General Miscellany

Cock Gun!
I was bored in Torts today and was leafing through the files on my laptop. While in the directory for the game Colonization I noticed a sound file called CockGun.wav. This piqued my curiosity. For the next five minutes I was wracked with a desire to turn on my speakers and hear what a Cock Gun sounds like. Then I realized, "Oh. They mean the act of pulling back the hammer on a manually loading gun in preparation to fire it." This caused me to lose interest. I was speculating about some sort of gun that shoots cocks rather than bullets. Or a gun used to shoot at cocks, like an elephant gun, but for cocks. Or maybe a cock that also acts as a gun.

Hot and Crusty
I was walking around today and passed the Hot and Crusty Bagelry. Hot and Crusty is a local chain here in New York. Like many restaurants around here, they had a little area partitioned off on the sidewalk in front of their store with tables and chairs. There was a sign by these chairs reading "Tables are for hot and crusty patrons only." I was tired and considered sitting down, but upon reflection decided that, while I am more resistant to cold than the average person, I was by no means hot at the time. Further, while I am known to be cantankerous on occasions, it doesn't rise to the level of being crusty. I moved along.

Prices
I also, in my travels, passed the Hungarian Bakery, a coffee and pastry shop near my house. It's sort of our local grad student hangout, not unlike Strada in Berkeley. The key difference is that this place is very self-consciously European and Bohemian. As such, they have an elaborate, ornate menu listing all manner of scrumptious fare, and nowhere do they tell you the prices. There are blackboards where the specials and menu items are written in chalk. Each one has a space next to it where the price ought to be, but is conspicuously absent. This means that if you go in and ask, as I did, for a cherry danish, you are likely to be handed that danish and told that you now owe them $4, and you are likely to react, as I did, by saying something along the lines of "You're shitting me!" I realize knowing how much things cost before you buy them is terribly gauche, but you're not getting me back in there again until they actually tell you how much things cost without forcing you to systematically inquire at the counter before deciding on a purchase.

An Open Letter
To Self-Consciously Smart Law Students Everywhere:
I understand you feel a powerful need, perhaps biological, perhaps cultural, to ask painfully detailed, carefully phrased three-part questions that require a full five minutes just to ask and elicit a long response from the professor on subjects only barely tangentially related to the topic at hand. But could you please, please restrict yourself to asking these questions of professors after class, not during class? Given that this does not appear to be possible, could you at least make an effort not to raise your hand enthusiastically to ask this question with only one minute left in the class period, forcing the entire class to sit in lecture an extra ten minutes and listen to you wank yourself verbally? I understand that public auto-eroticism is your peculiar kink, but please have some consideration for others.