Today's Far Too Graphic

Eerily accurate, found online and slightly modified to ensure that all problems are "solved."

Nipped, Tucked, and Friarized...

"nip?" Well, 22 points is, if you think about it, only

eleven 2 point conversions
Three touchdowns (two missed extra points) and a field goal
More scoring than any soccer game has ever seen
George Bush's approval rating

nipped? NIPPED? NIPPED!!!!???

GAk! I'm off for a quick nip...

drink, young woman, or body part...

ESPN is insane..

Our title is from an excellent song “These Things” by She Wants Revenge. The song is full of truly lovely lines that each beg for explication ("I’m not a bad man, I’m just overwhelmed” is a very clever summation of the banality of evil), but the line that really caught me was

“This is the time of your life, but you just can’t tell”

That struck me. I look back on times I know I wasn’t all that ecstatic as some of the best times of my life. I mean, the 10 years I spent drinking, snorting coke and reading were certainly formative years. Just today the outreach-monkey was disgusted that I knew that Haile Selassie was a critical figure in Rastafarianism and asked how I knew "all this useless information." My answer - drinking, cocaine, Social Security checks, and reading - was clearly found wanting. In truth, that time I romanticise was also fairly lacking - money and hot chicks, among other things. Still, pretty much everything I've ever learned dates to that time.

As I walked on, iPod spinning lovely tunes (as it turns out I think that I have pretty good taste in music). I realized that things are pretty cool around here and perhaps the trick to get through life (if living long enough to die of old age actually constitutes “getting through”) is to accept this as you go along.

Which is why I enjoyed my walk to work this morning in excessive amounts…

For an old fat guy with questionable knees, I enjoy walking immoderately, and it was a lovely day. I tripped on the 50's era signs on Big Car Avenue (Stupid set of photos certainly in the near future), nibbled my bagel and sipped my coffee. I stopped at Major Retail/Housing Project to type some notes on my laptop and make use of their excellently clean restrooms.
I was late to work and no one gave a damn, I knew I'd chat with the techsupp boys later and the BAG would be coming around in the evening.

Not a bad day, really.

As Ice Cube might have said...

Even saw the lights of the Goodyear Blimp
And it read Ice Cube's a pimp
Drunk as hell but no throwing up
Half way home and my pager still blowing up
Today I didn't even have to use my A.K.
I got to say it was a good day.

Or, perhaps closer to reality...

"Keep Yourself Alive"
(bonus Wikipedia Link for MAF)

The Actual Thingie...

now.. NOW the checks can come pouring in!

I received a rather bulky parcel in the mail today and it turned out to be my Diploma!

Now I am the Master of My Own Domain, or something very much like it..

Turns out I got my thesis ok'd in time to graduate as of "the fifteenth day of July, 2007."

I suppressed a momentary urge to go out and get a beer, and watched a Simpson's episode instead. The BAG was going to come over tonight, but her suicidal move into the ghetto was not quite complete, so she switched to tomorrow night. Alas, it would have been a bit more of a celebration had she been around.

I suppose this really means that I could head to Korea at any time I want, now. Conversation at work revolves around the 'threat' that the chancellor is going to come and sweep us all out of our positions (well, not me, as I'm classified - and leaving anyway). This would be perverse in the way that all CC decisions are perverse. After all, for over a year (since the new management team landed) we have grown beyond all expectations, including dwarfing the growth of our sister college who, by all rights, should be swamping us.

but the paranoid logic goes something like this:

No good deed goes unpunished, and as our chancellor intends to make his statewide career off of his work at Swamp Valley College District, he needs to make the district "his." We are in one of those states exploding with young Hispanics, and the issue of the next few decades is going to be how to give access to this population. The chancellor, therefore, will need to make SVC a Hispanic Serving Institution and then claim an expertise that can move up to the statewide scale. This is certainly believable because the chancellor, while very effective, is also remarkably self-serving (at this level all adminstrators are). So far so good, but I am just naive enough to wonder why this would necessitate a wholescale elimination of management.

Our deans, certainly, have been indolent to the point of coma. Much of the growth we have accomplished has been with me cast in the role of Cassandra (at first) waving sheaths of paper in the air and yelling "I can predict what sections we can fill, if we would only open them!" But even the somnolent deans (well, most) have seen the reality of this and now when I look at local demos and past rosters they grudgingly listen and open (albeit at a fearfully conservative pace) new sections. Which fill. So we should grow. That I am doing the research and suggestion is reason enough to fire all the deans.

