North_Ranger
Staff member
Because one apparently tastes like Bud Light... and the others are beverages made in Finland.
Whine like a baby, now with 500% more drama!
- Thread starter strawman
- Start date
Ew. I think more inclined to drink your piss bag than to sample some Bud Light.
North_Ranger
Staff member
I'll send you a sample if I end up being your Secret Santa
Of my piss, that is. Not Bud Light. I'm a sadistic bastard, but not a complete asshole.
How about some of the "required reading"? At my school they got like a thousand free copies of "The Bean Trees" on the deal that every English course had to incorporate it into the class. Including my...myths and legends class. That was a hard essay to write.
I never had to deal with any ridiculous required reading, but then I'm not sure I ever took an English class - I didn't actually finish college, I just left college. I keep thinking about going back, but then I start thinking about student loan debt and threads like this make me realize how completely and utterly useless the bit of education I did get in college was, and I'm hesitant to put any of my own money up to be taught even more useless bullshit. I've learned far more about programming from starting a project and muddling my way through than I ever did in college; and the same could be said for any of my coursework except Psych 198, which was an awesome class.
I'm pretty well convinced that the main reason for finishing college is to show that you can put up with four years of bullshit and still manage to complete the goal. Bonus for those that complete a master's degree (nine total years in my case - but I was one year from defending for a PhD when the rug was pulled out from under me... a story for a different time).
College seems more a rite of passage than anything else, anymore. If you happen to pick up some useful knowledge in the process, so much the better. This is the main reason I'm not in favor of pricy private school educations... too much bullshit to be worth the money.
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College seems more a rite of passage than anything else, anymore. If you happen to pick up some useful knowledge in the process, so much the better. This is the main reason I'm not in favor of pricy private school educations... too much bullshit to be worth the money.
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Now seems to be a good time?
I knew that philosophy class was going to be terrible when, on the first day, the professor stood in front of the class with a chair.
"What is this?" he would say, with a smug, shit-eating grin, waiting for the answer he knew was going to come.
"A chair," someone would eventually say, causing his grin to widen. Aha! Now he has them.
"If I chip a corner off of the side, is it still a chair?"
At this point, I groaned. "You're going to ask at what point does it stop being a chair, aren't you? You're trying to say that words and titles have no intrinsic values beyond what we associate, oh gosh, consider my mind blown."
He stared at me in contempt,
"Oh, and it stops being a chair when you can't sit on it anymore."
I skipped the shit out of that class.
"What is this?" he would say, with a smug, shit-eating grin, waiting for the answer he knew was going to come.
"A chair," someone would eventually say, causing his grin to widen. Aha! Now he has them.
"If I chip a corner off of the side, is it still a chair?"
At this point, I groaned. "You're going to ask at what point does it stop being a chair, aren't you? You're trying to say that words and titles have no intrinsic values beyond what we associate, oh gosh, consider my mind blown."
He stared at me in contempt,
"Oh, and it stops being a chair when you can't sit on it anymore."
I skipped the shit out of that class.
I went to Virginia Tech for grad school, after completing a bachelor's in engineering from a small Methodist college in West Virginia. They didn't trust the quality off my classes in engineering, so they told me I had to take a few classes over (basically start over as a second semester junior). I said no thanks and went to the physics department, who accepted me on as provisional basis. It took two years of teaching labs and practicum before I found a research appointment on a high-energy particle physics experiment to be run at Brookhaven National Lab.
Three years into R&D for a specific part of the beam line detector system, the research that would be the basis for my dissertation, I get word that funding for this experiment was reallocated and it would not be run. I didn't have enough for a dissertation, so I was given their option of getting out with an MS or going to a different research project and starting over. Not wanting to be a forever student, I opted for the latter, and took the first job I could find. Medical physics is still my career today, and I'm not looking to change that any time soon.
