Day 2: The Quickening

I woke up early, energized and ready to take on the tasks at hand: #1 Money. #2 Sheets & Stuff #3 an ethernet cable and other sundry doodads. Shouldn’t be too hard, right?

It turns out that most ATMs all over Japan only handle domestic cards. I would have known that if I had just bothered to check a Lonely Planet or any other guidebook. Sad, but something I should have been on top of. However, post offices were said to hold magical ATMs that would take international cards hooray for globalization and all that. So, I check a very sketchy map that they had put out in the common room last night and headed off into the early morning sauna.

Oh, did I mention it’s kinda warm here? I left the hotel at about 7. I passed a big digital readout on the way that said it was 28 degrees. That’s over 80 for those of us still stuck in the stone age of Fahrenheit. At 7 in the morning. Now, that’s actually not hot enough to combust crows out of the sky (lots of crows here), but it’s hot enough. Add to that, of course, a very very high humidity that feels a bit like Houston in the summer, and, well, not to put too fine a point on it, after a good stretch of walking, I’m well beyond the glistening phase, and closer to the basting phase. I have never really handled heat well. I am more of a artic kind of guy.

I actually love walking around a new place. For me, it’s the best way to get my bearings, and Japan seems to be fairly walker friendly. Like I said earlier, my hotel is in a very residential area, and it takes a good 7 or 8 minutes of hiking (we’re kind of on the top of a hill, too) to get out to the main roads. A little bit further and you’re to the train station. A bit more and you’re to the home furnishings store (it’s still closed though – too early). A bit more and you’re… where exactly? A bit more and… hmm wasn’t the post office supposed to be around here somewhere? Nice walk though. I ended up going well past the post office (it was down another street and there was a sign, but it was tiny). Sooo, I turned around and found the turnoff and went down a lovely tree covered road to a very blocky and imposing building that claimed it was the post office. In fact, the first sign that said post office (in English, I should have known better) turned out to be the cleverly named ‘Post Office’ corner shop. Alas, as I had only a couple of yen to my name, I left in search of a more suitable post office. As a side note for confusion’s sake, there was an ATM at the Post Office corner shop – domestic cards only.

One door down was the actual post office, with actual post office boxes and such, and thankfully I giant sign with an arrow pointing to the right with big blocky letters (English again, I should learn to be wary) saying ‘ATM.’ Good and nice. Unthankfully, the arrow pointed directly to a giant metal garage-door looking wall with a neatly stenciled notice in Japanese saying that the ATM was open only from 9-12 or so on Saturdays.

So the ATM was closed. Now, I’m not sure I understand the workings of banks or post offices, to say nothing of the post offices that act like banks and corner stores that seem to inhabit Japan, but isn’t it kind of the idea that ATMs are available 24-7? Isn’t the basic concept that because live tellers cost wages and benefits and such that ATMs are used to take care of basic transactions when and where you can’t afford to place tellers? Well, show’s what I know. Apparently, the labor laws in Japan are strict. Even the machines get time off. Shows what happens when you give too much authority to the robots.

Anyway. It’s 8. The ATM doesn’t open until 9. Harrumph. Well, let’s just walk around a bit more.

It’s another of those things that shouldn’t surprise me but does. Japan is a very green place. There are trees and bushes and plants – there are even a couple of posts given over to gardens inside the residential area. I’m a bit more happy than I should be to find vending machines everywhere. They are almost always drinks, and occasionally smokes. Alas, to date none have had the mythical Cucumber Pepsi, also I guess I’m not in the right area for used panties in a tube. Fret not, I’ll go into Tokyo proper soon.

A good deal of walking and the settling of a vaguely distilling image of the area in my mind later, I return to find, almost anti-clamactically, that the ATM works like a charm. Zip-zop, thousands of yen in my pocket. The side story to this is that usually when I do these kinds of outings, I have to do them on a credit card because I never get my funding money until I get back, sad but true. The problem is that I can’t seem to use my credit card for a cash advance there. I’ll have to try again maybe somewhere at a Citibank or something. The downside is that, of course, using my debit card eats away at money I need to fight beasts back home – rent, sundry other bills, and I simply don’t have enough cash on hand for this trip. Stay tuned. I could end up a shopping-cart pusher in downtown Tokyo! It’s probably as financially rewarding as grad-school work.

The rest of the day muddled along slowly. I found an electrical converter (they use the same plugs as in the US, but none of my sockets in my room have a grounding socket – and I thought I had that one covered!), ethernet cable (fun and flat, not round like in the states), bedding (try to imagine shopping for bedding when you don’t know how to say any of the following: Single, Double, Twin, mattress, mattress cover, sheet, duvet, duvet cover. Oh, and you also aren’t really sure what the size of your bed was to begin with. Fun!) I also picked up a selection of snacks (lovely candies I remember from the last time I was in Asia, lovely crackers I remember from the last time I was in Asia, debatably lovely ramen noodles – oh, and some juice, tea, a cup, bowl, and some chopsticks). It’s also worth noting that I really really really do support stores not giving away free bags, I really really really wish I had known that the grocery store didn’t do so, because juggling all that stuff on the way home (plus camera bag) was less than joyous. All of the purchases were basically reasonably priced, but when taken together, they put a fair dent in my walking around money. We shall see how this goes.

There are updates to the purchases.

When I got home another manager suggested that the ethernet cable was probably not worth it. The internet at the hotel has gone bananas, and isn’t reliable (and costs a monthly fee). I may still use it because, let’s face it, I’m an addict, but I’ll probably hold out for a couple of days to see how available public internet is.

While typing this, a very kindly older gentleman knocked on my door and delivered a mattress pad, a duvet and a pillow… and something else that looks like another mattress pad, but made out of what seems to be a towel-type material. Oh, and a pillow case. Of note there is no sheet or sheet-like items, save the pillow case. I did talk to the manager-guy about this, and the whole bedding thing seems to be a mixup on the schools end. They generally provide all this stuff before the students arrive, but didn’t this time around. Frankly, I’m still glad I got my own stuff. Oh, I forgot to mention that I also bought a towel – with a giant playboy bunny logo on it. Har, har. Photo-worthy, no doubt. I should hang it on the wall to decorate my swingin’ pad.

So, it’s getting late on day two, and although I don’t feel jet-laggy, I’m a bit tired, so I may just saunter down and see if I can log on to the public computer and post this, and then maybe head to sleep. We shall see.

Day One

It:s actually not really 24 hours though - time zones and datelines - who knows how long it was.

my appologies for formatting and such - I am using a public Japanese computer mostly cut-n-pasted from my laptop, and I am not really sure what I am doing.

General news if you don`t want to read the whole thing (it is really long): life`s good, I will get pictures up hopefully soon-ish :)

Well, I made it. I’m here in Japan, and I shouldn’t be surprised, but things have been both wonderful and wonderfully frustrating already. So - beginning the beginning.

Now we’ve already covered the whole idea that I’m not a respected scholar hosted by a fine academic institution here. I’m just a traveling student barely a step above the backpack and youth hostel crowd. Actually, maybe a step below. More on that under the ‘wonderfully frustrating’ heading in your hymnal. Because I had to get the ticket at such notice, I didn’t really get my first option for flying. That would be first class on a direct flight from my front yard to my hotel here. I had to settle for a coach flight from Hub of Doom to Taipei, then a connecting flight to Tokyo. It’s fun to look on the map and see that my plane flew very nearly over Japan on its way to Taiwan. If only I could have gotten a hold of a parachute I could have saved many hours off my itinerary. Also as a side note, I paid about the same price (within $50 I think) of the price offered three weeks ago. And I bought my ticket around 12 hours before wheels up. Fun, eh?

Props for the airline, even though we fly jets mainly now. China Air (not to be confused with Air China – next time I’ll make sure the shuttle bus driver understands the distinction) had monitors in the back of the seats, each of which was wired to a little video controller that slid out of the armrest. Hours of entertainment could be had playing poker, shoot-‘em-ups as well as various and also such games. I chose the movie channel. I got to see The Namesake (good but a bit muddled, even though I think that was the point), The Curse of the Golden Lotus (just awful, but quite pretty to look at. Maybe I should have turned off the audio), and Words and Music ( ?) (Very cute, and just what you’d expect it to be – mediocre mind-fluff)

All is well at the Taipei airport. I got a nice congee with peanuts and cucumbers and then set off to the plane switches were made with minimum fuss (although we were security screened again after we got off the first plane – eh?). I was off the ground again and on my way to Narita airport in Tokyo.

Now, I write that last bit as a joke. The airport codes might lead you to believe that Narita is in Tokyo, but that’s a cruel joke. Narita is hours away from Tokyo, but I get ahead of myself. I came in at about 12:30, cleared customs – a bit frightened to realize on completing the entry paperwork that I only had $12 in cash on me, and got my bag with only a minor kerfluffle (bag was - like Amazing Grace - thought lost, but then found. However, still to my knowledge cannot see). There was suppose to, but wasn’t anyone there to meet me. Or rather she was there, but at the wrong terminal, although I didn’t know that at the time. No, worries though, right? They’re probably late I’ll just hang out here for a while. A while goes by slowly. I’ll just call the school and let them know I’m here and they’ll figure things out. Except I don’t have any yen. No problem, I’ll find an ATM. All of which seem to be for domestic cards only. Ah ha! At last a Citibank ATM appears and I get some cash, buy a phone card (and a Coke – no cucumber Pepsi to be found yet) and call.

