My Four Year Old Fashion Column

Fashion Advice from my Inner Four Year Old:
1.) Orange shirts with red shorts are the new red shirts with orange shorts.

2.) Underwear is never inappropriate. Not as an undergarment, and not as a headdress.
2a.) Pulled down over ones face, with only the fly through which to see, certain kinds of underwear also make nice mummy masks.

3.) Contrary to popular belief, belts are not meant to keep your pants up. That's a myth. Belts are meant to help you hold things, like swords and laser guns and tools and tricorders and spy equipment. Elastic is meant to keep your pants up.

4.) You may have 3 pairs of shoes. Sneakers, boots, and "nice." Any more than that and you're a girl.

5.) In the absence of facial hair, facial chocolate is acceptable.

6.) Tying sneakers is a practice meant to help keep sneakers attached to feet. If tying them is unnecessary to accomplish that purpose, then it's unnecessary.

7.) Changing in the middle of the day--regardless of events--is for fashion models, stage actors, and Halloween.

8.) Messy is the new combed.

9.) Adding a tie to any shorts-and-t-shirt outfit is a great was to bring class and style to a nice dinner out with the family.

10.) Capes never go out of style. Never.

My End of the World

So apparently I missed BLITEOTW Day, or Blog Like It's The End Of The World Day, which was June 13th.

Now, it actually WILL be the end of the world for Office Depot if I don't get my desk, the absence of which is the main contributing factor to my lack of blogging. Things have been busy, and I've been working from my laptop since said desk, which I ordered on May 25th, still hasn't arrived. The order status says "delivered" but as I found out today, that apparently means they delivered it to UPS, who will deliver it to me (and I don't have a tracking number for it anymore, since it's out of Office Depot's hands).

I'm not really sure how one would go about blogging like it's the end of the world, but the BLITEOTWD organizers have helped bloggers out a little by imposing the "Zombie" theme. So as I look out my fictional window, I'm seeing humanity devoured by brain eating zombies. Fantastic. They totally deserve it. Especially those people who were responsible for getting me my desk on time (in the 1-10 day delivery window suggested by the company). They'll be the first up against the wall when the Zombie revolution comes, because not only are they jerks, but their brains should be plump and fertile, with clearly untouched and unused virgin gray matter ripe for the Zombie plucking.

In the midst of a global Zombie uprising, I think I'd buy oil stocks. You might think that I'd be shorting oil stocks, since people would be afraid to go out, but that would only last a month or two and you KNOW the oil companies would use the Zombie scare as a reason to hike prices for at least a year. So if humanity came out of the Zombie uprising OK, then I'd be rich. And if we didn't, well, my portfolio wouldn't be worth much anyway. In fact, the entire economy would probably collapse as people started trading hundreds of thousands of pork bellies for a single pork brain. It'd be like a bank run...but with brains instead of currency.

Speaking of bank runs, I had a great time in Boston this weekend with Cynara's family. How does that relate to bank runs? Cynara's father's favorite movie is "It's A Wonderful Life," which apparently has a bank run in it as a crucial plot device. I've never seen it, but I expect that will change.

Work starts Monday. I may have funny stories from there, but hopefully I won't have anything worthy of a Dilbert strip again.

My Funny Pictures

So I spent some time at www.thefuniest.info, and I thought I'd share a few of my favorites, mostly hidden gems you won't find on the top-rated page.

Nerdy but Funny
Aw, Sad
Too True...
My Peeps
How the First Tiger spent Fall Semester
It's All True
For Sheba
My New Rabbi
My experiences seems to confirm this...
The First Tiger and I ran into these guys once...and lived
More Nerd Humor
Classic. I hope I'm never that guy.
Except for the mayo, this guy may be my new hero
And just for kicks, a parting shot at Fox News

*Editor's Late Addition*

My Network News Table Turning

Well, I moved into my awesome new place, and without a job, friends on the hall, classes, extracurriculars, or regular offline human interaction, not a lot of funny stuff has happened to me lately. So to get content for this blog, I've decided to turn the tables on big news agencies. While CNN and Fox News have programs that consist of attractive women READING BLOGS OUT LOUD on television (that counts as "news" apparently), I've decided to just report on some amusing things I've found while getting my news.

A German gentleman was recently almost killed when he impaled himself on a plunger. Having lost his bath plug, he inserted a plunger to keep the water in the tub. While standing up to lather the vessel for his brilliantly creative problem-solving mind, he slipped on some soap and the wooded plunger handle embedded itself deep into his "backside." His wife, upon hearing the screams, was unable to separate her husband's colon from the device, and called an ambulance. After 8 hours of surgery, he's now resting in his hospital bed and is expected to make a full recovery. When asked for comment, the plunger said, "Hey, I should be mad at you!" (OK, I made that last thing up myself.)

