But what's puzzling you is the nature of my game

Let me tell you a story that will immediately prompt you to start praying for my soul. It happened quite some time ago, but I forgot about it until the other day when a friend of mine brought it up.

The two of us were walking when we got cut off by a guy in a wheelchair. When it happened, I leaned over to my friend and muttered "Do you mind? I'm trying to walk here."

It was another one of those moments when my friend (who is agnostic) was afraid to walk next to me for fear of being struck by lightening. I'm pretty sure I'm going to Hell, but you have to admit, that is funny.

Bad Boys

Speaking of olfaction, It's probably not a good sign when I can walk by the apartments next to my office (that have been featured on Cops) and smell something dead. However, I'm not going to go nosing around there to find out what it is (pun intended).

Keepin' the clouds away

The other day we went to lunch at Chipotle. Normally everyone working on the burrito line is hispanic (as tends to be the case in Mexican restaurants), but this day something was different, there was a caucasian woman working alongside three Mexican women. My friend leaned over and started singing:

Three of these things belong together
Three of these things are kinda the same
One of these things is doing it's own thing
Now it's time to play that game

Wait for it, wait for it, give it some time

I'm not sure exactly how it happens, but it seems that every time I happen to utter the words "I don't want to be out too late" before going out with my friends, I end up being out too late. It never fails, and last night was no exception.

Right now I am swamped with work, but last night around 7:00 I decided to take a break and meet up with some friends. I told them I was only going to stay for an hour or two, get some dinner, and then go home and do some more reading. Somehow that turned into me just walking through my door at 10:34 a.m. I'm not going to go into the details right now, but it was for good reasons (and no, it did not involve hanky panky - unfortunately).

While we were out, we were giving one of our friends a hard time about something, and she said, "I hate you guys. But, you know I love you too."

One of my other friends perked up and said, "Did she just say she loves us?"

I replied, "Yeah, but don't get your hopes up. I think she was talking about love without friction."

"You mean like real fairy tale love? Like, we're friends and I care about you and shit?"

Their names are called, they raise a paw - Part 2

Soaking your clothes in gasoline and walking around with flint and steel in your pockets is not the proper way to start a fire in your pants.

I woke up to the sound of German hip hop in my head

Do you ever wake up with a song stuck in your head that you haven't heard in years, and you have no idea how it got there?

Well, this morning my brain is playing Billy Joel's "We didn't start the fire." Since it's stuck in my head I thought I'd see if I could get it stuck in yours as well.

You're welcome.

Night swimming deserves a quiet night

Last weekend I went to another pool party. It seems to be turning into a trend here in the City of Sin, but hey, what else are you supposed to do when it's 112 degrees outside?

I have a friend who was there, but she had just gotten a new tattoo so she couldn't go into the water. She was sitting on the edge of the pool and I was standing in the water talking to her when I felt a tug on my bathing suit. No, it wasn't that kind of a tug. One of my friends had come up behind me and tried to pull my bathing suit down. I'm sure it had nothing to do with the fact that I had pushed him off his air mattress a few minutes earlier. The important thing is that he was unsuccessful, the bathing suit stayed on. I think I owe a big thank you to the guy who invented the drawstring.

The idea that we're all composed of just water and air

It's no secret that things smell differently to us. There are substances which smell good (chocolate, flowers, etc.) and those which smell bad (vomit, rotting corpses, etc.). It has to do with the shape of molecules and how they bind to receptors in our olfactory lobes. Once a molecule has bound to a receptor it will trigger a specific response. Some molecules have shapes that end up with a favorable response and smell good to us, and others don't.

I'm here to tell you that a bathroom is no place to expect to encounter good smells. This is not a shocking revelation. The primary reason that a bathroom stinks is because there are little particles of poop floating around in the air that go up your nose and bind to such receptors. It's probably some evolutionary thing that prevents us from trying to eat it or something, although I've never actually heard that nor do I have any evidence to support this claim.

Why do I bring this up you ask? Because it is the idea of little particles of poop floating around that causes me to have to spit my gum out every time I go into a bathroom. I'll be damned of those poop particles are going to get stuck in my gum where I'll have to chew on them for the rest of the day.

