Again, it has been way too long since I last posted, so I figured that the best way for me to jump start this clunker of a blog was to leave Charleston, journey to some exciting and faraway place, and then blog while I was travelling. So I have done just that, and am blogging, right now, from beautiful Seattle.
My sister has wanted to come here to the emerald city for quite some time, and it doesn’t help that I raved about Seattle after my last visit here, two years ago. In the interest of keeping our sanity, and keeping jobs that don’t easily allow one to take two weeks off for vacation, we decided that we would fly out of Charleston, instead of bussing cross country.
I won’t blog about the flight, because almost all airplane rides are boring, or at the very least, terribly uninteresting to those who were not on said flight. I will say that I was amazed that, regradless of an hour delay getting out of charlotte we arrived earlier than our original arrival time at Sea-Tac.
After that, we caught the metro to downtown Seattle where we met up with our wonderful cousin Lori at her stand in pike place market. We all went out to lunch for some sushi and then went our separate ways. Elena and I (Elena is my sister if you didn’t guess that yourself) then decided to meander around the city.
We ended up going to the Seattle art museum, (something I didn’t get to do on my last) which was phenomenal. It is a huge museum and every time we thought we were about done, we would discover some other room that led to a whole new wing. Apparently there is another SAM, which is even bigger than this one, so that’s gonna happen sometime on this trip.
We then walked down to pioneer square and back, and that’s really it for “today.” I say “today” because I’m writing these posts offline on my iPod and am planning to update as soon as I have wifi. Luckily, the ubiquity if starbucks and other coffee houses that offer wireless Internet make it hard to find a place that doesn’t have a signal.
Now I realize that this ended up being a long and terribly unintersting post. I promise they will get better, especially when we take a trip north, via train, to Vancouver!
I just learned tonight that one of my former professors at CofC passed away today. No details were released in the newscast as to the nature of his passing, except that he was surrounded by family at the end.
Dr. Moore was one of the best professors I had during my undergraduate career – if not the best. A testament to this is the fact that he was one of only three professors whom I took classes with more than one time. The two classes I had with Dr. Moore were Extremist Politics and the History of the Civil Rights Movement. Both classes met in the evening, and both classes were scheduled for 3 hours. Now, just because a class is scheduled for three hours (and in the case of Extremist politics, that was two times a week because it was an express course), does not mean that it automatically lasts for three hours, at least for most professors. In both of these classes, however, we were in our seats right until the last minute, due in large part to Dr. Moore’s ability to plan his lectures so perfectly, and in larger part to the fact that you wanted to be there for that time.
Before those classes, I had never learned so much in a class. Every class had me riveted, and my only regret is that I was unable, due to scheduling conflicts, to take Southern Politics with Dr. Moore. I was challenged more in those classes, than in any other class in my life. Our term papers for each class were not meant to be regurgitated information on a topic that has been bled dry (you can only write so much original stuff on Plato and Hume) by many other classes before hand. Instead, they were meant to inspire us to actually do real research, learn about these topics, and formulate ideas that had the opportunity to be novel.
Not many classes give you that kind of experience.
Dr. Moore had a huge impact on me as a student, and more importantly, he had a huge impact on how I view the world as a whole. Being able to research something like the Orangeburg Massacre, to sit down one on one with Dr. Cleveland Sellers who was charged with inciting said massacre, and get that kind of first hand information; that is something I would never had had the chance to do, and it was Dr. Moore who opened the door for me to immerse myself in that kind of history.
But he was also one of the funniest professors I ever had. I spent just as much time in class learning more that I ever had, as I did laughing harder than I ever hope to again. One of the stories that I remember most was him telling us how he grew up poor in the country and as he left the country and went on to college he came to hate the three things that epitomized poverty: corn bread, country music and overalls. He said that he did come back around to loving some good corn bread, and that country music – true country music – is one of the best genres out there. But he still couldn’t stand overalls.
The man was also a fantastic storyteller and this is due in large part to the fact that he was a primary source of information on the stuff were were studying. He infiltrated the KKK, was an “official” member of countless other extremist organization (through the mail), and had an FBI file on him due to COINTELPRO – the FBI’s counterintelligence program. He showed us how thick his file was, which he was able to request due to the Freedom of Information Act, and how almost all of it was blacked out due to “national security.”
Even though I haven’t contacted him since my graduation, my heart actually feels heavy, both from a sense of personal loss of a teacher who shaped who I am, but also a sense of the loss of future College of Charleston students who won’t have the pleasure of learning about all the various historical stages of the KKK, the John Birch Society, and the Communist Party. I’ve never had the privilege of meeting a more brilliant, more engaging, and more enduring a spirit as Dr. William Moore, and the world is definitely a darker place for its loss today.
I thought I would post a fun game that my friends and I created a while back.
The reason for this are that I felt the world would benefit from this fun and easy game. It’s perfect for road trips, or just hanging out. The other reason is that I’m starved for blog ideas.
Here’s the game in a nutshell. You have to come up with a movie, and then come up with an actor who is not in that movie, and then come up with another actor who is not in said movie and who has never been in a movie with the first actor you named. You then state “x movie staring x actor and x actor. ” The funny part is imagining such a production with the actors you’ve conjured. It helps if the actors you name have no chance of EVER appearing in the movie or anything like it, AND have little to no chance of appearing in a movie with each other.
The title to this blog is an example of this. Here are some more:
Judge Judy and Judge Reinhold in Daddy Day Care
Arsenio Hall and Dame Judy Dench in Nights in Rodanthe
Samuel L. Jackson and Rob Scheider in Pride and Prejudice
Clint Eastwood and Juliette Binoche in Kindergarten Cop (that actually sounds awesome).
