Mindless Philosopher

A friend and I were driving home last night and a pair of skunks were wandering across the road. One was almost all white, especially in the back half of it’s body. I think that might have been the first time I had seen wild skunks. I’ve smelled them plenty of times though.
Then today, a coworker got a flat and Diesel and I went to rescue her. Diesel has had her share of car problems, so it’s good she came along. First, we noticed this green puddle beneath the car, which Diesel recognized as leaking anti-freeze. After struggling with the lug nuts for a bit, we successfully replaced the tire. As we were about to head out we noticed that the spare tire was riding really low. Oy. We also noticed that the car was leaking from the back and spewing more fumes than normal. Oy vey. Clearly Coworker needed to get to a auto-repair place immediately; which, thankfully, she did successfully.

For the first time in my life, for the ALCS, I was rooting for the Yanks. After many years of chanting “Yankees suck” and wearing shirts with said inscription, I decided to root against the Sox because of a combination of societal, political, and personal reasons. And in the 8th last night, just when it looked like a lost cause, the curse appeared uninvited yet again like an obnoxious mother-in-law that won’t stop calling. After Boone rocked his homerun to left on the first pitch in the Yankee-half of the 11th, I was the only one cheering in our Red Sox-loving office. Yeah, I got some expletives thrown my way for that.
If you missed the game, I’m sure you can catch it on ESPN Classic (probably sometime this weekend).
But, now, for the World Series, all I can say is GO FISH! Those damn Yankees have to way too many rings already.

Yesterday the culture shock of not being at MIT finally hit me. I was wearing my “and G-d said…and there was light” shirt at a small get-together with fellow coworkers. (Okay, so I don’t purposefully wear that shirt around–it was an undershirt, but my dress shirt+tie wasn’t appropriate for the atmosphere either). Anyway, someone asks me about my shirt and I realize that no one in the room knows what it means. For seven years I’ve been used to the people I hang out with knowing what it meant and half the people being able to explain it.
The fact that no one knew Maxwell’s equations was fine, but then a coworker said he “finally learned what log was after being mystified on high school math tests for three years.” Oy. I almost went into shock. Although, I should have been clued in to this situation when one of the first staffers I met changed majors when the economics department reqiured that he use excel. I still make fun of “Excel Man” for that.

First, X-Files was obliterated when Duchovny left; now, The West Wing looks to be just as lost without writer Aaron Sorkin. Last night’s show had way too little dialogue and way too many horses. (Horses?!) Incomplete flashbacks, poor political dialogue (when the characters were speaking), non-sequitors, and kissing dotted the entire episode. Memo to John Wells: this is not a kissing show.
It feels like a piece of me is gone. The show is dead to me now. Well, I’ll still probably read the recaplets on TWOP.
Oh, and this might lessen the stank in Metro’s elevators. Maybe.

My friend ran into a “really hot german girl” today, but the conversation didn’t go too well. He mentioned his displeasure that the Germans had eliminated both the U.S. men’s and women’s soccer teams in their most recent respective World Cups. Then
Her: Well, the U.S. teams have a lot of growing up to do.
Him: I guess since we won the first two world wars, we can call it even.
To which she took offense, and he lost any chance of hooking up with this girl. I didn’t think it was too offensive. Thoughts? We discussed the possibility that Germans dislike looking back on that part of their history.
In other news, Clark’s campaign manager quit. What? He lasted 20 days, if that?