Austin, TX [...] or Pittsburgh, PA
Oh, this'll be a cage fight.
You can get out of town and visit conservative Texas pretty easily....
That probably clinches it right there.
Ithaca's pretty great, if you don't mind isolation and cold. Very walkable, lots of stuff going on on and around the Cornell campus (and downtown, where fewer students tend to go), lots of natural beauty and outdoor recreation opportunities very close. Also, gorges.
I've been to all the others too, but only on a single short visit each, so others are probably better equipped to describe them.
Ithaca is definitely really cold and isolated, though, so if either of those is a problem don't go there.
February is the time to visit Pittsburgh.
I have no idea what College Park is like, as I only went up to the university a few times and only to visit the library, but it appears that people who don't have to be on campus all the time do ok living in DC and commuting up for courses. I'll leave it to others to describe living in DC as I was never all that social when I was living there.
Lived for 7 years in Dallas, but loved Austin. Had many friends there who, like me, were getting started in writing. But that was back in the 70s, when there really was a much smaller feel to the place, though it was still very progressive, and had a great cultural scene.
I've never lived in Pittsburgh while single or a student, so I suspect that I may have a different perspective on this, but what I like about Pittsburgh is how cheap it is to live. Also, how everything is so compact, at least to a midwesterner. There's really no reason to leave the East End, except maybe briefly on touristy-type things. There are whole sections of the city where you could live without a car.
For a graduate student, the biggest weakness might be how far out in left field it is. That is, compared to Ithaca or College Park, it isn't easy to get away to a real city. Also, I don't think one bedroom apartments near campus are actually very cheap. Cheap living is easier if you buy and if you want a whole house. Also, if you want to come to America because you like to drive cars, be warned that it sucks to drive here.
Anyway, feel free to email if you have something specific to ask.
That is, compared to Ithaca or College Park, it isn't easy to get away to a real city.
Huh, that's an interesting perception, given that one of the major drawbacks of Ithaca is how hard it is to get to a real city. I guess I'd see Pittsburgh as having pretty much all of the "real city" qualities that I, at least, would be looking for on a regular basis, plus it's not much further from Philly and DC than Ithaca is from Philly and NYC. Plus it has a train station and a real airport.
I have no idea what College Park is like, as I only went up to the university a few times and only to visit the library, but it appears that people who don't have to be on campus all the time do ok living in DC and commuting up for courses.
This was my impression as well, on the one occasion I went there. College Park is way out in the suburbs and not particularly convenient to DC (there's a metro stop in town, but not near the campus, and you have to take a bus to get to it). Most people do seem to live in either DC or Silver Spring and commute, which seems like kind of a pain.
So long as you don't put "real" in front of "train station," I suppose. We're not a hub for air travel anymore, so you need to connect to go most places.
Pittsburgh isn't a "real city"? Never been, but it's got to be compared to Ithaca (ten times the population). For the record, it takes 4 hours minimum (more by bus) to get from Ithaca to NYC.
Do I look like the fucking chamber of commerce?
Though I love Austin to the point that I dream
I'm there like once a week, I will point out that how you feel about the arts scene there is mostly dependent on whether you like Austiny music. For theater and classical music, it's not great. Other than that, it's the goddamn best. Summer is brutal but you get used to it and everywhere is air-conditioned to about 3 degrees Kelvin.
I did have no idea that Ithaca was so far from anything. I've only been once.
For theater and classical music, it's not great.
No migas for you!
Pittsburgh's orchestra is so dangerous, it injured Marvin Hamlisch.
In Austin, you can also live in a cheap student neighborhood that's outside of walking distance, and take one of the free shuttle that runs from those neighborhoods to campus.
I'm paying $500/month for a two bedroom (total, not per person), and I can get to campus in under half an hour by bike or bus, and perhaps fifteen minutes by car, outside of rush hour.
Other than that, it's the goddamn best.
This gets it exactly right. (Although the classical music scene, at least as far as chamber music goes, is getting better.)
Man, now I want brisket.
I didn't realize Ithaca was that far west, rather than north. Looks like you can go to Rochester, Buffalo, and if you're feeling adventurous, Hamilton or Toronto. Toronto might take longer than getting to NY.
Megabus has improved Pittsburgh's connectivity immeasurably for people not wanting to spend a lot of money (my kids for instance).
8: Also, I don't think one bedroom apartments near campus are actually very cheap.
In the direction of the SWPL East End, true. However, there is also adjoining student ghettos and ghetto ghettos.
Where's home? What the "different" that you're looking for? Do you live in a big European city? Then a second-tier, but awesome city like Austin might be right. Do you live 100 miles east of Perth? Then Pittsburgh is a perfectly fine "real city." Hilly though, so I don't know what the cycling is like. Beautiful and walkable. Top level American sports too, except basketball. Plus the Pirates play at an absolutely beautiful park, and tickets are easy to get.
Went to College Park recently for Chicken's brother's graduation. Suburban shit hole all the way. I would never want to live there. DC is of course a great city, but an expensive one to live in.
Ithaca I haven't been to, but I hear it's an absolutely beautiful campus (if the Ivy one; I don't know about Ithaca College) but it is far away from any real city life. Also, Cornell is on a big hill, so I don't know how the biking is.
Plus the Unfogged meet-ups are notoriously more fun than anywhere else.
Meaning?
That is, compared to Ithaca or College Park, it isn't easy to get away to a real city.
Pittsburgh is a real city. Ithaca is not. The closest city to Ithaca is Syracuse. You don't really want to go hang out in Syracuse.
I was pretty unhappy with living in Ithaca. It's a decent town, as small towns go, but the isolation really sucked. It has better restaurants than most towns its size, but I felt like its pretensions of "culture" were a little silly. It's probably better as a college student, where you kind of have a built-in social group, and maybe the same would be true of some master's programs. But I spent most of my years there traveling to other places as much as possible.
Pittsburgh is a real city. Ithaca is not. It's a large town with a very large and prestigious college in it.
There aren't many places better and cheaper to live as a young adult than Pittsburgh. I didn't need a car when I lived there, but the municipal bus service keeps getting worse and worse. The situation for bicyclists keeps getting better and better but still they have to compete for space on the road with cars almost everywhere.
I don't want to go into any more detail because I'll start feeling too nostalgic.
you'll need to get a car, but you would for any of the other places, but maryland is nice. my mom's house is in nearby takoma park, and the DC area is a fun place to live, with lots of great stuff to see and do (and all the museums are free; that's right, I'm glaring at you, MoMa). it just has a chip on its shoulder because it's not as fun a place to live as NYC, and the people who work for the federal government dress badly, skewing the look of the city towards "rumpled." there is quite a bit of strip mall ugliness to be gotten through on the way from DC to college park, but, america everybody!
I hate cold weather, so if it were me I wouldn't be considering ithaca or pittsburgh. of the two it seems as if pittsburgh is more awesome (based on cursory reports). IRL, without preëxsting familial ties I would probably choose austin, because everyone loves it and I've never been. also, tacos. I'm sure the summer sucks, but, ahem, maryland summer? pretty damn hot so it's a wash. also, music (though keep in mind that every band doing a tour of the east coast stops in DC). so:
1. austin
2. college park MD
3. pittsburgh
4. something somewhere something
5. ithaca
It's definitely possible to live in DC and commute to College Park by subway/bike or whatnot. (And, obviously, by car.) Or so people have told me. College Park itself is not a very interesting place, but DC seems like a decent enough city.
Although I know he does it all the time, I was still semi-impressed that JRoth biked home from the meetup in cold, dark, potentially sleety P'burgh. (In fact the swath of Pittsburgh from the Oakland campuses through to the East End residential and retail areas is relatively flat--although a chunk of Pitt campus itself climbs a pretty big hill.)
Hilly though, so I don't know what the cycling is like.
Cycling paths have improved a fair bit even in the past five years. There's a website with bunches of useful information about that and tons of absurdly tedious shit about hardware and how to stop your ass from chaffing.
But if you're coming from Europe, I'd probably recommend Austin for two-year stint.
More details: Ithaca is definitely walkable/cycleable. Cornell and Ithaca College are both on hills (large ones), with a "downtown" in between, so this walking/cycling can be strenuous. There's also a bus system that's quite extensive and impressive for a town of that size. Moderately good used bookstores, lots of mediocre live music and whatnot, a decent but not stellar university art museum. A good tapas place, a good Thai restaurant, some decent bars. Plenty of people are very happy there.
34: I've decided that is overly pedantic and therefor deprecated for informal blog conversations. But if you insist.
All those places have a bunch of people who wish they lived in Montana. So far as I know, no one in Montana wishes they lived lived in any of them.
More seriously, I lived in DC for 20+ years. Day to day life there -- and I think one would live there rather than CP -- is what you make of it. All reasonable options are available. With money and time. Of which both are always short, because it's expensive and there's a culture of workaholism. But really, great boating, great open space, fun stuff to do.
Weather is unbearable in each of the places, so that's obviously not a discriminator.
If I were faced with this choice at this point in my life, I would probably go with Pittsburgh.
Yeah, I would go with Pittsburgh or maybe College Park if I could live in DC. Austin is just too damned hot, but I understand that some people like that.
Is there no hope of finding something analogous on the west coast? Everyone should live on the west coast.
I was pretty unhappy with living in Ithaca. It's a decent town, as small towns go, but the isolation really sucked. It has better restaurants than most towns its size, but I felt like its pretensions of "culture" were a little silly. It's probably better as a college student, where you kind of have a built-in social group, and maybe the same would be true of some master's programs. But I spent most of my years there traveling to other places as much as possible.
This is not an uncommon reaction to living in Ithaca, btw, so I'm glad to see it represented here to balance out my more positive take. I liked Ithaca quite a lot; I wasn't thrilled with many aspects of my life when I was living there, but the town itself was quite nice. But then, I'm obviously not bothered by cold weather and isolation.
I've lived in both Maryland and Texas, and summer in Maryland is not even close to as hot as Texas. The heat in Texas is much more intense---blazing sun from daylight to dark, every single day. I'd guess that Austin last year had 120 95-degree days.
On preview, agreeing with 39. Or maybe with 40.2, actually.
Why not Palo Alto or Cambridge? Failing those, Montana.
Austin is just too damned hot, but I understand that some people like that.
The one time I was in Austin it was 102 degrees. It's not a dry heat, either.
A person can live in Seattle and still make their way to Montana now and again. It's not ideal, obviously, but sometimes one must simply endure hardship.
Agree with 35 that Ithaca is very walkable.
I was there back when the only bus service to New York was Short Line (a Greyhound affiliate, I think) and don't know if any Megabus or some such has entered the market.
Assuming no major differences in program, I'd pick Pittsburgh or Austin at this point if faced with a similar choice, just for change of pace. And to avoid Ithaca.
When the Yellowstone Supervolcano goes active again, at least living in Montana spares you from a lingering death.
It would be interesting to know what aspects of America the questioner is most leery of / interested in, so that we could provide targeted advice.
(DC is the closest I've been to living in any of the four places.)
DC has some unique things too. Besides the free museums, the embassies sometimes do special concerts and events. There are good plays and classical music, though that can be a bit pricey.
DC itself is very walkable, and looks different from most American cities, because of the street layout and lack of tall buildings. Actually it looks vaguely European, although this is sort of offensive to everyone at once. The lawyers and wonks are kind of cool too.
46: It was only Shortline as of 2008, at least. Or -- actually there was also some kind of Cornell-run bus to the Weill Medical College in New York, which was significantly more expensive and I think more infrequent, but which had extra amenities like wifi on board. I never tried it.
I've never lived in any of those places, but I did live in DC for a couple years and it was a very positive surprise. No need for a car, pleasant walkable neighbourhoods, amazing museums, decent cheap restaurants, decent theater and a decent bar scene. It also wasn't an expensive city back then. That is, it was possible to have decent housing in an expensive neighbourhood, go out all the time, including occasionally to nicer places, and generally be very comfortable by post undergrad standards on about $1800/mo. I gather things have changed as far as the costs go.
I lived in Austin for a brief spell and I've lived (and did my masters) in DC for just short of 3 years now. If I was picking between the two simply based on quality of life I'd go with Austin.
Austin is cheaper and I found the reasonably priced housing stock and neighborhoods to be more interesting. Restaurant scenes are of roughly equivalent quality, in my opinion, and Austin has better cheap eats. Austin certainly has a better music scene but DC has the edge on museums and other forms of "high culture" and is closer to other interesting cities on the east coast. Bands usually stop in DC but not quite as often as you'd get in New York.
DC is a company town and a college town and while its a young city it isn't as much of a fun and interesting young city as Austin is. Austin had better parties and social occasions are less focused on networking (although DC might be a better place to try to advance your career through networking and other opportunities, which is one of the reasons I live in DC now.)
Both places are fairly miserable to live in during the summer so you can flip a coin there.
No migas for you!
Deprecated emoticon of sadness!
I mean the opera's swell for a small town company that puts on three shows a year. The one symphony concert I ever went to was pretty terrible but it was also a long time ago. And FWIW Houston and Dallas are close by. Heebz, you know I'm mad for Austin!
I lived in College Park for two years, then moved into DC and commuted to school for a year. College Park itself is just a suburb with a giant university and lots of fraternities, but there's a decent social scene among grad students. DC is pretty interesting as a town, depending on what kind of scene you're looking for. I never owned a car when I lived there; the subway commute from DC to College Park took about an hour door-to-door, which I tolerated because I only had to be on campus three days a week at that point.
I haven't read the thread, but opine.
Austin, TX; College Park, MD; Ithaca, NY; or Pittsburgh, PA
If those are the choices, I'd go with Pittsburgh. Ithaca is too cold and remote, if two years are all you have. Austin is, well, in Texas (sorry, very sorry). College Park is basically DC, which might be attractive in some ways, but it's very urban and expensive. Pittsburgh has the advantage of being reasonably located for travel up and down the East Coast, and has a moderate climate overall.
I should probably read the thread. I'm sure I've done Austin a disservice.
I was surprised by how intense my envy was when I heard that a friend of mine in a slightly different field has multiple job interviews in the Pacific Northwest. Some places really are nicer than others.
See, to me pnw sounds so gray and drizzly. The one time I was there (microsoft interview!) it misted for three days straight. Gray and green is a pretty combination, though.
42: I'd guess that Austin last year had 120 95-degree days.
Jesus. Well, there you go.
I'm a Pacific Northwest envier as well. Maybe someday.
Yeah, Portland is my default escape-from-New-York fantasy, although now there's an annoying show about it that makes it less attractive.
Also, teo is high off New Mexico. Austin is way less humid than any of the other cities.
Skip the gray & drizzle. I'd need one of those anti-SAD lights bolted to my forehead to last more than a week in that.
Gray and green is a pretty combination, though.
Pretty monotonous. It is spectacularly beautiful up here when you get some visibility, though. And some parts of this city are nice at ground level; I semi-wish that I'd spent/been able to put in the time to do an extensive housing search, as I'm really sick of campus housing. But overall Vancouver's pretty meh architecturally, even downright ugly, and the weather is such that hiking/just walking around is not something I'm eager to do. I don't know about Seattle and Portland.
I think Seattle or Vancouver more than Portland. Probably just because I don't think there's anywhere in Portland that I could ever conceivably work. For some reason they put those jobs down in Eugene.
I used to be down on Southern California, but now I am completely weather-spoiled for life.
63: "It's a dry heat" is the official state bullshit of Arizona.
63: Not so much on average as you might think during the summer. It does rain a lot less.
I guess I've only really lived in two of them, but west coast cities seem to fit best my mostly-loner lifestyle. Although NY was ok, in part because I was there for short enough that my project of riding the entire length of the subway consumed a lot of my free time.
The problem I ran into in DC was that though there are nice city parks and green spaces, it takes a bit of a drive to get to the really nice hiking areas. Whereas in the Bay Area and Vancouver you have the option of going for the near-in open spaces by transit or even on foot, and can also drive to many other places if you feel like. Museums and neighborhood architecture generally seem to favor the east.
Give the confidential and the absence of a response or follow-up questions from the asker, I'm going to go ahead and assume that we just ATMed our first Nigerian 409er.
No time to read the thread, but I've lived in Ithaca, Pittsburgh (for five months, and technically in Monroeville, but still) and DC. The experiences are wildly different but I'd recommend all three. Ithaca is small but very wonderful in its way and in some ways the size can be an advantage to foreigners, as there's a kind of built in community. Try to be there for a summer if at all possible. Pittsburgh is a great small city with most of the amenities of a much larger city, a really distinct local culture, and it's dirt cheap. It might feel a little isolating as a young foreigner since a lot of the nightlife will be basically local guys in local bars, but, despite what I tell Moby H, I love Pittsburgh and it's a great town. DC is a boring company town in some ways but a wonderful cosmopolitan metropolis in others and is IMO more like the rest of the world than much of the US.
And everyone in Austin says it's the best place ever.
And now inshould read the thread.
Museums and neighborhood architecture generally seem to favor the east.
Yes. The west coast has the amazing mountains + ocean + lovely weather combination, and the east coast has the wonderful museums and nicer cities qua cities. So I think I had it right before. Now to find a way to fund the plan.
technically in Monroeville, but still
In Monroeville? Why?!
OT: Huge crash south of Gainesville
Holy cow, this sounds awful.
76: Take it from a man who lived in Blawnox, there can be reasons (bad ones, but still reasons).
Only by hitting previous was I not pwned by redfoxtailshrub.
Allow me to be the first to recommend Charlottesville. Proximity to DC and Richmond. Nestled in the Blue Ridge. Something about Thomas Jefferson. And (as I just recently found out) a direct flight to Chicago is available. How weird is that?
In Monroeville? Why?!
Could be worse. A friend of mine got sent to Coraopolis for a job.
A few days ago I saw a great job posting in Charlottesville. It has an inflexible start date of a couple of months before I graduate so that's that. Most of the more interesting postings I've been seeing recently have been in the south. I should apply to some of them, though for family reasons I'd really like to stay in the west.
80: Yeah, but, you know, Virginia. I realize it's not West Virginia, but still.
(I kid, I totally kid. Sort of.)
Somehow I think the "indecision about where to move" thread is the appropriate place to say I got a TT offer!
To tie into this thread, I spent an hour or two trying to come up with opinions of whether I'd prefer other places to this offer. That time was a complete failure, and I couldn't get much beyond "None of them are Berkeley, but I'd be happy at all of them in different ways which are impossible to compare."
I similarly think the options here are pretty difficult to compare, as they each bring totally different things to the table.
Great news, unless it's in Monroeville.
83: Virginia is for lovers, parsimon.
Neb's saying that in the Lenny Bruce sense of the word.