Arnold Schwarzenneger and Denzel Washington in The Importance of Being Earnest
Rupert Evererett and Gary Coleman in The Matrix
and so on and so forth…
Please feel free to post your own contributions in the comments.
So every year, the park staff goes out on “Retreat,” and basically this is usually some sort of fun activity where we explore some further expansion in the Agency. Last year the idea was presented to start a disc golf course here at the park, so we went out to the West Ashley Park and played disc golf.
This year we got to bike all over Charleston County Parks newest parcel of land: the Savannah Long Property out by Bees Ferry. The idea was to bike out on some of this pristine area, and be done by about 3 o’clock. Unfortunately, no amount of planning can account for getting lost in the wetlands.
Apparently, our guide had only been out at the property during the dry season, and had not considered the large amount of rain we received last week. In an attempt to bypass a large flooded section of the trail, we blazed our own through the wilderness. This proved completely pointless, and we ended up just backtracking our way back to the trail (courtesy of GPS). What was going to be a leisurely 2 hour bike ride, ended up being twice that, and we all ended up biking 7 miles total.
In short, that was, quite possibly, the most fun I’ve had in a long time. Granted, the 7 miles through the woods on a single speed beach cruiser was tougher than biking for 50 miles out in Berkeley County on smooth-ish roads, but I haven’t had the opportunity to just play in the woods in a long long time. I think everyone should take full advantage of the next chance they have to completely ruin a pair of sneakers and an old pair of jeans by disregarding any notion he/she might have that jumping in the mud is a bad thing.
The only sad thing about having so much fun is that it made me realize that CofC oozeball is still dead. :(
Even if you didn’t download the new Hazards of Love album. You should well be able to guess that the above lyric could only have been produced by indie/prog/folk- rock band, The Decemberists.
I was happy, nay, ecstatic, that I did not have to wait a week to obtain a copy of said new album from Colin Meloy and company. Why? you ask. Sadly, I have become a slave to iTunes, especially since they so often allow me to purchase much of my favourite music before it actually comes out in stores. (I’ll definitely buy the vinyl of this album as well, though).
I just listened to the album straight through. This is really the only way you can listen to it, which is both a pro and a con. It’s a con because few of the songs stand as strongly alone as much of the other Decemberists catalog. It’s also a con because very few songs stand out from the album itself. But here’s the pro – and it’s a big one.
It is quite possibly the best complete album I’ve ever heard. It’s one continuous story, and all the songs complement and blend so well with each other, that you don’t get the feeling that you’re listening to 17 (count them, 17!) tracks, but rather one single super long song.
Sadly, this may not prove to be very accessible for a lot of people. Maybe the Decemberists really wanted to prove that they hadn’t sold out when they signed to Capitol Records. Their debut major label album with two 8 minute plus songs (one of which was split into three parts, and put out of order on the album) apparently wasn’t enough. Rock Opera was the next logical move.
I do suggest you give it a listen. I’m going to do so again right now.
So yesterday, Heather and I are sitting around. Heather hasn’t been feeling well lately, which coincided nicely with me just getting over a little bug I had.
The suggestion is then made that we head to the store to get a Snickers bar.
The final checkout did indeed include that Snickers bar, but it also ended up including:
2 (two) Nerds Ropes
1 (one) Snickers Bar – King Size
1 (one) small bag of Raisonettes
1 (one) box of Fire-Roasted Tomatoe Triscuits
1 (one) box of chocolate fudge
2 (two) cadbury creme eggs
1 (one) six-pack of IBC Cherry Limeade
1 (one) six-pack of IBC Tangerine Cream Soda
Now, to answer the questions you surely have. Yes, that is all we got. No, absolutely none of the above has any positive nutitional value. Well the Tricuits might have, but I’m pretty sure that value is negated when you eat the whole box in a sitting. And Yes, Tangerine Cream Soda is EXACTLY as delicious as you would think. I was expecting it to be super super sweet, and was hesitant to drink it, for that reason. But to my surprise, it turned out to be mildly sweet and totally fantastic.
It’s not the 100th post I’ve ever written. But right now I have 99 posts currently in this humble blog, and this makes 100.
Now that that confusion is out of the way. We can all get on with this post…
I’ve got nothing. Well, I’ve got nothing that would be worth writing in my 100th post. I am going to post about the groceries we bought last night. But such minutia-related information hardly seems worthy of this centurian achievement.
Is centurian even an adjective I can use in this instance? I’m not going to look it up, but I think it fits alright.
Seriously though, the next post is about groceries.
I forgot to bring my chinese food leftovers to work today for lunch so I was left with a very important decision to make what to do for my midday meal. The bad news is that I only have time for fast food, the good news is that every single fast food chain (except Hardees) is represented within a 5 mile radius of the park, .
My default choices are Chic-Fil-A or The Harris Teeter Deli. Though I did have some Captain D’s yesterday, and quite enjoyed my Classic Fish Sandwich, despite the fact that it had enough tartar sauce on it to kill a man, and also that it came from Captain D’s.
Today I felt change in the air once again, and Arby’s continual and effective advertising of the Roastburger lured me in for my lunch excursion. I love the Bacon Beef and Cheddar sandwich, so I was delighted to see that the “Roastburger” had the option of coming with Bacon, Beef, and Cheddar. “How,” I wondered to myself, “how could they improve on such a brilliantly simple formula?”
Apparently, Arby’s seems to think that adding old lettuce and a tomato to said sandwich warrants a change in name and a massive advertising campaign. I would have been better off stopping at the Teeter, buying my own Lettuce and Tomato, and making my own “Roastburger.”
