tragic irony

I read the following headline today: "Segway Owner Drives Off A Cliff, Dies" Tragic? Yes. Newsworthy? I wasn't so sure. Then I read the article and understood what I'd missed: The owner of the Segway wasn't just the owner of a Segway, he was the owner of all of them. That's right, he was the owner of Segway the company, not just the owner of Segway the scooter. Talk about a bad PR move: driving your flagship product off a cliff is not the way to generate sales. 

at least there's sleep

The second I tried to start working today, my computer refused to connect to the internet. After an hour working on it, I went to the university help desk to get, you know, 'help.' They tried all the things I did (something tells me they didn't believe me when I said, "I already tried that."), and couldn't find the problem. Their advice: Macs don't work very well. Buy a PC or install Windows 7. Given that this is contrary to every experience I've ever had with my Mac, I didn't. I ended up fixing it myself after another half hour. (Thanks for the 'help.') Then I had trouble turning in (electronically) a paper I'd written because of file formatting issues that I don't need to born you with. After I got stuck in traffic on the way home, things really started to go downhill (email related). Long story short, I'm glad the day is over.

mine is the louder one

The other day I was driving to school, minding my own business, when a utility truck pulled out in front of me, slammed on its brakes, and parked in the middle of the road. Two construction workers got out and started slowly pulling tools out of the back while chatting with each other. I was a little annoyed, but I was minding my own business and concentrating on finding an opening in the traffic in the other lane so I could get on with my commute. After about a minute of this, the the guy behind me honked.

One of the construction workers looked up, stared into my car, moved closer, and started cussing me out (loudly enough that I could hear through the closed windows of the car and above the traffic noise of the busy street).  Just then I spotted an opening in the traffic, and I pulled around the truck to go on my way. Not, of course, before I gave him a good long honk. You know, so that he could hear the difference between my horn and the horn from the guy behind me.

Let's just be glad he didn't have time to go for the gun he was inevitably carrying.

Dwight Schrute, as interpreted by Chris Farley

The first two minutes of this video are some of the most unintentionally funny I have ever seen.

Ummmm... no.

Today a student walked by my office looking lost. I heard him stop by another office suite and ask the occupants if this was where the study was being held. They said no and directed him to a different room, also telling him that he was too late to take the study anyway. His response: Oh. Wait, is this part of the study?

mundanity

I see it's been a week since I last posted. There haven't been a great many developments in that time. I went to school five times. I came home from school five times. I've almost finished draft #3 of my thesis proposal. I think I'll only have to do one more after this before I can actually hold a proposal meeting and then start collecting data. One of the four incoming, first-year students in my area has quit already. He mumbled something about boring classes and meetings being too much for him. Tonight Sarah and I are going to watch a football game and have smoked pork ribs with some friends. That should be fun. Not for the pig though.