Title? I don't need no stinkin' title!

More tattoo-related news. Yesterday evening I went to get my hair cut. I noticed that one of the stylists had a tattoo on her leg of a pair of scissors. I complimented it, and told her about my recent experience with a bus-tattoo-sporting bus driver. The stylist told me that her friend who works at a pizza place said he was going to get a tattoo of a pizza slice on his leg, but was actually just making fun of her. This all made me think that maybe I should think about getting a math tattoo. (As a side note, it turns out that if you do a Google search for "math tattoo", you get some very interesting pictures.) There was once a period of several days where I was seriously considering getting a small tattoo on my arm of the Green Lantern symbol, but my sister eventually convinced me not to do it. I had forgotten, you see, that I don't like getting jabbed with needles.

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This morning I went with some friends to get some coffee to fuel our "work". We went to the Manndible Cafe on campus. I ordered a "Dragonfly", which is a peppermint-mocha-type coffee drink. This is why the image at the top of this entry came from. My friend ordered a "Wooly Bear", which I believe is something with mocha and orange in it. It occurred to me that "Wooly Bear" might make a great nickname for this friend of mine, although she might disagree. I'll have to try it out and see what happens. If I never write another entry, I guess you'll know.

On the other hand, I think I could be quite happy with the nickname "Dragonfly". (Did you know that, according to Wikipedia, despite the fact that they have six legs, dragonflies are incapable of walking?) I don't think I've ever had a really great nickname, except of course "Tim" instead of "Timothy". (Not that I mind my full name. People just seem to gravitate towards the shorter version. For a period of time I preferred the full version, but now I am quite happy with "Tim". I think it has connotations of both dependability and fun.)

I do have a friend who still sometimes calls me "Kiki", (or "Kiks", or "Kikster"), after a particular anime film, whose title happens to sound not just a little bit like that of a porno flick. A couple of girls in high school very occasionally called me "Teggy", after my full initials. A different girl in high school called me "Tim-who-mothed-he", or something like that, based on an elongated and distorted pronunciation of "Timothy". Finally, when they were little little little, both my brother and sister used to call me just "T". I think my grandmother did, too, come to think of it.

I ought to know by now.

I ought to know by now not to listen to comedy on my iPod while commuting by bus, or waiting for the bus, especially not if I'm listening to it for the first time. It's very embarrassing when I laugh out loud, especially when it escalates to the "guffaw" level. I'm sure people can figure out that I'm listening to something funny, but they still give me weird looks. Even weirder than usual, I mean. I think there's something about the mornings especially that makes me much more susceptible to streams of hysterical laughter. It's probably either the altered mental state associated with sleep deprivation, or the giddiness I sometimes get at my first glimpse of and whiff at a particularly beautiful and fragrant morning.

This morning I was listening to the comedian Gabriel Iglesias. He's an excellent mimic, and an extremely funny man. I highly recommend his work.

Follow the white rabbit.

When I got on the bus this morning, I noticed that the bus driver had a tattoo on her calf of a little bus. It kind of looked like a school bus, but I couldn't tell for sure because it was just an outline, and not colored in yellow or anything. It was flesh-colored. I wonder if she became a bus driver before or after getting the tattoo. (Notice that, logically speaking, this last sentence is true no matter what.)

When I saw the tattoo, the phrase "Follow the white rabbit" popped into my head. Despite the fact that I hadn't received a mysterious message on my computer that morning telling me to "Follow the flesh-colored school bus", I guess I did end up doing just that, since I rode the bus to school. Nothing extraordinary happened there, though. In particular, no Trinity. Not yet, anyway. Hope springs eternal.

My new favorite.

I just found and bought what is now my new favorite birthday card ever. On the outside is a black and white picture of two children on an amusement park ride, with a top and bottom trim in shades of blue. Red print near the top reads, "Hope your birthday is somewhere on a scale between 'totally freaked out' and 'I may have just wet my pants.'" The inside is orange, and contains only the following words, in white.

Happy! Birthday! to! You!

I absolutely love this card.

It reminds me of another old favorite card. This one is a Halloween card. The outside reads something like, "If in the middle of the night you hear a scritch-scratch sound at your window, don't worry. It's just a tree branch." Inside, it reads something like, "That's how zombies open windows." The original writing was better, but I don't remember it. Somewhat surprisingly, it appears that I actually sent that card to someone, instead of keeping it for myself.

