The Academy

Blogging about nothing.

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Friday, January 31, 2003
 
I offer this link to my friend Dave's column that hilariously details something that happened to Robert, Mark, Patrick and me while we were vacationing in Las Vegas. It also takes on the recent Rolling Stone article that purportedly reveals a disturbing cultural trend, but that actually seems to be completely made up. Unfortunately, conservative assholes will downplay the debunking as just another example of the homosexual lobby drowning out the truth.

Incidentally, I do not use the words "conservative assholes" lightly. I do not mean to infer, DW or WJ, that all conservatives are assholes. Some of them clearly are not. It cannot be denied, however, that a chosen few of them really, really are.

Now, to respond to my colleagues:

Sadly, no, Jen. Frankly, I am bewildered as to the difference. No, my correction was in some of my (ahem) personal correspondence with Howard, as I like to call him. But, sadly again for me, it turns out I just misunderstood him and he was right anyway. Mark, I would love to correct your post. In fact, I have been trying to do so all day long. Email me whatever link you were trying to link to and I'll gladly fix it.

Mark's little Patrick was drunk, drunk, drunk on The Sims Online the other night. Hysterical.

 
I tuned in to Joe Millionaire (the rerun) last night and somehow missed the Fah-Dah-Twee. How that happened I'll never know. I was looking forward to listening to Sarah slurp. OK, so my life is empty. If you obsessively check How Appealing as I do, you'll see that the next candidate for 20 Questions is a Ninth Cir. judge. My money's on the guy upstairs. (Not God... the guy who really is literally upstairs.) It could be AK-47 but that's such an obvious choice. I had the pleasure of correcting Bashman today about something. That brought me great joy. (See earlier reference to empty life.)

I am delighted to report that co-blogger Rfl will be showing up in the Pacific Northwest later tonight so I should have something better to do soon. Hooray.

Thursday, January 30, 2003
 

Another example of the power of the Internet. I know about this:

Tuesday, January 28, 2003

USA: Woman who got leg in mail sues for anguish.

HOUSTON, Jan 28 (Reuters) - An Alaska woman, shocked to receive part of her
dead father's leg in the mail instead of the gourmet "LobsterGram" she was
hoping for has filed suit against the Houston firm that sent it, alleging
mental anguish, people involved in the case said on Tuesday.

LaMara Lane wants $1 million for breach of contract and the mental anguish
that beset her after opening what she thought was a food gift delivered to her
home in the Alaskan town of North Pole, according to the lawsuit filed in
federal court.

But Identigene Inc., which does DNA testing, said it was only following orders
from a North Dakota judge when it shipped the leg to Lane late last year.

"We have a court order that says send it to this place and this woman,"
Identigene President Caroline Caskey told Reuters. "I feel like I'm in the
Twilight Zone."

The odd saga began in early 2000 when George Semmens died in North Dakota. He
left his $200,000 estate to Lane, who was his only child, but whose mother he
never married.

A sister of Semmens challenged whether Lane really was his daughter, which
resulted in a North Dakota judge ordering that his body be exhumed for DNA
testing.

A leg bone and samples of Semmens' body tissue were sent to Identigene, where
tests confirmed that Lane was his daughter.

Tony Buzbee, a lawyer for Lane, a 41-year-old teacher's aide married to a
hunter and trapper, told reporters the leg was supposed to be cremated, but
was sent to her by mistake.

It arrived in a container designed to keep the contents cold, which led Lane
to believe she had been sent a LobsterGram, a popular gift in the frozen
north, said Buzbee.

Buzbee, who did not return phone calls on Tuesday, told the Houston Chronicle
that Lane, whose town North Pole is near Fairbanks, Alaska, was so shocked
"she's had to store the bone and flesh in her neighbor's freezer."

"She can barely talk about it without crying," he said.

Caskey said Identigene had hired a lawyer to contest the lawsuit.




 
DW: as the name suggests, this page provides a forum for lofty, high-minded ideas that might get swept under the rug and go unshared were it not for this opportunity. For example: Because I no longer live in NYC, I would likely not be privy to Mark's subway encounter with a woman who both HAS a pigface and WEARS a hat that says "Pigface" on it. This is the kind of thing that Mark used to mention to me on a daily basis. Now, with this blog, Mark can jot those items down whenever he so chooses. I, in a moment of despair (which moments occur about 8-9 times in an average workday), may turn to the blog and be distracted from my self-involved dilemma. I can say, "Well, I may have just allowed a typo to go out to the entire court, but at least I do not have a pigface -- or, for that matter, a hat that says pigface."

If you can honestly read the previous posts and not see this invitation as the honor it truly is, I do not know how to explain it to you. Except to say what I just said.

Now, Mark and I shall engage in a conversation about ANGEL. Wasn't Angel GREAT? I was totally hoodwinked. They Patrick Duffied me, man.



Wednesday, January 29, 2003
 
Rafael knows that his peculiarity is chief among my reasons for adoring him. I can confirm that, left to his own devices, his bathroom is stocked with those little hotel soaps that smell not so good. You know the ones. Pink, small, and melty. However, he does enjoy the Origins Salt Rub when it is available to him. Hmmmm. More on this topic: a dear friend and avowed hetero claims that he also enjoys show tunes. This same friend, however, once admitted to me that he cooks salmon in parchment. Paperwork used in cooking has eliminated him from the control group in this experiment. I see no reason to explain this.

