Official Curse Words

Howdy,

I have a neat open source IM program called Fire IM, which I suggest you all try because its neat. Anyway, I was searching through the options today and I found a profanity filter. Under this option, there is an Edit List function. Here are some fun ones on the list:

ass boy
bloody hell
buggery
fuckhead
shitcan
shitfit
shitlist
shits
snatch
stuffed

I don't even know what buggery is, perhaps all acts related to being a bugger. And stuffed?

Anyway, I'm glad I could use this space to curse gratuitously. Blogs are fun.

Additional funny anecdote: I was eating some delicious chinese food with Lindsey and we got one fortune cookie for the two of us. Oddly, the fortune was addressed to multiple people:

Our first and last love: self-love

Weird. What's more, Lindsey replied by saying, "I'm glad it didn't say something like, 'Your new apartment will burn down.'" She's so cute.

Generic Post

Hello People!

It turns out that my resume/CV was making me look like a total ignoramus! So now I am revamping it in order to land one of my dream jobs for the two months I'm in Montreal this summer.

List of dream jobs:
1) Scooping ice cream
2) Bussing tables
3) Serving coffee

Wow, my legs are shaking just thinking about the possibilities. I don't know what it is about bussing tables, but I really want to do it! I guess it's just some romanticized notion I have of cleaning up after other people's messes...

I'm really glad all my education is helping me in life. I guess while people are ordering ice cream/coffee I can mentally deconstruct their sentences into their constituent syntactic parts...mmmm, linguistics.

My Dad was excited to tell me that Robin Williams' son studies Linguistics, too. When asked on a late-night talk show what his son will do, Senor Williams replied, "He'll open a sentence repair shop."
When will that coked up supercomic stop being so darn hilarious?!

Meta-Post

Wow,

Two weeks since my last post. I've reached new heights in laziness, people!

So, I'm happy to alert you all to the fact that this post is being created on my NEW(ly acquired) Powerbook G4 667 Mhz 512 MB RAM 15" widescreen w/ Airport and Combo Drive! Cover your children's eyes:

Its pretty fuckin sweet!

And uncover. I am very happy with it. Not that I haven't had my share of first-few-days bugs. One such bug is named Dan Browdy and he spilled an entire glass of water on the computer the day after I got it. Luckily, this bug also happens to be a computer dork extraordinaire that quickly helped to alleviate the moisture problem.

You know what the problem with blogs are? You always feel the need to top yourself. I sit in front of a screen night after night wondering what to write, but I find myself tormented by voices:
"How can you EVER write something better than Circadian Rhythym and Blues?"
"What picture could POSSIBLY be more aesthetically or intellectually stimulating than the rubber chicken pooing a gooey egg?"
But I find myself without an answer to these lingering voices in the dark. Instead I write a meta-post about my issues with posting.

Speaking of meta, this semester has given me a whole new grasp on this uber-trendy prefix, second only to the meta-trendy prefix uber. Taking a logic class and a philosophy of language class taught me all about meta languages and whatnot. Technically, using the language of my post to describe the post itself is inconsistent. And thus by the basic laws of logic, nothing in the post has any meaning.

Duh.

Photo of the Day

I recently took part in a fMRI linguistics experiment. My compensation was $50 and this awesome picture of my brain!
As you can see, my bulbous hippocampus and shapely dorsolateral prefrontal cortex put most to shame. Furthermore, just from this one image, its clear that the entire peri-sylvian area is working 3 to 4 times more efficiently than the average human.
Also, you can see inside my nose!

Photo of the Day

This is a two part picture of a great present that Lindsey got for me on a whim.
And what a whim it was, ladies and gentleman. This is a rubber chicken, yes, but no ordinary rubber chicken.
When you squeeze it, a nasty glob shoots out of its ass and in the middle of the mystery substance lies what seems to be a yoke.
All in all, a very grotesque sight. Which makes it all the more odd that I can't stop playing with it!

Circadian Rhythm and Blues

Hello One and All,

I'm sorry to all my faithful readers that I have been absent the past couple days. Speaking of faithful readers, based on the comments to my blog, the number of readers has reached a whopping: 4!
I couldn't be more excited. I feel just like a little naked girl running through the forest being followed by gnomes that spray cool refreshing water on my bum.

Anyway, my circadian rhythm seems to be off. I wanted to go to bed early last night because I was doing my wake up early and work shtick, but I couldn't sleep until 2 a.m.