On the student-services side, all is not perfect, but all is way better than it was two years ago, and although there is deadwood it needs pruning not uprooting. The paranoids point to the fact that we have already had two new administrators come in who are Hispanic. Pointing out that they replaced two Hispanic departees is for naught.

Then there is the issue of academic inertia - it is hard to get rid of employees, even contract ones (primarily deans and administrators). Here at SVC everyone, with the exception of the anglos, has an ethnic identification that brings with it automatic local support. We have learned, in years past, that you let an employee go, and these ethnic identifications immediately conjure up support - and loud public support that the board really doesn't like to see. So the only way to force a contract employee out is to make their life so miserable that they want to leave. This is a fine line, however, as the threat of the "workplace atmosphere" suit always lingers in the air. And, indeed, SVCD has a longstanding and solid tradition of ex-employees winning lawsuits - sometimes retirement quality versions.

Instructors, of course, are protected by tenure and ultimately unimportant to chancellorial designs - not only that, they turnover at a glacial rate and only new-hires represent a way to change things. Classified are protected by union, and it is difficult to lay them off - certainly not in numbers that would constitute a re-organization. So one way or another it will come down to the contract admins, if change is to come.

I'll be interested in watching this play out. If I go and one other key person on the marketing team goes, the growth will certainly ratchet back a bit - the deans just haven't been pounded enough yet to be sensible. At that point, who knows? The re-org might come, heads might roll, and from very far away... say Korea.. I will point and laugh.

"But this is LA and you're rich and famous!"

The Lindsay Lohan story. ;-)

Monday's Money is Tuesday's .44 Caliber Breakfast

I'm reading this here blog SBFH and the blogger, quite seriously, says -

Is it odd that I've seldom had relationships with men in which I was treated with love and respect? I don't mean that as any type of dig against the other people involved.

I'm not sure how it could be a dig at the other people. The common thread in this is the blogger.

When I was a young and self-inflated lad, my uncle said to me that since everyone hated me for my snotty superior attitude and sarcasm, I must be a jerk or a genius (of the misunderstood variety), and that I should contemplate which was more likely based on the evidence.

I quickly figured that out.

Years later I noticed this on Springer ... people would say some version of "I gotta be me" and then not understand why everyone hated them... They tried to hold two thoughts that shouldn't go together..

1) I can act however I want and that is me.
2) People should love me despite what I do.

Einstein? If you don't act a way people like, how are they gonna love you?

If everyone treats you a similar way?

you're probably asking for it...

It boggles me that this simple understanding seems to evade people.

The only weird thing?

As it turns out? I AM a genius...

And all of you are jerks!

Run to the Hills

Aaaah.. a trip up to the Lovely Sister's pad to see the parents, in town from some island right off the shore of the country. The ride up was completely uneventful, although it took far longer than it should have. I was looking for a certain kind of Swiss Army Knife (SWAK) to replace one the the Replacement Dad had lost during airline travel. That alone is a funny enough story, as once at the airport RD realized he had the knife on his person and ran over to the airport folks to figure out what to do about it. They wrapped it up, bundled it in a box, and checked it into luggage. Upon landing, RD and Moms picked up their luggage, with the wrapped box intact.

Except now, mysteriously, it was empty. Which means that one of the fine TSA folks who protect us from terrorists (well, them and permanent incarceration without charges at Guantanamo, CIA torture, and the death of habeas corpus) now has a lovely SWAK.

But the RD didn't and so I had a task I had to perform.

As usual, I failed completely.
My attempt to find the "Explorer" model led me on a merry chase. Which means I stopped at ever sporting goods store, gun store, and camping store on the way from Big City to the hills. And they had lots of SWAKS.

Apparently Swiss Army makes something like 5-Brazilian (ask George Bush, the lesser) different models of knives. Heck, I learned that some of them even had two toothpics built in. This is in case you and a close friend ever both need toothpicks, but your friend is some kind of clean freak who won't use yours.

The stores I visited had the:

Discoverer
Mangler (every blade is the double-toothed saw. So is the handgrip)
Hunter-Gatherer
Murderer (Came with duct tape and plastic bags)

and every other knife known to man.

