(no subject)

Gather round, my children. This is the story of the Broken Penis. I swear this is not an April Fool's joke; it is entirely true, and it happened to me on April Fool's Day, 2004. (The story, not the broken penis.)

You will have questions. I promise most of them will be answered if you read to the end, including the all important "How do you fracture an appendage which has no bone?" Just...keep reading.

( Let me take you back... )

And if you need another laugh for today, have a blast over at my Omnibus Edition of Student Gems, a compilation of stupid, bizarre, and hilarious things my students said during my two-year tenure as a graduate student and my two-month tenure as a standardised test essay-scorer.

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Coworker J: Anything interesting going on?
Sam: Nope. All quiet on the western front.
Coworker J: You mean the midwestern front!
Sam: *cracks up*
Coworker J: I'm going to copyright that. It'll be my first novel.
Sam: It'll sell millions. All Quiet on the Midwestern Front!
Coworker J: Or not at all, because everyone will just ask "What else is new?"

(no subject)

OH HAY also it's Poetry Month. I am going to try to post a poem per day, because there's a lot of poetry in the world and it's hard to find the good stuff sometimes.

So, I think I shall kick it off with:

The Symbolic Poem
by Fred Bremmer and Steve Kroese

<> !* ' ' #
^ " ` $$-
!*=@$_
%*<> ~ #4
&[ ]../
|{,,SYSTEM HALTED

This poem can only be appreciated by reading it aloud, to wit:

Waka waka bang splat tick tick hash,
Caret quote back-tick dollar dollar dash,
Bang splat equal at dollar under-score,
Percent splat waka waka tilde number four,
Ampersand bracket bracket dot dot slash,
Vertical-bar curly-bracket comma comma CRASH.

A poll conducted among readers of InFocus magazine, where it was originally published, established "waka" as the proper pronunciation for the angle-bracket characters, though some held out resolutely for "norkie".

(no subject)

*shakes fist at hija_paloma*

Sam: *natters about fandom, Torchwood, fanfic reccs, who to read to feel better about Jack/Gwen overtones in the show*
Dove: The fact that there are fics that will make me feel better about it is enough for me to sleep tonight, I guess. Augh.
Sam: See? Aren't you glad I'm your Fandom Sherpa?
Dove: A Fandom Sherpa should have some sense of moral responsibility. *sniff*
Sam: I think it is a Fandom Sherpa's duty to have no moral compass at all.
Dove: Oh, you must have the compass. How you choose to use it, on the other hand, is up to you.
Sam: Well. Maybe it's one of those ones, you know, that just points at whatever you want most. Or at the moment, depending on which part of the movie you're in.
Dove: Instead of the cardinal directions: Porn, Wank, Spoilers, Meta.
Sam: I had to draw a diagram instead of replying to this comment.

I give you, ladies and gentlemen, the Fandom Compass.



No please. Don't applaud. I know it's awesome.

( Actually this was the original, but that one's more sexy. )