My Musings

PS-Ashley Rocks!

Monday, December 08, 2003

Bathroom Advice

Earlier tonight I was brushing my teeth when two gentlemen entered the bathroom in order to go pee. For the sake of protecting their identities, I will simply refer to them as “My Roommate“ and “The Vegetarian Who Is Indian and Lives in Room 414.” Please understand that while I do not normally make a habit of watching other men pee, I did notice with great dismay that “My Roommate,” upon having completed the process, left the bathroom without washing his hands. A short time later, “The Vegetarian” also finished urinating and stepped out of the stall. Surely, I thought—surely!—our Indian friend would not follow in the steps of “My Roommate” and commit the same faux pas. But alas, again I was let down, as “The Vegetarian” gaily sauntered out of the bathroom without hardly a glance at the sink.

Please, people, in the name of common social decency—wash your hands after you go to the bathroom! Especially if “Your Roommate” is really bored and has a blog.

.: posted by Boris 1:01 AM

Thursday, August 07, 2003

Insight #2

In the first Insight, I wrote that the Insight entries are an insight into what kind of a person I am. However, after thinking about it I have decided that it’s not quite true. The incidents described are isolated events that do not really reflect my personality as a whole. Think of them more as failures on my part to hide the cold, cruel depths of my otherwise warm and friendly heart—a glimpse into my rarely showcased evil side.

I needed to get to Jeffrey Mansion to see if I could get a meningitis shot, so as today’s story begins I was driving north on Drexel. The Bexley residents among you will know why I chose to drive on Drexel and not some other street; for the rest of you, I will explain that Drexel has a 35 miles an hour speed limit, as opposed to the painfully slow 25 miles an hour limit present on every other north-south street in Bexley. Drexel has such a high limit because it is also the only north-south street wide enough to accommodate cars parked on each side and two cars moving in opposite directions simultaneously; the other streets are all so narrow that if there are cars parked on both sides (which there usually are) and two cars are trying to go different ways, one of them has to move over somehow to let the other pass.

So anyway, I was driving north and up ahead I saw this black SUV backing out of a driveway on the left side of the street. It wanted to go north also, which would require a backwards left turn across both the south- and northbound lanes—a slow and therefore very dangerous maneuver when done on such a busy street. Fortunately, I was far enough away that the SUV could do this. Unfortunately, some other car that was going south at the moment was not. What the SUV failed to realize when it started backing out was that if continued to do so, the southbound car would slam very expertly into its passenger side. The southbound car, on the other hand, grasped the state of affairs quite quickly and quite well, and was greatly disturbed by them, so it honked. The jarring sound froze the SUV in its tracks in the middle of the southbound lane, at which point the southbound car veered crazily around it. Had I been a hundred or so feet farther up the street, I would have been hit.

Fortunately, I was not. Unfortunately, by the time this whole episode was over—which, let me hasten to add, could not have been anything more than something like a second, and not the six or so hours it took for me, in my intolerably slow way, to explain it to you—I completely forgot how I was going to finish the sentence. But the point is, the incident with the southbound car delayed the SUV, enough so that by the time it had passed, I was already too far up the street for the SUV to complete his maneuver. Safely, anyway. It wasn’t too bad, though, because there weren’t any more cars going south, and there weren’t any cars behind me, so the SUV could just wait until I passed, and then gaily finish his maneuver. But he continued to back out. He was almost in my lane. I wanted to honk, but I always feel weird honking at people, like it’s taboo or something, so I try to avoid doing it unless it becomes absolutely necessary. And in this case, I decided that it wasn’t. I didn’t want to be mean, I had plenty of room to move around him, and by this point, how could he not see me bearing down on him?

Well, I don’t know, but somehow, he couldn’t, and so the SUV continued to back into my lane. Now, I’m making this sound really ominous and bad, like there’s about to be a horrible accident here, but it wasn’t so. With a deft twist of the steering wheel, I glided right so as not to bite off a piece of the SUV’s bumper, passed him, and then repositioned myself in the middle of the lane. Once again, this was all in the space of a couple seconds. No harm done! The poor fella was probably just tired and not paying attention. Hey, happens to all of us. No big deal, right? But something strange had happened.

The SUV had honked at me.

Yes—he honked at me! While I was going out of my way to safely pass his stupid ass! That ungrateful fucker! Backing out into the street like he owns the whole damn world, almost gets hit, doesn’t learn his lesson, continues to back out, almost gets hit again, and you know what? I was willing to let it go! But then HE…has the GALL…to honk at ME??! When the near-accident was clearly HIS fault because he’s a stupid, dumbass, spineless, worthless, BLIND piece of shit??

Excuse me. As you can see, I was rather unsettled. But, once again, I was perfectly content to let things be and drive on, to let my anger dwindle away and run its natural course, and wait until the SUV and I (hopefully) parted ways forever at Broad Street. HOWEVER, another strange thing happened. As I glanced nervously into my rearview mirror to check up on the SUV, I noticed that the bastard had not only finally finished his maneuver and going north, but that he was in fact tailgating me. Tailgating! Now, I admit, there was this one time, a long time ago, when I was driving down Drexel with other people in the car—Julie and Lila, or Lila and Marina, I forget who exactly, but something along those general lines—and I didn’t know that the speed limit was 35. I thought it was 25, so I was going a hair above 30, thinking that I was pushing it and should slow down, when in fact I was already five miles under the speed limit and thus going infuriatingly slowly, so everybody in the car got mean all of a sudden and started yelling at me viciously to speed up, and they hurt my feelings, and then, for long afterwards, and to this very day, probably for the rest of my life also, they laughed and made fun of me about it.

But I swear, the first thing I did when I saw the SUV tailgating me was check my speedometer, and let me tell you, I was going a very healthy 35, just like the signs said I should. Okay, so maybe it was possible for me to go a bit faster, but 35 isn’t exactly a snail’s pace, and the SUV didn’t have the right to tailgate me about it, especially after considering that it WAS the SPEED LIMIT, and especially not after almost crashing into me, and certainly not after honking unfairly at me! And you know what? That really set me off. I got pissed. So what I did was, I slowed down, and went 30 on purpose. A nice, calm, cool, lazy 30, when the speed limit was 35. When the guy behind me was in a hurry. And mad at me. Boy did he tailgate me then! But I kept going 30, just to piss the living shit out of that stupid bitch. Being absurdly mean to some stranger like that—it felt really good. Thus we crawled until Broad Street, where I had to turn left and the SUV didn’t, and I never saw him again.

Granted, the phrase “and I never saw him again” isn’t terribly powerful in this instance because the whole thing only happened about two and a half hours ago and we both probably have many years ahead of us during which our paths may cross, but whatever. For now I have the last laugh.

.: posted by Boris 3:47 PM

Friday, July 25, 2003

Online Wisdom: Part 4

Wow, I haven’t touched my blog in a long time. Over two months, to be exact. The last post I made was about how my blog was broken, but it fixed itself ages ago; I’ve just been too lazy to update it. Quite ironic, really—during the school year, when time was in short supply and I had buttloads of work to do, I still somehow managed to update my blog. Yet now, in the summer, when I have all the time in the world, enough to easily write up a billion good entries—all I do is sit around and play computer games. Which I happen to enjoy very much. But it’d be nice if I would take a few hours away from playing computer games to put up a little blog entry every now and then. Ah well, I’m lazy. What can I do?

Anyway, here is the fourth installment of Online Wisdom, the entry where YOU, my faithful friends and readers, get to…uh…well, be made fun of. By me. As always, I’ve made some changes to the format. You are probably familiar by now with my complicated editing system of brackets, ellipses, and parentheses. I’m scrapping all of it. The editing marks are annoying, they get in the way, and they dampen the effects of a joke. So from now on, whenever I want to edit what I put in here, I will simply make the change and post it as if that was the way it was originally said. This way, I can make all sorts of crazy changes—anything from fixing typos to excising whole lines—and you won’t know the difference! Of course, this means that I now have the power to warp the contextual meaning of things that were said, or, worse, to commit forgery and completely make up stuff that was never said at all. But you have my honest, solemn word as a gentleman, or as a scumbag, whichever you prefer, that the only editing I have done was to fix ugly syntax, remove irrelevant comments, and other such trivial junk. I think that’s pretty much the only change. You’ll still find my (rarely) witty comments encased in parentheses, stuck above or below (or both) the entry which they comment upon. Enjoy!

sushi1323: have u seen that new pirate movie?
sushi1323: it's rated arrrrrrrrr!
(And then Sasha was stripped of all her joking privileges)

S10penguin: hey, i will brb
ChessMen15: okay
S10penguin signed off at 4:10:55 PM.
(“I’ll be right back,” she assures me.)

sushi1323: OMG, is dave barry an author?
sushi1323: cause I think I have one of his books
ChessMen15: oh yeah, he's very prolific
ChessMen15: he also has a syndicated column that appears in the Accent section of the Dispatch on Sundays
(pause)
sushi1323: I think I need dictionary.com
sushi1323: hmph
sushi1323: prolific: Producing offspring or fruit in great abundance; fertile.
sushi1323: or: Producing abundant works or results: a prolific artist.
sushi1323: I think I'll go with the second one
(Good work, Sasha! Your astounding brilliance continues to amaze us all!)

sushi1323: thanks for the hangover
ChessMen15: no problem

S10penguin: hey, brb, really
(Uh huh, sure. Whatever. I believe you.)

sushi1323: Goris, how do you get rid of stalkers?
(Please? People? Any chance you could spell my name right? I know it must be really hard to correctly type a sequence of FIVE WHOLE DIFFERENT LETTERS, but can you pretty please try? For your old friend Boris? This goes for all of you, not just Sasha. I just used Sasha as an example because I make fun of her a lot anyway.)

Auto response from slila22: most accurate quizilla answer ever:
You are CAPTAIN RETARD! LEADER OF ALL THINGS STUPID! You can point out the obvious, and can be REALLY ANNOYING! But don't let it discourage you. You still have yourself to talk to.

Buffy4386: I feel much stupider thanks to you.
(It seems my work here is done)

sushi1323: Hello Boris
ChessMen15: hello
sushi1323: How are you?
ChessMen15: not bad
sushi1323: You always say that!!!!!
(Well, excuuuuuse me if I just usually happen to be not bad! Yeesh.)

sushi1323: You are such a party pooper!

ChessMen15: bye!
SmarterChild: S'later, ChessMen15.
(“S’later?” That’s more than just retarded-sounding; it isn’t even a grammatically proper contraction.)

Toxin1234: she's christian I'm a jew
Toxin1234: what bearing this has on PROM
Toxin1234: i have no fucking clue
Toxin1234: wow that rhymed

fro2point0: Boris, you're a dork and that's why we love you

NerdamI2k: boris were you aware that the jedi religion is quickly becoming bigger than judaism?
(Does anybody here know how to translate Roger?)

