Patty on TP's Tats

I love having guest theorems and today we get to feature one of the most unlikely candidates: my mom. That's right, the tree doesn't wander too far from the fallen apple.

Theorem 28: We are paying for Terrelle Pryor's tats

Now that it is explained to me, it seems so obvious. Terrelle Pryor and his gang of highly-talented football thugs were found to be in violation of NCAA rules when they received tattoos in exchange for signed memorabilia (and other stuff). The power-tripping NCAA punishes them with suspensions. Tressel gets dragged in, Gordon Gee freaks out, fires the coach, and we are left with a 6-6 season.

Here's where it gets interesting: The NCAA took a 9-month vacation to Cancun or something, so it took a year to decide on their punishment, after which most of the perpetrators had moved on. Thus, the punishment hurt the school rather than the violators. Where do you hurt the university the most? Its checkbook. So you take away a bowl game (um... you wanna just take away our Gator Bowl and call it square?). But Ohio State always goes to a bowl game, so they have already accounted for that assumed income. So where do you make up for lost income? Raising tuition. That's right, the Vet students are getting screwed because Pryor didn't to pay for his own tattoos.

The logic is flawless and I couldn't be more proud of my mom for philosophizing to such a great conclusion. As I have alluded to before, I blame this on Ohio State's reputable Fisher College of Business (they've got my vote over Mendoza). Clearly these athletic students have a full grasp on how the free market operates.

What really bothers me is all this dislike for Ohio State. The way I interpret this poll is that the state of Ohio remains the most rational of voters, and the upper Northeast a kind ally. The rest of the country needs to chill. Let's all forgive Tressel because I love me some sweater vests. Also, screw you Alaska.

Thanks again to my mother for a wonderful theorem. I hope I did it justice and I encourage any and all guest theorems.

Notre Dame Sports

Forgive me Followers for I have been lazy. It has been... too long since my last theorem. I accuse myself of the following sins.

1) Making people falsely hopeful for a new theorem when clearly it was unlikely I was going to write anything. In my defense though, I have been very busy and the CAPP curriculum slows down for no man. Regardless, I did and do feel guilt for having a 5-month(ish) hiatus (nice Words with Friends word there).

2) For being done with finals on Monday so that I can spend the time to write this. It is times like these that I wish I could walk over to McGlinn Library and remind people that if you sleep more than 3 hours and drink less than six cups of drugs from Starbucks, you will Notre-Dame-fail each and every one of your finals. And no medical school will ever accept a Notre-Dame-failure. Alas, all I can do is text people and invite them to bars.

3) For not having anything good to write about. I have definitely been philosophizing this entire semester, don't you worry, but nothing yet has proven itself worthy enough for me to spend time and type about. But let's be serious, nothing that I type about is really worthy enough for me to type about... I just do it anyway.

At this point I feel like I should reminisce on this semester that was, so I will. You know, how things are different, how things are the same, and how things are kinda the same but different (and how things are kinda different but mostly the same). Halo is not the same... I farm when I can, but usually it's only on Fridays. Prof Smoovkok is retired, the name seems so juvenile now that I am semester away from the real world. The new name: ahhhhhhhhhhTITS. It's good to see I have matured in these four years. Oh, and the new company... Towers Watson. It goes by no other name.

But the people, it's all about the people, right? The people remain the same, through thick and thin, through blood, sweat, and tears. Well, yes and no. Yes, but kinda no (no but kinda yes). The Texans still love Texas, the Jersey-girls still love strange fashion, fur vests, tanning, and gossip, and the Chicago girl still loves... Bama. The Natives are still terrible at all forms of video and drinking games (but great at arts and crafts...nice kegerator), the 'Sker country still thinks its football program is better than Ohio State, and the Boones still love their libraries on Thursday nights. The Sconnies still run a damn good Fantasy League and, of course, the Beantowners and the Gateways to the Midwest consistently and repeatedly get screwed by said Fantasy League (sidenote: I'd like to congratulate the Tats on a great effort this year. Injuries and overwhelming underperformance (does that make sense? Over/under?) are tough to overcome, and the Tats sure didn't. They undercame, if you will). Moving on: homelessness is being embraced in full force by the English majors, but we encourage that over the other option of coupling up for marriage. Our fun quotient has been hit all too hard by that... amiright? the MLFs have been MIA (where are youuuuuu) but yet still a follower, and for that I am forever grateful. The Saints fans are so much fun to text on Sundays...Who Dat? and the Computer Scientists will soon get rid of all Microsoft products that use body tracking as a game system (Kinect and such) because they are stupid, and replace them with new maps for Halo 3, or something. No, Computer Scientist does not mean you, Dobby; do you even read this? probably not. Just keep laying adoze by your computer while you take a break from coding... I know you can't focus anyway knowing The Other Half is meer dayz from returning from the secund-best Toledo in da werld. The Civils still get CRAZY on the weekends (on this inside), and the Medievals stay up CRAZY late, always (wow, we are wayyy down the list on shoutouts, I think I should wrap this up). The point is, "change is inevitable - except from a vending machine. - Robert C. Gallagher" - Chris Michalski.

