October 1999 - January 2000) Oldproj

"The nice thing about databases is that you don't have to go anywhere else; they have it all -- usually as a prerequisite." -- Professor Alon Levy, on why all students should concentrate their CSE graduate work in databases

"You get to go home early, make your end-of-the-millenium plans, whatever. Get in your bunker ... " -- Professor Beame, on the positive note about our CSE 531 exam being held the day after the last class

"You get the show you want, and it gets no PR, no respect; you get another show and a chance to redefine SF, and they want to make it into wrestling. You get one thing and they take away another. Kiddo, there is a war in heaven over you." -- Harlan Ellison, to J. Michael Straczynski

"I hear this from time to time from folks, that they grew up on my work as kids into adulthood. (I started selling to TV in 1984, so that's ... fifteen years.)
  Suddenly I feel absolutely ancient ...
  On the other hand, if it causes some folks to grow up asking questions and thinking about stuff, then it's a good thing and a service to the commonweal. Was it Emerson? 'Be ashamed to die until you have performed some service for humanity.' It's just TeeVee ... and there ain't much that's more trivial than a TeeVee writer ... but I do hope it's had an effect."

"There's something about the fact that the shortest email that you can possibly write is 3K." -- Hanif

"Well, first of all, my apologies for being a week late. I've never been this late before in my life. It's a new record." -- Professor Domingos, re: being literally a week late to class

"The goal of AI is not to behave like a human; it is to behave intelligently." -- Professor Domingos

"Q-zero is nice because notice that ... well ... q-zero's not so nice." -- Professor Beame, changing his mind

"Why does your birthday always seem to fall on Tuesday? It must be some cleft in the space-time continuum." -- Dad

Anne Meyer, on October 8th: "Okay, so when's your birthday?"
Me, suggestively: "When IS my birthday?"
Anne: "Yeah."
Me: "October 5th."
Anne, realization dawning: "October ... shit!"

"I'm like non-functionally brainish right now." -- Anne

"So, I see her to say, like, 'Hi' and 'Is this your bowl?'" -- Anne, regarding her roommate

"Wow, you're fucking ancient. ... Wait, you're pretty young." -- Will Portnoy, first being sarcastic about my birthday, and then reconsidering

"Always trust content from Microsoft Corporation." -- checkbox in a Windows IE installation dialog box

"Life's a bitch ... owwww [moans in pain, then rubs his nipple]." -- Will

Me: "It's too en vogue. It's too new."
Will: "What are you guys talking about?"
Me, as if it were clear: "Duplex printing."

"Don't worry about these 32nd notes." -- Karen Thomas, director, SPM

"Dude, no! There's no salsa on my ass!" -- Me, to Bart Niswonger

Bart, referring to one of his undergrads: "This person turned in ten copies of the same assignment."
Roomful of CSE Grads: "Ha ha ha!"
Bart: "And it doesn't run!"

"So how might we go about implementing these things with a green marker?" -- Andrew Whitaker, teaching section

"pico .emacs" -- an ironic command I recently issued to UNIX

Me: "So what's that floating boat in midair, and what's that dome that appears above it?"
Pefty: "It was a floating boat in midair, and the upper dome is the upper dome."

"Wow, Dan without e-mail ... that's like fudge swirl without the fudge!" -- Elizabeth Saunders

"Living things are slimy, ugly things. We don't want to have to deal with them." -- Keunwoo Lee, during his Bioinformatics presentation

"This guy's thesis describes their algorithm in much more detail, but it's in German." -- another guy, during the same presentation

"So, it's precisely what you want that we have! ... What a weird sentence. ... We've got what you want!" -- Professor Beame

"Well, look, taking a One-a-Day isn't going to save your baby if the umbilical cord is attached to its nose!" -- Adam Carolla, on "Loveline"

"... unless Opus has a broken wing, or unless Opus has his legs encased in concrete." -- Professor Domingos, on questioning why Opus the Penguin is unable to fly, if we didn't know that no penguins can fly

"For example, you may be willing to believe that you do not have a sister named Alice. However, if you find a birth certificate for a child by the name of Alice with your parents' name on it, you may be willing to retract your prior belief."

Will: "Do you care that I'm a student?"
Ticket window woman at Oak Tree Cineplex Odeon: "No."

Justin Campbell, absent-mindedly: "Was it bad sex?"
Me: "No, it was good ... well, except for the part where--"
Justin: "Whoa! Okay, this conversation is over!"

