Guilt and Innocence: A daily primer

The book industry reaches a new low...

Some frat boy writes a book about a night of drinking 21 shots and now it seems he's planning on taking down the book industry with him.

In order to make the book more appealing to college-age readers, Iversen plans to release shot glasses and a clothing line based on the book. He is also working on a movie based on the novel.

Books should not be marketed like the latest B-list movie. Even the crappy romance imprints don't release merchandise to accompany their sub-par writing.

Hide-and-Seek Alarm Clock

As anyone who has had to face me first thing in the morning can attest, I am not a morning person. Also, while alarms do wake me up, I have a tendency to turn them off and go back to sleep.

Well, this clock in development at MIT hides from you when you press the sleep button, ensuring that one is in fact awake.

As soon as this is actually available for sale, I'm buying one.

An interesting turn of events.

I was recently torn between buying tickets to one of two upcoming concerts: Something Corportate and the Decemberists. I ended up buy SoCo tickets as I know they ahve a good reputation live, but it turns out this may have been the better decision for another reason:
The Decemberists recently had their trailer and instruments stolen.

I wonder if they'll make it to Columbia... Hmm. Regardless, it's an unfortunate turn of events for the band.

Book #11: The Book of Illusions

How is it that I will read five or six books in a row without really, truly liking any of them and all of a sudden I read two in a row that I really like?

The Book of Illusions by Paul Auster is a strange book in a few ways. It was definitely and enjoyable and quick read, but I can't for the life of me figure out why. The story itself doesn't sound so literary or engaging. A widowed man finds himself wrapped up in the life of a supposedly missing director of silent films. At best that plot sounds like a bad grocery store novel, but Auster's writing is amazing and surprisingly profound.

There's a quote on the back of the novel from The Wall Street Journal suggesting that Auster is perfecting his own literary genre. If this is the case I would suggest the genre be called something like literary biography. The book reads almost like a biography, but the story is pure fiction.

The final thing about Auster's writing that confounds me is the way he seems to have separated himself so clearly from his work. While reading The Book of Illusions it's easy to forget that you're reading a story or that the is a piece of fiction. The Book of Illusions is nice and immersive, a book that makes it easy to forget the rest of the world.

Short People Rock

Research on the advantages of shorter height.

Okay, so maybe most of you can use me as an armrest, but between my five-foot height, vegetarian diet, and reduced sleep, I am definitely going to outlive all of you.

The things the internet drags in...

I was on a Thesaurus.com page looking for a synonym to "spiritual" to describe How We Are Hungry (though you will note I gave up and used "spiritual-esque:), when I noticed a Google ad for a service claiming to alter your DNA so you can prepare for ascension.

Out of desperate curiosity, I clicked on the link. Scanning the page, it seemed rather like a satirical page, until I noticed that there's actually a Paypal link at the bottom and remembered that whoever is running this site has actually invested money in buying a Google text ad.

Well, I guess there has to be a service for those people for whom Jesus-scented candles and better tasting communion wafers just aren't enough...

Book #10: How We Are Hungry

I actually bought How We Are Hungry by Dave Eggers over winter break and have no excuse as to why I never got around to reading it until now, as I was really excited when it came out and Eggers happens to be just below Palahniuk and Coupland in the favorite authors category. However, I really started reading it as we were driving through Kansas and just devoured the whole thing.

A lot of the reviews I'd read of this book have mentioned that they thought Eggers was trying to hard to be literary and that most of the stories were just too self-conscious. And most of them, in their trite way, claimed that the book left them hungry. However, I think they're all bloody idiots.

I loved this book. Not all the stories are as engaging, and I'm not sure about the extremely short one or two page stories, but I Iove the spiritual-esque feeling that Eggers captures in most of the stories.

Also, the final story in the book, "After I was Thrown in the River and Before I Drowned," is just amazing. I'd actually read in before in Speaking to Angels, a compilation edited by Nick Hornby, but after reading it a second time, I was completely floored. That story alone makes this book completely worth buying this book.

