Unnecessarily Locked Doors

I really hate it when I approach a set of doors and the one I happen to try to use is locked, where some arbitrary other ones are unlocked. I hate it for a few reasons:

1) I feel like an idiot and look like an idiot, pushing into a door, expecting it to move and it not moving. This is exacerbated by others with me going through nearby doors with no problem.

2) I think of all the time wasted by all the people all day trying to get through the door and failing, just because some jackass custodian was lazy and didn't want to take the extra twenty seconds in the morning to unlock all the doors.

At Georgia Tech I actually used to call in complaints about this when I discovered it in my building. It never got better. So much for local activism.

Once I was in a foul mood and I encountered this. I bitched about it to someone and he said "You shouldn't let the little things get to you, man." He was right, of course.

Shitdog!

A Book Ahead of its Time

As a professor I get sent free books sometimes, which is great. I just got one about AI that is really ahead of its time. How do I know?

It's March 6, 2008, and the copyright on the book is 2009. How is this possible?

Shitdog!

Please Expand Your Abbreviations

I just got an email that starts like this:

"Announcement
-------------------------------------------------------
Last Call for Papers/Abstracts and Invited Sessions Proposals for EISTA 2008, (Orlando, Florida, USA. June 29th- July 2nd, 2008) http://www.socioinfocyber.org/eista2008

Deadlines:
Papers/Abstracts Submissions and Invited Sessions Proposal: April 3rd, 2008
Authors Notification: April 25th, 2008
Camera-ready, full papers: May 22nd, 2008
-------------------------------------------------------

All Submitted papers will be reviewed by a double-blind (at least three reviewers), 
non-blind, and participative peer review. These three kinds of review will support 
the selection process of those that will be accepted for their presentation at the conference, as well as those to be selected for their publication in JSCI Journal."

It goes on, never saying what EISTA stands for. So annoying.

Shitdog!

Tom Jones's cover of Prince and the Revolution's "Kiss"

I like what my aunt said about it: "That man should be shot."

Shitdog!

More with the change!

I've blogged before about how much I can't stand getting the coins on top of the bills when I get change. Today some jackass took the offense to new heights!

I just bought my drugs at the supermarket. The change was $40. The jackass hands me one big package, with the bag (with the medicine in it) on the bottom, the receipt over that, and then the money on top. Like I'm going to carry the whole thing out into the freezing cold like that. As though I wasn't going to put forty dollars in the wallet I still had out.

I took the money. As I put it in my wallet, Jackass was standing there holding my receipt and bag. I told him to put it down. When I was done putting my money away, I took the bag and left.

Shitdog!