Toxin1234: she's like the matrix reloaded of prom dates
(Ahh, I always love a good simile.)

(Priceless wisdom from Timur)
Toxin1234: as I've been quoted saying before
Toxin1234: "the hardest part about date rape ... is getting the date"

(The disadvantage of having serious conversations online)
Toxin1234: to quote my prom date circa 50 seconds ago
Toxin1234: "I might not be able to go"
Toxin1234: "brb"

DanTheMan1010101: ho ho howdy bor bor borgisporg!
(Okay, Dan, that was way out of line—even for you.)

(Yeah, it’s another inside joke. Sorry, I can’t help myself)
Auto response from Dapudd610: If I can't take my potty break, my potty break, my potty break, if I can't take my potty break, something within me explodes. LIES DOWN AND SOMETHING WITHIN ME EXPLODES!!!!! *cha cha cha*

sushi1323: I don't care, mrs hudson can go eat a dead cow's ass for all i care,
(Wow, I guess she really must not care)

(Read this and then try to tell me that Sasha is not an evil, sick, twisted, and horrible human being)
sushi1323: there was a kid who was killed today downtown from touching an electrical wire
sushi1323: it's kinda funny

(A wise musing from Lila)
slila22: I don't skip school when things are due. I only skip when I get up in the morning and can’t possibly imagine being at school, and I figure that “sick of school” is close enough to “sick”

Snobuny4ever: your ears turning red will be one of the FEW things that ill miss about high school!
(I am really, truly touched)

ChessMen15: hello!
S10penguin signed off at 12:33:01 AM.
(Pretty soon I’m gonna stop putting comments after these and just let them speak for themselves)

Chrono Prizm: hey
Auto response from ChessMen15: People ask me: Boris, if you're never there, why do you stay online all the time? To which I say: the monkey ate my refrigerator.
Chrono Prizm: wat?
(Eugene CLEARLY doesn’t get it)

DanTheMan1010101: hey!
Auto response from ChessMen15: [same away message]
DanTheMan1010101: the monkey ate my refrigerator too!
DanTheMan1010101: what a kawinkidink!
(See, Dan gets it!)

sushi1323: Hey Boris!
ChessMen15: hello
sushi1323: I hate that!
(What? What’d I do?!)

Auto response from slila22: I obviously love food more than I love you.

sushi1323: ah we still have another day of the weekend!
sushi1323: :-(
(freak)

DanTheMan1010101: ooh ooh eee eee ahhhhh
DanTheMan1010101: (monkey noises)

(Sometimes I wonder if Jeff is secretly making sense and I’m just too dumb to figure it out, or if he’s just dumb)
fro2point0: "le grille, what the hell is that?!"
ChessMen15: dunno
fro2point0: it was a qoute, in case you didn't guess by the the qoutation marks
ChessMen15: I see
fro2point0: yup
fro2point0 signed off at 5:53:55 PM.

snobuny4ever: liar. You don't have a life!
snobuny4ever: ha!
snobuny4ever: just kidding. But really. How much of a life DO you have?!
(Guys, why do I have this nagging feeling that she’s NOT kidding?)

sushi1323: haha
sushi1323: haha
sushi1323: HAHAHA
sushi1323: haha
(You know who’s really annoying? Those people who always laugh way too damn much at their own jokes.)

redhedd 86: so bo bo bo bo bo
redhedd 86: r r r r r
redhedd 86: is is is is is
(Arg, the most terrifying thing has happened—her boyfriend has rubbed off on her! RUN FOR YOUR LIVES!!!)

redhedd 86: Thanks Bo Bo!
(She’s going out with Dan, i.e. DanTheMan1010101, if you couldn’t tell)

NerdamI2k: boris you are a sick sick man

(Adam sent me a copy of the fun he had with SmarterChild.)
Dapudd611: shut up
SmarterChild: OK.
Dapudd611: b-izz-ye
Dapudd611: hey I was just kidding
Dapudd611: SmarterChild!
Dapudd611: I was just kidding! :'(
SmarterChild: OK, OK. Here I am.
Dapudd611: Whew! You had me worried
SmarterChild: Oh wow.
Dapudd611: I'm sorry
SmarterChild: K, don't worry 'bout it.
Dapudd611: lol

ChessMen15: I really should go to sleep
Toxin1234: I really should kill my prom date
(You can see that Timur and I are on the same page here)

Buffy4386: Not now now, nut later?
(Quick! You have five seconds to figure out what the hell she meant!)

swallow2585: remember, not all computers are as smart as yours is
ChessMen15: hah, my computer is a joke
swallow2585: mine has an IQ of about -800
ChessMen15: Ming...computers don't have IQ's
swallow2585: well if it had them, it would be about -800
ChessMen15: I see

snobuny4ever: go to bed!
(Yes, mother)

(So Sasha and Cynthia were arguing about whether or not I’m a…well, look)
sushi1323: he's a prostitute
wolfgirl1888: no, hes not
sushi1323: yes he is
wolfgirl1888: (no) no, he isnt
sushi1323: (yes) yes yes he is!
wolfgirl1888: (no) no no he isnt!
wolfgirl1888: how bout we ask him?
(Then Sasha asked me directly, to settle matters)
sushi1323: are you a male prostitute?
ChessMen15: no, I am not
(Exciting times.)

snobuny4ever: BORIS IS DUMB!
(Not only is she yelling it, but she’s yelling it right to my face. I tell ya, that girl has some nerve.)

snobuny4ever: but you don’t count, Boris
snobuny4ever: you aren't a true male
(What?! That’s not true! If you don’t believe me, look at my last Online Wisdom entry, and you’ll see! Mandy’s a good friend. She sticks up for me.)

NerdamI2k: hello boris
ChessMen15: hello
(long pause)
ChessMen15: see ya later, Roger
NerdamI2k: bye
NerdamI2k: great conversation
NerdamI2k signed off at 12:15:45 PM.

DontMinChenIt: have you ever tried a blowtorch?

icetune02: hey
ChessMen15: hello
(long pause)
icetune02: soooo...
icetune02 signed off at 6:28:01 PM.
(Looks like he was about to say something, but then thought better of it)

DontMinChenIt: you should revolute!!!
(Revolute…revolute…not a word)

NerdamI2k: I've found myself getting more and more politically sarcastic as of late
ChessMen15: how so?
NerdamI2k: well I'll go off topic on the message boards I frequent to rant about the Bush Tax Cut
NerdamI2k: maybe it's all the Calvin and Hobbes I've been reading
(Uh huh…)

ChessMen15: good night, Roger!
NerdamI2k: good afternoon

S10penguin: love you baby
(Let this stand as a warning to all those who leave their computers unattended)

ChessMen15: how are you?
JaOzSaH55: decent, I had a worthless day
JaOzSaH55: I was even worthless at work, I almost broke the shredding machine

NerdamI2k: boris I am the biggest idiot on the planet, I (…)
(…and then he said something else to clarify, but I think I heard all I needed to hear right there)

Snobuny4ever: IM SORRY, its really dark in here and i cant see the keys and im such a bad typer that i have to look at the keys whenb i type soi m havubg and lor of problems

icetune02: You bastard!!!
(Ouch. Whoa. I wonder what I did to deserve that one?)

Auto response from thumper00056: I'm out like the fat kid in dodge ball
(Very nice, very nice)

NerdamI2k: well I'm going to call someone tomorrow morning and see if I can get my life back together
(I’m not sure if there’s anyone you can call to provide that kind of service)

NerdamI2k: *kicks self in head
(Ha ha!)

fro2point0: brb
fro2point0 signed off at 8:02:59 PM.
(Oh great, now he’s doing it, too)

sushi1323: Did you read about that new bra?
(Yes, I happen to be very up to date regarding all the changes going on in bra fashion; what particular bra might this be that you’re asking about?)

Auto response from redhedd 86: Hi, I am in the shower right now! Wish you could join me ;-) Be back later!
(What is it with people and perverted shower away messages?!)

Auto response from Dapudd611: I am away from my computer right now because I am graduating.
(Hee hee.)

sushi1323: Boristina!
(No. Not acceptable.)

sushi1323: don’t take this too personally, but you're kinda boring, and predictable
(Um…okay. Very well, I take no offense. Oh, and don’t take this too personally, but you’re kind of stupid, and annoying.)

Ezkicow97: boris, ur a sick man
(Am I getting déjà vu here, or did somebody else say that to me a little bit ago?)

NerdamI2k: you are evil
(Jesus, what am I doing to warrant all these nasty comments?!)

Auto response from slila22: ah lovely summer time. Watch out for falling "i'm out like a..."s:
I'm out like an anorexic girl in a pie eating contest. Cell it.
(Keep the great similes coming, folks!)

DontMinChenIt signed off at 12:21:04 PM.
DontMinChenIt signed on at 12:22:45 PM.
DontMinChenIt: well I'm gonna go
DontMinChenIt: bye
DontMinChenIt signed off at 12:23:04 PM.

zipi197: your blog is very... interesting
zipi197: it seems like you have a lot of spare time on your hands
(Why, thank you! I really appre…heeeeeeeey, wait a second! THAT WASN’T A COMPLIMENT!!)

ChessMen15: I'll have to talk to this friend of yours sometime
zipi197: hehe, ok
zipi197: but he's in Florida for 3 weeks diving for shark teeth
(I swear, some people have the coolest friends)

fronomo530: I'm evil and I'm proud of it!
(Finally, Jeff found something to be proud of)

(This particular unfortunate typo seems to be quite common)
ChessMen15: sorry, I'm off tonight
hatebug23: tits' okay

S10penguin: brb
ChessMen15: okay, see ya
S10penguin signed off at 11:24:58 PM.
(Am I really so boring that people lie to me and say they’ll be right back when really they have every intention to leave and never speak to me again?)

slila22: good thinking
ChessMen15: thanks
slila22: no problem
ChessMen15: it's not something I'm frequently known for
slila22: welcome to the club
ChessMen15: sweet, there's a club?!
ChessMen15: when do you guys meet?
slila22: we don't. It makes it extra secret
ChessMen15: ah
ChessMen15: good thinking

ChessMen15: okay, brb
sushi1323: kkk
sushi1323: oops
sushi1323: kk

ChessMen15: hello
Toxin1234: sorry was away
Toxin1234: taking a good shit
(Thanks for informing me. And now I just informed everybody else. Whoops.)

Toxin1234: happy 1 minute late birthday Boris
(Ah, close enough)

sushi1323: i just gluesticked my lips shut

fronomo530: hi
ChessMen15: hello
fronomo530: bye
ChessMen15: bye
fronomo530 signed off at 1:24:03 PM.

sushi1323: You are such a freak
(Speak for yourself there, you lip-gluing, weekend-hating masochist)

ChessMen15: I thought you like went to the gym and did weights or something
slila22: oh ha no.

