A Grave Matter

Sorry for no blog post yesterday. My office mate Light Bright and I took another field trip, this one just on our lunch break. It all began when I read a campus missive that said there were two graves on the hill in the middle of campus, which was news to me. Light Bright and the friend she had been planning to go to lunch with were game to go try to find the graves, so we hopped on the free campus bus and headed to the hill. At the top of the hill is a statue of Abraham Lincoln, and the graves reputedly were right by Abe, marked with bronze markers. We searched and searched for the markers to no avail, so we headed back to work and thought at least it was a fun break. Then we did an internet search, and these markers are about two inches square! No wonder we missed them! The graves are both from the 1830's and one guy was hit by lightning while the other one died of typhoid fever, and yes, they are there. It is not a campus legend.

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My Magic Life

I may not have a magic wand, but I do have hats and rabbits, like any good magician. And here is a bit of magic that happened in my life today: I went to what I thought would be a training session on a grants website, and it was a big gripe session! Oh yeah. It was not a promising beginning: we had a meeting earlier today in which I could barely stay awake, and then I had to take the bus down to campus (sorry, Hardingfele, no time to meet up with you), and it is cold and windy out. I was not looking forward to this training, but supposedly it was required for those of us who work on training grants, so I went. Then we were all sitting around the table, and the leader said, “OK, who has anything bad to say about this website?” She quickly amended it to asking who had any positives when everyone started to talk at once. Going into the details of why this website sucks would bore my faithful readers so I’ll just leave it at this: it was a very animated discussion. Certainly way more interesting than what I was expecting. Abracadabra!

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Ten Commandments for the Rich and Powerful

Sometimes Toque McToque and I wonder what Bible some of these self-proclaimed Christians are reading. My Bible has a lot of stuff in it about how God protects the widow, the orphan, and the alien, and He will not be too nice to anyone who oppresses them. Is that not in their Bible too? It sure doesn’t seem that way, when they want to make things tougher for the poor and for immigrants and easier for the wealthy. Toque has come up with what she thinks might be the Ten Commandments in their Bible:

I. Thou shalt hold onto thy money

II. Thou shalt speak only with a sharp tongue

III. Thou shalt covet thy neighbor’s wife and lie about it

IV. Thou shalt laugh at the poor

V. Thou shalt misquote the Lord, thy God

VI. Thou shalt taketh more than what is rightfully yours

VII. Thou shalt destroy the environment

VIII. Thou shalt use devious ways to get into power

IX. Thou shalt shun all education

X. Thou shalt be very unpleasant in general

I would just like to know when greed became a virtue. In my Bible, it is one of the seven deadly sins. So why do so many people who claim to follow Christ seem to be so greedy?

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Field Trip!

Today my office mate Light Bright and I went on a field trip. It was a gorgeous day, so it was great fun to get away from the office. We went to the new Student Union which neither of us had seen yet. I remembered the old one being a dingy, unattractive building, but the new one is stunning, with lots of natural light and natural materials. We took a tour of the conference rooms available for rental (our ostensible reason for visiting) and also checked out a small art gallery with dried intestines and a movie of an eyeball opening and closing set to creepy music. We got there on the free student bus, and I reminisced about how in my day the student bus was only late at night, so we called it the Drunk Bus, and it could get pretty wild. I remember some people bringing a whole mattress on the bus. Light Bright said she was in elementary school then, so I said I would have been her babysitter, and she said, “Who says you aren’t now?” So she bought her babysitter a chai at the coffee counter at the Student Union. It was a great way to waste some time doing something vaguely work-related while enjoying the lovely weather and some delicious chai. Field trips are the best!

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How the Cat Made Hardingfele Catholic (And What She Sold About It)

Today I got the following email from Hardingfele:

So the cat outwitted us again and we last saw him on the neighbor’s roof.  We literally spent 3 hrs looking for him. I then took a walk around the neighborhood and in my Jewish Unitarian brain prayed to St. Tony.  I made a promise to go to Mass if that buff bastard was found. When I came back, there he was in the back yard. So I have to hold up my end of the bargain! 

And that is why Hardingfele is going to Mass with me on Sunday. This is such spamtacular news that South Korean spammers named TERRY (all caps) are contacting her to buy unspecified products:

Hello Sales, I will like to order some of your products and I will want it shipped to our place as follows : Shipping Address: #104 young, Ga-Dong Sewoon Shopping Center Jongro-Gu, Seoul South Korea So i hope to hear from you soon regarding my inquiry and to know where i can view your products you have presently in stock and if there is any special pricing i need to know about. Lastly regarding payment i will be sending you my USA Valid credit card to charge for my order to avoid delays but can you let me know the type of credit cards you accept?Can you work hand in hand with my client freight personal agent? so they can Pickup the products directly from your location down to my client address in SOUTH KOREA I hope to hear from you as soon as possible.

Regards.
TERRY

 Maybe Hardingfele can sell little St. Anthony medals.  Just sayin.'

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They Didn't Want My Blood Today

Today I was in a research study where they had to take 13 tubes of my blood. 13 tubes, y’all! I’m not superstitious, but it did strike me that this was a lot of blood. Then we had a blood drive at work, and I had signed up to give blood, but first I asked if it was safe to give after having 100 mL already taken. They debated about it and finally decided that no, it would not be a good idea, so they deferred me. Here’s the thing, though – before they decided, they did the worst part of any blood donation: the finger prick. If you have given blood, you know the dreaded finger prick well, and since I am often borderline anemic, they sometimes subject me to it twice. This time seemed particularly painful, and when I took my bandage off, there was a bruise. Check it out.

And check out my lack of love line. For those who don't believe in palm reading, I'd like to point out that my lack of love line does actually match my lack of love life.

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Selling Out on YouTube

I have some exciting news: YouTube sent me an email saying that I could put ads on my channel! So I signed up for this, and it seems to have done something to the ads on my blog. In case you are wondering where they went, that is my best guess about what happened to them. Too bad, it was very entertaining seeing what kinds of ads got stuck on my posts. However, this means that some of the videos featured on this very blog can generate revenue for me. My “greatest hit” by far is “Italian Wedding Tarantella,” which has been liked by five times as many people (5) as have hated on it (1) and has been viewed by an astonishing 1800 people. It is very interesting to see which of my videos are popular on YouTube; “Tropical Song” has been seen by over 300 people but my best work (and I’m not just saying that, all my friends agree) is “Non-Anonymous” and that has been viewed by a paltry 15 people. I had always hoped that some stoners might stumble across that video and find it just perfect to toke up to.

Here, for your viewing pleasure, is “Italian Wedding Tarantella.”

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