Category: general

Just got back from AJ’s, where he and Faye and I played quite a few rousing games of Mario Kart 64. First we played through all the levels, including the Extra (backwards) levels, in 3-way Versus mode. Then we took turns playing the 150cc cups: me and AJ on Mushroom, then me and Faye on Mushroom, then AJ and Faye on Mushroom; me and AJ on Flower, then me and Faye on Flower, and finally AJ and Faye on Flower. It took forever, especially since we kept getting below 4th place in Flower Cup and having to redo the levels. By the time we were done it was almost 3 am.

We ate popcorn, and we cussed at and trash-talked each other like crazy. (I think my potential for vulgarity still surprises them. Also, Faye was very amused by the term “asshat”.)

What a great time :D

There’s a good article over at MSNBC about the end of analog TV. There’s a deadline of New Year’s Eve, 2006 for air TV to be cut off and replaced with digital, but no one knows when it will really happen. There are definite benefits to doing it soon, but there are also problems with cutting off air TV.

Here’s one part I found particularly amusing:

The real problem is the 15 million or so U.S. households whose only television service comes over the air. For these people, predominately lower-income and disproportionately black and Hispanic, the cut-off will be bad news indeed.

Most discussions in Washington contemplate some sort of free or subsidized converters for low-income households, paid for by the government, perhaps with the help of broadcasters or consumer electronics manufacturers. Estimates for the costs of that subsidy range from under one to several billion dollars — the cost declining as the cut-off date is moved further into the future. Proponents argue that the cost of the subsidy is small compared to the economic benefits, although last year the Bush administration indicated it was not in favor of subsidized converters.

Priorities! These people may not have decent education opportunities, or even healthy food options, but damned if we’re going to deprive them of television! So I suppose TV needs to be added to the list of basic human rights.

Be sure to check out page 3, “Why not put it off indefinitely?” There are some great things that could be done with the air channels once they’re freed up, including wireless Internet for everyone, more channels for public safety services, plus an auction of the remaining channels that could help pad the governent budget. (Hey, maybe they could use the auction money to ensure that poor people will still have television.)

WebMD has put out a list of the top cities for the worst spring allergies this year. (Here’s the actual list.) I’m sort of surprised by the results. I mean, first of all:

1. Lexington, Ky. (last year: 16)

And then we’ve got

27. Augusta, Ga. (last year: 2)

Does that even make sense? Did we have some crazy weather patterns this year, or what?

People always used to tell me that Augusta was the worst city in the United States for allergies, and that people who never had allergies before developed them when they moved to Augusta. That did seem to be the case with me. Lately I’ve felt like I’ve been adjusting…I haven’t had horrible migraines in awhile, and really the only allergy effect I’ve noticed is sneezing, which passes in a day or so. But could the adjusting simply be due to a shift in which cities have seen the worst allergy attacks?

And if that’s the case, am I going to start feeling terrible here in a day or two, since I’m in the top allergy city right now? ;P Maybe it’s a good thing I’m going home on Friday :>

Today (well, yesterday…whatever) I went biking at Veterans Park. No one else in my family does the biking thing, so I was by myself, but that’s pretty normal :> I like exploring by myself, anyway. (I do wonder what other people think when they hear me talking out loud to myself, though.)

I took Boone’s advice and went to Veterans Park, which is on South Point Drive in Lexington (just south of Man O War off Nicholasville Road, or you can get to it from Man O War via Clearwater Drive, or even Saron Drive). As you might expect, there are pictures.

At first, I found myself on a paved jogging path, and although I did find the neat bridge pictured above, I ultimately wasn’t satisfied. The path was very short, and took virtually no time at all on my bike. I wasn’t in the mood to ride in circles for hours; I wanted to explore.

The dirt trails leading off from the paved path were worrisome because they seemed to be going downhill, and my brakes aren’t doing so well these days. (Gotta have those checked.) Plus, the trails seemed to be part of the disc golf course, so I was afraid I would be getting in people’s way. However, finally I did venture down a path (eventually walking the bike after having to fling myself off of it to keep from crashing–growling expletives all the way, I assure you), and I’m glad I did. The dirt trail levels off alongside a creek, and runs for quite a distance through the woods. It’s absolutely beautiful.

