You know, I started typing this thing Christmas Eve, and then I got distracted… and lazy… and then distracted. Did I mention I’m easily distracted? But I make up for it with the occasional stroke of absolute focus. I just can’t get to the middle of the bellcurve without rolling down the other side. Anyway, Christmas-flavored post, you’ll get my New Year’s resolutions by February (don’t make me threaten again with the stagecoach), I promise:

By popular demand, I ought to get back to doing this blogging thing. And, as it happens, Merry Christmas, everybody (see?). Consider it a gift – not that this is really a good gift… so, consider it socks. Actually, I got some nice wool socks for Christmas, very toasty.

And allow me now to summarize the Xmas loot, for your entertainment:
-Socks, aforementioned
-Shirts
-Undeclared on DVD: influenced perhaps by the fact that I saw all of it the week preceding Xmas, and that it is genius, and I have to show it to everybody at school, because seriously, this show is college, but funnier.
-Serenity DVD, because well, it’s necessary. My brother got one too, to prevent a power struggle when I go back to school.
- $100 headphones. My mom works for an audio equipment company, what can I say? They haven’t arrived yet, but should be snazzy. Actually, anybody want headphones at an incredibly low price? (I’m half-kidding here; My mom doesn’t know what the limit for employee discount purchases is…)
-Traveling Wilburys, Vol. 1. A group with Bob Dylan, Tom Petty, and George Harrison? Sold! Jeff Lynne and Roy Orbison don’t hurt the package either. A fun, not too serious album from some fantastic musicians.
-Rome: Total War: Barbarian Invasion, which seems like a pretty solid expansion to an addictive game.
-Civilization IV, which I haven’t played yet, but is nonetheless a game with fantastic pedigree.

Allow me also to express my most heartfelt exultation for the Bears. Woot! Go Rex! Go Bears!

Also, while I am expressing praise for all and sundry, I heart the Marx Brothers. Saw Duck Soup and Night at the Opera with folk Wednesday at the Music Box. Hilarious, wacky stuff. Night at the Opera has some slow bits, serious musical numbers, but Duck Soup is just non-stop zaniness. Mirror gags, random thigh-placement, musical number about war, jars, mustaches a-go-go – it has everything. Though I’ll admit that covers a lot of ground. “Say, you cover a lot of ground yourself!”

That’s one of Groucho’s many comeback one-liners, for the uninitiated.

I also saw King Kong (whee! six hours in the theater in one day!) that day with Casey and our grandmother. I’ll say this: you really feel for the big ape. Solid acting all around, and it’s interesting to see Jack Black in a (semi-) serious role. And if there are two things Peter Jackson knows, it’s creepy-crawlies and spectacular action sequences, and this movie has both in spades. Fastest three-hour movie I’ve ever seen.

So, it’s been a good break, save for that troubling total lack of productivity. I continue to make sporadic attempts to learn guitar, and simultaneously get a more thorough understanding of music. Got to make this “songwriter” business a little more legit, you know. Speaking of which: duck out now if you ain’t interested in the songs and poetry end.

There is a bit more of that, now. I had a fairly productive period around Thanksgiving, including a drinking song I wrote on the ‘L’. I don’t know why, but the CTA does wonders for my creativity. So, anyway, these are relatively new, though they've been up for a while now, less a few edits:

Hymn to St. Elmo the Sailor (drinking song, hopefully amusing even if you despise my other stuff)
Catch Me!
Keep on Dreaming

And there's some other stuff that may get up in the next week or so. Assumably, I will be back to procrastination-by-blogging once school starts again.

Sweet blinding monkey soup-faced critters from the deep! It's been a long time since my last update, and despite my prodding, Pat refuses to throw us all a bone/update. So I killed him.

....wait...maybe I shouldn't say that on the internet...this is how misunderstandings start, people. Therefore, I didn't kill him, but I have not heard from him since 2pm this afternoon, so I can't be held accountable for his whereabouts/well-being at the present time. Plus he's had the same away message up advertising for an event I know ended HOURS ago. Anyway...let this be a lesson to you, Pat: Update more often or federal investigators might stumble upon the blog and take me into custody for crimes I did not commit. Bollocks.