To give you a feel for this environment, I defended my hastily-written (sixteen days, start to finish) master's thesis on April 13, 2007. I was actually done ahead of schedule and wanted to get done with it, so I pushed my presentation from Monday the 17th to the previous Thursday. Four days later, on the day I had initially reserved, several students and one professor I knew (and many I didn't) were shot and killed in the building where I gave my presentation.
That was one hell of a year.
Wow. That's one hell of a story.
.....damn papachronos. I...I got no words! That is just..damn.
Or you can find the fascination in mundane things.So the fact that none of my classes were uninteresting or boring suggests that either I had a really great set of teachers, or that I am at such a low level intellectually that they were at my speed.
Perhaps you did have a great set of teachers. I certainly don't perceive you to be of a low intellect.
There were tons of classes, at the undergrad level especially, that I would have loved to take. Business courses, for one. But I couldn't fit them in because of the other inane courses I was required to take, like "cultural perspectives on aging" and "physical education for the science major." Don't get me wrong, I'm sure those are perfectly valid and valuable classes to those interested in them, but the vast majority of my classmates were only in there to fill a requirement.
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So I slog home through all the slush this morning expecting to get my WoW dailies done. Nope. "Account expired" says the game client. I go to the web site. "Down for maintenance" says the site. I go to my email. "Card declined" says the email. "WTF?" says I. I go to my bank site. Plenty of funds. I call the customer service number. Blizzard is blacklisted. Well thanks a whole fucking lot for letting me know NOW, you idiots. There's no one I can talk to to fix this, I have to wait for the CS drone to send an email to the relevant department, and wait for THEM to unblock Blizzard for me.
Time to change banks, I think.
Time to change banks, I think.
North_Ranger
Staff member
Everybody deserves a day off from time to time. Embrace the laziness
Because Science and History are no longer considered important by the idiotic schoolastic system anymore.
Only subjects that have any give a shit by the administration anymore are: Math and English. All any admininstration cares about anymore are federal test scores.
Cajungal
Staff member
I found an even better thing to do! Today's the last day to early vote here. I'm doing a little last minute research, then I'm gonna bolt outta here and take care of that. It'll be way easier for me to make it today than on election day. As long as I have my lessons ready for the rest of the week I'm in good shape... and I'm already there!Everybody deserves a day off from time to time. Embrace the laziness
Feeling a little wheezy. I always hate the feeling.
Zappit
Staff member
Okay...I'm only just getting to the point where I can laugh at this...but not much.
The family got a generator recently, as we had no intention of repeating the very cold, electricity-free week we experienced last October. Sandy is lined up to hit on the anniversary of that blizzard and the perfect storm, so we have to get our asses in gear. My dad gets a friend, an electrician, to help set this up. Because it was so last second, we can't properly install it via a panel. They rig up a long cord to run from the dryer plug down through the basement and into the backyard, where the generator sits. The electrician is slightly perturbed by the instructions, as they seem a bit "off" to him, but they follow it to the letter, and he goes off.
The next day, we set up our test run. Things get turned off and unplugged, the breakers get turned off, the generator gets fired up, and then my dad plugs it in.
POP! POP! POP!
My dad and I go inside and the rest of the family is terrified, having heard very loud popping sounds. We check the connections, and notice that the small nightlight in the hall is burning as brightly as a small sun. A ceiling fan upstairs is ready to rip itself off the ceiling because it's spinning at least twice it's maximum speed.
We check for fire and smoke. None, thank god. My dad kills the generator, and turns the power back on. This is where we start to realize the extent of the damage.
The cable box doesn't turn on. Television and Blu-Ray player work, though. Odd. Neither gaming console is working. Half of our house phones are dead. The washing machine is dead. The dishwasher is dead. The garage door opener is fried to hell, too. Every lightbulb in the basement blew out.
So the day before the storm, the recovery effort starts. The consoles only lost their power cords, which had surge protectors built in. Got one of each coming in via GameStop. New washing machine gets ordered. We've got enough phones to get by. We're not 100% sure the dishwasher is gone because no less than three outlets went dead. The electrician comes back to fix those and the generator connection.