That was loads of fun by the way.

As penance, I present a theorem:

Theorem 27: Notre Dame Sports will never be good

This may not be an entertaining or riveting concept to anyone, but it's something I've learned over the past three and a half years of watching them. You see, the problem is that Notre Dame is all over the radar. You can't sneak up on teams if you are on the radar, that's a fact. You also can't break rules nearly as easily. Now I'm not for cheating, ever. It's a basic principle that if you cheat you are a terrible person and should confess ('tis the season, see above). However, I'm a big supporter of eliminating the rules entirely. I don't really think athletes should be required to enroll in classes or get a degree or anything of that sort. Ideally, that change won't take effect until after I graduate, because I would really like the market value of my CAPP degree to remain high. Nevertheless, in a few years we should definitely consider consolidating most of the joke majors into one big joke major and then maybe in a few more years export it out to Brown Mackie College where you can take one course a month. That's my five-year plan, what's yours?

But really, if philosophy and math have taught me anything, it's that you can always conclude that if something hasn't happened in a while, it will never happen again. Not to mention, does anyone know where you can get tattoos around here??? That's a problem. And I just searched craigslist, there is no section for championship rings. I'd have to search through all the wedding rings in the Jewelry section to find what I really want. So even if anyone had them, how are they supposed to find a market to sell them? Number one business school... please.

Anyway, it's women's basketball and hockey season so let's expect championships!!

The end.

P.S. 7/8 done with college!! I enjoyed writing this, I think I might actually keep it going for a bit.

Word of the Day

It's always important to have an expanded vocabulary, so I present the Word of the Day: Haboob.

I wish I could use this word in some sort of Fictionary or Balderdash game, I really think I could come up with some convincing fake definitions. Of course, they would all play off its root word "boob" (Latin word meaning "a singular breast") but really there's no other direction to go with a word like haboob. For the record, a haboob is a type of intense sandstorm commonly observed in arid regions throughout the world, and there was one recently in Phoenix. It's actually quite impressive, I'd recommend giving it a hit or two on Youtube.

But another important reason I tell you this is because I probably won't have many opportunities to use this word in everyday conversation, yet I'm obviously not going to not use this word. All this means is that I may or may not stretch the definition a bit to facilitate my ability to use it here and there. After all, there's nothing worse than getting out of a great Abstract Algebra lecture only to be greeted by a cold, wintery haboob on South quad. Fun fact: the slang phrase "hubba hubba" actually comes from the Arabic word Haboob. Also, I'd like it known that I have never used the phrase hubba hubba in my life, nor do I ever intend to.

What's really great is that I'm still at a point in my life where I can enjoy this word. It wasn't long ago when my favorite lake was Lake Titicaca, for its serene beaches and deep blue, warm water of course. Some may call this immature, and I really don't care, because I pity the person who can't find humor in the simplest of things. Really, I just enjoy these words for how well they lend themselves to great puns. The trick is to keep a straight face when you drop these words into daily conversation. If you describe something as "titillating" in a workplace or casual conversation, you absolutely cannot start giggling. That will lose you a lot of respect, very quickly. It also may bring on a sexual harassment suit. However, if you hold your composure, avoid eye contact, and use it in a punny way (i.e. "yeah, I had a titillating conversation with Ms. Morgan") you will be seen as a connoisseur of conversation, a boss of banter, a chief of chitchat! You may even get a courtesy laugh.

