April - September 2001 Oldproj

Q: "How many Teamsters does it take to screw in a light bulb?"
A: "FIFTEEN! You got a PROBLEM with that?!"

"Fat-bottomed girls may be riding today, so look out for those beauties,
oh, yeah." -- "The Onion Presents: Bicycle Safety Tips", 3/28/2001

"I want my February issue ... with the girl ... with the two breasts." -- Will, re Maxim

"Mmmm ... whore monkeys." -- Will, longingly

"I'm not allowed to play my yo-yo because I can't do it properly." -- Kenneth (no, there is no "with" missing in that quotation)

"Bibo is a god monster with intelligence. He has two big eyes, and he knows very well what people want to do. He cannot speak, but only 'Bi-bo'. When there is any danger happened, he will speak. The top of his head will light up and his hip will makes many colorful smoke to help him survive because this smoke is stinking. We love Bibo very much because he always survives by using some funny ways." -- description on the box of the "Spark BiBo", a Japanese toy that does not, in fact, do any of the things claimed thereon, but does do some funny shit nonetheless

"At least you get to see your grandfather! This is the superfast maggid, strange monotonic 'Chad Gadya' one, right? He sounds like a shtark guy." -- Sarah

"It's impossible to comprehend what would have triggered something like that." -- resident of Highlands Ranch, CO, where a family of five was found shot to death in their beds, submitting my nominee for Worst Word Choice of 2001

"love and matza" -- Shana, signing off prior to Pesach

SB: "My advisor tells me I'm too optimistic."
EKF: "What, your work is really bad, and you just don't realize it?"
SB: "No, she thinks my work is fine -- it's my attitude toward doing work she takes exception to. She says I have a tendency to represent tasks of philosophy to myself qua 'things I (Sarah Beck) can do'. Them was her words."
EKF: "And this is a BAD thing?"
SB: "Apparently. So I just up and told her, politely, that there's no alternative, when talking to an advisor, to saying, 'Yes, I will do that.' There's just nothing else to say. What ... 'Hell, no, Professor, I won't'?"
EKF: "So your work is fine, but your attitude is too optimistic?"
SB: "Yep. What's more odd, I think she *likes* my work."
EKF: "I don't know who this person is, but I can guarantee you that she's the first person ever to fault you for being too optimistic. 'Bitter' is the word I would have used to describe y-- oh, sorry."
SB: "And you wonder WHY I'm bitter?"
EKF: "OK, point taken."

SB: "So, yo, what he needs to do is hurl himself into the dating pool."
Anon: "I'd say 'hurl' is about right."
SB: "The metaphor wasn't that bad."
Anon: "No, it's not that. I mean literally."
SB: "What literally?"
Anon: "Hurling is what he might *do* if he starts to date."

"The university ignored our request for almost a year, cashed our check anyway, and then told us a couple of months ago, 'We've decided we don't have any space.' In my experience, applying for university housing closely resembles flushing your cash down the toilet." -- Peter M., at UW

"Oh my goodness, this feels *really* good. I think it's like giving birth, but less painful. Well, plus it's only been 8 months and I didn't get to have sex to make this ... but it's beautiful." -- Laura, printing out one of her two senior essays

"I will also describe some of the work we are doing at USC's Institute for Creative Technologies, a new research facility tasked with combining the best ideas from Army technology, Entertainment and Academic research." -- visiting USC lecturer, scaring me

"Winners will be announced later than now and earlier than much later." -- at the UW ACM T-Shirt Contest voting site

"Schizophrenia is better than being alone." -- /usr/games/fortune

"Note the irony of how it takes an entire airplane hangar full of people to make her presentable." -- Dad, prepping me for maximum humour intake before my viewing of "Miss Congeniality"

"Pffflaaagghhh." -- Laura, re sushi

Evan's father, on 7th day Pesach: "OK, everyone out on the porch ... kiddush is chametz, so it has to be outside."
Sarah (stage whisper): "Yishai! YISHAI!"
Yishai: "What?! Come on, he says we have to--"
Sarah, rather concerned: "Is it mutar for us to do this?"
Yishai, understatedly: "Kiddush is in fact a hiyyuv. Let's--"
Sarah: "Is it some weird Yekish thing?"
Yishai, not following: "Kiddush outside?"
Sarah: "Eating! Chametz! On seventh day yontif!"
Yishai: "Uh, Sarah, we can assume he was joking."

Yishai: "At that point in the parsha, I definitely felt something shoot out of me."
Evan's father: "He what?"
Sarah, aghast: "Nothing! Just muttering."
Yishai (to Sarah): "I was referring to the 'Shoresh Yishai' (the 'Shoot of Jesse')."
Sarah: "Yeah, *I* know that."

