I haven’t updated this in quite some time, but I feel as though this time, that’s justifiable. Partly because this isn’t a very good blog anyway, and so updating it is a bit silly in the first place, but also because I’ve actually been getting things done, for once. I’m proud to report that I have finally, it seems, acquired an apartment that I can use once my lease with this one is done. I decided pretty early into renting this place that it would not be somewhere I’d want to stay indefinitely, and so have known that I’d have to undertake the job of finding an apartment in Chicago for about nine months now. Incidentally, I keep receiving letters in the mail informing me that my lease is going to run out in my current apartment, and something about they’ve tried to contact me to figure out whether or not I’m staying and they’re showing it and whatnot. This is funny to me for two reasons. First among those is that I’ve tried to contact them to tell them to stop sending me these letters. I called in June to let them know I’m not renewing my lease, but it appears that the answering machine on which that was recorded was immediately set on fire and thrown from their office window. When they called me to tell me that my apartment is being shown, I told them that I was not renewing the lease, but it appears that they go through receptionists like no one’s business, because no one I’ve talked to ever seems to have worked there for more than, say, fifteen minutes. And yet, every week, a letter informing me that if I try to live in the apartment after someone else is living in it, some hilarious Odd Couple moments could ensue for which they can not be held legally responsible. The second is that I could probably make a decent papier-mâché scale replica of the… let’s say Merrimac from the number of “moving out checklists” I’m acquiring from my leasing agency.
So off to find a new apartment. I went through the same agency that helped me find the apartment I have now, and boy howdy did they do a terrible job this time through. I found an apartment the first time I went out looking with their agent, and signed some things and believed that was that. It was a twelfth-floor place with a balcony from which I could see Wrigley (not that one would want to, and it was about a mile away so actually watching the baseball therein was impossible, forgetting for a second that the Cubs play no games when I’m not at lab, what with their constant day games that screw up my commute, and the fact that they annoy me). That fell through when they couldn’t figure out how to determine whether or not I actually have a job, and the owner rented to someone else in the meantime. So I went out looking again, and found a nice little place on Halsted near Belmont, which would have been terrific, except for the fact that they managed to phrase “he has cosigners” in a way that, apparently, sounded to the owner like “this sucker won’t be able to pay you without robbing passers-by”. So that was out. Also they apparently lost the part where they knew that I had a job. The third time through, success.
The problem, I think, is that they seem to want to do as little as possible to actually collect information that would help get an apartment rented (including working only to not lose the information they have), and then get all confused when owners of buildings demand more, and lose the ability to rent the apartment in the meantime. I should state at this point that my agent wasn’t the problem. Or at least I don’t think so. He seemed new at the job, and somewhat inexperienced, but he had managers overseeing everything, and managers actually getting paperwork from me, and managers filing things. He didn’t actually seem to do much, so I find it hard to believe he screwed it up.
Anyway, the lease is in the process of being signed by everyone, and barring some terrible badness, I’ll be moving into an apartment in a high-rise with a gorgeous view of the city in a neighborhood that has several dozen restaurants and crêperie, as well as access to a beach, which I’ve learned over the past few weeks is incredibly nice. Please don’t stalk me.
Two more things:
1) Tomorrow is the first time I’m actually going to see a major league baseball game in which the Pittsburgh Pirates are playing, though I may well wear my Bucs hat with the rationale that the two opposing sides will be hating on each other so much that they don’t notice my sad devotion to that ancient ballclub. I still don’t know who I’m going to want to win tomorrow’s game. If the Cubs win, the Pirates don’t get closer to not being the worst team in the NL Central and I’ll probably have to be somewhat annoyed at the annoying Cubs fans running around talking about how next year is their year already. If the Cardinals win, they stop the whole “skid” thing and the Reds have a decreased chance of taking the division, which I would heartily support this year. If only because, seriously, what have the Cards done for me lately. If they could both lose, of course, I'd be ecstatic, and eagerly await next Sunday, when I get to attend the Cubs/Pirates game, in which Zach Duke may be pitching, and, if so, will own him some infant bears. Of course, whichever happens, my happiness tomorrow rests on a Bucco win to finish out the Giants series, after which they will make the greatest comeback run in baseball history which the people of America could use after the stunning possibility of Floyd Landis doping.
Oh wait. The people of America don’t care about the Tour de France, but if the Pirates got incredibly good, you'd have DVD set after DVD set after a few years. Mass exodus from the Red Sox bandwagon to our jalopy.
2) What the hell is going on with yogurt lately? Perhaps it’s just the cheap kind I buy, but I’ve cut myself three times now on the tin foil, which leads to the uncomfortable situations in which a) I’m bleeding all over the damn place, leading me to believe I’ve got way too much blood in my fingers b) the savings on yogurt are being eaten up by bandage purchases. I’ll still buy the Lucerne brand stuff, based solely on cheapness, but I’ll try to make sure I look at the picture on the side so as to avoid the Fruit-On-The-Bottom-Razors-Around-The-Lid variety.
Sunday, July 30, 2006
Monday, July 24, 2006
The Chin
At this point, Chuck Norris jokes are somewhat old hat. All the rage for a while, they seem to have died off a bit. I could be completely wrong on that account, as I spend very little of my time keeping up with what you hip young kids do these days, but from my perspective, they've gone down a bit. Feel free to slam me here if I'm wrong. This dearth of "Wow, that celebrity's a real bad ass" comedy has left me no other choice on whether or not to present this link.
I give you the genius of some guy: Bruce Campbell Facts
I appreciate it more explicitly because it's minorly concerning zombie horror. But mostly because Bruce Campbell is good times. Yes, a number of the facts are based on Chuck Norris facts, but that's irrelevant.
Because I said so.
I give you the genius of some guy: Bruce Campbell Facts
I appreciate it more explicitly because it's minorly concerning zombie horror. But mostly because Bruce Campbell is good times. Yes, a number of the facts are based on Chuck Norris facts, but that's irrelevant.
Because I said so.
Monday, July 17, 2006
Lessons Learned
Things that were learned this weekend:
1. When I go to Pirates games, they win. When I don't, they lose. I suppose I could have made the same assumption earlier in the year with a mere thirty flukes, but this weekend drove home that point in a way I'm going to buy into so that it makes it seem like I'm more important than I am*. The games I went to were the kind of wins that we've not have any of this season, those in which we're actually fighting to stay in it and succeed, only to come up with the loss yesterday after giving up four runs in the eleventh when we'd managed to run out of relievers. As far as the lineup is concerned, I realize they were both pulled by the end of the game, but starting a lineup that includes both Cota and Burnitz is almost like Jim Tracy's attempt to make up for the fact that he can't bring in Vogelsong anymore. Maholm looked good
yesterday, but meh.
2. From the game on Saturday: If you're going to attend a baseball game, I'm fine with you yelling things, for the most part. Probably shouldn't be profane, but other than that, it's part of the experience of being a fan. That said, you should try to make it make some modicum of sense. By which I mean if you scream after every foul ball into the seats (two sections up) "Just catch it!" at Sean Casey (it appears you think he's either Spider-Man or is the kind of hometown guy that smiles a lot and reminds everyone of nice things and is capable of running screaming up the stairs for two sections, stomping on children), I'm going to want to hit you with something. I won't, but you should probably go ahead and shut up*. And yes. That goes for any player. It'd go for Burnitz, even though he'd probably be napping comfortably in a lawn chair.**
3. Sometimes, the people that are paid to find you an apartment are so stupendously bad at their task that they manage to make the fact that you have people that are willing to bail you out in the case of you not being able to actually do the whole apartment thing into something which actually disqualifies you from an apartment.
4. Some people in Arizona think it would be good times to turn the electoral process into a lottery. Is it bribery to get people to vote? Sure. Does it take away some legitimacy from the perfectly valid option of voicing one's opinion by electing not to vote? Somewhat. Considering how many people buy lottery tickets, will it work? Possibly. What concerns me is that this would appear to encourage voting for the sake of voting, rather than because you think Person A would do a better job at it. Then again, voting anymore looks more and more like team sports, in which votes are cast for either of the Big Two teams without actually bothering to learn about either party's platform. So the legitimacy that's actually involved here is probably somewhat negligible.
5. Turns out aviation authorities really like to pull "Just Kidding" forty minute delays. How hilarious.
*For other ways to feel more important than you are, please, consider blogging.
**I'm presuming that for six million, he can afford a lawn chair in which napping can be described as "comfortable" rather than "acrobatic in how I've not fallen off yet."
1. When I go to Pirates games, they win. When I don't, they lose. I suppose I could have made the same assumption earlier in the year with a mere thirty flukes, but this weekend drove home that point in a way I'm going to buy into so that it makes it seem like I'm more important than I am*. The games I went to were the kind of wins that we've not have any of this season, those in which we're actually fighting to stay in it and succeed, only to come up with the loss yesterday after giving up four runs in the eleventh when we'd managed to run out of relievers. As far as the lineup is concerned, I realize they were both pulled by the end of the game, but starting a lineup that includes both Cota and Burnitz is almost like Jim Tracy's attempt to make up for the fact that he can't bring in Vogelsong anymore. Maholm looked good
yesterday, but meh.
2. From the game on Saturday: If you're going to attend a baseball game, I'm fine with you yelling things, for the most part. Probably shouldn't be profane, but other than that, it's part of the experience of being a fan. That said, you should try to make it make some modicum of sense. By which I mean if you scream after every foul ball into the seats (two sections up) "Just catch it!" at Sean Casey (it appears you think he's either Spider-Man or is the kind of hometown guy that smiles a lot and reminds everyone of nice things and is capable of running screaming up the stairs for two sections, stomping on children), I'm going to want to hit you with something. I won't, but you should probably go ahead and shut up*. And yes. That goes for any player. It'd go for Burnitz, even though he'd probably be napping comfortably in a lawn chair.**
3. Sometimes, the people that are paid to find you an apartment are so stupendously bad at their task that they manage to make the fact that you have people that are willing to bail you out in the case of you not being able to actually do the whole apartment thing into something which actually disqualifies you from an apartment.
4. Some people in Arizona think it would be good times to turn the electoral process into a lottery. Is it bribery to get people to vote? Sure. Does it take away some legitimacy from the perfectly valid option of voicing one's opinion by electing not to vote? Somewhat. Considering how many people buy lottery tickets, will it work? Possibly. What concerns me is that this would appear to encourage voting for the sake of voting, rather than because you think Person A would do a better job at it. Then again, voting anymore looks more and more like team sports, in which votes are cast for either of the Big Two teams without actually bothering to learn about either party's platform. So the legitimacy that's actually involved here is probably somewhat negligible.
5. Turns out aviation authorities really like to pull "Just Kidding" forty minute delays. How hilarious.
*For other ways to feel more important than you are, please, consider blogging.
**I'm presuming that for six million, he can afford a lawn chair in which napping can be described as "comfortable" rather than "acrobatic in how I've not fallen off yet."
Saturday, July 15, 2006
Let's Go Bucs from Section 22
It took over half the season, but I finally made it to a Pirates game. I've got to take this moment, I suppose, to thank my dad for the best tickets I think I've ever had. Section 22, Row F which is on top of the home dugout. Three yards closer, and I'm actually on the field. So that was nice. The only disappointing thing about sitting that close is that you're more or less forced to watch Craig Wilson not play throughout the entirety of the game. Still, disregarding how incredibly humid it was, here's some observations:
1. While seats on top of the home dugout are great, it's also a bit unnerving any time a lefty is up, as I was more or less convinced I was probably taking a foul ball to the face. Luckily, not so much.
2. If, for some reason, you think that Bay probably could have had a triple rather than a double, shouting it as loud as you can at Jeff Cox will get you nothing but confused looks from Craig Wilson and Tom Gorzellany. Betush learned this the hard way, though he didn't actually notice it.
3. It just seemed like we couldn't get a strike to save our lives today, but happened to luck out of a few situations that the pitching staff had worked itself into. Between Casey's unassisted double play and bringing Capps in for the one pitch end of the inning after walking the bases full, I'm pleased that, if nothing else, we seemed not to be so intensely unlucky for a night. On a side note, Matt Capps is exactly one month younger than I am, and that makes me feel like a fat sack of crap who spends all day in lab. Luckily, that's pretty accurate, so I don't feel too terrible.
4. Good to see the fact that, occasionally, we can actually hit the damn ball. Fifteen hits with the added support of two Nationals errors, which I'm okay with, was sufficient as we were able to plate some damn runs. The only thing that could have made anything any better was to have gotten Jack home safely in the bottom of the eighth. Sure, he's somewhat fallen to between 2004 Jack and 2005 Jack, but damn if he doesn't look ilke he's beating himself up after anything that doesn't go perfectly. At least it seems like he cares.
