I did give in on the 'plutonium breeder reactors' though.

I am: -12% Republican.

"The Marxists are too reactionary for you.  With people like you around, America collectively thanks God for John Ashcroft."

Are You A Republican?

I beat Josh Rosenau!

Exile.

So that's more an honorary term/state of mind than anything else. Case in point: spent about three hours today in regards to what was supposed to be a 50-min. softball game. The powers that be at the KU Rec services are apparently in no position to properly create a softball tourney, so we ended up in a 'play-in' game at 1:30pm this afternoon; the winner would go up against the number three seed tonight at 9:30, when it would presumably be about 40 degrees outside. So by losing, we would actually win by, you know, not having to go back and play. That being said, we didn't want to lose; it just kinda happened through a confluence of factors, none of which really matter here because I am rather in some pain from a pitch hitting me right where the thigh muscle comes to the top of the knee. What started out as a tweaking pain at the beginning has since blossomed into an inability to climb stairs or do anything which might place pressure on my right leg.

But that's enough bitching about softball. Tiger is working wonderfully; I'm sure Spotlight will be a boon once I properly realize it's usefulness (it even searches inside PDFs!), I'm digging Dashboard (with the possibility of ever more Widgets to play with once people start thinking of new capabilities), and Safari RSS is changing the way a web browser should operate. Except for one thing: it is denying me the use of my quick edit tools in Blogger, making what should be an easy post into tedious labor to get the right tags.

What else? As I said yesterday, the yearbooks will be in on Wednesday afternoon. I have also been requested to attend the Student Senate Organizations' Awards banquet that night. I handed in my application and voice check CD for KJHK, and I sent in my RSVP card for the All Campus Dinner (alas, with no guest). And KJHK is playing "You can call me Al" by Paul Simon right freaking now; yes, this may shape up to be alright.

X.

It's called Tiger.

And after a frickin' two hours I think I finally tamed the damn thing. I erased my entire hard drive (after archiving everything except my bookmarks dammit) and installed OS X v10.4. It's already rocking my world, and I haven't even touched Spotlight yet.

The day is almost at hand.

I just found out about an hour ago that the yearbooks which I have obsessed over for this entire school year are finished and will be delivered to campus on Wednesday afternoon. Which happens to be the day before my last soc. theory exam and the rough draft for my senior seminar paper, so I'm gonna have to go into exile from now through Wednesday morning and get shit done.

Paging Seinfeld.

Just a bit ago, at Sheridan's Frozen Custard:

Tom: *to drive-through lady* No we had a old-fashioned strawberry soda and a small white and a small black custard.
Richard: Dude, it's vanilla and chocolate.
Tom: Oh don't act like you've never seen the racial profiles of the two.
Ryan: So how do you account for Asians?
Tom: Exactly!

"Okay, okay, I'm going to freak right out."

So maybe I didn't have time to spend watching Once Upon a Time in Mexico tonight (from which the above title comes, courtesy of Mr. Johnny Depp), but I'm just not in proper paper-writing and exam-studying mode yet. I better get there pretty damn fast though; I have less than seven days to what is my biggest day before graduation. After that it should be fairly downhill, aside from coming up with a topic for my Korean history paper; that class can suck it though.

Anyway, just wanted to check in and let you know that I am considering applying for KJHK staff next fall, but I have to consider quickly as the form & my demo tape is due tomorrow. I'll see if I can get that done and be sufficiently not freaked out by my own voice to actually submit it. That is not guaranteed.

Hiya.

I saw her on campus today. She was standing at the bus stop and I walked by. I could have said 'Hi', would have said 'Hi', but 1) I wasn't sure it was her until I had walked past; 2) Since I had already walked by, to turn around and come back to say 'Hi' and stand there as if I was expecting conversation or at the very least chit chat might've been weird.

But that's all nonsense. I should've stopped and smiled and asked how she was and whether everything was going well and told her that she looked good and that I was so very happy for her in everything, before graciously taking my leave as I did weeks ago. We at least deserve Hellos.

Brilliant, yet tragic.

Via News Designer, these infographics using national flags to illustrate disturbing trends in that country. It's in Portuguese, but if you have studied Spanish you should be able to figure it out. They're all very powerful: Somalia's deals with female mutilation, while Brasil's illustrates utter poverty and Angola's delivers a devastating image of disease in that country. Leave a comment if you can't figure out what the graphic refers to; I figured them all out without using a translator. I mean not to brag or anything...

Ryan's Second Volume.

As I stated yesterday, I will be retaining the editorship of the Jayhawker through next year. Though I don't think I can yet release some of the details of the catalyst for this decision (there are discussions going on regarding the future of the Jayhawker as a publication), I can say that it was a very fluid debate going on in my mind for the last month. There were many pros and not too many cons for doing it again, but for the past few weeks I had sided with the reasons against, notably because I was thinking of moving out of Lawrence after this fall to get an internship at a journal or publishing house. But the experience and result of doing a second book would very likely just be as helpful to my record as an internship, so there goes that.

