Oh No Blog

"Greening Your Wallet" is more like it.

2009-06-05T13:50:00.004-04:00

I received a catalog from a company that makes promotional items today. One of the items in the catalog is a 100-page book called “Greening Your Office”, and the promo company will stamp the logo of your company on the cover. The minimum number of customized books that you have to purchase is 50, which means that in order to “green” your small business’ office, you’d need to spend over five hundred bucks on 5,000 pages of paper and, from the looks of it, full-page, color-ink photographs.

Additionally, I did not ask the promotional company to send me this 200-page catalog that highlights its “eco friendly” options w/ a leaf.

First GoodReads Review (short & to the point-ish)

2009-02-26T13:17:00.003-05:00

The Divine Comedy: Inferno; Purgatorio; Paradiso by Dante Alighieri

My review

rating: 5 of 5 stars

I first read this poem four years ago as part of a dare. And by “dare,” I mean a professor listed it on the syllabus and I had to read it and then write papers about it. The next summer, I wanted to read it again on account of the graphic imagery of Inferno and Purgatorio. The punishments/reparations are mindblowing, scary, and beautiful. Everyone should at the very least skim Inferno. Particularly in Inferno, the political references are funny and provocative, and the historical significance of this epic poem is right up there with the Bible and Paradise Lost for me. Paradiso is far more abstract and sappy than the other books.

I re-read all three last Fall because I’ve always felt attached to this work, and I figure you gotta read something at LEAST three times before you say its your favorite book. But yeah, this is my favorite book. It makes me want to learn Italian and read Dante’s Italian (and the whole part about him writing it in Italian instead of Latin pissed off so many people—again, the history of this piece is great). It makes me want to visit Italy. It makes me want to write something worth reading!

View all my reviews.

Not to sound overly-bitter about life...

2009-02-09T12:16:00.000-05:00

Not to sound overly-bitter about life, but if I hear one more nerdy accounting student say "y'know, that's how they caught Al Capone," I'm gonna 'splode.

Oh, Mondays!

2009-02-09T09:43:00.002-05:00

Student in hall [to Spanish-speaking custodial lady]: Where’s the free dentist?

Custodial lady: … No se pero tienes una pregunta, James esta aqui.

Student in hall [louder]: Where’s the FREE DENTAL? DENTIST? Wheeeerrreeee issss theeeee dennnnnntissssst?

Custodial lady: I no know. James know.

Student in hall [to me]: Where’s the free dentist?

Me: The… free… dentist?

Student in hall: Yeah. For students.

Me: I don’t know anything about this. Where did you hear that there were free dentists?

Student in hall: For students.

Me: Check with the Health Center, but if no one actually told you there’s a free dentist for students, I think it is safe to say that there isn’t one. [but I give him directions to the Health Center]

Student in hall: Okay.

Me: Okay, good luck.

Student in hall: Okay.

Me: …

Student in hall: …

Me: …?

Student in hall: … [he finally just walks away]

Who falls for this stuff

2009-01-14T10:12:00.001-05:00

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The fact that the cop was black is irrelevant

2009-01-13T12:35:00.001-05:00

A Fort Lauderdale cop was cleared of an internal investigation claiming he used curse words and racial slurs at some folks at a sketchy Elk Lodge Mother’s Day male-stripper extravaganza. The entire story is fantastic. I imagine he would have had just a slap on the wrist or a line that says “cursed some folks” on his record. It wouldn’t have been a big deal, but the Sun Sentinel treated this story like he had shot someone. In other news, a San Francisco cop accidentally or intentionally straight up shot some dude, and it is all over YouTube (I’m not posting that garbage; search for “BART shooting”).

Anyway, the last lines of this cop-cursing article were the best:

Some people didn't take Carmichael's orders to leave the club seriously because they mistook him for part of the dance act.

The dancer was dressed like a jail inmate and Carmichael was wearing a police uniform.

In the comments of the Sun Sentinel, some holier-than-thou ign’ant folks posted the following eulogy to Barack Obama (to keep his “people” in line? WTF?):

Please Mr. Obama, show your people how to have personal responsibility. Teach them to respect themselves so they might respect others, including the police. Show them how to stand on their own two feet without handouts. Teach them to teach their children to value education and hard work. Teach them values like not getting pregnant before you have a husband who can support the child. Teach them common decency. Teach them those things Mr. Obama, and I, a staunch Republican, will vote for you in four years. If you cannot do those things, nobody can. And your people will start to expect even more entitlements, thus alienating everyone else and setting back race relations 50 years. Lift your people up--not by giving them handouts, but by giving them the proper values.

That is stupid, but it is funny, too

Can I finish my sent-

2009-01-13T12:04:00.001-05:00

Student: Hi where do I go for a parking decal?

Me: It’s all online now, so you can go online at-

Student: Yeah, I know, I know, you go online and print off your receipt as a decal.

Me: Right, and then they-

Student: And then they mail you the permanent one. I want to do it on campus. My friend said he did his on campus.

Me: Well, they do it all online now, but you can check with-

Student: My friend said he did his on campus.

Me: It’s all online, but you can check with the ID Card office upstairs, but they’re just [she walks away]…going to tell you what I just told you.

Fifteen minutes later, I saw her on her laptop, pulling up the parking website.

I can't help it

2009-01-08T16:04:00.001-05:00

I didn't want to give any more attention to this idiot, but I figured no one reads this blog anyway.

Potty mouth.

2009-01-08T09:55:00.004-05:00

Sometimes my job is poopy. Literally! We've been having issues with the bathrooms, and apparently it is my responsibility to take care of sewage problems. I wish the people really in charge of this problem would do something about it.

I keep on drippin' coffee on my pants in just the way that makes it look like I peed a little.

Wish I had time away from the poop to focus on my real job, which entails scheduling student workers.

There are way more than two sides to every tale!

2009-01-07T09:47:00.005-05:00

This morning brought a brilliant PR move by the Israelis.

Israel briefly suspended its fighting on Wednesday and agreed to do so for three hours each day to permit humanitarian relief goods to reach the beleaguered population.

In other words, they invaded negotiated boundaries and killed a lot of people, and now they're going to give them some band aids.

I don't want to sound like a Palestinian sympathizer here, though that may be what I am. And I'm certainly not all gung-ho for Israel. One of the best books I ever read was Best of Enemies, by a former Israeli Intelligence operative and a former Palestinian terrorist. Reading either co-author's individual biography forces you to see the world from his perspective, and in the end you don't know if you agree with the Israelis or the Palestinians or what to believe. Because these two are masters of persuasion, they also persuade you that the answer for both sides is peace (if you're into that kind of propaganda!). Anyway, just some food for thought.

Additionally, personal news for the morning:

1 - I just spilled coffee in 3 drops on my crotch, so I'm temporarily immobilized behind my desk.

2 - A young, socially-awkward-appearing lady student walked by my office, mumbling to her friend, "With all the outlets for sexuality through writing, I don't see the need for the physical part." Hm!

3 - An individual who offered me nothing but countless hardships in the past has been transferred to our downtown Fort Lauderdale campus. I now fully understand the phrase "good riddance."

4 - My wife is home while I am at work every day. I leave for home at 6, and she leaves for her night classes at 6. Whassupwidat.

Out of the loop

2009-01-05T15:40:00.002-05:00

I felt a little out of my comfort zone when I got back from my honeymoon this weekend. I hadn't checked the news in almost two weeks! Some things did happen. John Travolta's son died suddenly. Barack Obama said he was gonna do somethin'. Israel is killing a lot of Palestinians.

Here's a story from the local newspaper that helped put the nature of humanity back into perspective.

Surfin' the Language Barrier Reef

2009-01-05T14:02:00.001-05:00

Now that I’m back at work after the holidays, here’s a funny story.

Mailroom guy: Happy New Year!

Cleaning lady: Happy New Year. You happy holiday?

Mailroom guy: No maam. My best friend was shot three times on New Year’s Eve.

Cleaning lady: Good, good. I happy holiday too.

Heh heh.

Pray for nice weather!

2008-12-22T14:43:00.004-05:00

My friends in Portland and Chicago are snowed in. What a crappy time, just before the holidays (not to mention my wedding), to have delayed flights. I'm praying for nice weather--not just for my friends but for all of the people who want to be home for the holidays.

I was going to post about a very disturbing and depressing topic (oops I still did), but really, before I get swept up into an overwhelming Christmas, a wedding, a honeymoon, and New Year's all wrapped up into one, I just want to say that I'm very grateful for all of my friends and family.

As a religious person, I always see this season as one of peace and promise. With this new year comes a new president, a new life for myself and my wife, and a new beginning for all of us. Thank God for the ability to hope and to pray for one another. I'm gonna have you all in my heart this week.

