iamverytall

The following link goes to a page with audio clips of Bill O’Reilly reading from his (assumedly) craptastic novel, Those Who Trespass. Here’s the Village Voice’s synthesis of the plot:

The murderer, Shannon Michaels, is pursued by an O’Reilly-esque cop, Tommy O’Malley. These two Irish-Americans share their author’s tough-talk, lust for power, and (alleged!) belief that the best way to seduce a woman is to seize her breasts, preferably as she showers.

People are understandably upset about the AIG bonuses - if a handful of guys bring down one of the largest companies in the world, they really shouldn’t be getting $1+MM paychecks. Fine, that’s settled, let’s move on.

The NYTimes reports that Eliot Spitzer has now cautiously weighed in on the subject, pointing out that the flap about bonuses is peanuts relative to the fact that AIG has actually passed out billions of dollars in bailout money to its trading partners, with the implication that…

And I really don’t miss it. As I may have mentioned before, television has been a time-sucking blight on my life for far too long. Anything that I’d want to watch on TV, I can get on the Internet if I really want to see it. Without having it around as a passive alternative to seeing friends, I’m actually feeling phenomenally better about life in general.

Eat it TWC!

Lee dropped the axe on Saturday. It took about fifteen minutes, and three years were over. Her friends showed up after that and I had to go, so there wasn’t much discussion. I knew this was coming for months and I’ve been bracing for it as best as possible. But it still feels like a piece of me’s been ripped out.

NB: Halfway through writing this, I realized that this is the most boring post that has ever been written. There’s really no reason to read it, unless you just want to know what’s going on with me.

It’s recently come to my attention that some people were worried that I’d lost my job. That’s my fault, since I haven’t really updated this sucker since I posted about layoffs at my firm. To all of my well-wishers, thanks. I still have my job and don’t have any plans for being laid off in the…

Steven Pinker isn’t an English Professor, but rather a highly regarded cognitive scientist. Even so, I really hope that his latest Op-Ed is right. Here are the money quotes:

Language pedants hew to an oral tradition of shibboleths that have no basis in logic or style, that have been defied by great writers for centuries, and that have been disavowed by every thoughtful usage manual. Nonetheless, they refuse to go away, perpetuated by the Gotcha! Gang and meekly obeyed by insecure writers.

…

Fascinating article in the NYTimes today about some findings in the newest issue of Nature about the science of love. I’ll let you read the article yourself, but in a nutshell, it talks about a study on prairie voles, one of the few mammals with the same level of monogamous tendencies as humans. Here’s the money paragraph:

When a female prairie vole’s brain is artificially infused with oxytocin, a hormone that produces some of the same neural rewards as nicotine and cocaine, she’ll…

So, word on the street is that the hammer will fall on Thursday. And by word on the street, I mean that the head of North America just e-mailed everyone in North America and told them that they had to be in the office on Thursday, with no explanation. Particularly interesting is that we just have to be in the office, we don’t have to attend any meetings or anything.

There were a lot of conjectures out there, about a possible sale or something like that, but that’s just a bunch of…

I realize this is late, but just bear with me. 2008 is over and we’re now moving into 2009. If I believed that there was any significance there, I would probably be very excited about this change. 2008 was the year where I learned about failure and rejection, a lesson that I’ve been steadily ducking for the whole 27 years of my existence. Because let’s face it, being rejected sucks. There’s nothing worse than going up for assessment and finding out that you just don’t cut it. It’s like when you…

Another weekend, another day in the office. Here’s a quick picture to lighten up my day.

Another weekend, another day in the office.