I can't wait for Egger next work, and I hope he continues on his self-conscious,  too literary trend, because I like the direction his work is going, even if the critics don't.

That saying: "You can never come home again." Well...

Every time I come home it takes a few hours before I acclimate to being here and remember why it is that I keep spending ridiculous amounts of money for the privilege of staying here for a few days.

Mostly, it's because the first few hours are spent lying in my bed staring at the ceiling wondering what I'm going to do for the next week.

Somehow I survived my trip across Kansas with someone else's family. It's always weird to be thrown into a situation where you are the odd one out in what is a typical, familial situation. However, the whole situation was not nearly as painful as I feared it might have been.

Darcie spent the night Saturday and I ended up picking a fight and getting upset with her because this seems to be the only interaction I am capable of with her, lately.

I was annoyed when she left Sunday morning and I wanted some sort of distraction, so I called Drew and she came over. We watched some Sex and the City and played The Sims 2: University for awhile before we both declared that the game was torturously boring. Then we watched a Rainbow Brite movie and just laughed at its ridiculous eighties character. By then she was feeling sick, so she went home and I went back to being agonizingly bored.

I decided to take advantage of my digital cable, so I watched Supersize Me! and Clerks. My mommy made me enchiladas for dinner, which I was terribly excited about since I don't get anything approaching edible mexican anywhere in Missouri. The whole state seems to have never been exposed to decent Mexican food.

After dinner, something was happening with our plumbing and my parents began screaming at each other about it. At this point, I was not only bored out of my mind, but annoyed because nothing in this family ever changes and it felt just too much like I was living her again, rather than just visiting, so I made the executive decision to go upstairs, hide, and start reading The Book of Illusions by Paul Auster. At some point I fell asleep and I woke up at three in the morning sprawled sideways across my bed, still in my hoodie.

But, today, today was the sort of day that is worth coming home for. I woke up at about eleven when Darcie called me. I got up, asked my mom to drive me over to her house, took a shower there since our plumbing had yet to be fixed. I didn't really care to be there, but I really needed a shower. I came downstairs and Darcie was ranting about being bored, so we called Ryan, and the three of us went downtown to Paris on the Platte. We ordered drinks, Ryan bought some cloves, and we just sat around and talked for a couple of hours. Afterwards, we went on a brief walk across the Platte to see this old sun dial Ryan had been talking about. However, there were a bunch of shady characters sitting around it, so we only stayed long enough to roll down the steep grassy hill next to it like we were children.

Afterwards, we were vaguely attempting to find the Tattered Cover in the 16th Street Mall, but I really had no idea where it was on 16th Street, so we ended up going to the Barnes and Noble on 16th Street, instead. Oh how I've missed bookstores! It was jsut as well that we ended up at the Barnes and Noble, since I had gift cards there. I bought The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime  by Mark Haddon and Rising Up and Rising Down by William T. Vollman.

The icing on today was that I finally got my Splender CD back from Darcie, which I am now playing loudly in my room. A room to myself, downtown Denver, books, coffee, loud music, and my wonderful, unusual friends.

Yeah, this is why I keep coming home.

Scratch and Sniff Religion

In my earlier post about the new recipe for communion wafers, I basically implied that I don't think religion should enter the marketplace. Well,  the same thing applies for candles that smell like Jesus..

From the article:

"We wanted people to be able to experience Christ in new ways and to be able to read a bible and have that scent and that candle as a reminder that he is with us all the time."

"You can't see him and you can't touch him," says Bob Tosterud. "This is a situation where you may be able to sense him by smelling. And it provides a really new dimension to one's experience with Jesus."

What is America's problem? Do we have to fall for every single gimmick like this?

Furthermore, do they not teach the bible story about Jesus and the moneychangers in the temple, anymore? That was always a favorite of mine, and this is why I think these weird religous products are absurd. Also, to my knowledge hygiene was not that great in ancient Judea, so I doubt anyone is getting an authentic experience of the scent of Jesus.

