ramble through the bronx

Wednesday, June 28, 2006

Thanks, Dawn, I saw this quiz on your blog

Sigh... predictable, eh?

What kind of postmodernist are you!?

You are a Theory Slut. The true elite of the postmodernists, you collect avant-garde Indonesian hiphop compilations and eat journal articles for breakfast. You positively live for theory. It really doesn't matter what kind, as long as the words are big and the paragraph breaks few and far between.
Take this quiz!








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jane 9:38 PM [+]

Finally, an explanation and justification for my way of doing things

Now I know why I do so much stuff for the GSA, for the Philosophy Department, for the Social Justice Forum, and everything else -- it's just structured procrastination, "an amazing strategy I have discovered that converts procrastinators into effective human beings, respected and admired for all that they can accomplish and the good use they make of time."

Excellent.

OK, back to the dissertation.... or not?

jane 2:50 PM [+]

SPEP program is online

The program for the 2006 meeting of the Society for Phenomenology and Existential Philosophy (SPEP) is online! Right here! (pdf file). Our panel is on p. 8. YAY!! So we'll be Thursday afternoon (3.45 - 6pm), which is the first day of the conference -- which is great; it means we can relax after that. Relax, go to dinner, get beers. Yee haw!

jane 10:06 AM [+]

Sigh...

My friend Rosie sent me this Hurricanes-related article from the Onion; if you haven't seen it yet it's pretty priceless.

Also today in Reuter's, a "crazy American tourist" story --

Fan forgets hotel location in six-hour ordeal
Fri Jun 23, 2006 07:44 AM ET

BERLIN (Reuters) - German police rescued an American soccer fan lost in Hanover and unable to find his hotel again after helplessly wandering around the city for more than six hours after a match, federal police said Friday.
The 25-year-old Boston man had checked into his hotel in the afternoon before going to see a match between Poland and Costa Rica but could not remember his hotel's name, its address or anything else about it, police spokesman Holger Jureczko said.

"He came into the police station at 3 a.m. and asked for help," Jureczko said.

"The only thing he could remember was paying 10 euros for a taxi ride to the city center and that he went past a park and a Mercedes dealer. There are a lot of Mercedes dealers in Hanover but we were able to find the one in the vicinity of a park."

Police took the American to the area that matched his vague description in the city of 500,000 and spent an hour driving up and down streets in that quarter until he recognized his hotel just before dawn Wednesday.

Sigh....

jane 9:24 AM [+]

Polite New York vs. Toronto

Ah, via Reuters, Readers Digest has something important for us to know:

New York City tops in courtesy, says Reader's Digest
Wed Jun 21, 2006 08:17 AM ET

By Ellen Wulfhorst

NEW YORK (Reuters) - New York, despite a reputation as a fast-moving, tough-talking town, ranked as the world's most polite major city, according to a survey released on Tuesday.

Outscoring large cities in 35 countries, New York proved best in three tests of courtesy, according to the survey by Reader's Digest.

Reporters for the magazine conducted a "door test," to see who would hold open a door, a "document drop" to see who would help pick up dropped papers and a "service test" to measure if salesclerks said thank you for a purchase.

Four out of five New Yorkers passed the courtesy tests, the magazine reported.

"It certainly contradicts the popular stereotype that a lot of people have about New York," said Conrad Kiechel, international editorial director for the Pleasantville, N.Y.-based magazine.

Specifically, 90 percent of New Yorkers passed the door test, 55 percent passed the document drop and 19 out of 20 clerks passed the service test.

Coming in a close second was Zurich at 77 percent, Toronto at 70 percent, and Berlin, Sao Paulo and Zagreb, Croatia, all with 68 percent.

Following down the list were Auckland, Warsaw, Mexico City, Stockholm, Budapest, Madrid, Prague, Vienna, Buenos Aires, Johannesburg, Lisbon, London, Paris, Amsterdam, Helsinki, Manila, Milan, Sydney, Bangkok, Hong Kong, Ljubljana, Jakarta, Taipei, Moscow, Singapore, Seoul, Kuala Lumpur, Bucharest and Mumbai.

