That's what you get for naming your kid Jaden!

While walking down 9th avenue sunday at 1:25, Kevin and I could hear indistinguishable whining behind us. We slowed down to hear better.

MOM: Stop, Jaden!

JADEN: But you just spent like a hundred dollars.

MOM: I need fruit.

JADEN: I NEED Starbucks!

The kicker: Jaden is probably 10 years old and about three feet tall.


We slowed down to let them get in front of us. Then I took a picture.

That's what you get for naming your kid Jaden!

There's a story behind this...

I'm curious as to what it is.

Save the Date!

As I was waiting outside a professor's office the other day, I decided to kill some time reading one of the many bulletin boards. I happened upon this gem.


Now, if I were Professor F, and if I were giving a lecture on Revising Our Logic, I think I might leave my photograph off of the announcement for it. Particularly if my photo looked like this...



And if, by chance, I were forced to put my photo on the announcement, I wouldn't have it read "Save the Date" at the top. That sorta makes it sound like a wedding announcement. And I wouldn't want people to associate my picture with wedding announcements.

Just saying...

My Life Is Like a Musical Television Show

As many of you (or should I say both of you) know, I love GLEE. Love it! Maybe that makes me a big, screaming queer. I'm okay with that. For those of you who don't know the TV show, there is a character on it named Rachel who tends to be a little grating. Many of her classmates, including her fellow glee club members, can't stand her. She is sort of a kiss ass, thinks very highly of herself, and is extremely annoying in a way that makes you want to punch her in the face, or just throw a slushy in it.


There just so happens to be a Rachel in one of my classes. Yes, it's true. She even shares the same name with her television counterpart. The character may have even been loosely based on her. I noticed Rachel on the first day of class because she sat in the row in front of me, wearing a bright red sweatshirt and gray sweatpants. Pretty typical for girls in college. "I'm going to class. I want to be comfortable." This isn't as typical for students at NYU, but who am I to judge?


I'm going to go off on a little tangent now. I will return to my original thought eventually. But for now, let's review Rachel's attire.

Week 2











Week 3











Week 4











Week 5











Week 6











Week 7











Week 8











And last week...











Does anyone else see a pattern here? Again, who am I to judge? You can judge for yourselves. I encourage it.

While Rachel's choice of clothing may be ______________ (fill in the blank yourself), that's not what is so annoying about her. I have written a two-act play which illustrates some of Rachel's particularly annoying qualities:

QUIZZICAL: A Two-Act Musical Illustrating Rachel's Particularly Annoying Qualities

Act 1: Week Before the Midterm

PROF:
Class, I think I'm going to give you a break. There will be no quiz this week?

RACHEL (breaks out into song):
What? No quiz?
Gee whiz!
I'll cry.
I'll DIE!

CLASS (in unison): Shut up. We don't want a quiz.

RACHEL (again, in song):
But, I did so poorly on the first.
My grades, they will be the worst.
Oh me, oh my,
I'll cry, I'll DIE!

PROF:
Okay, I'll give you a quiz.

CLASS:
Ugh. We hate her.

Intermission

Act 2: Week After the Midterm

Enter the class, in different outfits. Then, enter Rachel, wearing a red sweatshirt and gray sweatpants.

PROF: Since I gave you a quiz the week before the midterm, I'll give you a break this week. No quiz.

RACHEL (reprise):
What? No quiz?
Gee whiz!
I'll cry.
I'll DIE!
I did so poorly on the first.
My grades, they will be the worst.
Oh me, oh my,
I'll cry, I'll DIE!

PROF:
Okay, I'll give you a quiz.

CLASS:
Seriously?

THE END

I'm not sure if it's clear from QUIZZICAL that Rachel did poorly on her first quiz or not. But she did, along with the rest of the class. So poorly, in fact, that the grade for the first quiz doesn't even show up when we check our grades online. I'm fairly certain the professor threw it out because it was a lame quiz. However, Rachel is so focused on the fact that she blew one quiz. She's afraid she won't get an A because of it. The reason that I know all this is actually not because I talk to her. It's because she turns around and tells EVERYONE about it EVERY time the professor mentions not having a quiz.