Besides which, I seem to be blessed/cursed with an unusual ability: I can envision entire publications in my mind with no need for paper or a computer. Before I even sit down with Adobe InDesign I can have the cover and endsheets and pages, the folios and fonts and cutlines all determined and pictured with precision. This weekend, as I thought about whether I should stay as editor, I kept doing the vision thing with next year's book to such an extent that the question of being editor became a ridiculous one; to not create & design the book that has already hijacked my mind would be a crime.

That's not to say that everything will come out just like I imagine it; it all depends upon content and photos that don't exist, and fonts, software and a computer that we haven't purchased. This year's book, though having elements that I wanted all along, is nothing like what I planned in September. Which is why I love it so, and which is why I was so reluctant to return; the Annual MMV was such a work of improvisation (I did 65 pages in three days during Finals Week; I put together another 40 from scratch in one day at the end of February) and beauty that it is almost magical; I can look through it now and think "My god I couldn't have possibly foreseen that." For the last month I kept thinking that I couldn't top it either; it's like a band facing their sophomore album. But the ideas, as they always seem to be, were there in the back of my mind, ready to come forth if I ever got another chance to run another book.

A month ago as I was making my initial decision, Jeff told me during CoB, "Always leave 'em wanting more." Well, I don't know about the rest of 'em, but I certainly want more, and I've never been this ready to rock.

This is all just prelude to something.

I have decided, upon reflection, that I will stay on as editor of the Jayhawker next year for the Annual 2006.

Techno-licious.

Via Coudal Partners, this little piece of brilliance. Who says cowboys and trance can't mix?

•••

Also via CP, this neat little vendor of custom designed anythings. Now I'm gonna spend the rest of the day trying to figure how to use Passing Notes and Jewelboxing (see my links to the right) in conjunction with the yearbook; it's not that I would absolutely need them, but they're so cool I just think I should have them.

For the umteenth post today.

But I just realized that as of this afternoon I am one freaking month away from Commencement.

Somehow that just makes the slacking so much easier.

Everything is better in Europe.

Even personal ads in Britain! My fave:

I like you because you read magazines with big words. And you’ve got great booblies. I can live without the first. But the second is non-negotiable. Shallow man, 34. When I say ‘shallow’, I mean, damn. Box no. 08/08

It just narrowly beat out this one:

Massive-breasted heiress, 38, seeks witty Nobel-awarded intellectual beef-cake gardener-chef-poet with stonking pecs. Like me, you are dynamic, hilarious, serious, ironic, passionate, practical, affectionate, kind, funny, have most of your own legs, and are startled to find yourself still cruising the aisles of the Lurve Bazaar. Unlike me, you don’t exist. Am I right? If so, will consider any M who can make conversation, sense, a living, friends, four cooked meals, hot love and me laugh. Box no. 07/01

Think of the children.

Lunch at Chipotle:

Joah: *regarding a kid who is screaming like a banshee* Wow, he must be really mad about something.

Ten minutes later:

Joah: Dammit, will you stop beating your child!? Jesus!

Upon leaving:

Joah: For the love of God you can hear him from the street.

On the joy of listening to KJHK at 2:30am on a Sunday morning in an incense-filled apartment while reading Eduardo Galeano despite lots of homework.

Sweeeeet.

Is it short for something?

I just noticed that under the Brasilian settings for time/date on my computer (yeah I like fooling around with the foreign ways of doing things), that the abbreviation for sexta-fiera is sex. If you don't believe me look for yourself in the upper right of this screenshot I just did.



I knew Macs were kinky but my gosh...

Alarm.

The last couple of days I was automatically waking up just before 6am, which was the time for my alarm so I could work out Mon.-Thurs. This morning, after drinking an unprecedented 1 1/2 schooners and then hanging out with my neighbors until 1am, I still woke up just before 6am. I slept for a while longer, but now I figure I should use the weekend to get back into a normal sleep pattern. Besides this dry mouth feeling sucks.

Hell is being single and not knowing why.

Bear with me, as I still have quite a bit of beer in me. But I'm a little confused right now. I've spent my entire adult life trying to figure out just what the secret is to letting a girl know that I dig her and that she should dig me too. When I was in high school it was easy to dismiss all of the girls because they went for the assholes and I could convince myself that it would be better in college. Then I go to community college and after similar results I was like 'Oh it'll be better at KU.' And now I've been at KU for almost two years and it's still so disquieting to know that there are all of these great girls around and yet I cannot for the love of everything holy seem to let them know just how great I think they are. Maybe I'm just too socially awkward, maybe I try too hard, hell maybe I don't try hard enough, but for some reason when I get into certain situations I freeze, and I don't know whether to go forward or back away, and I usually end up getting it completely wrong. Like tonight, at Louise's, I continued to muck things up. Two years in Lawrence and I still feel almost like somebody who doesn't belong out in the bar scene, or maybe any other scene for that matter. I'm going to sleep now.

Then I thought of her walking up the street and stepping into the car, as I had last seen her, and of course in a little while I felt like hell again. It is awfully easy to be hard-boiled about everything in the daytime, but at night it is another thing.
~Ernest Hemingway, ‘The Sun Also Rises’

Decisions.

Do I brave any possible storms tonight and walk to Lousie's? Do I go for a second schooner or play it safe with my usual uno? Do I go with my planned Korean history paper topic or do something that doesn't involve reading crap? Do I stay on as editor of the Jayhawker for next year, which might be the last year that it exists as an independent entity? Do I stay here after next fall or go for an internship in New York or San Francisco? Do I keep throwing questions out there or do I start answering them?

