posted 2003/07/31 at 22:23
You know, there's nothing quite like finding out that your local Millionaire broadcaster is going to rebroadcast the first woman ever to win the million, then having your VCR suddenly decide that it doesn't want to record anymore. Thankfully I ran to another VCR in the house and got it taped, but that was not a fun experience. (Yes, I know this is completely trivial, but these are the things that happen in my life.)
Anyway, I headed to campus after that, and before class I went up to the Spectrum office and rearranged the furniture a bit. I'd wanted to do this for a while, but let's just say I had some extra incentive to do it now. (And you'll find out that incentive in a few weeks here, I hope.) Things should work out better now; we've got some hanging folders to display our magazines in, I rearranged the couches into a "conversation area" with a view of the bell tower, and best of all I moved the computer desk up against the wall so I don't have to look at anyone when I'm working there and hopefully everyone will leave me the hell alone. Get the hint?
posted 2003/07/30 at 17:57
Interesting thread in the .forum about modern political debate. Normally I don't so brazenly try to drive traffic to the .forum like this, but given the length of the response I just typed to Ville's post, I figure I should just link to it instead of repeating it here.
posted 2003/07/29 at 22:01
Can I sue Ann Coulter for libel for calling me a traitor?
Okay, barring that, I think someone on the left needs to do a counter-book called Scoundrels. As Samuel Johnson once said, "Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel," and I think someone needs to do an in-depth analysis of how the entire right wing -- from Dubya and his minions in the legislature, to the right-wing media outlets like Rush Limbaugh and Fox News -- have tried to portray liberalism, or, indeed, anything but full agreement with all of their bullet points, as anti-American. I'd do it, but I want to keep that straight-A average up this coming year.
posted 2003/07/28 at 22:12
So I've got two more weeks of class here (and just one more test to go), and then I get two weeks off. The scariest thing is, my only real plan for my so-called summer vacation is to try to get some of the latest political books from the library to read. I think I've now offically gone from having no life to having a life that can only be classified by using negative numbers.
posted 2003/07/27 at 23:06
There's almost something maddening about how I'll be studying for a test, I'll get to the point where I can repeat everything off the top of my head, and yet I still keep studying. Maybe I'm just too much of a perfectionist. Maybe it's just because I've got nothing better to do. Or maybe I'm just obsessive-compulsive like that.
Tomorrow it will officially be four weeks until the start of fall semester -- my last at UT. I've had a lot of grad schools I've been looking at this past summer, and now I'm starting to narrow them down a bit. If anyone has any recommendations for a good MFA programme in Creative Writing, I'd love to hear them.
And happy birthday Mom!
posted 2003/07/26 at 00:19
New on Backwash: "Rolled Heads". A very quick politic polemic on the deaths of Oday and Qusay Hussein, and how all the spinning about this being a "turning point" in the US occupation of Iraq is a load of rubbish.
posted 2003/07/23 at 18:54
A small piece of the "wisdom" that's come forth from my lips recently ... "Just because I wish for death doesn't necessarily mean that I believe in death."
And if you think that message was directed towards you ... you're probably right.
posted 2003/07/22 at 13:41
Republicans urge Wisconsin broadcasters not to air "deliberately false and misleading" commercial about Dubya's claims in State of the Union Address (Yahoo News).
You know, this is beyond total bullshit coming from a party that ran deliberate, provable lies about Hillary Clinton's proposed health care reform back in the early days of her husband's administration. (I highly encourage you to read James Carville's We're Right, They're Wrong for details on that, as well as the other subterfuge the GOP used back in the mid-nineties.) The burden of proof is now of Dubya, Blair and their cronies to prove all this WMD gobbledygook, and they can't do it. It'd be funny if it weren't so sickening.
And wouldn't you know it, on the day when Dubya's approval rating dips back to pre-incursion levels, all of a sudden news comes out that coalition forces killed Saddam's sons. Amazing how when Dubya's approval rating dips to a certain point, all of a sudden something happens to boost it back up again. You don't possibly think that Dubya and company could deliberately be stringing things along just to keep his popularity up, do you?
Somehow I don't think I'll have a problem finding material for this week's Backwash column.
posted 2003/07/21 at 14:31
Happy birthday, Chantelle. Wherever you are and whatever you're doing, I hope you're still being creative.
posted 2003/07/20 at 02:03
New on Backwash: "Vegetarianism". A real quicky look at the reasons why I became a vegetarian, and some of the pitfalls I've had to look out for these past ten years.
posted 2003/07/18 at 17:31
Goddess knows I don't like people who put a bunch of Internet tests and surveys on their Websites, but I'll always make an exception for Colorgenics because their analyses of me tend to be pretty spot-on ...
Your archetype (partial results): The Map
The Map personality is often deeply and intimately involved in the world. This world however is usually inside his/her own mind. Thoughtful to the extreme, this type is often obsessed with perfection and the rules governing their own personal interests.