So...now I'm trying to remember why I wanted to update this thing....ah yes...Marty Sweeney....he's wrong. I thought I'd point that out. Actually, you can head on over to Toner-Blog (speaking of never updating) because he bothered to post something. Unfortunately, I don't agree with his evaluation of Syriana, and I was going to leave a comment explaining myself, but I thought this would be a good excuse to take the old blog out for a spin. Nothing like arguing over the internet I always say. Unless it's arguing in person, or over the phone, because those are way more intense. Honestly though, this post should not be construed as an argument. If there's anything people should be allowed to have their own opinions of, it's music and movies. So Mr. Sweeney isn't actually wrong, I just have a differing opinion of Syriana, so I thought I'd let you all in on it. Let's begin shall we?

Last week my long-deceased co-host/blogger/hort and I went to a sketchy cineplex on the North Side and watched a late showing of Syriana. Peter "I like to pretend I don't have enough money for a ticket" Tutanes was also with us, along with the two other people in the theater. So we watched the movie.

Personally, I thought the film was very well done, and I'm going to tell you why, but I'm not going to bother beating around the plot. Therefore, I see fit to attached a SPOILER WARNING to this post.

Now, I will not disagree with Mr. Sweeney on the point that Traffic is a very very good movie, and that there are certain parallels between the two movies. Still, I think that drawing parallels between these two films feels a bit forced. Rather, if any parallels should be drawn, it should be between Syriana and Munich, since they were released within weeks of each other and both strive to "blur the line" so to speak. Syriana, however, does a much better job with this than Munich, simply because it doesn't really sympathize with any party. As Americans, the issues of U.S. occupation of foreign countries and terrorism stop being so black and white. Our perspectives are turned all the way around and we find ourselves sympathizing with the most unlikely persons.

Syriana accomplishes this feat by just laying it all out for you in a plot which, at times, can be harder to sort through than Darryl Strawberry's legal file. Some point this out as one of the failings of the film, but I see it as one of the main strengths. Frankly, the big business of oil is just as complicated and lethal as the movie would make it out to be. We don't need to fight the plot to try and figure out who's behind what and who just bought who and whether or not that is legal. Instead, we should let ourselves become immersed in the plot, completely enveloped in it, so that we can connect with the main characters, who are just as lost as we are, and whose lives are all thrown around in different ways by the oil business. The American business man in Europe, the unemployed oil field workers in the Middle East, the young, black lawyer looking to cut out a place for himself, and the bearded CIA agent looking for answers--all these characters are searching, however vainly, for a bit of stability in their lives, which they actually have no control over. The film shows us how the oil business so heavy-handedly steers their fates.

Mr. Sweeney mentioned that he felt the film had no point in the end. Here, I will agree with him, but we must take it a step further and realize that the point of the film is that it has no point. This is a bit of an exaggeration, of course. The film as a whole has a point--to immerse us in the crazy mixed-up situation I only began to touch upon above. But this feeling of pointlessness is very important, and it stems from the fact that nothing changes at the end of it all--a point which is illustrated brilliantly in the very final seconds of the film, in which the lawyer takes his father into his house. He's accepted that his father will never change, just as the larger scheme of the film has shown us that the system of power in the Middle East will not change (at least as long as Americans still want oil). This may leave the audience depressed and hopeless, and if this is the case, then the movie has done its job. It's connected with us and made us feel small, which will hopefully make us feel angry, which will lead to our ultimate realization of the problem the movie presents and the lesson it has taught us.

In the end it's all quite mixed up, so I'll turn once more to the indomitable Roger Ebert who always puts things so eloquently in his reviews. He sums up his commentary on Syriana by saying:
"I think "Syriana" is a great film. I am unable to make my reasons clear without resorting to meaningless generalizations. Individual scenes have fierce focus and power, but the film's overall drift stands apart from them. It seems to imply that these sorts of scenes occur, and always have and always will. The movie explains the politics of oil by telling us to stop seeking an explanation. Just look at the behavior. In the short run, you can see who wants oil and how they're trying to get it. In the long run, we're out of oil."

Agree or disagree, my friends, but that's just good writing.

So here we are at the end of a rambling blog post, the length of which was almost entirely unintentional. Hey, and it even included a reference to "The 'Straw." Now that's entertainment.





I hope everyone had a good Festivus; I know I did.

Wheee! I'm done, and I already feel much better, even though I know some of my grades already, which are not entirely enouraging, but I should be alright, and this is a run-on sentence, which is something I do when I'm excited, and it's really bad form for an excellent grammaticist such as myslef, so I'll stop.