But no "Explorer."

Besides that, the only thing of note on the trip was two gas stations who had gasoline for under $3/gallon. This does not happen much in the Golden State and so I took a picture of the prices just to prove this to any sceptics out there.

Once on the hill, it was food and wine and party til nearly midnight. Past my bedtime really. But fun. The food was outstanding and I drank wine until about 10:30 and then guzzled as much water as I could until we went to bed about an hour later.

Slept in til 8:15 or so and spent the morning working with MLS on some political mailing pieces she is working with. The local folks have good intentions, but at the local office level there is no one with any marketing or design experience and the pieces they want to send out, unfortunately, show that lack.

Today it was all about wandering around the meadow-lake and bothering small insects, many of which I photographed, so that's the pictures.

Then, a return to the home of MLS and a bit of hanging out with the parental units. It is a pretty chill day if your big issue is whether or not you should stay home and eat yesterday's leftovers, or go down to the local greasy-spoon and soak up some of that good old-time charm that typically manifests itself in bland food that is too hot, bland women who are too cold, and beers at over $4 a pop.

It's an outrage, but it's a local one, so I suppose I am ok with it.

Tomorrow, the long ride back down the hill, and I shall leave as Aurora's golden fingers lightly open the doors of my eyes...

....and reveal my hangover. ;-)

Thursday Comicallness...

I am a man of unvaried routines. And each Thursday evening I check out two websites.

Well, two non-porn websites.

Get Fuzzy and The Comics Curmudgeon.

Get Fuzzy is obvious and I love all it's.. well.... loveable characters..

I am pretty much Satchel Pooch,

although I imagine myself as Bucky Katt


anyway... best comic around since Boondocks went out...

The Curmudgeon is a different critter. He (Josh) seems to like (if by "like" you mean make diminutive, snarky, and clever comments) all comics and damned if, during the famous Aldo Kelrast ("Stalker") discussion he didn't even make me love Mary Worth.

Well, in a non-stalking manner.

Man.. I love me some them comix...

Pamphlets That I Never Opened

Include this beautiful one (which was also reproduced in Spanish)

Why I Love Mexican Advertising

Because any old advertisement about TV Repair might actually feature the shapely butt of a chick in a bikini.
Or, say you 're an auto dismantler?


I'd certainly attempt to dismantle it!

Korean Embassy!

There is that special moment when the coffee is just beginning to seep into your bloodstream as you head onto the freeway. Saturday morning early, so no one is really on the road. After a lovely bagel and beverages with the BAG (at the Korean Bagelry, no less) it was off to the road. I had been planning to listen to my Korean language tapes on the way down, but what the fuck, I was gonna be spending the entire weekend with a real live Korean, and why get started early when the iPod could blast the tunes?

The BKF was still out at some local lumber emporium when I landed... Farm-Town was cold and foggy, though the sun was trying to come out. I checked out the latest Korean outpost. I wandered around the front of the place (It kind of reminds me of the house MAF lives in out there in Caucasia - the same kind of semi-recessed by a porch and plants, "get the fuck out of here" vibe. This is reinforced by the tarnished brass plaque on the door which warns away "peddlers or agents." "Welcome to the Korean Embassy in Farm-Town. Now please back away slowly."

The fence was in, well, not so great shape as this photo of the "latch" demonstrates. Still, even a look at the outside showed that there was promise here. Anyway, I undid the funky latch and wandered into the back yard. It's pretty big and with a bit of work would be something quite nice. It is larded with little concrete decorative touches and fencing that might, if you squinted real hard and conjured up the smell of Kimchee and Soju, be seen as Korean, maybe, asian, possibly. There is something like a low corral in one corner and a dry fountain of some sort in the other corner. There are several unidentifiable (to me, that is) fruit trees as well as an orange-tree that I could recognize. This should make the BKF's new married relatives very happy when they come to visit. When I lived in South-Central Big City I had a house with about three fruit trees in the back. When the Korean relatives came to visit me, the father was so boggled by these riches that, drawn to them as if hypnotized, he bashed his way through the screen on the glass sliding doors leading to the backyard. In retrospect I am extremely glad that I had the foresight (?) to open the glass doors before the Koreans got to my house.


