One of my favorite meme’s on twitter is the “OH:” meme, where folks post little snippets of things they’ve heard in the world that are (usually) hilarious. This post will be, I think, a collection of the best little quotes I’ve heard, heard about, or seen recently.

“Chicken is easily divisible”

“If you’re hand is one space off on your keyboard and you start typing server, you start typing awesome. servers are awesome.”

“I will be eagerly awaiting the New York Times style piece on the growing trend of the ‘ZOMG WE’RE NOT EVEN DATING GUYS’ rings.”

“The emacs makes the text, I am but a humble servant.”

“We should get facebook married so everyone would know its the fakes.”

“If [company] were a musical, there’d be a song here. Thankfully it’s not.”

“Caffeine is like liquid naps.”

“For epic lulz you should switch your keyboard [with blank keys] to Dvorak.”

“wat.”

The latest in a fine tradition of tychoish posts…

Five People I Enjoy on Twitter

• soliloqueer
• abstractnixon
• rickerje
• qunnorton
• tommorris
• and a bonus (DeleuzeGuatteri)

Five Improvements to Web Browsers

• Enforce document structure standards on the server. Documents must be structured and organized within the constraints of a couple of conventions or else the server throws a 500 error.
• Locate all design and presentation on the client side, and allow designs to be fully independent of the design.
• Scripting happens on the client side, in sandboxes, and are integral parts of the browser applications.
• Therefore, scripts shouldn’t be provided with the browser or by the viewer, not by the content creator. In other words, die JavaScript, die, and replace it with lightweight greasemonkeyesque+webkit-style browsers. Except might as well use python/perl/ruby/etc. while you’re at it.
• Applications, can and should interact with servers and infrastructure and data over the network, but “the web” shouldn’t convert interactive applications. The goal here is to make the web-as-information-distribution work.

Five Things I’m quasi likely to Acquire in the Next Few Months

• An Amazon Kindle
• Some sort of roasting pan
• A New Laptop Bag
• A table and chairs (one of which might be good for spinning)
• A gym membership

Five Things That are Awesome about Dance Weekends

• You can dance with someone more than once, without it being creepy or weird. At an evening of a dance, it’s only really realistic to dance with someone once because there are 15 or 20 dances max. At an all day dance, we’re talking 60 or 70 dances.
• Innocent and awesome dance crushes.
• The “gender” thing is more flexible at big dance weekends. Which is fun. It’s probably true that part of the fun is in part due to the fact that queering up the gender roles in a contra dance makes contra a little harder, but I also just enjoy it for it’s awesome factor. M.N. also noted that when you come across older men dancing together in the contra lupine, you know it’s all gravy. And that’s more likely to happen at a dance weekend.
• Awesome bands. In short: Giant Robot Dance.
• Squares that don’t suck.

Five Changes in Habits that I Would Have Never Expected to See In Myself

• Sacred Harp/Shape Note Singing
• A Decrease in knitting output and interest
• Weekend plans and events three to four weekends out of five.
• The degree with which I’m a neat freak about my apartment. (Not absurd, but I still have moments where I surprise myself.)
• Contra dancing as my main form of dance, as opposed to Morris and/or International folk.

I, rather innocently, posted something to identi.ca / twitter / Facebook. The canonical text is:

signs you’ve spent too much time in the upper midwest: sometimes when stressed, you impulse buy cheese

I spent three years in Wisconsin--southern Wisconsin--for college. Ever since then I’ve related to cheese differently.

So here’s what happened:

I was shopping, Mostly minding my own business when I passed the cheese display. Not the fancy cheese display, you know, but the one next to the designer coffee creamers, and the pre-made baking doughs.

And, pretty much before I realized what had happened, I scooped up a half pound of store-brand mozzarella. I don’t think I even stopped the cart.

In the parking lot, I realized what had happened. I had cheese at home. A half pound of Munster--and pretty nice Munster I thought, though I’ve not met a Munster I didn’t like--waited for me in the fridge at home. The reason why I got it? Easy:

A few weeks ago, I was in Philadelphia staying with a friend who grew up in the Twin Cities and we had the most amazing mozzarella for dinner. I looked up after my second slice and said. “Wow, we’re so Midwestern.” It was undeniably true. A friend from the east cost, immediately confirmed for us that she thought we were weird. But it was amazing cheese. And we didn’t

As for my little block of cheese: it too was amazing. Not quite as good, I suppose, but it was refreshing and in a weird way it reminded me of home.

