I’ll spare you the Valentine’s Day rant. Nobody needs to hear that.
“The Daily Rant” had quite an interesting time on Saturday. I had noticed for a few days that the Papers section had been getting an extraordinary amount of hits compared to usual. This wasn’t unwelcomed, it was just strange. However, it DID seem odd that the Papers section would get about 25 hits in one day, and the front page only 5. This seemed to indicate that people were going DIRECTLY to the Papers section. Still, I managed to ignore the obvious reason for a while longer. Then came the “anonymous tip”!
Apparently someone in the BISC 307 class at CementLand had “gleefully” (I’ll bet!) stumbled upon my website, and had noticed that four of the papers in my Papers section were the ones that THEY were supposed to be writing this semester (one of which was due on Monday). My penchant for bookmarking my website (in a shameless bid for self promotion) at every computer that I use at CementLand probably increased the likelihood for such a finding. So my “anonymous tipster” pointed out to me over email that my intellectual property was being pilfered by petty plagiarizing miscreants! She may have used different words, however.
So what to do now? Clearly I was being stolen from, a fact that I was not nearly as concerned with as the potential for my rump to be utilized as a punching bag by an overzealous CementLand bureaucrat or other miscellaneous employee. Offended by being called “miscellaneous”? Hell – I am referred to as a NUMBER! I imagined being vigorously caned in public, bent over as the switches and belts rained down. This might be even worse than the figurative caning that all CementLand students know and love. In actuality, I’ll bet that it is the obvious contempt that I have for much of the CementLand administration on this page that would potentially land me in hot water before any intellectual thievery by physiology paper plunderers.
So, one of my main initial reactions was that I could be under the “jurisdiction” of some sort of Academic Dishonesty Policy, although I cannot really fathom why (they probably don’t need a reason). My other reaction was: “hey! this might make a good update” (its gotten bad boys and girls!).
It was obvious that these four papers had to be pulled, but what should I do in order to replace them? I thought it just a tad underachieving to just pull them off, and leave nothing in their place. A number of ideas immediately developed…
You know those annoying popup windows that people have on their sites (Geocities ads etc.)? Now how about those sites that REALLY overdo the pop window add assault? Hmmm…. So I was going to have around 10 of those things popup, all loading…. something. What to load? Well, I pictures that some of these paper pilferers would potentially be paper pilfering in the CementLand computer bunker. I thought of having some kind of “dirty” pictures in there, but that just seemed a little unsavory to actually have on my site (it would deviate too much from the “normal” crap). Also, an “interesting” picture might only elicit a head bob or two as they realize just what they are looking at. This certainly wouldn’t attract much attention (and potential embarrassment) from other people in the lab. I thought a sound file might be more appropriate. So I downloaded, and discovered that it was remarkably easy to find, the audio from the restaurant scene from “When Harry Met Sally”. You know the one.
I imagined the audio assault that one would experience as they attempted to clot the ever growing gush of popup windows. I imagined the attention that this might bring by others in the dingy CementLand library computer bunker. Then I thought of the children….
Actually, I didn’t. What I did think of was the user of my page with honest intentions. These papers DO get read occasionally by legitimate users. Did I want to assault them too? Well, I don’t get as many visitors as I might like, so I decided to come up with a better solution.
I scanned my middle finger. 🙂
I keep wondering if it would be a good idea for fast food outlets to have an overhang on the roof by their drive through windows. You see, it has been known to rain once or twice a year here in BC, and I always manage to position the edge of their roof right over my open window. If they would just put a few extra square feet of roof on their buildings, I might not have to wipe up a rainflood every time I patronize their establishment! Is this too much to ask?
Speaking of drive through’s – I was at a White Spot the other day. Pulled up to the window and was paying for it, when one girl in the window said I looked better without “the hat”. Well, this may very well be true, but what is a complete stranger commenting on it for? So this girl disappeared and another said: ” I guess you must like our burgers!” This was also confusing, so I asked: “Since I ordered two of them?” “No”, she said, “because you come here a lot!” Well, this was also sort of confusing, considering that I have only been to that particular place three times, and while both of these people were there on both occasions, I have no idea why I implanted enough notice in their brains to suggest a response about my lack of headwear at that moment. I’m still puzzled. I wonder what will happen next time I go there…. ?
Lately I have been thinking the evils of bread. That’s right! The bread may sit in all its doughy subversiveness right there in your kitchen, yet many have not pondered its inherently evil qualities and intents!
Recently in a magazine at CementLand (evil in its own right…) I read about the evils of one appliance associated with bread: the toaster. The following is an excerpt:
Will the toaster swallow the slice, then hold it in its stubborn grip until it’s a hunk of smoking charcoal? How many times in a row will you have to insert a slice, only to see it instantly pop back up again? Set the dial to “Well Done”, and the “toast” that emerges five long minutes later is pale yellow. Exactly! It is this very duel of wits between man and machine, the struggle to outguess the little bastard’s endless treacheries, that snaps the dozing mind awake every morning, sharpening it for the challenges of the day ahead. (Time – Bruce McCall, December 4, 2000).
Then I read about another evil bread thing…Look what it made this guy do!
“I do touch too much bread, yes, more than the next person.” These were the words of Samuel Feldman, a.k.a. the Cookie Crumbler, after being convicted of poking and squeezing backed goods at Philadelphia supermarkets.
Well, there were so many burgeoning ideas about the evils of bread that I turned to the internet in order to straighten out the melee in my head. I found a remarkable amount of material on the internet about the evils of bread! Turns out it wasn’t such an original idea after all. So, rather than give my own ideas on the evils of bread, I’ll give other peoples. So much for taking personal responsibility.
1. More than 98 percent of convicted felons are bread eaters.
2. Fully HALF of all children who grow up in bread-consuming households score below average on standardized tests.
3. More than 90 percent of violent crimes are committed within 24 hours of eating bread.
4. Bread has been proven to be addictive. Subjects deprived of bread and given only water to eat begged for bread after only two days.
5. Bread is often a “gateway” food item, leading the user to “harder” items such as butter, jam, cheese and even cold ham.
6. Bread has been proven to absorb water. Since the human body is more than 90 percent water, it follows that eating bread could lead to your body being taken over by this absorptive food product, turning you into a soggy, gooey bread-pudding person.
Avoid the bread!