Advice on herding cats

Fall Break 2010: Utah Adventure - Day 4 #2 (I wear my sunglasses at night)

2010-10-10T22:36:00.010-04:00

I have more pics to share, these ones are of the Salt Lake Valley at night. My camera (and my camera phone) aren't great, but I hope it gets the idea across of how cool the lights look.

I really like how the clouds show up in these pictures

If I do this again I definitely need to get a tripod. The shutter speed is so slow for these that it's impossible to hold the camera still long enough.

Fall Break 2010: Utah Adventure - Day 4

2010-10-10T21:57:00.013-04:00

So much for updating this business every day. Anyhow, I'm winding down my fourth day here, only a few more to go before I head back to Raleighwood. I don't have anything interesting to say, so instead I'll share some of the sweet pics of the Salt Lake Valley I've taken.

View of the Oquirrh Mountains (pronounced "ochre" for my non SL friends) from the east side.

Same view as before, this time using the panoramic picture feature on my phone

Wasatch Mountains to the East, they don't look as big because I was already partway up the damn thing anyway.

I want to say the peak on the left is Mount Olympus, but I honestly have no idea.

The southern end of the Oquirrh's

It's kind of tough to see, but that's a view of the Bingham Canyon Mine. Near where I grew up.

Downtown Salt Lake City, not a whole lot to it.

Mount Olympus (I think?) and rich people's houses.

Again, no idea which mountain this is... Loan Peak? Not sure.

Another view of the copper mine.

As you can see I went kinda crazy with the mountain pictures. I'm always bragging about Utah's mountains to my NC friends, so I thought I'd show them what I'm talking about for once. My amateur photography skills don't quite do it justice, and they look completely different when the snow season starts, but I still think they're pretty awesome.

Fall Break 2010: Utah Adventure - Foreward

2010-10-06T12:43:00.003-04:00

So I'll be leaving for the airport in about an hour. I spent last night at home doing laundry and packing, since then I've unpacked, and now I'm roughly half-packed for my trip. Just gotta stuff the rest of my crap on my carry-on and I'm good to go.

After moving to Raleigh four years ago it's seemed like I'm in a completely different world that Salt Lake, and it warps my mind a little bit to think that in about twelve hours I'll go from strolling to class through the Court of Carolinas (pictured above) to spending time with some old friends in Utah. I know, that's the miracle of air travel, but I don't make the trip often so when I do it makes these two worlds feel awful close.

Obscure Band Names

2010-09-20T10:10:00.004-04:00

Today in the shower I started thinking about obscure band names, yes, these are the things I think about while getting ready to attack my day with optimism. I started thinking up some good ones, good enough I thought I'd share. If you're an obscure, better-than-average band, and you end up using one of these, just put me in the "thanks" section of your cd-book-thing when you get famous, or name a song after me, that's all I ask.

Anyhow, here goes:

Not Quite Ikea
Optimistic Lemmings
Accidental Lepers
Redundant Repeaters
Diesel-Powered Welcome Wagon
Pessimistic Peon
Accidental Optimists
Affluent Marxists
Advantageous Salad
Viva la Ensalada!
Shallow Gravitas
Onomatopeons
Fourth-Line Goons
Malicious Linguists
Accidental Trendsetters
Reluctant Rainwater
Sunburnt Viking

You're welcome, I'll probably come up with more of these as the day goes on. Can you think of any? Share them here!

Adopt-A-Team 2010, Part 0 (aka, The Ground Rules)

2010-05-26T08:04:00.000-04:00

I apologize to both of my readers for the delay in getting this Adopt-A-Team project rolling. The last few weeks have been full of packing, moving, unpacking, cleaning, throwing stuff away, laundry, napping, etc. But I did jot down a few ideas on how I'm going to do this thing, unfortunately the notepad I jotted on didn't survive the move, so I had to start over. Here's what I'm thinkin':

First off, if I'm going to pick a new favorite team, I need to set aside my biases and consider all 30 clubs on a relatively even playing field. So yes, I'll devote a post to Mr. Steinbrenner's club, even though pinstripes make me queasy.

Also, I'm going to try and make my analysis consistent by using a basic set of criteria to compare each team by. Of course I'll probably deviate wildly from time to time, but at least I'll have some sort of direction to start. I'm thinking I'll cover the aesthetics such as the team name, logo, mascot (if applicable), their uniforms and color scheme, and their ballpark. Then I'm thinking I'll look into the history of the club (aka the "Tradition"), the city they play in, the current team as it is now, their prospects for the future and then whatever else I feel like throwing in there.

Yes, I know, I'm a dork.

So that's how I plan on attacking this bad boy, I'll pick the teams randomly and start the fun before the end of the week (hopefully).

I have no dog in this fight (The beginning of my search for a new favorite team)

2010-05-02T01:05:00.006-04:00

I love me some baseball

It was definitely my first love when it came to sports. It was the first game I learned to play, and more importantly it was the first -and really, only- game I was ever really good at. I set the Hunter Elementary 6th Grade Softball Tournament record with 15 home runs, in eight games! At twelve years old I was the best player in the neighborhood. Unfortunately I hit my peak at fourteen, after which I decided it was more fun to be a shithead than a ballplayer and spent the next two years being grounded for one reason or another, and thus not being allowed to keep playing little league. By the time I stopped antagonizing my parents at 15 and tried out for my high school team the pitchers went from throwing 60 mph to the mid-70's, and the pitches moved in ways I'd never seen before. I went from hitting line drives in the gap to foul tips in the catchers mitt, and that spelled the end of my baseball career.

So while I wasn't destined to play the game, I still love watching it and keeping up with the goings-on, but growing up in Utah meant I didn't have the luxury of a natural home-town team. Salt Lake City is 500+ miles from Denver, and slightly further from Phoenix and any of the California teams. My first favorite player was Mike Piazza, mostly because he was a bad ass and played my favorite position, catcher (because they get to wear all that cool gear) and he could hit the ball a freakin' mile, so at first I gravitated toward liking the Dodgers. It helped that the guy my mom married around that same time grew up in L.A., but that all came apart the first time I actually went to the "City of Angels" I cried for half the flight as the change in air pressure made my head feel like it was going to explode, and my experience got only slightly better once we finally landed. The first thing I remember seeing was all the smog, it was a concrete jungle, and the people were assholes and drove like it, too. Disney Land was crowded as hell and then there was all that smog. I fell out of like with that city in less than a week, I've been back a handful of times since and my opinion of the place hasn't changed. Oh yeah, then the Dodgers shipped Piazza to the Marlins (who then slung him over to the Mets a week later). After that I've regarded the boys in blue with mere ambivalence.

After that I kind of floated around, we had a AAA team in Salt Lake, the Buzz were an affiliate of the Twins at the time, who had an awesome farm system which allowed me to watch players such as LaTroy Hawkins, Todd Walker, A.J. Pierzinski and David Ortiz before they moved up to the bigs. Then later when the Angels became the affiliate I got to see the likes of David Eckstein, Chone Figgins and John Lackey suit 'em up. Still though, I never felt much for the Twins or Halos, they were too far away, and never showed up on TV.

Speaking of TV, I watched more than my share of Cubs and Braves games on WGN and TBS, respectively. I developed something of an affinity for the Cubbies, Wrigley Field is an awesome venue, and they played games in the daytime, and Mark Grace was an awesome defensive first-baseman (which is what I was playing in little league at the time) but I never made the leap to claim them as my team. As for the Braves, their fate was sealed during my time as a Dodgers fan, when the two teams faced off (one of the few times I got to watch the Dodgers on tv since TBS was really good at covering almost every Braves game back then) the Braves always beat the crap out of the Dodgers, I appreciated the all-around talent of Chipper Jones, but their embarrassment of my favorite club left a sour taste that never really went away, even after the Dodgers fell out of favor.

Finally around 1999 my team found me. The Red Sox grew on me. They had a goofy-looking ballpark, an ambiguous nickname, a knuckleball pitcher (Tim Wakefield, the Dodgers had Tom Candiotti back in the day) and eventually they had player that I'd actually seen play live (David Ortiz). I also really liked to watch Carl Everett play, it's kind of embarassing to admit, but this is before I understood how much of a douche he was/is.

Anyhow, the Sox and I had a great run. In High School one of my best friends was also a Soxman, and in 2004 we went batshit crazy when they came back from three games down against the Stankees to win the series in seven then swept the Cardinals in the World Series, it was a great time.

As the next few years passed by I stuck with the team, but I started to waver a bit. The Boston front office started trading away all of their prospects and handing out gargantuan contracts much the same way their nemeses in New York did, it's hard to call the team in the Bronx the "Evil Empire" for topping $200 million a year in player salaries when you're own club is close behind at around $175 millionish. The free-spending and lack of homegrown talent never sat very well with me, but it didn't push me off completely.

My Red Sox fanhood has slowly unraveled since moving to the East Coast in 2006 for a few reasons in addition to what I've already mentioned. I came to realize more and more the meaning of the term "Masshole" the Sox fan base, instead of loathing in self pity was now filled with feelings of entitlement, and I honestly believe they'd eat their own young for another World Series win, and the routine booing of their own players never sat well. The tipping point came when news surfaced that David Ortiz, next to Kevin Youkilis my favorite player, and one of the main reasons I became a Sox fan to begin with, had been using performance enhancers in 2003. I'm not one to put athletes on a moral pedestal of any kind, but this caused me to lose all respect for him as a ballplayer, Big Papi was a cheater, and in hindsight that was when I decided I was finished with the Sox.

Another thing happened in my personal life that completely removed me from the Red Sox nation. I spent the summers of 2008 and '09 working at a summer camp with little access to the outside world. This baseball sabbatical has wiped the slate clean in my mind, I didn't move away from the Sox, rather they moved away from me, so it's time to move on.

So here I am, a baseball lover without a favorite team, I don't like living in this limbo, but I don't want to jump from bandwagon to bandwagon either. My plan is to use this blog to systematically explore the merits of every team in the league, and hopefully by the end I'll be able to adopt a new franchise as my favorite. At this point I only have a rough idea of what my criteria will be, but I'll figure it out in the next little while and try and get it in place before I go through the search team by team. It should be fun.

Free your mind and the rest will follow

2010-05-01T16:45:00.003-04:00

In case you didn't know, I have a symbiotic relationship with my MacBook, one of my favorite things about my Macky is all the sweet free applications people come up with.

For instance, right now I'm trying to outline an essay for my Modern American History class, to help with my notes and outline I'm using freemind, a mind mapping software that's very similar to some other applications out there, only freemind is... you know... free (and also works with Windows and Linux). I remember learning about mind-mapping in the fifth grade or something, but I never gave it a second thought until about a year ago when I stumbled upon this app, it took some getting used to but now I'm a believer.

It's probably not an app for everybody, really depends on how your mind works, but I definitely recommend giving it a try, it allows me to keep more organized notes and if I change my mind (which has been known to happen) I can easily drag and drop and shift nodes around until I come up with something more suitable, also it gives me a place to jot down anything I may be thinking (which I make sure to format using a little cloud-bubble thing so when I come back to it later I know not to take it too seriously)

Anyway here's an example of some of the work I've been doing the last few days, enjoy (and obviously click on the thumbnail if you want to see a larger and somewhat legible version):

Everything sounds better in latin

2010-04-25T22:27:00.002-04:00

A while back I was trying to come up with a good latin proverb for a tattoo I've been wanting to get. Anyhoo tattoos cost money so I've yet to get it permanently affixed to my epidermis, but during my search I found some that were funny, clever, lame, or interesting. Here are some of them, also, please note that my latin knowledge, particularly in proper declension and conjugation, is not very good, so please check with somebody that knows what they're doing before you take one of these phrases and make it permanent, unless you're a Barffalo Sabres fan, in that case do what you please. Any comments of my own appear in Eyetallix

auribus teneo lupum "I hold a wolf by the ears" To which I say: let go, I dare you

cave laborem "beware of work" My parents would probably say this one fits me perfectly

circulus vitiosus "vicious circle" This would be a sweet tattoo if it looped around onto itself

concordia cum veritate "in harmony with truth"

disce quasi semper victurus vive quasi cras moriturus "Learn as if always going to live; live as if tomorrow going to die." Sounds kind of like that James Dean quote, either way it's bad advice. If I lived today like it was my last I'd probably end up being indicted tomorrow.

dulcius ex asperis "through difficulty, sweetness" Reminds me of that kickass Jimmy Eat World song, I'm not so sure about the translation though, sweetness? rly?

esse est percipi "to be is to be perceived"

esse quam videri "to be, rather than to seem"

festina lente "hurry slowly" thanks Ferris

historia vitae magistra "history, the teacher of life" Being a history major I naturally considered this little ditty, then I also considered the prospects of me ever being seen as cool or edgy ever again, and I changed mind.

In omnibus requiem quaesivi, et nusquam inveni nisi in angulo cum libro "Everywhere I have searched for peace and nowhere found it, except in a corner with a book" for you reader-types :)

in vino veritas "in wine [there is] truth" Amen, brother

iter faciamus "Road trip!" I wrote this one down because of its utter randomness, I'm skeptical of the translation.

leges humanae nascuntur, vivunt, et moriuntur "laws of man are born, live and die" never stop stickin' it to the man

liberate me ex infernis "free me from hell" An ex of mine had this marked on her* I should have taken the hint... or learned latin sooner

luctor et emergo "I struggle and emerge" ...from the mosh pit

magna est vis consuetudinis "great is the power of habit" Word

memento mori "remember that [you will] die"

memento vivere "a reminder of life"

memores acti prudentes futuri "mindful of what has been done, aware of what will be" Yoda???

multum in parvo "much in little"

ne cede malis "do not give in to misfortune"

nemo nisi per amicitiam cognoscitur "No one learns except by friendship"

nemo saltat sobrius "Nobody dances sober" Correction: *I* never dance sober

Nemo enim fere saltat sobrius, nisi forte insanit "Nobody dances sober, unless he is completely insane."

non facias malum ut inde fiat bonum "you should not make evil in order that good may be made from it"

non impediti ratione congitatonis "unencumbered by the thought process" That's how I roll

nunc est bibendum "now is the time to drink" I like the way this guy thinks

ordo ab chao "Out of chaos, comes order"

chao ab ordo "Out of order, comes chaos" Didja see what I did thar?

Si hoc legere scis nimium eruditionis habes "If you can read this, you have too much education." Another one of my favorites

Tomato Sandwich (a sonnet)

2010-04-22T14:20:00.002-04:00

I promised myself years ago that I'd avoid contributing to the world of bad poetry, but if my sonnet gets chosen as one of the ten best in my Insects and People class I get 10 extra credit points added on to my final grade, so in that case I have no problems selling out for a higher grade.

So without further interruption...

