Geneffects: January 2005

Mr. Bassman

Last night for the Pedro the Lion show, I found it amazingly easy to convince this one guy that the Bass Ale he just purchased is really pronounced "base". The idea came from this one record store where the clerks would call every record with "bass" in the title by the alternate pronunciation. But then, these people were "really cool" and it was "really cool to work there." Was I cool enough to pull this off? After telling him I shrug my shoulders in the this-kind-of-thing-happens-all-the-time kind of way. I hold eye-contact for a while and he looks at the floor.

Mission accomplished.

"What'd he just say," his girlfriend asks.

"All these years I've been saying it wrong! I'm such an idiot!"

Kevin and I looked at each other, both of us visibly choking back the giggles. I really liked the idea of him going to another bar and ordering a nice, cold Base.

Philosophy of Occupational Therapy

"Occupational therapy" is an appellation loaded with imagery of high school guidance counselors or Kip-esque little men recommending wrist-braces and Lumbar supports. It's not, of course, but what encompasses OT is kind of nebulous and (at least for me) slippery to grasp. From what I have gathered, the central philosophy of OT is helping people to engage in activities which bring meaning to their lives, and (this is important) this meaning is best determined by the individual. In other words, Occupational Therapy aids in the discovery of one's path to meaningful occupation. This is tricky, this discovery. A pillar of OT is to be respectful of a persons insight into their own condition, so the discovery process must be equally engaged in by both subject and therapist.

ABC News

At the training session for Volunteers for Youth:

COORDINATOR: Okay, we weren't expecting this, but there's a camera guy here from ABC News. Anyone want to do an interview?
ME: Sure
ABC: Why should kids have mentors?
ME: 'Cause like everyone needs a someone out there saying like you can do it or to just try to... I mean... [Now totally not saying what I am trying so very hard to say:] They should learn to just no go on.

I don't know where it came from or really remember what I was actually trying to say, but basically I told ABC News that kids should just learn to accept defeat. Wonderful.

XGF Convo

Corey and Kelly: a former couple with gender-reversed names, and friends of the XGF. Today XGF calls up:

ME: Hey, I saw Kelly at the bar the other day and he told me he's single now.
XGF: Oh, I can't date the ex of a friend. That'd be wrong.
ME: Why not? I'm totally dating Corey, so I don't see the problem.
XGF: [hang-up sound]
ME: ...
ME: Feh.

It was obvious in my tone (or so I thought) that I was joking. Billy sez I'm the only person he knows who's sense of humor causes more personal trouble than his does. I think XGF just likes hanging up on me.

Poem of the Unknown Author

The last day of class for 8th grade english was spent reading any poem that we wanted. This was strictly voluntary, but as there was nothing else to do, most ended up reading. Many kids chose the shortest poem they could find. Others, just wanting to be bastards read the longest thing in the book, which was the acknowledgments page. I read the following poem:

Stiff dog death
All froth on a bloody chin
Skinny man death his master
Opened the traffic hedges to let him in
Foolishness his disaster
It wasn't enough for him to scare the truck
He had to bite the tire
Fools have no luck

I don't know who wrote it or what the title is, but I'd really like to know as it is burned into my memory.

Various Types of Nervousness

In Genetics the professor asked of the class of 200+ a very, very simple question, and I found it funny that I was fully prepared to be nude for a life drawing class in a few minutes, but was intimidated to speak up with the answer. I guess that just goes to show that when you conquer one nervous fear there will always be plenty more. It kind of sucks though that courage from one facet of life doesn't naturally transfer to others.

It turns out that my services weren't required in Life Drawing (scheduling mix-up; their fault) so I sat in on the class. It was a female model and I was struck by how differently she was treated than I normally am. No one ever talks to me after class! No people practically line up to show me their drawings! In fact, if after class I walk around to check out the drawings people usually flip their pad pages. Jerks.

Culling your iTunes

Wanting to trim your iTunes library? I think a good way to start is to look at songs that you have had the longest but have played the least. You can do this by making a smart playlist with the following criteria:

Date Added - Is not in the last - 6 - Months
Play Count - is less than - 6

Use your best judgment when picking numbers, but 6 seems to do a good job for me. Then go to your newly created playlist and sort by play count. The tracks near the bottom are your most likely suspects for deletion.

Traffic Jam

"All right, that was the latest single from Fourth Generation Nirvana Rip-off! Let's go to Chopper with our evening traffic. How are the roads lookin' today, Chop?"

"Thanks, Reg. I'm live-in-the-sky with a rush-hour update! We're seeing some congestion on highway 54 near the 55 intersection where traffic is backed up about two light cycles. I-40 westbound is moving along as smoothly as possible considering that with all the construction it's been reduced to one lane. Out on the Belt-line there are minor d... Wait a minute... Reg, I'm presently over I-40 and we've got a driver on the westbound side nearing the Jordan Lake exit who has apparently gone insane and stopped in the middle of the road! As I said before, it's one lane, so 40 has instantly become a parking lot! Okay... It looks like she has gotten out of her car to make a phone call!! Cars are honking and hand gestures are being made to convey to this young lady that perhaps this isn't the best of ideas. Reg, what could this girl be thinking?"