Hepcat800: borid?
Hepcat800: I spelled your name wrong
(Ah, thanks for telling me)

ChessMen15: hey Ben!
Hepcat800: howdy up, Boris
(I’ve heard of “howdy,” but “howdy up?” How do you howdy back down?)

ChessMen15: hey Mandy!
Buffy4386 signed off at 11:28:41 AM.

NerdamI2k: well, laterz
(Roger, please, for all our sakes—quit talking hacker)

(Another one of my favorite away messages)
Auto response from Energetic56: I don't usually dwell on sad news like this, but sometimes we need to pause and remember what life is all about. There was a great loss recently. Larry LaPrise, who wrote the song "Hokey Pokey," died this week at age 83. It was extremely difficult for the family to keep him in the casket. They'd put his left leg in and..... well, you know the rest.

(Watch carefully as Deniz, in his desperate attempt to fix a typo, only digs his hole deeper and deeper. See if you can follow along his chain of errors.)
Scubaman342: ao well.
Scubaman342: oh
Scubaman342: mot ao
Scubaman342: not
Scubaman342: not mot

ChessMen15: we'll miss you man
icetune02: no you won't
(Fine, then, Mr. Grouchy Pants! We WON’T miss you! In fact, we’re GLAD you’re gone! In fact, never ever come back! And stay there!)

sushi1323: Don't you hate hairdressers?

(I put this in here because it is very interesting English)
Hepcat800: but it looked really excellent

(This is utterly amazing. Everybody, please pay attention to this historic moment, when Sasha says something that actually makes sense!)
sushi1323: I'm such a dip!

ChessMen15: you could swim
Buffy4386: Hehe, no.
ChessMen15: why not?
Buffy4386: Because I'm the palest thing since Edward Scissor Hands.
(Ahh, I’m such a sucker for clever analogies)

ChessMen15: l
ChessMen15: sorry
Buffy4386: Why?
ChessMen15: I said "l" randomly
Buffy4386: Ohh.
Buffy4386: I totally just dismissed that.

NerdamI2k: Boris, you are sometimes more arcane than humanly possible.
(Well, at least I don’t normally use arcane words like “arcane.”)

fronomo530: Boris, you're a mad man
fronomo530: madman*
fronomo530: no spave
fronomo530: space*
(Please, people—if you make a typo, let it go! Unless you misspelled my name. That one is only punishable by death. But everything else—let it go.)

NerdamI2k: YAY I just shaved 10 seconds off my best time at expert minesweeper
NerdamI2k: 138 seconds.
(Anybody who “YAY”s about anything regarding Minesweeper needs to find a new hobby immediately.)

LisaLee1603: Lisa says you sound like SmarterChild
(Ouch! I swear, people say the meanest things to me. I hope that those of you who have talked with SmarterChild can appreciate how unfairly I was insulted here.)

Hepcat800: all your base are belong to us!

Auto response from slila22: Olsen twin special. Am aware I'm a loser.

(Lila, more than anybody else, definitely puts the “wisdom” in “online wisdom.”)
slila22: the ceiling and the sky are both up

slila22: what up homie g dawg?
(Oh, Lila)

slila22: did you not know that I'm straight from the strizzeets?
(Oy.)

sushi1323: Well, I'll just be on Main Street... selling myself to the horny poor people

(If any of you ever think that I go a little harsh on Sasha, I offer you the following:)
sushi1323: I've got a brilliant idea
ChessMen15: I have my doubts
ChessMen15: what is it?
sushi1323: fuck you!
ChessMen15: hmm
ChessMen15: I don't know if I like that idea so much
sushi1323: EW boris
ChessMen15: well? What's the idea?
sushi1323: I can't spell it so never mind
ChessMen15: ??
ChessMen15: k...
sushi1323: psychology
ChessMen15: yes?
sushi1323: I need to go see a psychologist
ChessMen15: ah
sushi1323: but that's not the brilliant idea
ChessMen15: okay
ChessMen15: I'm still waiting for that one
sushi1323: nvm... it's gone
ChessMen15: rats
ChessMen15: guess we waited too long, and your brain couldn't store it
sushi1323: nope it had to do with monkeys
ChessMen15: really
ChessMen15: must've been an exciting idea
sushi1323: very close
sushi1323: yes it was

Hepcat800: ootiootiootiootiootiootiootiooti

Hepcat800: right, but you know what I mean, right?
ChessMen15: no
ChessMen15: what do you mean?
Hepcat800: hell
Hepcat800: I dunno

Hepcat800: rat balls
(One of the funnier interjections I have seen)

Hepcat800: nuts
ChessMen15: nuts spelled backwards is stun
(A direct rip from Lila)
Hepcat800: stun spelled backwards is flamingo
(But Ben wins)

Hepcat800: spifftastic

ChessMen15: Sarah!!
ChessMen15: hey!
S10penguin signed off at 5:17:56 PM.
S10penguin signed on at 5:37:22 PM.
ChessMen15: Sarah!!
ChessMen15: hey!
S10penguin signed off at 5:40:17 PM.
(No, I did not accidentally paste that twice. It actually happened that way. Very depressing.)

(Since when do I deserve so much god damn flak just for saying “hello?!”)
NerdamI2k: hi boris what's up?
ChessMen15: hello
NerdamI2k: that is not an answer to my question, nor is it a good font

snobuny4ever: you have waaaaaayyyy too much time
(Fine! Fine! I have way too much time! I admit it. There. Now could you all please stop harassing me about it?)

fronomo530: but it's obvious that my humor is wasted on you Boris
ChessMen15: not always
fronomo530: not always = yes

wolfgirl1888: yea, im deffinitly thinking that shes write
wolfgirl1888: rite*
(Am I too much of a dork if I find it infinitely hilarious that of all the things she could have fixed in that typo-ridden sentence, she only picked one, and she fixed it wrong?)

(Here we have a very unique example of an unfortunate typo)
wolfgirl1888: ok, I’m outta here
wolfgirl1888: I need sleep
ChessMen15: good night Cynthia!
ChessMen15: me too
wolfgirl1888: and my parents think I’m in ben

fronomo530: I got to ass before Boris jumped in
(I’m sure there’s an innocent explanation for this one, but I have no idea what on Earth it could be, and I didn’t save the rest of the conversation. Arg. Frightening.)

fronomo530: are there 15 men that play chess?
ChessMen15: no
ChessMen15: I was born on June 15
(Not terribly amusing, I know, but I hope this clarifies it for everybody)

sushi1323: i just made staple earings!
(And then all I could do was stare at my computer screen and sigh)

NerdamI2k: boris, you are by far the most arcane and unfathomable person I've ever met, read your own away message, WHAT DOES IT MEAN!!!!?
(Oooo, so now I’m arcane AND unfathomable. Slick.)

NerdamI2k: laterz
(ROGER, STOP IT NOW!)

slila22: I have to go at least pretend I'm going to do the shit I meant to do

fly197: best pickup line that someone tried on me in London: 'do you wanna get laid?'
(Did it work?)

(Wow, my blog served a use to humanity!)
Auto response from sushi1323: Maybe not all of you have read Boris' Blog, but some time ago he had an entry entitled like... DVD anticts or something along those lines... in this entry he told about how he and his friends couldn't find the movie they planned on watching until they looked inside the DVD case to find the non-special features disk... Well, this happened to me, unfortunatly I didn't remember this blog entry in time, and so I watched all of the special features two times through just to pass time... before getting on the computer and looking at his blog, then looking at the blog mirorr and then that entry... stupid stupid Sasha... well since I have already wasted most of my night I will watch the rest of the movie some other time... I'll be back later y'all... and damn the DVD makers!
(Except we were definitely a lot smarter about it than Sasha was. Yay for Lila!)

sushi1323: but whatever lights your boat
(Floats, Sasha—whatever FLOATS your boat! Floats!! Don’t slaughter one of my favorite phrases of all time like that! What the heck does “lights your boat” mean, anyway?!)

sushi1323: you're dumb
sushi1323: jk
ChessMen15: you're dumb
ChessMen15: (notice the lack of jk)
sushi1323: huh?
ChessMen15: oh, nothing!
sushi1323: I get it! you're mean!
ChessMen15: :-D
sushi1323: and now you smile about your meanness
sushi1323: :-(
(Please, cry)

sushi1323: I meant what r u pasting it on?
ChessMen15: my text files
ChessMen15: I have many
sushi1323: I don't like being on those... it's humiliating!
(Yes, ironic, isn’t it?)

ChessMen15: check
Auto response from fronomo530: don't check here

(I said this after Lila nagged me about a bunch of stuff)
ChessMen15: since when did my mom die and you took her place?!
slila22: I'm everybody's part time mother
(That must be tough)

Auto response from fly197: When life gives you lemons, just shut up and eat your damn lemons.

Hepcat800: Boris? Are you there? Can you hear me? BORISSSS!!!!!

Auto response from thumper00056: chillin' like a villian
(Great, so now all of my friends are either hackers or gangsters. Just great.)

(The infernal AIM character limit claims another victim)
WESLEYAN '07!!
Clark Hall rm 121 w/VICKI,aka, they wont let me write more in my profile

DontMinChenIt: I HAVE SEEN THE SASQUATCH!

Buffy4386: I'm shedding like a Shetland sheep dog.

Buffy4386: Yes, Boris. Didn't you know that's where I work? At a strip club?
Buffy4386: And none of the other exotic dancers there will even say hi to me
Buffy4386: But my customers sure do. ;-)
Buffy4386: :-D

(I wonder how many more times I will see unfortunate typos of this nature before I die)
Hepcat800: that's wha tit said

(And now we end with something that actually appeared towards the beginning of my text file, but which I saved for the end because I believe that it is the all-time funniest thing that has ever been spoken to me online. See what you think:)

S10penguin: Chris likes my anal hares

Well, folks, that about does it for this installment of online hilarity. I will now create odd5.txt, and hopefully you can expect an Online Wisdom: Part 5 sometime in the future. Until then—adios!

.: posted by Boris 9:30 PM

Sunday, May 18, 2003

Why the Formality?

I don’t, and probably never will, understand why things always have to be written in a formal tone. If you don’t know what I mean by formal tone, then simply take one of those stupid letters we periodically get from school and you’ll see exactly what I mean. Very dry, very boring, uses lots of big words to make something sound important and fancy when it’s really not, etc etc. The difference between a formal tone and a casual tone is a lot like the difference between an opera and a musical. And I ask this—which is more fun to watch? Sorry, opera fans, but you’ve gotta admit that that stuff is BORING. I’m allowed to say that, too, because I otherwise quite thoroughly enjoy classical music, and I’m not just some redneck hick who doesn’t “get it.”

