Miscellany » Sethisms

Below is an incomplete collection of oddball, and/or witty or occasionally sentimental things my friends (or I) have caught me saying, along with some interesting stories. I don’t necessarily take credit for all of these; there’s always a chance I heard something somewhere, repeated it and forgot where I heard it, thus it was attributed to me.

Essays and rants

I’ve separated slightly more serious spiels here:

Computers & technology

If cars had followed the same development cycle as personal computers, a Bentley nowadays would sell for a hundred bucks, get twenty thousand miles to the gallon, and violently burst into flames once every two months, killing everyone inside.
Come to think of it, there are already a billion monkeys on a billion typewriters, and Twitter isn’t the slightest like Shakespeare.
Linux being considered UNIX is like me showing up to your family reunion and claiming we’re related because we’re both white.
It’s weird to think I’ve been alive for eighteen years and I’ve already witnessed the advent of Web 2.0, online pizza ordering and customisable sex dolls. On the Internet!

Programming languages

Eighty years of programming language research and innovation and C++ is what we get?
Despite my qualms with Java, I’ll admit it’s a good example of what a [programming] language should be. But, Java applications and packages are a prime example of what programming shouldn’t be.
If Javascript had true garbage collection, each script would delete itself upon execution.
When I’ve got some sort of text-parsing problem, I usually turn to regex. So then I’ve got two problems.

One-liner insults

If only your brain was as big as your mouth, you might actually be getting somewhere.
I’ve had a wonderful evening, but this wasn’t it.
You’ve Van Gogh’s ear for music.
The only thing that sucks more than your mother is your ability to write.

fellow ‘cyclist’: What, you wear a helmet ‘cause you’re afraid of crashin’?
me: Yeah, when I’m riding around complete amateurs such as yourself.

Finding out your IQ must’ve been easy, considering it’s printed on the sole of your shoe.

General idiocy

My English professor used to always say the C word to mean a certain little thing: one which can be the most benevolent yet most damning concept imaginable. Something from which any phrase or quote shouldn’t be separated. No, Zach-the-transfer-student-from-New-Zealand, it’s not “cunt”, but “context”.
You say white people can’t dance, and I say black people can’t sing—especially when you’re walking the parking lot with your AirPods in sounding like Dick Clark post-stroke on a repeating descending pentatonic scale.
Your being trans isn’t what bothers me—it’s the fact you somehow managed to choose a name that starts with ‘X’ just like the three other trans men at this school.
If there was a degree in making onself look dumb, I’d have gotten an honorary doctorate by now.
My life isn’t a 500-level philosophy class, so I really don’t give a damn whether I find pleasure and comfort in twenty-four straight minutes of lowbrow moeshit.
まだ日本語が下手、でも今7魚の名前知っていますよ。ありがとうございます
My Japanese might still be bad, but now I know the names of seven fish. Thank you very much.

My senior quote in high school

I didn’t know the senior quote was due till today. If that doesn’t speak volumes about me, I don’t know what does.

A speech to the clarinet section

Our goal as a section is to grow – to improve. Whether you grow by inches or by miles—or whether you started at zero or a thousand—we should always aspire to better ourselves as musicians. To learn things we didn’t previously know. To play things we couldn’t previously play. If you don’t know what a sixteenth note is, ask and learn. That’s growth. If you can’t finger through a difficutlt passage, practice and overcome. That’s growth. Your goal can be anywhere from learning your major scales to mastering Poulenc; no matter where you are now, there’s always a way you can improve.

Things I’ve said in Pep Band

Is your mascot the Hoover Vaccum? ‘Cause you—
Who are these weird men and women in striped pyjamas on our court pretending to be officials?
Hilltoppers, eh? Standing on top your hill of garbage!
Can you not comprehend what I’m saying? Is your IQ printed on your jersey?
Keep squatting like that, Coach, and you’ll get hemorrhoids! Hemorrhoids!
Do you not understand English? ¿Tal vez hablas español? またはお前日本語話すか? Oder deutsch, auch? Come on, I only know that phrase in so many languages!
Why’re you pretending to ref when you can’t even pretend to coach?
Yeah, stretch those muscles, prevent those injuries! – You may be our opponents, but we wish you good health. But not good playing!