Pre-Packaged News (or Beating the Dead Horse of Journalistic Integrity)

I know that most of you are probably sick to death of hearing about the  Video News Releases, but this is one of those issues that makes my blood boil so intensely that I can't resist dissecting it.

From the NY Times Article:

It is the kind of TV news coverage every president covets. "Thank you, Bush. Thank you, U.S.A.," a jubilant Iraqi-American told a camera crew in Kansas City for a segment about reaction to the fall of Baghdad. A second report told of "another success" in the Bush administration's "drive to strengthen aviation security"; the reporter called it "one of the most remarkable campaigns in aviation history." A third segment, broadcast in January, described the administration's determination to open markets for American farmers.

...

This winter, Washington has been roiled by revelations that a handful of columnists wrote in support of administration policies without disclosing they had accepted payments from the government. But the administration's efforts to generate positive news coverage have been considerably more pervasive than previously known. At the same time, records and interviews suggest widespread complicity or negligence by television stations, given industry ethics standards that discourage the broadcast of prepackaged news segments from any outside group without revealing the source.

This sort of covert, almost malicious activity on the part of the government, with our tax dollars is appalling. What's worse about this particular situation is that I know I can't blame this whole mess on the government. The media, who are supposed to be protecting the public and revealing this sort of smoky thing to them, have been force-feeding us non-news.

Journalism is supposed to serve to protect the public from the government and when they fail to do so, they are betraying the public trust. Furthermore, when they willingly hand their audience over to the government to save money and maximize profit...  Well, it seems almost like treason.

The Times also wrote:

It is also a process in which all participants benefit.

Local affiliates are spared the expense of digging up original material. Public relations firms secure government contracts worth millions of dollars. The major networks, which help distribute the releases, collect fees from the government agencies that produce segments and the affiliates that show them. The administration, meanwhile, gets out an unfiltered message, delivered in the guise of traditional reporting.

...

In essence, video news releases seek to exploit a growing vulnerability of television news: Even as news staffs at the major networks are shrinking, many local stations are expanding their hours of news coverage without adding reporters.

When I first saw that phrase, "It's a process in which all participants benefit," in J-1100, I remember immediately thinking, "Everyone but the public." Furthermore, at the same time I was reminded of Jon Stewart's appearance on Crossfire, when he kept asking them to stop hurting America. Now, the talking heads on Crossfire seem benign after all the scandal and torrid money that's flowing through journalism right now.

After reading all this, I'm having a crisis of faith about my major. My parents are currently paying the University of Missouri a quarter-grand a year, because a year ago I was still convinced that, even though I knew the media was having its problems, that journalism was still an important role in democracy. But now, I'm just not sure that's true anymore.

I'm trying not to think apocalyptic things, but words like propaganda are turning into warning signs about the coming year of 1984 in my head, and I'm no longer sure that I want to be in journalism. Now, I'm thinking politics may actually be the less corrupt way to go about things. When everything has turned into a careless search for profit, what's the point?

In the words of Jon Stewart, Could everyone please stop hurting America?

How They Got My Roommate: A Cautionary Tale

Dear weblog readers, I feel it is time I share with you a story. It's a story full of intrigue, secret societies, lies, and scandal. It's the story of how my roommate sold her soul to an organization I now believe to be a sinister cult: Phi Sigma Pi.

It seemed innocent at first. There were the letters in the mailboxes we all received. There was rushing and some roller skating. She was accepted and they brought her some candy. They didn't even feel the need to mark our door with their greek letters. (Actually, I'm pretty sure they ran out of signs, but that's clearly beside the point.)

Then things started to take a turn for the worse. Alison, who also sold her soul to PSP, was no longer able to accompany me to Ballroom Dance Club. There was the wearing of the "pins," leaving my poor friends forced to brand themselves with PSP letters, something that some could find a creepy parallel to in Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter.