Anyway, my point is that I really don’t like how writing has to be formal all the time. Wouldn’t it be cool if you could be chatty in your formal letters and fill them with casual words and smiley faces? Wouldn’t everybody have a lot more fun that way? To prove my point, I offer the following example:

Last spring, the air conditioner in my grandparents’ apartment broke, as did the light bulb in the stairway. They called the people in charge and requested that a repairman come and fix these two things, because the apartment had become a raging inferno and they had to risk falling down the stairs in the dark every time they wanted to leave it. A repairman came early on Friday and quickly fixed the bulb. He next checked the air conditioner and concluded that a faulty compressor was behind its lack of function, and said that he’d be back later in the day to fix it. An hour later the new light bulb burned out, and the repairman never returned, so we were back to square one. Later that weekend, my grandpa decided to write an angry letter to the landlord so that things would be fixed once and for all, but as you all probably know, I am Russian, and that makes my grandpa Russian as well, and so his English is not very good, and his writing skills are even worse. Thus, he enlisted my aid in writing up a letter to the landlord. Here is what I came up with:

***

[heading the letter is my grandparents' address, which I don't want to include here because I'm afraid that some psycho madman will read my blog and come after them with a bayonet. Actually, if a psycho madman reads this blog, then him coming after my grandparents with what is really a rather futile and outdated weapon is probably the least of my problems, because by the time he gets around to me, he will probably have learned his lesson and gotten an M16. Dang, looks like I'm in trouble. Oh well.]

First of all, I would like to say that I am very pleased that a repairman came over as a result of my complaints. You were very prompt in addressing these issues and I thank you for your quickness.

The first thing that the repairman did was fix the light bulb, which burned wonderfully. For about an hour. Then it died. This light bulb did a fantastic job of providing light, but if you plan to continue using hour-long bulbs, then I suggest that you replace them with greater frequency.

The second thing I must address is that I was mistaken in diagnosing the root of the problem with our air conditioner. It was not, as I suspected, the fuse that was at fault, but rather, as the repairman pointed out to me, the compressor. The repairman caught my mistake and did not repair the fuse, which is fortunate, because doing so would have been terribly wasteful. Instead, he left. Before doing so, however, he promised that he would fix the compressor later that day, that is, Friday. He never returned. I can only hope that, while we were roasting alive in our apartment for the last two days, the repairman was kept away by serious amounts of work, and not by a pack of rabid wolves that pounced on him after he accidentally wandered into a forest. If that is the case, then please send our condolences to his family, and while you’re sending those, please also send another repairman to fix this air conditioner.

Another slight point of note is that an inspector is coming tomorrow at noon, so I suggest that you fix this light bulb soon or else he won’t find the apartment. Also, it might be a good idea to use a longer-lasting bulb this time. The inspector is staying for an hour; thus, if the light bulb only lasts that long, there is a chance that it will burn out before he leaves and he will fall and break his neck on the way down the stairs. This would be most undesirable. You may also want to fix the air conditioner before he arrives, unless your intent is to cook him and have him for dinner later. Under current conditions, if he enters our room with an apple in his mouth then he will be a good medium-rare when he leaves.

Thank you very much.

***

I was quite pleased with my work and proudly showed it to my grandpa, who chuckled heartily and said that I did a fantastic job. But, he hastened to add, it wasn’t quite what he was looking for. He “couldn’t” really send something like that, you understand. I had been afraid of this. I grudgingly toned my letter down and came up with the following, which was what my grandpa ended up sending to the landlord:

***

[address]

Thank you for sending over a repairman so quickly. Unfortunately, we are still having some problems.

1) The repairman fixed the light bulb, but it burned for only about an hour before dying out.

2) The repairman said that the problem with the air conditioner was not the fuse, but the compressor. He said he'd come back later that day—Friday—to fix the compressor, but it’s Monday now and he still hasn’t come.

3) An inspector from Section 8 will come today at noon. You may want to fix the light bulb before then so that he can find the apartment. It might also be a good idea to fix the air conditioner before then as well, or else the inspector will be very uncomfortable.

Thank you,

Abram Bulkovshteyn

***

Which version do you like better?

All the life has been sucked out of the second draft. I had no fun writing it and I’m sure that whoever was in charge of things had no fun reading it. Writing in such a formal manner reduces human interactions to terse, boring affairs that people grudgingly dispense with before moving on with their lives. How sad.

Another case in point: earlier this semester, I had to write a paper about Shakespeare’s tragedy, Othello, for my humanities class. This wasn’t exactly the hottest topic for a paper, so I did my best to make it interesting and funny while at the same time trying also to perhaps say a few moderately intelligent things. When I got the paper back, it had no grade; instead there was a note from Ms. Lamuth saying that my paper was too informal and didn’t have an evident thesis, and could I please redo it and turn it back in. Mad as heck, I went through the paper, spelled out what the thesis was in terms that most truck drivers would understand, removed anything remotely resembling something that might possibly perhaps be mistaken by someone as a joke, and resignedly returned the paper to Ms. Lamuth, who liked it and gave me an A. She said she actually liked my first paper, too, but that that kind of thing would never fly in college, and that we all needed to learn how to write “proper” papers.

If any of you out there know the address and preferably also the name of the person who came up with what a “proper” paper should be like, and who decided that papers for professors and letters to landlords are not allowed to be too “informal,” then I would be very grateful if you could email me that information so that I could go over to his house and whop him one over the head with an empty Snapple bottle. What, I ask, is wrong with putting humor into a paper that would otherwise be tear-inducingly boring? What is wrong with taking on a personal and friendly tone in letters to colleges, banks, corporations, or whatever? What is wrong with writing in words that actually might be used someday in regular speech? I don’t even read letters from the principal anymore; they go directly into my recycling bin. Maybe I would read them if I felt like he was actually trying to communicate with me, and not covering up obvious issues with a clever use of big words and complicated sentence structure. Maybe people and businesses and governments would work with each other a lot better if they wrote clearly and normally. And maybe kids would have a lot more fun writing papers for class if they could use words like “ass.” I say to hell with being formal. What do you think?

.: posted by Boris 7:46 PM

Tuesday, May 13, 2003

Online Wisdom: Part 3

An interesting thing happened just now. Mandy and I had a pretty funny exchange online—worthy enough of odd3.txt, I thought—so I cheerfully opened up my text file and tried to copy the relevant bit of the conversation into it. Imagine how shocked I was when, instead of pasting the clip into the text file like a good little boy, my computer instead bluntly told me, “Not enough memory available to complete this operation. Quit one or more applications to increase available memory, and then try again.” Very strange. Well, my computer is quite old, and it has been ravaged by many viruses in its time, so I forgive it for its little quirks. Dutifully I began closing programs and windows in an attempt to increase my available memory.

But nothing seemed to work! I knew that rebooting usually fixes these sorts of things, but I didn’t feel like doing that, and I found it odd that it would take so much memory just to paste something into a flipping text file. I then tried to paste the same bit into Word, and was astonished to discover that it pasted fine. Puzzled, I began typing random stuff into the text file, and lo and behold—the same error message popped up. It seems, folks, that I have actually maxed out odd3.txt! Stupid Notepad has some sort of a retarded content limit and I can’t put anything more into it. Normally I only make these “Online Wisdom” installments when I’m good and ready (read: when I’m totally out of ideas for a real blog entry), but this time it seems the decision has been made for me. In fact it’s kind of annoying because I have another (I think) good entry in the works, but instead I have to make this one first. Argh.

And now, a quick review of how things work. If you see an ellipsis enclosed by parentheses, such as this one (…), it means I cut out stuff that isn’t relevant to the joke at hand, or that I blatantly twisted a person’s words out of context. An ellipsis enclosed by brackets, such as this baby right here […], means that I cut out whole lines. I use these markings because I want things to be accurate so that nobody’ll sue me or anything. Otherwise, everything is presented exactly the way it was originally typed online, with the (often very notable) exception that I have taken it upon myself to correct a lot of the typos that appeared in the original comments. Conversely, if you see a whole buttload of typos and other grammatical errors in something that someone said, it means that the IM was actually typed that way, and I just left the typos in it to make fun of the person.

Oh, and one last thing—since I waited way too long to make this entry, the entry itself is way too long. 18 pages, as a matter of fact. If you try to read it all at once, you’ll probably get horribly sick of it somewhere in the middle and then puke up your last four meals, which would be bad. My suggestion would be to read it a little bit at a time or, better yet, not to read it at all, because…wait. No, I want you read it!! I do! Really! Just don’t try to read it all at once, is all I’m saying. And as usual, my comments appear in parentheses directly above or below the entry they comment upon, with spaces denoting breaks between entries. Enjoy!

(hooray for not watching what the other person is saying)
Chessmen15: how's it going?
Buffy4386: How's it going?

(if you never knew me as a little kid, all the better)
Boris says: I wrote something in your sixth grade yearbook?
Cherie says: Yup.
Boris says: wow!
Boris says: what'd I say?
Boris says: I honestly can't remember doing such a thing
Cherie says: "Did I bug you this year? Good."

(conversations like this, as always, sadden me)
icetune02: hey Boris
Chessmen15: hiya
Chessmen15: night Steven
icetune02: night Boris
icetune02 signed off at 11:54:16 PM.

(I feel so fortunate to have good friends like Dan, who I know will stick up for me when my dignity is under attack)
DanTheMan1010101: marina called you a chickenshit :-)
DanTheMan1010101: that's like the COOLEST thing ever

(Mandy shows off her incredible typing skills)
Buffy4386: Ah, godness.
Buffy4386: godness*
Buffy4386: goodness*
Buffy4386: !

DanTheMan1010101: g'night dude monkey

Auto response from bassgirl237: taking a shower and reading sylvia plath call me and we can snort coke and murder homeless people 237-7086
(I don’t talk to her anymore)

(You know how sometimes the other person makes a typo but you can still figure out what they said? Well, I have NO clue what this is. If you can decipher it, I would be much obliged if you could tell me what Dan is trying to so eloquently say here)
DanTheMan1010101: dohe WHAT kinda of thing?

(interesting)
SirGalidrad says: ah shoot
SirGalidrad says: I guess I missed you
SirGalidrad says: hee hee hee buttons
SirGalidrad says: Boris?!?!?!?
SirGalidrad says: Darn
SirGalidrad says: I'll check back in a while
SirGalidrad says: or I'll talk to myself
SirGalidrad says: Hi self!
SirGalidrad says: Self, hey what’s up man?
SirGalidrad says: how’s it going?
SirGalidrad says: Good, you?
SirGalidrad says: Oh I'm ok
SirGalidrad says: What’s happening?
SirGalidrad says: I'm just talking to myself.
SirGalidrad says: What?! Me too!!

bassgirl237: she is a slut but not like an all out slut
(it shames me to confess that the fine difference between the two is totally lost on me)

(oh, here we go with the name thing again…)
Buffy4386: Borealis!

sushi1323: I had the weirdest dream last night... George W. made a law that forced us to buy Campbell’s soup....YUCK!
(well, just because you have to buy it doesn’t mean you have to eat it, does it?! Only stupid people would do that. Oh, wait...)

