People: Are They Worth It?

Dealing with educated idiots

2009-06-05T16:04:00.002-05:00

There are challenges that smart people have to deal with, and this is the worst. This one concern—dealing with people whose educations are valid, but who you'd never trust to know up from down—trumps all others. It beats the feeling of isolation smart people—especially smart introverts—experience. It cartwheels past suffering through the tenth iteration of an idea in a conference room full of people who just don't get it. It even tops the urge to disembowl stupid people who don't check their blind spot before switching lanes.

Dealing with an educated idiot (henceforth, an EI) is so difficult perhaps because the experience itself is an attack on a smart person's very essence. No matter how clearly you explain something, the EI just isn't going to get it. But it's difficult to gauge how clearly you're communicating. As Terry Goodkind's character Zed put it, "It's a lot like deciding if you can see as far as you could yesterday." So you can come away from an encounter with an EI thinking that you're a failure—that somehow you just can't explain this particular concept well.

That's the trap.

It's not your fault, Smart Person. The EI doesn't get it because, despite his pedigree, he isn't smart. No matter how you adapt your rhetoric to suit another learning style, you're not going to happen upon the one that works for him. Just give up.

Let his lexical ambiguities roll off your back. Let him blow himself out with his hand-waving and inane babble. There's just nothing you can do. Have the serenity to accept it. Eventually, he will go away.

The only thing you can do to mitigate this attack on your soul is to make sure that your encounters with the EI are observed by other smart people. Their furrowed eyebrows will give you validation when you fail to comprehend the meaningless word vomit the EI spews. When they ask the same question you are, attempting to phrase it with perfect clarity (the poor souls), and he pauses, ostensibly thinking, and responds with a reply that makes your brain explode, you will know you're not alone. And you're not really a failure. He's just an idiot.

The only thing that could make me miss Missouri

2008-12-21T15:05:00.001-06:00

Buy a Toyota, get a cake!

2008-07-31T15:49:00.001-05:00

Apparently when you buy a Toyota, you get a cake delivered to work.

Dry spell is over

2008-07-29T22:44:00.002-05:00

I've decided that I need to start blogging again. What lies beneath that decision is the realization that I need to start writing down how I feel, what's going on, random thoughts, and whatnot, or I'm going to become insufferable to the people around me who have to hear about them. Despite my inability to craft a viable story arc, I like to think that I'm a writer at heart, and the mind's overflow can't be stopped--just channeled.

So, here we are. Again.

I'm single again. Sam and I broke things off for good this past Sunday, and it's sad. Not the deep, gut-twisting anguish where you analyze all of the things you might have done wrong, but just a quiet sadness at how things didn't get better. It was a long time coming, though, and we both just got tired of working at something that seemed determined to stay broken.

Helped Mark and Jennifer move to Columbia this past weekend. We haven't hung out physically yet, but it's only been three days, and I'm so used to talking to both of them over the internet that their new, geographic proximity doesn't seem real yet. We've got tentative dinner plans for tomorrow, though, so that'll be fun.

Work is pretty good. I can tell that, eventually, the new will wear off of this job, and I won't like it as much, but I'm along for the ride for now. So far, no two days have been alike, and I'm getting involved in project management and diversifying my contributions to the Division's functions to stave off boredom, but I can feel it building. I'm secretly afraid that I don't earn my salary and someone's going to figure that out one day, leaving me without an excuse. I wonder if that's something everyone deals with--the lingering fear that they're a fraud?

Plans for starting my own company have been put on the back burner for now. I know that that's the only way I'm actually going to keep up with best practices in the industry and make some serious money, or eventually go all the way into the private sector, but working for the University is pretty safe, and definitely not stressful. Plus, it wouldn't hurt to get a couple years of experience under my belt and really feel out how much my job requires of me before taking on additional projects in my spare time.

Getting an hourly job for the weekends, however, doesn't sound like a bad idea. It might be fun to work 10 hours a week at a Barnes and Nobel or a Starbucks. A little extra money for toys couldn't hurt either. I'll have to explore that.

Serious about security

2008-06-13T20:31:00.000-05:00

I stopped at a Sonic for a quick bite to eat in Macon, Missouri, and
Sam paid with his debit card. The machine asked him if he knew his
PIN, and when he clicked "No," it smilingly declared the transaction
"Approved"!

Interview!

2008-02-27T08:26:00.002-06:00

In other news, I have a job interview next week. For a real job! If all goes well, I will officially be a technical writer!

i win

2008-01-16T17:37:00.000-06:00

The faculty admit that they need to get their act together, and I met the deadline.

I swear, the world isn't really against me!

2008-01-14T23:45:00.000-06:00

First day of classes, and it's looking like this semester is going to be even better than the last. I should've known that things would get bleak soon. I'm actually taking classes that I will enjoy this semester. I'm taking a web authoring course, a class on technical editing, one on visual communication theory, and two philosophy courses in bioethics and the philosophy of science.

But of course fate had to step in and make sure I didn't enjoy myself too much. Can't have that. Ten days ago, i got an email from my advisor. It said that the comprehensive exam that I must pass in order to graduate cannot be administered in the summer, as has been the plan since early August. Instead, you'll have to take it this semester, during classes. Oh, and by the way, we'll need for you to compile the reading lists that the test will be based from--alone--and it's due on the 14th.

Well, I spoke with my advisor in person and he furnished me with enough articles to make the lists for the two of his classes that I am using for the comprehensive exam. The other class is one I took from another professor. She assured me that I could put a list together and submit it in the interest of getting it in by the due date, and we could change the list later if necessary. Today, while leaving her class, I asked her again if that would be ok--to submit the unapproved list and change it later if she had suggestions for amending it.

I sent the first two lists to my advisor and they were approved. I told him that my other professor would get back to me later with changes to the third list, but I would have it at least preliminarily submitted to him this evening. He replied to my email thanking me for the first two lists, but assuring me that the third list absolutely must be submitted tonight. He fleshed out this message with a barely-veiled threat that a student had been denied May graduation for missing this due date last year and implied that the same could happen to me.

