Another day of work and homework. It poured down rain all day today. Good thing it was rain or we would be up to our necks in snow. On my way home, the rain did change to snow, but I doubt much will stick as the temps are still above freezing. As much as I hate damp weather, as long as it doesn't pile up, I don't have to plow it.

Here are some things you can do to annoy everyone during their Christmas shopping:

1. Get 24 boxes of condoms and randomly put them in people's carts when they aren't looking.
2. Set all the alarm clocks in Housewares to go off at 5-minute intervals.
3. Make a trail of tomato juice on the floor leading to the rest rooms.
4. Walk up to an employee and tell him/her in an official tone, "Code 3 in housewares" and see what happens.
5. Go the Service Desk and ask to put a bag of M & M's on layaway.
6. Move a "CAUTION - WET FLOOR" sign to a carpeted area.
7. Set up a tent in the camping department and tell other shoppers you'll invite them in if they'll bring pillows from the bedding department.
8. When a clerk asks if they can help you, begin to cry and ask, "Why can't you people just leave me alone?"
9. Look right into the security camera; use it as a mirror, and pick your nose.
10. While handling guns in the hunting department, ask the clerk if he knows where the anti-depressants are.
11. Dart around the store suspiciously loudly humming the "Mission Impossible" theme.
12. In the auto department, practice your "Madonna look" using different size funnels.
13. Hide in a clothing rack and when people browse through, say "PICK ME!"
14. When an announcement comes over the loud speaker, assume the fetal position and scream "NO! NO! It's those voices again!!!!"

    (And last, but not least!)

15. Go into a fitting room and shut the door and wait a while; and then yell very loudly, "There is no toilet paper in here!"

I would advise only doing these in a store you never plan to enter again.

Here is a story that explains why any teacher with enough competence to get a job elsewhere almost always will. You can always tell when a stupid man is doing something he knows is stupid: he will always claim to be "just doing my job." Way to go, Fire Marshal Bill. I'm sure Susanna Robinson will leap right back into teaching at a public school when her 90 days in jail are over.

And while we are on the subject of the miserable prisons we call schools, here is something that I have been saying for 20 years. Computers in the classroom do not magically make every student above average. They are a tool that has a place, but first you have to be able to read to get any educational benefit from them. One would think that would be obvious, but one would be wrong.

This article almost reads like satire in the spirit of Jonathan Swift's A Modest Proposal. Some of the ideas here can only be described as frightening. I get nervous around tortured logic; this guy has it locked in an iron maiden.

And that ought to be enough. I am off to work on my paper. And to figure out what I am going to do tomorrow for youth group. I need to have something to teach the kiddies.