So, yeah, in a little bit I'm going to turn this thing off and pack it up so I don't go crazy over break. Sadly, I haven't been very informative over the past two weeks, but at least Alex has kept us entertaining. Infotainment, that's what we're all about here.

I can't wait to get home. I love it here, but it takes all my energy to stay sane sometimes.

www.gizoogle.com

Hours of fun.

Random Rabbi Reading!

Oh dear Jesus, just give me an hour in which to sleep. This is the week from hell school-wise at the moment. Maybe sometime tomorrow I can share with you why Thanksgiving rocked so much. And now, back to paper. Aieee!

Ah, the joy of posting and not being completely swamped with work. Ye gods. So the Dealer had some problems last week with pictures, resulting in much consecutive staying up too late working on my part, and there was a physics midterm, and a Comp Sci lab of doom (writing a goodly chunk of a shell), and a series of small but intentional fires. I was not involved directly, although I know somebody who had the suspect walk into her class and sit there for no apparent reason (the arsonist is reportedly an alum, or possibly a dissatisfied grad student). It's all going to hell around here, it seems. But it's fun. And there was that guy on the subway who started gibbering at me in pseudo-German, and tried to give me a quarter, and that guy at the bus stop who tried to sell me gold chains and pot.

And there was a fencing tournament, at which I was marginally competent and thoroughly exhausted. Thereafter followed the shortest fencing party ever.

And oh, the tradtion that is Loud Music and Drinking night, which does not generally involve that much drinking or that loud of music, though we sang a lot of it yesterday. Yay, drinking songs and randomness. Fortunately, ther are an unusual number of trained singers at these things, and on this particular occasion, a guitar (and someone who played it rather well). All told, I got back at 3 and stayed up until 4 finishing a song I've been working on lately, which is now all up in the archive's face... or something:
"Chicago Rain My Blues Away", for those interested.

All things considered, I'm probably doomed. And nonetheless I feel straight-up groovy. Which if it isn't an accpetable phrase for this decade, it will be soon. Mark my words

Unrelatedly, wow, it's already almost Thanksgiving. Hopefully I'll see you folks over the break.

Godspeed, ladies and gentlemen.

Did I mention I have a shiny gold shirt now? Pictures will be taken sooner or later. Whee!

Do yourself a favor and read all of them. I laughed out loud at least five times.

Top 30 Chuck Norris Facts

Bah, happenings continue to happen, and my last post just sits there being dangerously near to emo. Silly angst... er, or something.

So, the Shady Dealer is finally a goddamn Recognized Student Organization (almost). After agreat deal of being reasonable with the committee and answering their questions (yes, the names "Brian McEnergy" and "Rufus Nerdlinger" are made up), we're through. And we only have to deal with a little bit of censorship. We have to send all our articles through our advisor, Ted Cohen. Fortunately, Prof. Cohen's life's work is on jokes and the ethics of humor. And he's enjoyed every issue so far. So he's cool like that.

And... Zach and I celebrated this by doing shots of apple vodka. Blech.

Anyway, further events ensued, but I'm to bed with me.

Idealism, when forced into a pragmatic, unpleasant-but-long-term-healthy course of action, occasionally whirs itslef into a ball of tension and bitterness. So... argh.

In less angsty news (Man, I hate being angsty, but that doesn't really help), I actually had a decent day. And I've made $22 this week getting studied and probed (well, probed not so much). Also, Harold and Kumar is still an incredible movie. God bless Neil Patrick Harris.

"Where will you go?"
"Wherever God takes me."

And in music, I am on a hell of a Belle & Sebastian kick, having downloaded on a semi-random basis one of their albums (The Boy with the Arab Strap). "Dirty Dream Number Two", "Is It Wicked Not to Care?", and of course "A Summer Wasting" happens to resonate well at the moment.

Alas, October, I barely knew ye.

Ah, well. On to shorter and more turkey-laden months.

To start November off with a bang, I'm going to give you all a very special link:
Grinnell College Radio

I probably should have put this up at the beginning of the year, but I only was recently informed that the webstreaming instructions on the site actually work...at least for some computers. Unfortunately, it's pretty ambiguous which computers get it and which don't. Mine doesn't, but I'm thinking that may have something to do with me using a Mac.

Anyway, this prestigious organization pays me the moneys to listen to jazz for them, and even lets me have some sort of "radio show" for two hours every Wednesday. So, if you're not doing anything from 6-8pm tomorrow, you know where to be. That's right, sitting in front of your computer, looking at porn, and listening to my incessant ramblings and musical selections. And even if that's not your cup of tea, stop by the "staff" section on the site and check out my picture and bio.

