I deserve my reputation for being a smartass at work. Case in point: the senior monitor catches me blowing a bubble. "See, I *can* walk & chew gum at the same time!"

[Edited 2007 06 13: Christopher Little contacted me and asked that I please clarify the situation here in the sight of the gods, Google, and everyone. Plagiarization is a serious academic charge to make, and should not be made lightly, but was made both lightly and erroneously here, for which I apologize. The edition of the text I encountered his essay in had a misplaced ending quotation mark; in the original it was in fact cited properly. If I'd actually done all of my research and tracked down the original publication of the essay, I would have seen the correct citation in the source. I have screened a few of my comments to this entry, because they have no bearing on the true situation.]



Came to school today at 6:25. Not doing too well at the whole breakfast thing. Raced with Darkside to the labs once Shrimpy showed up. Today's Fanboy Otaku Gamer's Club was sweet.

Darkside is putting up his webpage. I'll refrain from linking to it at the moment; it's still under construction, and besides, it's got his real name attached. It's very much under construction ... I have a few small bits of commentary to make when I next see him.

After my last class, I showed up where he was and walked with him to his next class. We giggled together about what I'd discovered online, namely that the article I had to critique for English class had a large chunk of plagiarization right smack in the middle of it, just waiting for someone to come along and notice it. Furthermore, the author had the gall to accuse the writers he yoinked the text from w/o proper citation of "poor academics". If taking text of someone else's and claiming it as your own work isn't "poor academics," I don't know what is. Darkside and I had a good laugh over it, and decided that the writers must have put this in the textbook as an "Easter egg" for some student to find and really rip Christopher Little, "Communitarianism: A New Threat for Gun Owners" (pages 547-551 in Writing in the Disciplines: A Reader for Writers 4th Edition, Kennedy, Kennedy, and Smith, Prentice Hall, Copyright 1987-2000) a new one.

"Don't you have class now?" Darkside asked.

"No, this is the day when you strangle me," I told him.

"Aaah," he said. "Shall we take this outside, then?"

We wandered out into the hall and he proceeded to wrap both hands around my neck. I strangled back. "Is that the best you can do?" he asked, according to the tradition.

"No," I said, also according to our formula, and ducked his second strangle by bending backwards.

This led to figuring out who could bend the furthest backwards (me), and then to comparing stories from our respective martial arts classes, his Tai Kwon Do, my fencing. He was better at not being knocked over at a lunge press extend than I am, which may end up shaming me into taking up my fencing exercises again. Stretches. Plies.

One of his classmates came along, and saw us standing side by side against the wall slanted in to the open door, talking to each other and giggling like high schoolers. "So what are you two up to?" he asked, with that inflection on "you two" that says that "us two" are seen as a "two".

"Seeing how much we can hurt each other without getting in trouble," was the general answer.

Come to think of it, that's a pretty good summary of our relationship. Right now we're exploring what we can get away with, with each other, and more than not hurting each other. I'm not afraid of being hurt by him. I know if he does, it's not intentional; he just doesn't know me well enough to know what will hurt yet. He doesn't know his own strength. I hope he'll have enough common sense to tell me if I hurt him.

I was told today: "Real; a fair exchange; remember this." I have to give as good as I get with him, with everyone, but especially with him.