Are you guys making fun of me for being in a stable relationship?
89: Which I think you've indicated Thundersnow is. Just to clear up any potential double entendréness.
I'm going to assume UPEI wants to hire UPETGI. (Also, congratulations!)
Is that where Anne of Green Gables went?
Proximity to DC and Richmond.
Rapture!
Seriously, D.C.? D.C. sucks, and I write that as a man with a soft spot for Boston.
Congratulations, Upetgi! Very good news.
I feel badly about my Virginia remarks. Withdrawn.
Also, teo is high off New Mexico. Austin is way less humid than any of the other cities.
This may well be true, but it's still sufficiently humid that 100+ heat makes it really unpleasant, and it's the only city on the list that routinely gets that hot.
Q: What did the horse whisperer say?
A: "Hurts too much to talk."
And Ithaca's not actually all that humid by east coast standards.
97.2: Come on, Sic semper tyrannis!
Thanks everyone!
Whether Austin is more or less humid than the other places, it's certainly humid enough that high temperatures are the awful sort and not the secretly not that bad sort that you get in actual deserts.
Feel badly about your Texas remarks, too.
(The phrase "feel badly" puts me directly in mind of Kirk Douglas in A Letter to Three Wives.)
Er, lotta kudzu in Virginia. It gets worse the further south you get, but it seemed to become really noticeable around Virginia somewhere.
This may well be true, but it's still sufficiently humid that 100+ heat makes it really unpleasant
I must be unusual; I really enjoy going to Austin in the summer. Sitting outside at Shady Grove on a nice hot day is one of the great pleasures of life, and if you can't take that there's AC everywhere.
A careful examination would probably reveal that I'm totally wrong about Virginia where kudzu is concerned; I say just that I find kudzu very dismaying, and I drove up from Tennessee in the general direction of Virginia, and we finally hit the Blue Ridge Mountains, and only another half-day north of that did there seem to be some relief. Apologies for geographical failures on the particulars. I just associate Virginia with a sort of humid choking thing. It's wrong, I'm sure.
Truly the character of a region and its people is revealed in the character of its invasive roadside plants.
Around here there's a lot of Japanese knotweed which reveals our terrible genocide-exporting roots (but not in a way we can understand anymore).
Unless you hate heat, Austin, assuming you can afford to live reasonably well there, would be my choice for a two-year sojourn. And this is coming from a man who would leave Northern California tomorrow were I offered a good job in Pittsburgh. Living in DC and commuting to College Park is actually a pretty big pain in the ass, but the living in DC part would be lots of fun. The cold and isolation of Ithaca are too much for me to even consider. But it's incredibly beautiful there in the very late spring, summer, and very early fall. Truth be told, I think any of the above would be pretty nice for a couple of years.
Any of you Pittsburgh people need a cabana boy?
110.2: How long can you tread water?
Whether Austin is more or less humid than the other places, it's certainly humid enough that high temperatures are the awful sort and not the secretly not that bad sort that you get in actual deserts.
Right, this is all I'm saying.
Heat aside, I've got to say that I was not super-impressed with Austin. It seems nice enough, and I'm sure I wouldn't mind living there, but it didn't really seem to live up to the hype. I'm sure it's different for people who are into music and so forth.
And for people whose standards have been lowered by the rest of Texas.
That too, although I found the claim that it's very different from the rest of the state pretty overblown. At no point did I ever feel like I was anywhere but Texas.
Everything is bigger in Texas s/b Texas' giant goes with you wherever you go
Anyway, like I said before, I've only been to Austin once, and it was just for a couple of days. I won't claim to be an expert on the place.
Depends on what you like/hate, of course.
I'd approve of Pittsburgh, Austin & DC. Have not met many people who were happy in Ithaca.
I'm from DC and lived there after college. Can be very fun in your 20s and it is very international by American standards. But it does have a conservatism - social, professional more than political though the city has gotten a lot more politically conservative since I was last there - that might turn some folks off, perhaps the type of folks who'd choose grad skool entirely on the basis of location. DC-College Park is surprisingly inconvenient, despite it being right on the border of DC proper. I'm sad to hear people deprecate the music scene, since it was hopping in the early 80s when I was in high school. Minor Threat and Bad Brains in the original 9:30 club, fun!
I think Pittsburgh seems cool, though I mostly visit occasionally for my wife to see her grandparents. And I like small towns.
A lot of American college towns require some time to fall in love with. I was not crazy about Ann Arbor when I got there, but after a year or two...
Although neb's 86 amused me, I think I'll go with an unalloyed "congrats," Upetgi.
Anyway, like I said before, I've only been to Austin once, and it was just for a couple of days.
Wasn't it basically overnight? And there was no meet-up? I don't see how this counts.
Congrats, Utpetgi9! Needless to say, I'm curious where you'll be.
¦¦
Can anyone recommend a good photography instructional site? I've been trying to learn how to take a proper picture for some time and the web seems well-suited to that sort of thing, but I've come up empty.
¦>
The answer to these questions is always, "anywhere but Texas".
I lived in DC for 20+ years. Day to day life there -- and I think one would live there rather than CP -- is what you make of it.
Think?!? College Park is horrid. DC would be great.
I agree with Austin topping the list, and DC being second.
"Can anyone recommend a good photography instructional site?"
Anywhere but Texas.
re: 123
What sort of stuff? Semi-technical things like: apertures, shutter speeds, focal lengths, ISO, etc? Or more composition and lighting type things?
http://photography.about.com/od/takingpictures/u/BasicsPath.htm
Looks OK.
I might be able to give more specific recommendations if you have particular things you want to know [or answer myself].
I've heard 117 from other people too. Yes it's the best place in Texas, but it really is in Texas.
I spend most of my time in not-Austin, Texas. You guys are completely insane.
Austin in still Texas in the sense that DC is surrounded by the south.
Yes it's the best place in Texas
Exactly. Oooh, "better than Houston". Jesus.
Yes, Utah, do go on about how backwards Texas is.
The answer to these questions is always, "anywhere but Texas".
Wait, if you live where I think you do, it's not exactly a place that can turn up its socio-geographical nose at Texas?
Congratulations, Utpetgi!
I don't have truly relevant experience here, but I'm hoping we'll eventually get to hear what the lurker chose and why. I live in a Pittsburghlike locale and have been happy enough with it, but I'm not sure whether someone would want a few years of comfortable and cheap. That works for me, though.
you'll need to get a car, but you would for any of the other places
I've lived in Austin for 4 and a half years without a car, and, for someone who's going to be in graduate school and presumably living centrally, it's not necessary. A bike, walking, and the free bus/rail service you get with a University affiliation wil do you fine.
If you don't mind having 1 or 2 roommates (or if you're funding is very generous), I recommend renting a house in Cherrywood.
That neighborhood is super cute and great.
Utah is a much nicer place to live than Texas. Beautiful, varied landscapes; good climate (not humid); all those overly nice Mormons; fun non-Mormons who overcompensate in their partying.
Huh, Cherrywood. I don't think that neighborhood had a name when I lived there. We called it Naugahyde Park.
Texas is such a cheap shot, and Austin is such a cliche to fall in love with. It makes this conversation pretty annoying.
We called it Naugahyde Park
That's awesome.
Yes, Utah, do go on about how backwards Texas is.
There is no getting away from the backwards factor anywhere. But come on, the climate there is god awful, there's no mountains, and let's not forget tornadoes. No thank you.
Also I'm not annoyed by anyone who is defending Austin. But making fun of Texas is super played out. It's a crappy state, in a whole lot of ways!
Tornadoes aren't really a problem here. But if heat and no mountains are a dealbreaker, then it's probably not a good fit for the lurker.
Congratulations, UPETGI!
Ben, if it makes you feel better, I've gotten nothing but rejections. Well, two interviews, but those were just to make the rejections sting more. Around this time of year, I wake up to a rejection just about every day or every other day.
Texas has a varied landscape, it's just that Texas is enormous so it requires some travel to see it. West Texas has mountains, and desert, and central Texas has hill country and southeast Texas has beaches and east Texas has piney woods and bayous. The panhandle is boring-looking (I think, haven't been to that part) but I don't understand the idea that Texas isn't geographically interesting. It's like 825 miles across. There is a lot of it.
I rather like Texas. I would happily take a job in Texas if someone wanted to offer me one. Doesn't even have to be in Austin.
It's funny; I was just thinking about how if I get one of the NYC jobs I've applied for it's going to suck commuting all the way north of the city from Brooklyn, because I simply cannot imagine moving to NYC but not to Brooklyn--specifically one of about four neighborhoods in Brooklyn--but Texas, sure, anywhere is fine; just drop me off where it's convenient.
147: I hesitate to point this out, but didn't living in Brooklyn drive you nuts to the point of kind of despising the whole city? From a mental health point of view, you might want to look at some pleasant Bronx neighborhoods. You could still get down to Brooklyn/downtown Manhattan on weekends to do fun stuff, but you'd be a little removed from all the social pressure you hated.
re: 147
I think we all do that with places we know well. If I moved back to Glasgow I could tell you to within a couple of streets where I'd live.
145: I drove from Texarkana to El Paso once. The landscape didn't scintillate, but that is a pretty unflattering diagonal to cut, so.
There are some lovely Bronx neighborhoods.
148: I loved Brooklyn! Manhattan makes me insane with rage, though. Park Slope was difficult because of the ex-wife/(ex-)boyfriend issue, but I dealt with that and enjoyed it. I loved my two years in East Williamsburg. I don't remember ever saying I hated Brooklyn.
but I don't understand the idea that Texas isn't geographically interesting.
Come on buddy, give the Rockies a try. We're the 2012 gayest city in America. Make the pilgrimage.
Riverdale is nice. Right around Yankee Stadium has great subway access to get downtown and beautiful pre-war buildings -- the neighborhood isn't exactly fun, but it's not particularly dangerous. Off in the NW Bronx you get into cute little houses -- it's less urban, but pleasant.
I don't remember ever saying I hated Brooklyn.
No, but you lived in Brooklyn and while you lived there found NY, generally, maddening. I was thinking you might want to live in a slightly different NY than you had been in.
154: NW Bronx is what I was thinking of, I think. Tons of good restaurants up there, too.
Hmm. My takeaway from the "Lady with the Nice Apartment" thread was the same as LB's.
I might have mentioned that BR's family is from Hobbs, New Mexico (not Old).
Surely, everyone can united around that being a horrible place to live.
Also, Brooklyn to literally north of the city (I'm guessing: four letters, three-quarters vowels?) will break your heart. I do half of that every day and it's about as long as is humanly tolerable.
while you lived there found NY, generally, maddening
I wonder if that had anything to do with adjuncting 10 courses a year for fucking peanuts with cruel asshole supervisors while trying to write a dissertation and have a social life?
||
Apparently we read that Charles Murray quiz all wrong. He wasn't trying to blame us for being out of touch with "real Americans." He was saying that the "real (white) Americans" are poor because they are shiftless and lazy, just like their black counterparts.
That seems more in character for him. But the whole "Why don't you know about NASCAR!" thing now seems extra weird.
|>
One of my favorite illustrations of the size of Texas*:
El Paso is closer to Los Angeles, and Beaumont is closer to Jacksonville, than El Paso and Beaumont are to each other.
Expressed as I-10 miles:
West of Texas: 799
Texas: 881
East of Texas: 781
*Shutup, teo.
I think we all do that with places we know well. If I moved back to Glasgow I could tell you to within a couple of streets where I'd live.
Not true! I just moved back to the city where I spent most of the 90s and I live in a completely different part of town.
Of course, as a grad student I could only afford to live in the crappy parts back then.
I'm not saying you were wrong to be maddened. Just that you were unhappy, and you can come back to NY without coming back to the same environment where you have a lot of stored unhappiness.
And seriously, the commute. If I'm right about the possible school, what would you do -- spend an hour and a half on the 2 each way with a long walk at the north end of it?
Brooklynites' thing about Manhattan always makes me think of the joke about the Jewish guy they rescue from the desert island with two little huts he's built. ("The other one? Feh! That's the shul we don't go to!")
It has been enormously pleasant, in coming back to this area, to live someplace different than I had (or would have thought to) before.
The real issue is that I am not likely to get employment for next year at all, but the only job I have even a tiny little bit of an edge on is a very low-paying, high-load position near NYC, and, while I could not have imagined leaving New York just a few years ago, it's quite difficult now to imagine going back, especially going back to the same brutal teaching load, low pay, and horrific commute (doesn't matter where I live; I'd be expected in two places far from each other every day, just like when I was adjuncting) that I had while a graduate student.
The fucked up thing is that all of us at non-Ivy schools have been telling ourselves that we have things they don't, like incredible and very broad teaching experiences and dissertations on large-scale topics of ethical and political importance, which they say they want in the ad, but we still don't get hired; they do, with their single-author dissertations and "I TA'd a class one time."
I'd be expected in two places far from each other every day,
Oh, god that sucks.
all of us at non-Ivy schools have been telling ourselves that we have things they don't, like incredible and very broad teaching experiences and dissertations on large-scale topics of ethical and political importance
Aren't you all a little too old to still believe in Santa Claus the meritocracy?
167.2 -- I don't know anything about your industry beyond what I read in these pages (and learned from representing a U in a few discrimination suits) but somehow this doesn't surprise me in the least. Fucked up, indeed.
You know, HG, you people can't send up the likes of GWB and Rick Perry, have that school textbook thing, and expect not to be made fun of at absolutely every possible opportunity.
Pretty sure plenty (which is to say "a reasonably large majority") of ivy league english grads aren't getting jobs either.
re: 163
Yeah. Glasgow is relatively small, though, and I know it pretty well. I know I could quite happily live in two or three bits of it, but there'd be no financial incentive to choose those over the bit I'd prefer.
Honestly, I think there's a taint of the lower class on people who have too much teaching experience. Also, no one knows that it doesn't mean I didn't "deserve" institutional funding. I didn't get funding because it was only available to second-years during my first year, and then only to first-years when I hit my second year. We were never grandfathered in. But now I realize it looks like I was just a bad bet and no one wanted to invest in me.
171: Who gets interviews? No one I know is getting interviews in my field. Is it exclusively Assistant Professors moving around?
174: that seems to be the deal, yeah. Lots of lateral movement. A friend of ours was competing on the market this year with his adviser.
I came up with an idea that every three years there should be an unofficial "new blood" policy, in which everyone has to hire people who don't have tenure-track jobs.
Coming from unfogged (and knowing Blume) it's been interesting to watch people applying to jobs in my department. Now, granted, they're all post-docs, and in fact the market is still terrible by any rational human measure, but wow does it seem a lot less horrible than the humanities.
re: 173
That sucks. I had the same situation. Got the full funding for my B lihP, and first year of my D.Phil [Scottish funding was only available in 3 year tranches], and then I applied for funding for the rest of my D.Phil the Scottish funding body had merged with the other one [who I'd normally have had funding for for the rest], and now I was no longer eligible to apply as I'd already had 'their' 3 year studentship. But yeah, I'm sure on paper the gap in my funding looks suspicious.
It's hard to emphasise how much the education jobs market isn't a meritocracy [unless one is using the term in more a Youngian sense].
I'm competing on the market this year with someone who defended his dissertation two years before I did with my adviser, who informed me that this year the other guy wants to leave his TT job because his wife doesn't like the area, so my adviser would have to take all the superlatives out of his letter for me. We just all really need to be supporting him this year since he has a wife.
180: (A) Stabbity stabbity stabbity stab. Stab. Really the only plausible response. But (B) Does knowing ahead of time that this guy's job is likely to open up give you any opportunity to position yourself to apply? I don't have any specific ideas, but if it were a non-academic job I'd be sending them resumes so that they thought of me when the position opened.
179 -- That's really awful. But it creates a TT vacancy, right? Is there no way your connections can be leveraged in that direction? (I don't mean to suggest you haven't already thought of this).
but wow does it seem a lot less horrible than the humanities.
In much the same way many geographical questions can be answered with "anywhere but Texas", education questions can often be answered with "anything but the humanities".
I'm trying not to be angry about everything all year like I was last year. It sucks that the job market goes from October to May now, so there's very little of one's time when one isn't either applying to jobs or getting rejection letters, and those start overlapping in January. I keep telling myself that this other student can't take *all* the jobs. But it does mean that my main letter just isn't as good as it should be, no matter who gets it. I only have about 8 more applications out that haven't started interviewing other people yet, and half of those are for non-TT jobs. I really could have used some fucking superlatives from my adviser this year.
AWB, that sounds awful. I can't imagine staying stable in the face of all that uncertainty. Just ugh.
I came up with an idea that every three years there should be an unofficial "new blood" policy, in which everyone has to hire people who don't have tenure-track jobs.
Alternatively: abolish tenure, and put everyone on renewable 3-year contracts.
I think any school that's been abandoned mid-TT by a New Yorker is going to be awfully shy about hiring another one. It's true that the school is not in the most desirable place. I've heard some people say they won't even interview people who've gone to grad school in New York because they're assholes. I even heard that at my current job, a lot of pre-emptive warnings that no one wants to hear about how great New York is please. I love it here; I wasn't bitching.
179 does seem like the sort of thing that meaningfully constitutes misconduct. But we all know that making any kind of formal complaint just marks you, rather than helps. Still, once you get a TT job you can track the fucker down and beat him with a stick.
I love my adviser. He's just one of those older guys who identifies with young straight men with spouses. He thinks of me like some magically talented pixie-like daughter who doesn't need any help because she's so amazing. He said his new letter would mostly emphasize the differences between me and the guy. He's detail-oriented and historicist, and I'm a clever and creative theorist. Fine, but really, no one wants a fucking theorist.
Yeah, it's probably framable as a Title VII violation (torpedoing your applications to benefit another candidate because he's a married man?). Or actually, in NYC you'd want to bring it as a state and city Human Rights Law violation. Not that I'd advise anyone to sue over anything, and you probably don't have the misconduct in writing so it'd be a swearing contest, but I've seen weaker cases.
I wouldn't do that. All he did was frame it to me as a dilemma he was having, probably far too honestly, and, as ttaM notes, no one wants a litigious rat in their midst. I don't need any more black balls.
Oh, I didn't mean that it'd actually be a good idea to sue over it -- it basically never is (for an individual) unless you have no other choice. But if this guy is weakening your applications to help another candidate, lovable or not he's doing you real damage with no justification. Being fond of him is one thing, but he's still a bad person on this axis.
Now, granted, they're all post-docs, and in fact the market is still terrible by any rational human measure, but wow does it seem a lot less horrible than the humanities.