Tomato Sandwich

He clenched his fists, gritted his few remaining teeth
His lunch had been ruined by a greedy little bug
Disgusted, he tossed the plant to the compost heap
This wouldn’t be ignored nor accepted with a shrug

He had sheltered the fruit from frost and too much sun
and stayed away from chemicals, using only soap and water
If this plant were instead a daughter or son
The neighbors would have thought him a loving father

Face hardened, he rose to his feet and tightened his knee brace
then plodded to the garden, armed with only a steely glare
the boy followed, frantically trying to keep the pace
this was the longest he’d seen the old man out of his easy chair

He spotted the vandal, as he dove in he felt a rush
Reminded him of threshing through the forest as as a soldier
But the pest disappeared into the oleander bush
His frustration melted with a tap on the shoulder

“nice try grandpa, now let’s get inside and out of the sun
there’s a billion more where that came from”

-Jason Kubota

==========

The requirement was that it be a sonnet, which was unfortunate because I hate rhyme, I'm not 100% satisfied with the poem, for various reasons, but I'll leave it at that.

The Downfall of the Democratic Party (written in 2005)

2010-04-11T07:08:00.001-04:00

Yet another blast from the past in the form of an old newspaper column I wrote for the Jan. 7, 2005 edition of the Snowdrift. In it I make a mention of Barack and Joe B as being a direction the Dems need to move toward, not avoid. I'm not saying I predicted the future, but I guess even a blind nut finds a squirrel every once in a while, also, it's interesting to see how much it still applies to the BS we're dealing with today.

The Downfall of the Democratic Party

The political climate was primed for change. A faltering economy along with an extended (Which nowadays means unsuccessful) war effort overseas had left President George W. Bush vulnerable to a lot of criticism. He also isn’t the most eloquent public speaker and couldn’t debate his way out of a paper bag. John Kerry had the election within his grasp, then he managed to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.

What’s been going on with those Democrats lately anyway? Of course they’ve lost the last two presidential elections with two less than inspiring candidates in Al Gore and “Ketchupman” Kerry, but what about all of the Congressional seats they’ve been losing –With November’s election the Republican Party picked up sixteen Congressional seats to increase their majority to forty— The liberal wing of our political system has been hemorrhaging for years, and there’s plenty of blame to go around.

The biggest problem with the Democratic Party is shoddy organization. In other words they’re like your 16-month-old nephew, no control of when they make a mess of themselves. Would you ever see a member of the Republican Party get on stage at the Democratic National Convention and bash his party’s presidential candidate? Not unless he wanted to endure a few rounds of Chinese nipple torture he wouldn’t.

Okay, so he’d really only lose all of his reelection campaign contributions along with any powers he may have had in the backroom committee meetings (a.k.a. “smoke-filled room shady dealings”) until he would ultimately be replaced come election time, but you get my point. But what happens when Senator Zell Miller (D-GA) jumps on stage at the GOP Convention and bashes Kerry? Nothing, unless you call punishment scratching “Zell Eats Poo” on his office desk with a penknife.

Democrats also have a tendency to try to be too much like Republicans. When Republicans lose to Democrats, do they turn around and say, "Gee we need to be more like them in order to win"? Never. But that's what Democrats do when they lose to Republicans. What does that do? It softens support among the base, it seems phony to moderates, and conservatives are going to vote real-deal Republican, not Republican Lite.

Since when was “liberal” a dirty word? There are great aspects of liberalism, just like there are great aspects of conservatism, yet John Kerry spent his entire campaign hiding from his liberal label and the party as a whole did their best to hide from their more liberal members in Howard Dean and Sen. Joe Biden (D-CT) instead of standing up for themselves and describing what the whole vision of liberalism is about a la Barack Obama (D-IL) ““If there are people in this country that are going to bed hungry and sick and sleeping in the streets, my duty as an American citizen has not been fulfilled.”

If the liberals would wake up from their fantasyland they would see a great opportunity lying before them. There is currently no party that truly, completely and unapologetically represents the interests of working-class Americans who are finding their jobs vanishing, their benefits shrinking, their towns falling on hard times, and their economic interests being ignored. That’s the party of the Old Left, that party is now dead.

Democrats need to return to their roots if they want to win. They have to find their spine. They have to rediscover their purpose and their vision. Because if liberalism is such a bad thing, why should anyone vote Democrat?

Losing as a character-building activity

2010-04-08T09:02:00.000-04:00

Here's another classic from my newswriting career. The following is a column I wrote for the sports section published in April of 2005. Enjoy.

A long time ago somebody said “You can’t win until you first know how to lose.” Whoever came up with this saying was kidding himself and he ought to be kicked in the shin for his efforts.

While I don’t consider myself an expert on losing I did attend a high school that boasted a .317 winning percentage (in all sports combined) so I have a feeling that I know what I’m talking about. We certainly knew how to lose, but winning never seemed to come as easily. This years Snow College football team won as many games this season (7) as my high school team won in four years.

But you know what? I wouldn’t have it any other way.

It’s easy to have a lot of school spirit when your team wins more games than it loses. It takes a much tougher fan to pull for the side that is losing seven out of every ten games. You need a thick skin and a big heart to endure an entire season in that sort of grueling atmosphere.

When you are rooting for an unsuccessful program you learn to enjoy humble pie by the slice. The losses come in droves and before long losing becomes easier to bear because you no longer fear it, you have done it plenty of times before, and when that one big win comes around you thrive off of it for months.

During my senior year our school’s football team finally managed to win our homecoming game for the first time in the history of the school against arguably our biggest rival that we had never beaten.

And although we lost a lot more games than we won throughout the rest of the school year all anybody ever talked about until the day of graduation was how we miraculously beat Bingham that Friday night in September.

Losing also brings the school community together. Everybody is fighting the good fight together. There is no “jock” clique because who wants to be in a clique that can’t win? Other, more successful school programs also get more attention, I still remember the first time I caught myself bragging to some kids from a rival school, “Your wrestlers may be good, but our Madrigals would rock your world any day of the week.”

Now all 3,000 or so of us have come together in this salad bowl of experiences that is Snow College, all of us bringing our own special ingredients to the table where we get to cheer for a winning athletic program.

Those of us that came from winning high schools will teach the rest of us how to win, and the rest of us from the less than successful programs will teach the winners how to live up the wins and live down the losses.

Mormon Missionary punches assailant... who knew!?!

2010-04-05T08:13:00.001-04:00

This here is a feature article I wrote about a roommate I had in college back in March of 2005. Lots of missionaries have interesting stories about their time in the field, but this is one of the more... unique tales I've ever heard. Matt is a great guy and allowed me to interview him for this article, hopefully he doesn't mind me reproducing this piece now that he's all growed up and has the whole 'wife-and-kids' thing going on, people may not want them knowing how bad-ass he was back in the day.

Matthew H. considered himself lucky. He had only a few weeks to go on his LDS Church mission in Midwestern Brazil and except for a few close calls he had never been robbed even though almost every single one of his companions had at least one story about being assaulted. His luck ran out in September 2004.

He and his companion were leaving from an investigators* home at about 10 p.m. and were walking through a very dangerous neighborhood. “We were basically putting the importance of teaching somebody over our safety. We had actually been told that we shouldn’t walk around there at night but we really didn’t have a choice because we had an appointment to keep. And we figured that we were missionaries and the Lord would protect us”

As they walked they decided to take the long way home because it was the better lit of the two paths. To pass the time they discussed a scripture from the Doctrine & Covenants and were reciting it when Matt looked to the end of the road at the only dark spot on the entire path that was between two buildings.

“I could see two silhouettes of people in the darkness, but I couldn’t tell what they were doing because we were too far away for me to tell for sure. So I didn’t think anything of it and we kept walking.”

As they got closer to the men they could see that one was on a bike and the two men appeared to be having a conversation on the side of the road. “It made me kind of nervous because normal people don’t just hang out in a dark alleyway,” said Matt, “but we continued anyway.”

Then as the two missionaries got even closer one of the men approached him. “He asked for a little bit of money, I thought he was a beggar or something.” But the man wasn’t prepared to take no for an answer.

“He reached out for me but I hit his hand and backed away before he could grab my tie. So he reached over and grabbed my companion by his tie and started yelling to the other man ‘Pega o alto!’ which is Portuguese for ‘Get the tall one,’ (Matt stands 6’4”) my companion wasn’t really sure what was going on. He grew up in a ritzy California neighborhood and had only been in the mission field for three weeks and didn’t speak Portuguese very well so when I was yelling ‘Sai dai! Solta ele! (Get away from there! Let go of him!) He didn’t understand what was going on and had no idea he was being mugged.

“As a missionary we’re taught to not really react to people like that. You’re told you should just give them your money or whatever they want. So I tried to see if he had a knife and I couldn’t see anything in his hand.”

And then Matt did something the robber was not expecting. He went after him.
“Strangely the first thing that came to my mind was ‘punch him.’ He was still yelling for his partner but the other man just sat on his bike like maybe he didn’t want to rob us or something, so I knew it would be two against one so I walked after him and raised my fist, when the robber saw what I was doing he looked at me like I was crazy and said ‘O que esta fazendo?’ (what are you doing?). Apparently he didn’t think missionaries could hit anybody.”

As Matt went after the man, the robber, now scared and still holding on to his companion’s tie, started maneuvering around trying to get away and keep Matt’s companion in front of him so that the missionary couldn’t get a good shot at him, Matt swung anyway.

“My knuckle caught the side of his face and it was just enough to make him stumble backward and let go of the tie and my companion and I took the opportunity and sprinted away.”

The two muggers didn’t take chase and Matt and his companion made it home without further incident. “I didn’t tell anybody, especially my mom, until I got back.”
Despite the frightening ordeal Matt says he learned a valuable lesson from what he calls his own stupidity, “The experience taught me a lot, I learned that you don’t pray for protection and then go and put yourself in a dangerous situation.”

*an investigator is a prospective LDS convert for those of you not privy to the Mormon jargon :)

Shedding spots

2010-04-02T17:12:00.008-04:00

So over a year ago somebody at my old man's work found a baby corn snake stuck in a wad of duct tape in the shop. Pa brought him home and my mom decided to put him in an old aquarium and keep him, in the first week he got himself stuck in another piece of duct tape that was used to close up a hole in the wire mesh at the top of the aquarium. At this point I favored naming him 'Dopey' or 'Tape Leg' but mom decided to go with 'Spots' so that's his name.

For the record, I have a terrible record at getting my pet-name choices accepted. Recently my parents decided to take in a big, fat fluffy cat that was lost and whos owner couldn't be found. Inspired by her rotundity, I decided her name should be Kirby, you know, the video game character, and also my favorite baseball player of all time, both of whom are known for being big boned. Instead they've decided to go with 'Holly'. I never win.

Anyhoo, Spots is real big now, he was a tiny little six-incher when we took him in, now when he's all stretched out he spans the length of his aquarium, it's pretty sweet. I strolled by his aquarium this morning and saw this.

Oooooh, spots has shed, and his skin is all over the place and wrapped all over his favorite haunts, including his log and under his water dish/rock thing. Wanting to retrieve the skin I lifted the log, only to wake the snake, who gave me a look I can only describe as "Dude! WTF!?!"

I quickly replaced the log, after first apologizing (I think I may be Canadian, I apologize for everything) Then I snapped a few pics of the snake under the log. (that sounds like it should be a metaphor or euphamism)

smile for the camera!

kk, no more pics plz

most of you comfortable with exotic pets may think this is no big deal, but as someone that's only ever experienced the standard cat/dog-pet-experience (and the occasional run-in with my sister's bat-shit crazy rabbit) I happen to think it's pretty damn cool.

Poem I wrote in high school, it doesn't suck too bad

2010-04-02T13:36:00.001-04:00

I try and save everything I write, and I mean everything. Up until I moved to North Carolina I still had notes I'd exchanged with friends in middle school. Tonight I was looking for something and turned up this old gem I wrote when I was 16.

Egads (no idea why I used this for a title)

We heard a shriek,
and dashed through the field
giggling inanely.
The grassed masks our nakedness,
you shout over your shoulder,
"You are a sea turtle,
now I will show you real power!"

My grandma hearkens again
cat thrown over her shoulder
It's one of those weird-looking ones
with the nine tails in all.
You duck behind a tree stump
but I keep running.
Her cat wont bite me today
because I am the sea turtle,
and I know real power.

I stumble and fall to the rocks.
One of those little bastards
imbedded itself in my heel.
I pry it from my foot
but the old woman has me.
She drags me home
by the scruff of my neck
and gives me a bath
The last one I'll take, I promise myself
Tomorrow I will escape again.

jason Kubota
3/10/02

I wrote this for my creative writing class, I think we were given some random sentence fragments and the assignment was to work it into a poem, that's my guess at least.

Kicking up some dust

2010-04-02T00:27:00.004-04:00

Yeah, so... I've kind of neglected this here blog like an unwanted red-headed stepchild.

My bad. I originally planned to update the blog all summer with all the fun stuff going on at camp, but things changed. The internet hardly worked, and overall I was just too damned busy. Plus at some point I wasn't too happy with the performance/actions of some of my employees at camp (anybody who's ever worked at a camp knows what drama can go on) and I didn't feel venting my frustrations online where it can be found by anyone was the best route to travel. Looking back, it was an experience that taught me lessons I never would have learned, and a lot of those lessons weren't enjoyable, but I'm much better off for it, and I reap the rewards of that experience every day. My self-critical nature makes my mistakes more memorable, but I try to remind myself that it's about the kids, and in that respect I think I did a damn good job, even though by the time the summer was over I wanted my exit interview to go something like this

I kid of course, I met a lot of amazing people last summer, and I wouldn't trade any of it for the world.

So like I was saying, it's been over a year since my last post, I don't feel like I have enough interesting things to say to keep this ship cruising every day, but I'm going to start off by sharing some of the stuff I wrote when I was much younger and idealistic, including news articles and even some (gasp) poetry I wrote when I actually liked to write the stuff (i.e. before I realized how bad I was at it) it'll be an interesting little experiment, we'll see how it goes.

Improvements and changes at Sertoma

2009-03-28T16:28:00.006-04:00

I made a trip up to Sertoma for the weekend to work on some summer planning, while I was there I drove around (it was raining, so I didn't walk) and took some shots of some of the new things going on.

The Flying Squirrel, ready for lift-off, and now has a mulched landing

The Giant Swing, still giant, also mulched in

A view of the new low-ropes area, currently in development and going to be ready for the summer

Here's another view, that's a bridge across the stream right in front of you

Where the old low-ropes course used to be, now has a maintenance shed!

High ropes course, still high, bordered in with 8x8's and ready to be mulched the same way the giant swing and flying squirrel are

The road to the horse pasture, now graded and less treacherous-looking

Path to chapel, looks much nicer now with the 8x8's and the rocks, the parking area in front of the classrooms has also been "rocked out," this should help keep mud from getting tracked in when it rains

New windows in the rec hall! Soon they will be made soccer ball-proof

Windows from the outside

Improvements being made to the pool

New chairs for the conference room! Well, not brand-new, but they're new to us, and definitely an upgrade to what we had before.

Why I dislike Alex Ovechkin's prancing

2009-03-24T22:40:00.004-04:00

A lot has been made of Alexander Ovechkin's 50th-Goal-Celebration-And-General-Asshatery over the last few days. For those of you not in the know, after beating Mike McKenna for his 50th goal of the season, Ovi dropped his stick on the ice and pretended it was too hot to pick up. To date it was the most elaborate goal celebration of his career (that I think of) and added fuel to the Ovechkin-Cherry dispute. Don Cherry, an old timey Pro-Canada Anti-European traditionalist, hasn't been afraid to rail against Ovi's shinanegans, #8 and his supporters have been saying that his antics are good for the NHL, that it attracts fans to the sport.

