Tinder

You have a dumb quote and a weird, fake smile...
Cute...
You spelled your own name wrong. Also, duckface...
Looks like Kurt Cobain...
One picture, no text = left...
Ugly...
Ugly...
Ugly, also, looks like an asshole...
You sound like an asshole...
That hat makes you look like an asshole...
Possibly cute. I would probably be disappointed in person...
You sound like an asshole. Also, your 2 pictures are the same picture. Which has 3 people in it...
Bad tattoos...
The pic of your dog was the best one...
Cute...
Really? You're willing to lie about how we met? WHY THE FUCK ARE YOU PARTICIPATING IN A THING YOU'RE THAT EMBARASSED OF?! Asshole...
Ugly...
Cute...
Ugly...
Ugly...
You sound like an asshole...
Ugly...
What the hell does "Latina Princess body type: bbw" even mean? What about "looking for fun :) and arrangement"? Like a flower arrangement?
"Loves Tom Petty. and america too". Fuck you...
That is a lot of makeup...
Cute...
Ugly...
Shakycam!!!
Possibly cute...
Cute. What is with me and skrillex hair on women?
Cute...
Cute... HOLY SHIT THREE IN A ROW
Ugly...
Possibly cute...
ALL CAPS RANT ABOUT JESUS (do I even need to say 'ugly'?)
You look like an asshole...
That is a lot of plastic surgery for "25"... also you sound/look like an asshole...
Ugly...
Ugly...
You look & sound like a complete asshole...
Cute...
You are an asshole...
Kind of cute but you said swipe left if you're an asshole, so...
Ugly...
You look like an asshole...
You also look like an asshole...
Ugly.


8/50

Weeds

I have received marijuana as a tip twice in my life.

The first time was when I was (briefly) working as a tech at Sears Auto in 2003. One Sunday, a sort of nouveau-hippie couple came in in a Honda Civic with the spare on a hub with only three of the original four studs left, one of which the dude-hippie turned out to have cross-threaded in the process of getting the spare on. They were either on one hell of a road trip, or they lived in their car, which smelled... well, I don't need to tell you. Just imagine two hippies living in a Honda Civic. The lady-hippie spent most of the (long, long) time they were stuck at our shop, while we tried to get our hands on a new stud on the one day in seven that no-one we had an account with would deliver, roller-skating around (mostly on the wrong side of the little yellow line that is supposed to separate customers from finger- and foot-crushy things) while smoking cigarettes, which I'm pretty sure you weren't supposed to do, no matter which side of the line you stayed on. When we finally bid them adieu, lady-hippie came closer to me than I really would have liked (not that she wasn't cute, but I really hate the smell of patchouli, and the addition of BO doesn't make it any better) and said the fateful words:

"do you smoke?"

The answer to that question, at the time, regardless of what exactly you were asking me about, was pretty much yes, which was what I said, which maybe was ill-considered in light of the fact that my employment at Sears was contingent on my urine not containing traces of anything frowned upon by the DEA. But the answer was yes, and "yes" I said, to which she replied "you've been so nice, and everyone else here has been such an asshole" (I may be am an asshole but I am also damn good at customer service), reached into her pocket, and came back with something in her hand. I (again, stupidly) held out mine, and received a small nugget and a couple random bits of some pretty low-quality weed, which I then had to figure out what to do with until my shift was over (no question as to what to do with it then. I may have had standards [probably not] but Sears didn't pay that well).

Which brings me to the second time. The second time was yesterday, in the lab I teach at (medium-sized public university). One of my students - who is failing, but they all are - said to me "hey, I've got something for you" and held out a folded up sheet of paper. Now, I am no idiot. I knew exactly what was in that sheet of paper. I am also, as previously mentioned, kind of a total asshole. But I am cursed with slow reactions and an underlying unwillingness to be impolite to anyone unless I have thought about it and decided to be, and I like this kid. He is nice, polite, asks questions, seems to give a shit... He's one of the few kids in my lab whose name I actually remember.

So I held out my hand, took his little paper packet of weed, and put it in my pocket.

We can never speak of this. Which is why I wrote about it and put it on the internet. But I'll deny everything.

Online Dating

Thought I would share something that happened to me, a while ago, in the world of online dating... So, I'm dicking around on my computer one night when I see that I just got a new message from somebody. I check my inbox real quick, and here is the first message - FIRST MESSAGE - sent to me by someone I've never interacted with in any way before:

OK, so that's weird. To this day, I have no idea if she was trying to reference something and be clever, or just batshit crazy. But let me continue the story before we get into making that judgement...

