no use for a headline

Eff you. Eff you. You're cool, and eff you. I'm out! (aka I've moved!)

2008-12-30T17:49:00.000-08:00

Yes, the classic "I've moved!" post. Blogger has been bothering me with its frequently buggy hyperlinking and I've been wanting more versatility. I will miss the old orange on white, so cartoon Alex and the Stratus on Congress Ave may come along eventually.

If you come to this blog as nufah.com then... you probably aren't reading this right now. If you roll old school with thebea.blogspot.com then just hop on over to http://www.nufah.com (yep, I gots me a tri-dub).

There's a little more info on my latest post there, but suffice to say that I came across a deal at the last minute on DreamHost that I couldn't pass up, for both Student Bloggers and this little beauty. The new site is a little rugged now, but as long as research continues to be less interesting than the interwebs I will be working on it.

Obligitory end of year list... kind of

2008-12-29T14:31:00.001-08:00

We're about 48 hours away from the end of 2008 and I have yet to list my favorites of anything. I'm pretty sure that it's blogger law that we Internet cowboys* share our simplified, organized opinions with the 'nets at the end of each year. Because this would take a good amount of time and inevitably result in a list that A) I would disagree with in a week, or B) be filled with BS answers designed to make me look super-cool and indie/nerdsome, I turned to my girlfriend, data.

At the risk of using a word that is fairly meaningless at this point, I am pretty obsessed with my stats on iTunes. I've spent hours rating songs, listening to songs purely so they will have at least one play count, and I prayed a silent prayer to the open-source gods when I found Moody. Naturally, I was pretty excited when Lifehacker.com told me how to create a Best of 200_ smart playlist. Basically it shows the songs that were added during a given calendar year, rated higher than 3 out of 5, and played the most. Pretty simple and fairly objective.

The problem with this is three-fold. First, it may not accurately portray your favorite songs of the year. An okay song in a great album might get lots of play just because it is with great songs. It also often results in just a few artists being included for people like me, who tend to listen to albums rather than playlists or individual songs.

The second problem is simple, though it best shows how lame I am. Songs added at the end of the year will naturally be played fewer times that year than ones added in January. I actually thought about waiting until January to add some nerdcore I recently downloaded so that the data would reflect how much I liked it (thus the lameness).

The final problem is that... it pretty accurately portrays your favorite songs of the year. For example, do I want to admit that Katy Perry and Paramore are among the top 30 songs by play count? No, but that's what iTunes tells me. Fortunately I'm happy with the rest. So, without naming all the songs, the top artists of the year** (in order of their most played song) are:

Zach Lost (best lyricist I've heard in a long time)
Grace Potter & The Nocturnals (mind melting voice on Grace Potter)
GLaDOS & Jonathan Coulton (Still Alive from the video game Portal - best song sung by a robot about cake this year. I said it.)
Miranda Lambert (best country singer out there right now and one of the few I still listen to)
Paramore (there's something about that artificially bright red hair)
Danielle Ate the Sandwich (really rad singer-songwriter out of Ft. Collins who I found on YouTube)
Erin Ivey (amazing urban folk artist out of Austin)
Daniella Cotton (hard rocking lady I first heard at the Allgood Music Festival)
Katy Perry (one song. shut it.)
Ben Folds (this dude rocks. nothing else to say.)
Duffy (equally mind-melting as Potter, but on the mellow end of the spectrum)

Some I would really include, but that were added late in the game include MC Chris, Q-Tip, and Vampire Weekend. MC Chris is the most entertaining nerdcore artist I've heard yet. ytcracker may be the "reigning king of nerdcore," but Chris is more fun to listen to any day of the week.

Lessons from this list? Well I clearly liked listening to women sing more than men. I'll bring that up with Freud later. Vampire Weekend, Fort Minor, and various male bands from the Rock Band 2 soundtrack were high on the list, but not enough to make the top 30 songs. My musical ego would also like to add that this list is fairly eclectic, with hip-hop, urban folk, soul, country, rock, robot, and pure ear candy all represented (among others).

So that's it. My objectively chosen top artists of 2008. If you're really interested in specific songs or albums just ask in the comments. I've been buying a lot of music in the last month, and since I will (hopefully) be employed in a fo'-real job after graduation there will probably be more contenders for next year. I might include those from December of this year since I bought several good albums in the last few weeks and grad school has made me a little crazy over externally valid data. But that's a question for 2009. Until then check out S. Vincent's top albums of the year and make your own smart playlist*** to share with the old El Beamo.

*Yeah, that sounded like a bit much to me too.
** Actually the second half of 2008. Technical difficulties led me to reload much of my music on June 6th.
*** My criteria: Added in 2008 (or since June 7), over 3 stars, not a video, and limited to 30 by most played. Of course you can tweak this for your list.

Love it.

2008-12-21T08:41:00.000-08:00

20sb December blog carnival

2008-12-16T09:35:00.000-08:00

As I mentioned a few posts back I have wanted to get a little more involved in the bare bones social network Twenty-Something Bloggers. It's really a forum as much as a social network, but it's been fun meeting bloggers on there and making my RSS reader less work and more personal. 20sb is having a December blog carnival asking for wishlists and since I love making lists here's mine:

Wishlist of things I want that are free:

A high-five from my niece
A finished move of NUFAH to Wordpress
Coffee shop conversations with friends back home (the conversation is free)
The high school rowers I used to coach not saying anything obscene as soon as I see them (little savages)
Productivity from myself
To be actually removed from the email/catalog lists that I've requested it from
A movie night with friends
A movie night with family
An organized computer cleaned of all useless files
A recommendation of one album/song from everyone who reads this (reader participation FTW!)

What your TA is actually thinking about during exams

2008-12-12T18:40:00.000-08:00

I'm a fairly young guy. A young man, if you will. That said, I am occasionally reminded that here, on a college campus, I am old. I am one of those old, boring grad students who often does work on weekend nights, wears sweater vests (don't be jealous), and gets as much excitement from finding a great journal article as I used to get from getting to the cafeteria before all the Frosted Flakes were gone.

One of the students in the class I am TAing reminded me of this when I told him about the last paper I had for the semester. On finding out that it was to be 25 pages, his response was, "Good luck!" in the kind of "you're about to go into a battle against a mountain lion with nothing but a toothbrush, but I guess it's your funeral" kind of tone. I used to do that. Now? 25 pages is... just 25 pages. After handing in a thesis proposal 71 pages long, 25 pages just isn't that scary anymore.

Which brings me to this morning. As I stood there in front of 350 or so undergrads, mostly sophomores and juniors, I thought, "Could I kick it with these youngsters?"* I had received a few Facebook requests after my (epic) review session on Wednesday, which got me thinking how different we are. I'm about six years off sophomore year--a fact I still can't believe--but we're all young, right? I listen to new music. Okay, so not new popular music, but new music.

As I looked at the faces of the students taking their final exam I thought, "those guys don't look all that different from me (sans beardo). I could see them up here in my place." Then it hit me. There was a good reason why those faces looked like my face. I am a grad student. These were undergrads, yes, but they were undergrads in the middle of one of three tests that make up the whole class grade. Most of them probably didn't study enough. They were stressed, they were tired, and their spirits were getting ever-so close to being broken by finals.

Yes, they were becoming grad students, if only for a week and a half. Is it my extra six years on this earth what makes me responsible enough to be entrusted with 350 class grades. Nay. It is the qualities that I earned over those six years of job search rejection, paying rent and bills, working lame temp jobs, and having paychecks that make new undershirts look like a luxury.** Stressed, tired, and that sweet broken spirit with which I shall spring into the world this coming May with the most marketable skill in our economy's present state: low expectations.

*that's what you kids say, right?
**seriously, I really need new undershirts.

Alex's lessons on proper use of the word "literally": Part 1

2008-12-08T04:16:00.000-08:00

INCORRECT: I make oatmeal for breakfast literally everyday.

CORRECT: I make oatmeal for breakfast almost everyday.

ALSO CORRECT: I spill oatmeal on the counter literally every time I make it. Cripes, what am I? Four?

Because inane iced with lazy tastes much sweeter

2008-12-06T10:27:00.000-08:00

And they say that we millennials are too lazy to stand up for anything! I got an invitation recently to a Facebook "protest" group about the new site design. First of all, wasn't that over about 3 months ago? Seriously?

Okay, I've accepted that there are many (apparently over 1 million) people on there who are pretty upset about the "new" design. I would call them a bunch of whiners and call it a day, but whiners tend to give up after a while. I respect the devotion to this absurd use of activist energy. What I am ~~surprised by~~... what got my attention this time was the length of this "protest." From the "event":

On December 15th, if we are still on the new facebook, let's all not login for one day ! But just before let's all put the pic of the group as profile picture to show that we are part of the facebook blackout !

One day?! You can't tear yourself away from Facebook for more than 24 hours for something that you say you care about? Besides that, one day isn't going to mean anything to them even if everyone does it. A month? That may hurt advertising a little. But a day? They might have to switch over to wiping with $50 bills instead of $100 for the day, but not much else.

I'm as big a fan of ridiculous as anyone. I say go ahead and be ridiculous. It gives me something to rant about. But why not be ridiculous for a longer time? Commit to the ridiculousness. Embrace your ridiculousity. Wield your mighty sword of absurdity over your head and strike down those oppressive website administrators! March to the ocean of version 1.0, you Superpoking Gandhis. Sit down on the seat that is your Logout button, oh Rosa Parks of the social networks.

Commit to it though. You're making us all look... ridiculous.

Lesson learned

2008-12-02T18:33:00.000-08:00

Thinking about my blogging recently has taught me a good bit about how I want my online writing to be. While I haven’t posted much lately, I’ve been keeping up the schedule on Student Bloggers. Doing so requires about two hours a day looking through around 150 posts a day to find just a few to post, then coming up with something (hopefully) clever to lead them with and finally a picture to use as a header. This is all cool, but I’m not getting paid for it and it tends to stress me out at times.

I started SB because I loved DCBlogs and wanted a similar place for college student bloggers. I don’t mind the fact that I don’t get paid, but the time gone and stress are not really great. Yes, the site has brought in some money, but after the domain costs and this winter’s private hosting plans that will be back in the red.

So what did I learn from this? Well, DCBlogs has about 15 editors. That would be huge. They also have over 1000 blogs to get posts from, making the search for posts relevent to a wide audience much easier. Getting 700 new blogs added isn’t really realistic, but I could get more editors. That will be part of this winter’s revamp.

The other thing I learned is that I really want to get back to blogging myself. I get to read all these people’s outlets everyday, but rarely have time to do that myself. When I started blogging in 2005 I loved that. The posts from my first year or two on Nufah are definitely the most interesting and were the most fun to write. Blogging shouldn’t feel like a job (well, unless your’e getting paid pretty well). It should be fun.

A month or two ago I joined Twenty-Something Bloggers, a Ning social networking site created by a blogger named Lisa. It’s a very cool community and more enjoyable than Facebook since it is made of bloggers and not everyone in the world with a computer and Internet connection. The people on there are great and I’d like to take advantage before I’m no longer applicable!

So that’s my mission over the next months. Get help on SB and start enjoying blogging again. I’d also like to somehow integrate Nufah and alexbea.com into one site. Still not sure how they're working with eachother. Of course there are offline missions as well, but that’s for another (offline) day.

Rev. Run loses faith

2008-11-29T18:29:00.000-08:00

I love hip-hop. I do. I grew up just outside DC and, because I shared a room with my older brother, grew up listening to two great hip-hop and R&B stations, 93.9 WKYS and the great WPGC (95 & a nickel). This was during the late 80s and 90s of course. Those stations, like most other hip-hop stations are very different now. Mostly because of something in very short supply: rhymes.

Now I've been saying (read: complaining) for years that hip-hop has gotten weak, starting, in my opinion, with the rise of Cash Money in the late 90s. Suddenly producing was so much more important than really good rhymes. Just to be clear, the good stuff I'm thinking of is music like Tupac, the Beastie Boys, Public Enemy, Biggie, Arrested Development, Busta Rhymes, Dre, and DMX.

It's not that there aren't good MCs around now. I'm a big fan of artists like Jurassic 5, Blackalicious, Jay-Z, Common, and a HUGE fan of an unsigned MC from Jersey, Zach Lost. The problem is not that people aren't making good hip-hop. The problem is that I never hear it when I turn on the radio. I hear crap like T-Pain and Soulja Boy. It's good for the club, but it isn't good rhyming.

What really made me think to write about this now is something I saw last week. I don't have cable here at school so I don't see many crappy MTV/VH-1 reality shows, but I was back at my parents' house for the holiday and my brother and I turned on Run's House. Run's son Jo-Jo is in a group that had a performance in that episode. After, back at home, Run - from Run-DMC aka some of the greatest MCs (& DJ) - said something to the effect of how they did really well and there wasn't much rhyming, but that's not what's big today.

Seriously? How is one of the most legendary MCs accepting this ish? Now sure, Kanye is mad talented and is hugely popular. Jay-Z is questionably still around as well, but artists like them are definitely in the minority. Frankly, there might be other good ones out now, but I don't hear them because as soon as I turn the radio on and hear T-Pain's poor excuse for skills I change the channel.

I'm not sure where I'm going with this, but I felt like ranting. Go check out Zach Lost. Buy his new album, Heavy Head, and support great artists (only $6.99! No excuses).

Just voted, suckas!

2008-11-04T09:40:00.001-08:00

I just voted. Woot.

Seriously though, I was more giddy this morning than I've been for any holiday in at least 15 years. Giddy. We're talking embarrassingly, blackmailably, school ~~girl~~ boy type giddy.

I'm done now though. Besides the big things (e.g., campaigning 2.0, black POTUS or woman VPOTUS, not Bush, millions of new voters) I think this election is notable for some other developments. First, I have heard of around eight promotions by national or local businesses giving discounts or free stuff today to voters. Very cool. It may be good marketing for them, but it also makes voting more salient and might get a few people out who wouldn't have thought to.

Twitter. I mentioned campaigning 2.0 above, but specifically Twitter has be pretty great for the process as far as I'm concerned. Current.tv ran the debates with twitterfeed constantly updating about what people thought, guys like Kevin Rose of Digg & Jeff Canata from TRS have been promoting voting hard, and then a few minutes ago I get this tweet from some guy I don't know who seems to have been following the feed and tweeting back when people have voting issues. I think I may have been wrong in my case, but still very cool.

That's all I got right now. I need to get to work and try to distract myself until this evening. I leave you with this, from Jake and Amir.

Vote! from Amir on Vimeo.

The best thing to happen to democracy since the first ammendment

2008-10-30T08:26:00.000-07:00

Free Ben and Jerry's for voters! If you weren't voting because of the gravity of this election, you will be for the yums.

First step toward ditching Blogger

2008-10-26T19:10:00.000-07:00

A few weeks ago (or months?) I went ahead and bought alexbea.com. It seems like a good idea these days to own your name's url, and since I'll probably end up working in some sort of online capacity I should have my claim staked.

Long story short, I've decided to blog over there (directed to a Wordpress account right now) on my thesis and more academically/professionally inclined stuff. Add it to your reading list if you'd like or don't. Just wanted to share that it's there. Part of my reasoning was also because Blogger has been buggy lately (Is anyone else having issues occasionally creating links w/ the WYSIWYG hyperlinker?) and Wordpress can create pages attached to the blog.

And that's all I got to say about that.

ps. this site can now be reached by http://nufah.com/. Am I going a little domain-happy here?

20sb Vlog Day

2008-10-22T13:10:00.000-07:00

Here's my contribution for the Twenty-something Bloggers Vlog Day. I've never done one of these deals, so it is what it is.

the beamer's 20sb Vlog day from Alex Bea on Vimeo.