Let's get a few things straight before I start in on this. I'm not a fan of Ovi8, he plays for one of my favorite team's (Carolina) rivals, but I do recognize that he is the best offensive player in the game, and I say "offensive" with good reason. Ovechkin is always looking to score, which often has a negative effect on his defensive play. I don't agree with all of Don Cherry's talking points against Ovechkin, but I agree that Alex's tomfoolery makes him look like an ass, and I'm going to tell you why.

His celebrations don't draw any fans to the game, period. Would you seriously tune in to an NFL game for the touchdown celebration? We watch the game (any game, really) because we want to see it played with skill (something Ovechkin definitely has). We're going to want to watch players of Alex's ilk no matter what because they're the best at what they do, his celebrations are unnecessary. Critics have lamented that the NHL doesn't have any one-name superstars a la Kobe, Lebron, A-Rod, Peyton, Eli, T.O., but this perceived (and as I believe, incorrectly perceived) lack of marketable stars isn't because they aren't prancing around like a band of idiots when they score, it's because the NHL has a piss-poor TV contract that keeps it's potentially marketable stars out of any markets that don't have NHL teams.

I'm not about to say that he shouldn't celebrate as frantically as he does because it might hurt the opposing team's feelings (which is a point Cherry makes). The way I see it, if teams didn't want to see number 8 roll around on the ice like a dumb ass they would keep him from scoring, or they should put one of their goons out there to slap some sense into him. The thing his celebrations do do (I'll pause while we all stop giggling at that list sentence), is draw all of the attention to him. This is what Ovechkin wants, of course, but he does this at the expense of his teammates. Hockey is a team sport (duh), and nine-times out of ten in an NHL game the player that scores the goal isn't the player that made the best play, for every goal there is usually some spirited fore or backchecking and at least one great pass, that's why hockey awards up to two assists per goal. Now, to his credit, Ovechkin celebrates enthusiasticly any time somebody on his line scores (even if his team is still down 4-1), but these choreographed celebrations take attention from the other five guys on the ice that put him in position to put the puck in the net. The first thing most hockey players do when they score is skate over and celebrate with their teammates, Ovechkin drops his stick and acts like an idiot instead.

So that's my case against NHL players making a big production out of goal celebrations. We don't need NHLers taking a page out of the NFL celebration playbook. Unlike NFL players, NHL players come across as personable to their fans, which is one of the reasons why we love them so much. If I saw Ray Whitney or Joe Corvo at the grocery store, I would feel comfortable quickly letting him know they've had a great season so far. A big-time NFL player? I don't think they even go shopping for their own groceries.

How Wikipedia saved my life

2009-03-07T19:26:00.000-04:00

It's Saturday afternoon, the second to last day of my spring break, and I'm bored. I've been needing to blog for over a month now, and since I don't really feel like thinking and writing, I thought I'd goof around with some Mac apps I've been neglecting (Photo Booth, Numbers) and answer a useless question I've been wondering about for a long time:

If I drink a lot of water, how much weight will I gain? Also, how will my drinking a bunch of water affect my scale's calculations of body fat % and body water %?

Yes, questions you never cared to ask, and I'm asking them.

So here's the lowdown.

Me being bored

The water bottle I'm going to be using, holds about 33.8 fluid ounces, I weight it using my scale and it showed 2.2 lbs, which is about right

The scale in question, it uses those metal pads to send electricity into my feet and, using my age, gender, and height, calculates my body fat % and body water %

Another FYI, as far as weight and body fat % I'm not going to tell you the initial number, just the amount it increases or decreases, because I'm like a woman when it comes to my weight.

4:40 PM Downing the first bottle of water. I'm wondering how much fluid the stomach can handle. I'd like to avoid puking.

4:45 PM Finished the first bottle of water. Results of the second weigh-in:

I gained 2.5 lbs, my body fat% went up by 0.4% and my total body water % actually went down from 53.3% to 53.1%. Odd.

Wikipedia says that the stomach, on average, expands to contain about 1 liter of food. Not sure how it handles water, but I just downed a liter of it, so I'm going to slow down a lil bit. No use puking in the name of science.

5:25 PM Finished the second bottle. Gained 2.1 lbs from the last weigh-in, my body fat % jumped up by .6% and my total body water % continued to go down, this time by 0.3%

At this point, nature is calling, but I'm going to hold off for now. In the name of science of course.

Such a trooper!

As a precaution, I read up on wikipedia about water poisoning/intoxication. I found this little tidbit: "In 2008, Jacqueline Henson, a 40-year-old British woman, died after drinking four litres of water in under two hours as part of her Lighter Life diet plan."

Holy Shitballs. About one hour into this game I've downed 2.5 liters. Granted, this woman was probably clinically obese, I'm not sure what kind of complications that would put into the whole deal, but I'm going to take it easy on this water drinking deal. I'm not puking for science, and I'm certainly not going to die for this stupid lil deal.

To balance out my electrolytes I'll see if I can find a banana or some pretzels or something. Yeah, I don't want to die.

6:09 PM finished my third liter of water. Gained 2.4 lbs from the last weigh-in (must be noted that I ate a few things to try and add nutrients to all the water I've been drinking in the interest of not dying) my body fat % went up .4% and my total body water continued to drop, this time by .3 percent.

I'm done drinking water for now. Wikipedia scared me straight, I don't want to die by something as lame as water intoxication, I'm actually starting to feel a little woosy, so I'm gonna end the consumption (and idiocy) right now. However, before I end the experiment all together, I'm interested in seeing how answering nature's call will change the numbers.

6:51 PM Nature called... and called... and called. I just lost 2.4 lbs in about a minute. That's about a liters worth of urine. My body fat % dropped by 1.3% and my body water % went back up to 53.3%, which is what it was at when this whole thing started.

Here's a graph of my exploits

Thinking out loud

2009-01-26T01:22:00.006-04:00

I used to be that friend that everybody went to with their problems. That's how I used to make friends, I would seek out the broken souls (at least the female broken souls) and then get them to tell me their life stories. Then I would try to fix everything for them. One of my close friends growing up actually called me her "mentor" I was a 14-year-old with the mind of a wise old man.

I don't do that very much anymore. I haven't for a long time. It wasn't that I didn't like it. I loved it, I loved making people happy and making them feel better about themselves. I'm not completely sure why I gave it up, probably because it was just too damned exhausting. In a few frustrating situations I found out that sometimes people don't want to be happy, they like being miserable, and you can't fix somebody that doesn't want to be fixed.

I also learned that when it comes to advice most people don't want it. 99% of the time when people ask for advice they're asking for you to tell them what they want to hear. They've made up their minds, now they just want somebody else to say what they're thinking so that they will be more confident with the decision they're already decided upon. It's not exactly an optimistic way to look at it, but we all do it.

I've never been very good at telling people what they want to hear, that drove some people away, and I also gave up on fixing people. I can't fix anybody, even if they want me to. When I gave up trying to be the "caretaker to the world" (as my school counselor would call it) my mental health improved dramatically. I started taking care of (and looking out for) myself. To this day that's something that sounds selfish for me to do, but I understand that it has a lot to do with why I'm as resilient a person as I am.

I also stopped giving out so much advice. My close friends all know (or at least they should know) that I would do anything for them, but a lot of times advice isn't what they want or need, which is something I didn't know why I was younger (and sometimes I forget, ask around, I tend to give out my fair share of unsolicited advice, my bad). Sometimes somebody just wants to talk about what's bugging them, to think out loud. Sometimes they just want a hug, and sometimes they don't want to talk about their problems at all, sometimes they need to get their mind off of their problems, if even just for an hour or two.

That said, sometimes I find myself falling into bad habits. I'll see a friend heading down a path that everybody around them knows isn't good for them, and I'll pull my hair out wanting to get them to change their minds. Sometimes I just want to shake them senseless, or at least until they can realize how stupid they're acting. It drives me nuts when I see somebody I care about ignore the great opportunities they have in front of them in favor of some misguided pipe dream that is only going to lead to them getting hurt.

But now, unlike before, I know that I need to stop myself. I don't know as much as I think I do sometimes, and besides, it's not my place to tell them what they should and shouldn't do. In the end the best thing is to let them go off and learn the lesson for themselves, and sometimes people need to chase their pipe dreams.

So instead of rushing in and trying to rectify the situation I'll keep my mouth shut. That's what a good friend does. I think.

Tip of the Day for my North Carolinian friends

2009-01-20T21:31:00.002-04:00

Last night, for the first time in the 2+ years I've lived in the Tar Heel State, we had a legitimate snowstorm. I woke up in the morning to three to five inches of snow on the ground and classes cancelled for the day.

A fair share of students on campus spent the day frolicking and whatnot, I didn't have much interest in anything like that, I've seen plenty of snow in my time. It's cold and wet, and if given the choice between a snowball fight and an extra few hours of sleep I'll take the sleep.

Anyhoo, for those of you who have to leave their cars outside and commute around the city here's a tip that can save you some time standing outside freezing your ass off and maybe even a few dollars if you want to avoid buying an ice scraper that you'll only use a few times.

The night before a snowstorm (or any other time where you think you'll need to use your scraper later on) take a piece of fabric you don't particularly care for (I like to use an old towel) and place it on the outside of your windshield. Use the windshield wipers to help hold it up. This also works for other windows you don't feel like scraping in the morning, just figure out a way to get them to stay on the window and you're good to go. Then in the morning peel the fabric off and tada! You no longer have to spend ten minutes scraping that bitch off.

Thoughts on God, Religion, Theology, and Pancakes

2009-01-16T05:32:00.005-04:00

It's been over a week since I posted anything on here. I was afraid this might happen. Things flowed so easily during the break. I always had something interesting to say (at least to me it was interesting). Now that the semester has started I haven't had time to focus on the outside world long enough to develop any writing ideas. I hate writing about myself and my own life, I'm a self-conscious blogger, and I hate to bore people.

Unfortunately for you it's 4:45 AM on a Friday morning and I'm bored, so I'm going to talk about myself here for a lil bit.

In particular I'm going to talk about my thoughts on religion. Yeah, that sounds like fun. Probably wont sound like a good idea a few hours from now, but why not go nuts?

So here goes...

I'm not religious, but organized religion fascinates me. I'm not spiritual, but I'm intrigued by spirituality. I'm not Christian, I'm not Jewish, I'm not really a Deist in the way it's commonly thought of, I'm not anything really. However I have nothing against those that are religious. My closest friends and some of the most important people in my life are devoutly religious, and that's just fine with me, it's part of who they are, they are intelligent, loving, and genuinely good people, if religion helped them get to where they are today then cool beans. At the same time I have a few (and I emphasize, a few, as in two or three) friends that subscribe to the sort of belief that worries me. They are ardently zealous and unquestioning in their faith. It's the unquestioning part that worries me. Us humantypes are built for asking questions, and suspending rational thought and honest inquiry in favor of zombie-like obedience and mindless zealotry is headslap stupid and creates an environment that breeds extremism, which is never a good thing no matter what it involves. You shouldn't check your brain at the door when you enter a chapel or open a book, quite the opposite in my opinion. Question everything I say. You'll be better off for it. Some of my more devout friends are also some of the most brilliant people I know of, and they involve every ounce of their intellect when it comes to their religous studies, and they are that much better off for it.

I'm now starting to realize that a non-religous person trying to give advice on how to best be religious is stupid. Mind-numbingly stupid.

I'm not religous, but I'm ready and willing to admit that I don't know what the answer is. That doesn't mean I don't believe in anything though. I believe in truth, honesty, and generally not being a douchebag. I believe there is only one sin: stealing, and I believe that any other "sin" you can think of is derived from theft (yeah, I got that from Kite Runner, but you have to admit that was a sweet movie). When I do something nice for somebody else, it makes me feel good about myself, I don't think you have to subscribe to any particular theology to realize that, it just makes sense. I don't go to church, I don't pray, but I try to live my life day to day as a good person, if death is the end then I'm okay with that. Kindness is an end unto itself. It makes me happy now and if it earns me points in any potential afterlife then sweet deal.

The further I get into this lil monologue the more I realize it's impossible for me to get my arms around this topic. It would take hours for me to explain my ideas on religion in a way that I feel would keep people from hating me, so for now I'm going to throw in the towell and go to sleep. Maybe I'll take it up again the next time I'm awake in the predawn hours and need to kill time.

Bragging

2009-01-07T16:03:00.002-04:00

So on New Years Day I went bowling with my family. It's sort of a tradition that we've been doing for the last little while. I figured it'd be a good opportunity to spend time with the fam and roll a few games. I had no idea I was going to bowl the best game of my life.

Yes, I had the girl behind the desk print out the scoresheet. You have to have proof of things like this or nobody will ever believe you. Along with being my highest score ever it's also my first clean game ever. For the 98% of you out there that don't know the term, a clean game is when you have a strike or spare in each frame, so basically no open frames.

Anyway, I'm done patting myself on the back now.

Murder suspect poses with possible murder weapon on myspace

2009-01-02T05:23:00.008-04:00

In another example of stupid criminals metaphorically shooting themselves in the foot with social networking sites, Deamonte Tavaris Brooks, 18, charged with one count of murder and two counts of assault with a deadly weapon with intent to kill inflicting serious injury stemming from a November 8 shooting, is helping investigators to build a case against him by having previously posed with the potential murder weapon in pictures featured on his myspace page, according to Michael Blesecker of the Raleigh News & Observer.

According to Blesecker, "The page is titled "Crip Swag" and makes numerous mentions of Brooks' affiliation with the Crips street gang."

Sounds like an upstanding member of the community to me.

Police covered their bases and obtained a search warrant to document any potential evidence found on the myspace page. The warrant was executed December 18th and Investigator M. Soucie noted that "Upon further investigation it was discovered the suspect had a MySpace account and had photos of the possible murder weapon along with comments and messages that may be related to this crime, the MySpace account was viewed and did in fact contain photos of the suspect holding several weapons."

I decided to check Mr. Brooks' Myspace page for myself to see if it is as self-incriminating as Blesecker makes it sound. He wasn't exagerrating:

The first two pictures are of what police believe to be the murder weapon. The other two are of an automatic rifle and a sawed-off shotgun.

It continues to amaze me with how stupid some people can be when it comes to Myspace and Facebook. Do you think these photos and "cryp swag" layout are going to shave any years off when it comes to his sentence? What amazes me even more is that it keeps on happening. You'd think that if you've dedicated yourself to a life of crime, or at least decided to dabble in the "thug lifestyle" that you would think twice about advertising your misdeeds and/or weapons arsenal on a website accessible to anybody with two thumbs and the IQ of a speed bump, let alone the COPS. Deamonte may not be the sharpest gangstrrr on the block, but at least he went down in style.

Social networking sites have turned into a real asset for investigators trying to put away criminals that are more concerned with looking good than not getting caught, it makes it easier for them to get these boys off the streets and make life safer for the rest of us, plus it gives me something to write about. It's unfortunate that this kid had to go and kill somebody to make a name for himself.

