tuO 'nippirT

?tey elgooG htiw dehcraes uoy evaH

The Haul

Christmas is about family, love, togetherness, peace, and good will toward all. That said, here's some of the cool stuff I got:

Pink Floyd: The Dark Side of the Moon
Blue Man Group: Audio
[The] Flaming Lips: Zaireeka
Hero
The Royal Tenenbaums Original Soundtrack
an awesome NYC panoramic 2005 calendar

I went to see The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou at the AMC with fellow Highlander resident Sarah Linwick. I enjoyed it, but it was a letdown after Rushmore and The Royal Tenenbaums. I think Sarah had similar toughts about the film.

It was, in fact, a merry Christmas for me, in part because of new material possesions but mostly because of family and good friends. I hope everyone reading this was as fortunate.

Grey

I just finished my last final. I was doing terribly for the first hour and a half, and then I had a bunch of breakthroughs in the last 30 minutes. I finished a minute past the official end time, five minutes before he actually gave the last call, and I felt great. Then I talked to other people about the test, and I found out that I had made an incorrect (although logical) assumption about what was meant by an ambiguous problem. I have no idea what grade I will receive on that test and in that class; it's a big question mark.

We had our first real snow last night, although it wasn't even a quarter inch. Still, it made me enjoy my walk to the exam, and brightened up an otherwise dreary day. I'm headed home tomorrow, and posts will become infrequent as usual. I expect I'll be back full-time when the next semester begins in late January.

Press Conference Question

Since President Bush and President Putin are such good friends, shouldn't George be able to say Vladimir's name correctly? (That would be "vla-DEEM-er" instead of "VLAD-i-MEER.")

Intriguing Product

At this time of year we hear "Jingle Bells" and "Winter Wonderland" on the radio, in malls, in restaurants, or just about anywhere that isn't a synagogue or a Moslem temple, and we think of the merry ringing of little bells as we are wisked over a snowy landscape. But are your sleigh-pulling horses properly bedecked? If you're not nodding an emphatic yes, sir and you don't want your neighbors to think you're a total Scrooge, you'd best get your act together!

The sixth intriguing product is Forgedale Sleigh Bells, available through Oley Sled Works.

Blog Ecology: Reduce, Reuse, Recycle

This great blogosphere of ours is a place where two of the three Rs of waste management are taken quite seriously but the other is ignored completely. There is really no incentive to Reduce since posting is both easy and generally free. Reusing and Recycling are themselves quite easy; in fact, it is usually easier than coming up with something completely new. Most of the Reused material one encounters is not the result of copying but rather just the fact that very few bloggers live particularity interesting lives or are experts on interesting subjects. Most of us just live normal lives and have our gripes, our good days, and our strange experiences on this crazy ol' Internet. As for good material that gets passed around - well, I think that may be what the blogosphere has going for it. Information is being spread in a totally new way, and it will be a while before we learn all of the advantages and disadvantages of the system.

But most of the stuff out there isn't particularity good. I certainly don't recommend reading this blog unless you know who I am and care at least a little bit about me. You won't find any great literature, philosophy, or treatises here. But I do try to maintain some standards. I try to limit posts as long as this one to three a month. I try to keep my ellipses in check. (Haven't we all seen blogs that look like this?...yeah...I think we have...but you know...I guess this is just easier that selecting proper punctuation...) I try to keep my gripes to a minimum. And I try not to use completely generic content, like the results of internet quizzes.

My suitemate Mike vented his frustration about this matter earlier this month. In a post on The Glog, he proposed some biting replies to heavily Recycled material encountered on other people's blogs. For example he suggested:

When someone posts their results of some stupid quiz

"Awesome! I always wondered what sort of (19th century Peruvian peasant) you would be. Now that I know, I'm a more complete human being and no longer have that tremendous void in my life."

And Mike is right to be irritated. Most quizzes are ridiculously stupid, and most of them have no more than, say, six possible outcomes. But even tired old material can be entertaining if its well done. Shakespeare borrowed and plagiarized more than anyone, but the way he combined worn out genres in new ways and generally did everything better than his contemporaries and predecessor allowed him to create works that were immensely popular during his own time and were able to remain popular over the past four centuries.

I'm not sure if we'll ever encounter a Shakespeare of the blogosphere, but there are certainly people out there who do better the same things everyone else does. There are even a handful of good quizzes out there. I found "The Country Quiz," which makes some sense, since countries tend to have behavioral characteristics analogous to those in people. The quiz isn't tedious (there are only six questions), but it yields 64 different results, which all seem to have a mix of admirable and not-so-admirable traits. Here's what it told me:

YOU'RE FRANCE!



Most people think you're snobby, but it's really just that you're better than everyone else.  At least you're more loyal to the real language, the fine arts, and the fine wines than anyone else.  You aren't worth beans in a fight, unless you're really short, but you're so good at other things that it usually doesn't matter.  Some of your finest works were intended to be short-term projects.

I this is a reasonable three-sentence summary of me if you take it with a wry smile. And I can't complain about being compared with a country like France, which, for better or worse, has never blended in to the European landscape. If you're interested in seeing your own results you can take the Country Quiz at the Blue Pyramid.

Octopus Cannon Hits McDonalds

Sete, France - Armed with a high-pressure hose and a bucket of octopi, hundreds of protestors in this Mediterranean town on Saturday pelted a McDonalds restaurant due to open this week with the slimy seafood.

Up to 500 people gathered on the banks of the Sete canal, across from the fast-food outlet, playing music and yelling anti-junk-food slogans across the water, as police barred them from reaching the restaurant itself.

