Category: idiocy

Halfway there

On By Luther M. SilerIn idiocy, ReadingLeave a comment

I finished Robert Jordan’s A Crown of Swords today, Book Seven of the Wheel of Time, which means I have finished eight of these dreadful books (there’s a prequel, technically book zero) and am either halfway through the series or over halfway depending on how you’re counting. I only have four of the actual Jordan books left and then the trilogy written by Brandon Sanderson. I am also about to enter what fans of the series refer to as “the slog,” which means that a book series that will regularly go five hundred pages without a single speck of advancement in the plot is going to get slower.

Seriously, Crown of Swords is eight hundred and fifty pages long and maybe three or four actual events happen in the book– someone dies abruptly in the prologue, someone else dies abruptly and more or less off-screen in the last chapter, someone fake-dies (I don’t believe it for a tiny shred of a second) a few chapters before the end, and some of the characters find something they’ve been supposedly looking for for like three books. They’ve been looking for it for so long that I’ve forgotten what it’s supposed to be for, and when they find it, it’s also off-screen. A character literally walks out of a room with a bundle wrapped in cloth and announces “Here’s the thing! We’ve got it!”

Oh, and two other characters, whose relationship has never made sense for a single second, get married. Off-screen.

I am going to finish this damned series this year, but I have always been reading it out of spite, and nothing has changed. The physical books still make me happy every time I walk past them, though. I have no regrets.

Too tired to type

On By Luther M. SilerIn idiocy, Teaching1 Comment

I had one of the worst days of my career today, I think, and absolutely the worst single day of the year; I had gone the entire school year without breaking up a fight and today I had to prevent one, break up another, and then put up with some absolutely fucking unhinged and immature behavior from parents that very much should have gotten them arrested and trespassed and somehow resulted in neither thing happening. Then tonight was the literal last band concert I ever have to go to, which I was far too exhausted to properly appreciate, and during which I had to put up with even more shit parenting from what appeared to be two different families in the row in front of us who were bound and determined to ignore their feral-assed children.

I have had more than enough, I really don’t want to go to work tomorrow, I don’t know how I’m going to interact with the kid whose parents showed their asses (“I never realized you were the adult in the house” is probably something I shouldn’t say) and I still have a statement to write about all of that in which I am not allowed to cuss or impugn the parenting, intelligence or sanity of the other individuals involved.

Christ, I have never hated a year as much as I hate 2026.

This is a test post

On By Luther M. SilerIn idiocyLeave a comment

I may have fixed the issue on my laptop in the stupidest way imaginable.

It appears that deactivating every single plugin on my site is allowing me to post on the new laptop.

It is allowed as a mental exercise for the reader why changing something at the site end that does not live on this laptop allows me to post on this laptop, but everything works fine on my desktop, which has the same system software, the same network, and the same applications.

I’m going to go to bed and read.

Oh what the hell

On By Luther M. SilerIn Geek, idiocyLeave a comment

Got a spiffy new laptop.

Was gonna use the spiffy new laptop to write a post.

New post wasn’t going to be about the spiffy new laptop, it was going to be about getting sick twice in two different ways at work today.

Spiffy new laptop won’t load the WordPress new post screen. Everything else works fine!

Guess why I bought the spiffy new laptop?

Anyway, I’m writing this on my phone and it is possible that there will be a ragesplosion soon, so y’all can look forward to that, because this makes no sense at all.

The worst thing about adulthood

On By Luther M. SilerIn idiocyLeave a comment

I can put off deciding what to have for dinner for as long as I want, but it’s just going to be dinner time again tomorrow and I’ll have to do it again.

In which I vegetate

On By Luther M. SilerIn idiocyLeave a comment

I got home from work at a decent hour, having left almost precisely as early as contractual obligations allowed, then sat in a chair and did not move for two and a half hours. Dinner was two bowls of Frosted Mini-Wheats.

I’m, uh, gonna go play video games now, these three sentences having represented the apotheosis of my intellectual abilities at the moment.