Last year when I was on the job market, my sister sent me a great card, which is still hanging over my desk. On the front is a hand sticking out of a shark's mouth, making an "okay" sign with its fingers. The top of the card reads simply "POSITIVE ATTITUDE". The bottom reads, "...the difference between being eaten alive by a shark and being okey-dokey." Many of my students have noticed that card, and think it's hysterical.

Many years ago, in high school, my best friend's family gave me a birthday card that still makes me chuckle. On the outside it reads, "When they made you, they really broke the mold." It continues inside with, "Rumor has it they beat the hell out of the mold-maker, too."

Even more years ago, when I was in elementary school, I bought a great Valentine's Day card for this girl I had a huge crush on. On the front was a guy holding bunch of flowers, looking excitedly up at the reader and confirming, "You'll be my Valentine, you'll bestill my beating heart?" Inside, the guy has fallen on his face, with an accompanying "thump". Awesome. I love onomatopeia.

Actually, I recall that there is a super-villain named Onomatopeia, originally appearing in a Green Arrow comic book. He's awesome, because he repeats out loud any sounds that occur near him (except speech). So in the comic book, you might see the text "THWACK" representing a sound effect, and then a beat later a word balloon coming from this guy, representing him saying "Thwack". My favorite thing that I remember about this guy is when he was hiding behind a doorway waiting to sneak attack Connor Hawke. Connor hears a SQUEAK from the door, then hears Onomatopeia say "Squeak". Then Conner says, "Squeak?", realizes something is up, and ducks, all just in time to avoid Onomatopeia's attack.

Incidentally, that character, as well as that scene I described, were created by artist Phil Hester and writer Kevin Smith. That's right, Silent Bob himself.

You're my main sandwich.

Yesterday in class, my students and I talked about the Squeeze Theorem for limits. This is also sometimes called the Sandwich Theorem; indeed this is how their huge and extremely heavy textbook calls it. I pointed out that although the Squeeze and Sandwich Theorems are the same, in general a squeeze and a sandwich are quite different. For instance, you wouldn't want to refer to your "main squeeze" as your "main sandwich".

This got a great laugh in both of my classes, not the least of which was from me. I suggested that, on second thought, perhaps you would want to call him or her your "main sandwich", because that would be HYSTERICAL.

One of my students asked what "main squeeze" means, and I answered that it refers to one's boyfriend or girlfriend, or something close to that. Another student objected, and claimed that it's a much more general term, and often just means your best friend or the person you hang out with the most. I was, and remain, highly dubious. No one else I have talked to agrees with this objecting student of mine, although opinions seem to vary on the level of commitment and exclusivity implied by being a "main squeeze".

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I love sandwiches, always have. It's hard for me to identify the best sandwich I ever had, because besides being subjective from person to person, I find that the quality of food depends so much on my state at the time, particularly on how hungry I am. For instance, it may be that the best thing you ever taste is a plain cheese sandwich, simply because it's the first thing you get to eat after being ill for several days.

The weirdest sandwich I ever made, and ate, was a grilled cheddar cheese sandwich with peanut butter. No contest. And it was not especially tasty, although it may have been under different, and extreme, circumstances. The recipe came from a list of progressively stranger and more complicated recipes for different cheese sandwiches I found online at some point. I think it was titled something like "The Journey of a Cheese Sandwich", but I can't seem to find it anymore. Just as well. I probably don't have to mention that the peanut butter one was the last cheese sandwich recipe I tried from that list.

Speaking of sandwiches, did you know that there is a french fry sandwich? And that it has its own song? I confess that I have been known to add a couple of french fries to a pre-existing meat sandwich, on occasion, but I never tried it without the meet. Hmmmm...

It has begun. Again.

The students are back, and many of them brought their parents. I confess that I'm a little jealous. Although I didn't feel that way at the time, I think going away to college is a very exciting time. Still, Ithaca is a madhouse. I heard a story about an argument about dishwashing soap between a student and his parents had in the grocery store.

"I don't understand, why can't I get this?"
"Because we don't believe you'd use it."

Good stuff.



