October
2nd, 2006
While cleaning
up my home office, I recently stumbled upon a folder with "COOL
IDEAS" scrawled across the front in my handwriting.
Inside, I found page after page of concepts, notes and scribbles
I'd written back when I was an intern. Now, I've been holding
on to this stuff, these COOL IDEAS, for nearly a decade
so there's gotta be a Gold Lion in there somewhere, right?
Oh. My.
God.
You know
those high school photos where you thought you looked sooooo
cool but you actually looked like a freaking
idiot? It was like that, only worse
("For razor ad: a bald porcupine or Lincoln memorial
(no beard)"). Yes, HeadOn
bad. And that's just the barest glimpse through my personal
doorway to hell.
Speaking
of ads I regret, I'd like to apologize for the paper
mill banners that show up from time to time. We block one
the moment we see it, but we have limited
control over the Google ads and it might be a lost cause.
We've got a few marketing professors who visit our site and
more than a few students, so I want to be absolutely clear that
we don't support plagiarism and refuse to profit from it. Write
your own goddamn paper on Hegel's theory of dialectic –
it's the closest you'll ever come to finding work with a philosophy
degree. (Having
said that, I was amused to note that the first paper
mill we blocked sold 2,780 essays on the subject of ethics,
including 90 decrying the evils of plagiarism.)
On the upside,
the subject of unmerited academic achievement inspired this
week's words
vs. pictures debate.
-Graham
