This is what happens when the monkeys in my head get tired of sitting at their typewriters, and start throwing poop at each other instead.
Tuesday, October 21, 2008
Storytime yields hilarious observation
This weekend I accompanied the Mama?s to a tournament in Columbus. I drove back after day 1 because TK, one of my better friends on the team, had to get back into town for a test. I arranged rides last year and since I consider him good company, he has often been in my car going to tournaments.
He's heard a lot of my crazy stories from my g-dub days, maybe a few of them twice or even three times (what can I say, I like to tell stories and I often forget which ones I have already told).
This past time, we were in the car and I think I was talking about Dre and what a crazy human being he was/is. First I mentioned how I saw him on the street jogging at 10AM the morning after I had seen him do 20+ body shots. Next, I added the story of when he threw a brick through the girls' sliding glass door.
At this point, TK comments "Man, your team breaks a lot of glass."
So true! And man I must have really told every story in the archive if he can make that deduction. If anyone out there remembers others, please feel free to add them, but here's a preliminary list:
1) Dre vs. girls' glass door. 2) (Vicariously) Glowworm versus the back of Tufsky's van. 3) (Vicariously) Glowworm versus spring break mirrors. 4) Jack versus his own window at Body Shots my junior year. 5) Tufsky versus the girls' coffee table. I'd call that one a draw.
Last week I was faced with a most unenviable task. I had to write (honest to God)... a book review.
I wish I could say that the last time I had to write a book report, I was still showing up to school in sweatpants and playing Star Wars cards at lunch, but alas I cannot say that. In fact, this book review is for a professor I had last year, and this is my second go-around at this most awful of assignments. For whatever reason, he must think we all want to be academics.
Believe me, I don't want to rag on Dr. Raun, because he is the man. If you don't know your things in class, get ready to get pwnt. Also, he has no problem sitting there and thinking silently for a few seconds and making sure he knows exactly what he's about to say. Talk about confidence. Raun is all business, and he will not hesitate to call you out, in front of the whole class, by reminding you that he likes to make announcements at the beginning of class, and if you could please not be five minutes late so he has to repeat himself. This befell a classmate of mine, not me. Aside from that, he knows at least five languages, and used to be a college basketball player back in the day. He's not a joker, but every once in a while he will say something that makes everyone laugh, just because he's so serious most of the time. Raun is the only professor here who has challenged me academically, so I take his assignments pretty seriously (along with the 250+ pages of reading each week...).
Anyways, back to the book review. I reviewed Ronald Suny's book Looking Towards Ararat, a survey of the development of an Armenian nation. I picked this book because I know basically nothing about Armenia. Now I know some things -- woo for me. I am not super enthusiastic about this book, especially its lack of maps and use of crazy Armenian words with little or no explanation.
With the book review, Raun says it should be 2/3 about the content (summing up the author's arguments) and 1/3 critique. If you're reading this blog, you know that it would be far easier for me to do 3/3 critique... about anything. Needless to say, the going was pretty slow when I sat down to actually write the review on the day before it was due. I developed a major inability to write -- unlike any kind of writers' block I've encountered before. Ultimately I decided I needed to try a different strategy.
I remembered that an associate of mine from PreemCroft Enterprises used to drink beers while he wrote an essay. It was like a game for him, and if he finished the essay before he was wasted -- winner! After inspecting the contents of my fridge, I found that I had (a) bisongrass vodka and (b) gin for my two liquors and (a) cranberry juice and (b) Five-Alive for mixers. Not good. Cranberry and vodka with normal vodka is good, but cranberry with bisongrass vodka is most foul. That left me making ghetto orange blossoms -- Five-Alive and gin. It was tolerable though unspectacular, and five drinks later the words were issuing forth with ease.
Having set my alarm to wake me up several hours before go-time, I got up in the morning and did some editing. This step is key to this strategy. Without this stage, I probably would not be lauding this method of brain lubrication.
Yeah, I got drunk by myself. But it was worth it. I got the paper back today. I got an A from a professor who probably prides himself on not contributing to grade inflation. Even better, my review was "very well written" and I followed "a strongly analytical approach in my coverage of the book's contents." I just needed a little help getting the words out.
In my brain, Obama is a lot like the Boston Red Sox.
I have a healthy dislike for the Sox. In fact, they may be my most-despised team in Major League Baseball. It's not because anyone on the Sox is a particular douchebag. It's not even because they are a division rival of my team, the perpetually underachieving (and that's putting it lightly) Baltimore Orioles.
It's because of their fans. Boston fans annoy the shit out of me. The worst part is, many of my good friends are Boston fans -- and it's not that I think they are bad people. I just do not like to be around them when they talk about baseball. Something about the sports fans from that city just rubs me the wrong way. The Sox can do no wrong, and when the game is on, look out everyone else who might be a fan of another team. Good friends of mine, who are Sox fans, are completely different people when they watch the game.
I dislike Obama for many reasons, which is not to say I'm overly crazy about McCain -- I'm not. After all, if South Park has taught us anything, it's always about a choice between a some douche and some turd. What I think is solidifying my anti-Obamaism is his fan base. I can't stand these pro-Obama people, who treat him as some kind of messiah here to wipe away every solitary sin in American politics.
Obama can do no wrong to his supporters. To me, that smacks, again, of unintellectual political discourse. No one person can ever completely agree with another on every position -- it's just not possible. Even so, Obamaites walk aroung campus with impunity, claiming that they piss fairy dust and fart rainbows because they are the supporters of the one true messiah, Barack Obama.
