tom lets loose

kie: the living room with roaring gas fireplace
kiel: moderately well-adjusted
kio: house, m.d. because of playoff baseball travel day.

part i: life update. because you care.

the first year of grad school in chem e at cornell is a lot of work. it's not impossible, don't get me wrong. and i'm not really doing anything besides being a student so there is more than enough time to do it all. it's just a large volume of stuff.

at hopkins there was barnstormers and mental notes and lab and resnet and let's not forget spending time with sarah ALL on top of classwork! here i just do homework. and watch the occasional tv. then again, we only get fox on our tv, so not much of that. also i bought the post-season mlb package, which means i can listen to games while they're on. now that the red sox are out, though, it's much less worth the 10 bucks. i still listen though, and watch on occasion. i'll probably end up listening while i watch fox just to not hear the dynamic duo of baseball broadcasting. i'm talking, of course, about joe buck and tim mccarver. joe i don't mind so much, but tim, well, is a crazy old man.

anyway work is going fine and this "regular income" concept is something i could get used to.

part ii: more crap about me.

i like to think of myself as pretty laid-back. not much bothers me; i don't tend to worry too much about little things (or big things, for that matter). but there are some things that peeve me. not enough for me to get mad or anything. just little thorns in my side that prove that i am, in fact, human enough to be annoyed by things. the following is a short list of those things. i'm not saying that they're rational either, so deal with it.

please note: if you are guilty of any of the things i mentioned, i don't not like you. i myself have done many of these things at some point in my life. i'm just better than you and have realized the error of my ways.

and now, without further yammering, and in no particular order:

THINGS I DON'T LIKE

referring to bacteria as "bugs":(note that here i'm talking about E. Coli or even yeast that are grown in a lab.) bugs are insects. or glitches in computer programs (the etymology of which is at least partially entomological in nature). i know it says on dictionary.com that "bug" can mean a "disease-carrying microorganism", and it's perfectly fine to say "stomach bug" and the like. but "I turned the knob on the French Press and my bugs spilled all over the floor" is unacceptable. your e. coli is engineered not to be pathogenic, so suck it.

what do i call them? cells. that's what they are. or bacteria, because that is what they are. god!

referring to wines by abbreviated names: before i come off sounding like an episode of frasier, let me say that i don't expect "1956 chateau briande mis en bouteille au chateau". however, is it really that much more effort to say "cabernet sauvignon" than the insufferable "cab sauv"? and then there's its derelict brother "cab franc" instead of "cabernet franc". "white zin" is also another common offender. less common, but just as annoying, is "gewurtz".

maybe by doing this you think you sound more sophisticated. that is, something like wine is so casual to you that you have a nickname for it. you don't sound sophisticated. you sound stupid. budweiser is bud, fine. that's the nature of beer. wine is not something you drink before a nascar race and then smash over your head.

beer snobbery: in the same vein as wine abbreviation is beer snobbery. you've heard it before from people at practically every party. "ugh, you're drinking keystone? ew! get me a heineken." i don't have a problem with people that don't like beer. i don't like liquor that much anymore. diff'rent strokes. but, liking only certain, high-priced varieties of beer, that's another thing entirely. simply refusing to drink something because it's less than 30 bucks a case makes you a not cool dude. guinness lovers are the number one offender of this type. yeah, there's nitrogen in it. why don't you stick your dick in it if you love it so much? smooth, creamy head indeed.

fake boobs: just not cool. i've only ever seen one pair of fake bosoms(unclothed) in real life (i don't really go to strip clubs that often) and let me tell you it was not a great experience. having seen thousands of them virtually, i think this holds true. you want men to respect you? put that $5000 into something worthwhile. doesn't matter what. kung fu lessons, gourmet cooking classes, whatever. oh and by the way, men always know when they're fake. men look at breasts so much they probably know them better than do the women they're attached to. if you've just gotta have plastic surgery, fix your ugly face, for chrissakes.

homework: i don't think this needs further clarification.