I’m not saying that it wasn’t good, I’m just issuing a warning to all of you out there who were inspired by the thought of such a bold innovation at a national fast food chain; you will be disappointed. But such is life. You may want to follow my example and drown your sorrows in a Frosty Float, which is every bit as fantastic as you would hope and expect.
Apparently, my little blog is on the blogroll of the website http://lowcountrybloggers.com . Even though my updating has been sporadic, I made it to that esteemed list. Who knew?
On this note, I do feel that the term “lowcountry” best describes my regional affiliation. I’m not “Southern,” by almost any stretch of the imagination – born in Panama to a Yankee Mother who was born in Chicago and grew up in Idaho, and a Father who was born in Puerto Rico and grew up in New Jersey. Nor can I consider myself a Charlestonian, due in large part to my stated lineage, and also to the fact that I grew up in the unincorporated area of Sangaree, which is outside of Summerville, 30 minutes away from the Holy City.
But I feel I can proudly call myself a “Lowcountryman.” All that’s required to be such, if you are unable to claim the title of Charlestonian, is to have an unreasonable love of not just Charleston (though that is required), but also all the surrounding areas all the way down to Savannah and about halfway to Myrtle Beach.
I realized this fact everytime I bike out on Johns Island, to the beach, or out in the woods in Berkeley County. I especially realize it when I leave the lowcountry. No matter how fantastic a time I may have away from my home, I always feel what can barely be described as elation as I return. This is how I know I don’t deserve the descriptor of “Southerner,” because even an hour and 30 minute drive inland leaves me feeling slightly homesick.
Even with all this said, I definitely am looking forward to leaving my beloved lowcountry, its mild weather, its ocean breezes, its oyster roasts, and its scenic drives. This is due in large part to restlessness on my part; I love travelling. But I look forward even more to returning, better able to appreciate my home.
I realize that I have been a little absent from this blog, and I apologize. For about the last year or so, I have been very lax in my updating (read: almost never doing so). As I wrote the last post, I realized how much I do miss writing frequently. For a spell there I was updating almost daily, and something multiple times in one day. To be honest, the reason for that was because I was bored most of the time.
Now, however, I am rarely bored. My days are filled, work keeps me busy, and living in West Ashley affords me more opportunities to be outside and active (biking in the warmer months, swimming in the colder months). I have been reading more, which is something I had neglected for a while, much to the detriment of my soul. Before all this, I would spend my time thinking of posts that you, yes you, dear reader, would find interesting. Perhaps you would tell your friends, and then they would tell their friends, and before long I would be an internet sensation(!).
As you know, this is not what happened (though I was getting more and more hits with each week). I know I’ve posted several of these “I-haven’t-posted-in-a-while-but-I’m-going-to-start posting-more” posts, but this time I’m serious. Once a week, for sure – once a day, if possible.
One thing you can look forward to is the possibility of a travel blog this summer. I definitely want to take some kind of trip (I’d love to take a bus somewhere), and the fact that I now own an iPod touch makes on the go blogging much easier (before I had to wait until I got to Wallace, Idaho to use an internet cafe, where the charge for using said internet was my purchase of a boysenberry milkshake – everyone wins). I have until March 31st to take advantage of a special which would allow me to get a round-trip bus ticket to anywhere for 100 bucks – so we’ll see.
I do ask you, Dearest Reader, to be patient with me as I get back in the swing of updating. These next few posts will likely be duds.
Yeah, I know. So far this entry is off to quite a weak start. But I’ll have you know that I tried adapting the original quote in Latin and replacing the latin for “watchmen” with “The Watchmen.” But the verb used in Juvenal’s quote is custodare, which translates more into “guard”. Anywho. Now that you are all once again well acquainted with my nerdiness, I will begin the meat of the post.
This past tuesday, I went with several friends to go see Zach Snyder’s new masterpiece, “The Watchmen.” There were two main highlights of the experience: going to Cinebarre, where you can order a delicious pizza, beer, and or milkshake, and the previews. All the previews are movies that I am looking forward to, so that did not disappoint.
The movie, however, did very much disappoint. When the end credits started rolling, I could think of only one word to describe it – dumb. I have since thought exactly why it was dumb, and I feel that I can adequately describe my feelings toward the movie.
A quick preface – I did read the graphic novel, and that did have an impact of my opinion of the movie.
1. The Soundtrack. Seriously, every song and musical cue that came on made me groan. I don’t have anything against the 80’s, or its music, but there are other ways to indicate the time period in which the movie is set without using 99 Luftballoons in the cheesiest way possible.
2. Every piece of acting (Rorschadt and Dr. Manahattan excluded. The Comedian was good too, but not as important to the forward moving storyline). Was Ozymandias german in the graphic novel? Maybe he was, but it wasn’t until much later in the movie that he starts to affect some kind of accent. There’s been enough written about Laurie’s (Malin Ackerman’s) lack of realistic human expression, but the main point that I noticed was in the sex scene. It was as if her direction was to watch some porn, and then act like that, and then, for no reason, look angry. It didn’t help that the sex scene was set in slow motion to a cover of The Hallelujah song. Even Dan Dreiberg seemed to have a very limited repertoire of facial expressions. Confused, impotent, and awkward smile. Rorschadt was a high point of the movie, but they even screwed him up, which I’ll go into in point number 4.
3. The movie was simply a frame by frame shot of some (if not most) of the graphic novel. The movie added absolutely nothing to my enjoyment of the original. I think, I have to agree with Terry Gilliam’s original claim that the graphic novel is unfilmable. The pacing of the novel is brilliant. The depth of each panel is not meant to be glossed over, but to be soaked in and enjoyed. The movie, by it’s very nature, simply glosses over all the details that make the novel such a pleasure to read. (Another note: I do NOT, in general, like graphic novels. Alan Moore’s work, thusfar, has been a HUGE exception to this rule.) Arguably, the biggest moment of the graphic novel is… SPOILER ALERT SPOILER ALERT…
when the “villain” reveals that he has already carried through with his plan. We have that frame with the simple “I did it 30 minutes ago,” followed by a large frame of our “heroes” looking open-mouthed in disbelief at him.