Merry Christmas, all.

Autobots: Attack!

2008-12-19T10:47:00.001-05:00

Mistah Bush dun gave money to the Autobots.

I think a stipulation on this loan should be that the factories shutting down for a month tomorrow should have to open back up after Christmas. There's gonna be a lot of struggling blue-collared families in the next month.

And hey, we're a socialist nation now, so we can make companies do whatever we want. Right?

That's not really what I do...

2008-12-18T11:55:00.002-05:00

I work at a university, but I don't have anything to do with the academics side of things. Not even almost anything to do with them. I work in Student Activities; still, my office is often the first FAU office that people see when they come onto campus, so they assume I can solve all their problems. Here's a conversation that I just had.

Oblivious Man: [he sits down across from my desk, puts his elbows on my desk, moving my paper clip tray.] Hello, I am an FAU student.
Me: Hi, good morning. How can I help you?
Oblivious Man: Well, go on your computer and look up a biology class for me.
Me: ... Excuse me?
Oblivious Man: Yeah. I would like to take a biology course. I am available Wednesday nights.
Me: I can't really help you. I'm with Student Activities, but I can refer you to the right office. You say you're already an FAU student?
Oblivious Man: I was.
Me: Was? or Are?
Oblivious man: Yes, can you just look up the class for me, and then you can register me?
Me: Actually, I'd recommend that you go speak to the Admissions Office, and then they can guide you through the rest of the process. They're right across the way here. Go out these doors, take a right, and it'll be right there.
Oblivious man: [looks at my name tag] You work for FAU?
Me: Yep! Right through those doors and to the right.

Now, take that man as an example, compared to this older man who came in here and asked for "the main office." I could tell he was just trying to enroll in school, and he wasn't really sure what to do. I sent him in the right direction, and I'm sure he'll be very successful in his endeavors.

Also, a student worker who I supervise just came in here to call everyone else "stupid" and cuss. He's seven years older than me, been married for five years, and one of the best workers we have. But it's still not nice to call people stupid. I spent fifteen minutes typing up this post to ridicule a helpless student, but jeeze -- I didn't call him stupid!

Imagine the power Franken-stin's size 14 could produce!

2008-12-18T11:42:00.002-05:00

Fivethirtyeight.com analyzes the decisions to keep some ballots and throw others out in the Minnesota Senate race, and this little gem came up:

[A]nother challenge just came through in which a Franken voter had appended "STIN" to "Al Franken", as in "AL FRANKEN-STIN" (sic). The Canvassing Board rejected that challenge and tallied the ballot for Mr. Frankenstin.

This is great. I love America. That dude almost had his vote not count for that joke, but at least some people got to see/hear it.

Oh, also, watch where you step because you might could step in an innovative method of clean, alternative energy production?

Are YOU racist against soda drinkers?

2008-12-17T16:50:00.002-05:00

Man, this made me crack up. Concerning the "soda tax", proposed by NY Governor David Paterson:

“There’s plenty of ways to raise money without hurting people who drink soda,” said Nelson Cross, 31, who emerged from Papa’s Fried Chicken in East New York, Brooklyn, with a box of takeout and a bottle of Pepsi. (He said he was concerned that the tax would diminish soda sales at a bar that his father owns.)
Eddie Velez, 56, who has driven a truck for a beverage distributor for 15 years, said he was not concerned because “soda always sells.” And Jenny Li, 19, an employee at Golden China, a takeout restaurant where customers receive a free can of soda with purchases over $10, said the restaurant had no intention of stopping that practice if the tax is imposed.

The "What's New About This?" News

2008-12-17T15:52:00.006-05:00

He's the first black American president. He's the first progressive, open-minded man to win the White House in eight years. He started as an anti-war candidate, won as a bipartisan, hopeful candidate. Now, Barack Obama is TIME magazine's 2008 Person of the Year. Who else would be Person of the Year? If you say anyone else, you're not only naive--you're stupid. What's new about this? Barack Obama is the most important person of the year still?

Fifty-four year old Drew Peterson (the other wife-killing Peterson) is being creepy again. He's marrying some 23 y/o that he's been dating for four months. His 24 y/o, too-young-for-him fourth wife, who he is still legally married to, went missing last year. He still hasn't been charged. Why is this news? "Man kills wife, gets replacement; stay tuned for coverage of the next one." The funniest comment on that page is the guy who said it was a really elaborate FBI sting. Besides that joke, what's new about this? Some guy is being a douchebag still?

A very rich, old white man who had been stealing from other very rich, old white men in a Ponzi scheme is going to jail. He would take people's money, promising to double it, keep that money, and when the next person would line up to have their money doubled, he'd hand the first person the second person's money. It's a little more complicated than that, but he managed to make it appear like he made FIFTY BILLION DOLLARS more than he actually did for those people. He was released on 10 million dollars bail, and the SEC is publicly saying "oops. I honestly don't see how this is news. Maybe if he was rotting in a jail cell, had to pay everyone back the money he stole, and doesn't get off easy by hanging himself, then it would be news! Rich people who trade invisible money for more money are in trouble... still?

This was a slow news day.

In real news, though, Steve Jobs will not be at Macworld 2009 in January. If you'd told me these four headlines yesterday, this is the one I would say is the most unbelievable--the most "new" news, if you will!

[Update - I really like this comment on a piece regarding Obama as Time's PotY:

"Are you serious??? Not surprised???? Are you stupid? i think I remember someone winning 8 gold medals all world records @ the 08′ Olympics. Is that not good enough for person of the year? What has Obama done? Smile and wave… That is how you get to be “Person of the Year”? ****, put me on the cover of Time if thats the case. IDIOTS."]

I have an announcement to make.

2008-12-17T12:56:00.001-05:00

“They said something about him being a racist because he was a redneck. Since when does being a redneck mean you’re racist? Since when does it have anything at all to do with racism? A redneck is a poor, Southern farmer, who is out plowing his field and gets sunburned on the neck and it turns red. He’s poor and white and usually a sharecropper.”

Attention! Attention!

Guy out in the hall:

Shut up.

I'm friendly with this man

2008-12-17T11:52:00.002-05:00

My friend Kyle, of imaddictedtocrackandimasubstituteteacher.com,made a video.

Please watch it 1,000 times and upvote it. You'll need to register for Break.com to vote, but didn't you always want the ability to comment on "Classic Garbage Man Prank"?

Thanks.

My Secretary of the Interior nominee: Jeremiah Johnson

2008-12-16T09:40:00.004-05:00

I first heard about Ken Salazar when he ran in Colorado in 2004. This red-state-turned-pink-state-turned-blue-state is home to some of the world's most beautiful post cards. He ran for "the land", which I think is a pretty cool platform. It is good to live on a sustainable planet. Still, I was semi-shocked when Obama named him to be Secretary of the Interior, a position which some of the most evil, twisted souls in history have held (see "James Watt bans Beach Boys from National Mall", and also all the other garbage the Interior Dept did under Reagan). I hope that he can lend a hand to turn things around. I don't necessarily think that we need to be a "green, liberal country." I'd just like to conserve what we've got and turn our country into something that'll last.

Additionally, that same article mentions how Mr. Obama-yo-mama named his BFF Jill as his Education Secretary. They play basketball together! Just like me and my friends.

This cabinet is getting jam-packed. The new president will have like 1.3 billion people to advise him on economics. Oh, and I saw the proposed "global climate czar" Carol Browner at a Women for John Kerry rally in 2004. That's crazy.

Obligatory "electoral college" post

2008-12-15T16:42:00.004-05:00

So, they've been saying for 'round 200 years that the "electoral college is a flawed system."

Here's an interesting twist that I bet you didn't know: four states already have a solution.

Obviously, the electorally heavy-hitting states haven't signed on, but it is a curious sort of pact they're talking about making, in which all states sign a contract to give their electoral votes to the popular vote winner.

Also, the big news today is Caroline Kennedy seeking Clinton's NY Senate seat. This has been in the papers, online, and on television for weeks now. How exactly would this be news? I guess she just officially said "that'd be cool." Whatevs.

[EDIT - I'd like to add the following from Caroline Kennedy's Wikipedia page, after reading up on the Kennedys for the last few hours: "A photo of a young Caroline with her pony in a news article inspired singer-songwriter Neil Diamond to write his hit song "Sweet Caroline," a fact he revealed only when performing it for her 50th birthday in November 2007."]