Unfortunately for whoever this was, I was bored, so instead of just ignoring her, I checked out her profile. Two things jumped out at me right away: her only photo was of the back of a honey-dipper (you know, the truck that vacuums shit out of port-o-potties). It had a 'clever' bumper sticker on it. The second thing I noticed was that her profile was full of misspellings, random capitalization, bad grammar, and statements that made about as much sense as the message I got. Best of all, she stated that she was looking for someone intelligent, because she couldn't talk to dumb people, or something like that. I think at this point, it's relevant to mention that it says, right in my profile and everything, that I'm a grammar nazi.

Actually, there was a third thing I noticed: she lived in Fresno. Which is kinda far, and also in the valley.

So, again, unfortunately for her, I was bored, and I am kind of an asshole. Which means I wrote her back:

Some of those corrections are from her message but "Online is usually an unsuccessful story" was from her profile (why are you here then?) and is one of the best fragments I've ever heard. I didn't really expect to hear back from her at this point, so I was surprised when, pretty quickly, I got this:

OK, just the highlights from that one: thought I was correcting "age gap" instead of an/and... and I never corrected starting a sentence with "and", because she didn't do it - but obviously she knows it's incorrect - but it's how she loves to begin some of her sentences! (to be fair: I do this too.)

Having not gotten ignored or told to fuck off yet, I decided it was time to get a little more direct:

Note the time stamp - she didn't even have to think about it! I really hate when people try to refuse to get angry:

I'll provide that link here in case you want to read it for yourself. It took her a couple minutes to get back to me. I assume she was reading. (Her writing style really did make me think of word salad.)

Ahhhh... That's what I was waiting for.

Does anyone have any idea what FTF stands for?

Wuv... Twue wuv

BIG FAT DISCLAIMER: I have been to some weddings recently. They were rad. This has nothing to do with that. I think about weird crap. I'm not talking about you.

Everybody wants to be a special little snowflake. Everybody wants to think that their kids are special little snowflakes. That funny thing you said earlier today? TOTALLY ORIGINAL HILARITY BRO. Your own unique way of putting together thrift store outfits? That's definitely not a thing that apparently 99% of people under 25 are now doing.

The thing is though, I don't really have a problem with special little snowflake syndrome.  In most cases I think it's totally harmless. Occasionally it rises to the level of 'kinda annoying'.

But when it comes to relationships, I think it's a problem. And relationships, man... EVERYBODY thinks their relationship is a special little snowflake. Or at least it seems that way from weddings.

I like weddings. I like getting dressed up to get drunk. I like seeing people talk about their relationship in honest terms in front of their friends and family. I think that, if getting people to enter into lifelong romantic partnerships is the goal (and it seems to be, although I'm not sure it should be... but that's a seperate huge thing to dissect), then having them promise to love/honor/cherish/only rub dirty bits with someone in front of an audience is a pretty good idea.

But here's the problem: that's hardly ever what we actually do. It seems like we start with that idea, and then everybody gets a wicked case of special little snowflake syndrome. The couple when they write their vows, the officiant, and especially the parents, if they are involved - who in the goddamn hell are they always blathering on about? Some character in a disney movie? This is what their description of the relationship always sounds like:

I knew from the moment I saw (person) and (other person) together that they had something special. The way they looked at each other and rainbows shot out of their eyes and then they rode off on unicorns, holding hands and little cartoon fucking hearts shot out of their asses. I just know they are going to be together forever and ever, even after the end of the world and when they die and get their own planets. I have never seen a love like this before and I'm sure they will never fight about who does the dishes or wonder if they could have been happy with someone else because they are special little snowflakes and this is all just so UNIQUE and AMAZING that I am CRYING BLOOD NOW OH MY DEAR GOD SWEET JEEESUS!!!

OK maybe I exaggerated that a little bit but you've all heard about the amazing unique qualities of someone's relationship at some point. Look. Relationships are a thing that 99.9% of people are doing or trying to do pretty much their whole lives. It's big news lately that only half of americans are CURRENTLY married, and the median age at first marriage has climbed to 26/29 years (women/men).

Dude. Seriously. HOW UNIQUE CAN YOU BE AT SOMETHING 50% OF THE POPULATION IS DOING RIGHT THIS SECOND. THAT WORD - I DO NOT THINK IT MEANS WHAT YOU THINK IT MEANS.

There is, apparently, some sort of problem in this country right now with people getting divorced. Personally? Meh. Non-problem. But people are concerned about it.

You know what I think? Of course not, or you wouldn't be reading this. Maybe - just maybe - if we stopped telling people that they have the most amazing, mind-bending, pure heaven-sent love that will outshine the eventual earth-consuming supernova, they wouldn't be disappointed when it turns out that making a relationship work is a pain in the ass sometimes.

I for one would like to go to a wedding where people talk about the couple in  reasonable terms. You know what? I have friends whose spouses I didn't care for when I first met them. Hell, I have friends whose spouses I could still take or leave. That's fine - I'm not married to them. But why can't we drop the happy horseshit that sounds like the trailer for the next kids cartoon about princesses or some shit, and talk about our relationships in a realistic and practical goddamn way? Would that be so terrible that grandma would cut us out of the will?


