22 November 2005

He Do The Police In Different Voices

      In the final throes of marking, the Doc has Winamp spinning (?!?) random tunes in the background, and he finds himself singing along in all the wrong ways.   The song?   De Do Do Do, De Da Da Da.   The oh-so-relevant lines?   "When their eloquence escapes me, / their logic ties me up and rapes me...."   De do do do, de DA DA DA.

      Jeronimo's gone mad-- and Sloppy-- agine.   Shantih, shantih, shantih....

21 November 2005

The Doors of Reception

      In case any of you missed the video of President Shrub at his press conference in Beijing yesterday, let's simply say that checking it out is NOT optional.   Evidently, the President went to the Midvale School for the Gifted.

Cases For Rigid Training and the Depp To Pleasure

      Just a hint of an update, folks, as I remain so far behind in my marking-- to be returned Tuesday-- that I'll no doubt be losing much sleep in the next while.   Strange it is, he mutters to himself and sounding like a perturbed Yoda: I used to be relatively energetic when it came to marking, but now I find it's a task all-but-destined to prove an exercise in instructional futility.   At least in recent years it has proven to be, and I fear I'm becoming sufficiently cynical to surrender to that old temptation of educators, simply slopping grades down with only the barest of commentary.   Van the Man's "Why Must I Always Explain?" should probably become my theme song, especially with that lyrical masterpiece "My Humps" being oh-so-certainly out of the question.   (Give me a brown-eyed girl over a bunch of black-eyed peas anyday.)

      Alas, there's not much new to report, save some family stuff I won't discuss here.   My Canuckistani readers might want to check out this ridiculous list of Canada's 100 most important books, a list which would be risible if it was not so infuriating. (Alligator Pie makes the list, but St. Urbain's Horseman does not; Beautiful Losers gets the shaft while Howie Meeker's book on hockey mysteriously stickhandles its way to significance.   Proof positive that Canadians should never be allowed to judge their own works of-- ahem-- "National Literature.")   Similarly, I see the newest chance to see Johnny Depp chew (and eschew) scenery is on its way to cinemas, but this time it's a biopic of the legenderary debaucherer John Wilmot, aka The Earl of Rochester.   Frankly, the previews have me worrying the film will just be Quills in England, and the thought of John Malkovich as Charles II provides with me enough doubt to sustain a Cartesian immortality, maybe the flick won't be so bad. Things can turn out better than I expect, right?   Right?   Oh.   Riiiiiiight....

      Ah, well, that's enough marginal optimism for now.   Any more would be as unnatural as Bushian oratory.   Back to reality, back to the grade-grind and its destructive nonsense.   And if anyone, ANYONE, ENNY-ENNY-ENNY-WUN, figures out the wordplay in my previous sentence, I'll cease to be such a cynical bastard.   For a day.   Maybe.   I'll do my best, anyway. Until later.

17 November 2005

Ear's Pokin' At You, Kid

      Received this from the T.S. Eliot mailing list today, and it was too good not to share here:

So, why did Zeus and Hera have to ask Tiresias whether men or women enjoyed sex more? This is what one person submitted to Scott Adams who just published it in "Dilbert Newsletter 62.0:"

One of my co-workers (who is originally from Arkansas, just FYI) told me one day that he knew for a fact that sex feels better for women than it does for men. I asked, "How do you figure that?" His reply was (and I am not making this up!), "Because when you put your finger in your ear and wiggle it around, it feels better to your ear than it does to your finger."
Beware, gentlemen: repeat this, and you'll lose your fingeramajig as certainly as Tiresias did.

Lukn My Wrks Ye Myty& Dspar!

      As if students don't already write enough like e.e.cummings....

      (Somewhere, in the ether, Doctor Johnson is weeping into his orange peels. & so 2 bd.....)

12 November 2005

The Drudge Report

      Ah, argh, it will be a familiar refrain by now: Sorry for not updating, things have been busy, I have essays, essays, everywhere, and haven't felt much at all like blogging lately....   I'm sure you're all spinning your eyes, understandably so. Worse, this entry isn't going to remedy anything.   Shrug.   I think I may be becoming the Dalai Lama of ambivalence, appropriately enough considering there's a whole Lhasa nuthin' goin' on.   Marking time, indeed.   Blehhhh.......

      But all goes well enough, I suppose, though grading student papers seems to take about five times as long as it used to take.   Yawn, I should probably try write something more substantial here, but work beckons-- natteringly and pointlessly, like a Sex and the City teleplay, but not quite so insufferably.   I should to it.   Until, well, whenever I can be bothered to add more here.