Archive for the 'Life' Category

In my logic class today the professor was illustrating the point that the final conclusion in a mapped argument may not be the main point of the argument. As an illustrative example he related the following scenario.

Imagine that I am building a wall out of LEGO^® bricks. I want to make the wall as tall as possible, but it’s still on its side on the ground. I want to add more LEGO^® bricks to it, so I ask my friend if she’s done with her LEGO^® bricks yet. She says she is done with her LEGO^® bricks and that I may use them. Where do I put the LEGO^® bricks in order to make the wall taller? You can put the LEGO^® bricks at the top or the bottom of the wall. It doesn’t matter, it still makes the wall taller.

I was impressed that he followed the instruction on the back page of the LEGO Company Profile. The 2004 and 2005 versions, and possibly other oversions, include the following recommendations:

Using the LEGO brand name

Help us to protect our brand name:
• The LEGO brand name should always be written in capital letters.
• LEGO must never be used as a generic term or in the plural or as a possessive pronoun, e.g. “LEGO’s”.
• When the LEGO brand name is used as part of a noun, it must never appear on its own. It should always be accompanied by a noun. For example, LEGO set, LEGO products, LEGO Group, LEGO play materials, LEGO bricks, LEGO universe, etc.
• The first time the LEGO trademark appears in a headline and in the following text it should be accompanied by the registration symbol ®.

Thank you for helping us!

As it turns out, he had no idea that there were any such recommendations and seemed quite amused that he was “being a good guy and didn’t even know it.” Speaking like that seems so unnatural to me that I was relatively certain that he was doing it on purpose as a result of something he had been taught. LEGO^® would have been pleased to know that such brand name usage advocacy is being demonstated in an academic setting.

Krissy is going to be attending a gala put on by the company she works for. She decided that she wanted to curl her hair, and so she bought herself a curling iron. I’d have to say that this is the strangest warning I’ve seen in a while. I mean, if I’m worried about getting burned, my eyes are not the first thing I’d be worried about. I’ve never burned my eye before… ever. Whenever I see warnings like this I always wonder how many people it takes that complain that this specific warning was never stated anywhere with the product before they cave and just tie on a tag or stick a little sticker on it like this.

Curling irons are hot. hot things can burn you. If something says it can burn you, then it can burn you anywhere it touches your body. This obviously includes the eyes, although if you have a curling iron in your eye, then burning is not your only concern.

I’m not even going to go into the details of just how rediculously unhelpful that drawing would be to anyone who couldn’t read the text under it. When I covered up the text and showed it to Krissy, she thought it was a warning to watch the iron while it was plugged in because it is hot.

We periodically receive notes from the manager slipped through our doors informing us of upcoming events and of problems that tennants and the staff may be having with the behaviour of other tennants. Usually these are somewhat humorous. The humor is generally not found in the content of the letter, but rather in the manager’s complete disregard for spelling and language use conventions. However, this was not the case today.

Here is an excerpt from the letter we received in our doors today:

We frequently get letters informing us that certain tennants are putting things on their balconies that are not allowed even though we have nothing on our balcony. Most of these letters are delivered to every tennant in the apartment complex, but this letter was only delivered to tennants in our building. I have never smelled the marijuana, so they must be on the other side of the building or far away. I have often heard people walking around after midnight, though. I just assumed the guy above us worked an evening shift and came home late. All I can say is that these issues haven’t bothered us at all.

Now if we can just keep people from leaving the bass turned up when they watch TV at one in the morning.

My Uncle just recently moved into a different apartment complex. I won’t say that it’s new, because it’s not. I was helping him by setting up his computer for him and getting him to the point where he can get on “the intarweb.” He told me that I could park anywhere. Furthermore, he told me when we got there which parking space to park in. I was there from around 8:00pm until almost 11:00pm. The computer is really slow and they just moved in so there are boxed and things everywhere. Most of the time spent was trying to find all the components and cables and get them plugged in somewhere. After a long while I was finally able to return home. It had not been a fun experience.

As I was walking out to the car I felt a little uncomfortable, almost as if someone were watching me. When I got to the car I found a Post It note affixed to the driver’s side window which read:

You are parked in my space. Do not park here again or you will be towed.

All I have to say is, “Thank you.” I can only imagine how the rest of the night might have been had I come out to find my car gone. I only wish that I knew which car belonged to the kind soul who spared me the frustration and the $200, because I would have put a post it on their window saying:

Sorry for the inconvenience that I may have caused you by parking in your spot. Thanks for not ruining my day!