Aiming the hose across the water, they catapulted fresh octopi - a local delicacy, known here as the "pouffre" - towards the town's first McDonalds, which had been set to open on Saturday.

The crowd held up slogans slamming junk food, dubbed "malbouffe" in French, as well as work conditions in the fast-food industry.

Driving home their point, the protestors were serving up traditional Setois dishes - one of which is the tielle, a fragrant octopus, tomato and onion pie prized by locals and tourists alike.

The demonstration caused the opening of the restaurant, the first fast-food outlet in the port town following years of resistance by the former communist mayor, to be put off until next week.

A group led by French militant farmer Jose Bove pulled down a McDonalds outlet that was under construction in the southern town of Millau in 1999, earning Bove a jail sentence, although the restaurant was later rebuilt.

Since 1985

Happy nineteenth, Mike!

I don't know what windex tastes like...

...but I have to guess that it tastes like Coca-Cola's new energy drink Full Throttle. The Coke product, which comes in a black 16-ounce can, gets points for having a distinct flavor (Rockstar tastes almost exactly like Red Bull), but it loses them all for tasting really, really bad. I bought all three of these drinks at Walgreens on my was back from my Shakespearean Drama exam so that I would be able to crank out book reports to be turned in tomorrow morning (which is now this morning) at my Russian History review session. I didn't buy anything else, so when I plopped these three over-priced energy drinks on the counter to pay for them, I commented with smile to the check-out girl, "I guess you haven't been selling too many of these this week." She replied matter-of-factly, "Oh, no, we have."

Publication

I have sent my portfolio to the publishers to be printed; I should have the hard copies back before Christmas. In the meantime, you can view a PDF version of the book here. If you catch any errors, feel free to let me know; I'll be happy to work out additional kinks in case I ever do a second printing.

On the downside of publication news, I didn't get the job at The Badger Herald. I wasn't rejected outright, though. Apparently some of their current or past page designers unexpectedly became available for next semester, and they're already trained in, so they're preferred. I guess I'll have to look for a job elsewhere if I want any income next spring. I wonder if The Daily Cardinal is hiring...

Since 1958

Happy forty-sixth, Dad!

Italia

I went over to Nat's place thinking it would be for just a few minutes, and I ended up watching an Italian movie from the 1940s and drinking a fair amount of Tuscan wine. We had Sangiovese Cancelli 2002 Coltibuono, a "red table wine." It had a fresh taste, and I thought it had a strong aroma of berries; it definitely lends itself to everyday consumption, as the website suggests. It also had the pleasant effect of taking away the pain in my arm which had started an hour before when I tripped climbing the stairs of the Highlander. The movie was Roma, città aperta, a tragedy, but a engaging one.

Some Of The News That's Fit To Print

I interviewed with the Badger Herald this evening in hopes that I will be offered a position as a page designer. One of my interviewers graduated from Maple Grove Senior High, and we chatted about the school's short history. I liked what I saw; the office looked like a pleasant place to work, not the dimly lit room full of lines of computers that I for some reason imagined. I should know whether or not I got the position sometime next week; I have no idea how many openings or applicants there are, so we'll just have to wait it out.

Concentrated coolness

I think the Hummers are cool looking vehicles. If they weren't hazardous to the environment and extremely dangerous to everyone else on the road, I would be totally into them. They look sharp and have a fabulous advertising campaign. Unfortunately, Hummers are hazardous to the environment and a danger to everyone on the road, so I actually hate the things and spit on anyone who is so selfish that they would buy and drive one.

In this day and age the vast majority of Americans could get by with a pretty small, efficient vehicle. The gas-electric hybrids that are starting to be seen around urban areas are a significant step in the right direction. Unfortunately, most of the efficient cars (hyrbrid or otherwise) lack pizzaz. Toyota did a good job making their Prius a lot cooler when they redesigned it last year, but Honda has failed twice with the nerdy Insight and the boring Civic Hybrid. Ford's Focus, Toyota's Echo, and anything put out by Volvo are just not doing it for me.

Fortunately, there are some cars out there that have the cool factor of Hummers and Cadilacs without their unforgivable downsides. I think more American are becoming aware of the Smart ForTwo even if they can't get their hands on them due to American emissions standards. These little guys make the Mini Cooper look huge and even have reserved parking in high traffic areas of some major European cities. There are a couple lesser know cars that are high on mileage and 'cool.' I just discovered the Tango by Commuter Cars. It's an electric car with an 80 mile range, so it's definitely not for everyone, but since it's slimmer than many a Harley it can zip right between lines of gridlocked cars. (That's a legal maneuver in California where they're marketed.) My favorite of all, however, has to be the Carver. It's not in the U.S. yet, but I'm hoping it will be here by the time I can afford it.

T + 5

I had an enjoyable Thanksgiving break and an enjoyable Thanksgiving dinner. We had a classic dinner of turkey, gravy, mashed potatoes, and cranberry sauce followed by slices of both pumpkin and blueberry pie. I didn't complete as much Russian History reading as I intended, but I did complete my lifeguard in-service training, so I'll be able to work over the winter holidays. The highlight of the visit was getting to see Claire on Saturday, which was made even better by Dad's homemade pizza. Interesting the worst meal of the trip was also pizza, although it was from Boston's, a horrible new restaurant in Maple Grove that should be avoided if at all possible.

My trip back was thoroughly uneventful, probably better described by the word 'boring.' The videos were Stuck on You and The Runaway Jury. Reading the much better book version of The Runaway Jury is a much better use of your time if you are considering watching either of these. I've been busy with grad school aps since I've returned, and I've also been preparing to apply for a job with the Badger Herald, since I'm already in the application zone.