Hockey Night in Raleigh

2008-12-31T23:49:00.000-04:00

I went to the Carolina Hurricanes game against the Atlanta Thrashers tonight. My mom scored some sweet tickets so I went along with my family. It's the first time I've been to a game so far this season (I'm poor and tickets aren't cheap). But the cool thing about going out with your parents is that you don't have to pay to get in.

I know, I'm cheap, but it's okay for me to be cheap right now because I'm in school. I'll remember my parents kindness thirty years from now when I put them in a real nice old folks home.

Anyway, I'd forgotten how much more fun hockey games are when you are actually there as opposed to watching on TV. You see so much more when you're in the arena. My favorite part was when during a brief altercation after a whistle, while the refs were paying attention to a different group of players pushing and shoving, Tim Gleason shoved a Thrashers player's head into the glass. Canadians showed good taste in choosing a national pastime.

My least favorite part of the game was before the game started. I dropped my beer and spilled it all over myself and the seats of the people sitting in front of me. I felt terrible, but the guy was cool about it. The girl he was with wouldn't look at me.

Anyhoo, back to the game

The Hurricanes looked well-rested and their forecheck was outstanding. The 'Canes responded to Ilya Kovalchuck's wrister that went by Cam Ward in the first period with three unanswered goals. Sergei Samsonov was a manimal, picking up two goals and an assist in the 3-1 win.

My inner sportswriter is starting to take over... I'll try to pace myself from here on out.

One last note about the game. The three stars were 1) Sergei Samsonov 2) Tuomo Ruutu and 3) Joe Corvo. All players acquired last season by GM Jim Rutherford (Samsonov was picked up off waivers from the Blackhawks while Ruutu and Corvo were acquired via trades with the Blackhawks and Senators, respectively) so cudos to Mister Jim on picking up players that have been solid contributors to the team.

Remind me to NOT advertise my underage drinking party on Facebook

2008-12-24T18:04:00.003-04:00

Gaston County Police used a Facebook posting to help them find a party Saturday night where they found at least 31 underage drinkers.

WCNC of Charlotte is reporting that 47-year-old Steven Haney and his girlfriend, 39-year-old Melissa Wilson, were charged with aiding and abetting underage possession/consumption of alcohol.

Here's the kicker though, turns out the police were tipped off by somebody that was spying information from the popular social networking site. WCNC says it was a "diligent adult who was monitoring the internet and found a note about the party."

I like to think it was somebody that didn't get an invite, hell hath no fury like somebody that gets left out int he cold while everybody else gets to have fun. Payback is a bitch.

Anyhoo, this is yet another example of people getting burned for what they think is anonymous on the internet. While facebook is slightly more secure than myspace, a lot of people leave their profiles, pictures, or events open to the public. Beleive it or not, people are searching for information about you, "google" is not just a noun, so avoid having anything public out there that you wouldn't want your boss taking a look at.

Fake ID case points to NCSU Students, Frat member

2008-12-20T03:42:00.003-04:00

In a case that's been brewing over the last few days since finals have ended, two currently enrolled NCSU undergrads have been identified as middlemen to a NCSU alumn who is accused of selling fake ID's to NCSU students. This according to search warrants attained and reported on by WRAL and the Raleigh News & Observer.

Robert Wayne Bullock, the aforementioned NCSU alumnus who is(was?) a Duke grad student was arrested this week and was soon-after released on bond from the Wake County Jail.

Apparently the authorities had been aware that something was up for a few months when they started confiscating several high-quality fake id's from clubs and bars in the Raleigh area.

They were high quality because Mr. Bullock had procured himself a printer and laminator from the DMV, along with laminating paper with those nifty holograms and whatnot.

The most recent development is the indication by these search warrants that current (and, I'm assuming, soon to be former) NCSU students were helping to distribute the fake ID's to State students. These guys seem to have used the "autobahn of innovation" in a direction not foreseen by State's marketing and recruiting staff.

Here's an interesting tidbit not yet being reported anywhere that I know of: one of the NCSU students implicated in the search warrants happens to be an active member of one of NCSU's more prominent greek fraternaties. I'm not going to disclose this kid's name here since he hasn't been formally charged that I know of, and I also wont name the frat, because lets be honest, I don't have a readership, and twigs in the forest don't make a noise if nobody is there to listen.

Anyway, back to the frat angle. It's entirely possible that his being a brother at a very active campus frat is consequential, or it may turn out that his fraternity connections gave him this opportunity for criminal mischief. Either way, this isn't the kind of publicity you need if you're one of the more prominent social organizations on campus.

Srsly?

2008-12-18T05:22:00.004-04:00

I was randomly perusing a semi-popular test-taking/social networking site (hell, it's 4 a.m. and I can't sleep, give me a break) when I found this profile. I just had to share (that's what she said!)

Artwork was added for those unable to find the funny.

Self-deprication

2008-12-18T03:32:00.003-04:00

What I learned this semester

2008-12-16T21:07:00.000-04:00

After spending two years away from the world of academia I made my much anticipated return to college life at a new University in a new state. It's been an interesting semester, so in order to celebrate it's ending (finally), I'm going to jot down a few things I learned since August.

I don't miss Utah's embarrassingly ridiculous liquor laws

You can try to take the South out of the University, but you can't take the University out of the South

Refereeing a flag football game is more difficult than most people would think

Frat games are definitely the worst to officiate.

Cutco knives are very sharp. I almost lost the tip of a finger to one

Kneffel is filling

Deep-fried pecan pie is delicious.

A deep-fried Snickers bar isn't worth the money.

Clark Dining Hall is the red-headed stepchild of the NCSU dining halls.

The NCSU Volleyball team would cut off their nose to spite their face.

Wood Hall is the red-headed stepchild of the NCSU Residence Halls. On the edge of campus, no convenient bus routes to North Campus, basically an afterthought.

Getting drunk at 10 a.m. isn't as much fun as it sounds

Misadventures in American Sign Language

2008-12-10T15:24:00.003-04:00

I was looking through my ASL dictionary today and it got me thinking about some of my early experiences in trying to communicate via ASL. I took an ASL I class when I was a junior in high school (way back in 2002-2003) but my first experience using the language as the only mode of communication with somebody wasn't until the summer of 2008, more than five years later.

I had just started working at Camp Sertoma, and it turned out that eight or nine of the people I was working with were deaf, and after a few days of staff training I was really eager to be able to communicate with these people and get to know them. One day I was talking with the Desiree (who is deaf) and Maggie (who is a CODA, or a Child of a Deaf Adult, so essentially she's bilingual) and Maggie was forcing me to try and sign the conversation myself. I wasn't aware of this at the time, but CODA's are often treated as built-in translators and they aren't always in love with that fact.

Anyway, I was getting to know Desi when I tried to sign "I had ASL class five years ago" but instead I signed, literally "I had ASL class five fuck ago" Desiree immediately started laughing, and Maggie said "Dude, you just said five fuck ago." Needless to say I was embarassed.

Another good story happened several weeks later. I had been teaching an astronomy class, and I was heading back to the main building on camp for my hour off. On my way I crossed paths with my group of campers and my partner, Juju. I tried to sign to him "my hour off" but I was carrying something, and my signing was unclear. Juju saw what I signed and his eyes got all big, turns out he thought I had said to "fuck off." But fortunately Juju and I got along great as partners and he probably knew that I would never knowingly tell him off like that, so I corrected myself and no feelings were hurt.

I'm not sure why it is that a lot of my experiences with messing up my signing involve me signing the word "fuck." Maybe I just have a crude mind like that.

Sign of the day: Annoy (with video!)

2008-12-08T19:10:00.004-04:00

I wanted to do another 'sign of the day' blog today, but certain events transpired that led me to run away from Raleigh for the day. In doing so I left my trusty ASL dictionary behind, so with no pictures I decided to put my fears of looking like a fool behind and used my iSight camera to record my sign for the day. I look like hell, I haven't shaved for a while and I'm currently doing laundry which means I'm at the end of my wardrobe.

Anyway, on to the show

Today's sign: Annoy

This is definitely one of my favorite signs. I like the signed version of the word more than the spoken one. Mostly because it feels more descriptive of the mood.

Side note: I thought before that the flat right hand landed in between the index and middle fingers, but I must have been wrong, because every description of the sign I can find has the flat right hand going between the thumb and index fingers. Perhaps some of my ASL-fluent friends can let me know which version is correct.

Food box philosophy

2008-12-07T10:00:00.000-04:00

I’m wondering to myself… why is it that, on food box instructions, they always instruct you to ‘enjoy’ at the end? If a product is any good don’t you think they wouldn’t need to remind me that I’m supposed to like it? If I call the company that makes the food and tell them their product tastes like the plague and I want my money back, will they tell me no because I didn’t properly follow the instructions on the box?

These are the kinds of things I think about when I can’t sleep.

Sign of the day

2008-12-06T15:52:00.006-04:00

You may not know this about me, but I like American Sign Language. It fascinates me, the culture intrigues me, and I think every American could benefit from learning about it, if not learning how to speaking some of the language themselves. Also, because I like to play with my scanner, I feel like scanning some from my ASL Dictionary and sharing. The word or phrase I choose will probably have something to do with my mood at the time, or something just plain random, we'll see.

Anyway, here's todays sign of the day.

Looking at the quality of the scan I'm thinking I need to find a better way to do this, one idea I have is that I could take a video of myself using the sign, but I'm very self-conscious about my signing ability, I'd hate to embarrass myself.

UPDATE: In my haste to finish up this post and get on the road I neglected to give proper attribution to my source. The dictionary entry is from The Random House Webster's American Sign Language Dictionary: Compact Edition by Elaine Costello.

Revival

2008-12-06T15:32:00.002-04:00

I wont go so far to say I've been bad at updating my blog, because to be honest I haven't done a damn thing with it. This is mostly due to my reluctance to write something just for the sake of writing. If I put something up here I want it to be worth reading, and it takes a lot of effort for me to come up with decent content, so I just put it all aside and focused on my schoolings.

Anyway, a blogging revival has been on my mind the last few weeks. Recently I put up a new blogger site featuring my second-grade-quality artwork so I could have an excuse to play around with my scanner, but that got old after a while. I'd really like to get my own URL (a la Mike Helms and his excellent absent.canadian blog), but I'm thinking this attitude toward blogging is like buying a gym membership with the idea that because you're shelling out your hard-earned cash you're more likely to guilt-trip yourself into working out more often, so until I can learn more about web hosting and how to tailor a site to my liking I'll be sticking around here for the time being. I have a few ideas about content, one of which I'm going to post today, and we'll see where that takes us.

For fans of Office Space

2008-04-21T14:49:00.002-04:00

I was substitute teaching today and surprisingly the students were relatively well-behaved (that's not saying much, it's a good day when nobody tries to burn anything)

Anyway, this lead me to being bored, so I started drawing things I saw in the room. I'm a poor artist, but I gave it the old college try.

Why I’m in My Current Job

2008-02-10T23:01:00.001-04:00

I may not know what I want to do with my life, but I know what I don't want to do with my life, and that's spending every day in the same office, shuffling the same papers, putting up with the same stupid boss, and trying to appease the same asshole customer every day for forty years. I tried doing it for six months. I was good at my job, I was efficient at it, but my soul was dying inside.

Between that and finding out what I want to do next I have right now what may be the perfect part-time job for my situation. I have no boss, I don't have to "work the phones", if I don't want to work one day then I don't, I spend most of my days reading magazines and books, I work with students, and every once in a while I get to try and teach them something. I'm a substitute teacher, and it beats the hell out of being a receptionist, working at an ice cream place or a video rental place. It gives me something different every day I work, and it's very flexible.

The application process is a pain in the ass, you have to take a physical, fill out eight-thousand forms and get three hundred letters of recommendation, but it was all definitely worth the time spent. I'm not completely sure I want to be a teacher after I finish school, but in the mean time I'm really liking this job.

No no, please don't leave!

2008-02-03T13:05:00.001-04:00

We're one month into the new year and already I'm neglecting my bloggin's. This definitely wasn't the plan. I've actually written two or three blogs, it's just a matter of transcribing them to this guy over here. I hand-wrote them while either in class or substituting, which is pretty amazing for me, because I hate to hand write anything longer than a few sentences, but when you have nothing else to work with you have to improvise.

Who would have thought putting pen to paper would be considered improvisation?

Anyhoo, I don't have anything for you at the moment, sry, but I promise I'll get on the ball here in the next few days. I'd like to say that I've been working so much and been so busy that I just haven't had the time to devote to my musings, but really I've just been busy being a lazy bastard.

So, to my readers, I love you both so much, and I'm sorry for my asshattery.

Staying awake in class

2008-01-08T19:39:00.001-04:00

This week I'm taking a substitute teaching course at Wake Tech. Not because I want to learn how to be a substitute teacher (Put your face close to the mirror, does it fog up? The job is yours!), but rather because if I finish this class I'll get paid an additional $9 for every day I work as a "Guest Teacher." That's more than a $1/hour raise, sweet.

It's hard to stay awake, but it's been interesting sitting in a room for five hours a day, surrounded by a bunch of ladies older than my mom. And the instructor is a loon. She knows everything, and you are stupid. I do a good job keeping my mouth shut, as much as I want to argue it would be more productive to waive around a pistol in a European airport.

Anyhoo, these are the thoughts I have during the class, along with some slightly humorous anecdotes from the instructor:

"...There's no incorrect way to answer this, just raise your hand if you think this woman should get her home life fixed before she gets her job priorities straight... (this is her stopping to count hands)... the four of you that raised your hands are wrong!"

When counting the cities/states you have visited, I vote that it shouldn't count if you never actually left the airport. A layover in an airport terminal doesn't count as a tourist outing. I've been to the Minneapolis airport twice, but I don't count Minnesota as a place I've been because well, I never left the terminal, and an airport terminal is rarely an accurate representation of the city outside.

I could never be an idealist, I'd get frustrated all the time. Lots of things sound brilliant in theory, then real life happens.

"You will get forty-five minutes to teach as a group individually" -that's verbatim from the instructor, I'm still trying to figure out what the hell it means.

I have so many great writing ideas when it's late and I'm exhausted, but during the day when I'm energized I have a hell of a time getting those ideas to fruition.

It's sort of comical to see a well-dressed late-thirty-something Italian woman sitting next to a mullet-clad woman named Pennypacker from West Virginia that uses ridiculous amounts of light blue eye shadow and a black t-shirt with a unicorn on the front. What an awkward juxtaposition.

It's downright hilarious to listen to a Backwoods North Carolina woman with a twangy southern accent and an Englishwoman from Chelsea argue about society's demands on today's woman at home and at the workplace. Talk about accents on opposite sides of the English-speaking spectrum.

I hate it when I'm getting to know someone (not romantically, just in general) and I fall into one of my rambling spells where I carry on about any random thing that comes across my mind. I think it makes me come across as a complete nerd, which is accurate, I just don't want it to become so blatantly obvious right away.

You know what's kind of gross? Eating your pre-lunch snack in the men's room. It's a fairly clean restroom, but please don't talk with your mouth full while I'm washing my hands. I hope you don't get hepatitis.

