spamguy » Texas

Burn It, Burnet

spamguy — Thu, 07 May 2009 23:10:20 +0000

Way back in high school, I took driver’s ed in a dumpy complex adjacent to Austin’s Burnet Road. That’s BURnet. One of my instructors, of uncertain wisdom, taste in clothes, and sexuality, frequently told me to turn onto BurNET. I wanted to slap his rat-tail for not knowing how to pronounce the street printed on his paycheque.

I discovered a more tactful way I could have taught him. The Texas Hill Country has a line for this very occasion: ‘It’s Burnet, durn it, can’t you learn it?’

Forever Forever Forever Forever: CWRU's Ridiculous Alma Mater

spamguy — Mon, 26 May 2008 06:39:48 +0000

It’s been a little over a year since I graduated from Case Western Reserve University (May 20th, 2007). My commencement was god-awful, with laughter in all the wrong places. The commencement speaker Richard Lederer ((Who? Yeah, that’s the question I asked.)), a man who makes a living cracking jokes about motherfuckin’ grammar, failed to score points with most of the crowd. Grammar can be funny, but he talked about his professional poker-playing kids ((Both their Wikipedia articles are longer than his; the latter is three times so.)) more than his livelihood, so I had all the reasons I needed to take a nap for 20 minutes.

All the laughter was pent up in preparation for Case Western’s alma mater song. A tune that should inspire pride and honour in alumni instead made me struggle to keep from snickering. It was written in 1990, even though CWRU was founded in 1826.

Shine on, forever, Case Western Reserve.
Loyal and true are we (are we).
Your brave sons and daughters,
Your knowledge we use to make our history.

Our school days we will cherish forever more,
A lifetime of friends from the start (the start).
Shine on, forever, Case Western Reserve.
You’ll be forever in our hearts.

Let me outline a few rules for any future anthem writers that may be reading:

Don’t make your school song so generic that the college’s name can be swapped out with another and have it still make sense.
Don’t use the same noun word (pronouns excluded) more than twice. Count the number of times forever is used above. Thanks to Warren for pointing out that, in fact, forever is not a noun.
CWRU’s song could have been produced by a computer algorithm told to give weight to a short list of sentimentalist buzzwords. If your school song passes the Turing Test, you’re doing it wrong.
Creativity is rewarded, which is why ‘The Eyes of Texas’ is one of the most famous alma maters of all time to the point it is considered an unofficial state song. Phrases like ‘make our history’ are clearly plagiarised from Party of Five screenplays.

The Pen Game

spamguy — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 02:27:15 +0000

Greetings from Galveston’s TxDLA conference! I have mixed feelings about being here. On one hand, I love the exhibit portion of conferences. Since tagging along to my father’s ALA attendances as a kid I’ve learned to talk the talk, walk the walk, and maximise the awesomeness-to-mass ratio of my schwag bag. Now that I have a job tied to my presence at a conference, the devil-may-care attitude of stealing goods is frowned upon. The background of this conference has little applicability to my organisation and even less to myself.

I still try to salvage a little from my childhood practises by playing the Pen Game. (Not to be confused with Pen 15.) The goal: steal as many pens as possible. Other forms of logoed goodies do not apply. Get co-travellers to compete with you if possible.

My score after Day 1? 5. Laugh at you want for being able to count that high on one hand: I’m working with harsh conditions, like a tiny conference hall barely filled halfway.