Rob the grave to snow the cradle and burn the evidence

I know that car manufacturers and dealers are just out to make a buck, but can't we come up with some kind of legislation so that old people aren't allowed to buy 'hot chick' cars? It really sucks when I'm pulling up to a light and get my hopes up only to look over and see a grandma sitting where a hot girl should be.

Since the world revolves around me I think this should be required. If not, then there should be some kind of standardized bumper sticker that they're required to put on there which says something along the lines of "My grandkids are cuter than yours."

I'm glad we got that taken care of.

Running out of money and time

I was talking to a girl from work the other day about when my kids were in town. She was asking about how often I got to see them, some of the things we did while they were here, etc. At some point in the conversation I told her that I usually don't get much sleep while they're here because they take over my bedroom and I have to sleep downstairs on the couch. I don't know how much my kids like it either, because the two older ones have to alternate between sleeping in my bed with the three year old and on an air mattress on the floor.

Her: "You're bed isn't big enough for all three of them?"
Me: "No."
Her: "What size of bed do you have? Just a double?"
Me: "How about just a twin."
Her: "Oh, that's sad."
Me: "Well, I haven't bought anything bigger since my divorce because when I do I want to get something really nice, probably an entire bedroom set, not just a metal frame and mattress, but I can't afford that yet. Besides, it's not like there's a steady stream of women coming in and out that I need to impress."
Her: "Have you seen 'The 40 Year Old Virgin?' You're kind of like that, except you're not a virgin. It's more like 30 year old loser."

I love the people I work with. They're such self esteem boosters.

Most of us believe that this is wrong

Yesterday one of my friends took his vehicle in to have it serviced. The place he took it to had a shuttle service so they dropped him off at work. However, they weren't running it anymore by the time his vehicle was ready to be picked up, so I took him to go pick it up.

He showed up at my office when we were ready to go and said, "Thank you so much for doing this. I promise, I'll give you road head on the way over."

He didn't. I guess we'll have to find some other way he can make it up to me.

Now you're the only one here who can tell me if it's true, that you love me, and I love me

Two weeks ago I finished teaching the first of two lecture courses that I got the opportunity to teach over the summer. My lectures are for an hour and a half every day, and each course lasts for five weeks. Apparently that's enough time for an unhealthy crush to develop. And this time I'm not talking about the one that I developed on my hottest student, I'm talking about the one that one of my students has on me.

About three weeks into the course I got an anonymous email. It was from a name that I didn't recognize, and it read "Can we go out?"

I didn't respond. Then a few days later I got another one from the same email address (which had a name that was not on my class roster - I checked). This one said "I hope you're not mad. Just think of it as a joke, ok? You're always joking around. Email me back, ok?"

I still didn't respond. A few days after that I got another email that said "What is DNA? You should email me back because this time it's about lecture."

I wrote back and said "No offense, but I haven't responded because I don't know who you are."

They replied "Fortunately, I'm one of your students."

I just left it at that. Then, a few days after the course ended a student showed up at my office. At first she said that she wanted to pick up her final exam, but that she had something else to ask me too. Then, after working to get up the nerve, she told me that she wanted to get to know me better than as a professor and wanted to know if we could go out on a date. Even with the emails that I had received, it completely caught me off guard. I didn't know what to say, and I could tell she felt stupid for asking, so I said that I guess there wouldn't be any harm in grabbing lunch sometime. That turned out to be a mistake. I was thinking that we could get a bite to eat, and then I could tell her that it would be a bad idea to see each other again. Instead I think it led her to believe that I was interested in her. I started getting a bunch of emails, she started hanging around my lecture so that she could see me before and after class, and she showed up at my office with brownies. I can't really blame her, because all of those things would be fine if we were entering into a relationship, and I think that in her mind we were. But it got to the point where it started to freak me out a little. You hear about it all the time, but I think it's the first time that I've been put off by someone coming on too strong.