Happy Motifs, Everyone.

Oh, how it goes. Madness, madness, a travesty, and more madness.

So, here at the Shady Dealer, we are looking at a nice long fight with City Hall over us being recognized by the school, possibly because the SG president has it in for us and picked the committee, and also because the people picked happen to be humorless fucks.

And when I say this has been one gigantic travesty of a clusterfuck, I want you to know that I’m the level-headed editor. Zach hasn’t knifed anybody, which is a little surprising. So, we may or may not be meeting with the committee to see if we can negotiate a reasonable compromise (i.e. censorship system). That depends on how the writers feel at our staff meeting this week.

Let’s hear it for alternate funding possibilities.

Otherwise, well, White Sox mania has been sweeping campus, what with being on the South Side and all. And I just can’t bring myself to root against the ornery bastards. Very impressive, South-siders. Which reminds me, given that the opposition was the Astros:

I would feel about twelve times safer messing with Texas than messing with the South Side of Chicago. I’m just putting that out there.

And tonight, I almost went to a concert, and then I almost went swing-dancing, but instead I ate some delicious Pizzeria Due pizza with the Woodward peeps. And delicious though it was, spending four hours getting dinner does tend to take up most of one’s evening. Of course, then there was a great deal of random hanging out upstairs, which was also fun. So I’ve got no complaints.

And in other news, Sulu is gay.

In more hilarious news, they’ve indicted “Scooter” Libby. haha. “Scooter”. Skeeewter.

So...the White Sox have won the world series, the baseball season is over, and my interest in sports will go into hibernation for the winter. It's true that the White Sox played great baseball this season. Whether or not it was a fluke, however, remains to be seen. Is this team built for a dynasty in subsequent seasons, or will it putter out? Well, you all know what I'm hoping.

Still, we must remember, even with this World Series win, the White Sox are still a pretty historically sucky team. Similar to, oh, I don't know, the Chicago Cubs perhaps. In fact, their historical successes (or lack thereof) are quite similar to the Boys in Blue on the North Side. I'm not trying to steal the Sox's thunder here; I'm merely pointing out that Chicago's two baseball teams are linked by more than geography, whether we like it or not. Here are some stats recently compiled by a certain Chemistry teacher as a gift to a sceptical Speech teacher:

White Sox versus Cubs
1900-2005

Number of winning seasons (.500 or better)
White Sox-57
Cubs-50

World Series Appearances
Cubs-10 (1906, 1907, 1908, 1910, 1918, 1929, 1932, 1935, 1938, 1945)
Sox-6 (1901, 1906, 1917, 1919, 1959, 2005)

World Series Victories
Sox-3 (1906, 1917, 2005)
Cubs-2 (1907, 1908)

Additional Post Season Appearances
Cubs-4 (1984, 1989, 1998, 2003)
Sox-4 (1983, 1993, 1994, 2000)


Of course, following the most logical pattern, the Cubs are next in line for a world series title. Red Sox, White Sox, ....certainly the Cubs must be next. So here's to hoping that 2006 is our season (unless, of course, fate had the Cubs slated for 2003 and we blew it).

Meet Emmitt the Enraged Marmot, our new mascot at the Shady Dealer. Whee!

"Skeevier than a pack of one-eyed marmots."

Boy howdy.

You fit in with: Spiritualism Your ideals are mostly spiritual, but in an individualistic way. While spirituality is very important in your life, organized religion itself may not be for you. It is best for you to seek these things on your own terms. 60% spiritual. 60% reason-oriented.

Take this quiz at QuizGalaxy.com

Ah, hope without faith. Hell of a way to live.

On a Sunday morning sidewalk
I’m wishing Lord that I was stoned
‘Cause there’s something in a Sunday
That makes a body feel alone
-Johnny Cash

Well, I don’t feel that bad; I just really like “Sunday Morning Coming Down.” It’s a good song, and I opened this year by getting some Johnny Cash in my collection.

My inability to sleep past a certain level of ambient light in the mornings is a bit irritating, however.

