Thursday, December 31, 2009

Hibernation

It’s time for me to take a blogging hiatus, time to crawl into the deepest recesses of the sabbatical cave. Perhaps my skin will turn white, my body larval, a thick coating of slime will develop, and my eyes will become useless. Wait. That would be disgusting. Perhaps I will see only shadows and come to believe that these shadowy projections are real. Well, that would just be cliché. I think I have a pretty firm grip on the whole shadow creation business. Maybe I could discover some rare mineral that through endless montages of “science” and physical conditioning would result in me transforming into some type of superhero. Also unlikely, I hate working out and such things always seem to require one to wear goggles— which look uncomfortable. I could befriend some sabbatical cave creatures. You know, become some Dr. Doolittle type but I think that would piss off my dog.

A more likely scenario is that I will just crawl in and see what happens. Like all hibernating things I imagine I will emerge just as my fat stores are running out or because the right buttons have been pushed. Until then, wear your tweeds with pride and get trashed tonight.

Wednesday, December 30, 2009

The Review Reaction Typology

Type 1
Name: The Finger
Tone: Evil bullshit
Causes: jealousy, chemical imbalances, narcissism, sadism, lack of a life, pettiness, and/or aggravated bowels
Thought to self after reading: “Fucking Motherfucker. What the fuck? Fuck you!”
Preferred beverage after reading: Scotch
Response to editor: “…while I feel The Finger introduced a productive issue for future research, the manuscript is not intended to delve into the ridiculous issue The Finger is so pathetically obsessed with and I will not be adding 5 paragraphs of useless material simply to satisfy their
raging need to belittle me.”
Type 2
Name: The Prick
Tone: Arrogance
Causes: insanely brilliant cognitive powers, arrogance, Autism and related disorders, MacAuthur Genius Grants
Thought to self after reading: “Ouch. That kinda hurt. Really? Crap. I like your work.”
Preferred beverage after reading: Hot tea followed by martinis
Response to editor: “…in response to The Pricks comment regarding the data presented in Table 2, please note that the sample has been increased by over 100 cases that took 5,000 hours to collect.”
Type 3
Name: The Handshake
Tone: Thoughtful
Causes: sanity, responsible use of substances, ability to think logically
Thoughts to self after reading: “Cool. I could do that.”
Preferred beverage after reading: Fancy latte (by which I mean in a nice cup with swirly designs in the foam made by someone who gives a shit)
Response to editor: “…as suggested by The Handshake I compared my results to those of Dr. So-and-So and compiled our findings on page 8 and also completely rewrote the conclusions to be much cooler sounding.”
Type 4
Name: The Stroke
Tone: Ass-kissy
Causes: insecurity, wonderment at awesome font choices in manuscript figures
Thoughts to self after reading: “Whatever.”
Preferred beverage after reading: four PBR’s (in a can)
Response to editor: “…as pointed out by The Stroke a full citation was missing for one of my references, it has since been added.”
Type 5
Name: The Sweep
Tone: I forget to review this so, uh yeah, it looks fine
Causes: poor organization skills, forgetfulness, extreme health problems, stupidity, reviewer is part of the enormous pile of dead weight housed in my/your department, laziness, abuse of substances
Thoughts to self after reading: “What the? OK.”
Preferred beverage after reading: whatever is handy, probably cold coffee
Response to editor: “I agree with The Sweep, it’s all good.”

Sunday, December 27, 2009

Baby Got Back(story)

It’s always entertaining to see how folks end up here in Acadamnit land. For many, a few wrong internet turns leads them here. Arriving in an unfamiliar and threatening neighborhood they quickly roll up the windows, lock the doors, and high tail it out of here. A small few see an intriguing new neighborhood populated by familiar tweeds, bad 80’s sitcom references, good bookstores, and loads of coffee shops. A very small handful of people however appear to be searching for some very specific information, they arrive here in Acadamnit land with directions from Google in their quest for the exact location of mysterious and strange information. I imagine they are extremely disappointed upon arrival. But I also like to imagine why they felt the need to Google such things, so let’s provide a few recently dismayed Google searchers with a back story…(their search phrase is in bold).

giving head in a car
Hmmmmm. Is it different than the boat blow jobs? Horse drawn buggy suck-offs? Ox pulled wagon fellatio? Mule drawn plow mouth fucks? Do traffic signals apply? Would it be illegal to give head in a car while driving through a school zone? Shit. What about seatbelts? They are going to have to come off. Well, maybe if the seat was pushed all the way back… Maybe we should just pull over and fuck. Perhaps if I just use this internet machine for a few minutes no one will know. It’s tough being horny and Amish.

users are losers so don't use drugs mcgruff
Fucking McGruff. Does he want to arrest himself? He’s got to face facts. All he does anymore is sleep, eat, lick his own balls, and shit in the yard. Seriously, he needs to lay off the drugs. Perhaps there is a group of concerned citizens rallying together to get him the help he needs. I better check.