[EDIT EDIT - RE: JFK Jr.'s funeral: During the memorial service on July 23, 1999, Kennedy's uncle, Massachusetts Democratic Senator Ted Kennedy, stated, "We dared to think, in that other Irish phrase, that this John Kennedy would live to comb gray hair, with his beloved Carolyn by his side. But, like his father, he had every gift but length of years." And of his nephew's marriage, he invoked what had been said of his brother's Presidency: both lasted 1,000 days. Then-U.S. President Bill Clinton attended the funeral and ordered that the flag at the White House be lowered to half-staff in honor of JFK, Jr.]

Man!

Shoe Mr. Presicrunk, don't botha me!

2008-12-15T09:38:00.003-05:00

I think what I like most about this presidential shoe-throwin' incident is how they're calling it freedom of speech. It is kind of cool to think of, considering how much of a sissy country America has become, other countries' traditions. Like how they yell at each other in British Parliament. And throw shoes in the Arab culture, apparently. The only rough-and-tough American we seem to have is Dick Cheney. Shootin' people in the face. Cussin' out folks in the Senate. Torturin' suspects and tappin' phone lines.

Hmm.

Actually, you know what? Let's stick with the sissy thing.

Someone threw “one shoe, then the other shoe” at President Bush. I mean, I know a lot of people don’t like him and would have liked for him to get a size 10 (according to Mr. Bush himself, hehehe weaseling snicker) boxed right upside his pointy ear, but you gotta be impressed with the old man’s agility. He looked like a professional dodgeball player. Also, according to Reuters: “Throwing shoes at someone is the worst possible insult in the Arab world.” Really? I wish this is how we fought wars instead of with lethal weapons.

I know that these shoe-throwin folks are mostly just Sadr-supporters, but I’d like to remind us all of something:

Sunday, March 16, 2003

TIM RUSSERT: If your analysis is not correct, and we’re not treated as liberators, but as conquerors, and the Iraqis begin to resist, particularly in Baghdad, do you think the American people are prepared for a long, costly, and bloody battle with significant American casualties?

VICE PRES. CHENEY: Well, I don’t think it’s likely to unfold that way, Tim, because I really do believe that we will be greeted as liberators.

The language barrier strikes again

2008-12-12T10:20:00.002-05:00

French guy: Ello goomorn. I was wonder where at you go if you wann put nuts on board.

Me: Wait. What are you looking for?

French guy: If, you know, nuts is bored.

Me: One more time.

French guy: When you see like a rent for homes? Like apartment.

Me: You’re looking for a bulletin board.

French guy: Yes. No tees board.

Me: Do you want to post on it?

French guy: Yes. Put nuts on board.

Me: Okay, you’ll need a stamp, and…

French guy: No just to see them.

Me: You would like to look at it? It’s around the corner.

French guy: Tanks use.

Today is just a day

2008-11-20T14:11:00.001-05:00

One of the guys who works for me keeps calling me George. I wear a name tag. I have my name on my door. I have business cards. He has seen all of these. GEORGE?

--------------------------------------------

Young Man 1: “Where’s the lost and found?”

Me: “What do you need?”

Young Man 1: “I want to turn something in. I found this iPod on the floor.”

Me: “I’ll take it.”

It was bright red, it had 2 gigs of music on it and 250 pictures. I typically hold onto lost items for 24 hours and then pass them onto Security. I was upset that someone lost their very expensive iPod, and I guessed that it was a gift because it was engraved “Hello, Sunshine.” It seemed like it probably held a lot of sentimental value, and my experience in the past tells me that people don’t usually reunite with their items. I often have folks ask me if I’ve seen their phone, flash drive (this is the most popular lost item), sunglasses, sweater. Mostly, people don’t turn stuff in. Young Man 1 never even considered keeping this lost item, which costs about 200 bucks and had some pretty decent music on it.

On a side note, are you aware that The Verve lost the rights and royalties to “Bitter Sweet Symphony” when Keith Richards and Mick Jagger sued them for sampling without permission?

Young Man 2: “Have you found a red iPod?”

Me: “Yeah. Come to my office.”

Young Man 2: “Oh man I never thought I’d find it!”

Me: “… Are you Sunshine?”

Young Man 2: “It’s what my best friend calls me.”

Today’s been a decent day.

I thought she wanted to know where to get a parking decal

2008-11-19T12:20:00.001-05:00

Girl looks at my name & title on my office door, and then she sticks her head in my door.

Girl: Can I ask you a question

Me: Sure.

Girl: Where’s the security office?

Me: What specifically are you looking for?

Girl: [smiling] I need to drop off a restraining order.

Me: … to the Police Department or to the security? We have both.

Girl: [shrug]

Me: Room 109 is around the corner. Knock on the door & see if someone answers.

The Early Bird Saves the Late Bird from Choking on the Worm!

2008-10-21T10:21:00.004-04:00

Click here to find out how to vote early in Florida.

Make sure that you vote NOW to clear up those nasty lines on Election Day.

EARLY VOTING HAS STARTED!

I know it's symbolic to cast your vote on the first Tuesday of November, but this way we can stop voter disenfranchisement. Everyone deserves the right to accessible voting. Vote early!

Work Blog

2008-09-30T12:04:00.002-04:00

So this is turning into my work blog. I just decided this. We'll see if it works.

FYI I work as the Building Coordinator of the Student Union at a small campus of a large university. What does this mean? A lot of things. I help students, I advocate for students through programs and events in the building, and I maintain the Union overall.

I was going through my notes for my monthly report to my supervisor and found I had dictated the following quotes:

"They gobbled it up like gangbusters." It's a quote from our dean of students on this campus. I don't know what it refers to, but it sounds wrong.

"Is there a student union here?" A young lady came into the giant building labeled STUDENT UNION and proceeded to ask this question. I responded: "Yes. You're in it." "Yeah but where is it? This whole place?" Before I could laugh at her, I asked her what she was looking for specifically and helped her find her way.

So I have a bunch of crazy and read-worthy stories that I will be posting in the future (as they occur).

Why the Obama vs. Palin Experience Argument is Null

2008-09-03T11:59:00.001-04:00

Dungarees said, "...I don't question Senator Obama's experience; I fully agree he's not the most experienced person available. However, he chose to run, to campaign for President, and he successfully won out over other candidates. Governor Palin was picked by one person to be the first in line to the Presidency. That's a significant difference, regardless of experience being a factor."

Agreed.

See more like it here.

I'm onto something here!

2008-07-02T00:57:00.002-04:00

1. I'm in Pensacola, Florida.

2. I've been featured on a recent podcast by MANpants, which is a blog.

3. Still unemployed. Workin' on that.

4. Writin' again. Will write more later.

Murphy's Law

2008-06-13T21:18:00.002-04:00

SCENARIO:

You decide to wear your comfortable-looking, brand new linen pants for your 9 hour drive home.

You get a flat tire.

New linen pants are covered in tire juice & some random blue stuff that might have come from the crushed vial of Crayola paint near your miraculously flat tire.

RESULTS:

According to Murphy's Law, if you and your mother can argue about how to treat & wash new linen pants, inevitably, you and your mother will argue about the pants.

bill stickers is innocent!

2008-05-01T15:25:00.000-04:00

Bill Stickers is innocent!

Meaning: Play on words, based on 'Bill Stickers...' notices.

Origin: In the UK in the 1960s an attempt was made to reduce fly posting (the illegal pasting up of posters). Warning notices were put up with the legend 'Bill Stickers Will Be Prosecuted'. Waggish fly posters responded with 'Bill Stickers is Innocent' notices.

The joke wasn't new in the 1960s though. In a New York newspaper The Olean Herald, 1884, there's a piece reprinted from the London Graphic:

"A countryman named William Stickers, flying to London to escape from rural justice, was appalled at reading on a wall: 'Bill Stickers Beware!' He went a little further, but reading again, 'Bill Stickers will be punished with the utmost rigour of the law,' gave himself up for lost and surrendered."

This tale, which is just a joke of course and not a verbatim report, appeared in various forms in newspapers in the 1880s.

- from some website.

before i toss it

2008-04-30T15:45:00.002-04:00

quotes from dr. eugene belogay, my statistics professor:

"Your innocence is valuable. Your virginity is valuable. Your statistical virginity."

"Today we're going to discoos. Discoos? Discuss."

"For example, one child didn't speak until 4 years old. That's an outlier because my children are 4 and they talk so much I go crazy. I'm just kidding. But they talk a lot."

"So according to the data, we can see no weeds is better than weeds. We're talking real weeds, not 'whoa dude'."

"What is a dumb distribution like you doing in a bar like this? Ah my jokes are bad."

I have probably a hundred more scattered throughout notebooks, but these were on a loose sheet of paper I'm going to toss.

Re: Thesis

2008-04-28T20:20:00.000-04:00

Mission complete as of 4:30 PM today.