Merry New Year

2007-12-31T21:13:00.000-04:00

Compared to others, this has been a shitty year, the last six months in particular, but I know I still have a lot to be thankful for. My friends and family most of all. I wouldn't be anywhere without them. When it comes down to it, bad things are going to happen to all of us, some things worse than others, and it may feel like this really isn't your day... month... year... life or whatever. Things are going to go wrong, that's just the nature of the human condition. You have to keep in mind though, great and beautiful things happen every day. The only way you can miss out on these great things is if you let the bad things cripple you (like they crippled me a lot this year). You may lose a friend but gain another, a grandparent may pass away and someone close to you may have a child, you may lose your faith in God but gain faith in Humanity. Bad things are going to happen no matter what, even if you lock yourself in your room, but you can't experience the finer things in life if you don't come out and play.

I think part of what makes life beautiful (pardon my sappiness) is our ability to overcome the rough times that come our way. We'll be beaten down, but we keep on keepin' on, and we should be proud of ourselves for that and try to lend a hand to those that are struggling.

(Only one more paragraph of my cheesiness, I promise.)

Anyway, my new year's resolution is to be more positive about life and to tell those close to me how I feel about them. To live for the day and not as if I have another fifty years to go. I love you all, and I hope your 2008 is a successful year for you.

Live from Riverton, it's Christmas Day!

2007-12-25T22:51:00.000-04:00

Oy vey, it's been a... not very good Christmas. I don't want to say bad, because whenever you're around good food and family things aren't going poorly, but it's sure had it's shitty parts. Was on a plane from Raleigh to Minneapolis to Salt Lake all day yesterday. When we got to the SLC we found out half our luggage was missing, including my bag. The prospect of spending eight days without my happy pills or a change of clothes scared the hell out of me.

Anyway, after that we went to the car rental place to find out Advantage rent-a-car closes at midnight, and nobody else had anything bigger than a compact car, which wasn't going to fit everybody much less the ski's we were lugging around. So we scratched together $50 in cash to get a shuttle to drive us to Riverton. Got in about 3 a.m. (5 eastern) and collapsed.

Wow, I'm talking more about myself than I planned to already. Anyway, the short version of the rest: I got my bag back around 3 p.m. today, yay and all that.

Anyway, I watched Garden State on the airplane, one of my favorite movies of all time, so I'll leave you with my favorite quote from the movie (out of many) that kind of sums up my thoughts on life at the moment:

"You know that point in your life when you realize that the house that you grew up in isn't really your home anymore? All of the sudden even though you have some place where you can put your shit that idea of home is gone... you move out one day and it's just gone. And you can never get it back. It's like you get homesick for a place that doesn't exist. I mean it's like this rite of passage. You won't have this feeling again until you create a new idea of home for yourself, you know, for your kids, for the family you start, it's like a cycle or something. I miss the idea of it. Maybe that's all family really is. A group of people who miss the same imaginary place."

The Two-Party System: American Politics

2007-12-21T20:06:00.000-04:00

Last week somebody from the UK asked me how the American two-party political system works, and if they have any sort of permanent leaders. Here's my answer:

Each party has a national committee that determines the party platform. This platform that the parties stand on is actually very fluid, hardly a platform at all really. If you compared the party stance on issues from fifty, or even twenty years ago, and compared them with how they feel about things today, you would find huge discrepancies that would make it seem that the two parties don't really have any ties whatsoever to the parties of today, which would seem like a big deal seeing as how they love to channel Kennedy and Reagan, but that's really not a big deal because the only goal of the Party is to get their members elected and in power. So staying consistent isn't really a concern, in fact, staying consistent quite often leads to a loss of power over the course of a decade or two. We Americans are awful flighty when it comes to knowing what we want when it comes to politics.

Anyway, the party National Committee takes the platform that they think best endears them to the largest group of voters and dictates it to the regional party committees who filter that on down to the state party committees who pass it on to the county parties, municipalities, etc. Think of it as an enormous multi-tiered fountain, but as opposed to an awesome fountain of chocolate or cheese or even Sierra Mist this is a bullshit fountain, dispensing wave after wave of excrement to the huddled masses below. The lower rungs of the ladder tolerate this because along with the bullshit, the fountain also dispenses large sums of money. This leads me to the National Committees most important function: Fund raising, because you can't get elected unless you can buy thousands of dollars worth of advertising that promotes the tawdry details of your opponents sexual escapades (true or not). The party committee doles out the cash to the candidates with the understanding that they use it to build a bullshit cannon to fire like grapeshot at unsuspecting and otherwise ordinary Americans.

But I digress.

The Democratic National Committee and the Republican National Committee have chairmen, at the moment Howard Dean leads the Democrats and Mike Duncan for the GOP, but they are elected (or appointed? Don't know, don't care) and replaced so often that most Americans have no idea who these guys are, and those that do don't pay them much attention. The chairmen are most visible at the party National Conventions every four years when a Presidential Election comes around, only to retreat to their bullshit cave three days later never to be heard from again.

A Tip for Herding Cats...

2007-12-19T17:11:00.000-04:00

Okay, so this isn't really about herding cats, but that's what substitute teaching feels like sometimes. Still, here's some advice for people that don't have a lot of experience with large groups of teenagers. If you do have experience with large groups of teenagers and/or substituting, hopefully you'll laugh because it's so true.

When you're a sub, the simplest way to know if a group of students are up to no good is if they're looking at you. It sounds ridiculous, but most middle and high schoolers will never make eye contact with you unless you're talking with them one-on-one. However, if they're breaking the rules they will look right at you to see if you're looking. I don't think they are aware that they do this, but it sticks out like a sore thumb when, out of a class of 28 students that are doing their own thing, a group of three suddenly stop talking and look up at you. It gives them away every time. Even if the culprit (and it's almost always a boy) is smart enough to look away, those around him aren't, and they always go silent which is conspicuous when they're the loudest group in the room. So the next time you see a group of students stop what they're doing and give you the 'deer in headlights' look, stay alert, something is going down.

Plastic Wallets

2007-08-30T01:01:00.000-04:00

Earlier this summer I finally broke down and bought my first new wallet in like... three years. It's not that my old wallet was all that great, by the time I finally got rid of it looked like it had been rode hard and put away wet. Most of the sleeves and little pouch things were torn and stuff was falling out of it all the time. I finally made up my mind to get a new one when I lost my credit card at the movie theatre :O , the Apex PD ended up visiting my parents, scaring the crap out of them thinking I'd been busted for doing something stupid, but really they had just gotten the billing address for the card (how?) and were trying to locate me. I was watching a movie at the time, my parents called me, and everything ended just fine. Many thanks to the boys in blue in A-Town.

Anyhow, I bought a new wallet the next day. I decided to do something different. Instead of my old standby, the leather bi-fold (I'm not a fan of that tri-fold crap) and went with a Mossimo pleather bi-fold. It has a trendy green stripe on one side and little breathing-holes similar to what you find on the tops of tennis shoes. Plus it was only like $12.

Turns out that was a big mistake. The pleather isn't exactly conducive to heat, and between my hot ass and the 100 degree, 70% humidity of the NC Piedmont region, it doesn't have anywhere to hide. It gets warm and sticks much the same way your ass sticks to a leather seat on a hot summer day. Opening the damn things sounds like a crunching potato chip and prying a credit card or the occasional dolla bill is a feat of engineering.

I hate my wallet, but the saddest part has to do with me being a tightwad now that I'm temporarily unemployed. I can't justify the dough to purchase a new wallet to store my dough. Is it me, or does it seem odd to spend money on something to store your money in?

I'm going to bed.

This is who I are

2007-08-29T00:10:00.000-04:00

I had a sudden rush of optimism as of fifteen minutes ago. This is odd for me, at least lately. I know it'll probably go away within the hour, but I'ma ride this wave until it crashes into the surf.

Loud, heavy music is the order of the day. Or at least right now. I plugged my bose-knock-off noise canceling headphones into my lappy, flip the switch and construct my playlist.

It's not varied or lengthy. Some songs from the new Linkin Park album, 30 Seconds to Mars, Hawthorne Heights and my favorite local band, Pivot. These guys sought us out as the story of my sister's murder was making the rounds in the media, and offered to turn their upcoming show at Volume 11 Tavern (just around the corner from where my sister was killed) into a benefit concert. We met with them and decided to give the show the go ahead, and it turns out that along with being an awesome group of guys they have a kickass sound. They gave me a copy of their newest EP and I've been addicted ever since. They have another show in Raleigh in late September, I'll definitely be making an effort to be there.

Anyhow, things are starting to get a little better. I'll hopefully be employed next month and have a chance to get out of the house for a change. All apologies to all of you for not keeping in contact. Between the grief and depression and general bull pucky that goes along with that I haven't been calling anybody, or leaving the house much for that matter. I'ma try and be better, but keep in mind, I love you all.

Incoherance

2007-08-07T03:46:00.000-04:00

Here's a change of pace. As opposed to actually trying to make sense with my posts I'm just going to ramble on incoherently. This is the reason I hate most blogs. All people do is ramble on and on about themselves and nothing, but tonight (or rather this morning) I don't care.

I thought for a second about just talking to somebody about this stuff, but for the last week or so my mind has been touching on such non-linear subjects that all I can do is confuse people, and in turn probably scare them to an extent. Open a book, any book, now read only every eighth word. Yeah, that's what it's like in my head when I try to sleep.

My situation is on tumble dry right now. Everything has been tossed around, and I haven't even started to figure out where everything has ended up. I have a different outlook on life; I have no sympathy for others or myself when it comes to petty problems in life. I'm unemployed, and I came to the realization last week that I'm depressed.

Let me clarify that last statement. Yes, I'm struggling with depression issues. However, I'm not all that unhappy. All things considered my life is going just fine, I just have social anxiety issues, I disappear from my friends (something that's easy when 99% of them are 2000 miles away) and occasionally I don't leave the house for four days. I know that sounds terrible, but I've dealt with worse bouts of depression. I have a lot to be happy about. I have a great family including two beautiful nephews that I love being around, despite being unemployed I'm not in financial trouble, and I have a sweet ride. I know how to deal with this. It's not fun, but I know I can handle it and I'm starting to put together a plan to work through it. Things are good, I'm just depressed... that doesn't even make sense to me. I assume this is part of the grieving process. Who knows.

Anyway, time for something different that's been on my mind tonight.

As I was laying down trying to sleep I started thinking about a certain relationship I was in years ago. This girl absolutely blew my mind, I was infatuated. I spent almost every day that summer spending time with her. Anyway, I'll spare you the rest of the story, but you get the idea. Anyway, I was reminiscing, and yearning (for lack of a better word) to have those moments back, to have somebody that fascinates me like that again, that was by far the most amazing relationship I have ever been in. But was it really?

This girl and I went our separate ways, but stayed in touch. We saw each other again months later, and I was underwhelmed. She'd change, being with her then wasn't as incredible as it was before. Then shortly before she left again we had more great times together. Then she left again. Then we saw each other again and the same thing happened. Disappointment followed by those incredible moments that reminded me why I was so caught up in her to begin with. This happened a few more times before we finally drifted apart and found new people, but every once in a while, like tonight, I reflect on the good times we had. They seem so awesome, I can't believe I ever let her get away, but that's got to be my mind playing tricks on me. The relationship definitely wasn't perfect, she had personality quirks that drove me bonkers, but I don't remember those times as well.

This got me to thinking, are the great memories we have really that great? I think oftentimes we live in that moment, we capture it and glean out all the things we didn't love about it. Maybe that has something to do with why some people always end up getting back together when they probably shouldn't. They have those great times tucked away and subconsciously forget the not so great times. I think this is where "absence makes the heart grow fonder" kicks in.

That doesn't mean this girl from ages ago wasn't worth the trouble. She definitely was, and I hope the girl I marry someday in the very distant future is a lot like her. However, we have to keep things in perspective. Nobody is perfect, you're not going to get along all the time, or even most of the time, if you allow yourself to develop unreal expectations of people you're never going to be content with things.

Jerry Falwell is dead!

2007-05-15T14:18:00.000-04:00

I'm not even joking.

This from the Associated Press

LYNCHBURG, Va. -- The Rev. Jerry Falwell, who founded the Moral Majority and built the religious right into a political force, died today shortly after being found unconscious in his office at Liberty University, a school executive said. He was 73.

Ron Godwin, the university's executive vice president, said Falwell, 73, was found unresponsive around 10:45 a.m. and taken to Lynchburg General Hospital. "CPR efforts were unsuccessful," he said.

I guess now he'll find out if God really is a Republican, as he suggested.

I hate to bash a dead man, but Falwell was the epitome of evangelical Christianity. For a religion based largely on tolerance Falwell was an agent of intolerance. In 1965 Reverend Falwell gave a sermon at his Thomas Road Baptist Church criticizing Martin Luther King and the Civil Rights Movement, which he sometimes referred to as the Civil Wrongs Movement. He often spoke out in favor of the racist position in those days. His views eventually shifted and was against segregation in his later years.

In the 1980s Jerry Falwell was an outspoken supporter of the Apartheid regime in South Africa. When president PW Botha was elected President by the White South African minority, Reverend Falwell went to South Africa and made statements supporting the government there and urging American Christians to buy Krugerrands, a coin issued by the South African Government.

In 1984, he was ordered to pay gay activist Jerry Sloan $5,000 after losing a court battle. During a TV debate in Sacramento, California, Falwell denied calling the gay-oriented Metropolitan Community Churches "brute beasts" and "a vile and Satanic system" that will "one day be utterly annihilated and there will be a celebration in heaven."

When Sloan insisted he had a tape, Falwell promised $5,000 if he could produce it. Sloan did, Falwell refused to pay, and Sloan successfully sued. Falwell appealed, with his attorney charging that the judge in the case was prejudiced. He lost again and was made to pay an additional $2,875 in sanctions and court fees.

He also used his position of power to further his political agenda. In 1994, Falwell released the straight-to-video documentary "The Clinton Chronicles: An Investigation into the Alleged Criminal Activities of Bill Clinton." The video connected Bill Clinton to a conspiracy theory involving Vincent Foster, James McDougall, Ron Brown, and an alleged cocaine-smuggling operation. Despite the theories being discredited by all major investigations, the video's sophisticated production techniques served as effective exposure, and sold over 150,000 copies.

Funding for the film was paid for by the Citizens for Honest Government, to which Jerry Falwell paid $200,000 in 1994 and 1995. In 1995 Citizens for Honest Government paid two Arkansas state troopers to make allegations supporting the conspiracy about Vincent Foster. These two troopers were Roger Perry and Larry Patterson who also were paid for their allegations in the Paula Jones case.

Falwell's infomercial for the 80-minute tape included footage of Falwell interviewing a silhouetted journalist who was afraid for his life. The journalist accused Clinton of orchestrating the deaths of several reporters and personal confidants who had gotten too close to his illegalities. However, it was subsequently revealed that the silhouetted journalist was, in fact, Patrick Matrisciana, the producer of the video and president of Citizens for Honest Government ."Obviously, I'm not an investigative reporter," Matrisciana admitted (to investigative journalist Murray Waas), "and I doubt our lives were actually ever in any real danger. That was Jerry's idea to do that ... He thought that would be dramatic."