That's it! Check out the others on the Vlog Day entry on the 20sb blog.
Here is Lisa's, the 20something who started all this madness.

Pohler kills it (and a moose) on SNL

2008-10-19T11:26:00.000-07:00

If you haven't seen it yet, peep this hil-arious bit from last night's SNL with the Sarah Palin rap. So good.

It's hilarious on the regular tip, but then when you think about how Amy Pohler is very pregnant and still hitting it that hard? Even better. She is undoubtedly one of the best cast members they've had in a long time.

Blog Action Day

2008-10-15T17:44:00.000-07:00

(done as part of Blog Action Day)

It's no secret that socioeconomic disparity is at higher levels than pretty much ever before. You hear about it a lot on the campaign trail, with Obama saying that McCain is giving rackloads of money to the wealthiest 1%, McCain calling this class warfare, and both candidates doing their best to appeal to the middle class. What we don't seem to be hearing about much is what anyone is going to do for the lowest 1, 5, or 12-16% (according to the vessel of collective wisdom).

You know why? Well two reasons that I would guess, besides arguably lower turnout, are 1) they are the 16% and not the 80%, and 2) it's a crapton harder to come up with a policy that makes sense and doesn't turn people off for the lowest income than the middle income.

Coming from the DC area I primarily understood poverty to be an inner city problem. I had no idea about the rampant poverty throughout Appalachia as well. This problem touches every state and all types of people. One aspect of the problem is the disparity in education opportunities. It's hard to get or keep teachers when you can't pay as much as other schools, and when you can't buy up-to-date equipment kids can't be expected to be at the same level if they get a chance to go to college.

Ever since I went to an online politics conference last spring I have been interested in the issue of the Digital Divide. At the risk of sounding like a techno-evangelist, I stand with those that believe that getting broadband access to rural areas is crucial in this electronic age. At all times I am either on my laptop with access to a near infinite amount of information or have an iPod Touch in my pocket to do the same almost anywhere in Blacksburg. Even if I wasn't in school I could get to pretty much all the education the world has to offer.

Food programs are very important. Housing programs are hugely important. Job creation is crucial as well. Obviously access to food, homes, and clean water come first, but unless the educational imbalance is corrected a good deal, poverty will remain at tragic levels. Breaching the Digital Divide is a just a part of that, but it's a part that is certainly within our ability to fix.

I concur, Peggy.

2008-10-06T06:08:00.000-07:00

Regarding this age of political strategists and political operatives:

"I have the sense sometimes lately that these guys on the plane think history is their plaything. History is not their plaything. This is big. This is a nation having two groundwars and an economic recession -- we hope just a mild recession. This is not a time for playfulness and mischief and it ain't right."
- Peggy Noonan of the Wall Street Journal, on Meet the Press 10/5

Rethinking education

2008-09-18T11:18:00.000-07:00

It's no secret that I've been a huge proponent of Web 2.0 for all kinds of people and purposes. It's a bit of a running joke within the grad student in our department that I'm all about the blog (and hugging trees, but that's another post). Something that's fueled this recently is my discovery of a few university educators doing amazing stuff with online media for the purposes of education. Through their work the whole idea of education is changing, and it sure as shit needs to.

The first I learned about was Dr. Michael Wesch at Kansas State University. The best way to describe him is Web 2.badass. You might have seen his videos about education and YouTube. His digital ethnography class studies YouTube in a way that would shut naysayers up if they would take a moment to stop bitching about "those damn kids" taping themselves in their rooms.

He was at Virginia Tech last week as part of a conference on interactive media in education (or something like that). I was able to see his presentation the night before it started and, though I had seen much of what he talked about on his videos, it was pretty inspiring. The biggest thing that hit me was how he asked his students in a 500 seat class two questions. First he asked who hated school - over half raised their hands. Then he asked who hated learning - none. If there's a better sign that shit needs to change I don't know what it is.

I was tipped to the presentation by my Twitter friend, girlinblack. On our way out she pointed out a woman in the back with striking pink hair and said, "That's Intellagirl!" Since no one seemed to be wearing a cape and tights with an "I" on their chest I didn't know who she was talking about. She then schooled me on Sarah "Intellagirl" Robbins - also a twitterer and Web 2.badass. Her work with education in Second Life and virtual worlds is amazing. It makes me want to give SL another try and see what it has to offer. She's set to graduate with her PhD from Ball State in December. I wasn't able to go to her presentation at the conference, but I've since been following her blogs.

The optimism with which these two educators talk about the potential of online media to revolutionize learning is contagious. As Wesch said last week, students are online all day, including during class, so we need to engage with them there and leverage the media for learning rather than fight it.

Yesterday I saw on my twitter feed that Dr. Boyer here at Tech was doing his office hours on UStream. I'd heard lots of great things about him, so I checked it out. What he did was live stream his entire office hours, answering questions (academic and otherwise) which were sent by IM. Students were taking time out to engage with the subject matter and with their professor when they really didn't need to. It was clear that Boyer enjoyed it as much as anyone. I can't imagine that at least some of his massive class catch that enthusiasm and take it into their own education.

I'm currently reading a journal article by Cheryl Smith at Baruch College. She implemented blogging into her college writing class to remove the stigma of errors and get students to enjoy writing.

Education needs to, and is, changing. Thanks to people like these four we might have a chance to make it happen.

Politics on Facebook

2008-09-15T11:33:00.001-07:00

File under R for "Really?!"

2008-09-03T08:33:00.001-07:00

I preface this post with the admission that I can't really complain about textbook prices since I only had to buy two this semester. They certainly did not reach the disgusting prices that some people have to pay.

That said, I pay $100 for a PR book (probably the one from grad school I will never use again) and I get this?

I don't know if the picture does it justice, but it seems that Mr. Magoo was running the binder this day at the PR book factory. Actually, to quote Ron Burgundy, "I'm not even mad. That's amazing." I sat for a while and tried to figure out how one would bind a book this poorly with no success.

Kudos, Pearson Prentice Hall. Now give me my money back.

Common question

2008-09-03T06:45:00.000-07:00

So yesterday she says to me she says, "Hey Alex, how do you make smiley faces out of DNA?"
So I says to her, "Gee, Made-up-person-for-the-purpose-of-this-setup, I don't know. Maybe THIS GUY does!"

The magic happens about halfway through.

citizen journalist gets deported from china!

2008-08-15T06:41:00.001-07:00

An amazing story of the Chinese response to American protesters on behalf of Tibetan freedom. Zadi Diaz interviews 2 members of Students for a Free Tibet. Check out the video then Digg it.

read more | digg story

Of course handshakes aren't overpriced and usually watered down

2008-08-03T22:37:00.000-07:00

I was inspired to blog tonight (despite being late and me being tired) because of the evening's big event. Some friends and I went to see Missy Higgins and Eric Hutchinson at The Birchmere, here in Alexandria. First, on the show, it was great. Not life changing, but it was pretty great. Each of them has their own style even though they're in the same general genre, so it all fit together really well. Hutchinson's impression of Cher covering one of his songs was definitely a highlight. Another (non-musical) highlight was Missy announcing near the end of her set that she doesn't do encores. She explained that as a performer they felt dishonest at this point since most save at least one big single for the encore, and for the audience it seemed like a pain to have to work to hear what we already paid for. Both good points -- especially the former.

Anyway, I realized something at the end of Eric Hutchinson's set. He announced that he'd be in the lobby after the show to sign autographs and meet people, which is always cool to do. I've met him before when he played at my college and he was very funny and a really nice guy. This time, however I decided to pass. This was for a few reasons: First, I own all his albums, but they're bought on the iTunes stores, hence nothing to sign. Second, as I said, I've already met him and have established a good impression, so I don't need to just see what he's like.

The main reason why I didn't go up to him, despite really liking him and his music, is just about the same reason why I don't go to loud bars to pick up girls. I'll explain. Every girl I've dated knew me beforehand, or at least had a few solid conversations with me before we dated. My point is that I don't exactly work well shouting over music and buying drinks for random girls. Since I've never been able to do that whole deal, and since I can't just hang out with my friends at those loud bars (unless dancing of course), I just avoid them since it'd just be a tease. I could buy a girl a drink, but my chances, multiplied by my weak grad school bank account, do not add up to awesome.

Here's where I get to the point. At this point, with my impression of an artist established, it'd just feel like a tease to go shake their hand. I'm not really one to want to touch a celeb just for the sake of doing it, so I'd really be doing it to meet them. The problem is, especially with a really cool guy like the Hutch, that I don't just want to shake his hand. I want to hang out with the guy all evening, trading jokes, hearing stories and whatnot. A momentary "hello" would be like buying that cute girl a drink, learning her job/major/dental history and then parting ways.

I hope that makes sense. There were lots of people going to talk to him, so he'd get the message that his show was great. I actually hollered on his myspace, and that's as good as a handshake... or not. Okay, so I kinda wish I'd gone up to him, but c'est la vie. I sometimes wish I'd gone to the bar to check out the ladies but, of course, they're more likely to punch me if I mention that they had a "hot set."

And next, chairs with pictures of asses on them

2008-08-01T11:18:00.000-07:00

Let me start by saying that I sincerely appreciate when cities make biking around town easier. Alexandria, VA, my hometown, has done this to a certain extent especially in Old Town with some bike lanes and a smattering of bike racks. I do like that.

But, of course, I am a bit of a bastard and no good deed goes unpunished. I don't really know what that means, but this might be it.

Cities, schools, and other organizations have a choice when they do stuff like putting up bike racks. They can go with the old school bike rack or they can choose to go in a different direction. Alexandria did the latter. Did they go with the upside-down "U"'s? Nope? They went with this:

First of all, I have to imagine that these things are more expensive than the more simple (and effective) versions. The only thing I can come up with is that we cyclists were tested as being too dumb to know that we can lock up to something that isn't shaped like what's under our butts. The truth is that these are actually harder to effectively lock up to. Just taking the bike-shape out of the circle would be a major improvement and would save on materials. Cable locks might be able to maneuver through that hot mess, but a U-lock like I have (so that my bike doesn't get stolen again) doesn't care for this.

You know what this is? The popped collar of bike racks. Sure, the original design served the purpose for decades or longer, but it didn't communicate the desired message of "I have more money than you and I have the douchebaggery to prove it." When you're a neighborhood of growing gentrification you can't just go with the same old, same old.

I freakin' love this

2008-07-31T10:15:00.000-07:00

As I'm just getting started on my thesis this made my day.

Going all Russert on this bit-... me.

2008-07-07T05:40:00.000-07:00

For a while now, Lifehacker.com has been my productivity guide. I got the full feed on my reader and went through each item every day thinking, "Could this make my life easier and more productive?", "Would this DIY make me more organized?", or "Shouldn't I start composing music with Mario icons?"

Recently I decided to chill the F out with it. Since my RSS reader was getting crazy backed up I used their easy tags to reduce the size of my Lifehacker feed. The beautiful serendipity of yesterday though was this article on productivity hobbyists. Yeah, that's me. So what to do?!

I'll tell you what to do. Whiteboard. That's right. Those plain, old dry-erase boards. Why should I, a guy with at least six or seven apps dedicated to organization and productivity on Bruce and now the very portable iPod Touch, go super-low tech? Because Tim motherf'ing Russert did. Yes, the recently passed head of NBC's DC bureau was known to use the simple format to explain the insanity of electoral politics. Six or seven apps? That guy had millions of buckos of technology behind him and he went for a whiteboard.

So it's my turn.

This isn't a revolutionary idea of course. After all, pen and paper (yes, actual pen and paper) won Lifehacker's poll on the best GTD application. So now the 8.5''x11'' whitboard is my new daily schedule and reminder and has a permanent home in my bag. I have a good feeling about this, but we'll see. If this can help me complete my thesis without putting my head through a wall I will have just one more reason to give it up to Mix Master Russert.

Hollywood: crapping on the classics since... there were classics

2008-07-04T08:04:00.000-07:00

I'm worried.

I love movies. Since I was an undergrad and had several classes on film appreciation, film theory, and the like, I've loved classic (read: old) movies as well. One such movie that I love is the 1951 classic, The Day the Earth Stood Still. It was made during the period of sci fi films inspired by the dropping of "the bomb" on Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the beginning of the nuclear age. Other such films were Them!, The Thing from Another World, The War of the Worlds, and, of course, Godzilla. Watching these now they look kinda campy and cheesy, but they really carried a message about how people felt about the Cold War and nuclear weapons in particular.

That said, I just watched the trailer for the remake of The Day the Earth Stood Still. The obvious joke here would be to ask whether Keanu Reeves is playing the human-like alien or the robot, but I like the guy, so I'm not going there. The original had no real violence on the part of the aliens. Any violence came from the humans freaking out. The whole deal was that the alien messenger was there to tell humans that they had to give up violence or the galaxy wouldn't tolerate their bullshittery* anymore. There's more involved (go watch it! great flick!) but it was essentially just a warning.

In the new version however, I see lots of images of buildings disintegrating and other such craziness. That was okay with the War of the Worlds remake since the original had that. My only hope is that those images in the trailer are some kind of visual warning or hallucination for the world leaders, and not actually happening. Introducing actual destructive violence would TOTALLY change the message of the movie -- the original message being very appropriate today as it was in 1951.

So that's it. I'm holding off real judgement since it is only a trailer, but I am worried. Hollywood, please don't crap up another classic. I've seen Psycho (1998) with Vince "Giggles" Vaughn.

* btw, "bullshiterry" did not set off Firefox's spellchecker. how forward thinking!

Fav Spam part 2

2008-07-02T07:43:00.000-07:00

Part 2 of my mission to recognize the great effort put into crapping up our inboxes. (part 1)

I'll Never Find Someone Like You - well unfortunately you found my email address
Stunning sexy songs Cameron Diaz - yeah, I have no fucking idea what that's supposed to mean
Timeiy pharma Faciiitation - spellcheck is your friend, moron
we are pure light beings - this just warms my heart
This look real Great - that grammar real bad
Oogle at my mas - your informal mothers?
stacks the grizzles - I've seen the doc, Grizzly Man. They don't like that.
There's no substitute for raw power - I believe the figure skating world would disagree
what a stupid face you have here alex.bea - was that really necessary?

Move over Danielle Steel

2008-06-28T14:13:00.000-07:00

The thesis writing process is a taxing one. Hell, I've just written the title page and outline and I've already broken into tears twice -- not a pretty sight. It does, however, result in moments of clarity, moments of accomplishment, and occasionally moments of pleasant surprise.

One such pleasantly surprising moments just happened. I was searching on the Barnes and Noble website for books on the EPA to catch my research induced tears and I came across this book. Yes, it seems that Ms. Juliana Del Rio was a mild mannered EPA engineer who couldn't watch those eco-criminals get away with their shenanigans any longer. To start the process of cracking eco-criminal skulls, she joins the Environmental Crime Unit (ECU) aka "the criminal investigations unit of the EPA in an unusual cooperative arrangement with the FBI" (Google books description). She is then naturally teamed up with some burnt out older FBI agent - basically Point Break.

I think this might be the sign that the Environmental Movement is really taking off. I mean, hardly anyone had heard of the cryptology or the Catholic Church before The Da Vinci Code took a big crap on them. Now that the EPA has been balled up, thrown in a blender with a random grocery store novel and poured out for our beach reading enjoyment it should really get some attention.

And don't worry that all this environmental crime busting fun will only last you one weekend -- it's a series.

How to Barbeque

2008-06-21T09:40:00.001-07:00

Yesterday my friends and I had a little barbeque over at Foxridge. The barbeque was a blast, and with that experience in mind, I give you a few steps toward having a successful barbeque.

1) Bring some kind of lighter fluid or other starting mechanism.