The neighborhood seems nice also, although only a month's residence will allow sufficient evidence as to that. I was completely unmolested as I wandered in and about the house and I suppose this could be either good or bad. While I type this the sun has come out (though it is still windy and cold) and the pigeons have started cooing. I hate pigeons - noisy messy pieces of shite.

Anyway, the BKF has to land soon and I promised the BAG pictures. There is a lovely unsecured Linksys network here, so I will see how it handles ftp.

Which it seems to do quite admirably, so this is off to the web for the BAG's delectation.

More soon, as the horrrific work pace allows.

Right... but that I mean the Soju consumption.

Not Exactly a Cucumber

The BAG's taste in vegetables has always included an alarming (to me at least) preference for enormous mis-shapen cucumbers that look like they should be made out of silicon and featured in movies co-starring two naked women who appear to be a bit more than just friends.

And the relish with which the BAG takes the peeler to them also worries me a bit. Yesterday she brought over a vegetable of an entirely different kind, and yet it still had that look, though not at all the cucumberian heft.

You can see the less-than fully featured vegetable fiber on the upper left there. That penny is for size-comparisons (at last! Size comparisons I don't find odious! ;-0)

Like all vaguely phallic vegetables, the BAG ended up eating the thing, though in this case she took the alarming tack of neutering the thing (so to speak) and leaving the... protuberance behind.

The whole thing made me a bit queasy, so I drank some Mickey's Big Mouth 40's, watched NFL highlights on the web, and browsed pornography that objectified women.

That worked.....

I think I'm gonna go carnivorous... it just avoids a whole lot of messy issues.

Big Farking Korean Fun!

Well...

After my first email to Ms. S*** did not arrive in her mailbox, I just sent off my second one. As polite as a Miguk can be, asking for her help in finding me a position at a Korean University. This is sort of a cast of the die, since if she does turn something up it would be very rude of me to turn it down after setting her to the task.

It would be easier to do if work weren't going so splendidly at this moment and I wasn't so darn well paid.

Oh well, gotta go for the brass ring at least once and I guess this is the one for me.

OTOH the BKF is just about to sign on a new house and I see a couple of days of manual labor in my immediate future as we try to bash the thing into shape before the hordes of relatives on his wive's side arrive for the upcoming birth. The family comes in on something like August 11th and the floors, windows and roof need to be addressed before anyone can move in. Not to mention he'd like the rest of the thing livable before everyone gets there. Also, all toxic work needs to be done well in advance of the birth, or even BKF's wife moving into the house. This promises to be a race directly to the wire and I look forward to taking pictures of the whole nightmarish thing - cause if it isn't a nightmarish thing I don't want a thing to do with it. ;-)

I am reminded of a Rolling Stones concert in 1976. Someone threw a shoe at Mick Jagger and thereafter, sporadically, shoes arced up onto the stage. After trying to lecture the fans, after begging the fans, after yelling at the fans, Jagger finally gave in and said, "alright... let's have ALL your shoes then!"

This may have been the unwisest thing said at a concert on this side of Peter Townsend saying, "there's more room in the back" at a Who concert in Cleveland. An avalanche of shoes buried the stage.

BKF's house should be a lot like that. ;-)

Well, except without all the shoes.. since Koreans leave them outdoors...

Out in the Hills

Used the lovely day yesterday as an excuse to head out to the "Refuge" (some of the trail signs just have arrows and the word, 'refuge' on them. As wannabe urban refugees, the BAG and I find this amusing). We had hiked one side of the thing on the 4th. Unfortunately part of the thing was being dredged and the resultant muck was being dumped on top of the levee trail. This happens every 40 years or so to repair damage done by wind and water. Unfortunately it pulls up all of the putrid shite from the bottom of the flat and the wind blows this hideous smell (and no doubt some concoction of heavy chemicals, pesticides, and remains of Jimmy Hoffa) over the entire area.

So this time we did the other side. This side is also a bit more hilly and features a lot more wildlife - like that Indian up there at the top. We wandered for about 3.5 hours - probably somewhere between 5 and 6 miles of tromping, and I got rather sunburnt.

In the middle of all this we swung down off the ridgeline to the visitor's center which had a lovely "nectar garden" for butterflies. It was open, since it was not caterpillar or chrysallis season. A note on each entry warned us that because of "recent occurrences"the garden would be closed at these times. Using nothing more than my big brain and white male privilege I intuited that some (hmmm.. how to be culturally competent here?) stinking FOB savages had been culling either caterpillars of chrysalli for some hideous potion that they had learned to enjoy in the old country.