Needless to say, with my student loans' repayment coming up, sticking around Rolla for another semester is not an option, especially if I would be doing so simply to accommodate this single, arbitrary rule that only 1/3 of the department's faculty is demonstrably aware of. Did I mention that I also have a 4.0? I have expressed my extremely low level of satisfaction with this program, particularly the administrative side of it, before. Now, if these people do the worst that they can, they can ruin my life. And I'm not exaggerating the point. If I don't finish my master's degree this year, it just won't happen, my plans for the next few years of my life will have to be remade, and I'll have some serious coping to do.

I don't think that I'll just sit and let that happen. We have department chairs and provosts for a reason. I've been a good sport and haven't complained about them capriciously changing the dates of important events in my education, and I deserve to have this one slip-up, which is entirely their fault, overlooked.

I'm sure there's a facebook group I can join

2007-12-12T18:46:00.000-06:00

Well, finals are winding down (for me, anyway) and I have heard back final grades for three of my five classes, a full thirty percent of my graduate career. All A's, hoorah for me. I knocked out a fourth class yesterday by handing in a CD and a stack of papers which may as well have been labeled "Thus begins four weeks of not having to curse your name at midnight." I'm reasonably confident of an A in that course as well, which means that I have only one remaining.

A one-to-one correlation exists between the number of times I have fallen asleep in class this semester and the number of meeting times this last course has had scheduled. That alone is not enough evidence to determine causality, as you know, but it begins the job. Add to this data that this is a course in the "History of Technical Communication" and you get closer to the mark. Picture your high school American history classes. Now, take out all of the wars, social and literary movements, elections, and assassinations. In their place, put unimportant, uninteresting people whose names did not appear on their own work. Then, for the coup de grâce, add to all this that their writing was all scientific reports, budget statements and manuals. Finally, slit one of your wrists and contemplate the prospect of drowning in a pool of your own week-old urine, and you will have arrived at an approximation of my suffering on Tuesdays and Thursdays throughout this term.

So, my current situation is quite dire. With absolutely no interest in the course material, and no energy left to devote to this bullshit, I have a choice to make. I can either reach deep into my own soul, cut off a portion of it, and sacrifice it to get through tonight OR I can half-ass this work, satisfy myself with a B, and celebrate the near-successful completion of half of graduate school.

I seem to do this every semester. There's always one class that I just can't trick myself into caring about. It gets shoved to the back burner, which may or may not even be turned on. And it's the last final, scheduled in the morning.

Suck it, Tech Com 361. Just suck it.

Notes from the Frontier

2007-12-10T11:26:00.001-06:00

Since seeking refuge in my precious free time has become a bowel-clutching need, I have begun watching shows streamed over ABC.com. I'm pretty devoted to Brothers and Sisters, Men in Trees, Desperate Housewives, Ugly Betty, Pushing Daisies, and Samantha Who. It's much easier to watch only what you want to watch when you don't have to actually use at TV to watch TV. This TV watching has led me to observe an unnerving trend. Ok, two unnerving trends. First is that I'm watching Desperate Housewives, a title I just snickered at before I gave it a chance. Now, I'm addicted, though I still think it's a stupid show. The second trend? With the writers' strike in full swing, shows on ABC are beginning to adopt plot lines that seem to write themselves around a single, dramatic plot device dropped into the show's timeline like a turd into a punch bowl.

Desperate Housewives, though a stupid show, was charmingly devoted to the domestic politics that surround a few bitches on Wisteria Lane. The last episode featured a tornado, but it didn't stop the politics--oh no! They were still exchanging bitchy banter and killing one another while the storm raged. The mayor was poetically slain by a picket fence-wielding funnel cloud (wtf!?) and Lynette's entire family was buried when the house above the basement they were sheltering in collapsed on them. See?? Even the prepositions stacked atop one another to describe this writing are hard to understand!

In Men in Trees, Jack's research ship on the Bering Sea got sunk by a rogue wave (yes, for those of you who are paying attention, they're actually ripping off Poseidon, a movie sporting a cameo by Fergie) and Marin is at home, exasperatedly waiting for him to call her. Get it? She doesn't know his ship sank, and he's fighting hypothermia and guilt after letting one of his teammates die of blood loss. Hilarity ensues.

On Ugly Betty, Willamina bribes a doctor to steal semen from Bradford's dead body so that she can impregnate herself for revenge ("revenge semen!") on the Meade family for not signing over Mode magazine when she asked nicely. Oh, and for good measure, she also laid the smack down on Betty White, who made a joke about lesbian fan fiction regarding herself and Bea Arthur.

They also brought back "My So-Called Life" (online only, Fridays, don't miss it!) and pretended that it was new.

So, I ask in conclusion, is all of this bullshit written by scabs? Producers? Executives? Brain amputees? It's like whoever is "writing" these scripts is just trying to get back at the writers for leaving, and so they're going to screw up the plot so badly that it will never recover. Which will inevitably end with a plague of time-travel just as the strike is resolved, and we'll have another Heroes on our hands.

Shang High Blah

2007-11-13T09:47:00.000-06:00

Amanda and I are on a new diet. Apparently, you just drink some sugar a couple times a day and you will want to eat less pizza. I'll let you know how it pans out.

WTB Life Coach

2007-11-07T17:02:00.001-06:00

For the past, oh, six months or so, I've been trying halfheartedly to make positive changes in my lifestyle. Unfortunately, my own laziness often gets in the way. I read Eknath Eswaran's Meditation several months back, hoping that it would give me practical advice on how to begin and sustain a meditation regimen. It did. I successfully completed a morning ritual exactly one time. I noticed, or imagined that I noticed, real benefits on that one day that I mediated for about thirty minutes early in the morning.

Since this apotheosis of limited success, my efforts have proven unfruitful. I have been meaning to:

hone my web design skills,
cook for myself regularly,
read works of classic literature for the fun of it and
exercise regularly (both cardiovascular and weight training.

Unfortunately, the transition from dream to reality scaled things back a bit. So far, my progress has been disappointing. I have managed to:

resurrect my online résumé project and cobble together something that looks professional enough using skills I already had and faking it when necessary,
make a few chicken dishes that were all pretty much the same but one included italian dressing,
buy a copy of Moby Dick and display it proudly on my bookshelf and
put off going to the gym to avoid a pulmonary embolism due to the blood clots I have spontaneously started forming in my legs.

Admittedly, I have made some progress. I've begun an accelerated graduate program that will almost certainly land me a challenging job that will probably pay pretty well. I've made some casual friends at UMR. I've been in a relationship with someone I love for going on five months now. I've made great strides toward establishing a friendship with my brother.