In an interview for the 2005 documentary The Hunting of the President Falwell admitted, "To this day I do not know the accuracy of the claims made in The Clinton Chronicles," but failed to condemn the poor research.

I'm never happy when somebody dies, Falwell wasn't a monster and there are far worse people in the world, but I hope the intolerance he preached will fade as he slips further into the history pages.

Perv's On Myspace

2007-05-14T13:06:00.000-04:00

This is a press release from the NC Attorney General, more people ought to know about this stuff.

AG Cooper seeks info about possible thousands of sex offenders on MySpace
AGs demand that MySpace turn over the names of convicted sex offenders the company knows are on its site

Raleigh: MySpace needs to turn over the names of potentially thousands of registered sex offenders the company has identified on its website, North Carolina Attorney General Roy Cooper said today.

Cooper and a group of other state attorneys general believe that data from Sentinel Tech Holdings, a company working with MySpace, indicate that thousands of known sex offenders may have been confirmed as MySpace members. In a letter sent today to MySpace, six state attorney generals asked the company to provide the names and states of all registered sex offenders with profiles on its social networking site.

“MySpace is a treasure trove of potential victims for child predators,” said North Carolina Attorney General Roy Cooper. “Sex offenders have no business being on this site, and we believe MySpace has a responsibility to get them off the site.”

Today’s letter requests that MySpace tell the attorneys general by May 29 how many registered sex offenders have been found on its site and what steps the company has taken to remove them from the site. In addition the letter asks MySpace to provide details on what it has done to alert other MySpace users who have communicated with these offenders, and also to alert law enforcement about these offenders.

Cooper and Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal are leading a group of attorneys general from 50 states and territories who have been pushing MySpace to do a better job protecting children from dangers on its site such as sexual predators and inappropriate content.

Across the country, law enforcement agencies have identified more than 200 cases where children were lured out of their home by predators they met on MySpace. In North Carolina, a former sheriff’s deputy was sentenced to 15 years in prison in 2006 for molesting a 15-year-old Cary boy he met on MySpace. In 2006, the NC State Bureau of Investigation arrested a Boiling Spring Lakes police officer for raping a 14-year-old girl he lured through MySpace.

Both North Carolina and Connecticut and a handful of other states are currently pushing legislation that would require social networking sites including MySpace to get parents’ permission before letting children join. Cooper is also pushing a measure that would make it a felony for convicted sex offenders to join social networking sites where children are members.

Today’s letter was signed by attorneys general from Connecticut, Georgia, Idaho, Mississippi, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Ohio and Pennsylvania. A copy of the letter is attached.

###

STATE ATTORNEYS GENERAL
A Communication From the Chief Legal Officers Of the Following States:
Connecticut – Georgia – Idaho – Mississippi – New Hampshire – North Carolina – Ohio – Pennsylvania
May 14, 2007
Mary Ellen Callahan
Hogan and Hartson, LLP
Columbia Square
555 Thirteenth Street, NW
Washington, DC 20004

Dear Ms. Callahan:
As our states' chief legal officers, we are gravely concerned that sexual predators are using MySpace to lure children into face-to-face encounters and other dangerous activities. We write to you regarding MySpace’s December 2006 announcement with Sentinel Tech Holding regarding the identification of registered sex offenders on MySpace.
It is our understanding that the data from Sentinel reveals that thousands of known registered sexual offenders have been confirmed as MySpace members. If true, this dramatically exceeds the report from Wired magazine, which found 744 registered sex offenders with MySpace profiles. Perhaps thousands more sexual predators -- not registered or using fictitious names -- are lurking on your web site. We remain concerned about the design of your site, the failure to require parental permission, and the lack of safeguards necessary to protect our
children.
We therefore request the following information: First, how many registered sex offenders in the Sentinel database have been cross-referenced against MySpace’s membership?
Second, what is the exact number of known registered sex offenders who have been identified as members of MySpace to date? Please forward a list of the names of the registered sex offenders that you have identified with profiles on MySpace and the states in which they reside. Third, what steps has MySpace taken to alert law enforcement officials as well as MySpace users of such sex offenders? Finally, what steps has MySpace taken to remove sex offender profiles and how many have been removed?
We request a response by Tuesday, May 29, 2007. We look forward to hearing from you.

Sincerely,

Roy Cooper Attorney General North Carolina
Richard Blumenthal Attorney General Connecticut
Thurbert Baker Attorney General Georgia
Lawrence Wasden Attorney General Idaho
Jim Hood Attorney General Mississippi
Kelly A. Ayotte Attorney General New Hampshire
Marc Dann Attorney General Ohio
Tom Corbett Attorney General Pennsylvania

More Thoughts on Politics

2007-04-17T11:25:00.000-04:00

I recently read a Time Magazine article about ann coulter, and the drift I caught was that if you regarded her as an entertainer or a comedian that her remarks made more sense.

I took the writers advice, I read one of her slander columns as a humor piece, and I found it mildly humorous. Good for her, but for the sake of her career she probably ought to stick to hateful, venemous punditry, it's more lucrative, and her humor is only lukewarm and wouldn't sell. For somebody that calls herself a champion of the Right, the side of the political spectrum that claims to be 'moral' she sure gets around. As her former close friend David Brock once said of Anita Hill, coulter is "a little bit nutty and a little bit slutty."

Note: I have nothing against promiscuous women (call me!), but I have everything against hypocrites, especially loud ones.

The reporter had a point, but 'jokesters' like coulter and those of her ilk such as Don Imus, Michael Moore, Bill O'Reilly, Michelle Malkin, Bill Maher, Sean Hannity, rush limbaugh and others are being regarded by many as commentators that ought to be taken seriously. In reality they bring nothing of substance to any sort of discussion or debate. They only bring hate and anger, which is poluting our cultural and political climate while they reap the rewards of ratings, appearance fees and book sales.

Political Apathy

2007-04-13T09:54:00.000-04:00

Around November I kept up real well with the political scene. I was a real polemic, I had very strong opinions, it was great fun.

Since then my drive has fizzled. Not my interest, just my energy toward the modern day politics, in particular anything to do with Presidential candidates. I read the news and try to keep up with things, but when it comes to the '08 Presidential race... eh... I'll care in a year, I'll see who's left standing and go from there. I don't want to spend all kinds of time studying the positions of these potential candidates just to find that they wont be in the race a year from now.

I like Obama, but we'll see where I stand when his platform comes into focus; Edwards is okay, but I still have nightmares about his debate with Cheney in '04; I know very little about Richardson, he's mildly intriguing, but I don't much feel like researching him because like I said I'm apathetic, so we'll see what happens.

On the republican side, it looks like McCain is crapping out already, and I don't see much hope for Romney. First of all his name is Mitt, and second he's Mormon, which seems to rub almost everybody the wrong way (almost to the point where it's comical).

Crazy Insane or Insane Crazy?

2007-03-28T14:01:00.000-04:00

So at about 5:30 this morning a lady was driving down the street that leads into the building where I work. Apparently she had a diabetic seizure or something to that effect. She missed the left hand turn, hopped the curb, plowed through the lawn and smacked into the side of our building.

Somehow she didn't end up going through the wall, but she did take out some bushes, an AC unit and our phone lines. Only our fax line and our internet are still functional, three of our four main phone lines are down, and since I'm the glorified receptionist here this totally makes my day. I get to actually get some work done and not deal with the crazies that call in all the damn time.

Oh, and from what I hear the lady is going to be fine. Which is great. Otherwise I wouldn't take much enjoyment out of her suffering.

Working with Psychics

2007-03-05T16:11:00.000-04:00

So a psychic called in and placed a classified ad today. She's called Mrs. Rachael, and she's based out of Sanford. Anyhow, she prepaid with a credit card, but when I attempted to process the card for her payment it came up as an invalid number. I was tempted to call her back and say to her: "Hey Mrs. Rachael, did you see this phone call coming? Because you're card is no good!" I make myself chuckle sometimes.

Things I Think v3

2007-02-27T21:16:00.000-04:00

A little more long-winded this time around.

Solid reporting again from the Associated Press. This article answered many questions I had that were left unanswered by other reports on this story.

I didn't notice the DOW Jones Industrial Average fell more than 400 points today, did you? It doesn't seem like much, only 4% of it's total, but it seems like a whole lot more when you consider that $632 Billion was lost. $632 BILLION!

So why the Hell are they moving Daylight Savings Time around like a chess piece this year?

I'm thinking of getting a digital camera with my newly discovered wealth and photobloggin' a little bit.

I watched parts of Airborne on HBO last night. It's not half as cool as I remember it being. Seth Greene is in dire need of exposure to sunlight, Shane McDermott really isn't all that cool, but Jack Black was amusing. I don't remember him being in the movie. He has short hair too, very strange.

I was debating politics with somebody the other day and he says to me, "it's not about Russia and China, that's a red herring." WTF does that mean anyway? It just makes me crave tuna.

One dare I would never take is to spend a week in Saudi Arabia amongst the locals. Same with Iran and Pakistan. I couldn't feel safe there.

NCAA Basketball beats the NBA for drama and entertainment on any given night. You can't play 82 games and give it your all in every single one. I don't care who you are.

Being a nerdy coin collector I feel comfortable saying that Euro coins are a whole lot cooler than our plain Jane stuff.

"The Ballad of Ira Hayes" is based on a true story. Who knew?

A lady looking to be in her late fifties came in today and placed an ad for an Estate Notice for her husband that had just died of a brain tumor. Like a lot of people in this area she proceeded to tell me the whole story, and I listened mostly because she probably just wanted somebody, anybody to listen. She told me about the last eight months of his life, how much he loved his cars, and how he would never admit to anybody that he was going to die soon. It was very hard to listen to and I'm sure it was much harder for her to experience. I deal with half a dozen of these notices every week and I've never really thought about the people these names belong to.

Things I Think v2

2007-02-25T16:15:00.000-04:00

More things I think:

For some reason I really like the way hispanic names sound.
One of the best names in NASCAR, Boris Said.

I have a goal of traveling to all fifty states before I die. 13 down, 37 to go.

Clint Eastwood knows how to direct a great movie. Not bad for the Pale Rider.

Another goal I have is to someday have a Wikipedia article about my life.

I really would like to figure out what the Hell it is I want to do with my life. I know of at least one thing I don't want to do, and that's anything involving accounting. It sucks the big one.

I miss people, lots of them.

1.5 oz Grey Goose, 1 oz Blue Curacao. 10 oz Ginger Ale and ice of course. I call it a Swingin' Ginger Goose.

I love being around my family, we have a lot of fun together when we go out. Moving out to NC really brought us a lot closer. Except of course for my younger sister, who disowned us and stayed behind in Utah so she could be around her boyfriend. Because of her decision she will never be as much of a tight-knit member of this family that the rest of us are. It makes me sad for her, but it's what she wanted.

Things I Think

2007-02-21T19:21:00.000-04:00

I keep a piece of paper in my wallet. I use it to record things I think about that day. Sometimes thoughtful, rarely profound, and mostly useless. Anyway, I'm going to post them here.

I'm not much of a clothes shopper, unless it involves the Old Navy clearance rack and pants that look great on me.

I'm usually pretty easy going. I don't get mad at people often, but if you really want to piss me off mention in my presence that you believe the internment of US citizens of Japanese dissent during WWII was a great idea.

Who is Ricardo Montalban?

Am I the only person that doesn't care that Britney Spears shaved her head?

I'm told people here have had complaints about my ability to stay on top of things here. I wish they would talk to me about it so I know which areas I need to work on. All I know is that I work my ass off and I don't take a smoke break every hour. I barely have time for a lunch break.

I don't think there are any cameras in this building...

That article left too many questions unanswered. I don't give a rats ass about her home design business. I want to know why her husband decided they weren't returning to the US. How was she finally arrested? Why is her daughter choosing to stay in Kuwait?

I have a racist relative. He says he isn't racist, that he hates everybody. That may be true, but he also happens to really really hate Mexicans and anybody that might look Mexican.

A buttered piece of toast always lands buttered side down. A cat always lands on his feet. If you strap a piece of toast, buttered side up, to a cat, does the cat defy the laws of gravity and fly?

On angry callers

2007-01-12T14:53:00.000-04:00

It's Friday. Deadline day. I spend all week preparing for deadline day, and this day was actually pretty good to start. Having worked with newspapers before I get a happy feeling on deadline days when everything just falls into place.

Then Ann called

Me: Fuquay Independent, this is Jason, How can I help you?

Ann: Hi, my name is Ann Psychobitch, and I'd like to renew a classified I've been running.

Me: Which ad have you been running?

Ann: It's an ad for Firewood For Sale, the phone number on the ad is 919-IMA-WENCH

Me: Okay, looks like your ad expired on the 10th, how long would you like to renew it for?

Ann: Four weeks

Me: Alright, that's $20 for the first week and $18 for each additional week, so that'll be a total of $74.

Ann: Wow... that's just ridiculous, why did you raise the prices so much!?!

(Me on the inside: Are you kidding me Smalls? These ads have a circulation of almost 30,000 homes. People are always telling me about how cheap our ad space is!)

Me: We raised our rates one dollar per week at the beginning of the year.

Ann: I CAN'T BELIEVE YOU GUYS ARE CHARGING SO MUCH! I ADVERTISE WITH THE TRIANGLE SHOPPER AND THEY'RE ONLY CHARGING ME $55.20 FOR A MONTH!

(Me on the inside: And I'm supposed to care because...?)

Me (for reals): Really?

Ann: Yeah! Anyway, can you just charge my credit card?

Me: Sure, do you mind giving me the information over the phone?

Ann: WHAT!?! I GAVE YOU GUYS THAT INFORMATION WAY BACK WHEN I FIRST TOOK THE AD OUT IN OCTOBER!

Me: Well, for our customers protection we destroy any records of credit card information after we process your payment.

Ann: JESUS CHRIST! I CAN'T BELIEVE THIS!

(I'm seriously considering placing an ad in the paper with all of her credit card information in it)
Me: ...

Ann: FINE! the number is 1234-5678-1234-5678

Me: And the expiration date?

Ann: WHAT THE HELL!?! HOW MUCH INFORMATION DO YOU NEED!?!

(I'm literally flipping the bird at the phone)
Me: The more information we have when we process your card the lower your service charge.

Ann: FINE! it's 03/09

Me: And the card verification number on the back?

Ann: JESUS CHRIST! 444

(Jesus loves you Ann!... I think)
Me: And a phone number to reach you?

Ann: THE ONE ON THE AD! You know what, I'm going to call my husband and tell him about this, I'm not sure I want my ad.

(I'm already pulling out my garbage can to throw the ad form away)
Me: Would you like me to hold off on this until you get the okay from him then?

Ann: NO! HOW ABOUT YOU RUN IT AND IF I CALL BACK AND SAY TO CANCEL IT THEN CANCEL IT! THAT WOULD MAKE SENSE!

(If it were possible to slap people through the phone your face would be red right now)
Me: Okay fine, I'll get this in there for you then.