5. When Duke was pulled, he walked back to the dugout with a look on his face that said "Jim Tracy just shot my puppy." I'm not sure if that's something he always does, what with the looking really dejected, but man. I know he didn't have the best night, but the guy seriously looked like I do after grading labs.
6. If you're not really in to the clapping thing, smacking the brim of a hat on the top of the dugout makes an astonishingly loud noise. Perhaps that's why the adjective "Xtreme" for the caps with goofy silver trim that we got at the gate.
So that's all good.
In other sports related noise:
The Yankees finally busted up Contreras' absurd win streak, though it should be noted that he had quite a few no decisions this year, one against the Pirates (who eventually won).
Bonds is probably being indicted, which, right now I honestly have to say I don't care about. I just got to see my team play for the first time since last summer. Leave me be.
Ben Roethlisberger's been appearing in public again, to show the world that he doesn't actually look like Ben "Fallout Shelter" Roethlisberger anymore. Yes, seconds from death and all that, and I'm glad he survived and is relatively unscathed (other than they've put some other dude's face on him), but I'm going to have to take another opportunity to mention that he's a jackass for not wearing a helmet, given his position.
To clarify, I think it's something with his cheekbones. Or his chin. Or maybe just that he's somewhat clean shaven.
One more thing. I'm glad the All-Star game went so well, as it's a good thing for the City of Pittsburgh and the PNC Park staff that everyone seems so impressed by it. But the last thing Kevin McClatchy should be doing is basking in anything.
1. While seats on top of the home dugout are great, it's also a bit unnerving any time a lefty is up, as I was more or less convinced I was probably taking a foul ball to the face. Luckily, not so much.
2. If, for some reason, you think that Bay probably could have had a triple rather than a double, shouting it as loud as you can at Jeff Cox will get you nothing but confused looks from Craig Wilson and Tom Gorzellany. Betush learned this the hard way, though he didn't actually notice it.
3. It just seemed like we couldn't get a strike to save our lives today, but happened to luck out of a few situations that the pitching staff had worked itself into. Between Casey's unassisted double play and bringing Capps in for the one pitch end of the inning after walking the bases full, I'm pleased that, if nothing else, we seemed not to be so intensely unlucky for a night. On a side note, Matt Capps is exactly one month younger than I am, and that makes me feel like a fat sack of crap who spends all day in lab. Luckily, that's pretty accurate, so I don't feel too terrible.
4. Good to see the fact that, occasionally, we can actually hit the damn ball. Fifteen hits with the added support of two Nationals errors, which I'm okay with, was sufficient as we were able to plate some damn runs. The only thing that could have made anything any better was to have gotten Jack home safely in the bottom of the eighth. Sure, he's somewhat fallen to between 2004 Jack and 2005 Jack, but damn if he doesn't look ilke he's beating himself up after anything that doesn't go perfectly. At least it seems like he cares.
5. When Duke was pulled, he walked back to the dugout with a look on his face that said "Jim Tracy just shot my puppy." I'm not sure if that's something he always does, what with the looking really dejected, but man. I know he didn't have the best night, but the guy seriously looked like I do after grading labs.
6. If you're not really in to the clapping thing, smacking the brim of a hat on the top of the dugout makes an astonishingly loud noise. Perhaps that's why the adjective "Xtreme" for the caps with goofy silver trim that we got at the gate.
So that's all good.
In other sports related noise:
The Yankees finally busted up Contreras' absurd win streak, though it should be noted that he had quite a few no decisions this year, one against the Pirates (who eventually won).
Bonds is probably being indicted, which, right now I honestly have to say I don't care about. I just got to see my team play for the first time since last summer. Leave me be.
Ben Roethlisberger's been appearing in public again, to show the world that he doesn't actually look like Ben "Fallout Shelter" Roethlisberger anymore. Yes, seconds from death and all that, and I'm glad he survived and is relatively unscathed (other than they've put some other dude's face on him), but I'm going to have to take another opportunity to mention that he's a jackass for not wearing a helmet, given his position.
To clarify, I think it's something with his cheekbones. Or his chin. Or maybe just that he's somewhat clean shaven.
One more thing. I'm glad the All-Star game went so well, as it's a good thing for the City of Pittsburgh and the PNC Park staff that everyone seems so impressed by it. But the last thing Kevin McClatchy should be doing is basking in anything.
Saturday, July 08, 2006
Spyware as it pertains to All Star Festivities
Do you leave your computer for hours at a time, and like leaving enormous representations of your baseball loyalties on your monitor so that the fellows in your office can know in no uncertain terms that you live and die by every pitch thrown by Josh Fogg? Well, you should stop that. Being obsessed with Josh Fogg, that is. In addition to being a criterion used by many leading psychologists as evidence of dangerous psychosis, looking for screensavers of Fogg will probably wreck up your computer.
McAfee has ranked the teams of Major League Baseball and some select players in terms of how likely you are to stumble across a sketchy site that will probably include some lovely spyware with your screensaver download. Number One? The New York Yankees (though Steinbrenner has said that he will put the spyware purveyors out of business by attacking them with sacks of cash). Dead last? Your Pittsburgh Pirates. Yeah, you could look at that as being the best (at something, finally), but it's just better to think of it as another category in which we're behind everyone. Hell, the Royals (whose winning percentage has squeaked past ours lately) share 15th place on this list with the Cubs and Reds.
Top player name search resulting in malevolent websites? Josh Fogg with three of four results being untrustworthy. The most dangerous Pirate on the list is Kip Wells (imagine that!) with 46.2% of sites returning something that will probably be better if you just avoid.
While not actually useful (unless you were just about to run out and download some screensavers to express your love for the Yankees and Josh Fogg), I find it moderately amusing.
McAfee has ranked the teams of Major League Baseball and some select players in terms of how likely you are to stumble across a sketchy site that will probably include some lovely spyware with your screensaver download. Number One? The New York Yankees (though Steinbrenner has said that he will put the spyware purveyors out of business by attacking them with sacks of cash). Dead last? Your Pittsburgh Pirates. Yeah, you could look at that as being the best (at something, finally), but it's just better to think of it as another category in which we're behind everyone. Hell, the Royals (whose winning percentage has squeaked past ours lately) share 15th place on this list with the Cubs and Reds.
Top player name search resulting in malevolent websites? Josh Fogg with three of four results being untrustworthy. The most dangerous Pirate on the list is Kip Wells (imagine that!) with 46.2% of sites returning something that will probably be better if you just avoid.
While not actually useful (unless you were just about to run out and download some screensavers to express your love for the Yankees and Josh Fogg), I find it moderately amusing.
Thursday, July 06, 2006
Return to Pennsylvania.
Next week, I'll be making a trip back to Pittsburgh for the first time since December. While I realize that isn't a long time for most who have left their hometown, it's still a bit odd to me that I've moved eight hours away and have absolutely no means of transport if I should ever decide on a whim to go back. My undergrad institution being only an hour and a half away, I still drove home very seldom, but the option was still there. Now, in the Windy City, I can get about as far as the public transportation will take me (95th street) without scheduling the trip pretty far in advance. I'll miss the All-Star break by one day, which I guess is just as well as I have no way to attend it, but will spend Friday evening at a Pirates game. It could work out against the Nats, but then I thought that we might win a game or so against the Royals, which didn't work out. So we'll have to see.
I suppose I might have to drive way the hell out to the country for one of these enjoyable bumper-stickers now. Or not. Evidently this beat out calling PA the "land of independence", which is kind of an empty allusion that doesn't actually mean all that much, but might have garnered some extra weight from being, you know, the actual state slogan (apparently regardless of whether or not Rick Santorum is still in office), "Pennsylvania is for road-trippers", which is more a statement about how alarmingly wide Pennsylvania turns out to be, and how that applies to people who are evidently trying to get somewhere that's not Pennsylvania, and "Honk if you love roadtrips", which they rejected based on possible confusion at turnpike tollbooths.
I still maintain that while Pennsylvania's supposed to be wide, Ohio has no business taking as long to drive through as it does.
I suppose I might have to drive way the hell out to the country for one of these enjoyable bumper-stickers now. Or not. Evidently this beat out calling PA the "land of independence", which is kind of an empty allusion that doesn't actually mean all that much, but might have garnered some extra weight from being, you know, the actual state slogan (apparently regardless of whether or not Rick Santorum is still in office), "Pennsylvania is for road-trippers", which is more a statement about how alarmingly wide Pennsylvania turns out to be, and how that applies to people who are evidently trying to get somewhere that's not Pennsylvania, and "Honk if you love roadtrips", which they rejected based on possible confusion at turnpike tollbooths.
I still maintain that while Pennsylvania's supposed to be wide, Ohio has no business taking as long to drive through as it does.
Sunday, June 25, 2006
For E-Bone Revisited
I've been trying to think about what to write in this post, which I intended to be up on or around June 12. It's June 25th now, and so it's getting written. I'll be damned if I'm going to fall two weeks behind on this.
In a few weeks (five and one half, to be a bit more precise), twenty-three years will have passed since I was born. Eleven days after that, on August 14th, I will have lived a longer amount of time than a friend of mine. Since his death, over one year has gone by (one year and thirteen days as i write this) and I still find myself thinking about his life on the train ride home on occasion. For some reason, one year after attending his funeral and being one of the last standing at his gravesite as he was brought to where he is at this moment, I cannot quite comprehend the fact that he's not working as a cook at the Creighton Hotel restaurant or with Burlington Coat Factories (which was the last job I know of that he had). Somehow, it doesn't seem real that I will never again run into him at Sheetz late at night. That's probably helped by the fact that Sheetz doesn't exist in Chicago, and I'm not near things that remind me of him, but it still just doesn't sound like something which could be true. I hadn't talked to him for a long time before his death, and so I would expect that it shouldn't really come as a shock, or as something which would confuse me, but there it is. It is perhaps because of the very unique place that he held in my life that I'm still, one year later, thinking about him on the train. Perhaps it's merely because he was someone who I knew, who was my age, and who passed away much too young.
When I was in early high-school, I wasn't one much for that whole actually talking to people thing. Let's call me shy. That appeared to honestly bother Ed. That's the only reason I can think of that he made somewhat of a project out of getting me to commit to signing up for the Drama class and joining the high school musicals. Relentless. His determination to get me to speak out rather than staying put quietly was, I feel, incredibly important to the 9th grade me. He made me listen to CD's that I still play today, and embodied, to a certain extent for at least the time I knew him, a Hunter S. Thompson colored attitude toward living. He lived fast and recklessly, at many times putting those around him in moderate peril (which was hard to come by in Russellton), but never severe, never too much that things would cease to be fun.
I don't know what kind of problems presented themselves in his life. I know very little about what happened back at home after I left for the metropolis of Meadville, and while I occasionally would find him, distance made it hard for me to interact with anyone back home (which has only gotten worse since I've moved out of the state entirely). I don't know what it was that killed him. I've heard rumors, but I won't go into them here. What I know is that my friend is gone, and what remains is an entry on the Let's Go Bowling guestbook, his headstone under a large shady tree in Lakewood Memorial Gardens, and the memories of the hundreds that knew him. I only regret that I did not keep in touch with him, or did not encourage him enough to come to Allegheny when he suggested it (though I don't know that I could see him conforming to that).
And so, once again, a little more than a year after my first post on the subject, I'll once again say that you're missed, E-Bone.
For Edward F. Stecz 1982-2005
In a few weeks (five and one half, to be a bit more precise), twenty-three years will have passed since I was born. Eleven days after that, on August 14th, I will have lived a longer amount of time than a friend of mine. Since his death, over one year has gone by (one year and thirteen days as i write this) and I still find myself thinking about his life on the train ride home on occasion. For some reason, one year after attending his funeral and being one of the last standing at his gravesite as he was brought to where he is at this moment, I cannot quite comprehend the fact that he's not working as a cook at the Creighton Hotel restaurant or with Burlington Coat Factories (which was the last job I know of that he had). Somehow, it doesn't seem real that I will never again run into him at Sheetz late at night. That's probably helped by the fact that Sheetz doesn't exist in Chicago, and I'm not near things that remind me of him, but it still just doesn't sound like something which could be true. I hadn't talked to him for a long time before his death, and so I would expect that it shouldn't really come as a shock, or as something which would confuse me, but there it is. It is perhaps because of the very unique place that he held in my life that I'm still, one year later, thinking about him on the train. Perhaps it's merely because he was someone who I knew, who was my age, and who passed away much too young.
