The sky is blue LOL! SWIDT?

As a savvy netizen, I think I'm relatively current on trends in netspeak.  Also, as a savvy person, I understand the concepts of literal and figurative.  So, I understand that people who write LOL did not necessarily literally laugh out loud.  I get that.  I do, however, feel that using LOL does at a very minimum imply that what has just been written or read, is to some degree, funny.  That's not crazy, right?

So why are there so many people who use it at the end of virtually everything they type?  Do they think it's some kind of fancy internet-only punctuation?  Do they think that LOL stands for something closer to QED?  Or, most horrifying, are they really under the impression that everything is that funny?

For example,

Person 1:  Does anyone know what time the play is tonight?
Person 2:  I think it's at seven lol
Person 1:  Thanks!  lol

Are these two people huffing paint while Facebooking or what?

There's a person who works near me that does this in real life.  I used to think she and her colleagues were having so much fun I was kind of jealous but then I realized that she just laughs at the end of every single sentence.

This is what I imagine when I see a lol infested conversation:

Also, in case you're wondering why I'm able to blog two times in two days: we are in the midst of finals so it's either this or actually grade something (shudder).

It's Been a Pleasure Working Here

Long time no blog!  It's been an eventful few months here in Maialand.  I'll be sure to blog about how I turned 40 and immediately broke my hip but the time for that is not right now.  Instead I'd like to tell you about how I embarrassed myself not once but twice on this, our very last day of classes.

All day.

I had a class that was presenting projects.  This is a computer programming class so many of them had created little games to be demonstrated.  One student had created a game similar to the Family Feud Facebook app and she had chosen another student to be the player.  One of the questions was to name musical instruments that are played at a wedding.  The student playing guessed "harp" and "piano" and "guitar" with varying degrees of success. She then guessed "organs" .  Not "organ" but "organs".  I know it's a subtle different but my immediate thought was "No, that's what gets played _after_ the wedding."  I started giggling and couldn't stop before I had devolved into a teary red faced mess.  So very professional, I am.

Next, I was safely ensconced in my office.  Since the only thing I have left to do is give and grade finals, I was pretty much just following links posted on Facebook.  A colleague had posted a link from a site called http://shitmystudentswrite.tumblr.com which, you can imagine, has a whole bunch of terrible/hilarious gems.  I was clicking through them when I heard a knock on my door.  It was an alum visiting campus saying hello and sharing what's new in his life since graduation.  After a nice little chat he wandered off to see if he could find other familiar faces.  Pleased with our conversation, I turned around to resume my surfing and found that this had been on the screen behind me the whole time.

Normally, on days like this I would head home now and try to minimize the damage I could cause by continuing to be in public.  Today, however, I am going out to dinner with colleagues past and present to celebrate the retirement of one of our number.  Opportunities to continue making the wrong impression abound!