Monday, July 17, 2006

Taught by a Zombie? pitt law (in)competence strikes again

Click on the picture to make it bigger. Next, read the name listed as my professor in evidence class. Notice anything wrong? Give up? The problem is that Welsh White is currently dead. Despite that minor encumbrance pitt law thinks that he will be feeling well enough to teach next semester. I’m just curious to see how they pull this off.

My school seems to be having a very hard time coming to grips with Welsh’s death. Last spring he was also dead before the semester began, but this didn’t mean pitt was prepared for the ramifications of his death. Because they refused to acknowledge that one of their best professors was probably going to die pitt was left without a replacement for Welsh’s classes. This meant that they slapped two classes together, creating a class so large that the fire marshal demanded the transfer students be kicked out to get the room down to its legal occupancy. I must say that I was in favor of pitt showing Welsh respect by not removing him from the official spring schedule last year (which would have essentially said to him “we think your going to die”). However, I was even more in favor of showing the students who go to pitt some respect by having contingency plans ready just in case he died.

Anyway, all that annoyance is in the past. Well, it would be if pitt ran anywhere near as well as it should and didn’t have Welsh White teaching classes posthumously.

Saturday, July 08, 2006

In Case You Didn’t Believe Me The First Time

The picture above is from the alley next to my office. It’s the same alley that previously had trees hanging upside down from buildings and a guy living in a store front. Now it has a sinkhole. I’m from Florida, so sinkholes are nothing new to me. However, I must say that I was still a little surprised to see one in downtown Pittsburgh. This is just further proof for my previous post about the area of downtown I work in being the hub of bizarreness in Pittsburgh. Since that post I realized that I failed to mention a few of this area’s peculiarities.
- An infestation of Chefs: Within the 3 blocks where all this strangeness happens is a culinary school. Now, that alone isn’t weird, but around lunch time the streets are flooded with culinary students wearing their chef outfits. Some even keep the hat on. Don’t think that’s weird? Well then just imagine pushing through about 150 of these guys on your way to get a sub for lunch.
- Abortion Protesters: Once again, this is something I’m very used to seeing in Florida, but it’s still weird. They stand outside a Planed Parenthood every morning equipped with huge pictures of aborted fetuses. I can’t say that I disagree with them exercising their right to protest, I can’t even say I disagree with their use of dead fetus pictures in a protest, but doing it every morning seems rather stupid to me. Honestly all their protests have done is desensitize me to dead fetuses, so I think they’re hurting their cause. On a lighter note I do have to say that it was awkward to see and hear a guy holding a 4 foot picture of a dead fetus casually chatting about his family with a police officer who stands there to make sure nothing breaks out.
- Random Pierogis Walking Around: One day I was walking down the alley and out of nowhere I passed by two of the pierogis that race between innings at Pirates games. Why were they there? I have no idea, but they were. Maybe it was a day game and they got really lost during the race. So that you’ll know what I’m talking about here’s a link to a picture of a pierogi race and here’s a link about pierogis in general.
- People Dressed Like Animals: Ok, this one counts for all of downtown, but I’ll include it anyway. A couple of weeks ago Pittsburgh was the home to a convention of furries, which are people that like to dress like animals. For a few days it was common to see somebody walking around in a full mascot outfit holding hands with a person wearing mouse ears and a tail. Rather than explain any further I’ll just direct you to this article about the convention.

So there you have it, conclusive proof that the office I work in is situated above some kind of magnet for weirdness.