Tuesday, January 28, 2003
 
You know what I love? The internet. No, really. I do. You can put basically anything into google and get an answer. I knew that somewhere out there in the ether there was someone who had said something interesting about straight men and musicals. And, in fact, there was.

 
I also love this post to another blog about NYC taxes very much. Like it isn't hard enough to live in NYC, you have to pay *more* for the privilege? You GO, IA.

 
In the interests of full disclosure, I have to report the results of an experiment I have conducted just now here in my office. I would not report it, but Robert was on the phone for the experiment and he now insists that I report it. I asked my purportedly straight co-clerk Ben if he liked musicals. To which he replied, "Yes!" Suspicious, I demanded proof: what is your favorite Broadway musical, Ben, I asked? "Oh, I adore Guys and Dolls," he answered. Robert now insists that this is proof that Robert's love of the musical is not peculiar. I stand by my earlier position. I think this is proof only of the fact that Ben, like Robert, is a freak. I'm starting to regret not pouncing on David Wilson when I had the chance.

 
You know what's great about Mark? Pretty much everything. I still cannot believe that Patrick is the mean one, though.

 
Stories about Jennifer and cars and New Jersey usually amuse me. This one did not. Its funny how I just cannot conceive of people behaving this badly or things being this difficult anymore. Portland has made me *so* soft. Not that my time at the DMV here was not frustrating -- it was. I mean, its the DMV. At its best its still as abrasive as a Silkwood shower. But it was nowhere near that bad. And it took place in a shopping center that contains a Starbucks. As a matter of fact, everything out here takes place in a shopping center that contains a Starbucks. Come to think of it, in just a few short years everything in the world will happen at a shopping center that contains a Starbucks.

That DMV story reminds me of the good old days when we hated the Russians. Even though I grew up terrified of an impending nuclear holocaut, it just seems like the good old days when I look back now. Compared to now, the cold war kind of seems like a screwball comedy. (Cut to shot of Reagan poking Brezhnev in the eyes, Three Stooges style.) Speaking of international relations humor, check this out.

I shall now bring a heated debate to this blog. My boyfriend loves show tunes. Or, as he corrected me earlier, he loves Broadway musicals. Apparently, there is some distinction of which I am unaware. He loves musicals to the point of actually ACTIVELY seeking tickets to see them. Really! Despite this, he still claims to be completely straight. If he isn't, he's putting on a pretty good front. I say that this is PECULIAR. I say that if we were to ask 10 random straight guys if they wanted to see a Broadway musical, 110% of them would say "No. No, thank you. Absolutely not." Okay, half of them might ask if it was a topless musical before they refused. BUT they would all refuse. Robert says this is not true.... this is some sort of exaggeration. He claims that LOTS of straight guys LOVE Broadway musicals.

Discuss. I am confident my position is solid.


Monday, January 27, 2003
 
Hmmph. I was having a truly bad day until I thought of checking this blog to see if anyone had said anything funny. Turns out, people have been saying funny things while I simmered angrily out here in rainy Portland. What a nice thing. Thank you, funny people, for being funny.

For my part, I have this to contribute. I have been increasingly dismayed about the size of my ass. As I was recently told by a man on the street, I have "a lot going on back there." More disturbing than the actual ass size is its stubborn refusal to deflate. Despite my rigorous thrice weekly step class and closely monitored weight watchers diet for months of last year, there was no movement of that little scale needle thingie. NONE. Likely, this is because I have been on a diet since I was 8 which, I'm told, wreaks havoc with the metabolism.

In an effort to shake things up, I have signed up for EDIETS. This is the program that constantly shouts at you through popup ads. I cannot decide what to feed myself anymore so I have thrown myself to EDIETS mercy. Things are going pretty well. It tells me what to eat. I eat what it tells me to eat. I also exercise when it tells me to exercise.

It is the exercise portion of the program that prompted me to consider throwing myself from something tall. I am on the "beginner" toning program with the ediets. I have been doing cardio for a while, but I have until now steered clear of lifting anything heavy. So, I figured I'd start with the "beginner" level and go from there. Today is DAY ONE of the exercise portion of the program. I was just now consulting the toning exercises while printing out the diagrams to take with me to the gym Exercise one is the "Chair Squat". This involves squatting over a chair as if you were going to sit in it but then, at the last minute (PSYCH!) you stand right back up again. Okay, great. The listed benefits of this exercise include greater quad strength. And.... this little doozie of a sentence:

This movement will also help in gaining proficiency when getting in and out of a chair.

Things are bad, people, but gratefully things are not so bad as to require skill-building in the area of, oh, GETTING IN AND OUT OF A CHAIR. I question the use of the word "proficiency" in connection with that activity. Is there some sort of GETTING IN AND OUT OF A CHAIR continuum of which I am unaware? Can one be more or less proficient at that activity? I am okay with, "I am proficient in French." I am NOT okay with, "I am proficient at getting in and out of chairs." It seems that one either CAN get in and out of chairs or CANNOT. Thank God, at this point I am still firmly in the can-do camp as far as furniture escapes are concerned.

So I think I'm moving into the "intermediate" toning program ASAP.