Kingfox

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At this hour, playing Seasons in the Abyss from the radio in my bedroom, the radio in the bathroom, and the television in the living room is the only appropriate thing to do.

T minus three hours for handout. Bagels ready in one hour. Expect a post with the handout cam once caniswolfie gets it set up.

One of the student employees in training knew who the former was. Two of them knew who the latter was, and another two had heard the famous phrase. They wouldn’t get most of the references in Cripple Smash.

A few years ago, I figured out exactly what the cutoff date was for students to not know who Sam Kinison was, though most of them would then know who I was talking about if I mentioned “Back to School” and described his character. It was, I think, the class of 2002 or 2003. It’s been a while, I might have forgotten. Anyone from then on didn’t know him, anyone from earlier did. The more recent classes don’t even know him with the assist of the “Back to School” reference. I wish I could sit down a bunch of ‘em and figure out the cutoff years for the above early nineties figures.

A week ago, someone mailed out this list about the current incoming college class. After forwarding it to shmivejournal, we laughed about it for a bit.

(10:51:20 AM) kingfox: Like some are good, but others are just utter crap. “Smoking has never been allowed in public spaces in France.”
(10:54:01 AM) shmivejournal: i think that if someone has no knowledge of ‘the kids’ memorizing a little list ain’t gonna help
(10:54:25 AM) kingfox: “Oh, I’m sorry, Avatars have nothing to do with Hindu deities for you, I’m so sorry!”
(11:18:46 AM) shmivejournal: Being a latchkey kid has never been a big deal.
(11:18:54 AM) shmivejournal: that is valid
(11:18:59 AM) shmivejournal: it’s not even really a term anymore

The Springsteen version is like a whole different song. The last verse completely changes it. From an Orthodox Marxist perspective, one could say that it’s superior, that is to say, from the perspective of socialist realism. But the Tom Waits version really speaks to the sketchy moods that one finds oneself in in places like Sud-Ouest Montreal, or for that matter, New Jersey.

I know that, uh, my education comes from the shape of a cloud, the whisper of the wind, the babbling of a brook, the song of a bird, the laughter of a child, the beauty of a woman…

-Riley Martin

…the drag of a joint, the snort of a cocaine…

-Howard Stern

…and when I go on off into a [unintelligible] dream, I learn things that I could not have known, such as the anti-universe, and things of this nature, which I’m working on.

-Riley Martin

I’m going to go drink tea on my roof and chat with people on the phone before Karazhan. Helpdesk training starts tomorrow morning. Handout on Friday. A week from Wednesday my last class starts, finishing up the academic journey I began exactly eleven years ago.

When I was a younger man, I was once dubbed the king of tempura. Now I am a sadder and wiser man, and I go off to a new tempura bar in the Village. Mmmmm.

Finally got around to uploading my photographs from the MP3 Experiment Four and the wandering around I did afterward. A lot of my shots from the experiment are crap, as I was fiddling with a generously borrowed minidisc player and trying to take shots while skipping, dodging, or following some other random instruction.

Some great shots and videos can be found here from the event organizers. They’re pretty entertaining. The time lapse video is amazing. Here’s a copy on YouTube, but there’s a better version on their website.


Odd, I got sent an updated mindmap for some reason.

Glad I took the opportunity to wander around Manhattan yesterday before the rain came. After the MP3 Experiment wrapped up, I bid farewell to runstaverun, kikibird, and windexcowboy at the tragic fire, wandered back through Battery Park City, and wandered around for a while. Chatted with periol from TriBeCa through the Village, the Meatpacking District, and up into Chelsea. Attempted to give cessna182 tech support from Union Square, and chatted with maidoftheshore from Madison Square Park, walking around the line for the Shake Shack. I continued to wander and explore until after the sun had set, just enjoying the weather. I was in the mood to go on a hike, but didn’t want to have to deal with parking, so the city had to do. It worked out nicely. Far too much of this summer was spent inside or rushing somewhere, it was nice to just stretch my legs for a while with no particular destination, even if I spent the time pestering the outside world or having it knock on my door.

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My local Rita’s Ice offers delivery. Through an online delivery service. That’s right, you can have a Misto Shake delivered to your apartment without having to talk to a soul. This is not the future I signed up for. Despite the fun gatherings co-ordinated online, they’re far from Bruce Sterling’s “Maneki Neko,” but what did you expect? Instead of Neal Stephenson’s Metaverse we’ve got the over-hyped Second Life (aka “Sadville”), a ghost town populated by the reporters assigned to write about it and people creating waves of flying dongs. Though I am delighted that instead of Chinese military-grade icebreakers diving into the core of a megacorp’s AI we shut down pools.

Off to the Mp3 Experiment.

You’re going to need more than your word to get Luna Lovegood.

I love LJ-started LJ Drama. brad‘s gone, people don’t know and still plot to teach him a lesson based on moves made since his departure. And really? He had damn good reasons to leave.

Already, there’s the icons.

And the masses respond!. That wall of bitter Pepsi is utterly hilarious.

The worm in my apple? That would be Livejournal subjecting me to ads after assuring me that a paid account would keep my LJ space ad-free. The fact that you used the news community to deliver this unwelcome content right to my Friends page, after declining to host policy discussions in the same forum for fear of ‘spamming’ users, well… I think I’m getting more worm than apple, here.

I have a mostly written recap of Blizzcon, my recent accomplishments in Azeroth and Draenor, blah blah blah. But instead you get this bit of pseudo-WoW goodness. But first, #22 shadow damage warlock on my server, #7 Horde side, and #6/#3′s in my 3v3 arena team.

oidhche jumped me yesterday when I was dropping off some DVDs to a co-worker. He sat me down in front of a computer and insisted that XD was broken. I insinuated it was him messing something up, and demanded screen shots. Got screen shots last night, took a look, and determined he was doing something within the OU that broke things.

I like to gamble on things. I don’t bet on professional sports or the lottery or poker or the like. Maybe I got the love for the action from aaronkliger or Artie Lange, but I like to bet on everyday events. Will person X still be out sick tomorrow? Will utini2 lose in tennis to feffthekidd yet again? Will person Y bail on dinner? Betting on a basketball game isn’t as much fun as betting who was in a movie. I’d rather bet on the performance of my friends than that of a horse.

Katie: “Have you tried to argue with kingfox? It’s impossible. He just looks right. See? Look at that expression.”
Katie: “You can’t disagree with kingfox. He’s always right.”

So I bet oidhche that moving his computer to a different OU will cause the problem to go away. Gave him five to one odds. But he refused to bet cash… so we bet gold. He gets five hundred gold if I’m wrong, I get one hundred gold if I’m right. This isn’t such a great solution, as I know he’s good for the cash, but he’s low on gold. I have a feeling he’ll be borrowing from palingyuan to cover the debt.

Sadly, I’ve bet gold before. A person I used to run my current guild with and I used to bet on boss attempts all the time.

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Congrats to my cousin Rachel on her new daughter! As my mom noted, she blogged from the waiting room while waiting to be induced. That’s so awesome.