Another Independence Day gone by, and I still haven't burned a flag. Doesn't that seem like the best way to celebrate? You'd have to do it while reading the Bill of Rights aloud, of course.
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(2)
02:18:15 AM,
Saturday 5 July 2003
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The weapons you are looking for are currently unavailable.
Via Gawker.
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04:07:31 PM,
Thursday 3 July 2003
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Abby: Yeah, it's been a long time since I've seen a bad horror movie.
Me: Actually I heard it was good.
Abby: Oh.
Me: But it's got zombies vomiting blood!
Abby: Well, you can't go wrong with that.
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(8)
03:28:15 PM,
Thursday 3 July 2003
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Zoe Williams on irony, via Sumana. (This sort of thing is why you need to read Sumana's blog. This and the puns that only over-educated people get. Excuse me, I meant well-educated.)
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(3)
11:44:41 AM,
Thursday 3 July 2003
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It's Not Nice To Be Smarter Than Other People.
Heh.
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(1)
01:01:36 PM,
Wednesday 2 July 2003
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That Man in the Mirror song is totally counterrevolutionary.
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(4)
11:13:41 AM,
Wednesday 2 July 2003
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A good Le Tigre fansite. Now I know exactly what Kathleen is screaming in "On Guard".
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(2)
04:47:49 PM,
Tuesday 1 July 2003
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Worst (hypothetical) blind date ever: Rabid Objectivist. Care to top it?
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(10)
04:01:09 PM,
Tuesday 1 July 2003
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I desperately want to see 28 Days Later. I keep trying to convince people to go see it with me and failing. Perhaps "But the zombies vomit blood!" is not the selling point I thought it was.
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(21)
01:11:22 PM,
Tuesday 1 July 2003
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I'm interested in one of Moira's remarks in her allegedly overlong comment in Liz's blog, on "the idiotic SJC practice of not reading introductions, prefaces and notes." Namely: "Sometimes the faux-naif style of 'Let us examine justice in book X of the Republic' as if no one had ever done such a thing before yields gold, but a lot of the time charging into something like Dante without any scholarly apparatus at all gave new meaning to the word Quixotic. And reading someone's thought processes after such a launching can't be that terrific, either."
As someone who wrote two really obvious annual essays (on Dante's sympathetic journey in Purgatorio and on mirrors and time in One Hundred Years of Solitude), I admire the tutors who are able to read that sort of dreck and discuss it with the writer. (I caught Mr. Zeiderman supressing a yawn during my sophomore essay oral.) I also think that Johnnies tend to be ignorant of formal elements in what they (we) read and that the discussion thereby suffers. (How many conversations on music or poetry may as well have been about essays?)
Now that I've made these qualifications, I have to say I still support the practice of avoiding critical opinions until after the seminar. It cuts down on the number of poorly-supported ideas in a discussion and helps to ensure that everyone comes to the table with a similar background. Critical essays are also part of a more technical conversation that runs parallel to the one we have at SJC, but at (in some ways) greater depth and with more self-reference. Because of this, I think it would be difficult to bring them into the seminar in a helpful way.
The idea that critical opinions are some sort of poison is silly. On the other hand, it's an idea held by a bunch of 18-22 year-olds, so what do you expect? And it does work to prevent people from "cheating" by reading the introduction and then presenting that writer's opinion as their own. I fondly recall my friend Laurel's disdain for a member of her sophomore-year core group, which was largely based on just such a transgression. (The bastard is now in grad school, where he belongs.)
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(3)
12:57:07 PM,
Tuesday 1 July 2003
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Band name: Ninja Storm.
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(4)
02:55:39 PM,
Monday 30 June 2003
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Want kitten.
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(8)
02:22:45 PM,
Monday 30 June 2003
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Strong as a horse and nearly as good-looking!
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02:02:06 PM,
Monday 30 June 2003
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I need to stop caring about articulating my own opinions and start listening to those of others.
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(5)
11:10:13 AM,
Monday 30 June 2003
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"Due to a scheduling conflict, the hotline will be closed on the afternoon of Sunday, June 29. Enjoy your afternoon off!"
Yup.
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(2)
04:08:48 PM,
Saturday 28 June 2003
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For the Buffy fans whose inboxes I have not yet begun to spam: Joss Whedon interview at FilmForce.
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(1)
06:53:23 PM,
Friday 27 June 2003
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Today everything inexplicably smells like Monistat.
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06:51:42 PM,
Friday 27 June 2003
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Le Tigre shows are quite possibly the best thing ever. Ever.
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(4)
05:58:29 PM,
Friday 27 June 2003
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I think what's now called "American food" should have its name changed to "crap that makes you fat", because that's what it is, and because real "American food" is, like, pemmican.
