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Why Don’t They Flush?

November 24, 2008 | 10 comments

As per Nil’s recommendation, I shall keep this post short, so as to avoid it becoming overly weird. So, let’s get to it:

In public restrooms, why do so many people not flush? It takes a mere second to do; it doesn’t cause you any pain to do it. And, it’s polite – no one wants to come in to a restroom to see someone else’s.. well, whatever. Furthermore, I would hope such an act would be deeply ingrained in most people – use the restroom, flush when done. But it would seem that’s not the case. In all my visits to the university restrooms over the past few years, I think I’ve seen two or three “all flushed” restrooms.

I initially thought it might just be an American thing, but Nils confirmed that it goes on in his region of Europe, too. Maybe it’s just a guy thing, then. Would any of the ladies reading like to chime in? Are your restrooms typically nice and clean, or do some women routinely refuse to flush, too?

Hmm… nope. Didn’t work. I kept it short, and that was still pretty peculiar.

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The First Step In Becoming a Satanist

October 19, 2008 | 5 comments

So, you want to become a Satanist, huh? Alright. I’ll help you get started. The first step is to learn how to spell Satan. I know – you’d think the first step would be learning about Satan, or sacrificing a black cat, or painting one of your fingernails red.

I have my reasons, though. Why is spelling the first step in becoming a Satanist? Well, I figure if you’re going to be a Satanist, you’ll want to occasionally let people know that Satan lives by tagging things with spraypaint. And you wouldn’t want to do what a fellow in my town did. Observe:

If you’re having trouble reading it due to the poor quality (my apologies – cellphone camera), it reads: Satin Lives. When spelled wrong, it loses something, don’t you think? I believe Johnny’s project next week is to tag the school building with “Polyester Lives.”

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The Flood of Freshmen

September 1, 2008 | No comments

This past week was the first week of fall semester at university, and it proved to be interesting. Apparently, the school received more new freshmen this semester than they ever have in the past – over 1000, I believe. This led to there being lots of freshmen in the library, with lots of questions. Most of the questions were fairly mundane – “how do I log onto the computers”, “where’s this classroom”, etc. – but there were also a few gems.

One was from a guy who apparently thinks that those of us at the reference desk are omniscient. He walked up to me and said, “Hey man, I need the book for my English class.” I looked at him and waited for some elaboration, such as what class he was in, or perhaps even the title of the book. He just stared at me. “Can you get that for me?” he asks. “Well, I need to know the title of the book to look for it. Do you have that?” “Well, um.. no, hang on. It’s for class.. uh, the intro English class, yeah.” “I’m sorry, we don’t keep a list of all of the textbooks that professors use.” More staring. “So you can’t get me the book?” “Not without the title, no.”

At this point he sighed, and started digging through his backpack. A few moments later, out came a crumpled piece of paper – success! It was a syllabus. He reeled off the course title and course number to me. I repeated the fact that we don’t keep a list of textbooks in use for each class. More staring… “Um, it says on here, something about it.. he said it was supposed to be like.. on hold.. or something.” “Ohh, okay. You mean it’s supposed to be on reserve?” “Yeah, that’s it. How do I get it?” “Come over here to circulation with me, they can get it for you.”

I walked him over and asked him who the professor was. After a bit more staring, he gave it to me, which I then passed along to the circulation person. They got the book off the shelf for him, and informed him that it could only be used in the library. At that point, he said he didn’t want it, and left. Sigh…

The second fellow wasn’t “difficult”, just humorous. He needed some help finding a book on the shelf, which I was glad to help him with. He acted, however, like I was doing him a wonderful favor – he kept thanking me over and over. And then he thanked me some more, and apologized for being such a bother. I told him to relax, that it wasn’t a big deal at all – most people don’t understand the LC system when they first come to the school, because they’re used to the Dewey decimal system. I also told him that it was my job, after all, to help him. He just kept saying he was sorry, and thanking me.

As we were walking back upstairs, he said, “So, you’re a, um, um.. you’re a… senior?” The way he said “senior” made it sound as if he was addressing some ancient god from Rome or something. I laughed and told him I was a junior. He said “Oh, okay, well thank you again, so much!” – and then he shook my hand. He shook my hand for helping him find a book. It was really quite peculiar, but it made me smile nonetheless. The guy certainly needed to relax a bit, and to stop treating upper classmen like gods, but it made me happy that he was genuinely appreciative of my help. Would you believe that we get a lot of people that ask for help, and then show no appreciation whatsoever? ;) Shocking, I know…

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MetaFilter is not 911 or Poison Control.

March 21, 2008 | 2 comments

I was just digging through some old post drafts, and found this at MetaFilter:

I just mixed bleach / vinegar / salt / and liquid dish detergent in hopes of creating a super weed killer. I mixed the stuff in a fairly well-ventilated room, and then sprayed it on some weeds outside. Now I just read about chlorine gas resulting from the mixture of bleach and chlorine, and I’m suddenly feeling light-headed (hypochondriac). Am I going to die?