When I was in early high-school, I wasn't one much for that whole actually talking to people thing. Let's call me shy. That appeared to honestly bother Ed. That's the only reason I can think of that he made somewhat of a project out of getting me to commit to signing up for the Drama class and joining the high school musicals. Relentless. His determination to get me to speak out rather than staying put quietly was, I feel, incredibly important to the 9th grade me. He made me listen to CD's that I still play today, and embodied, to a certain extent for at least the time I knew him, a Hunter S. Thompson colored attitude toward living. He lived fast and recklessly, at many times putting those around him in moderate peril (which was hard to come by in Russellton), but never severe, never too much that things would cease to be fun.
I don't know what kind of problems presented themselves in his life. I know very little about what happened back at home after I left for the metropolis of Meadville, and while I occasionally would find him, distance made it hard for me to interact with anyone back home (which has only gotten worse since I've moved out of the state entirely). I don't know what it was that killed him. I've heard rumors, but I won't go into them here. What I know is that my friend is gone, and what remains is an entry on the Let's Go Bowling guestbook, his headstone under a large shady tree in Lakewood Memorial Gardens, and the memories of the hundreds that knew him. I only regret that I did not keep in touch with him, or did not encourage him enough to come to Allegheny when he suggested it (though I don't know that I could see him conforming to that).
And so, once again, a little more than a year after my first post on the subject, I'll once again say that you're missed, E-Bone.
For Edward F. Stecz 1982-2005
Sunday, June 18, 2006
I'm actually pretty sure they contain threads.
When you're a graduate student at Northwestern, you tend to really rake in the cash. Trust me. That's not despair and anger at being convinced to spend 5-or-more years of your life chained to a lab bench you're swimming in. It's cold hard cash. And so you're given another post about possessions I've acquired.
Because when you're pulling in the dough like I am, frivolously throwing down a few Jacksons is the kind of thing that warrants its own blog post.
I recently ordered (but have not yet received) my first three Threadless shirts. This would have happened quite some time ago, but for the fact that the actual shirts I wanted have been out of print for some time, and have not been selected for reprinting. If you're not familiar with the concept, Threadless is a t-shirt store run out of Chicago (though I'm sure that my order will for some reason be shipped from their warehouse at the center of the Earth! or something, just because of my last name) that takes submissions from artists (professional or amateur) and puts them on shirts. Then you buy the shirts. Listen, it's all very complicated, and I'm sure you've got better things to do with your time, like eating beef jerky, so I'll just continue on without further explanation.
Purchases:
A criticism of pickles, which is appropriate, as I've never liked eating pickles, avoid them whenever possible and find the so-named comic strip tedious. Actually, I don't have that much of a problem with the strip, but overstatement is a valuable tool to the blogger.
Zombie Donkey, as I don't have many zombie shirts (the one was my halloween costume last year, and I'm not sure how many people are going to get the "Bach's Arco, Pitcairn" reference anyway, without knowing what Arco or Pitcairn have to do with softball or the Living Dead. They still haven't printed the shirt that's the entire reason I keep going to threadless' catalog anyway.
And yes, sometimes I can be a sucker for things that remind me of childhood. Quit judging me.
I'm going to go to bed now. If you'd like to buy something from there, do me the favor of going through the link on the side there. It makes things cheaper for me. While I realize it's shameless, I also don't care. Hooray!
Because when you're pulling in the dough like I am, frivolously throwing down a few Jacksons is the kind of thing that warrants its own blog post.
I recently ordered (but have not yet received) my first three Threadless shirts. This would have happened quite some time ago, but for the fact that the actual shirts I wanted have been out of print for some time, and have not been selected for reprinting. If you're not familiar with the concept, Threadless is a t-shirt store run out of Chicago (though I'm sure that my order will for some reason be shipped from their warehouse at the center of the Earth! or something, just because of my last name) that takes submissions from artists (professional or amateur) and puts them on shirts. Then you buy the shirts. Listen, it's all very complicated, and I'm sure you've got better things to do with your time, like eating beef jerky, so I'll just continue on without further explanation.
Purchases:
A criticism of pickles, which is appropriate, as I've never liked eating pickles, avoid them whenever possible and find the so-named comic strip tedious. Actually, I don't have that much of a problem with the strip, but overstatement is a valuable tool to the blogger.
Zombie Donkey, as I don't have many zombie shirts (the one was my halloween costume last year, and I'm not sure how many people are going to get the "Bach's Arco, Pitcairn" reference anyway, without knowing what Arco or Pitcairn have to do with softball or the Living Dead. They still haven't printed the shirt that's the entire reason I keep going to threadless' catalog anyway.
And yes, sometimes I can be a sucker for things that remind me of childhood. Quit judging me.
I'm going to go to bed now. If you'd like to buy something from there, do me the favor of going through the link on the side there. It makes things cheaper for me. While I realize it's shameless, I also don't care. Hooray!
Wednesday, June 14, 2006
People that are actually somewhat creative.
While I link to Lore Sjöberg's blog on this, something tells me that the few of you that read this don't actually use the links on the side of this deal. Not that people who are actually very well known, were part of a notable internet comedy team and are writers for Wired need a hack such as myself to link to them, but because why not. Because I got a kick out of it, I'll link to it in the actual body of the blog just now. Lore's latest project is up, and is amusing. Go. Enjoy.
New Template
I've noticed in reviewing my posts to make sure they haven't been eaten by some form of Blogger elemental, (Yes. Geek. I know.) it's rather hard to read. Turns out grey on black isn't the best for visibility. I've gone to this template for now, perhaps out of a desire for change, perhaps because I've noticed how much more readable going away from the color scheme I had has made Pat's blog. Let me know how you like it (by you, I mean Rory, Jenna and Hal, so the entire readership of my blog), and what I can do to change it. Grad school has more or less halted my attempts to actually learn how to design a decent page (though now that I don't have to TA anymore, it might be possible), so changes I make will probably be variations on the theme here, but any input would help.
The Helmet Thing
So here's the thing.
When you're a professional athlete, you're going to be at least somewhat of a role model. You don't have to like that, but it's going to happen no matter what you do. Which is why people treat it as such a big deal when someone's caught for putting some alkaloid or another up their nose. Less so if the person is a washed-up "ballplayer" that looks really pathetic and that no one actually has any good memories of. I think you know who I'm talking about here. Kids see you and think that if they act like you, they'll be cool like you. It's not a new phenomenon.
Arguably, Ben Roethlisberger isn't a good role model anyway for seven year olds. But sweet mother, if this guy can't wear a motorcycle helmet. I was one of those that thought that nothing would ever happen to actually necessitate a helmet, because, I think, Ben Roethlisberger is already such a huge part of Pittsburgh lore and because that's not something you tend to think about coming off of a Super Bowl win. Of course, it has come to something, which resulted in the condition that the Chicago Tribune led yesterday with a report on Fatah violence, the NYTimes led with a preview of Bush's visit to Iraq today, and the Post-Gazette led with Roethlisberger in font about triple the size of the other two sites.
I get the impression that, in addition to the disregard for his own safety for the feeling of freedom on the road (and here's where I admit that I'm officially feeling old, as I thought "those damn kids" when I typed that, and felt very wary about the possibility that they might be on my lawn), he doesn't quite get how important it is to the City of Pittsburgh to stay healthy. Economic downturns over the past several years, controversy over the rapidly shrinking youth population, division as is requisite with being one of three centers in Pennsylvania that vote to the left of center (and do so strongly enough that Pennsylvania has gone to the Democratic nominee in 1992, 1996, 2000, and 2004) and the one thing that people are going to be able to come together over is sports, hatred of Cleveland being a corrolary. Sure, some are strictly Bucs fans, some are strictly Steelers fans and some are strictly Pens fans. And sure, I laughed aloud typing the last three words of that last sentence, but the Steelers have done what hasn't happened in Pittsburgh since, well, 1992, effectively relaying to a whole new generation of fans what it feels like to be champions.
When the quarterback of the damn team goes around jeopardizing that despite pleads from the team and Terry Bradshaw, incidentally, I don't think his decision to appear nude in Failure to Launch should affect the fact that he's right on this, though it does affect my ability to look at Terry Bradshaw without feeling ill, you shouldn't, probably, continue to do that.
Also, he had no license. Good job. Criticism is permitted, I think, as a result of the fact that he's got a few broken teeth, a jaw that's not having a good time, and as none of the injuries were life threatening. So yes. Of course, everyone's happy that he's going to be ok, and that he's probably going to be able to play next year, but what happened, even if the actual accident wasn't at fault, is not something to be excused lightly.
When you're a professional athlete, you're going to be at least somewhat of a role model. You don't have to like that, but it's going to happen no matter what you do. Which is why people treat it as such a big deal when someone's caught for putting some alkaloid or another up their nose. Less so if the person is a washed-up "ballplayer" that looks really pathetic and that no one actually has any good memories of. I think you know who I'm talking about here. Kids see you and think that if they act like you, they'll be cool like you. It's not a new phenomenon.
Arguably, Ben Roethlisberger isn't a good role model anyway for seven year olds. But sweet mother, if this guy can't wear a motorcycle helmet. I was one of those that thought that nothing would ever happen to actually necessitate a helmet, because, I think, Ben Roethlisberger is already such a huge part of Pittsburgh lore and because that's not something you tend to think about coming off of a Super Bowl win. Of course, it has come to something, which resulted in the condition that the Chicago Tribune led yesterday with a report on Fatah violence, the NYTimes led with a preview of Bush's visit to Iraq today, and the Post-Gazette led with Roethlisberger in font about triple the size of the other two sites.
I get the impression that, in addition to the disregard for his own safety for the feeling of freedom on the road (and here's where I admit that I'm officially feeling old, as I thought "those damn kids" when I typed that, and felt very wary about the possibility that they might be on my lawn), he doesn't quite get how important it is to the City of Pittsburgh to stay healthy. Economic downturns over the past several years, controversy over the rapidly shrinking youth population, division as is requisite with being one of three centers in Pennsylvania that vote to the left of center (and do so strongly enough that Pennsylvania has gone to the Democratic nominee in 1992, 1996, 2000, and 2004) and the one thing that people are going to be able to come together over is sports, hatred of Cleveland being a corrolary. Sure, some are strictly Bucs fans, some are strictly Steelers fans and some are strictly Pens fans. And sure, I laughed aloud typing the last three words of that last sentence, but the Steelers have done what hasn't happened in Pittsburgh since, well, 1992, effectively relaying to a whole new generation of fans what it feels like to be champions.
When the quarterback of the damn team goes around jeopardizing that despite pleads from the team and Terry Bradshaw, incidentally, I don't think his decision to appear nude in Failure to Launch should affect the fact that he's right on this, though it does affect my ability to look at Terry Bradshaw without feeling ill, you shouldn't, probably, continue to do that.
Also, he had no license. Good job. Criticism is permitted, I think, as a result of the fact that he's got a few broken teeth, a jaw that's not having a good time, and as none of the injuries were life threatening. So yes. Of course, everyone's happy that he's going to be ok, and that he's probably going to be able to play next year, but what happened, even if the actual accident wasn't at fault, is not something to be excused lightly.
Sunday, June 11, 2006
Iratefans.com
For any of you familiar with the Pittsburgh Pirates blogging circuit, you've already come across this. For those of you that were unaware there were people who devote an incredible amount of time to blogging the Pirates, well, here's your in.
So, a few months ago now, an idea was hatched on the OnlyBucs.net forums on the subject of a protest organization that would hold the Pirates ownership and inept management accountable for the continued misery of Bucs fans everywhere. As a result, iratefans.com was started, and has recently been featured by WPXI in Pittsburgh and by a sympathetic note on Deadspin. Get a t-shirt from their eBay store and have a good time.
So, a few months ago now, an idea was hatched on the OnlyBucs.net forums on the subject of a protest organization that would hold the Pirates ownership and inept management accountable for the continued misery of Bucs fans everywhere. As a result, iratefans.com was started, and has recently been featured by WPXI in Pittsburgh and by a sympathetic note on Deadspin. Get a t-shirt from their eBay store and have a good time.
Wednesday, June 07, 2006
16-9?!
Three things today.