Also, note that in the picture we are demonstrating a DON'T of BBQing. DON'T adjust the coals with your hands if they won't totally light.
This is why. Be thankful that my camera won't focus that close.

2)Bring a Dog. This one is staring at the beer in my hand. He's an alchy.
3)Get someone to video the whole thing. Video is much better for drunken blackmail.
3)Bring as many friends as possible. That's just good sense.

4)Play games with questionable names (i.e. Cornhole)

5)Bring booze. This should be obvious.

6)Bet your friends to do ridiculous eating challenges (i.e. eat the last piece of pie in two bites after a full meal).

So it was definitely good times. I also made some lamb kabob which turned out pretty decently. I will be happy to consult on any of your future barbeque events under the conditions that you have booze and friends with loose standards for public behavior.

more pictures at my flickr page

Seriously?

2008-06-21T09:34:00.001-07:00

Just got an email from McCain (I'm on all their lists) promoting this game they've put on his site. It's basically Space Invaders, but less fun and more political - not that the original didn't have its share of commentary on interstellar politics. My biggest complaint is that they didn't even bother taking 5 minutes to photoshop up a shooter other than McCain's yard sign.

Doesn't get much more NES than this.

2008-06-15T08:15:00.000-07:00

From Bad Dudes:

Answer: Yes.

Just downloaded FireNES. In related news, I've failed out of grad school three months from now..

Tim Russert passed away today

2008-06-13T19:21:00.000-07:00

The king of Sunday morning political shows passed today. I've been an increasingly big political junkie over the past five years or so. As part of that I have watched the podcast for several of the Sunday morning talk shows every week pretty much since I learned how to download a podcast and watched them live when I could.

Tim Russert on Meet the Press was always one of my favorites, in part because you could tell he really loved politics and his job as a part of it. I can see in my mind the huge grin on his face when he'd be discussing the presidential race with fellow reporters. The other thing I really remember about Russert is that you couldn't get anything by that guy. If you, as a politician, said something several months ago which contradicted what you said yesterday, Russert had the tape and you bet your ass he'd ask you what the deal was.

I occasionally have got frustrated with him and other journalist who reveled in the drama of the elections, especially the presidential race, and wished they would play it straight. After watching several tributes to him on the MSNBC site, I realize that he was just the ultimate political junkie -- a level which I could only hope to acheive one day. If I were in his shoes I don't think I could keep a big grin off my face either with a race this exciting going on. I'm only sorry he won't be around to see November.

A retrospective on Tim Russert

My other Sunday morning political guide, Bob Schieffer (CBS's Face the Nation) talks about Russert.

Update: Please go check out Sunday's Meet the Press where they paid tribute to Russert. It was pretty great.

The return of el Beamo

2008-06-01T08:03:00.000-07:00

So yeah... long time. In the past when going for a while I put up a link to my post about not caring if I don't blog very often. I'm not going to do that this time, not because I feel bad about letting down my legion of fans (numbering eightish yesterday) but because I enjoy blogging and want to do it for myself -- the reason most people do it. Since I started Student Bloggers it has made blogging seem more like a job than a hobby at times, and since I'm not advertising on there (and thus not making money off it) then it's silly for it to be like that.

So that's that. I'm going to try to get regular with it again for el Beamo and if you enjoy it too then that's just some BA icing on the cake.

...actually that's a lie. I totally want people to read the blog and enjoy it. I also believe strongly in the power of the online community. That's why I'm on Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, del.icio.us and why I started Student Blogger. Hell, I've joined Pownce, YouTube, Britekite, Digg, BlogCatalog, and probably others I'm forgetting that I haven't really utilized yet.

So long story short -- I'm lazy, Student Bloggers is draining, I'll start blogging more, and I might be overdoing it with the social networking sites.

One thing I do want to shout out today is to some hardcore friends of mine. Between high school and college I have a good number of friends and acquaintances but most fall out of touch after a bit. Social networking helps, but it still takes work to really keep in touch. That said, there are a couple people who make frequent effort to be active friends whether using those sites or through IMing. These amigos and amigas o' mine might be spread across the country, but they show what social networking sites can really offer.

They know who they are and I just want to say how awesome it is when people don't just get friend-complacent just checking my Facebook page or something, but really want to be part of my life on the regular. I'm totally guilty of that myself and it's inevitable at some level. Nevertheless my friends who make the extra effort, and whom I make the extra effort for in return, are truly, and badassly, awesome. High-five to you.

My future president can ball your future president

2008-04-26T19:31:00.000-07:00

Now we just need to get countries to agree to settle disputes with some 3-on-3.

How I'm remembering

2008-04-16T14:27:00.000-07:00

My first reaction to the anniversary of the tragedy* that happened here at Tech last year was confusion. I wasn't here last year and didn't go here as an undergrad, so I don't have the immediate connection that most people here do. I was in Texas working with other college students at the time.

For most of the day today I worked in my office on end of the year papers. No (real) windows, no one else around. Finally around 4pm, after looking at some of the photos on the official Tech remembrance site I thought it was time for me to get out on campus. What I found was pleasantly surprising.

Students were out enjoying the sunshine on this beautiful day. Laying out, playing frisbee, volleyball, basketball, and just being together. These are people who went through every horrible minute of last April 16th and are still here. They're still college students, still friends, still committed to life. There was a ceremony this morning and there will be another one tonight, but for now they were just enjoying being college kids together.

I got to the Perspectives Gallery just in time, because a minute after I got in line about twenty people came up and got in line after me. Inside was a collection of photos from that day and days since - our vigil for NIU, the VT photo taken by satellite, the concert in August - and things sent by colleges, elementary schools and other groups around the world. Being that I was in Austin coaching UT students last April, I was especially pleased to see a T-shirt sent by UT reading:

The eyes of Texas are upon you...
For your spirit can ne'er be told
In times of greatest tragedy
You have a hand to hold

On my way out I heard our female a capella group practicing in a room in the student center. I had to stop and listen for a while. They will be performing on Saturday at 7pm... somewhere. One of the members is in a class of mine and it seemed like an appropriate thing to do. To listen to voices singing happy songs on this day.

So here I am, sitting outside the room listening to them. I'll be going to the vigil tonight, but I still don't know my place in the remembrance. Besides not really being good at opening up emotionally, I'm going to be in a sea of people who experienced that day first hand. I guess I'll just be doing what I can - remembering the thirty-two people whose lives were taken, their potential lost, our potential to live up to that loss, and this community that I'm now a part of.

If you've read this far, please take a moment to read the short biographies of some or all of the 32. They weren't just a number, a statistic, but valued individuals and members of this community. For all you students reading at other schools, it is your community too. These are people just like you who deserve to be remembered and honored.

* I refuse to call it a "massacre" as so many are. I fully recognize that 4/16 was as deserving of that name as any is, but the word doesn't seem to match the spirit here. "Massacre," as I see it, is about violent imagery, not honoring their lives.

Today's high-five goes to...

2008-04-12T12:47:00.000-07:00

Update: Apparently it was too good to be true. I'll leave this up, but check out the links Anonymous left in the comments. There's a whole other side of this story.

Chipotle. I have a bit of a back and forth relationship with this company. When I worked at the Birkenstock store back in my youth ('03) I was introduced to their delicious (not del.icio.us) burritos by my manager. As he was a better hippie than I, he'd send me to Chipotle to get him a veggie burrito and I'd get my steak on. Funny thing was that the veggie was as big as the dead cow burrito.

Anyway, I then found out that Chipotle was owned by McDonalds. No bueno. I'm fairly certain that I have not paid for anything there since I learned that fact. When one of my fellow coaches won dinner there for all of us last year I did go of course, and it was still delicious. Nevertheless, it was in the web of conglobmerate evil. Blast!

Well, despair no longer! The shining light of TexMex once again has broken through the darkness that is fast food like golden sombraro suffocating Ronald McDonald's hellishly red curls. It seems that while I was sleeping (on Chipotle, that is) their CEO has made some very nice choices. The company has been McDonald's-free since 2006 and gets meat only from cows that are not fed antibiotics, hormones, or otherwise raised in an inhumane way. Yes, this does make them more expensive, but if you're really on a budget those burritos (I've not bothered with their other 3 options) can easily be two lunches. Also I like the balls on that guy for eschewing the easy money-makers of desserts and other extras. The man likes his quality TexMex, and I like that.

So while I don't normally shout out any companies on NUFAH, I do want to give it up with big companies are doing things right. High-five, Chipotle. High-five.

Read more in this FastCompany.com article.

Fav spam

2008-04-07T18:25:00.000-07:00

Spam is a bitch. We all know that. It's a well kept secret that Osama Bin Laden has not been found because a significant percentage of the CIA's resources are being used to find the Spammer. Yes, it's one person. Thanks to Gmail I don't have to see them much, but I thought I'd have fun with my Spam anyway.

Here are some of my favorites of late:

Your neighbor naked!! watch - um, no thanks?
Refined beauty of classy accessories - right, because email is the medium of choice for selling "classy accessories"
Rooster-challenged guys are welcome - I don't know what this means. I don't have a rooster, but I'm not really in the market for one either.
High-quality replicas of the best clock of the world!! Suggestion for sales!! - This is tempting just to see what the best clock of the world is.
Angelina Jolie lesbian video - Fake! S. Vincent would have told me about this already.
You touched my soul - and you sent me Spam. That doesn't seem fair.

Best product name gets a virtual cookie

2008-04-04T09:25:00.000-07:00

As any of the millions of loyal NUFAH readers know, I like offering solutions to the world's problems. For example, I can't say that I was the only influence, but I was among those who suggesting vaccinating for polio. Not bragging, just putting that out there.

But problems persist. For example, I was just making use of the department's facilities (read: the poop room) and another student while I was there. This unnamed student made use of the facilities (read: urinal) and promptly left the room.

"But Beamer, isn't that what you're supposed to to?" you're saying.

"Nay," I respond. There is something left out there. Here's a hint: washing his hands!

Now I'm no Lysol toting hygiene vigilante (though that actually sounds like a good idea), but ever since I watched health class videos about how many fecal particles are found on office keyboards I've been very conscious of such things. Call me crazy, but I'm not too big on poop particles flying around willy-nilly hither and thither.

So what's the solution? Well there are some kinks in this, but I think it would work decently. Every time a toilet flushes in a public bathroom, the door locks. It only would unlock if the faucet ran for a designated amount of time. I was once in a bathroom that played "Mary had a little lamb" when the faucets started, so maybe that's a good length. That was awesome by the way.

Could someone just stick their hand under the faucet without strenuous washing? Sure, but it's better than nothing. I'm a lowly social scientist, so maybe I should take this over to the construction science or mechanical engineering departments.

Note: this is a sort of copyrighted idea, so if you attempt to make a nursery rhyme singing lockdown bathroom without my permission I will come at you like so many spider monkeys. For reals.

New style, same goosebumps

2008-04-01T15:20:00.001-07:00

Finally Getting Our Fair Shake

2008-03-27T10:11:00.000-07:00

My latest column from class.

As is true of any good young person growing up in the shadow of the U.S. Capitol, there is one thing that I have always wanted to be. For so many reasons, I have been denied this for years. Now, in this most historic of elections, when barriers are falling like so many drunken starlettes out of limos, we might have a chance. That coveted role is none other than… swing voter.

Certain states have traditional roles in presidential election years. New Hampshire and Iowa get special attention for being the first primary and caucus. New York and California have huge war chests of electoral votes. Pennsylvania and Ohio are hotly contested “swing states,” also bringing many electoral votes. Florida… well Florida is the screw-up of the family who can be expected to do no more than not bring the Constitution down with it. They get a medal for trying though.

Particular groups of people also tend to get much attention during elections. Women voters were important for Bill Clinton. Black voters are always crucial for the Democrats. Evangelicals form a powerful bloc for the conservatives.

However, millions of Americans don’t fit in any of these categories. What are they supposed to do? Listen only to the issue? Please. Bo-ring!

Fortunately this election is different. According to an article in The Washington Post on March 17th, there’s a new player in the game - white guys. Yes, the oft-ignored culturally ambiguous white guy is on the board.

With all eyes on the Democratic primary now that the GOP has things fairly settled, the two candidates seem to have the majority of their historic constituencies all locked up. Barack consistently gets the vast majority of black voters and Hillary keeps bringing in more women voters. That leaves the field wide open for a new upstart demographic, and if there’s anything we white guys have been good at through the centuries, it’s taking over what once belonged to someone else.

But wait. There might be a problem here. There are an awful lot of us around. There are rich, Harvard-educated, latte-sipping white guys and, there are poorer, high school educated, belly-scratching white guys. There are even some middle class, college-educated white guys who enjoy a good belly scratch while waiting in line at Starbucks.

Andrew Stern, president of the Service Employees International Union, is quoted in The Washington Post article suggesting that Obama spends more time at VFW halls to get more votes. I guess that will work for working-class voters. I thought they were their own voting blocs, though.

Other questions arise for the white dude demographic. When it comes to the general election, do our loyalties have to push over to McCain? Or does he only get the old white guys? Can we young white guys identify with Obama because he’s younger?

This new spotlight placement is also telling Americans some things that maybe they didn’t want to know. More of the white guys group said that race was an important factor in Ohio when they came out more for Hillary. Personally, I’d rather not be stuck in the same demographic as those particular white guys.

So are white males the new swing voters? Maybe not. Maybe there are too many segments within white-dudedom to classify as such. If that’s true, then what does that mean for women voters, black voters, Latino voters, old voters, young voters, or cross-demographic belly-scratching voters? Maybe, just maybe, pollsters, campaign managers, and the media will no longer have easy groups they can move around electorally like chess pieces so they have to create a new group to play with.

Here’s a suggestion. The new group is…issue voters: healthcare voters, defense voters, or economy voters. Unfortunately, those groups might blend just a little too much. We shouldn’t make things too hard on the campaigns and pundits. God forbid they forget which groups they are talking to on any given day and just speak to us, and more importantly, see us, as American voters.

A reasonable tax increase

2008-03-15T09:25:00.000-07:00

This is my first attempt at blogging via email, so hopefully it won't come out in German or eat your soul or anything.

People not dressing their age is nothing new. It has become the standard that young girls dress much to maturely (by the way, since when did mature come to mean slutty? But I digress). My statistics teacher in high school looked like she frequently borrowed clothes from her daughter's closet. Nothing new, but it can still be taken too far.

I just sat down in my favorite caffeinated library, Mill Mountain, and claimed a prime table with outlet access and whatnot. Creamy stuff. Whenever in a public place I figure it is my obligation to do a cursory people watch. It's a good idea to check out the personalities that I could potentially be stranded with in case of an alien attack. That's just good sense.

There is the old tugboat captain-type sitting at the next table, four trendy looking Asian students behind me, three older guys at the bar who are probably escaping their kids for a few hours... a pretty solid coffeehouse group. Then there's another guy. Probably late thirties, some extra poundage, wearing... yeah. So first he has one of those crazily ironic T-shirts on. You know, those ones that say shit like "Volunteering doesn't pay" or that has two unicorns mating (Stramese). Those shirts that go better with a good helping of douche than a receding hairline.

The best part is his jeans. Yes, they are stone-washed, but... did I just see that label right? Is this late-thirties white guy in Southwest Virginia wearing G-Unit jeans? Sure enough.

Now I'm no fashion plate myself. I'm actually pretty sure that my T-shirt, hat, and shoes don't match. That's the risk I take with maroon New Balances. My point is that if you're going to represent a label, something that is intentionally designed to carry a particular image, you might want to take that into account. It's one thing to fail at looking trendy, but it's a double helping of "Oh hell no!" when you fail while trying to represent hard-core rappers at the same time. Personally I'll stick to one count of fashion faux pas.