The most exciting thing that happened today

On By Luther M. SilerIn idiocyLeave a comment

I have made this observation in three different places so far, which is almost certainly more than it deserves: the most impressive thing about the Big Arch I had for lunch today is that it looks exactly like every picture of the Big Arch that McDonald’s has been using to advertise it. If you eat at restaurants at all you know how ridiculously uncommon that is. The review: pretty damn tasty, almost too big, although I could still taste it three hours later and I suspect my breath may still slightly smell of onions.

This week was utter madness.

Two different two-hour fog delays, which led to me talking for five hours straight on Thursday, as everything I had planned for that day had to be compressed into two hours less class time, meaning I did nothing but lecture the entire day. This is not a thing I do. I was so tired when I got home I forgot to take my Mounjaro shot, which has been a regular Thursday thing for at least a year now. Today they took the test I was doing the guided notes for yesterday; I still have two classes to grade, but early indications are that the bed appears to not have been shit in. Monday and Tuesday were it’s getting warm and there’s a full moon behaviors and Wednesday was an e-learning day and tons of meetings.

Y’all, I am exhausted. And all of this is before we get to the bit where the fucking world set itself on fire more than once in the last couple of weeks– have I even used the word “Iran” on this blog yet? How long ago was the first attack? It could have been anything from yesterday to a month ago at this point; I’m so fried I can’t even tell. The second-dumbest guy in the Senate is apparently getting promoted? Gas prices have shot up by a dollar a gallon since I filled the tank on Monday.

Oh, and while I’ve generally tried not to talk too much about some of the medical issues my son has been having, for probably-obvious reasons, I cannot pass up mentioning that he was prescribed a nasal spray this week for migraines that are somehow in his abdomen, and no part of me is capable of dealing with the fact that that sentence represents something real and is not word salad.

So naturally tomorrow we’re going to tear down a wall in the bedroom. Wish me luck.

I’m sure it’ll be fine.

I’m a loser, baby

On By Luther M. SilerIn idiocy, Teaching2 Comments

I considered not posting tonight; after all, if I’m going to lose one significant streak, I may as well lose more than one, but here I am nonetheless. I’ve already disappointed myself, surely I can’t follow that up by disappointing my adoring public.

Shut up, yes you are. And yes you do.

I am … superstitious isn’t the right word, but I can’t for the life of me figure out what it is– in exactly one way: I’m fully convinced that full moons fuck kids up. To wit, as I was leaving work today, someone mentioned that tomorrow was the full moon, and suddenly the utter fucking ridiculousness of my day just clicked. Like, oh, of course there’s a full moon. You were in that classroom. You saw those kids. And that’s the thing; when I walk into my day entirely unaware of the phase of the moon, experience the psychotic behavior from my lovely lil’ dipshits, and then find out that’s what was going on? That’s evidence, dammit. I shouted one room into twenty minutes of complete silence today. I’ve had such a good year that these kids have barely heard me raise my voice at all, so when I do lose my temper it gets a real reaction.

There are days where I simply can’t make this shit any simpler, and today was one of them. “See this number? See this number? Divide them shits. Make sure this one’s on top.” That was it. Calculating scale factors just isn’t that hard. And my third hour in particular made it abundantly clear that every second of my instruction had literally just passed through their heads like a neutrino through aerogel, leaving not a fucking trace of a mark behind. There’s only so many times I can be asked questions which I have literally just answered before I lose my shit, and asking a room full of fourteen-year-olds what three divided by one was and getting “one” and “four” as answers– this is not a fucking joke, it really happened– was the last straw.

I don’t give a damn if your parents tell you to go to school. You’re clearly already used to being a disappointment; what’s one more thing? If this is all the effort I’m going to get out of y’all, you can go. The office is down the hall. I’m not even going to write you up. Just fuck off. Go home, go to hell, I don’t care which. You aren’t entitled to my fucking oxygen if you’re not going to be a student.

Bah.