1) The Pirates. I could take last night's loss (Rockies 5, Pirates 4) and still feel pretty happy with what the team's been doing in the past few days. The Rockies have been doing better so far this year than they were last year (they're 29-30 this year over 59 games, while last year they were 20-39), and I can handle the loss given the level of play before, say, the San Diego series. Today's loss just made me very angry at Oliver Perez. When you give up nine runs in two innings of work in what turns out to be a 16-9 game, that's something that's going to happen though. I understand the guy gets really upset really easily and completely loses it, but allowing this to happen over and over again doesn't seem like the right thing to do.
2) The Pennsylvania House voted to implement a ban on gay and polygamous marriages in the Pennsylvania constitution. In order to be amended to the Pennsylvania constitution, it will have to achieve a majority (of 50) in the Pennsylvania senate, and then do it again in the next session of the General Assembly, and then hope that a majority of the electorate. A few issues.
So, while I agree that it's a state's rights issue, I'm sad that Pennsylvania legislators appear to want to go ahead and pass that. It's absurd that we're considering amending even the state Constitution to make sure that dudes that like each other can't enter a committed relationship with the same legal rights as they could if Ted were named Tina. I find it absolutely laughable that the legislators that have been hammering on this for the past few months are trying to pretend this isn't partisan posturing to attempt to reclaim a base of voters or simply to remind voters which team they're for (as I have trouble distinguishing anymore between how people relate to political parties and how people relate to sports teams), or to try to appeal to new voters based on a one issue stand, or, in PA's case, to get people to try to forget about the whole pay raise/unvouchered expenses thing. The President was correct when he said that the constitutional amendment probably wouldn't pass given the fact that the Defense of Marriage Act still exists, and allows states to not recognize out of state marriages despite the "full faith and credit" clause. If I were a backer of said plan to ban gay marriage, I'd feel used at this point, I think, given the zeal with which it was pursued until 2004, at which point it was dropped, only to be picked up again (without the context of the mayor of San Francisco giving marriage licenses out on his own and in the face of the banning of gay marriage in the past two years by everyone) right before 2006's elections.
3) Living in Chicago means I'm around a lot of Chicago sports fans. Cubs fans mostly, as I live on the north side and most NU students who didn't have a team before tend to default to the Cubs. And while most of my feeling bad about things time is spent on myself and the misery of being a Pirates fan, you'd think that this is probably pretty disheartening to most of them. Poor Kerry Wood.
1) The Pirates. I could take last night's loss (Rockies 5, Pirates 4) and still feel pretty happy with what the team's been doing in the past few days. The Rockies have been doing better so far this year than they were last year (they're 29-30 this year over 59 games, while last year they were 20-39), and I can handle the loss given the level of play before, say, the San Diego series. Today's loss just made me very angry at Oliver Perez. When you give up nine runs in two innings of work in what turns out to be a 16-9 game, that's something that's going to happen though. I understand the guy gets really upset really easily and completely loses it, but allowing this to happen over and over again doesn't seem like the right thing to do.
2) The Pennsylvania House voted to implement a ban on gay and polygamous marriages in the Pennsylvania constitution. In order to be amended to the Pennsylvania constitution, it will have to achieve a majority (of 50) in the Pennsylvania senate, and then do it again in the next session of the General Assembly, and then hope that a majority of the electorate. A few issues.
- I find it nonsensical that the proposed ban includes both same-sex marriage and polygamist marriage, as they're two separate cases. No, they're not as simple as "Oh, well they're both some sort of weird fetish, so they're the same," as William Saletan attempted to demonstrate. Including polygamy, however, does increase the likely hood that it'll pass, which is the only reason I can think it was included there.
- I find it unbelievable that this is something we're seriously talking about changing the constitution over. The federal marriage amendment failed earlier in the day, which I think is a plus, as at the very least this should be a states rights issue, but I think I'll have to defer to Lewis Black on this:
"On our list of national concerns, gay marriage should be on page six, right after 'Are we eating too much garlic as a people?'".
I, personally, think that marriage by the state between same sex couples should be allowed. No church should ever be forced to conform to a marriage definition they don't agree with, as that's absolutely ludicrous, but if Bill and Ted are 40 year old guys who are in a committed relationship, I find it hard to say "No Bill, you can't have visitation rights when Ted has a heart attack." Whichever church you believe to be the Truth doesn't want gays to get married? That's cool. Your church of choice doesn't have to let gays get married (and shouldn't have to, and won't have to as long as this whole "avoiding political influence in religious customs" thing stays on track). I just can't for the life of me figure out why that means that Bill and Ted, who are not members of your church, but of a church that allows for gay marriage, or not members of a religious denomination at all, should be denied the legal rights afforded to them if Ted was named Tina.
So, while I agree that it's a state's rights issue, I'm sad that Pennsylvania legislators appear to want to go ahead and pass that. It's absurd that we're considering amending even the state Constitution to make sure that dudes that like each other can't enter a committed relationship with the same legal rights as they could if Ted were named Tina. I find it absolutely laughable that the legislators that have been hammering on this for the past few months are trying to pretend this isn't partisan posturing to attempt to reclaim a base of voters or simply to remind voters which team they're for (as I have trouble distinguishing anymore between how people relate to political parties and how people relate to sports teams), or to try to appeal to new voters based on a one issue stand, or, in PA's case, to get people to try to forget about the whole pay raise/unvouchered expenses thing. The President was correct when he said that the constitutional amendment probably wouldn't pass given the fact that the Defense of Marriage Act still exists, and allows states to not recognize out of state marriages despite the "full faith and credit" clause. If I were a backer of said plan to ban gay marriage, I'd feel used at this point, I think, given the zeal with which it was pursued until 2004, at which point it was dropped, only to be picked up again (without the context of the mayor of San Francisco giving marriage licenses out on his own and in the face of the banning of gay marriage in the past two years by everyone) right before 2006's elections.
3) Living in Chicago means I'm around a lot of Chicago sports fans. Cubs fans mostly, as I live on the north side and most NU students who didn't have a team before tend to default to the Cubs. And while most of my feeling bad about things time is spent on myself and the misery of being a Pirates fan, you'd think that this is probably pretty disheartening to most of them. Poor Kerry Wood.
Friday, June 02, 2006
U-r-s-p-r-a-c-h-e
I really don't understand all of the to do surrounding Spelling Bee's recently. Perhaps that's the pain of being in sixth grade and not knowing how to spell "rheumatism" talking, but I just don't get it. Still, the evidence is there that people are somehow enthralled by kids that get on a stage and try to spell words, considering recent cinema, musicals and the fact that kids dressed in white stalling for time, spelling things and winning $42,000 if they can avoid screwing up for longer than anyone else is now worthy of prime time ABC (though, considering the prime time schedule when there aren't hundreds of kids in Polos spelling "euonym", I guess that shouldn't be that surprising).
So out of curiousity, I checked the news last night to find out the final word.
And it angered me.
I, for one, like it when I have no idea how to spell a word that's winning someone a boatload of money. If, in 2004 you'd asked me to spell autochthonous, which means "indigenous", but which I'm going to pretend refers to the Cthulhu mythos, I'd have had no clue where to start, other than a vague notion that it might start with the letter A. If I were asked to spell "chiaroscurist", meaning "A painter who uses light and shade rather than colour to create the illusion of volume," I'd have been lost and confused, uncertain of what to do other than physically attacking whoever decided that that word was needed and should be that complicated. But last night's final word "Ursprache"? Come on now. "Ur-" is a common enough prefix that it should be recognized (as in "Urfaust", the first draft of Goethe's Faust). "Sprache" is one of the first words you learn.
Then again, I minored in German, and she's like fourteen. So that might be why.
Still though, I mean, good for the winner and all, but "Ursprache"? It's not 1984's winner, "luge", which had been in the Olympics for twenty years at that point, but still, I can't help but think that the people who come up with Scripps' list could have done better.
So out of curiousity, I checked the news last night to find out the final word.
And it angered me.
I, for one, like it when I have no idea how to spell a word that's winning someone a boatload of money. If, in 2004 you'd asked me to spell autochthonous, which means "indigenous", but which I'm going to pretend refers to the Cthulhu mythos, I'd have had no clue where to start, other than a vague notion that it might start with the letter A. If I were asked to spell "chiaroscurist", meaning "A painter who uses light and shade rather than colour to create the illusion of volume," I'd have been lost and confused, uncertain of what to do other than physically attacking whoever decided that that word was needed and should be that complicated. But last night's final word "Ursprache"? Come on now. "Ur-" is a common enough prefix that it should be recognized (as in "Urfaust", the first draft of Goethe's Faust). "Sprache" is one of the first words you learn.
Then again, I minored in German, and she's like fourteen. So that might be why.
Still though, I mean, good for the winner and all, but "Ursprache"? It's not 1984's winner, "luge", which had been in the Olympics for twenty years at that point, but still, I can't help but think that the people who come up with Scripps' list could have done better.
Friday, May 26, 2006
Moment of Silence
I keep regretting checking Wikipedia's "Recent Deaths", mostly because I'll stop in to see what minor author from Bulgaria has passed on, or to check on the status of someone that's notable and whose sickness is so widely broadcast that I feel some kind of duty. And it's quick. Just that one little link, and there you go.
Then, sometimes, I look and I'm actually taken aback by one of the deaths, because either I earnestly believed tha the person in question had died by now, or because it's someone that has actually had quite a bit of influence over the things I listen to, and their passing does more to accentuate what feels like an era coming to an end. It happened last year with Laurel Aitken and yesterday with Desmond Dekker.
That's not good.
Then, sometimes, I look and I'm actually taken aback by one of the deaths, because either I earnestly believed tha the person in question had died by now, or because it's someone that has actually had quite a bit of influence over the things I listen to, and their passing does more to accentuate what feels like an era coming to an end. It happened last year with Laurel Aitken and yesterday with Desmond Dekker.
That's not good.
Tuesday, May 23, 2006
Conquering Ayn
So, I've gotten into the habit of amassing what will comprise my reading for the summer. I've got this weird little habit, actually, of balancing a book which is perhaps less up there on the hardcore intellectual fare with one that actually does carry some weight so that I don't get weird looks from the cashier at the book store. It's dumb, but somehow, purchasing a comic book about zombies seems less dumb when it's paired with an introduction on Heidegger. Who knew.
This summer, I've decided via my last few purchases, is the summer I'm actually going to sit down and figure out what the hell Ayn Rand was on about. Having read Atlas Shrugged and not being able to force myself to read Anthem, I've got a taste of her ideals, but it always seems like any kind of moderate stance that's been presented has been taken to the extreme by some, particularly the Ayn Rand Institute, which, to me, seems to warp what could be reasonable philosophies into ultra-right nutjobbery. So, in an effort to finally come to an opinion on Ayn that stands up to intellectual scrutiny, I've gone and bought The Fountainhead and Philosophy: Who Needs It?. We'll see how long that holds itself together.
A bit about this development. I, for one, think that the Senate could probably be doing better things with their time than making English the "national language." I'm not confusing the terms there. The vote is to make English the "national language", not the "official language", which appears to afford it a similar status to the "national bird". I just don't see a need for it. It's already obvious that in order to attain much success in the United States, you're going to need to be pretty good with English anyway, and not knowing English is probably going to relegate you to a service role. Everyone acknowledges this. That said, I can't imagine what voting English "the national language" is meant to accomplish, as it doesn't actually do anything. Then again, I'm not a big fan of making English the official language (as I don't see the point seeing as how English is the de facto official language, will be for the forseeable future, and bilingual and polylingual states do just fine, it seems, even when they're officially polylingual) and can't understand why one should not know at least two languages functionally.
Similarly, this kind of stuff is nonsense. I actually dig on the metric system, but it's absurd to fine people for selling produce by the pound.
This summer, I've decided via my last few purchases, is the summer I'm actually going to sit down and figure out what the hell Ayn Rand was on about. Having read Atlas Shrugged and not being able to force myself to read Anthem, I've got a taste of her ideals, but it always seems like any kind of moderate stance that's been presented has been taken to the extreme by some, particularly the Ayn Rand Institute, which, to me, seems to warp what could be reasonable philosophies into ultra-right nutjobbery. So, in an effort to finally come to an opinion on Ayn that stands up to intellectual scrutiny, I've gone and bought The Fountainhead and Philosophy: Who Needs It?. We'll see how long that holds itself together.
A bit about this development. I, for one, think that the Senate could probably be doing better things with their time than making English the "national language." I'm not confusing the terms there. The vote is to make English the "national language", not the "official language", which appears to afford it a similar status to the "national bird". I just don't see a need for it. It's already obvious that in order to attain much success in the United States, you're going to need to be pretty good with English anyway, and not knowing English is probably going to relegate you to a service role. Everyone acknowledges this. That said, I can't imagine what voting English "the national language" is meant to accomplish, as it doesn't actually do anything. Then again, I'm not a big fan of making English the official language (as I don't see the point seeing as how English is the de facto official language, will be for the forseeable future, and bilingual and polylingual states do just fine, it seems, even when they're officially polylingual) and can't understand why one should not know at least two languages functionally.