"Maybe she's taking those 'don't drive and talk' bumper stickers a little too seriously?"

"Entirely possible as she has clearly lost her mind. One moment... it looks like... Okay... she's getting back in her car... okay, it looks like she's going now. Okay, folks it's... No.. wait.. she's stopping again and making another phone call. It's like she's taunting us!""

Stealing Class

An advantage of living in a college town and maintaining an evening work schedule is that, if you desire, a few nice emails to some professors will essentially get you a free education. Most professors are more than willing - excited even - to have someone who is not an actual student in their classroom. I think this is typically due to the fact that people "sitting in" genuinely want to be there and turn out to be ideal students.

This semester, as prep for some as-yet-to-be-pursued bioinformatics degree, I am sitting in on BIO 050 - Genetics. The class is set in "SC 0103." After a quick search I find a campus map and see that the only possible "SC" is the Stone Center. I had never heard of this building, but it made perfect sense as its location is near the biology/botany buildings. I pull up on my bike 10 minutes before class and my confidence is shattered like a frozen banana. Marked prominently on the building's edifice is "Stone Center - Black Heritage Resource Center". Oh... shit. I have no idea where I am or where I need to be. I pull it together and head inside to ask advice. Ian, the young man at the desk, is befuddled. "Genetics class? Man, what?" I convince him that, yes, I am in fact retarded, but maybe he could get on that computer of his and help me out. We discover that - lo and behold! - the class is being hosted at the Black Heritage Resource Center and I'm actually 30 minutes early! (I seem to be pretty bad with times these days... I missed the GRE when I replaced a "5th" with a "9th" in my brain. I stood up a friend when I simply forgot it was Tuesday.)

Now, I've been out of the academic game for a while and the mental acuity is a little less... acute. I had some trepidation that the material presented would be above my head and everyone else would be nodding with comprehension. This, it turns out, was not the case. The prof put up a generic cat and dog style comic and asked how on earth this could relate to genetics. My fears were quickly assuaged when some kid in the front row suggested that, "dogs and cats are different, and there's a reason... maybe?"

I have good feelings about this semester. I like the professor's dry sense of humor. "I apologize for specifying molecular size with Angstroms... I understand that kids these days are using nanometers." If I can keep the 4AM betimes on Mondays and Tuesdays to a min I should be fine.

Sentences

Thank you, world, for introducing these sentences into my personal lexicon:

Wow... Thanks.
Well, I mean, no more than normal, I think. But I guess... I mean, what's normal for abuse?
I don't think that's going to happen tonight.
Oh my god, I'm crying!
VOID

C'mon, oh-five! Pick it up!

Paul Is Dead, Man, Miss Him Miss Him

I found this page that offers brilliant explanations for how the artwork on various Beatles albums indicate that Paul McCartney is presently dead.

Link

Abbey Road ~ If you look in the background (hard to see in this picture), the liscence plate on the VW Bug says "LMW 28IF." I've heard that the "LMW" stands for "Linda McCartney Weeps." The "28IF" part means that Paul would have been 28 years old...if he had lived. The cover is a funeral procession, John is the preacher (wearing white), Ringo is the Pallbearer (wearing black), Paul is the corpse (barefoot, as people are buried in England), and George is the gravedigger (Wearing blue jeans). Also, John wears white, the mourning color of the Eastern world, and Ringo wears black, the mourning color of the western world.

Something about "Paul is dead" is way funnier, to me, than "Elvis is alive," because I wonder what Paul thought about that whole thing.

CROWD: Oh my god! Paul McCartney is dead!
PAUL: Um. No, I'm not.
CROWD: Whatever shall we do now that Paul is dead?
PAUL: I'm not dead.
CROWD: So young and handsome! Why Paul?
PAUL: Actually, I'm quite alive.
CROWD: Why couldn't it be Herman from Herman's Hermits?
PAUL: Hello?

Jah Love

Yo, man, you gotta let my girl, Dee in, man. She's my girlfriend. Man I am in love! [SINGING] I'm in looooove.... with a married woman! [/SINGING] Not really. That's a song. You know that's wrong. Don't you? You know that's wrong? I did that once though. I was fuckin' this bitch in 'er 'uzband's bed. That don't feel good. To fuck a bitch when 'er 'uzband's at work. You can get 'urt doin' that. I said, "Bitch! I ain't doin' that no more!" I did it twice. But that was it! I said, "Bitch! I ain-a doin' that no mo!" An she was spendin' her 'uzband's cash an' sayin' "please don't leave!" 'Cause she wanted my body. I let her 'cause I'm a musician an' I needed the money! I'm fifty-some year sold. I fuckt Bitches all over the wurld. One bitch was gonna spend twenty-thousand dollars on me! She was gonna fly me to Paris! I flew to Paris and it ruined my marriage. You make choices. Fly to Paris or have a Marriage. Rich bitch who fly you to Paris or poor bitch with dignity. This girl, man, my girlfriend. She is a fine black woman. Eva-ry time I try to fuck her she says she 'as a 'eadache. We been goin' out far five weeks an' I ain' got no pussy. Is that too long? What do you think? If she say she got a 'eadache today I'll tell the bitch I got some Excedrin on my dick! You should marry someone who loves you, not someone you love. That's another song.

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