Turns out the wires in the plug were crossed. Lawsuit because that's what the manual told them to do? Not likely, as they did not fully follow the recommended installation, which requires a panel. New garage door opener goes in. Oh, and it opens randomly by itself. Took us a day to realize a neighbor had a very similar signal, so we had to reprogram the transmitters. The old ones aren't compatible, so we're down one of those now. Yours truly is the odd man out there.
My dad switches out the dead cable box for a new one today, gets it home and installs it. It does not work at all like the old one. He spends an hour on the phone with a tech, only to discover it's likely defective., and we need to swap again.
And for all this grief over the generator, we only lost power for an hour during Sandy.
And that's how Zap spent his weekend.
The family got a generator recently, as we had no intention of repeating the very cold, electricity-free week we experienced last October. Sandy is lined up to hit on the anniversary of that blizzard and the perfect storm, so we have to get our asses in gear. My dad gets a friend, an electrician, to help set this up. Because it was so last second, we can't properly install it via a panel. They rig up a long cord to run from the dryer plug down through the basement and into the backyard, where the generator sits. The electrician is slightly perturbed by the instructions, as they seem a bit "off" to him, but they follow it to the letter, and he goes off.
The next day, we set up our test run. Things get turned off and unplugged, the breakers get turned off, the generator gets fired up, and then my dad plugs it in.
POP! POP! POP!
My dad and I go inside and the rest of the family is terrified, having heard very loud popping sounds. We check the connections, and notice that the small nightlight in the hall is burning as brightly as a small sun. A ceiling fan upstairs is ready to rip itself off the ceiling because it's spinning at least twice it's maximum speed.
We check for fire and smoke. None, thank god. My dad kills the generator, and turns the power back on. This is where we start to realize the extent of the damage.
The cable box doesn't turn on. Television and Blu-Ray player work, though. Odd. Neither gaming console is working. Half of our house phones are dead. The washing machine is dead. The dishwasher is dead. The garage door opener is fried to hell, too. Every lightbulb in the basement blew out.
So the day before the storm, the recovery effort starts. The consoles only lost their power cords, which had surge protectors built in. Got one of each coming in via GameStop. New washing machine gets ordered. We've got enough phones to get by. We're not 100% sure the dishwasher is gone because no less than three outlets went dead. The electrician comes back to fix those and the generator connection.
Turns out the wires in the plug were crossed. Lawsuit because that's what the manual told them to do? Not likely, as they did not fully follow the recommended installation, which requires a panel. New garage door opener goes in. Oh, and it opens randomly by itself. Took us a day to realize a neighbor had a very similar signal, so we had to reprogram the transmitters. The old ones aren't compatible, so we're down one of those now. Yours truly is the odd man out there.
My dad switches out the dead cable box for a new one today, gets it home and installs it. It does not work at all like the old one. He spends an hour on the phone with a tech, only to discover it's likely defective., and we need to swap again.
And for all this grief over the generator, we only lost power for an hour during Sandy.
And that's how Zap spent his weekend.
I can sit here and type now that the fever finally broke and I'm no longer confined to my bed, roasting like a fucking turkey. Why is when I get sick, I get super sick? I can go years without getting ill, but when I do it's the kind that absolutely destroys me.
So yeah. That 102 fever? All gone now.
So yeah. That 102 fever? All gone now.
Zappit
Staff member
Things work now. The plug wasn't assembled right, and after it was corrected, it worked fine. Wires were literally crossed.
You realize that you're going to get another 400.81 babies if you continue.
I am praying I don't get Bronchitis this year, I really do. Last year was just awful.
First let me say that the art scamming tourists is as old as tourism itself. Religious pilgrims to Jerusalem, Rome, and Mecca were undoubtedly sold "genuine saintly relics" for exorbitant prices. Two thousand years ago, I'm sure Roman tourists to the Pyramids spent a fortune on antiques that were mass-produced in some back-alley workshop.