The more than 2,000 tests of behavior showed that people under 40 were more courteous than those over 40, men were more polite to other men and women were more polite to other women.

The region that most lacked courtesy was Asia, where eight out of nine cities tested finished in the bottom 11, Reader's Digest said.

It conducted the tests in the most populous cities in 35 nations worldwide from late February to mid-March.

People around the world tended to offer the same explanation for their polite behavior, Kiechel said.

"People said they were polite because they had been brought up to be that way," he said.

The study is published in Reader's Digest's July issue of its 50 editions worldwide.

jane 10:38 AM [+]

COME ON, EDMONTON!!!

As I write, the second period has just ended and Carolina's up 2-0, and also up in shots on goal 18-13. Edmonton would have even fewer shots were it not for a 5-3 power play that alas, they failed to convert into any actual goals. ARGH! I have a $5 bet riding on this game; but also, I just really want to see Edmonton win! After that glorious game Saturday, it seems only right! Especially since they came into the playoffs the 8th-seeded team in the west. It would just be right, by the laws of sports mythos. Unless they're like Rocky in Rocky I -- they went the distance, but didn't win. Nooooooo!

(I realize that of course, this would be Carolina's first Stanley Cup win, so I should be a little nice to them. And Cam Ward is great. But still.)

In other happy news, Washington Mutual found my cheque & ditched my overdraft charges. I guess I can love them again. But I'd like an apology.

jane 10:07 PM [+]

Save the date!

On June 23, 2006, the Wikipedia article on Canada will appear on Wikipedia's main page as the featured article of the day!

Yay!

And congratulations to Edmonton for that thrilling overtime goal last night. Keep the hope alive!

(apparently there is also a World Cup going on. Eh, go Holland!)

jane 9:43 PM [+]

Day of crappy bank frustration, mitigated by discovery of new comic

Listen to my tale of woe. I went online today to check my washington mutual account, to make sure I had enough money to get my new passport ($97) -- I figured if I didn't have enough there, I would transfer some money to my US credit card ,so that I would have at least $97 free on the credit card balance. So far, so good.

I went online and saw that my balance was $ -185! and nearly had a heart attack! It said that my stipend cheque, for $250, that I deposited last week, didn't exist -- that I'd deposited an empty envelope. ARGH!!!!

I went to my office & double checked that I'd taken the check off its stub, which I had, which means I must have deposited, since otherwise I wouldn't have detached the cheque & the cheque would still be there. I had stub, no cheque. Therefore, deposited cheque. Right?

I called Washington Mutual & the best they could tell me was that they'd do an investigation, which takes 5 business days (i.e., 'til next Wednesday). I asked if
it would make sense for me to have Fordham cut me a new cheque, but they said no, since if WaMu found the old cheque they would deposit it right away.

So now I have to wait 5 business days in case they find it. But what if it's still lost? argh.

If they find it, then they'll take off the $60-some-odd of overdraft charges. Which will be good. If they don't find it, then I have to have Fordham stop payment on the lost cheque, and I'm still responsible for the overdraft charges.

I hate banks. It's frustrating, since I've been depositing cheques in ATM machines for years, with never anything bad happening.

--

OK, now the new comic I promised you. I've also linked to it on the lefthand side of this blog. It's Cat and Girl. If you're procrastinating, just start reading through the archives. It's all good.

--

Last thing -- you may have noticed a link to my livejournal account up above; I'm not switching over or anything; it's just so that I can keep up with livejournal people & also look through communities. Like the one entitled 'gradschool_hell'. Yes, brilliant.

jane 9:58 PM [+]

parties in Edmonton tonight!

Edmonton just scored with 2 minutes 15 seconds left, making the score for Game 3 2-1 in Edmonton's favour. let's keep this up, Oilers!

Lovely to see Megan today, looking forward to seeing her tomorrow.

jane 10:44 PM [+]

Sigh...