Signed.

Paid for.

Boxed.

Done.

Republicans for Obama

2008-03-28T13:14:00.003-04:00

Everyone writes political blogs. It's so 2008.

Tonight I clicked the button that says "Support Obama" on Facebook. Why?

Why would a registered Republican vote for this man? Barack Obama? The supposedly "Most Liberal Senator" according to his votes in 2007 (National Journal--let it be known that John McCain is also ranked as more liberal than 40% his fellow senators on social votes)?

Here's my answer, and it's an answer to not just conservatives but liberals and moderates who claim that Obama doesn't have enough experience:

Yes, he can. No, that's not right. Yes, we can.

But where's the proof that "we can"? You say, "Sure he has good speeches, but what has he gotten done? He doesn't have the experience."

HOLD ON A MINUTE! Good speeches? What the hell do you think a president is supposed to do? Do you think a president is supposed to be a policy maker? No! He or she is supposed to be a speech maker, a policy suggester, a policy persuader. If a person can speak like Obama, the first black Harvard Law Review Editor, then why is that a negative thing?

He's an inspiring man. He's already moving people with his speeches to vote for him. If they aren't voting for him, they're still admitting he has beautiful speeches! That's what a president is supposed to be. Notoriously great presidents? Lincoln's Gettysburg Address. JFK's Inaugural Speech. How could I forget FDR's fireside chats? It would be his job to speak, and to have a president who could say beautiful things and mean them, and to have a president who was capable of moving people would be an honor.

My problem is the Republican party is run by social conservatives who re-elected Bush in 2004. If it were run by fiscal conservatives who re-elected Bush in 2004, I wouldn't be complaining right now.

Anyway, Barbara Gordon from Republicans for Obama said it best when she noted, "The Republican party is no longer conservative, except perhaps in the social/religious sense. Consider: Republicans have traditionally been the party of fiscal conservatism, but no more. The only options anymore seem to be 'tax and spend' with the Democrats or 'spend and spend' with the current Republicans."

The phrase "compassionate conservative" has ruined the Republican Party. "Compassionate" implies that conservatives now care so much that they spend money on welfare programs and create this big government that is exactly what Republicans should be against. Where is this money coming from? Not from tax cuts! Our economy is failing because our government is so compassionate it gives away money without raising taxes. Instead, it LOWERS taxes.

I'm all for lower taxes, but I'm also for the smaller government that is supposed to come with those lower taxes. Instead, we have new departments of Homeland Security and we have a failing No Child Left Behind education program that takes funding away from students who aren't doing well and who need the money.

If my choice is a failing, theocratic, conservative government or a smart, secular, liberal government, guess which one I'm going to pick. Even if it means higher taxes.

Hey fellow Republicans: stay out of people's business, balance a budget like a fiscally conservative ought to do, come up with someone inspiring and wonderful (John McCain in 2000 would have been magical), and maybe I'll see you in 2012.

Jump on the UNCOOLtrane!

2008-03-27T01:28:00.002-04:00

I will continue the series I started (argument with myself) shortly.

For now, I'd like to discuss how I once wrote an article entitled "Coltrane? More like UNCOOLtrane!" labeling Mr. John Coltrane as a "hard bop" player and as too hot to be cool. I contrasted his music with the easy, nonchalant genius of Miles Davis. Take a listen.

If you want to do a direct comparison of the two, check out this video with them performing together: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Extg6Nq3hVI

Can you hear what I mean? See about 2:30 or so for a prime example of Coltrane going nuts. I think I actually use "So What" as a source in the piece I wrote. Paul Chambers, on bass at the beginning and end, plays wonderfully.

Also, video of "My favorite things": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2pXWKwUYGKg

Thesis, Shmesis.

2008-03-16T20:40:00.002-04:00

My computer is fixed (mostly).

I'm trying to complete my thesis. It's only a few more pages. I don't know what to do. I've been struggling for damn near a month.

I asked Peter for advice.

"How the hell am I gonna finish this thesis?"

"James you just have to juggernaut it. Just put your eyes on the prize and run through the walls."

I'M THE JUGGERNAUT, BITCH!

Happy Pi Day

2008-03-14T14:10:00.001-04:00

Sorry this post is 11 minutes late!

McHale's Broken Computer

2008-03-03T21:09:00.002-05:00

Took my tablet to a few shops today. First one said they can't mess with power jacks because they don't do soldering. They gave me a number to a place in West Palm that would "probably do it for a hundred bucks." Never called the number. The next shop said they wouldn't touch a power jack because it's on a motherboard, which might crack when they try to fix it.

Finally, I found a place closer than the West Palm shop I'd gotten a number for, and they said they have a flat rate of 150 bucks. When the dude saw my sweet tablet, he at first said it wasn't a cracked power jack and that probably wasn't the problem. Then he messed with it a bit before saying he could have it fixed in a week for 180-ish bucks. Ouch. But I signed the paper and have been trying to forget about it.

Last night I saw Joel McHale (host of E's The Soup) do stand-up. Here's a conversation between him and Cara and myself after the show:

We'd just taken a group photo with all nine friends who attended and Joel.

Afterwards, Cara walked up to him and said, "I know my boyfriend will be embarrassed about this, but he'd really like a picture with just him and you."

Joel looked excited.

"I'd like a picture with him, too!"

I reached out to shake his hand, with a big smile on my face.

"You're very tall," I said, happy to tell him what I'd been shocked by all night. It's a weird thing to tell someone, but I didn't want to be like "Nice to meet you." How lame is that? He already knows its nice to meet him, or there wouldn't have been a half hour long line to see him after the show.

He was obviously caught off guard by my comment (not quite as much as when he was walking by us after walking off the stage and Lauren made eye contact with him--only to shout "AHHHHHH!" directly in his face as he passed--and she made him jump).

"So are you," he laughed. He's taller. We shook hands, and he put his arm around me for the photo. I hesitated before putting my arm around him too.

"You guys looked great," Cara said.

"Not as good as you," he replied, which flustered her, and then we left.

my comp is dying

2008-03-02T17:08:00.002-05:00

Before I continue my "Argument with myself" series (and trust, me, I'm going somewhere with this argument), I figured I should document the death of my computer.

I'm going to have to take it to a repair shop, I guess. I don't want to have to pay for a "diagnosis," since I can quite clearly tell that my DC power jack just died.

That's right, I'm operating on battery power. I have to watch as my beloved laptop passes away, power bar by power bar. We're on a half tank right now, and I'm going to shut it off to save some of the standby power in a few minutes.

Here's to you, Tablet PC.

An argument with myself, part i

2008-03-01T11:06:00.004-05:00

Every once and a while, I'll be at lunch with friends and we'll get to talking about a topic for five minutes or so. As one of my friends continues to talk about a professor or a book, my mind will drift. I'll see a palm tree outside and think of one Christmas when I was nine and living in Hawaii.

It's Capp family tradition to go to Midnight Mass and, upon our return to home, see that Santa has delivered a variety of commercialized packages of all shapes and sizes. My parents loved to have family friends or neighbors play tricks on our young, easily-fooled minds. Before, we'd heard sleigh bells in the back yard or found half a bite missing from a cookie we'd laid out for our present benefactor.

On this particular Christmas, we'd arrived home to find the lights dangling off the fifty-foot palm in our back yard. Since the tree was so tall, we'd only been able to spiral the lights half way up the trunk anyway, but we now found the lights flailing from only a quarter up the tree. To add a special touch, chunks of ice (probably frost from our deep freezer) sat melting at the foot of the palm.

It is with great pride that I now inform you that before we'd left for mass, my father had suggested that Santa might want something a bit harder than milk to go with his cookie. "He needs a cold one," Dad said. So we left a beer sitting by the plate of chocolate chip delights.

So, when we arrived back at the house after mass, my mother was able to say "Oh no, Santa must have had too much beer and hit the lights right off our tree with his sled. Look, he even knocked some ice off his sleigh." The message was clear: Kids, don't drink and drive.

Anytime I see a palm, I think of the monster we had in our backyard in Hawaii. Anytime I think of that palm, I think of that story (along with the many times I tried to climb it--most of these attempts were after seeing a Fijian effortlessly scale the tree at the Polynesian Cultural Center on the North Shore).

Back to the topic at hand. My friends will say something like "Someone in class actually questioned Dr. White about why he chose Plato's Apology in a class about great Greek philosophers!" I'll stare off at the palm, and when everyone becomes quiet, reflecting on the story about the philosophy class, I'll say, "Parents do crazy things."

Peter pointed out to me...

2008-02-29T23:56:00.002-05:00

Today is Leap Day. I wanted to remember it.