Restricted.

Now, far be it from me to pass judgement on other schools let alone other religious denominations. What people choose really should be none of my affair. But, this list of regulations as far as what students are allowed to bring and do while attending Bob Jones University is a straight-up wack job. I mean the meeting every night to pray is certainly understandable, but then you get into the bottom part of the list.

Posters of movie and music stars and fashion models are not permitted. The subjects of personal photos should exhibit the modesty and appropriate physical contact we expect from our students.

Residence hall students may not watch videos above a G rating when visiting homes in town and may not attend movie theaters.

Let's get one thing straight here: though pop culture is indeed crap, it is not debilitating to the body, mind or soul. We're talking about 18-20 year olds who are probably already socially repressed, and now they're being even more sheltered from the world when they should be engaging it. I just don't see how outright abolition of movies, music, computer games, etc., does anything to help these students.

Which is why I ultimately left my church. I said I wanted to read other books, and one of my peers held up a Bible and said "But this is the only one you need." They simply could not believe it when I responded to their questions about my beliefs with "I don't know." But none of them could ever answer my question: If you believe so much in Jesus, if your faith is so strong and sure, then why are you afraid?

Skintight.

So I've noticed, after going to the Rec again for a few days, that with the new workout clothes that I got for Christmas I probably look like a freak of some sort. I got some Nike Pro shirts, which if you're up to date on your state-of-the-art exercise apparel then you know they're tight. Very tight. Which they're supposed to be, as it's compression gear, built to provide support and yet still allow range of motion, all the while wicking away sweat.

All this is by way of saying that I don't think anybody down at the Rec is wearing anything this flattering to the human body. I love the shirts as I'm still the lean machine that I was months ago and so they give me a really nice profile, but we're talking the KU Rec Center, not Muscle Beach. Oh well, I really wasn't self-conscious enough all the time anyway.

Yes, I've resorted to this.

I got an invitation today to attend the All University Supper on Friday, 20 May 2005 at 7:30pm. They'll be doing some stuff including handing some awards to some old people and yada yada. Anyway, it's a free meal, and I'm allowed to bring a guest. Thing is, they need a name and I have to RSVP both of us by 29 April. So, if you're interested let me know and I'll follow up with you on it. But please: no hard feelings for anybody. Especially me when I get no responses.

Where he reviews a movie when he should be reading Nietzsche.

I got Collateral this afternoon as the latest delivery on my Blockbuster Online account. I built in some time this evening to watch it in between the *massive* reading that I should be doing (Hero, the other movie I got today, is for tomorrow).

I was honestly expecting much more action, but I was very very pleased with how the movie played out. In fact, I liked the suspense more than I feel like I would've liked any more action. The choice of Tom Cruise was inspired, but I wasn't feeling Jamie Foxx all that much. And Jada Pinkett Smith really wasn't worth it; way to blow a fine actress on nothing more than a plot twist. Anyway, the movie was nicely shot with a good portion of it being overhead shots, crowd shots, or shaky cam™ looking out of the car; exactly my kind of realistic-type filming. I have a feeling I'll get more of everything (explosions, shooting, shaky cam) with Man on Fire later on, but without the philosophic musings on life and death that Vincent engages in, which was interesting and possibly ties into Nietzsche more than my teacher might imagine. =)

Anyway, so that was the fourth movie so far out of the now 110 DVDs that I have in my queue. God I better get busy with these things.

Now I know why I wanted to join NASA.

Yes they have way too much time on their hands, but it's so cool that I don't mind them using taxpayer money on it.

•••

Also, these thoroughly Midwestern videos, one absolutely sublime while the other is hellishly funny. Some will wonder: Why Nebraska & Iowa? I say: At least they're not Missouri.

Pleasant is the new inspired.

Perhaps it's simply the redone living room, maybe it's all of the lovely sunshine, but this no-cable thing is really everything I hoped it would be (minus the loss of Cyclysm Sundays on OLN, dammit). The most pleasant surprise though: I'm listening to a lot more KJHK, and loving it.

Things I Love, #54.

The absolute rock-fest that is Kelly Clarkson's new song Behind These Hazel Eyes, especially the climax of the song with the thumps and the "tears I cried" line. I've been hooked on that all weekend.

Rundown.

The past few days have been too hectic for traditional narrative, so you get bullet-points.

Thursday:
• Our softball game was cancelled due to a forfeit from the other team. The bats of thunder stay in the bag for another week.
• So I used that time to rearrange my bedroom, thus completing phase two of Ryan's Apartment Makeover of '05.
• Schooner night was fun; I felt this week's schooner a little more than last time, which is a little disquieting. A night of fabulousness all around.