Your Friend

I am taking a History class that has an online component and is taught in a computer lab with Internet access. The teacher lectures while everyone looks at myspace, checks their email and basically does anything to avoid actually learning. This can be distracting, but is bearable.

Enter Flash games.

Imagine the sound of a spacebar being hammered between ten and twenty times a second followed by hushed jubilation in the form of, “Yes!” and, “All right!” Next, picture this happening every thirty seconds for ten seconds at a time. Now picture this going on for five minutes with no obvious signs of stopping! Something had to be done.

I tried for three of these attempts to give him the crook eye, but he wasn’t looking in my direction. He was too busy concentrating on irritating me to notice me staring at him. By this point I noticed the student next to me shaking his head incredulously. Knowing that I wasn’t the only perterbed pupil in the classroom boosted my confidence. It was at the precise moment that I felt this surge of assertiveness that keyboard crusher happened to glance in my general direction. Without any conscious thought I let loose with a crook-eyed head shake with shoulders hunched and palms turned upward immediately joined by mouthing the words, “What are you doing?”

The student to my left that had once shared in my frustrated head-shaking immediately went stiff and almost magically removed himself from the situation. It was his reaction that started my paranoia. Had I overdone it? The kid in the row behind me didn’t look amused by my harsh reproof. He was sitting next to at least one good friend who had seemed to be enjoying his role as spectator until I ruined it for him. I began to feel ill. I only knew one other person in the class, and she was nowhere near me at the time, so I emailed her. I was hoping she might check it, see my dilemma and offer backup in case of emergency. She was too busy learning to find my plea for help.

The hammering of the keyboard had stopped, but the hammering in my head was just beginning. I thought I had met my objective, but I was still not able to concentrate and learn. I waited until class was over and pretended to be working on an assignment at the computer. I was fearing eye contact as I worried that that may act as a catalyst for the punks who saught my suffering. I waited five long minutes. I mustered the courage to chance a look back; they were gone.

I packed up my belongings and was on my way. I watched my back during the long walk across campus and to my car. I will see them again on Thursday. I only hope that they don’t remember me.

I am considering starting a petition requesting the removal of Flash plugins from all lab computers.

Krissy finally got her new glasses after almost a month of waiting for the factory to get done making the lenses for them.  They are a new type of lens apparently based on technology developed for laser eye surgery.  There is a device that measures the irregularities of your retina and then lenses are made that correct for these unique differences.  The brand name is iZon and there are only a few optometrists around the country that are using this technology.

Of course, troche I know that what you really want to know is, “What does she look like in glasses?”  Well… something like this!

I like it.

Well, I’ve arrived in Las Vegas without critical incident. I happen to have realized my mind is becoming feeble. I don’t know if it was because I was tired or just excited to be leaving, but I have discovered that I can’t remember anything anymore.

Krissy and I stayed the night in Barstow. I learned quickly that a “data port” is a fancy name for a telephone jack in the wall. My laptop’s modem doesn’t yet have Linux drivers released for it so that precluded anything useful from happening that night. I popped in my wireless card and fired up kismet to look for nearby access points; there were none. I was sitting on the bed and wanted to conserve energy, so I popped out the wireless card and layed it on the bed. I later moved the laptop to the desk.

Later that night Krissy realized we had left nearly all of our dress clothes for church back home. I was less than pleased that I had hidden them where we would easily forget them, but quickly realized everything would nonetheless be okay. And everything was okay. We visited some outet stores in Barstow that happened to have some really smoking deals on exactly what we needed. We then continued on our merry way to Las Vegas.

My Grandparents’ new place is huge compared to the place I grew up in. There are really high ceilings and I think they’re really happy with it. I wanted to post to this blog so I proceeded to set up the wireless router I had brought with me so I could get on the Internet in the living room of the house. Then I realized the wireless card was not in the laptop where I almost always keep in, even in transit. I frantically scoured my backpack and my pockets. I ran out to the car fearing the worst. Krissy hadn’t seen it, and I knew all along where it was: blending into the colorfully cheap Motel 6 bedspread in Barstow. We had two beds in our room because it costs the same as having only one and at the same time gives you a larger room.

So I’ve already wasted nearly $80 replacing clothing I already had and now I’ll have to fork over another $30 to replace the wireless card I so deftly left for a confused cleaning lady to toss in the trash or give to her manager.

This has been the best vacation ever!