Nice older men wizards who are GAY

With all this buzz about Dumbledore, let's not forget: Gandalf was also gay.

CBAM emergency: remain calm

I have learned that there was an emergency this evening, when CBAM's cable box went down for about 20 minutes. Do not panic: it is now working again.

Update: The CBAM emergency threat level was raised, then lowered back to its pink/purple level by midnight last night.

Broccoli-ly

HAL has some kind of plan for world domination that depends on making up a very high caliber Tom Swifty. She lately urged people to help her by coming up with one. You know, like "'Pass me the shellfish,' said Tom crabbily." "'Can I go looking for the grail again?' Tom requested."

OK, so here is AM's, it's the best one by far, ever:

"Take that undergarment that's at the moment being worn by that small, furry dog that's traditionally used to herd sheep, and steam clean the undergarment," Tom said broccoli-ly.

(Let's see that pun one more time. It is: "bra-collie-ly"/"broccoli-ly")

Way to go, AM.

Why can't I just write one paragraph?

Why can't I just write one paragraph of my dissertation per day? Every day I could write one really exciting, sexy and/or spooky paragraph. I could do that! Why can't people be happy with that?

Then, in 3 years, my dissertation would be done.

Maybe the problem is that my dissertation is planned to be so long? Maybe a 70-pager would be better?

A cat can cut your hair!

My idea is that a cat could cut your hair, or my hair. And that this would save money. And give cats something to do.

People say that everything has been done, thought of, and is the topic already of a website, but that is not true, I did a google search for my idea (thought of with help from Tom, or maybe by Tom, I can't remember) and it returns zero results because no one has yet thought of the following:
a) How appropriate it seems for cats to cut hair, or to sit on a girl's/boy's head and trim hair while the person goes about their day.
b) How much money I could save by training a cat to do this!

As discussed!

Return to the Isle of Rushin: The Movie

Actual Isle in background!

Return to the Isle of Rushin

No one cried, and this year I didn't get run over by the boat.

Are we getting old? I have a whole complex about getting old, ask CC. Last night we were all at a bar enjoying a table keg--just about as good as it can get, right?--but joy was overcome by unanimous bitching about loud it was in the bar and how no one could hear a bloody thing.*

This year as we voyaged to the Isle, people were responsible, careful not to replicate the crises of yore, such as putting sunblock in one's eyes or becoming over-drunk, falling into the water and being sucked under the raft. Or becoming lodged in the bottom of the raft and unable to sit up, a drowning risk if one's face gets stuck to the rubber bottom (there are about 2 inches of water in the bottom of the raft). On the bus-ride-of-terror (to river; pictured) I had a long talk with Rick about the joys of going to bed at 11 pm.

And on the voyage I thought to myself, 'maybe this would be even more fun sober.'

We sighted the Isle, declared, "Rushin, do not even think about it," and floated on by.

Hmm, I don't know, this sounds like old age to me.

(*Thanks for the beers last night, people. You know people are good friends when you offer to show them your "dissertation", pull out your laptop and display a Word file, and they get all excited and high five you.)

Other problem

I have other problems, too.

Example

Here is what it says in the court document:

In June 1924, two plainclothes police men were on patrol when someone came up to them on the street and invited them to a party. They went and at the party, a woman named Z. approached one of the policemen and told him "that she had learned something beautiful/lovely and would soon do something enticing." Z. and [another woman] S. danced together, with only short skirts, and pulled up [their skirts] so that their pubic hair and “sexual parts” were visible. “After this show it was given out that something particularly interesting and pikantes was coming.” Then S. took off all her clothes except for her bra and lay on the table on her back. “Z. appeared similarly naked, put her heads between the thighs of S. and kissed and licked the sexual parts therein.”

Problem: How much of this do I put in my dissertation?

Right now, I have it like this:

"Z. and another woman danced together, removing their clothing as they did so. “After this show,” the police told a judge later, “the word was put out that something particularly interesting and spicy (pikantes) was coming.” What followed was an oral sex show featuring both women clad only in their bras."

More complaining

I am feeling very sorry for myself lately and you should too, dear reader. Here, I will say why.

It is not fair that it is so hard to get a PhD. It is unfair.

What makes me think this is that the dissertation is so hard to write. It's like, always like this with this fucking degree, when you are taking exams you are like, "well, this is orders of magnitude harder than anything I've done in school before," then when you are in another friggin country reading in the archives you are like, "gee, what the hell was I thinking, this is beyond-belief difficult," but try actually writing a dissertation, baby!!! Now I am like, "hmm, I had it pretty easy going to the archive every day, all I had to do was copy what other people wrote."

It's lovely that nothing you do in the first 3 years of grad school prepares you at all for the dissertation part. That was great planning. Way to go, grad school.

Oh, wait but now I found these great tips, I am saved!

No, not really. Those tips suck. No one can save me.