Wednesday, December 9, 2009

Some tips for my readers

Don't drive in Cincinnati when: it's raining, it's cold, it's snowing, it's sunny, it's dark, it's foggy, it's early, it's late, it's dark, it's hot, it's goign to rain, it's going to snow, the Bengals are/aren't playing, the Bearcats are about to play, the Reds are in town, there's a holiday coming up, there are sales at discount chains, or there's a storm coming. Otherwise, it's perfectly safe to try to drive, just avoid I-75 if you can.

Don't try to play soccer in a rain/snow mix. Mostly because your friends won't be stupid enough to meet you out on the field, and you'll wind up freezing your digits off while waiting for people who aren't coming.

Don't upgrade your OS until the first set of patches has been released. I don't know what that means, but my friends insist it's good advice, and they'd know because they're PC users (jab!).

Order all espresso as "ristretto" or "short" or "corto" or "curto" or "italiano." All lattes in the US should be ordered "without foam," because no matter how vociferously you insist on a clean coffee top, they're going to foam you. But if you insist on no foam, you'll get slightly less, which isn't a bad thing. Foam is the milk that steam has scalded; would you drink a glass of scalded milk?

If the printer/scanner/photocopier is on sale for $39.99 at Target, there's a good reason. Or, there are a number of good reasons. Don't do it, it IS too good to be true.

Nearly everything is cheaper online now, especially if you can get someone else to spring for Amazon Prime.

The dissertation will not write itself, no matter how much you want it to: hint, hint.