All is not lost, but I wish I could make some internal, spiritual, and disciplined changes in myself. We'll keep trying.

Happiness is sometimes a pinot away...

2007-11-05T00:05:00.000-06:00

I got good and drunk this weekend, and I feel better armed to handle my problems now. Depression staved off by a weekend of taking care of Sicky McSickersons and hanging out with some good, good friends.

Thanks for listening. :)

Malaise

2007-10-29T17:53:00.000-05:00

I can't describe what's wrong with me. I must need some extracurriculars or something, because there has never been a time in my life when I have been more terribly lonely. Almost all of my friends live somewhere far enough away that it's rare to see them, and I have never needed good friends more than I do right now. I wish I still lived with Ryan, with his near-religious drinking binges on Thursday nights. I wish I still lived across the hall from Mark and Kai and Jennifer. I miss random dinner invitations, prohibitions against going to bed simply "because you're in college," and watching documentaries about ice bergs on Friday nights because it was by far the best thing on TV--with Mark's commentary.

I am feeling so nostalgic that I can barely function.

I hate school so bad that it's a struggle to get out of bed in the morning, no matter how much sleep I've had. I do my assignments and assloads of projects from a waning fear of failure than from any commitment to the discipline or interest in the subject matter. May seems hopelessly far away. I'm running on fumes and have been since August.

Life seems to have completely lost its meaning, which is encouraging only in that it means it once had some to lose. I have no direction and no impetus but inertia, no plan but the vague hope that someday, if I keep working hard, I'll be happy again, but I suspect this last to be the holdovers from my conservative Protestant background.

There's really only one thing that makes me happy anymore, and it's poisoned by not being able to tell most people about it. There is no aspect of my life whose potential to yield me happiness is not sabotaged, and I resent it.

"I don't care... (presumably about) tacos"

2007-10-17T15:20:00.000-05:00

This story needs to be told. Being the social archivist that I am, I have committed it to writing. Read on:

Not long ago, Gulley and I were having drinks and appetizers at Applebee's, as we are wont to do when she's in town. Because we're both textbook misanthropes, the bulk of our conversation is centered around who or what we hate. Traffic violations, people too stupid to commit appropriate traffic violations, the morbidly obese, restless leg syndrome, anything that we can wrap our minds around and for which a seemingly articulate reason for disliking it can be found.

Well, embroiled as we were in this discussion, we nearly missed the greatest treasure of anecdotal history we're likely to ever witness, one on par with Lewis Black's "if it weren't for my horse" story. Not two tables away, an irritating man was addressing his crowd of lady-friends. He was tall, with dark hair, overly greased but well-manicured, and he was proclaiming his apathy for tacos.

I'm getting ahead of myself, so let's step back a level of abstraction.

What he said was, "I don't care. We can go to my house... get some tacos." His pronunciation of "tacos" was particularly intriguing: he said it with a definite diphthong in the first syllable, like, "tyah-coes." Perhaps this contains a nucleus of information that will help aid in our interpretation of his arcane statement, rife as it is with meaning. What was he trying to say?

Naturally, our theories on proper interpretation abound. Is he perhaps declaring himself to be like the wicked witch in a Marxist reading of Hänsel und Gretel, possessed of so much food that he has literally constructed his home from it, perhaps with the intent of luring in attractive, hungry women? If so, this approach seems a poor one to execute within a restaurant, where food is readily available at what most would agree is a reasonable price. And furthermore, why tacos? Why not flan? Really, when you're dealing with this level of absurdity, a dessert would be a better idea, and certainly more true to the wicked witch tradition.

Or perhaps he is advertising his wealth. He has so many tacos at home that he just needs to get rid of them, and these lovely ladies seem to have such refined pallets that going home with him and indulging in his surplus of tacos would be a mutually advantageous solution to propose. The fact that tacos cost money is a parallel that the ladies are meant to draw on their own, thus enhancing their opinion of their greasy friend while at the same time sating their collective appetite for Tex-Mex.

The list of possible interpretations exceeds practicality in this medium, where brevity is so treasured, but be advised that I am willing to discuss them--at length--should you choose to offer your own.

Bleargh

2007-10-15T21:39:00.001-05:00

Went back to the doctor today, having finally admitted defeat, and much to my chagrin he was still not able to tell me what the hell is wrong with my leg. Turns out I probably didn't ever have a potassium deficiency, and the score of bananas I ate the other day didn't do much aside from two days of crippling gas that were the byproduct of such a rapid influx of fiber.

Unfortunately, the nurse who called me with my blood test results failed to mention that I actually had some sort of virus, because she was busy telling me that there was absolutely nothing wrong with me.

Coincidentally, I also seem to have a blood clot in my right leg, and that's likely to be what's causing the severe pain when I try to walk. Right now, it's just guesswork, but some tests that I'm having done this Wednesday will hopefully verify or refute the theory. Really, I welcome any identified problem that has a not-too-terrible solution. I'm just tired of not knowing what's wrong.

This post was supposed to have a whole lot more substance, but then it would've been a lot longer. To sum it up, though, a girl hit the handicapped button for me in the Humanities and Social Sciences building today. I said, "Whoa!" when the door opened in front of me, forcing me to scurry away. When I finished doing the math, I looked behind me and guess I thanked her, because she said, "You're welcome; I thought you'd need it."

It was nice, if awkward.

Hippocrates was RIGHT!

2007-10-10T12:31:00.001-05:00

I went to my doctor almost a week ago, complaining to him of chills, lightheadedness, a cramp in my leg, fatigue and headaches. He was stumped. Like, completely stumped. About all he did was check to make sure my lymph nodes weren't swollen, which would indicate a return of mono. He didn't find that. Oh, and he also poked me in the leg really hard where it hurts, either out of malice or from wanting to experience by the proxy of my anguished moans just HOW BAD it hurt.

He sent me to their lab to have a blood sample taken. Due to my acute fear of needles and most anything touching on the subject of blood, this was a traumatic event to say the least. His nurse practitioner called me today to tell me that there's nothing wrong with my blood. "Bitch! There's something fucking wrong with my BODY! Can't you see the forest for the trees!?" I replied, though not in those words. She said she would confer with the doctor when he returned tomorrow, presumably from a vacation to his money bin.