Shouldn't the Queer Eye guys have some kind of bat-signal thing? It might be the time for municipalities to pick that up. Blacksburg could lead the way. Social services = police, firefighters, ambulance, and gay fashion outreach.

Límite: una niño

2008-03-14T06:52:00.000-07:00

This is a busy time for many of us college students. It is time for spring break, and more importantly, midterms. My spring break is over now, but my midterms are not. I have roughly 27 pages that need to be turned in Monday and Tuesday so understandably I'm a bit stressed.

The good news is that I have the sweet utopia of Newman's Club 416 to work in. I needed to look up a book when I got to the library, so I headed right for the computers on the 4th floor. Computers 1 & 2? taken by students. Fair enough. The other two computers? Two kids playing a helicopter game. Well, okay. So I headed... wait, what?!

It seemed that one of the students, an older guy, was keeping his two kids busy and out of his hair by letting them play a game online. That's not so bad. But both of these little Pop-Tart disposals on separate computers? No bueno, señor. No bueno. (before someone complains, he wasn't Hispanic, I just like random use of Spanish) I get it. You're busy and don't want to be chasing after them. That makes sense. But don't they have at least one of those expensive PSP deals or something else to rot their brains with? Candy? iPod? Oxycontin?

Or - wait for it - a book? I mean we're in the library for cripes sake. Aren't parents supposed to be preparing their kids for college too early? You could always chain them up to the engineering stacks until they can fix your dishwasher. I'm pretty sure there are kids books in there somewhere too. There has to be something for business majors to read after all. (burn)

So instead I had to get Bruce out and set him up on one of the book return shelves. Hardly a place for his awesomeness. I'll let it slide this time, old student guy, but next time bring along the Curious George coloring book or this guy in the burnt orange baseball cap will be tossing delicious ADD meds down the hall for your curious little monkeys to chase after.

Winner: Most ingenious financial website feature

2008-02-28T08:43:00.001-08:00

For a while now I've been trying out financial website Wesabe. It's pretty good, although I'm about to leave in favor of software Cha-Ching that I got through MacHeist. I was just about to delete my Wesabe account when I spied something at the bottom of the screen.

There was a button labeled "I'm Freaking Out." My curiosity was piqued. Upon clicking I saw this message:

All this money talk driving you crazy?

Don't panic!
Relax with some puppies and scroll down when you're ready.

Directly below that was - get ready for it - A SLIDESHOW OF PUPPIES! There is also a kitten option, naturally - both through Flickr.

Those geniuses tapped into the greatest customer service idea ever. Reduce your members' stress with the awesome power of adorable baby pets. Those suckers over at Quicken must be kicking themselves for missing that.

High-five, Wesabe. High-five.

The grad student's promised land

2008-02-24T11:17:00.000-08:00

I am ashamed. I can't believe that I hadn't found this place before.

Let me back up a bit. I have a "minipaper" due for class tomorrow, so I came to the library to better focus (you can see how well that's going). While going through the fourth floor of Newman library for a book I stumbled across a sign reading "Grad Student Lounge 416."

Grad student lounge you say? I must check this "lounge" out. I expected there would be a small meeting room with a few couches maybe and some tables around the room. That is more than what I had found in the Graduate Life Center's study room, so I expected little more. Is that what I found? Nay.

After navigating the labyrinthian stacks of the fourth floor I saw the glass doors of room 416. Through them I saw a large, open room with plenty of windows, several tables, and three couches. With the twenty or more seats in the room I only saw four people. I don't really like working at open tables in the library, but I figured I'd check it out.

I pulled the door handle, but it did not move. The room is locked! Then I noticed a key card lock, begging to be swiped. No way, said I. A room that is this protected from the vagrancy of undergrads? Too good to be true. Yet when I swiped my Hokie Passport the lock gave a wonderful clicking sound and a green like flashed on the lock.

So. Awesome. When I entered there was not only the tables and couches that I had seen through the door, but several of my beloved workstations, allowing privacy whilst I practice my academic craft.

So here I am in a wonderland free of undergrads' tomfoolery. I was just thinking the other day that I needed to find a better place than my office or my apartment to do work and it seems that I've found it. Well, with that in mind, it's back to work. If you need to find me, just come to the fourth floor of Newman and follow the sweet scent of awesome to room 416.

To those about to virtually rock...

2008-02-24T11:14:00.000-08:00

My latest column for class. I'm not totally happy with it, but it's certainly lighter than the last few.

This is a good day. This is a good day because today, in America, there is hope. There is hope for new opportunity. There is hope for redemption. There is hope for a second chance. Now it has been widely reported that Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama has been instilling hope in Americans recently, but that is not what this is about. This is about something much more personal. This… is about Rock Band.

Yes, for those who are familiar, I refer to the fairly recent video game released by Harmonix Music Systems. For those not yet baptized at the altar of virtual rock and roll, Rock Band is a video game that makes use of, and comes with, its own peripherals which look like, and are meant to imitate, a guitar, drum set, and microphone. Basically, the game consists of playing along with rock songs (some mind-melting, some not) by pressing down combinations of buttons and strumming, hitting the correct drum heads, and doing your best Mick Jagger impression on the mic.

There are a couple things to note here that make this game truly special. First, it is interactive. Great! No more sedentary button-mashing for me, thanks. Second, it is a group activity. Up to four people at a time can play together on different instruments. So now we’re both physically moving and hanging out together? Fantastic! Third, and most important, it requires no real talent to succeed. How beautifully American.

Now I recognize that I’m behind the times on this one. Like anything truly cool, I came on to the scene about four months late. Two friends and I recently started a “band” with an appropriately 80’s metal (unprintable) name and are currently on our “world tour.” So far it seems to be going well except for some minor difficulties in Paris, though that’s to be expected with the French.

This is all part of a greater movement in our country. For decades average Americans have wished to be more awesome than they were. It would not be an overstatement to label this an epidemic. To cure this disease people tried adult space camps, Dungeons & Dragons, as well as a variety of psychotropic drugs. Sure, these all work like a charm, but they were all fairly underground. They split up families and brought shame to families - adult space camp in particular.

Recently though, it seems that this is changing. To prove this I point to three pieces of evidence. The first, and most recent, is Rock Band. Though it might be primarily used by the under-30 crowd, the benefits are multi-generational. You gave up playing guitar after the second kid was born? Pick it up again, but this time in front of a sold out crowd in Berlin. You haven’t played the drum set since your middle school band broke up? No worries. It’s time to rock once more.

The second piece of evidence is best displayed in the 2006 documentary, Air Guitar Nation. The film chronicles the first US Air Guitar Championship. Yes, it is just what you think it is. Grown men and women pretending to play guitar… on stage… with nothing in their hands but the fragile remains of their dignity. The winner of the national contest then moves on to the already established World Air Guitar Championship in Finland (because apparently Europe is leading the the world in public recognition for lack of real talent). From there it’s your classic Rocky-esque story.

The third example, and most pervasive, is within the cultural juggernaut that is reality television. This genre is rife with grown-ups striving to be what they aren’t. In Survivor they fight to be the ultimate… well, survivor. American Idol showcases some genuine talent, but only after recognizing the hundreds of Americans who fight past any conception of reality to achieve the ultimate goal. The Amazing Race allows people, especially men, prove that they can, in fact, read a map, thank you.

Maybe that’s what the reality TV craze is all about. Maybe we are tired of letting the pros have all the fun. Sure, it’s cool to watch Bear Grylls work his way across the desert on Man vs. Wild, but what if we put some regular schmuck out there? Boom - there’s Survivor.

So maybe it’s our turn. Maybe this is a revolution of the dream. Or maybe it’s just three grown men playing pretend with a new toy. Regardless, it seems that Americans are just beginning to stand up and say, “Sure, I’m happy with my life, but that doesn’t mean I can’t want to be someone else too, and that’s okay. Now leave me alone. This Iron Maiden song is really tough.”

What's going on

2008-02-23T10:34:00.000-08:00

Hopefully you have noticed my lovely Twitter widget to the left there. As with most great things on the internet it was introduced to me by the great and powerful Wonderlis. High-five to her. The benefits are obvious. You get more frequent glances into my life (you're welcome) and I get to throw out the occasional ridiculous thought.

The negative is primarily that it enables my blog-inactivity. The primary loser in that is you of course, but I too miss the outlet that blogging provides. I will continue to post my weekly columns for class (check it out this evening) but I'll try to get more into my other postings. I don't know why I felt the need to write this, but what's done is done and Bruce (my lappy) will only allow me to delete so many words per day.

Life in Blacksburg is pretty much as it always is, although I am left with less modes of transportation. When the car died (AGAIN) I decided to leave it for the time being since any attempt to get it working would probably result in only a week or two of doing something other than keeping the ground in place. The real problem came when my bike crapped out when a gear somehow got bent. Apparently all the time I've been spending on the stationary bike in War Memorial gym has made me too much for my two-wheeler to handle.

The bike I did choose to get fixed. When it gets warmer I will make an effort to learn how to do maintenance myself, but for now Hokie Spokes is doing the job. The guy there adjusted my handlebars for free once, so they seem like good peoples. While they're fixing the gear I'm having them do a full tune-up as well since it is my primary mode of getting from A to B here. Of course even going the extra mile with the bike (yet to be named) is only costing $65 tops, while fixing the car would be roughly $8 billion. Roughly.

I'm starting to feel like a real grad student these days. I'm working on a research project outside of class and will hopefully be submitting a paper to the AEJMC conference soon. I missed the deadline for NCA, but with Spring Break on the horizon I should have time to do the necessary tweakage.

I've also started to hit my stride as a GTA. I've abandoned the idea that I need to look significantly professional in every class. My most influential professor in undergrad wore ragged T-shirts everyday, so I think I'm good with corduroys and sweater vests. I kinda look like that guy in class, but with glasses, a beard, and bigger eyebrows. The stance is the same.

I'd hoped to never need to thaw my eyeballs

2008-02-14T06:05:00.000-08:00

The car is pretty much done. After several weeks of pretending it wasn't going to crap out on me, my car launched it's malevolent plan a few days ago. It tried on Superbowl Sunday, but was twarted with the help of my buddy Josh and his jumper cables. Nevertheless, I went to go to the grocery store last weekend and low and behold... no power.

But that's cool. In my most treehugger of moments I like to think that I really don't need a car. If I bike to the store once a week rather than drive every few weeks I can get what I need just fine. My laundromat is just a few blocks away, so I don't need to drive there. And to get home I could get a ride to Roanoke and take a bus up to DC. The only regular uses for my car (before it decided to hibernate) were grocery shopping and going home a few times a semester anyway.

And I think that all would have been well and good... were I still in Austin. I was out of groceries. Like really out of stuff to make more than one meal that actually looked like it was conceived by someone not in elementary school. There might be a day when I combine bread crumbs, peanut butter, salsa, and garlic for a meal, but I prefer it not be this day.

Since my volunteered ride to the store had a class last night, I decided to just forge ahead, carbon emission-free, and bike to the store. Temperature: 30 degrees F ("F" stands for 'fucking freezing'). About halfway there, when the wind-inspired tears began to freeze, I started to reconsider my planning. Nevertheless I did make it to the store, got my basic provisions (Twizzlers and porn), and got home. I was cursing every car, the North (outside of Texas) as well as myself the entire time, but I did make it.

What did I learn from this? First, if you're going to ride to the store in the middle of winter, don't do it at 7pm. Sunlight can only help there. Also, the winter sucks. There, I said it. Especially for cash-strapped pollution obsessed guys like me, the winter sucks. The all-bike plan could work fine somewhere that doesn't get below 40 or so all year. I still think I can do without as long as I get some carpooling action going. I've always depended on the kindness of strangers (read: mooching).

Do it.

2008-02-12T06:51:00.001-08:00

VOTE

With Freedom and Disposability For All

2008-02-12T06:48:00.000-08:00

The latest column for class:

Recently a friend pointed out a Facebook “application” promoting a pledge to turn to “Filter For Good.” Basically the idea behind it is to give up buying bottled water and, instead, to use a water filter, thus removing tons of plastic from future landfills and putting off that much longer the human race’s exodus to Venus when Earth explodes. The “application” just happened to be created by Brita - maker of an extensive line of water filtration systems. A clear, although somewhat clever, marketing ploy, though one with a solid message.

Shameless capitalism aside, this has to be one of the better ideas around. First, there are the environmental reasons. According to the Union of Concerned Scientists, a leading scientific non-profit, “1.5 million barrels of oil - enough to run 100,000 cars for a whole year - are used to make plastic water bottles.” So on the front end there is use of valuable, unsustainable resources, and of course on the back end… mountains of waste. Despite being almost all recyclable, the vast majority are thrown away with all of the other garbage.

That stuff is important to note. Maybe buying a water filter is the way to combat that. Or, maybe the best way would be to remove our collective heads from… well wherever successful marketing puts them. Somehow, in the last two decades, Americans, and much of the world, were convinced that we needed to pay up to thousands of times more than before to get the same stuff. Somehow we were convinced that companies can do everything better than we can do for ourselves. Somehow we were convinced that convenience belonged right along with life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

This is a reflection of two things. First, the success of big bottled water’s marketing. Commercial after commercial where fresh mountain springs go directly into six-packs of Dasani or Deer Park have had an effect. The lie that these are far superior sources of hydration has been eaten up by a society with a disposable income and lots of stuff to do. There are cases of local water being too polluted to drink, and that is certainly a situation where bottled water has it’s place. Those situations are few and far between however and local governments should always be one top of those situations to prevent them from ever happening.

It is also a reflection of the laziness of much of society. The counter argument is often, “Well if I earn the money and I want to spend it on bottled water, then why can’t I?” While everyone is certainly free to do what they want with their money in this country (within legal boundaries, of course), this freedom of convenience comes at a cost greater than a dollar per liter of water. When it is an expectation of every middle-class teenager that they will have their own car, or the much more perverse, that every elementary schooler will have their own cell phone, then kids become grown-ups earlier and earlier while becoming more dependent on convenience if independent of their families.

The ideas that changing our own oil, mending our own clothes, and even getting a glass of water are becoming quaint reflects an increasingly cynical society drunk on its own freedom of convenience.

It would be interesting if there was data on how much water people drank before the explosion of bottled water versus today. It might be that Americans drink more water (in general) than before. If that is the case, it seems sad that it takes being convinced to pay for something before it seems valuable. That element of this issue has greater ramifications as well.

If one were to assume that bottled water was popular because it is truly cleaner, superior water (which it isn’t) then is that where we are headed with our air? That might seem dramatic, but in cities where smog is a major issue, will it only become valuable once gas masks are required to go outside? This is not only an issue in major metropolises, but also in more rural areas such as San Joaquin Valley in California - a victim of smog primarily because of its geography.

The point is that convenience, no matter its form, has a greater price than is paid at the store. This is a health, environmental, and social price as well as economic. I love convenience as much as the next guy and am guilty of giving into that at times as well. This price needs to be recognized though, whether it be the daily dollars and landfill space given up when buying a bottle of water or the loss of a good, healthy walk rather than driving shorter distances. The way our lives are run doesn’t necessarily have to change, just the way we think about them.

Whoa.

2008-02-05T14:08:00.000-08:00

This is especially appropriate today. I have to say that this is the most creative and touching political ad that I've ever seen. From what I understand, the Obama campaign had nothing to do with it. Will.I.Am (who is the saving grace of the Black Eyed Peas) was inspired to make this and did a brilliant job doing it. Frankly, just as a piece of political rhetoric (which should not be taken with the current negative connotation, but as a piece of persuasive communication) it is impressive and entertaining.