The only way this is ok with me is if it contains some kind of alcohol.

Anyway, above you can see a picture of a lovely hummingbird who, each time I snapped a picture, presented his/her posterior.

The butterfly over there on the left didn't get the "present buttocks" memo to the animal kingdom. In general the butterflies seemed much more interested in frolicking in mid-air than settling down anywhere, and this made picture taking difficult.

We also saw a load of Turkey-Vultures as the hills were swarming with updrafts. While the BAG collapsed on a picnic table I went running all over the top of the "Red Hill" trail and ended up with only one snapshot worth anything. I did, however, figure out where I would go hang out to take more pictures if I came back alone.

As usual, the day ended with a long trek out - being cheapskates of substantial proportions we had chosen to park across the freeway in the free lot. This saves a few bucks, but we always end up sweating and swearing as we trudge the rather boring last mile to the freeway and across.

On the other hand I was able to use the saved money on some perfectly lovely Mexican food and two Bud Lights (that was a mistake - they tasted like light beer for some reason).

The only other thing of note was how garbage-strewn (partly because of the wind) the hillsides were. I picked up trash where I could and tossed it into my backpack. One piece of trash of which I am particularly fond is this "to-do" list. I'm fond of it because I know who the dickweed was who left it to swirl around the hills. Apparently Mr. Mitch Brenner (or someone using his name to discredit him) loves him some the faux-birdies, but doesn't get quite as het-up about actual nature. This note was in a scattering of trash, and I'm sure that Mr. Brenner was implicated in that as well, though he had long since hopped into his Hummer and headed home to his McMansion.

I hope he got a flat tire on the way home. ;-)

I think my anger rating just went up to 27%?

..and I'm not gonna take it anymore

For MAF.. a simple online tool to measure likelihood of syncopial episodes...

and my result (I am particularly amused by the fact that I am sipping on an adult beverage with a little umbrella)..

You Are 26% Angry

You're occasionally angry, but it's really not an issue. While you may give in to your temper once and a while, you're pretty mellow. And as long as your anger doesn't effect your relationships, then it's probably in check. You know that anger is a bad habit - and you don't engage in it often.

How Angry Are You?

So.. I am no longer the drinker I thought (hard to say, since the blackouts interfere with my memory of these exploits) I was. BKF was in town and as manly, hard as nails, manly (did I say manly?) men we were compelled to go out drinking.

We went to the local Korean restaurant and had our traditional drinking accoutrement.... flat fish and some anju in weird little dishes. But only two bottles of Soju. BFK, who has apparently become gay, asked if I wanted to order the second bottle!!!!

I did....

We drank and chatted about literature... as hairy chested heterosexuals do. On the way back BFK said we should stop and get "one more beer" (He had to drive back to Home on the Sea, which is about an hour drive).

Of course, once in the store he manned up, "Why don't we get a six-pak? I'll drink one and you can have the rest tomorrow."

Which we did and of course we went back to my place and drank them all -- "all" meaning three beers each, which is a pathetic amount and leads to my worry.

I woke up this morning and felt as though I had been assaulted by several two-by-fours. One was apparently still lodged in my rectum (I blame the Jalapeno Cheetos BFK purchased) and the other had been used to tenderize my head.

Three beers. One bottle Soju.

And one pussy. Me.

Is this what happens when you stop training?

I clearly need to drink more.

So, like, I'm on that tonight. ;-)

Happy Belated Birthday to this....

Poking back through my old posts I note that this blogger version of my blog (I used to roll my own, which just became too tedious) turned one year old on the 5th....

And I suppose it functioned as it should, just a place for me to start writing minutae again....
I don't know what step two is.
But step three is PROFIT!

Happy Birthday to it, happy birthday to it...

My Blog is rated...

Mingle² - Blog Rate-iation

So all you kiddies get outta here..

So boring.. so bleak.. so... Drab!

As I continue to try to navigate what it is I must do to actually get my sheepskin (don't worry Nitwit University, the check is in the mail!) I accidentally come across the page describing what kind of color scheme each major entitles its graduates to wear on their robes. So, as a MA in English I get the very boring White piping (or whatever)

Which seems bad, but then, in an astonishing case of truth in advertising, the poor schmoes who get degrees in Finance, Org, and or Taxation get the extremely... well... drab, "Drab."