They are generally good-natured people, and are often in areas not important to them very easy-going. Step across the line in regard to something the Map deems important however and you will recognize the wrath of the true believer. Principles to the Map are generally black and white. Their understanding of these principles however are always in question. Because the Map personality believes strongly in justice, it will often question its own perceptions, in fear that a mistake could have disastrous consequences. This prevents the Map personality from becoming too dictatorial or didactic.
And as for my current mood ...
You are feeling really miserable at this time and you'd like to form a relationship with someone with whom you could really communicate. At the same time, whoever it may be, that special 'someone' must not conflict with your own belief system or ideals. This makes for tough going - but it would seem that the situation is only transitory. It will soon pass.
You are experiencing considerable difficulty trying to achieve your goals. As a consequence of this you are becoming more and more irritable. Your friends and acquaintances are finding it increasingly more difficult to appease or to reason with you. You are the cause of your own problems. Don't be so impulsive. It is your vacillation that can lead to problems and uncertainties. Ease up a little.
You are a rather inhibited sort of person. This could be the result of your upbringing or of your schooling, whatever. You are able to obtain satisfaction from various forms of physical or emotional activity but all in all you are inclined to be emotionally withdrawn. As a consequence of this you find it difficult to sustain any deep involvement.
You are experiencing more than your fair share of stress following an acute disappointment. This may be the result of subconscious conflict between hope and necessity. The tension that you are experiencing following your unfulfilled hopes have given rise to anxious uncertainty. You have no doubt that things could get better in the future and so you refuse to make the necessary essential decisions. This conflict between hope and necessity is creating considerable pressure. Instead of resolving this by facing up to making the essential decisions, you are likely to vacillate and concern yourself with trivialities of little consequence.
Sometimes one fears that its not worth formulating new ideas and projects because whatever you seem to have done in the past has never worked out and you are tired of, as they say, banging your head against a brick wall. No one seems to care. So now you are trying to get away from it all by withdrawing into a 'fantasy land' but unfortunately 'fantasy land' is just that and sooner or later you will have to return to reality so why delay the inevitable? When you do return, you will find that the situation is not as tough as perhaps you thought it was.
posted 2003/07/17 at 18:54
Do you ever get the feeling that your life is the equivalent of watching endless slow-motion replays from the World Paint Drying Championships?
So let me ask all of you: how do you go about initiating reconcilement with a friend who's hurt you deeply, and who you've hurt deeply as well? I've waited about as long as I can, and if I don't get this resolved (or at least find some sort of peace with the situation), I think I'm going to go certifiably insane.
posted 2003/07/16 at 23:31
Sigur Rós to open for Björk in New York City's Cyclone Park 2003.08.22 and 2003.08.23
There are many moments when I'm glad I don't have a part-time job that could interfere with my studies and writing. This is not one of them.
posted 2003/07/14 at 22:52
So I was over on my old computer today looking through files, trying to see if there was anything I missed to load onto Yggdrasil Mark I. While I'm there, I open Internet Explorer to check some of my local files. The thing is, whenever I try to go to any file within Internet Explorer, all of a sudden I get deluged by hundreds of browser windows, all of which are trying to access a page on my bank's Website. (It can't get to them because the modem isn't hooked up.)
I'm not sure what's behind this, but if my suspicions are correct, this is the first time I have ever had a virus infect a computer of mine. Either that, or that ActiveX control the bank had me download when I signed up for online banking is really fucked up. Good thing I refuse to download it onto Yggdrasil Mark I.
posted 2003/07/13 at 20:52
New in .photography: Toledo Botanical Garden (shot today). As I explain on the page with the photos on it, it's kind of my online tribute to my late grandmother.
Unfortunately, I've got a test tomorrow, so I have to cut this short; I don't think the gang at Backwash is gonna be happy with me being late with this weekend's column no matter what the excuse ...
posted 2003/07/12 at 15:49
My grandmother died at about 0500 this morning. It was only to be expected given what happened the past week at the hospital, but of course the reality of those things never hit you until they actually happen.
The family's been sharing stories of her, so I figure I might as well share my favourite story of her with the rest of you.
Although I've always followed sports ever since I was a youngster, I was never much for playing them, with the exception of baseball and softball (but not Wiffleball). However, I played seventh grade basketball, and the summer before my eighth grade year, my grandmother came down to visit. She offered to play me, so we went out to the side yard, where the basketball hoop was, and played twenty-one. Granted, we weren't playing all that physically (she was well into her seventies at this point), but I still gave it my all with her. And you know what? She whooped my ass. I think the final score was 21-6 or something. I never did go back to another basketball team after that.
posted 2003/07/11 at 16:47
Well, here I am on Yggdrasil Mark I. Unfortunately, the modem in my previous computer couldn't go into this one, because it's hard-wired to the sound card and it's got some other connections straight to the motherboard. We had another computer here at the house with a modem, but it was an ISA modem, and my mobo has no ISA ports. So I had to go get a generic modem from Stone Computer, but it's a hardware modem so I'll be able to use it in Linux if need be.