"There was a much more memorable quote, but I can't remember what it was now." -- Me, regarding American Beauty

"There's a fine line between, 'I'm going to kill that boy Will!' and 'Oh, my ass hurts!'" -- Me

"99 times out of 10" -- Me, still in the office at 11:34 PM

"Gadzooks!" -- the title of a slide in my 590Q seminar presentation

"So, if there's a little old lady at a street corner, 99 times out of 100, or even 999 times out of 1000, the Boy Scout will help her cross the street. But eventually the Boy Scout will pull out a machete and hack the little old lady to pieces." -- Professor Anderson

"Just because an assumption is false doesn't mean you shouldn't make it." -- Pedro (Professor Domingos)

"In theory there's no difference between theory and practice, but in practice there is." -- Pedro

"So D accepts [D] if and only if D does not accept [D]. This, I hope you agree, is a contradiction." -- Professor Beame

"Pretty soon we will be getting no work done -- we will be spending 8 hours a day applying patches to Microsoft software." -- Department Chairman, Ed Lazowska

"It might even start to dominate the time we spend answering email from Lazowska." -- Professor David Notkin, in reply

"It's all a Microsoft plot to gain a competitive edge over the rest of the universe while we're all spending time installing patches. Most effective thing they've come up with since they included the solitaire game with every copy of windows." -- Professor Hal Perkins

"Is that true?" -- Don Patterson, during a conversation about God and omniscience

"I don't know if you know much about response curves for pigeons, but ..." -- Professor Anderson

"I suggested that it would be better if someone could represent one of the more significant holidays, such as Yom or Rosh (we're on a first-name basis ... served in 'Nam together) ..." -- Sean Smeland, on dressing up for Hallowe'en in a costume to represent a Jewish holiday

"... and then I thought, `What about Passover? What could you do to represent Passover?' Well, dressing up as Elijah and getting plastered on kosher wine occurred to me, but suddenly I realized that I could fulfill my dream of being the Lord's Holy Destroyer! I could tool around with a big sword and kill Egyptian kids this Halloween!
  Then I realized that there is a shortage of Egyptian kids in Hawai'i (as opposed to of perfect breasts, of which there is no shortage whatsoever) and, moreover, I would need someone to dress up as God and direct me to raze certain houses and leave others (after all, Death isn't known for his sharp wit or his personal initiative ... he needs the right motivation)." -- Sean, an Irish-Catholic/Taoist, on the same topic

"Yours on a random walk through the fertile crescent, wielding statistically significant cutlery," -- Sean, signing off

"The early bird gets the worm, but the second mouse gets the cheese." -- from Jeanette B.'s .signature

Ed Hong: "How long have they been giving out the Turing Award?"
Tim James: "How long has Turing been dead?"

"Yeah, paintball's cool too, but you don't have the option of falling off the end of the earth." -- Will, on the advantages of Quake Deathmatch over real life

"But you look at these people, and they're all so German it hurts." -- Justin

"That's his job; I'm not supposed to know where I am." -- Will, regarding the pizza guy asking for directions

"So, I think if you ever want to get a gun, you should get it now." -- random student in Sieg Hall ... perhaps selling, perhaps not

Bart, pondering: "Does Taco Bell deliver?"
Will, condescending: "No, Taco Bell does not deliver."

Me, to Jayant: "We Americans ... we're so fucked up."
Bart: "I need to go find my balls."

Bart, lying about his 531 problem set: "I'm so done it's not even funny."

Me: "The reason I can't do slang very well is--"
Justin: "Is because you're white and Jewish?"

Me, complaining about a lack of time in the day: "I wish this damn Earth would stop rotating!"
Will: [comes over to look at my computer screen with a perplexed look on his face]
Me: "The Earth we're living on! Not the Earth in my computer!"

"How do you tell the difference between prog, hair, and butt?" -- Justin

"It's too bad this girl's 13 years old, cause she's really cool." -- Me

Me: "So, I used the phrase 'your incompetence' in an e-mail today."
Bart: "At least you didn't use the phrase 'your incontinence'."

"I dunno ... I like manly women better than ... [hesitating] ... weird space alien women." -- Me, comparing Milla Jovovich in "The Messenger" to Milla Jovovich in "The Fifth Element"

"But, if you feel less scared of the Blair Witch or Sasquatch with a source of photons, bring one along." -- Corey Anderson, on bringing a flashlight on our trip to view the Leonids on 11/17

"Hey, Kenneth, there's something totally wrong with your program." -- Jayant

Justin: "So, where are you looking at that list?"
Will: "Your mom."
Justin: "Yeah, but I might want to look at my mom again sometime, so I'd like to know where she is."