(lazy!!)
Chessmen15: good morning!
bassgirl237: same

(what an unfortunate typo)
sushi1323: I was lost for a sex

(and she keeps ‘em coming)
sushi1323: what was tit then

Auto response from thatoneguy2287: I'm not here, but you can try anyways.
(okay, this isn’t funny, but it’s something that has been bugging me ever since Kenny started using that away message. What I wanna know is: try WHAT? Try to talk to you? Try to leave you a message? Try to launch a warthog to the moon with nothing but a wooden stick and a rubber band? Kenny, please be more clear!!)

Auto response from Chessmen15: I will seriously be right back!
Snobuny4ever: no you wont....ur playing civ3
(it’s a sad world when people no longer trust each other’s away messages)

(ever get really pissed online and try to vent your emotions through type? It just doesn’t work the same as when you do it in person)
snobuny4ever: are u serious?!
Chessmen15: yep
snobuny4ever: I only went to the second floor
snobuny4ever: SHIT
snobuny4ever: I shoulda
snobuny4ever: FUCK

Auto response from Chessmen15: Oil change...exciting times.
nerdami2k: your comp runs on oil?
(no, but my car does…)

sushi1323: Ya know it's always easier to change it yourself... but the disposal is annoying... well... I hope it doesn't cost too much!
Auto response from Chessmen15: Oil change...exciting times.
(you can tell who the people are that really need to find a hobby or something—they’re the ones who comment on your away message when it says that you’re out getting an oil change)

(I hate it when people laugh at their own dumb jokes)
sushi1323: i like homeless people tho
sushi1323: lol
sushi1323: they always let u into their homes
sushi1323: lol

Chessmen15: thanks, Sasha
Chessmen15: you're a pal
sushi1323: "pal" ... hahahahahahahahaha that's the dog in arthur!
sushi1323: lol
Chessmen15: um
Chessmen15: yeah

bassgirl237: oh ur a poo

(Roger…)
nerdami2k: I like my women like I like my coffee.
nerdami2k: in a plastic cup

(tragedy strikes as Roger mires himself in yet another sticky situation)
nerdami2k: well boris it seems I've addicted myself to minesweeper

bassgirl237: ur just slightly retared
(well, thank goodness for that—I was afraid it was full-blown, all-out retardation)

nerdami2k: well boris I must, like the atom, split
(by the way, if you guys want a surefire way of making it into one of these entries, just find a really dumb way of saying hello or goodbye and you’ll be in faster than a hungry monkey can eat a banana)

zimface: oh Noris the Great! (can i call you noris?)
(okay guys—the name is Boris. Boris. B-O-R-I-S. With a B)

sushi1323: Good Morning Boris?!
(sounds like she has a hangover)

nerdami2k: evenin' b
(see? What did I tell you? Abominably stupid greetings are the surefire ticket)

Dontminchenit: here's what I want
Dontminchenit: I want Boris of the present to engage Boris of the future in mortal combat
Dontminchenit: I'll pay good money to see that

DanTheMan1010101: now it's ChessMen...cute
(it saddens me that Dan is the ONLY one who noticed! Thanks, Dan! I love you)

(Attack of the Horribly Unfortunate Typos: Part Three)
ChessMen15: how is your ensemble faring?
DanTheMan1010101: it's farting bad

Toxin1234: I got my acceptance to Penn state - university park engineering today
Toxin1234: so that’s a decent fall back
ChessMen15: cool
Toxin1234: #16 in the country
(yeesh. If you’re gonna brag, at least have the courage to be up-front about it)

fro2point0: hey jimmy
(yeah, he was talking to me, and yeah, my name is, just for the record, Boris)

Snobuny4ever: really shouldn’t have dranken all that milk (…)
(dranken…that ain’t no typo, that’s plumb bad grammar right there, folks)

ChessMen15: yeah, we had "tryouts," too
ChessMen15: "tryouts"
ChessMen15: if you catch my drift
fro2point0: I got it, I’m a bright boy
ChessMen15: well, you can't seem to remember your friends' names, so I wasn't sure
fro2point0: I was jus kidding about that bob

ChessMen15: aw
Snobuny4ever: dont aw
(well, then!)

ChessMen15: see ya, Herbert
fro2point0: c ya bill
(Jeff and I…we have this thing going)

fro2point0: hey bob
[away message]
fro2point0: well, seeing that you’re not here, I guess I'll just have to have a conversation w/ myself
fro2point0: how ya doin?
fro2point0: I’m fine, how about yourself?
fro2point0: I’m good
fro2point0: so, how’s the family?
fro2point0: they’re good, how’s yours?
fro2point0: they’re fine
fro2point0: good, I’m glad to hear that
fro2point0: yep
fro2point0: its a good deal
fro2point0: "I’d like to, but I sat in some sap in the tree and I cant come down"
(Jeff did this independently, without ever having seen the thing from SirGalidrad. Very frightening)

(Jeff humor)
fro2point0: I play cello, and I’m not that sick that id throw up all over my cello
[…]
fro2point0: yep, all over my stand, but not my cello

fro2point0: hey Jobe!!
fro2point0: hey P-boris, I just wanted to say hi, so well, Hi.
fro2point0: I mean hey F-boris
fro2point0: hehe
fro2point0: the men of chess
fro2point0 signed off at 5:57:18 PM.
fro2point0 signed on at 6:12:14 PM.
fro2point0: so, jimmy, your blog is wwwwwwwwwwwwwaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy[etc] too long
fro2point0: randi
(are any of you particularly close to Jeff? Could you please tell his doctor to stop prescribing him that medicine, whatever it is?)

bassgirl237: what language is kino ve kterém se budete vznáset
bassgirl237: ?
ChessMen15: beats me
bassgirl237: grrrr
bassgirl237: I have a shirt that says it and I don’t know what it means

(sigh)
nerdami2k: well Boris I better start moseying on out, whatever the hell that means

Dontminchenit: what kind of music are you into?
Dontminchenit: oh wait
Dontminchenit: jazz
Dontminchenit: nm
(well, that conversation was easy—I didn’t even have to do anything)

fro2point0: well, I need to say something stupid, I am over due

fro2point0: Tom Ato
fro2point0: don’t you just love that name
ChessMen15: yeah
fro2point0: get it?
fro2point0: Tom Ato
(ha…ha…ha)

(this is what happens when people have too much free time)
Auto response from thatoneguy2287: hahahahahahaha I warned myself to 35%

Buffy4386: I'm sorry, a picture of you having mad crazy sex popped into my mind and I am seriously disturbed.
ChessMen15: *sigh*
ChessMen15: well, get it out of there, please
Buffy4386: I can't!!
Buffy4386: AHHH!!!!!
(I had almost forgotten that this one was in there, and I wish I hadn’t remembered)

(some things in this world, you can count on)
Buffy4386: You're still a man, Boris, don't worry.

(classic)
ChessMen15: you can see a differenece
ChessMen15: er, difference
fro2point0: ha, you made a spelling mistake, hahahaha
fro2point0: i cought you, haha
ChessMen15: *caught
fro2point0: darn

Chrono Prizm: hey
ChessMen15: hiya
Chrono Prizm: wassup
Chrono Prizm: I still got the cold
Chrono Prizm: and it hurts really bad
ChessMen15: aw
Chrono Prizm signed off at 5:06:05 PM.
(good old Eugene…he signed on just to tell me that)

(this is the meanest, bitterest, vilest insult that I have ever received in my whole entire life, and I will never forgive Sasha for it until the day I die, and even in death I’ll probably continue to hold the grudge)
sushi1323: What did you do today?
ChessMen15: not much
sushi1323: Really? I mean someone as popular as you has to have done something?

(peek-a-boo!)
NerdamI2k: Boris!
ChessMen15: hello
NerdamI2k signed off at 8:36:50 PM.

NerdamI2k: chess club...
NerdamI2k: can stuff itself
(major inside joke! I don’t even know why I bother with these, but whatever, it’s fun. If you had a blog, you’d understand)

redhedd 86: I was just wondering cause..I was did
(exaaaactly)

(spirit-lifting words of wisdom from Lila)
slila22: anorexia=bad

Cherie says: Guess what my Mom's watching?
Boris says: what?
Cherie says: Harry Potter. In Spanish. Quick, ask if my mom speaks Spanish!
Boris says: does your mom speak Spanish?
Cherie says: NO!

(Well, there goes that Noris Borealis kid, bugging the crap out of me again. Hmm, I think I might have some snow to shovel. Click! *AIM closes*)
ChessMen15: hey Mandy!
Buffy4386 signed off at 9:42:00 PM.

sushi1323: yo Boris... I don't care now... I am just going to bomb your house...

Auto response from DanTheMan1010101: Sex'n up Jessie...:-D
(this gives a new meaning to the term “public display of affection”)

DanTheMan1010101: need pants
(well, yeah, after what you were doing in that last one…)

icetune02: heh
ChessMen15: what?
icetune02: nothing
ChessMen15: I see
icetune02: good

(Dr. Chen explains how things work)
DontMinChenIt: well.. you have some foreplay... and then the sex

(warning: reading the follow entry WILL lower your IQ by no less than 12 points. Proceed at your own risk)
ChessMen15: Mandy, why should we sequence the genome of the Chimpanzee instead of another animal?
Buffy4386: Because the chimpanzee is closer to a human?
ChessMen15: I don't suppose you have any three page papers lying around on that subject...?
Buffy4386: Hehe
Buffy4386: Sorry
ChessMen15: rats
Buffy4386: Monkeys!
ChessMen15: doves!
Buffy4386: Ladybugs!
ChessMen15: goats!
Buffy4386: Whales!
ChessMen15: pigs!
Buffy4386: Hawks!
ChessMen15: sharks!
Buffy4386: Chickens!
ChessMen15: Cows!
Buffy4386: Horses!
ChessMen15: elephants!
Buffy4386: Camels!
ChessMen15: donkeys!
Buffy4386: Sheep!
ChessMen15: dogs!
Buffy4386: Snakes!
ChessMen15: geese!
Buffy4386: Buffalo!
ChessMen15: moose!
Buffy4386: Ducks!
ChessMen15: elk!
Buffy4386: Sea cucumbers!
ChessMen15: urchins!
Buffy4386: Anemones!
ChessMen15: lions!
Buffy4386: Snails!
ChessMen15: tigers!
Buffy4386: Bears!
ChessMen15: panthers!
Buffy4386: Jaguars!
ChessMen15: cheetahs!
Buffy4386: Wildebeast!
ChessMen15: boars!
Buffy4386: Antelope!
ChessMen15: aardvarks!
Buffy4386: Anteaters!
ChessMen15: kangaroos!
Buffy4386: Centipedes!
ChessMen15: dolphins!
Buffy4386: Seals!
ChessMen15: mice!
Buffy4386: Starfish!
ChessMen15: sea lions!
Buffy4386: Foxes!
ChessMen15: hares!
Buffy4386: Owls!
ChessMen15: turtles!
Buffy4386: Bats!
ChessMen15: mosquitoes!
Buffy4386: Manatees!
ChessMen15: killer bees!
Buffy4386: Killer ants!
ChessMen15: ostriches!
Buffy4386: Emus!
ChessMen15: flamingos!
Buffy4386: Swans!
ChessMen15: penguins!
Buffy4386: Flies!
ChessMen15: polar bears!
Buffy4386: Donkeys!
ChessMen15: deer!
Buffy4386: Frogs!
ChessMen15: toads!
Buffy4386: Katydids!
[here I point out to Mandy that her recent saying of “donkeys” was a repeat, as I had said it much earlier]
Buffy4386: :-P
ChessMen15: gotcha :-)
ChessMen15: I win
Buffy4386: Nahah
ChessMen15: okay, I so did not start that