Ann: (click)

(Damn it! I wanted to hang up on her!)

I was half tempted to call her back and hang up on her once she picked up. I needed a good fifteen minute coffee break to recover from that one. I want her to call back, I'm not going to be as nice to her next time.

They call me the Dude

2007-01-02T22:08:00.000-04:00

If you're trying to get my attention I answer to three names. You can call me Kubota, sometimes Bobby, or Jason, or you can call out "Duuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuude!"

At least that's what my three-year-old nephew calls me. When he comes over to visit on Sundays I know when he's there when he pounds on my door and hollers "Dude! Come play!" or "Dude! What are you doing in there!?!"

The name has been following me around for maybe two years now, and it got started completely by accident. Schyler (my nephew) was starting to learn his first words with mama and dada and all that jazz and everybody in my family was trying to teach him how to say their name. I'm a bit of an idealist, and I thought doing that was a tad bit conceited, so I decided instead to sit him down and teach him his first word that he could actually use. So I sat down with him and a couple matchbox cars (his favorite toy) and got started.

"Dude"

It didn't really register to him at first, but we worked on it for a couple weekends and he started saying it on his own. Then one day we were sitting at the dinner table and we were trying to get him to say all of our names: Mom, dad, then he stumbled through Sharlee and Chris, then Momo and Popo (which means grandma and grandpa when you're not even two) and then his mom pointed at me.

"DUDE!"

"No," I say to him, pointing to myself, "I'm Uncle Jason."

He shakes his head at me, "Dude!"

And thus I have been known as Dude ever since. I didn't mean for him to associate the word with me when I first taught it to him, but it stuck, and now I'm Uncle Dude, and it isn't likely to change. When he would visit my parents and I was away at school he would open the door to the basement and yell "Dude!" to see if I was there.

It's not going to go away, either. Now everybody in the family refers to me as Uncle Dude around my nephews, so it's likely to carry on through all of my future nieces and nephews. Schyler has just recently figured out that I have a different name when somebody asked him "Who's Jason?" and he answered correctly for the first time "Duuuuuuuuuuuuuuude!"

I guess being called Uncle Dude is far better than Uncle Lazy Bastard. So I wont complain.

Please call stella!

2006-12-14T00:39:00.000-04:00

Yo, lots going on this week. I have some good bloggin's in store for y'all, but I haven't had much time lately to get it all down. Until then check this out, it's an accent map of English speaking people of the United States. It takes people from different parts of the country's and has recordings of them reading the same passage. It gives you a good idea of the accent of that region. I haven't played with it too much, but I have listened to the speaker from Utah and North Carolina and I had a good laugh. Anyway, check it out. The map covers the whole world, looks like a really awesome site.

On kittens

2006-12-10T22:45:00.000-04:00

So I got a temporary job working at my pop's company while they're doing end-of-year inventory. It's mindless work when it's actual work. I usually stand around and wait for somebody to give me something to do, and when I'm working it usually involves moving dusty bins of obsolete parts that nobody knows the purpose of from one palate to another.

Apparently the parts are from a company they bought out three or four years back. And they can't just throw the parts away because they have to uphold the warranties that the former company put on their products for another seven years. Never mind the fact that nobody around here has any idea whatsoever how these parts are supposed to even work. So they move them from one corner to another where they can take up space and continue to be ignored.

Normally I would point and laugh at this system of mass inefficiency that is a microcosm of the current state of Corporate America as a whole, but in this case it I personally benefit to the tune of $10 an hour to move boxes around in this ridiculously huge shop (like a million square feet or something) where there are so many people that as long as I'm moving a box or throwing something away people will think I'm doing something productive and will mostly leave me alone. Plus I still get to openly mock the system. It's a win-win.

So anyway, on Friday I was hard at work moving around bins and boxes when I heard something rustling around in some boxes in front of me. I moved some stuff out of the way and found myself a kitten. It is a cute little thing with brown fur and black stripes. It couldn't be more than six months old at the most. Anyway, I tried to get it to come closer to me so I could pet it, but it avoided me like the plague. It wandered off somewhere and I didn't see it again for the rest of the day. It was pretty much the most exciting part of my day.

Anyhow, hopefully it'll turn up again sometime soon. Maybe I'll try and chum it over by me with food or something, that'd be fun.

On existentialism

2006-12-07T04:52:00.000-04:00

"Seek first to understand and then to be understood. Most people do not listen with the intent to understand: they listen with the intent to reply. They're filtering everything through their own paradigms, reading their autobiography into other people's lives."

-Stephen R. Covey

"To endure oneself may be the hardest task in the universe. You cannot hire a wise man or any other intellect to solve it for you. There's no writ of inquest or calling of witness to provide answers. No servant or disciple can dress the wound. You dress it yourself or continue bleeding for all to see."

-Frank Herbert

"Man is the only creature that refuses to be what he is."

-Albert Camus

"Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else's opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation."

-Oscar Wilde

People that lament that life is meaningless and has no purpose want meaning and purpose to be imposed on them as opposed to taking the initiative and giving their life purpose. We're thinking too much. I could learn a lot from my dog. Dog's live in the moment, their purpose is to meet their needs for right now. For instance, he currently needs to take a shit, but wont do it inside because he knows if he does there are negative consequences. So right now my purpose is to be courteous to him and take him outside so that he can relieve himself in a better place. It's a deal we have. In exchange for him not shitting in my house I take time out of my day to walk with him.

Currently my purpose in life is to walk the dog twice a day, and feed him when my parents don't have time. I have no job and no friends in the area that I just moved to, which when I think about it is depressing, but at least I have a purpose: keeping my dog from shitting in my house. A purpose I am currently ignoring in order to ramble here.

I don't know if any of this made sense, but it was an effort. Existentialism is fun to talk about, a good conversation piece, but other than that it's a waste of time.

I'll elaborate.

I'm not saying that existentialism isn't important, or that I myself don't like it. However the more broad and open ended you make the question (why are we here? What is our purpose?) the more useless it becomes in terms of finding an answer and actually accomplishing anything.

Now existentialism on a personal level can be helpful to us. It can help us get our priorities straight. A parent's purpose for existence is to provide for their family, a student's purpose for existence is to graduate, and my purpose for existence is to walk my dog. What is my purpose? Is a good existential-type question that with a little time for introspection and discussion can garnish useful answers.

I can't tell you why we're here as a species, nor why we have this odd case of self awareness. I'm sure if I were to pose such a question to you it would be just as difficult for you to answer. There are simply far too many possibilities and far too many questions that have to be answered as a prerequisite to even being able to come close to an answer. We could talk about it for hours, weeks if we were inebriated enough, but it would be impossible to come to any sort of conclusion. At the bare bones of it all none of us really know.... why? That's where faith kicks in I suppose. Not necessarily religious faith, although it can manifest itself that way, but the faith that there is an answer to why we are the way we are where we are.

Seeing things as I am

2006-11-27T04:38:00.000-04:00

"We don't see things as they are, we see things as we are."

-Anais Nin

Yeah yeah, that's me trying to be deep.

So I can't sleep a wink. I watched some MSNBC Documentaries and then a little bit of Meet the Press, which is usually good for a snore, but then I started reading. Usually a half hour of reading can knock me right out, but lately it just gets me all riled up and restless.

Anyhow, the book I'm reading is called Dog Days and it's authored by Ana Marie Cox. The story is somewhat entertaining, and it's an easy read, and I've just realized that this has absolutely nothing to do with what I want this to be about, onward.

After reading a bit I got this crazy idea to dig up my old journals from my gradeschool years and take a gander. Now I'm further from being asleep now than I was before the Sunday Night Football game.

The first one I cracked open had the date 11-29-99 scrawled at the top. Dude! Seven years ago! I was 13! I read the first paragraph and was struck by a lead pipe of irony.

"I was looking for a book today, and I found one of my old journals. It was from when I was in the 6th grade! And I read it and found out that I was a really corny guy back then. So I decided to start a new one."

I can't help but laugh at that passage, because if I were starting a new journal today I'd probably write that same passage over again. The more things change (CLICHE WARNING! Unless you have a strong stomach I would urge you to skip to the next paragraph) the more they stay the same.

But I'm not going to start a new journal. For one writing by hand is just too slow for me to handle anymore. Also, this has sort of become my journal, but hopefully this is a tad more readable.

So anyway, I've been reading through the entry's, and the first thing I realize is that I wasn't as mature back then as I thought I was. Also, for as smart as I was I could be awful dense, like the time when I was trying to get ahold of a girl and nobody was answering the phone, so I dialed *67 to block my number on the caller ID and called her again and that time she magically answered, I made the astute observation: "she sounded like she didn't want to talk to me." If I could go back in time I'd bop my younger self on the nose. Come to think of it, that'd make a fascinating plot for a teenpop sci-fi novel, but I digress.

Around wintertime of '99 and early '00 I was really good at keeping my journal up to date, with entry's almost every day. At the same time I was having a rather tumoltuous relationship with a girl that had just moved to town from Kentucky. She had severe baggage; I was overbearing and needy, it was a perfect fit. Reading over this again after all these years is actually quite entertaining. I went from being the kid that would write "boobies! yay!" to "the world hates me, I cannot go on!" to "I love her so much, I could never be without her" and back again. Through all the drama and teenage excess I can kind of watch myself grow up through it all, which is probably the most interesting part to me.

Anyhow, I'm thinking about transcribing some of the journal entry's and posting them chronologically so that both of my loyal readers can enjoy the tales of middle school adolescent drama seen through the eyes of a slightly bored and severely convused 14-year-old. We'll see what happens.

JK

Apply directly to the forehead

2006-11-27T00:13:00.000-04:00

So it's been around a month since I've posted, a lot's happened in that month and very little has come of it all. I'm posting again because I haven't been in the best of spirits lately (please don't feel sorry for me, I don't) and I was going back over my posts on Turkey Day and I noticed that I update this blog more often when I'm in a better mood. So instead of thinking logically and noticing that I update more because I'm in a better mood I'm going to force myself to post more in order to make myself be in a better mood.

I'm somewhat optomistic. Already I seem to be a bit happier, my social anxiety disorder is ebbing a tad. I'm getting ideas for projects and blog topics. Problem is it's 11:30. Why can't I get motivated like this around 10 AM?

Anyhow, due to my new bloggin' spirit I'm worried there will be a negative affect (effect?) on the quality of my posts, so please, bear with me while I sort my way through this.

JK

Pompous pundits that are hurting America

2006-10-19T23:04:00.000-04:00

I used to watch the Fox News Channel (fair and balanced? HA!) and feel lucky that the left side of the political spectrum in our country didn't sponsor (or at least we didn't take them even semi-seriously) pompous windbags that skewed fact and manipulated emotions in order to spin their viewpoint in a way that makes them appear as not just opinions, but as facts that no red-blooded, flag-toting American would ever imagine questioning. Frequently they will bring on guests that have an opposing viewpoint, but when they do they make sure to have a couple right-wing hitmen of their own in the wings to properly gang up on the guy and interrupt him so often he has to yell in order to get a word in, which in turn makes him look like a douche.

So like I was saying I was feeling somewhat smug that liberals didn't support this type of pundit when I stumbled upon one: Bill Maher, host of HBO's Real Time With Bill Maher. That guy is a Grade A Douchebag. His perches in his power chair and spouts off commantary that is aimed more at getting what turn out to be light chuckles from his audience as opposed to making any kind of sense. His solution to a guest that has an opposing viewpoint that brings up any evidence that he can't find an answer to is to yell and holler and call George W. an idiot. I used to like to watch him on Politically Incorrect on ABC when I was 15, but then I grew up. His comedy is drab when it isn't completely unfunny and is often borrowed and/or rehashed from somebody else. Hell, the guy can't even cause controversy on his own terms. In 2001 he said on air regarding the War on Terrorism: "We have been the cowards lobbing cruise missiles from 2,000 miles away. That's cowardly. Staying in the airplane when it hits the building, say what you want about it, it's not cowardly." Afterward companies pulled sponsorships and his contract was not renewed by ABC, and at the same time he was awarded received the President's Award (for "championing free speech") from the Los Angeles Press Club.

Seems pretty controversial right? It would be, except for the fact that Maher was only repeating what his guest, Dinesh D'Souza, had just barely said. On the other side he can take credit for another controversial remark where he said that "...dogs are like retarded children."

I know what the conservatives are thinking: "At least our pompous windbags are upstanding, moral gentlemen." To that I have three words: Those Who Trespass. None of these guys are perfect, so let's not try to justify and/or dignify anything here.

Nobody comes out clean in this argument. It's all a load of crap that just needs to go away. Why does the modern political landscape have to be so damned mean? We need open and honest debate in this country now as much as ever. So let's stop demonizing those that disagree with us. Let's stop questioning their mental state and patriotism. Let's compromise and actually try and find solutions to our problems. Let's get rid of all this hot air and start talking again.

My Gamertag

2006-10-19T14:02:00.000-04:00

So I have an xbox 360. I don't play all that much, but here's my Gamercard.

BobbyKubota

Jesus will hate you if you pass this on

2006-09-24T01:15:00.000-04:00

So the bulletin page on myspace has turned into a substitute for all those damn email forwards we all used to get. You know the ones where some cancer patient named Karen in Kansas has one week to live and if you pass the email on to thirty of the unfortunate souls in your address book the doctors will move her up the donor list and give her a new spleen that will save her life.

There's something you don't know about this story. First of all, there is no Karen in Kansas, and if there was, she'd be dead. It's okay, you didn't kill her. The chain letter has been wandering around the internet for seven years now, and because poor Karen only had one week to live she ought to be long gone by now.

Even if there really was a Karen in Kansas and the fact that her email had been forwarded all over the country somehow convinced a bunch of doctors to give her a new spleen she'd still be dead. Why do you ask? Because she HAD CANCER! So what she needed was a cure for cancer, not a new spleen, and thanks to your ignorance her parents spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on a procedure their daughter didn't need, and now they have a dead daughter and a mountain of debt. I hope you're happy!

It's so nice to not get emails like that anymore, but now instead of emails the bulletin space is flooded with this excrement.

Don't even get me started on the bulletins that tell you at the end to pass it on or in two weeks your second cousin will suffer a stroke or your crush will dump his or her boy or girl and come over to your house tonight and make hot, sweaty, musky, passionate love to you. Do we really believe this crap!?!

Let me tell you something, over the last few months I've been conducting an experiment. Instead of doing what the bulletin said and passing it on for whatever reason, I'll tell you what I did, I ignored it! And guess what! None of my cousins, first or second or even third, have had any kind of stroke, and I haven't had bad luck for eleven years. I even took it one step further, I've gone out and stepped on several cracks on the sidewalk, and believe it or not my mothers back is not broken!

So I'm here to tell you it's safe to NOT pass on this junk to our friends. Nothing bad will happen and our friends will appreciate that we didn't waste their time. This goes for a lot of the surveys too, some of them are clever and interesting, but knowing who you last hugged isn't going to change the way I view the world. I know, crazy.

Tomacco! And other observations.

2006-09-13T18:08:00.000-04:00

So I've been out here for about a month, and there are a lot of things that are different. Mostly small things, most of them I like and none of them are necessarily bad, but still they are not what I'm used to and requre a little bit of adjustment.