Well, this led to an approximately five-minute AIM conversation with Amanda J. Gulley, in which she asked me questions about my leg, rather than poking at it really hard. By clever manipulation of the mysterious point-and-click interface on WebMD, she told me that I probably had a potassium deficiency. So I ate a banana.

And now I feel better.

Madam Bigglesworth

2007-10-08T11:13:00.000-05:00

I was talking to Sam on my way to work this morning, and he posited an interesting theory: that my Labrador, Madison, is in fact much smarter than I give her credit for (eg, the crash helmet, safety harness and insatiable love of squeak toys are all part of an elaborate ruse). Not content to merely shatter the paradigm I have of "lovable pet" he went on to suggest that, in my absence, my faithful companion has devised a Houdini-like means of escaping her crate, whereupon she celebrates by cavorting around my apartment, careful not to make any messes lest I become wise.

I had nearly dismissed this absurd notion from memory when an interesting turn of events gave me pause. My International Technical Communication class was canceled this morning because Dr. Malone is sick, and so I came home approximately an hour earlier than normal. When I opened the door, I was warmly greeted by an unrestrained canine, who took one look at me and, shoulders slouched, retreated to her crate.

I can't help but wonder: if I had come home an hour later, would I have made the same discovery? Could I have forgotten to lock one of the doors, or is my dog an evil genius? Further, am I in danger? I like to think that I've built great rapport with Madison by continuing to feed her and care for her, but I'm afraid some of my intentions may have been misunderstood. I didn't worry at the time how she wouldn't understand that the humiliation of a bath was good for everyone, nor did I worry about the vehemence with which I scolded her when she messed on the carpet. Suddenly, that she shredded a DVD copy of "Monster-in-Law" seems much more significant. Though she perhaps is not yet conversant in English, she may have merely been expressing refined taste in cinema.

The days of blissful ignorance are over, I'm afraid. My dog has matured, and now I've got to apologize for a conspicuously missing uterus.

How do you say "depressed" in French?

2007-10-03T10:27:00.001-05:00

Graduate school has gone from a nebulous idea of a utopian paradise where I would be on a first-name basis with professors who respected me and recognized my latent talent, to a dull reality whose expiration I plotted on my calendar to the tune of “Pomp and Circumstance,” and then made a final metamorphosis to a harshly synthetic pipedream where onion-like layers of pointless theory are stacked one on top of the other in a kind of Procrustean exercise to transform what seemed a practical, skill-building course of study into a grotesque parody of literary theory.

I’m just shy of two months into my graduate career, which means that I have finished about 18% of my Master’s degree, and the only light at the end of the tunnel is the promise of a job that will help me to pay back the mountain of student loan debt I’ve accrued in cobbling together an education. In all likelihood, this will not be a job I enjoy, and the probability that I will not be good at whatever job I get approaches 100%.

So far, the only advantage I have that I can attribute to my well-rounded education is my ability to recognize and articulately comment on my own unhappiness. In general, I’m bitter, pessimistic, cynical and angry way more often than any given situation warrants.

If it weren’t for Cracked and Penny Arcade, and maybe God (?) I’d probably start shooting up and drinking a lot.

WTF

2007-09-28T09:56:00.000-05:00

I would like to begin by saying that there are far too many bad things in this world. Like politics and hubristic fantasy authors. But They are fortunately all made up for by the likes of the good folks at Cracked.

I've spent approximately the last ninety minutes reading their various lists. Some of these things are just fantastic. My personal favorite is Top Five Questions Season Two of Heroes Had Better F@#king Answer, followed closely by The Twelve Most Ridiculous Similes in Music History. There's also a good one about Apocalyptic predictions.

That said, there are a lot of things that still piss me off. Like this one stoplight in downtown Rolla. Let's put aside for the moment that nearly all of downtown Rolla pisses me off, especially since they keep digging trenches on Pine Street and lining them with stakes made from sharpened toothbrushes and nuclear weapons. This one stop light has the incredible ability to turn any given motorist into an utter moron. It sends out undetectable cosmic rays that turn the human brain into a sack of hair. In proximity to this stoplight, people forget that you have to yield on green when making a left turn, that you have to fucking go when the light turns green except in the above situation, and that even if you're doing differential equations with your right hand, if your left is holding a cellular phone and/or a cigarette whose ashes are dripping onto your bigass Dodge truck's exposed gas tank, you're going to look like an idiot. And I'm going to shout this change in your status to the top of my lungs while stewing in my impotent, Explorer-shrouded rage. A further cosmic joke is that the more or less constant destruction of Pine Street forces me to take a detour through this light at least twice a day.

Also, Windows Vista makes me want to bleed. But are they working to make it better? Of course not; they're already off developing the next act of software terrorism that will be cool for approximately eight seconds before its "security features" force me to drive my Labrador's rawhide bone through my left temple. All in the name of helping me to view my home page in the fonts I want from the public computer terminals that Microsoft continues to imagine are proliferating. Internet cafés were cool in 1999, in Poland, but not any more. Having an operating system that fucking works is apparently of tertiary concern to 1)making sure the idiots on YouTube can find their videos of William Sledd's fashion critiques NOW and 2)that the subtitles to those videos are delivered invariably in Wingdings.

But seriously, read some Cracked. A spoonfull of the ridiculous helps the harsh reality of our sick, sad world go down with the dull, aching burn of Sake, rather than salted orange juice poured into an open wound.

Robert Jordan's passing

2007-09-16T23:27:00.000-05:00

I will admit that I am a selfish man. When I first heard of Robert Jordan's death, my first reaction was, "Oh, please tell me he at least finished book 12 first."

He did not. I have heard rumors that his wife knows the ending, but all that means is that a lesser writer will finish the work began by a master, if those of us who have been waiting for YEARS to get the last book--number 12!!--even get an ending at all. The man who promised to keep writing "until they nail[ed] shut his coffin" (as it said on the back page of his every book), discovered he's not immortal, after writing superfluous prequels and keeping a blog about his rare medical condition. The "2,000 page monster" we were promised will, in all likelihood, never arrive.

Grieve. Both for the loss of one of the truly great, and for the curse of hubris.

The Greatest Generation

2007-09-05T10:28:00.000-05:00

I got this email forwarded from my boss this morning. It touts the greatness of the baby boomers through generation X. Rather than editing out all of the >s and poor punctuation, I left them in to preserve just how irritated it made me and hopefully will make you.