There are lots more pictures. Go check them out.

You’ll notice that you can buy prints from this gallery. I’ve decided to enable that on other galleries, too. If you like any of my pictures, please feel free to buy yourself some copies. I’d feel like a real professional! ;>

Occasionally Wanda, my fellow 2go-Box escapee, will send me links to jobs on CareerBuilder.com. From there I will typically start browsing all the listings just to see what’s there.

Today I happened upon a link that said “teacher”, and that made me think of how Dad said he thought I wanted to be a teacher. (I’m not sure where he got that idea.) Then I thought about teaching ESL. But that brought back a bevy of unhappy feelings from my last experience concerning TESL.

An acquaintance had suggested I volunteer with a local church that offered ESL classes. I thought about it for awhile, and finally contacted the person in charge of the program. She was very friendly and helpful, or so I thought, but I was still feeling timid, as I had no real classroom experience. So rather than committing to anything, I suggested that I stop by sometime and see how the classes were run. She seemed to agree with this, stating that classes had already begun for that semester anyway. I didn’t go to that week’s class, and by the next week I had decided that since classes had already started, I probably shouldn’t try to stick my nose in, and instead try for the following semester. I emailed her to tell her so, and she wrote back, “I had to turn students away last week. There was no teacher for them because you weren’t there.”

To my knowledge, I had never given her the impression that I was going to be there. I had worked to give her the impression that I didn’t know what I was doing, that I was willing to help but that I didn’t have any experience, that I wanted to at least observe classes before running one of my own. But apparently what I was saying did not get through to her. Apparently my interest was taken as an offering of services, and when I didn’t “follow through”, I was then ripe for the guilt trip of a lifetime.

Ever since then, I haven’t been able to think cheerfully about teaching English as a second language. The whole experience soured me on it. It really shouldn’t. I need to get past it.

But I really can’t believe I was treated like that.

Look at this latest Duane Keiser. God. It’s already sold. I might have considered begging Sean…

:>

Thursday the 21st: Connor spent the night. We played with Little People. (The tall, voluptuous one with blond hair and the blue dress is me! Connor has five Aunt Heather Little People.)
Friday the 22nd: Got up early for a change, and played with Connor. My period started (two days late) and destroyed my mood. Went home with Connor, played outside with Connor and Logan, ate dinner with them, read two books to Connor, stayed up with AJ and Faye downstairs and watched goofy movies on stupidvideos.com.
Saturday the 23rd: Got up at 1:30 pm. Yeah, so much for a normal schedule. Watched 7th Heaven, Charmed, and Smallville with Mom. Ate steak. Went to Audra and Matt’s house and hung out with them and Jeremiah, Leslie, and Luke. Ate s’mores, chips, and pizza, and played Scene It and Taboo. Made a big deal about how I haven’t seen any movies, then answered lots of movie trivia questions correctly. (Go me.)

Audra, I promised to give you the link to our family picture site, but I don’t have your email address here, so I’m just putting a link in this post and hoping you’ll see it. If you don’t see it, then either you’ll email me asking for it, or I’ll just send it to you next week when I’m at home.

Here’s the link.

See, I told you that URL was ridiculous.

I have career advising next Friday from 2 to 4 pm. I was thinking that I could stay for the weekend, too, and go camping with my brothers and their “crew”.

However, I completely forgot that Southern Oasis is next Saturday!

:P

Option 1: Sleep in big time before career advising on Friday, go to the advising, and drive home immediately afterwards.

Option 2: Get up as early as possible on Saturday and drive home, going to the hafla immediately upon arrival in town.

Neither of these is very appealing, but since I am determined not to miss either event, I’ll have to pick one of them. Right now I’m leaning towards Option 1, since I’ve been sleeping in a lot this whole trip.

Your Linguistic Profile:

65% General American English

20% Yankee

15% Dixie

0% Midwestern

0% Upper Midwestern

This is interesting to me as a person who has studied linguistics (I wish I could just say “linguist”…:P). A lot of these questions (maybe all of them) are familiar to me as fun quizzes we used to take in class. Do those of you who have spoken to me in person or on the phone agree with this assessment?

