This is similar to the greater choice/less depth model but ... dimension set. .... please indicate your concerns. ... feel bad, there is a lot of information to digest") is great.
I very much loved this contrast, too.
read! that really was kind of magical. it seems unlikely strangely probable that you're reading this now, read, so I just thought I'd post on standpipe's blog to say that putting a crying baby down in a safe place for while so you can get something else done is practiced by the !kung and therefore was likely advantageous in our early and even pre-human history. once they got too big for the predatory birds.
The lurkers on the veldt support alameida in pictographs.
If your baby is crying, you hold it. If you cannot hold it, you give it to an ox. If you do not have an ox, you give it to a water spirit. If you do not have a water spirit, you give it to a sharp tree. If you do not have a sharp tree, you give it to a mineshaft.
Actually, he was happy and cooing. I put him in the crib in order to make him wail. Then I put a cup of goldfish crackers just out of reach, and then I told him that unless he stopped crying, I wouldn't pay for med school.
If he couldn't delay gratification wrt the goldfish crackers, it's not like he's going to get into med school anyway.
It will all be nationalized so they will have to let in anybody who can spell "goldfish."
Baseball games take a long time, especially when you don't care who wins.
The Rangers pitcher has a necklace that I hope has some personal or religious significance.
Because it looks like a candy cane.
295: Oh lord. It is one of those fucking magnet necklaces that look like the lanyards I made in camp. Hate. Haaaaate.
Like magnets that he has for pseudo-scientific medicinal reasons our he likes how it looks?
||
Just wanted to point out that, once again, I have successfully fasted from urad dal for the entirety of the fourth month of Caturmasya. People think I can't, just because I'm an atheist, but I've shown them!
||>
The magic magnet necklaces have been a trend among pitchers for about 7 years now. They make me despair.
297: The woo.
This white and red Baseball Stitch Ion necklace has been treated with Ion molecules that may help rejuvenate your body from the strain of physical activity and stress. The Ion necklace helps relieve stiffness in the neck and shoulders, eventually stabilizing your whole body.
It just occurred to me that it might have been the mention of diarrhea that led read to such alarm. It is a minor thing here, but a real problem in many places without clean water and Pedalyte.
|| NMM to Dennis Ritchie, creator of the C programming language. You can still masturbate to Bill Joy, father of Java, or Alan Kay, father of Smalltalk, though. |>
305: damn. Total buffer underrun.
303: I do think that was probably it, but she did end the comment saying that if it weren't diarrhea, then my cruelty might result in personality deviations, which sound like she's thinking of neglect bordering on Romanian orphanages.
303: there's no quicker way to get into trouble than trying to figure out how read actually isn't being a jerk.
I blame various relatives for my personal deviations, but not my mom.
308: You've never combined liquor, gasoline, and boredom.
Because that is very quick trouble.
Just because I wear tight pants doesn't mean you can judge me.
There are four kinds of people in this world: people who can count, people who think we ought to extend read an abundance of charity regarding her motives for saying something, and people who think we've done quite enough extending already, thankyouverymuch.
194
Hi read, hope you are well.
There are four kinds of people in this world: people who can count
I hope this is a reference to something in the archives.
Wow, this thread turned a little bit awesome. Thanks for the levity, peopoe.
194: agreed, afterwards is the worst time to grow up.
"nylon-coated titanium necklaces are intended to promote pain relief and enhance performance through improved circulation and stress reduction."
Wait, now titanium relieves pain and stress? Can titanium be magnetized? No, right? Fucking magic, how does it work?
326
... Fucking magic, how does it work?
Placebo effect.
Hey, cheaper than a chiropractor and just as effective! Just for fun let's look at the website of a local chiropractor.
Research shows that symptoms may be delayed from days to months or years. Up to 10% of victims of "Whiplash" become totally disabled!
Years! And, I shit you not, there's a testimonial from a dude identified only as "Vulture".
Just today I got a flyer looking for people with lower back pain for a university-run study of chiropractic car vs. whatever regular doctors do for back pain.
I like to think heebie'd be there with the pedialyte before her baby actually died of dehydration. I'm charitable like that. my daughter had a norovirus once (that she caught in the hospital on a previous ER visit ha) and was on the drip for 7 days, just shitting and puking every 45 minutes or so. the poor little thing. we had to clean everything up each time, and tell her it was ok, and change her cooling mat (they have a thing for fevered kids to sleep on.)
I slept with her in the hospital bed the whole time. it was horrible to think what it's like for so many mothers, just praying they will even keep the pedialyte down, watching them just wither away. she was very brave. they couldn't get a vein for the IV the first try because she was so small and dehydrated. it was a horrible struggle. I told the nurse if they failed a second time I wasn't letting anybody but the head of phlebotomy come at her with a needle.
I like to think heebie'd be there with the pedialyte before her baby actually died of dehydration
Whatever, let's see some proof of life. I demand a youtube of those kids holding today's New York Times.
The personality disorders will be harder to get on video.
You haven't watched enough daytime TV.
re: 330.last
Some nurses (and especially) some doctors are really crap at getting a vein, considering it's their job. I had someone take 6 or 7 goes once to try and get a canula in, before they finally gave up and got someone else.
I wouldn't want the head of phlebotomy at a U.S. hospital. I'd want to ask the head of phlembotomy who he or she would have do this for their own kid.
332: OK then, a youtube of the kids appreciatively reading a David Brooks column.
I'd rather have the head of phlebotomy, than a phlebble in head of me.
336: reading a David Brooks column.
Reading Wikipedia after the discussion here recently, I learned that David Brooks apparently lives in Stuyvesant Town--Peter Cooper Village*. LB must be so proud.
*I always want to call it the Peer Gynt Suites.
Over 300 comments, and no-one's pointed out the obvious fact about the doodle:
Before the commenters had finished their cocktails, the Inspector came roaring up to the meet-up in his powerful police car. He had brought Constable gswift with him to take notes.
"Hallo, hallo!" said the Inspector, eyeing the good things set out on the bar. "You do seem to do yourselves well, I must say"
"Have some of this new caprioska" said Sifu Tweety, in his best manner. "Do, there's plenty!" He quickly slapped Jimmy Pongo on the shoulder. "Not you, silly!" he said to the chimpanzee, as everyone laughed.
"Thanks" said the Inspector, and sat down with the commenters. The Inspector slurped away at the vodka and lime, and the commenters talked to him, telling him all about their extraordinary adventures.
"It must have been a most unpleasant shock for that fellow when he found that Heebie had a key to his office. Most unpleasant."
"But think what could have happened to you, Heebie" said Von Wafer. "It was such a risk."
"Never mind that," said Stanley sternly. "Have you examined the doodle?" he continued eagerly, turning to the Inspector.
"Yes we have, and you commenters were right. What Heebie had originally thought might be an innocent sketch of Clint Eastwood was in fact a picture of Mahmoud Ahmedinejad in a hat, which was a signal to his controller Ogged that the rest of the writing on the paper is a coded message. Heebie's instincts were right: no matter how nice a swarthy foreigner might seem, he's probably up to no good."
The Inspector turned to face Heebie-Geebie. "You appear to be the one who knows more than anyone else, my girl. I shouldn't be surprised if you join the police force one day, on the Maths Squad. We could do with people like you!"
David Brooks apparently lives in Stuyvesant Town
So I guess the Times gives him car service.
I encourage others to continue with 'Fogged Go Adventuring Again.