In the movie, the actors’ lack of ability, compounded with musical cues (dun dun dun!), made that scene seem cheesy and tacky, like much of the movie.
To be fair though, I did quite enjoy the change to our “villain’s” plan from the graphic novel to the movie. I’m almost inclined to say that I like the idea from the movie better than a giant squid monster. Read the book, if you haven’t already, to know what I’m talking about.
4. The last thing I would like to point out is the minor and unnecesary changes (omissions and additions) to certain characters, that greatly affect their impact and the understanding of such characters. I will be using specifics so be forewarned, more SPOILERS abound. Not having Laurie smoke was a silly decision. I understand that the good guys don’t smoke in movies anymore, but Laurie is a complex character, and her attempts to quit smoking in the novel highlight some of the nuance that make her character so enjoyable. Also, when she first gets in Archie, why did she hit the button with a very clear fire symbol on it? In the graphic novel, she mistakes it for a cigarette lighter – because that is understandable. In the movie, she’s just some dumb woman who messes with buttons. She had just as much reason to hit the button with two missiles on it.
Also, I hate how stoney Ozymandias was in the movie. In the graphic novel he is charming, and reveals his exultation at succeeding with his master plan. In the movie he is pompous and lacks any expression that doesn’t make me want to punch him. His exclamation of “I did it!” in the graphic novel, reveals a major part of his character – his uncertainty towards his plan. This is lacking in the movie.
But my biggest (although seemingly insignificant) beef is with two changes to Rorschadt in the movie. One is with the line “Your hands, my pleasure,” as opposed to “your hands, my perspective.” That really stuck out for me, since the latter is such an emotion-neutral line. But the movie version, substituting pleasure for perspective, is not only unecessary, but it makes Rorschadt’s motives seem hedonistic instead of “righteous.” I never got any indication from the novel that Rorschadt enjoyed what he did, not like the Comedian did. He felt it was necessary. He had to distinguish between black and white, right and wrong, not out of enjoyment, but out of a weird self-imposed duty.
The second scene I had a big problem with is when Rorschadt kills the kidnapper/murderer. In the novel Rorschadt kills him by handcuffing him to something, leaving him with a saw, and then upon telling him not to even bother trying to cut through the handcuffs, burning the building down. We are left to our own imaginations to visualize the man trying to escape the burning building, while Rorschadt stands calmly outside. In the movie, all of this is thrown out the window in favor of having Rorschadt fly into a rage and kill the man with a cleaver to the head. This seemed to sum up my general impression of the movie – the nuance and subtlety of the book replaced with more blood, carnage, and sex.
Basically, it is a highly faithful adaptation of the comic, and it did have a few enjoyable scenes, but it pales in comparison with the original source. This wouldn’t be such a problem if the original source wasn’t as brilliant as it is, making the movie, quite simply, dumb.
Well it has actually been forever since my last post. I’m quickly posting this from my new iPod touch. I never thought I would be one of those people who do this kind of thing. But seriously, this thing is magic. My thumbs are huge so 90 percent of the time I hit the wrong key. The good thing is that 99 percent of the time that that happens this device reads my mind to correct all my mistakes.
I think that there are only 3 of you who still check this blog, but I am going to try and post more often. Until then.
It’s been brought to my attention that I’ve not posted in a while (over a month), and the masses are yearning for further insight from me regarding national events, as well as funny things to read while they are at work.
Anyways, a lot has happened since I last posted. The main thing that I’m going to talk about is a certain Alaskan Politician who has found herself one election away from having a 1 in 3 chance of becoming the leader of the free world, commander in chief of the largest military on the planet, and executive head of all government for the only remaining true global superpower.
Of course I’m talking about the Governatrix from Alaska, Sarah Palin.
Now I am not a fan of either ticket for the White House, but Governor Palin is so blatantly uninformed and unqualified that it boggles the mind why Senator McCain picked her as his running mate.
Everyone is saying that she did so well last night in the debate, which, of course, I watched. She came across as strong and folksy and didn’t say anything quite as idiotic as she did in any of her recent interviews. I’d like to address this in two ways.
First, does anyone realize how incredibly sexist the media’s (and the public’s) treatment of Governor Palin is? Geraldine Ferraro said last night after the debate that she wanted her to do “OK” to be able to prove that she can hold her own against a man. Why are we holding her to a different standard? Is it because she’s cutesy and feminine? What would have not “holding her own” looked like? Running off the stage in tears?
These were not concerns with Hilary Clinton, regardless of what you thought of her, she’s done well as a politician, not just for a woman, but for anybody. You want to know who’s really responsible for this? Sarah Palin herself, by referring to herself as a lipsticked pitbull, emphasizing the fact that she’s a woman running for the white house, and with campaign materials like this:
In case you forgot she was a woman, she replaced the “i” in Palin with lipsick. She’s one of you, women of America!
Second, I wouldn’t even classify her performance, and that’s what it was, a performance, as impressive. She evaded the questions and even stated that she wasn’t going to answer the questions the way that the moderator or “Joe” wanted her too. What does this show? It shows her lack of understanding on the issues, as was CLEARLY evidenced in all the interviews she has given, except in the debate she spoke directly to the American people about completely different things.