Why yes, she is there, she’s paged you a few times already and getting worried. Hooray! After an hour-long comedy of errors in which I’m convinced that she’s in the wrong terminal and she’s convinced she’s not, we get everything straightened out through the good offices of the information booths and a lot of paging. Thing is, she’s picking up some others over in that terminal. Apparently, that’s why she was over there in the first place. Sigh. No worries, I’ll wait over here until you pick them up.

Good thing I had a book, right?

Tah-dah and she arrives, leading me to a little café where I can sit and meet the others she has gathered while she goes off to find another wayward duckling. The crew so far is a big beefy Bahaman wearing a suit which miraculously is in perfect shape after about 20 hours on planes and even – gasp! – going through ATL, a tousled Hong Konger who once opened a snack shop in Shanghai – ‘it went pretty well while it was new and exciting, but the new wore off and then it didn’t do so well,’ and me. I learn that our poor guide isn’t the one normally tasked to do this and she’s really afraid she’s screwed the whole thing up.

In fact, she’s done quite well in shepherding the last of our gang, a French man who speaks flawless English with only a hint of an accent, to our table. Then we strategize on how to get to the hotel. Our Japanese is abysmal, but her English is passable, so we eventually tease out our options. It’s now about 4pm-ish, and we can take the ambitiously-titled ‘limousine bus,’ which she worries will be hopelessly caught in traffic, or we can take the train, which she worries will have too many transfers and ‘maybe there won’t be any escalators.’ I should mention that at this point, the idea that we’ve got another 3-4 hours of travel ahead was not cheer-inducing.

In any case, no one seemed to have any strong opinions on the matter, so because I’m nearly always a fan of trains when I can be (I’m looking at you Amtrak), I say let’s take the train, and whoosh, we’re off. The train was actually really nice. There were only two transfers and fairly easy ones, although there was a little squishing and shoving on the last train – nothing worse than in NYC though, and it was mainly because of our luggage. After the last train, we get out at the station nearest our hotel and because it’s getting dark, and starting to drizzle a bit out intrepid host springs for a couple of taxis for the rest of the trip.

Now, all this time I’ve been calling it a hotel, but it really is more like a student hostel or a foreigner commune. It’s nestled in a very residential area about a 10-15 minute walk from the station. Pretty cozy, really. However, there are some unexpected surprises. First – no sheets. No towels. No pre-wired internet. Bathroom down the hall and shower downstairs. Now, honestly, most of that isn’t a big problem with me, but the thing is I didn’t know about it beforehand. So I didn’t bring sheets or towels or anything else – hangers? Who packs hangers?

The manger on duty seemed a bit surprised that we didn’t know about all this, so I’ll lay the blame on the school for not getting the info to us. The other downside is that it’s already 8:30 and everywhere that we might have been able to get such sundries is closed. And in any case, my last yen went to pay the deposit for the room (that one was my fault. I was told about the deposit before). The manager very kindly lends us some sheets (but no towels are available – no shower tonight after nearly a full day in the air for you!), and while the rest of our merry crew heads out to get a bite to eat, I’m feeling oh-so tired (I did a 4 mile run before I realized I was going to be on a plane that same night – not such a good idea as it turns out), so I crash on my borrowed-sheet-clad bed.

...Pre-Flight. Zero Hour, 1am...

Ok, Since I'm as packed as I'm going to be (read: whatever I've forgotten to pack is already forgotten) and It's a bit early to head to the airport - a little more info about the trip.

This was the summer trip I mentioned a long time ago that was very pending on me finding funding. Then about 2 or 3 months ago, the main school I was heading to filled up and I was on the wrong side of the waitlist line. There was another school that I could go to (and still use the partial funding that I had finally gotten), and bonus - they accept late enrollment. Hooray for the enablers of procrastination!

Then things got weird. er. So I applied to attend a July 2nd to August 27th class, but there was a problem with my application and then I applied again, but the class I applied for was full, but then I realized the class they tried to put me in was not the class I needed to be in because I needed to be in that class over there, which suddenly also was full, but they could get me in the same class but shorter, starting July 17th.



But then, this morning I get an email saying hey - remember that class you're taking? You can take the one that starts on the 17th like we arranged, but someone canceled out of the one that starts on the 2nd. Do you want that one?

Yes and thank you I do.

Oh, but you need to be here Friday before close of business because the place you're staying won't be open to check you in if you get in late.

So. That's how I get the 1am plane tonight. So I can get there noon-ish on Friday in time to check in before everyone goes home for the weekend.

So I get a weekend in Tokyo before class starts.

Did I mention that I know nothing of Tokyo and my Japanese is awful? I'm pretty sure I haven't. I think I'd remember if that had come up in the past.

For Scrivener: The Humanities is (are) a harsh mistress. She teases me with summers in Tokyo, and then crushes me with the black patent leather spiked heel of un-hirable-ness. On the other hand, I got my poetic license on the cheap so I can make up words like 'un-hirable-ness'

For Brightstar: Well, in all honesty, a lot of it is my own blasted fault, so I really don't have a whole lot of room to be miffed. In the end, I'm going to Tokyo almost entirely on grants and fellowships (I'll still be in the red when I come back, I'm sure, but not as badly as it could have been. My department even ponied up a little bit - yeah department!). I'm pretty happy on the whole. Ask me again after a bazillion hour plane flight.

For Ianqui: I will most certainly be on the lookout for Engrish. It will be so much fun not having to hide where I am! I'll be in Japan! Can't really hide that :) On that topic. I took a really freaky-amazing photo today, but it's freaky-amazing in a 'Only in X' kind of way. Alas, I won't, because it would seriously give me away, but ah, sigh...

My apologies to all for being a bit dodgey and not talking about the trip, but it really was touch and go for a while, and I didn't want to get my own hopes up my writing too much about it.

Wow. That was a really long post. Did you actually read it all? Yeesh, especially that 3rd paragraph. Who let me into grad school?

Change in Plans

Original plan: Go to Tokyo to start a summer class on the 17th.

Changed plan: find out this morning plans drastically changed. Find out this afternoon plans have dramatically changed. Class now begins on the 2nd. Of July.

Tonight: Pack and get on a 1am flight to Tokyo so I can check in to the student housing on Friday - damnable international date line.

Where to start?

Needless to say, I'll be a little off on the 365 shots and blog. On the plus side, I should be getting some great photos over there :)

Let's All Go To The Lobby!

Aaaaand We're Back

We being myself and the frog in my pocket.

So I took a bit of a summer vacation on really short notice - That's why I didn't give notice here. After my google-enforced disappearance earlier, I should have been more kind and let you all know. Sorry about that.

Anyway, I flew way over to visit my family up in the incredible bay cities. There was a mom, a sister-blogger (arguably - she doesn't update much :) ), a brother-blogger, a couple of nieces a brother-in-law and even a Zero-blogger. Add in a couple of cats and several days of wandering all over the area, and much fun was had by all.

Naturally, there were billions and billions of photos taken. I'm editing and uploading as we speak. Of course, you won't get to see the people pictures. There are several painfully cute pictures of the nieces. You'll just have to imagine those.

I'll post a bit more about the trip later

Title Envy

Great minds think alike?

Also, I'm sure this is ancient, but I'm happy that someone figured out what the heck they were singing:

Beware A Stiff Wind

It looks like the last of the voluptuous sex-symbols has gone Twiggy on us. Angelina Jolie on the Daily Show looked frikkin' skeletal. Ok, so she was never of human proportions, but at least she used to have curves aside from her boobs.

And she didn't really seem as bright as I had been led to believe.

Sigh...

Ugh

I loath sending the "You didn't get your 'A'" emails. I actually don't mind the "You failed" emails or the "You plagiarized so I'm hoping to get you kicked out of the university emails" nearly as much. It's so hard to explain to students - the ones I respect and know that worked hard - that they did really well, but slipped up on a minor but testable item. I know that so many students at my school just don't get A-s. Their parents are going to freak out. They think their chances for grad/med/law school are completely shot. I hate being the guy that gets to explain it to them.

It would be so much easier if I really didn't like them.

Kinda makes Deal or No Deal seem Pathetic

Won't My Mommy Besoproudofme?

Funny story. So yesterday I went wandering and found a funny sign. Here it is:

Ha ha very funny, right?

I think I offended the bee gods. Out for a morning run, they had obviously set a trap for me. I'm sure they scouted my path. I run it often, so there'd be no problem there. The best place for a special assault ambush would be on the part of the trail that weaves around the shrubbery (ni!). I was completely unawares, happily bopping along while a lone courageous bee made her final arrangements.

Finally I passed the go-point and she rushed at me. Into my mouth! I reflexively coughed her out, but by then it was too late. She had made her glorious attack striking deep at the back of my throat and would no doubt be a heroine mourned well and long at one of those honey-soaked bacchanals we've heard so much about.

So. Anyway, it doesn't seem too bad. I'm not allergic, thank goodness. I checked my throat in the mirror and I can see where I got stung. It's a bit swollen, but it doesn't seem to be affecting my breathing or swallowing. The cool thing is that my voice has dropped an octave.