Friday:
• Up at 8am to make sure I had everything that was supposed to go home. Stopped at Old Navy at 9am as my mom had sent me a coupon for $10 off; went crazy from the dearth of good specials, so I only got a couple pairs of shorts and yet another freaking California tee. What can I say?
• Got back to Humboldt and promptly had to go to the local grocer to get detergent. I ran into a former teacher and she said that the town newspaper had shut its doors without a word in the previous week's issue; the only paper left in town now is the high school Cub Tracks. The idea was floated for me to come back and run the paper; the idea was promptly shot down and beaten into the ground. And then burned.
• After lunch with the sister and the grandma, I rushed through my laundry so I could try to beat traffic on the way up. Was unsuccessful in this, as apparently a contest was being held to see how many cuss words we could get Ryan to shout in his car in the span of an hour and a half.
• Helped Tim figure out just how many bratwursts to buy for the aptly named 1st Annual Beer & Brat Festival, Sponsored by the Church of Beer for Saturday. Convinced him to get more than 20; would prove to be very much prescient in this.
• After unloading the books from my bookshelves and preparing my living room furniture to be moved, was talked into going to the baseball game instead. Left early so I could come back and rearrange everything, which I did myself (not that hard actually). I loooove my living room now; it's exactly what I had in mind for a while now, and since I cut off my cable TV this week, I could do it without worrying about the connections.
• J&M&Tim put together the grill, then took the box to make signs for the 1AB&BF. Jeff is the Archbishop of St. James Gate; Michelle is Sister Smirnoff; Tim is the Buddha of Brew; I am the Right Honourable Minister for Pale Ales. Tim also made signs saying 'Go Beer, Beat Brats' and 'Go Brats, Spill Beer', as the pretense for all of this was the Blue & White Game on Sat.

Saturday:
• Almost all attempts at homework failed in light of the bratwursts. Will try again Sunday.
• Had my first ever beer brat; quickly had a second opinion, and would later desire a third. Tim had purchased 30, of which only two would ultimately be left. I also had another Boulevard Zon that I had purchased Friday; very very nice beer, perfect for a weekend like this.
• Played catch with Jeff on the Hill for the better part of two hours on the most beautiful spring evening I've seen in my life. Girls sunbathing on the Hill would've been nice too, even if it was like 7pm.
• Went to Henry T's with pleasant company; apparently there is something about Shiner Bock that compels me to order it every single time I go out. Oh, I know: it's fucking good.

Sunday:
• As stated above, there will be homework. There must be homework; I've put it off long enough with the B&BF and the apt. makeover and whatnot.

There might have been other things that happened in this timeframe but I'm tired of this now and I wish to write in more than declarative statements and sentence fragments.

World records.

Saturday evening, while going to play catch on the Hill:

Ryan: *looking at Kansas Relays poster that says "See 39 Olympians in Three Hours"* Hm, 39 Olympians in three hours.
Jeff: My personal record was 30 in an hour, but any more requires stamina.
Ryan: You have intensity but not endurance. Wait, what are we talking about?

Observations on watching CNN while hoping beyond hope for the laundry to get done immediately.

• Miles O'Brien is an idiot.
• This is obscured, however, by Kyra Phillips being a bigger idiot.
• Lou Dobbs apparently gets off by talking about illegal immigration every damn day.
• Will somebody for the love of all that is holy please tell these people that Paris Hilton is not more important than, oh I don't know, a war?

On being assaulted by hand-flyers: Spring and Student Elections at KU.

We have three student coalitions this year running for student body president/vice-president. Not a single one of them matters all that much to me, a characteristic I'm sure I share with approximately 99.184% of the enrolled students here. That being said, I did make a very conscious effort to keep up with the goings-on in the UDK and I looked over each coalitions' platforms to make a judgment as to which one was both necessary and doable.

Of the three, Delta Force seems the strongest, which surprises me after last year; I didn't think they'd be competitive anymore after what should have been a clear win for them. On the contrary, it now seems as if it is KUnited that is struggling; but for institutional support (ie: the Greeks and I would suspect many of the SILC clubs), I can't see them existing for much longer. They seem exhausted in their ideas, running simply on the implied message of 'Hey we've been in power for so long, we know all of these people, you wouldn't want to stop us now.' It is sickening how many of the ideas they claim on their platform will be done anyway, regardless of which coalition wins.

Delta Force, meanwhile, at least as long as I've been following, continues to please in their platforms; no it may not be as antagonistic towards the administration as one would like, but the platform is geared towards students and perhaps at this point in time that's what is needed most: after (hopefully) a couple years in power than DF can start affecting larger campus institutions.

The third coalition is not worthy of our time. I have no animosity towards anybody from Student Voice, and I am happy for the workings of democracy to allow for third parties. But they ran an freshman senator – who was expelled from the Senate two weeks ago for excessive absences – as their presidential candidate. They deserve as much ridicule as possible to be heaped on them after this election is over.

So we're now in the middle of the second day of the election and this is the first year without physical, exclusive polling places as all balloting is now done online from any computer. I do hope this dramatically increases the number of ballots as last year's turnout was beyond pitiful for a campus of at least 24,000 students. However, without that polling place on Wescoe Beach, there is no magnet to keep all of the activists from the parties close by; you could somewhat avoid getting bombarded with multi-colored handsheets and having people walk you to class if you simply stayed off the top of the Hill. But now they're everywhere and anywhere, and between them and the Red Cross mascot and the guys on their cycles to nowhere, it's starting to feel like a circus up there on the Hill. If only it wasn't all for naught.

The ignorant, non-news-reading public can blow me.

