Apparently, until the end of July? What? Just because of The Simpsons movie? ANNOYING. It’s not that I have anything against The Simpsons. I’m just really, really into Slurpees. It’s a matter of vocab. I do not care for this.

While in the midwest, I visited probably 15 different 7-Elevens, happily selecting the Coke or Pepsi flavors for my whole cup… of SLURPEE. But the last store, on Friday, had Mountain Dew AND Coke, or what I like to call The Bifecta. This means I got to crank both flavors out in spurts to create a zebra effect. Not a crazy amount of layers. Six at the most. Anything more than six is overkill, unless you opt for the giant cup.

I was thrilled. This is me being thrilled.

You should see me when I’m ecstatic.

Note that I attach the plastic top before pulling the lever, so that the SLURPEE molds itself into a perfect dome, no hassles. It pisses me off when people don’t know how or just don’t remember to do this. But then I quickly get over it, because other people’s ineptitude ends up making me feel superior, which is always great!

Also, check out what the security cam picked up:

Soooooo embarrassing.

“1 of UR lines has exceeded the current txt msg allowance. call 2day @ 8003209807 2 increase UR msg bundle 2 help U save. Rply Q 2 opt out”

Fck U!

We do not TOLERATE people who abbreviate words in texts. Spell it out. If you think that would make things too long and tiresome for you, consider simply making the text message shorter. We could all use the break from your usual bullshit anyway.

Luv U

AB

Believe me, I could do it in one.

By the way, these things are amazing. I just wish the word “chunk” appeared somewhere in the description. Brownies, cookies, and ice cream are always better if they give good chunk. It really breaks up the monotony.

I’ve been sitting here obsessing about the concept of chunk for 20 minutes now. It’s also just a great word.

I wrote this recap of last night’s Apprentice for EW.com. Most of it is about my newfound love for Ivanka Trump, to whom I have assigned the pet name iTrump.

I had composed a certain regrettable paragraph comparing Ivanka to a baby chick that had just hatched. Being a baby chick would explain why Ivanka always seems so uncertain of her surroundings and why the skin on her bobblehead looks so shiny… baby chicks have that sort of clear post-birth glaze all over them, right? And we wouldn’t blame baby chicks for being out of it all the time — I mean, they’re baby chicks. And Ivanka is Donald Trump’s daughter, so the lenience factor is similarly high. High, like I sound right now. I bet iTrump gets high and listens to her iPod all the time.

Fortunately, I realized the baby chick thing made me sound like a complete psycho and removed the entire paragraph before turning in the story. Thank god, because it would have been really embarrassing to have that up on the ‘net.

Sometimes I say “‘net.”

It’s occurred to me that LOL (laughing out loud — get it?) is usually a misnomer. People rarely make any actual noise before they type “LOL.” So they’re lying. And since most users don’t use caps anyway, they end up just typing an even more lazy-looking “lol” and waiting for the other person to respond, as if their last IM was a worthy enough contribution to the flow. Hey, buddy: It wasn’t.

So I’ve adopted a new acronym, called AL. It stands for “audibly laughing.” Use this when you really want someone to believe that noise is coming out. Be selective about using it, but be honest. If your body is spontaenously emitting random and awkward sounds resembling some version of glee, the person on the other end deserves to know.

Quick review:

LOL = “That was funny, but I wouldn’t go so far as to suggest I’m completely losing it over here. Great try though. I am loving your effort.”

AL = “I am audibly laughing. You’re hilarious, a genius, and really attractive.”

Happy Ash Wednesday.

(AL!)

I could be 5-10 years late on this, but I’m really hating the way some people spell the word “hot” with like three t’s. We get it. [Something] is hot. Emphasis is generally unnecessasry.

Pay attention. You will be tested.

The kind of organ which the telephone duplicates, replaces, or protects may itself be subject to multiple displacements (psychoanalysis has argued convincingly for the symbolic exchangeability of anus and ear, for instance).

When we are seeking the essence of “tree,” we have to beome aware that That which pervades every tree, as tree, is not itself a tree that can be encountered among all the other trees.

Ooh, wait, this one’s a doozy:

We ordinarily take “that which is” to be whatever is in being. For the “is” is asserted of what is in being. But now everything has turned about. Insight does not name any discerning examination [Einsicht] into what is in being that we conduct for ourselves; insight [Einblick] as in-flashing [Einblitz] is the disclosing coming-to-pass of the constellation of the turning within the coming to presence of Being itself, and that within the epoch of Enframing. That which is, is in no way that which is in being. For the “it is” and the “is” are accorded to what is in being only inasmuch as what is in being is appealed to in respect to its Being. In the “is,” “Being” is uttered: that which “is,” in the sense that it constitutes the Being of what is in being, is Being.

I don’t have time to go into it right now but sometime soon I’m going to write something good about grad school. The above doesn’t even slice the surface of the giant duality that is the simultaneous awe/appreciation and digust/rejection involved in approaching theoretical writing like this. Occasionally, I’ll read something and feel exalted, like I’ve just arrived at the precise point of what someone was trying to say. (The certainty floats away by my next regularly scheduled snack.) Other times I sit there, reading a sentence for the fifth time and trying not to count the number of times words like “epistemological,” “hermeneutical,” and “synecdoche” appear on a page. Then I wonder why it has to be that way when everyone knows there are easier ways to say things. Then I wonder if anyone I go to school with can tell that I still have no clue what hermeneutics are. It’s too late to ask! I’m too far gone.

