Note to everyone who is now here after following this link from the Wake Forest Sports message board:
GO ILLINI!!!
In all seriousness, I’m not sure how my blog got linked to from a college sports message board, but I have to say that “The Demon Deacons” is probably the best sports mascot ever. What does the logo look like? Are there really 100 people per hour reading your message board? Should ya’ll be in class or something?
Princeton economics professor and former presidential advisor suffersthird degree burns on 50% of his body after carrying a flaming Christmas tree out of his house. The tree was set on fire by one of 10 lit candles decorating it.
Where to start?
First and foremost, why is the Christmas tree still up in February? If this is not blasphemy, I don’t know what is. It’s ASH WEDNESDAY for Christ’s sake. We have moved past the birth and are now preparing for the death and resurrection. Take the tree down.
Possibly the worst thing about leaving the tree up until February is that this was clearly not an act of laziness. Let’s just say you are a busy Princeton professor and didn’t have time over your month-long winter break or gruelling office hours to take down the tree. Maybe you’re writing your memoirs. Whatever. It’s a lot of work to un-decorate a tree and haul it to the curb. But no. There were actually lit candles on this tree, indicating that the good professor was sitting idly on the sofa (perhaps writing his memoirs) and decided to LIGHT the candles on the tree, exerting actual energy and actual matches to light them. He was still actively enjoying the Christmas tree. In February.
Secondly, who lights actual candles on a Christmas tree, except arsonists and pyromaniacs? Especially when said tree is 3 months old. You might as well decorate a gas pump with candles.
Also, I believe the fire extinguishing method preferred by the national association of firefighters (whatever) is by FIRE EXTINGUISHER. Or perhaps evacuating the house and calling the fire department. Of all the methods for extinguishing a fire that I can think of, “picking up flaming object and carrying it outside” does not break the top 20.
And finally, how did this guy get to be a professor at Princeton? I can see hiring an idiot as a presidential advisor, as our current situation illustrates that academic excellence is not a prerequisite for government posts, but Princeton is a time-honored, respected Institution of Higher Learning. If the guy survives, this incident should pre-empt any kind of tenure he might have, and they should can him right away.
Stop, drop and roll, people. Stop, drop and roll.
I guess getting fired tends to have a totally negative effect on the best blogs. Not that I have any experience on the subject, nosiree, but the totally hilarious copywriter over at House of Wigs blog has been fired and has sworn off the blogging, at least for a while. Too bad, too… It’s really fun reading about someone’s crazy co-workers, especially if you have personally sworn off writing about your own.
UPDATE: ABC World News is doing something about Dooce, possibly about getting fired for blogging. I wonder if it’s a coincidence. I do hope the nice copywriter at House of Wigs gets some airtime, because that website cracked my shit up. Anyway, maybe I’ll Tivo the ABC thing… (Because did I mention that I have a TIVO?) Total digression: John Warner answers all your Tivo questions on The Morning News
We went ahead and booked the honeymoon. I was holding off and trying to do the not-fun stuff first, but Hawaii and Tahiti kept callling and calling. So I guess will be one less distraction from the not-fun stuff. Like finding a stupid minister who will return my phone calls. Jesus would return my phone calls, so why can’t this woman?!?!
The honeymoon is now on my credit card and I am very, very poor. Hey, I should set up a paypal tip jar to cover it. Right? So all my fans can give me the presents I deserve? ::crickets::
Well, not quite. I set up the cable modem, ethernet card and wireless router, but we don’t yet have any wireless devices. The USB adapter for the Tivo is still in transit, and it better get here soon, or I’m gonna bust some skulls if my Tivo can’t download its information. The airport card for the iBook is on hold until we get some more money.
Setting everything up was not too hard, but not as easy as it should have been. The ethernet card would have been cake if I had pushed it a little harder into the slot right away. It took me three tries to finally snap it in place. Had the cover off the computer for a good 30 minutes, which TOTALLY makes me nervous, as I’m convinced that opening the cover of the computer releases little computer demons all over the office. Yikes. Then the cable modem. Would have gone fine if I hadn’t accidentally stepped on the power-strip’s reset button during installation. Doh. Then the router, which came with possibly the most misleading instructions ever.
The router’s installation instructions are on a CD, so you have to have the computer on to read them. The Installation Wizard guides you through the installation process, which involves resetting the cable modem and then turning on the router. Fabulous, but it doesn’t work. After many, many tries, I open the pdf file with the actual manual. The PDF file, by the way, is corrupted, so I can’t read all of the pages, but I think I can read the ones I need. As it turns out, the computer is supposed to be OFF when you are resetting the cable modem and plugging in the router. Nice. Those crazy folks at Netgear must be laughing their little asses off. Anyway, I think it’s working now, but we won’t find out until we get the wireless adapter for the Tivo.
And after all this, I think I have decided that I prefer writing longhand in a notebook, so I don’t really need the wireless set up anyway. Oh well, at least our Tivo will be online.
My review of Lilly’s just got posted over at Centerstage.net. Jay and I decided to hang with the college kids on Friday, and it was fun despite making me feel old and/or totally unhip. One odd thing I noticed was that the band members from the second band left before the third band was done playing. Is this acceptable? Seems pretty rude to me.
The review from The Rail will probably be posted later today, but you should know that the review will make it seem way better than our actual experience there. The music was painfully loud, and I am not usually a baby about loud music. And then they refused to turn it down, even though our group was probably 1/3 of the crowd on that particular night. So we had one drink and left for Huetenbar in Lincoln Square, which was way better. More fun to say, too.
(Update: review is here.)
I forgot to save my receipts at both places. Continuing this habit will make for an interesting tax season next year.
Claire Zulkey of the MBToolbox blog over at Mediabistro.com posted a missive about the writer’s tendency towards self hate, which comes at a particularly helpful time, considering that reviews for Lilly’s and The Rail mentioned above were considerably edited by the centerstage editor before being posted. Her changes made them both a lot more lively, prompting me to consider the life-altering question: “WHY THE HELL ISN’T MY WRITING MORE LIVELY?”
I bought a nice little moleskin notebook the other day, and I’m going to experiment with writing longhand. Probably will make me sound more pretentious, but it’s worth a try.
