John D. & Catherine T.

What gives? Yet again you have failed to award me a Genius Grant. You seem to favor the type of genius that creates tangible evidence of their scientific and artistic prowess. I have to cry foul! How prejudice of you! What about us geniuses that perform our amazing acts of disease curing and culture changing in a purely imaginary realm? (and no, an imaginary $500,000 won’t do). Just because my geniosity (see! I can make up words, we geniuses do that) has resulted in no tangible manifestations does not mean you should overlook me.

How kick-ass must it be to win one of those things? Can you imagine? …oh nothing much new with me, you know, just been hanging out and winning a MacArthur Genius Grant. …oh that? It’s just a little something I picked up with my MacArthur Genius Grant check. …oh hi there Tenure & Promotion committee, well, let’s see, I did win a MacArthur Genius Grant, does that count? Damn.

Burn! Baby Burn!

I just took my entire Faculty Retreat packet and burned it in my fireplace.

What Is This Meeting About Exactly?

There is an old saying that goes “Only Users Lose Drugs.” It might have been “Only Losers Use Drugs” but Officer McGruff or whoever the hell tried to teach us that in high school was a lousy teacher. (Remember the fake joints they passed around? They were sooooo fake. Obviously if they were real we would have stolen them …which speaks volumes for the quality of anti-drug education I was forced to sit through as a kid…but I digress.) You see, with a little wordplay a stupid little saying becomes funny. Not hilarious funny, but mildly amusing. But when you say “let’s have a committee meeting” I hear “let’s have a commit me meeting.” Not what I want to hear. Not funny.

Commit? As in force me from my lair to attend a gathering of people at a predetermined time and place? To rise from bed early? Or, commit as in check me into the nearest “facility”? Which could happen because I don’t go anywhere near campus until very late at night (and in a ninja suit) and you want your little meeting during prime time don’t you? The sheer volume of work related crap I would have to encounter in order to attend your meeting could certainly cause mental instability. I am willing to attend (for the sake of assuaging the guilt I would feel for abandoning you) but I am not traipsing past the main office, walking by the graduate student offices, or going anywhere near my office. I can attend your meeting but I will be entering the building via the loading dock and by accessing the back staircase I can make my way to the basement storage room or the roof. These are your meeting location options. Please plan accordingly.

Would You Like To Lick Coffee Off A Slotted Spoon?

Would you? My coffee maker seems to think you would. Or, if you prefer, I can offer you some coffee soaked chopsticks. Perhaps a spatula is more your style, or some tongs. I call the ice-cream scoop!

Fucking coffee maker. After many months of dutiful service my coffee maker has decided to expand its horizons, to try new things, to explore its creative side so to speak. Apparently making coffee IN THE POT is no longer enough. Today my coffee maker decided to gurgle its water and grounds all over the countertop, dribbling them down into the utensil drawer below and all over the floor. Interesting approach coffee maker, I had no idea you had such creative intentions. If I had my wits about me (by which I mean if I had enough caffeine in my system to function like a human) I would say something about how it’s good to try new things…about how sometimes it makes a big mess but it’s worth a try. About how why the hell can’t I try that, what’s the worst that could happen? It would be all cheesily supportive of pursuing new things. But, fuck it. I’m too busy licking coffee off of this garlic press for that.

You Rang?

Oooh look at me! I’ve been lured out of my sabBATical cave by a font crisis. Yes, crisis.

A brief aside: First, yes, I can have an aside after only 3 sentences (more like 2 sentences but whatever). Second, my beloved laptop is ill, very ill. So dire is its health that I had to leave it with an IT dude. He is probably watching porn, playing video games, or chatting with his weirdo role-playing community RIGHT NOW on MY laptop. I on the other hand am stuck on an unfamiliar computer. It feels like wearing rented bowling shoes without socks. Necessary, but icky. For all the moments when proper equipment is necessary, a font rant is undoubtedly one of them. One must have their fonts handy, and one MUST have their previous rants handy because fontrific posts require a little digital maneuvering for uploading to Blogger. Blogger doesn’t provide enough fonts to meet my fonting needs, and if you don’t make your text the right size? Well, that really pisses Blogger off. And yet the special fontphone rang in my sabBATical cave. It was AnnieEm on the line. So duty calls and I must forge on.

If you haven’t heard, Ikea changed their font. That’s interesting. Seriously. Let’s take a look at the switch.


The switch is from Futura to Verdana. Ikea, like most corporations, tweaked standard Futura and Verdana but it’s essentially the same fonts as on your computer (YOUR computer not MY computer- my computer is either stuck in computer ICU or is being forced to display klingon porn). Why has Ikea done this? Again, let’s examine.