The career advisor is out of town this week, and only does interviews on Fridays, so I am staying through next Friday. I will be taking a Kiersey sorter and doing some “homework” before then, and then we will have a two hour session in which we will discuss my likes and personality and jobs that might be good for me, and how to get them, and stuff.

My homework is to list all the jobs I think I might like, and then go back and write pros and cons for all of them and find the job descriptions at the US Labor Department. I’m also supposed to ask 3-5 people who are close to me what kind of job they could see me doing.

I figured I could go ahead and ask everybody who reads my blog, too: what sort of job can you see me doing? What sort of job would you think I would enjoy/be good at?

(It’s like I’m copying off of Jazz! ;>)

You Are 60% Normal (Really Normal)

Otherwise known as the normal amount of normal You’re like most people most of the time But you’ve got those quirks that make you endearing You’re unique, yes… but not frighteningly so!

Your Seduction Style: The Natural

You don’t really try to seduce people… it just seems to happen. Fun loving and free spirited, you bring out the inner child in people. You are spontaneous, sincere, and unpretentious – a hard combo to find! People drop their guard around you, and find themselves falling fast.

I wrote awhile back about how I thought Websnark might be on the way out. Eric Burns actually wrote me an email assuring me that Websnark wasn’t ending, that Websnark was who he “came to the dance with”, that he loved Websnark and that he was committed to continuing with it.

I wrote back that I was glad to hear that, but that my concern had not been that he didn’t have the commitment, but that he was losing the passion. I told him that I know (oh, how I know) what it’s like when something that once was a fun hobby turns into a job.

He never wrote back–I’m not sure if he got the email. But apparently he was at least thinking along similar lines:

Problem statement: Websnark is not my job, but I feel like I’m being locked into a position of accountability and responsibility for generating the content people want at the rate people want, instead of doing what comes to mind when it comes to mind and — most of all — actually enjoying it.

[…]

Websnark has never been defined as “a Webcomics blog.” Not by me. I talk a lot about webcomics because I like webcomics, and I’m interested in them, and because I think they matter. However, in trying to drive myself to exclusively write about webcomics — or at least kick the balance so high in the majority that I feel guilty when I write about anything else — I’ve been learning to dislike webcomics intensely. And that serves no one.

Does that mean “no more Webcomics coverage?” Of course not. I put a huge amount of each day into reading about them, doing stuff with them, and thinking about them.

But I’m done with trying to come up with artificial reasons to snark them, coupled with finding the energy to write those snarks.

He wants it to be fun again, and he’s going to work towards that.

And that’s great. More power to him. I hope it works!

Because–I definitely want to put this out here, because I’m not sure I’ve ever made it clear before–I am a fan of Eric Burns. I am not just a fan of his webcomics commentary. I love that, of course. But I love the rest of it, too. I mean…I devoured his rants about word processors. That was some cool shit! And even the stuff he writes about RPGs–I could care less about RPG systems, they’re what made the AMRN unfun for me–is interesting because he writes it. (And I’m still reading Gossamer Commons, even though I still don’t like the art and I can’t say that I am “grabbed” per se, because Eric Burns writes it.)

I want to see what Eric Burns feels like writing about every day. It doesn’t matter if it’s something I’m interested in. It doesn’t matter if I agree with him. Because I am in this for the writing.

I love reading things that are cleverly written. I love reading authors with voice. I am connected to language in a way that is far beyond the mere transmission of information. I want what I read to reach out and grab me by the heart, or tickle its way through my brain. Or both.

Eric Burns does that for me with pretty much every post. This is why I was concerned by the flurry of “I don’t have anything for you” posts. I want to read what he has to say. I could care less if he spends all week writing about RPGs, or movies I haven’t seen. It’s more than better than nothing. It’s writing that I can just eat up. It’s fun to read. It’s Eric Burns, and that’s all I ask.

