Monday, June 02, 2008

Look to your right ...

by J J Cohen

... and behold our frivolous poll. Well, don't just behold it, PARTICIPATE IN IT. We're conducting an experiment to see if we can get the polling gadget to work, because we actually do have an important question to ask and may use a poll to come to an answer.

In the meantime, though, take the poll at right. And vote for me, me, me!!!
[and remember I said look to your RIGHT. That pie chart thing to the LEFT is a joke, not the poll I was talking about. Clicking on it will only enlarge the image and make you feel like a doofus because you'll have dead-ended yourself at a noninteractive JPEG]

18 comments:

Rachel Roberts said...

'Cannot process result' it tells me. It was by employing strategies like that that Bush stole the 2000 election, you know.

Jeffrey Cohen said...

Do you have your browser set not to accept cookies? That may be the issue (and this is also why I wanted to give the polling gadget a dry run).

I am clearly not stealing the election, in that MKH is kicking my ass. Eileen and I are the lonely ones with zero votes.

Eileen Joy said...

Am I too scary, or something? Is Jeffrey? I would have voted for myself but must confess I voted for Mary Kate [the Tiny Shriner was a close second]. Since Jeffrey and I have been accused of being a perfect "Vulcan mind-meld" as well as "separated at birth," I had to stay away from that obvious choice.

Jeffrey Cohen said...

I also voted for Mary Kate because of the Vulcan accusation made by Betsy McCormick, an accusation that made me unable to vote for Eileen in order to prove the charge wrong.

Karl Steel said...

No one thinks they're me.

I voted for the Tiny Shriner. Having just turned in my final grades for Spring 2008, I feel that the Shriner is the best co-celebrant. No one else would get me in enough trouble.

Jeffrey Cohen said...

Well, Karl, please keep in mind that your recent photographs reveal in extreme close up that Tiny has been struck by either leprosy or syphilis.

Jeffrey Cohen said...

PS Eileen now has DOUBLE my number of votes. I remain back among the losers.

Mary Kate Hurley said...

I'm voting for Tiny Shriner. I truly believe that everyone has a Tiny Shriner inside, just waiting to blossom forth.

Also -- what is this? I'm getting the "we can't vote the way we'd vote because then we'd prove Betsy right about Vulcan mind-melds" vote?

That's not very logical, Eileen and Jeffrey. ;)

Mary Kate Hurley said...

Oh, forgot:

Karl, you were my second choice -- I was forced into Tiny Shriner, though, because the poll wasn't "who do you want to be most like when you grow up" -- a CU English PhD with a good job and fabulous colleagues. :)

Eileen Joy said...

The Tiny Shriner, that tiny bastard, is pulling ahead. I told you we should have left him at Celery World.

Jeffrey Cohen said...

Ok, folks, this is getting me angry. Stop voting for the Tiny Shriner! Otherwise we will drop him as our blog mascot and adopt Charlotte Allen instead! And you know how much fun she is to hang around with.

Ask yourself this: do you want the blog to be filled with lazy and mendacious yellow journalism, or do you prefer the soothing chartreuse, aquamarine, and taupe toned writing that your four co-bloggers bring?

Karl Steel said...

Alternately, we can break it down like this:

a) superstar medievalist who publishes a book a year
b) superintelligent and charming grad student
c) jetsetting incipient superstar
d) total dork who will spill milkshake on you as soon as look at you
e) leprous plastic goodtime figurine who stares and stares at (a)

Obviously people are going to vote e! We all want to creep out (a). If you want to discount the Tiny Shriner midpoll (i.e., "Pull a Clinton"), by all means, discount away! But I'm getting on that gospel (by which I mean "Shriner") train.

Toot toot!

Jeffrey Cohen said...

Karl, change (a) to "Low vote obtaining loser with whom no one shares the merest thread of empathy." Then switch (d) and (e). Then your list may be right.

You have more votes than me Karl. And I am not pulling a Clinton! It's more that Tiny is pulling a Nader.

Eileen Joy said...

Karl: you are being too easy on yourself. You are not *just* a "total dork" who would just as soon spill a milkshake on jeffrey as look at him [although you've done both, and more than one BABEL babe had to send items to the drycleaners after hanging out with you at the Dairy Queen, and I, for one, am glad I missed that excursion]; you are also a supersmart nerd whose postings on GoodReads terrify the diligent intelligentsia who like to think it is *they* and not *you* who read everything. You are also the newly adopted BABEL boy-toy [#4, after Justin, Tim S., and Michael M.]. These are all to the good. But I still didn't vote for you. I saw the milkshake stains.

dan remein said...

if the milkshake was a flavour other than banana, i'd think about picking the milk-shake spilling villain!

Liza Blake said...

Jeffrey, I picked you, but only because you warped my brain into being disturbingly like yours. Speaking of which, I've been reading a couple books today which might interest you. The first is Philip Schweyzer's Archaeologies of English Renaissance Literature, a very soothing and pleasant account of archaeology in English Literature and how they perceived the crumbling bodies and ruins around them. A bit late for you, I know, but still. I think you'll like his voice.

The other is Howard Reid's In Search of the Immortals: Discovering the World's Mummy Cultures, which has a lot about the Lindow Man and friends. (I think that's the one I'm thinking of -- if not, it's next to it on the shelf. I read a LOT of books on mummies today. Any questions about medieval OR Renaissance mummies, come to me.)

Liza Blake said...

OK, I checked my notes, and I lied, the book you want is not Reid's, but Mummies, Disease, and Ancient Cultures, ed. Aidan and Eve Cockburn. For the record.

Jeffrey Cohen said...

Liza, I THINK you gave me a compliment, and I THINK I should thank you, so thank you! As to brain warping, you know I put a disclaimer on my graduate seminar syllabus that all cortex warping is the responsibility of the warpee, so don't go mailing me an MRI.

And to everyone, the Tiny Shriner just voted and said he identifies with me. So there. All you people who have voted for him may now switch your votes.

Really.

Do it.