Then there were the nights when Jessica would return to tell me stories about being led blindly through twisting, narrow stairways in the darkness of night. This sort of behavior progressed into bizarre rituals involving a garden gnome. (I present Exhibit A, Exhibit B, and Exhibit C.)

I was concerned for my roommate, but up until this point I had believed the lies Phi Sigma Pi told her. It was an honors fraternity. They are concerned with service and brotherhood and the occasional healthy alcohol binge. Sure, there were the mandatory study hours where my roommate found herself being required to pour over her books until her eyes were dry and bloodshot, but it was all in the name of scholarship!

And then the wool was lifted from my eyes and I saw the truth:
I was sitting in my room the other afternoon, when my roommate began to play what at first sounded like the theme song to Mickey Mouse Club, so I turned to ask her what she was listening to and she told me it was a Phi Sigma Pi song.  I knew at this point that my roommate as I knew her was gone to me and would never return, but I couldn't yet let her know, for at this point she was too blinded by the haze of the secret society.  To let her think I didn't know, I laughed at her and went back to my work. She then proceeded to play a second Phi Sigma Pi song, and I knew then that it was too late for my roommate.

The song was vaguely reminiscent of a praise song and included phrases that, roughly translated from the music, end up meaning, "I pledge to you, mephistopheles, my life, in service of my brothers..." or something like that.

Hopefully, this truly is a modern Faust tale and my roommate will overcome and survive the ways of Mephistopheles' secret society, but I give you this tale in warning, so that perhaps some reader may be able to save their roommate from a similar fate.

Why Apple sometimes sucks

This is an interesting Boing Boing post about the iTunes 4.7.1 Update:
Apple steals iTunes customers' paid-for rights to stream.

I'm an Apple fan, after all I'm typing this on my Powerbook, but the five users stream limit really irks me, so I've yet to upgrade my iTunes. I almost want to say that Apple is a little bit guilty of a bait and switch method here. As that post points out, Apple is changeing the way your products work after you've already purchased them.

Book #9: The Devil in the White City

I used to consider myself an almost exclusive purveyor of fiction books, and generally literary fiction at that, but recently I've discovered a certain liking for certain non-fiction books like The Devil in the White City by Erik Larson.

The Devil in the White City is the story of a man sometimes named Holmes who commits a string of murders during Chicago's Worlds Fair. I enjoyed the novel, but what seems a bit out of place, if not entirely unnecessary in the exhaustive detail into which Larson covers the planning, building, and execution of the fair. In fact, it's more accurate to say that there are two distinctive plots: the unraveling of Holmes murders and the saga of the planning and building of the fair. I didn't think much of the dual plot as I began the book, as I presumed that the two plots would become intertwined at some point during the book, but this isn't the case.

In some ways I have a difficult time understanding why Larson chose to portray the murders as he did. Holmes does not appear to have been particularly inspired by the fair, nor do his victims seem to be exclusively fairgoers. The fair merely seemed like a helpful coincidence. Furthermore, if one were to pick up the book and read the blurbs they would expect the book to be mostly about Holmes murders, but this isn't the case. The majority of the book is spent discussing the planning and orchestration of the fair, and while this is interesting, it's not necessarily integral to the book. As I was reading, I would find myself impatiently waiting for a chapter that actually concerned Holmes, as his story truly was the most compelling of the novel. (Thus, I can understand why the publishers would market the book so that this story appears to be the main and only focus.)

Then, to further complicate matters, Larson occasionally throws in another story considering the political assassin Patrick Predergast..

All of this is not to say that The Devil in the White City isn't an engaging non-fiction read, but simply that at times it seems that Larson is something of a historian afflicted with ADD. The result of this is that by the end of the novel I was still left wanting to know more about Holmes' string of murders, but perhaps that simply makes me macabre.

Despite what seems to me to be a lack of focus, The Devil in the White City is still a quick engaging read, and one that I think most people with a bit of inkling of curiosity can enjoy once they learn to expect the deviations from the main plot of the book.

