Manic Monday #7
Nov. 2nd, 2004 09:50 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ciroccojManic Monday was notsomuch yesterday. I am very, very glad I dropped CivLib so that I get a three-hour break in there. Still, the last 6 hours of class... start to hurt by about the second hour. Despite the fact that I love both my afternoon courses.
My Drafting prof Marilla Cuthbert was . Somebody asked her, to clarify an in-class assignment, what the technical definitions of 'transhipment' and 'bill of lading' were. She rattled off something like, "Transhipment refers to taking goods from one mode of shipping to another - say, changing freight trains. A bill of lading is the document that accompanies the shipment."
"OK, thanks," the student went back to her work.
A few moments later, the prof says, "You know, I just totally made that up. I really have no idea. And wow - you really believed me, didn't you?"
Later, with respect to some interpretation of a statute by another student, she smiled at him and said, "You're just a little bit into conspiracy theories, aren't you?" There was a general chuckle. "No, that's OK, I believe in conspiracies too."
"We'll see tomorrow whether there is a general conspiracy out there-" said someone else, and there was a general groan.
"Oh, GOD!" said the prof. "Sorry, excuse my overly dramatic exclamation there. It's just that I keep thinking tomorrow will not be a good day to not have cable."
***
Looking at the "where have I been" map with Chris the other day, I was somewhat surprised to realize that I could really only definitively locate 11 states (Alaska, Hawaii, California, Oregon, Washington, Colorado, Texas, Louisiana, Florida, Michigan, and New York) on the map. The rest? I knew roughly where they were, but couldn't say with 100% certainty which was which.
"I wish I could do what Al Franken did," I said. "Draw the whole 50 states freehand."
"Al Franken, from SNL?"
"Yeah, I saw him on the Weekend Update right before one of the elections, he did the whole thing on a whiteboard - said it was his party trick."
"All of them?"
"Yeah, it was amazing."
"Holy shit. ::pause:: I couldn't even do that for Canada. I'd be like, did the Northwest Territories split up or something? There's a lot of snow up there, right? And Newfoundland - is that still part of Canada?"
See, this is why the Canadian pastime of mocking American ignorance is so amusing to me. 'Cause scratch us just a little and you'll find that under the surface, we're just iggerant rednecks too... in tuques ;)
***
Watched the last bit of the SNL show on elections through the years. Man, I'd forgotten how funny some of those skits were. Dana Carvey doing Bush Sr. and Perot in one debate was just priceless. And I'd never seen the guy who currently plays Kerry. Seriously? I couldn't tell the difference between the fake Kerry and the real one ;)
I was (and am) fairly disturbed at one thing: I have been utterly unable to remember who ran against Clinton in 96. I went back and could rattle off all the other (main) contenders since before I was born, but not the dude who ran and lost in 1996. Early Alzheimer's?
Later Edit: Got it. Had to look it up.
60 Nixon (R)
64 Goldwater (R)
68 Humphrey (D), Wallace (I) (Actually, I had this one wrong. For some reason I remembered Wallace, but thought McGovern had run twice.)
72 McGovern (D)
76 Ford (R)
80 Carter (D)
84 Mondale (D)
88 Dukakis (D)
92 Bush (R), Perot (I)
96 Dole (R)
00 Gore (D)
My Drafting prof Marilla Cuthbert was . Somebody asked her, to clarify an in-class assignment, what the technical definitions of 'transhipment' and 'bill of lading' were. She rattled off something like, "Transhipment refers to taking goods from one mode of shipping to another - say, changing freight trains. A bill of lading is the document that accompanies the shipment."
"OK, thanks," the student went back to her work.
A few moments later, the prof says, "You know, I just totally made that up. I really have no idea. And wow - you really believed me, didn't you?"
Later, with respect to some interpretation of a statute by another student, she smiled at him and said, "You're just a little bit into conspiracy theories, aren't you?" There was a general chuckle. "No, that's OK, I believe in conspiracies too."
"We'll see tomorrow whether there is a general conspiracy out there-" said someone else, and there was a general groan.
"Oh, GOD!" said the prof. "Sorry, excuse my overly dramatic exclamation there. It's just that I keep thinking tomorrow will not be a good day to not have cable."
Looking at the "where have I been" map with Chris the other day, I was somewhat surprised to realize that I could really only definitively locate 11 states (Alaska, Hawaii, California, Oregon, Washington, Colorado, Texas, Louisiana, Florida, Michigan, and New York) on the map. The rest? I knew roughly where they were, but couldn't say with 100% certainty which was which.
"I wish I could do what Al Franken did," I said. "Draw the whole 50 states freehand."
"Al Franken, from SNL?"
"Yeah, I saw him on the Weekend Update right before one of the elections, he did the whole thing on a whiteboard - said it was his party trick."
"All of them?"
"Yeah, it was amazing."
"Holy shit. ::pause:: I couldn't even do that for Canada. I'd be like, did the Northwest Territories split up or something? There's a lot of snow up there, right? And Newfoundland - is that still part of Canada?"
See, this is why the Canadian pastime of mocking American ignorance is so amusing to me. 'Cause scratch us just a little and you'll find that under the surface, we're just iggerant rednecks too... in tuques ;)
Watched the last bit of the SNL show on elections through the years. Man, I'd forgotten how funny some of those skits were. Dana Carvey doing Bush Sr. and Perot in one debate was just priceless. And I'd never seen the guy who currently plays Kerry. Seriously? I couldn't tell the difference between the fake Kerry and the real one ;)
I was (and am) fairly disturbed at one thing: I have been utterly unable to remember who ran against Clinton in 96. I went back and could rattle off all the other (main) contenders since before I was born, but not the dude who ran and lost in 1996. Early Alzheimer's?
Later Edit: Got it. Had to look it up.
60 Nixon (R)
64 Goldwater (R)
68 Humphrey (D), Wallace (I) (Actually, I had this one wrong. For some reason I remembered Wallace, but thought McGovern had run twice.)
72 McGovern (D)
76 Ford (R)
80 Carter (D)
84 Mondale (D)
88 Dukakis (D)
92 Bush (R), Perot (I)
96 Dole (R)
00 Gore (D)