Sorry if the headline is a bit strong but if this morning's post from Gothamist is true, then the New York Times is but the latest victim of the sickeningly short attention spans of the American people. I first encountered this with Rolling Stone a couple years ago when they went to a British-style 'laddie' editor who wanted to chop up everything in order to catch the younger readership that apparently does everything but read.

I cannot tell you how sickeningly angry this makes me. At what point do we just say "You know what, let's just take USA Today's little graphs and expand them by condensing everything down into easy-to-swallow news bites in pretty colors"? I mean it. Just once I would like to see a news editor grow some balls and tell his writers & copy editors to go full speed the other way; publishing shorter and shorter stories becomes self-perpetuating, and it will result in the destruction of society and the English language. Just like instant messenger.

Part of the game.

Tonight I went up to talk to J&M and they said "Did you see the soccer game in Italy where they were throwing flares?" I responded "Oh yeah, I see that all the time." They go "No no, tonight on Sportscenter, AC Milan and Inter Milan were playing and a goal was disallowed in this game and the fans threw flares onto the field and caught the goalkeeper on fire." And yet, I was still not surprised.

I've seen pictures of countless flares, with flammable banners next to them, flying in Amsterdam Arena for an Ajax game, footage of more projectiles in the air at an England national match than we drop in Iraq in a given day, read reports of fan riots all over the world. For the most part I just went along with it; it's a sign of the game, something that we never accepted here in the States (thus the handwringing over fires and tipped over cars after championship wins here; in Italy, Mexico and selected Premiership cities you don't even need a game).

But tonight's actions took it to the next level. Clubs and fans in Italy were already under warning after an unprecedented weekend of fan violence forced the threat of stadium shutdowns for the rest of the Serie A season. Tonight's game, though, and tomorrow's very worrisome Liverpool at Juventus match in Turin, Italy (the first between the two clubs there since a Liverpool riot in 1985 caused the death of 39 Juve fans) were Champion's League, which means all of Europe is watching. UEFA has jurisdiction here and will most surely take it to punish Internazionale (Milan). But the Guardian's James Richardson says the problem and solution lie with reforming the fan structure at the games.

I suppose something must be done; fan on fan violence is assuredly unfortunate but one of those things that eventually you must take responsibility for when you enter certain sections of the stadiums. But to see the audacity of fans to stop a game and attack a player is out of bounds, period. (Though Barry Glendenning, who does wonderful match updates for the Guardian, had this to say:

Anyway, it's only several thousand plastic bottles and a big cloud of smoke - hardly an unprecedented event at a Milan derby. Far be it from me to condone this kind of guff, but Inter's fans do have every right to be upset, as their side has been robbed by referee Markus Merk tonight. He failed to send off Andriy Shevchenko for a blatant headbutt before the Ukrainian scored, he denied Inter a penalty and then disallowed a perfectly legitimate goal by Esteban Cambiasso. Is it any wonder they've got the hump?

So that being said, I would very much hate to see it devolve to the American state of affairs. Worrying about bathroom lines and beer prices is not the level of fan interaction I would want to see in the Bundesliga or the Primera Liga; Paris Saint-Germain and Celtic and Olympiakos all deserve better. I don't know what the answer is. I do know, however, that many, many commentators tomorrow on ESPN and the news and sports talk radio are going to be pissing on the Europeans and their 'football', and when I hear their righteous indignation, I'll wish I had some flares of my own.

On getting up at 6am to work out at the Rec like I said I'd start doing again.

I'll start next week. I swear it.

Inertia.

I used to get up (nearly) every day at 6am to go to the Rec. Since the very day that the Rec opened in the fall of 2003, I would sacrifice my sleep to go while a handful of people were there too. Not that I used to get up that early to work out regularly before I moved up here, but I told myself that if I wanted to keep the body I had built, if I wanted to get in a good workout without a crowd, that's what I had to do. And for over a year I did it.

But then in November I stopped. I was facing a stressful end to the semester and I thought I was going to have a relationship and I had been told by several people that I needed to gain weight and they were rather correct. I was 137 lbs. and under 5% bodyfat and had excellent fitness numbers across the board, considering I was thinner than a rail. So I figured "Hey I've earned a week or two off," which became three weeks which became a month which became this semester of the on-again/off-again workout schedule.

Not that you would notice any bad consequences to look at me. Despite doing no cardio whatsoever and being substantially looser in what I eat, I'm still hovering around 143 lbs. and have been injury-free. I figure the inertia of 2 1/2 years of constant exercise and the complete & total reformation of my body has been carrying me through so that I'm still in above-average shape.

But that shouldn't be good enough, at least it doesn't feel like it when I read through my Outside magazine and think "Hmm, I may not traverse Patagonia anytime soon, but I'd like to think I could." I'm considering reorganizing my apartment from top-to-bottom and I'd like to do the same with my exercising too. So starting immediately I'll be at the Rec three mornings a week at 6am to do my cardio schedule (rowing machine, cycle, cross-trainers, wind jammer), while one other morning and on weekends I'll do my home workouts, leaving Fridays as my free days (conveniently after schooner nights; hey, priorities people). I'm also going to start counting calories again, if only because it gave me a sense of more control over my body.