the profile "self-quote": i know this has happened to you. you're checking AIM profiles (like you do at least 100 times a day) and in someone's away message or profile is a quote. this is not uncommon, as song lyrics and poetry are the typical fallback away message when you can't think of something clever to say (more on that in a minute). so you read this quote, be it about love or politics or the other 1% of things people quote about. it sounds like it's from somewhere or some great writer. sort of. it's written in a high-falutin' style, be it poetry or prose, so some great mind must have produced it. but the content is, well, eh. you guess, it sort of makes sense. it definitely jives with AIMBuddy's beliefs. who could have written this? (so far, i'm fine with this.) then you get to the end and there it is. it may or may not have a tilde, but it always says this: "me".

For example (bad poetry is easier than bad prose):

"Wash me away in the sea of your love
Let me feel your foam around me and smell the salt of innocence
Between my toes I'll feel the sting of the jellyfish of desire"
~me

"me. it was I who said this! i am insightful and eloquent! do not confuse this masterful insight as the work of some other author, but of my own unequalled brilliance!" the worst offenders of this type ACTUALLY PUT QUOTATION MARKS AROUND THEIR QUOTE.

really, i don't have a problem with writing your own original thoughts in an away message (i choose to do it on a weblog). in fact i encourage it (see below). but don't SAY you wrote it. do you cite yourself on term papers when you write them? for god's sake! you wrote something, re-read it, and thought, "hey, that's pretty good! in fact, it's so good it might be confused for the work of someone else! i better make sure nobody thinks i'm plagiarizing! i'll let everyone know that this was me." so next time you do that, skip the "me" and everything will be fine.

trite away messages: contrary to what you may think, the above was not a tirade against creativity in away message writing. an away message is a big responsibility. practically everyone who has you on his or her buddy list is going to read your away message at least 10 times a day. the least you can do is make it interesting! it doesn't have to be shakespeare. just a funny observation, something that happened to you that day, a snapshot of your day (e.g. breakfast, class, gym, class, homework, dinner, er) or an interesting link: something that enhances the reader's experience more than "I am away from my computer right now." NO SHIT! THAT'S WHAT THE FUCKING LITTLE YELLOW BOX MEANS! the following are some away messages that are all too familiar and guilty of said banality:

• fooding
• oot and aboot
• Default Away Message (mentioned above)
• just another manic monday

taking a short trip through my aim list i only found 2 offending lame messages (and one self-quote), so things are looking up. still though, make it interesting, people.

licking envelopes: why? why do i have to put something on my tongue to send in the gas bill? is this part of a government project to collect everyone's DNA? not only that, but there is the very real risk of a TONGUE PAPER CUT with every envelope. the thought of that just makes me want to die right now. no wonder postal workers go insane.

and finally,

people who "get sick" from eating food that everybody else in the goddam world eats and never has a problem: note, this is nothing against those of us who are lactose intolerant or have food allergies and the like. these are the result of a genetic issue and are proof that god actually does not love everyone. what i'm talking about here is purely psychosomatic food poisoning. "ugh, i never go to mcdonalds because the food makes me sick". ok, 10 billion fucking burgers served. you got sick. think hard, now. is it because the food you ate was somehow tainted, or because while you ate your delicious big mac you were actually thinking of mcdonalds as a symbol of everything that is wrong with america, and how corporations control our culture and hormone-treated cows were used to make it? i've heard the same thing about dorm food. meh, i can't eat at the caf because it makes me shit! guess what, if you didn't shit, you'd be a smelly explosion waiting to happen. maybe your dislike of shitting is what makes you so full of shit in the first place.

if you don't like the food, fine. don't eat it. i'm not going to tell you what you have to eat. but for the love of christ don't fucking tell me about the time you puked after going to burger king. everybody else that eats there is fine. go to whole foods and buy your organic tomatoes for three times the price and go have a preservative-free orgy.


well, now that i've gotten that off my chest, i can continue with my life. if you do/did one of these things, i still like you, it just pisses me off when you do it. nobody's prefect.

~me