Personally I think this calls for ice cream and movies.

Bonus points for anyone who can sing the rest of the song from the title.

The Luring

Ah yes and again. Ahem... I am attempting to lure an old and dear friend out from the darkness into the blogworld. Well, she has a blog, but it's only got a couple of entries. Anyway, the excuse I'm using to post about her is that she's coined one of the bestest words evar. In her excuse for probably not posting, she said that she was blogshy.

Blogshy. Genius

Ok, a quick googling show that she ain't the first to use the word, but it's the first time I've heard it so, I say she wins.

Feel free to use the word in your daily conversations.

That is all.

For Crying Out Loud

Mini-rant:

Ok, I know you are terrified of the students coming back to argue grades. I know we must have evidence of all the ways in which we evaluate students despite the fact that we are in a very subjective course. However, I simply do not understand your eldritch tome of GRAADBUK. Seriously. I'm ok in excel, I'm good in all the possible online versions you could be using, I would even be happy with a pen and piece of graph paper, but ye gods, what we use is a monstrosity. I know it was lovingly crafted for you years ago by an OCD TA you must have truly loved, but well, I must simply fall far short of that person.

So after round one going over my grades, I am chastised. I return home to repent and call on the spirits above and percentages below to reform my numbers. I shall return to your office and begin round two.

Honestly?

Proof That I Must Be A Lesbian

So, Maxim put out their Top 100 Hot Women of 2007. Hot, sure. Pretty, but pretty shallow. I much prefer the Top 100 Hot Women list provided by AfterEllen.com voted on by their much more lesbian-friendly audience. Well, I guess I should say that the readership of Maxim is also probably pro-lesbian, but not in the same way.

Proof here: Maxim's #1? Lindsay Lohan. Yeah, there's nothing hotter than a coke addict.

Also in objectification news, China, ever the bastion of equality and haven for the oppressed, has decided that hostesses for the Olympics are not allowed to have big bottoms. Or tattoos.

"Bone structure and height should be uniform," she said. "For example, we don't want any wide bottoms."

Good lord, the US will never be allowed to host again.

Know Your Blogger

I know most everyone got done with spring classes a long time ago, but I just got done with mine. Well, all but the grading. So thus ends my first academic year at USU. I don't think I'm ready to put together a full review of the year. Hopefully that will come later.

That being said, when I thought the blog was gone, I figured I would start a new one. I was going to start off with a State of the Overread. Anyway, the blog was saved, but I still feel like I should do a bit of a status report.

Overread, one each.

• Physical Characteristics:
  
• Body:
• Shortish, a touch on the heavy side.
  
• Hair:
• Brown hair everywhere
  
• I can sing most of the musical 'Hair.' Badly.
• Other:
• bad eyes (also brown)
  
• legs that can run for a long time when forced
• Family:
  
• Older brother, Older sister, mother and assorted others that aren't online and thus won't be mentioned. All amazing people. Some even have blogs if you know where to look.
  
• Personal Life:
• Undetectable by modern scientific means. It's probably time to head to the online matchmaker site, or.... the mail-order bride sites?
  
• Point of Origin:
  
• Smack dab in the middle of the US
• Current Location:
  
• Urban Sprawl University
  
• Education Status:
• First attempt at university (Kashyyyk U) with a theatre degree terminated due to opportunity to make fame and fortune in NYC.
• Sidenote: fame and fortune not made in NYC or elsewhere. Well, yet.
  
• BA (Partyschool U) in Gruub Studies
  
• MA (Partyschool U) in Gruub Studies
  
• 1 year of PhD completed in Gruub studies
  
• Current Projects:
  
• Paper on [REDACTED] due in the spring: Very interesting, possibly dissertation feed-in material (which is very cool and terrifying at the same time). Unfortunately, only partially finished and most likely to be delayed
  
• Paper on [REDACTED] due in the fall: Also very interesting, but a very big stretch for me (You mean I have to research what? Umm... How exactly?), and probably not particularly useful for the dissertation.
• Plans for the Future:
• Summer: still up in the air. There are hopes for a 8 week trip to [To be announced later]
• Fall:
  
• Seminars out the wazoo
• Another year of TAing (the same class I TAed this last year. Hopefully that means less class prep)
• Lottery win.
  

Link Dump

While the blog was gone, I accumulated a few links. Enjoy!

1. Most of those movie junket interviews are pretty pathetic, but here's one from the Ocean's 13 crew that's really hilarious. More actors should take things that seriously
2. Ever wanted to know what it would look like if Las Vegas teenager drew the US mainland from memory? Sure you have. Thank goodness for the internet.
3. The coolest thing ever is attaching a camera with a timer onto your cat and then letting him out to roam the neighbor hood. Mr. Lee is here
   

I Get Knocked Down!

But I get up again! (insert slam dancing here)

So, after a very odd week, the Overread Empire returns! I'm still in the dark as to what exactly happened, but here's what I do know:

1. Last Friday (the 1st, right?) afternoon, I suddenly couldn't log in to gmail with my Overead login. The error was something like "the login and password do not match. You typed 'Overread.'" The entire account was just gone. Odd.

2. Then I checked the blogs. Poof-gone. They all showed up as 404 errors. "These are not the blogs you're looking for."

3. After some forum-diving, I discovered that this has happened to several people in the past and they are all unsure of what's causing it. Some are saying that their passwords were compromised and some griefer came in and deleted the accounts, but that seems very improbable to me. Others are saying it was an overactive 'bot that Google uses to shut down spamblogs. That sounds a little more possible, but not much more plausible.

4. An email to googlehelp first returned a not-too-helpful note saying that they could only restore access if I asked within a reasonable about of time. So I reminded them that the original email I sent was sent the same day as the outage.

5. Today's email from Google told me they had restored access. It looks like the blogs survived, but the email from my Overread account is all gone. I'm lucky because I didn't keep anything too vital in that account, but if my main email were zapped like that I'd be in big trouble. One of the reasons that I switched over to gmail (and it sounds like Scrivener is in the same boat) was so that I could have a near-bottomless pit for searchable old emails. So now I'm wandering if I need to start backing up my gmail somewhere else. What a hassle.

I'm really not sure how to react to this. When they were gone, I thought this was going to be a good zen exercise in letting go of my attachments. Maybe it was time for a rebranding of the Overread name. I'm certainly glad that Google got my access back, but my emails....

In any case, I'm back now. Thanks to all of you who sent me notes through flickr and other ways to ask about me. I am very touched by the sentiments.

Edited to add that although there are no real emails in my overread account I have 333 spam emails going back to May 1. Thank goodness those were saved.

Overread in Green Part 2

This edition: The cast of characters from my army days.

The Gomer
He was simply incapable of doing anything right. He couldn't make it to formation on time. He wasn't prepared for inspections. No one counted on him to do anything correctly, with one exception. He was very good at one of the main jobs we were supposed to do. So that's what he did. He was a really nice guy though. It actually really worked out really well for him. Everyone knew better than to give him important jobs, so he didn't have to stress about anything. He'll never need to worry about screwing up too bad because the army will take care of him. We came in at the same time, and when I was screaming at the walls in frustration, he was getting ready to sign up again. He could still be in for all I know.

The Family Man
This guy was unique. He was a young guy, but already married and had 3 kids. He was a big good-ol' boy with a perfect southern twang. He was a cussing, poker-playing SOB who would backtalk the officers and get away with it. He was famous for convincing the NCOs that there was no need to go on the long runs - a good basketball game would be just as good for us. He had been a hard blackout-style drinker, but when his wife asked him to quit cold-turkey, he did. He also had a MA in the history of Arabic people in southern Spain, but he didn't like to talk about it too much. The trick was that he was pretty convinced that he would never be able to leave the army. Even with his army salary and benefits, he was still on food stamps. Without the army services (childcare, health, family support etc...) he said there was no was he could survive on the outside. He hated the army, but he knew how to game the system. He's probably still in, but doing fine.

The Closet Cases
Don't ask, don't tell, my ass. There are plenty of homosexuals and bisexuals in the service, and they're asking and telling, at least where I was. The trick is, that nobody really cared unless you wanted to make a scene. For example, even the woman who went to the middle of the main room at the air force bar and played tonsil-hockey with a civilian woman probably wouldn't have been an issue if she hadn't really wanted out of the air force anyway. On the other hand, one of the strongest, most gifted, most motivated soldiers that I knew in the service got so frustrated with the way things were being run that she went to her superior and simply told him. Of course, he already knew and told her that she shouldn't 'tell.' Then she told him again, and said she meant it. He had to start up the paperwork.

Volunteers
Speaking of trying to get out, I would be remiss if I didn't include the others who got kicked out for one reason or another. The sad case was the guy who was brilliant at the job we did as well as a very important related field. The thing was, that he was a big guy, tall and a bit overweight, too. Now, all soldiers are soldiers first, so he had to be able to do all the soldiering tasks, one of which is a whole lot of running. He ran and ran and ran. We ran with him and tried to encourage him, but eventually, he just couldn't run fast enough. Boot. Then there were the eating disorders. If you tend to obsess over your weight, the army is not the place for you, because, just like if you are unable to run fast enough, if your weight is off, then you're out. So, for the woman who just decided the army wasn't for her, there's one easy (but nasty) way out. Drink ranch dressing. Drink a lot of ranch dressing. Weight goes up, poof! She goes civilian. Of course on the other end of that was the young officer who ran a little under 10 miles per day and once guiltily admitted that as a treat for herself, she didn't peel her 5 grapes that she had for lunch. She was pretty short, but might have weighed 85 pounds soaking wet. The last I heard of her was that the navy 'reassigned' her so she could do a different job while receiving some counseling.