Pretentious Personages Anonymous

In retrospect, today was a really good day for me, simply because of some small moments that made me smile.

We went to Shakespeare's for Pizza instead of eating dinner downstairs, which was different and a little fun, but not as exciting as I might have expected it to be. We walked past the little independent bookstore downtown and I temporarily suffered mild withdrawal symptoms, as it has been a long time since I have purchased a book. It's been about three months, in fact, which if you know me at all, is profoundly ridiculous, but I think I may cave when I go home, anyway.

We came back, and I had only been back just long enough to start some laundry when Barry came into our room and whispered, "Coffee..." into my ear, since technically a few of the residents of the floor have decided that I turn into some sort of raging caffeine beast when I drink coffee, which, I would like to point out, is unsubstantiated gossip. So, I went down the hall to his room to drink some coffee and hang out with him and Rachel, which was a good time as always. Though, out of a reaction to some comments Dave has made recently, I asked them if they thought I was pretentious, and Rachel found a pretentious quiz, which affirmed, that, yes, I am pretentious.

I suppose these things happen.

Anyway, we went to Hitt Street surprisingly early, and then came back, hung out for awhile, and then finally Rachel decided she needed to go print things off and her and Barry went downstairs, while I decided to stay behind and read. Somewhere during this it occurred to me that I definitely feel more comfortable in Barry's room than I do in my own, though I couldn't really tell you why. But, for some reason, I just don't want to do much of anything in my own room. I don't feel comfortable reading, studying, or watching television. Which can't really be surprising as I've started to spend so little time in my room, anyway. I honestly think there is some weird Feng Shui in our arrangement that just makes me not want to be in my room.

After Rachel left, Barry and I somehow started talking about religion, as we quite often do and we came to this very interesting point where we were both trying to discuss our concepts of fate and were basically, with slight differences, explaining the exact same idea of the way fate works, which just amazed me. I am constantly impressed by the fact that people can come from completely different backgrounds, like Barry and I, and still essentially end up in the same place.

Finally, Katie came looking for me and insisted that we go to Hitt Street, regardless of the fact that I had already been that night. Despite the absurdness of going twice in one night, I caved and went with her anyway, and, as usual, we discussed life the universe and everything.

I think I've just let go of some things this week and it's nice. I realized that maybe a lot of things aren't living up to my expectations, but I'm doing okay. I have my friends, and even the ones that I sometimes fall into conflict with for one reason or another, are still important in there own way. Sometimes I can't tell if everything is okay, or if I'm settling for an inferior situation, but tonight was definitely one of those nights when I could just let everything go and stop trying so hard to hang on.

Internet Ransom Notes

This site will spell out words using random images from Flickr. (From BoingBoing.)

I'm a big fan of the joy of the classic ransom note, and this site is well:

   

Now, get to writing those ransom notes.

The Cost of Dining...soon to be subjective?

Babu, a new restuaruant in New York, left prices off their menu, allowing patrons to pay what they believed the meal was worth. (Link from Kottke.)

From the article:

The pay-what-you-like policy has caused a certain amount of anxiety among diners, much as the pay-what-you-wish policy at, say, the Metropolitan Museum can cause crises of conscience in the face of a ticket-taking docent’s all-knowing gaze. Only the gauche or exploitative would interpret such an invitation as an opportunity to feed for free; the problem, for the civilized remainder, is the lack of an established code of behavior to follow. The standard meaning, in movies and cartoons, at least, of a missing price tag—if you have to ask, you can’t afford it—is clearly not the governing principle at Babu; but figuring out what the governing principle is is rather like trying to determine the correct size of a doorman’s Christmas tip.

Upon reading this, my first thought was, "They must not expect much business from college students." One of the problems of being a cash-strapped college student is that, even though I've served, I don't tip as well as I would like to simply because I really don't have the money. So, if you allowed me to calculate the worth of my dinner, I would probbably pay less than I would really find the meal to be worth.

