Um, Maybe Not

This can't be right.

Why Aren't You Listening to Me?

The other day I needed one of the students to do something for me, so I poked my head in the door and started talking to the back of her head.


Sort of disrespectfully the student ignored me, so I repeated myself. Still nothing. Finally, incensed I come into the office to do something overt to get her attention - and see this:


Oops.

In a Nutshell

Not just for PhD's either. Thanks PHDCOMICS.

On the Nth Day of Critsmas

Something I have been thinking about but not really working on. It could be better, maybe I will continue to percolate on it for next year. Last verse:

On the 12th day of Critsmas the faculty gave to me...

Weekly advisor appointments...

Larry Powell's email ...

a list of CAPS referrals ...

critique about my crit board...

advice to take some time off...

thoughts about alarm clocks...

time management suggestions...

GO SEE THE DEAN...

opinions about my hair...

a meeting with Anne Witchner...

the designer inside of me...

and Feedback from folks I'd never seen!

If you sing it you'll hear it (you really have to land on the first syllable of "management" for the cadence to come out. Maybe next year I'll do a video.

Happy holidays!

Kenny Can't Cope

Caption Deleted...

...to preserve career longevity.


Can you guess the caption?

Oops

DBoevers (4:18:47 PM): can you see my package in this pic?

DBoevers (4:18:49 PM): https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgIBUepxvaXBJ4Vi3L7ZJp721R6B-GwUOJxCE793zTkye8cKtwvjGsNwUkl2atzetf-Xj2jH33VH-D7qDSoMmSgUPx-CshgZPKqmxGr3z87TgvtTNDsmcJb1AtL3FNh5jYACp6E/s1600-h/Panorama.jpg

Mrs.TANBI (4:19:07 PM): no

Mrs.TANBI (4:19:12 PM): can you?

DBoevers (4:19:16 PM): are you sure?

DBoevers (4:19:46 PM): I think is DAMN close - but no

Mrs.TANBI (4:19:58 PM): where?

DBoevers (4:20:16 PM): if you look at the inside edge of the mandalay bay sign

DBoevers (4:20:21 PM): but in the reflection in the glass

DBoevers (4:20:33 PM): I think the image cuts off just above the danger zone

DBoevers (4:21:03 PM): almost VERY embarrassing

Mrs.TANBI (4:21:25 PM): have you posted this on the internet?

DBoevers (4:21:44 PM): http://mydaddidntliketheurl.blogspot.com/2008/10/not-yet-up-to-speed.html

DBoevers (4:23:14 PM): don't see myself here:

DBoevers (4:23:15 PM): http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/ynlm4u-_Y0T4etSC_ytelQ

DBoevers (4:23:26 PM): but that panorama shot is less discreet

DBoevers (4:23:35 PM): have to remember that when shooting around windows

Mrs.TANBI (4:24:42 PM): maybe don't take pictures while naked

DBoevers (4:24:44 PM): right

DBoevers (4:24:46 PM): check

DBoevers (4:25:00 PM): or, I have to become hotter

DBoevers (4:25:03 PM): one or the other

DBoevers (4:25:07 PM): or maybe both

Mrs.TANBI (4:25:32 PM): hot has nothing to do with not posting pictures of your package

Mrs.TANBI (4:25:38 PM): that's just indecent

DBoevers (4:26:14 PM): I guess

DBoevers (4:26:28 PM): the dangers of blogging

SHITSHITSHIT

Another One

Sarah Palin Not Welcome at The Ministry of Silly Walks

Wonders Never Cease

So,So Wrong...

Unnecessary Censorship Sesame Street Edition - Watch more free videos

Good Advice

Our Girl Sarah

See more Gina Gershon videos at Funny or Die

So Much For a High Level of Debate

Something I Said?