*****

Courtesy of DeluxX, here is a picture of a dog dressed like Darth Vader.

*****

In the "Real News" vs "Fake News" contest, let's compare the top 3 headlines of the NY Times and Fox News as I'm writing this.

Issues covered by the NY Times top headlines: Global Warming, Sports and the Iraq War
(2 important things that affect a lot of people, and an update with high audience interest, all of it timely)

Issues covered by Fox News: 3 teenage sex offenders are on the run, "Mom Pimped Son, 12" and something about the guy who shot President Reagan in 1982.
(Um...)

My Dramatis Personae Update

Part of this sad business of graduating is that I can't refer to people by "neighbor" anymore once I move out. So I went through and did a few updates on the Dramatis Personae cast of characters to the right. If you want yours changed, or aren't up there and would like to be (or think I might have cause to refer to you), just say the word.

I'm also considering adding the following to it:
A badger with a troubled past and nothing left to lose
An elephant who never forgets...to kill!
And a seldom used crab named Lucky, a.k.a. Citizen Snips

My Leasing Agent

Chuck and I are moving in a couple weeks to a deluxe apartment in the sky (well, 8th floor). It's a swanky happening pad, but getting all the paperwork done is a bit of a hassle. It's not that much...it's just that we can't get any questions answered by the space cadet leasing agent at the building. The following conversation summarizes it nicely:

Chuck: I dropped off the forms, but couldn't talk to [Leasing Agent]. Apparently she was busy, as always.
Me: She was probably off managing the series of disasters that is undoubtedly her life.

On the plus side, our new apartment is awesome (it better be, given the huge fraction of my income consumed by it). Everyone better come visit me. If you need some incentive:
1) We're conveniently located (see me for details)
2) We're across the street from a bookstore
2a) The bookstore apparently sells Godiva cheesecake
3) Chuck just bought a Nintendo Wii (which is almost as awesome for me)
4) My new couch has built-in recliners
5) I clearly won't want to leave, so it might be the only way you get to see me

My Response to Reader Comments I

I want to encourage reader comments, and I don't want readers to feel that their comments are going unread. I personally read every single comment at least once. So I want to take this opportunity to respond to a few that should be answered.

Rick Blaine - Thank you very much for the thoughtful contribution. I'm glad to know others are thinking about these issues too and that my readership isn't unanimously in favor of my staying away from serious topics. On a personal note, the entire Molten Boron community wishes you a speedy recovery. If you need anyone to manage your shady affairs during your convalescence, I'll gladly volunteer my services as an, ah, "investment manager" let's say.

Lizmonster - The NYTimes quote is funny because it reduces to the following "According to data compiled by Yale, Yale's the best." While I'm sure the data is accurate, it should always raise an eyebrow when the source and target of praise are one and the same. For example, according to this blogger, Nobody Does It Like Molten Boron is the best blog on the internet.

Barkeep - Yes, all of my titles are intentionally like Scrubs titles. Thanks for noticing. I like the convention, and it's a tribute to cleverness.

And finally, Chase - Anyone who actually thinks a Pittsburgh cheesesteak is better than a Philly cheesesteak is almost as dumb as the person I wrote about on April 15th. In the future, please smack anyone making such a claim with a large novelty fish.

If you'd like me to personally address you in a blog post, start commenting. I try to be responsive to suggestions and requests as well.

My Elegaic Wish

After September 11th, 2001, several of the more mild-mannered, observant, and eloquent participants in national discussions (mostly writers and columnists) noticed a marked lack of statesmen and citizens with the ability to adequately eulogize the events of 9/11. The memorial service for the Twin Towers consisted in part of readings from other famous speeches, words that comforted our nation in times of crisis before. While comforting, and providing a sense of continuity and a reminder that we will endure and thrive--as we always have--there's still something lacking. Today, in the wake of the Virginia Tech shootings and deaths, communities all over the country are again feeling that absence.

My friend Groucho's senior thesis is on how American Presidents have become celebrities instead of statesmen, and such an argument is sadly underscored and supported in times of tragedy. President Bush's words today at the Virginia Polytechnic Institute were somber and heartfelt, but generic and uninspired. Furthermore, the tone of the speech was overly religious--perhaps appropriate for many in the audience in front of him, but not for the national and more diverse audience of Americans, who live in a secular state and are bound together first and foremost by nationality.