I went shopping at Wegmans earlier tonight, figuring that most of the frenzy there would have died down. It had indeed, but it had left its mark on the store. In this life, we get used to taking certain things for granted. Like the fact that Wegmans will always have lots of bananas in stock. And yet, behold the picture above, of my beloved banana stand, ravaged almost bare. Most unfortunately, my beloved shelf of beloved cases of cans of seltzer water was also cleared out.

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Yesterday I heard someone mention the World Health Organization on the news. I imagined the following situation.

"Blah blah blah the World Health Organization."
"The who?"
"Right."
"Right, what?"
"No, not what. W.H.O."
"Huh?"
"What?"
"You're talking about who?"
"Yes."

And so on. (If this pattern is unfamiliar to you, please see this article.)

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I also recently heard the phrase, "The cheese stands alone." I was unfamiliar with its origins, and found that it's the final lyric in the nursery rhyme The Farmer in the Dell. I was honestly hoping for a little bit more. It seems like such a dramatic statement. Imagine a deep voice speaking the words slowly, with great reverence.

And the cheese ... stands alone.

Oh well. I still can't wait to use it in conversation. I only hope I have enough patience to wait until it makes sense in the context, and that I don't just blurt it out. Only time will tell, I suppose.

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In other news, I recently created a Tim-avatar in the Simpsons style.



I really do own that hat, and wear it quite often. I tried to find a picture of me wearing it, but was unsuccessful. Still, those who know me can surely attest to my honesty in such matters. I NEVER joke about hats.

This isn't nearly as good a likeness as that of the avatar (or Mii) I created on my brother's Wii. That resemblance is downright uncanny. It's by far the most handsome character I've ever seen in a video game. I'll see if I can get an image of it to post here.

Here I go, here I go, here I go again.

(Title inspired by the lyrics to Salt-n-Pepa's hit song, "Shoop".)

My goodness, I am prolific today. On the one hand, this can be attributed to the fact that, before today, it had been almost a year since I posted anything on this blog, so I have a lot saved up. But something closer to the truth is that, after finally finishing teaching a summer course, and getting all the exams graded and grades assigned, I am once again on a bit of summer vacation. Having finished reading all of my unread comic books, I find myself with a little leftover time and energy.

Of course, after leaving this blog alone for so long, I'm not sure if anyone still reads it. Hmmm. Well, never mind.

Two more funny things.

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Several weeks ago, I had coffee with a friend in one of the coffee shop/cafes on campus. I had just finished telling a funny story, my friend told me I was funny. I told her she was funny, too. She was excited about this, and asked, "Really? You think I'm funny?"
"Sure," I replied. "Funny looking!"
She thought this was pretty humorous, and as people often do in these situations, she laughed and repeated the punch line: "I'm funny looking!"
Of course, she repeated it QUITE loudly, so that everyone else in the shop turned and looked at her. There were literally half a ton of people there, too!
Fantastic, just fantastic.

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Several years ago, I suggested that it would be fun to have action figures of some of our Cornell math professors. I still think this is a very good idea, but it is probably prohibitively resource-consuming. Nonetheless, we did put some thought into the designs. For instance, one of the figures would have to come equipped with a fanny-pack, as well as a switch on its back that would allow you to raise and lower one of the figure's eyebrows. Another figure would come equipped with a huge black coat and hat, a large wooden staff/walking stick, and be coiffed with a wizard-like beard and mane of hair. Yet another could come with lots of different outfits, all of them green.

And of course, they would all include a "kung-fu grip", as defined in the following passage from Wikipedia.

"In 1974, named after the increasingly popular martial art, Hasbro introduced 'Kung-Fu Grip' to the G.I. Joe line. This was another innovation that had been developed in the UK for Action Man. The hands were sculpted in a softer plastic that allowed the fingers to grip objects in a more lifelike fashion."

Perhaps you can guess to whom these figures correspond. Perhaps you cannot. That's okay. You can imagine your own designs.

What would your action figure look like and come with?

(On a related note, perhaps you are one of those unfortunate people for whom the line between action figures and dolls is not clear. Apparently there is now a legal difference.

Little thoughts.

Here are some little thoughts I've had recently, which I found entertaining.


Consider the statement, "That's a ton of apples!" In most circumstances, this is an exaggeration. We mean that there is a rather large number of apples, not that the totality of these apples actually weight one ton (although that would indeed be a very large number of apples).