And then of course, there was me :)

Overread in Green Part 1

Funny, I mentioned that I was in the army in the last post. The funny part is that I almost always feel I have to explain that, and I still have mixed feelings about the whole thing. So, poof - a fitting post (or 2) for this weekend!

I'm not the kind of person who I think seems like an army guy. I really don't like guns. I'm generally against military adventures abroad. I'm not religious (a huge part of the modern US Army). I really don't care for the regimented military-style brainwashing either.

So, what was I doing in the army? Well, there was the fact that I hadn't finished school. The GI Bill ended up getting me a whole lot of cash so I could go back (thanks taxpayers!). There was also the fact that my attempt to make a living as an actor was fallen apart (another post for another day). I didn't have a whole lot of options.

Now, that's all well and good, and plenty of people join the service for those reasons. The army is brimming with people who felt at the end of their rope. That's one of the problems with our army as well as one of its advantages.

But, well, the other reason I joined up... It's pretty funny because I always feel a bit silly bringing it up. I really wanted to serve. I truly feel that people should do what they can to help their nation.

There's a bit of me that wishes we had a mandatory program of service in the US. Everyone would serve in the military, peace corps, the state department, or some other office for a couple of years. I really think that it would help to allow regular folks an idea of how things work there, and there's no doubt the nation would be better off for the service.

The volunteer army is a really impressive thing, but perhaps if a more broad cross-section of people were in BDUs, we wouldn't be so cavalier about sending them places where they shouldn't go.

A Herculean Post

Could we please, as speakers of English, stop overusing the word "hero?" Please?

The crossing guard at your school is not a hero. The librarian who stops your child from watching internet porn is not a hero. Politicians are not heroes. Pilots are generally not heroes. Not all soldiers are heroes. Some, perhaps, but not all. Trust me, I was in the army. I know.

Even if you do something good or important, that does not make you a hero. It has to be heroic. See what I did there? It's English. It's a pretty wonderful language.

Also, any talking head who cannot make sense of the title "Celebrated Leaping Frog of Calaveras County" should be immediately fired. Seriously, I think she said something like "Calaras country." Yeesh. I'm going to make a great curmudgeon - "Don't they teach Twain in the schools anymore?"

Why do I keep watching CNN?

Finally, President Carter rocks. Could we re-elect him?

Link Dump From Beyond!

Completely random, but they've been lurking in my browser tabs, so I'm putting them here so that I can delete the tabs. Fun eh?

1. Comparative Maps Of Subway Systems - Alas, would that my current city had a London-size tube. My. That sounded very rude, didn't it? Fun for fans of public transit!
   
2. Boomshine Game - I'm pretty sure that I linked this before, but I'm lazy and I don't want to look. Very fun soothing flash game. try to get all the dots to blow up in pretty lights and colors. Fun for those who enjoy pretty lights and colors!
   
3. Who Said It Quiz - try and guess who said the quote. Was it Osama bin Laden or either Jerry Falwell or Pat Robertson. Fun for the whole extremist family!
4. Alice and Jabberwocky Over Tea - What would happen if you put two relatively advanced Turing chatting programs in a room together? Funny, and intriguing too!
5. Color Photos From World War I - I've seen a few sites like this one, but this one seems to have more photos and many I haven't seen before at all. It's eerie to look at the people who lived during that time. Fun for... well, not fun really, kind of sobering and fascinating for history-geeks.
6. Archive of Dime Novel Covers - very freaky but a hoot to browse through. Fun for strapping young men of adventure and their winsome women who stay in their place.

Whew. Well, I'm spent.

Maybe, but I Don't Have His Metaclorians, or Thetans, or Whatevertheycallems

Your results:
You are Obi-Wan Kenobi

Obi-Wan Kenobi 63% Yoda 61% R2-D2 60% Luke Skywalker 59% Lando Calrissian 57% Han Solo 56% Darth Maul 56% C-3PO 55% Chewbacca 55% Qui-Gon Jinn 54%

You are civilized, calm, and have a good sense of humor, even when those around you don't. You can hold your own in a fight, but prefer it when things don't get too exciting.

(This list displays the top 10 results out of a possible 21 characters)


Click here to take the Star Wars Personality Quiz


Via the most excellent Phantom Scribbler

I Know It Won't Fit, But...

To quote Scrivener (and I'm going to be doing that a lot):

Fucking Humanities. (although to be honest, I should have added, "Oh the Humanities!")

Here's a cartoon.

Disant Lands and More Distant Salaries

Well, I hinted over at the photoblog that I might be heading somewhere fun for the summer. Now, I'm not quite ready to give too much more info, lest I jinx it all, and because it's still not completely settled. I did get a partial chunk o' funding. I won't cover all my expenses, but most anyway. So all that's really left is getting the arrangements settled with the umm... organization over there. So, I'm optimistic, but there's still a lot of maybe hovering around.

So. Basic info:
Time: 8 week trip (plus or minus a few days)
Place: Very interesting place I've never been before, and I will tell you if I do get to go (you'd know from the pictures anyway :) )
Reason: It's vaguely academic, but I'll keep the specifics to myself.

On a side note, my roommate just got two tech industry job offers with starting salaries that I can only dream of seeing after years and years and years and years of work. Ah. Happy for him, but Ah.

Humanities. Why did it have to be humanities?

Tha's a Lotta Ocelot

I've got an ocelot Daemon. That's modest, spontaneous, solitary, assertive and inquisitive.

That's what this Golden Compass quiz told me, anyway. I wanted to read these back when I had free time, but never got around to it. No big surprise they're making a movie out of it.

What did you get?

(what are the odds I'll use the ocelot tag again? :) )

Edited: for ungolgenizing

Happy Mother's Day

It's more than just pink bats at the ballpark, dontcha know.

Just got off the phone with my mom. She's a wonderful person and deserves more than a single day. Maybe a week or two at least. I mean she raised me and my two wild and crazy siblings, along with a rotating menagerie of neighbors' kids and they more flea-bearing variety (although the difference isn't as great as one might hope, especially where I grew up). That's got to be worth more than a paltry 24 hours. I mean, for crying out loud, Bush declared the dangerous May Day to Patriotism Day. My mom's worth more time than that little political joy buzzer is worth.

Joy and most good wishes to you mom, and Mendi-la and all the other wonderful moms out there among my handful of remaining readers.

Harry Potter = Luke Skywalker

Brilliant

Jesus Camp

I finally got a bit of time to dive into the Netflix pile, and the one on top was Jesus Camp.

I'm not going to write a full review or anything, but it's worth a quick post. I knew it was going to be rough, but it's hard to compare thinking about it from what I'd heard with actually watching it. It's truly terrifying. At one point the main pastor says that she thinks the film will have liberals shaking in their boots. I guess I am, but I don't think it's in the way she thought I would be.

It was so hard to watch the children. They were so sweet and innocent, and I could just feel them having every bit of their childhood stripped away. Harry Potter is satanic. Ghost stories on a thunderous night aren't godly. Any trouble you have believing in god is an opportunity not for discussion and consideration, but for shame and public humiliation. The image of the little boy sobbing in front of the whole church because he felt it was hard for him to believe in a god you couldn't see was crushing.

I hope that people do see this movie. The main pastor equates her militant fundamentalist training the young with the violent fundamentalist training of 'the enemy.' The attitudes of many of the people in the documentary are dangerous to those of any (or no) faith.

The worst thing is that I hope they're completely wrong. I hope that they will fail utterly. I hope that they and extremists and fundamentalists are a freak minority. If my hopes come true, then those sweet innocent children will be in for a life of frustration, disappointment and failure. What a horrible thing.

Fox Paws

• When serving as a radio announcer and coming across the phrase "The Queen on England dined at the White house last evening," Please enunciate all of the 'n' sounds clearly. Otherwise, a listener who has just woken up might freak out.
• Ok, I realize it's getting hot here, but seriously, if the hem of your skirt only falls two inches below your belt, at least put a book or something in your lap when you sit down. It's not really cute. It's not really sexy. It's a little discomforting to all around.
  
• On the other hand, I'm sure everyone you met today would agree that the blue and white striped panties were a good call.
• Clothes that I think are okay to wear when answering the door for Chinese food delivery are not always suitable when I have to walk halfway across the complex to try and find the delivery guy.
• While the emotional victory of a good run does allow Chinese delivery, it does not balance the massive caloric weight of said Chinese food.
• When you are in the bathroom and you hear a clock alarm go off, and you think, "Hey that sounds like mine. I wonder who else around here has my alarm?" You really should go turn off your alarm.
  

Thank You Iceland

A Hillary Reference and a vodka commercial. That's good stuff. I never knew puffins were so frisky though.