Even more boggling, in 2009, we had 7 math candidates turn us down. "Too little money for too much work in a shitty town," they said, while getting offered more money than I made, 4 years in. (I was asked to not complain, and they made up the difference and then some, last year.)
I hope it turns out that five people have been getting all the interviews and offers for all 40 jobs and in March suddenly we'll all be getting calls. I've only actually gotten seven formal rejections so far. Someday I hope to make the most of sitting in the desperate losers pile.
I apologize if 295 is obnoxious. It reads that way to me, now. "Look at our riches! Isn't that peculiar?"
the market is still terrible by any rational human measure, but wow does it seem a lot less horrible than the humanities.
Whenever I'm inclined to think that my own travails on the job market were impressive I read Unfogged to get some perspective.
10: This is correct; College Park is not actually where one would live if one was at UMd. When rfts was doing her graduate coursework, we lives in Silver Spring/Takoma Park, but one could potentially live in DC itself. It's not actually that inconvenient; about a 15 minute drive or bus ride. (The Metro station is bizarrely far from campus, though, and on the Green Line rather than the Red Line.)
There's a shuttle from the College Park metro station to and from campus, too.
Good thing I rtfas, Travel to Canada requires a passport...
I'm not sure if there's a tactful way to do this, but I'd be inclined to remind your advisor that he failed at keeping you funded so maybe should make up for that when deciding who to push for. Sounds pretty shitty, one-year academic positions should be banned.
179 We just all really need to be supporting him this year since he has a wife.
I would be all MURDEROUS RAGE.
I now wish I had some teaching experience. Small schools don't hire science people who are science superstars in the sense of having big labs and big research projects, because those small schools can't support big research projects. They hire people with teaching experience. And in the sciences, whether you have teaching experience or not depends on whether you got your PhD at a place where PhD students get teaching experience. Which is not really correlated to the quality of the school or even the type of school, it varies from department to department within the same school. One department will make a deal with the med school curriculum to have its students teach the ignorant med students what a virus is. Another department will be deeply intertwined with an undergraduate department and those PhD students will actually complain about how much TA-ing they do. If you're a PhD student one of the medical centers that's hundreds of miles from its associated university, like Cornell or Baylor, who knows.
He was saying that the "real (white) Americans" are poor because they are shiftless and lazy, just like their black counterparts.
He's plagiarising David Starkey.
I keep emailing him and another adviser asking them to please do something. Last year people told me they'd speak on my behalf to committees where they knew someone, and this year when I ask for help in my application to a branch of my alma mater, where we all actually know people, they say they don't want to bother the committee so they won't try. Is there some failure to communicate urgency on my part? Did I do something horribly wrong last year by finally getting my shit together and finishing my dissertation? Why is no one interested in helping me anymore?
I'd be inclined to remind your advisor that he failed at keeping you funded
Oh wow, advisors are supposed to keep their students funded? I suppose they're also supposed to meet with their students more than once a term in this parallel universe.
Why are so many successful academics such screaming assholes? Is this really just the level of asshole behavior that would be normal in business, and we are only surprised to see it crop up in the education sector, or is there something about the institution that rewards utter heartlessness?
208: C'mon, Rob. It's worked for Stalin and countless others. The trick is in avoiding the stab in the back.
208: I don't know what I'm talking about w/r/t academia, so, giant grains of salt here. But possibly it's that the academic professional world is expressly personal-relationship-based: you have an advisor whose job it is, in some contexts, to be your advocate, and if they fail to do that it's impressively shitty. In a lot of other professional contexts, there just isn't anyone whose job it is do anything to help you in anyway, so it's not shitty or a betrayal when no one does.
Yes, that's their job. If they don't keep you adequately funded then dtmfa. Rates of meetings are more optional. If they're in the city that semester I'd say less than once a month is a bad sign and dtmfa, but requiring once a week is not always reasonable. You can always change advisors or leave graduate school.
210 gets it right. The whole explicit "mentor" thing in academia still strikes me as odd.
My supervisor, when I'd submitted, invited me to a party he was hosting to celebrate that a couple of his students had submitted (me and one other guy) and that one of his friends has just had a book published.
When we arrived he informed us that he had written a play for us to perform -- I fucking kid not. When he produced it and handed it to me, the play had some lines about his shitty supervision and mocking me somewhat for my procrastinatory habits.* I think he thought we'd all get a laugh out of it and he'd show how amusing and self-aware he was. I came away thinking that he was a total cunt; as not only was he a fucking cock of a supervisor, he also knew it.
This story told before, I think.
* somewhat fair point, but I did have two jobs [including teaching one of his classes] and a serious illness at the time.
Yeah, the advisor/student relationship doesn't have that many modern analogues. There's lots of knowledge that's hard to get without actually talking to the right people, so it has more of the old-school apprenticeship where you just have to learn from the guy who knows the tricks.
It must be really really rough to have an advisor die when you're early career.
I'm kind of curious how much importance one would place on a thing like the difference between the DC music scene and the Austin music scene, in deciding something like the questions posed in the OP. I'm probably well over the center line in liking music, and well short of it in liking 'scenes,' but this seems like a pretty ephemeral criterion to use to judge daily life. Unless one is a musician or a groupie, interaction with a music scene is going to be intermittent. Isn't the real measurement point on the social scale whether you can meet 25 interesting people you like to hang out with, in 2s, 3s, or 4s, whatever the music happens to be?
208: What aspect of AWB's situation do you think is particularly "heartless"? I agree that it's unfair for her advisor to put personal considerations above merit when writing a letter, but I'm not sure that counts as heartless.
It must be really really rough to have an advisor die when you're early career.
This I have wondered about, since I'm basic certain to be the last grad student my adviser will ever take (and people were surprised he took me on). On the other hand, I'm not terribly interested in having a traditional academic career, and he's hale and hearty as can be (and works all the time) at this point, so maybe it won't be a big deal one way or the other.
A relative of mine (by marriage) John Lang Sinclair is known for writing a song while a student at UT. I hadn't known until recently (and Heebie don't tell anyone) that the song was first publicly performed in blackface. The Austin music scene has evolved since then.
He should also be known as a committed bicyclist: he once rigged up his bike with an outrigger so he could ride on railroad tracks, made a sail from a dorm bedsheet, and sailed all the way home to San Antonio.
Wouldn't that argue for him being known as a committed railroad track sailor?
There's still a lot of great punk and indie rock being made in DC (and go-go!) and when I lived there I was probably going to three or four shows at the Black Cat a month. But Austin is probably just behind New York and Los Angeles in terms of a city to go see live music in; if the opportunity to go see a good band practically every night is something that would push Austin above Pittsburgh or DC, the Mineshaft Asker should know.
218: If you are in a field where research grants are important, then it can certainly have an impact, though not a career-killer. An adviser can include you on joint grant proposals, papers, etc. That can help you get off the ground, though most departments will require that you show independence from your adviser, so it can only be used as a starting point.
An active adviser can also help you with "visibility", by helping you get a foot in the door with professional service activities, such as proposal reviewing, paper reviewing, conference organization, etc.
If you plan to go into industry instead, then this matters a lot less.
re: 214
Happened to me. My masters advisor died. I'd already started working with other people to supervise part of my doctoral research, but essentially the one person who I'd worked with for years, and who was prepared to advocate on my behalf, isn't around to do so. Really tragic. He was a lovely bloke, and young. Sucked for me, though.
I'm thinking my adviser's name will help me out even outside of active intervention on his part; he has a huge network of very loyal former students, many of whom have achieved quite a bit of success in the field. But maybe that won't matter either, when I graduate and turn to my real plain of sailing my bicycle around the world on railroad tracks. For cash.
213 is insane. My defense had some elements of mockery in it, from the two supplementary readers, who suddenly decided it was time to tell me they really don't understand or like my project at all and think I'm lazy, and I think they meant it to be light-hearted and gently teasing. Huh I WONDER WHY SOMEONE MIGHT BE HYPERSENSITIVE ABOUT A PROJECT THAT TOOK FIVE YEARS TO WRITE.
When I did my first presentation of my research last fall one of the PIs in the lab asked, (paraphrased only lightly) "why are you studying this? Is there any point to it at all?" That's okay, though. I'm pretty sure there's a point to it!
226: I can think of multiple reasons why the PI might have asked that, but regardless, I think it's a reasonable question, assuming it was asked in a normal tone of voice.
224 -- More money in that than in songwriting, if you refuse the royalties offered by a Boston publisher trying to steal the song from Texans.
213 strikes me as crazy, but also incredibly British for some reason.
One question I've had: has the (even worse than it was) collapse in the academic job market lead to a reduction in the number of PhD students admitted? I mean, it seems to me that in, say, history or english, there should probably only be 4-5 institutions total granting PhDs. I realize that the incentives cut in the other direction (hire people to teach for peanuts, hire research slaves, who cares about how they fare on the other end) but surely dramatic reductions in the size of the incoming classes is the only long term solution.
229: In my field, it has not. However, being a technical field, a significant number of PhDs get jobs in industry.
Musing aloud about doing less-than-all-out to help the person you're talking to is bad. Good luck, AWB.
And writing a play for a party that has characters based on guests is just-- well, it's clearly worse than awkward silence or forcing the guests to play croquet with your completely excellent mallets. Writing a play for a party at all seems completely insufferable. much worse than surprise forced karaoke. Maybe its a Britishism?
208: What aspect of AWB's situation do you think is particularly "heartless"?
The whole "it is my job to help you and I'm hurting you" aspect of it.
It is not just advisors who fuck you over in academe, though.
I think what drives me apeshit is the combination of (1) proximity (2) power imbalance and (3) informality. I'm right here in front of you--you aren't an anonymous Apple factory worker in China--I'm talking to you like you are a human being with rights, and now I'm going to treat you like a servant.
Maybe its a Britishism?
No, it's a cretinism.
Isn't the real measurement point on the social scale whether you can meet 25 interesting people you like to hang out with, in 2s, 3s, or 4s, whatever the music happens to be?
Sure, but this has virtually nothing to do with the city, and depends primarily on the people in the department, and the other students in the program.
Quality of life, your friends are the most important thing. Exploring a neat city in a foreign country with your new friends, the museums/live music/outdoors pretty space becomes the important criteria, right?
I don't think it's a British thing, or not in the circles I move in. Making people play themselves in the play, even more of an arsehole thing to do. It wouldn't entirely surprise me if some people here have heard of this guy, either. Academically, I mean.
Wasn't it basically overnight? And there was no meet-up? I don't see how this counts.
Oh, it totally doesn't, and as I said several times above my impressions of Austin are not to be relied on. Still, though, it was long enough to notice the heat and the sprawl.
The panhandle is boring-looking (I think, haven't been to that part)
This is a common impression, and there's some truth to it, but the Panhandle is actually considerably more varied and interesting topographically than you might think.
Academic advising seems shockingly bad, and I've been lucky, for the most part, in my mentors, but it ain't a bed of roses in the private sector, either, folks.
Sure, that was what I was thinking in 210. It's not that it's a bed of roses, but no one tells you anyone's going to be looking after you, so it's not a disappointment when it doesn't happen. (Well, actually, I suppose at the firms I worked at there was supposed to be a partner looking after me. But this wasn't communicated in a way that suggested that I was supposed to believe it, so it wasn't a shock when it failed to pan out.)
[N]o one tells you anyone's going to be looking after you, so it's not a disappointment when it doesn't happen.
And on the occasions when somebody does look out for you a bit, however imperfectly, it means a great deal.
I tried to be a good adviser and guide to the associates and legal assistants who had to work for me, but I am sure was never as good to them as the Nice Partner (now retired, God bless him) was to me.
Huh. On introspection, I find that I'm still sad and cranky about my inability to attract/find/acquire mentorship while I was in a series of law firms. I should be over that by now, really.
234.2(b) -- Oh sure. But this doesn't distinguish any of these places, really. (OK, I haven't been to Ithaca, but know enough about the other 3 to say that there's not such a shortage of opportunities for exploration with new friends as to be relevant.)
234.1 -- And outside the U community: joining a hiking group, or outrigger team, or some such thing is a quality of life enhancer way way (imo) superior to how close to some edge or another the local bands are trending.
240.2 -- I never gave as good as I got either, but it's easy to fall into thinking that having a charmed life is more than luck, that these things were earned. And I could never have given as good as I got anyway . . .
I haven't been to Ithaca, but know enough about the other 3 to say that there's not such a shortage of opportunities for exploration with new friends as to be relevant.
This may actually be something that distinguishes Ithaca from the other options. Ithaca's a lot smaller than the other three, and it's not close to any big cities either.
And outside the U community: joining a hiking group, or outrigger team, or some such thing is a quality of life enhancer way way (imo) superior to how close to some edge or another the local bands are trending.
Sure, but that's the advice you give someone on why they shouldn't be depressed that they're moving to Bumfuck, Nowhere.
If you wanted advice on the best city to live in Brazil for two years, would you really want advice on making local friends and joining a futbol team?
237: Indeed, I did some superficial googling and there are beautiful canyons and stuff. In my head, it all looked like Thalia/Anarene in The Last Picture Show (book/movie. I've never figured out why they renamed it for the movie. Thalia is a stand-in for Archer City and Anarene is apparently a nearby ghost town.)
I once acted sort of as a mentor to a high school kid who worked for me as a programmer years ago. I tried to convince him to aim higher as far as degree programs, and tried to help him realize he was a much better programmer than I am and could really do interesting things. Also, I let him drive my car once. Now he has a business reprogramming ECUs for that kind of car. Oh well, close enough.
There's often a tradeoff between size of city/ease of making friends, which, depending on your personality, might favor Ithaca.
But, really, rereading the OP, just go to Austin. If you're getting a pointless second masters and the idea is just to bum around in a pleasant way for a while in the US, why go to someplace cold? Whatever its pluses/minuses, Austin seems like a great place to hang out in bars for 2 years while getting a meaningless degree, and it's a way more fun place than Pittsburgh or DC.
208 Why are so many successful academics such screaming assholes? Is this really just the level of asshole behavior that would be normal in business, and we are only surprised to see it crop up in the education sector, or is there something about the institution that rewards utter heartlessness?
So, I'm in the middle of a job interview where there is one camp that openly tells me I'm their favored candidate, and is giving me advice like "this guy is strongly opposed to you because he wants to dominate the group in X and is actively trying to keep anyone interested in X from being hired. So when you talk to him, pretend like you'll do lots of work for him and act a little bit subservient but not so subservient that he can veto you for not having your own ideas." And I'm like... wtf? I feel like I'm suddenly in the middle of the kind of crappy dramatic interpersonal bullshit that I thought I had left behind when I graduated from college. Like, work out your issues on your own, guys, I'm just going to try to answer the interview questions honestly and let you sort it out.
246: Never registered that it was a different name in the movie. According to Wikipedia: Director Peter Bogdanovich intended the film as an homage to Howard Hawks' Red River, set in Abilene, Kansas, and chose the name Anarene to evoke a correspondence.
174 Is it exclusively Assistant Professors moving around?
I just found out one of those is being interviewed for the job I want most. Furthermore, he's a collaborator of mine, and has letters from more important old people, so everyone will think our mutual work is mostly his instead of at-least-half mine. I like the guy, but I can't help feeling slightly betrayed.
248.2: Have we established that we are not advising a phantom? And this was pretty much my logic in recommending Austin in 33.
Why are so many successful academics people such screaming assholes?
I'm just going to try to answer the interview questions honestly and let you sort it out.
So you didn't get the job, huh.
At this point I think we've given about all the advice we can without knowing more about the questioner.
252: But who was first author on the papers?
256 is correct now, and has been for quite some time.
248.2 underappreciates the fun to be had in DC, but it really depends on what a person likes.
Think of it as an instinctual equivalent to the routing of the vagus nerve.
The questioner should take up yoga, also go ahead and indulge in either mindless video games or bouts of anxious rage once or twice a week.
OT: Hey, that girl wrote me back! She suggested a couple of potential restaurants and a time for lunch on Wednesday with a brief summary of her post-lunch schedule.
brief summary of her post-lunch schedule
IYKWIM.
Congrats!!
At exactly what time did she press "send"?
a brief summary of her post-lunch schedule.
Hmm.
There's a very particular skill involved in finding a joke so obvious that someone else is definitely going to make it, but doing it faster. If I could monetize being able to make predictable cracks at high speed, I wouldn't have to pretend to work.
257: Our field's convention is alphabetical order.
I got the e-mail at 2:48, almost 17 hours after her "I'll e-mail you later" text.
I think the "later I have to x and y..." portion of her message was nicely politic: she has a pre-stated excuse to run if I gross her out without giving me a negative impression if I don't. Well played, really.
she has a pre-stated excuse to run if I gross her out
Apo would take that as a challenge.
I got the e-mail at 2:48, almost 17 hours after her "I'll e-mail you later" text.
Oh, you're totally getting laid.
161: Huh, it turns out that Murray was talking about the true Real America after all. His prototypical poor white neighborhood is Fishtown, a neighborhod in Philadelphia. I doubt they watch much NASCAR there, though.
Fishtown sounds smelly.
There's a town in Kentucky or Ohio called Berea which sounds kind of gross to me.
271: I once engaged in off-blog communication with a front-page poster from just outside Berea, on my way to the much-worse-named Pa/nt L/ck, in which the / is an I in both cases. I'm now tempted to go look at what lead levels are in the kids there.
There's a neighborhood here known as Pigtown; I've never really determined why, nor have I been there, to my knowledge (though it's not as though they have signs posted). I've gotten the impression that this kind of neighborhood-naming thing is distinctive of the Mid-Atlantic. I may be wrong.
Pretty sure the naming of neighborhoods is universal.
I think it used to be smelly, but there is nothing fish-related about it now. I heard that it's beginning to gentrify, so it's probably not really a good example for Murray to use.
208
Yes. But as "The Wire" illustrated so well, it's because the institution sets up perverse incentives at every stage.
There are so few jobs and so many candidates. Reading applications takes a lot of time for little individual reward, and judging them even more so. So search committee members are always looking for shortcuts. One such (not so terrible) shortcut is to compare different candidates' letters from the same letter writer to see which one is better. And every letter writer, clearly but without ever saying so, indicates an implicit ranking of candidates. Another (more terrible) shortcut is to just look at the school. It might not be the case that the person from an elite school is better than a person from a non-elite school, but you're more likely to find a hit. And even if it's not true that elite school candidates are better on average, you won't be criticized if your elite school candidate goes bust (but she had good credentials!) but you will be if your non-elite candidate goes belly up.