And if that is not annoying enough, imagine Rachel having a squeaky mouse voice. Maybe reread QUIZZICAL with that in mind.

Enough said.

Here's to you, Rachel!

Fall Wanderings

When Kevin was down visiting me in NYC two weekends ago, we found a few funny little things.

First up,

Please Don't Touch


This was a sign in a gift shop in Little Italy. There was another sign at the front of the shop saying that you have to pay $2 if you take any pictures inside the store. I'm not sure how they enforce that. Not very well, obviously!

"IF you break it, then you have to paid it!!"

THANK YOU

Next, is a game I like to call Food or Sex Toys?

Here are two images. One is a picture of some chocolate covered strawberries that were on sale at the 6th Avenue Street Fair two weekends ago. The other is a picture of anal beads that I found online two minutes ago. Which is which?





And here is a ridiculous video that I came across while searching for anal beads. Thanks, myspace mutants.

Miscellaneous Summer Junk

So, over the summer, I found some things that I thought were funny, but not necessarily worthy of a full blog post. I think collectively, they might be worthy. So, here they are... in chronological order.

Little Johnny

Back in late June, Kevin and I went for a walk along the breakwater in Provincetown. This is a large jetty of rocks which is very pretty and relaxing for an afternoon jaunt. Or sometimes for a morning, evening, or late night one as well. Oftentimes, you can see lots of wildlife on these excursions.

On this particular day, we happened upon a seagull. We'll call him Little Johnny. It's actually quite rare to NOT see seagulls here during the day, as the seagulls tend to feed by the breakwater, picking crabs up out of the tidepools and dropping them from heights of maybe 50 feet or so onto the rocks to crack their shells. Usually as you walk towards the seagulls, they fly away. Not Little Johnny though. We thought he was very brave.

We got real close to Little Johnny to take some pictures of him. As I went in for a snapshot... Little Johnny took a big ole shit on the rocks.


As we moved past Little Johnny, we turned around to see if he still stood in the same spot. He did. We noticed his wing was broken.


So, poor Little Johnny wasn't so brave after all. He was hurt. And it seems that we scared the shit out of him. Literally. Get it? Do you get it? We scared the SHIT out of him.

You probably got it.


Seamen's Bank

So, by the title of this one, you probably have guessed that the funny part of the story is that the bank is called Seamen's Bank. Nope. That one's old. Yeah, yeah, yeah, Provincetown's main bank is called Seamen's Bank. Now that that's over, I'll let it be known that I was the proud customer of Seamen's Bank. Yes, I banked at THE Seamen's Bank.

I received some mail from said Seamen's Bank late in July. It seems I made an error in my ATM deposit, and I was off by ten cents. That's not the funny part either. It's not funny that a math grad student at NYU can't add. That's actually more sad than anything. Here is that piece of mail.




What's funny about it is that Seamen's Bank paid 40 something cents to mail me a slip saying that they were going to deduct ten cents from my account because I made an error. So basically, to correct my ten cent error, they were going to spend 30 something cents more in postage, not to mention the cost of the paper they printed it on and the envelope they mailed it in (or the staple... it all adds up). It sounds a little silly to me.

Not to mention it's a little silly to have paid that money when I lived right across the street from the bank and I was in there every week.

Okay, so maybe it is a little funny that I made deposits into THE Seamen's Bank every week. Sometimes more than once a week.


To the owner: (aka cocksucker)

In August, Ptown starts to get really busy. This August was no exception. As most people know, in August, the weather tends to get really hot as well. So people are looking for hydration.

Now, most bars in Ptown, and I think in a lot of other cities as well, will not give out tap water. The bar shared a space with a fantastic restaurant called Frappo66, which sold probably the cheapest bottled water in town.