For those who may not know, circadian rhythm is defined as:
The "internal body clock" that regulates the (roughly) 24 hour cycle of biological processes in animals and plants. (Wikipedia)

Ok, now that we are all enlightened, on to the mild entertainment! So, I wake up at 6 a.m., the opening time of Second Cup, which is the only place in the entire city I can consistently get work done. Its sad how dependent I am on a major corporation.

I breeze through my essay on criticism of Tarski (which my Prof said had the best title so far, "Lies of the Liar's Paradox"). I breeze through homework #11 for Logic class (taught by the eminent Dirk Schlimm, clearly the best prof name ever). So I find myself done with my work at 8:30 am when I had scheduled work until at least 10.

Great! Now I can go home and get some more sleep! Oooh, no. Its never that easy, is it? I get home, happily plop myself in bed, and lie quietly. Not sleeping, mind you, just lying down...awake.

Dang, I announce. I get up and decide to fiddle with my old desktop computer that I might sell off, only to find its not working. Not just slow or freezing, but rather not booting up/turning on not working. Frig, I proclaim.

(On a more positive sidenote, I deduced what the problem was which made me quite pleased. Still got it, baby! Now it works like a charm. A lucky charm. A purple horseshoe.)

So, 10:15 am rolls around, and I have a seemingly dead computer in my room and I'm running on 4 hours of sleep. Not the best way to start a day. The day slowly progresses and I find myself unable to keep my eyes open during Philosophy of Language, which is usually my most fun class. That was not a joke.

I get home at around 2 p.m., ready for a delicious nap. Delicious like steak and mashed potatoes. I was super tired. But instead of sleeping, I fiddled with my computer for FOUR HOURS! Only then did my body collapse in a sad heap on my bed, drool excitedly slipping out of my mouth. Lindsey popped in briefly and I unintelligibly mumbled a few things before sleeping some more.

My nap ended at 10 p.m. That is not good. I napped from 6 to 10. Thats not a good nap time. It throws everything off. I'll be lucky to get any sleep tonight.

Now its 1 am and I find myself the proverbial white boy in the circadian night club. I have no rhythm.

I'm Not a Sender-Backer

Yo,

Today I had my lovely weekly breakfast at Place Milton. It was a small crowd today. Quaint. Also, they changed up the interior. Its all flippedo-changedo.

Anyway, to tell you all the truth, I have been having minor mess ups in my orders as of late. I don't like to mention them because the weekly tradition is so dear to my heart, I'll allow a couple fuck-ups and price hikes without complaint.

Today was the worst experience yet. I ordered my regular, which she (I have no clue what her name is) knows by heart. It's two eggs over-easy with a side of sausage for all you fans out there dying to know my breakfast habits. It came promptly as usual, but there was a slight problem: The eggs didn't look to cooked on one side.

And now a quick aside on how I like my eggs. I like them over-easy. My definition of over-easy is as such: you crack one egg onto a hot surface, preferably a pan or industrial stove top griddle thingy. You let the egg cook a little, enough so that its a healthy golden color. Then you CAREFULLY flip it, so as not to break the delicate delicious yoke. You wait again for the remaining side to golden-ify. Then you serve hot. The key is that the yoke should remain runny as hell while the white is cooked to a dry chewy consistency.

OK, now that we are clear on my egg tastes we can proceed with the story at hand. One side of the eggs (frankly, I didn't even bother checking the other side) was not very cooked at all. It was still moist and glistening. I HATE moist whites. They make me nauseous. In the past, when my order was screwed up, I would politely tell her and ask for it cooked right. Unfortunately, every time I did so the cooks would hastily throw together runny whited eggs!

I considered my options:

a) I could stick with what I have, knowing that if I ask to have them done again I will only end up with even less cooked whites.

b) I could ask for them redone, but just scramble 'em because you can't really do that wrong.

Option A was clearly the more comfortable option. I wouldn't have to make a fuss, and every one would turn out relatively OK in the end. But, one person in particular at the table with me, lets call her L. Ross, no wait, Lindsey R., was a sender-backer.

I am not a sender-backer. I stick with what I get no matter what. One time at Friendly's they brought me the completely wrong order, and not only did I not say a thing, I got excited about it. Aah, Friendly's.

Anyway, the table consisted of three keepers (not the menstrual blood collector, the food taker), me included, and one sender-backer. Somehow, this beautiful sexy mama of a sender-backer persuaded me to send it back (refer to option B).

I politely beckoned over the server. Until this very day, she had been sunshine incarnate. All smiles, all laughs, all the time. She joked with us, snuck us extra free breakfast stamps, the works. I thought, this shouldn't be so bad.