The people on Facebook also responded with a rather active little thread. Morris dancers from Minnesota. Contra Dancers from St. Louis. Classmates from College. Perhaps my experience wasn’t uncommon.

Cheese. Who would have thought it.

A number of anecdotes follow…

During my junior year of College I wrote this paper with my roommate about the emergence of third-wave feminism and post-structuralism-inspired Queer Theory in Lesbian poetry. And the paper wove in and out of conceptions of “home” and “community” and while it was a rough paper to write, I learned a lot about feminism/queer things, and I learned a lot about collaboration and scholarship. Incidentally, I recently discovered that our process for this paper was very reminiscent of what Agile Software Development/Extreme Programing calls “Pair Programing.”

At any rate, H. and I were very religious (in a way that is kinda touching in retrospect,) about setting weekly assignments for ourselves, writing lengthy notes and short informal essays for our mentor, and so forth. Crazy amount of work. And on one of these papers I wrote something that got a comment, I haven’t a clue what I’d written any more but I think it was sort of coyly smart-assy, but the comment itself stuck with me, but the professor said:

Awkward, but endearingly colloquial

Which, I have to say, I think sums me up rather nicely. I used it as the subtitle of this blog for a few years.

More recently, I was talking to my friend Caroline and we--as we’re occasionally given--were discussing food and cooking. I told her about my recent habit of making popcorn on the stove (my Air Popper broke) and about what I put on my popped corn. Which is these days, salt, pepper and balsamic vinegar.

And it’s amazing.

Caroline’s response was, however, priceless:

That sounds delicious.

[beat]

If a little abrasive.

I instantly remembered what the professor had written about my turn of phrase before, and thought “wow, that about sums me up.”

I’d ask you all what you think these things say about me, but I’m not entirely sure I want to know.

Overheard at a Sunday dinner with the family:

`momtron <http://www.twitter.com/momtron>`_: Could you get the Quark [for my potato].

tycho looks quizzical.

`momtron <http://www.twitter.com/momtron>`_: In the fridge.

`dadtron <http://www.twitter.com/dadtron>`_: It’s a yogurt cheese.

tycho: right. I was about to say… They’re awfully small, and besides, they’re all over the place.

`dadtron <http://www.twitter.com/dadtron>`_: Maybe.

`momtron <http://www.twitter.com/momtron>`_ *sighs*

Stroll, Bitch, Ph.D.’s guest blogger made the following observation:

One day cock of the walk; next, a feather duster.

In other news, both James “The Hardest Working Man in Show Business” Brown and Gerald “The Only Unelected President” Ford, have passed away in recent days. As we all know, famous deaths come in threes. So, with sincere sympathies to the families and friends of the deceased and hopes that they find comfort, I’m telling you: keep your eyes peeled for Number Three.

(Via Bitch. Ph.D..)

Whose your bet? I heard, I think via tinman about an office game that involved some sort of betting pool bassed on creating a list of famous people who were likely to die. I think you got points bassed on who lived. I recognize that this isn’t incredibly useful. Anyway, to bring this all back together--loosely--does anyone have any ideas for who the third is?

I think Claude Levi-Struss is too easy of a bet, and Jimmy Carter is probably not creative enough. I dunno. Thoughts?

In another morbid moment. Over dinner tonight one of our friends, remarked after having seen “The Queen,” about how sad the time following Princess Dianna’s death was.

To which my only memory was that my grandfather, for the next month or so, when ever you asked him “what’s happening,” would say “she’s still dead.”

I’m sorry you all for being such a sucky blogger. Happy New Years. I figure that I’m reflexive enough 364 days of the year, that I can spare you on New Years. Maybe the next catch phrase for this blog will be “Reflexive on Demand.” Actually now that I’m thinking about it, the current title “Awkward, But Endearingly Colloquial” is an actual comment that a professor wrote on one of my papers. I thought it was rather clever. So there.

Anyway, I’ll be back with more content soon enough, just you wait.

Cheers!