‘Tis the season

Late December is not only the time for grading and holidays, it is also the time to repost things that were written long ago as an alternative to writing something new when busy with grading and holidays. (Alternatively, one might also post old things by others!) In keeping with this tradition and the approach of Christmas, here are some Christmas-themed posts from the past:

2015: Life after murder for Kevin Mcallister

2015: ELF ON THE SHELF!

2015: Preferred pronouns on the shelf

2014: Christmas as social control

2013: Christmas at Fox News

2012: Kevin McCallister, murderer?

2012: Toys for rich and poor

2012: Toys for boys and girls

2012: Thoughts on Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer

2011: Holiday advertising gone wrong (a.k.a. the Folgers commercial)

2010: The world’s most offensive Christmas song

2009: Christmas spells relief

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“Like” Memoirs of a SLACer on Facebook for links to holiday-themed posts a few times a year and non-holiday-themed posts the rest of the year.

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Life after murder for Kevin McCallister

Every year while the Christian world is celebrating Christmas, Kevin McCallister has to relive the night that he murdered two home intruders. Worse than the memories is the fact that the 1990 documentary profiling these events is still aired on TV. Twenty five years later, we have been provided with a glimpse of Kevin’s life as he struggles, however unsuccessfully, to put this trauma behind him:

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“Like” Memoirs of a SLACer on Facebook to receive updates and links in your news feed. It is basically like Serial if Serial focused on Kevin McCallister but most episodes ignored him completely.

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Even the classrooms are ready for a break

During my second-to-last class period of the semester, I was standing at the front of the classroom talking, as I often do during class, and the light above me went out. The power had not gone out. Nobody had inadvertently hit a light switch. Just one light, directly above my head, that decided it had had enough.

A few days later, when I arrived for my final class in the same course, the clock had stopped working. Its hands resting on the numbers indicating that class would start in ten minutes. The clock couldn’t stand the thought of even one more minute of class.

When I arrived for the final exam period this afternoon I began handing back an assignment from earlier in the semester when a student took a chair from the back of the classroom up to her usual spot. Looking around, I noticed that about eight chairs had decided to abandon their posts and wander off into a nearby alcove.

Professors often make jokes about students, but I appreciate the fact that despite our classroom’s insistence that the semester had ended, my students did not give in.

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“Like” Memoirs of a SLACer on Facebook to receive updates and links in your news feed, assuming your news feed doesn’t abandon you.

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ELF ON THE SHELF!

Knowing that I’ve written about Elf on the Shelf a few times in the past, a friend recently sent me a link to another sociologist’s take on the elf, which is slightly more positive. Last year, responding to those who criticize Elf on the Shelf for preparing children to live in a police state, Todd Schoepflin at Creative Sociology wrote that Elf on the Shelf is fun and may even marginally improve the behavior of children for a few weeks a year. This year, he decided to reinforce this view in an ALL-CAPS POST stating that he is both still in favor of the Elf on the Shelf and “A SELF-PROCLAIMED EXPERT ON THE ELF ON THE SHELF.”

For the record, I don’t have anything seriously against the Elf on the Shelf. I doubt it affects children any more than telling them that Santa Claus can see them when they’re sleeping and knows when they’re awake and I’m sure that it can be fun. I do think, however, that moving it every night sounds like a pain in the ass! I asked my friend if Schoepflin’s post had convinced him to change his mind about getting an Elf (unlike me, he actually has a child). I hope that he won’t mind if I quote his response: “NO I WILL NOT BE GETTING AN ELF ON THE SHELF.”

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Don’t forget whose network you’re on

The other day I saw a link online during my “lunch break” (i.e., the time between 12 and 12:30 when LeechBlock allows me to view my usual websites) about the difficulties Peter Jackson and others faced while working on the recent Hobbit movies. The danger, of course, inherent in reading something icon the internet is that it might cause you to read something else on the internet. In this case, I wondered if any fans have edited the three Hobbits into a shorter, more cohesive movie. It turns out that somebody has. Called “The Tolkien Edit,” this version trims many of the parts that were not in the books, resulting in a single four-ish hour movie. The website links to a torrent for the edited version, which is surely illegal but has gotten quite a bit of media attention. “I would be interested in watching that,” I foolishly thought, “But I don’t have anything that allows me to download torrents on this computer.” “Hey,” I continued even more foolishly, “The website has a link to a torrent client. I should click that.”

NOTICE: YOUR ACCESS TO THE INTERNET HAS BEEN SUSPENDED DUE TO ILLEGAL FILE SHARING. PLEASE REMOVE ALL FILE SHARING PROGRAMS AND CONTACT IT SERVICES IN ORDER TO RESTORE SERVICE.

My first thought upon receiving this notice was, “Shit!” My second was that I didn’t even download the software. My third was that explaining all of this to IT over the phone was going to be embarrassing. My fourth was that I had to go e the bathroom and that I should do so before making a phone call to deal with all of this since I had a lot of work to do that afternoon that would require access to the internet. Thankfully, somebody in IT must have noticed that the idiot in this case was a faculty member and restored my network access in the few minutes it took me to walk down the hall to the bathroom and back.

There are two morals to this story. The first is that considering downloading potentially-illegal files from work is stupid. The second is that if they wanted to, the people in IT could probably access a log of every stupid website I’ve ever visited while on the campus network, which makes me consider visiting fewer stupid websites. I can just see the letter reporting the outcome of my tenure application: “Although John has been marginally productive, the committee has regretfully decided not to grant tenure in his case. If even a fraction of the time he devoted to Buzzfeed quizzes had been spent on scholarship, it is likely that this outcome would have been different.”

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“Like” Memoirs of a SLACer on Facebook to receive updates and links via your news feed, but maybe not from work.

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