Joe Biden was knowledgeable enough to use specifics to attack John McCain and defend Barack Obama (yes, everyone fudged some facts). He answered just about every question and addressed Palin’s blatant misunderstandings, and incorrect conception of what the Constitution says the vice president does. To be honest, if there was any uncertainty in my dislike of Palin, it was cemented in place when she revealed that she has probably never even read the U.S. Constitution. Her taking the oath of office would be like me swearing to defend and uphold the text of James Joyce’s Ulysses (which is impossible to read in the first place).
Well, this is already a rant, and it’s long and not funny. The next post will be amusing, I promise you.
As you would guess, from the title of this post, I am in the process of organizing the Proletarian Revolution that will usurp the power of our capitalist, corporate oppressors.
Of course I’m kidding. (Stay strong comrades). For the past week or so, I have been enjoying residence in a lovely home in Mount Pleasant. The owner of the home is an English Professor at the College of Charleston (hey, I went there), who speicalizes in the Victorian Era. Every summer, he and his lovely family take three weeks and go to Maine. There is a problem with this plan, however, in that this lovely family has found itself to be the custodians of two Springer Spaniels, three chickens, a gerbil, and a beta fish. Again, this is Mount Pleasant.
Here’s a quick Geography Lesson for those of you who have not lived in the Charleston Area. You’ve got Downtown Charleston, North Charleston, Mount Pleasant, John’s Island, Kiawah Island, James Island, Folly Beach, and the part of Charleston that lies West of the Ashley river aptly named – “West Ashley.” This is going to be a bit of a detour from the main idea of the post, so for those of you with short attention spans, skip ahead, but be sure to return to this part. This will be covered on the final. The Downtown area is where all the touristy stuff is, as well as some of the most expensive property per square foot in the entire USA. Stay away from the east side if you can. North Charleston was listed as the 6th most dangerous city in the US by the FBI. But it’s getting better, so I hear. There’s also an Outlet Mall there. John’s Island is one of the few rural areas around. They’re trying to put an interstate through it, which would take care of that pesky problem. Kiawah Island is a private island. It’s residents include: Stan Lee, Mel Gibson, Tara Lipinski, and many other rich people who want to live near Charleston, but as far away from North Charleston as possible. Also, it’s unbelievably beautiful out there. James Island is not really rich, not really poor. It’s kind of a stoner town – but not really. James Islanders are known for two things: trying to secede from the municipality of Charleston, and being so close to Folly Beach. Folly Beach is a stoner town. Also, surfers. That might be redundant, though. “West Ashley” is where I live. It constitutes a majority of the actual land that makes up Charleston. It is almost entirely residential, and has two main arteries of traffic. Which apparently don’t seem to be bothering city planners who are allowing about a bazillion more homes to be built on said arteries, which are already congested without doing anything to expand them. Brilliant. Mount Pleasant is a rich area for people who want to be rich, but don’t want to commute an hour from Kiawah to get to work. The neighborhoods are all nice, the homes are almost always big, and most residents are the kind who would call code enforcement officers when their neighbors began raising chickens in the back yard. (perfectly legal, btw). Which brings us back to the subject at hand.
The “chickens” part of the housesitting is not a difficult part. You open up their little house, they come out. You collect the eggs, refill their water, give them some feed, lock up their fence, forget about them until the sun sets, close the door to their cage, and then go to bed. Very little is cause for deviation from this routine.
It is of course the “dogs” part of the housesitting that I would like to relate to you. They have two Springer Spaniels, which look like this:
Their names are Gracie and Nelly. Gracie is old and likes to lie around a lot and be loved. Essentially, she is the perfect dog – aside from the fact that she also farts a lot. Gracie normally has a look on her face that expresses a sublime world-weariness that only age can bestow. I don’t have a picture of either dog, but here are Gracie’s Human counterparts – only more grumpy -
Nelly is, in the fullest sense of the word, as far as I’m convinced, an idiot. She’s much younger than old, tired Gracie, and fully of energy and stupidity. Luckily, for some reason, both dogs collapse on the floor around me while I’m typing, so I don’t really have to worry about them right now. Both, however, have decided to do so on all of my notes for Claims Investigation. C’est la vie.
One interesting quirk about Nelly is that she will fetch a ball, but will not, NOT, drop it unless she sees that you have one ready to throw and for her to chase. If you can only find one ball, and throw it, prepare for a rousing time of chasing her around the yard, then ignoring her so that she comes up to you timidly, and finally ripping the ball out of her surprised mouth. The surpise lasts for approximately .5 seconds, as she is immediately running to get this new ball, which you have not thrown yet.
One more anecdote about Nelly, and then I’m done for now. By the way, the only anecdotes I have about Gracie are boring, becuase she’s a good dog all the time, yes she is, yes she is. We found the plastic cup that we put chicken feed in half eaten. All the words you just read are correct. “Plastic” “Cup” and “eaten”. It did not take a lot of deduction to come to the conclusion that clearly Nelly had been framed. Why would she eat a cup? that’s just silliness. Then two nights ago, we are awoken to hear Nelly coughing. It’s dark, but it looks like she’s trying to eat something. I wake up to investigate. What she was trying to eat was her own vomit, as dogs do. As a human, I am repulsed by this and send Nelly to her little kennel thing. When I go to clean it up, I find that there are small hard pieces of something in the regurgitation. It did not take me long to revise my original conclusion that Nelly had been framed to “Nelly is clearly an idiot.” Heather, who groggily awakes, asks me where Nelly is. I say I put her in her cage. “Why?” she asks. Instead of giving a detailed explanation, as I just have to you, I simply reply, “She puked up a cup.”
It’s not as funny now, I imagine, but at 4 in the morning, most things are.
If you skipped down here, over all the previous writing, please go back and read it. I’m sure it was completely accidental that you omitted the majority of the post, so I’ll forgive you…this time.