But oh, what a weekend it’s been so far. So, yesterday I proved that amputees can be hilarious, though not as funny as crack, according to my sources. I still had Kelsey paralyzed with laughter doing what could be charitably called the “No Arms Dance”…

[does stuff for a while, returns to post-in-progress 12 hours later]

Man, I just realized that this is the third consecutive October during which someone has broken up with me. You wipe out this month, I’m nearly flawless. Zach, on hearing this, scratched his chin for a moment and told me that all his relationships have started in October… spooky. But I guess it’s always been.

Yes, Zach has just started dating someone. We’re all a little bit alarmed. And this time it’s not an elaborate hoax. Oh, sweet monkey-loving Jesus, I never explained that, did I? Zach and Kate were actually, according to their sworn testimony, never actually a couple. It was all a plan to get back at me for certain things, which means I made all those horrible, mind-searing puns over nothing. hehehe. God, those were brilliant.

So the upside of all this emotional turmoil is I’m remembering all the songs I haven’t listened to in a goddamn long time. iTunes tells me I haven’t heard “Suite: Judy Blue Eyes” since June. Ah, well.

The other thing is there’s new poetry to be written. Though strangely based on a really happy tune I got in my head over the summer. The new one up is “Pull Myself Together.” So, y’know, check it out if that’s your thing. Or if you’re looking for something more coherent than this blog.

Really, people like my poetry. I find this encouraging. In particular, a random person on the elevator yesterday read a poem I was carrying and asked to keep it. That was spiffy. And then I continued on and started drinking up in 424. One of our resident suburbanites, Brianne had friends come down here, and they later, it was determined, went outside to snort Vicodin. I, for one, did not know that Vicodin was snorted. You learn something new everyday.

And that’s just about enough out of me for today. More tomorrow, I suspect.

Strange, strange moods:

Oh baby, why you gone and done me wrong?

Ah, Blues and Ribs night. Good times. And fencing dinner, also mostly fun.

So early in the morning...

Anyway, on the upside, I went to fencing, played Eurorails with Jim and Lisy, and saw a raccoon yesterday. Eurorails, is the only game I know that combines Europe, freight-hauling, and crayons (how else would you lay down track?). I should never have gone to Spain. That was my downfall. But I actually didn't suck too bad my first time.

The raccoon was outside BratMart around 1 AM, by a tree. The raccon and I actually had an interesting moment where it ducked out of site, I looked to where I though it had gone, turned around and saw it about three feet away. Both I and the raccoon simultaneously jumped and took a step backward. And then I took a few more steps back and allowed it to cross the sidewalk and hide in the bushes, and I was on my merry way back to the dorm.

I have songs stuck in my head. The most innocuous is "John Henry Was a Steel Drivin' Man".

Oh, and there's another poem up from a while ago: "Ought to Know Better". Boy howdy.

Okay, remember how I was going to add a link to the Shady Dealer? Done. Thing accomplished. All about the productivity here. Yup. And I also added Roger McGuinn to the "Cool People" list. So... who knows who Roger McGuinn is? Right, leading member of the Byrds, musically about the centerpoint between Bob Dylan and John Lennon. Anyway, I obviously don't know the guy, but his blog is an archive of folk songs he's recorded, and I'm a sucker for free folk music. And he's the source of my latest "depression --> download free music" cycle. So have fun with that, everybody. Roger's voice has deteriorated since the 60's, but a lot of it's pretty good -- even if the earlier entries are occasionally recorded in 24 kbps. I kid you not; Check out "Waltzing Matilda." And now, lyrics from one of my favorites of the evening:

If I had wings like Norah's dove
I'd fly up the river to the one I love
Fare thee well, oh my honey, fare thee well

I remember one night, a drizzling rain
Round my heart I felt a pain
Fare thee well, oh my honey, fare thee well
-"Dink's Song"

oh, what a time to be having fewer emotional outbursts. Not such a good day, this particular day. At other similar points, the word "Fuck" has gotten a lot of usage. Well, I guess the silver lining is that the Yankees lost.

Oh, and, coincidentally, ther were some old poems I've been meaning to post, so they'r up at the poetry archive. If only they weren't topical.

Oh, wow. I'm tired. what a weekend. I'm alive, everybody. Fencing parties, marathons, sketchy printings deals with the devil, and the like. Seriously, need sleep. Hopefully I'll get time to do more detailed event summaries soon. Gotta do something to earn that link. Maybe make a logo. Oh, and there's anothe issue of the shady dealer out. Christ, I don't have a link to that, do I? Better fix that.

I seriously haven't blogged in two weeks. That alarms me. It's been eventful, I assure you. So much so that I really feel like more than two weeks must have passed. Althought hat would make my lag of blogging even more ridiculous.