Check it out below and check out his post on Huffington Post about writing it. That is also a pretty nice piece of writing.

Update: I have watched this video at least ten times and it still gives me goosebumps.

Happy Super Tuesday, true believers!

2008-02-05T12:26:00.000-08:00

Anyone who gets the "true believers" reference gets a virtual cookie.

Sweet new blog of the day

2008-02-03T08:50:00.000-08:00

One thing that I love about blogs is the great variety. Most are similar to mine - some person talking about their life and writing their opinions in the hopes of having others read them. But others get more creative. Literally, A Web Log is a great example of this.

I stumbled across another equally creative use of the medium. Found Cameras and Orphan Pictures (although not super creative with the name) is a great idea that I've never seen. Basically,

if you find a camera, flash drive or memory card with pictures on it you email two of the pictures to the site with the location found. In theory, the person who lost it can check it out and reclaim their lost memories. Pretty great idea, eh?

Of course this is all very dependent on the site being well-known (a great strategy if they want to start advertising) so this is my small effort to get that ball rolling. It is new, so there are only three found cameras on right now. Check it out.

Eight was enough - column 1

2008-02-03T08:13:00.000-08:00

Since this semester is becoming even busier than last semester was, I've decided to double-dip here. I'm taking a class on political columnists and as a part of that class am writing a column every week. So to keep up with my personal blogging commitment (see #46) I've decided to post them here as well. Some are going to be better than others, but hopefully they won't be total crap and might even be a bit entertaining.

So, for better or worse, here goes:

If you asked me six months ago whether I would be interested in hearing Bill Clinton speak regarding the future of our country, I would have enthusiastically said that I would. I was aware of President H.W. Bush during his term, but President Clinton, taking office soon after my tenth birthday, was the first I knew anything about.  Also, my parents raised me to be a good Democrat. While I now do not officially identify as a member of any party, those lessons stayed with me.

That said… shut up, Bill! I had hope there for a minute. Somewhere around New Hampshire I started believing that Hillary was human along with many other doubters. At that point she was the front page of the Clinton Gazette and Bill back on page 3 with an article on “How to support the modern woman” and on the Sports page with a report on the record of his and H.W. Bush’s weekly bocci ball matches. Somewhere between then and South Carolina I stopped hearing about Hillary at all. She’s still human, but now she’s every woman forced to the back burner.

In speaking about the win in Nevada, did Bill speak about how Hillary won the primary? In a response to a question from CNN reporter Jessica Yellin, he spoke about how “we” won. Now Michelle Obama might be speaking the same way, just as Yankees fans think that “we” have won the most world championships, that is true. The difference is that in this case it is a former president. This is a very new situation for America to be in, and maybe one that will never happen again, but the teething process is not only going to effect the teether should she not get the nomination.

Initially it seemed that much of the complaining about potentially 24 years of Clintons and Bushes was overreacting. Sure, they have the last name, but I’d reckon that most of the 63% (NBC/Wall Street Journal) who disapprove of the younger Bush would have traded him for the old Bush days some time ago. Similarly, Hillary and Bill are different people, right? Well yes, but as of late it is becoming evident that while Hillary promised no official role for Bubba in her White House, his presence will be well known. And it doesn’t seem that it would be the kind and gentle post-Katrina Bill Clinton.

Now, if I may, I’d like to speak directly to the former president:

Look, Bill, we know you’re good. On Sunday John McCain told Tim Russert that you’re one of the best politicians that America has ever had. You’ve got that. No one is trying to take it away from you. All I’m asking is that you wait a few months. See those Republicans over there? They don’t want to tangle with you. Sure, your specter might bring a few extra right-wingers to the polls, but they’ve still got President Bush the current in their ranks. At worst he cancels any of your bad karma out.

Try this idea on. You play the supportive husband to Hillary in the primaries. Wait, I’m not done. Sure, you can go a little further than that. You were the president after all. I mean Michelle Obama seems pretty great, but she’s never lived in the White House. You can go nuts supporting Hillary. Yes, you heard me. No more slinging mud at other Dems. No, not even Edwards.

Okay, I’ll make a deal with you. You can start taking shots at Huckabee. Best case scenario, Republicans take that to mean that he’s a threat, nominate him, and he get steamrolled. Hell, Richardson could take down that guy.

Is beach bum still available?

2008-01-25T09:58:00.000-08:00

I've begun to notice that grad school is somewhat like the last weeks of undergrad, but over and over and over. First of all, every full paper we do seems bigger and at least as important as the final big papers of undergrad. Of course now the idea is drilled into us that we should be trying to publish or present everything.

The biggest thing that connects the end of undergrad and these two years of grad school is The Question. You know what I'm talking about. The "what are you going to do after this?" question. The difference is the people asking The Question. At the end of my four years in Poughkeepsie they were mostly my family and the occasional professor. These were mostly people simply curious to my plans or who thought that this is what you're supposed to ask. It was annoying after a bit, but hey, that's what they're supposed to ask.

Now, however, they are all professors. And the answers are different. Before, they were either a job, grad school, maybe the Peace Corps, or "I don't know." Now the answers are that you're going for a PhD or... well that's really the only answer that they want to hear. Well I suppose that "I don't know" is still acceptable, but now it's seen differently. Before that meant that you were undecided or maybe burnt out. It came across just as intended.

In grad school, "I don't know" means that you are the injured wildebeest and the lions of the faculty still have a chance to hook you into higher education. This might sound bad, but it's not really. It might be a misery loves company kind of deal actually. For all the prestige, professors don't get much money or recognition outside of their community, so they love to suck people in. Of course, I was sitting with a few professors last night at a department function who were talking about the bitch that is publishing and having to deal with the bitch that is undergrads and I was actually thinking how I could be down for that kind of misery.

At the very least it would give me an excuse to keep wearing corduroys and sweater vests.

Useful tip of the day

2008-01-18T10:24:00.000-08:00

Courtesy of www.wikihow.com: How to survive an encounter with an ostrich.

Time to start stealing toilet paper

2008-01-18T07:08:00.000-08:00

Ah, the confusing financial bureaucracy of the university. I got an email a few days ago that my lastest "e-bill" was available to check out. Being that my funding pays for my tuition and my e-bills are pretty much never more than $50 or so if I went to the clinic, I didn't check it until just now. Apparently the beginning of the semester brings not only the joys of fresh syllabi and another group of kids who will stare at me blankly twice a week while I teach, but also that of FEES.

I was correct that my tuition was covered, but these FEES are not at all. Here's the rundown of a few (without going into how much they are - a lady's got to have her secrets):

Bus fee - don't use it. Not terribly opposed to this, but it is a minor annoyance. I support the bus system, just don't use it.
Health fee - I would love for them to explain why I have had to pay almost $50 every time I've gone to the clinic if I'm paying a friggin' health fee. Is that a fee for healthy people? So, if you stay healthy all semester they can still get in your pocket, and my immunization shot didn't count. Weak.
Here's a nice group - Athletic fee (okay, for using the gym), Rec Sports fee (for... hold on, what?!), and Student Activity fee (for when I try out for the Spring musical?). From what I can see, I was just hit three times for going to the gym way too infrequently. And should I forget to bring a large enough towel to the gym? Yes, there's a towel fee.

So basically the department paying my tuition then hitting me these is like saying, "Okay, instead of letting the university president totally kick your ass, the head of each administrative department will get to slap you, kick you in the shins, or punch you in the gut once. Sound good?"

Preach, Huey

2008-01-11T15:07:00.000-08:00

Um, World? I thought we had an agreement. ... What agreement? Um, the one to forever ignore Paris Hilton after the whole jail/really lame Larry King interview thing. ... Yeah, well how do you explain this? Oh, you thought I wouldn't find out about that, did you? Well think again!

You might notice that this movie is listed on Apple Trailers as independent. As someone who holds independent film in high regard, I must point out something here. There are independent films for two reasons:

1) the writer is unknown and unconnected, the story unconventional or noncommercial, or there are no "names" attached - see Donnie Darko (2001) and Clerks (1995)

2) it sucks and everyone who might fund it realized this - see Death Bed: The Bed That Eats (1986) and Kickin' It Old Skool (2007)

Now I realize that this is somewhat subjective. Some of you might enjoy Kickin' It Old Skool (alternate title: Let's Give Jamie Kennedy Something To Do So He'll Leave Us Alone). You would be wrong.

Then there are cult movies which are just crazy and crappy enough to love. Death Bed might be one of these. Of course, almost by definition they would cease to be so bad they're good if there was a big budget available. Nevertheless, it's probably safe to say that The Hottie and the Nottie probably doesn't fit in that category. As Huey Lewis so eloquently put it, "sometimes bad is bad."

Which brings me back to my first point. World, this is strike one. I'm watching you.

WGA Speechless videos

2008-01-10T07:31:00.000-08:00

Even thought I'm trying to cut down my time-wasting computer usage (with RescueTime - very cool app) I just found this series of YouTube videos bringing attention to the writers strike. Most have some form of famous actors in scenes but not being able to use dialogue, though some do have talking. Lots of big names are there - Holly Hunter, Susan Sarandon & Chazz Palminteri, Woody Allen, Rosanna Arquette, the whole cast of Ugly Betty, and a nice variety pack of actors, among lots of others. There are 30 in all. The David Schwimmer & Kate Beckinsale is especially funny. Of course it removes most people's biggest complaint about Schwimmer... the talking! Ha! (I had to do it). Also, yes, the one, the only... Ed Asner. Some are very similar, but some are pretty creative.

I know that many actors are writers as well, but it still has impressed me not only how much major Hollywood actors have supported the writers, especially by doing things like these Internet videos which, of course, they are not paid for. The whole Golden Globe boycott is pretty sweet as well. I'm not really a fan of watching those shows anyway, mostly because I'm impatient and they are really long, so I would have loved to have seen them do the full show and watch who didn't show up.

Unfortunately they'll just be doing a press conference to name the winners, but somehow it will still be an hour long. In other words, those commercial sponsors didn't want to give up their air time. What really eats my cheese is that entertainment media are saying that this is so bad for the fans because "millions of viewers worldwide will be deprived of seeing many of their favorite stars."

Just how lame do they think our lives are that it will ruin our month to not watch a fucking awards show? I can guaran-fucking-tee the oh-so concerned press that even the people who do like the award shows will get up the next morning and go on with their lives just like every other day. Assholes. Honoring great actors and filmmakers is great, mostly for them, and there have been entertaining moments in award show history, but really, who's day is that going to ruin other than people who would have worked on the show? And that sucks, but that's kind of the point of the strike. To show that Hollywood depends on the writers.

That felt good. I may have contradicted myself somewhere in there, but I haven't ranted in a while. Anyway, here's one of my favorites of those videos:

First Rocky, then this. God bless you Philly.

2008-01-05T14:05:00.000-08:00

Have you ever had one of those moments when you wished that you had completely given up on dignity and self-respect? I completely had one of those today. I was doing my major grocery shop after getting back to Blacksburg earlier. Honestly it wasn't my best. I had to double back a few times and my style was very rusty.

It was near the end of my trip when I saw it. All I had left was cream cheese, bread, Romano, and Parmesan left on my list. I was near home-free. In the middle of trying to figure out why my cookbook said that a box of cream cheese was 3 oz even though all of the boxes in Kroger were clearly all 8 oz, I glanced down to see this. Ready-to-eat cheese cake filling. Seriously?

My initial reaction was disappointment. I mean, what is the point of putting it in a crust? So you can pretend that you made a cheese cake? It was then that I realized the beauty here. You don't have to put it in a crust! No one has to know. You can just get the tub and a spoon, draw the curtains in shame, and just chow away. It would actually be the perfect desert for one of the KFC bowls, or as Patton Oswalt calls them, "failure piles in a sadness bowl."

So that's it. If only I could completely give up on life. I think the perfect plan for that would be to pull an Elvis. He had the right idea. I don't know about slamming bottles of horse tranquilizers or whatever they were, but the part where you become a huge rock star, become completely disenchanted and then get really fat sounds like a good time. I'm glad that Kraft will be here for me when I finally hit the big time and then bottom out. Oh, sweet euphoric failure.

The New Year post

2008-01-02T11:48:00.000-08:00

It's a new year and a new opportunity to burst back into blogging with new vigor. A new vigor that will inevitably fade in no time, but a new vigor nonetheless. And what better way to celebrate the new year than with a little healthy indignation?

I found out recently that my driver's license was expired and so I went to the DMV today to renew it. Classic boy-meets-apathetic-government worker story thus far. After the required ten seconds of ignoring me, the woman at the information desk informed me that I would need to have some other form of primary identification.

Me: So the expired license is no good?
Her: (blank stare)

So it looks like I'll have to wait until I go back to Blacksburg to get my license renewed. I think that I've blogged about my confusion over why birth certificates are good for anything, but I don't really get why a state ID loses its legitimacy immediately after expiring. A year or more expired? Sure, I can get that. But two weeks?

The only thing I can figure is that expired licenses are much easier to counterfeit. Apparently the ne'er do-wells who make fake IDs have yet to figure out how to make that expiration date in the future. If this is the case, I would like to officially present myself to counterfeiters as willing to help solve this problem in return for generous compensation and the chance to never have to go to the DMV ever again.

Finally, being that it is the new year I am moved to make a resolution. I still have my 101 list, but figure that the world could use my help still. Yes, this is not just a resolution for me, but for all of us. I resolve to single-handedly convince MTV, Bravo and other such channels to cancel their campaign to get average Americans to give a shit about untalented rich people's lives. First on my list are The Real Housewives of OC, The Hills, Super Sweet 16, and Newport Harbor (which I have not seen, but I can only imagine is ruining America as well). Originally that was going to be my list of people I would nominate for sterilization, but that didn't seem very Christian.

The Dark Knight

2007-12-18T15:52:00.000-08:00

SO. AWESOME.

Quoth the Serge: 25% done!

2007-12-18T13:37:00.000-08:00

Well that's over. My first semester of grad school is officially over in all its dimensions. Grades are in, work is done, and hopefully the last of my students has emailed me to complain about their grade. Overall it was a good semester. I had doubts at times, but most of them are put to rest. As with my program at Marist, I just keep reminding myself that I will get out of it as much as I put in. I just have to produce some academic badassness in the next year and a half and I'll be good to go.

The end of the semester also means that I am now back at my parents' house for much of the break. I am determined to make this 'tween semester break the most productive yet. Thankfully, this is setting the bar pretty low. That's okay though. What's on my list you ask?

Finish A Walk in the Woods - been working on that since the summer
Build this sweet bike camera mount
Sort through the stuff that my parents cleaned out of my room when they redid it
Get some of my 101 list done
Read some of the other communication nerd books that I brought home

I think that's a pretty good list - and doable. Also unofficial goals will be to get back into regular exercise while at the same time eating much holiday treats and seeing if Tagbot can my Mac (who is now named Bruce) even wonderfuller. Quicksilver certainly has. If you haven't a Mac, you must get Quicksilver. Now.

Funny Games

2007-11-29T20:53:00.000-08:00

If this movie trailer doesn't remind you of Clockwork Orange then you crazy. I'm stoked. It's been too long since there was a good urban psycho in the movies.