Another great word on my horizon is girthy. Unfortunately, it's not technically a word, but it should be. It's just an adjective meaning "to have a lot of girth." It's more politically correct to call someone girthy than to call them fat anyway ("Mom, you're looking a little girthy, you sticking to your diet?"). Regardless, I just enjoy describing everyday objects around the house as girthy, mostly just for the strange reactions I get. As always, as long as you don't giggle after describing something as girthy, no one can possibly call you out as being inappropriate. Nor should they! People need a sense of humor these days, it's ridiculous.

Besides, it's better to use these words than to use the words that everyone uses, that's just boring! And if you don't really know how to use a word, just try to be close. Chances are, the people you are talking to don't know the word either. That being said, be creative with the word haboob! "I fell off my bike and now I have a habooboo!" (That is the minimum amount of creative you will have to be, I suggest you come up with something better than that for sure).

Score: 5 out 6. How can you not enjoy talking about haboobs! Seriously...

Blue Moon

I generally don't post anything without some specific piece of wisdom that's on my mind, but it's been far too long and the NCIS daily marathon just ended. I figured I could just go back and finish up my open-ended multi-part series(es), but there are two problems with that: one, I don't think I ever had something to write about in the first place, and two, if I did there's no way I would have remembered it now. And for the life of me, I cannot remember what my revolutionary new educational system was. Which is seriously a shame, because I apparently believed at the time that it would blow your mind. I still think it would blow your mind, but I guess I'll have to re-invent it.

Theorem 26: Blue Moon Ice Cream is Really Good

I think one my biggest character flaws is that I don't deal well with anyone who doesn't like the things I do. Obviously this applies to almost anything, so you can imagine why my life is so rough. I legitimately get frustrated when I hear of people that are Yankees fans who are not from New York. I also get frustrated with people who like terrible music and people who like Sports Science. I get frustrated when people choose soft serve ice cream over regular ice cream, I don't get that. In fear of getting frustrated just thinking of all the things that frustrate me, I'll stop.

But there is one more: for some reason I get REALLY frustrated when people don't like Blue Moon ice cream (that's the blue ice cream that they have at the DH). I don't know why this bothers me so much more than everything else... I mean I don't think I've really ever complained that no one else wants to eat my chicken patty sandwich (except Kerry, so glad I'm not the only college student that has a third grader's diet). But really, I don't get why people don't at least try it, and then like it. You people have to give it a chance!

And fun fact: the flavor Blue Moon actually can mean a number of different flavors. So all you people that have asked me what Blue Moon tastes like, you were asking a stupid question. But again, to answer your question, the Blue Moon flavor at the DH tastes like blue. The moon part is a misnomer, it has no moon flavor whatsoever, just blue.

Besides, it's ice cream, and you can't not like a dessert. Vegetables, yes. But Blue Moon ice cream? It's like any other ice cream, it just tastes different. I don't even care if you eat it, just why not like it?

Thanks for skimming my extended pitch for Blue Moon, I just had to get that off my chest.

Also, I think I'm going to start rating my theorems based on how much I enjoy writing them and therefore how good they are. This is a 2, out of 6.

F.Y.I. I love me some Notre Dame, which is why I chose this picture.

Budget Cuts

I have always thought the price of education is way higher than it should be, especially at Notre Dame. Sure, you get a lot more than education and Notre Dame is the best place in the world and the best Women's Soccer team in the world doesn't come cheap and neither does a pretty good football team, but it is not worth $50,000. Sure, they probably spend almost that much per person per year, but they definitely don't need to. According to my calculations, at least half of it is waste.

Theorem 25: Notre Dame's tuition (including room and board) can and should be cut in half

I've been thinking about this for quite a while, and I figure now is a good time to propose my new changes. Hopefully I can get it implemented for the class of 2015. Anyway, I will list the major budget cuts now, and then when it comes time to present this to Jenkins, I'll iron out the details and list the little things.

So first things first, the faculty:

Now I know we have brilliant minds teaching our courses here at Notre Dame and I am thankful for that, but in all honesty, is it necessary? And it is necessary to have so many? I mean really, why should we hire a person who researches differential equation models on stochastic surfaces in the hyperbolic plane to teach Calculus to a bunch of Business and Arts and Letters majors who hate math? Would they really even notice if you replaced the professor with someone about half as smart? Maybe like an upperclassman who has started balding or something... Or maybe if it is a really easy class, we could use a townie?

