Runs around in underwear

[austin_dern]

One of the smaller side chores was buying me a suit. My father encouraged me, roughly every time we ever spoke, to buy a suit while I was in Singapore, particularly if I could go up to Bangkok like he did and get measured in every possible dimension, including those only hypothesized by superstring theory. I resisted, since I really don't need to wear a suit much, and when I did, I could usually make do with dress slacks and a blazer. But my mother finally took the chance to insist, and we went to get me fitted out.

The store only had three suits in roughly my size, although a little experimentation found a black one in which I look surprisingly good. I tried it on, and the tailor examined it, determining that it was just too small to be realistically altered to one that fits me well. They'd need to order the next size up, and go from there. For some reason they insisted it was most convenient to order the suit, and have it delivered home so that I could bring it to the store and get it altered. This was in some strange way more efficient than just delivering the suit to the store and my coming in when they were ready.

The suit arrived in a cardboard box which looked eerily like a low-budget movie's tombstone, and I brought it back -- in the box -- where the tailor determined that the suit was almost a perfect fit. As I paid for the collar-fiddling ($20, for some reason), the cashier asked if I were a teacher. This being a simple question, I was unable to give a succinct answer to it, and so got into the details of my Singapore career. I just can't figure out what part of my personality projected ``teacher''.

I notice a report that the first season of Freakazoid! is coming to DVD. It seems like a gamble on Warner Brothers' side: who knows if a fanboyish, aggressively pop-culture-referential semi-obscure cartoon will be popular among people who buy DVDs?

Trivia: Isaac Asimov published, he estimated, approximately one thousand words per day over the course of his roughly forty-year career. Source: I. Asimov: A Memoir, Isaac Asimov.

Currently Reading: A Ball, A Dog, and a Monkey: 1957 - The Space Race Begins, Michael D'Antonio.

Comments

[billfl.livejournal.com]

I notice a report that the first season of Freakazoid! is coming to DVD.

Really?

REALLY?!?!

Blisses Out

[austin-dern.livejournal.com]

July 29, according to TV Shows On DVD, although I notice now that I look again that the news was published on the 1st of April -- http://www.tvshowsondvd.com/news/Freakazoid-Season-1-Announcement/9300 (http://www.tvshowsondvd.com/news/Freakazoid-Season-1-Announcement/9300). On the other hand, there's nothing about it which suggests a prank besides making people happy.

[oliver-otter.livejournal.com]

Cool, I know what to get my dad for Father's Day. He loved Freakazoid.

[austin-dern.livejournal.com]

May have to make it for his birthday, given the dates, I'm afraid. Still, I liked the show.

[chipuni.livejournal.com]

As I paid for the collar-fiddling ($20, for some reason), the cashier asked if I were a teacher. This being a simple question, I was unable to give a succinct answer to it, and so got into the details of my Singapore career. I just can't figure out what part of my personality projected ``teacher''.

That you couldn't give a succinct answer to the question, "Are you a teacher?"

[austin-dern.livejournal.com]

Isn't that the ontological argument? I never did buy it.

[chefmongoose.livejournal.com]

Well look, I can't give a simple answer to "Are you a chef?" without it being the falsehood ("Yes, I am.") or explaining the fine points of the differences between a cook and a chef, while not debasing my talents, particularly if I'm trying to explain this to someone attractive. I've only gotten genuinely pinned down once by the falsehood, and that was at Anthrocon, when I'd forgotten I'd told that someone I was a cook *last* year. I had to blather through "oh, been promoted since" and I just don't like to do that.

Mind, Austin could simply claim "I have been and hope to again, but currently I'm.." ; but then he wouldn't be Austin.

--Chiaroscuro

[austin-dern.livejournal.com]

I'm glad that anyone else can have problems with questions as simple as this. I have to admit the distinction between a chef and a cook wouldn't have occurred to me without prompting, I'm sorry to say.

[chefmongoose.livejournal.com]

Well, because chefs cook, and 'chef' is really unverbed yet. So chefs cook, and cooks cook, and therein is confusion enough I just generally agree.

It's rather like how teachers teach, and professors teach, Mind, professors can profess but that's not so much the verb one uses.

And I've just realized the linguistic connection between 'professional' and 'professor'. Which I think trumps the 'roost' and 'rooster' connection made earlier this year for my "Things I should have figured out in my years as an English Major."

[austin-dern.livejournal.com]

Well, it's not till this exchange that I came to learn that there actually is a conceptual connection between `chef' and `chief' although neither's the preferred translation of the other, so there's room for everyone to learn.

[chefmongoose.livejournal.com]

With that understanding, you now indeed know the difference between a chef and a cook.

Also, I must adapt my previous statment, upon reflection: 'chef' as a verb means 'to be employed as a chef', and must be followed by 'for'. Back in 2003, I was cheffing for Balustradino's in New York...

[austin-dern.livejournal.com]

Hm. The version of Webster's Dictionary that comes from my command line login allows `chef' with the note `vt', which seems to be some sort of verb excuse. (Actually, it's `verb transitive', although I'm far enough removed from English classes that if I needed to explain just what makes a transitive verb I would mumble something and move on to the next question.)

[chefmongoose.livejournal.com]

Absolutely correct as to transitivity (which means, it requires an object). I can chef at/for a location or for a person, but I cannot simply 'chef'. Then I'd be cooking.

[austin-dern.livejournal.com]

Well, don't worry. It won't be long before somebody figures a way to push a book and a TV show calling `cheffing' the more upscale fancy version of `cooking', aiming for the people who support modest-scale food snobbery.

Hm. I don't suppose you could put together a nice little cookbook of recipes with whatever the upgrade names for stuff like lettuce or chicken or cheese are? Someone's got to set off the fad.