You might be a grad student if... : Beamer edition

2007-11-27T17:37:00.000-08:00

(especially for Comm students)

you decide getting that bad haircut fixed doesn't matter since you rarely are outside your office or room.
you have ever brought a scholarly article to a bar.*
you're offended by the coffee shop's audacity to play music while you're trying to study there. Coffee shops are caffeinated libraries damnit!
you find yourself at events that are not only optional, but not organized by your department. You have become that nerdy grad student you used to hate.
coffee often becomes the second meal of the day and is not consumed mostly in the morning.
everything reminds you of something in your discipline.*
you have referred to a scholarly journal article as "badass."
you look forward to winter break as an opportunity to actually read all the books that you're using in your fall papers.
examining anything rhetorically is both a funny joke and potential research paper.
you have ever discussed academic matters at a sporting event.*
you see sweaters primarily as a way to hide from your students that you didn't iron.
you have given up trying to keep your articles organized and are now just trying to keep them all in the same general area.
out of the hundred or so campus buildings, you only know the names of about five.
being "qualitative" or "quantitative" is as strong a choice as deciding between the Red Sox or Yankees.
you judge every song you hear and every film/TV show you see on whether it could turn into a paper.
you have accepted guilt as an inherent feature of relaxation.*
you have to think twice to remember why your working friends can't go on long trips during the summer.
you frequently wonder how long you can live on pasta without getting scurvy.*
the night you and your fellow grad students weekly "let loose" rarely last past 10:30 pm.
you look forward to taking some time off to do laundry.*
UPDATE: you require 1 (or more) shopping bags to carry books home from the library. (yeah, just did that.)

*these were taken from someone else's list.

The Beamer Diet - IN STORES THIS CHRISTMAS!

2007-11-25T15:50:00.001-08:00

I've gotten the impression that America seems to be drifting away from crazy fad diets and into reasonable views on nutrition and health. To combat this I have developed a surefire diet that is easy and allows you to eat whatever crap you want! This was developed over countless seconds just now when I was trying to snack in my poorly stocked office.

Okay, so you can eat whatever you want (carrots, brussel sprouts, rice cakes, etc), but you have to eat everything with a toothpick. That's it! This includes making sandwiches with a toothpick, baking with a toothpick... everything! No utensils or hands allowed. This way, eventually you get tired of trying to eat stuff, or you persist, still get monsterously unhealthy, and can't sue me because of my clever legal manuvering in the waiver included with each book!

So that's my idea.

Yeah I don't blog much these days. This may change, but the format of the blog probably will as well.

Dr. Doom would have been clever though

2007-10-17T05:20:00.000-07:00

This is too good not to write about. So I did The Walk from Yankee Stadium to Fenway Park in August, and my feet essentially got beat to shit. My ankles were swollen, flexibility was down, and walking was generally not awesome. Fast forward to present day and all I'm really feeling still is some heel pain when I walk any significant distance. This brought me to the VT health center.

Here's the good part. I was taken back to an examination room and my doctor entered shortly after. He was a fairly young guy (mid-30's?) with a goatee. I checked his name badge and read that he was a physician's assistant, not a doctor. No big deal there, as long as he knows what he's talking about. The way his eyes fluttered for about 3 seconds every time he looked up weirded me out a bit, but that only made him look slightly insane.

From there I went to take some X-rays and eventually he brought me back to his office to check them out. Here's the fucking payload! I sat down next to his desk while he opened up the computer file with my X-ray. At this point I casually glanced around and decided that he was either: A) still living in his parent's basement despite the ring on his finger, B) an emotionally repressed crazy person, or C) Jake Herrick. Maybe all three.

This is a PA mind you. His bookshelf was full, not with books (which one might guess), but with toys - sorry - action figures. I have a bitchin' Albert Einstein action figure on my desk, but we're talking about several Star Wars action figures STILL IN THE BOX! Yes, Dr. McCrazy is keeping his collectibles at work. There were many others: Spiderman, a few more Star Wars that had been released from their plastic prisons, and some random one still in the box that required assembly to name a few.

And who was bolted to the wall watching over us to make sure that all doctor-patient protocol was followed? Again, Spiderman, this time perched on a piece of a building. But this supernerd was not limited to action figures. He also had models of several Star Wars vehicles and a few stuffed animals in the corner. We're not talking pediatrics here. This is a college medical center.

Now I'm not against the nerd revolution of the past several years. I loved comic books back in the day and almost peed myself due to awesome-overload during the Transformers movie. Bringing all of your nerd shit to work though? And you're a medical professional? All of this would have been moot had he knocked diagnoses out like House, but he didn't. This guy was literally flipping through his medical books as I sat there. To sum up, not the most reassuring visit.

"So," he asked after coming to no conclusion, "would you like to be referred to an orthopedist?"

Um, letmethinkyes.

Can someone get on inventing a punch-a-phone?

2007-09-25T09:23:00.000-07:00

I should be doing my Rhetorical Criticism and Theory reading, but I haven't blogged here in about two weeks and I need to rant. As of right now, I have been on the phone for and hour and fifteen minutes with Expedia.com trying to get a friggin' flight scheduled. Why am I calling a dot-com to reserve my flight, you ask? The answer is simple enough. I cancelled two flights in June and thus have some credit (albeit reduced by $100 each) to use. I'm trying to go up to Boston for the Head of the Charles this year so it was a perfect time to use that credit.

Which brings me to now. First I'd like to share a little trick which you may or may not know. During my time temping at a background check company last Spring I learned that you can bypass almost all automated phone systems by simply pressing "0." This will normally send you to an operator who is almost always human.

That said, I have a few observations/suggestions for the telephone customer service people:

Stop ruining Canon in D for me! - Pachebel's Canon has always been one of my favorite classical songs. It is a relaxing and beautiful song. It is probably for these reasons that automated phone systems have almost all adopted it as their hold music. So now one of my favorite songs is mentally associated with a frustrating task. In addition to this, it sounds like the music is coming through a McDonalds drive-thru. In case you didn't get it yet, none of this is cool.
Let your people think for themselves - I get that you have to cover your asses. I get that. But after four or five times repeating the complete flight information can we assume that I'm okay with it? Sure, definitely do one last check before charging me your crazy fees and whatnot, but the benefit of talking to a real person was supposed to be that I actually could have a human-ish interaction!
Stop thanking me so damn much - Don't thank me for my patience every time I come off or go on hold. By my count I was put on hold four times. Know this: I am not patient. I am not resisting the urge to throw your great and powerful reservation machine out the window because I am patient. I'm just not there to do it. I just want to get my flight and I figured that calling you a string of profanity wouldn't help. That's not patience. It's holding on to every bit of politeness that I can while my brain tells me to throttle you.
Outsourcing - First of all, it is obvious that I'm not speaking to a woman in Kansas. While I would prefer that the poor and unemployed Americans be doing these jobs, my objection is not political. If you want to outsource computer design or email tech support to India that is your prerogative, but phone banks? I love meeting people from other countries and I love foreign accents. They're interesting and bring an nice flavor to a conversation. But when I am banging my head against the wall trying to get a flight or fix my computer it would be nice if I didn't have to ask the person helping me to repeat themselves five times.

I could probably find other things to complain about (touch-tone menus, the smarmy tone of the automated menu guy) but I have to get back to work. I finally did get the reservation made if you are wondering, and it only took an hour and thirty-seven minutes - about ten of which were actually talking to someone. FYI, the flight will only take an hour and a half.

Beware: the hippies have trumpets

2007-09-10T16:40:00.000-07:00

Yesterday afternoon, as I left for the library I noticed a new vehicle parked outside my apartment building. Now my neighbor owns a crazy cab company that features a Suburban with zebra stripes, a yellow submarine themed van, and a beat-up hooptie, so weird cars outside is nothing out of the ordinary. This, though, was different. It was a huge, old bus like this one, but with a dalmation sitting in the back. Then last night I came home from the library to find a young hippie couple outside of my apartment building with their small child.

Yes, there are bus hippies living outside my apartment. To be specific they are right outside my window since I live on the first floor, so I heard them and their baby hippie playing last night. It was very nice actually. They sound very nice and not completely stoned-out, which is nice.

Then there's tonight. I just sat down at my desk and was able to hear some guitar playing - something not unexpected when you're dealing with hippies. Then I heard something I did not expect. Yes, they were also playing the trumpet. To be honest I always saw hippies as sticking to strings and percussion fairly religiously. I hadn't realized that they got into the brass instruments.

Well, they've stopped now. I guess I should get to my reading since the concert is over... for now.

I'd be the weirdo with hair

2007-09-09T12:52:00.000-07:00

I have had varying experiences with laundry since I moved away from home at the beginning of college. At school it was always fairly simple since the laundry rooms were located in or around my dorms. It was always assumed that several of the machines would be broken, but I was also showering in sandals and eating leftover eggs every weekend so that wasn't my biggest problem.

Once I started living off campus and then in my own apartment post-graduating it was different. I still assume that a few machines will be broken (Tip: Always feel the dryer for heat before using) but it has become a time for me to get other work done in a normally quiet environment. It's a bit different here.

My local laundromat is right next to campus, so it is not surprising that it is used by lots of other college students. My particular laundromat is specifically located very near to the Cadet Corps dorms. These are essentially ROTC students as I understand it.

I like these kids. The building I have classes in and have an office in is between a few of these dorms so I see them all the time. I admire their dedication and the hard work I see them do. The problem though, is two-fold.

First, they don't get crazy drunk on the weekend nights like most students. The other problem is that the young ones take every opportunity to get away from the higher ranking cadets whom they have to salute and whatnot - including using off campus facilities. The reason why these are problems for me is because they ruin my plan to do laundry early on Sunday to avoid the crowds.

So when I walk into the laundromat this morning it was packed with these bald-headed cadets filling every machine with their many uniforms and significantly less civilian clothes. It was actually pretty surreal. Imagine walking into a normal laundromat to find it full of guys with shaved heads and identical white laundry bags. I think there was a Twilight Zone episode about that once.

Fortunately the cadets are also a generally less idiotic and more polite group than the general college population. I used one of the huge machines since the regular ones were all - yes, literally all - in use. My usual color/white laundry segregation suffered, but they got over it somehow. The bigger problem was when my dryer opened itself mid-cycle, running down the time without doing any actual drying until I noticed it with only a few minutes left.

The Hokies' night out

2007-09-07T09:15:00.001-07:00

Last night was the long-awaited and much anticipated Concert for VT. For those of you who don't know, where the hell have you been? Okay, so the deal is that Dave Matthews (of the Dave Matthews Band), who is a Virginia native, organized this free concert for everyone at Virginia Tech after the shootings on April 16. He recruited Phil Vassar (of Phil Vassar), Nas (of Bel Biv DeVoe) and John Mayer (of Wham!) to join in on the party.

The one possible downside to the organization of this was that, for the most part, people didn't have a choice of where they were to sit or who they would sit with. Considering the free concert with such great acts this isn't a huge deal and it would have been a huge hassle to give free tickets to people in groups... maybe. Anyway, I was lucky enough to get one of the field seats.

When I got there about twenty minutes before the start of the rocking there I took my seat not surprisingly nowhere near anyone I know. Of course, everyone I know here pretty much consists of my roommate and the other Comm grad students so I wasn't expecting much there. Soon after I sat down though my companionship problems were solved when "those drunk girls" sat down behind me. Lucky me.

Phil Vassar went on first. I like country music and know most of the songs he played, but the majority of the place didn't seem to be as informed since many sat back down after Dave introduced him. It didn't help that during one of his big hits the mic cut out for a minute or so. Tough luck Philly. He did have a nice rally when he brought out Frank Beamer (of VT football) who got a bigger cheer than Dave did.

Next was Nas. There had been much controversy started by certain conservative douche-bag talk show hosts, but he was incredibly positive and removed any mention of guns from his song, "One Mic", even though the song is clearly anti-gun violence if you actually listen to it. Nas did get a nice dig in when he dedicated his song, "Hate Me Now," to "that chump Bill O'Reilly."

Finally there was the act I had been waiting for- John Mayer. Unfortunately it was also the favorite of the screaming drunk girl behind me who, incidentally, seemed to be getting drunker despite not having had anything for at least an hour now. I was disappointed that Mayer spent as much time as he did on stuff from his first album. I'm all for a good grab bag of material in a show, but his second two albums were much superior musically. That said, he still rocked. I mean, this guy can straight-up play. His soloing on "Gravity" was incredible and relating the song "Vultures" to Tech having to deal with camera crews since April was great.

I have never seen Dave Matthews Band play before so I was sure to stay for at least one song. He first played "Two-Step" which was great, and one of my favorites of his. I did end up leaving after that though. For one thing it was getting old not being at the concert with any friends, and also Drunk Girl #2 may or may not have vomited after Mayer's set.

For my homey

2007-09-03T18:20:00.000-07:00

I realize that I haven't blogged in about two weeks. I would point you to my post about being okay with that, but that would take more givingashit than I have on hand at the moment. For those who read this blog frequently (when I actually post), this is not as light as my usual posts.

On Saturday my family's dog Max was put to sleep. He was really old, about 15 or so in human years, so we knew it was coming soon. He had been in pretty bad shape and his quality of life was not getting any better. We'd taken him to the vet a few times when he was having particularly bad days and it was always made clear to us that if things got worse we would have no choice. I could sit here convincing myself that it was inevitable, but I already know it was, so there's no point there.

When we went to the pound to get him 11 or so years ago he was all about fetching and playing, but of course once he was home and had us hooked he stopped all that mess. He knew who was picking up whose poop. Honestly he got on my nerves there for a while since he had a thing for chewing the clothes I left on the floor and refused to do any cool dog stuff besides sleeping and humping stuff. He actually humped a woman during the prayer at our Christmas party once, and another time during the prayer at a Summer barbecue. That was pretty hilarious.

Come to think of it, I didn't always like my brother at first when he was younger either, so there's that. The point is that I did love him, especially when he got older and stopped chewing my stuff up. We had an understanding and he was like the crotchety old man I hope to be one day. All he wanted was to sleep all day, lick your hand until he passed out and sneak the occasional carrots and chicken. I don't know about the hand licking, but it didn't seem like the worst way to spend the day.

For all the bitching I did about having to walk him back in day he was always ready to hang out when I went down to eye-level. Actually he was really like my brother and I because he loved some good rough-housing, even later on when he wasn't so spry anymore.

Anyway, he was undeniably a member of the family and I'll miss him. Here's the old man:

His under bite was legendary.

The greatest rewards only come after the greatest struggle

2007-08-18T07:42:00.000-07:00

I just did a maniacal laugh. A very quiet maniacal laugh (it's Saturday morning after all), but a maniacal laugh nonetheless. Why, you ask? Because I have mastered the Blacksburg postal system. Okay, so not really, but I do get mail now.

I've been in my apartment for over a week now and have received absolutely no mail. Now I wasn't expecting fan mail to pour in, but the fact that I hadn't got any junk mail was upsetting. What greater proof of one's existence is there than the fact that we get junk mail?

It seems that I had forgot to fill out the vacancy form to let the Post Office (do you capitalize "Post Office"?) know that someone was now in this apartment again. I finally got on that yesterday but still did not get any mail yesterday, including the Netflix that was supposed to get here on Wednesday.

That brings us to today. About fifteen minutes ago I heard a knock at the door. Upon checking the door I noticed two packages there that I had been expecting! One of them does not have my apartment number on it, so the mailman wrote on it that my name was not on any mailbox. Well, I had to correct that, so I got an index card and the free pen from GTA training and remedied the situation.

Just as I did, who was to come to the door but... the mailman! After this exhausting ordeal I was rewarded with... wait for it... the original 1986 Transformers movie from my best friend, Netflix!

That's when I maniacally laughed. And we come full circle.

Update: Check out the original trailer for the movie. Especially make note of the all-star cast. This is truly the pinnacle of 80's pop culture.

Like so many organizational grains of sand in the beach of capitalism

2007-08-12T12:20:00.000-07:00

I just got from my most dreaded of shopping trips: the new apartment furnishing shop. This is actually a bit of a double-edged sword. On one hand, there's little I love shopping for more than office supplies. It's kind of sad how psyched I was getting. The office organizer aisle of Target was like my own grown-up Toys 'R Us.