So I was at Costco about a week back. I was just doing some shopping – groceries and the like, when I spied this in the DVD section:
I had heard about this movie. I had heard it was terrible, bizarre, and poorly acted. I had to have it. This may seem like a bizarre desire, so I should explain myself.
The Fountainhead is a novel by Ayn Rand, an author/philospher, which served as a medium for her to express her philosophy, Objectivism, through characters which lived according to its tenets.
Objectivism is the philosophy that all individuals should be treated as ends, and not means. As Ayn Ran summed it up, Objectivism’s basic ideas can be broken up thusly
Why this interest in the Fountainhead and Ayn Rand? You ask. It was on her philosophy that I wrote my Bachelor’s Essay. I find Objectivism to be a very logical and (seemingly) paradoxically heartfelt and warm philosophy. It’s focus is on the individual working in concert with others, and all are pursuing their own Rational Self Interest, resulting in a semi-utopian society, though that is not the goal.
Soooo I paid 12 dollars and took the Fountainhead DVD home with me. I put off watching it until last night.
It was terrible. Awful. Hilarious. It wasn’t really until after the movie that I realized just how hilarious it was. Unless you have read the book, I doubt that you would even know exactly what is going on. The dialogue is choppy and robotic. The would be “sex” scene is overacted and bizarre (much like the corrosponding scene in the book in that case).
Basically, it’s hard to realize just how unrealistic the dialogue in the novel is until you see it acted out on screen.
A much much better version of the novel can be found here.
- “what are you gonna do with that?” (the answer of law school usually satisfies them)
- “what type of philosophy did you study?”
- “you wanna know why my philosophy is?” (The answer to this one is always no)
- “hey, I majored in philosophy!”
- laughter…<pause>…”wait, really?”
- some story about a friend who majored in a philosophy and has done absolutely nothing with his life, and regrets it completely.
- some story about a friend who majored in philosophy and is highly successful, in a field that has absolutely nothing to do with Philosophy.
- “I’m not surprised, because I find philosophy majors incredibly attractive. My name’s Ginger, by the way.”
- “A philosophy major killed my father, you bastard.”
- “I took a philosophy class once in college. It was really hard.”
- “Don’t you find that Kierkegaard’s use of a Christian voice, vis a vis, Johannes de Silentio, is intended to illustrate ideas that are not essentially Christian, such as the leap of the absurd, demonstrated using faith as an example?” (answer: yes)
- “Well isn’t that nice? Here’s 5 dollars.”
- “Well isn’t that nice? Here’s 50 dollars.”
- “I can see you’re putting that to good use.” (usually said while I’m at work…at the park)
Today, as I was driving the company truck around – a massive Ford F-150 – Alanis Morisette’s “Ironic” came on the radio. I don’t think I’ve actually heard this song since High School, and remembered liking it then. As with many nostalgia inducing songs of my “youth,” I turned up the radio. Now it is nothing new that the main form of Irony in her song is that it is a song about Irony that fails to illustrate any true examples of Irony. This isn’t entirely true, however, as the third stanza about “Mr Play It safe” being afraid to fly and then being a passenger on a plane that crashes is, in fact quite ironic. One does need the outside knowledge that airplane travel is touted as the “safest form of travel,” but we’ll give Alanis the benefit of a doubt on that one.
The rest of the ironically non-ironic examples that she gives are all pretty much just unfortunate turns of events – not necessarily irony. But they can be, with a little help – which is why I’m here – to ironize those amazingly erudite lyrics (that’s verbal irony). The names of characters who have suffered irony have been used to erase all forms of subtlety.
Oedipus had reached the end of his life. He was celebrating his 98th birthday, and was deathly ill. To overcome the illness, he would need a very expensive surgical procedure. In his final moments, he called his daughter Antigone to his side.
“My darling,” he said, “take this 5 dollar bill and get me a powerball ticket. Then maybe I’ll be able to leave my family something useful behind, since I gambled away all of your inheritance. Just be sure to play my lucky numbers.”
Antigone, realizing that this was a useless gesture, and harboring a deep loathing of the gambling that had eaten up the family riches, kept the 5 dollars and bought him a candy bar instead. She kept the change.
The next day, the numbers were announced. His lucky numbers were the winning lottery numbers. He was so excited about finally winning the lottery that his heart gave out and he died.
Romeo was a tyrant king who was notorious for inventing absurd methods of execution. One of his favourites was death by spooning. It was similar to stoning, except, instead of stones, spoons were thrown at the person until he was slowly bludgeoned to death. When Romeo was informed that he had just finished a glass of Chardonnay that had a black fly in it, and was not made aware of it until it was too late, he ordered the cook to be spooned. The cook, having spent all his life around various types of flat ware, was able to dodge the deadly spoons. Fed up with the ineffectual nature of spooning in this case, Romeo told the cook to give him his knife. The cook, remaining loyal even upon threat of death, gave his knife to the king, who stabbed the loyal cook with it.
Years later the king met a beautiful woman, Desdemona, who tamed him and made him a much more benevolent leader. They got married, but it rained on their wedding day throwing the king into a rage, causing him to be 2 minutes too late to pardon a man he had sentenced to death earlier in his tyrannical career. Because of this, Desdemona called off the wedding. The compounding events of the innocent man’s death, and losing the love of his life caused him to sink into an irreversible depression. Unable to deal with the depression, he killed himself…with a spoon.
—–
I’ve got nothing for “free ride when you’ve already paid,” “traffic jam when you’re already late,” or “no-smooo ooo king sign on your cigarette break.” Not very ironic…don’t you think?
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Ok, ok, ok. I know. It’s a weak post. I haven’t posted in a while, and thought this would make for a funny post. I realize now that it isn’t funny, nor that creative. But without the stupid posts, how would you appreciate my posts that are much more brilliant. Think about that.
