Wednesday, December 31, 2008

Hockey Night in Raleigh

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.

Wednesday, December 24, 2008

Remind me to NOT advertise my underage drinking party on Facebook

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.

Saturday, December 20, 2008

Fake ID case points to NCSU Students, Frat member

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.

Thursday, December 18, 2008

Srsly?

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

Tuesday, December 16, 2008

What I learned this semester

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.
  • 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.
  • 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

Wednesday, December 10, 2008

Misadventures in American Sign Language

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.

Monday, December 08, 2008

Sign of the day: Annoy (with video!)

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.

Sunday, December 07, 2008

Food box philosophy

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.

Saturday, December 06, 2008

Sign of the day

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

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.

Monday, April 21, 2008

For fans of Office Space

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.

Sunday, February 10, 2008

Why I’m in My Current Job

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.

Sunday, February 03, 2008

No no, please don't leave!

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.

Tuesday, January 08, 2008

Staying awake in class

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.