Two, a tight job market has led to rampant recommendation letter inflation. And only the most glowing of glowing recommendation letters will make it to the interview stage. No exaggeration, we'll get at least 10 people with letters that say they're the best of their generation (Woebegone on steroids). In this environment, calling someone very good is the same as saying that they should be waiting tables. And letter writers know that they can reliably get jobs for at most one of the people they are recommending. So they maximize their odds by choosing who that person is and ranking the rest accordingly.
I was shocked when I learned exactly how arbitrary the faculty hiring process really was. A bunch of overworked people making snap judgements based on minimal information with perverse incentive. Sounds awesome.
a reduction in the number of PhD students admitted?
In history this has happened in a number of programs, coinciding with the decision among the Ivy-esque schools to fund everyone they admit for a 4-5 year package, unlike in the past when they'd admit more people and apparently there would be a lot of competition for funding after the first or second year. I don't know if this results in fewer phds from these programs on the market afterwards.
However, other schools have actually started or expanded phd programs, so there's no real coordination. The two tier thing - where some schools prefer candidates with more teaching experience while others want the more conventional top student from a top program where the teaching load for students is usually smaller - is apparently true in history, but this just means that there are two lotteries where lots of people don't get jobs and you can play both of them, but you have to make sure you know which one you're playing at any given moment.
269: 17 hours is good? I was just getting Zen about it and now I'm anxious all over again.
278: slightly more than 17 hours would have been fine. Slightly less than 17 hours? Well, anything could happen. I wouldn't overly stress.
We have Dogtown, Frogtown, and Boystown, but Dogtown doesn't really exist anymore.
You have to convert it to seconds and see if it's a prime number. Prime is good. If the only factors are a prime number and three, also good. Anything with a seven in it, don't bother showing up for lunch.
I thought everyone learned this in middle school.
Slightly less than 17 hours means you better start emailing her nudes or you don't stand a chance.
17 hours is good? I was just getting Zen about it and now I'm anxious all over again.
It's 17 hours combined with the 2:48 pm. She probably isn't totally hepped up on goofballs right now, but you can tell she swings.
281: I hope I've learned at least enough not to take dating advice from married dudes.
274: I meant naming them in such mundane and seemingly unflattering ways. But right, St. L has a Dogtown, and I didn't really think it was confined to this region; I was just surprised by it when I moved here.
I hope I've learned at least enough not to take dating advice from married dudes.
Hey, he wasn't always married. He must have had at least one successful date.
And letter writers know that they can reliably get jobs for at most one of the people they are recommending.
My adviser's approach to admitting students was to only admit at a rate where he thought he could place them at the end of the program. So some years he just didn't take anyone.
This jacket plus make sure you mention that you know a place real close by that always has magnums. You're welcome.
My adviser's approach to admitting students was to only admit at a rate where he thought he could place them at the end of the program.
It definitely seems like some kind of coordinated approach to mandate that result is needed. Could the professional associations intervene? Or are the incentives for the grad programs to keep admitting students/retain the prestige of being PhD granting institutions just too great?
How many would be a reasonable total number of US English PhDs/year? 35?
278: I was just getting Zen about it and now I'm anxious all over again.
Dude: everything rides on which of the several restaurants she suggested you endorse and agree to.
288 gets it right. The first couple of times I hung out with Blume there were other commenters there, too. You should figure out who you're going to bring with you, Flip. Maybe Smearcase and LB?
I am free for lunch Wednesday. Smearcase?
273 - There used to be a hog-butchering abattoir in the neighborhood. Similiarly, Greektown...
288: I don't remember it well enough to search it, but there's a comment from Sifu detailing the hilariously Unfogged-focused nature of their first date somewhere in the archives.
"No, I don't know these people. Why do you ask? They are complete strangers and obviously insane. Waiter!"
295 got accidentally posted instead of being private.
296: Yeah, I figured as much. Similar to the area known as Butcher's (or Butchers') Hill here. "Pigtown", though, I would think a neighborhood would eventually want to rename, very gradually of course, so as not to upset the old folks ....
I really should invent a pseud for my pseud before writing some of these job-hunting comments.
301 - In high school, I thought it was because there was an ironworks on the site (which is also true). You could pretend!
292: In my field, it wouldn't work, I think. First, we are not that organized, and probably too big. Second, Ph.D. progress is too unpredictable. Last, there is certainly going to be pressure in some departments and schools to admit many more, since Ph.D. students are also labor.
To top off my general anxiousness, I got an email from my advisor today saying "why didn't you apply to [school]? [person there] just called me complaining that he was prepared to make a case for you!" But I guess it's too late to apply now and smooth things over. Maybe they could have, like, asked? I was being stupid and assuming tenure there would be impossible so I ruled it out early for no good reason.
What is the approximate age of this woman, Flippanter?
305: ooooh that's frustrating. Maybe you should apply now for the hell of it? Or email [person there] and explain the deal?
I was being stupid and assuming tenure there would be impossible so I ruled it out early for no good reason.
Can you say this to your advisor and the contact, and then eagerly apply? It could come off as sufficiently self-effacing to allow an exception, if there were possibly exceptions allowed.
299: They are complete strangers and obviously insane. Waiter!
"Quiet, sir. Otherwise everybody will be wanting their own."
Or email [person there] and explain the deal?
This. The people in the world who aren't bastards are generally fairly reasonable and understand how shit like that happens.
One of the Ivies apparently went something like a decade or two without tenuring a single person in history. They hired junior faculty, but all the tenured positions went to people coming in with tenure. The junior faculty pretty much knew they'd get 4-7 years and then need to find somewhere else.
303: Heh. That was the other possibility I'd entertained. I can't decide whether it's unbearably SWPL (gah) of me to find the "Pigtown" name problematic.
Poor Flip may be desperately raking through any information he can possibly find about the restaurants suggested for lunch. What will it say about me if I choose this one? Why is this on meeee? Maybe I should tell her that this is too much, and she must choose! No no, that's too indecisive, unmanly even. What time is it? How long do I have to make this decision before replying?
Uh, sorry, Biohazard and other older commenters.
Oh hi, Flip. What did you decide, for the restaurant?
316: And remarkably well-preserved for a man of his years.
One of the Ivies apparently went something like a decade or two without tenuring a single person in history. They hired junior faculty, but all the tenured positions went to people coming in with tenure. The junior faculty pretty much knew they'd get 4-7 years and then need to find somewhere else.
Almost precisely comparable to Chelsea Football Club.
319: I responded politely indicating that I had no particular preference w/r/t the restaurants, but that only one had a table available at a convenient time.
321. Which of the Ivies is run by Russian gangsters?
You don't have the kind of pull that would get a table produced for you at whichever you chose?
324: Nice job making a fella feel good about himself there, bro.
325. Don't let it bother you. It'd only end with the Post Office getting firebombed.
I came away thinking that he was a total cunt; as not only was he a fucking cock of a supervisor, he also knew it.
Your expertly-crafted Scots persona is in tatters, Douglas Feith.
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OMG to the student right here. A calculus student.
First he factored
t^2 + t
as (t+1)(t-0)
which, okay, is a bit weird but not wrong.
But now he's continuing to use (t+1)(t-0) in all of the subsequent steps, and it's preventing him from seeing that there is a "t" in the numerator that will cancel.
And I keep prodding him to simplify his work.
|>
323 - Cornell, but keep it on the q.t.
328. I think he just failed the Turing test.
At least he hasn't gotten to (t + 1)(t + t^2 - t^2 - 0) = (t+1)((t +1)(t - 0) - t^2 - 0) yet.
ttaM, was this bloke in Oxford? Do tell me who he was; if I don't know him someone I know will.
Also, is this Charles Murray a real person? Whenever I've seen the name, I've just thought, hmm weird, little boy from A Wrinkle in Time and ignored it. But he seems to have a lot of opinions.
328: Wait, you're making fun of him while he's there? That's awesome.
Sometimes I'll get an entire page of math using sqrt(9)/3.
316: But he looks surprisingly younger. Must be the painting in the attic.
Regarding curious neighborhood names, there's a part of town called Fifeville that has a reputation for being a rougher area, which I always envision means if you walk there late at night alone, you might be chased by flute-wielding gangs.
313 sounds kind of charmingly innocent in phrasing it as if this was a peculiarity of one Ivy in history and not, like, a few Ivies in every department.
333. Asilon, you must of heard of The Bell Curve, the last gasp of scientific racism, fairly notorious at the time? He was one of the authors.
the last gasp of scientific racism
You are so optimistic!
Wait, you're making fun of him while he's there? That's awesome.
Me? Of course not. I need a second-pseud to mock my students while they're right here.
307, 311: They've already made a shortlist and interviewed most of their candidates, so I think it's a little late.
342. I thought the new line was that if the science and the racism conflicted, then science was wrong.
340: They all have pretty poor records in history, as far as I know, but this was supposed to have been extraordinarily bad. From some quick googling, it must have been Harvard, which apparently doesn't (or didn't) even pretend to have a tenure track. Although I guess they did tenure one person over a 20 year period.
A friend of mine maintained that several German cities would have been impossible for him to consider visiting because of their names, first on the list being Darmstadt. I suppose Wikipedia can even tell me how it got the name, as part of its mission to make the world totally boring.
211: My relationship with my advisor is probably 90% my fault -- he's never denied me a reasonable request; I just don't ask -- and I've already made up my mind to leave after dissertating, so I don't apply most of the rules for a live career. (That said, knowing I'll run out of funding in six months is one thing; actually having it happen is going to be another. I bet I take it hard. I have one chance left to get another year's worth of support before I go look for, most probably, part-time employment.) But of course you are right on the whole. It should have occurred to me that the potential advisor who seemed to need/demand a lot of little things from his advisees might be *less* high-maintenance than the hands-off guy I chose. And congratulations on your job, even if it is not Berkeley.
And oh I don't know, congratulations to everyone else who has managed to persevere in academia, even under the worst conditions. I admire you all much more than I congratulate myself for staying out of the abattoir.
Berea is charming, as I remember it. There's a college there that charges no tuition but has the students work in various jobs including waiting tables at Boone Tavern. We used to live 20 minutes away and would eat at Boone Tavern, famous for spoon bread which is totally delicious. I think Churchill Weavers was also in Berea. They made lovely things like these chenille throws I have two of. Also I don't have a good visual memory of it but that part of Kentucky is generally hilly and pretty.
Pa/nt L/ck (I never know what to googleproof but Thorn did) is way less charming. I spent some time there because my best friend in middle school, who I didn't like (pickins were slim) lived there.
Literally translated, the current German name Darmstadt means "Intestine City." This is just a coincidence however, and the origins of the name are unknown
OK, now she has responded again, this time stating that she had already made parallel reservations at the two restaurants and selecting the one towards which I indicated a slight inclination.
I don't understand women.
351: whoah, she has an identical twin? HOTT!
There's one or two pretty amazing pottery places between Berea and Richmond I believe.
Don't listen to Tweety, he's fucking with you. The other woman will be his mother, and which restaurant you show up at determines the rest of your life.
351: I like her. No mystery, she just had the sense to know that she couldn't count on a reservation staying open while the two of you settled on a restaurant, and didn't want the options to close off.
And she is apparently interested enough to not want logistical difficulties to interfere with your lunch. Straightforwardly analyzing that (rather than just giving you shit) it looks promising.
Both of the restaurants will be wired to explode. If you pick the right one, you can save your date and you'll be a hero forever. If you pick the other one, you'll save NYC Transportation Commissioner Janette Sadik Khan, and ensure increased pedestrian safety for decades to come. But WHICH WILL YOU CHOOSE? And IS IT A TRAP?
Unless the woman in question is Janette Sadik Khan, I guess. In which case, sweet!
Wired to explode with love, that is. Or with fury, should you pick wrong.
Of course it's a trap. The question is whether it's an ambush.
351: You should respond by saying you've now canceled the parallel date you set up with another woman.
Uh-oh. This is a test.
I know it's all meant in good fun, but H-G is convincing me that it would be a bad idea to say anything on unfogged if I ever find myself preparing for a date.
Of course it's an ambush. The question is whether or not you'll be taken captive alive.
I know it's all meant in good fun, but H-G is convincing me that it would be a bad idea to say anything on unfogged if I ever find myself preparing for a date.
What? What's wrong with a little relentless bullying?
Flip we should come up with a code in case you are under durress and unable to comment freely.
"I LIKE CROCS" will mean "things are dire, send help immediately"
"I LOVE YOU GUYS" will mean "I have died"
"RTFA" will mean "coitus imminent"
"You'll never take me alive, attractive and age-appropriate well-educated woman in the arts!"
361 - With the same woman's clone from the Mirror Universe. Which is nice, because Flippanter wasn't into her goatee.
Bullying? Bullying?!? We're helping Flip transcend his fears by implanting elaborate, less plausible new ones.
367: but oh no -- waxing and a face-merkin -- it's STILL a trap!
I know it's all meant in good fun, but H-G is convincing me that it would be a bad idea to say anything on unfogged if I ever find myself preparing for a date.
Hey, I've never found this place to be anything but supportive when I've mentioned my dating experiences here.
Then again, I'm generally wise enough to only do so *afterwards*.
And it's the kind of face-merkin where you remove your whole head-skin to reveal a decaying corpse with buzzing flies.
We're not bullying, we're saying "bully for you!"
See, after 371, when she peels off her face to reveal slitted pupils and the scaly green skin of the Snake Lords, Flip will be relieved, rather than terrified.
"What a joy to behold your squamous visage, madam!"
Then he'll write up the sexy after-lunch in comic book form.
I just noticed I put the "durr" in "duress" above.
356: Yeah, I'm inclined to like her too. So far, competent w/ no BS.
now she has responded again, this time stating that she had already made parallel reservations at the two restaurants and selecting the one towards which I indicated a slight inclination.
She is trying to prevent you from canceling on her! She is probably getting advice from her blog! Quick someone search the internet to find her conversation about Flippanter.
Wait. Now she sounds needed. You should cancel immediately.
Sounds like she's building up a healthy false sense of security with the crew! Probably nothing to fear here, Flip!
[Sigh.]
I'm sure you people mean well.
Just be sure not to give her a nickname that's a plausible horse name.
Let's call her Lunchy. That doesn't sound anything like a horse name.
349: I'm googleproofing because it seems so small that connecting it to my fake internet name felt weird. That's normal, right? (Rowan is no longer there, though he's now in an even more hilariously named town.)
Churchill Weavers is awesome, as are many of the craft places there.
I can't tell whether this thread is making me feel better about having given up on academia, or worse, because, Jesus, look at how ridiculous that system is, and how obvious it was even 5 years ago that things were never going to work out for me, and yet I still haven't come up with anything else to do or to be, or even really let go of the identity of "failed academic."
Ugh. I should really get out and bike, but I've come down with a nasty cold, just two weeks after I recovered from the last one. Goddamnit.
On the other hand, this weather is great. If the OP really exists, why didn't they try for the Bay Area, instead?
[Flip, this sounds like a bright and level headed person who wants to see if she wants to know you better. Chill.]
Flip, this sounds like a bright and level headed person who wants to see if she wants to know you better. Chill.
Flip, I trust you're reading the subtext here, right?
Flip, I hope you're listening to all the people telling you to calm down and chill out. Seriously. Calm. Be calm. Right now. Chill out. No, listen. Listen. You're not being chill. FLIP. FLIP. CALM THE FUCK DOWN. NOW!
335: That could as well have been me. Not always because I don't see it, but because I would regularly get docked points for moving too fast, and applying transformations the grader couldn't follow until I explained what I was doing.
So since I didn't know exactly how much work to show, I was afraid to make more than one alteration at a time.
392: In the future, it's okay to simplify (t-0) to just plain t.
Flip, look. Just don't call Lunchy "Lunchy" during lunch, and you and Lunchy will lunch happily, lunch lunch.
Oh my gosh, definitely don't call her "lunchy". Remember that. At no point should you call her "lunchy". Not even once. "Lunchy" is off limits. Watch yourself on this. Calling her "lunchy" could be disastrous, so you'll have to be extremely vigilant.
"Lunchy" it is! Wait, no! I AM CALM, DAMN IT!
||
My work habits are almost entirely driven by procrastination and dread. I'm in a bit of a lull now, and had been keeping the dread going by not getting some small but vital tasks done.
I just accidentally finished all of them, and don't have anything undone and looming except filing. I'm not quite sure how to handle that. Without the dread, my office feels unfamiliar.
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397. Indeed, appellations that would be less disastrous than "lunchy" include "Hot legs", "Sweet tits" and "chickiebiddie". Remember this.
399. Do you still have a job, as such?
401: Excellent, there's the dread back again. Thanks!
Without the dread, my office feels unfamiliar.
I CAN SEE YOU THROUGH YOUR WINDOW.
Without the dread, my office feels unfamiliar.
Get up, go for a walk -- get some water or, if you can, leave the building and get a coffee/tea.
Take a moment to savor the absence of not only dread but also the feeling that you are supposed to be sitting at your computer fretting until the work is done.
Oh yeah, we used to go on school field trips to the pottery place. My mother is keeping a lovely set of their dishes for the day I live somewhere with better cabinet space.
OP here.
First off: sorry heebie, I had just set that address as default with the "send as" gmail feature to try and get a free suscription to a database using my old school address (didn't work), and forgot to change it back.
I also apologize for not replying earlier; went to the beach and came back about an hour ago or so, so just went to the thread.
On to additional information, if anyone cares to read at this point: from the last paragraph you've probably figured out I live somewhere in the tropics, and you would be right as I live in D.R. I'm 26, an economist, had a dead-end rolling contract job at an IO here for the past 3 years, just recently got a contract with a similarly crappy contract but which might not be as dead-ended, and has so far proved quite the learning experience.
However, I've been wanting to get out of here for a while now, dreaming of going back to Europe (lived in Glasgow for a bit), but the scholarship situation there is pretty grim with the crisis and all. The U.S. scholarship is money in the bag, and those are the four places I could go to.
Cold and grey would be a problem; heat would not. I'm very much into indie music but a decent music scene is more than plenty. Easy access to arthouse/indie cinema would be a plus. Isolation would definitely be a problem; if I'm there I want to move around and see as much of the country (or the east, at least) as I can.
City needs to be walkable/cycleable or have at least good public transportation, as no way in hell would I be getting a car, no matter where I live. A 1 hour commute is a short one by my standards if on a bus/train (i.e., not stuck in traffic. I quite enjoy strolling around taking pictures, cycling, and outdoor sports in general. I like salsa dancing at clubs and whatnot, but in general am perfectly happy having a drinks or coffee with a group of interesting people (interesting as in artsy-but-not-full-of-themselves, liberal, talkative, easy-going types; if I'm forced to spend much time around people anywhere near the tea-party spectrum I might have a stroke by the end of the first year).