For one, EVERYBODY FREAKIN' SMOKES! I'm not any stranger to being around smokers, and for the most part it doesn't bother me, I used to suck on the cancer sticks a little bit back in my rebellious teenage years, but the residents of North Carolina have taken it to a new level. Maybe it has something to do with tobacco being a major crop out here. I'm all for supporting our local farmers, but I'd rather buy a US Cotton shirt or drink soy milk or eat lots of sunflower seeds or not shop at Wal Mart, but I'm not exactly willing to sacrifice a few dozen years from my life and place a severe burden on the healthcare system for local pride. Call me an ass, but I wont do it.

I'm not against smokers, it's your body, do whatever you want to it. I have friends that smoke, it wont make me like you any less, but if you're a girl don't ask me to kiss you (another lesson from the rebellious teenage years) because I'm not too attracted to smelly-haired chicks that taste like ash trays. Sorry.

That said, there are a lot of little things out here that I really like, they include, but are not limited to: sweet tea, humidity, hush puppies, fried food, rain, decent weather, trees, liberal politics (compared to Utah), nice people, and southern accents.

On that note, it's 6 PM and I need to get ready for the day.

Hold on, I'd like to whine for a minute

2006-09-06T12:16:00.000-04:00

So I've decided that looking for a job that doesn't completely SUCK and pays decent... well... sucks.

Oh well. If I can't find anything decent there's always Harris Teeter.

The complete lack of a social life SUCKS also. I have no job, no school for schooling, and I don't know anybody. Sometimes I go to Wal Mart and talk to the cashiers (not really).

People always tell me I should go out and try and meet people. Problem is I don't have anybody near my age to go out and try and meet people with. There's my 17-year-old brother, but he hates places and would much rather hang out at home and play computer games. Plus he's already convinced that he hates North Carolina, whereas I'm at least trying to give this place a fair shake.

I suppose if I were brazen/drunk enough I could go out to meet people on my own, but then I wouldn't know where to find these "people" anyway. Everybody I see around here is 30+ and has at least one spouse and at least one child.

Anyhow, I'll quit bitching now. Before I go, one last thing

bleh

Okay I officially feel like a 14-year-old girl, minus the menstration. I'm done now.

Oh my goodness Yancey!

2006-08-18T19:34:00.000-04:00

Welcome to muh new blog site. Nothing really amazing or incredible and new is here yet, but maybe if you play your cards right and visit around here every so often you'll find something worth reading. At the moment I'm just adding a few of my old blogs that I'd like to keep published because myspace (where I used to blog) seems to like to delete them after a while (which is why I'm here in the first place). So check back soon!

What's going on!?!

2006-06-10T10:47:00.000-04:00

Some people have it all figured out. They've picked out their school, married the love of their life, mapped out their career and picked out names for their future children.

I hate those people.

Okay, so I don't really hate them. I have a really hard time getting mad enough at somebody to actually hate them. In my opinion it takes just as much effort to hate somebody as it does to love them, so why waste all that energy on somebody you don't like anyway? So because of that philosophy I only hate three people in this world. One of them being that bastard Alex Trebek, but I digress.

I am 20 years old and I have no idea what I want to be when I grow up.

I don't know what happened. I knew exactly what I wanted to be when I was seven. I wanted to be a professional baseball-football-basketball-hockey-tennis player that was also a lawyer in the offseason. I don't know what happened to that dream. My mom would probably say that I got lazy. I would have to agree.

I have no idea where I am going to be one year from now, hell, I don't know where I'm going to be six or even three months from now. I don't know where I'll be living, what job I'll have, which school I'll be going to, what my major is going to be or who my friends will be. I don't know a damned thing, and the crazy of it is I'm really not all that concerned.

Does it bother me that I don't know this stuff? More than anything. I think about it every day. A month ago I was ready to get out of Utah so fast the door wouldn't have a chance to hit me on the ass on my way out. Then I come back from school, hang out with my old buddies again and meet some pretty awesome new buddies (I'm looking in her direction... and she knows who she is, and it's not just her, the rest of y'all know who you's are) and it makes it that much harder to leave. I can't stay. I've made promises that I wont break, so I will be leaving in August, but I'm trying at the moment to figure out how to fit you all into a box so I can take y'all with me.

Ah, I hate thinking about stuff like that. So most of the time I don't. Right now I'm just going with the flow. I don't know what the next day will bring me, but I'm just going with it. I'm trying to focus on the things I know: My job blows, I'm right-handed, I drink too much coffee, I like a certain somegirl (I'm still looking in her direction, and hopefully she still knows who she is), I suck at Guitar Hero, I want to go to the Death Cab concert in August, Anchorman is a sweet movie, so is The Pink Panther, and I heart my friends. When I think that way it lets me think I know lots, and that makes me feel better about all the crap I don't know. I'll figure that stuff out when it comes time to figger it out, and not a moment sooner, because damn it, I'm lazy like that.

I have no skills!

2006-06-08T02:19:00.000-04:00

No joke. I have no talents to speak of.

This may come out of left field for a lot of people. But I was chillin' out on saturday night with some folks listening to this guy jam out on the guitar. He was three sheets to the wind and he could still belt it out pretty good. As I sat there I got to thinkin', dude, that guy could get any girl just by playing the guitar like that, turning to her, giving her a little wink and saying "come here baby." The fact that he had a female wrapped around his body as he was playing only confirmed my hypothesis. Damn that guy was good.

I'm definitely not a hater. If a guy isn't going for my girl and I see that he knows what he's doing around the ladies, I can acknowledge that. If a kid's got it, a kid's got it. I don't hate, I appreciate.

So I was sitting here watching this guy play, and I was thinking to myself. "I wish I could do that." Because in the world of Talents That Will Make You Popular With the Ladytypes, I have none. I have no musical talent to speak of, and that just happens to be the best talent to have when it comes to impressing ladies. A little over a year ago I bought a ukulele because they're easy to play and if a guitar can get you 100 girls, a uke should be good for at least 20. I goofed around with it a lot and my buddy Chase (mad skills, that guy makes playing the accordion look sexy) taught me a song. It took me a while but then I got it down, but then my uke went out of tune, so no matter if I played it right or not it always sounded like crap, so it's more of a decoration now. It actually ended up getting me one girl, but let's no talk about that.

Some guys can beat box, some guys can dance. Other guys know all the right words when talking to a girl. I don't have any of that. Some guys that don't have any skills like that are gifted in area's of activity reserved for the bedroom. I don't know if I'm in that group yet, either. Contrary to popular belief, my buddies and I don't get together and compare the size of our... wristwatches. So I have no idea on that one. And apparently it's not the size of the hour-hand on the watch that matters, but rather the... motion of the second hand. (I'm pretty sure that innuendo just fell flat on it's face)

This isn't to say I have no skills to speak of, I'm not completely hopeless and inept. I can write, but you can't really impress a girl by sitting in front of a computer for hours on end typing a short story. Plus I wont bastardize myself enough to write poetry. Don't get me wrong, I like good poetry, but I'm really bad at writing good poetry, and there is plenty of bad poetry in the world, and I have decided that I wont add to it. It's not that I don't like a certain girl enough to write her a poem, it's that I like her enough to not write her a bad poem, which is the only kind of poem I know how to write. So every girl in the world that has not recieved a poem from me should consider themselves complimented.

I can also cook. I make a mean chili, and I'm a champion of breakfast foods, chicken, and pasta. I can cook most anything that isn't candy, so I guess that's something of a talent, although I'd trade my cooking ability for a nicer car and the ability to play the guitar.

I can also give pretty good back rubs, but usually a girl would have to already like somebody before they'd go for that. It's not really a way to get a girl, but rather a way to keep one.

Since I don't have any of these Talents That Will Make You Popular With the Ladytypes. I tend to pay a lot more attention to the little things. Such as treating a girl right. Opening doors, walking her to the door or to her car, making sure that she is enjoying herself telling her when she looks good, and listening to her when she needs somebody to listen to her, also I like to let a girl know I like her for who she is, not just because she looks good in a skirt or something. Hehe, this is all starting to sound kinda sappy, so I'll stop it there. I don't really have any playa skeelz, but that's because I'm not a playa.

For one last time I need y'all t'roll

2006-06-05T23:51:00.000-04:00

My evening has just gone down the crapper.

No joke. I spent most of the afternoon chillin' out with my two-year-old nephew while my sister went and had her nails done or something like that. He's a cool kid. He calls me "Uncle Dude!" or usually just "DUDE!" for two reasons. 1. He hasn't really mastered the use of more than one syllable and 2. I taught him how to say the word 'dude'. I tried correcting him the first couple of times, but I gave up. I figure there are worse things to be called and Uncle Dude beats Uncle Crazy Bastard any day of the week in my book.

So I had fun with that, watched The Ringer, then I was gonna work out while I watched the Sox/yanks game. Well I was about to get started... then it all hit the fan. It's the top of the 4th and the stankee's are winning 13-3. I can't watch anymore. Every time a yankee scores a run God kills a kitten, those cruel cruel bastards. They're definitely not cat people.

So instead I'm going to put off my workout and ramble on here for a bit. I haven't done it for a while, and some new junk is going on, so I thought I'd ramble a bit.

To add to my misfortune I wanted to write this up while listening to some Jay-Z shtuff, no luck, the only cd I have is scratched beyond recognition for my laptop.

Stuff like that makes me want to kill a kitten.

Stupid yankees.

I guess I'll settle for some Rage Against The Machine

Hold on... the disc has to load...

Okay, anyway, let's go. I've been hanging out with some new folks lately since the kids I usually chill out with have jobs and school and ladyfriends and are generally too busy for ole Jason these days. It's all good though, I'm not drinkin' H8orade or anything like that. I still love alls of my friends (Except you, Alex Trebek, you're in the doghouse for sure), life just gets busy, so no worries.

So, yeah, back to the word on the street. So I've been spreading around the Jason lately, which is just fine because there's plenty of me to go around. Went bowling with some folks at Fat Cats on... oh... wednesday? thursday? with Andrew, Charlie, Jenn, Kendra and Taylor... I know I'm forgetting somebody. Good times, the music was too loud in that place so I couldn't really talk that much and get to know anybody, so these folks' first impression of me was my retarded bowling style. Where I bowl the ball and then use all sorts of body language to try and convince the ball to go where I want it to go. It somewhat resembles John Travolta in Saturday Night Fever. Yeah, it's horrible. Went to Dee's over on 7th East and 21st South and ate like three plates of breakfast food while everybody else nursed drinks and cheese fries. Oh yeah, I know how to make an impression, but I was STAHVING! Then we started discussing the physical proportions of Ron Jeremy's body when I get smacked in the side with a piece of wet bread. I look over to the other side of the room and see this angry hispanic guy staring me down. My first reaction is like "What the feck is wrong with that guy?" Then after spending a few minutes getting good and pissed off I decide to go talk to the manager about it, as soon as he sees me talking to her he gets up and comes over, wife-beater and all.

"Dude, what the hell's your problem man?" He says.
"I don't have a problem, Dude, except that you chucked a piece of bread at me."
"I didn't throw sh*t! Why you goin' off blaming me!?! I didn't throw sh*t! I didn't throw sh*t! How do you know they didn't throw it?" He says, pointing at the only other people in that part of the restaurant, a table of five with grandma and grandpa and all that.
"Yeah, whatever dude."
"Yo, you got a f*ckin' problem? Let's step outside"
"Whatever, I aint steppin' outside with you."
"Why the f*ck not?"
"Because I'm not fighting anybody over a piece of f*cking bread, broseph." (I was also pretty sure he had a knife on him or something. The last thing I want after eating my lumberjack breakfast is a good knifing. That I can do without.)

So he tried to square off with me, the manager yelled at him to not cause trouble, and I just walked away. He argued with the manager for fifteen more minutes and ended up leaving. When we left an hour later I was sure to have my keys poking out of my fist just in case a crazy wife-beater man popped out of nowhere looking for a fight. Fortunately he wasn't around, so that ended that.

Saturday night was tons better. There was a gathering of fourteen or so folks at Andrew's place. Good times man, good times. Cards, pool, Guitar Hero and good people, that's all you really need in life, that and maybe a bar of soap and some toilet paper, but let's not get picky eh?

Anyhow, I've killed plenty of time writing this, so I'm gonna go put on Scarface and try and get some reps in.

Who I am (repost from May 14, 2006)

2006-05-14T19:32:00.000-04:00

Call me Kubota

That is my name. It is more my name than Jason is. Kubota tells about where my family is from, and where they have been. Kubota is who I am, where I'm from, where I've been and where I'm going. My name is also Blaine and Daniels before it is Jason. Before anything I am a member of my family.

I am wherever my family is, I have been wherever my family has been, and my family is wherever I am. In Japan, Wales, Ireland, Germany, Denmark, the US. I've pushed a handcart across the plains and worked in the factories.

I am also Bobby (my legal middle name). My dad's drinking buddy and cousin. I hitchhiked out of town one night when I was fifteen and got on board with what turned out to be a couple of drunks in a pickup. What was left of my body would be found sixteen months later at the bottom of a ravine. The truck tumbled and the truck burned.

Coming to this country for a better life and giving my children more American names like Benny, Richard, and Gary so that they would fit in and then spending three years in Camp Topaz during WWII. The United States government, caught up in the hysteria of war, forcibly rounded up its own citizens and locked them away in a desolate corner of Utah. Their crime was being of Japanese descent. It was an unforgivable act of racism right up there by slavery and the plight of the American Indian. Mistakes were made, but those responsible are long gone and I hold no ill will toward my Nation's government. I would go on to serve in all branches of the military and serve in five wars. Richard adopted my dad, Clark, and my uncles Kelly and John when they were young. Things were not perfect, but he treated them as his own, and they all called him 'Dad.'

When I was five my dad would die in an accident. Almost five years later my mom would marry Kevin, who adopted me in all ways but name and treated me as his own. Many people go without having even one good father. I have had two (good job mom). I proudly take his family name, Blaine, as my own.

I am not perfect, and neither is my family. My family isn't any better than anybody elses, but they are mine and I am theirs. I love most of them and hate a few. Collectively they have been both the victims and perpetrators of various crimes and abuses, some petty, some felonies.

Although we are not perfect we have an endless supply of loyalty and love. Everyone is always welcome, regardless of our mistakes. The Daniels' have welcomed the Kubota's and Blaine's, the Blaine's have welcomed the Daniels' and Kubota's, and the Kubota's have more than welcomed the Daniels' and Blaine's. That's just how it works. My future wife will be welcomed by my family just as I hope I would be welcomed by hers. If she has children from another man they will become my children, and if I had children from another woman they would become her children. I wouldn't have it any other way. Life is fickle, but if there is one thing I can guarantee my children it is family.

Friends are very important, but for the most part friends come and friends go from our lives. There are a select few of my friends that have become family (you know who you are) and I cherish them just as I do my family, but other than that friends are picked up and discarded like uno cards. Family is different. You can't mess with family.

I am Jason Bobby Daniels Blaine Kubota, and nothing is ever going to change that.