I went to Boca for No Frills 2008. I did registration. Half the schools showed up late, and half of them didn't have paperwork. It was a pain, but it's over, and I got off easy.

The end.

PS I went to Disney yesterday just because. My pass expires March 4th, so Cara and I drove up, left the truck in a hotel parking lot and went to Animal Kingdom to hit up Nemo and Expedition Everest before shootin off to Hollywood Studios (formerly MGM) to do Tower of Terror and Rockin Rollercoaster.

Substitute teaching

2008-02-11T22:02:00.000-05:00

I'm currently training to be a substitute teacher in Palm Beach County. It seems like a good time.

From what I hear, it's like being an uncle.

I now have a notebook page full of neat tricks in case there is no lesson plan. That's right. Not just a movie and dim lights! Will update more later.

PS - 40ish (closer to -ish than to 40) pages of thesis in first draft stage. WHAT.

This is only funny if you know what my thesis topic is.

2008-02-08T20:12:00.000-05:00

me: having a problem. i have this line, but i cant tell if i wrote it or its a quote

there are no quotation marks so i assumed its not a quote

"Capote claimed that this anonymity was a central element of his experiment in the nonfiction novel." i think someone else wrote that.

Peter: this dilemma is very indicative of your thesis itself

PS - David Guest wrote the line in his book Sentenced to Death: the American Novel and Capital Punishment.

Experience!

2008-02-05T11:06:00.000-05:00

This is pretty funny, and put together well.

This NY Times article infuriates me, but you have to read it.

2008-02-05T10:38:00.000-05:00

Winds of Change

By BOB HERBERT

Published: February 5, 2008

Palo Alto, Calif.

The Barack Obama forces don’t seem to understand that they’re sailing against the wind, that they’re not supposed to be able to capture the Democratic nomination for president.

The fight for the nomination, one of the best political dramas in decades, has always resembled a contest between realists and dreamers. The realists will tell you that there is a quality of protesting too much in the ritual chant of “Yes, we can!” that erupts so frequently at Obama rallies.

For months the realists have been arguing, in effect: No, he can’t.

The most forceful arguments of the realists tend to take place in private, and center on the aging elephant in the living room: race. Their contention is that the country has come a long, long way, but that it is not yet ready to cross the finish line by installing a black man in the White House.

There are many variations on this theme. The realists (and they are not all Hillary Clinton supporters, by any means) will point out that there is still a great deal of racial prejudice in the U.S., and thus a substantial percentage of whites who will not vote for a black candidate for president under any circumstance.

Senator Obama, they note, is also struggling in his quest for Hispanic votes.

There are also many white Democrats who say they would vote for a black candidate but are afraid their vote would be futile this year because not enough other whites have shown a willingness to vote for Senator Obama. They point out that he has not won a majority of the white votes in any of the contests thus far.

These voters will tell you that this year’s election is too important to take such a risk. Their view is that after eight years of George W. Bush, another four or eight years of Republican rule would be catastrophic.

Added to these daunting challenges, the realists say, are all those voters who are not prejudiced but genuinely feel that Mr. Obama is not the best choice for president. After all, his résumé is thin, he’s not the best debater in the world and Hillary Clinton has demonstrated beyond a doubt that she is smart, tough and fully capable of being president.

“I look at the numbers, and they tell me he can’t win,” said a Democratic analyst, who asked not to be identified. “But then I look at the polls and the enthusiasm he is generating, and he seems to be closing in on Hillary by the hour.”

The easiest way to understand what is going on is to step across the generational divide. The realists tend to be older and come out of a political and racial experience that is often completely alien to Mr. Obama’s most fervent supporters, who tend to be younger.

During a series of interviews on the campus of Stanford University, students expressed great interest in the election but seemed unconcerned with such factors as Mr. Obama’s race or perceived electability.

“The students like him because he’s a fresh face, a personality with fresh ideas,” said Julia Liebner, a human biology major. “Hillary may do great things for the country if she is elected, but I think the kids are responding to Obama’s more hopeful message and his idea of bringing people together.”

Ben Fried, who was interviewed as he straddled a bicycle under a sky that threatened a downpour at any moment, said that he had participated in many conversations about the election and that race had not been a factor in any of them. “I would just say the kids like Obama,” he said.

(Elizabeth Currid, a young, urban planning professor at the University of Southern California, told me recently: “This is a generation that really embraces diversity and equality.”)

A handful of interviews on a college campus is hardly a scientific survey. But well-educated young people are the distilled version of Mr. Obama’s supporters, and it’s a fact that younger people in the U.S. have had it with the bitterness, divisiveness and ineffectiveness that make government and politics in their eyes seem so unsavory.

They are in a better place than their elders on race. They are not shouldering the resentments of years and decades past. They are not parsing the differences between the Clinton and Obama health proposals, or obsessing over who would do better against John McCain.

They are just fed up with the status quo, and they want change. And they’ve found a rock star who embodies their desire.

The advantage in this race is still substantially with Senator Clinton. The realists are not crazy, after all. But neither are the dreamers. Winds change. If you’re sailing against the wind today, it may be different tomorrow. And there are few things more powerful than the winds of history.

Fire hazards

2008-02-03T23:41:00.000-05:00

Quick story.

Friday night, I decided I wanted to go to the dining hall to eat. Cara and I had discussed going out, but we decided we'd at least check and see if there's anything good in the cafeteria.

We walked up and heard a fire alarm. I recognized it as the university-wide alarm that meant "get out of the building." It was so loud! I opened up the door, and it got even louder.

People were all standing around inside and even sitting and eating. Pat, a woman who has worked in the dining hall on and off for the past three years or so, recently back after what I can only assume is her annual firing/layoff, greeted us and told us "there's no fire."

"People still have to leave the building. An alarm is going off."

"There's no smoke."

I reached for my phone and called FAUPD, who I often work with in emergency situations. I recognized the voice on the line as Officer Ignoramus Wilson, a fool who has on multiple incidents shown up late --once he didn't show up at all!

"There's a fire alarm going off in the dining hall--"

"I know. We're on our way. Who is this?"

"James - doesn't matter - there are multiple--"

"James who?" After working with Wilson for so long, he has yet to recognize my face or name.

"What matters is that there are people just hanging out in the dining hall while an emergency alarm is going off."

"We're on our way."

I hung up. The alarm still going.

Some girl, a senior like myself who I don't regularly converse with, came outside and said to Cara and myself, "You guys look confused. You can come inside. There's no fire."

"It doesn't matter. Can't go inside if an alarm is going off."

We'd arrived at roughly 7:10pm, and it was now ten minutes later. The police didn't arrive in a timely fashion (imagine that! if only it'd been a real blazer, maybe Wilson would finally lose his job), and when they finally did, it was almost time for the cafeteria to close.

An off-duty officer was with Wilson. They change shifts around 7, so Ron Legere, who has always been more than helpful in emergencies, told everyone to leave the building. They did, and the two "professional" staffers from the dining hall, Pat and a large cook named George, lit up cigarettes right by the door as the police looked inside.

Pat eventually made her way to the police golf cart to have a seat while she smoked.

Cara and I, at this point, decided on Sierra Grill, a fast-food Mexican sort of place on Indiantown. When we got there, it was vacant and had a sign that said they'd moved to Northlake.

We had Taco Bell.

Hemingway Dreams

2008-01-31T23:30:00.000-05:00

I'm reading The Sun Also Rises for a (more or less) rudimentary American novel course.

I've always wanted to write like Hemingway. Perhaps I need to drink more?

It would be sweet to write novels for a living.

A Voting Story

2008-01-29T13:42:00.000-05:00

For those of you who don't know, I'm a registered Republican. What does this mean to you? It means my vote counts today (at least half of it counts), whereas registered Democrats in the state do not get a say in who will be their party's nominee for US President.

So here's my story of today's voting adventure.

I logged online this morning to check out where my local polling place is. Surprise! It said my precinct's polling location is "FAU MacArthur Campus 5353 Parkside Drive Jupiter, FL" -- which happens to be where I live.

When I walked over to do my civic thang, an old lady in a bright orange vest stopped me. I pulled out my voter registration card from 2004. It said I reside at "5353 Parkside Drive" but my assigned precinct is "Independence Middle School." She called over a man, who reviewed my card and informed me that I needed to drive a mile down the street to Precinct 1100 (the middle school).

I looked at him, confused.

"My address is 5353 Parkside Drive. How is it possible that this isn't my precinct?"

He apologized, and I told him how ridiculous this was. A couple other people walked up, and they told me I was at the wrong place as well. I said, "Fantastic." As I walked away, mumbling to them, the old lady called out "please, still vote!"