More eventually. I know better than to say tomorrow, but yeah... poetry even. Peace out, Earth-dwellers.

Wow. RocketGrande linked to us. I'm honored. I guess this means it's time for more meaningful content and less of Pat's emotional outbursts. I'll get to that meaningful content someday. I swear. In the meantime, here's a picture to keep you entertained:

Stupid time zones. Ah well. Whee!

Oh man, It’s already Thursday. And while that means that the magic number is now one (whee!), it also means I haven’t provided coherent commentary on naything that happened after Saturday.

So today was a big house trip to Chinatown for lunch, which was overpoweringly delicious and a hell of a lot of food for cheap. Yay Chinatown. Also, the CTA cards have changed colors. It’s weird. Or completely unimportant, but still.

Boy I’m tired, because Tuesday (That was only Tuesday?!) I stayed up until almost 4 chatting with people – Specifically, other O-aides, random first-years, and the guys upstairs who all have guitars and subwoofers, who are conveniently located just above the RHs’ baby’s room… Chalk up another one for Student Housing.

That and yesterday I jumped in the Lake. Actually, fifty-some people from our house went swimming off the Point, partly because we told them it was a tradition, and it was actually good weather for swimming. There was much Frisbee and fun. All hail fearless leader/RA/event-instigator Jakob. Although really, the most interesting part was trying to get into the water by clambering over massive, slimy stone blocks with waves crashing into them. I think I stubbed all of my toes. But it was awesome nonetheless. And really, the fear of smashing one’s face keeps one from noticing the water temperature, which was chilly but not terrible. And speaking of injuries, I managed to pull (or something) a calf muscle diving for a during our game, and thus spent a good fifteen minutes playing Frisbee while hopping on one foot and/or cringing in pain. This made clibing back out of the water over the rocks that much more interesting, but I was fortunately relatively recovered by then, and we found a better route for that too. Still damn sore, though not enough to keep me from wlking all over the place on our trips, so...

Oh, and I almost forgot that Ferris Bueller was on on a massive screen on the quad. Fucking Awesome. And now, coma time. Peace out, Blogospherians.

Stuff keeps happening -- Crazy stuff, spectacular stuff, awesome stuff, and mind-bogglingly weird stuff. More orientation-week transpirings that I willget back to, but it is late, and I jumped in a lake today.

Also, 2.

Hoo boy, it’s been a while. So the reason I haven’t been blogging is the vast plethora of things I’ve actually had to do, plus I live with people again, so I can walk twenty feet into social contact with random new people.

Right, so Tuesday was move-in day for Orientation Aides, of which I am one. And what a lot of stuff I wound up moving, but that’s really nothing compared to what would come later.

But we, the assembled O-aides, RA, RHs, and miscellaneous staff-students then began the furious preparations for the arrival of the first-years this Saturday. First there were long, painfully boring training sessions. Then there was decorating for the Woodward house theme of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. It worked quite well, actually, with an assortment of (actual Giordano’s) pizza boxes, paper rats, sewer grates and shiny green ooze. My own door (everyone has a decoration and a name label) features Michelangelo being slice in the head with a katana. And I found not one but two Ninja Turtle fonts for the labels, which was great, because one of the fonts was extremely shoddy and did not have numbers or hyphens. Damn hyphenated-name people.

Part deux tomorrow, I promise. But current events have left me incapacitated to properly relate everything. Wheeeeeeee! College! Newbies!

Also, last week in the CTA tunnel at Washington, I saw very large graffiti that said “ERLIM” in bubble letters. So go look at www.rocketgrande.com

"A tiny [stone] flake an inch or two long may seem like a pretty rudimentry tool. But when made out of a suitable material, flakes of this kind bear very sharp and druable edges and make remarkably functional implements. Indeed, experimental archaeologists have butchered entire elephants using nothing more elaborate."
--Ian Tattersall and Jeffery Schwartz from their book Extinct Humans.

Oh, anthropology.

So New Orleans is gone, at least 80% so, and the most amazing city in America has been lost (at least temporarily). But New Orleans isn't amazing because it lay below sea level in a bowl shaped piece of land protected by terribly inadequate levees. Rather, it's amazing because of the people that lived there. And now, as refugees litter the interstates and people remain trapped in their homes, major Chicago newspapers remain more concerned about putting up flood simulations showing how Lake Pontchartain filled the city, and talking about how the rising gas prices are really going to cut into our pocketbooks.

