A few months ago, our department had a goodbye lunch at Jack Astor’s for that term’s co-op students. I particularly remember one of our department’s senior directors making an appearance, and how he had gone around and shook hands with each of the co-opts and thanked them each personally for their hard work over the term and wished them much success in their studies and future endeavors. When he came around to my side of the table, he mistook me for one of the co-ops and shook my hand as well, expressing his wishes to see me back with “them” (us?) again.

I made no attempt to correct him.

That essentially sums up our entire relationship, and also my (complete lack of) feelings towards his recent departure. We held another goodbye lunch event for him which was catered by this Italian place downstairs. And whoever ordered the food must have overestimated, or we were expecting five Italian families that didn’t show up, because now there are approximately two metric tons of leftover pasta jammed into the fridge in the lunchroom.

On a completely unrelated note…I didn’t get a calendar for 2009 because I guess our department is apparently cutting back on costs.

– In one of the funnier and more candid comments I’ve seen in professional sports, soon to be 36 year-old relief pitcher Julián Tavárez recently compared signing a minor league contract with the Washington Nationals getting drunk at a club at 4:00 AM and then going home with a 600-pound woman you mistook for Jennifer Lopez. Random personal tangent: I best remember Julián Tavárez when he was on the Cardinals, from Game 4 of the 2004 NLCS, when he threw a two strike slider to Carlos Beltran that missed the plate badly, and was going to end up bouncing off the dirt at his feet…only Beltran swung for it anyway, and golfed it out of the park for like his billionth home run in the playoffs that year.

Anyway…nice to see he’s still got a job in this tough economy, even if it is with the Nationals.

– Remember in Season 2 of 24 when Jack had a heart attack while being tortured by terrorists but still managed to come back from the dead and kill everyone in the room and escape? Well this man is the Jack Bauer of brain surgeons. I long for the day when I finish writing a program while suffering a heart attack, and I get to be the Jack Bauer of computer programmers.

– For the Zach Randolph fans among us (and there are many), check this out.

– A new CG anime based on a 1998 manga Cat Shit One is being produced. Here’s the trailer. I think hidden somewhere in there is a commentary on the contrast of social reaction to actual human beings exposed to the cruelties of war versus cute, fluffy animals and why we’re so apathetic towards one and not the other…but I’m really just interested in seeing an ultra violent CG version of An American Tail: Fievel Goes (to the Middle)East.

– I hope you’re all ready to watch this new trailer for Where The Wild Things Are, because it will fucking blow your dick right off that horrible bag of flesh that you call a body.

“I can get you a Chinese baby on the black market, for like $45,000 US.”
“It sounds kinda shady.”
“Does it? Or does it sound AWESOME?”