I Am Completely Serious

I learn so much from looking at other people's Google queries.

2014-01-23T23:23:27Z

So much about football, Justin Bieber, methods of cheating on the MCAT, and porn.

* People care about football.

* Justin Bieber was in jail for a minute there.

* People cheat on the MCAT by just holding the frigging phone under the table and googling the questions. "Which of these is not true of mitochondrial DNA?" "it is big"

* The mainstream straight-guy-porn aesthetic appears to be based on Cartoon Network circa 1995. It's like Rocko's Modern Life, but with strainedly-smiling naked women instead of Rocko.

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Network Solutions is a terrible domain registrar which you should not use.

2013-12-01T02:19:11Z

This has been a summary of my day. There's something wrong with their website; it kept rolling back the old WHOIS and DNS data after I'd input new stuff. No, the problem was not with the fucking propagation. I would click submit on the actual form on the actual goddamn Network Solutions website, go back a minute later to add another record, and find that it had reverted all my changes. This happened over and over.

I just glanced in there again and it's switched the school's mailing address back to the old one again.

FUCKING WITH THE "A" RECORDS WITH MY BARE HANDS IS UNSETTLING ENOUGH WITHOUT THIS SHIT. Far cheaper DNS services than your own are capable of configuring this shit automatically, why did you even make me start digging around in there to begin with!?

If the person responsible for selecting this registrar were still with the school, I would be sending them the meanest possible email, as soon as the MX records finished propagating.

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I'm a high school math teacher now.

2013-08-29T02:04:26Z

The title to this post is not facetious, intended as a dry preamble to a self-deprecating description of some behavior/trait I have displayed which I feel to be appropriate to the idiom of a hypothetical high school math teacher. No. The title of this post is literally true. I will be teaching algebra.

I'll try not to traumatize these kids too hard. Light trauma only.

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#underwaterlibertariandystopiaproblems

2012-05-24T14:36:28Z

You get suspicious when you get an email from opposing counsel that starts with the words "would you kindly."

(I WILL BELIEVE ANYTHING OF AN INSURANCE DEFENSE FIRM)

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A helpful quiz for law students.

2012-05-17T23:59:57Z

Are you a law student? Are you considering doing a legal clinic where you'll
~~learn about the discovery process hands-on~~
~~interact with real clients (whom you seem to think are basically zoo animals)~~
~~get some bullshit to put on your resume~~
~~"network" by means of social interactions seemingly calculated to get you punched~~
~~you have done nothing but text all day I don't know why you're here~~
learn about the discovery process hands-on? Take this quick quiz to determine whether I hate you!

Question 1: You are helping an elderly client respond to a set of discovery requests. One of the questions is, "Have you done any repairs to your home, and if so, what kind?" The client responds, "Oh, lands, it was a mess, honey. And there was this greasy dust just everywhere, you could hardly even breathe."

(a) Ask her the question again, rephrasing it and speaking more loudly if she seems not to understand.
(b) Write down "it was a mess and there was this greasy dust just everywhere you could hardly even breathe" and move on.
(c) Write down "did not answer" and move on.
(d) Complain to the person training you that the client talks too much.

Question 2: A client has given you a handwritten list of damages, and he is sitting with you as you type it up for him. He has written this: "lost two cars. my truck is destroyed just can't drive it. you can drive the car though." What do you do?

(a) Ask him to explain what he means by this.
(b) Type those words in exactly.
(c) Type those words in exactly, noting conscientiously at the end "I don't really understand what he means by this."
(d) Complain to the person training you that the client is stupid.

Question 3: A client has filled out a worksheet consisting mostly of questions, which you are typing up. The last page is a checklist of documents she needs to turn in. There are three boxes that she can check for each document: "This document is attached," "I'll send you this document later," and "This doesn't apply to me." You have her file, which contains all of the documents which the client has turned in. What do you do?

(a) As you type up the last page, make sure the client has actually attached all of the documents she says she's attached and that the ones she says don't apply to her actually don't apply to her.
(b) Type up the last page as-is.
(c) Don't type up the last page at all, because it doesn't look very important.
(d) Complain to the person training you that there are too many documents in the file.

Question 4: A client has filled out a worksheet consisting mostly of questions, which you are typing up. The client is sitting there next to you. You find that he has left some questions blank. What do you do?

(a) Ask him to answer the questions he left blank and type them up.
(b) Ask him to answer the questions he left blank and hand-write his answers on sticky notes which you attach to the worksheet.
(c) Type in "did not answer."
(d) Complain to the person training you that the client is lazy.