[I would say all this in the comments on his post…but though I have signed up for TypePad, I can’t seem to actually log in. And while I’m on that tangent, here’s something else I wanted to put in a comment: this post by Wednesday White, who I am typically not a big fan of, is fantabulous, and I love it.]

You Belong in New Zealand

Good on ya, mate You’re the best looking one of the bunch Though you’re often forgotten… You’re quite proud of who you are

Check out this prophesy concerning Pope Benedict XVI. The page has been removed from Catholic Planet (maybe it’s considered to be in bad taste, given current events), but here’s the Google cache. Here are a few choice bits:

The next Pope after John Paul II will take the name Pope Benedict XVI, in imitation of Saint Benedict and also of Pope Benedict XV. Just as Pope Benedict XV was an emissary of peace, so will Pope Benedict XVI be an emissary of peace. Just as Pope Benedict XV sought peace and spoke of peace and wrote papal documents seeking peace, so will Pope Benedict XVI do also. Just as Pope Benedict XV failed to achieve peace in the world, so will Pope Benedict XVI fail to achieve peace in the world. Just as the Pontificate of Benedict XV began prior to World War I, so will the Pontificate of Benedict XVI occur prior to World War III. After the Pontificate of Benedict XVI, World War III will begin. The Arab nations will threaten and attack the United States; they will threaten, attack, invade and conquer Europe; they will threaten, attack, invade and conquer the northern part of Africa. It is God’s will.

[…]

The Arabs forces will win World War III and will occupy a vast territory for many years. They will oppress and persecute Christians. In the 2030’s, this persecution will become very severe. The Arab forces will massacre many Christians. They will hunt down priests and religious and devout Catholics to imprison, torture, and kill them. Millions of Catholic Christians will be killed. This massacre will take place over several years.

In the mid to late 2030’s, in World War IV, the Allied nations will attack the lands occupied by the Arab forces. This war will be even more severe than World War III. Many nuclear weapons will be used. The Allies will win the war, at such great cost, and defeat the Arabs even in their own lands. One of the principle Allied leaders is called the great monarch. After the war is won, and after a series of extreme punishments from God upon the whole world, the great monarch will rule over a vast territory (over the lands previously occupied by the Arab forces). Beginning in A.D. 2040, the great monarch will rebuild this territory, and help rebuild the rest of the world, together with the Pope of that time, called the Angelic Shepherd.

[…]

There will be many Popes between the Pontificate of the Angelic Shepherd and the last Pope before the Return of Christ. Some of these will be holy, and some will be mediocre, and some will be sinners. The last Pope before the Return of Christ will be killed by the followers of the Antichrist about the year A.D. 2430. He will be killed, most likely in Rome, before the Antichrist gains power over the whole world. He will be killed about the time of a war between the kingdom of the North (Europe) and the kingdom of the South (Israel, the Middle East, northern Africa). The king of the South at that time will be a Catholic Christian.

There will be no more Popes on earth during the nearly seven years of the Antichrist’s reign over the world. No more Popes will be elected. The governments of the world, controlled by the Antichrist will not allow such an election. The Bishops of the world, those few who are not dead or imprisoned, will not be able to meet or communicate with one another to elect a new Pope. Actually, it is God’s will that no Pope be elected during this time, for Christ will Return at the end of the Antichrist’s reign to set everything in order and to begin a long period of peace and holiness on earth. The Church will be without a Pope for seven years prior to the Return of Christ. Christ is the true head of the one holy Catholic Church. The Pope is merely His servant and ours.

It’s good to know this stuff in advance, eh?

So, Augusta had about a week to recover from the Masters, and now it’s the starting point for a hugeass bike tourney!

The 2005 Dodge Tour de Georgia begins on Tuesday, April 19, in historic downtown Augusta, challenging cyclists as they traverse 120 miles of rolling hills to Macon.

Can you imagine biking 120 miles in a day?

It would be cool to see the cyclists off…too bad I won’t be in town. If anyone happens to go watch, please take some pictures! Lance Armstrong, who just announced his retirement, will be there, so this is one of the last chances to see him before his final race in this year’s Tour de France.

(By the way…”Tour de Georgia” is an inconceivably gay name.)