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(1)
05:49:57 PM,
Friday 27 June 2003
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I don't care how we get it, but we'll get it someday.
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02:14:00 PM,
Friday 27 June 2003
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pickled ginger yum yum yum.
After the Beck show Melissa and I went to a tiny Japanese restaurant. A little kid came in with his parents and stuck his nose in a huge hardbound sci-fi novel as soon as he sat down. When he ordered, he asked for extra ginger.
My kind of kid.
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07:38:12 PM,
Thursday 26 June 2003
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Some of you already know this: my hotline shift is being eliminated. It's state-funded and California is out of money. The insurance situation prevents us from staffing it entirely with volunteers, or I'd be training as a shift supervisor right now.
I've been looking at Project Inform and filled out their volunteer application. (Still working on the hotline app.) Yup.
This situation really blows.
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06:24:45 PM,
Thursday 26 June 2003
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Does coffee ever smell like, uh, something else to you-all?
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(4)
12:45:45 PM,
Thursday 26 June 2003
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Those evil-natured robots/ They're programmed to destroy us
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(5)
12:25:42 PM,
Thursday 26 June 2003
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I was in a bad mood this morning, but some things make me feel much better.
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(7)
11:18:55 AM,
Thursday 26 June 2003
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My inner fourth grader: There's a piece of construction equipment called a "hoe ram". Snicker.
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(1)
05:01:07 PM,
Wednesday 25 June 2003
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The other night, for some reason, I realized that one of the little things I miss about my mom's mom is her collection of wig catalogs.
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04:31:20 PM,
Wednesday 25 June 2003
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Anybody know the origin of the comical phrase, "I got your x right here"? 'Cause I got your megafauna right here.
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03:44:49 PM,
Wednesday 25 June 2003
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As Damian oft hath opined: Superheroes are totally gay, dude.
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(12)
03:36:59 PM,
Wednesday 25 June 2003
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Wow, I must be premenstrual or something, because Ween lyrics are making me get all sappy.
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(1)
07:21:13 PM,
Tuesday 24 June 2003
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An' I wanna know, do you feel the same way?
'Cause if you do I wanna stay forever.
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(3)
07:19:44 PM,
Tuesday 24 June 2003
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Listening to more of Ruth's CDs: Ben Harper is really annoying. Does he put a clothespin on his nose when he sings?
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(7)
05:33:02 PM,
Tuesday 24 June 2003
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Le Tigre was awesome last night. If you live around San Francisco (which most of you do not) you should go see them at Slim's tonight.
I'll add more when I have a resonable blood sugar level again.
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(4)
03:14:29 PM,
Tuesday 24 June 2003
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Anyone who's reading this: I'm wondering about emotional labor as a social as well as an economic demand. So I want to know: Has anyone ever told you to "smile"? In what context? Are you male or female? Was the person who told you this male or female? (Sorry for the binary gender thing. I'm also interested in whether anyone has experienced this while clearly stepping outside their gender role, or while passing for a different gender.)
I've been told by several strangers, all men, to smile. I do not take kindly to this, and not just for political reasons. When people I know tell me to do this, they get a lecture on why it's bad. And then they never do it again.
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(15)
02:45:44 PM,
Tuesday 24 June 2003
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During my lunch break I went to the library. (Sweet, sweet library.) I got a book of essays on women's linguistic communities, a tourist's guide to San Francisco, a book of photographs of teenagers in their bedrooms, and a well-illustrated book entitled Voluptuous Panic: The Erotic World of Weimar Berlin. There are piles of "french postcards" and what-not reproduced within. Seeing the porn of yesteryear, which was generally (but probably not entirely) less hardcore than today's, makes me wonder whether today's porn consumer has a less well-developed imagination than his forebears.
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(3)
06:48:19 PM,
Monday 23 June 2003
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Eating some fat-free chocolate pudding that Nandini gave me when she cleaned out her fridge.
Listening to Ruth's Jurassic 5 CDs. She lent me most of her music (along with her cell phone) while she's in South America. (Isn't she nice? Now I'm sorry that I was so uptight about the chore thing.) Also Michael Franti and Spearhead. Stay Human is awfully good.
This morning I woke up half and hour before my alarm with a remarkably nasty backache. Emergency yoga pose!
And I suppose this is a really dull entry.
Update: I have to say, the death-penalty drama that's played out in the fake radio segements on Stay Human gets pretty lame and self-aggrandizing towards the end. But then my POV is pretty damn ensconced in privilege.
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(7)
05:59:55 PM,
Monday 23 June 2003
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site & script courtesy of Moss