This chain letter should have come with an addendum saying, "Thanks to this batch of 'the best risk-takers, problem solvers and inventors ever' we now have things like global warming, terrorism and a world full of countries that hate us. Thankfully we have the catharsis of running with scissors to help us cope."

Oh, and the exortation to send it on or God will be mad at you really completes it.

===
>
> READ TO THE BOTTOM FOR QUOTE OF THE MONTH BY JAY LENO. IF YOU
DON'T
> READ ANYTHING ELSE---VERY WELL STATED TO ALL THE KIDS WHO SURVIVED the
1930s,
> 40's, 50's, 60's and 70's!! First, we survived being born to mothers who
smoked
> and/or drank while they were pregnant. They took aspirin, ate blue cheese
> dressing, tuna from a can, and didn't get tested for diabetes. Then after
that
> trauma, we were put to sleep on our tummies in baby cribs covered with
bright
> colored lead-based paints. We had no childproof lids on medicine bottles,
doors
> or cabinets and when we rode our bikes, we had no helmets, not to mention,
the
> risks we took hitchhiking. As infants &children, we would ride in cars
with
no
> car seats, booster seats, seat belts or air bags. Riding in the back of a
pick
> up on a warm day was always a special treat. We drank water from the
garden
> hose and NOT from a bottle.We shared one soft drink with four friends,
from
one
> bottle and NO ONE actually died from this. We ate cupcakes, white bread
and
> real butter and drank Kool-aid made with sugar, but we weren't overweight
> because, WE WERE ALWAYS OUTSIDE PLAYING! We would leave home in the
morning
and
> play all day, as long as we were back when the streetlights came on. No
one
was
> able to reach us all day. And we were O.K. We would spend hours building
our
> go-carts out of scraps and then ride down the hill, only to find out we
forgot
> the brakes. After running into the bushes a few times, we learned to solve
the
> problem. We did not have Playstations, Nintendo's, X-boxes, no video games
at
> all, no 150 channels on cable, no video movies or DVD's, no surround-sound
or
> CD's, no cell phones, no personal computer! s, no Internet or chat
> rooms........ WE HAD FRIENDS and we went outside and found them!We fell
out
of
> trees, got cut, broke bones and teeth and there were no lawsuits from
these
> accidents. We ate worms and mud pies made from dirt, and the worms did not
live
> in us forever. We were given BB guns for our 10th birthdays, made up games
with
> sticks and tennis balls and, although we were told it would happen, we did
not
> put out very many eyes. We rode bikes or walked to a friend's house and
knocked
> on the door or rang the bell, or just walked in and talked to them! Little
> League had tryouts and not everyone made the team. Those who didn't had to
> learn to deal with disappointment. Imagine that!! The idea of a parent
bailing
> us out if we broke the law was unheard of. They actually sided with the
law!
> These generations have produced some of the best risk-takers, problem
solvers
> and inventors ever! The past 50 years have been an explosion of innovation
and
> new ideas. We had freedom, failure, success and responsibility, and we
learned
> HOW TO DEAL WITH IT ALL! If YOU are one of them, CONGRATULATIONS!You might
want
> to share this with others who have had the luck to grow up as kids, before
the
> lawyers and the government regulated so much of our lives for our own
> good.While you are at it, forward it to your kids so they will know how
brave
> (and lucky) their parents were. Kind of makes you want to run through the
house
> with scissors, doesn't it?! The quote of the month is by Jay Leno:'With
> hurricanes, tornados, fires out of control, mud slides, flooding, severe
> thunderstorms tearing up the country from one end to another, and with the
> threat of bird flu and terrorist attacks, are we sure this is a good time
to
> take God out of the Pledge of Allegiance?' For those that prefer to think
that
> God is not watching over us...go ahead and delete this. For the rest of
> us...pass this on.

Things I Hate

2007-08-24T10:14:00.001-05:00

There was once a time when I decided to use the blog in a very Lane Wilson style of doing things--as a vehicle for management and mitigation of my misanthropy. And also to craft clever consonance. Aha, aha!

But I soon realized that my rage just doesn't carry with it the stamina of some.

Therefore, with the understanding that this is not another attempt at making this blog into a vitriol-delivering machine, cranking out more and more hate like some diabolical engine, I submit for your approval the following (truncated) list of things I utterly loathe.

Customer service

I have a habit of being hard on waitresses in theory but easy in practice. For instance, if I sit in your restaurant and get thirsty enough to contemplate strapping on an apron and waltzing into the kitchen to refill my own drink before you have time to again pass by my table without so much as a glance, I probably won't be tipping you at all, unless I decide to be downright insulting and leave you a dime and a Post-It outlining my dissatisfaction. On the other hand, if you smile and bring me my food in a timely manner, and maybe ask if I need a refill once in a while, I'm generally willing to tip at least %20, and more if the service was really great. Bad service = bad tip; it's as simple as that.

Next on the chopping block is the pizza delivery guys. I don't care if you have to spend money on gas to drive to my office to bring me my Caesar salad. It is not the job of the consumer (in this case, literally) to worry about the structuring of your compensation plan. I already pay an extra fee (which is more than enough to pay for the gas it took you to drive less than three miles to my door) for you to bring my food to me. If you were overly friendly, or perhaps even timely, then you might deserve a gratuity. If you disagree, allow me to offer two alternatives: 1) look up the fucking definition of "gratuity" and get back with me and 2) take it up with your boss: if you want me to pay more for the salad that I waited on for an hour, then build it into the salad's base price and let me decide if it's worth it. Oh, and since you're so into tipping, allow me to provide you this third nugget of advice that meets the double criteria of being more than you earned and more than I agreed to provide: get a better job; nobody cares that gas is hard to pay for if you can't be bothered to attend some kind of post-secondary education. If you're a college student pizza delivery boy, then you know that a better career is on its way (unless you're studying general communications, in which case I advise you to see if your pizza delivery firm has stock options).
It goes on, of course. I can generally handle either one or the other, but the combination of both incompetence and unfriendliness gets me every time. For instance, the last time I visited Office Depot, I bought a trackball (yes, on purpose, you ass). The lilliputian auctioneer behind the counter doubtless heard none of my responses to the questions his Draconian corporate lower-management boss requires him to ask because he never stopped talking. Still, though, the line moved quickly enough that I wasn't too put off by his rudeness. This incident puts my recent trip to the new Einstein's Brothers Bagels that they put on campus in stark relief. The lady behind the counter smiled when she took my order and said she liked my name, though I had to repeat it twice (really, I blame my parents for this, and I have resolved on multiple occasions to start giving out my middle name in such situations, for its monosyllabic appeal). When I attempted to pay for my bagels, the other lady behind the cash register looked blankly at my Discover card and the machine through which I was about to suggest she slide it for approximately two minutes before remembering that Einstein's doesn't accept Discover (leaving it up to me to propose an acceptable alternative). Despite this inefficiency, I left Einstein's knowing that I would come back, because they gave me delicious bagels and a personal touch.