However, beyond that snag, I think I like the idea. I think processing payment on a system like this might ultimately create better quality products, but I suppose if it developed on a mass scale, rather than as curiosity, the idea of competition might be slightly undermined.

Campaign Finance Reform: Still Retarded

Yes, my friends, it's time for another thrilling Maneater column. However, it's been brought to me attention that my columns haven't been as funny recently. Well, I'm sorry. You try making campaign finance reform funny.

The best you get is another reference to my love for John McCain.

Taming blogs is impossible on the wild, wild Web

Also, again, I had nothing to do with that headline.

The Body of Jesus: Now with 15% More Flavor

Body of Christ gets new improved flavor.

Ninety master bakers from the island of Funen have taken up the challenge to experiment with new recipes for the holy flesh

Is it just me, or is this an absurd, slightly blasphemous idea? This may be just be me speaking from my non-christian viewpoint on things, but isn't this supposed to be about a religious tradition, not snacking? How the hell do the transubstantiationalists feel about this?

I really just find it creepy when religion and capitalism start to mix. Some things, I think, just don't fall into a market model method of thinking.

As the Copenhagen Deacon said,

After all, the bread should symbolize the body of Jesus, and the wafer shouldn’t be getting all the attention. Just imagine if the pastor at the altar would say ‘This is the body of Jesus Christ. Would you like that with chocolate, vanilla or strawberry taste?

Unphotographable: a text account of pictures missed

I suppose with the proliferation of photo weblogs on the internet it was only a matter of time that someone came up with an anti-photo weblog:
Unphotographable: a text account of pictures missed.

Here, one photographer speaks of all the scenes he didn't photograph. I like it, though I suppose this is one of those things I like that inspires people to call me pretentious.

(Link from Kottke.)

Who Is a Journalist? - Anybody who wants to be.

I have to admit that as much as J-1100 can drive me crazy sometimes, a lot of the topics that we touch on in that class are deeply interesting to me. So, this Slate article about what define journalists seems intriguing:
Who Is a Journalist? - Anybody who wants to be. By Jacob Weisberg.

One interesting point that Wesiberg makes is:

If you don't like this raucous clamor emanating from cyberspace, you're not really comfortable with democracy.

I was just commenting last night that sometimes I feel like I want to talk the easy route of journalism, because rather than go out and find the news, and investigate it, I would rather write the columns that critique the actions of the government or other agencies. But, for me, the opinions on the editorial page are jsut as important as the "objective" reporting leading up to them. I don't think reporting the news is enough. I believe there needs to be some voice who can suggest what the people need to be doing about the news.

This, I think, is where blogs can serve an important purpose. Since the media has gotten so commercialized, it needs its own watchdog to ensure that the media is playing its role as watchdog.

I hate to admit it, but I think Professor Craft had a point in J-1100, when she pointed out that maybe we shouldn't be so concerned with defining who journalists are and protect them, as we should be concerned with indentifying the activity of journalism and protecting that.

Though I like that Wesiberg ends with this: "Properly understood, journalism has never been simply a trade or a profession. In a democracy like ours, it's a basic right."

What She Meant Then

Sometimes the weeks just weigh more than they should.

So, I've survived midterms and I think my grades will survive them as well. Though, sometimes I can't tell whether I'm moving forward or backwards here. I'm getting back to usual, though. I've signed myself up for eighteen hours next semester, but that seems better. I know that there are weeks like this when the stress builds up in my back and I just don't feel like doing anything, but they come no matter what I do, so I might as well do something worthwhile with myself.

Also, I've made a plan that enables me to graduate in four years with a degree in Journalism, a degree in Political Science, and a minor in Spanish. Is this what I want to do with my life? I don't know. I like looking at the names of my upper-level journalism classes, though. Intermediate Writing. Advanced Writing. Editorial Writing. Those sound more like me.

I feel like I'm approaching a point in my life when it will be necessary to start letting go of my dreams and I'm terrified of that point. Or maybe I'm already there. After all, this isn't NYU, and this isn't Northwestern. Maybe we start to let go of our dreams at an age that is too young for me to think about.