The opera is something I've never had a chance to experience but might be nice; big fan of museums, ballet, and theater, but as long as there are a few opportunities to experience one or the other from time to time I should be happy enough (there are very few where I live now). Professional networking/job opportunities after grad really would be a factor, let's say a 1/3 weight with everything else accounting for the rest. So far Austin seems like a winner, with CP a close second mostly on the strength of career advancement benefits (how hard is it, really, to live in DC and commute to CP?).
245 had me laughing out loud. Bumfuck, Nowhere is pretty close to how I feel about my current location.
Flip, exerting care to make her life convenient without controlling her is excellent. Only Jeeves is allowed stalking & mind reading, though.
407: Cold and grey would be a problem
Pittsburgh's right out, with Ithaca close behind.
410: I would have put it in the other order, but yeah. Check those two right off the list.
Sounds like Austin, BUT -- without knowing anything about your field -- if you're interested in something like "international development" or working with some US-based NGO or something like that, it seems like 90% of that stuff is in DC.
Takoma Park, either side of the line. Silver Spring maybe.
I've been ragging a bit on Texas, mostly to bug Heebie, but seriously if you want to get out of town much, and not have a car, I think you might find DC a better base for that.
I kind of like the grey. The sun annoys me.
So far Austin seems like a winner, with CP a close second mostly on the strength of career advancement benefits
Yeah, it sounds like either Austin or DC would suit you pretty well. One thing you'll definitely want to get some clarification on (from someone who knows more about it than me) is the walkability of Austin. It's definitely not one of the more walkable cities in the US, but just how difficult it would be to get around without a car is something you'll need to learn before making the choice.
I like natural light, just not too much at once.
411: For the cold certainly, and from this map(s)*, it looks like Ithaca is closer on the cloudy than I imagined.
*The slideshow of month-by-month maps is worth a look if you are at all of that mind.
The couple of times I went out to CP, I was living near the Columbia Heights station on the green line. Not actually a very long metro ride, and then shuttle onto campus. You could bike that last part, I bet.
I don't know first hand, but Heebie makes Austin without a car sound difficult. Given that Ithaca and Pittsburgh are ruled out on climate, I'd say DC.
Heebie makes Austin without a car sound difficult.
True, but some of the comments upthread make it sound not so hard. So yeah, I dunno.
The obvious answer is to move to Austin and get a horse.
I hear you've got one that's an easy ride, Stanley.
423: We're deciding the future course of people's lives here, neb! Have some respect.
The maps in 418 are awesome. What a great resource!
IMO DC also sucks it without a car. I mean, you can get around by metro well enough to work and back no problem (though I've never been to College Park), but if you ever want to explore a wider range, hit up different grocery stores, or whatever a having car is pretty life-changing on weekends. Nb. I am generally pro-car, but still.
Yes, 418 is generally awesome. Don't live there! Only go to the PNW in the summer! Lots of wisdom therein.
To 407, DC is a good place to live without a car generally. I'd think you could live in the District on a student budget and get to College Park via mass transit and keep it well under an hour. Scores high on museums, local theater, and free or low-priced cultural opportunities generally.
Many people in their 20s seem to have social lives of roughly the kind you describe, though I can't really confirm that from personal experience. ("Artsy-but-not-full-of-themselves" is a tall order. "Liberal," that's easy. Also, you can definitely find people who are full of themselves but not artsy.) Professional networking is a local specialty.
Winters are mild (sometimes ridiculously so) from the perspective of someone who grew up in the NYC and Chicago areas.
I don't have any basis to compare to Austin, about which I've heard good things generally.
(On preview, to 426, I think if you're talking about comparing living without a car to other American cities, and NYC isn't on the table, DC's pretty good. Certainly still true that if you have a car and like using it there are more places you can go.)
I agree with everyone that it should be Austin or DC. Note that from DC you can easily see Baltimore, Philly, New York, and even Boston or Atlanta, while from Austin you can't see anything.
It sounds like your enoy day-to-day life more in Austin, but DC offers more in other ways.
Living without a car is a lot easier in your 20s than it is if you have kids, furniture, or a bunch of older friends who have the above.
I'm really thinking DC now. It makes career sense--but also Stapleton can travel by bus or train to other fine places to visit. If he were in Austin, he'd pretty much have to fly to leave town, right? The Chinatown bus from DC to NYC is $20.*
*Presuming, of course, that you make it there in one piece.
The DC-NY bus lines are probably something Murray didn't factor into his "have you taken the bus more than 50 miles" question. Though I guess he did specify Greyhound (I'm not going back to check).
I don't know first hand, but Heebie makes Austin without a car sound difficult.
Keep in mind, I don't live in Austin. We're about 40 minutes away. Jammies commutes into Austin and I commute the opposite direction.
As a grad student, I could have been pretty fine without a car, except that I adore hyper-twee thrift stores, which are spread out all over the entire town.
but in general am perfectly happy having a drinks or coffee with a group of interesting people (interesting as in artsy-but-not-full-of-themselves, liberal, talkative, easy-going types;
Really, Austin is great. To be honest, Austin and DC would both be a lot of fun.
It sounds like your enoy day-to-day life more in Austin, but DC offers more in other ways.
I think this is fair.
431: I'm also thinking DC now; although Austin seems like it would be a better fit in terms of what I look for in terms of general living, DC seems to more than make up for that in terms of geographical mobility and career advancement opportunities.
436: Is there a way to visit before deciding? Getting a good vibe from the people in the department would trump everything else.
Only go to the PNW in the summer!
That's not true at all.
Summer is, of course, completely gorgeous. But Spring and Autumn are both quite nice. It's really only winter when the combination of short daylight hours and constant clouds makes it feel like there's no natural light at all.
I had no problem living in DC without a car. Supermarkets, specialty stores, bookstores, hardware stores, pharmacies, tons of restaurants and bars, all within a ten minute walk. Decent subway system augmented with a comprehensive bus network. And if you're looking to network on anything IO or development/policy NGO related, you really don't want to be anywhere in the US other than DC or NYC, with DC being better in that regard. The only reason to own a car in DC proper is for leaving town, and that's what rentals are for. Just make sure you get a location on the right subway line. Weather sort of sucks - winter is like northwestern Europe (France, Switzerland, southern England) and summer is hot and humid. Spring and fall are nice, but sometimes brief.
The PNW is totally overrated. Nobody go. Bugger off. (Official Lesser Seattle attitude.)
The PNW is totally overrated. Nobody go. Bugger off. (Official Lesser Seattle attitude.)
The PNW has a spring?
Spring does start out cold and wet and feeling like Winter with more sunlight (and a bit warmer, but not enough to get away without a coat. But then there's a period when things warm up a bit, there's some clear weather and sunlight and all of sudden the entire world is luscious and green and showing new growth. That's pretty nice.
Yeah I don't think it's a problem exactly to live in DC with no car, just that if you had no access to a car even on weekends, you'd be leaving an awful lot on the table in terms of experience and the town seems a lot smaller. So I wouldn't rely on that factor alone for not living in Austin, which is also super easy on a bike and reasonably OK for public transport (so I've heard, anyway).
If you have a desire to work for some kind of international economic NGO or something, though, it's not even a close call whatsoever -- that's all in DC.
But then there's a period when things warm up a bit, there's some clear weather and sunlight and all of sudden the entire world is luscious and green and showing new growth. That's pretty nice.
Oh yes, that's the season we're in right now. Enjoy your winter, haters.
Just to start a fight, I really really do think that winter in Portland, OR is unbearable. I mean we all know about the advantages the city has (i.e. no black people) but the super dark, unrelenting fog that I've seen there in the wintertime would drive me insane very quickly. Seattle is way better by comparison.
I know that parenthetical in 446 is meant in jest, but I still started at it.
Started to think about moving there? Racist.
So did I. Halford is one weird motherfucker, humor-wise. Nevermind his desire to watch football and gorge on lions all day long. Or maybe that's someone else.
I haven't been to Portland in the winter, but I've liked both Eugene and Seattle on winter visits. On the other hand, I think the pacific northwest is awesome, but Portland is over-rated, so perhaps I should just agree with you.
I completely agree though that much Portlandphilia is driven by racism. "Portland has a great public transportation system" really means that the busses have white people on them.
the super dark, unrelenting fog that I've seen there in the wintertime
Try Paris.
I moved there directly from California. Afterwards New York's gusty 30c seemed fucking balmy.
Actually looking at Wikipedia Portland's black population is roughly 7.8 percent of the total, and in LA it's 9.6%. So not a huge difference there on a percentage basis. The big difference is that Portland OR is more than 70% nonhispanic white which is an extremely high proportion for a major American city.
Try Michigan; I moved there directly from Florida and sunk into a pretty depressed state, on and off for the next four years.
I've lived in Paris for a winter, and Portland seems way way worse. But I've only visited a few times in winter.
437: It would have to come out of my currently violently empty pocket, so no.
It looks like D.C., but I hope I'll be able to make it to the super-fun Austin meetups, though.
"Portland has a great public transportation system" really means that the busses have white people on them.
Remember that really there are shit-tastic public buses.
When I lived in San Diego (having moved there from Berkeley), I assumed that the bus that went to the mall that took 10 minutes by car would take, maybe, 20 minutes by bus. Try one hour.
I know from shitty transportation. I have taken lots and lots of shitty public transportation in my life--buses at 8 pm from Long Island to Queens, from which I walked home, sometimes.
The buses in Southern California really are terrible. (And of course nobody with access to a car or a carshare or anything would ever take the bus. Only poor people who are physically exhausted at the ends of their days.)
Try Paris.
Strasbourg's worse! (Luckily I was coming from central PA, so I didn't really notice much of a difference.)
I assumed that the bus that went to the mall that took 10 minutes by car would take, maybe, 20 minutes by bus. Try one hour.
When I first lived in Omaha, I assumed that the bus that went to the biggest mall would run later than 6 pm on a Saturday night. It did not. That was a tedious 8 mile walk home. In leather-soled shoes. At least the weather was nice.
456: What makes buses shit-tastic? Do they fly over traffic while spewing rainbows through the muffler?
I mean, as long as they're clean, in fairly good shape, and on time, they're perfect. I'd assume that's pretty common as far as major US cities go.
I personally have an aversion to the bus, because I'm an evil bastard and grew up with a truly terrible bus system, but the buses in LA have now gotten to be actually pretty good -- as some may recall, I liveblogged my experience on one once, but it would only take me about 10 minutes more to get to work by bus than by driving, the stop is very close to my house (which isn't at all in a particularly transit-centric neighborhood), etc. I think it would be pretty feasible to get around by bus, certainly for a daily commute, if one could get over the mentality that riding the bus is only for the poor and desperate and an inherently unpleasant experience.
San Diego has genuinely terrible public transit. But is Portland better than LA or Oakland or St. Louis?
Spring in the PNW is long and at first indistinguishable from the winter. It's just slightly brighter varieties of constant well-nigh unmeasurable precipitation. It does have lovely consequences come later in said spring and through the summer.
450: that the busses have white people on them
It's not unusual for me to be the only white person on the bus here in MPLS, but given how often I ride the bus, it isn't usually something I notice right away. When I'm in other cities though, it always seems very obvious to me when I am riding through The Neighborhoods White People Don't See. Riding any bus, or the Blue Line in LA, or pretty much anything going to the South Side in Chi, or various subway lines in NYC that go through Harlem (which is weird to me, given how many white people there are around there), probably some buses and trains in Beantown and Frisco too.
AC Transit(East Bay) is frequently ghetto, but it principally functions as an agora for crazy people.
Relevant:
http://dcisgoingtohell.com/060-matt-gets-lost-part-i/
I spent a winter in Portland and enjoyed it. Not very cold. Overcast all the time, but the rain was intermittent. Nice walking/biking weather if you don't mind getting a bit damp.
Rent in DC is high compared to most of the country, certainly compared to Austin. Somehow I got pretty lucky when I lived there and found decent places for not much money, but I had friends who kind of got screwed. To commute to College Park, you'd ideally get a place on the Green Line, or on a bus route to CP, that's also close enough to transportation options into the fun parts of the District. The city is pretty bikeable, but it has bouts of bad weather - torrential rain, nasty winter storms (rare, but they happen), and something they refer to as "summer" that makes outdoor physical exertion inadvisable.
458: Crossroads? Westroads? Oak-whatever?
I mean, as long as they're clean, in fairly good shape, and on time, they're perfect.
Imagine a bus that takes an hour to get to a place where a private car would get in ten minutes max, in bad traffic. It idles. It meanders. It stops in incomprehensible byways. It arrives every half hour, while you're waiting in a desolate parking lot for the privilege of boarding at usurious prices.
I'd assume that's pretty common as far as major US cities go.
Define "major" and while you're doing that, remember that whole business about states and how they're all out of money.
Update: I think we may be bantering by e-mail.
I know from shitty transportation
I recognize this is completely nonsensical, and that it's a phrase that seems much beloved here at The Mineshaft, but I really hate the "I know from X" construction. I'm not sure why it bothers me, either. It just feels gratingly ungrammatical, in a way that's almost painful. Every time I hear it, all of my being rejects the idea that one can simply "know from X," rather than "know X from Y," or "about/of X from Y."
And I hate this reaction, because I'm otherwise so opposed to that kind of senseless, evidence-free prescriptivism. Arrrgh!
Well, I made a (clean, you perverts) joke in an e-mail and she responded with a joke comically (I hope) misunderstanding and building on that one.
471: I feel the same. Also "_____ will out". Is "out" a verb? Is it short for "_____ will win out"? Bizarre.
Also "consists in". It seems pretty stable that about 1 in every 1,000 times, somebody will say "X consists in Y" instead of "X consists of Y". Why? Surely these people can't say that ALL the time instead of "consists of". What does it signify? It obviously MEANS the same thing.
471: Dude, I'm with you. That one's like a needle in the spine for me.
474: Blood will out: i.e., show.
So "out" IS a verb in that phrase? An intransitive verb?
Is it ever used as an intransitive verb otherwise?
474: I tend to think of it as either an implicit/shortened "come out" or an implicit/shortened "out itself".
474.1 isn't, I think, related to the construction mentioned in 471.
471.--Look, I tried to be with-it by learning the cool bands, but I could only play Chopin rather than jam. And then I tried to be with-it by being the most far-out, dedicated, cross-disciplinary nerd you ever saw, but at the end of the day my math and programming skills sucked shit. And then I tried to be with-it by doing drugs, but there was only so many drugs I could do while maintaining objective #2. And now you're telling me that my attempts to be with-it via prepositions is actually uncool? FAIL. REBOOT.
The proper way to think of "I know _____ from" is as a phrase with an implicit wildcard: "I know * from shitty public transportation". So, in other words, the speaker is so familiar with public transportation that they are able to differentiate shitty public transportation from any other conceivable thing.
480: And now you try to be with it by watching Republican primary debates.
I don't mean to judge, but have you checked recently what "it" is?
It's not you, it's me. Well, me, and Cryptic Ned, and Flippanter. Probably lots of others. And anti-Semites, I guess.
481: Really? That seems an awkward way to abbreviate that construction.
"X consists in Y" instead of "X consists of Y". Why?
Non-native speakers maybe? The expression is consistir en in Spanish, for instance.
I used to be that way about 'know from', but no longer. NYC has sunk in. On the other hand consists in?! Related, anyone else here have a similar reaction to a perfectly normal form in a foreign language? The 'Die/Der First Name' construction always grated on me in German, even though it's just standard spoken German.
Also "consists in". It seems pretty stable that about 1 in every 1,000 times, somebody will say "X consists in Y" instead of "X consists of Y". Why?
They mean different things? One might propose the following principled distinction:
X consists of Y = X is made out of Y, Ys are the components of X
X consists in Y = the fact that X is exhausted by the fact that Y (or something: "the problem consists in Flippanter's sensitivity": the problem and his sensitivity are one in number, but different in account).
You know what annoys me? Mentioning something inherently interesting like Omaha malls and then leaving.
Omaha mauls would pique more interest.
There's a bestehen in/bestehen aus contrast in German, too.
"out" does indeed have other intransitive uses.
Even more interesting: Omaha mauls anti-Semites.
Who's Omaha, by the way? Warren Buffett's superhero alter ego?
448: The importance of using the proper verb form, example #239.
493.2: There is a little bit of Omaha in all of us.
The 'Die/Der First Name' construction always grated on me in German, even though it's just standard spoken German.
I found it charming when spoken by a woman in a mellifluous voice, and not otherwise. Actually, that kind of covers my feeling about the German language in general.
Isn't "will out" a leftover of when we could make sentences like German's Ich will nach Hause, "I want [to go] home"?
I don't mean to judge, but have you checked recently what "it" is?
Oh no, I gave up being cool a while ago. Maybe there's a vestigial desire-to-belong lingering in my prepositions, on a local level. I'm even out as a nerd at work.*
*For example: becoming cranky about the movie treatment of The Return of the King because Peter Jackson completely fucked up the presentation of Shelob, especially considering Tolkien's essay on terror and Grendel's mother.
I found it charming when spoken by a woman in a mellifluous voice, and not otherwise
It is very charming to hear a foreign woman speak our language and make mistakes with her fair lips. Not so in the case of men.
499: I was far more upset on Gimli's account.
499,501: Nerds. The real scandal is the crappy Celtic music under all the Shire scenes.
Also that the money wasn't given to Terence Malick to adapt my imaginary screenplay of Rene Char's Leaves of Hypnos, which weaves images of the interrupted nature of the Vaucluse, shocking violence and flash-forwards to the post-war encounters of Char and Heidegger.
498: that's an interesting possibility.
Actually, my sexism w.r.t. German is more complicated, or perhaps more thoroughgoing, than expressed in 497: die Gretchen sounds cute and charming, whether spoken by a man or by a woman, whereas der Matthias sounds kind of pompous, again irrespective of the speaker.
Also! There's a certain sort of old-grandfathery, hoarse- and yet simultaneously shrill-sounding German that I find not only nearly incomprehensible, but also really grating.
Basically, I'm an asshole.
The PNW is totally overrated. Nobody go. Bugger off.
clew is 100% really from Seattle. It's our relentless drizzle! Go away, Californians, you can't have it!
I need this doubting like a hole in the head!
Confusing deciduous and evergreen trees was theologically weak. (LOTR or Seattle, either.)
The real scandal is the crappy Celtic music under all the Shire scenes.
No. That is beyond scandal--into horror--into the mountains--of madness!
(I really hate wood flutes.)
515: There are some wind instruments that Man Was Not Meant to Hear.
516: Like little tiny dog flutes.