I drove to the middle school down the street and walked up to this desk. They proceeded to look me up on their roster.

"You're not on our roster. The man at the table on the end can help you find your correct precinct. Maybe you're supposed to be at the FAU campus precinct."

"I just came from FAU. I live there. They told me I had to come here when I showed them this," I said, revealing my voter registration card. They all made a face at the card and informed me they no longer use that, and no one should have looked at it in the first place. Instead, they wanted a photo ID with a signature, so I handed them my military ID card.

"This is all we'll ever need," one woman said.

I walked down to the man at the end table, and he confirmed I'm registered to vote at the FAU campus precinct--number 1099. He filled out a form that said I was indeed eligible, and I drove back to school/home/here.

When I arrived back at the entrance, I walked past the old lady who had originally told me to leave. I walked straight to a man with a laptop (who I hadn't met yet).

"Do you have a voter registration card?"

"The woman at the other precinct said you don't use these anymore."

"We don't, but can I see it anyway? We've been playing precinct pinball with them all day."

I handed him the card.

"It says on here you're supposed to go to Independence Middle School," he said. Before I could answer, he looked me up on his computer, and I was registered to vote here--on campus--where we were standing. He was confused.

"Why aren't you on our rosters, then?" He carried on a conversation with the woman next to him, and they continued to look at my military ID, my voter registration card, and the form the man at the other precinct had given me.

"Look, I live here. You sent me to Independence Middle School. I went there. Even though I live HERE. My physical address is 5353 Parkside Drive, which is where we are standing. So, they sent me back here. If it makes any difference, I have yet to speak to that lady over there with the roster. She hasn't looked me up. I'm probably on that roster."

He ignored me, continuing to study my ID and ask me questions about my relationship to the military.

"Maybe we should look you up on our roster, first, and then--" he said.

I walked away from him as he was in mid-sentence. The woman looked me up, and she gave me a card. I walked to a machine and tapped the screen a total of three times.

I handed her the card when I was done and turned to leave the room.

"Wait, one more thing!" she shouted. I turned back to her. She walked up to me and placed a sticker on my chest.

I looked down to read "I voted." The sticker was crooked and barely hanging onto my shirt.

Who do I call with my complaint?

Going to Tampa

2008-01-25T00:46:00.000-05:00

Tomorrow I'm leaving for Tampa. This will be the 2nd of 3 trips in a matter of 4 weeks in which I'm out of town for the weekend. AH! I'll be back Sunday afternoon, y'all.

If you're wondering, I'm presenting a program entitled "Save Energy! and other Environmental Awareness Programs" at the Florida Resident Assistant Seminar. Doin' my part to help the earth, one overly-hyped, semi-successful educational program at a time.

I presented on the same thing at the regional Resident Student Association conference in October and was voted the number 6 program (can I have that job now, fancy branding firm in NYC that needs a copywriter? you didn't know I was a big shot, did ya, fancy branding firm? whatevs!).

This time I'm co-presenting with Diego. He knows a lot of stuff about Mama Nature, and I'd already done the research and the PowerPoint, so we just have to speak what we know.

"Diego" (12:43:22 AM): im bringin toothapste
toothpaste capp (12:43:28 AM): me too?
"Diego" (12:43:32 AM): you dont have to
"Diego" (12:43:36 AM): unless u r picky

Also, I now have 20 pages of my hopefully-only-45-page thesis COMPLETE.

Dead Tired, Dead Reckoning?

2008-01-18T02:02:00.000-05:00

I was at the bar tonight, and there was a fight. My girlfriend Cara and her roommates were just a few feet from the initial conflict (which happened to be a couple drunken fools throwing what I called at the time "idiot punches" -- meaning a left jab to the air above your opponent's head followed by a right hook to the air by his sides). I screamed for the girls to get away, but they didn't move. The way these drunk guys were punching, any of them could have been hit accidentally. Cara, at least, rushed out of the way. As we were gathering everyone to leave after the fight, two or three more fights broke out.

My friend Joel, who I don't usually see at the bar, was there. He said when he saw the first guy come back from across the street with a bottle in his hand, he knew there was trouble. I saw the same guy smash the bottle over another man's head. Weak stomaches beware. And then he stabbed him in the face with the broken bottle. His eyebrow was bleeding pretty good, and at that point the straggling roommate finally followed us. She's leaving for the weekend, so she said long goodbyes. I was frustrated by the fact that our entire group stayed for so long. My rule in life is "if there's a bunch of drunk idiots fighting, get away." We eventually succeeded. Not before I got really stressed out, though.

Regardless of the stress, I had a few great conversations tonight. Joel, who is also a literature major, and Bobby, who is an American Studies major, kept me entertained. I told them I should have picked an "easy" book on which I should my senior thesis. Great Gatsby, I said. Everything is a symbol!

Then we came up with a few good joke thesis titles, including Jay Gatbsy...More Like GAY Gatsby: Homosocialism in The Great Gatbsy and my favorite, by Joel, which was Gatsby: Gattaca? Good times.

Additionally, Bobby and Joel informed me of their idea to go back in time, stick a dirty poem under Keats' pillow, and later reveal Keats' lost poem, "My name is John Keats / I love teats." Or the dirty poem they left in Frost's desk drawer: "Two roads diverged / I took them both / THREESOME!" Wow.

Guess what!

2007-12-15T10:58:00.000-05:00

After struggling all semester long in Statistics and stressing continually about my grade in that class, I finally got my grade.

I just wanted a C. I just needed to pass a math credit. So I could graduate.

A minus, y'all. Checkit-checkit-checkit. A minusssss.

Down with the sickness

2007-12-10T20:54:00.000-05:00

Instead of getting better for finals, I'm worse. It's disgusting. I can't breathe out of my nose, but at least the coughs stopped attacking. Am I worried about my finals? Ha!

(I should be.)

I'm worried about the last night out -- tonight -- with all of the friends. We're supposed to leave in half an hour, and I'm honestly considering going.

Oh! One more thing. I've been thinking. I know I was recently having a conversation with someone, and some sort of argument was taking place between my friends. The person observed my friends and said something along the lines of "I don't like drama."

(Halfway through this story, I'm wondering if this ever happened. This is how sick I am right now.)

Okay, back to "I don't like drama." Here's my big thoughtful thought for the evening: If you're the kind of person who says "I don't like drama," I'm thinking you're probably wrong. You're sitting back and judging, which has a great deal more to do with "drama," in the traditional sense, than any actual argument--or even little bickering for that matter.

Sooooo... now I'm gonna go watch The Hills (MTV's Laguna Beach 2.0) and be dramatic. Will Spencer and Heidi split up for good? Is Lauren going to make Brody her Prince Charming? Is Audrina really done with Justin "Bobby"? ;)

Love,
James!

The Christmas Song

2007-12-06T10:35:00.000-05:00

So everyone knows "The Christmas Song" goes like this:

And so, I'm offering this simple phrase
To kids from one to ninety-two
Although its been said
Many times, many ways
Merry Christmas! Merry Christmas! Merry Christmas to.. You!

This morning, while listening to this song in the shower, I decided that if I ever turn ninety-three, I'm going to be very sad throughout that Christmas season. I guess that's the day that I'll finally become a man.

My throat is raw and my head is heavy. It's Finals Week here at the Honors College--my last Fall semester ends next week. I don't want to be sick for Finals, especially as this would be the third (maybe fourth) time I've been sick this semester, which would be a record for the Honors College. I don't know. When I was a freshman, I was sick all the time. Exposure to so many people in an enclosed residence hall all at once, I guess.

I should be writing my thesis right now. I don't want to work on it. I'd like to think that if my thesis was a project that I'd come up with entirely on my own, then I would indeed want to work on it. I don't know how true that notion is, but I'm sure that my idea of mapping Dante's Inferno and studying the environmental aspects of that piece would be far more interesting than analyzing The Executioner's Song as a nonfiction novel.

A police officer called me this morning to ask me for an interview. Apparently I'm a witness of some kind. Another reason not to "thesis" right now ("thesis" is a verb at the HC--which is actually quite neat).

I'm gonna go smoke some crack.

Back in black

2007-06-21T00:01:00.000-04:00

Four nights ago, I read online when I searched for "road trip tips" that when you drive long distances you should wear light clothing. Well, I read that as light--as in "lightly-colored, ie. gray or white." It wasn't until I was packing for my return to Jupiter that this could also be interpreted as light--as in "lightweight." I wore black when I drove.