Now to spend the rest of my day downloading from Windows Update and Office Update ... yikes.
Oh, and happy birthday Heather!
posted 2003/07/10 at 22:21
Update on my grandmother: she had been recovering well for a while, but this past week she's come down with pneumonia and meningitis. They moved her into comfort care earlier today, and it seems like everyone's getting ready for the inevitable. Hence my lack of updates the past couple of days. I'll probably have a lot to write about her in a short while, but I'm not sure that's something I'll necessarily want to post to the .org.
In other news, I am hoping like hell that my next update here will be from my new computer. I'm going to put the modem from the old computer into the new one here either tonight or tomorrow, and make due with that for now; there's a deal going on cable modem access in town, and the rest of the family's helped me draft a proposal to give to my father showing him why we should make the switch. With any luck, we'll get cable channels in at the same time. For now, though, I'd just like to connect to the Internet from home at something faster than 26.6. (I have a 56k modem, but the phone lines here aren't that great.)
posted 2003/07/07 at 17:01
It's alive, IT'S ALIVE! Ladies and gentlemen, I proudly present the specs for Yggdrasil Mark I, which miraculously powered up and worked even though I put it together myself:
Case: Generic black case from Stone Computer (local retailer)
Motherboard: Asus P4S533-X from AJump (I had to have an Asus)
Processor: Intel Celeron 1.7 GHz from Googlegear
Memory: 512MB Kingston PC2700 RAM from NewEgg.com
Hard Drive: Maxtor 120GB UltraATA/133 HD from Best Buy
Floppy Drive: Panasonic Black 3.5" Floppy from NewEgg.com
CD/DVD Drive: Samsung SM-348B DVD/CDRW combo drive from Best Buy
Graphics card: PNY GeForce 4 64MB DDR 4xAGP graphics card from Tiger Direct (hey, it was $20, okay?)
Sound card: On motherboard (I'll pick up an Audigy 2 here soon)
NIC: On motherboard
Keyboard: OnLite Black Keyboard from Stone Computer
Mouse: IBM Black Optical Mouse from Best Buy
OS: Microsoft Windows XP Professional from UT (gotta love student discounts)
Office Suite: Microsoft Office XP Professional from UT
The CPU is really limiting me right now, but the motherboard supports up to 3.06GHz with a 533MHz FSB, plus it supports Hyper-Threading, so once the 3.06 gets down in price, I can put it in, in place of the Celeron, and basically have a whole new computer on the spot.
The only thing I don't have yet is a modem, but I'll pick one up in a couple of days; I'll be installing software for the next couple of days anyway, plus I did some work for my father this weekend for the modem money.
Eventually I'll put Linux on the machine, but for now I just want to get my Windows configuration finalized. For those in the know on these things: I know that it's usually best to partition FAT32 drives to 8 GB or less due to cluster sizes, but is that a problem with NTFS?
posted 2003/07/06 at 20:27
Oddity of the day: having my local Fox station run the opening of Independence Day while trying to cover a heavy line of thunderstorms sweeping through the area.
posted 2003/07/05 at 15:07
The universe seemed to realize I was really in need of some good news here ...
Publication Alert: My poem "Orange Juice" will be appearing in the fourth quarter edition of the journal Offerings. Slowly but surely, I think I may be accumulating a bit of a credential list for my MFA applications.
posted 2003/07/04 at 22:27
New on Backwash.com: "Interpersonal Relationships". I intended this to be a kind of adjunct to my most recent .journal entry, discussing the stigmas that people who discuss their personal problems on the Internet receive, as well as society's general mishandling of the depressed. In the end I think I wound up kvetching about myself more than anything else, but I think I managed to cram a few salient points in there.
posted at 15:47
Fuck you, GameFAQs visitors. I don't even want to guess what nineteenth-rate characters you all are going to vote for instead of Aeris this year; all you Nintendo fanboys and fangirls can take your Zelda and Mario non-stories and stick them up your ignorant asses. Seriously.
posted 2003/07/03 at 23:20
I fucking hate fireworks. It's bad enough that we've got parents on our block who are letting their children blow their fingers off (and then don't lose their children for being such idiotic parents), but of course now my sister's cats are all jumpy, and she and I have to try to calm them down. I don't mind the professional shows -- I watch them on TV whenever I can -- but what sense is there in allowing minors to try that shit?
I haven't had a good sleep deprivation buzz going in a long time, but I've got a big one now. This is traditionally the time for me to the most idiotic things I could never think of when I'm actually thinking straight, so I think I'm going to bed early. Night night.
posted 2003/07/02 at 23:48
Yeah, Federov's gone. They resigned McCarty, though, so I'll try to catch as many games as I can this coming season (assuming we ever get some freaking cable installed here). Honestly, I don't know what to think; no one can deny Federov's talent, but the man does have an ego, and after what he put the Wings through in the 97-98 season, I really don't know if Federov was worth keeping around.
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