These two experiences are meant to set the stage for the third, the most dreadful: a recent trip to Orange Julius really ticked me off. The bimbo behind the counter looked up from the text message that she was presumably tapping out to one of her idiot friends ("omg so b0rd visit plz") long enough to notice that I was there, then looked back down for a couple more seconds while she finished sending it. Once she was good and ready, she took my order. Rather, I should say, she accepted my order, as I had to provide it without either greeting or solicitation. Then she called back to the girl sitting in the back of the place by the machine and had her blend my smoothie. The two girls' relationship could only be described as "strained," and I don't care to know why ("lemme borrow that top, bitch!").

Pontification, both by bloggers/vloggers and Popes

Etymology of my complaint aside, I hate it when people insist upon authority that was either 1) denied them long enough ago that it makes no difference or 2) never theirs in the first place. The Pope recently proclaimed that Protestants aren't Christians. Now, to be fair, he's not the first one to point the finger. However, he's the most prominent one to do it in such an open and faux-authoritative way in a long, long time. People can tune out the incoherent ramblings of the crazy IT guy ("Mark, Catholics aren't Christians.") or the uninformed Baptist preacher who says crazy shit to keep his job, but when the Pope turns out an actual document articulating the point... it's bad. I think we can all agree that Nazi-Pope has dealt a crushing blow to JP2's efforts at Christian unity.

Bloggers. And Vloggers, you pieces of trash that call yourselves journalists. You're not. Get out of your mother's basement and do something. Nobody cares that you hate Bush enough to think yourself another Michael Moore. Just the other day, I saw a blogger touting the advantages of a certain radio-controlled airplane based solely on how it runs on "pure, clean electrical energy," which I'm glad she did, becuase it made sure that I knew she was an idiot. The only way electrical energy is "clean" and "pure" is when it's not dug out of the ground and extracted from vast piles of dirty rocks, with the waste piped into the atmosphere. Just because the machine itself is not burning gas doesn't mean that the energy it is using is in any way efficient.

Digg. Don't get me wrong, I read it every day. But now it's full of idiots. It may always have been (such is the democratization of information, sadly), but it was not always so readily apparent. I have the formula for success for any Digg posting: rail on the PlayStation3, the Bush administration, the war in Iraq, Microsoft (M$!!1one!!), homosexuality and mention alcohol, all in a "top 10" list of some kind. Alternatively, praise any or all of the above to get an interesting "most buried" effect. Oh, or describe a 4 or 5 megabyte picture of a baboon taking a shit as "breathtaking."

People who don't finish things they started.

The First Day

2007-08-20T10:24:00.001-05:00

At exactly 8:00am today, I officially began my career as a graduate student. So far, the day has been exactly like every other day since I began this job, but with the following changes: 1) it rained and 2) I will leave at 10:45ish for my first class.

I have that same giddy feeling that visits me every first day. The jitters, the nerves, planning that trip to the bookstore. This will be my last true first day... hopefully. I plan to get through this graduate program in one academic year, plus a couple weeks afterward for the comprehensive test I have to take before they'll hand over my effing degree.

I feel way more prepared for this first day than for any other in history. I've got my parking pass affixed, my wardrobe change ready (because I won't be "that guy" who goes to class dressed business casual--I would rather convert my office into a makeshift changing room, and that's exactly what I'm doing), my computer up and running on the campus wireless network and my work schedule synced up perfectly with my classes. Of course, foresight is never 20/20, but I rather enjoy all this crap, and I LOVE buying school supplies. Hopefully I won't become the bitter old coot that I was during (and, let's admit it, after) that last year at Truman by adopting what my adviser has implied is an ambitious workload.

I like to think that I'm not the average student--we'll see if that's true in the next few weeks.

2007-08-13T12:58:00.000-05:00

I got up this morning at 4:30am, briefly showered, then drove to Rolla for work. I arrived tired and hungry, but in plenty of time to make it to work. I got here and worked for about an hour before succumbing to the NEED TO EAT.

Fortunately, there are people whose job it is to take pity on (and advantage of) fools like myself. The good folks at Papa Johns delivered to me a pan pizza with pineapple and extra cheese and a side of ranch dressing.

Not so fortunately, I ate half of said pizza and am now miserable, even hours later. I thought to compensate for that with oodles of red tea, which I hear helps aide the liver in removing toxins from the body. In any case, it tastes good, when one isn't glutted on pizza.

I'm no longer tired and hungry. Now I'm tired and stuffed. This isn't much better than my previous state.

2007-08-10T13:06:00.000-05:00

I don't know quite what to say about this. Except that the proliferation of Facebook applications needs to stop. Now.

The Ray Gun as Wand

2007-08-06T12:41:00.000-05:00

I worry.

Needlessly, most of the time.

But this time, I believe my worry stems from actual exacerbating factors with a basis in reality. My [selfish] worry is that fantasy as a literary genre will not mature soon enough for me to reap the sweet, sweet benefits.

I tell you this not only to rub your nose in the fact that I have an English degree and you, in all probability, do not (except you). Moreover, I tell you this because it is an actual concern. I've lost sleep over this one. And new material like this sh*t doesn't buoy my hopes. The dark age of science fiction was when every story featured in Amazing! was illustrated with a man in a full space suit saving a woman wearing just enough clothing to be printable (the rest presumably having been ripped off of her lithe frame by the BEM who is clutching her in one claw and posing threateningly with the other, all the while oozing... ooze), apparently implying that women can breathe in the vacuum of space (or don't need to breathe at all), but men cannot. Depending on your position, this is feminism or misogyny (but isn't everything?).