One more week and then home. Mountains, coffee, restaurants, bookstores, and a chance for relaxation.

It's still home for now.

Sunday Afternoon Malaise

There are just some days when I am an irrationally rage-filled person and I think this is one of those days.

I woke up early and went to the Unitarian Universalist church in Columbia with Erika, today. It was so nice to go to church and to have that sense of tradition and familiarity, because even though this church is so far away from every other church I've been to, there's just that je ne sais quoi that Unitarian churches have for me. They're my homes away from the world, in a way. That place I can go to get away from all the pettiness of the rest of my life.

Since it was the first Sunday of the month there was a potluck lunch, which was even more amazing than potlucks usually are, since we never get to eat home-cooked food. We went and toured the building a little, and while the building is much bigger than any of the churches I've gone to, it seems like the congregation is small enough that I wouldn't feel too lost. Also, I was asking the woman who gave us a ride home if they did some of the more pagan aspect of things and she gave me the impression that they are more traditional, which makes it seem more like the traditional church I grew up with in New Orleans, which might be a break from the slight new-age feeling that my church at home can have sometimes.

Still, in spite of how much I liked going to church, I was just still angry. Angry about all the little stupid things that build up in relationships with people. I sent Barry a whiney IM and went to talk to him for a while and just kind of talked myself in circles all afternoon, which seems to be all I do lately. I wander from topic to topic and I can't focus on any one thing and I seem to lose all my points in the details.

I just never feel fulfilled. There's just always this tiny, little, seemingly inconsequential thing missing from my relationships here that sends me into these tailspins. Then I drag unassuming people into them and feel guilty afterwards.

I want something substantial and real. But I guess that's like searching for the needle in the haystack...

It's a year for exceptions...

I must be a little bit more optimistic this year or something, because this is the second column I have written that had a slightly positive tone. Actually, now that I think about it, my column commending Bush didn't actually have that much of a positive tone, but I was commending Bush... You have to give me credit for something.

Anyway, this week I tackle a beauty pageant in Botswana:

Progressive pageant takes inner beauty, open mind.

iTunes Romance

The shared music library on iTunes has become a staple of my life. It's especially convenient because I live in a dorm full of undergraduate J-majors who all have Mac laptops, so I'm immersed in an endless sea of music.

Of course, I apparently have been missing the potential of iTunes as dating service, as illustrated in this blog:
They stopped calling it Rendezvous.

I'm not really sure whether that's just sweet or incredibly nerdy. Maybe just a combination of both.

The Disappearing Class Trick

Oh, Caffeine, what a torrid relationship we have. I love you, but you, dear caffeine, I suspect are to blame for many of my erratic sleeping habits.

So after drinking three cups of coffee tonight while investigating the history of soft drinks, I finally persuaded Katie to humor my caffeinated stupor and she accompanied me to Hitt Street where we ran into Claire. We talked for ten or fifteen minutes, while Katie stood there, probably wondering who the fuck this girl was, but all is good when the caffeine is flowing. Anyway, we got our junk food and headed back to my room for one of our typical conversations about anything and everything.

Anyway at some point we were discussing incomes and money and Katie hit on a very potent point: Pretty much all of the J-scholars are ridiculously privileged. She cited for example the brand new shiny Apple laptops we all carry around with us. Though technically a soon-to-be-effective J-school requirement, each one of them represents a heavy investment.

Of course, I don't think very many of us often think of ourselves as privileged. Sometimes I personally feel intimidated because everyone else around me seems to have so much stuff. After all, my entire wardrobe can fit into three drawers and maybe a quarter of my closet, while everyone else seems to be pushing their closet space to the limit.

But thinking about it, it may not be so much that I am on a different economic level, but that for me, I would rather buy books before I'd ever think about buying clothing. Regardless, the more I consider the fact, the more it's become clear to me, that in some sense of the word I am privileged and a little bit spoiled.