Cash is the answer. Verdana is cheap and Microsoft invented, it was designed to be read on a computer screen. Futura is elegant and makes your cheap chair feel a little spiffier. Damnit Ikea! Why? I am, or was, comfortably ensconced in my sabBATical cave. It’s not like you changed fonts to something cooler… I am not anti-font change but you went for something sterile and common. It would be like, crap, like what would that be like? Like if on a box of Frosted Flakes Tony said “They’re Great!” in motherfucking Times New Roman. Everyone knows tigers don’t talk that way (except highly educated snooty tigers and Tony don’t run like that). It would just be wrong. It doesn’t evoke the right sentiment. Chairs, frosted flakes, prescription drugs, strange hair doodads that make tumors appear in your “rocked” pony, it’s all the same. We WILL be bombarded with logos and packaging. At the very least I expect a little creative effort. Switching to Verdana is just sad. There is a petition to protest this change.

Blah(g)

It’s time to diagnose the problem. The folk remedies I have tried are not working. Usually a drink, an annoying email, a fresh can of spray-paint to huff, or a trip to the grocery store provides a natural stimulus. What is the fucking deal? I will now subject myself to some free flowing (visit your analyst style) blog-writing introspection. I will lie back on this divan. You can take one of those leather wingbacks. Let us begin.

Our first question comes from Candid Engineer: When you feel the urge, do you run to the computer right away, or do you let it brew for a couple of hours? I, myself, don't fight it.

Well, neither. I get the urge to blog. I have no idea what I’ll write about but I usually sit down with a cup of coffee with the intent to write something, and then it just happens. Or sometimes I like to put on my smoking jacket, don a foil helmet, take my pants off and…oh wait, that’s getting off track. No. I don’t want to discuss that. Never mind. No really, I was just kidding. Uh, so in response to your question, it’s sort of a general urge to write a post but not an urge to write anything specific. Except when Thor…oh fuck. Next question?

Blogged Pipes

Strangely, I seem to having nothing to say. This has never happened before. I am sure it will pass. But I have some sort of cloggage in my blog writing pipes. A bloggage we’ll call it. Hhm. I guess I just have to wait it out. So uh yeah, I’ll just go look for that plunger…it’s around here somewhere.

I’ll Just Be Over Here

I just realized that I would normally be thinking about syllabi right now. It’s Syllabi season, that season of the year falling nicely between Summer and Fucking Hell Is It Winter Break Yet Season? season. The time when you realize that yes, you have taught this course before. But last time it was MWF, and now its T/R; and it was a different semester and the holidays were different; oh, and last time you decided that grading those assignments was horrendous and that you should do it different next time; and that damnit you should work in some new stuff since last time you taught it. It’s that season. I don’t have to do that? For reals? Granted, Syllabi season has its charms. All seasons do. But I don’t mind skipping it this year. I feel for you my readers. I do. I imagine you all engaging in the classic Syllabi season rituals as you prepare to entrench yourselves into another semester. I can’t say I miss it, it’s pretty nice to still be in Summer. But I am over here tipping my hat to you. I am sending you goodwill in the manner most appropriate for the season: a great new review article that could be a perfect start (or ending) for your graduate seminar, my bank of exam questions from when I used that textbook, a PBS film I bought that you could totally blow off two days of class watching without feeling too guilty about, and hey I don’t plan on being on campus much and you’re teaching over in megabuilding right? Cause I have a punch card from the coffee shop in the basement of megabuilding and it only needs one more punch for a free drink, so you may as well have it. Good luck.

Shit Rainbows Followers Look For A Pot Gold Underwear

What? Do you have a problem with that title? What does it mean you ask? Fuck if I know. What does that mean? Why would someone Google that? Under what circumstances is that something worth googling? I suspect the answer could be very funny, or very, very strange— probably both. Please person who googled that, do it again! Come back here and explain yourself! Did your previous Acadamnit experience leave you wanting more information about pot of gold underwear for your rainbow shits? What did you eat to make yourself shit rainbows? Can I have some? C’mon share! Are you a leprechaun? I don’t know any leprechauns, you could be my first! (If you’re a unicorn, fuck off. I’ve known your type before and you are all insufferable jackasses, you can just shit rainbows all over yourselves for all I care). Pot of gold underwear? That would be really uncomfortable, it’s summer after all and I don’t think gold vessels would look very good under shorts. Look, just come back and explain yourself. Please? Pretty please with fairies vomiting butterflies on top?

Minivan Ice-Cream Man

Since when does the ice-cream man drive around in a damn minivan? (try to say that really fast 5 times…hard huh?) I heard the telltale music clinking its way up my street. I felt the five dollar bill in my pocket. Ice-cream truck. Ice-cream man. White boxy ice-cream van. An ice-cream sandwich! And then I watched a battered blue minivan drive by, ice-cream man music provided by CD. Fuck Me. A shitty ice-cream sticker stuck to the door, clever money making strategy for sure. But I want the ice-cream man of yore.