That explains a lot.

Prof (re: stumbling across an interesting program while channel surfing): It was about the cocaine trade in Washington, D.C. ... and one guy said, 'At the start it was attorneys and professional people using this stuff.' And I thought to myself, 'Yeah, and it showed up in Revenue Ruling 88-111!'

Puppy Love

This cuted me out. It's kinda the reverse of the dog/cat interaction at my house.

Free speech with a vengeance

From two friends in a class taught by a prof who has been featured here before:

"This might be an opportunity - with so many people gone - to talk about them. Share some gossip or something."

"We're not going to talk about those cases, but I wanted you to know they're out there, because they're really funny. . . None of them are actually about beets, but I just enjoy saying it."

I want to live in this town.

Prof: And how much was the house appraised for?

Student: I think it was $29,000, which seems low for Welsley.

Prof: Yeah! You can’t buy a manhole cover in Welsley for $29,000! Apparently this is a town in which mansions can be appraised completely independently from their value.

The economics of 8AM classes

Prof: And by the way, if you’re only going to pay attention for 40 seconds this class, in the interest of allocation of a scarce good, you should listen to this…

Mood lighting?

[Power goes off in classroom]

Prof: It's an austerity program on the part of the university to save money. ... Creates more ambiance having it this way, anyway.

That's how they pay attorneys?

Prof: Sometimes I do make more sense than attorneys, but that isn't saying a whole heck of a lot, since typically they don't want to make sense. Because if they do, they don't get paid.

All in a day's work....

From class today:

Prof (preparing to read part of a tax treatise aloud): This is sort of like Bible reading or something. ... It doesn't have quite the same morals or influence that the Bible has, but if you're in the partnership [tax] area it does have a . . . lot of influence.

Prof: There are several things you shouldn't do in life. Don't be the tax matters partner. It's right up there with signing payroll tax forms.

Prof: I've graded enough papers to know that--I hate to say it--I really could teach my cats better than I could teach some of these students.

Prof [brings up an especially difficult area of partnership tax]: I could assign that for the final project. I don't know if I have the courage to do that. I don't want to go home at night and find that my house is gone, my cats have disappeared....

Prof: I think, at least by my standards, I’m fairly good-natured, and I’m not vindictive, which is more than I can say for many of my colleagues. … It’s not just here, it’s [other schools]. They go around in capes and robes and stuff, and berets, and they seem to think this exempts them from having to behave well toward other human beings. … It’s a problem in the academic world. … You can quote me on it, not that anybody would care anyway.
[Prof went on to say that most of his fellow-profs are very nice people. I think these comments were directed more toward academia in general.]

Prof: When I was younger, there was a requirement, which I sort of didn’t mind, that you [as a faculty member] had to attend graduation. … And it’s [expletive] hot out there, and somebody drones on for like 20 minutes, and then they have to hand out the diplomas or whatever. … They made the business school march in last. … So we marched up to the podium, and there wasn’t any room for us, so we just marched up to the back of the podium, and out the back door, and disappeared. And I haven’t been back since.

Prof (realizing that class time is ebbing away): Gosh, I've gone on and on, almost like a Mark Twain monologue or something.

In fact, don't look like you're awake, either.

A professor of mine began class today with the following comic strip:




He followed it up with: "Here's a clue. If you do this in accounting class, don't smile. Nobody ever smiles when they're taking notes."

why all my legal docs have one-syllable words

Prof: I didn’t have room to write “testamentary” [on the board], and its spelling is often elusive anyway, so I just wrote “will.”

Tax planning?

Student: So if you got married in the middle of the year--
Prof: If you're married at the end of the year, you're treated as having been married the whole year.
Student: Oh, good. I'd been wondering about that.

It's never too late to start....

60-something professor: I always kind of assume that everyone is a blogger besides me.

But otherwise, it was a very safe car.

Prof: This Volvo had a problem with the accelerator and the transmission that . . . once you got going, there was no way to stop the car, without putting it in neutral. And it was an automatic transmission. And this was of some concern to me, as I was driving through New Jersey.

It's on the internet.

Prof: Indiana is the only state that has legislated that pi shall be 3. They didn’t like all the confusion that the .1415… stuff caused. It’s true. Well, I’ve never verified it, but it’s truthy, and I’ve read it often.

Can I have some?

Student, after taking a sip from his coffee: [gives an answer the prof likes]

Prof: Yeah! What are you drinking? That must be a truth-soup!

Where's the beach?

Student: This is a tough one.

Prof: You haven’t seen tough yet. This is like, Cleveland, and the Rockies lie ahead.

The Sierra Club = Ents?

Prof: Family members tend to show up [to court] and look saintly—“Yeah, I love my grandmother more than the Red Sox. I even went to visit her once—it was great!” Institutional beneficiaries can’t “show up” so well. Like the Sierra Club—what are they going to do, come in with a bunch of trees?

So that's why it's so hot in here.

Prof (who is also a priest): None of these [technical] problems will happen when we get the new [law school] building. Until then we have to suffer... From a Catholic perspective, this is taking time off purgatory, so it's not without merit.

Tight Spaces

From my coworker who grew up in the back country of Kentucky:

"...there won't enough room in there to cuss a cat without gettin' hair in yer mouth."

Aren't we optimistic today.

Prof: This [completed contract method] will still be around in fifteen years or so when you're out of public accounting, unless we've screwed up the economy so bad that we're run by the Soviets or something.

Of course we haven't.

Prof: Has anyone done [this part of the homework problem]? I didn't think so. Good, let's skip it.

He can say this because he's tenured.

Tax prof: I'm scared, I really am, that the Democrats will get back in. ... As it is now, there are only a handful of people left who have even the foggiest notion, and then there will be nobody. ... It used to be that they would just drink ... but now with all these high-powered drugs, who knows what they'll do.

That would probably be cheaper, too.

Prof: Some [real estate agents] are really good, and some of them, you may as well get your local beauty shop operator or bartender to help you out.