New Poll!!!!

Your vote can help shape the future of the workshop. Please vote in the "what topic should we cover next" poll. The topic with the least votes will be selected. VOTE NOW!

Update: voting closed. Thank you all for voting. Since multiple topics had the same number of least votes, the topic with the most votes will be covered. This is best. Think about it: if you read the rules you were really voting against a topic by voting for it, so for all intents & purposes sweatiness does have the least votes.

Something even more exciting

DIGNITY! There is second dignified person the world. We now have two confirmed!

Although, it's possible the Professor -- yours truly -- who is honest to a fault, will soon be unable to claim dignity as an asset without being a hypocrite. Watch the poll carefully, readers. Something serious is at stake.

Something exciting

Something exciting may happen at the workshop soon. Are you ready to hear what it is? It has to do with dignity. To add dignity to the workshop, we have invited a new guest author. Who will it be? What will they write? Will this author see the same level of popularity as the controversial Postillion has? Only time will tell.

When will we find out if the new author accepts our invitation? Soon, Soon, the Professor hopes.

Bookmark the workshop now and check back often for the latest developments.

Indeed, who Is stupid now? I think I know...

Postillion doesn't perhaps grasp the near universality of the -er, -est suffixes. Professor Marvel understands them to be a way to superlative-ize any adjective, unless there is an exception as with good/better/best, bad/worse/worst. Granted, in some cases, adding -er/-est just sounds sort of stupid. And in that case, we just use more or most in front of the adjective. It's just not that mysterious.

Who's stupid now?

I had no idea that eviler and evilest are actual words.

The dictionary says they are.

Maybe my ignorance stems from my goodness?

~Postillion

Twin studies

Mystery solved!

They are starlings!

~Postillion!!!

A Big Thank You

... to whoever voted in the snail poll. It's folks like you who keep democracy alive.

EUODI officially unveiled

After doing some focus group tests and test flights on Experiments of Unkindness on One Deserving Individual, we are officially rolling out/launching (choose the corporate lingua franca of your preference) EUODI!

Here is the way the terminology can be used by all followers of EUODI:

EU: Experiments of Unkindness
Comes from Ancient Greek eu meaning well
Pronounced with a fluctuation of sound as it is a dipthong

Don't forget to vote in the Dignity Poll.

ODI: One Deserving Individual
Comes from Latin odiosus, hateful, and odium, hatred.
ODI is related to the English word odious
Rhyme it with Opie (Opie: dopey dog character from ancient comic strip: Garfield).

Now, put it all together and pronounce it: EUODI (don't forget to fluctuate the eu!)

Thanks and gratitude to Gnovos without whose inspiring, motivating and illiterate words, none of this would have been possible.

~Postillion

Oh, the crazy things that go on here in the workshop! Look how many of you are undignified. What has become of us, as a culture? In my days -- even when I was just a pup -- I strove for dignity. I would never call myself undignified, even in an anonymous poll.

But clearly times are changing. I will try to change too. I consider myself a modern Professor, so I insist on keeping up with the latest fads. I will try to be undignified. I will lose some dignity. Back to the workbench to figure out how!

Thanks Postillion

Don't forget to vote in the Dignity Poll.

Postillion: Professor Marvel has decided that your additions to the blog are worthy.

ATTENTION READERS: If at any time the arrow in the Dignity Poll message does not line up properly with the Dignity Poll in your browser, PLEASE open or close the Year and Month headings in the Archive list just above the poll until the poll and arrow line up properly.

Unkindness

I am currently engaged in an experiment of unkindness. While I generally don't believe in unkindness (although generally not believing in unkindness does not rule out sarcasm, irony, wryness, nor sardonic searing witticisms), I have decided that occasionally one must make exceptions.

So far, my unkindness experiment has generated the desired reaction: fear and flight in the subject.

If you would like to engage in unkindness, I recommend it be done with wit and grace inasmuch as it is possible. It helps if you are involved in a moment of actually feeling contempt for the subject.

Not too long ago, Professor Marvel put together the dignity poll. Unkindness is rather undignified. But, I admit that the gratification of self-satisfaction might be worth it.

~Postillion

re: sudoko

I find that the pleasure of sudoku varies over time. Yes, the fun diminishes, but then you put the sudokus down for a while -- weeks, months, years -- and then some day, you're riding the bus, and it's exactly what you need. The pleasure v. time graph of sudoku is shaped like a roller coaster. I will draw it on a bar napkin for you one day and post it here in my workshop.

Don't forget to vote in the Dignity Poll.

Professor Marvel asks ...

What's happening to my workshop? Somebody's been fooling around in my workshop. Now there's all these words in here.

I'm not sure how I feel about this. Give me some time to sort out my thoughts.

In the meantime, don't forget to vote in the Dignity Poll.

Some free floating quotes on the state of human kind, contempt, bordeom, the quotidian, and a Sudoku question

Why not use your fluttering tongue to wipe the sweat off of that starling who is trying to strip off her wings. It's so distant of you, my aroboreal lover on the outskirts of town. From the shadow of the clothes hanging in a thrift shop, a single antelope watches you. Steel-colored eyes of contempt. Takashi Hiraide, For the Fighting Spirit of the Walnut (trans. by Sawaka Nakayasu)

Or, Cyril Connolly from The Unquiet Grave:
Beneath a mask of selfish tranquility nothing exists except bitterness and boredom. I am one of those whom suffering has made empty and frivolous: each night in my dreams I pull the scab off a wound; each day, vacuous and habit-ridden, I help it re-form.

When I contemplate the accumulation of guilt and remorse which, like a garbage-can, I carry through life, and which is fed not only by the lightest action but by the most harmless pleasure, I feel Man to be of all living things the most biologically incompetent and ill-organized. Why has he acquired a seventy-years' life-span only to poison it incurably by the mere being of himself? Why has he thrown Conscience, like a dead rat, to putrefy in the well?

And back to Takashi Hiraide:
One day, in the afternoon after the rain, on the escalator going from the west side of the first floor to the second floor of the Takashimaya store in Nihonbashi, I saw a single snail in front of me, and found myself sighing deeply at the pointlessness of his rhyme. Would he now proceed to the grocery on the rooftop, or head straight to the kitchen of the dining hall. Or perhaps he has some shopping to do. At least get yourself up to the magic section, little spiral. I whispered words of encouragement, but all I saw was maybe a shy little twitch of the tentacles.

By the way, is there diminishing returns of pleasure on Sudoku?

~posted by Postillion

Dignity

This post is about dignity. This blog is about dignity. I have dignity.

Do you have any dignity? If yes, what do you do with it? If no, do you want some, or do you think it's overrated?