I'm Not A Girl: ECE 362 (And 371)

This semester, I am the only guy in all of my classes. It's not necessarily a bad thing, but sometimes it's a little hard to relate to the examples my teachers will use to try to emphasize a point. Usually they'll use an example clearly aimed at all the ladies (last week a teacher made a comment regarding periods and pregnancy), but they'll backtrack and make the example relatable for me, as well (nothing was added to the period comment to make it relatable for me, though).

Today, in one of my classes, we were discussing the behaviorist theory of child development. Part of the theory is that internal feelings don't affect behaviors, which is stupid, but whatever. The teacher then said something along the lines of, "So, if you step in a puddle, you don't get your homework done, or if your boyfriend broke up with you, that doesn't affect your behavior," but she didn't backtrack. This caught me off guard. I had to reassess my life. "Wait a minute, my boyfriend just broke up with me? What's wrong with me - I'm not even upset about it. Maybe I'm not gay. Wait...I'm gay?"

Then the whole reassessment of my life started again.

"I'm gay? But I have a girlfriend about whom I care very much. So I'm not gay. But then why did I have a boyfriend?"

I must have had a look on my face suggesting I was reassessing my life, because one of the girls at my table said "Or girlfriend for you, Joe." Phew. That was a relief. Everything made sense, then, except the fact that the teacher disregarded me as a member of the class.*

*I'm not really upset about it. But still - that's kind of what happened, right? Whatevs, yo.

Yeah! iPhone!

I don't have an iPhone and, realistically, never will. Partly because I will be forever poor, but mostly because I don't like them. I've never even used an iPhone, but that doesn't mean I'm not allowed to dislike them. I really hate their commercials. That's really the only reason why I don't like iPhones. It seems like Apple is marketing a phone with basic features and calling them innovative and new. They're not. They're old and dumb. For instance:

I just set my phone to vibrate
The most recent iPhone commercial is a dream that an iPhone owner is having. In said dream, he is single-handedly battling Serena and Venus Williams in a ping-pong match. In the commercial, he says it would be a pity if this dream was interrupted by a phone call. Luckily, the new iPhone has a setting where you can not receive phone calls. Whoa. That is innovative. Oh wait, no it's not. When I don't want to receive phone calls, I turn my phone off. If I want to receive phone calls but don't want to hear my phone ring, I set it to vibrate or silent. Vibrate? Silent? Power button? Now that's innovative.

My thumb does not go from here to here
In another commercial for the iPhone, Apple states that your thumb "goes from here to here," and that the new, bigger screen "goes from here to here," the same "here to here" as your thumb! Pretty cool, eh? Yeah, not if you're me. I have freakishly small hands, and, statistically speaking, your thumb probably doesn't go the exact length as the commercial's actor's thumb does, either. Apple describes this feature as a "dazzling display of common sense." No. It's not. It's assuming we're all dumb. Also, most people I know, including myself, use both hands when operating a phone. My phone is tiny and I still use both hands. Granted, my hands are also tiny, but they're not that tiny.

I'm sorry, this orchestra is making it so I can't hear you
This commercial had a feature that is new and, actually, is pretty neat. Still not flawless, though, or even helpful, really. This is the commercial where there's an orchestra playing, and the commercial narrator asks the maestro to turn it down. He then goes on to state that the new iPhone has a microphone that will turn down the volume of sounds around you. I'm assuming this means that the person to whom you are speaking can't hear the background noise, in this case the orchestra. That's nice. However, you can still hear the orchestra! You have two ears, yes? Your iPhone's only being shoved into one of them. That other ear will pick up the sound of the orchestra, or whatever the background noise is, making the conversation difficult for you to hear.

Headphones* were never round
This one doesn't really deal with the iPhone, but it's an Apple commercial. I guess Apple came out with some new headphones. Their marketing pitch was that your ears aren't round, so why should your headphones be round? These headphones are not round. You know what? My headphones are not round, either. I've had them for five years. This is not even close to a new concept. Actually, the only round headphones I've ever seen in my life were the original iPod headphones.

*By "headphones" I mean earbuds. Apple uses the term "headphones" in the commercial.

Late Night Coke and A Happy New Year

This post is a product of poor choices. It was actually one choice, but it was poor on two accounts. The choice was to crack open a can of Diet Coke at 1 in the morning. It was poor because it's pop and it's 1 in the morning. It was also poor because what I wanted was Coke, but all we had was diet, and I figured it couldn't be too different. It totally is, and whoever prefers Diet Coke over actual Coke is lamesauce.

Since I'm disgusted by this pop and not tired at all, I figured I should write something, but listing my poor life choices seems depressing, especially considering it's a new year and everything is going to change! That's a bunch of bologna if you ask me. I don't think you'll make more money at your job just because it's 2013, or that you'll lose 20 pounds, or whatever you're expecting to happen. The only thing that's going to change for me is that I'll mess up writing checks for a few days. All right, all right, realistically it'll be a few months before I get the date right, but whatever. If your life sucked yesterday, it probably sucked today, too. And it'll probably suck tomorrow.

I think my resolution should be becoming less negative. Or more positive! (it's already working!)

Actually, I think I'm just grumpy because this Diet Coke is so disappointing. It keeps getting worse and worse with every sip. A sip is all I can handle at one time, too. It feels like the can is getting heavier every time I pick it up. Every time I take a sip my stomach makes an angry/sad noise. I just nod in understanding. I think the Diet Coke is disintegrating my mouth because my mouth feels burnt, and I taste what I imagine to be dying taste buds. This is worse than eating Ramen Noodles. I'd rather drink gravy. Or corn syrup. I just burped and it was the worst burp I ever did burp. Diet Coke is the reason I never go on diets. I need to brush my teeth for an hour just so I can breathe without fear of tasting Diet Coke. I'm just going to drink the tears that this sad excuse for a pop has made me cry.