It's even worse that so many are college students, ostensibly well-educated. It's one thing for the license-plate-stamper to be all rah-rah about his candidate. He doesn't know any better than what his pastor or favorite Fox News vixen has told him. But these are educated people with supposedly nuanced worldviews walking around, with a cue-card answer for every criticism. I'm sure the Obama folks can claim the same for the other side, but I am particularly annoyed because of my current location and living situation. And because my group of friends is overwhelmingly liberal.
It's not just people around here either. I watch CNBC for the debates because their coverage typically focuses on that which is most important to me -- business, the economy, etc. I like Larry Kudlow (incidentally, "I believe that free market capitalism is the best path to prosperity."). But tonight, after yet another lackluster debate, he did not have 100% pleasant words for John McCain. Heck, this is the guy who is all gah-gah over Sarah Palin for Chrissakes. He's a hardcore McCain guy. What did he say though? He said that McCain did a decent job but he was a bit disappointed. He said that McCain should have hammered home x and y point more forcefully (man, I'm really into variables tonight).
That is the mark of intelligent political discourse to me -- when it's okay to say that your preferred candidate has some weak points. Saying that your candidate has all the answers is Bolshevism -- sheer Bolshevism (70% of the reason why I include this remark is because it's a Simpsons quote).
At the conclusion of the debate, as is standard CNBC procedure, they brought on, first, a fairly prominent Obama supporter. In this case, it was Debbie Wasserman Schultz of Florida. Her femullet and horridly shrewish manner notwithstanding, she simply raged against McCain and gave Obama a 100% positive report card on every possible topic.
Then they brought on a female legislator from Tennessee (I think it was Marsha Blackburn). She was upbeat about McCain, but acknowledged that he could have done some things differently. That is, she actually added some original thought to the discussion. As I recall, this happened in at least one of the previous debates as well. I do also want to give credit to Keith Boykin. He began his commentary with the statement that overall, they both performed well in the debate and that McCain scored some early points with a couple of issues. Then, he adeptly integrated some harsh words for McCain with some clearly thought-through compliments for Obama. Kudos.
Now I'm sure most of the Obama people out there are thinking "But he did win! It's okay to keep saying that he did win if he actually did." No. No one can win if there is no game. As I said in the previous post, and I stick by this, considering the way that debates are conducted in American politics, you can't win a debate any more than you can win at duck-duck-goose. It just goes around and around in circles, no one learns anything, and maybe a fat kid ends up in the nurse's office.
Bottom line: I am sick and tired of Obama supporters having all the answers. No one has all the answers. So quit trying to shit in my hat and tell me it's a leprechaun.
I always kind of consider it a duty to watch the debates. Voters should be, above all, acting on complete information when making their political decisions. Despite my general libertarianism, on my less optimistic days I really get hung up on the fact that the unintelligentsia in this country have way too much power. That's why I always feel obliged to watch, despite knowing that I won't learn anything either way. Without getting into Joe Sixpack's IQ, I find that what I consider a duty is now fast becoming a chore.
Watching these debates is not only a snore (hey it rhymes with chore), it's an angry snore. Kind of like that episode of the Simpsons where they were talking about TV viewers reacting with yawns... angry yawns.
This is what passes for political discourse (put into easier-to-understand vernacular):
Politician X: [Politician Y] voted for [unpopular-sounding bill]. I opposed [unpopular-sounding bill]. Politician Y: I can categorically say that I never supported [unpopular-sounding bill]. In fact, what [political X] is saying is untrue. Now, what I did vote for was [popular-sounding bill]. Politician X: Well, you just have to look at our records. [Politician Y] clearly voted for [unpopular-sounding bill]. Now, I just want to take this opportunity to talk about [unrelated hot-button issue] ...
Lather. Rinse. Repeat.
There's no substance, it's just the same crap over and over again. It's the same when discussing their plans for the future. Not only do they keep reiterating the same plans (Obama's 95%, McCain's $5000 tax credit), without change or elaboration, the attacks on their opponents plans remain the same. For example, the small business taxation question. McCain claims Obama's tax plan stifles small businesses, Obama refutes it by saying that only x% (2% I think is the number) make more than $250,000 anyways. P.S. I find this to be incredibly dubious... even if every employee at hypothetical PreemCroft Enterprises is making $25k a year, that means only 2% of all companies have more than 10 employees? Crazy-talk. Anyways, I heard that same exact argument last week! The same! So why are we still having this conversation? These debates are the epitome of vapid, and nothing more than repetitive, unenlightening political shadow-boxing.
Where have we gotten in American politics where it's actually good debattical form to completely sidestep a direct question? I saw this tonight. Is Russia the same evil empire that the Soviet Union was -- and Brokaw even SAID "this is a yes-or-no question" -- that was the question. NO! For the love of God NO! For so many reasons that should be obvious to anyone who has read more than two (2) news articles about Russia!! And that's a question that doesn't really even have any political consequences -- nobody gives a shit if either candidate makes a misstep on Russia, especially not Nascar McTurnipTruck of Mulletsville, USA. Yet still... still! it is okay, even seemingly encouraged, to say "Maybe," as McCain did (verbatim, that's what he said). Obama did no better, but his answer was verbose so I refuse to quote it.
My point is that it has become accepted, nay standard procedure, to be vague, evasive, and vomit the same plans over and over again. While I'm no debate historian, and I'm sure it's been this way for the past couple of decades, it takes what should be an intellectual conversation and turns it into something wholly unilluminating. It's the opposite of intellect. There is nothing to gain for me to listen to these debates, aside from self-satisfaction having fulfilled what I believe to be a duty of all American voters. And even that is worth less and less.
So I finally posted some of my Lithuania pictures last week. They are mostly of ultimate-related things for now, including Ruddiger's Lithuanian Doppelganger. I have more pictures of other things and I will post them soon.