"IF YOU EAT THIS, YOU ARE HAYYAV KARET, UNLESS YOU ARE A GOY" -- sign on a friend's locked cabinet during Passover

"... some internal glob of data, which we will call a `thingy', in honor of that thingy that hangs down in the back of your throat. (You may also call it a `referent', if you prefer to live a joyless existence.)" -- Ch. 4, "Programming Perl"

"When we use a phrase like `array of arrays', we really mean `array of references to arrays'. But since that's the only way to implement an array of arrays in Perl, it follows that the shorter, less accurate phrase is not so inaccurate as to be false, and therefore should not be totally despised, unless you're into that sort of thing." -- ibid.

Laura, while writhing and quivering: "Oh, Ezekiel!"
Laura, still writhing and quivering: "Oh, God, Ezekiel!!"

"I finger him where it works." -- Laura

"So, I see that you are now aware of my feelings for Ezekiel ..." -- ibid.

"Perl isn't infatuated with enforced privacy. ... A Perl module would prefer that you stayed out of its living room because you weren't invited, not because it has a shotgun." -- Chapter 5, "Programming Perl"

"EXCLUSIONS: Benefits are not payable if the loss is [due to] infections of any kind regardless of how contracted, except bacterial infections that are directly caused by botulism, ptomaine poisoning or an accidental cut or wound independent and in the absence of any underlying sickness, disease or condition including but not limited to diabetes ..." -- from Discover Card's revised Scheduled Air Travel Accident Insurance policy

"WHAT IS NOT COVERED: ... *) Loss resulting from hostility of any kind (including declared war, undeclared war, invasion, rebellion, riot, civil commotion, or insurrection) or confiscation by authorities. *) Loss due to nuclear reaction or radioactive contamination."

Will: "Well, I'm glad we've determined that you're a racist ..."
Pradeep: "Hey! I roomed with a North Indian!"

"I'm looking for insurance for my girlfriend. We could get married to solve this problem, but I'm not sure that proposal would go over well." -- Dan L.

"The air is thick with antici...pation. Those who don't know what it's all about can surely feel it, for it fills the atmosphere like melted butter." -- Luke M., advertising the ACM Barbecue

"Enjoy your quivering." -- ibid, re: my anticipation of the ACM Barbecue

Jayant: "Will has bananas on his table!"
Justin: "What's weird about that?"
Jayant: "He usually just has Diet Coke there."

"I'm no neurologist; I'm just neurotic." -- Laura

"The Darwin Fish is the result of years and years of painstaking breeding done by the scientific community. And like any good scientific breakthrough, it is fraught with controversy. Industry experts credit the work to Al Seckel and John Edwards circa 1982, but Chris Gilman at Evolution Design contests this, saying he was first in 1984. Well, it is probably as mysterious as how Christians can count from Friday night to Sunday morning and call it three days." -- "The Fish Wars" @ http://www.DarwinAwards.com/old/index200104.html

Justin: "How can you not have seen a movie with Kate Winslet?"
Me: "Because! She's fat!"

"Sr. Hanif-Salim Peron Khamisi Peters-Davis von Guadeloupe" -- Hanif, signing off

"... a two-fisted unicorn!" -- Sean (don't ask)

"nunchackus!!!! Van Gogh's ear!" -- Laura, in response

Laura, naively: "Sean, where are you going to get another full moon?"
Sean: "I'm glad you asked. From MY ASS, that's where!"

"Are plagues usually this cute?" -- Laura, considering taking on an Apocalyptic nickname

Me: "Um ... ahem ... anyways."
Sean: "Yes, well, hmm."

Frank: "Go? Go is weak!"
Charles: "Want a way to get rich? Make a computer program that beats ten-year-olds at go."
Frank: "How about a computer program that beats ten-year-olds with a stick?"

"Well, maybe infinite's not all that bigger than 100,000." -- Professor Ruzzo

Will, attacking Zasha's atheism: "How do you know that God doesn't exist?"
Zasha: "I take it as a matter of faith."

"I know exactly how you feel. You're thinking, 'Gosh, it's been a while since I've seen some serious kung fu fighting.'" -- Justin, advertising "Once Upon a Time in China" for Movie Night

"The sunset sounded wonderfully violent ..." -- Laura, validating my imagery

"I thought you were excited about the fucking of Frank." -- Bart, misunderstanding Will's hoots of joy

"Oh my gosh -- please don't hurt the pig!! I've honoured the demands!" -- Wilmot, who up until recently was using FAR too much disk space on the public NT server

"Bob Dillon" -- the apropos-sounding name of the director of Sieg Hall demolition, which has produced nothing but heinous noise thus far, yet has been met with nothing but praise from the CSE community :)

Bart, sustaining an injury from his chair: "Ah! Fucker!"
Me, in sympathy: "Bastard!"
Bart, belching: "B[e]it[l]ch!"