I'll never get lost again

A map of the internet

Political Link Dump

• May 1st is only Labor Day everywhere but the US. Thanks to our intrepid leader, May 1st is "Loyalty Day" from now on.
• By the way, on Loyalty Day, Americans are encouraged to, "express their loyalty to the United States by flying the flag, participating in our democracy, and learning more about our country's grand story of courage and simple dream of dignity." Therefore I will participate in democracy by calling our president a twit.
• Bill Moyers interviews Jon Stewart.
  
• I really like Jon's take on the Gonzales fiasco. It seems incomprehensible to me that Gonzales is truly that incompetent or ignorant. He's just falling on his sword like a good little foot soldier. The longer he can draw heat and anger away from the president, the better for he's preformed. No wonder Bush has more confidence in him than ever before.
• Watch the interview with Josh Marshall too. There's some very wonkish stuff in there, but it may help in understanding the firings.
• 
  

Grease is the Word

So every Thursday is happy hour night at the local campus bar. Half price booze and half price deep-fried everything. Oh, and nachos.

But it's from 4-6. So, I always think I'm going to get work done afterward.

I'm funny like that.

And I'm not getting any work done tonight.

Ah, good times.

Best Typo Ever.

This is related to the sections before and after, but basically elf-sufficient in its argument.

Well, most of my arguments are rather founded on the mythical...

I'm glad I caught it before submitting it to this week's seminar group, but I've half a mind (I know) to keep it in there.

elf-sufficient. That's almost as good as significant otter.

Trappings of Wisdom

1. PhD dissertation for someone out there: How is it possible for headphone wires to get so impossibly tangled.

2. I like to think about what the ancient masters that I'm reading right now might think about me reading their deep words of wisdom while listening to Derek and the Dominoes. I like to think that this particular author I'm reading would be furious. Somehow it makes me smile.

Confidential to Dude in the Back Row

Ok, so the class I'm TAing for is a large one, and when I go to lectures I always try to sit inconspicuously in the back to see what the students do during lecture. You can probably figure it out. The ones up close are listening intently and scribbling notes. The students back by me? well... Here's a quick list

• In the annoying but not completely horrific category:
• Texting (xJust about everyone)
• In the distracting and annoying category:
• getting up and leaving out the loud doorway in the middle of lecture (x2)
  
• In the why don't you just stay home category:
• Solitaire on the laptop
• Soduku (x3 or 4)
• Sleeping
• In the Oh my god get a room! category:
• rubbing the upper inner thigh of the girl next to you. Constantly. For nearly the entire lecture. Yeesh. Who knew Gruub studies gets people so hot and bothered.
  

On another completely random note, in case you didn't know how, here's some excerpts from the book, On Becoming a Woman. It's filled with such useful information about how to avoid lesbian relationships, and the dangers of masturbation. Remember! Circumcision is always an option if you can find the right "Christian doctor." Brought to you by the loving care of 1951 misogyny.

• 
  

VT

I guess it's not surprising, but I've gotten very caught up in the coverage of the Virginia Tech shootings. I talked briefly before class about it, but many students hadn't even heard the news. Several didn't seem to be very impacted at all. I'm not sure how to take that. Maybe they'll deal with it later.

I am getting frustrated with so many people on tv saying that we as a society are programming violence into ourselves with our films, TV and video games. I have no evidence to support this, but it seems that, if anything, the people of the world now are more willing to not kill each other over their differences than in the past. What has changed is that we have more effective technology to carry out the violence that does exist. A small group of extremists can terrorize a global power. One man can destroy more life with a pair of guns than he could with a knife. The end result of this raging simply could not have been as horrific if he didn't have access to the pistols. I don't think effective gun control is possible or even practical in the US, at least in the foreseeable future, but I do hope this spurs debate leading into the election year.

That being said, it's naive to say that because one man can cause such damage that we as a society are inherently more violent. Movies and video games didn't give this man the idea to go out and kill people any more than watching Medea makes you want to kill your children or reading the bible makes you want to commit genocide. After investigation, we may discover that he played Grand Theft Auto, or watched 300 or Grindhouse. Many people will try to use this to push against these media. I hope they fail. I hope that we can see past such a simplistic argument, but I'm probably wrong.

To my friends and family, I'm not at Virginia Tech, but I'm ok, and I hope you are too.

M

This is post #1000

Woot.

On May 20, 2005, I started the blog with these immortal words:

So I'm grading papers again.

Ah, it seems like yesterday. Actually it seems like my life hasn't moved forward at all, because I've got a monster stack of grading sitting here waiting to be taken care of tonight.

In reality, many things of life-shaking import have happened to me in that time. I've broken up with a very long-term girlfriend. I've decided to attempt to get my PhD and eventually ended up here at USU's PhD program, but I imagine if you were to take anyone's span of nearly two years, you'd get pretty similar stuff. I'm not particularly unique or interesting, and thus my life is the perfect fodder for a blog. In fact, based on that criteria, I should probably start a webcast. Alas, I haven't been writing (or reading) blogs much lately, but I shall endeavor to correct these failings in the future.

So, that's all the navel-gazing I've got time for today. Thanks to all who drop by and double thanks to all who drop by and comment on my ramblings. In some sense, it's odd to be so pleased to get to know so many people who, for all I know, could be very advanced Eliza-bots. If you don't tell me, I'd be shattered. That's not true really. Regardless of who or what you are, I'm extremely happy to host you all here at my little niche of the intertubes.

A Big Drip

Funny thing. I wanted to try out some new things adding cayro syrup to my drip photography. I was going to try to get the syrup to try to add surface tension to the drippity drops to make longer stringy things, but in the end, I pretty much did what I did the last few times. The problems were the same too. It's the drip rig that's causing the most trouble. I'm using a soda bottle with a hole in the bottom. I've been adjusting the cap to change the speed of drips, but it usually ends up either on (too fast) or off (no drips). Feh. I guess I need to rebuild from the bottom up. Still. I got a whole poopload of shots. They just finished downloading, so I'll go see if any turned out ok. Check my flicker for updates if you're interested.

Plan Your Vacations Accordingly

Well, this raises more questions than it answers:

Orange dots = more single women than men
Blue dots = more single men than women

It says it's from the National Geographic Magazine, but I don't get that anymore, and I couldn't find it on their website, so I'm not completely convinced. However, I saw it on the internets, so it's got to be true, right?

So what's up with the man-heavy west coast eh? And what did the east coast do with all their guys? And for crying out loud, New England's at least got spots of blue over there, but the south looks like they got rid of all their men. Spooky I tells ya.

Down the Stream of Consciousness Without a Paddle

Randomness of my life:

• I picked the 'make me happy' class, and I'm really loving it. I'm naturally in over my head, but it's in a good way. I'm spending nearly the entire weekend on the material and having a great time. I hope I leave time for the rest of my other stuff
• I simply love Simon and Garfunkel. I think Paul Simon is perhaps my favoritest of all singer/songwriters. Absolutely the bee's knees. However. I stumbled onto the 2004 reunion concert album and... well... I'll be charitable and say they might have needed a little more rehearsal time... Like a lot more rehearsal time. And I know I'm biased, but it was mostly Art. Poor, poor Art.
  
• That being said, I would have loved to be there.
• Was that last point deserving of its own bullet?
• I'm getting really close to post #1000 on this here blog. I was going to try to think of a way to celebrate or something, but I've missed every other blogoversary-type milestone, so I figure I'll probably forget about this one, too.
• Seriously. I'm on 997 or something.
  
• I can't believe Molly Ringwald's parents forgot about her birthday.
• It's even more unbelievable that she ended up with that big dim hunk-dude.
• Then again, she was pretty messed up, too.
• I despise what CNN has become, but I flipped it on this morning really quickly to see that Rosie O'whatsherface thinks that there were explosives rigged in one of the WTC buildings.
  
• Dear lord.
• That's just awful on so many levels.
• level 1 - I understand that some people need coping mechanisms to deal with the idea that we live in a world that seems to be very random and very dangerous, but when did Rosie's nutjob conspiracy theories become news?
• level 2 - Is Rosie a structural engineer now? I think she should stay a comedienne. She's good at that.
  
• level 3 fighters only can have 30 hit points unless there's something special about 'em.
  
• Or at least they could the last time I played.
  
• That was more than ten years ago.
• Rosie the Riveter I might trust, but that Rosie, no thanks. And I used to like her.
• That was also about ten years ago.
• Actually, I still think she's funny.
  
• Did I mention that I was working really hard this entire weekend?
• Yeah, I think I did.
• I worry now that you don't believe me.
• Because I highly value your opinions about me.
• Oh, you anonymous denizens of the intertubes, don't think me a liar.
  
• Even though I am.
  
• I like how my tags are completely useless and run miles and miles down the side of the blog. That makes me smile.
• What are the odds of my getting more "Molly Ringwald" posts?
  
• Ok, I think I've abused the good graces of the bullet point format as much as possible.
• And I need to get back to work.
• Did you actually read all of this?
• Tagging this is going to be fun
• You're procrastinating, too, aren't you?
• Get back to work.
  

Deconstructing Deconstruction

Link Dump (ok, only two, but still):

• Just got this from a friend. I present to you "How To Deconstruct Anything"
• The best flash game if you have a Wacom tablet. Also known as the most frustrating flash game if you don't have a Wacom tablet.
  

Also, the History Channel is showing Planet of the Apes.

The History Channel.

To Your Left, In His Natural Habitat, An Overread...