I spent my Eid break (it's a Muslim holiday) in Athens. My trip was all right overall. The Acropolis was totally worth the visit, and I'd definitely recommend visiting Delphi (I hiked to the very top!). As for Athens itself, I wouldn't recommend staying there unless you're with a group of people. It's an ugly city, there's graffiti everywhere, and crime is on the rise. The Greeks love to blame all their crime on Albanian and Russian immigrants, although there are plenty of native outlaws. If you visit, don't just go to the CIA and other government sites to get travel advice. They only help with the official stuff like visas and general crime; look at the backpacking and tourism blogs because they can warn you about other dangers. I should've done that before I left and here's why.
I feel a bit foolish for being duped by a scammer. It's actually quite common in Athens, especially now that the Greek economy is diving. I've traveled to many different countries and am a pretty experienced traveler. I knew to not carry too much cash on me and to never carry your wallet in your back pocket. I'm also pretty savvy to most scams, but those are the more mundane types (ie. an Egyptian vendor offers to sell you a "priceless antique" that he really just bought by the gross from China). In this case, I was at Syntagma Square (outside the Greek parliament) and was walking to my hotel. I'd spent most of the day touring downtown Athens by foot and I was a little tired. Suddenly a nice old man stopped me and asked where I'm from. Most Greeks are very friendly so that was perfectly normal. He spoke good English and we talked for a bit, then he recommended that I visit the Plaka neighborhood for dinner. Again, that was normal because those family-owned restaurants are quite good. I thanked him and said I'd visit later, but I needed to get back to my hotel. At that point, I was right outside the hotel entrance. But then he kept saying, "Come. I show you."
At that point my Spider Sense started tingling. In many cases, that person is a decoy who draws unsuspecting tourists into an ambush. But that neighborhood was just a couple blocks away and it was still broad daylight. Plus there were plenty of cops and families with kids along the route. I also outweigh any two Greeks combined so I was confident I could handle myself in case there was a mugging. Even so, I had an escape route planned.
After a couple blocks, he wanted to take me out for a traditional drink of ouzo and orange juice. I hadn't had much alcohol in months so I figured why not. He led me to this incredibly sleazy bar. At that point I knew something was up because there weren't any customers. It was just a Korean bartender and a hostess that, in hindsight, was probably an Eastern European prostitute. I thought one drink couldn't hurt. The hostess started acting really friendly and asked me to buy her a drink. Most things in Greece are cheap so I didn't mind. It was just nice to be able to talk to somebody in English. I'm pretty sure they spiked my drink because everything got fuzzy after just one drink. I still retained enough presence of mind to cover my pockets. And when I heard "you buy me champagne now!" I knew it was a con. I asked for my bill despite their vehement protests and found they were charging me an obscenely steep price. I paid it because I had no idea what would happen if the police got involved, then got out quick. My mind was still muddled so I didn't think to go to the cops, although they wouldn't have helped anyway. That was the rest of my souvenir budget gone, although I really don't mind losing the money. I consider that my personal "idiot tax" for letting my guard down and trusting a Greek bearing gifts. I hopped onto Google later and learned that bar is notorious for scamming single male tourists. They often get drugged until they pass out, and then are robbed blind. The cops hardly do anything either; the fact that the bar is still open suggests a lot of greased palms. I consider myself lucky that I figured it out after just one round of drinks and didn't lose anything else. When I remember that con artist I just think, "Well played, you charming old bastard." But if I'm ever in Athens again and he approaches me, he'll be sorry.
But I didn't let that ruin my trip. I can make up the money lost in just a couple days. And when I sat down at the hotel breakfast the next day, I saw real bacon. Bacon makes everything better.
The Athens bar scheme was used to great effect on US servicemen when the Sixth Fleet had more of a presence in the eastern Mediterranean. I can't imagine how many sailors were swindled there. And finally, the immigrants in Greece look like they're from Borat's home village.