Wuv... Twue wuv

What is the haps?

It has been a long time since I've posted anything here. I had really meant to write something - anything - at least once a week but obviously I fell off that wagon or horse or whatever antiquated mode of transportation you'd like in your metaphor.

So to catch up with me, for those who haven't heard (and who am I kidding, there are what, 3 people gonna read this and they've probably all heard me whine already): one of my old housemates in Los Osos turned out to be a passive-aggressive hippie, and asked me to move out. No prior problems that she told me about, and when I asked her why?
"I don't know, I just feel like the vibe of the house is different from what it was before you moved in."

Yeah.

So I found a place in SLO and got some help from some awesome people with the actual physical move (thanks awesome people who aren't reading this!)  I'm now paying just a bit more but living walking distance to downtown and an easy bike ride to school so it's totally worth it.

School is out for the summer, I've been furiously... well, maybe less than furiously... doing nerdy crap on a computer that no-one cares about or likely would understand. I'll probably get into details later anyway, in another brain-dump post.  I had the idea that I would be all disciplined and get up early every weekday, go down to campus, put in 8-10 hours, and then come home and relax for a bit before retiring early so I could do it all again. The reality has involved more skipping out to take care of errandy things, leaving early to go drink beers with hot girls who turn out to be crazy, and sleeping through my alarm and not showing up to 'work' until noon. I gots to get better about all of that.

And I will. But probably just in time for fall quarter, when I will be grading for 3 classes and filling in for some lectures when the professor can't make it, which he thinks will be only a couple weeks, but I'm betting runs closer to half the time. We had a professor quit - just about half-baked style - and it seems like it's going to be a scramble. I volunteered to teach one of his classes, forest harvesting, which I am qualified to teach. Likely more qualified than any of the profs in my department, actually. Anyway, I think I'll get it, but it's not offered until winter quarter, so in order to 'prove myself' or something, I have to grade/babysit these other classes Fall quarter. And, I'm taking three classes plus a special problems class (so that I can get credit for one of my classes which is only 300-level) so... I'll be busy.

Also there is a ton of fun stuff I want to do this summer, and not just because it's fun - I'm trying hard not to lose touch with any of my friends, because I don't have friends who are only kinda awesome, only the full-awesome type, and that kind is worth some effort to hold on to. So I've been up to the bay area, out to buttonwillow, and I'll be up to tahoe and the russian river and hella nor-cal later on.

So, yeah, that's a hastily-written, poorly organized dump about what's going on with me. Which, I'm feeling, will be followed up shortly by a seperate ranty post about marriage. Because it's only 10pm, and I'm not tired yet.

Old people don't understand text messages

To be fair, text messages are a strange way of communicating that have their own weird rules compared to other forms of written communication [email, letters (do people still write letters?)] and those rules aren't written down anywhere that someone who wouldn't already know them is likely to find them. Maybe I should write a book...

Anyway, I'm trying to rent a room from this woman. We've talked on the phone and met in person. She has my number in her cell phone (she volunteered this info when we met in person) plus it's written down on my application:

I love how old people want to open a text message with a greeting. It's quaint. Similarly, sometimes they want to close with their name... Look, if I cared, I would have saved your number, and your name would be magically displayed at the top of the screen. I promise.

Then, several days later (don't seem too eager, renting a room is like dating was in high school) I wrote her back... and she is somehow completely puzzled as to who the hell is responding to the text messages she sent to me - and using my number! It could be anyone! OK, to be fair, my research director's name is brian as well so maybe the 2 brian thing was confusing?

 "Brian, would you like to rent the room"... No, crazy lady, I met your son (who lives in the house), filled out an app that had all kinds of personal info on it, met you and your husband, goaded my references (who you actually called, who does that) into calling you back, and followed up with you about those references BECAUSE I DON'T WANT TO RENT YOUR ROOM, HA HA HA I'M JUST WASTING YOUR TIME BECAUSE I DON'T HAVE ENOUGH TO DO.

Alright, that's it, just had to share that. TL;DR: Old people are hilarious.

Future planners of america are not particularly intelligent people

One of my classes this quarter is "Advanced applications in GIS" which is a 400-level class offered through the geography department. (For those not familiar with the California State University system, 100-200 level classes are generally considered introductory, 300-400 level are considered "upper division" but anyone who has the prerequisites can take them - they don't really restrict classes based on year in school, except for 500 level classes which are generally restricted to grad students.) If you are taking this class, you have had an introductory course in using GIS software and, in addition, you have probably been in college for at least a couple years.