Me: "Were any of you interested to know where Tammy Williams was today?"
Kenneth Tam: "Tammy who?"

Me, as Will finished his phone call with the pizza place: "What's going on? Were they worshipping Satan?"
Will: "Yeah. Yeah, they were worshipping Satan."

"This mid-Pacific turd of an island doesn't even have such a station." -- Sean, lamenting the lack of classic rock in Hawai'i

"How did I get myself in here so tight?" -- Jon Nowitz

"Yeah, we're always messing around with this shit." -- Jennifer Sherley, gesturing with disgust at the ridiculously high soprano notes in her score

"By the way, what does looting TVs from store windows have to do with exploitation of sea turtles?" -- Dad

"The day Microsoft starts making products that don't suck is the day they start making vacuum cleaners." -- Tim

"Hey, if anyone needs a place to sleep, you can crash here." -- Frank McSherry, in our office, being oh-so-gracious as the university was stormed by protestors and all students were ordered to evacuate the campus

Jayant: "Give me a four letter word that ends in 'uck'."
Bart: "Tuck!"
Kenneth: "Luck!"
Me: "Puck!"
Bart: "Puck! There you go!"
Will, annoyed: "Bear."

"I like what he said at the end of class when he gave us the evaluations to fill out, 'I know you're all going to write that I should have gotten the projects back to you sooner, but try to focus on some other things as well.' Getting the projects back to us was his only fucking job! It's like a condom breaking; its only job is not to break!" -- Me, regarding a TA

"And remember, if the world ends on January 1st, just bring your purchase back to EEC for a full refund." -- radio advertisement

"No one ever said, 'I'd like four seats in the last row behind the column.'" -- American Express ad

"Well, you know, advice is a two-way street." -- Sean

"You're not an art form; you're an accident!" -- Sean

"These servers should have excellent disk and network IO performance, so it is quite likely you will see an improvement in service and quite unlikely you will see a degradation." -- UW CSE support announcement, which I found quite amusing after the new servers decided to die on 12/14

"So that's it -- my job in a nutshell. Or a nuthouse, as it sometimes feels." -- Mike Flanagan, on being the director of the Greater Seattle YASC

"I feel like I'm really smart." -- Anne

"Yeah, that one lab I was in that one time was so ribosome. What up wit' dat?" -- Me, as a disgruntled biology grad student

Anne: "You think you're so funny."
Me: "I AM so funny."
Anne, feigning epiphany: "Oh, that's why! Because you are funny!"

Me: "That's probably because I'm an evil, conniving slut."
Anne: "That couldn't possibly be it, because there can't be two of us."

"She had spent enough time with me that she knew I was jovial and that I was writing it with a smiling-mouth style ... as opposed to a raving lunatic, rabid, frothing-at-the-mouth style." -- Me

Me (as Hypothetical Person): "How did you know what she was thinking?"
Anne (as Me): "Because she told me."
Me (HP): "Then why didn't you just write it down?"
Anne (Me): "Because she didn't actually say it, she just said it in quote-reference form."
Me: [mirthful silence]
Anne, towards a deeper punch line: "As opposed to ..."
Me, supplying the best I could think of, and then laughing uncontrollably: "Point-slope form!"
Anne, annoyed: "No! As opposed to ..."
Me, starting to fall out of my chair with laughter: "Slope-intercept form!"
Anne: "No! As opposed to rabid, frothing-at-the-mouth form!"

"Um, I didn't know that you were smart." -- Jennifer, after standing next to me in Seattle Pro Musica for several weeks, in what I hope was a compliment

"Um, yeah, uh, body? Yeah, see, you might think that tearing holes in the stomach will help heal the knee, but, actually, YOU'RE WRONG!" -- Sean

Kihoon Kim, receiving his order at Bakers' Square: "Oh! It comes with ice cream?"
Paul Kawka, Brian Wahlert, and Me: "Yes, Kihoon, that's what 'a la mode' means."

Me: "Agh, you write so much, I have no chance to reply!"
Sean: "I sorry! I shut up and eat vegetable."