Because of the open atmosphere of the restaurant and bar, people would come in off the street to use the bathrooms or to just sit on the comfy couches in the middle of the place. Ordinarily, it wasn't a problem. However, people would often come in off the street lookng for free water, which wasn't free or even cheap for the bar because the price of the cups went up qutie a bit this year (from what I was told). So we charged $1 for a cup. If someone asked me to fill their water bottle or something, I would never charge them. Or if they wanted more water, I'd put more in their cup.

One afternoon, my bartender was asked by a customer for a cup of water. I don't know what kind of response she gave him. I imagine it may not have been pleasant based on his reaction, but I don't know for sure. The next day, I came in to work and she told me that I should read a letter that a customer left at the restaurant.


For those of you who have a hard time reading chicken scratch, this is what the letter said:

"To the owner:
(aka cocksucker)

To charge a dollar for ice water (especially to a customer who has already purchased an overpriced glass of highly mediocre wine) is rather criminal!

To justify this practice because this is a tourist town is incredibly cynical

Avariciousness will lead you eventually to the sixth circle of Hell (see Dante).

May you burn (rather reform!)"

I thought this was a little unnecessary, as well as absolutely hysterical. It is insane for a tourist to come to a gay resort town and condemn business owners to hell for common business practices.

If, for some strange reason, the author of that ridiculous note, happens to be reading this, he'll be happy to know that we changed our policy and started giving out water. The owner of the restaurant thought it was a poor reflection on his business. Which it was. Since the note was left for him.

For the record, the owner of the bar is actually not a cocksucker.


View from the Bar

I think this one might speak for itself. This was during Labor Day weekend when I was at work. I took it to send to Kevin to show him what fun he was missing in Provincetown.


Clearly, he was jealous. Who wouldn't be?

Epiphany!

Yes, it's true. I had an epiphany today. The clouds parted, the sun shone through the window, and I realized... I don't want to be a mathematician!


Now, I'm sure you're thinking, "No, it's not possible! How could anyone not want to be a mathematician!?!? Surely, you're mistaken!"

No folks, it's true. I do not want to be a mathematician. And I'll tell you how I came to realize it.

I was sitting in class tonight. It was a fine class. The professor, Frank, has a great sense of humor. At the start of the class, he dropped a piece of chalk, and mumbled, "Shit. That was the only good piece." Then aloud, to the class, "I guess we won't be having a very long class today." Laughter ensued. But this was not when I decided I didn't want to be a mathematician.

In fact, the entire class went well. We didn't really get out early. That was just some math department humor. (NOTE: read previous blog posts to find out more about math department humor)

After class, we had a recitation with a Ph.D. student who is just okay. He's a nice enough guy. A little nervous at the board, but he's probably new to it. The recitation tends to be a little boring, but not awful. During recitation, we work out a bunch of problems on the board. Generally the problems are not too difficult, definitely not the level that they expect us to work out on our own in the homework assignments.

One of the problems we worked out tonight:

f(x) = x^2
Find subsets A and B of R such that f(B\A) is not equal to f(B)\f(A).

Let B = [-1, 1]
f(B) = [0, 1]

Let A = [1/2, 1]
f(A) = [1/4, 1]

B\A = [-1, 1/2]
f(B\A) = [0, 1]

f(B)\f(A) = [0, 1/4)
So they are not equal.

This is fine. I understand everything we're doing. Then, an annoying guy in the class asks a question. "But we could have just chosen a point, right?"

The response from the TA: "Yes. It's kinda fun to play around and see what works, isn't it?"

KINDA FUN TO PLAY AROUND AND SEE WHAT WORKS!?!

I googled fun just to see what kind of images show up. Here is but a small spattering:






I think you probably get the idea. It occurred to me that many, probably a majority even, of the people that I am in class with think things like playing around with sets and functions are fun. Perhaps it's because I was so sick of looking at math after hours of manipulating matrices and proving mappings are injective and similar such things. But I find very little about what I'm studying to be "fun."

Therefore, I do not want to be a mathematician. QED