Randomalia

1. I spent some time tutoring this Iranian guy in programming back in Vancouver. About twice a month I would head over to his place, we would go over some Pascal code, and every once in a while he would take a break to complain about the Jews. Well, OK, he only mentioned the Jews once, and while I'm pretty sure he wasn't too fond of them as a group, he didn't even say anything about killing them or anything. He spent a fair amount of time telling me about Sufism, and complaining about fundamentalists and how they misinterpret the importance of the veil. And he never failed to serve tea. And so I was introduced to the Iranian way of drinking tea: rather than sweeten it directly, you place a lump of sugar in your mouth and drink the tea through it. Now, my student was a health-conscious fellow, and so he modified this method by replacing the sugar with these yellow raisins. Fabulous. But I have now kicked it up a notch, by replacing the tea with coffee, and the sugar with Hershey's semi-sweet Mini-Kisses (tm). This technique of drinking has thus achieved its apotheosis.

2. What would you expect from the website of a Department of Visual Arts--pretty pictures or Flash or something? (How did I end up at that page? Long, boring story.)

3. The 20th is only a couple of weeks away. That's not a lot of time left for planning, people!

4. I may be a cynical resident of the Ivory Tower, but when I found out one of the peeps back home has a chance at a job in Thailand teaching Burmese activists, I think I drooled a little.