This morning someone from the Obama campaign call our house, polling I guess. The call didn't exactly end the way I thought it would. She starts out with "hi my name is" something I didn't hear, I really wasn't listening yet...

caller: I'd like to ask you some questions about the election.

me: ok

caller: How are you this morning?

me: We're peachy thanks.

caller: What?

me: fine, we're fine.

caller: ok, do you think you know which of the nominees you're going to vote for?

me: I was unaware there are nominees.

caller: yeah, it's Obama or McCain.

me: but the conventions haven't even happened yet.

caller: (silence)

At this point I was a little afraid I'd broken her, so I was going to give her a little rope before I tugged again. I started to say "we're probably going to vote for Obama." The next sentence was going to be "but first we have to find out if Nader is on the PA ballot, and we're going to be looking into Bob Barr."

Except I didn't get to, because she hung up on me.

Mrs. TANBI says I got what I deserved. I think that all they had to say was "candidates" instead of "nominees" and I wouldn't have had my switch flipped (you just KNOW I'm going to be one of those "of course you can go to the bathroom, the question is may you go to the bathroom" parents). Also, in any case I don't think you just hang up - that's rude.

If only there was ANYONE else to vote for...

.sig War

So today I got an email from this guy:

Michael M. Chemers, MFA, PhD
Director of Dramaturgy Program
Assistant Professor of Dramatic Literature
330 Purnell Center for the Arts
Carnegie Mellon University
5000 Forbes Ave
Pittsburgh, PA 15213
412-268-2399

I work with him and we like the fun, you know, and email is boring and everything, so when I replied to the email I sorta did this to his .sig at the end:

Michael M. Chemers, MFA, PhD, Total Douche
Director of Dramaturgy Program
Assistant Professor of Dramatic Literature
330 Purnell Center for the Arts
Carnegie Mellon University
5000 Forbes Ave
Pittsburgh, PA 15213
412-268-2399

And then at the end of his reply I got this:

.___ .........._... _.. ___
|...\ __ ___ _(_)__| | | _ ) ___ ._____ _____ _ _ ___
| |) / _` \ V / / _` | | _ \/ _ \/ -_) V / -_) '_(_-<
|___/\__,_|\_/|_\__,_| |___/\___/\___|\_/\___|_| /__/
Oh Look at Me Everyone I Can Do ASCII pics which were cool maybe in the 80's
Option Coordinator Associate Professor of Drama - Technical Director
Carnegie Mellon University - Purnell Center for the Arts
http://www.cmu.edu/cfa/drama 412-268-2146 dboevers@cmu.edu
http://cmuptm.blogspot.com/

I had to add in the dots because I can't figure out how to make blogger add in the spaces in HTML - which is a good reason I should change my .sig because in most email readers it now looks like poop. Anyway, I continue to escalate and I send an email appended with this:

Michael M. Chemers, MFA, PhD
Director of Dramaturgy Program
Al Qaeda Squirrel Hill Chapter President
Assistant Professor of Dramatic Literature
330 Purnell Center for the Arts
Carnegie Mellon University
5000 Forbes Ave
Pittsburgh, PA 15213
412-268-2399

Which then precipitated this:

.___ .........._... _.. ___
|...\ __ ___ _(_)__| | | _ ) ___ ._____ _____ _ _ ___
| |) / _` \ V / / _` | | _ \/ _ \/ -_) V / -_) '_(_-<
|___/\__,_|\_/|_\__,_| |___/\___/\___|\_/\___|_| /__/
Third Runner Up, All-State David Boevers Lookalike Contest
Carnegie Mellon University - Purnell Center for the Arts 412-268-2146
http://www.cmu.edu/cfa/drama dboevers@cmu.edu http://cmuptm.blogspot.com/
ETCP Certified Rigger

Prompting this:

Michael M. Chemers, MFA, PhD
Director of Dramaturgy Program
Assistant Professor of Dramatic Literature
But Really I Want To Direct
330 Purnell Center for the Arts
Carnegie Mellon University
5000 Forbes Ave
Pittsburgh, PA 15213
412-268-2399

Culminating with this:

.___ .........._... _.. ___
|...\ __ ___ _(_)__| | | _ ) ___ ._____ _____ _ _ ___
| |) / _` \ V / / _` | | _ \/ _ \/ -_) V / -_) '_(_-<
|___/\__,_|\_/|_\__,_| |___/\___/\___|\_/\___|_| /__/
Third Runner Up, All-State David Boevers Lookalike Contest
Voted "Most Likely To Die of Unnatural Causes," Yale University 1997
Carnegie Mellon University - Purnell Center for the Arts 412-268-2146
http://www.cmu.edu/cfa/drama dboevers@cmu.edu http://cmuptm.blogspot.com/
ETCP Certified Pirate (Up Yours)

And then we got bored and stopped.

