Time Wasters of the Summer

Just a short list of things that have helped me waste time this summer:

• I know the lyrics to Yakko's World and Wakko's America. I'm waiting for a good opportunity to whip them out.
• I finished Might and Magic VI: The Mandate of Heaven. I loved the Might and Magic series, but they stopped coming out for Mac after the fifth. (I'm a fan of turn based role-playing games, because I have no coordination or patience to try to do things in real time.) However, I have access to a PC now, so I bought a used copy of VI-IX off of Half.com and had fun with VI most of the summer. I finally obtained blaster weapons for my characters, defeated the Kreegan queen, and saved the world. (For those not familiar, the series is a basic fantasy role playing game that mixes in a sci-fi element at the end of each game. So you have archers and wizards battling robots on spaceships or something. Those who know me can probably see why this appeals to me.)
• At the end of July, Deathly Hallows came out. (Book Seven of Harry Potter, but you knew that, right?) I spent a day (about 12 hours) reading it, so I'm not sure if it counts as a total summer time waster. Besides, how can that be wasted time? I finally know about how Neville and Harry were really switched at birth but both have been slipped Polyjuice potion in their sleep for their entire lives. (You have to read if you want to know what really happens.) I was delighted by the book, and was equally delighted (and smug) to find that basically everything I predicted about the end came to pass. But in any case, I'm glad I finally know how it all ends up. I even apparently convinced one of my colleagues to read the whole series.
• I'm not sure it counts as time-wasting, but I did spend about two weeks researching and shopping for a car. I hate doing things like that, but I always want to make sure I get a good deal on something I like. I also looked into replacement digital cameras, and next up is a navigation system.

Recently...

I bought a new car. I bought the car because I no longer completely trusted the old one to go on long trips. I need to go on long trips because my other half lives in another state 7 hours away. I was waiting until late in the summer because I was waiting to see if we were going on strike or not, which was supposed to be settled by the end of July. We supposedly weren't, although this is up in the air again. I got tired of waiting, said "screw it", and bought a lovely blue Toyota Camry using my summer school money as the down payment. When the contract is settled I'll pay off an additional large chunk of it.

I would include a picture of the new car with this post, since it really is extra lovely, but my camera is broken. I discovered this when I went to take pictures of my students at the start of summer classes and found it functions perfectly except for not taking any pictures, which is a bit of a snag for a camera. I think I need to replace this before the semester starts. Interestingly, I was searching for recommendations on a new model from the same website that had suggested my original model a few years ago, and found my current camera mentioned in an article on "the worst digital cameras ever made". Which makes me wonder if I'm wise to take advice from them again.

But in any case, I got the car and got to travel down to Kentucky again for a week. I love visiting, but dislike the trip. The new car is nice 'though. It's much quieter on the road than the Focus, which is nice, because it's easier to nap while I drive. We did get to make a short trip to Lexington and found nice Indian food, which is one thing that Erie is a little short on. (Although there is a grocery store that stocks tons of Indian, including lots of nifty pre-made dishes in little pouches that you can heat up and eat. It's lovely.)

Now I'm back and have to start planning for the semester, plus possibly do something about finally publishing something. There ended up being less summer than I thought for all of this.

Superpowers

I was just purusing SuperDickery.com, which is a riot, and has as a central premise "Superman is a dick," supported by a wide array of Superman comics covers showing Superman being a... well, you get the picture. But it also includes a great gallery of ridiculous super powers, including heroes such as "Kite Man", and powers like super weaving and super ventriloquism. Which got me to thinking about a conversation I had years ago with a fellow grad student in which we tried to think up reasonably good, but unusual, superpowers we could have. I picked the power to locate any specific penny anywhere at any time. I thought this was reasonably good, actually. You could track anyone by just slipping one tiny penny onto their person. Tape a penny to everything you own, and presto--no more looking for the remote. And pennies are so ubiquitous, no one notices them, but pretty much everyone (in the US, anyway) has them. Plus you'd likely be able to find your keys when they fell out of a hole in your pocket because you probably dropped a penny at the same time, even if you didn't tape a penny to them. I think it's superpower which is just at the right level of being useful without being in any sense overpowered. My friend wanted to the power to inflict pain on men. I don't think she was joking, but I don't think she was really getting into the game, either. I suspect there were unspoken issues with some man or another in particular.

I also remember a good conversation regarding the premise of massive numbers of random mutations granting superpowers in the X-men series. We reasoned that there would have to be a whole bunch of mutants with totally useless powers. Like the guy who can move his nose to any location on his body. Or a woman with unlimited flatulence. (Interesting combination, those two.)

My deep desire for a superpower 'though is to be able to teleport anywhere instantaneously. (And I've had this wish even since before I was living seven hours away from the significant other.) Consider the travel possibilities. (And say goodbye to admission fees at Disney World. :-) ) Commuting would be a snap. Live where ever you found a nice, cheap place, and work where ever you want to. Miss your favorite restaurant in another state? Have dinner there tonight. Or explore the restaurants in Paris, Hong Kong, or Sri Lanka. As an added plus, you don't even have to worry about whether you're walking in a bad neighborhood or not. If you don't like it or someone jumps you, just zap back home. You even have a good entrepreneurial opportunity: no one could beat your very expensive one-hour delivery service. (Although it might be in less demand in a world with e-mail.) Of course, if you're unscrupulous, there are plenty of opportunities to do anything you want, too. Have I spent too much time thinking about this? Yes, of course, but that's what I do. You should hear the elaborate plans I have for what to do if I should ever find a genie.