Trying times call for great leaders, the kinds who are able to eulogize tragedy and lead us out of it. Lincoln reminding us that our founding father conceived of liberty and equality, refusing to let that vision perish from the Earth. Roosevelt being there for everyone on the day that lives in infamy. From Pericles' funeral oration, leaders have risen to greatness and legend with the right words for their people. Are there to be no more great statesmen in the American tradition?

The American people will come together after a terrorist attack. They'll pour their hearts into a devastated city. They'll be there for the victims of the worst shooting rampage in the nation's history. And maybe now that any self-righteous moron with a blog can put his words on the internet for all to see, a single voice to hold everyone's hand isn't as necessary as it once was. Maybe we don't need a Pericles to tell us of the valor of the fallen (especially when if the valor is great enough, someone will turn it into a movie). And maybe we don't need a Lincoln to remind us of our national roots when we could look them up on Wikipedia. And maybe a collective national consciousness and discussion is a better realization of our founding fathers' vision of true democracy than anything one man could create from a pulpit.

But it would still be nice if someone would emerge and give the fallen and the grieving the voice and comfort they deserve...and be the voice for the rest of us as well, for us to speak to those most affected, for us to speak to the world, and for us to speak to each other.

My Horse Comma If It Weren't For

So the other day I heard the dumbest idea I've ever heard in my life. I'm seriously worried about getting an aneurysm. A highly educated student in my Healthcare Management class touted the following idea of his as the potential savior to all our country's healthcare woes: a single-payer system that is NOT run by the government, but by a for-profit company that could operate as if in a market. His argument is that it would be more efficient, because the government is inefficient and markets are efficient.

OK, so basically his idea would play out like this: everyone in America gets on the same private health insurance plan and one company is immediately granted a complete and absolute monopoly by the federal government and told to run things efficiently. It's about this time that anyone who hasn't realized it should be informed that the main reasons the government isn't as efficient as the private sector are: (1) the government has no competition and (2) the government isn't responsible to shareholders who care about money only and is free to make other things its priority. Yes, it has problems, but let's take a private company that cares first and foremost about profit, remove the competition, and put everyone's healthcare in its hands.

Picture yourself with the following insurance plan: your plan is run by the worst HMO in American history, except THIS time, it has guaranteed business and doesn't have to worry about any of its customers switching to another healthcare plan of any kind or from any other provider.

There's a REASON people get aneurysms. They hear stuff like that and their brains try to process it to the point of suicide or spontaneous combustion. The entire time this kid was talking I kept fantasizing about being able to do 2 things, picking my jaw up off the floor and--more importantly--beating him repeatedly with a 3-foot fish. Just getting a giant sea bass, gripping it by the tail, and wailing on him was the only thing that was going to satisfy me. Unfortunately, the good Lord saw fit not to bless me with even a novelty carp, and I was forced to sit there trying not to look too appalled or otherwise rude.

I was proud of myself for not saying anything, though. Sometimes I feel the need to explain how wrong someone is so that they might learn and the class might not take the dumb ideas seriously...but this was so catastrophically dumb I figured the former was a losing battle and the latter was unnecessary.

My kingdom for a large fish that makes a funny electronic thumpy sound effect when someone is beaten with it...

My Two Exams Tomorrow

So I have two finals tomorrow (later today now), and I just realized I haven't blogged in a while. I was actually writing a very interesting post (the one I mentioned in the last entry), but it got deleted when I crashed my computer trying to do too many things at once (a few dozen windows open, plus a big honking Excel model that used up every row in the spreadsheet, and another model I've been using to help in my apartment hunt).

Studying is really hard, mostly because the practice exams the professors posted are really easy (how do I study? how do I get motivated?). 25% of the Fixed Income practice final was actually FUN, because it involved a lot of graphs. I love graphs. I hope our exam is all graph-matching. Does that make me some kind of finance geek? I also had a class today I was going to skip in order to study, but a conversation with DeluxX quickly killed that idea. It's kind of sick to be in school and in a position where you have a choice between getting a better grade OR learning more (actually, that "or" should be an "xor" meaning Exclusive Or...I could only pick one). I went to class. The fact that it was WAY over my head (I missed last week for Passover) didn't diminish the pride I felt for setting my priorities.

Anyway, if something funny happens I'll post that. I guess seeing me eat a 2 foot long chicken cheesesteak to break passover would have been pretty funny, but it doesn't translate well into blog form.

At least I get a burger in between exams...