Similarly, this kind of stuff is nonsense. I actually dig on the metric system, but it's absurd to fine people for selling produce by the pound.
Friday, May 19, 2006
The Northwestern Soccer thing.
I tend not to get around to posting about news stories until they've been thoroughly gutted by the press, and the backlash has already occurred. That's not purposefully done to try to somehow get the last word on a subject, as I'd much rather blog about this kind of stuff when it's still going on, but because I'm trying to get these syntheses to work and because I've got the attention span of something with almost no attentions span, it's somewhat difficult to get around to typing something out.
But here we go anyway.
As most of you know (as the people that read this blog tend to be people that know me personally), I'm doing my thing at Northwestern University, which has been, if you hadn't seen, in the news a bit lately for the actions of one of the sports teams. Namely, the girls soccer team. During some form of event about a week back, the girls soccer team apparently blindfolded and bound the hands of the freshman players, drew things on them in marker and evidently had them do vaguely sexual things while remaining clothed. Someone posted those pictures on the web, and since then have been the subject of most of the coverage of Northwestern sports. Said photos have sinced moved elsewhere, and the entire soccer team has been suspended.
My opinion:
Sure, no one got hurt, and, according to at least one player in an interview with the Chicago Sun-Times, no one was forced to do anything and in the pictures everyone's smiling and happiness was never borne out quite so perfectly as when one is trashed and has phalluses written on their cheek. Or something. The problem here is twofold, for me. First, they know there are hazing regulations that the University enforces. It enforces them for a reason and by agreeing to be a member of the sports team, they're agreeing to abide by the University's policies. So I honestly don't understand the shock at being suspended for this. If the policies had been voted on and never announced, or if they hadn't existed but the University decided to come down on everyone anyway, then maybe some shock. As it stands, they should have known at least not to post pictures of what they were doing where people that might care and punish them could find them.
The second bit is that i disagree with hazing across the board, and support zero-tolerance policies where hazing is concerned. Was anyone forced to get drunk and have stuff written on them against their will? Probably not. But hazing tends to have a way of forcing people to conform to what everyone's doing without saying much at all. It could even take the form of an event in which the participants are told they can sit out. People being hazed are simply more likely to go along with it to avoid looking like someone that couldn't handle the task in front of their friends and people they respect enough to be in a situation where they could be getting hazed in the first place. While in this case the hazing appears to be relatively innocuous enough to the point that yes, the hazed were probably fine with being given free alcohol, the practice itself has a way of transforming into something that not all of the potentially hazed are okay with over time. While that would seem to constitute a slippery slope fallacy, caution, in the case of enforcement, must be the rule. Some may contend that this is about political correctness. Not wanting to make anyone feel bad, and so banning the practice of hazing outright, while it still may serve a function of binding the hazed together as a result of their ordeal. I do think that organizations that make a big deal about having to be humiliated or beaten to gain entrance to things should be held accountable for beating people, this is something that's much easier to have be a self policing kind of thing. That is, either the organization can elect not to do it on their own and use that as a selling point (in the case of Fraternities, who are competing for members), or kids can wake up and realize that getting beaten up/running around naked in the cold is something they don't have to go through, and that the organization that's going to do that to them may not have their best interests in mind. Let me then personalize this, move it away from the realm of policy enforcement and get to why I disagree with hazing.
For those of you who don't know me but are reading this blog and haven't been able to piece together from the links on the left side there that I was in a Fraternity in college, I was. It was good times and, if you can find a chapter that's worthy of having you as a member, I highly recommend it. And yet, because of the strict anti-hazing policy the Fraternity took, I never felt as though I was being pressured to do something against my will or in any way separate from anything that was being done by the seniors in the Fraternity. Bonds and brotherhood were formed, in the case of my class and those that preceeded and will follow (hopefully, that stance won't change) was necessarily left to discussion and the way any other friendship is formed, rather than through unification to get through an ordeal. I could never understand why, as a new member, being beaten with a stick or made to drink in a dark room (or whatever these kids are doing now) was something I would elect to go through to join a group. That is, possibly, a relic of the fact that my chapter had been recently reformed, and so there was a lot more pressure on the Fraternity to sell itself to prospectives, but I just can't understand why I'd elect to run around naked with a bucket of gasoline or something when I could just as easily tell this group of people that want my money or athletic skill to eat it.
To summarize, if you want to be in a Greek organization or soccer team or something, that's cool. You shouldn't have to jump through any crazy hoops to get there. Testing devotion of new members is pointless through hazing, I think, as it can be done in much more efficient ways that don't isolate the new members and beat up on them.
Then again, I must be missing something, as a lot of these kids seem very willing to undergo bodily harm for the organization of their choice.
Oh, addendum.
When are people going to learn to stop putting up pictures of being general schmucks up on the internet? I can't read a news site anymore without hearing about how so-and-so hazed their freshmen/did massive amounts of drugs/burnt down buildings/whatever, took pictures of it and then posted the incriminating evidence on their damn Myspace. Here's a tip kids. Just because you're posting something on your own private computer, in your own private dorm room with your private door shut or, alternatively, in your own private basement/apartment/account on an computer in a library doesn't mean that that content is somehow not available to the entire world now. Don't want to get caught for having thirty pounds of marijuana? Don't post pictures of it on your Myspace now that it's common knowledge that law enforcement officials browse it to find idiots that post pictures of things they shouldn't.?
But here we go anyway.
As most of you know (as the people that read this blog tend to be people that know me personally), I'm doing my thing at Northwestern University, which has been, if you hadn't seen, in the news a bit lately for the actions of one of the sports teams. Namely, the girls soccer team. During some form of event about a week back, the girls soccer team apparently blindfolded and bound the hands of the freshman players, drew things on them in marker and evidently had them do vaguely sexual things while remaining clothed. Someone posted those pictures on the web, and since then have been the subject of most of the coverage of Northwestern sports. Said photos have sinced moved elsewhere, and the entire soccer team has been suspended.
My opinion:
Sure, no one got hurt, and, according to at least one player in an interview with the Chicago Sun-Times, no one was forced to do anything and in the pictures everyone's smiling and happiness was never borne out quite so perfectly as when one is trashed and has phalluses written on their cheek. Or something. The problem here is twofold, for me. First, they know there are hazing regulations that the University enforces. It enforces them for a reason and by agreeing to be a member of the sports team, they're agreeing to abide by the University's policies. So I honestly don't understand the shock at being suspended for this. If the policies had been voted on and never announced, or if they hadn't existed but the University decided to come down on everyone anyway, then maybe some shock. As it stands, they should have known at least not to post pictures of what they were doing where people that might care and punish them could find them.
The second bit is that i disagree with hazing across the board, and support zero-tolerance policies where hazing is concerned. Was anyone forced to get drunk and have stuff written on them against their will? Probably not. But hazing tends to have a way of forcing people to conform to what everyone's doing without saying much at all. It could even take the form of an event in which the participants are told they can sit out. People being hazed are simply more likely to go along with it to avoid looking like someone that couldn't handle the task in front of their friends and people they respect enough to be in a situation where they could be getting hazed in the first place. While in this case the hazing appears to be relatively innocuous enough to the point that yes, the hazed were probably fine with being given free alcohol, the practice itself has a way of transforming into something that not all of the potentially hazed are okay with over time. While that would seem to constitute a slippery slope fallacy, caution, in the case of enforcement, must be the rule. Some may contend that this is about political correctness. Not wanting to make anyone feel bad, and so banning the practice of hazing outright, while it still may serve a function of binding the hazed together as a result of their ordeal. I do think that organizations that make a big deal about having to be humiliated or beaten to gain entrance to things should be held accountable for beating people, this is something that's much easier to have be a self policing kind of thing. That is, either the organization can elect not to do it on their own and use that as a selling point (in the case of Fraternities, who are competing for members), or kids can wake up and realize that getting beaten up/running around naked in the cold is something they don't have to go through, and that the organization that's going to do that to them may not have their best interests in mind. Let me then personalize this, move it away from the realm of policy enforcement and get to why I disagree with hazing.
For those of you who don't know me but are reading this blog and haven't been able to piece together from the links on the left side there that I was in a Fraternity in college, I was. It was good times and, if you can find a chapter that's worthy of having you as a member, I highly recommend it. And yet, because of the strict anti-hazing policy the Fraternity took, I never felt as though I was being pressured to do something against my will or in any way separate from anything that was being done by the seniors in the Fraternity. Bonds and brotherhood were formed, in the case of my class and those that preceeded and will follow (hopefully, that stance won't change) was necessarily left to discussion and the way any other friendship is formed, rather than through unification to get through an ordeal. I could never understand why, as a new member, being beaten with a stick or made to drink in a dark room (or whatever these kids are doing now) was something I would elect to go through to join a group. That is, possibly, a relic of the fact that my chapter had been recently reformed, and so there was a lot more pressure on the Fraternity to sell itself to prospectives, but I just can't understand why I'd elect to run around naked with a bucket of gasoline or something when I could just as easily tell this group of people that want my money or athletic skill to eat it.
To summarize, if you want to be in a Greek organization or soccer team or something, that's cool. You shouldn't have to jump through any crazy hoops to get there. Testing devotion of new members is pointless through hazing, I think, as it can be done in much more efficient ways that don't isolate the new members and beat up on them.
Then again, I must be missing something, as a lot of these kids seem very willing to undergo bodily harm for the organization of their choice.
Oh, addendum.
When are people going to learn to stop putting up pictures of being general schmucks up on the internet? I can't read a news site anymore without hearing about how so-and-so hazed their freshmen/did massive amounts of drugs/burnt down buildings/whatever, took pictures of it and then posted the incriminating evidence on their damn Myspace. Here's a tip kids. Just because you're posting something on your own private computer, in your own private dorm room with your private door shut or, alternatively, in your own private basement/apartment/account on an computer in a library doesn't mean that that content is somehow not available to the entire world now. Don't want to get caught for having thirty pounds of marijuana? Don't post pictures of it on your Myspace now that it's common knowledge that law enforcement officials browse it to find idiots that post pictures of things they shouldn't.?
Monday, May 15, 2006
Acid ate through my glove.
As I sit here waiting for my Reaction that Will Not Finish to come to an end, I get these incessant little popups on the lower right hand corner of my screen. I'm down with that, as they're mail alerts and let me know when to check this thing to see who we're holding a Meet the Speaker for (this week, it's K. Barry Sharpless, who won the Nobel Prize in 2001 and, incidentally, who I'm sitting down with tomorrow to chat about chemistry) or when I should respond to a comment that Rory's left on my blog. So that's all well and good. Except for the several emails a day that get through the gmail filters. Cutting the spam I actually see down to about ten a day is a pretty good feat, and it's mostly taking care of things that go on about the wonderful medicinal benefits of "V1@gr@" and "\/\/|-|@73\/3R D@mn Th!ng" they're trying to get me to buy, but I do have to register a complaint.
Dear Filthy Spammers,
Having a subject informing me that you've "acquired" my email does not make me want to open your email. It makes me want to break your things.
It's not so much the fact that the spam's getting in the way (as hitting the "Report Spam" button is easy enough), but that it's incredible the lack of creativity that's going into these things. Perhaps it's just that in order to get around the filter, it's better to have an email that actually seems like it could be related to some kind of business venture, or whatever the hell the good people at Google Labs think I do.
In other: My intramural Softball team "BSalsa" (playing in Northwestern's "White League", which is evidently a little more competitive than the Co-Rec league but less than the "Purple League") beat the No. 1 seed in the second round of the playoffs today. They were a team that was undefeated through the four game regular season and had not won a game by less than ten runs. So, though not expecting much, it was incredibly nice to be able to put them down, 14-8. Props to third baseman Jim on a spectacular unassisted double play in a bases loaded, no outs situation after two runs had scored in the inning. We'll be proceeding along to play in the third round, Sunday.
Dear Filthy Spammers,
Having a subject informing me that you've "acquired" my email does not make me want to open your email. It makes me want to break your things.
It's not so much the fact that the spam's getting in the way (as hitting the "Report Spam" button is easy enough), but that it's incredible the lack of creativity that's going into these things. Perhaps it's just that in order to get around the filter, it's better to have an email that actually seems like it could be related to some kind of business venture, or whatever the hell the good people at Google Labs think I do.