Back Again

I'm back again. I do tend to have these lapses as things get busy, but I think I'm justified this time. I spent the last five weeks with a double summer session load, teaching for about two hours in the morning and three hours in the evening on Monday through Thursday. Then spending two and a half hours in office hours each afternoon, to which some of my students actually came on a regular basis. I had to resist the tendency for it to become "The professor does your homework for you" afternoons. We had a prof in grad school who was famous for that, actually. When I am relatively rested and alert, homework questions always turn into "20 questions from the Prof", which start with "What are they asking you to do here?" and end with "And does that answer the question we started with?" Very Socratic of me. When I am worn out, my answer tends to more sound more like "take the limit; watch your algebra; you'll get 13/4.")

We did not end up on strike, although we have yet to see (and vote to approve) the final agreement. At least I got to finish my session without interruption. It felt rushed regardless. (I still seriously can't believe anyone can learn calculus in three hours a day, four nights a week.)

And since I'm not teaching, I can just be amused at hearing the students streaming by my open door in the hallway this morning on the way out of a quiz, saying:

"It probably would have helped if I'd done my homework."
"Yeah--I just put down whatever I thought it might be."

Ah, the wonderful sounds of Not-My-Problem. In fact, I've had a passably good afternoon. I think I've even proved something, which makes me feel like a real mathematician. (I ran across an interesting probability problem in considering the distribution of candy in my candy bowl just before the session started, and I've partly solved it now. But the bowl is empty now, so maybe I won't get any more inspiration.) And thank goodness I did, because one of the things I still have to do this summer is get something published.

Good Shoes

I went over the week end and got the most comfortable dress-casual shoes I could find, so if I have to walk picket lines next week I can do it without killing my feet. It looks like a strike might happen; there has been little change in the negotiations by the administration. (There is of course plenty of time for them to make some reasonable offer, but I'm losing faith at this point.) Who knows what craziness will ensue from the weekend onward. Stay tuned.

Worst. Movie. Ever.

I've been participating in the League of Dubious Film run by friends this summer. The first I saw with them was BeastMaster, which I have no objections to because, hey, Marc Singer in a loin cloth. (Interestingly, we discovered that there are parts of this movie no one had ever seen before because we'd all watched it on TV, and TV usually cuts out shots which include boobies, for example.)

But the second movie was something called Zardoz, starring (believe it or not) Sean Connery in an orange diaper with bandoliers. He's a member of the "Brutals", one of two divisions of the future human race. He's one of the Brutals who is employed by a floating stone head called Zardoz to exterminate as many of the rest of the Brutals as possible, until he decides to stow away in the head and meets the "Eternals" who live forever in the Vortex. The Eternals are apparently very advanced and psychic (or perhaps just prone to weird convulsions; it's hard to tell) but apparently have lost the technology from our time which allows women to keep their tops on. (There does seem to be a common boobie theme in many bad movies. I keep thinking of Joe Bob Briggs.) The immortal line from the beginning of the movie is the stone head roaring "The Gun is Good! The P*nis is Evil!" This lead someone to hypothesize early on that it was a lesbian movie, but we decided after watching for a while it most definitely was not. I finally decided it must have been made by fundamentalist Christians, because while they say it's evil, they obviously can't stop thinking about it for ten minutes.

But I have to give a warning here: The movie is much worse than it sounds. It could easily have been edited down by at least an hour and have lost nothing (except perhaps all the trippy drug related sequences with flashing lights and disjointed sounds and clips). The floating stone head takes up far too little screen time. There are no other lines which compare with the "Gun is Good!" line. The only point to the movie (although poorly made) is that humans shouldn't live forever. (Or perhaps it just wants to communicate that women have boobies, which was a better made point.) It's a truly hideous experience which no one should have to sit through. And yet amazingly, any film, no matter how bad, has its adherents. There are actually crazy people who think this is the greatest science fiction movie ever made.

That said, there are apparently movies that people have found more unpleasant to sit through. I've gotten some amusement out of reading through some of the reviews on BadMovies.org, which gives Zardoz three "droplets". (I think they're slime drops, but I'm not sure.) That ranks it as a middling bad movie. Some movies get only one (described as "A bad movie, even for me"), or a "skull" (described as "This is going to hurt, lots"). Personally I'm intrigued by the five droplet movies, such as Drunken Wu Tang, which is a Kung Fu flick featuring a watermelon monster. Check out the site; it has pictures.

Updates

A few quick updates:

• Regarding my post Pennsylvania Registration, Take II: Apparently, Pennsylvania does send out registration renewals; they just don't send them to me.
• Promoted from comments on my post "50 Years of Sitcoms": Obie Ben Ken Obie says
  

  A fair number of sitcom plots go back to the Roman comedians Plautus and Terence, which had their own stock characters (clever slave, clueless master, oaf) and situations.

  Well there you have it. Those clever buggers. (Although it still leaves unanswered who they may have stolen from. The lack of written language if you go back far enough is a real pain.)
• I spent part of yesterday wrestling with air conditioners. I've added a second unit to the back bedroom and I'm going to see if these two somewhat overpowered units upstairs will take care of the whole apartment or not. Unfortunately the larger one I put into my bedroom is a bit noisier than the old one.
• I've been spending time getting ready for my summer classes, although not nearly as much as I wish I had. Classes start Monday. I'm really not sure how I'm getting through all the material in one of the classes in the time allotted. I also have to say I think having a four hour class in a summer session by meeting three hours a day, four days a week for five weeks is a terrible idea. I can't imagine how any student could end up learning anything.