472: Well, I made a (clean, you perverts) joke in an e-mail
Ok, given the handle we have on his personality, and the behaviors he's exhibited* in this thread, we should be able to suss out what joke Flip would dare offer up that might possibly lead to she responded with a joke comically (I hope) misunderstanding and building on that one.
*It may all just be an act of course.
Note that from DC you can easily see Baltimore, Philly, New York, and even Boston or Atlanta, while from Austin you can't see anything.
Ugh, I get that Texas is automatically all terrible but look, if Atlanta counts as something to see, so does San Antonio. Also DC to Boston is eight hours. Austin to New Orleans is eight hours. But again, Texas negates all good things. This goes without saying.
I'm very used to doing a DC to NYC to Boston swing, which you can do cheaply and easily if you have a full week. Going to Boston in one go is certainly less reasonable.
I forgot about New Orleans. I've never been to SA so I don't know how it compares to Atlanta, I've heard from different people that SA is pretty interesting and that it's sad and depressing. Some people say good things about Houston too, though I'm never sure whether to believe them. (No one says good things about Dallas as far as I can tell.)
How do you get from Austin to New Orleans without a car?
No one says good things about Dallas as far as I can tell.
I played some fun frisbee golf in a public park in Dallas and got to drink free beer at a bar (because the owner was the uncle of a fellow traveler).
"Know from" is a Yiddishism, I thought. Not that this exempts it from being annoying. Some friend or other was complaining to me about the locution "ten years now I live here" which I'm certain is via Yiddish via Russian. Well, not certain.
Ah, you take a 3:30 train to San Antonio, and then 15 hour train to New Orleans. Why didn't I think of that?
To be fair, it looks like DC to Atlanta is also not reasonable by transit.
Austin to NO on Amtrak is 20 hours. But you get to poke around San Antonio during your 2 hour layover. Between 10 and midnight.
I wouldn't consider Atlanta a convenient destination from DC either.
pwned, so I'll just take the occasion to congratulate 'tarian.
DC is really great for train travel, though, right up and down the eastern corridor.
(No one says good things about Dallas as far as I can tell.)
The Dallas World Aquarium has the only public exhibition of a live three-toed sloth in the United States.
527.2 Right, that's sort of what I meant. The only place you can hop on commuter rail to from DC is Baltimore. Otherwise, you're taking Amtrak or a bus from DC to other places or a bus from Austin to other places.
Sorry I was pissy about it. Over the years I've gotten defensive because nine times out of ten the strongest opinions I heard about Texas were from people who had never been there. (Most often Midwesterners who thought the south was so conservative. Mote, beam.)
And no, most people don't like Dallas. I have some find childhood memories so I like it ok.
I think I'd rather live in DC for ten years but Austin for two years.
Except I'm not moving anywhere so why even listen to me?
Also fond childhood memories, alongside the find ones.
Holy shit, it's not even in a cage or anything. Now I want to visit Dallas. (And yes, I already know all about the sanctuary in Costa Rica.)
Houston is a montstrosity that nevertheless includes many good things, starting with the giant heads of presidents and copius Indian food.
533: Denny's has the dead ones but they call it the Grand Slam.
429.1: My eyesight must be comparatively poor, then. Or I haven't looked from atop a sufficiently tall building.
Though some of the older cities have OK bus service - some parts of DC and New York, for example.
"Know from" is a Yiddishism, I thought. Not that this exempts it from being annoying.
I may be reliving part of the endless horror that was my childhood here, but very little is more annoying to me than liberal Christians using Yiddish expressions. The moral standing of oppressed minorities is not accessible through the use of their idioms.
544: this is why people use yiddishisms? I just think they sound funny/grew up around them.
I've heard wonderful things about Austin, and not just on this blog, but I'm pretty sure it will be easier to explore from DC than from Austin, if only since the NE is so much more compact. Also, my impression is that DC is a much easier place to live without a car. From DC you've got Philly and Baltimore as a bus/train daytrip, the Eastern Shore and Blue Ridge if you rent a car, NYC as a nice easy weekend trip, and Boston as a good long weekend one. You can also go to the NC coast for a long weekend.
DC to New York has all the new nice bus lines, as well as fast expensive amtrak.
We went to the central park zoo this week and asked if they knew where the sloth was hiding, and it turns out the sloth died a few months ago... So Texas definitely wins on sloths now.
549: A taxidermist with some skill and I do not see why a dead sloth should be a problem.
the only public exhibition of a live three-toed sloth in the United States.
I am reading this to mean that there are lots of private exhibitions of live three-toed sloths, if you know the right people. (Hook us up, Cosma.)
544 Teraz and elderly grandaunt (Jewish, grew up in interwar Poland)
Teraz. Ciocia Stefa, do you know any Yiddish?
Aunt Stefa: [look of outraged horror] I never even heard any Yiddish.
Teraz: Um, Ciocia, you grew up in interwar Poland, how is that possible?
Aunt Stefa: They didn't go to _our_ neighbourhoods, we didn't go to theirs!
Teraz: But Ciocia, did none of your relatives speak it?
Aunt Stefa: Well..., um... my grandparents on my mother's side did.... BUT THEY KNEW BETTER THAN TO USE THAT, THAT, JARGON IN THE HOUSE!
Ain't class wonderful.
We went to the central park zoo this week and asked if they knew where the sloth was hiding, and it turns out the sloth died a few months ago... So Texas definitely wins on sloths now.
It always did; the Central Park Zoo sloth was a two-toed sloth, which is much less cool. Honestly, the two-toed sort is rather ugly, whereas the three-toed ones are adorable.
And just in case anyone didn't know this: in fact, all sloths have three toes; the difference is in the number of fingers, but apparently alliteration won out over accuracy. (German, by contrast, manages to have both accuracy and alliteration: zwei-finger Faultier and drei-finger Faultier.)
Supposedly two-toed sloths and three-toed sloths are very far apart on the sloth family tree and developed tree-dwelling independently.
Assisted-living trees are rare. The nurses don't like heights.
I had a job where the receptionist was a Puerto Rican woman from Flatbush. The first time I heard her say she was vermischt, I was surprised and quite charmed. She came by it more honestly than I did--I grew up knowing a smattering of Yiddish words but acquired a lot more of them deliberately because Yiddish was my connection to all that northeastern Jewish intellectual bullshit I fetishize from afar in Kentucky. I used yiddishisms as an affectation. She used them because she grew up hearing them.
I was delighted when I learned that avocoados coevolved with the giant sloth.
"Sir, you have debauched my sloth."; punctuation for the perfect afternoon.
Unfogged is at its best when someone spouts a bunch of ponderous crap like 557 and the next comment is about sloths and guacamole.
There aren't that many things you can say about sloths and guacamole.
You don't know how tough it is to be a sloth until you've put guacamole in its shoes.
467, 489: Actually, now that I think about it, it wasn't the farthest-out mall, just the farthest-out movie theater at a mall. It was in the mid-90s before the Westroads AMC 24 or whatever it was called was built. It wasn't the Cinerama one. Just the one that looked most like it was from the 80s. I still have no idea why I thought it would be a good idea to wear dress shoes on an outing like that, except that I think I only had 2 pairs of shoes. Still a bad idea though.
Ahh, movies in Omaha. So many happy and fucked-up memories all at once. I met the guy who played the Humungous' main henchman at the Westroads theater. That was so banal that it came very close to being profound. The girl who plays the ditzy blonde in American Graffiti was there too.
Well, woman now of course. Probably then too.
555: far apart on the sloth family tree
Yeah, look at that! One of 'em's way over to the left there, kinda near the middle, and the other's hanging on the family tree way up high towards the center. It just isn't a close family, those sloths that live in the tree.
>i>liberal Christians using Yiddish expressions
Like, how Yiddish though? Do you mean I can't call someone a schmoe without a letter of authorization from Abe Foxman?
There's a strange sense I have reading all of this crap about the academic job market. It makes me feel better about my dad, who spent at least a decade doing adjunct/one-year contract professor work while hitting the MLA for interviews right after Christmas and getting shot down every year. Eventually he stopped looking, settled in to a teaching load and no professional advancement and is now about to retire, after 30-ish years of this crap (He's dipping a toe into retirement by not teaching summer classes this year, for the first time in decades). I suspect his department will not replace him as such, but just slightly turn up the chances of hiring another adjunct for sections of first-year composition.
That's not how that tag was supposed to go!
So, like "meshugena" and "tsuris" are right out? What about the schlemiel/schlemazel distinction?
I don't think you count as a liberal Christian, Natilo.
but the buses in LA have now gotten to be actually pretty good
Were they really bad before? My dad rode the bus from Arcadia to Exposition Park for over 20 years. I did with him a bunch during the summer when I was a kid in the mid 80's. One of my dad's favorite stories from that time is when some hobo was checking out a bunch of cardboard I was carrying for some project and started reminiscing to us about how they just didn't make cardboard like they used to.
194
Oh, I didn't mean that it'd actually be a good idea to sue over it -- it basically never is (for an individual) unless you have no other choice. But if this guy is weakening your applications to help another candidate, lovable or not he's doing you real damage with no justification. Being fond of him is one thing, but he's still a bad person on this axis.
As was later pointed out letters often rank people so if the other guy is unexpectedly on the market and the advisor thinks he is better this can hurt AWB without the advisor being a bad person.
314
306, 308: About 36, I think.
You haven't run a background check yet?
The system has good reach, but it's famous for underfunding working-class inner-city routes. The Bus Riders Union started organizing to change that in the early 90s, and won a consent decree after a 1996 lawsuit that required the MTA to bolster bus service in the most crowded routes. The consent decree was lifted a few years ago. And this year, I finally threw out my No Somos Sardinas poster, which was just too wrinkled to keep.
The LA bus system is huge, and when they run it at capacity, it's pretty good. I used to live with easy access to the Santa Monica Boulevard express bus and would use it to get across town.
399
I just accidentally finished all of them, and don't have anything undone and looming except filing. I'm not quite sure how to handle that. Without the dread, my office feels unfamiliar.
Just focus on the hundreds of unfogged posts you owe us.
I ride buses a lot, but there really are ways they can be crappy that commuter rail doesn't have. Traffic, lots of horizontal movement - lane changes, moving to/from the curb - sudden starting and stopping (though the DC metro often lurches more than you'd expect a rail line to lurch), sometimes circuitous routes that may be the result of the system planners needing to cover a lot of territory with a single route because they can't run more than one, people vomiting on the exit door. Ok, so that last one probably happens on rail too.
Last time I was in the Bay Area, it seemed like AC Transit had really updated their fleet: better accessibility, better seats/interior design, presumably better on environmental/efficiency measures. Muni, on the other hand, was running buses that might have been new back when most buses still had non-electronic head signs.
You all are reminding me why I stopped reading years ago! Can Not Keep Up With Volume!
Also, this:
she responded with a joke comically (I hope) misunderstanding
Is definitely a scene from a sitcom, where of course she is not comically misunderstanding on purpose.
So perhaps, Flippanter, you could write up the online dating as an online show in 5 minute segments before you jump to a full screenplay.
544: Is it okay for liberal atheists?
(One of those moments of embarrassment that will linger with me forever is the time in seventh grade, when I had just come from a much less heavily Jewish grade school to a heavily Jewish high school, and in an attempt to fit in with the way everyone else talked referred to "kibbutzing" at someone's chess game. Everyone in earshot snapped their head around and looked at me funny -- I suppose some errors are more surprising than others.)
Also, Stapelton, if you're staying in econ, policy, international jobs then I think there is a nearly infinite difference between the job market in DC and anywhere else you're talking about.
I think we should run an unfinished work dread credits exchange. I have a surfeit of dread at the moment.(Which is why I'm up early, posting on Unfogged.)
Nameless dread versus identified dread, which is the better engine for blog comment threads?
Don't have time to finish the thread just now, but having lived for many years in both D.C. and Austin, there's no question that D.C. meets Stapleton's requirements better. I will offer an actual argument later, but Halford is wrong. As per usual.
537: Holy shit, it's not even in a cage or anything. Now I want to visit Dallas.
Ah, they must have moved the sloth outside. He wasn't moving in his cage last I was there. The best part though is the Amazonian otters. Those guys never stop and you can sit there for hours watching them. (And I did!)
459: I mean, as long as they're clean, in fairly good shape, and on time, they're perfect. I'd assume that's pretty common as far as major US cities go.
Dude, if you want public transport and weather like Glasgow (but warmer) DC is it. (On just about every other metric you listed DC is the winner.) Austin is fine, sure, and howabout you go to DC and *I'll* go to Austin. Austin is ok public transportwise, but that's in Texas terms, which is not what most people usually mean when they say 'public transport'. (And I can deal with that, but I doubt you'll like it much.)
max
['Good luck.']
It's hard to get my head around the idea that DC has weather like Glasgow?! Glasgow has about 200 days of rain a year and an annual mean temperature of about 9 degrees C.
Other than being much, much warmer and getting far less rain and getting much more daylight in the winter because it isn't near the arctic and being a fetid swamp full of armpit-after-sauna-damp air, the weather in DC is pretty much the same as Glasgow.
Once 407 clarified matters, 581 is obviously right, as modified by 413.1.
407/417:
On the off chance you're still reading this, public transit is generally poor in Austin, but if you live in one of five or six different student neighborhoods, there will be a free shuttle that runs from that neighborhood to campus, every ten minutes or so. Campus is a short walk from downtown, and you can also take a bus directly to downtown (although those only run every half an hour). If you're willing to bike, Austin is small enough that you can get around without a problem. I know a lot of students who live on campus, or in one of the aforementioned student areas, who get along fine without cars. But, if you want to only use public transport, there are lots of places you can't get to at all, and it would probably take two to three hours to get from the north end of town to the south end of town. I don't think it would even be possible to go from somewhere out west (e.g., westlake or lake travis) to somewhere out east (e.g., manor).
DC's definitely better if you're looking to explore other cities. In Austin, SA is about an hour away, and Houston and Dallas about three. That's it. Since you mentioned outdoor sports, Hueco Tanks, which has some of the best bouldering in the world, is 'only' a six hour drive. Reimer's, E-rock, etc. are all really close by, and there's reasonable climbing and hike and bike trails inside the city. You wouldn't need a car to get to any of those places, since scads of climbers go every day, and they're always happy to give a ride. If you're really serious about trail running or mountain biking, you might get annoyed at the flatness here. My friends who run ultramarathons that have serious elevation gain (10k+ feet) just run up and down the hill of life (300 feet over 1/3 mi) over and over again because there aren't any good long climbs.
In terms of ballet and theatre, Austin barely meets your standard of having "a few opportunities to experience one or the other from time to time". DC would be a lot better w.r.t. that.
OK, now that girl has sent me an OpenTable.com invitation for tomorrow -- I knew the restaurant and time already, so I guess this is just nice -- but the res info includes her request for a "quiet table."
I'm going to need some reserve witticisms, people. Enough to fill one of those quarterback wristbands sounds about right.
Just bring your IPad to the date and check it every few minutes, and we can give you the witticisms in real time.
Be serious, Rob. What if the restaurant has bad 3G reception? (Also, I don't have an iPad.)
587: Overnight shipping is available.
Earwig mikes! I'll hide in the kitchen. I'm smoove.
Just have Smearcase or LB call an audible.
589: Hang on, how are you going to liveblog?
Ugh, I get that Texas is automatically all terrible but look, if Atlanta counts as something to see, so does San Antonio. Also DC to Boston is eight hours. Austin to New Orleans is eight hours.
Also the Rio Grande valley, and Mexico. Obviously things have gotten way more violent recently, but the area is fascinating and pretty.
587: Check her out for hearing aids and other physical problems. She might be older than she seems, I'm 70 and always ask for a quiet table.
Stanley can give you advice on what to look for in her teeth.
Focus, people. The clock is ticking. I need charming and not sleazy compliments, gracious expressions of interest, an "Oh, my work isn't very interesting; tell me more about you" segue and God knows what else.
"So, I'm just gonna put this out there. I want to grope your butt." Works every time.
"On the veldt, I'd try to impress you with big chunks of meat and you'd try to impress me with indications of fertility. Modern society requires me to be discrete about my professional potential and you to cover your breasts, so small talk is all we have left. Have you seen a move recently?"
s/b "movie" but otherwise use those exact words.
597: The most charming thing someone ever said to me was this:
He asked me out, I said yes, and he said "Great! I better start writing down a list of things to talk about so you don't get bored with me."
(It was true that I got bored of him, but he was a very sweet, dim-witted fellow, and I'm pretty sure he didn't think we were a good match, either.)
602: It depends. You don't want to set the bar too high this early on.
I need charming and not sleazy compliments, gracious expressions of interest, an "Oh, my work isn't very interesting; tell me more about you" segue and God knows what else.
"Tell me more about X." Just say it out of the blue, when conversation stalls. Especially if you're somewhat specifc, ie X=how her job straddles two different industries, how she ended up moving across the country, etc.
It's a warm comment that leaves the other person free to take it in an interesting direction. Then you nod along, and listen for the interesting part, and ask follow up questions. And share your own silly anecdote, and then ask another question.
Disagreed on the charmingness of 601.2. I've heard it many times and it never fails to make me never see the person again. A friend here recently broke off a relationship on the basis of the comment, "I guess I'm going to have to take notes when I'm out with you!" Also: "I'm going to have to do a lot of reading to keep up with you!" It's not a competition! It's my job!
"A buddy of mine said that some guys go online before a date to ask their pretend internet friends for examples of small talk, what do you think?"
Disagreed on the charmingness of 601.2.
Uh, he delivered it in a sweet, charming way.
I can see how it might be charming, but it would make me flee too. That would hit me right in all my social insecurities.
Eye contact: good? I have been told that I have an occasionally unsettling gaze.
"How do you feel about efforts to promote the use of metric measures?" is a good conversation starter.
609: Compromise by maintaining contact with only one eye at all times.
609: I like it, but I'm a pervert. More eye contact! Always!
Eye contact: good? I have been told that I have an occasionally unsettling gaze.
Yes. Eye contact is good. If your gaze is too interrogation-y, then smile now and then to soften it.
Run your eyes upward along her body to make her feel strong, or downward to make her feel that her defeat is imminent. I think I learned that from Piers Anthony.
I'm waiting for the occasion when somebody goes on a date primed with advice from the Mineshaft only for the other person to turn out to be a lurker and calmly quote it all back at them with a straight face.
Avoid eye contact at all times: you can look reliably respectful and friendly by looking directly at her, but about a foot below her eyes. Stay focused on that spot like a laser.
(Actually, you know what I read somewhere that seems to be true, but I hadn't noticed previously? In an ordinary conversation, the listener looks directly at the speaker, but the speaker isn't making continuous eye contact. That's what gets to feel interrogationy: staring while talking. If she's talking, make all the eyecontact you want.)