What I find most curious about this is the fact that I always have and probably always will consider myself middle class, as is common of Americans. But, while I think it would be a stretch to define my socio-economic stretch as upper-class (okay a very very long stretch), it seems to me that a whole range of incomes get lumped under the term middle class.

And what I think this all boils down is to an American denial of having a class system. For some reason, maybe because so many of us are so very privileged, at least on some level, we just can't admit that not everyone is operating from the some socio-economic status.

My point, in all this musing about class, is that I think I take a lot of things for granted. To a degree, I think that's an inevitability of human nature in itself, but I'm incredibly blessed. My family is well enough off to pay for this laptop, to send me to a not-exactly-cheap out-of-state school and to furnish me with an absolutely excessive collection of books.

I think I get so wrapped in our capitalistic culture of wanting, and needing, and buying and consuming that I seem to forget that I am doing pretty well already. I think, juest every now and then, I need the reality check, because really, my life is a good one to have.

Is George Bush the Antichrist?

Let's take a moment to stand in awe of the wonders of the internet. First, it brought us that obnoxious Muma Muma video I was forced to sit through not once, but twice in J-1100 (If you don't know what I'm talking about, consider yourself amongst the lucky ones), but now it has presented me with undeniable, irrefutable proof that George Bush is the Antichrist.

Okay, so it may not so much be undeniable. Or irrefutable. Okay, proof may be kind of a stretch, but it makes me laugh:
George W Bush is the AntiChrist.

Thanks to my Republican friend Laura for showing me the truth about our dear, beloved president...

Is this what passes for innovation?

The New Yorker: Leapfrog's new FLY pen.

So leapfrog has concocted a creepy pen that when you use special paper, will tell you the definitions of the words you're writing, or you can draw a calculator and it will add for you, or you can draw a piano and play notes.

Now, as thrilling as that all sounds, who needs a pen like that? Admittedly they're aiming for the early teenager market, all of whom will be utterly fascinated I'm sure, but what's wrong with a nice smooth writing uniball for writing, a calculator for calculating, a nicely tuned piano for piano playing. I think there is a point when integration just goes too far.

Still, my favorite part of this whole madness is this:

"After the festivities, Jim Marggraff, the inventor of FLY, said, 'We see applications where FLY will help you with grammar and composition and teach you about story writing.' Glancing dubiously at a reporter’s writing instrument, a ratty blue Paper Mate that lacked an optical sensor, character-recognition software, or even a seventy-thousand-word phoneme-to-speech engine, he added, 'Why would you not want to have a pen that adds value to the words you’re writing?'"

Because being a good journalist is obviously all in the writing utensil.

Me duele en cabeza

Well that was fun.

I'd had a fairly severe headache most of yesterday and I was feeling just so out of it, but truthfully I didn't think much of the situation. Well, I didn't think much of the situation until about four when my head really started to throb. Then I climbed into bed and tried to watch the first season of Arrested Development, but the sounds and the lights were just too much, so I turned off all the lights and just lied in bed, hoping for the horrible pain in my head to subside.

Of course, by now nausea had kicked into full-gear and the light in Kim's head went of" Migraine. And the nausea, vomiting, and sensitivities to all six senses that seem to come with migraines. Fucking wonderful.

So, I spent the rest of the night lying in bed. Periodically thrashing and crying because my head had never hurt so much.

It's hard to be sick when you're alone, in a dorm and you just want someone to take care of you. You want your Mother or someone to be there to just hold you while you regress to elementary school tears.

Also, somewhere in the middle of this Migraine haze I think I yelled at most of my friends for talking, or maybe even breathing too loudly. If you were the unwitting victim of this outburst, I apologize.

Furthermore, I think I may have scared my roommate away from our room. But, really, it's okay now. The wrath of the uber-groggy monster has subsided.

Anyway, for the most part, I feel much better now. I just have the little bits of a headache left, but you know, I don't want to scream every-time the refrigerator clicks on, so that must be a good sign.