Here’s a picture of a list James wrote out last year for some more loathsome examples of the “quota words” — things that people in class sprinkle into their comments as if they need to meet a I’m A Total Academic Bastard quota. With a lot of these clowns I actually wouldn’t be surprised if they didn’t know what the words meant, either. At least I don’t say mine out loud. If you’re wondering, yes, that does say “Judith Butler,” and we never gave James enough credit for the hilarity of that.

If you look really hard and can read his loopy printing, you’ll also notice “hermeneutical” on there as well. It was so embarrassing — we were sitting around shouting out words to be included on the Do Not Say list (we’re really cool) and I had to just fake like I knew what it meant. You should have seen me. I probably did the overcompensatory “Oh, yeah, of course, hermeneutical…” face that just does not work on me at all. They all totally knew.

You’re still here? You should have realized you were being Punk’d like 500 words ago.

DR has decided to resurrect the “File This Under WTF?” feature. It might become even more popular than the “If I Worked at the Magnolia Bakery” feature. Imagine!

I’m obsessed with The Weather Channel’s weather.com. It’s my top bookmark (have fun guessing what the rest of those acronyms stand for, above) and it’s set to display the 10-day forecast for my zip code. Try it. You’ll love it. And if you love breadcrumbs as much as I do, you’ll especially love it, because the 10-day option seems to respond some sort of applet (Ha! I have no clue what “applet” even means and am 100% sure I am using it incorrectly) called “breadcrumb.” WTF?

Ideally, “breadcrumb” would change to a user’s most current craving by reading its mind. Someone needs to invent that. Hello! Technology! Let’s go. In 2020, my navigation bar better say this…

…which could easily apply to any moment in my life.

Pretty sure I was out of the loop as usual on what was probably a really basic computer term, I got the whole staff together for some intense research. A quick Google inquiry for “weather.com breadcrumb” returned a few sites that talk about “Breadcrumb Navigation.” Sounds official, and nerdy. That’s as far as DR likes to go in our research (the interns and I aren’t really into going the extra click), so we’re not offering any more than that. Sorry. We’re sure it’s not very interesting. But seeing if anyone finds this site by Googling the same thing should be. We can add it to our impressive list of the searches we dominate, like the gems “see buttcrack” and “bermuda shorts lyrics.”

I just had this elaborate entry about the use of the word “creepy” written up, only to have Dreamweaver unexpectedly quit on me. I fucking hate Dreamweaver. Does anyone else find it a little unnecessary and almost kind of taunting that whenever a program quits like that, you get a message reading “This program has unexpectedly quit”? Um, I know. I’m sitting here. I didn’t expect it either.

Was I the only one who, for like the first few years of hearing the word “euthanasia,” thought people were saying “youth in Asia”?

Tomorrow marks my first official full-time job that I’ll actually be interested in. Past employment gigs of mine (read: TEMPING) have included making sure visitors to a valve factory in Melrose Park, IL put on their safety goggles before entering “the plant.” I spent another summer “tweaking” foreign IT workers’ resumes into Tekmark Global Solutions’ official format (in other words, translating them into English). There was a Quizno’s across the street.

Worse than actually sitting at these jobs eight hours a day was having to answer the phone: “Good morning, Henry Valve” and “Good afternoon, Tekmark Global Solutions.” Believe it or not, I actually had to write that second one out for a few days. It probably wasn’t so much that the text was difficult. I was just in disbelief that that was the company’s name and that I was supposed to say it.

Sometimes the phone would ring and I’d literally have to stare at my post-it and practice the phrase before picking up. And sometimes I started laughing after the trial run. Seriously. I’d answer the phone saying “Tekmark Global Solutions” followed by a giggle.

I think that must have been somewhat on purpose. I might have figured that if I appeared to be lighthearted about having to say that name, maybe the callers would “be on my side” or something… and not make fun of me on the other end of the line for saying those three words together and in that order.

But that makes no sense. The people obviously knew who they were calling. Most of them were the job-seeking foreign IT workers themselves, and my giggling probably confused the hell out of them. The others were from Tekmark Global Solutions’ headquarters in Edison, NJ. What did I think, that one of those times, someone would notice my sarcastic twang and suddenly commiserate with me: “Oh, I know, I think it’s such a ridiculous name, too!”

No. Turns out my laughing benefitted no one. This is why I was ultimately not Tekmark Global Material. (Even though when I left, they gave me a forest green company polo.)

Although — one time, I came really close. I thought I had really clicked with one of those corporate schmucks because right after I answered, a concerned-sounding man said, “Yes, hello. I seem to have a major global problem.” Ha! He was being facetious! I rejoiced, and blurted out “Well, sir, we’ve got your global solution right here!” Turns out the caller was my dad, who phoned at least twice per morning to hear me say “Tekmark Global Solutions” and then make fun of me. Awesome.

In conclusion, don’t mock the company if you have to answer the phone. But if your dad calls to mock of the company, totally do it and talk loud enough for the guy down the hall to hear you and then have to send you out to retrieve him and his fat gut an Italian Beef sandwich “as punishment” but it won’t really be because you’ll get yourself a pizza puff!