Well, it was funny to me.

Bummer

So George Carlin passed away. If you follow stories on the web then you have probably already seen like nine tributes. I thought about just letting it go at that, but really this is someone I am personally going to miss, so I am going to say more.

First, one of the right wingish radio stations here in town is running a promo featuring George Carlin and out of respect for him I think they really ought to pull it. They run a snippet of his piece on plastic, you know the one that ends "the planet will be fine" and they tag it with "Not saving the planet for 50 years" or some such thing as if they are clever. Nice little dig at who they perceive to be lefty tree-huggers. The problem is that the whole line is "the PEOPLE are fucked, but the planet will be fine." Folks at WPGB, Carlin wasn't saying environmentalism is wrong, he was saying the rhetoric of environmentalism is pompous. You should pull that promo.

I first heard George Carlin in the basement on a battleship of an industrial cassette player my father had liberated from Niles West at some time (we were probably just storing it). Dad had "AM&FM" and I think "Occupation Foole" maybe "Class Clown" too. "Occupation Foole" has Filthy Words on it and really that's all it took, I was hooked.

I think the first TV spot I saw was on Johnny Carson. I would have been sitting on the floor in my parents' room avoiding going to bed. Carlin did Baseball and Football. "In football the objective is to penetrate enemy territory using short pinpoint strikes and long bombs..." His kind of analysis and language use probably has as much to do with who I am today as many of my early teachers.

First time I saw a full show was at my Aunt's house in New York, they had cable, we didn't. My mom and I watched "Carlin on Campus." Baseball and Football was back, and this time I also got to hear A Place for My Stuff. This one also finishes with the omnibus edition of Filthy Words where he opines how there are many more terms for male acts than for female ("making soup" and "yodelling in the gully"). I remember thinking maybe my mother wasn't the right person to watch this with. But maybe it was fine afterall.

I saw George Carlin live a bunch of times. I think the first was with a bunch of high school friends at a theatre on the Northwestern Campus. This was at the begining of the People I can Do Without period - if comics have periods. Buried in a closet someplace there is probably a t-shirt from that show that will not fit. The last time I saw him live was with my family at Bally's in Las Vegas, must have been 1999ish. I can remember thinking then how little he seemed to be enjoying performing. The life had gone out of it and he really just seemed mad, real bitter about everything. There must be a very fine line between ascerbic and angry that he'd walked his entire life. Recently I'd noticed that the act wasn't quite as pointy even thought the edge was still sharp. I guess he'd managed whatever was bugging him and had gotten back to the fun part.

So all day we've been hearing about the seven words you can't say on television, and I admit that's a swell routine but it isn't the one that usually lives closest to my mind. While I've been thinking about this piece one joke keeps coming back to me, it's about the perfect crime, something like "What if one guy picked up a guy and murdered another guy with him? To the police it would look like a tragic pedestrian accident." Recently the bit I find myself quoting the most is from the I Used to be an Irish Catholic thing where he talks about how none of the kids in his neighborhood got polio because "we swam in raw sewage - you know, to cool off." At the Bally's show he'd worked that into a rant about parents being child worshipers and germaphobes. There's probably a lot of good insight there.

Thankfully the latest generation of comics spent the last decade thanking George Carlin, so hopefully he left us knowing the impression he'd made. And more still thankfully we can all continue to enjoy his wit from recordings of his performances. I am sure I will ruin some kids language with one of those albums soon (Debi, maybe best not to leave your kids with me).

I wonder, just before he went, did he hear in his head: (ping) Two minute warning. Get your shit together!

Colbert, Jump ------> Shark

LOL Commencement