Spring is arriving and with it the campus tours. I really enjoy watching these pass by when I can. I especially love watching the students. Some are trying to be oh, so over it all and oozing with disdain simply because they must be seen with the rents, but some you can actually see are really excited about maybe coming here. They're pointing out cool campus parts and even listening to the tour guides.

Ah the tour guides. It's like the Disneyland Safari tour without the funny.

Master of the backward walk:

"Here is the X Library, it's one of the real libraries here on campus. It's also known as the grad library because it's where all the grad students go. It's actually quiet in there for when you need to really study."

(overheard by me giggling about how I just got a book from a 'real' library.)

Behind Door #1?

So there are two classes.

Neither are directly related to what I'm all about here. One class is in a hot related field that might look really nice on a resume. If I could teach a class about it, it might be a nice selling point when I go job hunting, see?

The other class is a more hard-core old-school class that might not look nearly as sexy to a hiring committee.

I've sat in once on each class, and although I would like to take both, I know I can't take both because of the work load and other things I'm doing now. (Aside: why do all the classes come up at the exact same time?) It's not that I don't like Class #1 - I do, but I really like Class #2 much better. It's delving into some of the stuff that originally got me excited about my field in the first place at a level I've never really been able to work on. Well, actually, I've pretty much decided that I'm going to attend it simply based on me liking the class (and the prof and the others in the class).

Now, I know in my brain that I should be ok with that. In fact I could celebrate the idea that I'm looking for my own happiness within my options and not slaving myself to what I think others might want of me.

But.

I do have a little bit of nagging nagging at the back of my head. It's telling me that there are no jobs out there and if I don't want to be waiting tables at Denny's, I'd better get the academic boob job by taking all the hot classes so I can tell schools that I can teach all the cool classes.

I just don't think I want to be sexy like that.

Purple Haze

I stole the lightbox info from here and the photographing smoke info from here

Here's my ligthbox setup for smoke:

I've got a desk lamp and a slaved flash on the outside and a stick of vanilla incense with a black foam board background on the inside. People my not believe me, but I'm certain that the flavor matters :)

I think there are a couple of changes that I need to make though

- I really need much better light. the flash on the right is ok, but the lamp is pathetic. Stronger light would really help the smoke stand out more and would let my play around more with settings on the camera - especially faster shutter speeds

- I think I probably should have cut up the box lengthwise. The thing is that I'm getting a little more of the background in focus than I'd like. Part of that is because I'm not using a light sucking black fabric or something, but I think more length would really take the background way out of my focus area.Maybe I can bring the incense out a little further...

Ok, so I shot a couple quick ones so we could play with the photoshop side of this thing. The smoke is so finicky, and it moves so fast that I usually take a lot of shots to get one or two that have a couple of interesting parts. Click your lens onto manual focus and move the lens around to find the eddies. Don't worry too much if it seems you're getting a lot out of focus.

Here's a I got shot out right off the card:

Interesting but we can do better. I'll bring it into photoshop and crop it up to isolate the lower right hand corner.

The most fun is fixing the levels (Ctrl-L)

First click on the little eyedropper with black ink. That'll tell photoshop that you are going to select what you want to be the blackest of the black in your image. I would chose the little section marked 2 in the image. Then click the eyedropper with white ink and select the part of your image that you want to be the whitest of white - I picked the part marked #3, but it would probably be better to choose the part under "Click" in the photo up there. Play around with this a lot and you'll get a lot of fun possibilities.

That'll give you something like this image which has a nice black background (although I'd like it a little more black in the upper right), and a really fun near-oversaturation in the curls down on the lower right :


Which is fun, but we can make it more fun. I accidentally shot this with an ISO of 400, so it's noisy. I'll do a little smart blur to even it out a bit.

The color is easy. Just go to the color balance (Ctrl-B) and fiddle with the bars until you dig it. I thought the green worked well



The other thing you can do is color invert the image (Ctrl-I) before (or after) you fiddle with the color balance. That gave me a fun purple


Then you save it and pop it up on flickr and your 365 blog and it's your daily photo and a how-to walkthrough!

Like I said, I'm still not happy with a lot of the process and I think this can be made a lot better. So give it a shot and tell me how you make your smoke cool!

Rhymes With Orange

Ok, I stole the lightbox how-to from here, but here's the rest:

backlit orange

Step 1:

Cut a hole in the box.
(har har har)

Honestly, I cut three holes in the box, put paper towels over the holes to diffuse the light I'll be adding. For the backlighting, I hung another sheet of paper towel on the inside of the back of the box. All I did then was aim all the lights at the background so the light would bounce and hit the back of the clementine.









I carved up the thing so there was a slice sticking up, but it would still stand up.


















I took a really quick shot with my non-macro lens and this is what it ended up looking like. It's blurry and it ain't nearly as good as the earlier one, but you get the idea. My clementines are starting to get a little ragged too. I think I need to finish 'em off.


Next post will be the smoke walkthrough

Something Tells Me It's all Happening at the Zoo

Nothing truly exciting today, just meetings and such, but yesterday, ah yesterday.

I had decided to dive into adventure and brave the long long trip to the nearby (in a relative sense) zoo! See, I have a lot of trouble with zoos in general. I love the animals, but the cages really bother me. I've been to some really sad zoos, too. The problem is that I've also been to the San Diego Wild Animal Park. That place rocks. Rocks a lot. They had the funding to actually put things together pretty well with enough room for everyone and no weird concrete-ish display areas.

Back at Old U, there was a small zoo, but they were pretty well funded and did an ok job making the living areas pretty livable. Alas, Urban Sprawl City's zoo is... well, I should say that it's not awful. In fact it's good, really. They're trying to build a lot of new areas and add room for the critters, but still, I guess I've been spoiled for zoos.

The one thing that absolutely kills me is seeing the animals, usually the big cats, pacing back and forth mindlessly in a really small enclosure, and this zoo had nothing like that. Really it wasn't bad.

Anyway, the end result is that I practically lived on buses and at bus stops for most of the day, but had a great time at the zoo while I was there. Yea zoo!

Here's pictures. Most of them are pretty average and a lot of the beasties were hiding as usual, but I really liked the tortoise. He (She?) is very cool.

Also, I'm going to put together a how-to post on the smoke pictures because a few people asked. I'll try to get that together soon. It'll be a good excuse to shoot some more smoke and try to figure out what I'm doing wrong with the background :)

Have Fun Storming the Castle

Just in case you happen to have time that needs, umm... wasting... I present to you the most insidious evil little strategy game I've seen in a long time.

Desktop Tower Defense - Try the easy setting first

Heigh Ho the Paper is Gone!

That nasty piece of trash that I took an incomplete on last fall has been turned in! It was utter crap and too short and fundamentally flawed, but...

IT'S DONE.

I just hit send on the email a few seconds ago. Poof! Gone!

I feel like I need to take a shower to wash the bad off of me, but I think I'll settle for planning a photo outing tomorrow. Or a shopping outing. I do need a new lamp or two...

The really dangerous thing is that even though I really didn't like that paper, in finishing it, I started to get more and more excited about my next project. I was going to really start research today, but they kicked me out of the library. Closed early. Hmmph. Let's hope the enthusiasm holds.

Oh, and just a side note to a favorite commenter - I don't think anyone wants to see the road rash :) Do you?

81/365 March 26

Very tired so I just tested the lightbox with my point and shoot. With my DSLR. How very meta. I need to get a white backcloth too.

Whoopsie - wrong blog. Oh, well. I'll leave it cause it's funny

Lightboxen

Scrivener asked about the homemade lightbox I made for the smoke pictures. I got the ideas here (lightbox) and here (smoke). So here's what I've got:



It's basically just a cardboard box with windows cut out on the sides and top. I draped paper towel over the windows to act as a diffuser until I can get something a little better (tracing paper? sheet?). Inside on the back and bottom are chucks of black foamboard. Then there's a lamp on the left and an old slave flash on the right in addition to the diffused hotshoe flash on the camera itself.

The setup didn't work that well actually though. I think with a little tweaking it'll get better. The main problem was that there still wasn't as much light as I would have liked for the smoke. The on-camera flash was also too direct, even with my bounce diffuser. I think the answer is to get a shop lamp, or something like that - something with a little more umph than my little desk lamp.

As for the smoke itself, I used incense sticks poked into the cardboard. Camera settings were ISO100, 1/250 and my best ones came out at about f11 or f14, but I'm sure that could be changed a lot.

Finally I popped it into Photoshop and fiddled with the colors. Fair warning - clean your glass. every tiny little dust speck will show up :)

Anyway, if you aren't checking out my photo365 or flickr pages, here's some incense smoke!

Wham, Bam, Thank You Ma'am

First off, if you've ever seen a James Bond movie, or played that old Spy Hunter game, you know that oil slicks are a great way to get rid of cars that are following you. I also submit that it works quite well for bikes.

I'm a good bike rider. I've commuted by bike for about 7 years now, and well, everyone has their bad days, right? Anyway - here's the oil slick I hit:



I went into the curb and onto the ground and got some nice road rash for my trouble. Nobody else involved, nothing bad, but still a great way to put a damper on the day.

Also, my Nano died. I've been threatening to leave the iCult, so maybe this is my chance. My laptop in the pannier bag survived though, so that's good.