615: I've never chewed my nails before but I might start now.
Flippanter's going to really be disappointed when he learns that this date was just a prank played on him by his ex.
616 is right. I get sort of unnerved when I'm teaching and the student answering a question is staring right at me as they talk. It seems like a sign of some kind of desperate need for approval that I can't give. On a date, particularly if you are trying to express sexual interest, especially immediate sexual interest, eye contact while talking is really useful.
you can look reliably respectful and friendly by looking directly at her, but about a foot below her eyes. Stay focused on that spot like a laser.
That would be the bottom of her neck. She'd think he's a vampire.
Subtly imitating her gestures can make her feel more at ease. Stick a couple of oranges under your shirt in case she thrusts her chest forward invitingly.
Try and convince her that there's no such place as Canada.
We should gather these together into a hipster Tumblr called "Bad Dating Advice--or Worst Dating Advice Ever?"
618: Seriously, I know her limitations. Even I'm not besotted enough to call her a good planner.
Oh, and if she's a native Australian, avoid eye contact; look in the same direction as her. Or so I'm told.
620: I actually used a sheet of paper to make sure that 'about a foot' was the right distance. On me, at least, that gets several inches below the neck.
We should gather these together into a hipster Tumblr called "Bad Dating Advice--or Worst Dating Advice Ever?"
Narrated by Ryan Gosling!
627: I'm assuming you have a sheet on paper on which instructions for how to stare at cleavage are written and not that you figured a sheet of paper is close to a foot in length.
Well-intentioned advice: try to come up with some fun weekend plans for yourself (hike out of town, museum trip, bike ride, whatever) that you can talk about over lunch. Then you look like you have things going on. If things go well, you can invite her along. If things go poorly, at least you have weekend plans.
I'd say eleven inches is pretty close to a foot.
627. Are you actually advising him to sit there staring at her tits? Because no.
631: Not unless you are talking about a guy who is very short.
Well-intentioned advice:
That's not a real thing.
632: I wasn't trying to give him good advice.
630: Hmmm. Ladies do love traveling to New England to discuss the insurance business, IFKWIMAITYD.
Try to slip as many titles of Beatles songs as you can into the conversation without her noticing. When the dessert arrives, tell her how many you managed.
Put on clean clothes, sit up straight, relax. Talk about a physical place that makes you feel nice, which will improve your own mood, and listen.
631. Either way, if she's petite, you're going to run into problems later. Just ask if she's dated guys as tall as you are before.
638.2: Illustrative hand gestures, demonstrating the possible difficulties, should help with that part of the conversation.
Wink every now and then. And then get self-conscious about it and stop listening to her because you're debating whether or not you've winked enough yet. Answer: do it more.
If, at any moment, your unconsidered face would be expressing happiness or pleasure or amusement or fondness, let it.
I've suddenly realized that a job interview is exactly like having fifteen bad to mediocre first dates crammed into two days, without any prospects for sex.
But do stop to make certain that that's what your unconsidered face would be expressing. If there's any doubt as to whether the emotion would be real or artificial, remain impassive.
Apart from the winking, of course.
If you spend the first half of the date pretending to have Tourettes, then you can spend the rest of the relationship pretending to have cured yourself by sheer force of will.
Just in case, practice making those expressions in a mirror beforehand. On the date, concentrate intently on duplicating those precise muscle contractions.
642: Really, none? I wouldn't work there.
Wink every now and then.
My hottest boss ever used to wink at people all the time during work.
If you can balance a salt shaker on your tongue, only do that at the appropriate moment.
(I should note that 637 made me snort, audibly.)
"Hottest boss ever" is just not a phrase that I would have thought would cross most people's minds.
Order exactly the same thing that she orders, to demonstrate your compatibility.
Be sure to prepare a brief "elevator pitch" indicating precisely what you would like to do with her in an elevator.
Or order what you want, but then look directly at her, eyes, blazing, as you say "FUCK THIS", fling your plate to the floor, and begin eating her meal.
Basic evolutionary psychology, really.
One piece of genuine and sensible advice - although it is, as I'm sure an educated and clear-thinking man like yourself will know, fucking true that the financial crisis was not fundamentally caused by the banking industry, and that both the Irish bank guarantee and the troika plan for Greece represented sensible least-worst responses to an invidious policy dilemma caused by mistakes made as much as twenty years earlier, I have to bring the news that these are not generally popular opinions and you should probably not bring them up until you have had time to explain to her how they fit into a more general political-economic model of the world.
650: "Only hot boss" seemed cruel, even though it would have been more correct.
SomeCallMeTim had mad game back in the day. You might pick up some tips.
Tell her she cured your Tourettes & is responsible for you forever.
Essear, imagine being expected to sexually please all hiring committees.
657.2: I believe there are websites devoted to that proposition.
654: She isn't in finance or a related sector, so that may -- may -- not come up.
659: In that case, she's probably open to having it demonstrated to her. If you start from the basics of a more general political-economic model of the world, you should have gotten to the point where you can get her to accept that we all owe bankers generally a debt of gratitude for the smoothness and efficiency with which the recent financial crisis was resolved by dessert.
Then you can ask her "So, tell me about yourself." But not before the coffee gets there -- you don't want to jump the gun.
If you find yourself running short of conversation topics, surreptitiously elbow her in the face. Between the hunt for a napkin to staunch the bleeding, the general hullaballoo in the restaurant, the ambulance ride, and the exchange of medical bills, you'll have something to talk about for years afterwards.
How did dessert resolve the recent financial crisis?
She isn't in finance or a related sector, so that may -- may -- not come up.
But has she been repo'd?
660.2 only applies if you have coffee before the meal. Which you definitely should, and lots of it.
588-653 had me laughing so hard I had to shut my office door.
Essear, imagine being expected to sexually please all hiring committees.
My next few meetings are going to go really awkwardly.
604 reminded me of "Describe in single words only the good things that come into your mind about your mother," so I think you should administer the Voight-Kampff test and make sure you're not dating a replicant (or possibly a sadistic tortoise-hater).
667 would work extra well if her name happens to be "Leon".
666: It's the natural corollary of imagining your audience naked, no?
It's not really the smoothness of crisis resolution that matters, but the efficient allocation of capital. Although the free market's keeping GM's factories open is another example, sure.
would work extra well if her name happens to be "Leon".
For simplicity's sake, just carry on as if it were. And remember Dale Carnegie's advice that "a person's name is to him or her the sweetest and most important sound in any language."
You people are going to be feel very sorry if she turns out to be as nice as she seems and your advice drives her away.
We'll be very sorry if we lose you to your new, all-consuming romance.
617: It occurs to me that a good beta blocker and botox would solve most of your immediate problems, and then Viagra would solve the side-effects from those. "Cool and capable" gets them every time.
Oh, we're just joking with you Flip, because we know that this date is a BIG DEAL and are trying to calm you down with humor. But, seriously, have you thought about what a BIG DEAL this is? Literally, your entire future depends on it. Don't fuck up. Really, don't fuck up.
I thrive under fatal pressure. Ordinary pressure, like having to take out the garbage, I handle less adroitly.
673: If the date starts going badly, load this thread on your phone and make her read it, and blame everything you did wrong on us. That'll get things back on track guaranteed.
678: She's not going to believe we exist.
Oh, Christ. What should I order for lunch? I hadn't even thought of this.
You want to make sure it conveys relaxed masculinity. What does the restaurant offer in the way of raw meat?
Talk about yourself so incessantly it appears you have learned the circular breathing technique of the gamelan flutist and then when the check mercifully arrives, say sweetly "and what about you?"
Not a date, but I had lunch with Urple once, and he ordered tomato soup as a first course, and then a different kind of tomato soup as a second course. You could do worse than to emulate him.
685 works, but be careful not to reverse the order.
685: yeah, but he was ordering through a thick fog of terror at your stern expression, if I remember.
685.--That is one of my favoritest stories ever.
Flip, if you elbow her in the face immediately, you won't need to worry about lunch.
Too great a risk of spill or splash with soup. Wait, what if she orders what I was going to order?
A salmon BLT.
I had one of those once. It was good but awfully rich. Also, expensive.
I was going to say, order something dense with garlic. Follow up with food that needs to be eaten with the fingers or which is physically challenging-- largest possible crustacean, or a miniature bird if that's available.
Don't want anything too rich. Need to stay sharp for witty repartee/amusing anecdotes.
680: Order the extra-cruelty veal, and when the waitress leaves, tell Leon how racist it is that they don't serve puppies. This will impress on her that you're a sensitive, New Age-y sort who is also a strong, powerful provider.
Look surprised (if you can do so after the botox) and say "Oh! Hadn't thought of that! It sounds great! I'll have that too!". Make sure to use those exclamation marks.
Make sure to use those exclamation marks.
And pronounce them as clicks, like in !Kung.
(Sally asked what Botox is recently. I explained that it's a kind of poison you can inject into your facial muscles to selectively paralyze them, if you think that having certain kinds of facial expressions makes you less attractive. I got a full eye-roll and a "Yeah, right, Mom. What is it really?")
or a miniature bird if that's available.
Orlotan. Draping the required napkin over your head will solve the eyecontact problem.
Flip might have more success ordering ortolan.
Anyway, Flip, email me the name of the restaurant and I'll tell you what to order.
Curses. I've exposed myself as not actually an ortolan-eater.
Order the extra-cruelty veal
*eyes fluttering*
696: I was thinking more Victor Borge style.
Argh LB beat me to ortolan. It is impossible to feel clever on here some days.
But I humiliatingly misspelled it. So, six of one, half a dozen of the other.
Whatever she orders, you order two.
but he was ordering through a thick fog of terror at your stern expression, if I remember.
And suffering from massive daily blood loss.
709: She'll order 1/2 a lethal dose of a poison that metabolizes quickly.
She's not some sort of international assassin, Moby.
That I know of.
The strategy in 711 might be dangerous if her body mass and Flippanter's differ significantly.
Oh, that reminds me. When being seated, make a dive for the chair with its back to the wall, saying "I call gunfighter's chair!" If you feel like it, you can detail the PTSD that makes it necessary that no one be able to get behind you unexpectedly.
Have you picked yet what she'll be having?
Right. As the man, you are responsible for curating her lunching experience. If she tries to order for herself, hush her, and tell the waiter firmly what she'll be having.
713: Mom! neb's calling me fat!
714: Even the understandable desire to avoid the fate of Wild Bill Hickock does not outweigh one's duty to cede to a lady the seat against the wall.
715: Low-hanging fruit.
Let her sit by the wall. Affix a feng shui mirror behind her. Explain that you are wary of assassins. Use it to modify your expression while she's talking.
"I fear no cowardly assassin's dagger, baby, but your beauty has struck me in the heart."
If things get too serious, touch her nose and say "Boop!"
If she has a zit on her nose, that could be ineffective.
Flip will of course, like a perfect gentleman, ask her where she would prefer to sit. If she, like a perfect lady, says that she doesn't mind, he will help her to the seat by the wall.
What if both of the seats are next to the wall???
Maybe she'll get there first and foreclose the issue.
||
Key contributor for our current huge project just showed up, 30 minutes late for a meeting, drunk as a lord, apparently as part of a multi-day if not multi-week drunk. This is really freaking me out.
||>
I take it your huge project is not some kind of bacchanal, then.
726: but you said she isn't a banker.
A perfect gentleman always flips will.
The lead trial lawyer on a huge trial I worked on once spent a surprising amount of time drunk. Everything still went okay, although he did totally bobble the part of the case I worked on prepping him for. The judge saved him, though, so it was all fine.
The judge saved him, though, so it was all fine.
Being proverbially sober.
Yeah, this is just getting worse and worse. Man alive!
Drunk guy has asked guy from out of town FOUR TIMES where he is from.
Look on the bright side, everybody's distracted from you tapping away on your smartphone right there at the meeting table.
Inspired by this thread, I had a salmon BLT for lunch. Verdict: it was every bit as rich, expensive, and delicious as before.
I am overhearing all of this from my office, adjacent to where the meeting is being held.
Man. This is a drag. As if I didn't have 8 million other things to worry about on this project, which is essentially make-or-break, although right now it sure looks like "break" is the only likely option.
Taft, contributor in what sense? Works for you or another company? Funding it or being funded?
I had an opposing counsel once who was a severe alcoholic. Usually, he'd be aware enough to avoid showing up to things drunk, so there would be a lot of mysterious last minute cancellations of meetings and/or depositions. But the times when he showed up for things drunk were pretty spectacular. We won the case pretty soundly, but he didn't do all that bad, considering.
Taft, is there no one of sufficient seniority available to read him the Riot Act? Or take him aside and give him a nose-to-nose "go home and sober up" order?
If not, I guess you could call R. Lee Ermey.
I still wouldn't recommend it on a date, though.
You wouldn't recommend calling R. Lee Ermey? Because someone who did that on a date would totally win my heart.
738: Outside contractor, haven't worked with him before this project, came highly recommended. Personal friend of a couple of people who are involved.
740: People are trying to kinda talk him down and see if we can get his sponsor or a relative on the phone.
This is really fucking upsetting and nauseating.
742: Didn't he recently die? Calling him might create some awkwardness in a date situation.
744: He's alive and knitting tiny adorable things.
743: Ouch, that's bad. I was being hyperbolic talking about my guy being drunk -- he didn't really make it past tipsy, just tipsy under circumstances where it seemed inappropriate. I didn't realize you really meant drunk drunk. Yow.
Um, is he replaceable? It's sad if necessary, but could the project go on without him?
746: No, like ROARING drunk.
748: Jesus Christ. Call the cops.
743: That is extremely sucky. I'm sorry you have to deal with this. How sad. I know my uncle showed up in various places in similar condition a bunch of times, and may I say that all the people constantly recommending him for projects were not helping him.
745: "OMG, I'm sitting on a plane next to R. Lee Ermey. Oh Mr. Emery, sir, will you please cuss me out? Please?"
"Actually, I just wanted to sit quietly and knit."
"Just tell me I'm the kind of asshole who would fuck a guy in the ass and not even have the decency to give a reach around."
"I charge money for that, son."
"Mr. Ermey -- may I call you Sarge? -- would you ask what my major malfunction is?"
Well, he left, was threatening to kill himself, and the cops are going to pick him up right now. Other major contributor is now super pissed and freaking out (understandably).
Wow wow. Is the "other major contributor" the one who recommended this guy?
And if so, how did he or she pick this pretty flower?
From the word 'sponsor' used above, the guy is in the 12-step process. Maybe whoever recommended him thought he was reliably dried out?
755: No, just the opposite, he's the one who wanted to work only with his hand-picked team, and has been all pissy about being overruled on that. So this is just more fuel for the fire as far as he is concerned.
758: Yeah, the other other major contributor, who was actually hired later, when another contributor was refusing to meet with us, is a friend of his and insists that he has been maintaining pretty well and ALWAYS delivers, work-wise. But, as we all know, that sort of high-functioningness can depart from the addicted at exceedingly inopportune moments.
Wow . . .
That sounds like a really unbelievably bad day/project.
Well, at least Flippanter is getting some good insight into what to do on his date.
...that sort of high-functioningness can depart from the addicted at exceedingly inopportune moments.
Under the stress of a big project, for example.
Sorry about the crazy, WHT.
761: That sounds like a really unbelievably bad day/project.
It's been a couple of years in the making, and I have never see a worse clusterfuck, apart from the times that organizations I've worked with have contracted with ADP or SAP for major software overhauls.
Can you/the rest of the group get the rest of the day off? Go somewhere else and do something that doesn't involve drunks or the project? Dunno. Just seems horrible all round --- and I would want to escape.
Yup, 754 sums it up for me too. I had a nutty alcoholic on my committee but he was the quiet incomprehensible kind and everyone ignored him.
766: Well, I'm going home right now. Other people still have stuff to do tonight.
Aren't you going to wait to see if the cops Tase him?
Avoid eye contact at all times: you can look reliably respectful and friendly by looking directly at her, but about a foot below her eyes.
At one point, when I had more trouble with eye contact than I do now, I read that a trick for faking it was to look at the spot on someone's forehead right between their eyes. I still do this sometimes. Does anyone know whether this is obvious, and off-putting?
WE CAN TELL WHEN YOU ARE DOING THAT, AND WE ARE SECRETLY MOCKING YOU FOR YOUR LACK OF CONFIDENCE. IN FACT, WE GET TOGETHER EVERY SECOND TUESDAY AND LAUGH AND LAUGH. WE CALL IT "THE TRAPNEL THIRD EYE CLUB."
770: The KGB used to send agents to the zoo to learn to stare down bears.
http://missoulian.com/frosters-anonymous/youtube_037ab166-492f-11e1-8820-0019bb2963f4.html
Third date stuff, Flip?
You've been married for a long time, haven't you?
But what a great way to show off your tattoos!
Some of us aren't in the yakuza, AWB.
Look at all those people planking and frosting simultaneously.
I have previously expressed my fondness for wintertime bbqs.
770: I've experimented with that just to see if people asked me anything about what I was looking at. IMX it's not obvious unless the staring is really intense. Most people's eyes aren't locked on so zero movement is disconcerting.
772: Where else would they find bears?
779: In Soviet Russia? I assumed bears were everywhere.
774: Nowadays, only prudes save frosting for a third date.
I think I maybe make somewhat bad eye contact but nobody has ever said "now look, we have to have a frank talk about your eye contact" so I consider it not to have risen to the level of an emergency, at least.
What a lousy day. It drives me insane that, having seen that lots of people including WHT are having a lousy day, I am tempted to say something about a Saturn Return or Mercury Retrograde or whatever, which obviously I don't believe in, but every time more than one person's day sucks lately, someone says "boy, Mercury must be in retrograde."
(At least I am going home to the luxurious reward of a kale salad for dinner! Ungh.)
I had dandelion greens in a not-great buttercup squash soup with toast. You could try kale chips. Always entertaining.
782.1: Frank talks about social oddities are, in my experience, vanishingly rare.
785: You should meet more assholes.
I know. I've thought about trying to piss people off.
Thanks for the supportive comments, everyone. I am home now and decompressing. Coincidentally, I've cut back significantly on my own drinking, which has never reached problem levels socially, for health reasons. But taking a little nip doesn't seem like a terrible idea right now. Really though I should clean the bathroom instead. Mmm...toxic solvents.
785: Landmark fixes these very well, but the price is too high.
783 -- Kale salad here too. And napa.
I bailed on the kale. Going to kashkaval for things that feel slightly more indulgent. I actually like kale a lot but it's surprisingly hard to shift your diet away from tons of wheaty carbs and fat, as I am making a tentative effort to do. It would have occasioned no bailing had it been a kale salad and then LOTS OF PIZZA.