I would've done this sooner in the semester but I worried about whether I could handle all of the fuss again: the notebooks of calorie notations, the 6am wake-ups, the added laundry, the driving to the Rec (yeah it's ridiculous, driving to do cardio, but whachagonnado?). But I did it before and it worked well enough. Besides 6am should be easier without cable to tempt me. No more Robot Chicken is a tragedy in its own right, but it's for a higher calling now.

On making a fool of myself for no particular reason.

See I was hoping to include some quotes and snippets of conversation from our Church of Beer services yesterday, which was to be the first official session with our newest member Joah, despite Tim's absence. Anyway, since I had just finished my last project from the past week right before the service, I proceeded to get a little drunk and act a little silly and then feel really ridiculous in front of Joah and her friend Amanda. On top of that I feel bad for J&M because they have to put up with me whenever I get like this and start ruminating on this, that and what not. Ugh.

But at least I did it early enough in the day that I could still get some work done last night; I stayed up until about 1am working on my Western Civ semester project. We're supposed to use a form of artistic expression to make a project using ideas or themes from the texts we're reading, so I chose to make propaganda posters using some of the points from the Communist Manifesto. Each poster includes a passage from a contemporary article that ties into one of the features that Marx & Engels lay out as generally applicable to a proletarian revolution; the tagline for my posters is 'Think you know the MANIFESTO?' Which is really the point: some of the things that Marx calls for are either so embedded in society today or make so much sense that people may have no idea they were set down in the CM back in 1848.

So today is set aside for homework if at all possible; I desperately need to get caught up on class reading. But if the neighbors were to come by with some softball gloves on this day that may very well be f-ing gorgeous, I would not complain.

I find myself more and more in favor of Proposition FU.

From Digbys, this snippet from Phyllis Schlafly. Let's see how many categories I fall into:

You know who they are. You’ve seen them. The pro-abortion fanatics and the radical feminists, the atheists who file lawsuits attacking the pledge of allegiance and the ten commandments, the environmentalist tree-hugging animal-rights extremists, the one-world globalists who worship at the altar of the United Nations and international law, the militant homosexuals and the anti-military hippie pieceniks, the racial agitators who believe we are all created equal but some are a little more equal than others, the union bosses and the socialists posing as journalists and college professors, the government bureaucrats and the tax-and-spend junkies, the Hollywood elitists, the air-headed actors and singers who think that we actually care what they think, the pornographers who fund the leftists and who won’t be happy until every Bible in every child’s hands is replaced with the latest copy of Hustler magazine, and of course the gun-grabbing trial lawyers and their willing accomplices in the United States Senate who won’t be happy until they disarm every last citizen down to the last bee bee and paintball gun.

I'm pretty liberal and I don't think I fit any of these stereotypes, and neither does anybody I know. But if David Brooks is any indicator, apparently you don't need to know these people; just pull generalized observations out of your ass (and rip on the highly educated and the university-town secularists because lord knows they're the ones who are threatening federal judges) and you'll be fine. Bastards.

This is gonna take a while.

Yeah I said I was going to wait to get my Blockbuster Online account, but I decided to go ahead and start it. And good thing too, because I currently have 83 DVDs in my queue, and that's with the first three already shipped out. I would say that this might get a little ridiculous, but I'm afraid it already has.

Things I Love, #83.

The way Richard Shindell sings "This is how I remember you best" in his song A Summer Wind, A Cotton Dress. Ask me if you want to hear it sometime; I'll gladly oblige.

On not writing the paper or reading the books that I should be on a Friday night.

But I'm trying to find–somewhere, anywhere!–a copy of the poem "The Astonished Heart" by Lawrence Ferlinghetti. I know it has the lines

there is a great crowded bluff
in Lawrence Kansas
that looks a long way
into the astonished heart of America.

And thus I must have it and read it and cherish it. This is so much more important than the role of globalization on US foreign policy.

Shellshock.

Wow, first day without a post. My apologies; I mean it's not like there wasn't anything that happened yesterday. Notably I took my sociological theory exam and handed in my Korean history midterm, both of which had my sufficiently freaked out for the better part of two weeks. What I didn't know is that that would be my highlight of the day.

We knew that our softball game last night would probably decide who wins our 'bracket' or whatever the hell it's called, but we were missing quite a few people due to a geographic society convention this weekend. We still scraped together enough people to hang with our opponent for four innings, when the deluge began. Perhaps it was the fog, maybe it was the wet f-ing grass, but we allowed 22 runs in the fifth inning; in order to beat them we'd have to go through our lineup three times. Add to this the number of injuries sustained by my neighbors throughout the evening and the fact that I had nobody to get a schooner with (though Tim kindly shared some free food from his mom & sister visiting Lawrence for a few days) and it was all in all a rather lacklustre night. Except for the Groundbreaking Study/Wager That Shall Not Be Revealed Yet, But Soon. Oh so very soon.

Santos/McGarry?!

Tonight's West Wing wasn't quite the nailbiter that one might've hoped, but it was still vastly interesting to see (in an albeit fictional represenation) what a brokered political convention might look like, as we haven't seen one in a couple decades now. At least I did get the most pleasant surprise I think I've seen in six years of WW: Leo McGarry (John Spencer), the former Chief of Staff, as the nominee for VP on the Democratic Ticket to Matt Santos (Jimmy Smits). As much as I may like the idea of President Hawkeye, er, Vinick (Alan Alda), I gotta stick with the team. Hm, this is waaay too much talking about a TV show. Except for one more thing: CJ, get ready to meet Article III, Section 3 of the Constitution, you traitorous, yet beautiful scum.