In other: My intramural Softball team "BSalsa" (playing in Northwestern's "White League", which is evidently a little more competitive than the Co-Rec league but less than the "Purple League") beat the No. 1 seed in the second round of the playoffs today. They were a team that was undefeated through the four game regular season and had not won a game by less than ten runs. So, though not expecting much, it was incredibly nice to be able to put them down, 14-8. Props to third baseman Jim on a spectacular unassisted double play in a bases loaded, no outs situation after two runs had scored in the inning. We'll be proceeding along to play in the third round, Sunday.
C&J, Spending, Pirates, Something
C&J-
Being Chicago and Jenna. She's been here this weekend, and it's been good times. We tried to kick around Chicago looking for a compromise in living arrangements so that neither of us has to spend seventeen hours on the El, but I'm not sure that's happening. She's going to UIC, which is about center on that map, while I'm still whiling away the last bit of my youth at Northwestern (the Noyes stop on the map there.) As you can see, we will be working not quite at opposite ends of the city, but far enough away from each other that the living thing tends to become annoying. The only decision thus far is that we're not living in Uptown near Wilson. And while Wrigleyville and Lakeview are nice, both mean being around more Cubs fans than I'd like.
I kid. But not really.
-Spending
I've spent quite a lot over the weekend, and so we'll have to go back to eating sandwiches comprised of whatever I can find in my kitchen. So wasabi and oranges, I guess. If you're in Chicago at some point and feel like heading somewhere interesting that knows a bit about wine, try Volo a wine bar that's nice if you're in to feeling pretentious, and somewhere I might be able to afford to go once every, say, five years. The rest of the weekend's purchases were mostly musical, as I found License to Ill for $8 at Virgin Mega, and threw in Del tha Funkee Homosapien's "Elektra Years: B-Boy Handbook" and Danger Mouse and MF Doom's "The Mouse and the Mask" in for good measure. Everyone knows License to Ill, so I'll just comment on the other two.
"Elektra Years" is a small compilation of some of Del's earlier works (most of the tracks come from "I Wish My Brother George Was Here" (1992), and from what I've been able to listen to in the few hours since I've purchased it, is pretty enjoyable. It's witty, flows, and is well produced. The only real thing that bothers me about it apart from realizing that it's fourteen years old, and I was nine when it was made is that that age tends to rise up in a few places, and I'm left with visions of the truly awful music videos of the mid 1990's. Lots of neon. Though I think that's because I hunted the "Mistadobalina" video down on YouTube. Perhaps it'll pass.
"The Mouse and the Mask" is being sold with at least some attempt to draw in on the success of Adult Swim, though for what it's worth, I'd be happier if they left Meatwad rapping off of the damn thing. A formidable record in its own right, it's incredible how the music twists around the samples from 1970's cartoon soundtracks. Still, if they eliminate the Adult Swim crew from talking over the beginning and end of most tracks, I don't think anything would be lost.
Pirates-
I'm really glad most things I own are books, and are therefore pretty resistant to me throwing things at them. The MARLINS? We lost a series to the MARLINS? I didn't get to watch Zach Duke's outing yesterday, but Ian Snell today... I... So here. I'm of the belief that Ian Snell will eventually come around and show the control he's shown in his previous four starts every time. I think the kid needs to play in the majors, and I really do believe that he's going to be a factor in the Pirates rotation at some point. Color me hopeful. But today's 1 1/3 inning start in which he gave up 7 earned runs isn't making it easy for me to keep that sunny disposition up. Magically, after he was pulled, Vogelsong put together two more outs, and then Cota was no where to be found, having been replaced by Ronnie Paulino in the top of the third. Why is it whenever Cota's in, we seem to stink with such force? It could be an artifact of his status as Perez' personal catcher, and the fact that Perez is terrible this year, but yeesh. I have no idea. It's getting really hard for me to watch this continually.
On the subject, I bought a book over the weekend in the hope that I'd somehow remember something of teams I'd never seen play, when Pittsburgh baseball wasn't such a joke as to be avoided by commentators as just too easy. The book in question is Clemente: The Passion and Grace of Baseball's Last Hero, and while it's not nearly as suspensful as the things I've been reading (the things I've been reading being thrillers and sci-fi), it's very well written, and is an interesting experience for this fan who wasn't alive in time to see Clemente play by about eleven years.
I'm going to sleep now.
Being Chicago and Jenna. She's been here this weekend, and it's been good times. We tried to kick around Chicago looking for a compromise in living arrangements so that neither of us has to spend seventeen hours on the El, but I'm not sure that's happening. She's going to UIC, which is about center on that map, while I'm still whiling away the last bit of my youth at Northwestern (the Noyes stop on the map there.) As you can see, we will be working not quite at opposite ends of the city, but far enough away from each other that the living thing tends to become annoying. The only decision thus far is that we're not living in Uptown near Wilson. And while Wrigleyville and Lakeview are nice, both mean being around more Cubs fans than I'd like.
I kid. But not really.
-Spending
I've spent quite a lot over the weekend, and so we'll have to go back to eating sandwiches comprised of whatever I can find in my kitchen. So wasabi and oranges, I guess. If you're in Chicago at some point and feel like heading somewhere interesting that knows a bit about wine, try Volo a wine bar that's nice if you're in to feeling pretentious, and somewhere I might be able to afford to go once every, say, five years. The rest of the weekend's purchases were mostly musical, as I found License to Ill for $8 at Virgin Mega, and threw in Del tha Funkee Homosapien's "Elektra Years: B-Boy Handbook" and Danger Mouse and MF Doom's "The Mouse and the Mask" in for good measure. Everyone knows License to Ill, so I'll just comment on the other two.
"Elektra Years" is a small compilation of some of Del's earlier works (most of the tracks come from "I Wish My Brother George Was Here" (1992), and from what I've been able to listen to in the few hours since I've purchased it, is pretty enjoyable. It's witty, flows, and is well produced. The only real thing that bothers me about it apart from realizing that it's fourteen years old, and I was nine when it was made is that that age tends to rise up in a few places, and I'm left with visions of the truly awful music videos of the mid 1990's. Lots of neon. Though I think that's because I hunted the "Mistadobalina" video down on YouTube. Perhaps it'll pass.
"The Mouse and the Mask" is being sold with at least some attempt to draw in on the success of Adult Swim, though for what it's worth, I'd be happier if they left Meatwad rapping off of the damn thing. A formidable record in its own right, it's incredible how the music twists around the samples from 1970's cartoon soundtracks. Still, if they eliminate the Adult Swim crew from talking over the beginning and end of most tracks, I don't think anything would be lost.
Pirates-
I'm really glad most things I own are books, and are therefore pretty resistant to me throwing things at them. The MARLINS? We lost a series to the MARLINS? I didn't get to watch Zach Duke's outing yesterday, but Ian Snell today... I... So here. I'm of the belief that Ian Snell will eventually come around and show the control he's shown in his previous four starts every time. I think the kid needs to play in the majors, and I really do believe that he's going to be a factor in the Pirates rotation at some point. Color me hopeful. But today's 1 1/3 inning start in which he gave up 7 earned runs isn't making it easy for me to keep that sunny disposition up. Magically, after he was pulled, Vogelsong put together two more outs, and then Cota was no where to be found, having been replaced by Ronnie Paulino in the top of the third. Why is it whenever Cota's in, we seem to stink with such force? It could be an artifact of his status as Perez' personal catcher, and the fact that Perez is terrible this year, but yeesh. I have no idea. It's getting really hard for me to watch this continually.
On the subject, I bought a book over the weekend in the hope that I'd somehow remember something of teams I'd never seen play, when Pittsburgh baseball wasn't such a joke as to be avoided by commentators as just too easy. The book in question is Clemente: The Passion and Grace of Baseball's Last Hero, and while it's not nearly as suspensful as the things I've been reading (the things I've been reading being thrillers and sci-fi), it's very well written, and is an interesting experience for this fan who wasn't alive in time to see Clemente play by about eleven years.
I'm going to sleep now.
Thursday, May 04, 2006
Moved
So, I haven't been updating recently. The O'Halloran lab has moved from the dark confines of part of the K wing of the Technological Institute to a ground level crowded little spot in a building across the way. Unfortunately, this has meant that over the last week, all research has been forced to a halt, which I'm not a big fan of as I'd like to put something together to justify the fact that I'm in grad school. And that moving has been an enormous pain.
If I find a digital camera, perhaps, I'll get some photos of this place.
But, moving on.
I'm not going to be too upset when, as I'm leaving this place pretty soon for home, I'm not watching this Pirates-Mets matchup. Maholm has been getting out of jams through the first few innings, but has walked in a run and the best performance in the world isn't going to help if the opposing pitcher (Tom Glavine tonight) is throwing a perfect game through four. Sanchez got the start again, and though he did rush a throw to first on a Glavine chop and was charged wtih an error, I'm glad they've gotten him in to the lineup again. Necessary. Hopefully, they can pull something together to take away from the sting of the 12th inning loss on a walk off homer.
I've finally caved and bought the Da Vinci Code, and I'll be done with it tonight. It's certainly not the revolutionary (in the literary sense) masterpiece I've heard it called, but it's all right, and about up to my expectations for anything that I find in a supermarket at 2am for $8. Then again, a guy that owns Half Baked probably shouldn't be too critical of the media put before him, so I'll leave it at that. I do have two criticisms. 1) If you're going to have 105 chapters in your book, you're probably making the chapters too small. I can't help but feel that they're kind of forced. 2) If you're going to try to sell me a book using the word "since", I'm more impressed by "since the Second World War" or "since Dostoevsky's time" than "since Harry Potter." Nothing against the Potter books, as I haven't read them and so can't comment, but if you're using the word "since" in a context that's supposed to impress me, you're going to have to go back further than 1997.
I might comment on the Moussaoui thing later tonight, but mostly, I'm just going to go home now.
If I find a digital camera, perhaps, I'll get some photos of this place.
But, moving on.
I'm not going to be too upset when, as I'm leaving this place pretty soon for home, I'm not watching this Pirates-Mets matchup. Maholm has been getting out of jams through the first few innings, but has walked in a run and the best performance in the world isn't going to help if the opposing pitcher (Tom Glavine tonight) is throwing a perfect game through four. Sanchez got the start again, and though he did rush a throw to first on a Glavine chop and was charged wtih an error, I'm glad they've gotten him in to the lineup again. Necessary. Hopefully, they can pull something together to take away from the sting of the 12th inning loss on a walk off homer.
I've finally caved and bought the Da Vinci Code, and I'll be done with it tonight. It's certainly not the revolutionary (in the literary sense) masterpiece I've heard it called, but it's all right, and about up to my expectations for anything that I find in a supermarket at 2am for $8. Then again, a guy that owns Half Baked probably shouldn't be too critical of the media put before him, so I'll leave it at that. I do have two criticisms. 1) If you're going to have 105 chapters in your book, you're probably making the chapters too small. I can't help but feel that they're kind of forced. 2) If you're going to try to sell me a book using the word "since", I'm more impressed by "since the Second World War" or "since Dostoevsky's time" than "since Harry Potter." Nothing against the Potter books, as I haven't read them and so can't comment, but if you're using the word "since" in a context that's supposed to impress me, you're going to have to go back further than 1997.
I might comment on the Moussaoui thing later tonight, but mostly, I'm just going to go home now.
Thursday, April 27, 2006
Blogging as a Writing Block
Those of you who write on blogs, whether you've started in the more recent explosion of blogging (this one started in Spring of 2005, and is by far the longest lived of my attempts at blogging) or you've been doing this for years and have amassed an empire of loyal readers (think BoingBoing), will be familiar with the problems that go along with them. It, I think, is an extension of pure vanity to check counter statistics, try to keep semi-regular updates to keep what little audience you (you = I in this case) have managed to gain, to make sure the words you type correspond with what you're actually trying to say, and to worry about being at least marginally witty or, if all attempt at wit is being abandoned, to at least get across your point.
Recently, a blogger who'd evidently been doing such for five years shut down her blog and wrote a happy little Slate article about it. It's an interesting perspective, and probably worth at least a quick glance. I have no intention of finishing Murphspot in the near future, but it's interesting to consider the mortality of these things once in a while.
Recently, a blogger who'd evidently been doing such for five years shut down her blog and wrote a happy little Slate article about it. It's an interesting perspective, and probably worth at least a quick glance. I have no intention of finishing Murphspot in the near future, but it's interesting to consider the mortality of these things once in a while.
