Bandolero by Day

The work day gets a whole lot longer when all your computer's input devices suddenly stop functioning. I know I'm not the only one who's been a Computer Transient, shunted from desk to desk at everyone else's convenience, dragging your files along with you and feeling oddly disenfranchised. You're not supposed to become so attached to that desk that you hate sitting down at every day, but familiarity digs its bony fingers in and you don't notice it until you get up to leave for another computer, one with a monitor so smudged that the previous user could only have been headbutting the screen in a primitive battle for dominance and enough crumbs in the keyboard to leave a trail from Phoenix to L.A.

Anyway, that's why I once again brought up the idea of driving to Mexico when I went out to lunch with my coworker. I'm sure that if I keep pressing the issue she'll just turn her van south one day, regardless of how many children she has at home.

To my great delight, said coworker showed me a shop that sells Chicago-style hot dogs (HINT: requires celery salt) (note to self: buy some celery salt) only a block away from work. The mere mention of those dogs clouded my mind and my dreams, so much so that even though the owner of the Mexican restaurant next store was INSISTING that I ACCEPT FREE TACOS FROM HIM, I said, "FREE FOOD, can't eat... not... CHICAGO DOGS, AJFLASJF" and fled next door where I paid precious coinage in exchange for not-free food.

That may not have been exactly what I said, but I assure you that my will was torn.

Then I actually returned to the Mexican restaurant and drained their beverage fountain of Horchata and Orange Bang and Piña Colada Bang and Jamaica Ole (not free). All highly recommended, though you are probably shit out of luck if you are not near California.


Bonus feature: I've been carrying a small notebook around with me and marking down any incidence of deranged thinking, to bring to my counseling session with me. I brought the wrong notebook with me this week, and pulled out my shopping list instead. "Can we discuss the deep emotional resonance that ORANGE JUICE and BAGELS are creating in my psyche?"

We did not.

WILL YE SIGN THESE ARTICLES, OR WILL YE CAREEN THE BRIGANTINE WHILE SHE'S STILL SAILING UP THE RIVER??

I. Every man has a vote in affairs of the moment; has equal title to the fresh provisions, or strong liquors, at any time seized, and may use them at pleasure, unless a scarcity makes it necessary, for the good of all, to vote a retrenchment.

II. Every man to be called fairly in turn, by list, on board of prizes because, (over and above their proper share) they were on these occasions allowed a shift of clothes: but if they defrauded the company to the value of a dollar in plate, jewels, or money, marooning was their punishment. If the robbery was only betwixt one another, they contented themselves with slitting the ears and nose of him that was guilty, and set him on shore, not in an uninhabited place, but somewhere, where he was sure to encounter hardships.

III. No person to game at cards or dice for money.

IV. The lights and candles to be put out at eight o'clock at night: if any of the crew, after that hour still remained inclined for drinking, they were to do it on the open deck.

V. To keep their piece, pistols, and cutlass clean and fit for service.

VI. No boy or woman to be allowed amongst them. If any man were to be found seducing any of the latter sex, and carried her to sea, disguised, he was to suffer death.

VII. To desert the ship of their quarters in battle, was punished with death or marooning.

VIII. No striking one another on board, but every man's quarrels to be ended on shore, at sword and pistol.

IX. No man to talk of breaking up their way of living, till each had shared £1000. If in order to this, any man should lose a limb, or become a cripple in their service, he was to have 800 dollars, out of the public stock, and for lesser hurts, proportionately.

X. The captain and quartermaster to receive two shares of a prize: the master, boatswain, and gunner, one share and a half, and other officers one and a quarter.

XI. The musicians to have rest on the Sabbath Day, but the other six days and nights, none without special favour.


BLACK BART RESPECTS THE SABBATH DAY. Ye scurvy dogs. Rx1MILLION.

ETA: Okay, one minute I can read it just fine, and the next it's demanding registration (which I don't have). I have no idea what that's about. Terribly sorry. Just content yourself with the fact that you will not have to expose yourself to the full, unfiltered stupidity.

demonlet posted this article in her journal. I was going to comment, but when my comment started turning into an essay, I thought I ought to give it an entry of its own.

Basically, the premise of the article is that boys are failing in life because girls are succeeding. Women should be offended by this statement. MEN should CERTAINLY be offended by this statement. I know a plethora of bright, intelligent men, and if one were to suggest to them that they were naturally set up to fail because they're expected to use their brains and string words together instead of smashing things with rocks, they'd... well, they'd probably punch whoever suggested it. (What? Can't a guy or girl be intelligent and still throw a mean right cross?)