I really do appreciate everything you’re doing for me right now. I’m getting some hands on experience with the more practical aspects of being a paralegal, and I imagine that such experience will prove useful once I enter the job market for that, my first, stage of the legal profession. So please keep that in mind as I say what I have to say right now…
You are, quite possibly, the biggest waste of time and energy I’ve ever encountered.
I know your feelings are a bit hurt right now, but let me try and explain to you how worthless you are. Yesterday, I stood out at the intersection of Meeting and Calhoun streets downtown, and painstakingly took notes on all the features of said intersection. Every tree, every building, every sign, the stop lights, the cycle of the stop lights, every bush, every curb, and every flag pole has been accounted for in my notes so that I may construct a detailed diagram of that, the busiest, intersection in Downtown Charleston. As I paced off the distance from the curb to the edge of the Holiday Inn, I cursed how useless this assignment was. I gained nothing from doing this. It was pointless. If I work for a lawyer, and he/she asks me to diagram an intersection for an accident case, this Class will have been no help in the process. I imagine that the lawyer would send someone who has done this before and then I would tag along to find out exactly what he/she wants – or he/she would give me explicit instructions – much like this assignmnet – and I would do it…for money. I spent 3 hours in the heat, and all I can say I got from the experience is a nice Flip Flop tan on my feet.
I mean I appreciate having a class that offers such wonderful hands on experience, but I figure that I’m going to get most of that hands on experience as a paralegal. I can’t imagine any lawyer looking for a paralegal, and assuming that graduates from the Trident Technical College Paralegal program are fully prepared to do everything their first day on the job.
The other courses that Trident has to offer are quite useful, however. Legal research was a good one. Those are skills that a lawyer does not want to have to teach his/her paralegals. Same goes for general knowledge. That’s stuff that is useful for paralegals to have coming out the gate.
Busy work, however, is not useful. It makes me want to tear my hair out, and run repeatedly into a wall. One might say that that would be counter productive, but I’m not going to pass judgement.
So don’t feel too bad, I’m sure it’s not your fault that you are a useless sack of crap of a class.
Well I finally got a copy of The New Hold Steady Album, Stay Positive. How did I get it early, you ask? Um… Itunes…yeah…Itunes, that’s it. Regardless, I have the album, and have been listening to it non-stop for the last couple of days. My first impression was not as strong as my impression of “Stuck between stations,” or “Chip’s Ahoy” from Boys and Girls of America. Go back to my post about concerts and scroll down to the Hold Steady section, and re-watch the live performance of Stuck Between Stations. In re-reading that post, I realized that that video was by and large the best one.
But back to the album. It didn’t have that initial hook that the last one did, but I gave it a couple more listens. The reason that this is probably my favourite Hold Steady album – aside from the initial love of it – is that it draws heavily from their first three albums. Little references here and there, old lyrics recycled and made new. Whether talking about “killer parties,” “Emore (spelling?) City,” and “Whoever’s gonna get you the highest,” the Hold Steady does a great job of using these old images from their previous albums and making them new and fresh.
In the same way, this new Hold Steady album is great in a lot of the ways that the new Death Cab album is great. They’ve gone back to the religion vs rock and roll content of their first two albums, but they’ve clearly gotten better as a band as well. Almost Killed Me and Separation Sunday are fantastic albums, but their slightly unpolished, and Craig Finn was making no attempt to sing. Boys and Girls was a fantastically catchy album, that still had great lyrics (“There was that night that John Berryman thought that he could fly, but he didn’t so he died” or this one, which gets me everytime:
He said “I’ve surrounded myself with doctors
And deep thinkers.
But big heads with soft bodies
Make for lousy lovers.”)
but didn’t have that same grit of the first two albums. This one pulls it all together.
Now I know that some of you just are not going to get past Craig Finn’s voice, which is sad for you, but there you go.
I think that one reason I really love bands like Death Cab, The Decemberists, and The Hold Steady, is because their lyrics are so easily recognizable and quoteable. I mean, you can read these lyrics off of the page and hear the music easily with them. The music and the lyrics are inseparable. Take this Decemberists Lyric for example, from the Crane Wife Album: She’s grand, the bend of her hand diggin deep into the sweep of the sand.
So go buy the new album on Itunes. Definitely do NOT, I repeat, NOT download a copy of the leaked album via torrent download. Or buy the album when it comes out in July – which I’ll be doing as well.
As you might suspect, this post is about concerts. Namely, the ones that I have attended. I just went to see Rilo Kiley at the Music farm last Thursday, and thought that I would do a quick list of all the concerts I’ve gone to in my life. Sounds like fun. I’m not going to include Orchestra concerts I’ve gone to at the Gaillard and elsewhere. Instead, I’ll confine this to pop/rock. I’ve also realized that this can get long and boring, and for those of you who require additional visual stimuli, I’ve embedded some youtube videos, either of the artists, or live versions of songs. I’ve tried to post videos from the venue I saw the show, or at least the same tour on which they were traveling, when I saw them. Enjoy!
First Concert: Carman – 1994 or 1995 – North Charleston Coliseum – North Charleston, SC
For those of you who, fortunately, don’t know who Carman is, he is a Christian Pop/Rap star from the 80’s primarily, but who continued through the 90’s. When I was little, I was all about this Christian Music. Needless to say, I was not “cool.” I haven’t listened to Carman since then, and just now I did a Youtube search of his music, and nearly died laughing. Here’s a clip:
Please tell me you didn’t listen to it all the way through. And I’m not anti-christian here, I don’t think ANYONE should listen to this. I just hope that Christian Hip-Hop has gone the wayside forever.