I've been spending the day procrastinating... well, really I'm getting paid to sit at the library reference desk, so officially I'm working, in the sense of being at a job, but really, I'm not working, since the books are sitting unopened and the book review I promised to have done in "early June" is still far from finished.

New discovery: Piled Higher and Deeper, a comic strip about graduate student life. Brilliant! I think I'm going to have to print out this one and put it in my office in order to keep me focused.

jane 2:37 PM [+]

Thanks, Paul

You know you're a graduate student when someone asks you about work, and you talk about book reviews, dissertation chapters, etc., and totally forget about the fact that you also have a job....

jane 10:15 AM [+]

16.41 left in the 3rd period and the score is what?!?

Man... 4-0... I feel sad. And I still have another 45 minutes to go at the library until I can go home & drown my sorrows. And eat some pasta.

Curses.

Yes, there are weightier things i could have blogged on today, but my hands are cold in the air conditioning, my feet/socks/shoes have been wet all day from the rain, and really I just want to trawl MySpace for folks I haven't seen in years. Huzzah.


---
Update, 10.18 pm... I finish this blog post, go back to the CBS Sportsline game display, and the score is now 6-0 for Carolina. There is no happiness in this world.


--
Update, 10.26 pm... What? One of the goals went away? The CBS blog doesn't say whether it was a typo, a disallow, or what. Maybe some small sign of happiness? A little? Not really... 5-0 is still naaaaasty.

jane 10:12 PM [+]

Crying into my soup over Carolina's victory last night

To make me feel better, I did a quiz. Yay fun! No surprise in the result, really....

I am a hybrid of: Academic Girl Indie Girl Click on the pictures below to read more: Take the 'What Kind of Girl Are You?' quiz at CookingToHookup.com

jane 1:11 PM [+]

To make Megan more geeky

Maybe she should read up on Canadian super-heroes?

Including, of course, her famous fellow Albertan.

jane 12:54 AM [+]

Almost over for Buffalo...

As I type there are 10 seconds left... I've been following the game long on the NHL website. Much less fun than getting to watch it, but I'm stuck at the library reference desk for another 40 minutes. 4-2 for Carolina. Too bad, I was rooting for Buffalo.

Oh well. Go Edmonton!

There we go, game over.

In other news,

You are 43% geek

You are a geek liaison, which means you go both ways. You can hang out with normal people or you can hang out with geeks which means you often have geeks as friends and/or have a job where you have to mediate between geeks and normal people. This is an important role and one of which you should be proud. In fact, you can make a good deal of money as a translator. Normal: Tell our geek we need him to work this weekend. You [to Geek]: We need more than that, Scotty. You'll have to stay until you can squeeze more outta them engines! Geek [to You]: I'm givin' her all she's got, Captain, but we need more dilithium crystals! You [to Normal]: He wants to know if he gets overtime.

Take the Polygeek Quiz at Thudfactor.com

jane 10:14 PM [+]

"No monuments or icons"

Homeland security money? We don't need to steenking Homeland security money!*

According to the Department of Homeland Security, New York City will have its anti-terror funds cut by 40%, "$207.5 million in 2005 to $124.4 million in 2006," since it does not have any national icons or monuments. The actual document from DHS is here - and you will note, next to "National Monuments and Icons", a big fat "0".

The ABC article notes:

The formula did not consider as landmarks or icons: The Empire State Building, The United Nations, The Statue of Liberty and others found on several terror target hit lists. It also left off notable landmarks, such as the New York Public Library, Times Square, City Hall and at least three of the nation's most renowned museums: The Guggenheim, The Metropolitan and The Museum of Natural History.

"I think the facts are clear," Bloomberg said. "What they've really done is taken what was supposed to be threat-based and just started to distribute it as normal pork."

The form ignored that New York City is the capital of the world financial markets and merely stated the city had four significant bank assets.

Sigh.....

--

* In case you're curious, that expression paraphrases a line in Treasure of the Sierra Madre. Which has Humphrey Bogart in it. Yay!

jane 8:57 PM [+]