"Work"

Many of you have asked me what my job in the Philosophy Department demands of me. I answer, usually, that I answer phones, photocopy stuff, direct students to advisors, etc. But the thing I'm most proud of is my rubberband ball. I'm thinking of adding it to my resume: "originated and maintained one of the largest and tidiest rubberband balls in the district." Anyway, it's taken about 2.5 years to get it to this size. My co-workers faithfully kept it going while I was away, so I can't take sole responsibility for it. I'm anal about having all the bands flat, no twists! I'd estimate that it weighs around 8lbs now. I had started one a few years back, and it got to be about the size of a tangerine. I gave it back to the mailroom guy, and almost immediately regretted it.

I was impressed with my ball until I looked up "rubberband ball" videos on youtube and saw one that weighed two tons (the Guinness Book record holder, sponsered by Officemax) and one that utterly destroyed a car when rolled down a hill.

And sometimes at "work", I get excellent letters from nutjobs. Here is the opening paragraph of today's, from somwhere with a heading that reads, in fancy Pope-ish script, "Symbola Petri Viventis, Sola Symbola Assucentia Me Ad Mea Omnia." My best Latin translation gives me, "not found." Oh wait, I believe he translated himself as "The supreme summit of stuipidity: a finite mind finding fault with what The Infinitely Informed does" Right. Anyway, it's addressed to The Philosophical Community, The Scientific Community and The Entire Academic World. Enjoy.

"This rather lengthy letter of complaint is a 71 year old male's outcry against the 45 years of utter inddifference which you have manifested toward my many ideas. I protest the gross injustice of your inaction toward my ideas. More importantly, I shall here set before the world, for all time to come, a bill of indictment which I hope shall prove my contention that your indifference to my ideas is in fact a gross injustice. This bill of indictment, I shall then send to hundreds if not thousands of sources with the intention of raising such a noise, that my complaint against you shall stand forever in the pages of history."

Word. Shredder.