I’m kind of curious if the whole post was meant in jest, or if they were serious. If they were serious… well, they’ve got me puzzled; hopefully not many people think along similar lines as him/her. As others in the MetaFilter thread pointed out, MetaFilter is not 911 or the Poison Control Center. If you’ve done something that you think might be dangerous or fatal, particularly if it involves poisonous gases, probably the last thing you need to be doing is hopping on MetaFilter and writing a post. Okay, well, maybe the last thing would be to stand in the room where you mixed the stuff and inhale deeply, but you get the point.

The post makes me wonder about how often people turn to the internet when perhaps another approach would be more practical or effective. I know I’ve caught myself bending over backwards trying to find a local phone number via Google, when I’ve got a phonebook 20 feet away in a drawer. I’ve also – yes, I’m ashamed! – poked around on amazon.com, trying to find publishing information or some such about a book that is on my shelf upstairs in my room. Admittedly, I usually do that when I’m downstairs, but still, it’d probably be faster to just walk upstairs and yank the book off the shelf. But alas, turning to the internet for information is such a strong habit, it’s hard to break.

I haven’t, however, turned to the internet for emergency help. If my house catches fire, I won’t be posting to MetaFilter, asking what the best course of action is. :) That’s taking things a bit too far.

Also, a comment from the thread I linked to:

Dear Metafilter, I think I may be dying. Can you tell me if

Heh. :)

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When is enough truly enough?

March 19, 2008 | 9 comments

There’s an older fellow in one of my classes this semester, who has indirectly put me in a bit of a bind. I’m stuck considering when one should go from tolerating rudeness and derogatory remarks, to not tolerating it anymore and doing something about the problem. Let me explain:

The class is about world history up to 1600. As to be expected, we started out with a primer on prehistory, and then moved on to Mesopotamia, Egypt, China – the river valley civilizations. From the very start, the man in question has kept taking over the class. He has interrupted the professor and started talking loudly, usually about the Bible’s take on the history. Such-and-such passage says this about the Egyptians; such-and-such passage says that about Babylon. He’s gotten into arguments with the professor about the history, usually because her take on it (or the view presented in our text) did not mesh well with his Biblical view. He’s asked the professor a question about what she was teaching, and then would not allow her to answer; she’d get about 3 words out and he’d drown her out, “No, no, I know that, what I’m asking is…” Often, he has interrupted and just started spouting off something about the Bible, something that wasn’t at all related to what she was lecturing on.

All of this, he’s done practically every class session. Everytime he has done it, it’s clear that the professor is uncomfortable with the situation, as is everyone else in the class; you can feel the tension practically zipping around the room. Thus far no one has said anything; the professor has been able to steer things back onto course (often repeatedly in one session).

Last Tuesday, he hit his high mark (or perhaps it’d be better to call it his low mark). We were working on the chapter about the rise of Islam, and so we were obviously dealing with Mohammed. It was prime territory for the guy to do some Bible-beating, and he pounced on the chance. He started arguing with the professor about the generally kinship-based successions in the caliphates, saying that that went against Jesus’s word, because he had said that only God could select a ruler. He asked, if Muslims believe in the Christian God, why are they disrespecting Jesus in such a way? The professor patiently explained that, despite believing in the same God, the fact is, Mohammed said that Jesus had some things wrong, and that Mohammed’s way was the right way to do things. After all, Mohammed created Islamd; he didn’t follow Christianity. She was not “standing up” for Islam, simply stating the facts about the history of the religion. The guy’s response was: “Well, huh, Mohammed’ll have something coming to him, then, heh heh. He’ll see.”

Now, am I being overly sensitive about this, or is that remark just completely discriminatory? I’m not Muslim, but if I were, I’d find that pretty insulting. If the guy has his beliefs, that’s fine, but saying something like that in a room full of, more or less, strangers? Not cool. It’s this remark that has me pretty much ready to go to someone who can take action against the guy. I’m not even going to bother attempting to talk to him in private about it, because while I’m not omniscient, I think I have a pretty good idea how productive the conversation would be.

What do you folks think? He’s an irritation at the least, and his “my history via the Bible is better than all of this!” attitude is maddening, but being irritating and having some peculiar ideas about history doesn’t warrant reporting him to someone. Does his remark warrant it? I feel like it does, but like I said, maybe I’m not seeing the situation clearly; I admittedly can’t stand the guy. Then again, I’d say that holds for the majority of my classmates…

(By the way, some of you might be wondering, if this guy is so bad, why hasn’t the professor done something? Good question. Answer: this particular professor is extremely nice, and goes above and beyond her duty to keep the peace. I truly believe that if this guy pulled this stuff in some of my other classes, he would have been booted weeks ago, with or without the knock at Islam.)

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