In other news, I will finish my third of four class exams/papers tomorrow morning when I take my Soc. Theory test. I put my study lid on earlier today (ie: if at all possible I like to put a 24-hour lid on studying so that I don't risk cramming and stressing; if I have to stop a day before, then I have to start a few days before), and I've just been doing some tinkering with my last paper that is due by the end of the weekend. After that, it's just a month of constant study and research for my semester-ending projects. But first, softball and schooners. Who's with me!? C'mon! We're talking thirty ounces, people!

Throw away your television.

Throw away your television

Take the noose off your ambition

Reinvent your intuition now

It's a repeat of a story told

It's a repeat and it's getting old

~Red Hot Chili Peppers

So I've been planning for a while to get rid of my cable television service, but only after the West Wing season ends (which just happens to be really freaking early this year). My reasons were partly wishful thinking that it will be one less distraction from studying (hello, Internet) and mostly financial in that it's a lot of freaking money for a service that brings me maybe a few good hours a week (most everything, including the West Wing, is such crap), mostly in the form of Adult Swim and the ever-genius Robot Chicken.

So I was doing well: I was cutting back on the shows I watched so that I wouldn't get too involved, I actually flat-out stopped on my ESPN afternoon shows, and I started making a list of all of the DVDs I want/need to see when I start my Blockbuster Online account at Commencement (I have a couple of research projects before then so we'll just wait a bit). However, just when I thought I was okay, I got into the show of all shows: Iron Chef America. Now I'm a pretty big Food Network fan, but it was unique in that I'm crazy about it, but only when I flip to it; in other words, it's not something I have to watch. But I was always into Iron Chef before and now that Food Network could build their own show rather than rely on dubbing over the Japanese version, I was hooked. Which is bad news because I'm supposed to end my cable TV this week. So now it's crunch time: Robot Chicken & Iron Chef vs. unlimited DVDs per month. It's not easy being me.

"Everyone waits."

I consciously avoided posting anything on the Pope, but I like this because it focuses on what I like to think he would've wanted us to see: the pageantry of both the individual and the masses. There are times when I don't want facts or palace intrigue, when I just want a story to move me and do it in a way that isn't condescending or insulting. I think this article strikes the right tone of capturing the beauty and frailty of what happened in Rome last week without going into missives about faith or politics or what the hell ever.

For what it's worth, I've seemed to gain more respect in the last week for the Pope and his mission: imagine having the kind of faith that requires you to dedicate a lifetime to tending to one billion people, in the name of God. Yes lots of horrible things have been done in the name of God, and passion & fervor in pursuit of an ideal is not always responsible. But to carry on one's shoulders the weight of an institution that stretches back to the Roman Empire, that has done more to shape the world that any other organisation or state? Dislike the Church, dispute the religion, cast doubt upon the faith, but for two decades the man both stood before the world he knew and knelt before the God he trusted.

Could he have stepped down years ago as his health deteriorated? Of course. But that's just not how it's done. In the age of Terri Schiavo and grotesque conservatism of the bumper sticker 'culture of life' variety, I think the faith of a man who both endures in the face of pain and debilitation before succumbing softly into the night because of the faith of his predecessors is heartening. Of course that is not cause to celebrate him, just as the pornographic violence of the Passion of the Christ shouldn't be reason enough to devote one's life to Jesus, but it is significant I think of the Pope's true awareness of just what he serves and who he is serving. And in the end, perhaps all that matters is that he knew.

Greatest course schedule ever.

At 15 credit hours, my weeks next fall will start at 11am on Tuesdays and end at 4pm on Thursdays. That's almost obscene.

Soc 310: Intro to Social Research. 11am-12:20pm. TR
Engl 351: Fiction 1. 1-2:20pm. TR.
Engl 387: Intro to English Language. 2:30-3:50pm. TR
Ams 696: Anti-War Films. 6:30-10pm. T.
Soc 626: Religion & Society. 1:30-3:50pm. W.

God the details...

Via Paul Krugman's column in the New York Times (which is a definite must-read if you're registered), I found this April Fool's editorial from Scientific American:

True, the theory of common descent through natural selection has been called the unifying concept for all of biology and one of the greatest scientific ideas of all time, but that was no excuse to be fanatics about it. Where were the answering articles presenting the powerful case for scientific creationism? Why were we so unwilling to suggest that dinosaurs lived 6,000 years ago or that a cataclysmic flood carved the Grand Canyon? Blame the scientists. They dazzled us with their fancy fossils, their radiocarbon dating and their tens of thousands of peer-reviewed journal articles. As editors, we had no business being persuaded by mountains of evidence.

Moreover, we shamefully mistreated the Intelligent Design (ID) theorists by lumping them in with creationists. Creationists believe that God designed all life, and that's a somewhat religious idea. But ID theorists think that at unspecified times some unnamed superpowerful entity designed life, or maybe just some species, or maybe just some of the stuff in cells. That's what makes ID a superior scientific theory: it doesn't get bogged down in details.