The problem is in the volume. For that first shopping trip in a new place I need to get a lot of little things to make life work. The most expensive thing I got at Target was $12 with the rest being $1-$5, yet somehow I walked out with $95 of stuff! I'm glad I didn't look at the receipt until I was outside. I would have hated to start hyperventilating in front of the good people of Christiansburg.

Of course now I don't feel so bad about dropping the jar of salsa in the chip aisle.

The BEAgle has landed

2007-08-11T09:11:00.000-07:00

Eh? I know. You love the title. I crap gold like that all day long.

I am finally all moved in and unpacked into the new apartment. Sure this one doesn't have the charm of my last apartment (read: oldness and lack of proper apt infrastructure) but the location is pretty ideal. I'm three blocks away from my building, two blocks from a coffee shop, and three to five blocks from several bars.

On Friday the other GTAs (grad teaching assistants) and I had our first day of training for our adventures in the molding of minds. The course seems to be organized really well both for the students and and us, and thus far the faculty seem to be, for the lack of a better word, cool.

But the best thing so far? Well last night Gully and I went to The River Mill to meet with some of her friends and get a few adult beverages. The selection was impressive, so much so that I panicked and went with an old faithful, Blue Moon. When going up for a second helping I decided to take a shot in the dark and ask the bartender if, by any slim chance, he knew of a bar in town that had my favorite Texas beer, Shiner Bock. A puzzled but hopeful look crept over his face as he looked back and then told me, "I think we have that."

Get the eff out.

They did, in fact, have Shiner and I, in fact, have found my new favorite bar in town. Dig it.

Adventures in renting, part III

2007-08-07T08:56:00.000-07:00

Here's a brief recap of my landlord experiences thus far:

Landlord(s) #1: When we were supposed to move in the place looked like Poison (ca. 1987) had just had their after party there. We weren't able to move in until a few days later. They promised to turn the patch of dirt next to the house into a real driveway. Instead, they piled gravel next to the dirt patch a month or two later and spread it out about a month later. They accused us of trying to kick our own door down after we came back from a race to find the door jam cracked and a boot mark on the door. The fact that the house across the street was broken into that weekend and essentially rendered inhabitable was not considered in their calculations.

Landlord #2: A nice guy who let me borrow furniture I needed, but was not so helpful when I had electrical issues. When half of my apartment lost power it took over a week to get someone to come fix it since he was using "a guy he knew". When my entire apartment lost electricity during week Austin had a serious ice storm and temps in the 20s it took three days just to get in contact with him since he had gone out of town and doesn't have a cell phone - a lawyer without a cellphone? Seriously? It took another week and a half to fix it since the whole damn system had to be overhauled despite his attempts to find a cheaper way out.

That brings us to yesterday. Landlord #3: We showed up yesterday, the 6th of August, with our furniture, and were told that I couldn't really move in until Thursday because he was still doing work on the bathroom. This is six days after I should be able to move in already.

Now I will say that this one seems more responsible, and responsive, than the last two. I've only spoken to him once, but that's the first impression. Of course that's like being the skinniest kid at fat camp so we'll see how things progress.

Other than the bathroom issue I'm happy with the apartment. It's just a few blocks away from campus and my buildings in particular. The floors are scuffed up and we can't put the living room's ceiling fan to the highest speed, but I don't really care about that stuff. It is clean, in a nice neighborhood, and there is plenty of space so I'm good to go. At least I will be on Thursday when I can move in.

Another step forward for minorities in Hollywood

2007-08-05T15:56:00.001-07:00

I think I'm officially the last person in America to see Harry Potter and the Order of the Pheonix. The important thing though is that I have and that it is good. It helps in my review (yes, that was it) that I am a huge dork and into all kinds of hero/magic/superpower-type things... to a point. You won't see me dressing up for any movie or book release or drawing unicorns all over my notebooks, but I do get all sysed when I watch these movies.

There are two things I really love about the Harry Potter movies. The first is that they are getting darker and more tailored for adults, or at least old kids. The first movie was good, but it was harder to get all excited when it was a 12 year old kid (probably not the right age - Potterheads, feel free to correct) and he wasn't doing much real fighting of evil. Now though Harry and his buddies are getting ready for some serious throw-down ass-whooping - also a trait I enjoy in movies.

The second, and more personal, thing I love about these movies is the lead actor. Daniel Radcliffe is a pretty good actor for his age and, considering the fact that he isn't waiting for the series to end to diversify his projects, it seems like he has a good head on his shoulders for all this. Of course if he didn't he could just buy one since he's getting fat paychecks that would make most of Hollywood cream their shorts.

But what I really like about Radcliffe is that he is representing for a much ignored segment of society. This is a group that I happen to be a part of and thus I am personally very happy that we are finally getting the leading roles we deserve. No, I'm not talking about the ever-oppressed white male. I am talking about the often ignored big-eyebrowed people. As I watched the movie I fought back tears as I watched Radcliffe's huge bushy eyebrows act so valiant in the face of danger. Inspirational really.

I'm moved to start reading the books now as well. It was courageous for J.K. Rowling to put a bushy eyebrowed character in the lead and I should recognize that. Also I want to see all the things everyone says the movies leave out. Win-win as I see it.

Back in black

2007-08-03T10:34:00.000-07:00

I'm wearing a black t-shirt and that's the best I could come up with. Sue me.

But I am back! The walk was torturous at times and fun at others but I'm glad we did it and even more glad that it is all done. If you want to know more about it let me know. We did a separate blog about it which I can tell you about if you want to read it.

Now that I'm back in VA the big mission is to get ready to head down to Blacksburg. I'm hoping to move down on Monday with Gully and get all set up. That'll give me enough time before Friday's GTA training to adjust to my new surroundings and set in motion my plans for small town domination. These plans mostly include pretending to be a psychiatrist to win everyone's trust and the heart of the girl next door.

I'm also spending my time resting my ankle as it is still pissed at me for making it walk twenty miles a day for two weeks. It's currently not speaking to me, but we have a solid line of communication through my knee. I expect it to break down soon.

I have made one life decision because of my trip. This is that I will never drive into Long Island again. I left my car at my buddy's house there while we walked and no matter how many times I go there I always have trouble finding my way around. This, along with the ever-present agony of driving through New York City to get there, is a huge pain in the ass. What makes it worse is that every time I ask for directions from someone I know from there I hear, "Oh, it's easy. It's impossible to get lost on the Island." Really? I beg to differ.

This doesn't mean I won't go there again. I love my friends there, so I give myself the following options: a) someone else will drive me there while I say "I told you so" every time we get stuck in traffic or get lost, b) I'll take the train there, or c) I will be flown in by helicopter. The last one isn't as likely but it is certainly the most preferable.

Just can't wash off that meme

2007-07-18T18:24:00.000-07:00

I was just "memed" by Kaylars and I'm in need of entertaining, so here goes:

The Rules:

1. We have to post these rules before we give you the facts.

2. Players start with eight random facts/habits about themselves.

3. People who are tagged write their own blog post about their eight things and include these rules.

4. At the end of your blog, you need to choose eight people to get tagged and list their names. Don’t forget to leave them a comment telling them they’re tagged and that they should read your blog.

My eight:

I have been a professional coach, but I was very unathletic until the Summer before 8th grade when I started rowing. This explains why I still suck at basketball. Frisbee is the only other "sport" that I am any good at.

In 10th grade a few friends and I started making a horror movie. Three of us wrote and then we recruited a few friends to be in it. The movie was a horrible Scream ripoff. Seriously. It was incredibly unoriginal, but my buddy's mom made us brownies.

I still contend that I made up the alternate version of "The Lion Sleeps Tonight" about the Lorena Bobbit mess. It was at camp that Summer and the next year no one believed me. I'm still upset about that one.

I'm pretty manic about both flossing and trimming my fingernails. Flossing because my dental hygienist scared me, and the fingernails because otherwise I think I'll start biting them again.

I don't like air conditioning. I'll use it, but it has to be seriously friggin' hot and humid. I went the whole Summer in Austin (which lasts into October) without using it. My landlord was impressed/thought I was nuts. The reasons for this are financial and environmental.

In fifth grade I sang at the Kennedy Center in the Geoffry Ballet's production of The Nutcracker. I think it was during the dance of the sugarplum fairy. We fell asleep every night and were woken up by the cannon going off.

When I graduated high school I thought I'd go to school to learn film production then become a music video director. My plan was to raise it to an art form that it usually was far from. I had a VHS tape of videos I admired. In retrospect most of them aren't that good.

If you think of something interesting/fun and I don't have anything immediately pressing I'll probably go along with it without much question. This is why I drove three hours to go to White Castle (which I think is gross). This is why I watched Saw and Saw 2 back t0 back. And this is why I am not attempting to walk 280 miles in 14 days.

Here are those I'm "meme-ing" (like Kaylars I don't know eight bloggers):

Getting to getting

2007-07-16T20:11:00.000-07:00

Well we start our walk on Wednesday. I'll drive up to Long Island tomorrow and we'll go to a game in the evening. I'm trying to be perfectly realistic about this, so I am prepared for the possibility that we won't make it since it is a long friggin' way and it's not like we've been training constantly for months. Of course if I'd been perfectly realistic up to now I probably wouldn't be doing this at all, so why start now, right?

My only hope right now is that we won't get some crazy ish like shin splints or something. I've dealt with overuse injuries before and it isn't all it's cracked up to be. Sure, soaking in the heat bath is good times, but the constant nagging pain can be a downer. To combat this I'm working up an extensive stretching routine for us to do every morning. I'm also thinking of sneaking in some of those rolley-shoes as well.

Well wish us luck or tell me I'm an idiot. I won't be able to check it out until I'm already on the road so I'll be doing it either way. Peace out.

Webb on Meet the Press

2007-07-15T14:43:00.000-07:00

My Senator, Jim Webb, on Meet the Press debating with possibly the biggest douchebag in the Senate, Lindsey Graham. Check the podcast out here.

Trailers of the week

2007-07-11T19:13:00.000-07:00

A few new promising movie trailers.

This is England - Story of a young British boy who, well... just watch it.

The Ten - Comedy by Wet, Hot American Summer folks based on the Ten Commandments.

The 11th Hour - looks much better than Gore's

Margot at the Wedding - Dramady with Jack Black

What my dentist said to me right before starting the cavity filling procedure

2007-07-11T16:54:00.001-07:00

"Well, you know the drill."

Get it? Even with the mask over his face I could tell he was pleased with himself.

Not that it's a surprise

2007-07-11T10:13:00.000-07:00

What an ass. link2

A short story

2007-07-10T14:17:00.000-07:00

I went to the gym today. I saw the mayor at the gym. At the gym, there are TVs on the ellipticals. The Mayor was watching Oprah on the elliptical.

The End

I'm being held hostage by my doctor

2007-07-10T10:56:00.000-07:00

That's right. Here's how: Two weeks ago when I went camping for my college roommate's bachelor party we pretty much did everything straight guys enjoy that doesn't involve boobs. This included drinking, talking about "chicks", eating, drinking more and, most importantly, playing paint-ball. Yes, that is all that we need.

The paint-ball is most important here because it involved running, crouching and falling down in the woods. Subsequently I found a tick on my leg the next morning. I got the little bastard out and, channelling my counselor training, saved the tick in my handy adventure med-kit tick tube thing.

Since the site of the bite didn't look so great I went to the doctor on Monday when told me that the tick probably wasn't the kind that carries Lyme disease but he'd get it tested anyway. Okay. In the mean time I was to take an antibiotic that kills every damn thing living in my body. This means that I have to eat yogurt to replace good bacteria and (here's my actual point) stay out of the sun. Except he didn't just say that I had to stay out of the sun. He told me that he knew a guy taking this stuff who was just driving around and got enough exposure on his hand that the hand was covered in blisters and peeled the fuck off. You might be thinking, "Big fuckin' deal! I got the same thing when I fell asleep at Nags Head."

F you.

I'm the kind of guy who was told by his dental hygienist that failing to floss led to creepy, long, old people teeth and now flosses twelve times a day. So what I'm picturing is that I'll go outside for ten minutes and suddenly I'm a Nazi in Raiders of the Lost Ark who just had to look.

The tick testing was supposed to take a few days, but when I called today (for the third time), I got this:

Receptionist: Hello, how may I help you?

Me: Hi, this is [my whole name]. I'm checking if the tick tests got back.

Receptionist: One moment.

About three moments later

Russian nurse: What can I do for you?

Me: (politely) I'm trying to find out if the results from the tick that got tested for me are back.

Russian nurse: What's your name?

Me: [Whole name again].

Russian nurse: One moment.

Pause.

Russian nurse: What did you need?

Me: (not as politely) I came in two weeks ago with a tick bite. I gave it to the doctor my tick to get tested for Lyme disease. Do you have the-

Russian nurse: Oh yes, I remember that. Yes, we don't seem to have the results for that yet.

Me: Do you have any idea when they'll be in?

Russian nurse: No they did not say.

Me: (in my head) Are you fucking kidding me?!

So here I am, becoming more paranoid and recluse. I've gone out a few times during the day, but on Sunday when I went to the Bodies Exhibition in Rosslyn I actually wore long pants and long sleeves in this ridiculous heat. That's how paranoid I get. I didn't wear a hat, but that's just because while I'm a paranoid recluse, I'm also an idiot.

The most beautiful example of immaturity at its best

2007-07-10T07:08:00.000-07:00

Warning: if you do not continue to find Dumb & Dumber, this, or the word "fartknocker" to be hilarious, don't bother.

The clapping and the final expression really do it for me.

The devil is cold today

2007-07-07T15:13:00.000-07:00

Something I never thought I'd see: the Spice Girls being declared a positive cultural force... and not by a twelve year-old girl.

Or you'll end up livin' in a van down by the river!

2007-07-07T12:00:00.000-07:00

As I mentioned in March, I will be a graduate teaching assistant when I start grad school in August. I don't fully understand the logistics of all of this, but I do know that I will be teaching a public speaking class or two. I received the textbook for the class in the mail a few days ago and finally cracked it today. I'm sure the writers of this book are crackshot speakers, but they can't write for shit.

The first three paragraphs repeatedly told the reader how public speaking is an invaluable skill and very much in demand in the business world. This itself isn't more than annoying, but the schmucks hardly changed the wording at all. That's pretty much par for the course I guess with freshman level courses.

I'm excited to do these classes. I have a good bit of knowledge on public speaking having done a considerable amount in my day, but I also see this as an opportunity to pass on some wisdom that I wish someone had given me as a frosh. These are a few verbatim quotes I want to give the class:

"You are college freshmen, therefore you are essentially idiots. Everything you think you know about how this college thing works is garbage and if you spend the next nine months acting under these assumptions you will serve as reminders to the upperclassmen of how stupid they were. Freshmen serve one purpose: showing those students about to graduate how not to act in the so-called 'real world'."
"As of this moment I give a shit how you do in this class. As soon as you start crapping on paper calling it a speech I will not. Before you decide which way to go, imagine how hard your dad would kick you in the ass for literally flushing a few thousand dollars down the toilet."
and finally, "The irony does not escape me that you are being taught public speaking by someone who has been known to mumble. Deal with it. The majority of what you'll learn here is useful shit, so if you don't want any of my voodoo then tune out and get to flushing."

That last one isn't exactly advice but I figure the disclaimer is a good idea.

More than meets the eye? Looks like I gotta see it again

2007-07-03T14:00:00.000-07:00

Holy crap on a cracker! I just got back from seeing the new Transformers movie and all I can say is... awe-fucking-some. This movie brought out the stupid eight year-old in me, but with much bigger explosions and badassitude. I really can't say enough how kickass this movie was.