New Orleans is a city of stark contrasts. The rich and the poor live smashed up right next to each other, and you have just about every race you can think of living in close quarters. Because of this, every class of people was affected by the flooding, not to mention the bastion of culture that was lost.

For this reason, it's tragic that the city has been flooded, yet even more tragic that the relief effort has been so disorganized and lackluster. We knew about this hurricane well before it struck and we are fortunate that it didn't hit New Orleans full on, or else the city really would be completely gone. But when disaster did strike, the National Guard was nowhere to be found and wasn't even mobilized until almost 24 hours later. The president was on vacation (no surprise there), and people actually applauded him for cutting it short because of the disaster. He's the president; I think we should expect him to do as much. Of course, his first speech to the American people was so incredibly disgusting, juvenile, and heartless that he was forced to speak a second time with Dick Cheney and Karl Rove standing next to him "operating the remote controls" as my father so eloquently put it.

But we can't go on blaming the president forever, because we knew he was an imbecile going into all this, and America got what it voted for this time around. I suppose, then, since we lack a leader, we must take it upon ourselves to contribute in some way to a relief effort. When disaster strikes humanity, and there is no one to control the situation and no one to tell people what to do, humanity goes mad, basic survival instinct kicks in and you see violence and looting. And when there is no leadership, the rescue effort begins to fall apart and the situation degrades further.

I believe that most of us student-aged people are back at college by this point, and I'm sure that many colleges are organizing some sort of relief effort on their campuses. If we just go to one of these meetings or drop a few bucks in the collection bucket, we're already doing our part and beginning to take control of a situation scantly addressed by our elected officials.

And then quite suddenly, I had a job. Not one that pays anything, but it does require several hours of work a day. I even got my first work-related injury. So doing layout for the O-Week issue of the Shady Dealer took me the better part of this week, and involved much late-night copy-editing and an argument over content, which resulted in three different “final” versions. And then much difficulty with the publisher’s hiccupping website, and making sure that we could send them a version that would actually print properly. But, in the end, our first and only-one-for-a-while tabloid-format issue is set to be printed. And it’s pretty damn funny and well-laid-out, if I may say. We had to leave out a very amusing article about anal rape, sadly. And… fuck if I know how Zach is going to get all 1,000 copies up from Georgia, but I’m sure he’s got that covered.

Oh, right, the injury. Yeah, on Thursday, I woke up and the tip of my left index finger was swollen, apparently from doing hours of precise clicking and dragging to make the layout work. Wacky.

…Oh man, I haven’t listened to “Joy to the World” in a long time. Thanks, iTunes.

Also in music, I’ve managed to have three songs stuck in my head without a single lyric being involved. And all of them have lyrics too. But just the close of “Jumpin’ Jack Flash”, the close of Jackson Browne’s version of “Take it Easy”, and the middle of “Blue Sky” (possibly th best guitar solo ever) have been popping up for no apparent reason. Not that I’m complaining.

Things keep happening and I keep not writing about them. Of course, some of this was because I was some thousand miles or so away from my computer, but the last week it’s basically been inertia. Anyway, I’ll get back to that.

Tuesday and Thursday I was knocked out, drugged, and left bleeding in a dark alley. Okay, so only the middle one, which was as close to gainful employment as I’ve been all summer. And getting up at 6:15 didn’t even suck as much as I thought it would. But that might be because there was a stimulant involved.

Right, so upon my arrival at the U of C hospitals, I signed some things, ate a granola bar, and produced a urine sample. Fun. Anyway, I then had to swallow two rather large green capsules of a) stimulant, b)sedative, or c) placebo. I felt kinda peppy, so it could have been stimulant. The main part of the procedure was actually comprised of sitting around reading magazines and waiting for the drug to kick in. And then, after a brief survey to determine my mood and whether or not I was getting the shakes, the real fun began. I was shown series of images at varying speeds (all the way up to about 8/second or so), and then I’d get another set of images, and I’d have to say if they were in the first set and how sure I was. All of this was done on what looked like a fairly early model iMac. The images ranged from close-ups of flowers or bugs, to landscapes, to angry snakes, to people, to people with massive burns or facial tumors, to people having sex, to a wad of cash, and that one that was just a hand with a gun pointed at the camera. Lots of variety, apparently designed to provoke a variety of emotional responses. Fun.