what would happen if i photocopy my tits?
Let’s see here…under what conditions would I want to photocopy my tits and have concerns about the consequences? This is a tough fucking question. Photocopying your tits, ass, or any body part that qualifies as “your junk” is not a behavior I would associate with serious Google inducing concern. I mean, it’s like drinking tequila shots, giving blow jobs in cars and skinny dipping. Activities one should not stop to think about, things you certainly shouldn’t ponder long enough to make your way to a computer and Google (and, under some very dire situation I cannot even imagine, if Googling occurs you should be way too fucked up to type and/or spell coreectly). You either photocopy your tits, down the shot, or drop trou, OR YOU DON’T. It’s a split second decision; some things do not and should not require Google.

nudity in dr. no
That Dr. No is one sexy blogger. I wonder if there’s any nudie pics around? Perhaps a little skin? A little tweed in all the unimportant places? Oooh, I bet Dr. No has great, uhm, sexual organs. That those body parts are, uh, really, uh, large? Huh. Would those nudie pics involve upper or lower body parts? Which parts are exposed by that tweed jacket? Wait. How long is that jacket? Would it be buttoned? Damn. Whatever it is, it’s damn sexy.

Friday, December 18, 2009

ATTN: People On Planes

I realize that food is a distraction. Any distraction on long flights, any distraction that does not involve listening to the crappy pop music blaring from the earphones of the miscreant next to you or the overwhelmingly tired stressed out person smells we all start emitting after a few hours, is a welcome distraction. Oh, but the strange bumps and pressures applied to your spine from the person behind you is also not a welcomed distraction. Sorry, the ever encroaching seat back in front you, the one that appears to recline a solid inch further than any other airline seat in the entire universe of airplane seats is also a most unwelcome distraction. But food can be a welcomed distraction simply because it breaks the monotony.

But people please. STOP eating and drinking every motherfucking comestible put in front of you. It is disgusting. Why would you ever want to eat all of that? Just look at it, marvel at its utter disgustingness, nibble at the more tolerable items, and move on. There is no need to eat every last crumb, no need to lick those last carboardy bits of muffin off the microwaveable muffin coffin it lives in, no need to put your finger in the yogurt carton, no need to scrape out the remnants of the pasta from its microwaveable “serving” dish, and there is certainly no reason to even bother trying to drink that shitty coffee from that shitty coffee “mug”.

Who are you people? And more importantly, why are you always sitting around me? From what little I know about you, you are NOT starving, you are not escaping from a war torn, drought/poverty stricken place…you are just a regular ol’ person traveling for business or pleasure. I see no signs of you having some bizarre incessant hunger producing disease, you do not appear to be stoned, I see no reason why you would lack the means to acquire some actual food at our destination. Please, enjoy the distraction of the airplane “food time ritual” but be content to examine the packaging, do a little investigative tasting, but don’t act like this is some tasty meal. Your endless eating, scraping, licking and dispersed wrapper detritus is pissing me off. Fuck. I bet that’s your coat up there all hanging out of the overhead bin too. How do you not notice that? Your coat is completely fucked. Are you just going to leave it like that? I mean it looks like the sleeve is smooshed into the latch. You must be too busy eating and sucking down diet Sprites to notice.

Sunday, December 13, 2009

I’m Home! Sort of…

My circadian rhythm and appetite are still somewhere else, but my body and about 70% of my brain are home. I had a good trip to Farawayzistan. A few things I missed/are still missing:

Eating: Why does jetlag render me unable to eat? Chewing food reminds me of communion. In my childhood experiences (a practice I have long since abandoned) one of two things occurs always with communion wafers: 1) You chew and chew yet they prove resistant to saliva and mastication, becoming smaller and smaller pieces of cardboard in your mouth that must be swallowed as an one large uncomfortable body of Christ lump; 2) They instantly stick themselves to the roof of your mouth, forcing you to spend the rest of mass attempting to pry the body of Christ off the roof of your mouth with your tongue.

English: That foreign language I learned in 6th grade really wasn’t very helpful. The only thing I really remembered was “Where is the library?” I never felt compelled to inquire about the location of a library. And come to think of it, even if I had wanted to know where a library was, I wouldn’t have understood the directions unless it required only right and left turns at obvious landmarks such as banks, fountains, bridges, butcher shops, bakeries, police stations, and hotels.

Credit Cards: Carrying around large sums of cash because credit cards are not accepted anywhere? Not so good. It makes it rather difficult not to appear as a rich American asshole.

*Now what the hell happened to my house? At least you left me some cheetos this time…but I’m not sure how I feel about the redecorating. What exactly was the thought behind all the purple feathers?