(Kenny is such a sweet guy. Really. He left Lisa the cutest message in her guestbook; it was so romantic and touching that I couldn’t help but put it in this blog)
Hey Lisa!!! Wut up dawg. I'm gonna miss u next year :-( ur like goin away man and i'm stuck here with all these lame-o's (haha jk jk :P ). I like cheeze.

snobuny4ever: BORIS.....
[away message]
snobuny4ever: BORISS>>>>>>>>>>
snobuny4ever: boris.....
snobuny4ever: boris!
snobuny4ever: come on now!
snobuny4ever: please!
snobuny4ever: I need to know things about this group project thingie!
snobuny4ever: BORIS!
snobuny4ever: DAMMIT BORIS
snobuny4ever: GET YOUR ASS ON
snobuny4ever: ok...
snobuny4ever: *sigh*
snobuny4ever: ill just figure it out myself (Ming’s phone line has been busy all night)
(I bet a lot of the world’s problems would be solved if I spent more time online and was there for the people who need me)

(this was, I think, the scariest thing that has ever happened to me on AIM)
ChessMen15: hey Steven!
[very long pause]
icetune02: Steven isn't here right now.
icetune02 signed off at 6:09:44 PM.

(Lila’s poetry is the best)
you eat it with a fork
it's also known as pork
so when in a bad mood
get yo'self some piggy food

(more poetry, compliments of Lila)
math is very scarey
it makes me very warey
and if it makes you merry
your name should not be larry.
and it's not. it's boris. so you're in luck.

Buffy4386: That's not why!
ChessMen15: oh really!
ChessMen15: please enlighten me, then
Buffy4386: I don't know why, but that's not it.

NerdamI2k: you can always graph it bors
NerdamI2k: bors
NerdamI2k: lol
(kill me now)

NerdamI2k: Mahler was a wild and crazy guy
NerdamI2k: and I'm a sleepy one who wishes to start reading into the cthulhu mythos some more
NerdamI2k: good night
(my threshold for Roger toleration is being dangerously stretched)

(it’s a sad world when people have to make their away messages politically correct for fear of offending others)
Auto response from BadHair17: I'll tell you what I'm not doing.... talking to you! Sorry :-( Note: This is not mean. I'm simply saying that currently, I am not talking to you. The frowning face shows that I'm sad that I'm not talking to you. Don't be offended.

(goodness, people, if you’re gonna make typos, can you at least get people’s names right?!)
Buffy4386: I'll talk to you later, Bori.

(Mandy is a pro when it comes to ingeniously inserting invisible insults)
Buffy4386: I was kind of picky. Not as picky as you, because I'm not silly, but it was good.

(sometimes you can even tell online if someone has been hitting their marijuana supply a little hard lately)
DanTheMan1010101: howdy bo-bo
ChessMen15: hiya
DanTheMan1010101: bo bo bo...ris ris ris...
DanTheMan1010101: when you leavin'?
DanTheMan1010101: 8 tirdy?
DanTheMan1010101: i just wanna know how early i should go
DanTheMan1010101: *smack smack*
DanTheMan1010101: wake up dweeby
ChessMen15: sorry, mom came here to bug me
ChessMen15: well, we have to load at 8:45
ChessMen15: I'm driving up, so I'll probably leave about 8:25 or so
DanTheMan1010101: alrighty
DanTheMan1010101: see ya there dude monkey
ChessMen15: yup!
ChessMen15: bye Dan
DanTheMan1010101: lata

NerdamI2k: hi boris
[away message]
NerdamI2k: you need a better away message than that, I mean it's not even very witty
NerdamI2k: it tries too hard
NerdamI2k: not to make a pun
(“tries too hard not to make a pun”—now there’s something I’ll be pondering the meaning of for a while)

NerdamI2k: I un blast you
(apparently I missed the blasting)

Buffy4386: Wow, I leaned away from the computer and the text on our window looked like it was 3-D, weird. Man, those mushrooms sure do the funniest things....

(Mandy seems like such a nice, sweet girl, but at times she can really whip out the nasty sarcasm)
Buffy4386: Aww, thanks Boris
Buffy4386: I'm touched.
ChessMen15: I mean it :-)
Buffy4386: :-)
Buffy4386: I'm gonna start tearing up pretty soon

sushi1323: I want a shotgun!

sushi1323: Spider Solitaire is the foundation of socity.

BadHair17: Cool, thanks Borid
(Andy…shame on you)

sushi1323: Can I call you Frimphy??
(No.)

(hidden within this seemingly innocuous invitation to hang out is a really, really mean implication. See if you can find it)
fly197: are you going to hang out with me? since all my friends will be gone

(more unfortunate typos)
fly197: really? I doub tit

(thank you once again, Einstein)
sushi1323: omg... you can not make a noose out of floss... it just doesn't work

ChessMen15: hey Ming!
ChessMen15: aw, drat, you don't seem to be there
ChessMen15: well, when you get a chance, could you message me our third good reason for sequencing the chimp?
ChessMen15: reason #1, we're similar
ChessMen15: reason #2, new approach to solving disease
ChessMen15: reason #3...?
ChessMen15: I looked through my essay and Julie's essay but could find nothing
swallow2585: MAYBE 3RD¡£¡£¡£¡£
ChessMen15: ?
swallow2585: THEY ARE ON THE HIGH PRIORITY LIST
ChessMen15: Ming?! Why are you screaming?
swallow2585: I AM NOT
swallow2585: MY COMPUTER WON£»T LET ME TYPE IN LOWER CASE
swallow2585: THERE IS SOMETHING WIHT THE SHIFT KEY
ChessMen15: lol
swallow2585: THAT IS WROND
swallow2585: WRONG
ChessMen15: Ming, that's hilarious!
swallow2585: NO IT IS NO
swallow2585: T
swallow2585: AND MY MOUSE DOESN¡®T ORK
swallow2585: WORK
swallow2585: ARGHHH
ChessMen15: your punctuation makes funny symbols
ChessMen15: like upside down exclamation marks
swallow2585: I KNOW
swallow2585: NOT MY FAULT
ChessMen15: yeesh, sorry
ChessMen15: no need to yell
ChessMen15: :-D
swallow2585: I AM NOT YELLING
ChessMen15: sorry, couldn't resist
swallow2585: CAN¡¯T HELP IT

(perfectly normal conversation, and then…Julie loses it completely. I dunno, she does that sometimes)
ChessMen15: shoot, I know you told me this already, but where are you going?
snobuny4ever: skiing
snobuny4ever: in Colorado
ChessMen15: the whole week?
snobuny4ever: yup
ChessMen15: nice!
snobuny4ever: I come home LATE Friday night....and I think I might go to IU Saturday and Sunday
snobuny4ever: if I can get it together in a DAY SHIITTT
snobuny4ever: I didn’t think about that
snobuny4ever: FUCK
ChessMen15: ?
ChessMen15: I'm afraid I lost your train of thought
snobuny4ever: to visit a friend
ChessMen15: ah
snobuny4ever: shit shit shit shit
snobuny4ever: hmmm

NerdamI2k: boris you are quite odd
(I thought the irony of Roger saying this was quite amusing)

(hello! Hello!!!!! HEY!!!!!! LISTEN TO ME! Oh, there you are. Bye)
NerdamI2k: hi boris
NerdamI2k: hi boris
ChessMen15: hiya
NerdamI2k signed off at 1:06:55 PM.

NerdamI2k: boris I hate the fact that you are never on
(you must realize the irony of this being said online)

sushi1323: I really really think you should get a green suit, it would match your hair.
(note: for those of you who don’t know me, I do not, for the record, have green hair, nor did I ever, to my best recollection)

BadHair17: Good night Borig
(arg…Andy…again!)

Buffy4386: I don't think you're god, sorry Boris.
(well, I guess now we know where Mandy stands on that issue)

fro2point0: I'm a player

fro2point0: do you do drugs Boris?
(you must realize the irony of this being said by Jeff)

Buffy4386: Hey, Borid.
(sometimes I wonder if it isn’t all a giant conspiracy and people make these “typos” on purpose just to piss me off)

sushi1323: You're an over-achiever!
(the random visitors among you will wonder what’s so funny about this one. Those of you who know me, however, have probably already cracked your skulls open from laughing so hard you fell out of your chairs headfirst onto the floor)

fro2point0: yup
fro2point0: arg
fro2point0: what just happened?
ChessMen15: nothing
fro2point0: oh, wait, never mind
fro2point0: I know
fro2point0: damnit
fro2point0: ok, no biggie
fro2point0: this can all be fixed
fro2point0: and....
fro2point0: there we go
fro2point0: ok, I'm good to go
ChessMen15: okay
fro2point0: damn you darkzero
fro2point0: so, what's new?
(this kid can be really hard to follow at times)

(gotta love Dan’s away messages)
DanTheMan1010101: Have you ever had a 30-second fart in the shower and then laughed for 5 minutes straight because of the incredible echo? Lemmie tell ya, it's pretty awes...I mean...yeah, me neither...

(Sarah is a true friend. One time I forgot to write down the math homework. By the time I sat down to do it and figured out that I didn’t know what it was, it was too late to call anybody. In a last-ditch effort, I put on an overnight away message explaining my predicament, hoping that somebody would see it and leave me a message with the numbers of the problems we had due, so that I could do the homework in the morning. When I checked my computer early the next day, I was extremely relieved to see that Sarah had IM-ed me at some point and bailed me out. Here’s what she said:)
S10penguin: hey
[long, tortuous away message describing my predicament and desperately pleading for help]
S10penguin signed off at 6:11:03 AM.
(yep, that’s Sarah—always ready and willing to help out a friend in need!)

Auto response from slila22: ass sittage happening here. Call if you want to amuse or inform me.
(sorry, I just really like the word “sittage,” especially when used in conjunction with the word “ass”)

fly197: talk about the tiny clothespin
(yes, that was another inside joke. Never mind)

DontMinChenIt: you have an uncle?!?!??!?!!
[away message]
DontMinChenIt: I thought you were an orphan...

