Eat your heart out, Capra
After my quixotic and miserable 2006 campaign for public office ("Cigarettes for Kids" was not the greatest platform), I've tried to lay low....quashing any flashes of enterprise by scolding myself in my mother's clothing in an unconvincing falsetto.
Let me tell you about how I fucked that up today.
David Taylor. I've talked about him before. He's not tenured, and holds the sinecure of "assistant chairman," so rather than doing research, or teaching, or leaving food in his beard like most physicists, he wanders the halls yukking it up with any asshole dumb enough to leave his door open. Like me. Not either of my labmates. Me, Sean. Despite being the laziest and least senior member, I have become the representative for the whole lab. I am their congressman. In many ways this parallels other recent unexpected and unmerited rises to prominence, except unlike real politicians I don't have any real power. But I guess I don't tattoo my eye makeup on like snowbilly trash or name my children out of the LL Bean catalogue, either.
Unfortunately this means that I can't just have one of my aides play interference and lie to Taylor about how I really do want to let black people kill grandma. So I told him I had to go because "I have to be prepared for this group meeting in an hour, and my advisor can really see through bullshit." Where "my advisor" refers to that Brazilian clown who pays me, and "bullshit" refers to my dissertation.
Anyway, Motter gavels the group meeting open and starts talking about how we should have a journal club in nonlinear dynamics, and he's looking for someone to organize it. Maybe because I was sober for a change, but more likely because I'm just really stupid, I volunteered.
Motter: Oh good. You're not doing much work, so I was hoping you would volunteer.
Prick.
So now I'm the President and Exalted Dauphin of the complex systems journal club. I have to reserve a room and pick a journal article and actually read it. Every week. Here's a fun game. Between the two theses and handful of papers I've written, I have cited probably 100 other articles. Can you guess how many of those I've actually read? I'll give you a hint: Giuliani's wife count is higher, and like him I just exhaust the interesting parts and then throw them away.
On the plus side, Motter gave me this great promo shirt for the journal "Chaos" that he got at some conference. It..uh...says "Chaos" on it, in some shit font. But it's black and it makes my breasts look smaller, so I've taking to wearing it with my fertility bracelets when I'm out at bars trying to snare a man. Of course, if Taylor is any indication, these tactics don't work and I'm going to spend my senescence alone, wandering the halls and muttering like a buffoon. Welcome to your future, Cornelius.
Let me tell you about how I fucked that up today.
David Taylor. I've talked about him before. He's not tenured, and holds the sinecure of "assistant chairman," so rather than doing research, or teaching, or leaving food in his beard like most physicists, he wanders the halls yukking it up with any asshole dumb enough to leave his door open. Like me. Not either of my labmates. Me, Sean. Despite being the laziest and least senior member, I have become the representative for the whole lab. I am their congressman. In many ways this parallels other recent unexpected and unmerited rises to prominence, except unlike real politicians I don't have any real power. But I guess I don't tattoo my eye makeup on like snowbilly trash or name my children out of the LL Bean catalogue, either.
Unfortunately this means that I can't just have one of my aides play interference and lie to Taylor about how I really do want to let black people kill grandma. So I told him I had to go because "I have to be prepared for this group meeting in an hour, and my advisor can really see through bullshit." Where "my advisor" refers to that Brazilian clown who pays me, and "bullshit" refers to my dissertation.
Anyway, Motter gavels the group meeting open and starts talking about how we should have a journal club in nonlinear dynamics, and he's looking for someone to organize it. Maybe because I was sober for a change, but more likely because I'm just really stupid, I volunteered.
Motter: Oh good. You're not doing much work, so I was hoping you would volunteer.
Prick.
So now I'm the President and Exalted Dauphin of the complex systems journal club. I have to reserve a room and pick a journal article and actually read it. Every week. Here's a fun game. Between the two theses and handful of papers I've written, I have cited probably 100 other articles. Can you guess how many of those I've actually read? I'll give you a hint: Giuliani's wife count is higher, and like him I just exhaust the interesting parts and then throw them away.
On the plus side, Motter gave me this great promo shirt for the journal "Chaos" that he got at some conference. It..uh...says "Chaos" on it, in some shit font. But it's black and it makes my breasts look smaller, so I've taking to wearing it with my fertility bracelets when I'm out at bars trying to snare a man. Of course, if Taylor is any indication, these tactics don't work and I'm going to spend my senescence alone, wandering the halls and muttering like a buffoon. Welcome to your future, Cornelius.