I bailed on the kale. Going to kashkaval for things that feel slightly more indulgent. I actually like kale a lot but it's surprisingly hard to shift your diet away from tons of wheaty carbs and fat, as I am making a tentative effort to do. It would have occasioned no bailing had it been a kale salad and then LOTS OF PIZZA.
Utterly off-topic, but I had an amusing conversation with my doctor recently about some dietary poster she had on a door, showing the appropriate size proportion of servings of this and that type of food: the cheese serving should be the size of 4 dice.
Oh my. I observed that I'm mostly vegetarian, so my cheese portion may be larger, since I don't have that meat portion (the size of a computer mouse, as I recall): I ventured that it might be okay to have eggplant parmesan now and then (more than 4 dice-sized cubes of cheese, probably) if I cut it with a kale salad, right?
No, no, ha ha! she said. That does not compensate properly at all! I kind of tuned her out at that point, I'm afraid.
I don't understand how anybody can stay alive with the portions on those plans.
794 -- they can't. Eat all the cheese you want but cut out the fucking pita bread [delete delete AGGGH IT'S JUST THE GRAINS PEOPLE SMEARCASE EAT FAT AND BE HAPPY]
I mean, it's better if you don't eat cheese but eat pork belly instead, but cheese if you must.
I never eat pita bread unless I'm having a gyro.
794: Eh, it wouldn't be a problem if you actually had a portion of each of the things every evening, but who does? Do you really have a mouse-sized piece of meat, a scoop of starch-thing, a glass of milk, 4 cubes of cheese, two scoops of vegetable, and an apple (or equivalent in the form of fruit-like dessert, I guess) at every evening meal?
I'd be stuffed if I did.
I just had samosas and I drew frowny faces on them with tamarind sauce so they looked like halford.
Were they frowning because they are GRAINS???
I'm about to buy a pint of ice cream and eat it all by myself, and I don't care, damnit.
Actually, I think what I was going for there was more, "and you can't stop me!"
That's enough internet for the day.
I suppose there isn't any grain in ice cream.
Because I'm now signed-up for the half marathon, I'm eating more than usual. I imagine once I start training, I'll need to eat even more.
805: Probably you will. Halford perpetually elides the relationship between eating tons of protein and fat, and working out. Farmers, who work their fucking asses off, can and often need to eat a lot of whatever they want to eat, but especially protein/fat; if you're not doing cross-fit or training for a marathon or lifting weights or working out in a relatively dedicated manner in some other way, you might not be able to eat a ton of meat/fat.
No, 806 is totally wrong. It's the relationship between exercise and hunger that is (one of) the reasons why exercising isn't remotely sufficient for most people as a weight loss strategy. The point about consuming large (within reason) quantities of meat and fat is that you don't get nearly as hungry, in addition to all of the other benefits. Switching off grains and onto fats is an even better idea if you aren't exercising regularly than if you are.
Swedish fish: Nature's Perfect Protein.
The point about consuming large (within reason) quantities of meat and fat is that you don't get nearly as hungry, in addition to all of the other benefits.
That's just not true in my experience.
I need carbs and fat, like potatoes with butter or potatoes with grease.
807: as a weight loss strategy
I forgot that you tend to view this in those terms. I wasn't talking about weight loss, but rather protecting against the heart disease that can result from eating too much fat if you don't exercise in conjunction with it.
811: I don't have a dog in this fight, but I believe Halford's ilk think that the high fat/high protein diet produces better results in terms of heart disease than a high grain diet. I don't know if that's right, but I'm pretty sure it's at least claimed.
811 -- it's not at all clear that there's any risk of heart disease from the fat alone, as opposed to the combination of high fat and high carbs/processed foods. To wit:
It's only oxidized cholesterol that wreaks havoc. High-levels of non-oxidized serum cholesterol are not problematic, but protective and essential to life and to all cells. With these last findings, we should therefore be focusing on what oxidizes the cholesterol in the first place. It turns out that the biggest factors contributing to that oxidation are high polyunsaturated fat consumption from seed oils and excess fructose consumption. Those are the exact foods that the AHA and the USDA (United-States department of agriculture) have been telling us to eat in order to reduce our consumption of saturated fat and cholesterol.
The USDA has been telling us to eat excess fructose?
If you're not eating hunks of bison, you're probably eating processed grain products with high fructose corn syrup. If you're living on leaves and whole grains, none of this applies.
814: Is that quote just from some guy's blog? Or?
I'm pretty certain that the USDA has been telling us to eat leaves and whole grains. For myself, I eat a fair amount of high fructose corn syrup, unless Swedish Fish are healthier than I thought.
818: It's indented and in a different font. It must be true.
My personal theory is that I am unable to keep track of my diet in any organized way, so I try to eat a leaf or two occasionally, but mostly I live on chocolate chips and butter. That's healthy, right? Oh, and white bread.
My goal is to eat more vegetables and whole grains. The problem is those don't taste very good. So I'm also trying lean protein and the fats that aren't partially hydrogenated. Also raisins, to keep the parade moving.
I just had samosas and I drew frowny faces on them with tamarind sauce so they looked like halford.
Obviously I thought you meant Girl Scout cookies for a minute.
This thread could go to 1000! I can't wait to hear about Lunchy's date with Flip.
Have we figured out what pseud Lunchy uses when commenting on unfogged? Which 'advice' came from her?
Only 3 more days of low carb for me. It's worked pretty well for weight loss and general well being. And I might go back on in March, until mid June, anyway.
I have to do this, or pretty much nothing. I can't watch portion sizes, or eat clippings and mulch, or whatever else has been proposed.
You know what I just made for the first time ever? Falafel. Surprisingly easy: can of chickpeas, a little flour, some garlic, some parsley, some cumin, mash them together with a potato masher, make little balls, and deepfry them. And it comes out just like falafel. Who knew?
Now I'm wondering if I can freeze the balls before frying. If I can do that, this is a totally easy thing to have for dinner on a weeknight.
That came from Lunchy. I think she's sock-puppeting me.
What do you serve with falafel and how hard is that to make? I've never been very fond of it except as part of a bigger thing.
I have only ever been pleased by falafel that is part of a larger falafel, and so on.
Pita bread, shredded lettuce and chopped tomato, tahini dressing (can of tahini, mix some with some water and some lemon juice), tzadziki (yogurt with a grated cucumber and some minced garlic, and baba ganoush (roast an eggplant, chop/mash with garlic and tahini). Or anyway, that's what we had. You could do other stuff.
Huh. It had never occurred to me that falafel came from anything other than some sort of Manischewitz powder.
I'm just really excited because it's the first thing I've cooked in ages that the vegetarian in the house has been actively enthusiastic about. ("Like, you could make that again sometime. If you wanted to.")
I don't know how to make a turducken joke with falafalafalafel. I guess I just did, but it wanted explained.
Also, so everyone is clear, I never use the "it needs cleaned" construction in real life. When it's here, it's because I think neb enjoys it, but I have to rederive it from scratch because I can't actually remember it off the top of my head.
When it's here, it's because I think neb enjoys it
I do! I am especially delighted when I hear it in real life.
("Like, you could make that again sometime. If you wanted to.")
"If you wanted to piss in my mouth, I'd be totally ok with that."
Well what a fun story 838 is for LB to share with her child. "Remember how much you liked Falafel, honey?"
I read it as a cautionary tale for Flip.
Right, Flip, make sure you go in with an empty bladder. Not too empty, mind you.
And since your so-called friends chose to amuse themselves rather than give you advice you could actually put in practice, let me rectify that with a link to Make Women Laugh - The Official Website (and note For a limited time, you can read part 1 of "Make Women Laugh" FOR FREE).
• The most important difference between a funny guy and an "average" guy.
• One thing you must never do when making women laugh or you'll spoil everything, piss in their mouth.
• How knowing the "Pareto Principle" can dramatically speed up the process of becoming a totally humorous guy.
And if it unexpectedly doesn't work, you're still ahead.
• 2 useful applications of humor besides attracting women fast.
Oh boy, I just got caught up and am truly grateful I did not have President Taft's day, or the day of anyone else involved with that project.
Also, so everyone is clear, I never use the "it needs cleaned" construction in real life. When it's here, it's because I think neb enjoys it, but I have to rederive it from scratch because I can't actually remember it off the top of my head.
If you'd spent the last ten years or whatever near Pittsburgh rather than Austin, you wouldn't have to force it. OP question answered!
I am belatedly tickled that heebie would do something just because I enjoy it.
It's just felafels all the way down.
843 is awesome. SOOOOO many bullet points! Just remember these 12 things. And these 15 things. And these 47 things. It's easy; they're in bullet-point form! And these 32 things...
848: Not to mention the pop-up alert asking you if you're sure you want to leave.
We should have a day where each commenter gets to expand on one of the points in 843. I think there should be just enough of us, without too many points left over.
850: "How knowing the "Pareto Principle" can dramatically speed up the process of becoming a totally humorous guy. "
Any takers?
Optimal humor is achieved when there is no way to make someone laugh without making someone else cry.
(That doesn't really seem optimal to me, but then I'm no economist/humorist/guy who sells self-help books full of bullet points to lonely, desperate men for $100 each.)
853.2: Special price $47, you hater!
Optimal humor is achieved when there is no way to make someone laugh without making someone else cry.
Nicely done, but alas, "the Pareto principle ["for many events, roughly 80% of the effects come from 20% of the causes"] is only tangentially related to Pareto efficiency, which was also introduced by the same economist."
(The article does say that the term Pareto principle is sometimes used to refer to Pareto efficiency, but I suspect that's not what's meant at the site in question.)
"80% of the laughs come from 20% of the jokes" would be the most obvious candidate, but I'm sure someone can come up with something more clever.
If someone claims that the distribution of laughs follows a power law, will Cosma show up to explain why that's wrong?
Now I'm wondering if I can freeze the balls before frying. If I can do that, this is a totally easy thing to have for dinner on a weeknight.
Yes you can. The trick is to ensure the raw balls don't stick together before they're completely frozen - or when you thaw them you just have a mess of dough, so interleave them rigourously with kitchen paper or something. Also, separate them before thawing.
80% of the sex comes from 20% of the dates? Sounds generous to me - more like 95/5.
853, 854: but then I'm no economist/humorist/guy who sells self-help books full of bullet points to lonely, desperate men for $100 each
Ah wait, so you must have paid full price. But how many Salmon BLTs is that, really? Not many.
I'm considering the old, settled, bourgeois version of online dating - online home exchange for vaca! Not sure the stories will be as good. At least I hope not.
I thought the old version of online dating was precisely that--you "date" online. And if you construe it *very* broadly, I've done a fair bit of online dating.
What are you weari I assumed no one gave a fig.
Showing her your figs is more of a third date.
863: ... oh, you mean Flip ...
864: I don't know who that was. Prank comment! Prank comment!
Is lunchy late? Where's lunchy? LUuuuuuuuuunchy!
Just got the call that my boss is in the hospital following emergency surgery. As fresh Hells go, this one is particularly crispy!
Holy crap! You don't work on some kind of interdimensional nexus, do you? Have you seen any unearthly flying beasts out of the corner of your eye?
858: Easiest way to achieve this is to place the balls of dough (of whatever; I'm fond of doing this with cookie dough) on a baking sheet and freezing until solid, then placing in a freezer bag.
Also, that really sucks, Taft. Beware bath tubs, while you're at it.
Wow, Taft. You'd better bail and go meet Lunchy and Flip for Lunchyfliptime.
858, 870: Use an ice-cube trey?
And I couldn't get to sleep until 3 am last night, so I've got to get everything under control on minimal sleep. Another fire, which I had believed to be out, reignited as well last night. This is just so bizarre.
873: Too small/oddly shaped for most dough creations IME, but also excellent for other things (like stock or soup or herbs). It's not hard to do the cookie tray thing, you just need to be able to fit it into your freezer, which is ... not always an easy task.
It's easy to put a cookie sheet in our freezer. You just put it on its side.
875: but you defrost before you cook (CERTAINLY before you fry), so I would think it possible to let the dough/creations change shapes just slightly upon thawing.
874: Now you know why old people don't fear death.
877: With cookies, you can bake frozen quite profitably (just add a few minutes to the cooking time). I admit to no experience with falafel.
879, 880: I'd suspect that cooking frozen may even be advantageous (cooking refrigerated is supposed to be, so a fortiori...)
The outside could get crisp and a little browned, while the inside remains soft.
879 I've never tried to cook falafel from frozen, but as they're fried, I'd imagine there's a strong risk that they'd burn on the outside and still be raw in the middle. Cookies, being flat and baked are more forgiving.
882: Agreed. I wouldn't try it with something I was frying. But there are some bakers who think that doing cookies, biscuits and other small doughy products from frozen actually results in better products, but I find them to be about the same.
If you do deep fry frozen falafel, make sure to chuck it in from across the room, so the resulting grease explosion is cooler looking.
I had never thought of freezing cookie batter, so that I might enjoy freshly baked cookies at any time. This may be a major change in quality of life.
In Soviet Russia? I assumed bears were everywhere.
I have a T-shirt, a souvenir brought to me from Russia, that simply reads:
I HAVE BEEN TO RUSSIA
THERE ARE NO BEARS.
886: It really is great, especially if you are living alone or in a couple and don't want to have to eat an entire batch before they start going stale. I haven't done it with all types of batters - mostly just chocolate chip and oatmeal - but those two work well.
don't want to have to eat an entire batch before they start going stale
Not typically the problem I face. Baking them a few at a time will, I think, increase enjoyment and moderation.
If you have access to a deep fryer and ice cubes, you should resist the urge to put the ice cubes in the deep fryer. From what I've heard.
You should also avoid, while at the houses of others, putting canned food in the oven, turning on the oven, and making your farewells.
Also, I forgot to mention this last night, when I read about LB's new cooking discovery, but I do hope she insists on singing, for the duration of the preparation of the meal, "Hold me closer, tahini dancer!"
892: I think you're mispronouncing "tahini" .
893. They'll probably be looking at menus at some point in the next hour. Calm down, you're worse than Flip.
||
I always feel bad taking food for talks in my lab when I have no plan to go to the talks, but 1. I warned the organizer that the projector was broken, 2. people are already sitting down listening to the talk with their food and 3. there was a big tray of falafal. Kismet, right?
|>
Can we do side bets on how far Flip gets? I'd say no physical contact pays out at 3/2, first base at 3/1, sex at 19/1.
Does anybody know flip's phone number? They could text him for an update. Or does he have a facebook app? Maybe he gets notifications.
897: If flip and Lunchy end up with a nooner on their second date, then I think we have to send them on vacation or something.
He's hiding on he schools thread at the moment.
flip and Lunchy end up with a nooner
A terribly unsuccessful children's book.
It's less the lunch than the post-lunch honeymoon that we're hoping to hear about.
Or he goes all Vertigo on her and tries to take her to the salon for a pixie cut.
Ah wait, so you must have paid full price. But how many Salmon BLTs is that, really? Not many.
About six. I think the BLTs would be a sounder investment than the book.
Once again, the conservative, sandwich-heavy portfolio pays off for the hungry investor.
I had salmon for lunch, but not with bacon or in a sandwich.
I had the same as Moby, except without the salmon.
903: I have a coworker who looks lots and lots Barbara Bel Geddes in Vertigo. I cautiously asked her about this (you never know what's a flattering comparison...the only actor comparison I've ever gotten is someone I think is fairly awful looking) and it turned out she'd never seen Vertigo. OF course in relating this to a friend I say "who the hell has never seen Vertigo?", guaranteeing that the friend I'm telling the story has never etc.
887: ПРЕВЕД!
So has this thread reached 1000 comments yet?
Hey, a diet thread. My guess is that a whole lot of factors, which will include the type of gut bacteria one has (turns out there are essentially 4 types), will finally settle this debate.
I can say what has finally worked for me - low sugar, low simple carbs. All that 'healthy' high carb crap which works for aerobic instructors and marathon runners gave me HUGE hunger pangs and a fat body, along with type 2 diabetes. My lipids have always been excellent. YMMV.
I eat about half veggies, half meat/fish/tofu/beans/fat. I limit all grains, and totally avoid the simple carbs (sugars, white bread, pasta, white rice, pasta, all that kind of stuff.
Roasted vegetables are delicious! Who knew? I can provide recipes*. Steamed or fresh veggies - meh - so-so.
*Recipe - pre-heat oven to 450. Cut up bite-sized pieces of any of these - yellow squash, zucchini, onions, green/yellow/red peppers, asparagus, green beans, brussel sprouts, probably some more that don't come to mind.
Drizzle olive oil on a cookie sheet, put on the veggies, drizzle with not much olive oil, dust with garlic salt if you wish. roast for 45 minutes or less, depending on how much you have and how crisp you like things.
914. No, but remarks like that help.
Is it time to send out a search party? How do we really know Lunchy isn't some kind of deranged psycho, currently driving home to the Pine Barrens, with Flip locked in the trunk?
912: OF course in relating this to a friend I say "who the hell has never seen Vertigo?"
I have a film studies degree, and I've never seen it all the way through. Seen most of the important segments multiple times of course.
917: omg they're totally doin' it.
All that advice we gave must have worked.
This thread is creaky. Maybe there should be a whole thread devoted to Lunchy. Flip can show it to her!
From 922: "I sat on the balcony in my underwear drinking Stella as a hangglider drifted back and forth. I'm pretty sure he knew I wasn't wearing pants."
It's her!!!
SO HOW WAS THE DATE? I should go read the past 100 comments.
We're all still on tenterhooks. You could cut the tension with a knife.
Knives cut all sorts of things. Cutting it with a Nerf ball, now that would be something.
That would be very flimsy tension, though.
Oh. I'm slow. And have a flimsy understanding of metaphors.
You could use the tension as a backboard with a Nerf ball.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=COiIC3A0ROM
930: So it was like Pulp Fiction?
OF course in relating this to a friend I say "who the hell has never seen Vertigo?", guaranteeing that the friend I'm telling the story has never etc.
O HAI.
Details, man, details! You have dozens of bored office drones living vicariously through you, here.
Dude going out on two internet dates does not a smooth Al Green lover make.
Also, yay! Maybe?
934 -- the details aren't just idle curiosity, I was laying down odds!
Not Flip, me being "funny" but in retrospect maybe obnoxious.
So it was like Pulp Fiction?
Do we need to start calling Flip Honey Bunny?
SO GREAT!! What'd you order for her?
The real Flippanter is over on the carry on thread waiting for an audience before he'll spill.
Hah. I suppose the name is rather obviously misspelled.