"Feel free to reach out and touch me (unless you don't use AT&T, in which case you may call)." -- Sean

"... so my ears naturally perked up (a display made possible by the fact that I was raised by wolves)." -- Sean

"Yeah, Jason, we got your back ... especially the brass; if Megadeth gives you any crap, Dave Mustaine's gonna get a tuba upside the head." -- Sean's impression of Maestro Kamen talking to J. Newstead during the S&M concert

"Do you have my phone number, in case you get lost or something?" -- Brian, during a phone call that I initiated

"I also got to meet a whole mess of family ..." -- Anne

"I'm waiting impatiently for a phone call, so I'm online ... I think I may have a logic error here, but I don't spot it right away." -- Jennifer

"... because my immediate family is now littered with nieces and nephews ..." -- Jennifer

"What in the hell is vi?" -- Sarah, joining the ranks of Unix users who have been asking that question for decades

"How about you get a carafe, I'll get a stein, and you get a pitcher." -- Peter Kaplan, trying to enlist Laura's and my help in determining what the difference is between Aurelio's beverage sizes

Jennifer: "Oh, and she has a boyfriend."
Me: "Darn. And here I am in Illinois, with its severe lack of cliffs to jump off of."

"If looks could kill ... he wouldn't need a chainsaw." -- from the theatrical preview for "Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Next Generation"

"Additional thanks go to the various artists who brought my black-and-white drawings into the world of color, allowing me the luxury of looking over their shoulders and saying things like, 'More red in the butt cheeks, please.'" -- Gary Larson, in his foreword to the Far Side 2000 Desk Calendar

"Who's fingering me from Nebraska?" -- Me, looking over the UW Web logs

"I mean, they are in homes." -- Bart, explaining just how crazy the people were on a particular bus ride he took

"Hundreds of people committed suicide because they thought [the comet] heralded the end of the world. (Apparently it only heralds the end of those who commit suicide.)" -- Gary Larson, (Far Side Calendar, 1/6/00) referring to the Earth's passage through Comet Halley's tail in 1910

"Q: Will there be dipping-related entertainment?
A: Rumor has it that Steve Wolfman may be so overcome with dipping excitement, that he'll go skinny-dipping in Drumheller Fountain.
Q: Will Steve get mixed up and go skinny-dipping in the vat of milk instead of in Drumheller Fountain?
A: Oh, God, we hope not ..."

"Getting 40 hours of work done overnight is ... problematic." -- Professor Anderson

"A lot of you are saying, 'Why?' or 'Just because,' or 'Why do people watch professional wrestling?'" -- Professor Anderson, observing our condescending reactions to the inanity of a complexity theory question

"... but I just wanted to drop you a line to say that you are truly my personal god. Go you, god person." -- Anne

"How can you go forward in time and remember that Delenn says, ``Do not go to Z'ha'dum,'' but forget that a one-eyed, ugly, creepy-looking sucker is sticking out of someone's neck?" -- from the B5 newsgroup

"Christ is Lord guy." -- reminder comment in officemate's grade records for the class he's TA-ing, referring to a student who submitted a program which prints out the message "Christ is Lord"

"We need to talk" -- note by same officemate on a different student's homework assignment

Me, holding up a photo from a Columbia House publication: "Okay, now this guy is gay."
Will, not looking at the picture: "Is this what you do all day? Try to find gay guys? [he looks at the picture] That's a guy?"

"You have ordered these items on 1/9/100." -- message I received on www.columbiahouse.com's order screen

"You probably didn't think about this in fourth grade, but what's the asymptotic complexity of the multiplication algorithm?" -- Professor Anderson

"And I'll be happy to show you around downtown. After each rehearsal we can check out another cool place that's still open at 10pm. Of course, I don't know what we'll do the third week ..." -- Michele

Kenneth: "Allah, Allah, Allah."
Me: "Why are you worshiping Allah? Since when were you a Moslem?"
Kenneth: "It's just for fun."

"Sex (optional): " -- question on a Cornell Graduate School application

"I was drinking cold woman sex." -- Justin, summing up all the possible reasons why his face was red in one incoherent sentence

Justin: "You couldn't use the Master Theorem if your life depended on it."
Bart, defensively: "I used the Master Theorem before!"
Justin: "You used the ASS-master Theorem before!"

Yishai, in New Haven: "Yeah, I saw this ridiculous film studies class yesterday, 'Italian Jews in ... ' well, in something, I forget --"
Sarah, with a disproportionate amount of anger: "Italian Jews in your mom!"
Yishai: "My God, you sounded just like Grossman there."
Sarah, even more irritated: "No, I did not, not even."
Sara Z.: "Uh, yeah, and there, too."