So here's my proposal on this topic: A few HUGE lecture classes (I'm talking DeBartolo 101 filled to capacity) for each topic, each one taught by the best professor the department has, with a whole slew of undergraduate TAs. This, most obviously, cuts out a large proportion of money spent paying professors with PhD.'s and such, but it also gives undergraduates a chance to get an on-campus job that looks great on a resume. We will do this for every core subject and most uncore subjects whenever possible. If it is not possible to make 300-person lectures out of the class, the board will take a very close look at the necessity of the class. An option to keep these smaller classes in the University that cannot be made into large lectures is as follows: We put one semester's class discussions and lectures online for every subsequent semester, so that we only have to hire the teacher for one semester. These subsequent classes (that do not have a professor present) can watch these online videos together, and at any point pause the video and make comments to eachother. Depending on the available budget at the end of these cuts, we may consider adding an applet that will respond with a random comment of encouragement. This will be in the voice of whatever accent is stereotypically teaching that class (math-Chinese, business-British, Arts and Letters- Eastern European maybe?). Papers will be submitted electronically to a random number generator that outputs a random grade for the paper. The students will be told their professor is reading them.

Potential problems (or what you might think would be problems): No one will want to come to a University that has a record-setting student-to-faculty ratio of 400:1. True, but only for now. I happen to be in a Marketing class so I know a little somethin'-somethin' about Cognitive Dissonance and Comparative Trend Analyses. So don't worry about that. Just be aware that I might be putting a different spin on those awesome TV ads that you see for Notre Dame that show people all over the world making a difference. Before long, it will be cool to have a high student-to-faculty ratio. Another problem: we only have one Debartolo 101, so where will we find these huge lecture halls? A few answers to that: Stepan, JACC, outdoor venues such as the football stadium and any of the quads. Also, we will have a number of classrooms in, say, second floor DeBartolo in which the same course will be taught at a given time. Live feed of the professor will be broadcast in each room for the students to follow the lecture. Problem: how will those students ask questions? Already way ahead of that. Solution: they will not. In the next theorem, I will present a revolutionary educational model in which students are never required nor encouraged, nor really allowed (except on special occasions) to ask the professor a question. It's mind-blowing. Final problem: we have wonderful professors that cannot all teach the same thing. I decided to take a look at the professors I have had in the math department to see if this is an accurate claim. Rather than list off the names, I have determined we can get by with Diller, Migliore, and Yu Xie to teach the entire math curriculum. I will be applying to take Polini's job for one-fifth the pay because I have it on record that she scares the children. That makes a total of 4 faculty members for an entire department. Not bad I say.

And now we be rolling, let's keep it going.

Technology: Now originally I was going to eliminate the overhead projectors in all the rooms, but now that we will need them for the live feed, I guess those will stay. However, we will not update past Microsoft 2010 until at least 2030. It already does way more than anyone could possibly need. We will be much more conservative with all the software such as Visual Basic and Photoshop that we put on the lab computers. Those things are expensive. Smart Boards are officially banned and will never be allowed on campus. They have been proven to make you less smart. Those are the the main points for technology.

Housing: I love living in Duncan because it is new and everything works. But do I really need for it to be that nice? No. So I propose you pay for what you get. If you want to pay more and live in Duncan, then you do so. If not, you move to St. Ed's and get very low rates. Saves money if you want to.

Other employees of the university:

I will start with the employees whose jobs are most on the line: Card-swipers and DH Bouncers. I have decided to keep all these employees on board, but I would insist that their job performance be thoroughly investigated. I feel like many of them are great at their job and bring a value to this campus that cannot be matched anywhere else. However, there are others that are just coasting along. There should be metrics met by these workers such as goodbye waves per exiting customer and swipes per minute efficiency. If an employee does not meet the criteria, he/she should be put on probation until he/she improves performance. And we are not asking for much here. I just want a little oversight to make sure these employees earn their paychecks.