Bluebooks, Pens and NBC Suits

• Early morning test?
  
• check
• Too many people crammed into the lecture hall? I know all these people didn't come to the lectures
• check
• unexpectedly warm weather leading to sweaty sticky atmosphere
• check
• Dude behind me who seriously needed about a bottle and a half of Bean-o before coming to class?
• Oh, dear lord, check.

Seriously, my eyes were watering. I don't even know what was in my bluebook.

shudder...

If One Used A Calender, Perhaps...

It's a funny thing when one thinks that one has a big exam tomorrow at 8am, only to find out it's actually Friday at 8am. If, for example, one is in the middle of a nasty cram session, one might lose a lot of the anxious enthusiasm for studying.

One might, anyway.

And I Decided

That one big link dump is better than two little link dumps, and rather than bring that one up I decided to post mine here.

1. Another, even more insidious game
1. Also, for Jayish - a Kaboom! clone. Do you still have an old Atari paddle?
2. Top 15 most unintentionally funny panels in old comic books
3. Another silly get to know yourself quiz - pick the photo that you feel best represents the word they give you.
4. Make your own cheap light box! I may just try this one out :)

It May Not Seem Like It, But,

I am working.

But here's a game to play.

Connect the squares. They grow each time you click on them (a maximum of three times). Once they are connected, they can't grow. You can't click on twice in a row.

There was another one, but I lost the link.

Notes From The Underground. But Aboveground.

I'm still completely unenthusiastic about the paper I need to finish up in the next couple of days, but here's the fun thing - I'm getting really excited about another paper that I'm starting to put together. I don't want to jinx it, but it's a nice big juicy topic that no one has really gotten in to yet. I'm still looking around to see if there are any hidden monographs out there that have already done it, but I think the topic will be mine all mine!

Also, as a good recorder of random items, I report to you the graffiti on today's library cell which focuses on the dangers of Mary J:

1. 4/20!!!!!!!!
2. 4:20!!!!!
3. Fucking potheads
   
4. Albert, Mary J is the Satan (unclear - crossed out) devil's smoke. All of smokers will burn in Hell w/ rapists, murderers and Hitler.
1. Yaright.
2. Thank you for your advice, Mrs. Doubtfire
3. How in hell do you equate pot smokers w/ rapists & Hitler?
4. Be careful with pot kids, it's very dangerous because it's so subtle. It can get out of control and ruin you
1. How?
5. Shut up!
1. Turn around!
6. Hello!
7. I love you deformed lips.
8. Shut up and get back to work.
   

Dude. Seriously.

Notes to/regarding freaky guy who moved into the library cell behind me:

1. General library etiquette frowns on yelling out "Holy Fuck! Why isn't this working?"
2. Either you are just banging randomly on your keyboard or you type faster than humans should be able to type.
3. That weird grunting sound you make with every third breath or so is uber creepy
   
4. Answering your phone in the library is rude and all, but understandable. However, it's especially bad when I can hear your end and her end of the conversation. Also, she seemed quite ticked. You're in trouble.
   

Ricola!

Right now I'm in the middle of an Apline stack of grading. It's interesting because the class that I'm TAing right now is so different from what I've generally taught in the past in content and methods too. As an example, I used to grade fairly long papers every few weeks and maybe a blue book test at the end. Now I'm grading homework assignments and quizzes and tests and all sorts of things every single frickin' day it seems, including some assignments that are incredibly subjective.

The subjective assignments are very difficult for me. If it's a paper or an exam, I can generally get a good grasp on whether or not the student understands the material or not, but with these, well, I'm going more on how I feel that they did. They're group projects too, so there are students who I know are good and competant but got dragged down by a less-than-stellar partner or two. There are also a couple students that I'm pretty suspicious of, but they didn't really do much, so I'm not sure how to evaluate them. As a student I really dislike those kind of assignments, and I have to say that I like them even less as a grader.

I will say that there are a couple of students who are really making me feel very good about this class. It's been like this every class I guess, but it's just because I'm looking at the gradebook right now, it comes to mind. I can see the grades of one particular student slowly, steadily move up and up. She was convinced that this class was just too complicated for her. Not so, I said, not so. A little while ago, she said she may just change her major.

Vile Vile Flickr

Time was up so I had to switch over to the Yahoo! login. I haven't used a Yahoo! account for anything but their damnable music player in years. Of course that ID wasn't an anonymous one, so I have to get another one (the price I pay for being famous beyond my means in real life). "Overread" wasn't available, naturally. So I went for 'cordialhermit.' I wanted 'socaiablehermit' which was how my old landlord used to describe me. It fits pretty well, too.

So, anyway, I'm now a cordial hermit. at Yahoo! Feh. I think I'm developing an online multiple personality syndrome. I think this'll make my 4th or 5th idenity online. That can't be healthy. On a related note, the university wants me to remember a new password for another vital online entity. I'm seriously beyond the overload point for passwords. I've got so many I'm at the point where I'll need to write the less commonly used ones down. And that defeats the purpose of passwords! Well, kinda.

Anyway. I hope you ate pie yesterday.

Happy Pi Day!

I just wanted to wish you all a very happy pi day! Everyone should eat some pie today! Unfortunately, I haven't eaten any pie. I did eat an apple however. And... you can put apples in pies... Alternately, you can spend a few minutes reciting pi. I guess that'll work, too. Not nearly as tasty though. And I ain't doing that.

I'm happy to note that one of my students actually wore a pi shirt today. How cool is that?

By the way, if you don't know why today is pi day, just look at the date :)

It's also White Day - which is the day that all guys get their gal some chocolate. Valentine's the other way around, dontcha know?

Crosstown Traffic

Part of getting myself out of the funk I'm in is going to be a new push to start blogging more. So, here we go.

This may take a bit before I remember how to do all this, but I'll try.

First a note to the bus driver who tried to run me off the road and then opened his passenger door in the middle of the road (and a stop light) to tell me off:

Sir, while I respectfully admit that it is recommended that a bicycle not be ridden in the middle of the road when there is a lane open to the left, the lane to my left was a right turn only lane, and I didn't want to get in the way of people turning right. While you might have had a solid argument, when I said that I believed bicycles had the same right to the road as cars (and perhaps buses as well), I think that there was probably a better answer than to shout out, "well not in front of me they don't!" and keep as tight to the right side of the lane while passing me.

Feh. I actually feel a bit chastised because I went to check the law when I got back home only to find out that I wasn't entirely in the right. As near as I can tell, I was legally in the clear (and riding safely, I might add), but the law recommends that bikes only stray from the curb when making left turns and when avoiding unsafe road conditions. So I guess keeping out of the way of right turn only traffic isn't on their list.

Still. He could have been more polite.

Wow, that was a longish post on nearly nothing at all. fun.

Also, apropos of nothing, it will be very clear to those that survived my lyrics quizzes of many moons ago that my music taste changes only glacially, and I am loathe to admit the value of any music that is new to me. That being said, I have started listening to some Decemberists on the recommendation of the good Dr. Scrivner. For some reason I have also stumbled on the wacky joy of the Ditty Bops (Wishful thinking and Sister Kate are particularly fun). The Fratellis' Chelsea Dagger and Flathead were quite fun until I realized that one of them turned up on an Apple ad. They have been since downgraded to merely fun (but I still listen to them heaps).

Wow. Long post. Maybe I can still do this.

Hmm, Oh! You're Still Here?

Warning: Whining and self-absorbed blather ahead.

It's kinda funny that now the the photo365 blog is going gangbusters, my normal blog dries up.

Actually there's a little more to it than that. I've said this before, but I guess I still haven't gotten into a healthy pattern here at Urban Sprawl U. I'm still struggling with my motivation, and I guess I'm trying to figure out what in the world I'm doing here. The people around me all seem to have really nice conctrete plans about where they're going and how they're going to get there. There're all over writing grant proposals and sending off papers to journals and conferances, and well... I'm not.

I know that these are common anxieties to face after moving and for people looking into a long slog through the PhD process, but that doesn't really make it easier. And if I'm honest, I can see a little bit of it in the other gradfolk around me too.

The other problem is that I had to cut back on my running becauase of the tweaked knee so I wasn't able to run the marathon, so now I feel like a big slug with no energy at all.

This week I'm going to be turning in a paper to turn an incomplete into a complete from the fall, and frankly it's nowhere near my best work. I had an interesting topic, but let the professor lead me on to one of the professor's pet ideas and it really didn't work that well. Rather than tossing out the bad and workign on the good I've spent too much time trying to keep it all in there to please the prof. All that extra time is just going to end up as a couple of paragraphs in the intro talking about how the pet ideas might frame the argument. Ugh. It'll be good to just get that paper out of my head.

Spring break is going to be a very needed thing. But why am I more excited about maybe being able to get out and take fun pictures than being able to put together some good research time?

As a side note - one of my good friends from Old U called and told me that not only is her day job going super well, but she's also just hooked a super-sweet internship at the Smithsonian! Rock on! She has a social life and is dating, and she's got a career working. I really am very happy for her, but jeeze... Maybe I should have taken the MA and gone to DC too - seems to have worked well for her.

