Me and kitchen wrap products

I've already documented my battle with Glad Cling Wrap, the product that's so unlikely to cling to itself or to anything else that the only to keep it from falling off is to use masking tape.

I have a new nemesis: Ziplock Smart Seal. It claims to offer "you edge-to-edge protection against harmful air." Maybe so, but it's definitely not able to keep liquids in. Today's experiment was a chicken marinade. Fortunately, my disaster was over the sink. One thing you do NOT want to do with these bags is to turn it over when it's full of something wet—liquids run right out, mainly at the corners.

Now the question of the day: if these products simply don't work, why do people keep buying them?

Engrish, Chinglish

I used to be a great fan of websites such as engrish.com and engrish funny, but I don't know any more. At Ashland University I usually have half a dozen or so Chinese students who actually write that way, and it gets to be painful after a while.

I used Yahoo's Babelfish to translate the deep philosophical text "I am a little teapot, short and stout" into Chinese, then back to English. I got "I am the small teapot, short and the fierce black beer." That's about how my students' essays look.

Up To Date

Nearly two weeks since my last post here. I've been:

• Feverishly getting ready for the fall semester. It's a kind of coping mechanism. When I'm frustrated that the previous semester was dismal, I vow that the next will certainly be better, and I do everything in my power to make it so. Besides, I am (as usual) over-committed for the coming year, and anything that I can get done in advance will make my life easier.
• Getting back into physical fitness. It's been a long time, because of feeling sick and being busy with work. Still difficult, but I'm enjoying the gym time. Yesterday was my first bike ride (12 miles).
• Spending time with Jared. It's actually funny because I'll assume he meant what he said when he told me we wouldn't see each other for a while, then the phone rings and he absolutely needs some "air time" away from his home.
• Trying to get back into a pattern of daily Bible reading and prayer. I feel a bit like a recovering alcoholic: "Made it another day." I'm using a website called Sacred Space, created by (of all people) a community of Irish Jesuits.

Blogmaster

I've now officially got seven "live" blogs, plus about five dormant ones.

1. This one, of course
2. A blog for the writers' circle at the church
3. A blog for my Akron students
4. A rough-draft blog for the Akron postings (so I can hide things until the opportune moment)
5. A blog for the Ashland students
6. A combination rough-draft and complaining Ashland blog
7. An NCSC blog that will turn into the main online resource for my literature classes

I get fascinated with the look of things and messing around with colors and fonts. The old desktop publisher in me, I guess. Messing about and tweaking is a great way to waste time. The Akron site has gone through about six completely different color schemes, and it's only about a month old.

Beginning and Ending

I'm now officially done with the University of Akron, at least until the end of August. About 30 papers and I'll be done with Ashland as well. (I'll probably hide in my little office on Monday and take care of those.)

It's a bit sad, really. Just about the time Akron has awakened from winter and the weather is getting fine, I leave. I'm sitting here in Angel Falls Coffee and the guys are setting up for a poetry reading. (The audio feedback is mighty strong.) I'll get back to Mansfield too late for First Friday, so I guess "culture" for a while will consist of doing my laundry and getting some apartment cleaning done.

Ah Mansfield. We really don't have a "neighborhood" anywhere. The Carrousel District comes close, but it always seems on the verge of collapsing. I did have a mighty fine strawberry smoothie at a place next to the License Bureau, while the martini bar was starting their wood-fired pizza oven. But it was early in the day and my underage companion wouldn't have found a home over there.

T9

About six times in the last week someone has said that I just need to use my phone in T9. It's one of those obvious statements, on the same level as "You just make a left turn at the road where Murphy's dog got killed six years ago." Some of us didn't even know Murphy had a dog.

Any how, I've noticed that the people who said this T9 gibberish were all (a) under 20 years old and (b) had cell phones implanted in their faces. A mere half hour of messing around (my mind is bit burned out from grading) reveals that T9 is a way to get a cell phone to text ordinary things that people always say. It takes a good deal of getting used to. After a quarter of an hour, I could get it to say, "Meeting is done. I'll be home at o." On the win side, I even got the apostrophe—no mean trick. It's like making a souffle work. On the lose side, it says "I'll be home at o" because there's no obvious way to get a number. I wanted a 6. I tried to say "I'll get pizza at Claire's" (a local pizza shop). That won't work. It's got to be Blaire's. Yes, I know I could find the "mode" key, scroll down through the options to get a numbers option, click that, then put in the 6, then change the mode again. That sure is a lot of trouble.

One positive thing, though, is that T9 doesn't know IM abbreviations. I tried "I luv u 2." I got "I juv t a," which isn't much by way of affection or communication.

People laugh at the way I use my cell phone. Jared's has 62 buttons. Mine has 19, including one or two that I've never used. When mine rings, I open it and talk. When Jared's rings, opening it screws things up; you're supposed to keep it closed and find the right button to push. I open my phone, push a two-key speed-dial combination and talk to people. It takes less than ten seconds to do. Just starting a text message to someone on my list (even before all the T9 confusion begins) requires thirteen keystrokes (including a couple that are anything but obvious). I don't have the nerve to try text-messaging someone from just a phone number.

Maybe I'm showing my age. To the kids, this is as obvious as a double-clutching downshift as you enter a spiraled off-camber mountain curve (remember that little counter-flick of the steering wheel to flip the rear end out). Something everyone was born knowing how to do.

Nearly dead

I've nearly killed this blog because I haven't been posting here. I wonder if any of you are still out there.

The usual. End of semester, lots of reading. I often retreat into myself during this process and deal with my frustration (Why aren't these students any better?) by devising elaborate plans for the future semesters.

Summer's coming. One more week (and it won't really be a bad one either) and I'll be much more relaxed.