If poetry is reduced to an algebraic equation with one meaning, and only a teacher has the meaning, and you can’t figure it out without the teacher, it’s no fun. And when you become an adult, when you see a poem in The New Yorker, you’ll turn the page and look for a cartoon. You’ll say, ‘I don’t have to work for a good grade anymore.’
Micromanagement
I don’t know where my 12-year-old kid learned the concept of micromanagement, but he’s launched into a speech on the topic:
“This is beyond micromanagement!” he says. “This is proton-level management! No, wait, it’s negative, so it’s electron management!”
This is occasioned by the fact that we’ve asked him to stop playing video games and take a shower . . .
HW Solves the Problem of Poverty in America
According to a U.S. Census report released yesterday, the nation’s poverty rate rose in 2004 for the fourth straight year.
Not a Grim Task at All
They [Islamist radicals or, as Hitchens calls them, Islamo-fascists] gave us no peace and we shouldn’t give them any. We can’t live on the same planet as them and I’m glad because I don’t want to. I don’t want to breathe the same air as these psychopaths and murderers and rapists and torturers and child abusers. Its them or me. I’m very happy about this because I know it will be them. It’s a duty and a responsibility to defeat them. But it’s also a pleasure. I don’t regard it as a grim task at all.
Three Questions Psychopaths Ask Themselves
- Is it thrilling?
- Is it a game I can win?
- Does it hurt others?
Lurch to the Right, Lurch to the Left
. . . we don’t need some great lurch to the right or lurch to the left or redefinition of the Democratic Party.
Fighting Words
The NCAA has put together a list of colleges with “hostile and abusive” team nicknames, including the Illinois Fighting Illini, the Utah Utes and the North Dakota Fighting Sioux.
Remind me again why Fighting Illini, Utes and Fighting Sioux are hostile and abusive, but Fighting Irish, with a dopey guy prancing around in a leprechaun suit, is okay?
Jesus at a Republican Fund-Raiser
I want to say to the meek: Once we finally get rid of the death tax, you’re not inheriting anything.
Sacrilicious
An open letter to the Kansas School Board on an alternative theory of Intelligent Design, i.e., that the universe was created by a Flying Spaghetti Monster.
The Democratic Dilemma
A Democratic shift to the right risks inflaming the party’s Angry Left base, while a shift to the left would surely cost the party whatever support it has left from normal people.
Whale Cams
The guy in the next cubicle is spending the afternoon looking at animal cams on the web.
“Look at this whale cam,” he says. “It’s underwater!”
Red Shoes
I’m reminded of this line from the movie The Red Shoes: “Life rushes by, time rushes by, but the Red Shoes go on dancing forever.” All of that applies to me, except for the red shoes part.
Last Request
There’s a company in Chicago that will make “a certified, high-quality diamond” from the carbon of your deceased loved one.
“Send me the link to that,” my wife says.
I don’t know if a web page is legally binding, but I am stating right here that I do not want to be crushed into a gemstone upon my demise.
Remember
As time goes on, we will naturally start to forget what happened on September 11, 2001 . . .
A 12-Year-Old Emails the Pope
Did you know that the pope has an email address? I wonder if he has a blog too?
If my son were to send a greeting to the Holy Father, I imagine it would look something this:
$71!! $(4r3d 70 (h4!!3ng3 m3 w17h l337 4? w3!! 1 93$$ U j5$7 dun 907 17 1n y4 y0, unl1|{3 m3, wh0 h4$ 907 d4 m4d $|{1!!$ n3d4%, n371m3! U d5n 907 n0 $|{1!! y0, 5 4 $71ff, 4 w4nn4b3, 7h0. u (4n7 (0n741n m3 n3d4y, n0 r34$0n n0 w4y. 1 907 d4 p0w3r, 1m (0n73n7 1n my 4(710n$… 1 907 n0 7r0ubl3 1n $|{00L1n u 4nd n0 7r0ubL3 w17 fr4(710n$. 1f U ju$7 L1$73n 70 m3 4nd j5$7 4lr43dy 91v3 17 up… 1 d4 L337 m4$74 d00d, 1 d4 f47h4. 1m d4 b19 D099, u d4 PUP!
lol, lmbo, rotfl, hahahahahaha!!! i rok…
French Engineering
From Ned Batchelder:
Le Viaduc de Millau is the tallest bridge in the world, as measured to the top of the tallest pylon.
Well, monsieur, we’ve got some tall bridges in America too! Leave it to the French, though, to build one over land . . .
The Jennings Boys
I’m dropping my son off at a UC Irvine sports camp. We drive past some construction workers and I heckle them through my rolled-up window so they can’t hear me.
“Closest you guys ever got to a college campus, huh?” I say. “They’re probably high school dropouts like Peter Jennings. I hate to speak negatively about the recently deceased, but Peter Jennings was not that bright. He used to say that he learned something new every day, but that’s easy if you don’t know very much to begin with.”
“Ken Jennings is smart,” my son chimes in.
Requirements are Boring
You’re working on the requirements for Project X? Boring. You’ve got someone figuring out architecture for Project Y? Boring. The guys are designing Project Z? Boring. . . .
Who has built something that their customer will certify is part of what they want? That’s interesting.
Who has shipped something to their customer and the customer is using it? That’s very interesting.
Atkins Files Chapter 11
NEW YORK — The company started by the late nutrition guru Dr. Robert C. Atkins to promote a low-carb lifestyle has filed for bankruptcy court protection, a further sign of the waning popularity of the diet.
Yippee! Maybe common sense isn’t completely dead in America after all.
I Hate Travel
A lot of people seem to love travel . . . I hate travel.
I start out thinking I’d be happy if I could just be somewhere else but when I get there, I’m the same person with the same problems, and now I’ve spent all this time and money in another failed attempt to get away from myself . . .