Today Diego and Tommy were watching MTV's Made while I listened to Opie and Anthony. Some girl supposedly ran a mile in 18 minutes, so they called me into the living room to see how someone could run a mile so unbelievably slow. We got furious, claiming "It's impossible to be that slow." So we all piled into my truck (literally, its a two seater, bucket chairs) and drove to the high school track down the road. Yes, it's possible to run the mile slower than 18 minutes because, as of now, my mile is at... 12 hours or so. We all stopped after running a half mile in a little over 4 minutes, which has inspired me to go running tomorrow. Maybe by the end of summer I won't have to use the excuse that it was 90 degrees out when I attempted my mile-long run. Also, I wore black when I ran.

Pilots

2007-06-08T22:11:00.000-04:00

I was just cleaning up my room a bit after doing some laundry, and my mind always starts to wander when I'm doing thoughtless tasks like that. The conference from which I just got back came up in my daydreaming (nightdreaming? It's 10PM). As miserable as it was, I had a somewhat decent experience, and I was able to take back some information that was quite useful, or rather will be quite useful. The welcoming speaker was a pilot named Wally Funk. UW-Oshkosh gave her an honorary doctorate, so now she's Dr. Funk, which is hilarious, for those of you that didn't already know. Anyway, she wants to be an astronaut--actually a cosmonaut--because she was one of the 13 women picked for the Mercury space mission who was subsequently turned down on account of sex, and I guess the space dream just stuck.

I really doubt I'll ever be a speaker at a Residential Life conference. We're too into cliche metaphors, so we often get pilots or people who have literally "flown" to show conference attendees how "high we can fly." I'm surprised we don't have more construction workers talk at these conferences, honestly, because they can talk about how we can "build something out of nothing," etc. No matter what I do with my life, I'm not going to be (a.) an inspirational speaker or (b.) something out of which you can make a really cool cliche metaphor, so I honestly doubt being the keynote speaker at one of these things is in my future.

More updates later.

Laundry, Grocery Shopping, etc.

2007-05-21T23:36:00.000-04:00

Routine has finally sunk its teeth into me this week. I've been able to develop the perfect mix of disc golf, daily hygiene, television, online pictionary, and reading in an effort to make my life run smoothlier (yeah. new word. what's up?). I did laundry, which I now do once a week. I went grocery shopping, which I now do once every week and a half (apparently). Tomorrow is Tuesday and I'll probably do some office work and see about touching my senior thesis. See about it at least.

In honor of this summer...

2007-05-18T12:35:00.001-04:00

In honor of this summer, I've decided to attempt to semi-somewhat-regularly update this blog. Perhaps one day my children can look at this and see what a great man their father was--or it will simply give me yet another outlet through which I can vent! Word up.

I just moved into a smaller room at the HC for the next six weeks. I'm currently RAing--"RAing"--in fact, I'm on duty tonight...err..."duty." It's a funny thing moving back into one of the suite rooms. I never thought I'd have roommates again, which is actually pretty cool; however, as I told Tommy and Diego (my roommates), you're not supposed to move into smaller rooms in your life. It's like a downgrade, which is the opposite of what happens in life. So it's like I'm living in a parallel universe where people do exactly the opposite of what they're supposed to. It's true: I'm typing with my toes right now.

Maybe I should take pictures to document the feat of fitting everything (including a full-sized weight bench) into this itty bitty room.

Today, Diego and I are going to run over to the Burrow, where Tommy is working for the summer, and plug in a DVD player to the one working TV over there to watch a movie.

I think I'll eat lunch first. Speaking of food, it's surprisingly an important part of my day again. Because I have little/no money, I constantly think about how I'm going to afford anything but food this summer. Gas money? Pshhyeahright. I'm getting very good at cooking noodles in a dorm, though. Mac n Cheese is cheap yo. With hot dogs!

I miss Cara, which is kind of weird because I saw her a week ago and I'll see her a week from now. It's really lame that we have to spend this much time apart, though, because I like spending my days with her, and why shouldn't I be able to do what I like? Right?

Lauren just called. She's waiting for Dr. Strain, and wanted to know if I could play frisbee while she waits on campus. So I'm going now. Adios.

Update

2007-03-13T15:34:00.000-04:00

Peter told me that if I update this blog, he will read it.

So now I'm updating. Currently I'm sitting in the Program Board office with Natalie and Lauren (not doing homework). They are making masks out of paper and ribbon. I think they wanted to put a picture on this blog.

Right now Natalie is plugging her camera into the computer I'm on.

Here goes:

I can almost smell again...

2006-08-30T18:10:00.000-04:00

Currently Playing: Eric Clapton - Sunshine of Your Love

I've come to recognize that I will never be one of those few awesome-ites who are capable of actually keeping up with a blog. Oh, and I've come to recognize that I am in fact one of those near-awesome-ites who talks about how infrequently they post new blogs. So now that I've come to terms with my quirkiness, I feel like it's time for YOU to come to terms with it. That's right, [insert name], I'm talking to you.

Dude, how bout I freaking got screwed by a wuss of a "hurricane" (technically it was a tropical depression by the time it got to me). But still I missed out on two days worth of classes, which means I have to work that much harder whenever we make up the work I missed. BOO TO THAT! Also, most people would think I'd be bored during a hurricane break, but the truth is that I've been pretty busy doing the whole RA thing, which is a thing that requires not doing my homework so much as notifying residents of University updates and etc. So yeah, I think I should probably get back to Emma, but instead I'm blogging/admitting my near-awesome-ness.

Okay also I want to state that I went to Pensacola for the month of July and I really recommend that you take a month off every once and a while. And don't let people stress you out. That's the key to life or the city or the castle or the treasure chest. Foreals.

Okay also I want to state that I'm getting over this ridiculous cold that I earned while walking through the rain to class and then proceeding to sit through said class for three hours in wet clothes. If you do this, please make sure that the class is outside or at least not in a room that has a thermostat set to DEATH FREEZE.

Okay also I want to state that I really miss Pensacola now that I've gotten the chance to spend a month up there. I got to pretend like I never left, and even better I got to pretend that I was a bum who never left. No matter what people say about the town, it's still a place to find hard-working, honest folks. And "folks" make great friends, kids!

Okay also I want to state that the month of August has been really uncomfortable for me. For some reason, I haven't been able to get into my groove. Maybe it has something to do with the speeding ticket (August 5th), maybe it has something to do with the hammer I stepped on (August 7th), maybe it has something to do with the night my tv exploded (August 13th), maybe it has something to do with my best friend getting the biggest scare of his life (August 18th), maybe it has something to do with starting an internship which I thought wasn't going to happen (August 20th), maybe it has something to do with the hurricane that came so near my birthday (August 29th, 30th), maybe it has something to do with me REALLY not liking August anymore. Screw you, August. If you act this way next year, I might just skip you altogether for the rest of my life. NO JOKE, AUGUST.

Alright Alright Alright Alright I'm going.

This blog has a lot of repetitive language in it.

how bout...

2006-07-26T05:21:00.000-04:00

How bout... I haven't posted a blog this entire summer.

Instead of actually updating, I'll just go to bed right now.

OldeEnglish.org has a bunch of new videos up. Enjoy.

Just a thought.

2006-06-23T20:07:00.000-04:00

Okay, so I wanted to document this...

I opened up my wallet and saw where a sticker had once been that I'd slapped on the leather during my sophomore year of high school (roughly four years ago).

The moment that I took off the sticker, during my senior year at Pine Forest High, was really a symbolic experience for me. The sticker was the word "skateboarder" with a lower case 's'--the logo of Skateboarder Magazine. When I removed that sticker from my wallet, I wasn't just physically removing the label... I was also moving on in my life from the kicked back slacker that we all knew as James to the hard working guy that I now am today.

Weird.

Okay, I told my old roommate that I'd go out to dinner with him, so I guess I'll head over to JJ Muggs now. Word to yo motha.

Starting the countdown...

2006-06-15T11:48:00.000-04:00

Well, FAU's Summer A semester ends next week, and I don't know whether to be happy or nervous about going home for a month. In two weeks when I finally do go home, it will have been 6 months since I last saw Pensacola. That's a depressing thought, but it kind of forces me to think of southern Florida as my new home, I guess.

When I moved down here two years ago, I decided that the Miami Heat was my new basketball team. Even though Dallas is currently whooping them in the Finals, I know I made the right choice (they're gonna sweep the rest of the series).

My new favorite comic (replacing Qwantz.com's Dinosaur Comics and Penny Arcade's comics) is the creation of the funniest person on earth--Mr. Raizin Bob-Waksberg. While any of my closest friends know that I've been a loyal fan of his Olde English Sketch Comedy for quite some time now, Raizin has outdone himself with this goofy little comic strip Tip Me Over, Pour Me Out.

