Repelling blandomness with randomness.

[El_Josharino]

Continuation of the random thread.

[El_Josharino]

So today at work this lady calls in and tells me that she tried to check her email on Thursday, and it got to receiving message 5 of 9 and has been receiving message 5 of 9 since Thursday. In my disbelief I exclaimed, "So you just let it sit there trying to receive for TWO DAYS?" "Yes" she said, rather matter of factly. At this point my coworkers started cracking up, apparently at the way I had asked that question, which made me start laughing myself. I had to put the lady on hold for a minute while I regained my composure.

[FreddyKnuckles]

Fuck the bobcats! Go Griz Go!vFuck the bobcats! Go Griz Go!Fuck the bobcats! Go Griz Go!Fuck the bobcats! Go Griz Go!

[El_Josharino]

Guys, I think Freddy's tryin'a tell us something! What'd you see boy? Was it Timmy? Something about a bear? Fornicating a bobcat? Is Timmy in trouble, Fred? Take us to 'im, Fred!

[FreddyKnuckles]

woooooooooooo

[FreddyKnuckles]

[girl]

If you google blandomness, Google asks Did you mean: blindness.

[Andrew_TSKS]

my brother just started a myspace music page for his rap songs and added me. they aren't, um... good or anything, but it's entertaining because it's my brother. also, one of the songs is based on a loop from "where is my mind" by the pixies, so that's at least pretty cool.

[jebreject]

link plz

[Andrew_TSKS]

not happening. EDIT: not because i hate you guys or anything, but because it really is kind of bad stuff and i'm just gonna get bummed if anyone is like "your brother's raps suck" even though i know it's true.

[Aglaya]

So my friends keep posting those celebrity lookalike things, and mine were hilarious.  Also, you have not seen creepy until you have seen my face morphing into Ariel Sharon.

[Good Intentions]

So, in the test cricket between South Africa and New Zealand, Dale Steyn was bowling for SA against NZ, Craig Cumming facing. Cummings misjudged a short ball, which hit him in the head, leading Cumming to be retired hurt with a broken cheek bone. When I hear about this, my initial response was 'well, that's them breaks', then I remembered that this is cricket, not boxing.

Steyn's bouncer hit Cumming's helmet on the grill over his cheek, denting the grill into Cumming's face, the grill lacerated his cheek and collapsing his cheekbone inwards. Cumming has since been operated on, and has had metal plates put into his cheeck and jaw. Fucking yikes. Fucking hardcore.

[KJ]

Cricket is not for fucking pussies, dude.

[morgan]

How the hell do I write a letter of recommendation?  This is weird.  I've never had to do this before, and didn't think I would for at least another ten years or so.  Weird weird weird.

[Gracelette]

You ask the recommendee to draft the letter and give it to you to sign.

[morgan]

Well.  That would've been a good idea, but I just finished writing it.  I did send it to her and tell her to look it over and see if there's anything I can change.  Meh.

This makes me feel old or accomplished or something.  Who am I to recommend someone to a program?  A FOREIGNER PROFESSOR, that's who I am.

Oh, life.

[edison]

You ask the recommendee to draft the letter and give it to you to sign.

Erm.. do people actually do that, or were you just kidding?

[silentsigh89]

my mother had to mail me something at school. She sent a big box and for a moment I was all "a care package?!?!". It was just the object, a bunch of plastic bags, two disposable plastic solo cups (one had obviously already been used and was filled with caked soda gunk), two plastic knives, and three crumpled up napkins.

She called to see if I had gotten the package.

"Did you see the other things I sent?!"
"Yeah, it was great! Thanks for the cups and such!"
"oh, you're welcome. Just some things I thought you might want"

it was the best/craziest package I've gotten. ever.

[Andrew_TSKS]

oh, i can see right where this is going. without you around to keep your mother at least relatively sane, she's going to go farther around the bend than she's ever been before.

[FreddyKnuckles]

its always good to know when someone is thinking about you

[Gracelette]

You ask the recommendee to draft the letter and give it to you to sign.

Erm.. do people actually do that, or were you just kidding?

I dunno about anyone else but when my boss asks me to help him draft a letter of recommendation for one of his students, I always say "can you ask the recommendee to draft it first, please?"

They know better than we do what areas we should focus on and it's a lot easier to edit a pre-drafted letter than write one from scratch. Otherwise, to do a good one, you have to read up on the grant/course/whatever they're applying for to get the language right blah blah blah. Easier to ask them to do the first draft and then you can tweak it.

Why would I be kidding?

[edison]

Because I didn't know it had to be such a phony exercise - essentially, what you describe is "I'll write good things about myself and have someone else sign it", right? I don't know, the (very) few letters of recommendation I've gotten were certainly not written by me, and therefore they feel at least a little bit personal, though they're still very formal. (Of course it's not about being honest, and I've heard that if someone is bad/annoying, you have to say they "always try their best" or something like that, if they're average, you say good, if they're good, you say brilliant, etc. - and then the person who gets the letter reads between the lines or not.) What I'm trying to say, I guess, is that those letters are probably a bit more useful and credible if they feel at least a little bit heartfelt. I'm not denying you can achieve that by having the recommendee draft it or write it, but it bothers me somehow. I guess it depends on how much you tweak it after getting the draft, maybe?

[maggiego]

There is a little code in operation, with academic refs at least. For instance, if you really do want to heartily recommend a student, you say 'I would offer my HIGHEST recommendation', or a similar superlative. Most academic refs close with such a coded statement. At least, that is how it was suggested I was to proceed when I was writing such things. When I saw a rec from a prof for me way back when (I had asked for one extra by accident and I couldn't resist), that was its last sentence. I have also written 'neutral' letters, where I just gave a paragraph of nice things, but failed to close with such a statement, thus offering an academic 'meh'.

[edison]

That confirms what I've heard, yes.

[auto-da-fey]

In other news, John Wayne campaigned for Phyllis Schlafly's (thankfully failed) 1970 congressional run. I aready knew the guy was a rightwing Republican asshole (not to mention a Nazi!), but damn, that's just too much. I'll never see Chisum in the same light again, knowing that between takes he was probably taping radio ads for the woman who killed the ERA.