Negatives? There are two: one classic character bites it and the sequel won't be out tomorrow. This was not the cartoon with all the fights taking place over huge deserts and all shots being taken from far away. This was close quarters, hand-to-hand ass-whooping. Don't worry though. There are still plenty of explosions and shots fired.

One clue that this was made for guys like me and not your six year-old nephew was the human body count. Michael Bay obviously wanted to be as realistic as a movie about giant alien car-robots can be. The human casualties took a little from my non-stop excitement since that's never cool to have happen, but it is just a movie and I soon got back to drooling over the robots in disguise - especially my personal favorite, Bumblebee. As usual, the little guy tore shit up like nobody's business.

Others who made an appearance: Jazz, Ratchet, Ironhide, Starscream, and of course, the king ass-kicker, Optimus Prime. I have to say also that the human characters were pretty good for the most part. I continue to be impressed by Shia LaBeouf. He did a great job as Sam Witwicky. Also notable is the female lead, Megan Fox. While I don't think she'll be winning any Oscars anytime soon, she handled the action well and was, in a word, really freaking, smoking hot as all get out.

So that's that. Go see the movie. Actually call me and I'll go with you. And if you don't get the reference from this post's title then please don't talk to me until this movie is out of theaters.

Dumb idea? Yes. Still doing it? Absolutely.

2007-06-28T14:59:00.000-07:00

Well we did it. John and I drove our walking route yesterday. It took about nine and a half hours to drive what would ususally take a little over three. So basically this was one of the worst ways to drive it. It does look like it'll be one of the better ways to walk.

The first day leaving the Bronx will be interesting. The rest of the walk is pretty rural, or at least solidly small town. The main concern was safety because, as my buddy Jimmy Jam would say, there is no finishline in the race to safety. There are a few sections which are less than ideal, but with the right combination of planning and wrapping our bodies entirely in reflective tape and styrofoam we should be okay.

The drive-through was a good idea. We saw some confusing parts and more importantly we figured out most of where we will sleep along the way. Thankfully we do have lots of friends along the way. If you know John or I and live between New York City and Boston you will probably get a call.

Smart and reasoned is for the Fall

2007-06-27T03:19:00.001-07:00

I have now made the complete transition from living in Texas. Yesterday I drove up to Long Island to John's house. Well, his parents house. Maybe if you schmucks paid your teachers better then... I digress.

I don't think I've blogged about this yet, but I'm here to prepare for main event of my summer. Last Fall, Johnny, an old college roommate came to me with the idea of a walk. We would walk from Yankee Stadium to Fenway Park. For those of you tragically uncool and uninitiated into American life, that means walking from New York City to Boston, Mass. Why, you ask? Because it's there!

Not really. We want to talk to people along the way about the rivalry between the Yankees and the Red Sox as well as these cities in general. Those of you in Texas might be thinking, "One Northern wussy state to another. What's that? Like forty miles?" No, O you Lone Stars and Longhorns, try 278 miles. I think the general reaction to this quest was best summed up by Johnny's mother.

"It's stupid."

"Well we just thought-"

"There's no point!"

While I have to agree with both of Mrs. Johnny's mom's statements it looks like we're still going through with it. The Walk doesn't start for a few weeks, July 19th to be exact, so today is the run-through. We'll drive our walking route, courtesy of Ask.com and its walking directions (who'd ever think there'd be a use for that?). This will possibly be the worst way to drive to Boston, but hopefully it'll be the best way to walk it.

I'll see you on the other side.

Do you have a broke-ass access account?

2007-06-19T14:32:00.000-07:00

I think I might need a more lucrative job soon. Today I went to the bank to change my checking account. I've been in a "college access" account since high school since no one seemed to care once I graduated, including myself. Well Wachovia caught up and wasn't letting me do online transfers anymore. So I went to the bank.

I'd be perfectly happy if I never had to actually set foot in a bank, which is why I didn't mind my limited access to indoor tellers, but occasionally it has to be done. I told one of the tellers what I needed and he directed me to one of the office bank mix masters. I knew the teller wasn't the right guy for the job, but some old lady was bogarting the Financial Manager by having him call her insurance company that seemed to have screwed her over. The FM was not pumped about this.

The first thing I noticed about the office banker-type to whom I was directed was that she was both attractive and well in my acceptable age-range. Being that I'm about to go to grad school and I don't have the fundage for transitional dating I normally would have logged this observation and went on with my whatnot. Also despite my typical hesitance to ask ladies out in everyday situations I was actually considering it.

That was until, while she was talking to me about the possible accounts, she said, "Do you plan on putting more money in your account?" Damn. Now, I just spent a year coaching a club team with some light temping and I also just bought a sweet sweet new computer. These equal a pathetic looking checking balance. I stammered, "Well I just made a large purchase so that's why it's so low and I'm about to go to grad school in the fall."

"Oh, then I guess we can forget about that one," she said laughing.

I added, "Well they are paying me, but probably not enough to get it to grow faster," attempting to convince her, for some reason (since obviously there would be no date request today), that I wasn't a complete schlub.

So that's that. I'm on a regular free checking account. She offered to get me back on the college access one since "the minimum balance is lower" ($50 vs. $100) but I told her that I thought I could scratch together the extra fifty from my parent's couch cushions. Poor but amusing might work in college, but I think stable and amusing might work better in the real world - especially with women who have direct access to my balance.

Do you have any Beamer in you? Want some?

2007-06-18T12:33:00.000-07:00

So I tried to give blood today. I gave blood several weeks ago, not long before I moved back to Virginia, but I figured it'd been long enough. Well I was rejected.

It seems that one needs to wait eight weeks before giving again and it has only been six. I think that the Alexandria INOVA blood donatron has regretfully failed to account for a few key factors in this case:

Time zone - I traveled from Central to EST (Eastern Sissypants Time (apparently I was in Texas long enough)) which adds a week to blood regeneration. It's true. I saw it on Grey's Anatomy.
Diet - Considering only my one meal at the Salt Lick I have consumed enough meat to bump me up two or three days. That one was from Heloise.
Sheer will and determination - I have spent an hour every day for the last month doing nothing but creating more blood cells. I'm going to have to slow my cell growth for the next two weeks or else when I do it'll look like one of those Mentos vs. Coke videos.

That gives me an idea for a video: Tanker truck of Coke crashes with a shipment of Mentos. Someone get on this.

Bad coffee and good times

2007-06-17T10:08:00.000-07:00

Last night I took a break from my usual crazy schedule of Discovery Channel watching and poking around my new computer. A friend of mine from high school was playing at a coffee house in DC so I dragged another buddy out to go see her. The show was at 14U Cafe at, get ready to have your mind blown, 14th and U St NW. I figured that this was read "fourteen 'U' cafe" but I clearly underestimated the owner's wit as it's supposed to be "one for you". But that's neither here nor there.

The place was calculatedly artistic and loungey but it worked. The guy who was up when we arrived was, as my buddy Jack pointed out, like Daniel Johnston though apparently without the paralyzing fear of the Devil. Regardless, he was pretty good. Not rock-your-socks-off good, but I do think one of my shoe laces came undone.

I don't think I've seen my friend Becca perform since high school so it was cool to see her. She's been out in California for a few years now so the myspace event reminders were for naught until now. Her music would probably be classified as singer-songwriterish, but of course what does that mean other than that the same person wrote and sang it? Either way I just get a kick out of seeing my friends perform. Jack and buddy number tres, Dave, played drums and bass with her so it was a sweet threefer.

What Teachers Make

2007-06-13T08:21:00.000-07:00

I already put this on my Facebook page and sent it to my teacher friends. I really can't stop listening to it. This guy is amazing. Check it out then send it to your teacher friends.

Or maybe sneezing during the State of the Union...

2007-06-12T20:43:00.000-07:00

You know what I just thought about? Of course you don't... unless you're mind reader. If so, call me. You know the number.

Anyway, I was just thinking about First Ladies. Specifically, I just stumbled on Laura Bush's official website (my homepage) and was reminded how creepy and Stepford she seems (I wish I could say I made that picture up). Politics completely aside, Laura Bush has always weirded me out. Has anyone actually seen her blink? Seriously, I want video proof.

This made me think how cool it would be to have a First Lady like Princess Diana. I never really thought about it before, but I really get why the Brits liked her so much. She didn't seem so dang official all the time. Even when she's in plain clothes it seems like Laura is trying too hard.

I don't agree with most of the President's policies but I think Laura is a nice person. She seems genuinely nice, so I really want to like her. Here's my idea: the White House releases a video of Laura chewing George out for not clearing his plate or picking up his dirty clothes or something. Hell, I'd take Laura getting pissed at the dog for pooping in the Lincoln bedroom - just something to make her seem real. I don't judge First Ladies by their husbands' policies. That kind of thing would rocket her above Hillary for me. No contest.

I am Beamer, the feet picker

2007-06-12T19:14:00.000-07:00

I don't know if you knew this already, but it seems I'm a scumbag. At least in the city of Poughkeepsie, New York I'm a scumbag. Why am I a scumbag you ask? Well that's kind of private, but okay.

Yesterday I got a pleasant letter from the City o' Poughkeepsie where I picked my feet for four years (if you get that reference I owe you a high five). It seems that they finally realized that I owe them 120 bucks. I actually already knew this. See, senior year at Marist I lived off campus on a street with alternate side parking. If you don't know what that is, check out the wikipedia article. The purpose is for when there's mad amounts of snow, but it is in effect all year.

Long story short, I forgot to move my car a few (four) times and got some (four) tickets. Did I immediately pay those tickets? Not exactly. They were for ten dollars each so I figured no biggie. Fast forward several months and those tickets are suddenly for thirty dollars (the maximum) each. At this point there's not much point in paying them right away. They aren't getting any worse, right?

Well I was right. They didn't. I actually tried to tell them about this though. I tried to call and get this taken care of months ago. At the time I got so lost in the Hudson Valley bureaucracy that I gave up.

Such is life. So I'm out $120 bucks but the upside is that I finally have the giant... medium sized weight off my shoulders. It is one of the lamer ways to cut ties with a chapter of one's life but we do not choose these things. They choose us. Or at least they sit in a mountain of paperwork until a desk jockey gets to them.

I'm actually somewhat on the way to the next chapter. Slowly I'm doing things that I need to do for VTech. I tried to register for classes today. I missed the pre-registration in April but the secretary told me to just email her the classes I wanted. After looking at the class listings I emailed her the only four classes that first semester grad students could take, only to be rejected for three. I anticipated this since they looked to be booked on the site however that doesn't make this suck any less. We'll see. At least I'm turning into a degenerate in multiple cities now. Finally, some consistancy.

Greetings from a new time zone

2007-06-01T06:35:00.000-07:00

Yes friends, I am back on the east coast and squarely in limbo between my Austin existence and grad school in August. As expected, the drive from Central Texas to Northern Virginia blew monkey turds. The drive I did from Austin to New York a few weeks ago was much longer but at least I had the other coaches to talk to and take driving shifts. This time I picked up a few books on tape/CD to burn me through. The six hour recording of Dan Brown's Digital Fortress certainly took me through much of the first day but unfortunately it sucked pretty hard.

Whatever the ups and downs of the drive were, I am safe in the knowlege that I spent my last night in Texas the only way one really can. I went to the Salt Lick with four of my favorite Texans. For those of you not familiar, the Salt Lick is the badass kickmaster of all Austin barbeque joints as far as I'm concerned. I had heard that it was the ill phatty but spent eleven months in Austin without going to it, mostly because it's a half hour or so outside of the city and I am a lazy, lazy man.

Anyway, when I entered the hallowed grounds I was greeted on my right by the most wonderous of sights. A open, circular grill was piled high with Texas barbeque. For the uninitiated, this means sausage and as much of the cow as can be harvested. Those losers in North Carolina can keep their pig and chicken barbeque. Seriously, if the animal can't buck you like a ragdoll where's the challenge?

At the Salt Lick you have two options for meals. You can either be a sissy pants punk loser and order off the menu, or you can get the Family Meal. The Family Meal consists of the waiter piling a plate as high as possible with meat, bringing it to your table, and periodically coming back to see if want more meat or if you've stuffed your fat, beautiful, American face enough. Endless plates of barbeque and sides. If you can tell me what is better than that I will have you arrested for treason. It is now over two days later and I'm still digesting.

I saw the sign

2007-05-27T13:07:00.000-07:00

Apparently the Fates agree that it's time to go. Yesterday I took the laptop to Quack's bakery, my usual interneting spot. I plugged in the super-heavy AC adapter, attached it to the overy cumbersome 17 inch notebook computer and... crap.

I got the message that asks if you want to start in "Safe Mode" or normally. After several attempts that landed me back at that screen I closed the computer, resisted throwing it through the window and went back home.

For some reason I thought it would be a good idea to call the Hewlett Packard customer service. After telling the customer server the problem I was assured, nay, "guaranteed" that it could be fixed over the phone. At that point I gave my credit card number and after going through the outsourced tech support process I was told that no, in fact, the computer was proper fucked.

I mentally tried to reconcile what I'd been told before and after shelling out fifty bucks and then lost it. Now I don't like being a jerk to customer service. I've been in that kind of job and know that there isn't much you can do. So I asked for the supervisor. After explaining several times how I figured I had just been screwed out of a good night out at the bars he finally agreed to refund the money.

So currently I am laptopless. This will motivate me to go ahead and buy the MacBook sooner than later since I wasn't about to pay HP another four hundred bucks to get my crappy computer working crappily again. All of this makes me want to hang around Austin even less, so I might be moving the move up to Wednesday after my bike gets back from the shop. As much fun as packing is I don't think I'll strech it out any further than necessary.

Quoth Scarface (not that one):

2007-05-25T06:17:00.000-07:00

It is decided. I am the decider and, once again, I have done my thing. I will officially be leaving the wondrous and BEAutiful state of Texas on Thursday, May 31st. I absolutely heart the Lone Star state and Austin in particular but when I have a new chapter of my life close at hand I don't like putting it off. I seem to have an affinity toward big changes. This may be because I never seem to make the most out of the situation I'm in. If you'll remember back to last July (hazy time travel effect) I had planned on moving to Austin and become a motorcycle driving bartender dude. Instead I became a bicycle riding coach dude. Just as good.

But not the same. So how do I prevent this from happening again? Well first of all I'm firmly committed to not coach next year. This way I'll actually be able to focus on Bea. I had this intention coming to Texas, but this time I'll have my slightly militant, take-no-shit roommate Gully to keep me in line.

One thing about this move that makes it feel right is that several of my neighbors are moving too. My apartment enclave - which consisted of five little places surrounding a small courtyard - is also going to be losing the only two residents I really liked/talked to. One is a teacher moving on to bigger and better and the other is my neighbor of the year who is moving in with her friend elsewhere in Austin.

I like this because it seems like the best parts of the place I chose to inhabit are stage lefting at the same time. This happened once before when I left the Birkenstock store I worked at one summer. All the crazy hipp-ie/ster kids that worked there peaced out at the end of that summer leaving it to the owner's obnoxious son and some girl who kinda weirded me out. So basically this is not just a change for me, but a changing of the guard for something I was a part of, albeit for a short time.

I still have 7ish days left here in Austin and I plan on making good use of them. I plan on knocking out two of my 101 before I go (#14 & #91) and mountain biking once more.

I'll miss this place. The Tex-Mex food, the brisket, my boy Jimmybones, my neighbor Kate, the coaches, my girls, random festivals every weekend, the Alamo Drafthouse (greatest movie theater ever), Taco Shack, the Austin hipsters, the Keep Austin Weird-ness, and, of course, the not freezingness. I do plan on coming back to visit, possibly this winter when the Blacksburg winter is whipping my now sissy Southwestern posterior.