Tuesday, April 25, 2006
The Unbearable Lightness of Swerving
So here's the problem with riding a bike from my apartment in Edgewater to my workplace in Evanston, other than the 5.5 mile drive is a wee bit tiring. Mostly, the downside comes not on the way there, but on the way back home. In the morning, the sun is shining, and the ride along the lakeshore is incredibly beautiful when there's not wind blowing you into things. You arrive at work with a feeling of accomplishment.
On the way home, however, it's usually rather dark and the drive is more aptly described as "damned creepy" if I follow the route I followed in the morning, which goes through the more residential bits of Evanston. Today, however, I rode down Chicago Ave., Evanston's most densely populated North/South thoroughfare. That wasn't so bad, though there was some prick that cut me off at South Boulevard. The problem, as it were, came at the intersection of Chicago/Clark and Howard, where I was forced into the other lane by some schmuck in an SUV that did the whole "right on red" thing in a manner which can only be justified if there's a woman in labor in the car. If there was, it seems that they were stopping at GameSpot before heading to the hospital.
Which means I'm taking the residential route from now on. I did, however, find that there's a Hollywood video a few blocks west on Granville, which resulted in the purchase of Corpse Bride, Capote and Good Night and Good Luck. I've never seen the last in the series, but I've heard good things and besides, it was three DVDs for $25 (the price on each individually was $14.99, so bonus.)
In other news:
My IM Softball team got around to winning our first game of the season (which is now three games old; the other two games being a loss in the opener and a tie last week), whomping some group of gents with a jackass pitcher. Our right fielder was a cricket player and, from what I could tell in the hour since I met him, a fine fellow who picked up the game surprisingly well for having never played it before. He did kind of bring the bat with him to first on a hit, and a fly to right fell in for a double, but I was able to cover him on that and, to be honest, he tried a whole hell of a lot more than Jeromy Burnitz does. I say the Pirates should recruit him, and start him in right.
Also, the lab is in full "movecore" mode, meaning we're packing our possessions for the long and terrible journey three hundred yards away in another building. Good times.
On the way home, however, it's usually rather dark and the drive is more aptly described as "damned creepy" if I follow the route I followed in the morning, which goes through the more residential bits of Evanston. Today, however, I rode down Chicago Ave., Evanston's most densely populated North/South thoroughfare. That wasn't so bad, though there was some prick that cut me off at South Boulevard. The problem, as it were, came at the intersection of Chicago/Clark and Howard, where I was forced into the other lane by some schmuck in an SUV that did the whole "right on red" thing in a manner which can only be justified if there's a woman in labor in the car. If there was, it seems that they were stopping at GameSpot before heading to the hospital.
Which means I'm taking the residential route from now on. I did, however, find that there's a Hollywood video a few blocks west on Granville, which resulted in the purchase of Corpse Bride, Capote and Good Night and Good Luck. I've never seen the last in the series, but I've heard good things and besides, it was three DVDs for $25 (the price on each individually was $14.99, so bonus.)
In other news:
My IM Softball team got around to winning our first game of the season (which is now three games old; the other two games being a loss in the opener and a tie last week), whomping some group of gents with a jackass pitcher. Our right fielder was a cricket player and, from what I could tell in the hour since I met him, a fine fellow who picked up the game surprisingly well for having never played it before. He did kind of bring the bat with him to first on a hit, and a fly to right fell in for a double, but I was able to cover him on that and, to be honest, he tried a whole hell of a lot more than Jeromy Burnitz does. I say the Pirates should recruit him, and start him in right.
Also, the lab is in full "movecore" mode, meaning we're packing our possessions for the long and terrible journey three hundred yards away in another building. Good times.
Monday, April 24, 2006
It's late!
So now that I’ve got a moment to write in this thing, Blogger’s down. C’est la thing.
Some updates in what’s going on.
I’ve just given my group meeting, which means I can stop freaking out about giving my group meeting until, oh, late September. There are some things I’ve got to work on, but overall, things are going well with research. Until this weekend. We’re moving, you see, to the building across the way where I’ll have a seat next to a ground floor window, a desk much closer to where I’m actually doing research than I’ve got set up right now, and the most incredible lab chairs in history. The downside is that the next week is going to be somewhat hectic as we try to pack up the entire lab and move it, while cleaning. And that this weekend, vacuum lines were shut down, meaning I couldn’t do much. Sadness. On the upside, once again, chairs.
I have quite a lot to complain about with my current domicile (and will probably have about the same luck when I move into a new place this September) but at least the Earth has not yet opened up to devour my building. Knock on wood. Or particle board. Whatever the hell this thing is.
It appears a new petition has been drafted calling for what would essentially be a revival of the Federal Marriage amendment though this time it’s not evangelical Protestants, but Catholics that have signed this petition, which seems like it's a bit of non-news, at least in the sense that yes, we were already quite aware that same-sex marriage is against the beliefs of several churches, and that's cool. While I understand and certainly respect the right of those that believe homosexuality is evil to hold that belief, I just cannot comprehend the idea of then effectively legislating that belief. I have absolutely no problem with individual churches deciding that they’re not going to grant marriages to same sex couples. Any law that would grant homosexuals the right to marry one another that would force any church to do so is clearly unconstitutional, and that’s not what anyone’s talking about. That’s entirely their prerogative, and if it’s their belief that to do so would be directly contradictory to their faith, that’s cool. They’re not hurting anyone, really, as in becoming a member of a church, you're accepting its beliefs, and if one of their beliefs is that gays can't marry (or form relationships), it's kind of nonsensical to call yourself a part of that church and then prattle on about them being discriminatory. By somewhat, I mean completely. If you're not down with how a church views gays, then don't be a part of that church. I have, however, yet to hear a solid argument that entirely avoids both the arguments of religion and tradition and gives me a good reason why Jack and Bill shouldn’t be able to get the whole power of attorney deal.
Why would I require that the reasoning be non-religous and non-traditional? Because atheists get married all the time as long as they're of opposite sexes (as do billions of people of any number of faiths, so tying it to a single faith or even a subset is silly), and when you start applying tradition to things like who's allowed to date whom, things get prejudicial.
I’ve heard arguments from both sides, and I just can’t get past the whole “legislating religion” deal that must go along with this. It’s not a matter of letting people run rampant with all sorts of crazy marriages. Presumably, just the opposite, allowing homosexual marriage would allow for at least some shedding of the conception of gays as people who have sex with anything and everything. As William Saletan argues, it’s not akin to allowing polygamy, as marriage between members of the same sex is not the arbitrary decision to stick marriage at “two” but rather to put it at “one”, as in “devotion to one spouse”, which is what it is now. Frankly, I’m not so sure banning gay marriage is about that so much as it is the ability to control and wield power over a decidedly small portion of the population. In the political sense, not the religious sense. In the religious sense, it’s simply “we don’t do that.”, and I’m down with that.
Summary: Some religious leaders have petitioned for the banning of same sex marriage. I support their right to do so, believe it’s a perfectly rational extension of their beliefs. I think they’d probably be remiss if they didn’t. At the same time, I don’t believe that banning gay marriage is the right course of action, at least from a completely secular, "go down to city hall and they let Frank visit Alexei in the hospital when Alexei falls ill" standpoint. To me, from a strictly non-relgious standpoint, it appears to be the same as being allowed to marry anyone else. And I can't quite see how chromosomes (or genitalia, though I'm not certain about what the current legal state of marriage between a man and a male-to-female post-op transsexual is) should decide whether one can put one down on their insurance.
Baseball:
Damn Pirates. I don’t know what kind of state of mind you have to be in to consider putting Jose Hernandez at third over both Joe Randa (who has had some good defensive work this year, and hasn’t been sucking out loud at the plate really) and Freddy Sanchez (who I’d like to see out there from the start, so that the first inning is only a three run Astros lead, as Berkman doesn’t reach on something Hernandez would have had if he weren’t daydreaming about why Jack Wilson is so completely non-photogenic. Going onto the Pirates message board on MLB.com right now is like entering into a battlefield. A battlefield with incredibly low morale where the infantry has decided to shell itself for kicks.
Who knew.
I’m going to bed.
Some updates in what’s going on.
I’ve just given my group meeting, which means I can stop freaking out about giving my group meeting until, oh, late September. There are some things I’ve got to work on, but overall, things are going well with research. Until this weekend. We’re moving, you see, to the building across the way where I’ll have a seat next to a ground floor window, a desk much closer to where I’m actually doing research than I’ve got set up right now, and the most incredible lab chairs in history. The downside is that the next week is going to be somewhat hectic as we try to pack up the entire lab and move it, while cleaning. And that this weekend, vacuum lines were shut down, meaning I couldn’t do much. Sadness. On the upside, once again, chairs.
I have quite a lot to complain about with my current domicile (and will probably have about the same luck when I move into a new place this September) but at least the Earth has not yet opened up to devour my building. Knock on wood. Or particle board. Whatever the hell this thing is.
It appears a new petition has been drafted calling for what would essentially be a revival of the Federal Marriage amendment though this time it’s not evangelical Protestants, but Catholics that have signed this petition, which seems like it's a bit of non-news, at least in the sense that yes, we were already quite aware that same-sex marriage is against the beliefs of several churches, and that's cool. While I understand and certainly respect the right of those that believe homosexuality is evil to hold that belief, I just cannot comprehend the idea of then effectively legislating that belief. I have absolutely no problem with individual churches deciding that they’re not going to grant marriages to same sex couples. Any law that would grant homosexuals the right to marry one another that would force any church to do so is clearly unconstitutional, and that’s not what anyone’s talking about. That’s entirely their prerogative, and if it’s their belief that to do so would be directly contradictory to their faith, that’s cool. They’re not hurting anyone, really, as in becoming a member of a church, you're accepting its beliefs, and if one of their beliefs is that gays can't marry (or form relationships), it's kind of nonsensical to call yourself a part of that church and then prattle on about them being discriminatory. By somewhat, I mean completely. If you're not down with how a church views gays, then don't be a part of that church. I have, however, yet to hear a solid argument that entirely avoids both the arguments of religion and tradition and gives me a good reason why Jack and Bill shouldn’t be able to get the whole power of attorney deal.
Why would I require that the reasoning be non-religous and non-traditional? Because atheists get married all the time as long as they're of opposite sexes (as do billions of people of any number of faiths, so tying it to a single faith or even a subset is silly), and when you start applying tradition to things like who's allowed to date whom, things get prejudicial.
I’ve heard arguments from both sides, and I just can’t get past the whole “legislating religion” deal that must go along with this. It’s not a matter of letting people run rampant with all sorts of crazy marriages. Presumably, just the opposite, allowing homosexual marriage would allow for at least some shedding of the conception of gays as people who have sex with anything and everything. As William Saletan argues, it’s not akin to allowing polygamy, as marriage between members of the same sex is not the arbitrary decision to stick marriage at “two” but rather to put it at “one”, as in “devotion to one spouse”, which is what it is now. Frankly, I’m not so sure banning gay marriage is about that so much as it is the ability to control and wield power over a decidedly small portion of the population. In the political sense, not the religious sense. In the religious sense, it’s simply “we don’t do that.”, and I’m down with that.
Summary: Some religious leaders have petitioned for the banning of same sex marriage. I support their right to do so, believe it’s a perfectly rational extension of their beliefs. I think they’d probably be remiss if they didn’t. At the same time, I don’t believe that banning gay marriage is the right course of action, at least from a completely secular, "go down to city hall and they let Frank visit Alexei in the hospital when Alexei falls ill" standpoint. To me, from a strictly non-relgious standpoint, it appears to be the same as being allowed to marry anyone else. And I can't quite see how chromosomes (or genitalia, though I'm not certain about what the current legal state of marriage between a man and a male-to-female post-op transsexual is) should decide whether one can put one down on their insurance.
Baseball:
Damn Pirates. I don’t know what kind of state of mind you have to be in to consider putting Jose Hernandez at third over both Joe Randa (who has had some good defensive work this year, and hasn’t been sucking out loud at the plate really) and Freddy Sanchez (who I’d like to see out there from the start, so that the first inning is only a three run Astros lead, as Berkman doesn’t reach on something Hernandez would have had if he weren’t daydreaming about why Jack Wilson is so completely non-photogenic. Going onto the Pirates message board on MLB.com right now is like entering into a battlefield. A battlefield with incredibly low morale where the infantry has decided to shell itself for kicks.
Who knew.
I’m going to bed.
Monday, April 17, 2006
The Worst Franchise?