Oh, and I later learned that I was, in fact, dosed with D-amphetamine on whichever day it was (double-blind study). Apparently it was supposed to increase my emotional responsiveness, and thereby allow them to determine some facet of how human memory works.

I felt peppier on Tuesday, but then Thursday I was rash and impulsive, so it’s hard to day which one. Thursday, for example, I climbed the tree in our backyard for the first time in at least several years. This was tricky, because it mostly grows up except for the little branches that just get in the way. But with some creative maneuvering I made it high enough to step onto our garage, which I promptly jumped off of without even seriously injuring myself.

Also, despite the fact that it is an impractically long commute, I love taking the CTA to and from U of C. Chicago is an awesome city, not only because we actually have practical public transportation. There’s just so much cool stuff to see. And for some reason, I just really dig the way old neighborhood get, with all the architectural variations and dense tree cover. And I really love the trees that have clearly gotten bigger than anyone planned for them to be, seizing fences and pushing up sidewalks. It’s just cool. Although it is possible I was drugged when I came to this conclusion, so.

You know, I always find it rather alarming when I blog over a page in Word, even though technically there will be no pages in the final format. I can be a little wordy and ramble-y at times, but I’m sure that hasn’t come to anyone’s attention yet. But the point is, I haven’t even gotten to all the main content of my post, that being my trip to Texas to visit Megan, which was awesome.

Houston is a strange and foreign land, and the natives have a wide variety of indecipherable customs, such as left-turn signals with two red lights. And they fry alligator, which is actually pretty tasty. Yes, I tried several new foods, most of which I liked. Shut up already.

As I was saying, Houston is a land of sweltering heat, primordial humidity, and vast tracts of land – Vast enough to have $3 dollar parking in the strikingly small downtown area, suburb-esque subdivisions well inside the city, and one particularly ugly suburb of prefab mansions (when you have the same grand, colonnaded, chandelier-strewn entryway as the guy next door, it dampens the effect).

But where was I? Oh, right, awesomeness. Despite the above and aside from the total lack of public transit, Houston is actually a pretty decent city. But that’s really beside the point, as I had spent all of five minutes there when Megan snuck up behind me at the airport. And much happiness ensued.

Such as the baseball game we went to on Wednesday, back when the Cubs were still kinda in the wildcard chase. And they beat Houston, woot! Also, Carlos Zambrano hit a home run that went right under us in right field. It was awesome. And Minute Maid is a good park, even with that crazy-ass hill in center field – and the train. Seriously, a train.

Er, anyway, there was also a sojourn into one of Houston’s parks, with much frisbeeing and resultant attempts to breathe water (did I mention it was humid), and occasionally people were tackled for no good reason. Also, there were sadly no alligators in the creek, merely turtles. But supposedly there are alligators. And we climbed a tree, which was also fun. Now I’m going to digress for a moment and claim that tree-climbing is the hip new thing to do, because I am a trend-setter, and I’ve already climbed two this month. Right.

Also, we went clubbing. Yes, I went to a club – a primarily Hispanic club, no less. odds, anyone? But Megan’s friend Ana recommended it, and thus with two Venezuelans and one Spanish-fluent Texan, I was doomed. It was actually a lot of fun. Though henceforth when I travel, I shall take nice clothes, no matter how implausible it is that I shall need them, so that I need not borrow school shoes from recent acquaintances. Anyway, there was much dancing and colliding with random passers-by, and a live band that was actually pretty good, despite my not being able to comprehend any of the lyrics. Also , Megan was dressed up, which was interesting, as this is something that happens only a few times every millennium, and so that gave me ample opportunity to both make fun of her and compliment her profusely.

And there was a museum of natural science, which happened to have a huge exhibit on the Lord of the Rings movies, which allowed the two of us to geek out in appropriately extensive fashion. Teehee. Also, there were rocks, in a very impressively varied mineral and gemstone exhibit… and a giant squid… and a hand-on demonstration of fluid dynamics that I had way too much fun with.

And, let’s see, Houston has this really cool freestanding waterfall dealy, which is all lit-up and night and flagrantly romantic. And there were movies, and DVDs, and lounging about, and playing with dogs, and meeting of various friends, and trying of new foods, and I’m probably forgetting something still, but whatever it was, that was great too. Really, the only trouble was that I eventually had to leave. Marvelous trip, spectacular girl.

Alright, this has gone on just long enough. I’ve got to stop putting these things off.