NDSP will be scaled down considerably. If I have an emergency, I am told to call 9-1-1. If I have a non-emergency, I call a friend. I really don't see what they do. Cut out the middleman, save a lot of money. Not to mention, I don't think they are very good at their job. Judging by the monthly crime stats that I analyze thoroughly, I have determined that NDSP is extremely reactive. Rather than patrolling the campus, they should focus on the places where crime actually happens: North Quad. Those people are evil. Also, if we eliminate NDSP I won't have to deal with Keri-Kei Shibata spamming my inbox with riveting detective work letting me know that a sexual non-violent battery may have occured in some residence hall at 4 in the morning. Tell me something I don't already know. I may have just raped Geisman in Halo last night after parietals, but no one really wants an email about it. And everyone already knows I do that on a regular basis anyway. I am convinced we can save a few grand on bandwidth alone if we eliminate these emails.

I'll be honest, I don't even know if you really pay for bandwidth, or how that works. Does email use bandwidth? Why haven't I been taught this?

On that note, the CAPP progam will be no more. Believe you me, it is painful for me to say this. But I'd imagine it is like quitting smoking. You knew even when you started smoking that you probably shouldn't be doing it, and every day you tell yourself you should quit, but you always put it off. And then one day you realize it's time. That time has come for CAPP. What's ironic is that if there were no CAPP, I would not be in this class, and I would not be typing this right now. Regardless, CAPP is eliminated and athletes are distraught all over campus. No more double-majors.

This comprises the majority of my budget cuts that come to mind at this moment. Sure, there are others, but some of them touch on somewhat controversial topics, so I have chosen to leave them out. The budget sheet for women's sports is still not set in stone...

Nevertheless, a great deal of money has already been saved. Now if you are following along at home, you will likely notice something very important. I'd imagine the devoted followers of Theorems of Life have already caught on: The budget cuts proposed actually cut $30,000/person not $25,000.

The excess savings will be spent demolishing the Office of Sustainability. The plans for this demolishion are still in the works but I have a few things in mind. I don't know if there is actually a physical building that holds the Office of Sustainability, but if there is, that needs to go. Maybe we could burn it down using Diesel fuel? I don't know, we'll decide that later, but we will need some funds to creatively eliminate the headquarters. We will also need to spend some money to replace the energy-saving lights on the quads with some floodlights. That will be especially important now that NDSP has been taken out of the mix: I want a nice spotlight on those criminals that roam our campus. We will of course turn on the air conditioner in all the dorms that have it, so that I can sleep at night. Catch-22 of the day: had I not been sweating in bed last night I would have not have been kept awake to think of this budget cut proposal to eliminate the Office of Sustainability. We will also need to hire extra OIT workers to take all Sustainability minor classes out of the class search. Those are a joke. Lastly, to make the campus beautiful, we will illuminate our first ever night game against USC entirely by Christmas lights. Blinking ones no less, but only when USC is on offense.

Stay tuned for the revolutionary new educational theorem that I will propose in my next post. Like I said earlier, it will literally blow your mind. It would have made more sense to write it before this post, but this was a present to Jenn and I wanted to make it a long one, so I decided to write this now.

Does Not Suck to Suck

So the Visual Basic posting plan had to take a hit recently due to the fact that I wasn't learning anything in Visual Basic. This much I expected. What I did not count on was the fact that I would be tested on what I was supposed to be learning. Like I told the professor, "I thought this was a CAPP class."

Regardless, there is always women's basketball for a good theorem-writing opportunity. Yes, it is a National Championship game. But let's be serious, this is worse than Butler basketball. I do care very much for Notre Dame, but I'll get too frustrated if I actually watch the game.

Theorem 24: People are too afraid to admit they like something that they know sucks

"Here, check out this HORRIBLE video of this chick trying to sing with autotune." "Haha!! That is hilarious. How did she come up with those lyrics? Fun, fun, fun, fun, what? That's awful." Grand total: about 100 or 200 thousand view worldwide.

What really happens: "...this song again?" "Yeah, it's so bad, right??" Grand total: 85 Million views. Seriously? Since when is something being so unbelievably bad a reason to play it/watch it/like it? Why are we making Rebecca Black rich for being bad?

This bothers me, but honestly, everyone is allowed to suck like her and make money. I'm not even going to call it luck. She made her own luck. That's the beauty of Youtube: other than porno, everything's fair game; there is no embarrassment censor. Stop whining about spawns, make a play.

I'm fairly far off-topic now, but in my defense, there's few things more distracting than a 300 lb. center. And by distracting, I mean unstoppable by a normal-sized woman. And by 300 pounds I mean I have no idea because apparently that's classified information. Alas, I am further from the intended topic.