This is currently where we find the fantasy genre. Ten seconds playing World of Warcrack will show you shining examples of this very same phenomenon. The same piece of armor that could conceivably, upon visual inspection, provide adequate protection to a male character looks a lot more like dental floss when equipped on a female character. In fact, in some cases, armor which covers less actually provides more protection. Which begs the question: are Yetis, glutted as they are on their vast stores of Yeti porn (what else are they using the silver they drop to buy?), expecting some outcome other than combat when colliding with female characters, and are thus unable to do as much damage in their erotica-fogged altered state of consciousness? Is the armor value of the whore pants on this Human Rogue calculated based on the sex-starvedness of the creature you're fighting? And what about when you're fighting elementals, or undead? Surely when you're made of fire or rotting flesh, you can't be so easily distracted by a well-turned ankle..?

Now, I do not imply that Science Fiction as a genre doesn't have some kinks to work out. But it is a much more mature genre in terms of exploiting the sexual frustrations of its devotees. So the folks on Star Trek still wear spandex, but it at least covers everything, and the men aren't walking around in armor while the women wear strategically-placed napkins. Except for the Klingons, and those are really leather napkins, which everyone knows will turn a swordstroke better than paper ones.

Weird

2007-08-02T14:59:00.000-05:00

Last night, I had a dream. I think this dream will serve as part of the fantasy novel that I’ve wanted to write forever. So, there’s that. Unfortunately, this post isn’t about my nocturnal inspirations.

I received a weird text message today from my friend and erstwhile roommate Matt. I haven’t spoken to Matt in quite some time, since before college ended. Now, don’t get me wrong, Matt’s a very nice guy. If I ever get married, I might ask him to be in the wedding. I’m not sure he’d go for it, though, because it’s looking to be a non-traditional ceremony.

Anyway, the message said that I was in a dream he had, and he’s praying for me. For those of you who don’t know, this is a flash from the past, from my Jesusy days. Yes, I was an intolerant, world-in-black-and-white kind of guy who voted for George Bush. I might’ve even voted for Bush back then if he hadn’t been running against the horrible alternative that was John Kerry. Regardless, for whatever reason, I delighted in attending Wednesday night church services where the theme always seemed to be, “We need a little more Protestant guilt.” Of course, it was all disguised quite cleverly as “encouragement” or “conviction,” but essentially what we were being spoon fed was guilt, plain and simple.

Look, I’m down with Jesus. I do pray to Him, after all. But I really don’t know why I ever tried pursuing the shallow friendships that I had in the Christian organizations that I joined when I could’ve put more time toward making friends who didn’t like me in direct proportion to how willing I was to cram myself into a mold. I thank God for the real friends I did make in college. People I lived with, ate Wendy’s with, people who shared my Warcraft addictions and physically restrained me when I tried to go to bed too early on weeknights. People with whom I still occasionally speak, even! This text message was the most direct contact I’d had with any of the Jesus crowd since… April? Earlier?

So I guess I’m thankful for this textual slap-in-the-face. Not a phone call and a quick catch-up conversation, though that would’ve actually been more considerate and not cost me $.15, but instead a quick 150 character message to let me know that I can still rejoin the fold, if I want to give up what makes me unique and center every conversation around how grubby my little soul is and how I’m trying to scour it clean with talk of how much Scripture I read on Saturday nights. Thanks, but I’ll stick with actual interaction with actual people, not the crap you see satirized in Mandy Moore movies.

This about sums it up

2007-08-01T22:23:00.000-05:00

This about sums up the weekend we all had at Nanny's house. This is
Ty Browning, my newest cousin. He's happy, and looks perpetually
surprised.

The "stop eating when it hurts" diet

2007-07-26T14:46:00.000-05:00

So, perhaps in response to the sudden lack of Harry Potter in my life, I have been missing out on trips to the gym and replacing them with pie. One cannot live for long in the shadow of that unbalanced equation, for soon one will outgrow such a shadow.

And so I am embarking upon healthy living with renewed vigor, armed with tools provided by FitDay via Miss Gulley. It helps me keep track of how many calories I'm actually taking in and expending in the course of a normal day. Let me just say this. You can eat as many of Subway's turkey sandwiches as you want, provided you don't double the cheese or add anything more caloric than mustard, and you won't get fat. My theory is that it's like beer--you can't actually hold enough to do too much damage. Today, I've consumed about 900 calories, and I've gone through two of my three meals. This puts me in a much better spot than I was yesterday, when I skipped breakfast, but after lunch I had ingested over 1900 calories.

This was probably due to the two turkey sandwiches, the bread and butter I ate because I was too impatient to make a third sandwich, and the quarter of an apple pie I ate à la mode. The pie alone accounted for over 700 calories. When I finished that meal, I actually hurt.

So, I charted out my weight loss goal, and--no, let me stop right here. If you're one of those people who discourage those who aren't already overweight from losing weight, then f*ck you, hard; just because I'm not a lard ass already doesn't mean I need to be one before I qualify for your support. When I look in the mirror and think, "Man, I wish I could look like this without sucking in," or, "These pants used to fit really well..." then it's time for me to consider trimming off some excess fat and going to the gym more often. I have had too many people say they're worried about me developing an eating disorder or some other such bullshit concern. If you've ever seen me in front of a plate of anything alfredo, you know I'm not in any danger of becoming anorexic. And since I don't throw it up afterward, that officially makes me completely fine. Don't cut down my attempts at self-improvement to be more comfortable with your own tubby self. /rant

Like I was saying, I charted out my weight loss goal of 11 pounds in five-ish weeks, and I think I can do it if I really stick to eating smaller portions and start going to the gym five or six days a week again. The gym part doesn't really scare me, since I enjoy the exercise, and I LOVE answering my iPhone while I'm there: since people just see you wearing a pair of white earbuds, and you're not holding anything that really looks like a phone, they assume you're having a conversation with yourself; it's great.

Thirsty Thursday's tonight. I'm out to have some fun with the guys from the office at El Maguey. I'll cool it on the chips and limit myself to two Bud Lites.

Cuterz!

2007-07-25T13:38:00.000-05:00

Isn't she the sweetest thing? She's been trusted to stay out of her
crate during the day while Daddy's at work, and she's done less than
$50 in damage so far. I'm so proud!

