Monday, December 01, 2008

Andrew,

I am wondering, how many lectures have you prepared?

How many pages of dissertation have you written lately?

Do you have a job yet?

Are you hungry?

Wednesday, September 10, 2008

Mystery of the Numerous Forks

Ah..

I hadn't washed dishes in a couple of days, so there was a pile of them in the sink. For one person, I use a lot of dishes every day. There was also a bit of extra silverware left over from the last time I dishwashed, I must have given up before finishing.

Anyways, I noticed what I had noticed last time I washed a pile of leftover dishes at once, that there were a bunch of forks in the sink. This was strange, because I absolutely never eat with a fork. That last time, and this time, I stood there wondering, where are these forks coming from? I thought about everything I ate, at different times of day, weekdays or weekends, and none of them involve a fork. I use spoons or chopsticks. Never forks.

So, I gave up thinking about it, just couldn't figure it out. I even fantasized that maybe it was a signal from someone, someone who had been sneaking into my apartment when I wasn't there, or when I was asleep. They might be trying to frighten me by doing otherwise unexplainable things. But, I figured that now I was sensitized to fork use, and the next time one came up, I would be sure to notice, and the problem would be solved.

This morning I go to pack my lunch, getting covered bowls of leftovers from the refrigerator and scraping selections into my lunch container. Sure enough, I used a fork, and then I tossed it into the sink.

Problem solved, life can continue now.

Monday, July 21, 2008

Not locking my bike, and letting it get stolen

Man. So, I go to China, and before I go I put my bike in the stairwell, inside my building, where you need a key to get inside. I've already locked the wheel on Jingping's bike, and so naturally I tell myself to lock my bike, but apparently I forget. I get back from China 18 days later, and my bicycle is gone.

Now, it is my fault, and I am an idiot, for not putting the lock on the bicycle wheel. I know this. But I also blame one of my neighbors, though I don't know which one. Either 1) someone propped the outside door open so they could move something, or because they were too dumb to take their key with them, allowing one of the wandering neighborhood thieves to wander by, walk in an open door, and find my unprotected bike, or 2) one of my neighbors is himself a thief, or closely associates with thieves.

Muggings, break-ins, car windows smashed in, stuff stolen, bike seat taken. I am an idiot for living through all of these things and still not locking my bicycle.

Wednesday, June 18, 2008

幺典黑桃! (the ace of spades)

如果你想赌,我说我是你人
你有时获,有时输,为我都是一样-
(吧吧吧吧吧,吧吧吧吧吧)
那愉快是游戏,你的说没有影响
(吧吧吧吧吧,吧吧吧吧吧)
我没有你贪欲,单独一牌我需
幺点黑桃,幺点黑桃!

你猜我就要输,也堵就是为愚
但那道我就喜欢,猴子,我不要成不朽的!
也不忘那王牌!

Wednesday, May 07, 2008

Getting my bike seat stolen, and buying an inadequate replacement

Oh gosh! Someone stole the seat right off my bicycle last week while it was locked up outside the building where I work every day. This brings us to the first point at which I am an idiot. At some point late in the afternoon I walked over to the music building to play the piano for a little while. The bicycle seat thief was probably at that very moment stealing the seat off my bicycle, and all I would have had to do was turn my head to the left, to see the spot beside the building where I had locked said bicycle, thereby catching the thief red-handed and giving myself an opportunity to interrupt him and given him a good talking to. So, I am an idiot for not casually checking on the status of my bicycle seat a good hour or so before I noticed it stolen, since I would have had some tiny chance of saving it.

Next, I waited a week to buy a new one, punishing myself by riding everyday to and from school without a seat, which is both dangerous and very difficult, since you basically have to stand the whole time, raising your center of gravity and making your legs do more work than usual. It also makes it impossible to pedal constantly, so you have to pedal in short bursts, which makes it even more difficult.

Anyway, I waited a week to buy a new one, and when I did, I bought a twenty dollar one at a bike shop, and it seemed comparable to the original, which was a pretty good seat for a $100 Walmart bike. Only when I got home with it did I explicitly realize that I couldn't attach this new seat, since the post connecting seat and bike had also been stolen. I went back to the bike shop, and asked about this, and they said I should bring the bike in since the post is measured in millimeters, and there are 18 different sizes, and it would be pretty tough for me to get that precision with an old wooden yardstick. At this point, I got a parking ticket for not paying the meter, and the guy was in the process of calling in a tow truck at the moment I came out of the shop, so that was close.

So, I return to the bike shop a third time with my bike, and they tell me it's $16 for the post thingie. I think to myself, at this rate replacing all the parts in my bike would cost probably $1000 dollars, so this is already an imprudent course of action, spending $36 for a new seat. So I get all cheap all of a sudden (yeah, right), and ask to exchange the $20 seat I previously bought for the cheapest one they had, which was just $10 and is basically a piece of hard plastic. So there's the second part: I am an idiot for thinking a comfortable bike seat is not worth $10, though my idiocy may be vindicated if someone also steals this new seat. Maybe they would have been more likely to steal the nicer one. I'm still an idiot. Idiot.

Tuesday, March 04, 2008

My New Look

Unfortunately, I promised to divert any visitors to see what I look like now:
http://retort27.blogspot.com/2008/03/mybf.html

Luckily, I don't get any visitors!

Tuesday, February 05, 2008

Post of the apocalyptic future to the future from the man of the past.

100th post!

I am writing this only out of the general hope that future generations might, in excavations of the ruins of this tomb, happen upon it and read it. Hello there, future generations! How did you make it through the War? How did you make it past the giant rats? I am certain that society has been rebuilt, and that your devices and contrivances are far more contrived than were those of my society, the one which brought such disaster upon itself. Oh dear... since my oxygen is clearly running out, I must be quick.

When you find this message, undoubtedly through the use of some seemingly magical gadget which can simply read information out of a decayed data-bank, I hope you are not too dismayed at my primitive, though surprisingly forward-looking, outlook. No, we in my time did not believe in magic, though we certainly found entertaining those who trained to perform outstanding feats of illusion and trickery. Still, even with all your high technology, you must be surprised to find yourself being addressed by one such as I, a man dead for more years than he lived. We were the same as you, we men and women of the past! We yearned to know the future, to know of the world which would follow us! People of the future, humanity, hear the call of the past, of one who has been crushed by the mistakes of his society! Be good to one another, and treat your fellows as if they too were men of the future, looking out on a world which you will never see or can never fathom.

Now, if, on the other hand, you are not the future of humanity, and are in fact a giant rat whose successive generations have through atomic mutation developed faculties of higher cognition and technological prowess, may I curse you with and bestow upon you a world of infinite troubles, wonders, and terrors. Beware, giant rat of the future! The world you have inherited is not all you think it is. Unless of course your cognitive skills are far beyond those of we extinct, or perhaps perpetually enslaved, humans, enabling you to comprehend matters far beyond the ken of a mortal man... Farewell giant rat of the future, or human of the future, and good luck to you in all that you do.

Gasp!