On whether Burger King is worth not standing in a line at Subway.

No.

Transparency.

I doubt I can make this work with my computer; all I have is a very boring wall with some wires behind the eMac. But I'll still try it with my new digital camera in a month or so. *fingers crossed*

Lost in translation.

Sunday, on the Hill:

Tim: But my classmate is coming over, so I can't pick up those girls and take them to my place.
Jeff: Put a sock on the door.
Ryan: But the guy is British, so he won't understand.
Jeff: Okay, put a cardigan on the door.

Tell me they don't sound familiar.

The other night, upon listing the various Greek organizations for reasons still unclear:

Jeff: Alpha Delta Pi, Alpha Phi Alpha, Alpha Kappa Alpha, Alpha Delta Omega Alpha Gamma Alpha Sigma Theta Chi Pi Phi.. Oh! I've mixed up my Alphas! How silly of me!
Ryan: Honestly! C'mon, throw some more Greek words in there! How the hell should you know?!

On the joy of softball on the Hill, followed by a Shiner Bock on a gorgeous Sunday afternoon.

This freaking rocks.

Initial reactions to each of my four Korean history midterm questions.

1] Where the hell is this at?
2] Are you kidding me?
3] Oh just discuss the rise and fall of a freaking empire..
4] I'm gonna go get a sandwich.

I'm usually not one for quizzes..

But this was too good to pass up.

Bacardi 151 Congratulations! You're 153 proof, with specific scores in beer (140) , wine (66), and liquor (130).

All right. No more messing around. Your knowledge of alcohol is so high that you have drinking and getting plastered down to a science. Sure, you could get wasted drinking beer, but who needs all those trips to the bathroom? You head straight for the bar and pick up that which is most efficient.

My test tracked 4 variables How you compared to other people your age and gender: You scored higher than 91% on proof You scored higher than 99% on beer index You scored higher than 89% on wine index You scored higher than 99% on liquor index

Link: The Alcohol Knowledge Test written by hoppersplit on Ok Cupid

Those Google guys know how to joke around.

When they're not doubling the size of their earth-shaking email storage, the free spirits in the Google Labs are busy meeting our other needs and desires, this time in the form of a new beverage (via Coudal Partners). Be sure to check out the FAQs:

7. How can I get my hands on a Google Gulp?

This "limited release" beta product is available to anyone who turns in a used Google Gulp bottle cap at any local retailer. If you don't have any Gulp caps, ask a friend to give you one.

8. What if none of my friends have a Gulp cap to give me? Can't you just give Google Gulp to anyone who wants it?

Well, we're thinking about it, but, um, you have to understand that there are many considerations which go into deciding how to distribute --

9. I mean, isn't this whole invite-only thing kind of bogus?

Dude, it's like you've never even heard of viral marketing.

10. Will Google be coming out with more food products?

As a rule, Google doesn't comment on future product releases, but...let's just say for now that a cool, refreshing drink isn't complete without, oh, say, chips and dip, is it?

Like I could fill one gigabyte before.

I actually watched my storage space on Gmail increase in real-time throughout the day, from 1000 MB to 1340, to 1650, to now 2050. My used mail capacity went from 7% to 3% overnight, and I didn't do a damn thing. This is freaking me out just a little bit.

Fall into place.

Last week I finished up the yearbook (these last proofs notwithstanding) AND got a summer job with the Duke Talent Identification Program's summer institute here at KU. I'll be working as a teaching assistant for two three-week sessions with kids in grades seven through eleven. Though I applied to help with the literature courses, I got put in (what else?) politics and economics, with the first course specializing in what appears to be my chosen field anymore: globalization. I say that because my senior history seminar project will examine globalization as US/Western imperalism in the post-war era, while my Korean history project will look at nationalist history and the meaning & importance of identity in a modern global world. Heavy stuff, which is why I believe we have a nice beverage called beer.

Anyway, so I'll be working with those kids about seven hours a day (six hours in class, plus I lead a study group four evenings a week), but I still get to stay in Lawrence for the summer. I've picked out my course schedule for the fall, and I was rather happy with everything until things went to the next level this afternoon. I can't say that I have this job with an on-campus marketing dept. as a graphic designer, but the head of the office was very receptive to me and would like to see some of my work to finalize things, which I will present in the form of a 160-page tour de force I like to call the greatest yearbook ever made™ later in the month.

So now all I need is to get through Hell Week '05, which starts now. Game on.

Impressive offense.

No I'm not referring to the come ons tonight at Louise's, which by the way, where has that place been all my life, or at least all my Thursdays? The girls I hung out with were absolutely wonderful, leading me to forget all about the 15 min. I stood in line for a Shiner Bock schooner. Perhaps I should get the wristband so that I can skip the cover charge the rest of the year.

The impressive offense came from our intramural men's softball team, the Low Plains Drifters. We had our first game tonight, which we won 19-12 in six innings; we didn't allow a run until the third inning. Though the opposition made a late rally we were able to hold them off. I like to think I contributed my part by being an imposing catcher and delivering an RBI and two runs scored off a 3-4 batting night. Just think if we were on the juice; we'd be unstoppable. Granted the season is only like four weeks long, but still..