At any rate, the article is so ridiculous that I had to pick out some points and go at them with verbal spears right here.

"We've done a good job getting girls prepared for life, at the expense of boys."

This is where it starts. Boys are having trouble in school. This is because, apparently, America's schools can only accommodate one gender at a time. Right. If THAT is the case, I suspect the trouble with our education system goes much, MUCH deeper than "gender issues".

The inferior performance of boys is so common, girls in elementary schools have a saying to describe it: "Girls rule, boys drool."

I honestly don't know whether this is a joke or not. That saying dates back to long before *I* ever entered the school system, and guess what? IT IS REVERSIBLE DEPENDING ON THE GENDER OF THE SPEAKER.

"Girls also have a saying to describe the aimless nature of modern boys: 'Boys go to Jupiter to get more stupider. Girls go to Mars to get more candy bars.' The rhyme indicates that they are aware of their own innate advantage."

In case you couldn't tell, I made up that last paragraph myself.

Boys don't get those grades because they're not as bright as girls. Educators and anthropologists say boys just aren't made to succeed in school.

Okay, so for all those centuries when only boys went to school, THEN boys were evolutionarily built to succeed in school. Now that girls go to school WITH them, their ability to succeed in school has suddenly fallen out of their genetic makeup? That is fascinating.

They're more aggressive and single-minded, programmed to play violent video games like "Grand Theft Auto" rather than sit patiently in an English class.

Then maybe, MAYBE their parents should stop programming them that way...? Just a thought. You know, supposing that the parents have anything at all to do with this.

"The sit-still, read-your-book, raise-your-hand-quietly, don't-learn-by-doing, but-by-taking-notes-in-the-classroom is a worse fit for more boys that it is for most girls."

How many teachers still actually teach this way? Even in my shit-hole high school, the instructors were far more dynamic than that. That "too much structure" argument is not going to fly for anything outside... I don't know, a Catholic school. (Then again, I've never been to a Catholic school. They may have very dynamic teachers as well.)

Math teachers who once gave credit for just the right answer now made kids show the process to that answer.

Oh, did they start doing that to sabotage boys? I thought it was just to make sure the little brats weren't copying the answer from somewhere else. SILLY ME.

That helped girls who were more verbal and less aggressive than boys.

Showing your work = non-aggressive? Just giving the answer = aggressive? Glad to know that. Remind me not to shout math solutions at the baboons the next time I'm at the zoo. I wouldn't want one of them to charge me.

"We were told 'You're a girl, don't take calculus,'" says Patty Ogden, 50, of Pine Bush, a dental hygienist. "Now we tell our kids you can do anything."

Here's something I learned in English (because the teacher psychically embedded this information into my brain via the girls-only mind wave): this bit is junk. It does not belong in the article. The fact that girls are encouraged to SUCCEED shouldn't have ANY BEARING WHATSOEVER on whether boys succeed or fail. If someone decided that a woman's success is what's hurting a man, then it is that person that is causing the problem, NOT the school system.

Think of it this way: Centuries ago, a man went out with a rock to slay a buffalo.

This man died and did not pass on his genes, because he starved to death, BECAUSE HE TRIED TO SLAY A FUCKING BUFFALO WITH A ROCK.

Meanwhile, a woman stayed home with her baby.

Actually, in many societies, the women ALSO went out to hunt, while the children stayed home with that snazzy new development in human evolution called "grandparents". Neat, huh?

And a woman's tools are now needed to thrive in school and the world - a world that has changed so much, so quickly, that it relies less on physical strength and aggressiveness and more on processing information and cooperation.

That's right, boys, it's not your world anymore. Newton? Einstein? Pavlov? Nietzsche? Hawking? You guys can go home now. We want BRAINS, not brawn!

Others suggest creating same-sex classrooms because girls and boys learn so differently.

Mmm. It's got that delicious "separate but equal" bite to it!


Well, I think that about covers the primary points of idiocy. WHOO BOY I feel better now.

Trick or... um...

( Trick or I punch you in the throat. )

Dude, I was just trying to stay in character.

Also, Ru is somehow immune to my evil ways. She must've done something to bribe me.

"This week promises to be busy with two papers due before Spring Break, but next week promises to be Spring Break."

QUOTING MYSELF.

I have many thoughts floating through my head currently, but they're all being loudly drowned out by the shrieking "I DON'T WANNA GO TO CLASS" monkey that resides in the nether-regions of my brain. I, for one, think that the monkey brings up an excellent point: I do NOT wanna go to class.

Too bad shrieking monkeys don't make the rules around here. (Any joke implying that government leaders are very much like shrieking monkeys will be dismissed as predictable and dumb.)