Concert #2 They Might Be Giants – Fall 2004 – The Music Farm – Charleston, SC
This was my first REAL concert, as I would define it, and my first They Might Be Giants show. This pretty much brands me as a huge nerd. But it was fantastic. They were promoting The Spine on this tour, and also played the song Charleston for the first time. Here’s a They Might Be Giants clip.
Not exactly the same intensity of the Farm, but it’s the best quality live version of James K Polk I could find. There was a confetti cannon at the show.
This show I went to completely on a whim. I had just heard the song Portions for Foxes on the radio for the first time, and loved it. I bought the album, and loved the album. THEN I heard that they were coming to the Music Farm that same week that I had heard the song on the radio for first time and bought the album. Heather and I decided to go. It was fantastic. I can’t find any clips from that tour, but here’s a live clip from the album:
Concert #4 – The Decemberists – Fall 2005 – The Orange Peel – Asheville, NC
My first time driving a long distance to see a show, it would not be the last. This also came about as a kind of whim. Death Cab for Cutie was touring to promote their new album, Plans, and all of our friends were going to go to Atlanta (the nearest venue) to go see them. We procrastinated buying our tickets, and when we attempted to, the show had sold out. We decided to check if any other bands we like were playing, and The Decemberists were playing that Friday in Asheville. (This was Wednesday when we learned of the sold out Atlanta show). We bought tickets, and drove 4 hours to Asheville to see The Decemberists Live. It was FANTASTIC. One of the best shows I’ve ever seen hands down. I do have a live video from their tour, from the DVD version of their portland show that year:
Concert #5 – They Might Be Giants – April 2006 – Music Farm – Charleston, SC
Of course I went to go see them again. When your favourite band comes to your hometown, you have to go, that’s just that. Worried that I might be disappointed, since the first show was so fantastic, I was a little scared. That all faded into a warm Nerd-Ecstasy that can only be brought about by the fact that they saved Birdhouse in Your Soul until the second encore. Sorry, no good Music farm clips. Here’s a clip from the tour:
But this pretty much gives a good example of how awesome the show is.
Concert #6 – The Decemberists – October 27, 2006 – The Tabernacle – Atlanta, GA
How sad that they refuse to come to South Carolina. Alas, I will go to them. Knowing how fantastic the Crane Wife will be live, we pack some bags, and make the 5 hour trip to Hotlanta. The city is dead, save for the mass of Decemberists Fans roaming the streets. The Tabernacle definitely wins as most awesome venue. Luckily, youtube actually has one of my favourite moments from the very concert that I attended. So here, live my life vicariously through technology:
Here’s the second part:
Fantastic. One of those “woos” is most definitely mine.
Concert #7 – Death Cab for Cutie – November 18, 2006 – Littlejohn Coliseum – Clemson, SC
This was a birthday present from my sister. She got me two tickets. She’s awesome. This was also the first time that Death Cab played in SC. Sadly, it was at Clemson. We were up in stadium seating, which is not too conducive to a band like Death Cab. Plus we were behind some crazy people who were really there for Ted Leo who opened. Again, another clip from the actual show:
I went to this concert with a friend of mine, who is a HUGE pumpkins fan. I posted about this already in a post a while back. But it was on the way to this concert that my front right tire tore apart the entire right front fender and part of the bumper. We put on the spare and continued. Thank goodness, because this was easily the most intense show I’ve ever been to. My chest actually hurt during the show from the bass…in a good way. Again, here’s an actual clip:
Concert #9 The Polyphonic Spree – July 15, 2007 – The Showbox – Seattle, WA
If you keep an accurate chronology of events I mention in my blog, this would be the show I saw while in Seattle last summer as halfway point of my Greyhound Summer Journey. Obviously. We didn’t know they were playing in Seattle when we got there. This would definitely rank as one of the most FUN shows I’ve ever been to, which would be inevitable when you’ve got 30 people on one tiny stage.
and here’s a clip with me in it. I am literally at the last second, with my long monkey arms reaching out to the lead singer.
Concert #10 Art Brut and The Hold Steady – Fall 2007 – The 40 Watt Club – Athens, GA
This was the beginning of my Concert Binge 2007. Four of my favourite bands were playing in the same 30 day period. This began with The Hold Steady and Art Brut playing in Athens. I like Art Brut, so that was a bonus, but THS was definitely the main event. It was a tiny intimate venue, which was perfect for a band like them. Again…here’s an actual clip:
I’m one of those waving hands up front. Un-freakin-believablly amazing
Concert #11 – The New Pornographers – Fall 2007 – The Orange Peel – Asheville, NC
This was actually a little bit of a disappointment. I love The New Pornographers. NO ONE has catchier songs with more intelligently written lyrics. Not to mention the fact that Neko Case is a member of the super group. It was a really good show, but I think I was expecting the show to be as phenomenal as the first time I ever heard Mass Romantic. I rate it about a 6 out of 10.
Concert #12 – They Might Be Giants – October 31, 2007 – Music Farm – Charleston, SC
Yes, TMBG on Halloween. The band had some ghoulish makeup on. and played some stuff from their new album – The Else. I went to the show as a pirate/miner/dwarf/bearded guy. It was fun. Again, here’s a clip form the tour, but not the show itself.
Concert #13 – Rilo Kiley – June 12, 2008 – Music Farm – Charleston, SC
I was really excited to see them again, because I am now a huge fan of Rilo Kiley, where I was only a passing fan when I first saw them. I loved their new album, Under the Blacklight, and really wanted to see it live. The show got out at about 1:00am on Friday the 13th of June…and it was my 13th concert… is your mind blown? No…well watch this:
Crappy video…but that was the show I was at last week. So there you go.
And that about wraps it up. I think this might be my longest post ever. So Congratulations for making it this far.