We didn't go out for lunch. I told her that I felt awkward about the whole situation, and that the more I thought about it, the more I thought it would be a bad idea. I listed a few of the nicer reasons of why I didn't think we should go out, and kept some of the others to myself so as not to hurt her feelings. Thankfully, she understood, and didn't seem to take it too hard. Hopefully she'll have the confidence to approach the next guy she gets a crush on.

I was telling some of my friends about the whole situation the other night. I jokingly referred to her as my stalker. One of my friends had seen the emails, and had seen me talking to this girl, but I hadn't told him about the rest. As I was filling him in on the details we had the following conversation:

Friend 1: "I guess you found out who was sending you those emails then."
Me: "Yeah."
Friend 1: "Was it that little Asian girl who's come by the office to ask you questions?"
Me: "Yeah, that's the one."
Friend 2 (to Friend 1): "So you've seen this girl?"
Friend 1: "Yeah, I've seen her."
Friend 2: "Is she cute."
Friend 1: "No."
Friend 3: "If she was cute, he'd be calling her his new girlfriend instead of his stalker."

Evaluate me

It's time for another round of Native Minnow's favorite things from his teaching evaluations. I've been lazy, so I'm lumping Spring Semester and Summer Session into the same post. (Remember that all of these are in their original form, misspelled words and all. Also keep in mind that we're really asking for constructive criticism on these evaluations, although we rarely get any other than "make quizzes easier.").

SPRING SEMESTER
What was your favorite exercise and why?
-Digesting the pig. I found it to be most interesting.
-Cutting up the pig. Was fun to play scientist/doctor on something that was living (please note, the pigs were not actually living).
-Dissect fecal pig.
-Plant labs. They didn't smell.

What was your least favorite exercise and why?
Fetal pigs. I see nothing to be gained from examining a farm animal's insides.

What is the major weakness of the lab?
-It has a slow start, not very fun to be in.
-Jumping directly from plants to animals (is there really any other kind of transition you can make here?).
-Doesn't do enough bench presses.

How would you assess your lab instructor's ability in making things understandable, and their willingness to help?
-Always there to help, it was almost a symbiotic relationship.

How could he/she improve?
-Give away more chocolate in the last lab.
-No more fish shirts, die his hair blue.
-Get a biology tattoo. Dedication counts.
-Grow 2" in height. He isn't tall enough (I'm 6' 4")

What were his/her strong points?
-Those awesome fish shirts he wears (it seems they were divided on this issue).
-Wow, a smart intelligent science teacher with a personality.

SUMMER SESSION
Comments about (strengths and weaknesses) the instructor, course, assignments, textbook, etc.
- [He] is way cool to the max. No glaring weaknesses, but him always wearing sandals is just a little weird. [He] Rulez!
-He is a very nice instructor. I understood his lecture much more better than any of my past biology teachers.
-He is very cute super guy.
-Great job man! We should talk more about fermentation.
-He clarified my understanding of meiosis in two minutes. Thank you.
-He's HOT!

'Cause a brother like me don't date

My roommate was heading out on a date the other night. As he was getting ready to leave he came down the stairs and asked "Do you think these pants are too nice for this shirt?"

I replied "Not at all, I think it looks fine. Of course, that's coming from a guy who can't get a chick to save his life, so I'm not sure how much stock you should put into that opinion."

Now that I'm found, I miss being lost

I was driving home after spending the morning doing some lab work yesterday when I decided to call my brother and see whether he'd made any progress in being able to defend his dissertation this week. It only rang once, then went to voice mail, so I figured he had his phone shut off, but a few seconds later he called me back. He was in some church meetings so had to go out into the hall before he could talk to me. Since I wasn't really calling about anything pressing we made it a short conversation.

Me: "Well, I don't want you to have to go to Hell on my behalf. Get your ass back in there."

I would kiss the girl from Venus

My friends and I like to play this game. It's derived from one that some of us used to play when we were teenagers. Any time there was a group of us together, and something needed to be done that noone wanted to do, everyone would touch their nose and the last person to do so was the one who had to take care of the task. It was the quiet way of calling out "not it." It worked especially well for instances such as when someone would order a pizza, but nobody wanted to answer the door when the delivery guy came, and similar scenarios.