I spent my Eid break (it's a Muslim holiday) in Athens. My trip was all right overall. The Acropolis was totally worth the visit, and I'd definitely recommend visiting Delphi (I hiked to the very top!). As for Athens itself, I wouldn't recommend staying there unless you're with a group of people. It's an ugly city, there's graffiti everywhere, and crime is on the rise. The Greeks love to blame all their crime on Albanian and Russian immigrants, although there are plenty of native outlaws. If you visit, don't just go to the CIA and other government sites to get travel advice. They only help with the official stuff like visas and general crime; look at the backpacking and tourism blogs because they can warn you about other dangers. I should've done that before I left and here's why.
I feel a bit foolish for being duped by a scammer. It's actually quite common in Athens, especially now that the Greek economy is diving. I've traveled to many different countries and am a pretty experienced traveler. I knew to not carry too much cash on me and to never carry your wallet in your back pocket. I'm also pretty savvy to most scams, but those are the more mundane types (ie. an Egyptian vendor offers to sell you a "priceless antique" that he really just bought by the gross from China). In this case, I was at Syntagma Square (outside the Greek parliament) and was walking to my hotel. I'd spent most of the day touring downtown Athens by foot and I was a little tired. Suddenly a nice old man stopped me and asked where I'm from. Most Greeks are very friendly so that was perfectly normal. He spoke good English and we talked for a bit, then he recommended that I visit the Plaka neighborhood for dinner. Again, that was normal because those family-owned restaurants are quite good. I thanked him and said I'd visit later, but I needed to get back to my hotel. At that point, I was right outside the hotel entrance. But then he kept saying, "Come. I show you."
At that point my Spider Sense started tingling. In many cases, that person is a decoy who draws unsuspecting tourists into an ambush. But that neighborhood was just a couple blocks away and it was still broad daylight. Plus there were plenty of cops and families with kids along the route. I also outweigh any two Greeks combined so I was confident I could handle myself in case there was a mugging. Even so, I had an escape route planned.
After a couple blocks, he wanted to take me out for a traditional drink of ouzo and orange juice. I hadn't had much alcohol in months so I figured why not. He led me to this incredibly sleazy bar. At that point I knew something was up because there weren't any customers. It was just a Korean bartender and a hostess that, in hindsight, was probably an Eastern European prostitute. I thought one drink couldn't hurt. The hostess started acting really friendly and asked me to buy her a drink. Most things in Greece are cheap so I didn't mind. It was just nice to be able to talk to somebody in English. I'm pretty sure they spiked my drink because everything got fuzzy after just one drink. I still retained enough presence of mind to cover my pockets. And when I heard "you buy me champagne now!" I knew it was a con. I asked for my bill despite their vehement protests and found they were charging me an obscenely steep price. I paid it because I had no idea what would happen if the police got involved, then got out quick. My mind was still muddled so I didn't think to go to the cops, although they wouldn't have helped anyway. That was the rest of my souvenir budget gone, although I really don't mind losing the money. I consider that my personal "idiot tax" for letting my guard down and trusting a Greek bearing gifts. I hopped onto Google later and learned that bar is notorious for scamming single male tourists. They often get drugged until they pass out, and then are robbed blind. The cops hardly do anything either; the fact that the bar is still open suggests a lot of greased palms. I consider myself lucky that I figured it out after just one round of drinks and didn't lose anything else. When I remember that con artist I just think, "Well played, you charming old bastard." But if I'm ever in Athens again and he approaches me, he'll be sorry.
But I didn't let that ruin my trip. I can make up the money lost in just a couple days. And when I sat down at the hotel breakfast the next day, I saw real bacon. Bacon makes everything better.
The Athens bar scheme was used to great effect on US servicemen when the Sixth Fleet had more of a presence in the eastern Mediterranean. I can't imagine how many sailors were swindled there. And finally, the immigrants in Greece look like they're from Borat's home village.
Cajungal
Staff member
Ehh, it's more like I only see them for an hour each day. If my input is needed, I attend, but it wasn't. Teachers generally contact me to see if behaviors are happening across the board. I can request to attend, but I didn't need to do that either.