I said, "Excuse me, I think these eggs are sunny side up"
She said, "No, they're over easy."
I said, "Well, they're not very well cooked on one side."
She said, "Would you like me to take it back and have it cooked more?"
Knowing this would only lead to the seemingly impossible runnier eggs, I replied, "No, could I just have them scrambled instead?"

Then, everything fell apart. The sky darkened. There was the distant rumbling of thunder. She gave me a look that said very clearly: Are you fucking serious, you whiny bourgeois asshole? I was stunned by her piercing implied comment. I shrugged helplessly and she turned and left.

The scrambled eggs were brought with minimal haste and I started my meal well after my comrades. I was devastated. I ate sadly. My keeper friends made the obvious I-told-you-so comments, and my sender-backer friend apologized. Not only that, but she came and cleared up everyone else's plates before I was done! I was left eating on my own so all could see just how much of an ass I was, eating my scrambled eggs.

I take a vow here and now, folks. I am NOT a sender-backer. I will eat whatever is given to me, be it frozen piss on a stick, or a delicious sandwich with a side of everyone on the wait staff's feces. I will eat happily, and you will not here a peep out of me.

Place Milton will never be the same...

Photo of the Day

This is my visual depiction of the day's events.
As you can see, the eggs clearly are not cooked, they in fact are still in their shells.
I have asked the waitress for scrambled and she is screaming in despair whilst I am dumbfounded and shrugging.
There is a very small married couple on the side making fun of me, and I am of course eating with my good friends Armadillo and Eagle.

Photo of the Day

I call this one:

Even our shoes are watched by God

What is the meaning of all this?!

Hi all,

Today in my Philosophy of Language class we talked about the meaning of "the". Riveting.
But we also talked about the meaning of pronouns. MUCH more interesting. We brought up some interesting points. Lets examine a short dialogue:

Sally and Jimmy are watching two people in the park. There is a woman and a man being nice to her.

Sally: "Her husband sure is nice to her."
Jimmy: "No he's not. That man is not her husband."

Now, when Sally said her husband she was referring to the man in the park, regardless of whether he was truly the husband or not.
When Jimmy said he, it referred to the actual husband of the woman.
Now let's say the man in the park is named Bob, and the woman's actual husband is named Mr. Nasty, just for clarity's sake.

So, for Sally, her husband = Bob
For Jimmy he = her husband = Mr. Nasty

Thus in such a simple conversation the phrase her husband was holding two meanings simultaneuously, even though the speaker originally only intended one specific meaning. Within the conversation, Jimmy uses a pronoun to refer back to her husband but is able to use the second meaning. I think that's neat.

A similar, but less sensical conversation:

Sally: "I'm going down to the bank to deposit a check."
Jimmy: "Yeah, I need to go there, too. I need to catch some fish."

In this conversation, Jimmy uses there to mean bank, but the "side of a river" interpretation.

Why does one of these conversations seem more natural than the other?
And how does one word hold two meanings within one conversation even though when originally uttered only one meaning was intended by the speaker?

Thats what I study, and if you don't like it you aren't me.

An Awkward First

Hello,

This is me experimenting with words. Thats also where I got the name for this blog.
I am not a very good writer by any means. I don't really know what this blog will end up becoming.
People say I'm funny, but any time I try to write something funny, it ends up coming out as weird or incomprehensible.
As you also may have noticed, I am fond of the carraige return function when casually typing. It helps me seperate my thoughts.

Today I got locked out of my house for the second time in only a few short weeks. Last time it happened to me I was locked out for 6 hours. I had a presentation due the next day that I couldn't work on because my laptop was locked in the house. After that harrowing experience, I made sure that the back sliding doors were unlocked so that in the unlikely event I get locked out for a second time, I'd have a surefire way of getting in.
Well, lo and behold, it was not that easy. After uncomfortably ringing my neighbors' doorbells (they have two! I just rang both at once), I asked if I could sneak through their back door. They politely obliged, and I climbed over their mounds of trash on the back porch.
Side thought: Why do they have mounds of trash on their back porch? It was in bags already, and was covered in snow, telling me that it had been there for quite a while. If it was already bagged, why not throw it out the FRONT door so the helpful municipal sanitary servicepeople could take it away? Weird.
Anyway, after climbing through the jungle of garbage, I arrived at my back sliding door only to find them locked. "Dagnabbit" thought I. So, with the help of my faithful friend Danny, we jimmied open my roomates window with a pen and I was able to get in my house.

After having written out that story of my day, I realize it is horrendously uninteresting. I apologize to my readers [read: reader (read: me)]. Wow, embedded editor's notes! I'm such a fancy editor!

I guess that's why I called this thing Experimenting With Words. Sometimes experiments go terribly terribly wrong.