Dynamite with a laser beam.

Boy did today not work out like I was planning. I was going to get up, burn through a bunch of papers, then enter productivity mode and shorten a couple of papers to submission-to-conference length. I did none of those things. First, I woke up in a very crappy mood. I just couldn't get going. Not even the coffee and spicy jalapeno bagel worked (although the bagel was quite good, I have to say). When I eventually got around to grading (after much hemming and hawing), it was something like 11am already. Ugh. So then, after I had graded three of the ten papers I had to do today, I decided that I would go to a coffee shop, somewhere in Kensington, partly because I like the neighborhood, partly because I haven't yet really explored it (it's about 3/4ths of a mile from my place). Anyway, I got a black cherry soda from a coffee shop, and graded three more papers. Then I looked around in this used Cookbook book store, which was quite entertaining, and this used music store (which was, I have to say, rather disappointing). I also explored the Kensington Video Store, which I hadn't yet done (partly because of my trusty friend Netflix, partly because the KVS has virtually everything on VHS). But I did find a few interesting things. One was a piece of French erotica based on the novel Justine by the Marquis de Sade. Now, this wouldn't be particularly notable, were it not for the cast. Justine's father was played by none other than Jack Palance and, get this, starring as the Marquis de Sade was Klaus Kinski! Hah! Talk about perfect casting. I also saw a short film called "Werner Herzog Eats his Shoe", which is, apparently, really Werner Herzog really eating his own shoe. (It was some sort of bet, I guess.)

After that, I finally got around to eating lunch, and I headed back to my place to try to grade the remaining papers, which I failed to do because I'm convinced that one of the papers is plagiarized. Perhaps I should survey. Not all of the paper is taken, in fact, the vast minority. Nevertheless, there are key passages that are lifted right out of a) Peter Singer's "All Animals are Equal", and b) the Stanford Encyclopedia article on animal treatment. Now, if there were just a citation, I would have thought it totally proper, but there's no citation. Ugh. I'm thinking of just penalizing on the grade.

That put me in a crappy enough mood to forget about grading altogether. I'm going to finish up tomorrow. Anyway, after that I recorded a couple of guitar tracks for a new tune. While doing that, I became convinced that, though I will probably fail miserably, my next karaoke attempt is going to be "Killer Queen". Perhaps tomorrow, at the bowling alley. I'm going drinking at Lancer's later tonight. You up for it? Seeya there.