We've expanded this out into a game of "dibs" and "not it." If one of us sees a cute girl, we call dibs, but when we see an ugly one we call not it. Unless of course the girl is close enough to hear, we wouldn't want to hurt anyone's feelings after all. In that case, we touch our nose instead of calling out "not it." The joke being that the last one to do so has to sleep with the ugly girl. It's great when we're in any public place, particularly when not everyone is paying attention to their surroundings. Someone is always going to get upset when they find out that they are "it."

There are rare occasions when people will disagree though. We were walking across campus one day and one of my friends called "not it."

Me: "Really? I thought she was kind of cute and was going to call dibs."
Him: "You thought she was cute? That's all you dude."

We then got into a discussion about why I thought she was cute, and why he didn't. Then one of my other friends chimed in with "You two are like the Ebert and Roeper of girls the way you're analyzing this."

My first friend: "Dibs on Roeper!"

I guess that makes me Ebert. Sometimes I hate when I'm "it."

When nothing at all seems to go your way

This picture says it all, doesn't it?

It's a 7-11. Do you wanna take a walk outside?

A friend of mine's vehicle is in the shop, so I picked him up this morning to give him a ride to work. I'm cool like that. On the way in he asked if we could stop by 7-11 to get some chocolate milk. Being the lover of sweets that I am, he didn't have to ask twice.

We stopped and got our goodies, and as we were getting back into the car I looked down and saw an empty Trojan box in the parking lot. Now, I'm a huge advocate of safe sex, but I've never been in such a hurry that I've had to unwrap the condom in the parking lot of the store where I bought it. Seriously, can't it wait?

Maybe this person was mistaken in the kind of protection he was purchasing, but I don't think it was enough to save him if he got into a car accident after that.

Jesus knows just how you feel when you're falling asleep, asleep at the wheel

Sometimes I get in certain moods and the only thing that helps me to get out of them is to drive. Fast. I'm in such a mood tonight, but the problem is I don't dare push it any further once I get about 20 mph above the speed limit. Not because I'm afraid of getting into an accident, but rather because I know that I can't afford to pay the speeding ticket I'll get if I were to get pulled over. Sometimes I long for the days when I didn't really give a shit, but the monetary consequences are too long lasting. Consider it a lesson learned the hard way.

Tonight I couldn't remember how fast my car would go before the governor on the engine would kick in. I only got up to 90 before worrying about whether a cop would be around the next corner so I didn't find out for sure. It's at either 97 or 102 mph, but it's been a while since the last time it kicked on. That was one of the luckier moments in my life considering it was when I fell asleep at the wheel in a construction zone on my way from Vegas to Salt Lake City to visit my kids. It gave me a pretty good adrenaline rush. Good enough that I didn't have to worry about falling asleep at the wheel again that night. In fact, that was the last time I've ever dozed off while driving.

The strange thing about that situation is that I didn't panic. I never panic. I'd like to think it's because I'm so brave that I'm not concerned about my own mortality. My dad says it's more likely because all of the males in our family have a gene that makes them stupid. We don't panic because we're too dumb to know that we ought to be scared.

One of these days it's probably going to catch up to me.

I've destroyed the bond of friendship and respect between the only people left who even look me in the eye

Someone in the department sent out an email the other day stating that they had a mattress for a king size bed that was too soft for them so they were giving it away to anyone that wanted it. One of my friends claimed it on behalf of her roommate (who has no furniture and had been sleeping on a Thermarest for the past month or two). Since the mattress was a king sized one, and since my friend is kind of short, she asked me and another friend of mine (who has a truck) to help her move it to her house. Being the kind men that we are, we agreed.

Over the weekend we had a big thunderstorm come through. When we got to the house to pick up the mattress, my friend noticed that his truck was dirty because he hadn't gotten around to washing it yet.

Him (to her): "I hope you don't mind, it's a little dirty in the back."
Me: "It's ok, I heard she likes it dirty."
Him: "In the back."

We found some plastic to line the bed of the truck with in order to keep it clean.