Classic gag, approximated with multimedia (or, the real joke is in subverting both the convention and the form)

I got a dishwasher.














Her name is Roxie.














I actually really did get a dishwasher.



Also OK yes I named it Roxie.

Current Music: The Beatles - Hey Bulldog

Pedagogy 101 (Random quotes from a few hours ago, provided with context)

me:

I did my second mini-lesson today

me:

it did not go as smoothly

me:

I tried to do a problems lesson where I gave people a sheet with a problem on it and then I had them work in groups

me:

this is pretty difficult when you only have 10 minutes, it turns out

Tanya:

Yeah

me:

still, I wanted to try it

Tanya:

Were you supposed to do something interactive?

me:

you don't *have* to, but I wanted to try

me:

people got confused with the notation I used on my exercise

[snip]

Tanya:

What was your exercise?

[snip]

me:

it was on integration by parts

me:

I had them calculate \int_0^1 x e^x dx

me:

in three steps: first, let u = x, let v = e^x

me:

oops

Tanya:

Hah

me:

let u = t, v = e^t

me:

oops

Tanya:

Hah

me:

man, this is harder than I thought

me:

no wonder they got confused!

In conversation with Dickolas (or, Random quotes from yesterday, provided with paraphrased context and a more-or-less accurate punchline)

Derek:

I think Team Canada should just dress a bear in hockey equipment and put him in goal.

Victor:

[excitedly] Have you seen that?! Bears playing hockey?!

Derek:

Wait, what?

Victor:

Bears playing hockey! Have you seen the video?!

me:

Wait... are you talking about the animal or the archetype?

Current Music: Squeeze - Another Nail in my Heart

P.S.: First person to provide a Photoshopped picture of Alec Baldwin playing hockey gets a reward
P.P.S.: Bonus points if you can make him a Cal Golden Bear

What's Wang This Week (special five-year anniversary edition)

Against my better instincts, I decided to start watching Mad Men. Mainly I did this because I felt like I was becoming a bit too attached to light and happy comedic entertainment, and was becoming especially uncultured. Mad Men seemed easier than reading a book. Despite my initial indifference, I quickly became hooked and powered through all of it, finishing last night. Some of it was not that pleasant -- I'm not very attuned to drama anymore, I guess -- and I watched too much, too quickly, but I had to get through it as quickly as I could so I could Google "I hate Betty Draper" without worrying about spoilers. Man do I hate Betty Draper.

Me and the rest of the LUGs bought Settlers of Catan a few weeks ago. I don't know why we didn't buy it sooner, since Jowen and I were playing online probably four times a week a few years ago. Jowen and I were so addicted we would play two-player Settlers, which is about the dumbest thing you can do. He beat me all the time, and I wish I'd saved some of the numbers, because the number of times he rolled 7s more than I did must be statistically significant. I used to half-jokingly accuse him of cheating by altering the random seed on his computer, which he would always deny. Since we've been playing the real board game, though, I've noticed that his dominance has all but disappeared. Now, I've noticed that now when I say "Not so good when you don't fix the game, are we?" to him, he doesn't seem to reject the notion quite as quickly, and there might even be a hint of embarrassment.

So, as the reigning King of Catan (having won all five real games we've played so far, as well as being 2-1 in two-player Jowen-Richard grudge matches), despite the fact that I'm clearly going to jinx my current run of success by just saying this, eat it, Jowen. I am your Catan daddy. It's good to be King.

A few days ago I was sitting in my apartment eating lunch with the slide door open to get some fresh air when I heard a rustling in the kitchen. Without thinking I started to worry that it was a skunk, but then I remembered that I don't live in Berkeley anymore and there's no way a skunk could get in a tenth floor apartment without me noticing. I also don't live in Port Coquitlam anymore, so it probably wasn't a raccoon either. No, it was probably a squirrel, I figured, and sure enough, it was. This is not a good thing, though: I've been afraid of squirrels ever since I was 18. I saw a squirrel chase another squirrel, and when it abandoned its pursuit, it stood there, staring at the fleeing squirrel, chest heaving up and down, with pure malice in its eyes. Ever since then, I've known that squirrels are far more man than me.

Anyway, I managed to direct it back out onto the balcony, but before I could close the door on it, it put its hands onto the sliding door track, stared right at me, and growled at me. What could I do? I couldn't close the door on its hands; this little bastard climbed up ten stories of concrete to get at my stuff: if I even made a move to hurt its hands, there could be some serious hell to pay. I tried not to soil my pants and stared it down, and finally it relented. I closed the door on it and resigned myself to losing the mandarin oranges I was keeping outside on the balcony. Now they're yours, squirrel. Please don't harm my family.

Today my blog is five years old, and what a five years it has been. I toyed with the idea of getting on Twitter a few weeks ago, because I'd be more likely to use it since it's much quicker to Twitter than it is to write a blog post -- and also I wanted to follow Big Ben. I decided against it because I feared I would end up never blogging again, and I'm very fond of the medium- to long-form blog format. I couldn't have written a paean to all-you-can-eat sushi on Twitter. I couldn't have written about my lost youth on Twitter. On the other hand, though, there's Big Ben. Regardless, I've made my choice. Long live I, Dickolas Wang.

Current Music: Dwight Twilley Band - I'm On Fire