Question 5: You are going over a client's claimed damages. There is a note on the file that the client is given to exaggeration. The client has claimed $15,000 for a destroyed car, but the client's most recent vehicle registration values the car at $6,300. What do you do?

(a) Tentatively change the number to $6,300, and write to the client explaining the change and asking politely if he has any documentation supporting his $15,000 number.
(b) Do nothing.
(c) Don't even notice the discrepency because you never actually opened the file in the first place.
(d) Complain to the person training you that you didn't know this law stuff meant you actually had to, like, READ things and INTERPRET them and make INFORMED DECISIONS and stuff.

If you answered "a" for every question, congratulations; you should go ahead and do the clinic. However, if you answered anything other than "a" for any question, not only may you not do the clinic, you must drop out of law school immediately, apologize to everyone you've ever met, and select a job in which your inevitable failure will not bankrupt anybody or get them sent to prison. You stupid jackass.

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Conversation just now

2012-03-29T20:24:46Z

Co-Worker: So what do I do about [name]'s file? Remember, she was the one who...

Me: It is appropriate to write a memo saying that someone is a jerk.

Co-Worker: Oh, okay, good.

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"Remunerate" is a stupid word

2012-03-29T16:36:44Z

because it should obviously be spelled "renumerate."

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AKICWLJ-DW - Question for vidders.

2012-03-05T01:08:21Z

I have a poor-quality video file with sort of muddy color, which makes it difficult to tell certain pale areas from certain darker ones. I need to heighten the contrast between them. In Photoshop, it's the sort of thing for which I'd use the Levels or Brightness/Contrast tools, but Windows Live Movie Maker does not appear to have either of these things. (Or, if it does, I can't find them.) Is there some piece of free software that would let me do this?

If it helps, this is a video of a forest with clearings in it, taken from above - the problem is that you can't easily tell where the clearings are. It was taken in the middle of winter, on what appears to have been a cloudy day, meaning that everything's just differing shades of brown and gray.

(I'm doing this for work; we need it for next week, and we don't think we can get a professional video editor in time. Obviously, this means that the IT person is in charge!)

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JLPT scores are out.

2012-02-29T23:01:50Z

I am officially Intermediate in Japanese. There's a certificate saying so, so it must be true.

Perhaps relatedly, these have been the stupidest three days in the history of stupid days. Am considering hiding under the cats until the weekend. There are nearly enough of them.

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Trying to work from home due to horrors of menstruation.

2011-09-28T16:44:27Z

I am in bed with my electric blanket turned on, my laptop positioned optimally in my lap to counteract chills, and a large cup of cheap bag tea, because the kitchen's too cold for me to stand in it long enough to brew loose stuff. The nausea and sensation that there's a cold golf ball lodged against the lower left of my uterus have faded.

I went to the gynecologist yesterday and she gave me a prescription for a three-month pill. I assume that this is my body getting revenge while it can. SCREW YOU, I CAN TRANSCRIBE PEOPLE'S BEWILDERING HANDWRITTEN LISTS OF PERSONAL PROPERTY DAMAGES JUST AS WELL LIKE THIS.

A few minutes ago, through my window, I saw the oldest of the neighbor kids bring out their new puppy, which is 1/2 to 1/3 the size of any one of their cats, and has a head so wildly disproportionate to its body that I'm amazed it can hold it up.

Naturally, Dad's Saint Bernard had to rush out there and start barking at it. She weighs about a hundred and ten pounds, and the puppy can't be more than eight or nine. I'm amazed she can even recognize it as a member of her own species. I got out of bed to bring her back in, and authorized the girl to scold Dad's dog for him: "If she ever does that again, just tell her, "Foofy! Bad!""

"Okay. Thank you," she said timidly. She'd picked the puppy up and backed far away from the fence. I don't think she's going to yell at the dog.

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Missed opportunity.

2011-05-20T16:45:46Z

A con artist just called claiming he was from Google and that, because they were "trying to fill some openings in our sector," we had "kind of a rare opportunity" to get our website ranked first on Google and Yahoo! First for our "sector." Whatever our sector is. I, personally, have not the slightest idea. (Okay, "Explosion Law," maybe?)

I just said, "No thanks," and hung up, but now I'm regretting it. I should have put him on speakerphone, turned on Sound Recorder, and seen how much I could get out of him.

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