The class seems like it's mostly made up of geography majors, but there are a couple students from the City and Regional Planning department, which I guess offers it's own intro to GIS course (as does my department, which also has it's own intro and advanced class, but our advanced class is only offered winter quarter, plus I thought it would be interesting to go outside the Natural Resource department and get a different perspective).  Apparently the CRP department doesn't have an advanced course, or maybe these students were in the same position I am in with regards to scheduling. I don't know. What I do know is that these couple students have no idea what they are doing. The class is a one-hour lecture and a three-hour lab, two days a week. The first week, I noticed that these two weren't able to finish the labs (which took me about an hour and about two hours, respectively) and I let them know that our department has a computer lab which is open pretty much all the time, which is connected to the grad lab where I spend most of my time when I'm not in class. I didn't see them in there, and I'm pretty sure they didn't ever complete those labs.  The second week (last week) I sat next to them - I don't know anyone in there, and I figured I could help them out and then I'd have somebody to talk to while I sit in front of a computer for three hours, doing tasks that are essentially really simple - the instructor gives us all very explicit instructions. All you have to do is follow directions, it's more tedious than challenging. These two simply couldn't get it. At the end of one of the labs last week, one of them wasn't done and was trying to figure out how to save her work somewhere she could get at it to work on later. I asked her where her data was - where she had been working from for the last three hours - and she had NO GODDAMN IDEA. It's not a difficult concept - either you saved your files to your flash drive, and you're good to go, or you've been working from the C drive, which is fine for class, but you would have to copy everything over to your flash drive if you wanted to work on it later, on a different computer. Simple concept, right? I explained this to her, and she gave me the kind of look you see on the face of a dog watching television. Just mystified.

Anyway, this reminded me of another story which, if you're reading this, I may have told you in person at some point. When I was here getting my bachelors' in 2003 or so, I had to substitute a 300-level CRP class for a class in my major that was no longer offered. Another student from my major and I ended up taking "Planning for and with multiple publics" which turned out to be total fluff. I wasn't complaining as, at that point, I just wanted out, and was taking something like 22 units that quarter. I remember two things about that class: we had to write 3 research paper-y kind of things, and after we turned in the first, the professor scrubbed his planned lecture in favor of one on how to write. I stayed, not wanting to be impolite by walking out, and endured a lecture (can't remember how long but at least an hour) on the basic mechanics of writing. In a class full of second and third year college students. I was not particularly surprised when he handed the papers back at the end and I had gotten an A, but it did make me wonder how bad everyone else's had been. His standards obviously weren't that high - my paper had been written the night before and without actually doing any research.

When he did the same exact thing after we handed the second paper in, I couldn't bear the thought of sitting through another lecture on what constitutes a paragraph, and I got up and left. It was embarrassing.

The main assignment for this class was a quarter-long group project wherein we were supposed to identify a sub-public (some distinct group of people living in SLO county, and having similar needs from a planning point of view) and research their wants and needs for a presentation and paper due the last week of class. The other forestry student (Erik) and I had paired up for this, chosen native americans because Erik had apparently worked with some group locally and had some relevant knowledge, and proceeded to do exactly no work on the project, because we both had a full load of courses that we cared more about.

I distinctly remember the day, during the last week of the quarter, that I showed up to that class covered in mud, having just taken the practical final for my soil morphology class, and Erik grabbed me and said "Are you ready to give this presentation?" I had completely forgotten that we were scheduled to give our 15 minute presentation that day. I got a little nervous at that point, since we hadn't actually done anything, and I knew precisely nothing about our topic. Erik said, as I remember, "Don't worry, I made a powerpoint last night. You go first, just try to talk about what's on the slides, and I'll wrap it up. If you don't know, just make it up." I proceeded to talk about the needs of native americans in San Luis Obispo county for 6-7 minutes. I would look at each slide, and fabricate some background - I made up names of people we had talked to, where they lived, what they wanted from the county. Erik took over the second half and incorporated what I had made up into what he knew and, to be honest, I thought everybody saw through it, but it went smoothly.

After class we congratulated ourselves on pulling it off and made plans to get together and write up the paper we had to turn in by the end of finals week, which we promptly forgot about. The night before it was due, I remember getting together for an hour or so and dividing up the sections - Erik emailed me a bunch of stuff and I made up some more stuff and put it all together in a readable fashion. I remember thinking that at least we both had solid As in the class up until then and could afford to take a hit on the project. I also remember running into Erik after grades come out and we were both astounded that we had pulled As in the class. I bumped into the professor out downtown somewhere a couple weeks later and had a pleasant conversation which, surprisingly, did not involve him challenging me about our complete BS. Finally, I remember talking to some of the other kids in the class at a bar, and hearing them gripe about how hard the class was and their crummy grades.

So, yeah, City and Regional Planning. The bar is set pretty low, I guess.