Things I Don't Care To See

And yet I saw and heard them today:

• Going to get a bit o' caffeine this morning, what to my wandering (wondering?) eyes should appear, but a man kneeling and bent over on the ground as if in prayer. With his pants around his ankles. full moon. And lets say charitably that he hadn't... washed... much recently. By the time I got out of the store, there was a man talking to him, telling him that the cops were on the way and he might think is wise to skedaddle. The pious gentleman screeched, "I can pray here! I've got every right to pray here!" As I left, the gentleman was prostrating himself again and pulling his pants down further. It was also pretty cold.
• I grabbed lunch on the way to class, and had a few minutes, so I sat down to eat near a couple of young men talking to an much older woman. My first thought was that it was probably a prof talking to a couple of undergrads - cool. I love that. That wasn't it. the woman became very agitated and started in on the men, making it quite clear to them that being Jewish wasn't going to do them a lick of good when they were in hell, because that's absolutely where they were going and only by accepting Jesus as their personal saviour... I have to admit I tuned out after that. By the time I finished my lunch and headed off to class, she had accosted a few other students in the area. She avoided me. It's not that I'm not grateful, but I wonder why?
  

Now I'm home and it's not late at all, but I just feel so exhausted. Everyone I know is sick or getting sick out just getting better. I don't feel sick at all just very very tired. Perhaps this is my body's warning to take it easy. So I'm going to curl up with a book and some tea, and rest. Maybe sleep. Who knows.

No Fair

Newspapers should not be allowed to reprint the crossword puzzle from yesterday, accidentally or no.

Hooray for a Mental Health Day!

Today was very fun. This weekend, I'm only 125% behind schedule instead of the standard 200%, so, rather than catch up on Saturday and Sunday, I took a mental health break today. It was a bit of a journey, but I headed out to a Major Metro Museum! yea for museums!

I generally go to museums alone so that I can hover over things that I like and not worry about other folks getting too bored. It was a good thing today, too. The main big touring exhibit they had there was very underwhelming to me. I wont go into details, lest I blow what's left of my cover, but it was a fairly big to do about a name most of you recognize - and aside from a few interesting pieces, it felt pretty flat. Eh.

On the up side, their permanent exhibit was very yummy. One of the areas that I would have loved to see was closed for remodeling, but there was a nice European Renaissance and Medieval section as well as some really kick-ass South and Southeast Asia stuff.

Most entertainingly, the permanent exhibits allow photography. Joy!

So, if you are inclined, take a browse of my flickr stream, and if you recognize the place, don't out me. Just reply smugly in the comments - You could also help out tagging :) I always forget to take notes, so, I get confused and forget who folks are. For those who know me, I put up full size versions of the photos on the other cooler-than-flickr website, so you can go there too if you like.

Oh, Taft. Taft, Taft...

I installed a 'How'd you get here?' thingamajig over on the side there and it says that someone found this place by searching for 'Taft.'

Oh, yeah. I think I'm going to turn this into an all Taft all the time channel. I think Clearchannel can get me the music for that, right?

Several With My Pseudonym on Them

Random bullets o' joy

• >2 grad students in any gathering outside campus = juicy gossip. Seriously, I mean, he did what? I can kind of see why she might be like that, but that person over there has no excuse. Oh, yeah, how did he get accepted? Lastly, it is a bit disillusional that she thinks we all agree with her. I don't think anyone does. Catty, catty, catty.
  
• This three day weekend is brought to you by the letter 'G.' G as in grading until my eyes pop out because I haven't been grading in daily steady chunks like I should have been.
• I took an incomplete on a paper in the fall, and I need to get it in in the next few weeks. It's not anywhere closer than it was at the beginning of winter break. Also, whatever enthusiasm I had for the topic is completely gone. That's a job for tomorrow-me.
  
• The marathon may be off. I tweaked my leg a little bit and am not able to put in the mileage I need to. I feel a bit disappointed, since I did buy the 'In Training' T-shirt, but I guess that's not a lie really. I am in training. I just might not run it.

Feh - that's all for now. Time to make the donuts. er.. Time to get back to grading.

Boar-ing

Just a quick note to wish one and all a happy year o' the pig. It's a golden pig, so it's supposed to be a great year for having babies, making money, just about anything. I know, I know, they say that for every year, but I'm sure this time they really mean it.

Just remember to change the year on your checks (does anyone use checks anymore?) - it's the year 4705, in case you hadn't been keeping track.

I've checked, and we oxen are supposed to have a great year - fortune, love and happiness and all that, and all I can say is that it's about time.

Check out your upcoming year here or here, I have no doubt that either site upholds the highest credibility that can be given to any astrology website.

It's also worthwhile to go and see a chubby new-year space baby handing flowers to the moon-rabbit with a panda in the background. He's here about halfway down the page.

Make Money At Home!

You guys know I'm always trying to help out, right? So I've got an invention that will make you billions of dollars. Because I'm a little busy at the moment, I'm giving it to you to develop and make your fortune. In return, I ask only for a ten percent from the gross.

Here's the idea:

So, if we can get a V-chip in the TV that is supposed to block out violence in tv shows, the next obvious step is to implant tags in programming - violence, sex, adult language, breaking news, information that may upset your worldview of the US at the center of the universe, etc... This way, your TV or TV or whatever could check these tags against a master list of user-defined no-fly list. For example, if I like the old new Star Trek, but dislike Wesley Crusher, even though my Tivo or Media Center knows to record it, I can tell my tv not to allow him on my screen.

The reason I think this would be a good idea, and the reason I would buy it, IS TO GET BRITTANY SPEARS AND ANNA NICOLE-SMITH OFF MY F(*&^ING NEWS. There is nothing even remotely newsworthy about the legal struggles of her newly shorn newly tattooed corpse.

Until this invention is put into wide practice, ummm... if Ted Turner, or the someone in charge of programming from CNN is watching this. Please, for the love of all that is good in this world, repeat you yourself, "it's a news channel, it's a news channel , it's a news channel."

At Least the Taft Coin Should Be Bigger

Ok, I really love the idea of a dollar coin. Heck, I'd even be for a two dollar coin, but I have to say I'm a bit disappointed in the way that the new dollars are being produced.

They're the exact same size, weight and shape of the Sacajawea dollars for a few years back. Wasn't the main problem with the blasted things that they felt too close to a quarter? So won't the new coins have the same trouble? Yes, yes, I know it'll make using old mechanisms in vending machines a little easier, but I don't see that as a viable reason if the thing dies out ina couple years anyway.

Why not change it up a little bit? ridges? larger size? thicker? The one pound note has a wonderful heft to it. Heck even the old half dollar coin felt very different. Where did those go, anyway?

Also, I think probably the only way they'd really catch on is if dollar bills were drastically reduced (or taken out of) circulation.

I still hope they work out ok, but yeesh.

(by the way - if you even become a comedian, Taft jokes always kill.)

To Err is Vista

No, this isn't the full rant, because I haven't gotten my head around all of the issues with Vista yet. Short version - just like everyone else is saying, don't upgrade until the first service pack. Unless you're buying a new computer, then go ahead and get the whole shebang all together.

I just wanted to provide you with my favorite of all the errors I've gotten go far:



I want to give it out to students.

Alphabet Meme

From The Scrivnitical Scrivener:

Memetical Alphabetical Meme.

As a side note, I'm listening to the God Delusion on audiobook, and he's pronouncing the word meem. I guess that makes sense phonetically, but I always thought it was mem. Sounds weird. meeeem. meeeeem.

A- Available or Single? Not only available and single, but also desperate!
B- Best Friend? I always thought it was kind of cruel to have one best friend (read: none)
C- Cake or Pie? Piecake
D- Drink of Choice? I go through all varieties of diet sodas in embarrassing quantities.
E- Essential Item? The internet tubes
F- Favorite Color? I like nice deep colors - usually greens
G- Gummi Bears or Worms? Gummi Bears - they're easier to stick on your forehead
H- Hometown? Yes.
I- Indulgence? Huh?
J- January or February? Not much difference really... I like where there is no weather, mind you.
K- Kids and names? Nope
L- Life is incomplete without...? Self-replicating DNA? Oh, personally? Let's be cliche and say growth.
M- Marriage Date? The future, I hope
N- Number of Siblings? One of each flavor.
O- Oranges or Apples? Both and more
P- Phobias/Fears? Just the standard ones, I guess. A little bit of heights and such...
Q- Favorite Quote? - "Why not?"
R - Reason to Smile? - I smile all the time. Nervous habit I guess. I also just happens that I'm generally a happy guy.
S- Season? I favor fall
T- Tag 3 people? You, you and you.
U- Unknown Fact About Me? Hmmm... I guess I'd need to know what you already know about me first...
V- Vegetable You Hate? I don't think there are any vegetables I hate really. I've never rushed to eat mushrooms, but they're not evil or anything. Pretty good on a pizza anyway.
W-Worst Habit? Procrastinating (blog-related?)
X- Xrays You've Had? dental ones a few times
Y- Your Favorite Foods? I'm a southern boy at heart I guess - fried foods, Mexican food, pizza - add in a dash of mild funkiness- Ethiopian, most Asian foods... hmm... Let's go ahead and say I like food.
Z- Zodiac? I get frustrated by people who buy into this for more than amusement's sake, but I find it funny. I'm a Leo Ox - said to be boring and stolid and reliable.

edited to fix a missing Q and R