(I was very disturbed one day when I came to the computer to check my messages and saw the following:)
slila22: I want your dick
[away message]
slila22: now
slila22 signed off at 4:48:13 PM.
slila22 signed on at 4:48:20 PM.
slila22: that was marina.
slila22: she's the one who wants your dick
slila22: b/c you want to see her work at the mirage
(my advice to you: if Marina is ever at your house, disable AIM and shut your computer off immediately. Otherwise, she will surely send an IM to me from your name and the next thing you know, I’ll be thinking that you’re madly in love with me)

(Lila’s reserves of infinite wisdom are still going strong)
slila22: yep. That's how I always do everything. Sorry to disappoint
ChessMen15: rats
slila22: rats backwards is star

BadHair17 signed off at 8:50:10 AM.
BadHair17 signed off at 11:25:25 PM.
(I just thought that was weird because I saw him sign off twice without ever signing on in the middle. AIM does strange things, huh?)

(Sasha the philosopher poses questions that delve deep into the true meaning of life)
sushi1323: okay, I have a ?, why do you write "heh" instead of "hehe"?? It seems like you are being cut off.

Auto response from JaOzSaH55: say "uckfuh" 11 times fast...
(I actually did this. It’s quite amazing what happens. Try it out)

ChessMen15: good luck!
Auto response from GreenKnightF3: [blah blah blah]
Auto response from ChessMen15: [blah blah blah]
(the cool thing here is that Matt’s away message was so slow in coming up that I had enough time to send him an IM and then put up an away message of my own!! And then his away message popping up triggered my away message! Isn’t that sweet?!)

fly197: bor, you always have such encouraging fruity messages, give up
(well, excuuuuse me for being a nice person!)

(yeah, Jeff’s a good friend. He’ll boost you up when you’re down. Sure)
fro2point0: but then, it happens to the best of us
ChessMen15: or, in my case, the worst of us
fro2point0: no, well yea

(we end with another classic)
sushi1323: Are you doing senior project?
ChessMen15: nope
sushi1323: Why not?
ChessMen15: too much red tape
ChessMen15: not worth the effort
sushi1323: ah
[very long pause]
sushi1323: (what is red tape?)
ChessMen15: I knew it!!
ChessMen15: I knew you didn't know what that meant!! :-D :-D :-D
sushi1323: I was thinking really hard.
sushi1323: but then I gave up!
[another pause]
sushi1323: (so, what does it mean?)

At last, you made it through the whole thing! Congratulations! I didn’t think you’d do it, to be honest with you. I figured most people would quit long before they reached the end. And yet, here you are. Beaten, battered, and significantly stupider than when you first started, you now find yourself at the end of the third installment of Online Wisdom. I appreciate the heroic effort you must have put forth to make it through this blog entry, and I also don’t want you to never come back to this blog again and hate it forever, so I will offer you a token of my gratitude. That’s right—I’m actually giving a prize to the people who read all the way through this godforsaken entry. I’m counting on you to keep this prize a secret so that only those people who deserve it get it! Okay, here’s how to claim your prize: using the link at the top of my blog, send me an email with the code phrase, “Joe’s spit valve leaked an excessive amount of walrus snot onto my Indian rug.” (You can paste the code right out of here if you want, but believe me, it’s a lot more fun to type.) That can be the whole email if you so desire. Heck, you can even put it in the subject and just leave the email blank, and the next time I see you, I’ll give you a little candy bar or something! Like one of those little bite-size Musketeer bars, or perhaps a single sour Starburst. Isn’t that a great prize? If you think this is a lame prize, don’t claim it. I just thought I’d make the offer.

Oh, and if you live in Texas or Utah or something else equally far away from my little Bexley, sorry, but the whole prize thing might be a little hard to arrange, though if I ever do see you again, just remind me that I owe you a bite-size candy and I’ll be sure to try to get you one somehow. In any case, I hope you enjoyed this edition of the online wisdom of your fellow human beings! Odd4.txt has already been made and it’s even got a few things in it already; let’s just hope I remember to make an entry out of it before it swells to a monstrous size like odd3.txt did. I’ll see you next time!

.: posted by Boris 7:14 PM

Thursday, April 24, 2003

Insight

This entry is titled “Insight” because it will hopefully give you a small insight into what kind of a person I am. If it works out well, then I just might make a whole series of “insights,” who knows. Anyway, on with the story…

Ben’s wallet fell out of his pocket during musical practice today. I, sitting next to him, noticed this. We both play in the pit. After the song ended and Ben made no move to retrieve his wallet, I concluded that he hadn’t noticed its absence. So I got up, walked over to the spot behind Ben’s chair where the wallet had fallen, picked it up, casually stuck it in my left pocket, and sat back down. My standing, bending, and sitting must have seemed a little odd, but nobody said anything.

The rehearsal was in the orchestra room. After it ended, I was sitting around and leisurely gathering my stuff when I suddenly realized that Ben was gone already. He had hurried off to the band room to put his euphonium away because he needed to go pick up his tuxedo for the upcoming prom. Oh, shit, I thought, I need to find Ben and give him back his wallet before he leaves. I rushed out of the orchestra room and caught Ben in the hallway just as he was leaving the band room. Then I was struck with a great idea. Here’s what happened:

Boris: hey, Ben, could I borrow a dollar?
Ben: sure! Do you mind if it’s in change?
[he reaches into his pocket and starts to jingle some coins]
Boris: um, actually, could I have a bill?
Ben: why?
Boris: because you don’t have your wallet!!
[here I proudly produce Ben’s wallet. At around the same time, Ben’s investigation of his other pockets confirms that he does, in fact, not have his wallet]
Ben: dammit Boris.
[I give Ben his wallet]
Ben: thanks.
[we part]

.: posted by Boris 9:30 PM

Saturday, April 19, 2003

Lab Groups

Some of the labs we do in AP Bio are individual or two-person labs, but a lot of them require big groups of four people. When Mr. Logsdon said at the beginning of the year that we’d be allowed to pick our own groups, my first thought was to try to get in a group with Sam Weinberg. For you non-Bexley people who don’t know him, Sam is one of those guys whose immense intelligence is paralleled only by his laziness; he loves talking, explaining things to people, and just generally taking charge. For these reasons some people don’t seem to like him, but I think he’s pretty cool and I knew that our lab group would have no problems if Sam was in it, because he’d make sure everything went well.

I suppose I need to mention that I am abominably awful at doing science labs. You’d think they wouldn’t be so bad seeing as how they have step-by-step instructions that most moderately intelligent four year-olds could probably follow, but for me, complications always seem to arise and in the end the lab either fails completely or churns out pathetically wrong and nonsensical data.

My luck with lab partners has been as bad as my luck with the actual labs. Sophomore year—many of you have probably heard this story at least a thousand times already—Adam, after putting up with my incompetence all year and completing most of the labs himself, finally couldn’t take it any longer and excommunicated me from his lab group when I accidentally knocked his fruit fly gassing chamber on the floor and all of his fruit flies escaped. He went on to join Chelsea’s group and had great success there.

Last year, Andy was in my chemistry class. This might not seem significant to you until you consider the fact that starting in 7th grade, Andy and I had never been in one class together. So here it was, junior year, and finally we had the same class the same period—chemistry—and Mr. Minot was letting everybody in the class pick their own lab partners. That’s right—you could pick anybody in the class, and they’d be your lab partner! Isn’t that great? Doesn’t it just make you want to partner up with Boris, your best friend since fourth grade? Apparently not. Apparently it makes you want to partner up with Brian Moenter, somebody you’re not even remotely friends with and with whom you’ve never talked to before or since, leaving Boris to stand there and gape open-mouthed with no other choice than to wander around and wait to see who the other loser was that couldn’t find a lab partner and partner up with him. I ended up with Phillip Berg, who moved away in the middle of the year and left me utterly partnerless, at which point I became a rogue lab-doer who prayed at the beginning of every lab that some lab group would pity me enough to let me do the lab with them. Often I ended up working with Dara’s group or with Julie’s group…but never with Andy.

In fact there was only one time in the history of mankind that I ever worked with Andy on a lab. One day Brian was absent on the day of a lab. I didn’t have a partner; Andy didn’t have a partner. The situation was perfect. At last we would work together. I eagerly walked up to Andy, almost shaking with excitement, and asked him breathlessly if he wanted to be my partner. I was fully expecting him to eagerly agree—surely the fact that he had partnered up with Brian at the beginning of the year was some sort of sick accident!—so I was very surprised when his face immediately turned sour and he hesitantly stammered, “Um, sure!…yeah!…I suppose you can work with me and Megan…” making it painfully evident that he would rather have carved a replica of the Venus de Milo out of his own jawbone with a chainsaw than do a lab with me. The thing is, I approached him so quickly that in order to have gotten another lab partner without my knowing it, he must have asked Megan at least a day in advance. I swear he was doing everything he could to avoid being my lab partner. And in that instance I was the one who ended up feeling bad about it, because when the three of us tried to do the lab, it soon became apparent that three people were way too much and Megan left the group, which really sucked because I had basically kicked her out. So I finally got to work with Andy, but at the cost of feeling like a complete jerk. And we really screwed up that lab, too.

Anyway, my point is, I wanted to work with Sam. But on the day of the first lab, I was too slow in getting to him and he found another group before I ever even approached him. I groaned in frustration and was about to resign myself to whatever terrible lab fate awaited me when Amy (or perhaps it was Eleni) saved me. “Boris, do you want to be in our lab group?” she said. The group would consist of me, Ming, Eleni, and Amy. Ming I was friends with; Eleni I didn’t know very well, but she seemed okay; and Amy used to be my least favorite person alive back in elementary school, but over time my reasons for hating her eroded and grew more and more vague until finally I had to admit that she was pretty nice. I had nothing against any of the members, and also Mr. Logsdon had said that the groups were by no means set in stone—we could even have different lab groups for every lab if we felt like it—so it made sense for me to hook up with the girls. “Sure!” I said.

Several months and many labs later, I was liking my lab group a lot less than I had at first. For one thing, Amy was never there, and while I don’t resent that at all or blame her for it, doing four-person labs with only three people is not fun. It also turned out that Eleni was only slightly better at doing labs than I was, which wasn’t very good, and while Ming was fairly decent, she spent a great deal of time wrapping random objects in Parafilm. When she ran out of objects to wrap, she would just take out the Parafilm squares and stare dreamily at them while stretching them as far as she could, one square after another, kind of like a chain smoker, actually, only a lot weirder. Naturally, most of our labs were utter failures. Mr. Logsdon fortunately doesn’t dock points for messing up the procedure and/or getting really bad data, but botching the labs again and again began to get irritating.