Really what I am trying to claim in this theorem is that people actually enjoy these things-that-suck and need to just admit it. I don't care if you find the chorus Friday, Friday, Friday a little bit catchy. Just don't lie about it. I'll admit, I like listening to almost all of Avril Lavigne's songs. Some of her lyrics are comparable to Black's. Nevertheless, I find Avril as a person to be attractive (something about that bad girl thing gets me) and her songs to be enjoyable.

And Jersey Shore? Yeah, it's got embarrassingly bad dialogue and is completely ridiculous, but don't claim you watch it for that reason. Maybe you like enjoy the softcore porn between Snookie and The Situation. Maybe you find The Situation to be quite charming. Maybe you just love Snookie's curves. Maybe you wish you lived in Jers and partied every night by watching Jersey Shore, you are living your fantasy. Maybe you are just too smart and watching Jersey Shore is the only way to make you dumber. These are all reasonable justifications for wanting to watch Jersey Shore. At least you aren't lying.

My point is just that there is a disconcerting pattern of popularizing things solely for the fact that they are terrible. I'm not going to complain about this; we live in a free world (America). But really, don't try to hide what you love.

For the record, I am watching the Notre Dame game. Diggity Doo-Dah finally doing something for the team. Where's my sign?!?!!? Not seeing it yet.

Non-Tray Side

This will be my inaugural Visual Basic theorem (that is, written during my Visual Basic class). The tentative plan is to post at least once every Monday and Wednesday since I have yet to find a need to listen to this guy lecture. On that note, if anyone is looking for a great second major, the Computer Applications program is always accepting students. A common misconception is that you must be an athlete to take CAPP classes, but in reality all you have to do is email Lou Berzai and request access to class. Eventually you'll have to declare a major or minor in CAPP but Berzai is moderately senile and doesn't actually know what's going on so you can really dabble in CAPP for a number of semesters without cost. It goes without saying that you will get an A and you will have the opportunity to meet many celebrities including Tom Knight, Carleton Scott, and Armando Allen. The only drawback is that you don't learn anything.

Now on to the theorem.

Theorem 23: Sitting Non-Tray side makes no sense

This might be one of the most obvious theorems yet, and you would think no one would argue this assertion, but yet every day I see people sit Right-Right and Left-Left. As I'm sure you do, I ask myself, "Why?" My initial thought is that going Right-Left is too much to remember. After all, as a young freshman, I remember sitting Right-Right simply because it is just the same direction twice, and what's more intuitive than that? It's easy to remember a series of commands if they are all the same... So I guess the freshmen who have underdeveloped brains might have an excuse, but this is Notre Dame and I feel like you should be able to remember Right-Left. Here's how I remember it: First think "right" because that is the "right" way to go. I always like to do the "right" thing, amIright? Easy enough. Then remember to do the opposite of what you just did. So if you go right first, then you do the opposite, which is left. Voila, you are now tray side with all your friends.

It gets real tense on those football weekends when you don't know which side is going to be open, so you have to go with "right-left if it is open, but if not, then left-right." And with all those old people trying to get their french fries before they get their hot dogs (that's the wrong way for all you salad-eaters), it can get pretty stressful and remembering where to sit is nearly impossible. So in that case, I'd suggest writing it down.

So far I've skipped over the specific reasons why it just makes sense to sit tray side, but if you can't figure that out by now, then you probably won't even be able to remember Right-Left so this is a moot point.

But really, there are a few other reasons why people might think it best to sit non-tray side. One I can definitely imagine is that people want that extra walk to "burn off calories" they just ate or something. Now that would be a legitimate desire except for the fact that they offer chicken sandwiches every day, so you have the option of a low-calorie meal that also tastes delicious if you want it. I highly recommend it.

Or maybe people want to sit non-tray side because they have no one to sit with and they don't want anyone to walk by them and see their lack of friends. Been there, done that. Or maybe they have too many friends and need the Jesus table to accommodate their needs. This is also a reasonable argument. But the point is that there are many people who do not fall into these categories that still sit non-tray side. The combined time that those people wasted in walking the extra distance to put their tray away is probably hours... hours that could have been used studying. Hence, the reason they got a C in Orgo. Yeah, so when you don't get into Med School, don't come crying to me. I warned you.