ESPN.com's Page 2 is searching for a new punchline to fill the place of the L. A. Clippers, and as such are conducting a reader poll to determine the Worst Franchise in Sports. The Bucs get a mention that's painful to read if only because it emphasizes the fact that we've just extended Littlefield's contract, but I doubt they'll make it as the worst franchise after the poll is concluded. For some reason, I think "Royals" sticks out in the minds of the general populace more readily, and that with the remainder of the sports added in, the Pirates will finish out of the top five. In the top ten, certainly, but not the top five.
Sunday, April 16, 2006
Not for the Faint of Heart
I’ve not been updating this much recently, but that shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone, and I really would be seven kinds of shocked if one couldn’t glean that from both the timestamps and the fact that I open every one of these now with the apology that I’ve not been updating recently.
So we’ll continue.
In Murphy News:
Pirates:
So we’ll continue.
In Murphy News:
- I was not meant to be a butcher (hint: if you really don’t like animals dying for scientific studies, skip this). It’s funny that I’m sitting in a Subway eating a meatball sandwich while I type this, but I really don’t know how cool I am with killing an animal myself. Case in point: I’d like to do some metal studies involving the hippocampus. Not the human hippocampus, of course, but a rat hippocampus. Which means getting a rat brain. I didn’t actually have to extract the brain, of course, as I’d never done it before and would probably have ended up injuring the rat and causing, in a roundabout way, the beginning of a new species of superrat which would subjugate us all. So I watched the physiologist do it. Step One: Knocking the rat out in the desiccator filled with inhaled anesthetic. I’m fine with that. Step Two: Dissecting the rat. Ok. It wasn’t in pain (so she said) and it’s over now. Rat done. Step Three: What’s she doing with that knife? Step Four: She’s not… Step Five: She is. Step Six: Rat head in a jar.
I’m not cool with doing that. I accept that these kinds of things have to be done so that we can more fully understand the chemistry of life, but I think I’ll sit back and let someone else decapitate the rats. - Busy week this week. Group meeting on Tuesday afternoon, which I’m quite nervous about, and softball game on Monday. In case I’ve not said this, I’m involved in a softball team now, which is fine, but the manager signed us up for the wrong league such that instead of playing the Computer Science graduate school, we’re playing SAE tomorrow. Color me all kinds of mercy rule.
Pirates:
- I’m encouraged by what I saw from Duke’s outing on Saturday, and a bit discouraged by Snell’s today. Conflicted about Casey’s injury as he was hitting moderately well and we are paying him more than anyone else on the roster, but at least it gets Craig “Thor” Wilson some playing time (it should be coming over Burnitz, but it’s playing time nonetheless), which is providing us with everything that looks like offense recently. Mostly, I’m just waiting patiently for the first day off, Thursday, so that the relievers can get a modicum of rest. On that note, someone came up to me yesterday to ask why the Pirates have played more games than anyone else. I laughed a little. And then looked sadly at the schedule.
- I realized that I’m not sure what style of announcing I like. Cubs announcers tend to be a little too high on themselves, the Reds announcers were kind of static, saying something only when something happened such that a sizeable chunk was dead silence, but I’m not sure if that’s better or worse than Pirates announcers chatting about their pets and silverware.
- 4-10 isn’t where I wanted to be right now, but it’s hardly the end of the world. Pirates fans in the Pirate Q & A and on message boards have been calling the season lost since the first game. While I’d be surprised to see enough change to get us to .500, it’s just damn depressing listening to the talk of fan revolt.
Monday, April 10, 2006
Keaton and Optimism.
Nearing the end of the 8-3 loss to the Dodgers at the Pirates home opener this afternoon, this appeared on the Pirates front page. I'm calling shenanigans. While I'm certainly not calling the season as lost after eight games, and was unable to watch the game due to work today, it certainly seems like quite a bad outing from Duke in addition to the inability to put together a run when we need one. Or five. I'll be the first to admit that building for the future is a more pressing priority. There's just something about 1-7 that I'm not quite fond of.
PREPOSITIONS USED TO END SENTENCES!
Ironic that they included the bit with Michael Keaton (who threw out the first pitch) and the Batman/Rivers Cuomo picture after he made some less than sunshiney statements to the press.
PREPOSITIONS USED TO END SENTENCES!
Ironic that they included the bit with Michael Keaton (who threw out the first pitch) and the Batman/Rivers Cuomo picture after he made some less than sunshiney statements to the press.
Sunday, April 09, 2006
Revelations
1) It takes a very long time to get a cheap bike that's intact in the suburbs of Chicago. Walmart's selection is iffy and I'd have had to spend more than I felt like for what's going to be used probably relatively rarely, and compounded by the fact that the Walmart in Niles is a pretty interesting experiment in anarchy and that when a bike's going to be placed on the top rack, it's probably better to print the price in something larger than size 5 font. So off to Target. Reasonably priced bike there, but the gearshift has been snapped off. They've got another, but it's going to be ok because there's one in the back. Unfortunately, that had no front wheel (which, I've found, is at least somewhat necessary). They sent us off to another Target, which, we were told, had eleven of the same bike (or did that morning.) Our arrival to the bike department was marked by the last of those bikes being sold, the explanation of the Target employee in the bike department that they're the top seller in the Western Hemisphere or something, followed by some more yammering, and finally, price matching another bike. It's a bit heavier than I'd like, and not as standard-road-bike as I'd like, but it's what I've got. So there's that.
2) I live too far away from the school to ride there. I found this out after doing just that this morning, and I'm incredibly tired. So I apologize if this makes no sense.
3) A win for the Pirates. From Victor Santos? From what I was able to see, it was a pretty solid ball game, with Santos throwing a solid game with sufficient run support. I'm hoping Hernandez closing isn't something that's going to go on consistently, but still, he put together a reasonable 9th (that is, he succeeded in his charge, which was closing out the game). Nice jack from Jack, and I'm glad we're not going into the Home Opener 0-7.
85 game winning streak, starting now. I'm calling it.
2) I live too far away from the school to ride there. I found this out after doing just that this morning, and I'm incredibly tired. So I apologize if this makes no sense.
3) A win for the Pirates. From Victor Santos? From what I was able to see, it was a pretty solid ball game, with Santos throwing a solid game with sufficient run support. I'm hoping Hernandez closing isn't something that's going to go on consistently, but still, he put together a reasonable 9th (that is, he succeeded in his charge, which was closing out the game). Nice jack from Jack, and I'm glad we're not going into the Home Opener 0-7.
85 game winning streak, starting now. I'm calling it.
Wednesday, April 05, 2006
I'm not poisoned
Quick note while I'm waiting for my solvent to come off.
My blood mercury: 4 ng/mL
Normal blood mercury: 10 ng/mL
Toxic blood mercury: 50 ng/mL
My blood cadmium: <0.2 ng/mL
Normal blood cadmium: 1 ng/mL
My health=fine.
My blood mercury: 4 ng/mL
Normal blood mercury: 10 ng/mL
Toxic blood mercury: 50 ng/mL
My blood cadmium: <0.2 ng/mL
Normal blood cadmium: 1 ng/mL
My health=fine.
Monday, April 03, 2006
Adventures in Glenlake.
So here's the day.
At about one-in-the-afternoon, myself and Meera (the other Infected) jet off to Evanston Memorial Hospital for a quick blood drawing, some tests and the hair metal that plays on a loop in the lobby of Evanston Memorial. Alas, the office that would do our work for us there is open on Monday, Wednesday and Friday (promising!) from eight-in-the-morning until eleven-in-the-morning.
That's right. Nine hours per week this place is open for workers comp claims.
So we're required to drive to Glenlake, IL for the tests at a facility out there. I must have fallen asleep at some point (I've been up at this point for about 19 hours), because I really can't recall the point at which our surroundings ceased to be at least mostly suburban and became cows. The surrounding area led me to believe that it's not someone who has cows because they need cows, but someone who has cows because they really dig on the concept of having cows.
Driving Driving Driving.
We arrive in Glenlake, at the proper site for them to steal my blood. After a quick check-up, I was given two (2) tests, one of which ruled, while the other whimpered meekly. The one that ruled involved being locked in a sort of sensory deprivation chamber (that is, a tiny soundproof booth) with a set of headphones and a buzzer. it was very Win Ben Stein's Money. Or 21. Whatever. Thing is, I apparently dig on being locked in small, soundproofed booths, hitting a buzzer whenever a note is played.
The less awesome test was a simple vision test, which I sucked at because I hadn't brought my glasses.
So that's all well and good. The Good Doctor prescribed for us 10mg/kg/day of a chelating agent (DTSA) as a prophylactic treatment, and sent off to Walgreens (specifically) to pick up the prescription, which we were assured would be covered by Workman's Comp. Before we were released, they robbed us outright of a bit of hair (they robbed Meera of quite a lot, actually, though it's unnoticeable unless you want to annoy her) and blood. The guy that stole my blood was an embittered Cubs fan that I hope won't ever take my blood again, if only because you're not supposed to be angry when you're doing that job.
Anyway, off to Walgreens to fill these prescriptions. We were given the prescriptions, and a form and nothing else. This absolutely baffled the pharmacists, who did not believe that the Workman's Comp organization existed and implied that we might have been trying to scam the pharmacy out of their DTSA (it is known to have hallucinogenic effects if smoked by people that would think that I'd want to scam a pharmacy out of a chelation therapeutic.) Perhaps, I think, it's because he admitted to not having a clue what it was the prescription was asking for (that is, he'd never heard of this drug). After some calls to the organization, the pharmacist continued to refuse to fill the prescription, and so I'm not starting that therapy quite yet. He seemed to feel a bit bad about it after we told him the chemical with which we might have been contaminated, but overall seemed not to care enough to actually give us the medicine we were supposed to get.
I'm leaving lab now.
At about one-in-the-afternoon, myself and Meera (the other Infected) jet off to Evanston Memorial Hospital for a quick blood drawing, some tests and the hair metal that plays on a loop in the lobby of Evanston Memorial. Alas, the office that would do our work for us there is open on Monday, Wednesday and Friday (promising!) from eight-in-the-morning until eleven-in-the-morning.
That's right. Nine hours per week this place is open for workers comp claims.
So we're required to drive to Glenlake, IL for the tests at a facility out there. I must have fallen asleep at some point (I've been up at this point for about 19 hours), because I really can't recall the point at which our surroundings ceased to be at least mostly suburban and became cows. The surrounding area led me to believe that it's not someone who has cows because they need cows, but someone who has cows because they really dig on the concept of having cows.
Driving Driving Driving.
We arrive in Glenlake, at the proper site for them to steal my blood. After a quick check-up, I was given two (2) tests, one of which ruled, while the other whimpered meekly. The one that ruled involved being locked in a sort of sensory deprivation chamber (that is, a tiny soundproof booth) with a set of headphones and a buzzer. it was very Win Ben Stein's Money. Or 21. Whatever. Thing is, I apparently dig on being locked in small, soundproofed booths, hitting a buzzer whenever a note is played.
The less awesome test was a simple vision test, which I sucked at because I hadn't brought my glasses.
So that's all well and good. The Good Doctor prescribed for us 10mg/kg/day of a chelating agent (DTSA) as a prophylactic treatment, and sent off to Walgreens (specifically) to pick up the prescription, which we were assured would be covered by Workman's Comp. Before we were released, they robbed us outright of a bit of hair (they robbed Meera of quite a lot, actually, though it's unnoticeable unless you want to annoy her) and blood. The guy that stole my blood was an embittered Cubs fan that I hope won't ever take my blood again, if only because you're not supposed to be angry when you're doing that job.
Anyway, off to Walgreens to fill these prescriptions. We were given the prescriptions, and a form and nothing else. This absolutely baffled the pharmacists, who did not believe that the Workman's Comp organization existed and implied that we might have been trying to scam the pharmacy out of their DTSA (it is known to have hallucinogenic effects if smoked by people that would think that I'd want to scam a pharmacy out of a chelation therapeutic.) Perhaps, I think, it's because he admitted to not having a clue what it was the prescription was asking for (that is, he'd never heard of this drug). After some calls to the organization, the pharmacist continued to refuse to fill the prescription, and so I'm not starting that therapy quite yet. He seemed to feel a bit bad about it after we told him the chemical with which we might have been contaminated, but overall seemed not to care enough to actually give us the medicine we were supposed to get.
I'm leaving lab now.
Tests.
Note: That "27 pills/day" was misstated. It'd be 9 pills per day. Unfortunately, the pharmacist refused to give me the medication, which you'll hear more about in the next post.
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