Bereavement

2007-07-24T12:55:00.000-05:00

It's over. Harry Potter has finally come to its dramatic conclusion. For those of you who haven't read it, don't worry--I'm not going to give anything away. I think it's polite to wait a couple weeks after release, when those of us who have interest in knowing will probably have finished it.

I always feel like this when I've finished a series that really captivated me. Terry Brooks did this to me with his earlier work, the original Shannara triolgy. When I finished Wishsong, I was depressed for a solid day. Not because of the ending, which upon reflection probably did a lot to preserve the integrity of the books, but because it was simply over. The same can be said of Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman's original Dragonlance Chronicles trilogy and Stephen R. Donaldson's Chronicles of Thomas Covenant. The power an imaginative and articulate author can weild is excruciatingly potent. Too much modern fantasy is mired in the predictable pulp stuff that was ported over from Science Fiction (the ray gun becomes the wizard's staff), so when something comes along that's actually thought out, that's planned and penned so excellently, the story becomes almost an obsession.

Ask anyone who's waiting for Robert Jordan to finish up The Wheel of Time.

So when you finally close the book, the last book, and the feeling of finality steals over you, and the sense of expectation and longing for the next one doesn't replace the hunger with which you devoured this one, what do you do? It's impressive and embarassing how attached we can become to our favorite characters, to needing to know more about a fictional universe. Though the pop culture craze over Harry Potter has made it easier to admit you're really a Ravenclaw at heart, what if you also know for sure you'd wear the Red Robes of Lunitari, or you have a really good theory on how to craft sa'angreal?

My answer would be to combat the longing by writing your own.

Unfortunately, this is also where authorial snobs like David Eddings say that they "don't worry too much about [that]" and suggest that the potential writer try something easier, "like rocket science..." Yes, he said that, in The Rivan Codex. Eddings is a mediocre writer who was able to capture interest with his first two series, but then lost it when people started to realize that he was regurgitating the same story with different proper nouns and crediting his wife with it in an attempt to sell more books. (Come to think of it, his wife's influence may have been why most of his female characters were so domineering and emasculating, yet the men were always lost without them).

In any case, rambling tribute to epic fanasy aside, the truth is that it is at best an unappreciated genre. Its devotees are often, like the gays, either closeted or just too far out there. Maybe Potter can change that, but I do not remain optimistic.

I don't believe it. I just don't believe it.

2007-07-16T12:44:00.000-05:00

In the Washington Post, no less!

READ!

Respite, respite and nepenthe!

2007-07-13T08:40:00.000-05:00

Anymore, all I have to do to have enough vitriol to really get me going is to read the news. For those of who you don't know, I have conservative sympathies. I do. But I also have just a tinge of common sense. And that's enough to land me right in the middle of a subdued rage any time I read the news.

I just read this article from "San Francisco's Alternative Online Daily." Give me a break. Anyway, it's an article full of moral posturing, going so far as to describe the author's (note, not journalist's) political opinion as a "sacred duty". It's ridiculous that this kind of thing gets touted as news because it has some numbers in it. It's not political analysis, it's not prediction, it's not even reporting. It's an opinion piece in the guise of a headline.

Yes, Congress is nothing but a bunch of sissy career politicians vying for reelection. Yes, the president is delusional and completely unconcerned about public opinion. Yes, 70% of Americans are "against" the war in Iraq (meaning that 70% of those people wearing black berets and munching on bran muffins at Starbucks are against it, when phased in such a way as to indicate the camera-weilding questioner's preference to a certain response), and over 60% think that we should get out now.

Let's think for a moment. The likelihood that most people asked this question have read Zbigniew Brzezinski's The Choice or any comprarable and well-researched argument approaches zero. Let's also consider that, having almost no real information other than that provided by TV news, most Americans can be considered utterly uninformed about anything more relevant than Paris Hilton's stay in the LA County Jail, let alone world events and the global terrorism issue. Can anyone actually argue responsibly that we should be making policy decisions about such titanically complicated problems based on the contrived extraction of "opinion" from an uninformed, overweight public addicted to Dancing with the Stars? Are you kidding me? I'd threaten to move to Canada, but it's where all the morons from my college years promised to move if George Bush were reelected (however, much like their favored candidate in 2004, they changed their minds in the light of actual information (in this case, that moving to another country requires work, a phenomenon with which their silver-spooned childhoods never had time to acquaint them)).

It's times like this that I appreciate Ann Coulter. For those of you who think she's out there to push some radical worldview, you should stop reading this, right now, and turn on E! so you can catch up on the news that matters. For those of you who got past that test, keep reading; you shall know the truth, and the truth shall set you free. The people who are turned off by Ann Coulter are idiots on the grounds that they think she's serious. This woman is utterly brilliant: she has achieved the highest possible form of media criticism. I believe her every stance is a calculated mockery of the lunacy she sees in the newspapers and on TV all the time. She's a conservative, of course, but she's not the crazy bitch that people make her out to be. She just doesn't give a damn about being liked, especially by "the liberals" (who she loves to lump all together). Read her books, seriously. They're like Al Franken's books, only funny and with a few facts thrown in for kicks. My favorite one so far is Godless: The Church of Liberalism. It's also her newest. Also, you're not allowed to quote it derisively unless you've read the whole thing. It's a fairly tight argument, and though I can't remember how long it is (I'll check my autographed copy when I get home), it's not longwinded.

We out.

First Post in the style of Mark England

2007-07-12T11:43:00.000-05:00

The first post, as everyone knows, is doomed to suck. You've got, what, a paragraph of content that's relevent, if that? Well, who am I to interrupt literally months of tradition?

So this post will suck. In fact, it's in the process of doing it right now. No matter how much psychic energy I expend, it will continue its descent into the toilet.

It is at this point in any post that I have the moment of the reality check. You know that of which I speak. I'm typing along and suddenly think, "Who the hell cares?" This moment has been the weedout for many a post.

It has also failed to stop some really bad ones. A lot like airport security.

I have a secret. I'm not going to tell you what it is, though, becuase 1) I like secrets and 2) I can't tell you what it is.

Oh, and in other news, the Pope has said I'm not a Christian. Or at least not a "real" Christian. Anyone up for a discussion on transferrable merit? Don't think that's not where he's going.