That has to suck. Two years of study and they finally tell you what you must have suspected all along.


Bastards!

Dilettaunting....

One of the nice things about claiming to be able to use computers and cameras is that you never have to worry about what to do with your money. There is always a new thing that you MUST have.

So now Kodak, who invented the original RGB gridded CCD have come up with one that claims to be revolutionary. Articles focus on the ability this will give photographers to leave their flashes behind (but really, even Kodak is only claiming an increase of one aperature stop or so - which is certainly less than revolutionary), but I'm wondering if it will help with Digital Cameras traditional problems dealing with contrast (the limited dynamic range CCDs have)?

Online cynics claim this will only open the door for worse lenses, but it has never worked that way in the traditional SLR market as professionals have pushed the envelope there. What this really means is that all the old CCDs will immediately become obsolete and I will need to run out and buy a new camera.

Not soon though, the only camera I could find online that will be coming out with the new CCD is listed at $14,995, which is a bit beyond the dilletaunt range. :-)

USA!

Fuck Yeah!

And to Japan..

Fuck Yeah!

Thus ends our 4th of July minute of xenophobia and chauvinism!

Classic Men's Room Poetry...

Ladies and Gentlemen...

the walls of the men's room at Swamp Valley College:

Who the heck is what I am
And how now then were you
Where are we at when we're around
And what then would we do

How could we do the things we be
Be what we might have been
Which never did we ever plan
To not repeat - repeat - again

Or randomly to plan the things
That come round the going bend
Away from here and never there
Where reception is to send

And when the who was ever I
and where be when I'm gone
To whom and how and other lies
That linger on and on.

And WTF is how and why,
and who cares how it ends
Where never ever is in everland .......
oh... right.. who cares how it ends?

ME AND ONLINE COLLEGE

Let's just say that I had a working relationship with an online college.

Further, let's say that I couldn't, for obvious reasons, say what college that might be.

So, for the sake of pseudonymity (if that's a word) let us just say that this Online College is called Embellish College and it is the online organ of the Not Quite Institute of Technology. And while my relationship with Embellish U. i ended, it was an affair to remember.

And why?

Because the students were so.... so ......it's hard to find the right phrase..... but perhaps... SO EFFING DUMB!

And given their advanced dumbnosity, they were not well served by Embellish U. Maybe this is even worse. Stupidity is an inherited condition, but a stupid student has about no chance to learn anything new at E.U. The classes are optimized for speed and instructors rarely step in to correct anything. In a post to come I might thrash out why I feel E.U. fails its students, but for a while I'm just going to focus on the student failures.

Because I like to play the blame game. That's why!

Let us consider a science course to remain nameless.

I should have known, in week one, that it was going to be a trip back to a pre-Copernican universe when a student answered the following reflection:

some scientists argue that Global Warming is an immediate problem while others argue it is not

thus:

This statement makes since. You really give me something to think about. Making a decision in haste can be damaging but waiting to long can also. When is the right time? Is there are a right time? IT maybe that what ever is done maybe damaging to our survival.

Ack Ptooie! I can only hope this student has yet been through the Embellish U. writing courses, because that level of writing wouldn't get past a basic-level ESL course in the worst Community College in the deepest ghetto of the most underfunded state in the Union (BTW - I'm pretty certain that would have to be in California somewhere).

There is also the fact that the statement means nothing. That and it has nothing to do with science.

But there it was....

other students veered off into incoherent critiques (if that is the word) of capitalism:

The horrible thing is that big corporation will use the inconsistencies to their advantage. They will use this information to fill us with fear and we will purchase the item they tell us will help save our planet as well as line their pockets.

or equally incoherent critiques of the media

I agree with you (Name Redacted). The media really needs to stay out of most things. They send out conflicting messages to everyone so no one knows what to believe. But like I said in my response to #2, "Until there is a new science that is found to always be accurate, then there will always be debates about the facts." And the media can report whatever they want.

Note that not one whit of these responses has anything to do with science. Everyone goes to their own little stalking horse and rides around in circles.