Consider now the statement, "That's a ton of people!" Assuming that the average person weighs about 150 pounds, one ton of people is probably just 13 to 16 people, (depending on which ton unit you are using). If you say, "There were a ton of people at that dinner!", then this might be accurate, but if you say, "There were a ton of people at that concert!", then you are probably massively under-exaggerating! Isn't that interesting?

(This thought was not my sole creation. I share the credit with my good friend Mike, who I have mentioned before.)

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I was recently in the mood for ice cream, so I went to the supermarket to buy some. As was perhaps inevitable, after picking out some ice cream I found myself searching for some whipped cream. Next to the canisters of whipped cream, (Reddi-wip, to be exact), were some canisters of Cool Whip. These were on sale (by about 7 cents), so I bought one.

I like Cool Whip, but I realize that it is only tangentially related to the superior whipped cream, even the stuff in the canister. That's why I was so amused to find, at the end of the list of ingredients on the Cool Whip canister, a warning reading something like, "This product may contain some milk."

I realize that this warning is there to ward off people with relevant allergies or intolerences, but I couldn't help but feel that it was also some kind of plea. "We're really very much like real whipped cream. Really! You might even find some milk in here somewhere."

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My good friend Josh, who was not long ago a fellow math graduate student with me at Cornell, recently did the following Things.
(1) Accepted a postdoctoral research position at a very prestigious institution. (Hint: It starts with an "S" and ends with a "UNY Stony Brook".)
(2) Defended his thesis, whose title I cannot currently remember or locate, but whose presentation was very good.
(3) Got married, the presentation of which was also very good.
(4) Moved. (See Thing (2).)

I had a dream last night about Josh and his new wife, Hannah. In my dream, part of their moving and him starting his new job was that they had to go into witness protection. (I have no idea why, although it made sense in my dream.) I recall suggesting a number of different new names for him. He was due to choose his name the next day, but he wasn't allowed to show any opinion about the names I came up with, in case he ended up using one of them. Apparently his and Hannah's new identities had to remain secret for a little while, until they got settled into their new lives. He promised to get in touch with me and tell me their new names, when he could. One of the people helping him set up this new identity was his advisor, who in addition to being a very well-respected mathematician, in my dream was also a liaison to the Federal government.

I have the best dreams, sometimes.

A tough year, and strawberries.

It's been almost a whole year since I last posted something. This past year was a busy time. Working to finish my dissertation and getting ready to graduate. Applying for jobs. Not finding a job. Applying for more jobs. Figuring out what I can do if I don't find a job. Still not finding a job. Deciding to postpone my graduation for another year.

So here I am, still a graduate student, (or a doctoral candidate, if I want to sound fancy), and now the whole process is about to start all over again. Hopefully, however, I'm in a much better position for all of it this time around.

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I am currently visiting my parents. On their back porch they have a little strawberry plant. I picked a couple of the little ripe berries, washed them, and tasted them. They were still warm from the INTENSE sunshine, which was a little odd. They were the tastiest little things I have ever eaten! Fresh strawberries, my god.

It's funny to think that I never used to like strawberries when I was little. From fairly early on, I liked strawberry-flavored things, but not the berries themselves. When I got older, I would eat strawberries if they were put before me, but I never really saw the appeal. But in the past several years, I have started coming across the good stuff. Tasty, juicy strawberries. Not necessarily fresh, but not too old or preserved.

When he was still in grad school with me, my friend Mike and I would often eat at the cafe in Wegmans Supermarket. One day, he realized that besides the delicious offerings of their cafe, which includes Chinese food, vegetarian, sandwiches, pasta, soups, pizza, chicken wings, and varying dinner dishes, we actually had available to us the full wonders of the rest of the market! He took advantage of this more than I did. He would almost always, in addition to a couple of items from the cafe, get several packages of berries of different sorts. He ate more berries more quickly than I had ever seen before.

Even if we were just grocery shopping, he would often buy, for instance, two large cartons of strawberries, and finish off one before I dropped him off at his apartment afterward.

Mike would be very proud of me. I recently brought a large carton of strawberries to school with me to munch on, (as opposed to "to throw at people", I guess). Except for one or two berries that I shared with friends, I ate every last one of them, all within about two hours. I know this isn't too impressive by his standards, but everyone has to start somewhere.