Off to Hot Climes

(and hoping not to return home a fierce invalid)

For my faithful readers... both of you... I will be gone for the next couple of weeks visiting my children in South America, Argentina to be exact. There I hope to answer many of those questions that have plagued humankind from the beginning of rational thought (sometime in the mid 1960s):

Do the toilets really flush backwards in the southern hemisphere?

Is it "Argentinian", "Argentine", or "Argentinean"? Or is it simply just "here" when you are there?

Does Argentina really not need to cry for Evita?

If I see a toucan, do I get Frootloops?

And does Mendozan wine really taste better in Mendoza?

The answers to these and many other questions await!

And now, a moral dilemma...

You've just spent the semester at the local junior college with a student in your class who's just spent the entire semester writing about how he wishes he were still in the Corps, and how wrong it was that they threw him out just because he seemed to enjoy killing just a bit too much. But, hell, wasn't that why they wanted him in the Corps to begin with? And just because you install a camera on your scope and save all the pictures doesn't mean shit. That, and and every paper he's written was about how he can't stand pretty much anybody in authority, never could, including every teacher he's ever known, except maybe for Mrs. Francis in the first grade, because they all lie and are out to screw you over, and ain't it just about time that somebody put their sorry asses down?

What do you do when you discover that his final paper is not only a little bit plagiarized... you know, the "I can see how you could get confused" kind of plagiarism, but it's a whole lot plagiarized? You know, the "photocopy the entire thing out of the textbook and white out the author's name and write in yours -- before the white out was even dry" kind of plagiarism.

I mean, really, what do you do?

Ach! Dat Sun!

I was watching TV yesterday and I saw the new Nissan commercial... You know, the one with "Iron Man" playing in the background. "Iron Man." You know, by Black Sabbath. What further proof do you need? Nissan is satanic! They want to pollute our minds and our high ways with their evil ways.

Of course, that could be a great marketing ploy. Imagine... The New Nissan 666, the only truck tough enough for Hell!