Goat report

I realize that I haven't been updating you all on the latest in goat news and beg your forgiveness. Here's this week's story, about a goat mayor of a city not far from where we live... check the pictures for the beer-drinking goat mayor in Texas!

Gas prices

One of the amusing things about visiting NJ this past September was seeing how gas prices there were finally greater than they were in CA. My whole time at Rutgers it was cheaper than back in CA; Princess Whitegoat suggested it was good timing that we got out when we did.

So I got gas yesterday for $2.22, one of the cheapest prices in SoCal and hoped I could brag to those of you in NJ. But I went to check the prices at my old stations and find that it's back below CA prices. And that's with full service, too, I know. Keep on laughing while you shovel snow, Jersey people.

I'd do it!

Made with the great church sign generator, via the hilarious political blog Tbogg

RIP, 'Pat' Morita

I've been away for a week so I'll have more updates today and this week on what I've been up to, but I wanted to post something about Pat Morita, who died last week. Read all about 'the hip nip'.

Too much science

OK, I saw some interesting science things over the week and thought I'd combine them in one post, but before I was able to

get to posting, I saw more science things so now it's... too much science!

1) Skunk cabbage maintains its temperature of about 20 C even on freezing days! That's better than some mammals I know! From a recent Physics News Update.

2) Man of Steel, Woman of Kleenex takes a serious (tho not truly scientific) look at issues that may arise during the attempted mating of a Kryptonian male and a human female. An excerpt: Electroencephalograms taken of men and women during sexual intercourse show that orgasm resembles 'a kind of pleasurable epileptic attack.' One loses control over one's muscles. Superman has been known to leave his fingerprints in steel and in hardened concrete, accidentally. What would he to to the woman in his arms during what amounts to an epileptic fit?

3) From a bastion of real science comes On the Effectiveness of Aluminum Foil Helmets: an empirical study, which was sent to me by meine ziegefrau. Just a few days after I got that, I got an email from The Art Historian Oftentimes Known as 'Balls,' with a well-written rebuttal.

4) in the slightly related realm of technology comes this story about a machine-based pumpkin-tossing contest, brought to my attention by Madame Spork, a pumpkin aficionado.

Names

It seems lots of people have named their children without wondering, "How is that usually spelled?" Or maybe they want their kids to have weird spellings, nothing wrong with that. But it does make it difficult for some of us who are used to names being spelled certain ways to initially pronounce these new spellings. The other day I saw a student's name on a roll sheet and it took me a minute to figure it out: Klawdya.

ID cards

This year the students all have to wear ID cards that have their pictures on them when they're on campus. Today a girl came in with her mother in tow. I had to get the girl's ID# to fill out some paperwork so I asked to see her ID card....

"Oh, do I got to?"

"Yeah, I'm required to check it."

"OK..."

She shows me her card and I notice that the picture of her face is covered up by a sticker of a (cartoon) monkey's head. Such alterations aren't uncommon, but mostly I've seen students cover their mug-shots with better pictures of themselves. What surprised me more was what her mother then said:

"It looks JUST LIKE HER."

girl: "No it don't, I'm beautiful!"

mother: "It looks just like you!"

me: "It doesn't look like you."

girl (to me): "Thank you!"

mother (breaking into laughter): "No, it looks just like her!"

(and yes, the student and her mother are African American)

Hm... did anything interesting happen in April?

Your Birthdate: September 22

You tend to be understated and under appreciated. You have a hidden force to do amazing things, doing them your own way. People may see you as strange and shy, but they know little. Your unconventional ways have more power than they (and even you) know. Your strength: Standing up for what you know is true Your weakness: You tend to be picky and rigid Your power color: Silver Your power symbol: Square Your power month: April

What Does Your Birth Date Mean?

Did my first round of electronic voting the other day. It wasn't any more difficult than the punch cards or pulling the levers, but it's tough not to be suspicous of electronic voting. I'm still looking forward to Instant Runoff Voting. It was nice to see Arnold's propositions all rejected, although I'm a little troubled that my county was for the parental notification for abortion. In other political news, I took the test at Political Compass and learned that I'm Economic Left/Right: -7.25 and Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -5.33, which puts me in Dalai Lama territory.

Kids taking vocabulary tests today. One was stumped at the following:

Distress means: a) success, b) trouble, c) permission

He asks me, "Is 'distress' the opposite of 'stress'?"

A shocking discovery

A student checked out today and left me his textbooks. While filing them away, I thumbed thru the pages briefly to make sure that all pages appeared to be there, there weren't any pages made illegible by scribbling, or that nothing was left in the book. What do I find but an ad for the Playboy Cyber Club! It's not a magazine ad but appears to have been printed by a computer printer but obviously wasn't done on campus as that site is blocked (trust me, I tried). Still, it features images of playmates Teri Harrison and Carmella DeCesare in states of undress. I wonder if the student wanted it for the pictures or for the names; a Google search of their names can produce pictures of naughty quality (I especially like how there's Polish text at the bottom of that page -- I know a Goat that could translate that!). Probably not, students only do searches for celebrities, from what I've noticed...

All in a day's work, testing the computers to see if they can keep childrens' minds safe.

You wanted a goat?

I got yer goat right here.

T-shirts

Story: Abercrombie & Fitch pulls t-shirts after 'girl-cott'

So girls object to other girls wearing shirts that say "Who needs brains when you have these?" and "I make you look fat," but I'm betting they won't be protesting the "Math is Hard" and "Spoiled Brat" shirts that can be found at places like Hot Topic and Target... here's hoping A&F licenses their designs to the folks at T-Shirt Hell

Approval ratings

A recent poll puts Bush's approval ratings at 35%. Pretty bad, especially when you compare it to percentages of crazy things some people believe.

Titty

Here's probably the current best story from recent months...

In a high school computer lab, one student was doing a job search. He was looking into work at Best Buy and was reading thru a job description when he got stuck on a word and asked me for help...

"What's 'titty' mean?"

"I'm sorry?"

"What does 'titty' mean??"

"Uh... could you spell that for me?"

"T - I - D - Y"

Hello world

This blog will serve as an outlet for my stories of working in public secondary education. I'll probably also occasionally talk about political stuff, music, movies, and goats.