Me: "Who's Mark Oskin?"
Bart: "I have no idea."
Me: "Well, he's on our faculty now."
Bart: "Way to go, Mark."

"I'm so glad you're a primate!" -- Michele, on my ability to use tools

"I laughed so hard I was actually drooling." -- Laura Turner

"That makes him the first U.S. senator ever to undergo an exorcism." -- Garrison Keillor, re James Jeffords' leaving the Republican Party

Jimmy the Bartender: "He died of a nervous tick."
Guy Noir: "Oh ... I didn't know that could happen."
Jimmy: "It had Lyme Disease."

"When I have tenure and need to start in on my life's-dream sonnet-form scaphite monograph, I'll get in touch." -- Peter

"if you know where the missing cart that belongs downstairs is, please return to main office asap." -- Karen Helland, CSE receptionist, topping her previous record for the longest message ever sent on an e-mail's "Subject:" line

"My groin is tingling; it senses Jayant nearby." -- Me

Rachel, presiding over grad student officer elections: "Where's Ratul?"
Ratul: "He's not here!"

"... and if Lynx is unsatisfying, kol vahomer Netscape [and] IE are also!! I want to *finger* you, dude." -- Sarah, saddened by the termination of external fingers on glacier.cs.washington.edu

Me, completing an order at Subway: "... and just a little bit of salt and pepper."
Sandwich Artist #2: [sprinkles a dash of salt and pepper]
SA #1 and Cashier: [laugh ironically]
Me: "No, that's perfect!"
Cashier: "Just one dash, huh?"
Me: "Yes! That's the first time *anyone* has actually gotten that right! Usually I need a restraining order to get the person to stop."
Cashier, jovially: "Well, most of our employees have restraining orders."

"Anti-Fraud Agency Fakes Documents" -- AP headline, 6/6/01

Ed Lazowska, in e-mail to the CS grad students: "On Monday at 9 a.m., 'gross demolition' will begin on the Old EE Building [site of the long-awaited future home of CSE]. This means that a big machine that looks like some sort of prehistoric beast will take its first bite out of the brick wall. It would be great to have some of you turn out and cheer!"
John Palewicz, director of Capital Projects East and West, in a separate e-mail to Ed: "One rule, you can't use the machine on Sieg Hall."
Ed, in a follow-up to the CS grads: "Well, darn! Our plan has been discovered!"

"unglad [sad]" -- the Seattle Symphony's June-July concert program, going a bit overboard in their efforts to translate the Gaelic libretto of Hanson's "Lament for Beowulf"

"In the past year [French TV audiences] have been presented with a lesbian kiss, a woman on all fours next to a sheep, a blow-up dog -- even a blow-up giraffe. The evidence that the French advertising industry is capable of regulating itself is not overwhelming." -- NPR reporter

"It's small; it's red; it sucks." -- Jeremy B., advertising a DirtDevil handheld vacuum cleaner

"... thanks for serving this year! I've left you on [the mailing list] for the moment also -- I'll take you off in the fall. Well, actually, I have no idea who the chair of the committee will be, or which faculty members will be on it -- hell, we don't even have a department chair after June 30. But no doubt something or other will happen." -- Professor Alan Borning, outgoing chair of the CSE Undergraduate Curriculum Committee, to the departing grad student committee representatives

"If you can't pronounce it, you can't put it through your penis. That's what my mother used to say." -- Adam Carolla

"If you are a member of the RIAA I would appreciate it if you would take a chainsaw and cut off your legs. Thank you for your cooperation." -- MOTD on an OpenNap server

"I think Dan was playing off the strong correlation between tree-hugging, rebirth-mishaps, and other dumb, whack-ass shit." -- Frank, representin'

Kenneth, apparently trying to resolve an e-argument, but nobody knows what the hell he was talking about: "Calm down, calm down ... it's alright, Will. Frank is just speaking 'American English'."
Frank, in response: "??????"

"I'll get him something cool in Russia, I guess." -- Michele, who apparently could not find anything cool in America for her SO's birthday

"Oh! It's 'anno domini', not 'after death'!" -- someone who would feel even dumber (if that's possible) if his/her name were revealed here

Zasha: "That's why plums are more expensive than prunes, because they require--"
Me: "Rat herding?"

"Shit, I love being big and strong. This is great." -- Frank, watching Jayant struggle with his enormous camping backpack

"Yeah. Will might come in and anally rape himself." -- Zasha

Laura: "So you know what I bought the other day?"
Me: "An anti-tank guided weapon?"

Partner 1: "Hi, I'm [so-and-so]. I went to Harvard."
Laura (who went to Yale): "I'm Laura. [pause] I'm sorry."
Partner 1 to Partner 2: "She'll fit in just fine!"

