a mystery solved

saw two more kids wearing bagels on lanyards around their necks today. almost stopped one of them to ask what the fuck, but he seemed to be in a hurry, so i didn't want to interrupt.

but then one of my students turned up wearing a belt made out of duct tape. so i did ask her what the fuck. and she reported: there's a big ol' game of assassins going on, and for her dorm, the immunity this week is duct tape. meaning, as long as she's wearing duct tape, she can't be "killed". so these bagel children, the bagel necklaces mean they're immune. from assassins.

'kay. whatever.

in other news, i am officially (according to the university) Proficient in French! go me! of course, they determined this by having me read an article (in french) and then answer four questions in english (two of the questions were asked in english and two in french, but i was permitted to answer them all in whichever language i preferred), but i'm not complaining. one step closer to graduation yay!

i am inordinately fond, lately, of hard salami. for a couple of weeks it's been the only salty snack i'm interested in. my hope is that i'll get heartily sick of it fairly soon, and then i'll never want to look at it ever again.

my folks are coming in this weekend. i think we'll go on saturday to a Garlic Festival one of my fellow grad students was telling me about today. there'll be booths with wine, cheese, bread, etc. -- good stuff, time outdoors, and so forth. and if they don't like it, that'll teach them to leave the programming decisions to me.

i have an inflamed tastebud on my tongue. ugh.

early exits from california:

if i worked for gray davis, right now i'd be encouraging him to get on the news and say "i'll be back."