Aside from the repeated bio lab failures, another thing that began early in the year was a “bio group” that still stands to this very day and consists of me, Marina, Julie, Ming, Lila, and Josh. The idea was that we’d get together and study biology, but in reality the bio study sessions take the cake for complete and unabashed lack of any productivity whatsoever. Our efforts to prepare for looming tests somehow bring us from biology to the following conversation in an unnaturally high frequency of cases:

“Dude, did you know that so and so [from BBYO] hooked up with so and so [also from BBYO]?”
“Really?! So and so?! With SO AND SO?!?!”
“Yeah!”
“How do you know?!”
“Because so and so [also from BBYO] told me.”
“How do you know they’re not lying?”
“Because so and so [one of the hooker-uppers] told so and so, and so and so told me.”
“[still a bit suspicious. After all, it’s so and so we’re talking about here. Ugh.] Well, if you say so…”
“It’s true! I’m not lying.”

If not that, then we either hear from Marina’s endless of stock of stories involving hot guys she fell in love with but never managed to get on, or from Julie’s endless stock of stories involving guys she never really liked all that much but still somehow always ended up making out with anyway. [Marina's comments on the above statement: “Okay, that makes me sound like I’m a dirty whore, but I'm really not."] Lately, thongs have become another popular topic for discussion. Needless to say, very little studying actually gets done and actually I think Ming got fed up and quit coming ages ago. Oddly enough, Julie is the only one who ever actually succeeds in forcing the group to do anything, but unfortunately she’s always leaving early for one reason or another—she’s got homework to do, or she has to watch Alias at 9 o’clock, or she needs to go home and study for a big biology test tomorrow—and all work ceases the moment she leaves. In short, we don’t get a lot done, but we have fun, and so a few months into the school year I became better friends with everybody in the group, most notably Josh and Lila, who are also in my 4th period bio class. They were in a lab group with Ross and Elan and it turned out that they were just as annoyed with their partners as Ming and I were with ours, so we decided to ditch our current groups and form a new lab group with the four of us. We didn’t think it’d be a big deal; after all, Mr. Logsdon allowed and even advised people to form new lab groups if they didn’t like the ones they currently had.

I don’t know if four intelligent people have ever been so wrong. Switching lab groups almost caused a riot. Probably our biggest mistake was that we didn’t inform our group members of our plans in advance; the bombshell was dropped on the same day of a new lab, so our former group members had absolutely no idea what was coming. Boy were they pissed. In effect, we forced Amy and Eleni to team up with Elan and Ross, an arrangement that apparently pleased none of them, and our move was widely regarded as the biggest scandal to ever hit AP biology. Ross went so far as fling water at Josh and make him the receiving end of a very nasty word and possibly also a very nasty gesture; Amy, meanwhile, gave Ming and me the following speech in a quiet but very bitter voice: “Boris and Ming, we just want you to know that we think what you guys did was really mean, and we’re glad that you switched groups anyway because they are a lot better than you are, and we don’t like you anymore.” Yes, those were tense times. People muttered about our daring coup behind our backs for a long time afterwards. But eventually the antipathy began to subside, and even the ditched group members got over it. Heck, Elan asks me for help with homework all the time. “Ahhhhhh I have no idea what the hell I’m supposed to do!!” is an AIM message I often receive from him late at night. Sometimes I even help Elan with bio labs, ironically enough. Usually, though, I end up getting really tired and going to sleep before Elan finishes asking me for help and then he gets mad at me.

So anyway, my point is, I’m against the movement towards “hands-on learning.” I’d rather read about an actual, useful experiment that an actual, useful scientist performed at some point than go and do one myself. Blank and pointless regurgitation of facts all the way, baby.

.: posted by Boris 11:18 AM

Monday, April 07, 2003

Keyboard Antics

My last blog entry ended with, “Put THAT in your oven and bake it, Mandy!”

To which Cherie writes: “...since Mandy is your best friend's girlfriend you might not want to be telling her to put things from you ‘in her oven.’ If I'm not making sense to you then here's the reason. ‘She's got one in the oven’ is a term that means a woman is pregnant.”

This is something I definitely did not know. What I was going for was a take on the well-known (or possibly not so well-known) phrase, “Put that in your pipe and smoke it.” I had never heard of the idiom Cherie points out and, for all I know, she just made it up to make me feel stupid and is cackling gleefully as she reads this. But if that idiom really does exist (which I’m tempted to think it does), and if any of you other than Cherie ever heard of it and were therefore extremely perplexed by what I said at the end of my last blog entry, then rest assured that I was merely making a bad joke off of another idiom, not trying to impregnate Mandy.

In other news: the S on my keyboard broke today. The speed with which it did so astonished me to the fullest; having just successfully typed the word “because” whilst talking to Sarah online, I was peeved to note that the word I was now trying to type (“use” or something) was missing the letter S, and that no amount of pounding on the keyboard would get the S to appear. Frantically informing Sarah that the letter on my keyboard in between the A and the D was broken, I then tried to be all fancy by purposefully avoiding using the letter S in my speech. Have you ever tried this? It’s really hard. A while ago I heard that some people have written entire books without using the letter E, and I even found an E-less version of Poe’s “The Raven” online. (“But wait,” you’re wondering. “How could they do that when the title of the poem itself has two E’s in it?” Well, the guy cheated and changed the title of the poem to “Blackbirds.” It was actually pretty cool, with rhyme and everything.) After my adventures with dodging the letter S while talking to Sarah today, I have officially decided that whoever does this kind of stuff needs to get a life right now. As for me, I went on for a little while without using any S’s, driven by a desire to feel smart and also to impress Sarah with my amazing mastery of the English language in online conversation.

This of course backfired, because to avoid words with S in them I had to rephrase things in ridiculously long ways that made me look, in hindsight, astoundingly dumb. (To avoid “isn’t” I used “ain’t.” Aren’t I slick?) Eventually, though, I broke down and had to give up, when I hit a sentence that was so chock full of superlatives (-est endings) and plurals (which end in S) that I couldn’t find any way to worm around it. So I came up a brilliant idea—why not just use the dollar sign every time I need an S! They look the same! I guess I was still trying to impress Sarah with my creativity, because it wasn’t until much later that I finally realized I could just copy one letter S and paste it with Ctrl + V every time I needed it. Duh!

So is that what I’ve been doing this whole blog entry? Was every S that is on your screen right now at one time painstakingly pasted into Word? Of course not. My incredible powers of elegant problem solving triumphed after all. The answer was not wacky phrasing or dollar signs or paste—the answer was a broken toothpick. Yes indeedy—there’s a piece of toothpick under my S key as we speak. When my dad got home earlier today, he popped the S key off the keyboard and tried to fix it, but to no avail. That’s when I suggested getting a toothpick from the kitchen and breaking off just the right amount of it to stick under the key before putting it back on. My dad was doubtful that this would work, but after a few attempts we managed to snap off the proper size and now the key works just fine. The only problem is that it’s a little too sensitive—you don’t get that satisfying push; you barely tap the thing and it stops. The S’s do appear, though, and that’s good enough for me.

Well, that’s my exciting story for the day. I sure hope you guys all did something useful with yourselves. Once again I extend my apologies to Mandy and Sarah for my extreme stupidity.

.: posted by Boris 12:26 AM

Wednesday, April 02, 2003

Changes and Toenails

Well, I can’t really post a new entry without first explaining why I’ve neglected this blog for over a month. So here’s some background info:

Many of you share the extreme and bitter contempt in which I hold the pitifully small AIM profile character limit. There’s so much stuff I want to put in there, yet so little space. Where to stick all those odd little stories and pointless bits of garbage? One way is to make a SubProfile, but I’m scared of those things, and anyway they have too much advertising clutter. I was so desperate for more space, though, that I was about to break down and make one, but then Ashley introduced me to blogs and so I made one of those instead. That’s right—this blog was originally only supposed to be an extension of my AIM profile. How it became a place for me to post long, coherent, carefully edited, and (hopefully) amusing essays is completely beyond me. Right now, though, I think I’m going to revert back to my original intentions.

The basic reason for this change is that when I actually work hard at my blog and try to make it good, the whole thing becomes too stressful. It’s sweet that people like this blog and think it’s funny, but when my readers like it so much, I become more concerned with what they will think of an entry than with writing the entry itself. I worry so much about making an entry “good” that I make entries less often, and then I worry that I’m not updating the blog enough, and then people egg me to update more frequently, and then it all somehow becomes a stressful, futile effort to update as often as possible and at the same time amuse my readers. My point is: I can’t do it. When my goal becomes to entertain and hold readers, to get a high hit count, to get praise for my blog—in short, when my goal is to satisfy the people who come here—I end up not satisfying myself. I miss the days when I would update this blog instead of doing homework, or when I would hastily post a new entry while my parents erroneously believed I was asleep. And those days will never return if I’m always worried about making this blog “good,” because when I write for quality, it isn’t for fun.

So anyway, I’m going to try to bring back the old blog, crappiness and all. Lisa’s diary has run-ons in it that would make an English teacher puke, yet it’s still one of my favorite things to read online. It shows that you don’t have to spend days on an entry to make it worthwhile for others. I might lose readers and get less hits, but if I try to keep things going the way they were, I’ll lose the fun of having a blog.

With that issue aside, we move on…

I am periodically asked about my long fingernails. “Why are your fingernails so long, Boris?” people ask. Lately it’s been getting worse, too—now Mandy not only asks why they’re so long, but insists on my cutting them. I’m not sure why. It’s not like I scratch her with them, or hang around in public with her all that often where she would be embarrassed to be in the company of one such as I who has long nails. And even if I did hang out with her a lot in public, it wouldn’t matter, because who the heck looks at fingernails, anyway? And even if they look, who among them cares? And even if they care, who’s willing to make a point of it?

But fine. I will humor you all and explain why I don’t cut my fingernails. It’s a lot simpler than you thought—I’m lazy, and I don’t care if they’re a little on the long side. At Mandy’s urging, I do sometimes grudgingly cut them sooner than I’d like, but I get my revenge. Ohhhh, yes, I get my revenge. I get it in the form of my toenails. Because toenails, as you are all no doubt aware, grow out of your toes, and toes extend from your feet, and your feet are covered by socks, and your socks go in your shoes, AND SHOES ARE OPAQUE MUAHAHA! The point I’m getting at, of course, is that nobody can see my toenails. So here’s my secret—my toenails are LONG. Really long!! Put THAT in your oven and bake it, Mandy!

My Musings

Monday, December 08, 2003

.: posted by Boris 1:01 AM

Thursday, August 07, 2003

.: posted by Boris 3:47 PM

Friday, July 25, 2003

.: posted by Boris 9:30 PM

Sunday, May 18, 2003

.: posted by Boris 7:46 PM

Tuesday, May 13, 2003

.: posted by Boris 7:14 PM

Thursday, April 24, 2003

.: posted by Boris 9:30 PM

Saturday, April 19, 2003

.: posted by Boris 11:18 AM

Monday, April 07, 2003

.: posted by Boris 12:26 AM

Wednesday, April 02, 2003

.: posted by Boris 9:06 PM