So, I guess the key to this entry is my pure exhaustion from this past semester, which beat the pants off of me with a new job and an overbooked schedule. I don't plan on working too much when I get to Pensacola. Maybe I'll sell my motorcycle and make some cash. At some point in life I'm going to need a car, so maybe I should look into cheap insurance. It's now noon and I have a crunchy granola bar calling my name and an iron steaming to be used, so I guess I'll call this the end of this entry.

Peace out, homeslizzles fo sho. Much love. Much love.

A Philosophical Talk...

2006-06-01T00:40:00.000-04:00

I know that chatlogs are cheap entries, but here's a convo between my old roomie Benjamin and yours truly:

toothpaste capp: like there should be a nation wide tv ad
toothpaste capp: about how you and i don't like skinny girls.
levolvorouge69: hahah
levolvorouge69: exactly
levolvorouge69: i just want a list and pics, of al the girls who are sitting at home crying now cause they dont have anyone
levolvorouge69: some of em have to be cute lol
levolvorouge69: it would be so easy lol
toothpaste capp: haha i just laughed out loud yo
levolvorouge69: hah
toothpaste capp: if only...
levolvorouge69: maybe thats how myspace started

- Peace out. James. Is my name. Bye.

It's been a while...

2006-05-27T14:48:00.000-04:00

I don't know why blogs seem like such a commitment... I mean, it isn't like there's someone that is going to mad at me if I don't post something at least once a month, but at the same time there's an awkward kind of "uhhh--so yeah it's been a while--how are things?" feeling to the whole ordeal.

Uhhh.

So yeah it's been a while.

How are things?

Everyone has heard of YouTube and Video Google and MySpace videos, but MAN! I never get over the fact that we (the universal "we"... users of the Internet and protectors of all that is good) have such amazing access to each other and to, well, free clips of cats doing silly things and entire episodes of The Boondocks.

And here's another full episode in which Huey attempts to save a man from death row and Uncle Ruckus converts people to love White Jesus. That show is amazing.

On with my point. I'm taking a course called The Birth of the Cool, named after the Miles Davis album (of the same name, duh). So we've been studying a lot of Miles, Dizzy, and Coltrane and the likes... The class is terrific. It is because of this new online video fad that I stumbled on this video of the John Coltrane Quartet playing Afro Blues live. Do me a favor and watch it -- watch McCoy Tyner's face as he plays his solo (the pianist). Also, they don't have a microphone on Elvin Jones but his drumming on the 1963 Coltrane Live at Birdland album version of "Afro Blues" is so freaking amazing. It's energetic and perfect. Shoot me a message on AIM if you want to hear it; my screen name is Toothpaste Capp.

Kind of funny how I'm telling my readers (okay maybe I don't have any readers but a man can dream) to check this out. I'm probably feeling guilty because I trashed Coltrane in a paper for my class just recently. I said Coltrane was never actually cool like Davis always is, and at one point I even claimed that he attempts to copy Davis' famous pauses but fails miserably. Coltrane is awesome, but he's not "cool." I stick by that claim.

Think I'm done.

PS - Yeah, I'm still in Jupiter for the Summer A session of classes. I'll be up in Pensacola in early July. I've missed home for about 6 months now... I'm really looking forward to seeing my family.

Bye, lover.

Wrapping up finals...

2006-05-01T01:52:00.000-04:00

The title of this entry is a bit misleading. Mostly because I only had a final exam and a ten-page paper to do this semester, and I've only succesfully completed the exam. For those of you interested (if you're not, skip to the next sentence? I don't know...), I got a B in Spanish despite my horrible performance on the exam this afternoon. But yes -- it might be misleading to say I'm wrapping up finals when I've not even begun to write my paper.

Well, "not even begun" is also a bit misleading. I've not really put anything in paragraph form, but my thoughts on Dante's reaction to Filippo Argenti in Inferno VIII are slowly beginning to organize themselves.

In fact, I'm only online right now to document an interesting find. The author of the article I'm reading used the term terzina, which my source tells me means 'triplet' in Italian. It's just like an English couplet, but one line longer. Imagine that. Quick little fyi -- I don't speak Italian, but I do intend on learning it quite soon. Like maybe as soon as tonight so I can freaking understand this critic's quotations of proof.

Anyway, I'm just documenting these last 10 minutes of my all-nighter so that we can all see where too much coffee and not enough sleep gets you.

Paper due: Noon.
Estimated writing time: 6 hours.
More accurate estimate of writing time: 10 hours.
Estimated amount of sleep I will get tonight: 0 hours.

Oh! By the way! Kristy's away message is hilarious.

"the commission finds that, on its present course, South Florida is not
sustainable.".... wa waaaaa... conservation bio is so uplifting... studying and
trying my hardest to not get depressed...

Is that great or what? Also, what's up with the res halls not having water pressure past midnight?

Best wishes (on finals or for whatever you need my best wishes), folks. See you real soon.

Wow--how much of a slacker am I?

2006-04-29T12:46:00.000-04:00

So that whole "posting regularly" thing...

Yeah. About that. My dog ate my blog?

I'm going to try to get a blog in at least once a month from here on out. That's my mid-year's resolution. What was the last thing that I blogged about? Getting a job as an RA?

So, that worked out alright. It's now the end of the Spring semester, and I have completed my first tour of duty. I really like it a lot. Maybe I'll make a career out of it, or at least I can keep with the whole housing thing while I go to grad school.

I'm an English Lit major. Again. I think I want to work at a magazine after grad school.

My Medieval Literature paper is due Monday, and I've barely touched it. It's a research paper, so it should be pretty easy, but for some reason I haven't been able to motivate myself to do anything, let alone something that I need to do.

I really like this blog. I'm sorry for the lack of actual blogging though.

To make up for it, here are some Dinosaur Comics.

I have this new-found love for staying up late. Despite my interest in the night, I still wake up before noon every day. So I guess what I'm trying to say is that I don't sleep as much as I used to. One of the things that I did last night while I was wasting away was fill out a personality type test. Turns out I'm an INFJ, which stands for Introverted/iNtuitive/Feeling/Judging. I haven't quite figured it out, but the previously-linked page describes me to a t.

Oh. I got an internship for the Fall. I'm going to be a teaching assistant for an 'intro to academic life' course. So now I'm an RA (resident assistant), an EA (editorial assistant), and a TA (teaching assistant). Why do I even go to school? I could just be an assistant for the rest of my life.

My blogs are too scatter-brained to entertain any of you, so I'm going to see if I can write that lit paper. It's on Dante.

Good day.

New Job

2005-11-16T18:25:00.000-05:00

So the Housing Director at my college asks me to come down to his office, and I do. We chat for a bit, and he ends up offering me the position that I applied for last year. Next semester, I will be starting as a resident assistant. I wrote about it in my old journal.

Here's a quote from right before the interview process started:

"I don't want to be sick. I'm trying to fight it off. My RA Carousel Interview was this morning. I want the job so bad I can taste it. I even just had a dream about it just now. You know... cuz I'm sick and I was napping. I don't think it is healthy to want something like that. But maybe I could get the job. You never know. I have work to do but I'm anxious and can't get my mind on it."

Here's a quote from right before my interview for the job:

"I'm nervous. I hate being nervous. I want to go in there and flash my huge smile and ramble about myself like I know I can do... but I have this gross feeling in my gut and my heart won't stop accelerating. My RA interview is in 5 minutes. Wish me luck."

Here's a quote from a few days later:

"This is just an update that says I suck at life & I didn't get the RA job. Thanks everyone for being supportive and being good friends. Life's been good to me so far."

This job really meant more to me than anyone will ever know. The Housing Director said that he's never had someone impress him so much so quickly in 12 years of doing his job. It made me feel awesome, while at the same time I remembered how I felt right after getting a letter that told me that I wasn't even going to be considered in an alternate pool.

Now, he's talking about not just next semester but next year, saying I'd do well with freshmen.

It's a cool job where I'm going to be able to work with people, help people, and best of all -- we're working out a way for me to continue my position in the Resident Student Association as Vice President. Oh, my SAACURH video is online and we're showing it today at 5:00PM. It's not the best flick in the world, but it's certainly fun.

This is turning out to be a nice little journal/blogger here, isn't it?

I think this may be it...

2005-11-11T13:22:00.000-05:00

I decided that I should start keeping a journal that I actually update. I figured this would work.

Has anyone been using Google Video? It's not the greatest tool for video hosting, but it is certainly free. I'm waiting for them to verify my mockumentary from the Honors College's Residence Student Association trip to SAACURH in North Kentucky last weekend. We had a great time, and I'll be sure to prove it with visual aid.

Anyway, I guess I should go grab some food from the dining hall before it closes down lunch.

It was swell.