"To err is human, to moo bovine" -- quote in the referrer field of a weblog entry made by a Quotezilla browser

"Cancel previous cancellation." -- Paul, re-re-RSVP-ing

"I know this is getting quite comical, but further circumstances now prevent our coming." -- Paul, re-re-re-RSVPing

"I'll look better than crap." -- Laura, sincerely trying to say she'd look pretty good

Me: "I thought you were a doctor-to-be?"
Zasha: "I am -- but not the kind of doctor-to-be that might be able to do anything useful for anyone."

Me: "No, I wasn't saying that to you! I was saying it to the HIS-3 false activators."
Zasha: "Oh, but it also applies to me."

"... baton in your vagina aside ..." -- Adam Carolla

"Werlindo Nero Mangrobang" -- a name in the UW student directory

"Apparently, there was a killer in one of the stores. I hid under a bench. Then the dream got weird." -- Laura

"Toto does it Dan's way." -- written on the white board by Zasha

Q: "Is there anything I should keep in mind while answering?"
A: "We don't want to see 'RTFM'. That isn't very helpful. Instead, guide the beginner to the place in the FM they should R. :)"

-- from the beginners@perl.org mailing list FAQ

Fat guy with long blond hair on the bus: "Yeah, I need to buy a woman's watch, but they need to be able to add links to it. Hopefully by the time I'm a woman I'll be thin, but for now ..."
Laura: "Hmmm."

"Then my abs will fail me ... and then I'll lose control of my bowels." -- Laura

"Laura, my ass is huge." -- Me, didactically (explaining why it was not possible to give me a wedgie while I was seated)

"Well, if you want the feel of a cell phone, you could just go down to the Radiation Therapy clinic in the UWMC and stick your head in their neutron accelerator." -- Me, to a would-be phone buyer

"We oughta be Americans, not hyphenated-Americans." -- man opposing the legislative redistricting of Seattle along demographic lines

Will, as I emerged from hiding from him in the coat closet: "Why did you go into the closet? [answering his own question] So you could come out of the closet! Oh! He came out of the closet! Dan, do you have something to declare?"
Me, not intending either of the two double entendres: "Yes. I'm transporting some fruit across the border."
Zasha, simultaneously: "Diarrhea."

"I lived in Houston for 15 years. How bad can St. Louis be? (OK, I'm going to regret saying that ...)" -- Jeremy Buhler, shortly moving to St. Louis

"I had a fantasy once that I raped a doughnut and then I ate it." -- Adam Carolla

"We've literally redesigned the copier for the most spectacular paper jams you've ever seen." -- note on a copy machine

"... QWest (aka QWorst) ..." -- from a post concerning ISPs and DSL on a UW CSE newsgroup

Q on beginners@perl.org: "I know this is a Perl mailing list, but HTML is somewhat related since they're both used in web development. ..."
A from perlguy: "This is not the appropriate list for HTML questions. HTML and Perl, if related, would be distant cousins, twice removed, and adopted."

Shaun: "Well, I guess I'll get on the computer and look at some chicks with dicks."
Jennifer: "Can I quote you on that?"
Shaun: "Sure. But not, like, on my tombstone."

"Shaun is hilarious and that's why I keep him around." -- Jennifer

"Do we need to scrub the desk too? I certainly wouldn't want to eat off of it, let alone compute on it." -- Will, regarding a desk in 233 which was soon to be inhabited by a new room member

Excerpt from MIT Report on _Barriers to Equality in Academia_: "In a technical meeting or classroom discussion, if someone has something to say, make sure he or she has a chance to say it without interruption. Some people talk louder and longer than others and may have to be asked to allow others to finish speaking."
Response by Will: "I suggest in the spirit of this paragraph, we put everybody in their own sealed box and prohibit lively discussions."

Will: "Do you realize you're not dressed, holding a banana peel and a book?"
Me: "Yes."
Will: "I just wanted to point that out."

"I got mine in Dublin. He got his at an Ozzy Osbourne concert." -- Laura

Question in the Grip FAQ: "I was listening to a CD in Grip and it sounded horrible! What's up?"
Answer in the Grip FAQ: "Perhaps you are listening to country music..."

Will: "Why's it so cold?"
Me: "Because the temperature's so low -- shit, I'm turning into Zasha."

"My perl insult program says you are a 'ass-guzzling skank nugget'." -- Frank

"I promise not to fart on your neck anymore." -- Me, to Laura

"That's okay. I'm allowed to blow farts on dead people." -- Me

"Dave, neither Dan nor I was here today, in case anybody asks." -- Frank, after several minutes of our playing around with the phones in the office, successfully getting them both not to work

Zasha: "I'm watching my figure."
Me: "I, fortunately, do not have to watch your figure."

Police officer: "Did you go to high school?"
Suspected drunk driver, slurredly: "I've got twenty years of education; I graduated 10th grade twice."

"Your friendly neighborhood 'stick waver' and 'piano looker-at-er' ..." -- Danger, our musical director