Having some experience with beginning writers, I call this the "I kept my baby" argument. The "I kept my baby" argument is the personal one and I first noticed it many years ago in a writing class that tried to keep its topics current. And whenever an assignment related to abortion was given you could be morally certain that at least one single-mother would completely ignore the assignment and write a long, illiterate tear about how abortion was a crime because the writer had kept her own child when her Baby-Daddy had headed for some less pregnant bint. It is the inability to look beyond personal experience to general arguments and it was at Embellish U. in spades.

So, here we had a student body in dire need of education. And here we had an educational body. How would they interact? Would they interact? Would we all keep our babies?

The babies, I'm afraid, all died.

The good news?

I got my degree. And so did most of the other ijdits

Oh Frabjous Eve...

Get home and there is one of the remaining two pieces by My Big Korean Author sitting in my mailbox. It was hard to go to the gym with that sitting on my table, but now I get to tuck in...

and it's from his 'difficult' period in the 80's so it should have something to say about BKA's development....

happy, happy...


off to read...

Suggestions from the Great Unwashed

Apparently in response to my post on the absence of Korean books at Borders, the BAG suggests that I am cranky because I don't get enough sleep (she forgets she slept over last night and it is her lumberjack level snoring that makes this so) and that I should not be Grumpy Old Dude (GOD) and instead should be Dude of Grumpiness (DOG).

On a similar note of intarwebular love, a reader who is apparently my sister suggests that I call myself "BOTBAG (boyfriend of the bizzarre alien girlfriend)." But this has the unfortunate sound of something frat-boys would do to each other during a hazing gone wrong ("We could give him the shocker, purple nurple, or botbag the son-of-a-bitch." Later the police come, and shortly after that, the coroner).

I accept both of these suggestions in the spirit in which they were offered, scorn and derision, and will remain GOD around here.

The Rubber Stamp is In

The Division Chair chimes in and I am done...

I join with Professor (Name Redacted) in approving your thesis. It was well written and interesting. I will be submitting a change of grade form in about a week (I am away from the office currently) and you are ready for graduation. Please contact the graduation department for further information. Attached is information about binding your thesis. Congratulations, you have done a great job.

His failure to use the word "genius", "inspired" or phrase "for the ages" irks me. But I will take my sheepskin and skulk away.

The Rage of The Modern Post

It is annoying to go into a Borders and find only three books of Korean history (and none on literature) in the whole place. I mean.. with all the Koreans in Santa Clara and San Jose? I know I sound like any grumpy old dude (GOD) going into a bookstore and not finding the books that they want, but really? And three rows on American Indians and their nobility and loss? I thought that, as old Winston said, “History is written by the victors.”

Hey.. they lost… we know the history there.

Well, really, we don’t know the history there, because before the White Man landed they didn’t have a freaking history. They had a series of vague stories, most of which focused on how they had been outwitted by coyotes.

Then the White Man came along to demonstrate what a real outwitting (featuring killer technology, literally) looks like. On the plus side, we gave them yellow fever, government cheese, and written language. So they could write all of those histories.

I'm willing to call it a wash and move on...

But 300 years (give or take) of history of failure and they rate about 50 times the bookstore space of a country with a 5,000 year history? All of this rage is only because I know have a paper to present in October and have no idea what this kind of paper looks like or should include. So, instead of Korean History I bought a book on post-modernism. My theory is I will only have about 30 minutes of presentation time at MCAA and therefore if I can loot about 30 “clever’ critical phrases to lard (an appropriate word) into my speech I will come across as au courant, or some other kind of nut.

Imagine my increased rage when I open POSTMODERNISM: OR THE CULTURAL LOGIC OF LATE CAPITALISM (obsessive all-caps theirs) and this is the first sentence:

“It is safest to grasp the concept of the postmodern as an attempt to think the present historically in an age that has forgotten how to think historically in the first place.”

Now that sentence, simple for postmodernism, sucks. It either needs an “of” before “the present” or some explanation of HTF you can think of the present age “historically?” Perhaps my modernism is not ‘post’ enough?

On the other hand I’m still in the introduction and I already have 6 excellent terms to throw into my paper and talk. Some of these are old friends and one is completely new to me:

DOXA (I had to look this one up)

CONSTITUTVE

MIMESIS

UTOPIAN

NON-SPATIALIZED CULTURE

BINARY OPPOSITION

So that’s a start, anyway….